*DAMN R6 Forum

Yesterday a bunch of people got week long bans on GR.  These people included GOD, 5150, JunkYardDog, Sixhits, and me.  GOD, 51, and JYD all posted the tubgirl website on GR, and sixhits and I were talking about the nf cd key.

I was in a private chatroom with Sixhits, and he asked me if I had a nf key... I said yes, and literally within 5-10 seconds we were both banned.  Half of our cb team won't be able to cb this week I guess, which is kinda sucky.

Anyway, just be wary... just because Evill doesn't appear to be online doesn't mean he isnt watching you.

lol....hate to say this....but you guys are a little dumb to be talking about stuff like that on GameRanger.  You know what Evill's policy on that stuff is.  Just talk about that sort of thing on iChat or something.

-GhostSniper "the Official Spokesman for Evill" Out.  ;)

Everything you guys did is pretty much forbidden on GR, especially posting the tubgirl site. He's not on a spree, he's just cracking down to keep people in line. A week isn't too bad, be lucky it wasn't longer, or a perma. ouch.

that is soooo true !

It wasn't Evill. *wink*

he's the only one who can ban for longer than 30 minutes.

Anyone who posts tubgirl deserves a perma.

 :)

What's crazy isn't that I got banned. It's that there is no way GR could understand the context of the conversation to frame the banning properly.

How the fuck does GR know I'm asking about the cd key in order to learn how to implement it or pirate it? What are the key phrases? It's one thing to ban ppl who talk about pirating software ... in theory. But how can a bot differentiate the nuance of what is piracy and what is conversation?

As for taking it to iChat, that's what we did. It was after I launched iChat that the ban came through. It suggests to me that GR isn't simply scanning conversations, but also keeping an eye on what I do on my computer. Is GR becoming spyware?

And, as ghostsniper might say, I paid good money to be on GR. As a paying customer there is no reason to flat ban me. I should be treated like a client, not a threat. Especially after paying the dude money. If Evill insists on continuing to instaban people without a chance to defend themselves then I can't pay him more money. There is no reason to instaban anyone. How hard is to warn the user? Send an emial or a bot based pm. Simple.

And where can I find his terms of service? I can't find info on his website in regards to reasons for bans. If I can't inform myself as to what and how I can be banned then how am I supposed to follow the rules?

check your GameRanger folder... the textfile "Terms".

thanks, civ

Of course you are going to get banned for the TubGirl site, its gross, yet funny to watch someones reaction to seeing it for the first time, lol.

But a few questions, where did you talk about this NF cd key, what kind of "private chatroom"? Was it in a chatroom with a password, or was it over a Private Message window? And how do you know it was a "bot" persay? And I doubt you're being monitored in iChat, it seems like you got caught talking about it, and then in that time between then and talking on iChat, the mod was getting your ban ready.

But if you got banned about talking about it over a PM, then wotdafuk? If Evill or anyone else can read what you type through that, I say thats f'ing gay.

lol you guys got banned for talking, nice.  and better yet, banned for talking about a crack for an application that Evill banned.  good stuff.

The iChat/GR ban was just a coincidence I'm sure. I think that GR scans conversations for the word CD Key and pirate and stuff, and whenever someone types it, it'll pop up and show a mod/Evill so they can read it over and see if it's worth being banned over.

Just one thing from a while ago that I thought I'd mention:


(Quote from Evill in an old thread)

To clarify:

We were in our own gameroom. I don't remember if it was password protected or not - it may have been our ffa room, right after we came out of a BL ffa match.

I'm relatively sure the GR/iChat ban was a coincedence. However, I know that GR scans your system for nf if you lack premium. The possiblity that it scans your system for other things is hence probable.

Whether it's a pm or not, clearly the intensity of oversight on GR is near repressive. I thought a major function of GR was to chat. Apparently I have to watch what I say. Even in Bush's America I still have free speach.

As for a paranoid conspiracy theorist: Evill's earned those theories.

Doesn't matter if it's in a PM, chat, game room, password-protected or not... it's all up for grabs in the eyes of the admins. I'd like there to be freedom of speech on GR, but the reality is that this is an online system owned and operated by evill, and he can filter/view it for any reason. Since the beginning of GR, people have gotten their nuts busted for saying the wrong thing; this is not news... it was unfortunate that you 3 had the bad luck of saying that stuff with an admin around. :(

Oh nice job guys.  Now that GOD is banned so am I.  Same comp, same IP, same consequences.  Guess thats why he left so fast to go to college... and here i thought he was so happy to go to school when he really jsut didnt want to stick around and let em find out im banned for a week.  Yea so GOD and I have a plan to hack back into gameranger, see ya all there!

You do know evill occasionally browses the forums...and reads things...like your post, Nighthawk.  Just a little FYI for ya.  

I wonder if evill's answer is the same as it was in the quote you put up Snipe...i would be most amused if it were...

Lone-Wolf, I'm sure Evill would just laugh at anyone who claimed on a message board that they would attempt to crack a GR server. Anyone with half a brain about that sort of thing knows to keep their mouth shut,

Well I think this automated banning/notifying is new with 4.0 for a few reasons.  First, the ban happend literally within 10 seconds of our forbidden text, which I have never seen before.  Second, I have talked about forbidden material dozens of times in before in game rooms and not gotten caught (this is also why I didn't think twice about doing it).

I think it's funny how I'm guilty about getting banned and not about breaking the law by warezing.  I guess I'm a bad man.

fuckin passwords wont work, evill is such a fag, he should make the bar and grill an 18+ room where you can say what you want, yeah welcome to america evill where we have freedom of speech ass wipe.  the rest of you can fuck yourselves for siding with evill, kiss my fat black ass you oklahomos

This would be a useful time to point people to the following thread:

http://hug.haxial.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=472

More for amusement than anything :D

be amused, be very amused

as for the whole freedom of speech thing, don't go acting like you have that right every where.  hell even here, if mauti says the word we moderators could censor every word that contained e. why? mauti's board, mauti's rules.  it's a private institution, and private institutions (like game ranger) are under no obligation to keep freedom of speech.  the only group that Must abide by freedom of speech is the US government. so for an Australian like mr kevill to even give us as much leeway as he has is quite generous

I'd agree to all you said Brain, except that I am paying for the service. As a customer I expect a certian level of service, and I am  sure, any other business wouldn't boot a user, there would first be a warning. Long story short, I don't think I'm getting my money's worth. But as GR is the only game in town, what choice do I have but to grit my teeth and deal with it?

whats the "tubgirl site"?  ???

     Fresh meat!

If anyone posts a link to tubgirl, they will be punished harshly.

Come on guys!!  ;D


gimme gimme gimme

For anyone old enough to remember the Peekay fiasco, lol.

porn? U can't post links to porn sites on GR and then be surprised about getting a ban for heavens sake, and you certainly can't post em here either.

Everything is in the TOE

The people who do that are precisely why GR is so damned populated, and Scott can continue his power trip.  If you don't like it, do like me, and don't use it (:  I still hook up over AIM with other SiXers for IP games all the time.

     Or you could do like me and make trouble and not get banned. I've been using GR since the summer of 2001, and in that time, I have been banned exactly once, for 30 minutes. That happened in my first year, and I learned my lesson and have had no problems since. The rules are simple, and if you are conscientious about not practicing your fucktardistry, GR is a plenty nice place to spend time.

Exactly, Loth! Thank god there's a few sane people still. I've been using GR for who knows how long, and like Loth, got a 30 minute ban, once. That's it, besides playful kickings from Admins (got kicked for making a corny joke haha). If you respect the rules and respect Evill, I guarantee you will not get any trouble from anyone. There's no need to stick it to The Man and whatnot. Just have fun, relax, enjoy it. I don't even feel GR is very censored, with all the weird, bizzare, disgusting topics that go on in the B&G. I think Evill is very accomodating.

I think it's funny how the people who try to take the moral highground in the GR/NF debate by saying it's WRONG and SHAMEFUL of scott to disable parts of his own free software are the same ones who steal all the software they own. Oh, and, funny how this works, they're the same ones who bitch loudest about not getting patches/updates in a timely fashion.

Gosh, what a crazy, mixed up world we live in. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~damnr6/yabbse/YaBBImages/icon_lol.gif)




p.s. Suck my dick, bitches. (http://linkmeallover.ca/forum/images/smilie/bj.gif)

I can have fun on gr, you just need to act like hes not there,
its not so hard to not talk about pirate things or to not post porn links.
There are hunderds of people not getting banned, its not harder then keeping you to the laws of your country.
If you paid for the software its your own stupid mistake, but maybe if you send a nice email explaining the situation and get yourself unbanned, it could help that you payed.
There are places enough where you can talk as much about pirating and porn sites as you want.
And if you dont like it you could try and make your own app where people could post porn links all the way and talk about pirating as much as they want
and then ask yourself why the gameproducers dont want to support your app.

I can't  believe this. You really can't complain about being banned for discussing pirate software, or for posting links to porn sites. When you sign up to GR you agree to a TOA and there are clear guidlines to what you can and cannot discuss. OF course Scott dosn't want GR to turn into a bloody porn gateway. GR is meant to be open to everyone, whether they are 14 or 41.

the matter of saying its unfair to ban people for breaking these terms is totally different than the argument about actively blocking other apps on your computer however....

IF you don't like it. Dont use it. and if you igore the guidlines and you get a big ass ban. well its your own damn fault.

Its so unbelievably easy not to get banned.

I totally agree that anyone posting porn or juarez should be punished, but I also think a week ban w/o a warning esp. for a paying customer is over the line.  If I were evill, I would be concerned about losing business because of actions like this.  JunkYardDog has already written an email to Evill stating that he will not renew his three premium accounts... that is another $150 out of Evill's pocket just because he decided to ban for a week instead of giving a warning or just banning for 30 mins.

I also may decide to hold off on another premium membership for this same reason.  Although Evill has the right to do everything he is doing, it is just not good business on his part.

lol....for every Premium member that does not renew, Evill has someone like me buying someone new a Premium account.  I don't think he's worried.   ;)

Yeah? Well FahQ2! Evill needs to learn a lesson and rich mofos like you are screwing up my plans. Die!!!

Evill is well schooled and doesn't need to learn a thing.  ;)

I disagree with that.  I think what you meant is, Evill is not GOING to learn a thing.  Now that is a true statement. ;)

What's he have to learn? Let the premium members do whatever the hell they want just because they paid for his service? Don't see that happening anytime soon.

Well, Private Messages are definitely monitored, just not be a real person I believe.  I sent Diesel a link to a porn picture of someone that looked like someone we knew.  I thought it was a just a funny thing.  In fact, there wasn't even nudity in the picture.  Anyway, whatever admins or bots he has working for him surely work at an undistinguishable level.  Most users do not receive bans for playing by is rules, and it is his rules we are playing by.  I agree that only having one real place to go for Mac gaming sucks, but since it's the only thing we've truly got, I'll stick with it until something better comes along.

By the way, I'm surprised Apple or something else hasn't tried making something for gamers.  I know "Apple Gamers" is an oxymoron, but still, if they had a sweet ass application, God knows I would rather pay my $50 to Apple.

Oh, and about that free speech stuff and expecting something for what you paid for... Some of you kids need to learn to read the fine print.  No where does Scott Kevill promise really anything.  Please stop expecting stuff from him or his software, you'll only frustrate yourself.  Also, since when is free speech a worldy ideal?  And when did it start applying to the Internet on an "always" basis?  Some of you really need to get out more and realize that GameRanger isn't the fucking United Nations of gaming.  The sooner some of you realize that, the happier you might be.  Take the red pill...

.::|N| Noto

Looks like it's time to bump up that timetable for a pay-only GR, scott. ;)

Oh, and here's another good idea. You could set pay-only periods where only those with premium could play during certain days, weeks, months. Think of it like an "adult swim".

Haha, if you're really wanted to teach somebody a lesson, you could make premium only games! Example: You must have premium in order to play Ghost Recon or Raven Shield.

Hehe, this is fun! See guys, doesn't that GR sound a lot more fun than the current free GR, or ever better, NO GR at all? Stop complaining about the good deal your getting and realize just how bad it could be.

As for this bullshit about it being bad business for scott to enforce his policies, it's also bad business to charge for a product you're also giving away free. Better hop to it scott, that makes you guilty of being a bad business man twice in one week!

Haha, this thread is hilarious.  finally GoD got banned, hahahaha...sucks for you NH.  

talk about a great automated banning system.


-one

Making GHR and RvS premium only is one of the best ideas I've heard.

Quit your fucking whining, you fucking pussies, "Ask not what GameRanger can do for you, but what you can do for GameRanger". ;)

Look, i've been oon GR since 2000 and have never been baned til this week. Partly, that is shocking to me, getting a ban, and partly, getting a ban for a week. But, c'est la vie.

Sixhits? didn't i see you online yesterday? umm, yep, i did. :o

 you were still performing actions that were clearly forbidden as defined in the TOS.  don't try and pull some sort of "i am more righteous than you" shit out of your ass. you knew what actions you were taking.  also don't give me that you were just asking if he had the CD key or something innocent'  i've been asked many times if is had a CD key and i responded yes almost every single time. have i been banned yet? no.  the reason is because the conversation ends there.  Gr is not a democracy sixhits. it is a dictatorship. there is one man at the top and he decides wether you get to stay in his online world or go.  he's made it easy too.  he posted the list of things you cant do on a big sign right went you first come in the door.  if he or one of his designates  think you broke one, bam, you're out.  no appeals process.   if you think about it, he's a rather benevolent dictator too. he doesn't do the digital equivalent of ethnic cleansing, or decide that today all account numbers with a 5 are going to be banned. as long as you play by his rules you get to stay.
hey, wait a second, that sound a lot like the *DAMN forums too!!!

WELCOME TO ANOTHER ONLINE DICTATORSHIP EVERYBODY!

  the court of public opinion is not going to rule in your favor here.  we have no evidence other than a potentially guilty man, under no obligation to tell the truth telling us what could be half the story that shows him doing nothing wrong.  how the hell can you expect us to side with you over just that?  a clean past record means only that you haven't been caught yet so that doesn't help you.

why don't you quit while you're ahead.  nut up and take it like a man

Haha, Scott Hitler. I love it.

Um. No you didn't.

I was most certainly not on GR yesterday. I still have 5 days left on my ban. I in fact just tried getting on and was informed that I still have 5 days left.

If you see someone online sporting my name, would you mind getting their id number for me?

Yeah Sixhits was definitely not online yesterday... unless he was on a different computer.  I saw his week long ban with my own eyes, and so did lots of other people.

http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~damnr6/clanladder/index.php?module=showcb_pvp&cbID=2498 (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~damnr6/clanladder/index.php?module=showcb_pvp&cbID=2498)

that was yesterday, wasn't it? ;)

I am not more righeous than you. At the end of the day I'm most pissed at myself for getting banned and doing something stupid to get the ban.

I'm also pissed at how the ban was handed out, that I had no chance to make amends, and that the length was one week. I additionally upset that I paid money for the GR service and then had no chance to make amends. When I pay money for a service I expect to have the oppurtunity as a customer to defend myself, and baring any defence, make the appropriate amends. If a ban is my due then I'd appreciate a contact of some sort from the admin explaining the reasoning for the ban.

GR is not a democracy, it is a business. As with all businesses it is a form of dictatorship, and as with all businesses it has clients. I undertand that both Evill's advertisers are his clients, as well as I, and as well as the community. I also appreciate the need for Evill to protect his clients, and his potential future revenue, from pirating, from assholes, from whatever will drive them away. Caught red handed what can I do? I can say that I should be contacted rather than banned outright. You want to disagree, fine. You want to argue absolutes, fine. I want to feel like I get my due as a paying customer. Even on the DAMN forums you get warned before you get baned.

Frankly, the DAMN boards are much more professionally run than GR is. In fact, GR is not run so much as set up. The community is not managed and supported: it is policed. There is a difference between the pleasure of communicating with mods such as yourself Brain and the dispassionate non-communication "dictatorship" that Evill runs. I know how much effort Evill has put into his business. But I see a real difference between Evill's effort, for example in running his "place", and the BL admins administration. I see the admins here putting more in DAMN than what they have to and they do for free and they do it without the respect they deserve. I can't say the same for Evill.

I don't worry about public opinion. No one likes to hear a user bitch about GR or Evill. Sorry. It's come up, I want to have my say. I had hoped I was drawing a line between critiqizing how I was baned from why. But, when I do stupid things it's not as if I've earned the best treatment, have I?

As I should have said: mei culpa.

Now I'M confused. I thought I played that on Sunday, just before I was baned. I'm in fact SURE that I played it Sunday. I think the posted date was confused with the played date.

nice input six.  

Besides the piss mongrals, I've seen a lot of cool level headed dudes get pretty ticked about this treatment and I can't say I blame them.  If Knice can set-up an auto ban, why can't he put in a fair warning?  

I have a threshold of time and money I'm willing to put into my online gaming time. If you full-timers want to pay extra premium dollars to have your own private online oasis then why have a GR in the first place?    

yo Evill, I think you'd make a better impact and simlutaneously maintain good business to have a simple warning and reminder window explaining that "the majority of the community would rather not have mass porn and pirate chat running rampant on GR."  - IMO

So Evill, and his few admins are going to personally administer to a GR population of 160,000 accounts? Admitting doubles that still means there's over 80,000 individual people on hand. Say only a quarter of those people have any sort of infraction once a year. That's still 20,000 people. 20,000 people divided by the 365 days in a year leaves us with...54.79 infractions, how ever large, per day. Admittedly, thats a large estimate. But you see why automated banning is put into effect. There's no way someone has the time to deal with all the 12 year old assholes trying to warez things online and spam tubgirl links. You may be better than most online, but evill still has to adjust for the lowest common demoninater. Thats life. (Btw, a week ain't that bad....)

HAHAHA... if you only knew

p.s. perhaps we should start charging like the SA forums. mauti would get his computer faster, and the mb the admins would care about the BL, and their jobs, and people like GS could give people like typhy the 'Raging homosexual' tag for, say, a 10 dollar donation... i like it already.

Now wtf alaric.  First of all, the only people I see complaining already have premium (me, sixhits, god, jyd, 5150...).  So no, for us it is not a free service.  Second of all, you take all your points way too far, and I think we both know it.  And don't reply to me with any of the patronizing bullshit you usually have up your sleeve.

Excuss me?

wouldn't you care more about the bl if you were getting payed to do this, bfg?

p.s.  that is supposed to read 'care more about'  apparently i missed a word though

Well i don't know if id 'care' about it more - id cetainly have a better excuss to be spending so much time helping sort out other peoples problems for them and trying to make their relationship and experience of *DAMN BL a better one... rather than just enjoing my time playing a bit of online gaming with my buds :)

Then again a small wad of notes in the BL Chairmans pocked  to help prevent the temptations of briberies wouldln't go amiss ;)

 


I missed you too ?Ne.  I like JYD's idea of making his own online gaming community.  I doubt it'll happen but hey, all's i want is to play.

OMG....I LOVE IT!  I'm all for donating money for a "good" cause!  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Mauti???  Pretty Please?  Let me send you some money to make a "nice" tag for my favorite people on the forum?   ;)

Did you or did you not say that many of you are now planning to not renew premium. What? You did? Oh, ok. My statements about taking advantage of the free GR stand.

And yes, I did take all my points way too far. That was the point. To exaggerate my stance to the point where you can see how silly you are being.

You did something wrong. You got slapped for it. Now take it like a man, nut up and take responsibility for your actions.

Oh, and as for me being patronizing: Whatever do you mean? Surely you must have me confused with someone else, no matter how ignorant they are. The slower members of the forums have as much a right feel good about themselves as I do, and who would I be to lower their self-esteem by showing them the logical fallacies of their "arguements"?

If the bans are already taking place, How hard is it to create an automated warning with explanation?


Alaric your exaggerated stance also points out a great big hole; Like I said before, and as much as I like playing online, my particular threshold for online gaming is near the brink of "this isn't worth it."  If it starts costing more, or the lack of service increases, why would we bother to show up anymore.  There would be a smaller community. AND I definitely would not play premium for a smaller community.  

It's great that people are speaking their mind about the inadequacy of the system.  I'd be surprised if anyone here thought GR was perfect.  If Evill wants to make a business out of it, then he should expect some negative feedback along with the good.  I don't like the fact that there are not any other services available.  I'm surprised by the fact that Apple and the other Mac Developers are not more in support of GR or some kind of online service because it has a huge effect on their business as well.  (Or am I wrong about that?)  Somethings not right, the support isn't there.  And I guess this last point leads to whether I should be thanking Scott, or asking what the fuck are you doing?

Aside from all of your freedom of speech arguments, some freedoms are restricted because democratically a majority of us feel they need to be.  (i.e.. smoking, indecent exposure)  So banning porn and spam etc. online is understandable.  But the way it's set-up now I'm forced to feel regulated and dictated by the belief's of a few.  You all know that if another formidable service existed and had a more up-front approach, GR would instantly see mass of customers disappear.  And I don't think you can have some players here and some players there... it's going to one or the other.  GR with it's current approach would easily shrivel away.

This might just surprise you, but I think GameRanger is perfect.   ;)

And everytime Scott comes out with some new feature for GameRanger, I think it is just MORE perfect than it was before.

Peace.

-GhostSniper Out.

I agree, GR is perfect, I just hate not being able to find cb's and games sometimes, but then again, that's not up to Scott.

Most of your points I agree with sick. GR is a monopoly. If there were serious competition it would not be nearly as successful as it is today.

However, that doesn't apply because there is no competition. Given a choice between GR and nothing, I'd pick GR every time.




And again, how else would you expect a commercial business be run?

I thought it was clear that we don't post about how we got banned on Gameranger...guess that guideline died.  That was like a year and a half ago wasn't it?


I think Evill is an entrepanuer(my spelling is forgetful), because he made GR for macs...not PC.  

If you don't like GR...too bad.  There are other alternatives, but they require work and thinking.  GR is point and click....YEAH joined game!  

Evill has pretty much ignored the general GR community since like early 2001 due to morons and retards.  He used to be nice and open his hands up to players...it's all business, don't take it that badly.

Heh... if you ran GR as long as Evill has, you'd become a pretty bitter person as well. Just having to deal with all the of the idiocy that humanity has to offer nonstop for 4-5 years... sends chills up my spine ;)

Hmmmm my gr seems to work on my other computer on the same network.

bah just to tell ya alot of evill's henchmen love to toy with ppl and act like noobies and ask about how to pirate stuff what you pirated etc. and i got my ass snapped in a bear trap doing that  >:(

For the right price, I'd do something like that to my profile. Fuck, for the right price, I'd do something like that to my name.

lol....Typhy CAN BE BOUGHT!   ;)

     Are you kidding? For $75, he'll do this thing with his tongue that'll have you weak-kneed for weeks! Er, not that I have any truck with prostitutes... especially those of the underaged male variety... not me, nope.

So, is it right to say that Evill won this battle over God? He did ban him! :o Weird ahh!?

I may just be taking this the wrong way, but it seems like many times when you know you are wrong you come back with statements like "Please shut up Gabe. It is irritating." (I think that may be a direct quote).  I take that to be a belittling statement, no matter if you back it up with a point or not.

somehow im not surprised you shoulda seen what mani and mysterio did with typhys picture.... lol the crap hat... good times good times...  :D