Rules
General
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Is nest rental against the ToS now?
Not at all. I think players may be getting this because "it is an unsupported transaction". This means you rent nests at your own risk. (from other players). We will not action you for renting a nest. It's fine. :)
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And I was curious as to whether renting out flight nests for users who are not of your flight would be considered a banable offense since they are technically lending you their dragons, but in the section (the only one I found in any of the documents that come close to this particular problem) it only says that its 'not supported'.
Renting out your nest to other players is not against our Terms of Use, but it is not a transaction that has gameplay mechanics to facilitate it. Should something go bad in this type of transaction, the staff will not be able to provide support in the form of reimbursements. That is what we mean by "unsupported."
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due to the lack of a bank system, I was offering my fellow Water Flight members a service that would help them save their important items. Essentially they would send us the items, which we would send back for them to keep in the message center to avoid accidential conversion/selling. Does this fall into acceptable guidelines of item transactions (ignoring that it is of course unsupported)? I don't want to get banned just because we like collecting stuff.
You're correct that that type of service would be unsupported, but as long as it does not break the
Terms of Use, you should be fine.
Annotation: This got asked before the Vault was added.
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I also just saw on tumblr that we have to have our legal names in our profile in order to get our accounts back if we get falsely banned.
What! WHAT!!
OMG, I hope the policy is changed. Not only that is incredibly dangerous for trans people but also other users like me who want to keep their real name secret on the internet.
And yes, there are some of us who don't want everything they've ever done in the internet to be just a google search away.
I'd like to help clarify: ID has nothing to do with being banned. It has to do with account recovery and proving you are an account owner should you ever need the e-mail and password changed on your account because you are unable to do it yourself. You do not need to put your real name in your public clan profile. That is wrong. However, when you sign up for the site it can be beneficial to use accurate information. This information is used only in the sign-up process and is not displayed anywhere publicly on-site. Google does not see this information.
You are asked for an accurate name when signing up for most accounts on the internet. It can be beneficial to do so because if you ever get locked out of your account because you lost access to your e-mail address and password associated with it, we can check against your real name/ID and other hidden information so that not just any old person can say "I'm Undel and I lost access to my account. Please change the e-mail and password associated with it for me!" We have other things we can check against, but an accurate name can help expedite the process. We're not going to ban someone for using a false name, but it can create some issues with proving who you are if you ever get locked out of your e-mail.
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Quick question about cleared dragon bios: There are conflicting rumours that some bios have been cleared for referencing violence, death and the darker side of the site's lore, and that said clearings are just a coincidental glitch. Which is it?
One of my dragons is a ghost and a couple of others are fandergs based on homicidal video game villains, and I'm wondering how much I'm allowed to mention when I write up their bios. ^^;;
If we change a dragon biography, we will mail the account in question notifying them of the change. "Randomly disappearing" bios are related to bonding with a familiar directly after editing a dragon biography and have nothing to do with the content of said biography. If you lost a biography, our apologies. The bug is one we are working on. To avoid it, make sure to click somewhere else after editing your dragon biography before bonding with its familiar.
Annotation: I think the mentioned bug is fixed.
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I sent in contact us days ago, because I was worried about three of my dragon's bios(all three stories reference death) and I don't want to get in any trouble so I sent in a contact us asking if the bios were okay and I still have not heard back.
Our apologies for the delay. You are probably fine, and if you aren't, you are likely to receive a warning before anything else were to happen. Things that might escalate you would be (profanity/extreme gore/explicit sexual situations/violent sexual situations/slurs/blacklists or imagery that does aformentioned things) You don't seem to have done any of these things, so you are fine. :)
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What is the staff's stance on scammers? I feel quite trusting of the community and have had only good experiences so far but it seems like sooner or later one would run into a fraudulent user.
Anyway, in short: What happens if I agree on a trade which cannot be CRed on one of the sales forums and the other party never sends their end of the deal?
Our
Terms of Use specifies that all trade deals that are conducted outside of
Crossroads and the
Auction House are made at the players' discretion. It does not mean that scamming behavior should not be reported to us. Should you encounter an individual that does not uphold their end of an agreement, please send us a full report via
Contact Us.
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The harassment/defamation part of the rules and guidelines mentions 'Insultingly refer to other players, Stormlight Workshop staff, or groups of people'.
Now, on paper, that's great. What worries me is the potential applications - will this rule be used in future to shut down any kind of frustration with the staff, as people have been displaying in the past few days? Is it against that rule if we comment on the staff providing terrible customer service and communication (something that these policies are helping with, but not solving 100%)? Is it against that rule to complain about a particular staff member being bad at their job?
There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with how we are conducting our processes, or having feelings of discontent towards our decisions; and we respect that. We know full well that there are going to be those who voice those feelings, and we don't make it a practice of just shutting that down.
That being said, the rule you mentioned has been in place since the Rules & Guidelines was written and stickied in our forums. It is merely a means to offer the same harassment protection to our staff that we extend to our players. Naturally, we have to develop a thick skin, but verbal insults aren't cool or acceptable for anyone. Now, we certainly don't aim to brandish that rule like a draconic sledgehammer to censor or silence those who are upset, but we also hold the hope that players who disagree with us will choose to speak in a respectful and constructive manner. Many, many of you do, and that is awesome, and we appreciate it more than you know, as it helps us grow.
If someone feels uncomfortable doing that in our forums, they are also completely welcome to speak with us via Contact Us, too. We're receptive to feedback, no matter what avenue.
Naming & Spite-Exalting
Regarding dragon naming and exalting:
There's a lot of questions about this, so please forgive not being able to quote everyone individually.
- Dragon names made with the intent to get around the filter, create shock value, or otherwise violate the ToU and Site Rules & Guidelines will be investigated and actioned on a case by case basis. If you find a dragon with a name that meets the above criteria, please report it via Contact Us.
- Spiteful Exalting, or buying someone's dragon and naming them something offensive or intended to harass a specific player, constitutes targeted harassment and is actionable. Even if the name is within naming guidelines, if the perceived intent of the act is to bother/upset/harass the previous dragon owner, that is not something that will be tolerated. If this happens to you, please report it through Contact Us and in your report include the dragon ID#(s) for the Exalted dragon(s).
That being said, the mass-exaltings and naming restrictions have resulted in some names being banned (as in, if you try to type them, it will not let you use the name) that were used to troll, but equally could be used by players who are not trolling at all and just wanted to name their dragon a thing. In our efforts to try and protect players from harassment, we did swing a bit too wide. We are currently evaulating our naming policy and the tools that we can make available to players regarding some self-moderation. Our apology and a discussion on this can be found here:
http://flightrising.com/main.php?board=frd&id=1200135&p=mb
We do not have a new policy to roll out today, as we want to give this careful consideration and develop some tools for you guys going forward. A quick answer will not do here.
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Since when has there been a separate set of rules for exalt-fodder and non-exalt fodder names? Am I wrong in assuming this statement would be saying that death related names are alright for a personal dragon for lore reasons but not for an exalt-fodder name? (In keeping with Plague flight lore, etc)
It was part of our spiteful exalting policy introduced early this year. Players were harassing other players by spelling things out in their offspring lists, or filling the lists with a whole bunch of "dead, smashed, rip" sorta things. It's more about what was being done with the names then the names themselves. We want you guys to be able to have names that you enjoy, but we also don't want that privilege to be used to harass other players. While removing the ability to enter these names was an easy solution, it is also overkill. We are reevaluating our policy going forward, and a more fully formed answer will be forthcoming:
http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/frd/1200135
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I have one. You mentioned a lot in the last thread that players can get banned for spelling out inappropriate and personal information in the offspring lists. Is it ok to spell things out if they are harmless? Like sayings or something? Or would your advise to stay away from doing that?
It is fine to spell out harmless things, though everything is taken on a case by case basis. If you are spelling out harmless things in someone else's offspring list that is targeting or harassing that player, that player may report it and action may be taken.
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If dragon is named inappropriately in other language than English, is it something we should report?
Yes. We investigate all names on a case-by-case basis.
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I've read the naming guidelines but I can't find anything against the name Mulch. Is it still banned?
It is an ongoing task for us to remove contextual/innocuous names from our banned names database. Should you have feedback about this name or any others, please let us know via
Contact Us (as laid out in our Naming Policy) and we will re-evaluate whether the name breaks our rules.
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So is it okay when I give dragons names like, "Frank, Bob, Susan, Mary, etc." or should be avoid RL names for dragons from now on? I mean literially hundreds of players on FR could be named Bob or Susan in RL but I as player do not know that so what if someone gets upset over that?
I don't quite understand what non-Flight Rising entities refers to? I sometimes I use names from dieties from other cultures/old cultures, is that also not allowed anymore? Are we also not allowed anymore to name dragons after like RL things like rivers, cities, mountains, flowers, etc?
Our policy does not prohibit giving dragons human names, place names, etc. Our policy prohibits dragons being given names that contain private real life information on specific real people, entities (things like companies, websites, organizations, etc.), and the staff members. Due to character limits, this would probably be very difficult to pull off in a dragon name anyway, but the rule is in place to protect the private information of those listed in it.
External Sites/Links
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I'm thinking there might still be room for a little more clarification on the policy of linking to sites with inappropriately violent, sexual or pornographic material. For example, FR has a group on Deviantart, yet there is a lot of user-submitted content on that site which is extremely violent or sexual. Youtube also has videos that openly promote hatred towards some groups of people (even if it tries to remove them asap), yet FR has an official channel there too. Both are linked on the main splash page. Could the policy be refined to specifically exclude content submitted by other users to sites that weren't created specifically to host these things? Lots of FR members have links to deviantart or other social media accounts in their profiles and signatures.
Thanks for the input. We're very cognizant of sites that host lots of varying user content, and will of course be weighing that against anything that is reported to us. As with all reports, we'll take situations like you mentioned on a case-by-case basis, but to clarify what we mean in the actual rule: it refers to linking directly to a website page or section that has inappropriate content clearly visible upon following the link.
Here's some examples: linking to one blog entry that--on its own--does not break any of our rules is more than likely going to be completely fine. Linking to the index of that same blog where inappropriate posts compose the majority of what the user will see when following said link is probably not going to be fine. Or, linking to one piece of non-rule-breaking artwork hosted on a website is likely going to be fine. Linking to a gallery where that one image is in a sea of pieces that do break the rules is probably going to not be fine.
In the end, it's all about context, and we will always take that into account when investigating.
For instance, if someone were to link to a blank internet page that had a link that said "this is totally not a blacklist" and following that link led to a blacklist, we're probably not gonna be okay with that. At that point the offending player knew what they were doing in circumventing the rule and was simply trying to mask their link.
Like we have said before, we're not on a proactive witch hunt for this stuff, but we'd like everyone to exercise good judgment in the URLs they link. More often than not, these cases are going to result in warnings or educations, unless the behavior is becoming repeated/excessive.
Multi-accounting vs. IP Sharing / Multiple Devices
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Does the frequency/timing of logging in/out affect our risk of getting banned in any way?
No, this would not affect either of you in any way adversely.
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I keep trying to ask this an then the website turns into on big black screen.
So when people can sign up again is there someone we should email to say we share a house and like to sen each other goodies?
I've heard people saying they have been banned for that and others saying they haven't been. Is there a limit on what we can send and how often and how much? I've never seen any info on it other then the contradicting info on who's been banned an who hasn't for doing the same things.
It is not necessary to send us an e-mail. If you and a family or friend (regardless of IP) exchange items every once in a while, that's fine. If one account starts sending mass items to another, then you may run into issues. But if you and your family or friend are separate and not directly feeding each other, your accounts should be ok!
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I often "gift" things to people - but now I'm concerned that by giving something to someone it may result is both of us being banned! There are 2 players at my address - we don't share computers or accounts, but send each other stuff at times plus I often send "donations" for raffles to other users and "gifts" during festivals. Is this allowed?
Yes, raffles and gifting is allowed, and are a lot of fun! Thank you for participating in them. Your account completely feeding and funneling to another would not be allowed though, as this starts to get into multi-territory.
- Sharing an IP with someone will not get you banned. That would be ridiculous! Players have friends, family, roommates, and visitors who may play on their internet connection.
- Gifting occassionally will not get your account closed.
- Participating in a raffle, giveaway, or dominance push will not get your account closed.
- Nest renting will not get your account closed.
So what does cause closures? Mass funneling items from one account to another. Don't do it. An every once in a while gift is fine, but all accounts should be active and playing on their own. An account that purely stores things for another or an account that seems to exist only to feed another is a bad thing. And if those storage/funnelling accounts are on the same IP, it's an especially bad thing. Multi-accounts give players extra dailies, lair space, account gifts, and other things that give players an unfair advantage and change the dynamic of the game.
If you share an IP with another person who plays and you want to be especially safe, please keep the gifting to a minimum. Don't log into eachother's accounts. Account information should be separate and private.
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Piggybacking a question of my own here...but I often use FR on my desktop and my iPad. I don't typically log out of either, and while the iPad times out occasionally, I rarely log in more than a few times a day (if that). Should I be logging out before swapping devices?
And when on my desktop I often have multiple tabs going (especially when the coli lags lol) I get bored easily, and tend to swap between the coli and tabs with the forums or scrying workshop and back and forth... Is that a process you don't recommend?
Multi tabbing and logging in on multiple devices is perfectly fine. We are well aware that many of our players do this. Heck, many of the staff do this too! I myself run multiple tabs in a couple different browsers!
Regarding multiple accounts sharing an IP address, gifting, gifting frequencies, etc.
I'd like to call out the passage in our
Multiple Account Policy:
"Gifting, trading, or sending items/dragons/currency between accounts (regardless of whether they share an IP address or not) are all acceptable forms of gameplay. It is when one player registers or uses "side" accounts that exist solely to benefit another that it creates a skewed and unfair gameplay advantage."
I think what is being confused here is the context. If you are gifting items to your family members or friends, and also autonomosly playing your account, that's completely fine. If your friend or family member is no longer interested in the game enough to pursue anything other than moving all of their item/currency/dragon accumulation to your account, that is what we take issue with. Your account is essentially receiving double or triple the benefits; something that cannot be accomplished normally.
The frequency isn't really the heart of the issue here. We made the recommendation of moderating that frequency as a general warning so that players could be aware of what looked like funneling behavior, not because gifting itself was a rule-breaker.
As stated in our policy,
the vast majority of these cases constitute evidence that one account is overwhelmingly benefiting from several others (most of which have little to no activity other than messages and transfers away from them). Additionally, we will be more than happy to review cases again via an appeal, with the understanding that thorough investigation takes place before these closures are rendered. As with all account actions, we correspond privately with the account owners only, and specific issues are not for public discussion.
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The gifting thing still makes me anxious, my wife and I gift each other a lot. ie she's a coli player and I'm not, so I send her fodder dragons and she sends me back coli food, etc. Sometimes one of us will loan the other money for genes. : / I'm not sure how "activity" is assessed but the fact that I'm less active than her makes me nervous now, I don't care for the coli/faire and I don't talk much on the forums. I mostly just like giving dragons silly names. Do I need to be more active?
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I'd like to know how often gifting someone with the same IP address is TOO OFTEN. Other people have asked this before, but I didn't see an answer from an admin about it. My sister and I play on the same laptop and/or grandparents computer (depending on the day) and I really want to help her out with her apparel, genes, and accent projects so that she can feel really happy about all her dragons look (quote from my sister) "really really pretty". I don't care to much about that sort of things with my dragons, though I would like to gene them up sometime.
We both also want to get the Egg achievements, so I'm doing all the scavenging for the eggs and send them over to her to hatch. If she likes the first gen then she can keep it, as long as she can get the dragon to fit with her clan, and if I like it, then I'll take the first gen to have my first gen clan.
I'm also a boarder, and my sister sends her exalt nest over to me for whenever either of us need to start exalting dragons (if Light and Shadow aren't in a dom fight against each other).
Since I'm going to have to send stuff over to my sister to help with her projects, and when it comes time for my projects, she'll send stuff over to me, I'd really like to know how often is too often, that way we can work within the rules of the game without having to worry about being banned.
Again, I'll reiterate that gifting frequency alone is not a rule-breaker. Does your account currently only exist to benefit your family member's account? Are you completely disinterested to the point where you have stopped logging into the site aside from giving your items, currency, and dragons to your family member? If the answer to each of these is no, you've got nothing to be worried about here. Remember that we will always consider context in these situations.
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Thank you very very much for all your thoughtful answers!
Do you have a policy in place for this scenario?
2 friends, Sam and Alex, join FR.
Sam becomes no longer interested in playing. Sam sends all their stuff to Alex.
(Okay.)
Sam, of their own volition, starts logging in to do dailies and keeps sending to Alex. (Not okay.)
Does Alex report them for...harassment? Can Sam get Alex banned? How does Alex prove they don't want Sam's stuff?
This should probably be clarified too, since it could be a situation where one person does not mean the multi-accounting but it is happening without their knowledge and/or consent.
Should a situation ever reach this point, I'd advise that Alex politely message Sam asking them to stop, then use the Block feature, which would prohibit Sam from sending further messages. Alex could also proactively report the incident to us via a ticket.
Botting & Third Party Software
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I'm wondering, if I were to use a script that got rid of the brownish/red background that comes up every other post in the forums, would I get banned? It would appear so, but it's just an anesthetic that enhances the site visually for a user that in no way affects their gameplay or perhaps they have some sort of visual condition and that code allows them to use FR without having any bodily issues...
Why stifle users creativity? If your going to do that then you might as well close down the suggestions thread (although we all know what happens anyways). Granted of course this is just a browser game and not something that can be downloaded and run on ones computer that has actual game files which can be edited by the user.
Now banning scripts that take the place of the end user are certainly sanctionable for reasons that honest players would support, but if we're taking flack for simply changing a small visual detail of the website, that's just not right.
We understand that players like to spice things up in their browsers and enhance their browsing experience, and will always do our best to consider that. It's not a matter of stifling creativity, it's a matter of protecting the site's integrity. The best course of action is always going to be to hit us up directly via the Contact Us page so that we can evaluate/review the request.
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Is changing/mapping hotkeys are bannable offence? (Several users have been doing this because of the severe wrist pains caused by Coli grinding.)
For the time being, we have asked players to not use third party programs of this nature as most that have been brought to our attention allow for automation of gameplay, which is against our Terms of Use. We understand that there is and has been a desire for players to use keyboard controls in the Coliseum, and that is feedback we are watching, gathering, and discussing. Ideally we would like to provide a solution that can both help these players and protect the integrity of the site, and if we have more information on that in the future, we will absolutely share it. I can assure you it is not falling on deaf ears, and is something we're taking seriously.
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The ToS forbid everything that "alters the appearance of the site"? By that logic, shouldn't adblock also be against the ToS?
Adblock does not alter the visual state of Flight Rising, it toggles the visibility of ad content on websites in general. Flight Rising's ads are placed in layout containers that remain in place whether or not Adblock is being run in a given browser. We understand that there are security and personal preferences for people about what or how much ad content (which isn't created by Flight Rising) is displayed to them, which it is not against our rules to use.
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This is probably getting super nitpicky but does this mean Adblock is permitted because it affects all sites equally, because the layout of FR remains the same even though the ads disappear, or both?
As per our
Terms of Use, Adblock is permitted because it does not functionally allow a player to automate gameplay, affect the infrastructure of the server, or modify functions of the site so that they are used in ways unintended by site design. In general, if a player is using, say, a browser extension that makes minor aesthetic changes to text, we're going to consider that benign. When in doubt, please ask us via the
Contact Us page and we'll be happy to provide you feedback.
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I'd also like to know this.
Also, is it against the TOS to use an IP Blocker? Is it against the TOS to use Tor for example, or things like GhostScript or Ghostery? It is very important to me personally that I can surf anonymously from time to time, but now I'm worried about being banned over it.
Using ip privacy is fine, though we do block many proxy servers from accessing flight rising due to them being used for trolling ends. As far as Ghostscript and ghostery, those should be fine as long as you are not programming things that play or automate flight rising for you. We are not familiar with Ghostscript, but read that it can be used as a general programming platform, so "general programming" an automation of our game is likely to still get you in trouble. Protecting your privacy is not!
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Okay, here's a question/concern:
I asked a question regarding Adblocker and something else, and my post was deleted entirely.
Please do not advertise scripts or extensions designed to alter site appearance and behavior. This is very clearly stated here:
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The use of bots, scripts, or third party software that shortcut or alter site functions to run or appear in ways that are not intended by site design is not permitted. (Updated 11/26/2013)
And yes, that thing you asked about was against our TOU, and you can inquire about such things via the contact form rather than advertising potentially damaging software on the forums. This is how it has always been. I am sorry for removing your post quickly. I was intending to reply to it after removal, but a message could have been sent in the interim to notify you of the reason for removal.
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Ok since there alot of botting questions around i am very concern about what i have in my signature. Altho its doing nothing to the game whats so ever, only rotating my signatures around. is it still allowed..? I do use a site to make it rotate....
(Sorry if its not related to the botting issues but still i need to confirm if its alright)..
You are fine. Your signatures not in any way playing the game for you or altering how the site functions. It is fine.
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And adblocks and anti-virus software are fine too, right?
As stated previously, yes. You are fine :)
Regarding botting and bans:
There's been quite a bit of speculation about this in our questions thread. Please forgive me for not being able to quote everyone. I'll try and answer the overall concerns here:
The use of bots, scripts, and autorefreshers designed to play the game for you is against our terms of use. This is a game, and a robot should not play it for you. Botting creates an unfair play environment. Please don't do it.
We've been working on bot detection for a while now, and earlier this week we took this information and performed the closure of accounts running this software. The amount of accounts closed for botting is quite small. Thankfully most players play our game instead of robots. :)
- The way we flag players for botting is not a way that any human would replicate. You have to be running something that plays the game for you.
- We are aware that players can play for hours and hours and hours. Doing this does not make you a bot.
- We are aware that players can idle for hours and hours and hours. Doing this does not make you a bot.
- We are aware that players can fight very fast and get lots of treasure/loot. Doing this does not make you a bot.
- None of the above is going to flag you running something against our TOU.
- Adblock does not cause you to be flagged for botting.
For everyone not running automation scripts, the gist of this is that you do not need to alter your play style or do anything different.
Regarding specific account closures, we do not discuss the closing of a specific account with anyone but the account owner. If your account was closed, you should have received an e-mail containing the reason why and appeal instructions for if you wish to contest or provide additional information.
As far as botting and bans related to it go:
No, I cannot tell you the extremely specific detection method we use for security purposes. This would invalidate the detection method and tell players who wish to program scripts how to avoid detection. My previous answer is all that we can reasonably tell you without invalidating our security.
You may read it here.
Yes, we are confident that our botting script is only detecting those who are running specifically targeted automation on the website. IE: something that plays the game for you. This is against our TOU. A human, no matter how much they play or idle or progress through levels could set off these things. We are sure of this.
There's no PR-friendly way to say this, but the possibility should be entertained that those who are caught botting will often lie (and loudly) about it. It is a case of their word against ours. If they feel we are wrong, the
account owner may contest bans and provide evidence to show us why we are incorrect and we will rereview their case.
This is really all we have to say on the matter of botting and bans related to it.
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I was just wondering what was going on about some users getting banned? It seem quite a few coli grinders are getting banned, and now I'm kind of scared to grind for shards.
Is this something that can be resolved, or are there at least measures I can take to not be wrongly banned?
It boils down to: do not use software that plays the coliseum for you, and please make sure to get some sleep. The occasional all nighter isn't an issue. Otherwise, you will not set off a ban. Play as much as is humanly possible if you like.
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I'd like to springboard off of this, if I may.
1. Is there a way to solidly prove one way or another a user has been botting? If no solid proof is found, can a user recover their account? I'm hearing from several users that they were banned, with their offense being botting, when the worst they've got is an adblocker.
2. Are adblockers considered against the ToS?
3. Do you guys care that a chunk of your users are afraid to use a feature on your site?
1. Yes, there is a way to solidly prove botting.
2. No. And they will not set off a ban unless a secondary feature of the blocker is to specifically play our coliseum and fair for you.
3. Yes. We want everyone to feel safe to play and be assured that the things we ban for, no human is capable of. Even the most addicted player with the best connection.
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^^^^^
Everyone I know is too afraid to use coli. Even though it's a festival week and everyone wants to grind for currency. The market for adult fodder is already crashing.
Running automation software that plays on your behalf will get you flagged. Playing a lot by hand will not!
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May I also ask why the botting focus here is all about catching instead of preventing? The staff sound almost afraid that adding keyboard controls to the coli will make it easier to bot. But there isn't any effort to bot prevent?
I can tell you with full confidence and certainty that we have been and always will be placing development resources into botting prevention. We will work extremely hard to bolster Flight Rising against flagrant cheating. Our players deserve to play a site that helps prohibit this kind of negative gameplay behavior.
Bans & Appealing
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Are you going to address the fact that many users are asking for some sort of warning system, even for actual offenders of things like botting and multiaccounting. I honestly think this would solve a lot. So many of us are scared we're just gonna get banned without any warning without anybody telling us exactly what we did. This system isn't fair for anyone. Like a previous user said, "guilty until proven innocent" isn't a good policy.
We have a warning system for many things on site, but scripting of this nature is not one of them. If you knowingly run software designed to cheat or exploit the game, you will be banned for it. It is incredibly damaging to the game, and not something one could do unknowingly. Equally, if you have been multi-accounting for months against the TOU, the accounts get closed as they have broken the rules and benefited from an unfair gameplay advantage. The thinking would be: "I will multi-account until they warn me, then stop."
In both of the above cases, if the account owner feels that the account closure was in error, they may appeal the closure and provide evidence of why the closure was incorrect. We have lifted bans before when there was reasonable doubt.
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Thank you for the response. Obviously I cannot prove that people who have been banned today haven't been botting, but I believe the ones who have told me their cases. If they respond to the email informing them of the ban, is there even a remote chance they will get their issue looked at a second time? Or does the follow-up email some users got saying to just make a new account next registration blanket all the users who have been banned today?
Players should always appeal account closure if they feel their account was closed in error. We do not like closing accounts and for that reason we investigate, we do not close accounts on a knee-jerk reaction; however, we are human and human beings make mistakes. We would be remiss not to acknowledge that.
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Then why have (a decent number, for as inactive as I am in FR's community) some players reported getting essentially a one line response to appeals or questions that is essentially: "Tough luck our minds are made up?"
Appealing a ban does not mean that the ban will be lifted. It means that we'll look at any evidence you provide and also get a second or third set of eyes to reveal the case against the account. If we can find evidence that the ban was made in error, we will lift it. But if the reason for the ban is agreed to be justified by multiple team members, it will remain. I hope this helps to clarify! Appealing a ban gives you a chance to provide new information and have your closure reviewed by more team members.
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I appreciate that you tried to address my question, but with all due respect, its clearly not what I meant. I have not heard of a single user successfully appealing a ban. Does it ever happen? Or is the staff pretty much free of fault and error in these cases? What is the actual review procedure? Why have banned users been encouraged to apply again at the next open registration window?
Do you have any sanction other than a ban?
There have been players who have successfully appealed a ban. Staff are human and mistakes can happen. That's why we allow players the ability to appeal, provide us additional information, and pass the account review to multiple people to help. A player may join our site if they follow the rules.
We have warnings, strikes, and suspensions as well, though certain activities qualify for immediate account closure.
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What's the approximate percentage of lifted bans? Additionally, in cases of allegations of "account sharing", what exactly triggers that? Is it an IP address/ IP addresses that accesses an account? I'm somewhat concerned, as I access my account at a few different locations and I certainly wouldn't want any misunderstandings to arise from that.
I cannot provide those statistics; however, accessing your account from multiple IPs is not an issue. Funneling large quantities of items where one account exists purely to feed another or provide mass storage for another is where you will have issues.
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Also, I hate to say it and there's no friendly way to say it, but are you sure? Are you very, very sure? Because, as I've said, I know one person who hasn't been online once since you seemed to start running this thing, and they're gone. Banned. And has has no response to their appeal (though obviously you're busy right now, so they're not expecting one for a while). Are you scanning past behaviour or just current?
We are quite sure. And I cannot divulge that information for security purposes.
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As people who have been banned cannot access the forums, are we allowed to let them know what sort of evidence they need to gather to show you? Because that would be very useful, and a good show of faith for them!
Feel free, though their account closure notification should have instructions at the bottom telling them exactly how to appeal. These notifications are sent out upon closure to the e-mail address related to the account.
They already have all the information they need to appeal.
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Even Steam and like actual gaming companies that use stuff like VAC will get it wrong and ban legit users sometimes and when they actually correctly target a botter or something to that effect, the end result is a temporary suspension or warning (if there is any doubt that the end user was not sure about if software they used was permitted or not).
I don't understand why a smaller site has to have much more draconian (haha its a dragon joke) policies on stuff. Yeah, I hate cheating, and botters should be punished, but I feel like a three strikes and your out system would be less likely to actually do harm to people who are well intentioned and misguided or make a mistake.
As for multiaccounting, I don't understand why its a problem or even against tos. Many others have made good arguments for why someone would chose to do it, and many pet sites allow it.
I understand you guys are going to do whatever, because thus far there's been no indication that the feedback you are getting here is leading you to rethink what's going on/ what your policies are, but I'm just trying to be frank here.
If you'd like to change policy, that's more of a discussion. This thread is for answering questions. But you are correct, we do not work like Steam. (and even they will ban outright on many botting infractions. I'm not sure where you're getting this info. 3 strikes is usually related to other things?) Again, we are not Steam.
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There are rumors that you need to present an ID in order to appeal your ban. Is this true?
In general, no. ID usually have nothing to do with account closure.
The exception would be in cases of multi-account or a player losing access to both the e-mail and password associated with their flight rising account. (though you may attempt to appeal and recover without the ID, having it match up with your account information can be helpful.) In theses cases you may be asked for ID, but you may of course decline.
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Do you have plans to appeal the bans you invoked before any of the new multiaccounting rules were in place.
You literally just recently put them in the TOS, but have been banning people for them before that. You banned people for rules that didn't exist yet. This needs to be addressed. I appreciate you answering questions, but this is extremely important. Tons of users paid for not knowing there were even rules in place because you never specified them anywhere.
Now you're saying "They can appeal their bans if they didn't break the rules." but as far as any of them knew, they didn't. You didn't tell any of us the rules until just now. These bannings are still unjustified.
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Are you going to make sure that banned players get a fair review of their ban, instead of getting a steaming pile of lying form-letter smarm? ("Triple-checked"? Again: How stupid do you think we are?)
* Are you going to admit that innocent, non-multi-accounting players were banned? Are you going to reinstate their accounts, if they have not been restored already? Are you going to apologize to them? What about apologizing to the significant portion of your userbase that's still terrified of being banned for no reason? What steps have you taken to make sure this NEVER, EVER HAPPENS AGAIN?!
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All of the other things you have been communicating about are fine and dandy, but how about addressing something that we're all pretty annoyed by? There is no indication that anyone is actually getting "triple checked" because no one seems to be getting personalized or actual communication from your appeals team. Every single email I have seen from ban gate has literally the same text, which is frankly unacceptable. Your site is not so huge, nor is writing a simple email such a massive time consuming task that people can't get real communication from the staff and/or people you've contracted it out to. Either they are lazy or you need to implement some serious changes.
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WHO have been banned, and FOR WHAT? Sure, there's a bunch of people crying out loud on Tumblr and most likely there are people who HAVE been erroneously wronged, but here the ********* is just raging and I have no idea what the mods are guilty of, why there are victims, how many there are... Only people spreading rumor, and I dunno what to believe. Can we have some fact about this, pretty please? This situation is no good. It isn't fair to the admins, who have to deal with these raging rumors whether right or false, and it certainly isn't fair to the userbase that is basically tipping around on their toes. WHAT HAPPENED, admins? I want to hear this from YOU, not from some unknown dude throwing another fuzz on Tumblr.
I would like to preface this reply with the sentiment that I completely understand that you're looking out for friends, family, and other players. I know that you are replying here because you are coming from a place of empathy and want to make sure that concerns about our policies are heard.
That being said, we have had a rule against multiple accounts since Flight Rising opened. One or more accounts that only serve the purpose of giving another account in-game wealth is not permitted; it's the reason the rule exists in the first place. You are correct that the rule did not explicitly state the example that our clarified policy explanation provides, but these cases have always been handled like this (thoroughly investigated before rendering action), and we have explained that scenario several times over the life of the site, as well as to those who have asked. Our multiple account policy page isn't comprised of new rules, it's the consolidation of what we have been dialoguing with the players about since day one.
Additionally, while I understand this is all out of concern, I must re-emphasize that as a matter of player privacy, discussing specific account actions in a public forum is something we will never do. Account warnings, suspensions, and closures are matters that the affected player must come to us about privately.
We will always re-review a closure appeal with the owner of the account that has been affected. Another investigation will take place, and we will provide that player with a response of the conclusion of that investigation.
We recognize that there is some concern about how these responses are worded - such as the level of personalization within them (which can give the impression of lack of care or thoroughness), as well as the parameters and penalties of the policy itself. As always, we are documenting and actively considering this feedback, and appreciate it being brought forward.
