Celtic Heroes

Account sharing leads to other problems. Just an example (not end all be all): Say we have a shared account, it's shared between 3 people. They've been playing over the years on this one account. Sometimes one person takes a break; sometimes they all do. One day they have a big falling out. Now, one of them has changed the password and registered their email. Time passes, this person has quit playing. Speed forward, now, everyone wants to play again. Everyone writes in for account recovery. Who gets the account? To make things more complicated, everyone has spent money on the account? Who's account is it?

I like this discussion and if I need to move it to a PM with you, let me know. In your "what if" scenario I believe you do not have a proper paradigm of the playing atmosphere in your game, in using that as your example that is.

Here is a more likely scenario:

3 roommates (name them Joe, John, Jane) each have an iPad, each create a Celtic heroes account, 1 a druid, 1 a warrior, 1 a dps character. They play together and enjoy leveling up together. They get to end game and in an environment where raid times are random. All three have very different schedules but each of their iPads are at home at the same time. A raid boss pops up and Joe is the only one home. Joe decides he is going to grab John and Jane's iPad and help the clan out and kill the boss with all three toons. Someone in game PMs Johns account during this and says, "hey John, how are you" Joe replies, "this is not John, I am just logged onto his account." The PMer screen shots that message and reports Johns account for account sharing.

In this scenario, Joe and Jane get Married, John moves out. The two that get married love playing CH together and share accounts while playing together. They decide to multiply their devices and get a third device. In a casual conversation with John, Jane mentions that she hasn't seen John play CH lately. He says that his device is old and no longer plays the game well. Jane says, thats too bad we really miss your druid at raids. John then says well shoot I miss the clan, if it would help I know you just got new devices you are welcome to log my account in to help. When/if I ever come back I'll just take over the account. Jane says, "wow thats really swell of you!"

Jane and Joe live happily ever after playing CH until one day the ban hammer comes and Jane and Joe have to tell John that his account has been banned because someone reported the account for sharing. Jane and Joe are sad. They decide to call John and ask him to try to recover the account. John says, "dang, I dont even remember anything about the account I haven't played in so long, I'm sorry but it was good to hear from you again." Jane and Joe are frustrated that their hard work they poured into that account since taking it over has been taken away from them so they experience what some refer to as "Company Caused Game Burn" out and quit as well. - THE END

Sad story, but unfortunately I know of a few individuals that have been on this end of things. Simply because someone screenshots messages out of context they get banned.

I have some questions about account sharing:

I dont allow my children to have any account on their devices, that connect to the internet, that I don't have the password to. Since they are sharing their password with me are they violating the EULA? Technically from reading it, the way it is worded I believe they are.

Am I account sharing if a family member grabs one of my devices that has my password stored on it and logs in my account?

Technically my rule for my home and my kids is this: we do not have any private online accounts, the family will know your passwords and specifically the parents will have access to monitor your online activity. My wife and I share all our account info with each other so we can hold each other accountable. By the word for word manner in which your EULA is written we are in violation of your Terms, should I cease playing the game and tell my kids they can't play either because I will not change the rules of my home?

I personally know people on my server that are extremely anxious to report people for infractions. Heck, one member of our clan even posts messages in the private forum we have telling people not to account share because he/she is looking and will report anyone he/she finds. Frankly, some of this has been a source of people feeling bullied. I have had people PM me, as a leader in the clan, stating they have taken over an account of their son that has gone inactive am I ok to play this account? I am afraid I will get reported and the account will be banned. This threat of banning for account sharing has started to put people in fear online. I would even suggest that the nature of how people are reported for account sharing has equated into something that borders cyberbullying.

I believe the stance you should take is that of banning accounts that come in dispute or are proven to be bought. If your scenario happens, then ban that account. If someone is selling an account and you have screen shot proof of that then certainly ban the account.

I have some questions about account sharing:

The situation Tadaaah describes is actually something we see almost everyday in support tickets, as we try to be fair and investigate each case properly it’s a huge drain on time and resources, both of which could be spent on things much more beneficial to the broader player base.

The TOS specifically means we reserve the right to act on these things at our discretion, as I mentioned we don’t just do things on the fly, we investigate and apply common sense to situations. We don’t want to ban accounts when it’s not merited.

That said we’re not going to go into detail on those processes but suffice to say if you’re not negatively impacting the game, our company or other players it’s unlikely you have much to worry about.

@Tadaaah

Why not just not intervene at all when it comes to email addresses / account ownership?

As in the account is owned by the email address holder, and only do things for inactive accounts in cases when the owner has lost access to the email address.

Would definitely save you guys a lot of time. I understand why you have the policies that are in place though, but as everyone knows (on any game) account sharing is very prevalent which is just going to cause extra work for support down the line rather than policies that account for it, and not provide suppo t do players that do break the rules.

Apologies, if you felt that was backward. I can tell you, personally, I take harassment and bullying far more seriously than account sharing.

Account sharing leads to other problems. Just an example (not end all be all): Say we have a shared account, it's shared between 3 people. They've been playing over the years on this one account. Sometimes one person takes a break; sometimes they all do. One day they have a big falling out. Now, one of them has changed the password and registered their email. Time passes, this person has quit playing. Speed forward, now, everyone wants to play again. Everyone writes in for account recovery. Who gets the account? To make things more complicated, everyone has spent money on the account? Who's account is it?

Now in terms of putting a time-frame on the harassment claims, I really thought about putting that back to the beginning of the year. Maybe I should have, I'm up for changing that. What I was trying to avoid is saying we're cracking down on this and then receiving reports that are 1-2-3 years old. I'm a firm believer in that people can change. So I wanted to give people a final chance and for it to serve as a final warning. BUT I still encourage you to report immediately, frequently, and as it's happening.

Tadaaah,

I'm seeing references in this thread of clan banks being overlooked or passed over under the no account sharing rule. While it predates you I believe, it was my understanding that banks are not just overlooked, they are exempted from the rule. I thought I recalled admin saying that on the forums back in the day. Nevertheless, can you confirm the clan banks are exempted from the no sharing rule for us please?

Thanks.

Apologies, if you felt that was backward. I can tell you, personally, I take harassment and bullying far more seriously than account sharing.

Account sharing leads to other problems. Just an example (not end all be all): Say we have a shared account, it's shared between 3 people. They've been playing over the years on this one account. Sometimes one person takes a break; sometimes they all do. One day they have a big falling out. Now, one of them has changed the password and registered their email. Time passes, this person has quit playing. Speed forward, now, everyone wants to play again. Everyone writes in for account recovery. Who gets the account? To make things more complicated, everyone has spent money on the account? Who's account is it?

Now in terms of putting a time-frame on the harassment claims, I really thought about putting that back to the beginning of the year. Maybe I should have, I'm up for changing that. What I was trying to avoid is saying we're cracking down on this and then receiving reports that are 1-2-3 years old. I'm a firm believer in that people can change. So I wanted to give people a final chance and for it to serve as a final warning. BUT I still encourage you to report immediately, frequently, and as it's happening.

Tadaaah,

I'm seeing references in this thread of clan banks being overlooked or passed over under the no account sharing rule. While it predates you I believe, it was my understanding that banks are not just overlooked, they are exempted from the rule. I thought I recalled admin saying that on the forums back in the day. Nevertheless, can you confirm the clan banks are exempted from the no sharing rule for us please?

Thanks.

Found it.

http://celtic-heroes.com/forum/viewtopi ... ng#p431017

-.-

We do not allow account sharing for a number of reasons:



*The exception to this shared account rule is clan banks.

The original Outliers clan bank was banned for accepting trades of scammed items. Evidently, some guy in the clan scammed someone and then traded some of the items to the clan bank. Myself and several generals wrote OTM Support, Muldar, heck, anyone who would listen, but to no avail. We lost thousands of drops because of their rigidity on this issue.

I do believe, however, now that a few of them in OTM have actually played the game, and understand that clan banks just accept whatever is mailed/traded to them, that they would be more reasonable today than they were two years ago. But I'm a positive thinking kind of guy-

The original Outliers clan bank was banned for accepting trades of scammed items. Evidently, some guy in the clan scammed someone and then traded some of the items to the clan bank. Myself and several generals wrote OTM Support, Muldar, heck, anyone who would listen, but to no avail. We lost thousands of drops because of their rigidity on this issue.

I do believe, however, now that a few of them in OTM have actually played the game, and understand that clan banks just accept whatever is mailed/traded to them, that they would be more reasonable today than they were two years ago. But I'm a positive thinking kind of guy-

Sadly no.. our bank is still banned, appeals etc, no proof of anything provided, it happened during the "hacks" which doesn't prove a thing to me tbh. Why should dozens of people be held responsible for one assholes actions.

It's their broken system that causes clans to use a LVL 5 toon for banking, rely heavily on mails and blindly accept mails and trades. There's been no advancement in their appreciation of how the player base works, how long it takes to accumulate DL and EDL items and how easy it is for one person to ruin it for the rest.

I have some questions about account sharing:

The situation Tadaaah describes is actually something we see almost everyday in support tickets, as we try to be fair and investigate each case properly it’s a huge drain on time and resources, both of which could be spent on things much more beneficial to the broader player base.

The TOS specifically means we reserve the right to act on these things at our discretion, as I mentioned we don’t just do things on the fly, we investigate and apply common sense to situations. We don’t want to ban accounts when it’s not merited.

That said we’re not going to go into detail on those processes but suffice to say if you’re not negatively impacting the game, our company or other players it’s unlikely you have much to worry about.

I like this and hope everyone else maintains the spirit of the law because the letter of the law is a littl scary.

I love this game and appreciate each of the staff members and all the thankless time you put into the game

@Tadaaah

Why not just not intervene at all when it comes to email addresses / account ownership?

As in the account is owned by the email address holder, and only do things for inactive accounts in cases when the owner has lost access to the email address.

Would definitely save you guys a lot of time. I understand why you have the policies that are in place though, but as everyone knows (on any game) account sharing is very prevalent which is just going to cause extra work for support down the line rather than policies that account for it, and not provide suppo t do players that do break the rules.

Again, it's not all black and white. Each ticket is unique and takes quite a bit of time. That is why some accounts are locked down; we don't offer support to the account anymore because it's overly apparent that the account has been transferred/shared in abundance. Also, another example of why you SHOULDN'T BUY accounts. We've seen instances where a player sells an account. Then, they come to support to reclaim ownership. Rinse and repeat. Once we can see that, those accounts are also locked down. So don't buy an account, because you'll likely just lose your money. Y'all should spread that one around. In a sense, these rules aren't just in place for us; they protect players too.

For clan banks, yes, that far precedes me. My understanding is that while we turn a blind eye; we also aren't supposed to offer support for clan banks.

Again, the changes haven't changed the Terms of Service or the rules. You shouldn't have anything to worry about. It just gives us more flexibility when we need it.

@Tadaaah

Why not just not intervene at all when it comes to email addresses / account ownership?

As in the account is owned by the email address holder, and only do things for inactive accounts in cases when the owner has lost access to the email address.

Would definitely save you guys a lot of time. I understand why you have the policies that are in place though, but as everyone knows (on any game) account sharing is very prevalent which is just going to cause extra work for support down the line rather than policies that account for it, and not provide suppo t do players that do break the rules.

Again, it's not all black and white. Each ticket is unique and takes quite a bit of time. That is why some accounts are locked down; we don't offer support to the account anymore because it's overly apparent that the account has been transferred/shared in abundance. Also, another example of why you SHOULDN'T BUY accounts. We've seen instances where a player sells an account. Then, they come to support to reclaim ownership. Rinse and repeat. Once we can see that, those accounts are also locked down. So don't buy an account, because you'll likely just lose your money. Y'all should spread that one around. In a sense, these rules aren't just in place for us; they protect players too.

For clan banks, yes, that far precedes me. My understanding is that while we turn a blind eye; we also aren't supposed to offer support for clan banks.

Again, the changes haven't changed the Terms of Service or the rules. You shouldn't have anything to worry about. It just gives us more flexibility when we need it.

That was my understanding from the quoted thread by morgana. Exempt but don't come complaining if they get looted.