MPQ Zombies

[ZeroKarma]

It was a sad day when he retired. He left all of the chats, all of the shield checks. Hell, he even left fantasy football. His LINE account stayed on as a reminder. ########-Retired. What a shame to see all of those hours of vibrant shield hopping, PvE grinding and the occasional buy club just suddenly go dark. Not a flicker of life to be seen.

Such are the times now, that you could barely flinch, hearing that someone who’d played the game since the very beginning was moving on to greener pastures. Sometimes they were spending more time with family, and sometimes spending more time with other Marvel properties. Fanfare accompanied some, and others disappeared in silence.

But ######, he was a friend, and I missed him from the moment he left.

Apparently, he didn’t miss me. Because he started hitting me within a week of his retirement. Out of nowhere, his account arose again, with a new alliance tag and a completely different playstyle. Hitting people that he had played with for years as often as he could, often at times that he had never played before and even in a different slice from before. He was like an MPQ zombie risen from the dead. He didn’t crave brains, but points, which he would strangely then dump all over the place simply to strike again.

I thought there must be some way to reach him. Some way to get through. His LINE account! Was it still there! Yes!!!

#######-NO MPQ PM’s

Strange things these MPQ accounts. They never truly die. They come back with a vengeance, as though possessed by some foul spirit or some other……user.

Be wary and watch out, for this disease seems to be spreading! It’s infecting accounts across the game! Always remember to carry a favorite lucky charm and chant as follows:

BEGONE MPQ ZOMBIE! THE POWER OF TOS COMPELS YOU!

(Unless the spirit behind this account continues to spend on HP and other items. Then you just have to deal with it and consider the value of the TOS in honest terms)

[The_rockett]

The Zombie boards are growing by the day. It is amazing how they just come back to life and some come back to life more than once. Even if you try to call attention to these Zombie’s running loose, the TOS doesn’t stop them.

What can can be done to stop these Zombies?

[BoyWonder1914]

I’m lost.

[bbigler]

Grenades, lots of grenades.

[bluewolf]

Since no names are named, it seems safe to say that the OP is pointing out that many retirees sell their accounts and rosters. Which is explicitly disallowed in the Terms of Service. But plenty of people do it.

And so when someone suddenly begins to play at a different time, hit their friends, etc, after a much publicized retirement, it seems very likely they sold that account to someone. And since they retired/moved on, they got everything - the years of play, the cash - leaving the new player to face the risk of sand boxing.

I’d suggest that CS be contacted, but I assume they never do anything about this.

[Borstock]

Wild speculation: Is it even remotely plausible that the accounts have turned into bots? Or been taken over by devs to test the game?

[The_rockett]

@bluewolf

I’d suggest that CS be contacted, but I assume they never do anything about this.

It’s quite hard to prove, isn’t it? Even if the account is suddenly being played on a different IP address and different time zone, it could still be the same player changing their device and moving to a different country. Unless they have definite proof of the sale/money being transferred, how can they do something about it?

Even when you send in Line chats confirmations to CS that this was done the Zombies live on.

[ZeroKarma]

@bluewolf

I’d suggest that CS be contacted, but I assume they never do anything about this.

It’s quite hard to prove, isn’t it? Even if the account is suddenly being played on a different IP address and different time zone, it could still be the same player changing their device and moving to a different country. Unless they have definite proof of the sale/money being transferred, how can they do something about it?

OJSP, it is difficult to prove to CS I suppose, though some accounts seem to have been handed around like a party bowl, which I would assume is easy to check.

TBH - I really don’t expect this post to gain traction with the devs or result in the actual enforcement of the practice, which is clearly against the TOS, mainly because the there has been an even response to all forms of cheating, exploiting and violation of the TOS in this game. That response is nothing at all. No communication that it’s being worked on, no banning of accounts unless they’re very obvious computer hacks to give yourself a billion CP.

The worst thing that has ever happened to my knowledge was a rollback of some accounts in the re-roll LT days, and that just morphed into bonus hero exploits instead. (Ever see someone gain 30 levels on one 5* a couple times and yet only gain a couple on the other 5* in pack? That’s a cute one)

Nope the standard response, even on the forums, is either silence OR the forum poster being told they’re ruining the fun for everyone (cp exploit). That is the other case of “justice” where the most egregious exploiters weren’t allowed to swap Latest Legends covers. THAT will really hit hard nowadays with saved covers.

Nope, in this case as it was mentioned above, a former ally mate of mine quit the game and moved on. Seems that he gave away or sold the account, and now someone from the community is using it to hit people in anonymity. At least we need to end the pretense that we care or the devs care. Remove it from the TOS so that the transaction can be done over the table, and push an immediate name change. I would rather the process be transparent so we all know that the zombies are not zombies but bodysnatchers. Thus we are able to choose the appropriate weapon to use in dealing with these competitors. (ex. Holy water will not work, but some friendly fire likely will.)

[Phumade]

Ultimately Do you think the TOS clause will hold up in court? I have my doubts. I think First sale doctrine will trump this at the appellate level. Ultimately this is probably why they don’t go after people who resell their accounts/license.

I’m not at all convinced that the clause will hold up in court, unless some law firm is willing to indeminify my court expenses and potential losses.

Really consider the balancing costs.

1. They enforce the TOS. incur costs to try to monitor etc.. They ban someone who in turn sues under first sale doctrine. Most likely the devs will get tied in a lawsuit that might appeal to lawyers and K specialists, but ultimately they will lose the suit and pay all those attendant costs.

2. Not worry about their TOS. and wait for another player to try to sue the devs to force specific performance. Will all that said. No player will ever be able to sue on the TOS and get any kind of specific performance to ban some other player.

As a practical matter, what remedy would you want that could actually be enforced by the court?

[tiomono]

It seems zombies are not the only problem. But that players leaving and knowingly breaking the tos is also an issue. Both parties are at fault, and if the “zombie” could be sued in court, the seller deserves suing as well.

[ZeroKarma]

Something tells me this would not get to court, LOL. Though I would be interested to know how someone could receive goods in violation of the TOS yet still have standing to sue if they were sandboxed.

Ultimately, the TOS is useless if the company that creates it never enforces it. That’s their choice, I suppose, but then why have it? Why not add an “Accounts for Sale” message board on the forums and let a market develop? Perhaps charge $24.99 for account transfer with a bonus 3* Thanos cover!

[Phumade]

that would not be the most surprising development. NFL runs their own clearing house for tickets to drive out stub hub etc..

These types of TOS were designed in the early age of computing when the business issues where about getting access to mainframe time/etc or for large expensive software packages etc.

They weren’t researched desinged and written with an eye towards consumer software products and specifically mobile gaming issues.

I would not be surprised if someone went foresincally into the TOS and said this issues arises from this case, this issue arises from that case. They could draw a clear line between each clause and a court case that precipitated that issues.

That’s why I feel so confident in the UNEFORCEABILITY of the TOS. It wasn’t written with this scenario in mind, and enough distinctions can be made in prior examples that a court could consider this a de novo question.

In any case, this is a good moot court question to ask law students to research, but as a practical matter this would be a decently expensive case to litigate with no real expectation of long term revenue return.

[IceIX]

@Phumade

That’s why I feel so confident in the UNEFORCEABILITY of the TOS. It wasn’t written with this scenario in mind, and enough distinctions can be made in prior examples that a court could consider this a de novo question.

In any case, this is a good moot court question to ask law students to research, but as a practical matter this would be a decently expensive case to litigate with no real expectation of long term revenue return.

That’s pretty much every TOS. They’re perfectly enforceable until they aren’t. Just look at the recent Redbox vs Disney case where Redbox beat down Disney’s TOS/EULA in regards to resale of digital codes. The case is still ongoing, but the preliminaries had the courts pretty much outright telling Disney that their case was very weak with the terms they had. Disney has since heavily altered their terms and got an injunction on Redbox post Black Panther DVD release, but even then the courts didn’t really come down on a “yep, that’s enforceable” term. More “alright, now you at least have a case”.

But overall, people have already gone over most of the reasons that some players kind of hover in a grey area. We can be 90% sure that they’re not the original account holders, but without that last bit of proof it’s a rough matter to just whack them with the ban hammer. LINE chat has definitely helped in some cases, but we’ve also had some where players literally joked around about selling their account on LINE or Skype and obviously from their play history had not. So it’s not always a slam dunk.

[Space_Dwarf]

I don’t really see what the big deal is. If someone wants to sell their account & there’s a willing buyer, what does it matter? Let them & allow for a name change.

[SymmeTrey]

It seems very hard to say that someone has definitely sold their account. It seems likely that the player in the story sold their account, but, it could also be at least possible that the player just got tired of the social aspects and maybe just wants to step in and play the game like a single player game and get out of all the LINE chats and IMs and all that stuff. People have done stranger things in online games and in online communities.

Getting to the bottom of it seems difficult and, really, if someone wants to sell their account with its earned rewards, who really cares? This is a totally different issue than someone hacking the game and/or outright cheating.

[Dormammu]

@Space Dwarf

I don’t really see what the big deal is. If someone wants to sell their account & there’s a willing buyer, what does it matter? Let them & allow for a name change.

I tend to agree. What do I care who is behind a username? I’m sure the developers have a few reasons why its a big deal, however, otherwise they wouldn’t have included a restriction in their terms of service.

[theomen]

I’m wondering how much hypothetical cash an account sale would hypothetically generate..?

[Brigby]

*Please note that buying and/or selling accounts is not allowed, therefore any discussion encouraging it (hypothetical or not) is also not allowed on our forum.

If you believe that an account may be sold and/or cheating, then please submit a ticket to Customer Support with any pertinent information, and our team will be sure to investigate further. Thank you!

[theomen]

Apologies Brigby, no encouragement intended.

[Kojubat]

@Dormammu

I don’t really see what the big deal is. If someone wants to sell their account & there’s a willing buyer, what does it matter? Let them & allow for a name change.

I tend to agree. What do I care who is behind a username? I’m sure the developers have a few reasons why its a big deal, however, otherwise they wouldn’t have included a restriction in their terms of service.

1. If I make a game with microtransactions and someone purchases them, I am very happy.
2. If I make a game with microtransactions and someone opts to play for free, I am still happy due to marketing and population intangibles. I can put gameplay pressure to encourage spending and perhaps make them a future purchaser at some point.
3. If I make a game with microtransactions and someone invests their time or money in my game, then opts to transfer their investment, I will consider that as lost revenue regardless of the compensation agreement between the two parties.

The seller was already going to leave the game, so they no longer contribute to the economy. The buyer can be either an existing or new player, it doesn’t matter. They wish to bypass the game economy by using a real-world agreement of some kind. In fact, the transfer conditions in the real world are irrelevant - it could be freely given to a family member and have the same effect.

Consider how many mechanisms are in place in any mobile game to encourage early spending for new players - Get A Head Start With These Resources! Buy This New Character That Will Totally Jump You Ahead In Competitive Play! Have A Bigger Repository So You Never Have To Discard New Shiny Things!

Transferring accounts essentially allows someone to skip past the “pressure” stage of a free to play game without utilizing the in-game methods designed to relieve that pressure. And thus, undesirable to the companies relying on those in-game methods to remain profitable.