Banned from AC forums, anyone have experienced this?

[Rui Santos]

< Mod Edit: Please be advised that it is in breach of RD ToS to use insulting or derogatory terms. Post cleaned.>

Hello all, i'm banned from AC forum for more than one month now. As an active member since the beggining and with more than 1000 messages i feel shocked with that kind of attitude from them. <snip>

Has this happened to anyone? I agree maybe that they should permanently ban you if you were kind of disrespectful or insult anyone, which was not the case. I got banned until now just because people were asking on forum for MP improvements (more than acceptable) and all i've done was quote a message <snip> and used a funny ironic image related to what he was saying THAT WAS CLEARLY A LIE!! From that moment on, as it was admitted by Lord Kunos himself, he went on a ban strike and several people were banned... until now.

Well, maybe i would accept a week suspension because now i know AC forums staff can't accept critics anymore (they're rich now) and became a dictatorial regime that can only be populated by fanboys or "yes" sheeps...

The image was this...

 

[natedogg1867]

Boy what a cluster **** of a thread this has become. It seems everyone that is a bit salty at AC has migrated here to rage

I think many are missing the points here however. AC's forum originated as a support forum that divulged into a place where off topic posts and memes unrelated to anything were common place. The staff let everything slide. In the past, what were they really going to do. Ban everyone who went even slightly off topic? I mean, the AC forums arent like the pCARS forums where Ian Bell will personally ban everyone that is either critical of his game, or even "likes" a comment that is critical. Ask me how I know...

Over the time the AC forums have been up, as a casual user who mainly just browses topics for further insight into the game, follows a handful of mods, and occasionally posts some bugs, it is quite apparent who all of the "problem users" are. They pop up in just about every thread and derail, insult, post the most worthless replies, etc. And frankly, I would easily say the huge majority of those that were banned definitely deserved it.

As @bigbawmcgraw eloquently pointed out a few pages ago... The interpretation of being banned by those that were may be slightly skewed... Kunos is not banning people for being critical of the game lol. They are not under any pressure to do that. That mentality is laughable. If you really think they were banning anyone that was critical of the game, half the forum would be gone and none of the modders creating content would be left as they all would have been banned ages ago for bringing up various physics issues, sound issues, etc.

Those that were banned usually make posts that have the wrong sort of tone. Either by being a smart arse, or wording their criticism very aggressively. Tone, more than anything else determines if you are gonna be canned or not. It's one thing to make a friendly post criticizing various aspects of the game that you want to see improved. However it is another thing entirely to demand, insult, say AC staff should lose their job and be replaced by (insert modder here, lol), or be aggressive with other users that join a thread to help solve the issue you may have.

AC is not perfect, everyone knows that. No game or sim is. But the way you pose your criticism/comments matters more than anything. Some self reflection might do everyone well.

Cheers

 

[Blimey]

Abusiveness and open mindedness are two very different things. Your comment was removed because you were being abusive (which is a clear breach of RD ToS), not "open minded".

Just being honest, atleast its something.

 

[Chris]

Just being honest, atleast its something.

You're free to be honest provided it does not breach our Terms of Service.

 

[William Levesque]

I mean, the AC forums arent like the pCARS forums where Ian Bell will personally ban everyone that is either critical of his game, or even "likes" a comment that is critical.

Funny you say that, how the hell do you explain the warning I got before I got banned ? Literally just liked the comment and that warranted me a warning. It was clearly that post since it's the only one that got deleted when I checked.

 

[Chris]

Honestly I am surprised by this move by Kunos to start banning people more easily and quickly. I'm sure they knew it would generate some acute backlash, but it just seems like poor timing especially after the release of 1.4 which IMO is the best update the game has received since the first early access build.

 

[ZethGAF]

There are some folks who are extremely obsessed, and very unhappy I think, which is a recipe for disaster. Sour grapes and all that. I'd love to see some of the posts made by the few vocal users quick to cry foul about unjust forum suspension.

I don't blame them for trying to improve the level of discourse on their own forums. You can only take constant slander for so long on your own website. Harassing a dev about your pet feature daily does nothing to improve the situation - since they're likely well aware of it. At the end of the day, this "backlash" is like a dozen people maybe. They owe you nothing - it's a $30 game, take it or leave it imo.​

 

[Blimey]

There are some folks who are extremely obsessed, and very unhappy I think, which is a recipe for disaster. Sour grapes and all that. I'd love to see some of the posts made by the few vocal users quick to cry foul about unjust forum suspension.

I don't blame them for trying to improve the level of discourse on their own forums. You can only take constant slander for so long on your own website. Harassing a dev about your pet feature daily does nothing to improve the situation - since they're likely well aware of it. At the end of the day, this "backlash" is like a dozen people maybe. They owe you nothing - it's a $30 game, take it or leave it imo.​

well, sure they owe you nothing, but at the end of the day they're the ones scamming the customers

You can't even call them "non-professionals" - you'll get banned, because they said they're not pro's, they're enthusiasts, like us, people who like to mod, skin, model stuff

 

[ZethGAF]

well, sure they owe you nothing, but at the end of the day they're the ones scamming the customers

You can't even call them "non-professionals" - you'll get banned, because they said they're not pro's, they're enthusiasts, like us, people who like to mod, skin, model stuff

I don't honestly believe anyone thinks this is a scam. Are we talking about false advertising? That seems like a stretch too. It's a game which hasn't met your (or someone else's) expectations. You're totally free to gather your pitchforks and rally against them - I just disagree with the premise .

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

The last two pages about picking skins for online race made me laugh when you
consider it took till 1.1 version of the game to add blue and yellow flags.

Ac is approaching 1.5 version and you still can't do more than 10 lap race against AI due to no pitstops. (frequency of major updates is 3 months)

I don't want to sound like AC hater been racing it since early access and still do more than any other other racing game but at some point you have to wonder if this is all going to blow up in their face.

 

[Blimey]

The last two pages about picking skins for online race made me laugh when you
consider it took till 1.1 version of the game to add blue and yellow flags.

Ac is approaching 1.5 version and you still can't do more than 10 lap race against AI due to no pitstops. (frequency of major updates is 3 months)

I don't want to sound like AC hater been racing it since early access and still do more than any other other racing game but at some point you have to wonder if this is all going to blow up in their face.

it blew up in their face a long time ago, they just bring up the excuse "waste of developer time".

 

[Stereo]

Ac is approaching 1.5 version and you still can't do more than 10 lap race against AI due to no pitstops. (frequency of major updates is 3 months)

That hasn't been true in a long time, like since the 1.0 release or longer. You can run a full tank of fuel, however many laps that is, as long as you're on stock content or properly made mods. If you use a mod that didn't bother entering the fuel consumption rate, then you'll have the 10 lap limit because the game can't predict how long a tank will last.



The pick-up mode doesn't allow changing skins for a reason - the game is only designed to load content when it starts a session. Obviously it's not ideal but since there's a perfectly functional booking mode for anyone who considers skins important (eg. leagues can run precisely how they like) I don't really want them to make it a top priority to change.

 

[Avo77]

I'm the guy causing the ban of William (and of course I've been banned too) and I really want to apologize with him.

In any case I read from PRC what the AC support wrote about me and it's clearly false from the first statement to the last point (beside the fact that sometime I'm a smartass ).

I received only one warning on the forum from day one and in that occasion I immediately apologized for the terms used (not offensive at all 'cause the content of the post was clearly incontestable).

I always praised the game and the developers when praise was due and I consider some of the previous AC builds the best sim games ever.

I've always contributed with my knowledge to the development of (good) mods and supported in every possible vay any user asking for my help in order to produce valuable content for a product I loved.

I don't care about the ban, but such false accusations can't be tolerated.

 

[William Levesque]

You don't need to apologise, it was a pretty good one, and in any case I've never been told what was the real reason for being banned, other than the "negative" bullshit.

And yeah, I've only gotten two warnings; one last year and the one for finding your "joke" funny, go figure.

 

[kedy89]

I don't want to sound like AC hater been racing it since early access and still do more than any other other racing game but at some point you have to wonder if this is all going to blow up in their face.

It will when they arrive on consoles at latest, unless they bring a few major updates in the meantime. It may be a v1.4 regarding content, but key features? 0.4

 

[paracletus]

must be pretty easy being a games developer then -- you can make up your own deadlines and ban, at your discretion, any criticism from the ones who pay your wages.
abuse is worthy of a ban, but not constructive critism.

 

[PuffTheMagicBelgian]

I was banned (couple months ago) after criticizing Stefano's choice of words in one of the streams and other reactions he posted on the forum. I felt he was unreasonable and harsh (elitist). To be fair though, i was slightly angry and intoxicated when posting these things on the forum (very bad combo) and my own choice of words where not the best i ever produced...

So the mod (forgot his name) warned me, and my reaction to that was childish and probably a bit harsh. I even forgot what exactly it had typed, but knowing myself it was probably pretty arrogant and meant to be hurtful. (Don't ever give me alcohol!) So i got banned for 1 week. And to be fair again, the community mod lifted the ban a day early!


I went on to apologize for my harsh words and all was well again.

That doesn't mean that there is no blame at all on the side of Kunos, but it's they're forum and game so who am i to treat em like that. This however works in 2 directions, who are they to be so arrogant and elitist to the people that bought they're product? And the community mod wasn't the most friendly dude either..

All in all, after that adventure i learned to not mingle in any conversations anymore other then to help new people with basic stuff and check out mods etc..no more criticism from me on that forum, not even if i feel it is a 100% correct, if i step on the wrong toe of a fanboy or dev they might give me a perma-ban with my prior ban on record. And not being able to even read the "support-forum" is a pain in the ***

 

[Radu Oros]

This is not acceptable when in 2003 if I played Project Gotham Racing 2 I could pick my paint and car as I saw fit (so long as it was the class the host picked) If 5 of us wanted the Ferrari Enzo 5 of us got the Ferrari Enzo.

Because I think they didn't develop the game by looking what other games did 10-15 years ago. So is 'useless' to say those game had feature x, y, z, and they should be mandatory to have 15 years later. This game in specific wasn't developed by picking up what other games did in the past. Even though we can see several similar features and aspects we can find in previous games.

But as a matter of fact, maybe what I said in my first paragraph isn't true, because they did develop the game with the ability to choose your skin when joining a public server (booking mode, and without password restriction). But the community wanted the ability to join instantly without wait times. They gave us that, but apparently that came at the cost of losing the ability of selecting your own car livery, because now the system works differently and I don't know what are the technical limitations preventing that.

 

[Stereo]

now the system works differently and I don't know what are the technical limitations preventing that.

It loads skins 1 time: when you first launch the actual game. If you're in a booking server then it knows what everyone wants, if you're in a non-booking server then it launches with a preselected set of skins loaded and just swaps the driver, leaving the same car loaded.

The only alternative without making fundamental changes to the game (ie. make it able to load new cars at any time, which is a massive change and has performance concerns - you don't want the loading time to pause your game every time someone enters the server) is to not have strict consistency - it could load your own car with whatever skin you chose, but anyone who's already in the server won't see that skin.

 

[mclarenf1papa]

You don't need to apologise, it was a pretty good one, and in any case I've never been told what was the real reason for being banned, other than the "negative" bullshit.

And yeah, I've only gotten two warnings; one last year and the one for finding your "joke" funny, go figure.

I don't dislike you, Will, but what Luca said wasn't wrong...you're rather impolite on some occasions and tend to post antagonistic/pointless things that don't move the discussion along any further...the ban wasn't as completely unwarranted as you make it seem.

"Maybe you need to stop driving ****boxes."
"Erm... No. Still not how it works."
"Since when is 185kph fast ?"
"Gallardo's interior, really guys ? Is that the best you can do ? Way to pump out content without finishing it, and here I thought you pride yourself in having "the best car models" around." (partially justified, but there were so many other ways you could have put it - particularly bad as you're insulting the devs in their own house essentially)
"Considering serious racing is borderline pointless, I'd say street cars are pretty important. They're the only reason I personally still play the game at least." (once again, last point from up there^)
"Serious racing is pointless here so I prefer having fun driving messy cars for fun than the usual GT cars... Which I race properly elsewhere anyway." (and again)
"Erm... No. Still terrible. Maybe iRacing spoiled me because what has to do with racing there is actually good." (and again)

 

[DewCrew88]

Because I think they didn't develop the game by looking what other games did 10-15 years ago. So is 'useless' to say those game had feature x, y, z, and they should be mandatory to have 15 years later. This game in specific wasn't developed by picking up what other games did in the past. Even though we can see several similar features and aspects we can find in previous games.

So the next Battlefield doesn't need to have guns that shoot just because 10 years ago Battlefield 1942 had them.

I understand completely.

But as a matter of fact, maybe what I said in my first paragraph isn't true, because they did develop the game with the ability to choose your skin when joining a public server (booking mode, and without password restriction). But the community wanted the ability to join instantly without wait times. They gave us that, but apparently that came at the cost of losing the ability of selecting your own car livery, because now the system works differently and I don't know what are the technical limitations preventing that.

Thanks for proving my point from the other day. Badly missing features in a racing game, no time table for AC1 to get them. But lets revise the tire 15 more times even though we all could agree we were pretty happy with the way it was after 1.0....