So a few of my accounts were banned the other day, one of them was my botting account.
Got the same generic message "EULA/TOS Violation: Macro Use"
I know most people just wait it out and continue on their business but I am not like that.
I read the EULA and TOS (terms of service) and the only line that relates to the situation is:
"You may not use macros or other stored rapid keystrokes or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play."
Now I know nothing about law to be truthful, but I do have some common sense, so I broke down this line.
So here is the line in doubt:
"You may not use macros (h-bot) that facilitate acquisition of currency at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play."
Now, If I manually rat and do every action myself, i can make about 20mil isk/tick or 60mil an hour on average in a tengu. Running a H-bot, it only makes about 10-15mil/tick or 30-45mil/hour on average.
dictionary.com's meaning of Accelerate: to cause faster or greater activity, development, progress, advancement, etc., in: to accelerate economic growth. OR "to hasten the occurrence of"
If you went to school and learned how to do simple math, you would find that 30-45mil an hour is LESS than 60 mil an hour, and therefore is not "accelerated".
So seeing as using h-bot clearly does accelerate the rate at which you gain items, or in this case isk, compared to the ordinary manual ratting gameplay, there is clearly NO violation of the EULA.
I have made this statement in my petition only to get back the generic "you were found botting" mail quoting that exact EULA line, so i responded promptly and am now awaiting to see if they have any common sense.
This could potentially be a big thing for CCP as any people who have been banned in the past for the same reason technically needs to be unbanned and penalties dropped as there actually is no legal violation.
The only circumstance I can see where it would violate the EULA is if someone is multiboxing say 10 mining or ratting accounts which manually would be dificult to manage all at once making sure they all run as efficently as someone using their full concentration on 1 ratting or mining account. Then it would actually be accelerated compared to the human ability to micromanage all the accounts at once.
Other than that, I think the EULA is flawed and CCP needs to firstly stop banning people and imposing penalties ILLEGALLY and maybe look at changing their EULA and TOS so that they actually have grounds to ban people if they want to continue.
I am still awaiting a response from CCP but I am prepared to escalate this as far as I can go, not just because im bitter about some accounts being banned, but because they have taken away my favourite game for 2 weeks and cost me around $40 USD in subscription time on the basis of a flawed EULA and TOS.
Anything else you think I need to add? anything I am missing or that can help me in the case?