Free to play fantasy MMO RPG Lost Ark obtained a bit too proud of its banhammer over the weekend, with lapsed gamers taking to the game’s Steam web page to complain that they’d been banned for no cause aside from inactivity. Players, or at the least former gamers, of Lost Ark left greater than 1300 detrimental opinions of the game on Saturday, and greater than 1000 on Sunday. They claimed they’d acquired bans that appeared on their Steam profile with out truly logging into the game just lately.
Some gamers mentioned they’d not performed the game since shortly after it launched final 12 months, however have been nonetheless banned. “They will actually ban you for nothing and depart a stain in your profile. Haven’t performed since Feb and now I’ve this without end,” mentioned one reviewer. “Got banned on a game that I’ve performed as soon as,” mentioned one other Steam person. “Just as a result of I did not prefer it, does not give builders the best to ban my account.”
Amazon and Smilegate posted a message to Lost Ark’s Steam retailer web page and on the game’s discussion board that acknowledged the accounts had been banned in error, which they blamed on a wave of bans concentrating on bots. “We have decided the error that triggered these false bans,” the assertion learn, “and are actively engaged on reversing them for all affected reliable gamers no matter whether or not a assist ticket has been filed.” The publish was later up to date, with the businesses saying they’d reversed the ban for all affected gamers.
Lost Ark has struggled with bots because it launched early final 12 months. A statement shared on the game’s web site again in May mentioned the issue, and a few of the steps Amazon and Smilegate have been taking to fight it. “Addressing bots may be particularly difficult in free-to-play games as a result of it’s really easy to create an account and enter the game,” the assertion mentioned, “however we’re engaged on a number of fronts to battle them.” At the time, Amazon and Smilegate mentioned they have been trying into different methods to sort out bots “natively at scale”.
Lost Ark is a free to play obtain from Steam. Anyone who may nonetheless be affected by the ban points can contact Lost Ark’s buyer assist here.