ArcheAge Hacking/Banning Saga Continues...

If you've been following the launch of ArcheAge even remotely closely you already know there have been many ups and downs. From long queue times initially, to DDoS attacks, land claim hacks, teleporting hacks, innocent bannings, Marketplace discounts that still aren't implemented...yeah we can stop there, it's been quite a ride.

Apparently the ride continues on! In an MMORPG (and most online gaming for that matter), hacking is (in most cases) a transgression worthy of a permaban. Yes, exceptions can of course be made based on severity and other factors, but usually the offenders get a one way ticket to the door.

Apparently that may not be the case in ArcheAge, or at least that's how some players perceived a response from Trion Worlds on the subject that was posted on the game's official forums. The thread has since been removed by Trion.

The initial post was in response to an instance of a player using a teleportation hack, being banned, and then being unbanned 24 hours later. Members of the Trion team stated that bans are of course investigated and while most bans stick, some are reversed based on situation. Another team member then added:

As Morgana said, we do investigate and the majority of bans do stand. Sometimes folks are still able to get away with some shady stuff, but our policy and procedure is improving every day in dealing with them. As we improve our detection and get better records, it'll be harder and harder for folks to get away with stuff like this.Locking this thread down as there is nothing more to be said on the subject.

Of course, this sent the forums into a frenzy accusing Trion Worlds of giving hackers a "second chance" and led to the original threads being pulled from the forums. Not content to simply let the topic disappear, multiple new forum posts have since sprung up (mostly to be closed rather quickly) including another post from Community Manager Scapes attempting to "clarify" their earlier posting:

Correcting posts made earlier this week, it is not our policy to apply an initial temporary ban for hacking. A permanent ban for hacking is our policy and we are reimplementing bans on relevant accounts, freezing the gains made from them.

Also, our Support Team is working to resolve appeals by legitimate accounts affected by our recent bans as rapidly as possible.

How this shakes out will be anyone's guess, but with multiple issues and instances of players having to run 3rd party applications to get the game to even run (I hate Hackshield), it's unlikely to get better for quite some time.