Angry gamers who demanded an explanation after they were banned from Guild Wars 2 have been publicly outed for allegedly sending racist or abusive messages.
The game's developers Areanet took to Reddit to answer fan's queries about why they were banned.
Most had assumed they were banned for choosing inappropriate names, and were suitably surprised when their real offences were published online. For while it turned out many had either been hacked by other players or were banned by mistake, others were outed as having sent offensive messages to other players.
One player asked: "Mind to check? My character name is Dachshund."
Publishing the real cause of the gamer's ban, Areanet replied: "Name: OK Chat: Not ok -- "i AM A DOG YOU N****R".
Another asked: "Mind checking for Bixx?"
Areanet replied: "The name's fine. The chat? No so much: Bixx: Get out of here you gag f****t."
The gamer responded: "I feel so stupid".
Other gamers said they understood their bans.
"I have been banned for making a character named Adolf Critler," said one. "I thought it was funny, it was most definitely stupid and offensive, and I have now learned my lesson."
Areanet thanked the user for his attitude: "It was reported and it's just not acceptable I'm glad you understand."
Gamers who were banned for chat offences received three-day suspensions. "Hey, we're gamers, too," Areanet said. "We generally won't block for the occasional slip of the tongue. But you can read the responses right here and see the suspensions were given for some pretty nasty chat."
The developers added that their intention was just to explain what was and was not acceptable.
"When an account is blocked for a chat offense, the account is given a three-day suspension. When an account is blocked for an offensive name, the player is required to rename the character name and, in most cases, the account is also given a three-day suspension.
"We have reviewed all the name suspensions currently in place. Where we could give some leeway, we removed the account suspension, which will allow those players to rename the character and rejoin the game. However, for substantially offensive names, we will keep the full three-day suspensions in effect."
Meanwhile thousands of the game's early adopters have been locked out on the day of launch after an overwhelming surge of new users.
The game went on sale on Tuesday after five years of development.
It is the follow-up to the massively successful Guild Wars, which was the first no-subscription premium online RPG when it launched in 2005.