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There are probably very few people who haven't heard about this issue at this point. However, this is looking like it will take Nexon NA an extraordinarily long time to fix. As such, I wanted to make a thread to chronicle everything as it happens. For present and future reference.
The days noted here are not the ONLY days that players were affected, these are just the most significant days regarding this bug. Comments appearing on Discord, particularly in #bug_reporting, indicate that players are getting falsely banned every single day during this bug.
The first reported incidences of this bug began appearing, with some EU players reporting that they get a message that their game will close in 10 seconds upon logging in. Tickets were sent, and Nexon's Customer Support team accuses them of being cheaters/hackers, and states that the block on their account is irrevocable.
Some players are skeptical, but BlackCipher is known to be fallible, so those banned are generally believed when they say they were innocent. Helping their case was the sheer number of them, all at once.
Like happened for EU on the 23rd, after the update adding Belle to the game, numerous NA players discovered that they were inexplicably blocked upon attempting to select a character. This includes the NA streamer Naraxas. Naraxas streams all of his gameplay, including the moment he discovered his ban, providing a particularly damning example of this being a broken rogue anticheat.
Nexon's Customer Support continues to tell everyone who sends a ticket about it that they hacked/cheated, and the block is irrevocable.
Very early on the 29th (for NA) a thread appears on the Korean forum called inven. KR users are encountering the same BlackCipher issues, in similar numbers to NA and EU.
On this day, after the second sudden wave of bans, and after reports appeared on inven, "Vindictus", the administrator/owner of the Official Vindictus Discord, made an announcement:
Players took this as a sign that the issue was acknowledged, and that a resolution is coming. At this time, players continue to be newly falsely banned, and the banned remain banned.
Today, like the days before, an NA player who was falsely banned submitted a ticket regarding it. Unlike before, they got a brand new automated reply from Nexon's Customer Support. The image they shared of this reply is below:
This is new, in that it directly refers to the others falsely banned. It also seems to directly contradict the owner of the official discord, as this support employee claims all of those accounts were re-investigated, still found to have cheated, and will still be blocked permanently and irrevocably.
Due to this, the current situation is unknown. Two parts of Nexon have said completely contradictory things about the affected players. To be completely clear, Nexon's Customer Support is completely full of shit. Some of these cases, most publicly Naraxas, are absolutely verifiable in their legitimacy. They did not hack or cheat.
At roughly 3 AM Eastern time today, Nexon made an announcement on their website stating the following:
Initial reports suggest they are indeed unblocked. Though, "without hesitation" remains highly questionable, given we heard nothing from Nexon for six days, and Nexon Support continued to blame these people for the problem both before and after that point.
Three weeks is a hell of a lot faster of a time to be unblocked than those affected by the Hero mode banwave, at least. That one lasted about six months and they never said a word until the unbans.
Nexon has distributed the first of two compensation packages to players affected by this issue. The compensation items given vastly dwarfs even my previous personal speculations. The list is long, so instead I will directly link the news post: http://vindictus.nexon.net/news/54130/regarding-compensation-for-bc-issue
The tl;dr is that affected players are being given all event rewards that they missed during this period, plus 90 days worth of VIP and Cadet Badges. A very generous showing from Nexon. In my personal opinion, I'd give them an A+ for their handling of this issue if not for their Customer Support team. Communication was given, the issue was resolved within a month, affected players are back ingame, and compensated for the lost time. It would be unreasonable to ask for more.
All affected players have received the first compensation box, and will be getting the second box on the 26th with the next game update.
The days noted here are not the ONLY days that players were affected, these are just the most significant days regarding this bug. Comments appearing on Discord, particularly in #bug_reporting, indicate that players are getting falsely banned every single day during this bug.
October 23, 2019 - Day 0, The Beginning
The first reported incidences of this bug began appearing, with some EU players reporting that they get a message that their game will close in 10 seconds upon logging in. Tickets were sent, and Nexon's Customer Support team accuses them of being cheaters/hackers, and states that the block on their account is irrevocable.
Some players are skeptical, but BlackCipher is known to be fallible, so those banned are generally believed when they say they were innocent. Helping their case was the sheer number of them, all at once.
October 29, 2019 - Day 7, NA is impacted
Like happened for EU on the 23rd, after the update adding Belle to the game, numerous NA players discovered that they were inexplicably blocked upon attempting to select a character. This includes the NA streamer Naraxas. Naraxas streams all of his gameplay, including the moment he discovered his ban, providing a particularly damning example of this being a broken rogue anticheat.
Nexon's Customer Support continues to tell everyone who sends a ticket about it that they hacked/cheated, and the block is irrevocable.
Very early on the 29th (for NA) a thread appears on the Korean forum called inven. KR users are encountering the same BlackCipher issues, in similar numbers to NA and EU.
On this day, after the second sudden wave of bans, and after reports appeared on inven, "Vindictus", the administrator/owner of the Official Vindictus Discord, made an announcement:
Vindictus wrote:Regarding the 'Black Cipher' issue, the matter has been escalated to the Dev. Team for investigation. Please be advised and stay tuned for the updates. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Players took this as a sign that the issue was acknowledged, and that a resolution is coming. At this time, players continue to be newly falsely banned, and the banned remain banned.
November 3, 2019 - Day 12, Nexon Support Doubles Down
Today, like the days before, an NA player who was falsely banned submitted a ticket regarding it. Unlike before, they got a brand new automated reply from Nexon's Customer Support. The image they shared of this reply is below:
This is new, in that it directly refers to the others falsely banned. It also seems to directly contradict the owner of the official discord, as this support employee claims all of those accounts were re-investigated, still found to have cheated, and will still be blocked permanently and irrevocably.
Due to this, the current situation is unknown. Two parts of Nexon have said completely contradictory things about the affected players. To be completely clear, Nexon's Customer Support is completely full of shit. Some of these cases, most publicly Naraxas, are absolutely verifiable in their legitimacy. They did not hack or cheat.
November 13 - Resolution?
At roughly 3 AM Eastern time today, Nexon made an announcement on their website stating the following:
Nexon wrote:
Dear Mercenaries,
Last October 22nd, 2019, a new system that detects unauthorized programs was applied to Vindictus to sanction all accounts suspected of using any unauthorized programs that disrupt normal gameplay.
However, since the system was applied, many of our users have reported about the possibility of false-positives, and without hesitation, we investigated the possibility with our System Security Team thoroughly right away.
During this whole process, we eventually were able to identify disagreements with the new system, and as soon as we received confirmation of the identified complications, we restored all accounts that were sanctioned by this system immediately as of November 12th, 2019 10 P.M. PT.
Regarding, we sincerely apologize for causing disruption to your gameplay through this event, and will do our best to prevent such similar happenings reoccurring in the future.
As our deepest apologies, we would like to compensate all those who were unjustifiably sanctioned, and information relating to the distribution will be informed through an additional notice soon.
We sincerely apologize for the confusion caused once again and thank you for your kind patience and understanding of going through this whole process of investigation with us.
Kind Regards,
The Vindictus Team
Initial reports suggest they are indeed unblocked. Though, "without hesitation" remains highly questionable, given we heard nothing from Nexon for six days, and Nexon Support continued to blame these people for the problem both before and after that point.
Three weeks is a hell of a lot faster of a time to be unblocked than those affected by the Hero mode banwave, at least. That one lasted about six months and they never said a word until the unbans.
November 15 - Compensation Announced
Nexon has distributed the first of two compensation packages to players affected by this issue. The compensation items given vastly dwarfs even my previous personal speculations. The list is long, so instead I will directly link the news post: http://vindictus.nexon.net/news/54130/regarding-compensation-for-bc-issue
The tl;dr is that affected players are being given all event rewards that they missed during this period, plus 90 days worth of VIP and Cadet Badges. A very generous showing from Nexon. In my personal opinion, I'd give them an A+ for their handling of this issue if not for their Customer Support team. Communication was given, the issue was resolved within a month, affected players are back ingame, and compensated for the lost time. It would be unreasonable to ask for more.
Today's Date - The Current Standings
All affected players have received the first compensation box, and will be getting the second box on the 26th with the next game update.
