I may have quit Audition for the most part, but I went back for the heck of it and recorded an old replay of myself beating the level 9 test by twice the required score:
I still don’t know how I pulled it off.
In other news regarding movie making, I’ve been using Fraps with Maple ever since the last patch, and after getting some decent editing software I will probably make another “Random Maplestory Crap” movie or something soon. Who knows?
NxJoe wasn’t kidding when he said they were cracking down on user abuse altogether. Despite hackers slowly finding ways to get through the new protection, they still remain stymied by the extra log protection and the autoban system.
This brings scammers and abusers to the forefront to the user abuse problem, but today I learned just how serious they are, and just how fast they’ve become.
I was minding my own business today in Henesys channel 1, and all of a sudden I see a message pop up on my screen:
Pickles517: OMG I just got free NX from (insert URL not to be mentioned here)
My instinct coming in yet again, especially since I haven’t had to use the report function all that much, I went over the find her. She said it a couple more times, and so I reported her for advertising with a chat log, then walked off in one direction exclaiming “OMG I just reported Pickles517 for advertising!”
Now, I couldn’t really confirm anything had happened of the sort, because by this time the suspect was offscreen, but all of a sudden I hear her say “Hi GM” followed by a bunch of “OMG IT’S A GM” like messages. I learned later that GM MapleWalker had responded to the report, although I couldn’t see him since he was offscreen with the person I reported. He left pretty quick, because I went back and never saw him. (Thus saying that I couldn’t confirm that he was actually there.)
However, the advertiser that I had reported, Pickles517, wasn’t to be found anymore. A couple of minutes passed when I heard “OMG Where’s GM MapleWalker! He banned me!” from another character, seemlingly the suspect on another account. To fuel my curiosity, I waited an hour or so then tried to look her up on the rankings. She wasn’t there.
Now, I’m not one to go around saying “I GOT SOMEONE BANNED LOLOLOLOL” but I will say that this was an absolutely surprising response and resolution. If she didn’t know that not only NX sites and advertising were against the rules, she obviously hasn’t been looking at her MapleTips, seeing how she was only level 13. However, she got owned.
So yes, Nexon is watching, and they’re being serious.
UPDATE: Salamel has stepped forward and I think it’s safe to say that he’s not the one to be blamed for this, as the chargebacks were not his fault. That, and the the possibility of this incident being the center of all these scamming bans is unlikely.
I should make this known before I post this: I am NOT completely putting the blame on Salamel for the problem, I am only giving the possibilities of what happened IF in face he was the main cause of this mass scamming ban for his actions. Or maybe it wasn’t his fault to begin with? Who knows?
I’m not sure exactly how, but Nexon’s all-too-well-known Customer Service Representative Joe Wregglesworth caught wind of the biggest thread on Sleepywood dealing with the “Scamming Ban Crisis”. This thread was created by Bera’s “Salamel” who claimed to be falsely banned for scamming permanently. Note how I use the word “claim” here. I’m not necessarily indicting Salamel as a liar here, but that’s what it sure seems like, and right now from what Wregglesworth has said, it’s our only lead as to explain what happened.
First off, NXJoe’s response to Salamel’s question “Why was I banned” could be summed up in two sentences:
Your account was banned because of the massive amount of chargebacks on your account. That will pretty much do it every time.
-Joe Wregglesworth, Customer Service Representative – Nexon America
Okay, so that’s out of the way. Now… how does this work into the rest of us?
Assuming that Salamel could be the center of the problem, if this was planned it was all done by social engineering; Creating friends that he would eventually share account with, such broadening his usermap and eventually paving the way to a mass takedown.
And regarding IPs and such, it is not quite so simple as people are describing. But the bottom line is, don’t share your account, don’t do anything wrong and you don’t have anything to worry about. Any problem that comes from letting somebody like Salamel play on your account is something you are gonna have to deal with. We will fix it if we can see you didn’t do anything wrong, but we will err on the side of caution in this type of case.
-Joe Wregglesworth, Customer Service Representative – Nexon America
It’s the same thing that I come to mention time and time again. Why don’t you share accounts? Because if someone that was on your account does something horribly wrong, even on his account, he’ll be banned, you’ll be banned, then your friends’ accounts that you might have been on will be banned, etc… It’s just as Joe says in this post once again.
If somebody is doing something bad on an account, then ALL accounts associated with that person are now suspect, because that person has access to all those accounts.
-Joe Wregglesworth, Customer Service Representative – Nexon America
This could have been exactly what happened if in fact this was all the cause of Salamel. I honestly don’t remember him ever being on any accounts that were on my buddy list, out of those on my list in the past that were friends with him. It might be the reason why no one I’ve had on my BL in past or present has been banned via this method, but as I said it didn’t seem like him to be sharing accounts. However, one thing for sure is this: Putting all of the people that have gotten banned aside, Salamel might be in one load of legal crap, as Joe hints at:
Salamel is one of the larget single fraud cases we have had in recent months, outside of the meso farmers.
-Joe Wregglesworth, Customer Service Representative – Nexon America
It’s sad. It really is sad. Is he really the mastermind behind all these bannings? We don’t know for sure and chances are we will never know for sure. It becomes apparent through Wregglesworth’s post though that just about everyone that has shared an account with Salamel, shared an account with someone who shared an account with Salamel, shared an account with someone who shared an account with someone who shared an account with Salamel, etc… or illegally bought NX from him, has been permanently banned. Some people will have hope and will be able to get a reversal on their ban, as some have already. Most of the people banned as a result of this though will most likely never see their characters again. Others might never be able to play the game again from their IP.
There is one notion that I would like to make though that would, although as I said I’m not technically blaming anyone for this, somewhat show that Salamel could have been plotting this, and this comes from knowing a lot of people that know him. Salamel made that thread on August 25th; last Saturday. From what I recall from the talks on my buddy list, he was banned on Sunday. My question is; why did it take so long for him to post this thread? If anything, most people would’ve made a new thread right away. (Although I hate how many people do that.)
It’s a minor factor that could throw suspicion on him, but once again he might not be the problem. All I know is that he’s probably in a lot of s— with Nexon and maybe even the law right about now.
Updated Nov. 26th: As there are still people asking, YES THEY ARE OUT. If you don’t believe me, look here.
UPDATE: The announcement now says that Future Shop will also be selling Nexon cards in Canada, starting at the same time as Shoppers. Ironically enough I was there only yesterday to pick up a game for my PSP when the thought of them selling them came to mind.
The banner notice at the top changed today to finally put an end to the bickering of Maplers in the Great White North. Since my client/video driver combination no longer takes screenshots, I’m writing it out below:
Greetings! We are excited to announce that starting September 1st, Nexon Game Cards will be available at Duane Reade! And on September 4th, Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada will carry Nexon Game Cards as well! Happy Mapling!
Halle-freaking-lujah.
They probably won’t be out right away (give it a couple weeks) and so chances are I’ll be making one last Paypal charge. Hopefully it won’t be unlucky. Also, I don’t know what the actual CAD$ price will be, though seeing how with the strong Loonie (or the weak US Dollar, whichever way you look at it) it’s only a buck more in CAD for 30k of NX, I’m willing to bet that the 10k and 25k cards will be around $10.25 and $25.99 respectively. This is just my own take on it, though.
If you’re looking for a new guild on Bera, JuiceBox might just be the one for you. See this video for more info:
(Do note that I’m not the one who made this video.)
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