Silkroad Online Forums

When you buy item mall stuff its like a donation if you will. If you go to a website and buy lets say a sticker from them to support there cause, there is no underlying contract or agreement that that site has to stay up or even perform to your expectations. Buying "silk" is just a way to support SRO. There is no reciept with refund or exchange clauses or even a "guarantee" that the company you are helping support will provide
an " expected level of performance". Ok, even if you can get by this "donation" explanation. SILKROAD ONLINE is always online except for the inspection. Just because YOU Cant log on or get ksed by bots, doesnt mean the rest of us can't. There level of performace that are putting out is in YOUR EYES lame, not the rest of us. SRO is doing good to even have filled up servers. Try to sue if you will, it will get laughed out of the first district it goes to

regardless if this is joymax related our not, this is an interesting topic. Is something you get for free, free of any kind of support??
Is it not that if you supply a service, even if it is free you have do's and dont's?

What the **** are you guys talking about. I read the contract 4 times and they are not in ANY way in the wrong. Bringing a class-action lawsuit (if your parents will let you stay up past your bedtime) will only embarrass you and whatever god-awful lawyer blindy accepts this case.


Correct, sah.

You people need to grow up and stop complaining about a free Farking game.

Its not a donation though ... because if it was, you would be able to get the pet or gt for free ... with a "suggested" cost ... that you wouldn't have to pay. And while I know the reason that its supposed to be a free game is how people justify themselves when they do ccf ( as in ... they don't choose to make that "donation") apparently this is not how Joymax sees the situation considering their recent actions on ccf.

And like I said on my first post ... I am not sure how you would be able to document the problem. The problem exists but for a court case you have to prove it exists and I haven't thought of a way to do that yet.

Anyone have any ideas for that out there?

It would be impossible to prove fault on Joymax's part because, brace yourself...they're not doing anything wrong!
Sure they could do better, but they're not doing anything against the rules. You guys must only be happy when you're complaining.
I think you're confused about what a donation is. In some cases it can just be a suggested amount, but if you're getting something in return for a monetary donation, you have to pay the price. Have you ever watched a pledge driver on public television? You can't just send them a dollar and get the 100 dollar item, you have to donate a certain amount.
Seriously people, get a brain.

lmao!! GL with that.

it may not say botting is illegal in there but there are stickies in the forum saying that the implemented new rules.

you wont be able to sue them. they havent done anything wrong. they didnt take any money from u.

the item mall is optional.

First of all.....a donation can be ANY amount. Perhaps you can stop using phrases like "Get a Brain" and look up what donation means. Secondly, SRO is free to play, no matter how much you wanna think its not. Thirdly, Joymax doesnt give or imply of ANY guarantee that you will like the game or that it will run PERFECT in your eyes. Besides, what are they gonna award you...your TIME back, lol. They gonna give you a lifetime free pass to a free game...seriously wtf are you trying to get out of a CAL.

The best bet is to file a Civil Suit with the help of the ACLU or some other extreme left wing liberal group. You can sue stating that because you live in a certian time zone, that Joymax is racist against you that you can't log on when you get home from work/school. Joymax should give you your own private server so that you can ALWAYS log in, oh..and free silk to If you don't know what the ACLU is or a "left wing liberal group" you surely don't have the education or know how to sue

Once again, grow up kiddies, stay logged on when you sleep so that you don't have to worry about busy servers the next day

well we all know you can play this game for free. but if everyone did there would be no game. JM is in business because we PAY to play. the whole point of this thread I believe is to make JM supply better service so that when you do buy silk items, you can use them as intended when you want. it's not whether the game is free or not, it's weather you can use the purchased items in the game when you want. some of you said it's a donation of sorts. but when you go to the item mall it doesnt say donation it says purchase silk.the only place you can use this silk is in game, but if you cant log in(due to poor service from JM) how do you use it? and these items are time sensitive. so you pay for a 4 week gold ticket but cant log in because of over crowding you lose money.It's not our fault the servers are over crowded. this is where the problem is. You pay for something time sensitive but you cant use it due to poor service from the company that sold it to you. some say it wont hold up in court. I think if it went in front of a jury that it might.there has to be some accountability on JM's part. they cant hide behind the free game thing because a jury would realize they need people to pay to stay in business. and I know people stall overnight. this is a part of the game that JM new about from day 1. they should of taken this into consideration when they let more people create accounts on the server than it could handle at one time.and if they new they were gonna over populate the servers then it truly should be a free game in every sense of the word and they should ask for donations like any other charity.

you're wrong. i stopped reading when u said JM is a buisness we pay to play.

after that you're logic and paragraph was voided.

you do NOT pay to play SRO. item mall is a optional service provided by JM you dont have to buy any silk. and the servers being crammed is part of the game now. if u payed to play this game the services would be much better.

SRO is a FREE GAME.

What kind of kangaroo court do you think will entertain this nonsense?

Some of you keep blabbing about a contract. Show some signatures first, then maybe you'll have something. The EULA is a limitation that YOU, the individual, agree to abide by. Nothing says JoyMax has to enforce it if they don't want to.

From a more epistemological standpoint, you don't even know what was on other people's EULA. Even if it was a two-way contract, you only assume that everyone has the same terms. Chances are, yes, everyone has the same EULA, but the fact is you can't prove it, and therefore have no grounds for a lawsuit.

Edit: By the way, if you are not over 18, any contract that you think you might have with JoyMax (even though you don't) is VOID in court

i agree with braxton on just about everything..

if yall want a game with no bugs and a game which has active game developers, go buy WoW or some other p2p mmorpg. There, the developers HAVE to take hard actions and HAVE to update and update etc. cause there the people pay to have fun.
of all the f2p mmorpg i played, SRO is one of the best. Compared to other mmorpg theres almost no botters around here. So stop crying PLZ.

Frustrated with SRO?

Just stop playing.

only thing i have to say is that its just a game and if you want better customer service then go play one of the MMORPG's that you pay for remember its FREE so quit whining and dont get SRO shut down for the rest of us because you cant log in or what ever

So you are saying that it is impossible to have good customer service in a "free" game?

5.2 Users found to be using or distributing illegal programs may be subject to restrictions of their account or have their account deleted. In particular cases, the user may be subject to investigation by the proper authorities.


it is either THEY MAY or THEY MAY NOT...but in the further statement sez "SUBJECT" to investigate (but we still dont know yet if they will ).
because most of these people who use illegal programs are patrons of their SILK merchandize, those who can afford mostly will benefit. So it is still thier WIN-WIN situtaion.

He is saying it is unreasonable to demand it, and that you should grow up.

And really, what was your point in putting quotation marks around the word "free"? The game is free. It's not technically free, it's not mostly free, it is 100%, undoubtedly free. No one forced you to spend any money on it, assuming you've spent any at all.

i wonder what is most stupid:

people trying to make a conversation arround something (here being wether Joymax does or does not need to provide a minimum of service) or those bashing them just because they have this conversation.

As you can read most of those who think that JM should give a minimum of service wether it is free or not, do not start flaming nor saying that we need to ask to stay up...
As i stated above this convo is not about suiing Joymax, it's about rights you have as a user (if any). (yeah i know you all gonna say NONE now)

Another never ending topic...

No one is forcing anyone to play this game ... period. But the reason for the "free" in quotes is that any game on this scale cannot exist as completely free. That is because there are servers to pay for, office space to rent, employees to pay, etc. So a game has to have some way of generating income. Some do it by renting space around the game to advertisers, like Runescape does, ... some ask a straight fee, like WoW, ... and some, like SRO, depend on people buying extras.

The most common answer to frustration with Joymax in their approach to botters and ccf has been to "stop buying silk". This really does not work because of course the people that do bot and ccf continue to buy silk. People that spam on globals or say nasty things ... buy silk to do that also.

So what alternatives do players that follow the rules have? Legal action is one of the alternatives I am trying to explore here. These forums are for discussion of SRO related topics last I checked.

As a side note ... while looking around for information I came across the Joymax corporate site. It is interesting to note that it has not been updated at all since January though they were doing a good job of updating up until that point. Some of you might remember that Joymax did seem to be at least making an effort at improvements prior to Christmas. Maybe this is an indication that they are presently having problems.

You gotta remember Yama, this game and these forums are MOSTLY filled with 14 year old kids... they don't understand any of this law stuff so the only thing they can do is say stuff like "its a free game, play it or quit" or "you should grow up" to you, an adult, just to get their post count up and maybe get their name known a little better on the forums. There were a few good points made, but most of the replies on this topic are trash.

If you want my opinion Id say if you can contact a lawyer and have him look over the agreements and whatnot and if he says you might have a case... go for it. But chances are someone down the line already thought of this and looked into it but it didn't go anywhere because there was no case. If you do try and actually succeed, all these kids will be forever kissing your ass, lol.

I just think its pathetic that some people shoot down ideas so quickly without giving it a second thought... or even worse, open their mouth when they have no knowledge of the topic.

this is an excellent topic. let's keep up the discussion, but keep out the flames and personal attacks. if you want to argue legal process and logic, feel free, but the minute someone says "zomg ur soo stoopid hurr hurr" posts will get nuked.

i would love to see some legal action brought to bear against JM to pressure them to implement changes in the game, but because of the way the ToS is worded i too feel that it would be difficult if not impossible to create a strong case. this means two things: a) it will likely be inpossible to get JM to crack down on bots through legal action and b) JM has a damn good lawyer on their team.

I chuckled at the Punishment Policy <3.

ok let me use an analogy here. lets say you enter a contest and win a free car. you go to pick up your car and it's a stripped down model. they say you can upgrade it but you have to pay for it. so you agree and get power windows and a moonroof added. you go to use the moonroof and it only works half the time and the windows only go half way down. so comparing this to JM you would say because the car was free I cant go back and complain about the items I payed for? they charged me for these add on's same as JM charges us for a pet. you expect it to work all the time not just part of time.even though the car is free you still payed for additional items over and above the original item. see my point.

This is a great topic, as Sui has stated.

I want to see this go through for sure, and have definitely thought about it before due to the current popularity of internet law enforcement.

In particular I came across an internet law handbook, the states in the laws concerning "Legal effectiveness of Electronic Communications:"



So those who have even considered thinking that this is the internet, and laws don't apply can just jump that ship now.

Concerning the rules given by Joymax, the following quote should fairly eliminate those who are bashing this topic merely on the basis that they bot, has quit the game, or utilizes other third party programs.



The above has been quoted from the Canadian version of the internet Law.

There are several resources right at the tip of your fingers if you would like to access them, all you have to do is look deeper.

And the original poster is right about it enabling you to make a lot of money at the present time. A class action suit against Joymax is anything but ridiculous.

I urge anyone with a strong handle on the subject to go to this site and seek legal advice:

http://www.ibls.com/

of course, that isn't the only site for these type of stuff. More can be found if you just look for them.

A note for those who take care of their own financial expenditures, this would be a good time to take a look at all the money you've spent on Silkroad so far, and compile a list of transactions either from your bank records or otherwise. It would be helpful when consulting. I will be doing this myself, while gathering information addressing this problem. Once this is ready, I will be consulting the site I have listed.

Perhaps those who have shown support in this thread can do the same.

This is a chance to potentially eliminate all existing problems in SRO.

If everyone who played SRO played for free there wouldn't be a SRO to play. This is my point. they require people to pay or they would go out of business. and yes, it is a business and the whole point of a business is to make money by providing a service or item. It's a catch 22. it's hailed as a free game but they need paying customers to stay in business. that said, SRO could never be a free game to all who play. it would simply go out of business. you said you do not pay to play SRO. well if no one did there would be no SRO. and an optional service is still a service none the less.you pay for that service and you should be able to use that service as it's designed. if you cant log on to the game than you cant use that service, it's that simple. we all need to get past the free game issue.

If you offer premium content on top of a free service, then the law applies the same to you as you are selling a product. There is no argument to this.

If a company has a free email mailing list of a newsletter, with an upgrade that you pay for to recieve a hard copy sent to your door, or they sell products as a way to support the free mailing list, they are held to the same standards of law for the physical product that they sold, at bare minimum. You can't dodge consumer protection law on a product you charge money for by simply offering something else for free. If this were the case every company out there would be doing this. That isn't to say they can be sued by someone who has never bought silk and is suing over the free game time they have, but for those that bought silk and payed money for premium content consumer protection laws apply for those people and the items they purchased. If your premium items are tied to the performance of the free game like the ones in SRO are, then those that purchased those items should reasonably expect to be able to use what they purchased. It's very simple to understand.

And no I do not endorse or have any position on this subject matter. I'm just pointing out what the law states.

I'd like to start off by saying if you are not an adult who has had to work a job, earn a paycheck, and pay bills, you probably do not have anything valid to offer to this discussion. I'm not saying this to put anyone down, nor am I trying to imply that I am the only adult on this thread, because everyone, at some point in their life, was a kid. The fact is, however, too many people are shooting from the hip because they are full of passion, but lack life experience. This needs to stop. Believe me when I say you cannot take the world on if you are filled with nothing but piss and vinegar.

With that being said:

In short, Article 9.2 of the Item Mall User Agreement states that if you buy silk and are unable to log in to the game, too bad for you.

Article 10.1 Says no refunds. Also too bad for you.

Furthermore, no one has addressed what I brought up earlier: The EULA only applies to the individual player. It is a document that JoyMax put together to cover their own asses. It's a one way street, folks. You (the player) have no legal entitlements under the EULA, only limitations. In fact, JoyMax, like any service providing company who wishes to protect themselves, has the almighty "We can change anything in the agreement to anything we want at any time" clause. In the immortal words of Willy Wonka, You get NOTHING. You LOSE. Good DAY, sir!

The player is the one who has self-imposed limitations placed upon him/herself. JoyMax did not agree to give you anything at all.

Assuming you could even establish a case against them, do you know what would happen? JoyMax would evaluate the situation and decide if it's more economical to settle, close up shop in whatever county they are being sued, or fight it in court. It won't change anything as far as customer service. It can, however, affect your own access to the game.

To the person who said:


That is the whole point, although not quite what you were hoping for. Boycotting silk is the most effective thing you can do. If this is their main source of revenue, they'll realize they're losing it and should do something about it. If the game goes under, so be it. If you (and when I say "you", I mean it in as a general term for whomever is reading this) can't get past that idea, then you are truly pitiable.

That's capitalism, folks. Buyer beware. Laissez-faire FTW.

Poor Joymax