MMOs, by their very nature, require a lot of time and commitment. You need to put in the grind, build up your resources, and upgrade your character. And once you've made a good dent into the game, you'll start feeling a sense of accomplishment for all your hard work. But you also need to put them down once in a while, perhaps to play another game, or just to unwind. But, upon coming back, imagine how you'd feel if your account got banned for being inactive.

That's precisely how some Lost Ark players felt upon learning that they've been banned for something they haven't done. In a bid to combat the deluge of bots plaguing the game, developer Smilegate has been periodically rolling out ban waves. Unfortunately, getting caught in a ban wave when you've done nothing wrong is part and parcel of the MMO experience. All you need to do is appeal to the customer service and you should get your access back.

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However, this latest wave seems to have swallowed up players that have something in common, inactive accounts. What's worse, the reason given for the ban is cheating, something that goes on your Steam permanent record and can be seen by other players – this is done as a deterrent against those who use cheats and exploits like bots, wallhacks, aimbots, etc.

The Lost Ark Subreddit has been discussing this issue, but it doesn't look like the devs have addressed it as of yet (thanks, PCGamer). "We’re getting a ton of posts from people that have not played the game in several months claiming that they have been notified that their accounts were banned," says a post by Bumblpea. "As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been any official announcement regarding this. These posts are being removed by the auto moderator as ban threads aren’t allowed in the sub."

The comments section is filled with people who are understandably furious at receiving the ban. Not because they're banned from a game they don't play anymore, but primarily because Steam shows that they've been banned from the game for cheating.

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