The Last 24 Hours.

Bloodtyrant

Peltast
3500 gold... What a bloody joke. Since the gold is fake from inno's standpoint, compensation cost them nothing. All affected should have gold given in accordance with what they spent for gold since the time they were on any particular affected server. For some they ruined months and months of building etc., and need to be compensated fairly.
 

DeletedUser15969

Guest
Are the wrongly banned players going to have the ban removed from their record?
 

DeletedUser5

Guest
Are the wrongly banned players going to have the ban removed from their record?
Thanks for your question. The wrongly banned players have a note on their file explaining that the ban was placed incorrectly. We don't have the facility to remove the record itself, but this will be sufficient that this ban wouldn't be held against them in the future in any way.
 

DeletedUser15969

Guest
I have turned off all the approved scripts I had running. Is it safe to run them again?
 

Rodrk

Peltast
Hey everyone,

We have been informed today about a potential glitch in one of our internal tools which is used to detect bots. This glitch was introduced with a recent update to the tool and unfortunately was not discovered in a timely enough manner to avoid the current situation. Updates to existing moderation tools happen regularly in order to keep the systems as up to date as possible and usually they come with no notable errors.

Unfortunately we discovered that there have been some very specific technical complications on the US market, causing the tool to malfunction in some reported cases. We are very sorry about the obvious inconveniences caused by this situation and are currently reviewing all bot bans that have been issued since the tool’s update. We will unban any players who have been wrongfully banned, and not yet been unbanned, as quickly as possible. These players, as well as all others whose unjustified bans have already been rectified, will be compensated accordingly.

Thus far, we luckily only discovered a few cases that were influenced by this glitch. Most of the cases we found to be fully conclusive. Therefore, we could confirm that a lot of bans were valid and completely in accordance with our policies and regulations, so none of the blame should be directed to the moderation teams who handled the cases strictly as advised and indicated by the faulty tool.

We can of course understand your frustration especially in regards to the consequences of this seemingly minor glitch, and have therefore already taken all necessary steps to restore the tools to their full, bug-free functionality to avoid any further wrong bans to be issued.

Please understand that we may not discuss individual cases on the forums or any other communication channels. We will only talk directly via the support system with the affected players. If you were affected by any of the recent bans and verifiably did not use any such tools, you will find a report in-game about a compensation which was added to your account.

We would like to deeply apologize to all fair players who were targeted by our systems based on a faulty detection method and hope that our compensation will help you to get back on your feet. It's the fair players that make Grepolis the great game it is and it was clearly not our intention to harm you in any way.

Best regards,
Your Grepolis Team

PS: Please understand that this account will not answer to private messages. Your moderator teams will be of assistance in case any further questions arise.

Thank you for having some new mods step in, clearly a much needed move. But...

This is the worst apology I've ever read. Who is your PR director?

This communication is backhanded and completely arrogant. You spend the bulk of the communication on minimizing the impact to the community and justifying your actions but then send your deepest apologies.

Only a "few" affected players? In the US that implies 3. So 3 people were effected? I think the number is far north of that.

And who are you to decide that players have been "compensated accordingly"? How can you unilaterally determine what is appropriate? It's fairly obvious the players do not feel the compensation is appropriate.

No wonder the mods take such a beating, they don't have a chance if this is the leadership they are given. This communication from Inno is embarrassingly bad.

I'd like to restate that i'm completely unaffected by this situation. I'd also like to know if Inno is hiring, i like beer and have common sense. Seems like I could bring a lot to the group of deep thinkers over there.
 

DeletedUser13666

Guest
Hi guys,

Just a quick note to say that Baudin & I are still here, and still reading your responses. I'll also be taking over tickets starting this evening, and try to get on top of the list I have to go through of escalations. I'll do my best to get people at least responded to tonight. As has been covered by Baudin, we're just here to help out whilst the CM is out of commission.

I appreciate immensely everyone's continued patience.

Thanks

Richard
CM - Grepolis International
Maybe you should not be temporary.... also, maybe not the auto generated report. Talk to us like we are people, not a computer program when you respond through support
 

Corwin36

Artisan
So let me get this correct, Innogames wants to pay a few thousand gold to the folks incorrectly "banned" with up to hundreds of lost and cleared cities, with ww's lost and alliances decimated? They basically destroyed entire worlds and now want people with nothing, to spend lots of money trying to get back to a point where they might again compete so they can do this to us again? We do not even know how or where the "glitch" occurred. We cannot avoid something we do not know about. Personally I do not see a good reason to move on with inno in ANY way. The other fallacy of their thoughts is that people not banned were not harmed just as much. Players fought days and nights blindly trying to hold these cities they caused to be destroyed. This "glitch" affected everyone except a few alliances it seems mods had friends on. The destruction was not even across the board or so it seems from many players point of view
 

DeletedUser13666

Guest
Inno- you let this go for 4 days. You can’t even begin to justify the damage you have done here. 5k gold. Some players spent 50k in the event that just ended and lost all their units and cities. Unless you guys can magically roll back servers to the previous update you probably just killed what little following you had on US servers.

Worlds completely ruined, alliances destroyed, friendships that lasted years in game- over Because of a “minor glitch”

Flooding everybody with crap auto responses claiming your tools are accurate and you don’t have to prove it. Just added fuel to the fire. Mods doing nothing for days made it worse.
Not everyone got 5k. Some like myself 3.5k and others 1.5k. Either way it seems like hush money. "Be quiet, stop complaining and we will give you a little tiny fraction of what you spent"
 

DeletedUser14254

Guest
So what or any are the new procedures for updates???
1.Like opening a testing world to use for all updates prior to going live!
2. Actually implementing updates while the development team is available and not off all weekend??? To trouble shot any issues or seemingly minor glitches

I am here to help

Dave
 

DeletedUser9037

Guest
I don't really know how to begin.

You should have been informed Friday morning about this because the banning started Thursday night. Is there not 24/7 Support other than the Moderators? There really is not anyone on call for when things happen? While I do appreciate that someone finally spoke up, someone probably should have started this on Friday, since it happened on Thursday in game, before Friday work day in Germany.

You can have the gold back that you gave me, I lost nothing in the game, unlike others. They probably deserve more than they actually got. I do not believe that most bans were legit though, some of them I am sure were, but I believe the majority were not.

I don't think I would call this a 'glitch' because it was pretty major. Do you test run your updated tools before you put them out in the game at all?

I do appreciate that someone finally spoke up and admitted fault and apologized, hoping to see something come out in game in a message also explaining it for those that do not check the external forum.

Maybe its time to look at the requirements to be a Moderator, I know plenty of people that have applied, but have all been turned down. Probably missed out on some great ones too that actually had decent knowledge of the game and would have been a huge help with this shortage the US seems to have.
 

Bloodtyrant

Peltast
I don't really know how to begin.

You should have been informed Friday morning about this because the banning started Thursday night. Is there not 24/7 Support other than the Moderators? There really is not anyone on call for when things happen? While I do appreciate that someone finally spoke up, someone probably should have started this on Friday, since it happened on Thursday in game, before Friday work day in Germany.

You can have the gold back that you gave me, I lost nothing in the game, unlike others. They probably deserve more than they actually got. I do not believe that most bans were legit though, some of them I am sure were, but I believe the majority were not.

I don't think I would call this a 'glitch' because it was pretty major. Do you test run your updated tools before you put them out in the game at all?

I do appreciate that someone finally spoke up and admitted fault and apologized, hoping to see something come out in game in a message also explaining it for those that do not check the external forum.

Maybe its time to look at the requirements to be a Moderator, I know plenty of people that have applied, but have all been turned down. Probably missed out on some great ones too that actually had decent knowledge of the game and would have been a huge help with this shortage the US seems to have.

Totally agree, especially about the bans. I believe that nearly all of them were a result of the glitch. Also does inno not have the technology to turn back a server?
 

DeletedUser15111

Guest
There is no way inno can justify giving players 5k gold. Every player that was inappropriately banned should get 100% of the gold they spent on the server and real dollars returned. Additionally if inno is serious about keeping its customer base should be tossing out 20% of whatever they spent as a “hey sorry we just screwed you, your team, and the server” and then they should seriously consider taking a city count and putting tokens in place for full troop replacement as well.

5 k gold is a joke and inno should be ashamed of themselves for even offering it. That’s more insulting than anything
 

DeletedUser3297

Guest
I gotta be honest its kinda fun to watch this complete pr disaster (tho its not fun seeing people lose everything they worked towards in this game)
 

DeletedUser3750

Guest
I appreciate the acknowledgement of the problem and action at last being taken. However I feel like the extent and effects of the problem is being vastly understated.

I was fortunate enough to not be attacked nor in a world at the wonder stage whilst being banned. Considering the amount of money players are putting into the game I feel they deserve better service, meaning players should have never been banned in the first place and also faster response and action once the mistake had been found needed to take place. I would have greater tolerance if this was a free game (I know you can technically play without gold but nearly impossible without some advisers at least on faster worlds).

I think the powers that be need to take a close look at each world that has been effected and if necessary roll back to before when the bans have taken place where major losses have occurred especially in the case of wonder cities.

There is a growing disconnect between the playing community and those in charge. I hope this can be turned around before people leave in droves but have little confidence.
 

DeletedUser14648

Guest
Something was said, and that's nice, but 1-2% remuneration of losses may as well be nothing. Seems they don't recognize the catastrophic damage that can happen when a good fraction of your team can't log in for 3 days. It's not something a few tokens or a few thousand gold can come anywhere near making up for.
 

DeletedUser3227

Guest
And my original question remains, there must be a way of telling the offender that this or that script was detected without divulging HOW that script was detected, in all of the responses from the moderators, that I saw, it was only stated that a script (unamed) was being used to build cities and troops while the user was offline. Without telling us what the offending script is, how then can we ensure that we do not get banned again. This is needed for the ones who were that were using only approved scripts
 

DeletedUser15190

Guest
While i sent private E-mail to Inno HR and PR departments, this is what i got back from them today.

dIHyRBx.jpg


absolutely the same BS they are trying to sell the rest of us, pre-written robotic template/msg just copy pasted, not answering any message nor concerns i voiced in my email, i had it enough with their crap, there is no direct, human , personal response from inno or staff, its like they fired everyone and hired robots to answer everything with bad response times.. there is nothing left to do except sue them over paypal and get every damn cent invested in this crappy server.
"Unfortunately we discovered that there have been some very specific technical complications on the US market," line is utter BS, as a programmer coding and updating software wise, same issue(if there was any) would be the same across all active markets that updated their support tools as well, this is just another huge cover up and misrepresentation of facts done by inno yet again, you can swallow it however you want.
 
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