Q: Why can't you strip RPs from people caught cheating the way you strip crafting scores?

A: Crafting is a on/off thing for your character. When you attempt to craft something, all the game checks is first if you've got the right recipe, and second, what your crafting score is. Your crafting score doesn't actually affect your character, but only what your character can do in a single situation.

RPs are different. RPs affect your character's skills, damage, and abilities. Stripping out the RPs is therefore more complicated, and it is easier to just ban people. I missed the one strike banstick. I'm so glad it's home.

Q: I have been reporting X for a million years and you still haven't banned him.

A: It's possible that X doesn't cheat, and happens to simply be a decent player. We aren't going to ban based on appeals, or the number of appeals that we receive about someone. Appeals enough to get a player added to a "suspect" list - but never suspended or banned. A suspension or a banning requires observation and some behind the scenes technology.

Q: I think your announcement was all talk. You didn't ban anyone.

A: Not according to the forums associated with the cheat programs. Reading all the whining was great fun. CLASSIC comedy of the internet variety. I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats.

Q: Well, prove it, then, give us names/servers/characters of the ones you caught.

A: No. It's a privacy issue, first and foremost. We don't discuss the action we take against individuals, unless the individual is the one who started the discussion in a public place. Sorry, you'll have to get your public hangings somewhere else.

Q: This guy is out on the boards saying he doesn't cheat and should not have been banned. He says he got banned because all the crybabies appealed him.

A: See my earlier answer. If all it took to get banned was to get appealed, there would be no one left in the frontiers. Every PVP game deals with the "I'm So Awesome That If You Killed Me You Must Have Been Cheating" syndrome. That's why it takes a combination of things to get someone banned.

As for assertions made on message boards - we don't ban people for what they say on message boards, so we certainly aren't going unban anyone for what they say on message boards. It goes both ways on that street.

Q: Why don't you ban people for what they say on message boards? This one guy has been openly bragging about cheating for months.

A: If it were only one guy, I would not have an ulcer.

But here's why we don't do it. There's just no way for us to prove that Jerkface Azzhelmet in the game is the same person with Jerkface Azzhelmet in his sig file on a message board. Most players don't read message boards, so the real Jerkface might not even know his name is in use on a board. Maybe it's someone pretending to be Jerkface in hopes that we'll ban the real Jerkface. Maybe Jerkface gave an account to his brother. You can probably add more reasons yourself.

Of course, I know perfectly well that the odds of some chimpanzee with a 5000 post count full of trashtalking his enemies is probably the real Jerkface. So I report him for observation. But taking action based solely on message board silliness would be a bad, bad call.

Q: I know this one guy who has cheated since you announced the bannings, and he hasn't been busted yet.

A: I did say in the announcement that some people no doubt slipped through, and were still on a watch list. If you're on that server, please feel free to appeal him so that we can make sure he's under observation - just remember that the appeal alone will not cause him to be banned, a fact you will appreciate if you've ever been appealed just for killing someone.

Q: I was banned/suspended, only, it wasn't me playing that day.

A: We don't actually ban PLAYERS, except in rare circumstances. We ban accounts. The owner of record for the account is responsible for all actions taken by the account.

Q: I was banned/suspended, only, I just got the account from my cousin yesterday.

A: The email sent to the address listed with the account said that the account had done something bad after the summer of 2004. Looks like your cousin cheated before he gave you his account. I'm sorry about that, but you're going to have to take it up with him.