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Customer Service - Info about ban times



Hi everyone,
We know the topic of account suspensions by Customer Service has raised questions in the past. Today we want to provide you with an overview of our procedures for certain breaches of our rules.
Before we dive into the details, we want to clarify a few general points. Every case reported to us will be verified individually. The following ban times are guidelines - exceptions are not common, but possible. For very grave violations of our terms of use we reserve the right to skip steps or even outright close an account permanently.
We also want to inform you, that after every breach of our rules and a subsequent account suspension, we send an email to the email address registered with the account. For that reason please make sure that the email address on your account is active. If you are unsure or need to update your contact details, please contact our support team.
1. Bots
As announced in previous months, we will continue to take harsh action against the creators and operators of third-party software used to automate gameplay in our games. Accounts that are found to be using such software will also be sanctioned with the penalties outlined below:
- First offence: 12 hour suspension
- Second offence: 24 hour suspension
- Third offence: 72 hour suspension and a final warning before account closure
- Fourth offence: Permanent closure of the account
In addition to manual verification, we also use an automated detection system that recognizes specific bots and bans accounts temporarily.
As mentioned already, in case an account is found to be involved in extreme violation of our terms of use, we do reserve the right to skip some of the above steps or immediately close accounts forever.
2. Multiaccounts and account sharing
Regularly we receive reports about multiaccount users and account sharing. Unfortunately there are cases where the situation is not clear and nothing can be done from Customer Service side. This is why our game teams are working hard on new features in the game to make multiaccounts and account sharing obsolete. We will let you know as soon as we have more info.
3. Harassment
Sadly some of our players are abusing our communication channels to harass, insult or denounce others. Such behaviour is not tolerated by us and will also lead to actions against the user accounts in question. When reporting harassment cases to us, please always send a screenshot of the text in question along with archiving messages you may have been sent (where possible). Otherwise we will be unable to react.
The penalties for harassment cases are:
- First offence: 6 hour suspension
- Second offence: 12 hour suspension
- Third offence: 24 hour suspension and a final warning before account closure
- Fourth offence: Permanent closure of the account
4. Irregularities with payments
Besides the abovementioned offences that are being dealt with by our Customer Service Team, there are also account suspensions issued by our payment and/or fraud departments. Such actions are for things such as unexplained chargebacks or incorrect payment information. The length of these suspensions varies from case to case.
5. General information
Please note that every six months, one step of the penalty system will be taken back. If an account was suspended for 12 hours previously, but has not received any other strike in the last six months, the next suspension would again be 12 hours.
The mentioned categories are of course not the only types of violations which could lead to account suspensions. If we verify any other kind of breach of our terms of use, we do have the right to take action against those even if they are not listed here.

It is also worth mentioning that the penalties in our games are separate from our forums and follow different rules. Forum suspensions are issued by our Community Managers and moderators, while suspensions in our games are dealt with by Customer Service.
At times we ban accounts as a safety measure and not for punishment. For example if the ownership of an account is unclear and the possessions of the account are in danger, we lock the account to prevent damage until we can be sure to return the account to the rightful owner.
Due to data protection we will continue to not reveal any information about actions taken against accounts that were reported by you. Thank you for your understanding!
We received the request from the community that players who were suspended should not show up in ranking lists. At this moment we are evaluating the technical possibilities because it is a highly complex system. For now we will focus on improved detection systems - in the next step we will look at the ranking lists.
We do hope that this information will prove useful to you and hope for a continued fair cooperation in the future.
Your Customer Service Team and Board Team

Comments
Ruby Player
Will miss my ruins friends
In and out of the game since November of 2011
United we stand Divided we fall
~known unknown
if we follow all your rules, there is not a player back in empier,,
and even GGE got all plays that would have a gift the one winter to break their own rules.
95% of people on the internet have some kind of mental or personality disorder. Society is sick.
Neph's 3rd apology to the Misc
My personal interpretation of this announcement was that where it has been mentioned multi accounts may be made 'obsolete', it is in fact meant that features in the game may be rolled out that make multi accounting a useless pastime anyway, and therefore removing the motivation for players to multi account.
My two Cents
Angus
multiple acc : looting n doubling resources
recurting tools
acc pass will share with leader or deputy
when income comes or when ally member outsides leader or deputy of ally will help us to come to main ally or wing
1. ally hacking
2.selling decro n demolishung decro
3.selling equipment
4.takeing all tools n transfering to his acc
5. changing castle or op name to abuse name
this suggest to me more dumbing down of the game..part of the problem with multis is they make access to rewards, resources etc easier. if gge gives in and effectively allows easy access to all of us whats the point..
n we can station our troop by on the bird mode on mulltiple acc this can help ally to save their attacker
Just to clarify this has to be a statement of the current position rather than the promised update on the action you will be taking to tackle the widespread cheating.which blights the game. If this is your response it is inadequate, insufficient and unacceptable. You have had a significant proportion of time you know fully how important this is too players, how damaging failure to act effectively is for the game's credibility and for those individual players effected. This isn't even close to being good enough it's dismissive disrespectful and frankly embarrassingly inappropriate.
Firstly someone cheats for months gains a unfair competitive advantage, teaches their alliance colleagues and a number of other players how to cheat so they also gain a unfair competitive advantage, winning nobilities, events and tournaments at the expense of the rightful winners who played within the rules, and your response is to ban them for six hours when they are in all probability asleep, in work or at school. Then having been warned they do it again you suspend them for 12 hours which just means they miss out on what half a days play which they can catch up. Then eventually getting tough you take them out for a day. That is frankly a joke as a disincentive. I don't object to three strikes and your out but honestly the penalties are pathetic. You need to make them meaningful the minimum suspension needs to be a week as a starting point seriously 6 hours do you also apologise for having to suspend them and send them a gift basket to make up for any hurt feelings. Six hours is so so weak you may as well not bother. Toughen up and be brave. Reduce their food production, remove offers from them for a month, reduce recruitment speed, disable castellans, something anything that says cheat and you will not prosper. If there are no meaningful consequences any punishment is not going to be effective you have to show you are serious. Break or rules and we'll break your account for a bit. Using a bot is not a casual chance choice it is a deliberate attempt to defraud other players and GGE how can we or you be okay with that. I'm not why should you be. Up the penalties and openly enforce them.
"2. Multiaccounts and account sharing
Regularly we receive reports about multiaccount users and account sharing. Unfortunately there are cases where the situation is not clear and nothing can be done from Customer Service side. This is why our game teams are working hard on new features in the game to make multiaccounts and account sharing obsolete. We will let you know as soon as we have more info."
This simply isn't good enough and we as a player base deserve better. Lets be specific here you cannot deliver what you promise in your terms and conditions and consequently are in breach of the rules you set out for us and have been for some time. You have in the paragraph above stated clearly that players myself included are reporting and have reported over a long period of time breaches of terms and conditions and game rules which you due to failings in your system - something we as players cannot control - routinely fail to act on to our detriment and to the detriment of the game. You have now accepted that you are not able to address the issue in any other way than to redesign the game to make multi-accounts less effective. Again no disincentive at all what you've just said is that all those people who have cheated have got away with it and it doesn't matter. At the very least that's an apology for your abject failure. You are a cutting edge technology company for goodness sake. How are you not deeply humiliated and embarrassed. Even football administrators manage yellow and red cards for disciplinary issues without to much trouble and they are inept on a good day shocking corrupt on most days. If you can design a game that complicated how on earth can you not get something as basic as this right.
I had started to get some confidence back and was starting to spend again if this paragraph isn't elaborated on that's over no way I am funding cheats and fraudsters. Really really frustrating. The accounts are named Bob1 Bob 2 Bob 3 through to Bob8 in some cases its that obvious seriously pay any player for a week and they could reduce multis by half I really don't understsand the issue employ members of your staff to monitor alliances who are perceived to be a problem surely undercover GGE players like mystery customers isn't that much of a stretch to ensure game integrity. If you really wanted to address this you absolutely could do more. You just aren't trying hard enough.
I'd love you to prove me wrong. You just look like you are deliberately shielding and protecting the cheats. The system as it is does not work and you need to change it. You do not need to change the game you need to change the system for monitoring player behaviour and monitoring players let us help with that and work with you rather than working on this in isolation you cannot solve this without are support. And we will get behind you if you do something meaningful and genuine. Your approach seems to be to change the whole system to the detriment of the players who don't abuse it for a new system which likely just benefits further those who do who I don't doubt sit at the heart of the process.
3. Define Harassment this looks like you haven't a clue as what harassment actually involves, define the scope provide examples this is trite and gives no confidence you grasp the complexity, scope or impact of the issue. This just isn't up to scratch for a modern company with so many service users. And the punishment again fails to send any message other than harass someone go to bed get up in the morning and do it all over again no real harm done. The consequences of this type of behaviour last a lot longer than six hours make the penalty meaningful. "It's a war game" isn't an adequate excuse in real life and it shouldn't cut it here. Do more.
4. Not enough detail this is vague and doesn't differentiate between a problem beyond your control and a deliberate effort to defraud needs a rethink and more careful wording. What is a chargeback for example your eight year old players will get that presumbaly?
5. I can see no justification for removing penalties for good behaviour. They cheated that doesn't change the advantage they got from doing so didn't go away when they got caught. They barely suffer compare to the players they cheated. If you want them not to do it again make it a permanent record. Nobody can complain if they break the rules. They chose to do so and they no the risks. I don't understand going lightly on them. Why are you worried about offending cheats and liars. They deserve to suffer and to be penalise. If they made a mistake then they know it's a mistake and they won't do it again. All they do is set up another account during the suspension which you can't track during a suspension and keep playing.
In terms of banning accounts for safety we haven't forgetten RKKing having his super commander and castellan equipment sold out from his account hundreds of pounds gone and your response his fault you couldn't help him. Yet the players responsible what happened to them exactly...The point is our accounts clearly aren't safe and we are still waiting for you to act decisively to protect us. That is the single most important priority. This annoucnement simply says you are still nowhere near even having a starting point.
Deeply deeply disappointing and probably the single worst announcement you managed to make.
wht will u do if they use abuse word in ally chat ?
explain
( 5 mark question ) :P
good thing that they try to stop this
i agreed that but now players use auto-clicking bots n robot empire PC or mobile in VPN so less chance of finding him
wht will u do can u tell???
as my friends r useing it now also
I would like to explain some points which were probably taken a bit wrong from what we wanted to deliver.
We are not protecting abusers. I have met a lot of cases where players were sending complaints about disruptive behavior, but it was not the case. Of course, player will start to argue our decision, saying that if someone called him "poor defender" it is the biggest insult he had ever seen. With this post on the top we are pretty transparent about measures which will be taken to the violation of our rules. I would say that you should expect that player was banned if you send the request to Support with the "real" offense. By "real" offense I mean not only the use of inappropriate language, but also real life threats and other violent behavior. So, abuser will be punished, you also know his nick name. How exactly we hide information? What data do you actually miss in this case?
Do you have a concrete case for that? Can you, please, send the number of the ticket to @BM ang1243 . There is nothing to hide, we do take measures where they needed.
Does that not prove that we do investigate and take measures? I am pretty sure you know that Account sharing is prohibited. For these cases we really cannot say how exactly we investigate them, because it will just help the abuser to avoid our investigation. Actually, as I see our measures helped and you do not violate this rule anymore.
As you can see on your personal experience Support do take measures for the rules violation, even if you do not like it. You started your comment as the one who see us protecting abusers, but you have already experienced that this is not the case, cause Support really did punish you for the violation of the Terms and Conditions. A bit controversial for me.
We were never so open and transparent with such an information. Players were asking for it for years to understand what measures are actually should be taken in different cases. And now we shared this information. We do not say that it is enough. Of course, giving something means that players will want more and more in the future. But this is a huge step we made to prove again that we listen to users' feedback and are positively heading in that direction.