As my previous thread was having the topic of Malaysia being banned from US realms by the account administration. I have some fact findings, they are as follows:

1. 10 day free trial
https://signup.worldofwarcraft.com/trial/10dayfreetrial.htm
Please note that this promotion is only valid in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.

2. Account creation (normal)
after the terms of use, and you click I AGREE, the following page is enter Authentication Key
https://signup.worldofwarcraft.com/authkey.html
there is a brown box showing this:

Please Note:
Your unique authentication key can only be used to create one (1) account.
This account creation process is only available to customers in North America, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore.

3. I email Blizzard billing and support department to enquire about this issue and ask them whether Malaysia is their support country or not. And i got the following reply:

"timm.support@blizzard.com" to me
show details 6:33 am (4 hours ago)

Greetings Dennis,

Malaysia has been a fully supported part of the North American release of World of Warcraft since January 16, 2007. It is certainly possible that some of the information on our website has not yet been updated to properly reflect the expanded supported region for this release of the game.

Bear in mind that you and I were in contact regarding this issue prior to the official Malaysian release of the game. I first replied to your message on January 10, 2007, a week before the announcement of the inclusion of that region. As our supported region has expanded, so have our policies regarding use from that region changed.

If you feel that an error was made by our Account Administration team, feel free to email them directly with your concerns.

Tim M
Billing & Account Services
Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldofwarcraft.com

please note that Tim says It is certainly possible that some of the information on our website has not yet been updated to properly reflect the expanded supported region for this release of the game.

However, the following is what i got from their account administration for my account closure enquiry:

"wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com" to me
show details Mar 7

***Notice of Account Closure***

Greetings,

Access to the World of Warcraft account DENNISTAN07, and all World of Warcraft accounts associated with the payment information you have provided, has been permanently disabled. The account was created circumventing the valid account creation procedure, violating the World of Warcraft Terms of Use. The recurring subscription on the account has been disabled to prevent further charges.

It is implicitly stated on the account creation page that: This account creation process is only available to customers in North America, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore. When this account was created, the standard, valid, creation method was circumvented, thus invalidating the account and subjecting it to closure.

As a result, the account(s) will no longer be accessible in any way and will not be reopened under any circumstances. Thank you for your time and understanding in this matter.

Any disputes or questions concerning this account action can only be addressed by Account Administration. To learn more about how Account Administration is able to assist you, please visit us at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter and respecting our position and all statutes within the World of Warcraft Terms of Use.

Regards,

Nyathad
Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldofwarcraft.com
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/

Customer satisfaction is a top priority here at Blizzard Entertainment, and we would like your feedback on the level of service you have received. Please feel free to provide such feedback at the following web address: http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=eSurve...W1010@GMAIL.COM

-----Original Message-----
From: twow1010@gmail.com
To: wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com

Sent: 3/1/2007 5:51:51 PM
Subject: World of Warcraft - Account Administration - Account Closure Inquiry

Info - From: twow1010@gmail.com
Info - Name: Tan Wei Ming
Account - ---------------------------

Account - Character(s): oohunter
Account - Name: dennistan07
Account - Realm: Tichondrius

Account - Region: United States

Description - -----------------------

Dear sir,

This is a new account and I have just started playing for not very long. My hunter character is only Level 14. I do not share account password with anyone else and I am the sole and only person using this account. And can you please investigate as to why my account has been closed?

- Show quoted text -

Warmest regards,
Tan Wei Ming


To summarise all of the above, I have the following conclusions:

A. Possible Internet fraud by Blizzard.
Blizzard officially announced Malaysian can play, we buy, we pay, we create account, the website has a tiny little clause we didnt notice or care about, few days later one of Blizzard WoW department, ie account administration, they used it to close our account and no refund is made, and make us pay again to create another account. These actions is telling us we can pay and play, but setup a trap in the website where no words of Malaysia is mentioned and banned us. This is the biggest interenet scam I have ever seen with such a big company using the best and most popular game title.

B. Blizzard is in a state of chaos
The company is so big that no body is having authority over somebody else. Every department and people are doing their own things. With the change of new policy and Malaysia being included in their supported country list, account administration does not know or even care about it. Is it that Malaysia is too small a market for them? or what else could it be?

Well, i have email their account administration for an answer to my problem on this issue, if there do not reply me, I will resort to FBI to report as an Internet fraud as my conclusion A.

Good luck guys. Be careful!

I support your conclusion B.

However I don't think the FBI or whatever organisations that have popular initials to even look at your case. You can try though, and I'll wish you luck on that

Or I think what Tim meant is that Bliz starts to include Malaysia as one of the supported region since Jan 16 2007. Prior to Jan 16 (I think your account was banned on or before 3 Jan 2007), any accounts created in Malaysia is still "circumventing the valid account procedure" as stated by Nyathad.

Look carefully, all emails are attached in the thread. It is banned on Mar 02 (malaysia time). It was registered on 20 Feb.

And btw, I have made another account on the day of the closure Mar 02. having an account name dennistan08. It was banned too on Mar 07. Having the EXACT same explaination from Blizzard account administration.

ZOMG i'm looked forward to this when you reported this to FBI @_@ lawl ftw

dennis, maybe something to clarify first for the rest of us from your very first posting :



That's the bit that is confusing some of us and that is why you see a fair number of postings stating making a trial account online will cause Blizz to give bans out to players. I presume that "guess" is a typo for "guest".

Further down the thread, you made another post about making a normal account and not using the trial account creation-process at all. That's when it gets extremely confusing.

Maybe my interpretation of what you wrote may not be correct. Feel free to correct me.

I should also caution you though. Blizz does review back every single complaint / feedback that they receive and there are occasions that they have reversed their decision. Not all the time, but a few times.

Ok, for your conclusions :

A. Possible Internet Fraud by Blizzard
Hmm... maybe better clear up the doubts on what I mentioned above. Because it sounds like there's a bit of contraction on your story and Blizz lawyers can shoot you to pieces. But like I said, it could just be misinterpretation on our part but I wasn't the only LYN poster to say that maybe it could have been the trial key creation that caused the ban.

B. Blizzard is in a state of chaos
Ugly reality, yes we are small compared to other markets. If we were big, we would have Malaysian realms by now. The state of chaos of their support team is no different from any other MMO. Just that because they have a wider customer base, there's higher expectations from them as well. Their support team site can be improved a lot better as well as their support. Then again, it is typical of an American company. Only thing you can do is iron it out with firmly but politely. You don't have to like them but you'd still have to be polite to get a response from them.

Dennis, do u want a trial account by e-mail invite? It worked for my friend, and I could sure use the free 30 days.

---

Added on March 22, 2007, 2:38 pmBtw, even though Tim M referred you to the Account Administration team, you can try asking him to follow up on your case. Make sure to forward him a copy of the email from Nyathad of Account Administration, or save the email to file and send as attachment.

That's what I'd do if I were in your position. Good luck, hope you'll be able to resolve the matter with a positive outcome.

This post has been edited by flush: Mar 22 2007, 02:38 PM

good info,

thanks ...keep us updated on it

Hey Dennis, pls refer to solInvictus' reply to ur original thread.

Following this reasoning, all of the early birds from Malaysia who have been playing WOW since launch is guilty of this. It is no great difficulty to write a script to check account create date and cross reference it to IP address which would unearth all of those guys "circumventing the valid account procedure".

Continuing on from this logic, it will also mean that all the European account holders who signed up before the Euro servers where opened are also in violation of this rule and could also be banned, including American troops serving overseas logging into US servers. Would be a pretty big hoohaa if they did that, I would imagine.

Anyway, my point is that they can very easily catch and ban us all but they have not done so, and I belief, it wont be any time soon unless some big stink occurs to make them want to actively kick us out, e.g. tons of farmers with MY IP addresses causing problems and affecting their business.

Personally I think your case is that of a company whose customers have grown far beyond what they could have imagined and just got themselves confused with their own rules. Since the rest of us escaped, it would be safe to assume that is part of the (new?) vetting procedure for new accounts only and person doing the vetting followed the letter of the agreement a little too accurately.

To be fair, it is not stated implicitly whether Malaysia is considered to be part of "Singapore" mentioned in the Terms of Service even though there is an official distributor for WOW here. Anything which is not stated implicitly is often the cause for confusion - this happens in other businesses too, not just online games.

This post has been edited by limsk: Mar 22 2007, 06:03 PM

looking forward to the outcome too! Especially since I still haven't keyed in retail yet. Good luck! For all of our sakes.

Well, my story is about we as malaysians being ill treated by Blizzard account administration. I have spend hours try to find an alternative route to complain, and I found no other. Its either through their billing and support OR account administration.

Though not many will suffer the same fate as I am, I am sure there are many sufferings by our Malaysian citizens which have not been reported. Or many other coutries players too may also happen to them. Especially the Hong Kong players.

I have seen my friend playing in the new server tortherin, its like a dead server, she is level 70 human mage, the population is 1A:5H. There are no farmers farming and grinding of mats, she has to do everything herself. Amercians there are purposely resting for the 200% experience by playing with twinks rather than main. No guild in alliance have enough players to raid even kara yet which is a 10man 10 boss raid. And her spell damage is 565. Even my 60 mage in taiwan server which i stopped playing in Dec 2006 is already having spell dmg 580. I am doing more dmg than her 70 mage with with 1 level lower of ice bolt. While she is capable of making good gold, all her guild mates, all americans, are borrowing gold from her for mount to epic gears and to epic mounts. How shameful for the americans. We started together, i got my account banned, she is lucky, she isnt, and now she is at 70. i am still at 0. Of my incident, she is about to leave US realm too, to join me in taiwan server. And she receive few email from their guildmates asking what she is going to do with her gold when she leaves, and telling her tales they are readying to buy epic mounts while they are still at 40s. OMFG. US server really sucks. Worst than beggers. Well, this is what i saw on 1 server.

For me, i just want to get to the end of my story and finish it off. We must have the kind of spirit of not being bullied by the big brother of America and sit down here doing nothing! I hope my story will inspire Malaysians to fight for our own rights. Because i can be happened to anyone of us in the future. We are not some stupid dumb ass who doesnt read english and can be played around like a fool with their trick of wording play.

Be smart. Play smart.

No offense, dennis but that rant about the server community is better served in another topic.

There are dumb employees in every company large or small that damage their reputations. I truly believe thats what happened to you. I dont think there is any intentional bullying here. Some dumbass employee who screwed up your account after getting confused by the rules of the free Trial pass which apparently is only applicable in those countries specifically named in the ToS.

You are the victim here and absolutely have the right to be angry and complain about the way you were treated. We really sympathize with you, but let's keep the discussion coherent and keep the prosecution complex out of it. To label Americans as crass and bullying is just ranting. Just like if we were to call all Indonesians criminals, or all Chinese cheats and liars, or all Malaysians rude and kiasu. That sort of attitude helps nobody and does you no credit.

This post has been edited by limsk: Mar 23 2007, 10:24 AM

limsk, Concise and straight to the point. Although admittedly dennis did mention that he created the account using a "guess pass" which up till now is only confirmed that it's not the online key pass. mind you, he went up and created 2 accounts using trial keys just to see what happens.

Anyway, I'm taking a break from posting about this until something interesting is posted.

dennis, I'd also like to add that you should really consider checking back some of your postings. Getting confusing and misleading as well. I also notice that you do not reply to people's postings but rather to post up instead what you feel and that you do ignore what people have pointed out (and it need not necessarily be my posting but others as well). Not quite the best way to go about it but to each his own.

cre8 using guest pass from not bs & updated to bs & then play untill today, paying by credit card.. no problem for me.
so if u sure this is true then i'll jz guess this is the new rule.

Hey guess what ? I emailed blizzard personally regarding the account creation process and this is what I got



So no worries! Malaysians are NOT banned . They do however, keep a close eye on asian players I believe, since majority of gold farmers are from asia. Any form of activity associated with goldfarming are immediately acted upon. Much to the dismay of certain ppl here I'm sure

but rejoice legit players! You have nothing to fear!

This post has been edited by slickz: Mar 24 2007, 02:34 AM

well down slickz. great to see that response.

A lot of us has been palying this game since release and alot of us has registered to be new players recently with 'No problems at all'. Dennis is making a big 'HOOHAA' out of it!

Does this mean that Malaysian accounts created using the 10-day Web Trial are save?

the correct word is "safe", not save.

ANyhow, I would say the answer would be NO. Since I emailed them regarding standard account creation and the website expressly said

"Please note that this promotion is only valid in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. If you are located in Europe, please click here for the World of Warcraft European Trial Site. "

https://signup.worldofwarcraft.com/trial/10dayfreetrial.htm

This post has been edited by slickz: Mar 24 2007, 10:15 PM

put it this way. the "alot of us" with "no problems at all" could easily translate to "a matter of time."

although the posts were dramatic, it's no less serious. and put it this way, if dennis hadn't made such an issue about it, i don't think slickz would have gotten such an answer from blizzard.

Well............ Don't give up so easily.. try giving them polite emails and ask.. again and again.. why you were banned. Demand answers....

I've been banned almost 2 weeks before... back in November.. something about "violating the wow essence" (whatever that means)..

Something about 3rd party programme (never used 1 before.. )

I kept on sending emails (I do mean EMAILS-plural >_> ) and asked.. demand..(politely of course..don't want them to accuse me of insults, abuse or whatever) after 2 weeks.. they reply back saying it was an unauthorized login and gave back access to the account after I fax them a copy of my I/C & a form to release the account.

It's not just us malaysians.. you can see in the world of warcraft forums.. alot of ppl are being banned for no real reason. If you really like the game.. try and don't give up

(As you can see.. they accused me of 3rd party programme..then they gave me answer of unauthorized login.. fishy.. but.. *shrugs* I paid for the game & I want my char back!!! )

Gambare!
-Euana of Aman'Thul-

P/S: I'm playing in oceania server in a guild full of australians.. nicest people around.. and begging of course is not allowed.. Earned gold on their own. It's sickening to see what your friend has to endure *reading dennistan07's post* Beggars are anywhere.. but we just ignore them lol. Beggars in guild.. kicked them out on the spot. Good luck

" A matter of time " ? We weren't suppose to play there in the first place! Im happy i get to play there since beta until today with " No problems at all ". Cheer up ! If you follow the rules everything is ok. If you're unhapy or worried take your money somewhere else. Theres lots of other MMO's out there.

Blizzard Responds to CNET interview regarding "unfair" bans <LINK>

Read the link above! Direct response from Blizzard to Cnet's question

Even associating yourself with gold farmers is putting yourself at risk for banning. They really are serious about this. For example, player A buys gold from gold farmer and shares the gold to people in his guild. Those receiving the gold ALSO are in danger of being banned. HAHA!

I got the same message last 2 months too.. i suspect it's due to a hack attempted on my acc because i detected trojan after scanning my pc... and now they banned China's ip straight away.......

p/s: i got back my account after 3 weeks..... and still running fine with it

My message was suppose to imply that just because Blizz is silent publicly doesn't mean that they aren't taking steps. Hence "a matter of time" because it was in relation to the forum topic i.e. about WoW Account creation via Guest Passes which he upgraded with an online verification key after that.

At the same time, my post was also in reply to your post that dennis is making a hoo-haa over nothing. It's his money so it's his right to make the hoo-haa. Without making that hoo-haa, slickz wouldn't have gotten that response about Malaysians being in the approved list of account creation. Probably coz Malaysian accounts are quite a substantial number although I suspect that it's from WoW Taiwan / WoW China rather than WoW US / WoW EU versions but that's just me.

Looking at eyantie's post, he/she also had to continuously reply to Blizzard to get them to respond. It is hard to prove that one is legit but it's not impossible. Most times it probably because the explaination/reply given to Blizzard is not convincing enough.

As for whether we were suppose to play in the first place, it would depend on when u mean by first place and what were the ToS before the most recent one. Besides, it would defeat the purpose of naming an online game as MMORPG. It's not massive if it wasn't international.

At the end of the day, it's more about finding out what we know as Blizzard policies. This is a voluntary community forum and we do help one another out. If we said the wrong advice to a new player, he/she will be unnecessarily frustrated, no? And giving them the answer that "oh, you chose to play it and you can choose to leave it too" doesn't ease the players frustration at all.

As for slickz's link to the CNET response, notice that there is only one very teen weeny response from Blizzard? The rest are all from WoW players, not Blizzard themselves. I'm waiting to see if there's going to be a lawsuit coming out soon in the USA.

This post has been edited by myremi: Mar 25 2007, 05:43 PM

You dont understand do you? Blizzard has appointed Asiasoft http://www.playpark.net/warcraft/ as official distributor for Malaysia & Singapore.

We need more Malaysians playing on the US servers to show Blizz they have a big market here and post like these are scaring ppl away which isnt doing us any good. This thread should be locked IMO.


-END-

What I don't understand is how does Asiasoft's distributorship comes into the context here. If you mean about them being the official distributor of the retail game for Malaysia is a difficult thing to achieve, it might not be so. Awhile back, one of the girls at an online Malaysian game shop mentioned that they had to get TBC version elsewhere and not from Asiasoft who had distribution problem. It could be that they went directly to Blizzard or from another source. Blizzard doesn't seem to have a problem with this so it means that Asiasoft has distributorship to sell and provide support but it doesn't mean that they are the SOLE distributor.

If scaring away ppl like joblessnoob who has been selling gold online, I would say good then. It's people like him that gives Malaysians a bad name.

If it's scaring away ppl who beg for gold all the time or asking for help with powerleveling, good then. We can all have peace of mind ingame.

If it's scaring away legit players, I don't believe it's happening. A lot of us are still playing. What we're trying to do here with these post is to establish what was it that Blizzard didn't like. Do we get any benefits out of this? Yes, we know what we shouldn't be doing and advise others who are looking for help, give them the same advice.

Besides, legit players can also be influenced by other bad postings from other games as well. It's only highlighted more in WoW because it's a huge MMORPG. Same thing can happen with Lineage, Everquest, etc. If a legit player thinks that it's only happening to WoW, then that's ignorance or just maybe denial (yes it can happen).

If it's dennis' post, it's no different than what is currently posted in the official WoW forums (which may/may not get locked, depending on how they view the rant level), other WoW community forums, etc. We're human and we get frustrated when we can't get online.

If we keep quiet, how else can Blizzard improve if without feedback? Are you saying that all Malaysian players should ignore problems with Blizzard support? Or when they were banned and the players didn't know why? That's not the right way to go about it. Provided the posts are logical and polite, they will pay attention.

If we keep quiet in LYN, then it defeats the entire concept of community forums. It's about sharing experiences, be it nice ones or bad ones. So far, the moderators haven't locked this topic so presumably we're still in context.

Sure we want Blizzard to continue here but posting threads like this will help the Malaysian WoW community. Sadly, there will also be trolls, nay-sayers, here-sayers all around in community forums. But if the community cares enough, they will speak up against these people and help the OP (be it in positive or constructive feedback).

Besides, there are quite a few postings like this in LYN and other forums. Hasn't hurt Blizzard's profit margin yet. They are still interested in Malaysia. We might be hurting their profit margin if they were to ban all Malaysian IPs. Then again, WoW US have banned China IPs which is more substantial than Malaysian IPs. Reason being that their losing potential revenues from gold selling transaction. They lost some profit but having to put up with other people earning RL money was worst.

If one doesn't highlight problems, how does one improve? Keeping it quiet makes it a lot more worst than it already is. This post may not help much but it's a positive step towards the legit direction of playing online games.

Digressing from the topic again. Anyway, dennis, has your account reinstated yet? Hope it was.

This post has been edited by myremi: Mar 26 2007, 10:38 AM

i make an account on 15 of march using guess pass key that i get from the retail box and i upgraded it to bc on the same time,still playing with no problems at all