Guild Wars dev explains game bans

Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet has explained its account suspension policy following questions from players whose accounts have been suspended since the game's launch two days ago.

Posting on Reddit, ArenaNet explained that while the number of account blocks is small (less than 0.01 percent of the total player base), it felt obligated to explain its account suspension policy to those players who found themselves banned from the game, reiterating that racist names, hate speech, and other unacceptable behaviour will not be tolerated.

The developer said it had already suspended some accounts displaying offensive character names or using inappropriate chat.

"When an account is blocked for a chat offense, the account is given a three-day suspension," the developer said in the post. "When an account is blocked for an offensive name, the player is required to rename the character name and, in most cases, the account is also given a three-day suspension."

"In a few posts on Reddit and on fan forums, players have claimed they were suspended for using a harmless-sounding character name, when in fact they were suspended for a different and truly offensive character name on their account. Others claimed that they were not told why they were suspended, but the game does give a message that states the reason for the suspension. In every case we have double-checked, the action taken on the account was appropriate."

ArenaNet has invited players who feel they were unfairly suspended to post their character names or chat segment that led to their suspension under the Reddit post, saying it will reply "in graphic detail" with the reason for the block.

Prior to its launch two days ago, Guild Wars 2 had already achieved sales of more than 1 million. The game puts players into a persistent fantasy world driven by a range of dynamic events, demanding an up-front fee to play but not requiring a monthly paid subscription to continue playing.

The Guild Wars 2 naming policy can be found here.