Hello All.
I have concerns of Intrepid's Player Enforcement process and decision making.
TLDR:
On the 18th Oct (~2 months ago), I woke up to my account being closed with the claim that "account associated with this email address was used to exploit gameplay during the Ashes of Creation Alpha Two testing phase.".
It was understood many linux players were snared in this without any warning.
Questions have been raised about how this could have happened, and how we went from "everything is fine" to "account closed" in a single step.
No answers have been given, and I have no confidence going forward that something like this wont happen again.
This post isn't about supporting Linux or whether Intrepid have the right to ban accounts for whatever reason (they do).
The StoryI woke up on the 18th of Oct and checked my emails on my phone.
I saw this is my sleep hazed brain and initially though it was a scam email posing as Intrepid to try steal my login.
After waking up properly, I opened the email on my desktop and verified that it was indeed from the official Intrepid domain.
At this point, I thought this was an email sent out in error. After all, I had done nothing in my mind that should have warranted even a warning let along an account closure.
I then attempted to login to my Intrepid account and found that I was locked out of ALL services.
I couldn't see my account Inventory, details, settings or transaction history.
I couldn't see the forums.
At this point, I acknowledged that the account closure was real, but it HAD to have been a mistake of some kind.
In a calm panic, I jumped into the Ashes Discord and discovered that other Linux gamers TESTERS also have just had their accounts closed.
Here my calm panic and confusion turned to anger, and NGL I was TILTED.
I submitted my support ticket to get unbanned and then I needed to step away from Ashes in general.
I felt betrayed, dirty, and unjustly treated.
I was unbanned, but still treated as if I were a criminal. My account is in a "final strike" state.
Any minor infraction (weather deserved or not) will result in my account being closed.
The IssuesSupposedly Intrepid is developing a system called The Eye of Shol, which should be able to detect player behaviour and allow the CS team to effect appropriate punishments.
If working as intended, would be a valuable tool to assist any humans to investigate any account infractions and mete out a suitable punishment.
It has also been stated that
all actions are reviewed and verified by our team
source
I'm reading this as there's a human who manually reviews the flags thrown up by the automated systems.
This shouldn't have to go without saying but.... Putting a HUMAN in the process is supposed add things to the process that automation and tooling itself cannot; Primarily having a wider context window and real investigative powers.
However, something CLEARLY failed here.
I'll only draw upon my own personal experience here as it's what I can most confidently speak to.
I know my own personal play style. I try to be respectful to everyone but I also do like to engage in PvP and other competitive systems.
I don't exploit or hack; I report the exploits and bugs I find, and enjoy the wins and losses that come with natural competition.
I've put hundreds of hours into A2-P3 alone testing most of the systems I could get my hands on. I would say I am an model game tester.
With that established as my in-game behaviour...
My client setup was on Linux, following steps outlines in this long lived thread. Nowhere in there are there steps that outline out to "disable" EaC, and from personal experience, the game doesn't launch without EAC.
But for arguments sake lets say EAC wasn't actually running.
This implies you had the ability to detect EAC wasn't running BUT you chose to let that client (in an invalid setup) connect and play anyway.
In my case, I know it was running, but it seems the AoC client didn't detect it or EAC itself didn't report back properly. There was never any intention to circumvent EAC.
Regardless, on your end, you detected a client in an invalid running state BUT this tester was a model tester ingame.
What do you (Intrepid) do?... Straight to Account Closure.
No warnings, no temp bans, no outreach.
Account Gone.
This to me feels like an automated account action. If not, that means the review process:
a. Is merely a formal step and is mostly a rubber stamping exercise
b. The human reviewer [has no latitude/is not allowed] to do any actual investigation.
c. Eye of Shol is currently insufficient to do any real and rapid investigations, yet decisions are still being executed on bad/incomplete data that seriously affects peoples investments in this project.
I am asking these questions of Intrepid:
What value did have humans in the decision making process actually bring?
If a human reviewed, confirmed the depths of heinous acts committed and approved the initial account closure action, why was there any room for reversal on appeal?
If our conduct as a TESTER was so egregious that it warranted an ACCOUNT CLOSURE without ANY warnings, why were so many closures reversed when more context came to light?
When an account is facing a closure action (not just a ban), what factors go into making that decision?
My personal anecdote shows that player behaviour or account history is NOT taken into account.
Was no pattern detected amongst the potential accounts to be actioned that could have/should have triggered a deeper investigation?
In my situation, did you detect any reason that might lead you to believe I was deliberately circumventing EAC?
Did you actually detect me using cheats as you've accused me of doing in the initial account action email?
If you truly had the ability to ACCURATELY determine if EAC was running or not, why did you let so many people play in this "illegal" state for so long?
Which is worse?
Not running EAC but not actually cheating in-game
OR
abusing massive in-game exploits over and over again cause huge server and player base instabilities?
Why is the latter class of exploiters and abusers only dealt character resets or short temporary bans whilst the former get no warnings straight to account closures?
Was any review conducted on this process as a whole after this incident?
The Aftermath
I am afraid to launch the game now. I don't want to risk the $1200+ USD I've burned supporting this project.
I'm beginning to feel like my engagement was a mistake.
Being on the "last strike", I cannot tell what the game client will trip up as an infraction.
We have no visibility into knowing if what we're doing is good or not.
We simply cant take "we can launch the game" for granted as Intrepid have shown they are willing to put the noose around our heads and feed out the rope.
Intrepid have shown to us that they don't understand or seemingly care for proportionality. Permanently closing accounts without ANY warnings demonstrates this.
I want to be able to try running the game again on Linux on Steam release, but is a glitch in the Anti Cheat detection going to send my account into the void?
I have lost motivation to keep testing, and I have lost confidence in Intrepid' ability to mediate and moderate it's community in a fair manner.
Whilst I honestly wish someone from Intrepid would come out and address these questions head on, I think it's more likely that my concerns here are just going to be glossed over and/or ignored.
Still I must at least try get these concerns addressed.
Again, this isn't calling into questions Intrepids right to do any of the above.
They have all the rights.
But like a court system, there's the Law and then there's Justice.
Sadly, they aren't often the same thing.
I'm calling concern on their account action PROCESS and if that needs to be reviewed.
