The Swinging of the Ban Hammer - Mr X Writes

Last week I did an extra post on Thursday. One of my best mates who works with me got all his accounts banned pending investigation into suspected EULA violations. The post I wrote was about how utterly terrifying that was. A sad Eve geek's perspective on how your hobby could be whipped out from under you. Now I bring you Mr X's side of the story.......

In the few weeks running up to the ban hammer being swung, my Eve activity had been nothing more than logging in and chatting to people in corp. This was due to the alliance relocating to a new region. I hate moving and struggle to get motivated when my Eve activity only involves flying a slow-ass freighter multiple jumps to move stuffz. I had finally summoned up the motivation to get my ass into gear and get moved last week.

I was logged in with my main chatting in corp while the alt plodded across empire. As the alt landed on the out gate the client disconnects... "Damn you socket closures" I thought. Then the main drops! I actually read the message this time and it's not a normal socket has closed pop up box. "Your connection has been usurped by the proxy"....OK that's not normal I think. On attempting to log back in I get the message "This connection is banned, pending investigations, due to suspected EULA violations"....wtf?

At this point I am somewhat dazed and confused, as I am at an utter loss as to how I could violated the EULA. I message Drack as was detailed in his post on Thursday. 

I lodge a petition using the account management page on the website. If something like this happens to you, make sure you double check everything before clicking the button on the petition as you don't receive any email to say your petition has been successfully submitted other than the petition number that pops up on screen so make sure you write that down.

By the Thursday morning I still hadn't received anything from CCP, at this point I was annoyed not just about the ban, but the fact you don't get any acknowledgement from CCP. I was at the very least expecting an automated mailing saying it's been received and we will get back to you. By Thursday afternoon desert time I had got an answer from CCP. Obviously I can't reveal the exact nature of the communications with CCP (be massively ironic to get banned for EULA violations whilst talking about being banned for EULA violations) however they suspected something was wrong and took preemptive action. Following my petition and confirmation of details the account was now unbanned.  Within 36 hours of the ban-hammer landing I was back in the game. I have to say I am impressed with the speed at which CCP was able to resolve this.

I started playing Eve because of real-life friends and for the first few years I was in corporations that consisted of real-life friends or people that became friends as we were all from the same area of the UK. Eve gives me a link to home (currently living out in the Middle East for work) that helps when your thousands of miles from friends and family. Whilst Thursdays and Fridays out here are generally party time (Drack - He's very, very right you know), the weekday evenings can be quite dull, and Eve fills that void perfectly.

So well done to CCP for taking action to protect my account when they suspected wrongdoing and the very quick resolution to the situation. However, please get an automated response on the website petition system. The horror of potentially losing my Eve accounts was compounded by not knowing if I'd derped and made a typo in the email address box!