Furbish up your “well that escalated quickly” memes because that Tarisland cheating debacle from earlier this week just got much weirder and more punitive.
Yesterday, Tencent took to the Tarisland Discord to announce that it had caught a member of a prominent guild cheating during the recent (and public) community speed race events. The studio named-and-shamed the cheater, declared he was banned for a month, deleted his guild’s achievements in the ongoing Blight Dragon speed race, and temp-banned another unnamed group of players for three days.
It didn’t really seem like much of a punishment for such a public ordeal, and apparently, the game’s playerbase agreed, so Tencent has now jacked that punishment to a 10-year ban for everyone involved.
“Thank you for your feedback! We have taken into account the opinions of all players, and after more careful analysis and consideration, we will impose an 10-year ban on all users suspected of using cheating software. At the same time, we have detected another 30 accounts suspected of cheating and will also impose a 10-year ban. We apologize for the controversy caused by this issue, and we sincerely accept players’ suggestions and criticisms. We will also make every effort to maintain a fair gaming environment. If you encounter any suspected cheating behavior during the game, please provide detailed information (including region, nickname, UID, video, etc.) and report it to the in-game customer service. We will investigate seriously to ensure that all violations receive appropriate punishment.”
The company then posted a list of partial names of players being given the boot.
Our eyes popped on this news this morning: One month seemed small, but 10 years seems like… kind of a huge jump? And it’s basically a perma ban, so why not call it that? Will Tarisland even exist in 10 years? Who would come back after 10 years? (OK, we know that answer.) And why did it take Discord riots to get the company to actually mete out a strong punishment? In fact, why is the richest game studio in the world relying on player feedback in a chat channel for its justice system? What in the world is happening over there?
