On Wargaming EU Policies (Bots, Prem Tank Recovery)

Hello everyone,

I have seen the question “why are the names of banned botters not published on EU server” asked many times by many people. Hell, I asked it myself. And so, I wrote a message to Ectar (I think his title now is a “producer”, not sure anyway), asking the very same question. Here’s what he answered:

In Europe as you know we don’t allow for naming and shaming on our forums. One of the biggest reasons for this is to avoid players taking matters into their own hands (From simple things like taking it upon themselves to monitor/track other players, to message them in-game etc etc). Basically it would be rather hypocritical to punish players for naming and shaming on our forums and the we do it ourselves to players.

We are committed to actively taking action against players who break our rules or exploit the game, however we feel it’s in the best interests of the community that this interaction is kept between Wargaming.net and the individual player. As a result of this, a list of player names who have been banned for botting will not be published in EU.

So, there you have it. I personally disagree with the “best interest of the community part”, but that’s my personal opinion. After all, the principle of public trial (including the announcement of punishment) is a valid law principle in all democratic countries – and there’s a reason for that. But, then again, ingame punishments are not public law area, they are meted out according to private law and as such, Wargaming is free to do what they want.

Second announcement concerns the change in premium tank reimbursement policy, which was announced today. The change is simple: before, you could get basically any previously sold tank restored. Now, this option will be available only for tanks sold in last two months (previous restrictions apply). The reason for this decision we can only guess, I assume it’s to reduce the support personell workload.

46 thoughts on “On Wargaming EU Policies (Bots, Prem Tank Recovery)

  1. “why are the names of banned botters published on EU server” – should be probably “not published”, this sounds pretty confusing.

    Otherwise, I dont think that publishing the botters list would change anything, most of the players on EU server are oblivious even to the fact that there exists some thing like a bot.

  2. Well I used the restoration of a gold tank procedure, and it was limited to a single tank before. There’s actually no technical reason to limit it to a certain timeframe.

    Anyway it’s their game and their rigth to change it the way they want it. :)

    • well 2 months is better than one time…
      What i think is : there is no reason to sell the premium tank that you overpaid

  3. What about those tanks, that they gave on New Year’s Eve? Do those count as a bought premium tank and 2 months rule apply to them as well?

  4. I can’t understand why EU doesn’t have the auto-restoration thing that NA has. Why is it so hard to transfer one program over from server to server? Plus if you let the automated system handle all this, they wouldn’t need to answer emails from people asking for tanks back.

    I wish they would just make it so when you buy a premium tank with gold you unlock that tank and can then buy/sell it as many times as you like for silver credits. Its not as if many people buy the same premium tank more than once so they wouldn’t lose any money doing this.

    • “Why is it so hard to transfer one program over from server to server?”

      Because the servers might differ quite a lot in what they implemented over years. Getting stuff from different server might break something the other server doesn’t have.

      Also different money policy approaches and market models.

  5. I didn’t even know it was possible to restore a gold tank on EU, all the talk seemed to concern NA, RU and ASIA servers.I would have restored the first premium tank i received 2 years ago. :p

    Anyway, I can’t really see any reason, outside of greed, not to allow you to buy back any gold tank at any time for a reasonable amount of credits if you already had it, especially if you bought it with money.

  6. “Second announcement concerns the change in premium tank reimbursement policy, which was announced today. The change is simple: before, you could get basically any previously sold tank restored. Now, this option will be available only for tanks sold in last two months (previous restrictions apply). The reason for this decision we can only guess, I assume it’s to reduce the support personell workload.”

    so i still can’t get back my t-34-3 what i sold by raging moment in januar?

  7. I expect the real reason of not shaming players is how the European Convention on Human Rights is, or may be, interpreted in member states. Civil contracts as players have with WG cannot over ride the ECHR. WG are wise in giving it a wide berth.

    • US forums are doing it too. I dont think it’s related to EU. To me it seems they dont allow naming and shaming because the forums will then be flooded with spam threads about haxors, nazi worshipers, bla bla and stuff like that.

      • It not as complicated as all that.. I think they simply can’t print what they don’t have.
        Eu privacy laws wouldn’t apply because they would be printing names assumed for the purposes of the game and not real names.

        • It’s not only common EU privacy laws. Many countries have their specific laws, which are very strict, some even weird. WG can break several laws, depending on country, even if they disclose just the username as banned. The simplest solution to this is – don’t do it at all.

        • As Dimo mentioned, many countries have their own law on data protection. The UK, for instance, has the DPA, which states processing of personal data should be done only if explicit permission is given, internally or publicly.

          Usernames are arguably not personal data as they can be considered property of WG (as in, WG owns every possibly set of usernames you can choose to “borrow”), however, it can be used as an identifier, which can be used to access personal data. This doesn’t even consider the case where you chose a username that encodes personal data in it; people that choose their full names, etc.

          Some time ago, SS posted personal data by showing how he tracked down an internet troll. This is a tort and he could be sued by the troll, or possibly worse, he could get into trouble with WG if the troll was an employee and the event damaged WG’s reputation or if it somehow went against WOT EU’s licence (which it shouldn’t).

          • I don’t believe it does break any Eu or national laws to print names made up for the purposes of a game..
            Anyway, my main point was that I don’t think Eu server is applying ANY anti bot procedures, so they literally have nothing to print. Bots are still everywhere on Eu server.

  8. They can announce number of bots banned and warnings issued though right? oooooh wait they can’t because “Reasons”…. i.e. they would have to write something and publish it or something and that sounds too much like actual work… (like announcing patches and server downtime etc.)

  9. I have a question that’s not entirely on topic: Is WG going to remake system of punishment for leaving the battle? Prime point of this is when for example leaving the battle you are already losing 10-0? (I’m abandoning my comrades?! What fucking comrades?! They are all dead you fucker!) Give me one solid reason why should I stay in battle that is already lost and there is absolutely nothing you can do to change it. The only thing you get is potential for larger loss of credits (repairs, more shells, etc). You still wont get more than 250exp and more than 10-15k credits because there is simply no time to actually defend yourself and inflict higher points of dmg! I will never quit the battle I can win, no matter the score but these kinds of battles are just ridiculous and waste of time…

    • why dont you drive straight to your enemies and die fast?
      instead of leaving the battle before it ends, and that way you dont banned?

      if that’s a clear lost, you will be killed, gain little to none credits and exp.
      at least die in glory, charge them all!!!!!!!

      simple and effective

    • Dejan Lukić, there’s never such a situation, when you loose 0:10 and you would have to wait 5 minutes for enemies to come for you. So, I don’t see any problem in this. In such a situation you have your last seconds to do as much damage as you can (which will bring you back some silver and exp, + don’t ruin your stats so much) and then you are back in the garage anyway.
      I have been in tons of such situations, and in most of them I easily can get at least couple of kills, because many hardly injured enemies are coming for those last kills, so you can denie that and pick them apart quite fast.

  10. “After all, the principle of public trial (including the announcement of punishment) is a valid law principle in all democratic countries”

    Trials don’t always bring justice, sometimes justice is raped. WG might ban somebody by accident and because of that they try to avoid the need to excuse. Imagine an article which publishes 100 players banned by accident. Imagine the rage!

  11. That announcement about prem tank recovery doesn’t come in handy… One week ago I’ve asked them to restore my Tetrarch, only to get a ticket link leading to a 404… I thought I’d have taken care of it this weekend… TY WG. :(

  12. Yeah, too bad that the NA premium restoration system is utter rubbish. 72 hours or you’re shit out of luck. I preferred the old system 100x more. I don’t feel as though it is to decrease work load on support personnel, but as a means to net WG a slightly more substantial profit. “Sold your premium tank? A sibling sold it on you? Better hurry, the clock’s ticking, well damn, it just ran out…perhaps you should look into paying another sum of money to get it back?”

  13. Buying a premium tank with money or gold should also simply unlock it on the techtree, changing the gold price to a credit value. That way you would be able to buy it back with credits in the future, should you ever sell it.

    • While this solution makes absolutely the most sense for the consumer. But unfortunately make no sense for this company.

      Competition from competitors is the only thing that will change this company’s policy towards its own consumer base. There is not a dollar/Euro in your pocket that they do not want.

  14. To be fair if gamers want to take matters into their own hands harrassing and flaming, they will do so. And this blog makes it easier for them to text idiots in game, because you have something that is called “name and shame”.

  15. SS, exactly, ingame punishments are not public courts. And, while there are some common laws in EU, majority is regional and some varies greatly – especially when it comes to privacy, harrasment, defamation etc. WG just chose the easy way instead of putting themselves into potential trouble. And while you are most of the times satisfied with living in democracy, this is the price you pay.

  16. There are useful naming&shaming websites which don’t give a fuck about EU laws.

    But I won’t give their names, because one of them belongs to me :)

  17. Pingback: Obnovování prodaných premiáků dozná změn

  18. “In Europe as you know we don’t allow for naming and shaming on our forums. One of the biggest reasons for this is to avoid players taking matters into their own hands (From simple things like taking it upon themselves to monitor/track other players, to message them in-game etc etc). Basically it would be rather hypocritical to punish players for naming and shaming on our forums and the we do it ourselves to players.”

    Bots have no shame.