I purchased The War Z last December, which was obviously a big mistake. I didn't play much of it, because I thought it was boring. Early last month, I thought I would give it one more try. I walked into a town where I met my first "hacker". This guy named Whiteroar stood in the middle of 20 zombies, none of them attacked him, but they all came after me as he stood there shooting at me. After I die, I call out on server chat, warning everyone to look out for the bastard. I ragequit, then come back 5 hours and I discover that I am perma-banned from the game.

Confused, I go to the official forums to find out why I was banned. I eventually come across a ton of threads of people who were banned for no reason. Reading through a few of those threads shows me that the rest of the community instantly writes everyone off as hackers, since the devs supposedly developed some kind of automated hacker scouter. I eventually found reports from other game websites regarding the banning of innocent people. I decided to contact customer support via email on January the 4th, asking why I was banned and demanding a refund. I didn't receive a reply from customer service until 30 minutes ago, which read:

Zombert (The War Z Survivor Support) Feb 06 15:00 (PST) Upon review, your account has been approved for renewal. There is not enough here to warrant a permanent ban but be warned, we are watching and any hack\cheat that is used will seal the fate of your account. Thank you, Zombert

For one thing, I don't know the first thing about hacking/cheating in videogames. Also, if the developers did create some all-powerful automated hacking doo-hickey, why is there not enough to warrant a permanent ban and why was I not given any further details regarding my ban?

Innocent people are still being banned at random, and The War Z community has its lips tightly wrapped around the devs' cocks. I know, it's my fault for purchasing the game, and I have learned my lesson, but something has to be done to prevent more people from falling victim to this bullshit.

I purchased The War Z last December, which was obviously a big mistake. I didn't play much of it, because I thought it was boring. Early last month, I thought I would give it one more try. I walked into a town where I met my first "hacker". This guy named Whiteroar stood in the middle of 20 zombies, none of them attacked him, but they all came after me as he stood there shooting at me. After I die, I call out on server chat, warning everyone to look out for the bastard. I ragequit, then come back 5 hours and I discover that I am perma-banned from the game.

Confused, I go to the official forums to find out why I was banned. I eventually come across a ton of threads of people who were banned for no reason. Reading through a few of those threads shows me that the rest of the community instantly writes everyone off as hackers, since the devs supposedly developed some kind of automated hacker scouter. I eventually found reports from other game websites regarding the banning of innocent people. I decided to contact customer support via email on January the 4th, asking why I was banned and demanding a refund. I didn't receive a reply from customer service until 30 minutes ago, which read:

Zombert (The War Z Survivor Support) Feb 06 15:00 (PST) Upon review, your account has been approved for renewal. There is not enough here to warrant a permanent ban but be warned, we are watching and any hack\cheat that is used will seal the fate of your account. Thank you, Zombert

For one thing, I don't know the first thing about hacking/cheating in videogames. Also, if the developers did create some all-powerful automated hacking doo-hickey, why is there not enough to warrant a permanent ban and why was I not given any further details regarding my ban?

Innocent people are still being banned at random, and The War Z community has its lips tightly wrapped around the devs' cocks. I know, it's my fault for purchasing the game, and I have learned my lesson, but something has to be done to prevent more people from falling victim to this bullshit.

Wack.. That sucks, man. 'Glad my PC is a piece of shit, so I can't actually try Day Z! But, yea that sucks. Seems fun though. And I bet you're shit out of luck.

@Blu3V3nom07: $15 really isn't a major loss for me, but I could have purchased a better game. The best we can do is spread the word and prevent more people from wasting money.

I don't know if this is typical, but it seems extremely unprofessional for the support team to be using shitty user names and cartoon avatars. Although I've heard nothing of this game that would indicate it was made by professionals

Man this thing still seems fucking shady as hell.

@BraveToaster: If you haven;t seen this already, here's a blog that details how screwed up that game is.

@Daneian: Thanks. I'll check that out.

Fuck that game.

It's weird that people are still playing that game. I would have thought that the fallout surrounding it's release would have driven everybody away.

@Blu3V3nom07 said:

Wack.. That sucks, man. 'Glad my PC is a piece of shit, so I can't actually try Day Z! But, yea that sucks. Seems fun though. And I bet you're shit out of luck.

See, this is why the Day Z creator got so mad about the whole War Z scandal. Not only did the War Z devs take the idea and made money off it before the Day Z modders could, them and their shady business practices (and bad coding) damaged Day Z's rep, possibly brand dilution. This just shows that there are less informed gamers out there that don't know the difference between the two.

Yes, the War Z people are horrible. 'Nuff said.

@Blu3V3nom07 said:

Wack.. That sucks, man. 'Glad my PC is a piece of shit, so I can't actually try Day Z! But, yea that sucks. Seems fun though. And I bet you're shit out of luck.

He's talking about The War Z, not Day Z. The former being a rip-off of the latter with questionable ethics behind the developers. Easy mistake to make (and certainly intentional on the part of The War Z) but worth pointing out.

@Vitor: Huh! Didn't realize that. That makes a world of a difference! I remember reading about all that shady stuff, and then to waste $15 on a cheater game? Fuck that!

It doesn't surprise me that this would happen, I've heard nothing but bad news about this game since its release. Some games just aren't worth the hassle no matter how interested you are in them, for instance, today I wanted to check out Anno 1404 cause it seems like a somewhat decent city builder, apparently no one is selling it anymore so to Ubisoft I say, fine if you don't want my money it's your loss, I don't need to play Anno 1404 if you are going to make me jump through hoops.

The most depressing part is that this does not surprise me at all. The vast majority of everything about that game is shady as fuck.

I thought the internet was already aligned against this game? Not to be reductive or generalizing (which means I'm about to be reductive and generalizing), but I have to believe that the people that claim to enjoy this game are either ignorant to the developers being just awful in so many ways, or young teens that wanted to bandwagon on DayZ but didn't pony up for Arma.

I would probably push for a refund if I were @BraveToaster. They wronged you and you may be able to use it as a reason to get out. Unless you really believe you will enjoy the game at some point, it would be worth a shot, right?

I've heard nothing but shady and fucked up things about that game.

@Subjugation: Yes, I did reply to the email after I received it and asked for refund, but I'm sure that I have to wait another 30+ days to receive a response to that.

I'm going to post some of the crap that bandwagoners say about "hackers" on their forums.

Everything about this game just seems slimy, disgusting, underhanded and just plain awful from both a game play and business model perspective.

Here are a few links to threads that people have posted after receiving permanent bans. Some of the replies are ridiculous and I don't know how The War Z managed to generate a creepily loyal fanbase such as this.

http://forums.playwarz.com/showthread.php?111852-ANOTHER-BAN-FOR-NOTHing

http://forums.playwarz.com/showthread.php?108302-Banned-Banned-blah-blah-banned

http://forums.playwarz.com/showthread.php?103213-Fairfight-is-Seriously-Bugged-PROOF-Dev-s-Please-Look!

Ugh, fuck everything about this game and the shady developers who made it.

@strangeling said:

@BraveToaster: I thought I read one of their 'rules' was to not talk about hackers on the message boards. That could have been their reason for the original ban. I'm surprised you were able to contact their customer support and get it resolved. I guess they're trying to improve?

Yeah, you actually misread that 'rule'. You can talk about hackers on their forums, but you cannot talk about the hacks themselves (how to hack, glitch, etc.). And no, they aren't trying to improve; I waited 34 days for a reply, and my issue isn't fully resolved. There are people who have been trying to contact support to repeal their cases, and they still haven't received responses yet.

God this game and devs are so scummy and underhanded. I wonder how anyone supports them.