Complaint Review: SnowWolfe Games Equine-Ranch James Ward II And Nicole (Zizert) Ward - Springfield Ohio

I absolutely agree with all of these people;  Nicole Zizert is extremely unprofessional in her duties and personally attacks people in a manner which is uncivilized.  It is absolutely disgusting how that business is run and how people could let it go on this long.  Ms. Zizert allows misconduct to go on continuously so long as you are her "friend";  However, if you are not on this preferred list of people, you are treated as a second class citizen.  I personally have asked simple questions on the in game chat I could not find answers to and have been belittled and put down for asking said questions.  

I can also agree with the original reporter in recommending any potential player STRONGLY against this game. The owner is rude to players, immature, and extremely unprofessional. I expressed a politely phrased critique about the game on its public forums which the owner took offense to. After signing into the game's chat room, the owner verbally attacked me, repeatedly using profanity while I remained civil. I posted once more on the game's forum in my defense, and soon found myself barred from the forum and chat and placed under "House Arrest," the owner's method of punishing players by removing an account's access to most features. No refund is possible, either for the 1 year of Premium account status which I paid for in advance and haven't used or the special features which I purchased and have yet to use. I did not in any way attack the owner and I did not violate any Terms of Service.

In my time with this game, I have repeatedly seen other players receive the same treatment or worse, as well as the repeated public attacks against players in the chatroom and forum, usually involving taking their comments out of context and outright slander. No one speaks out about such abuse, generally for fear of receiving the same treatment.

While I admire the skill involved in the coding of this game, the owner clearly cares for nothing beyond her own pocketbook and very insecure ego. Under this tyrant, forget about "the customer is always right" and replace it with "the customer is always the enemy." The environment here has become so disgusting that I cannot support this company any longer. At one point it was perhaps the best game in its genre. Now I would not recommend it to anyone and wish I had never become involved myself. Stay far, far away from this one.

Actually, I'm Third Peppermint. Third Peppermint does not live in Cleveland. Mrs. Ward should know this since she posted on her blog how close I lived to her (before deleting it). She also shouldn't go around accusing other people of being me. That's not nice. P.S. I also need to thank LadyBird for the link to this.

I am not thirdpeppermint and I thank you not to call me that again. I've never been banned, been on house arrest, or even been on your bad side as so many say they have. I doubt I've ever talked more than a minute or two to you. I've pretty much kept to myself on the game and I've never posted on The Commons or your blog, although I have read both //sidebar:you honestly should not link your blog to the site...I don't care if you have rated r on it, it looks bad on you, the game and who knows what kid might sign up to read it.// I might have popped into chat a handful of times. I'm just your average joe player with a single account, so no chance of even selling things between accounts here, that observed while they played and then got fed up with everything they were seeing.

104,531 accounts created since 2005-01-02 09:13:28 (4 years, 7 months, and 1 day) In that time: Total Suspended Accounts: 3,086 (Less than 3 tenths of 1% of total accounts.) Total Suspended Paid Accounts: 274 (Less than 1/2 of 1% of total upgraded accounts.) Since 2006-12-02 19:41:29 when I installed Admin tracking, 611 of 866 total suspensions were done by someone other than myself. Nicole Ward

We suspend accounts by the network connection/computer used, not individual person. No one that lives in the same household as a rule violator has ever been unsuspended. Accounts that were associated from the time when we allowed players to "ranch sit" for each other and were thus associated because of that would get unsuspended. We have allowed a select few that came back and admitted their wrongdoing and apologized to open a new account and get a second chance. The fact is nobody knows -who- opened the account and made the post except the people present at the computer it was made from at the time it was made. Anyone can claim to be "DM's Hubby" on the internet. The sockpuppet point is dead on. We can only see IP numbers and our own computer tracking logs. Demonmare is simply angry that she was not shown favoritism. She expected special treatment because she has pretended to be my friend where I could read what she was saying. As for her saying I have said what I feel about various players in private. I have in my admin chat that everyone who was allowed in agreed to keep what was said in it confidential. Demonmare has said plenty of her own share of bad things about various players over the years in that same chat room. Thirdpeppermint, our anonymous commenter from Cleveland, has been hosting a hate blog about me ever since I removed copyrighted material she posted on our forums in an attempt to prove me wrong about a casual topic unrelated to the game. Posting copyrighted material is strictly against our rules, so I deleted it from her posts. She has bashed me, made fun of my autism, berated me, put me down, and tried to do anything she can to hurt my feelings. It is very sad to see a person so consumed with negativity that they harbor such hostility toward someone they don't even know for years. If we really were ripping off so many people, someone would have filed legitimate complaints against us with the Better Business Bureau. The fact is that in 5 years and 5 months we have processed thousands of payments, yet we have had just two BBB complaints. One from a free player that had not paid any money and was summarily dismissed, and another that was dismissed because the complainant never responded. BBB processed a total of 1 complaint about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period. Of the total of 1 complaint closed in 36 months, 1 was closed in the last year. Refund or Exchange Issues Resolved 1 - Company addressed the complaint issues. The consumer failed to acknowledge acceptance to BBB. One of our major competitors has had 4, another that is equivalent in size to our game has 1, and yet two others similar in size have both had 1 complaint each to which they did not even respond. I feel if there were any truth to the claims of these two, it would show up as more than two angry women trying to have their anger heard on the internet.

I was not clear enough in my original posting. My husband did NOT use my accounts to post his comment as he did NOT have access to them. My Husbands comment was not attacking any player directly and was not implying any attacking. I do not believe that his response warranted the comments that were posted, nor the unsavory names that he and myself were called. This site is open to children and the language that is used upon the Forum is not appropriate. It was stated within the emails that I received, I did not violate any of the Game Rules or the TOS. That was not brought up until such time as I asked for my refund. I am not expecting a refund from this company, this is more of a warning to others that may get involved in playing this game. I totally understand that I will not win against the odds that were stated, but I don't think that anyone else should go into this blind to what they may face. You can be banned for anything at anytime. There is a great abuse of power going on within the game and many can and will be caught up in it.

was curious as to see what account her husband used so I just popped on there, found the thread in question and had a look. Her husband did not use any of her accounts. He used his own, granted, he may have made it just for that, but he did not use one of her accounts to say anything, and his response to the game owner was one of explanation, no flaming. The owner just didn't like it and took it way to personally. I also remember an incident a long while back...some kids/siblings/samehousehold players played. one got banned, so all accounts in household got banned, one of the kids talked to the game owner and was reinstated. So why did this not happen in this instance? The original complainer on here did say she sent in an e mail to apologize for what had happened between her husband and the game owners. It doesn't matter. Other people on other forums and websites are hearing about this game in a not so good light, and have been for years. Some don't give info other than they joined a horse sim and were treated badly (some times the bannings were deserved and other times they were not, and sometimes the game owners decide to give favorites several chances before banning, and other times not...it's all on a whim honestly) But at any rate, other people can pinpoint exactly what game it is that they are talking about! other players I've talked to said that the game owner, Nicole, will talk badly about other players in private messages on chat and have taken screencaps to show them. Subsequently, those players also quit once shown screencaps of the private conversations...but she still does it. It could be a great game, but I don't think that the owners hearts are in it. This is a game owner that abuses the right to cancel/terminate at any time for any reason part of her TOS. I've seen very young adults/older teens run games more fairly than this woman does. but to the original poster: chin up, you are out of there and no longer have to worry about petty people with a chip on their shoulder.

There are a lot of forums out there, and a lot of them blow. Sometimes all it takes is someone with an sense of unwarranted self importance, other times it takes other users going rampant. However, there are general rules that you can expect ANYWHERE in the forum world online. One of them is pretty much always "account sharing is STRICTLY prohibited" this goes for not only the forums, but the games they support too. In many cases, you have to get anyone else who is going to be using your account, say to maintain your inventory, in-game store or what have you, PRE-AUTHORIZED PERMISSION from the admin of the forum/game to use your account. The person running the forum has no way to tell if you are telling the truth about your husband logging in or not. All too often, people will generate a sockpuppet persona to do all the "nasty little things" that they wouldn't do under their own name. I'm NOT saying YOU did, but it happens more often than not, so admins will err on the side of caution. Refunds on in-game gold/items is never going to happen, and that's one of the most BASIC things laid out in darned near every TOS. Pretty much no on line game or MMORPG is without that clause. It's a de facto standard; just look at the WoW ToS, and that's just for starters. Also, usually in the TOS, it will state somewhere that the operator of the game or MMORPG reserves the right to cancel/terminate an account for ANY reason at ANY time, with no recourse to the player for reinstatement of the account or monetary compensation. GRANTED, this has the potential for abuse in the hands of a mod/admin/GM who has delusions of godhood and/or megalomainia. if this has happened to you, just get on the horse you rode in on and get outta Dodge, because you won't win against the combination of that and the TOS. That's just the way it goes. I've been participating in online gaming and forums for YEARS, way back to the days when all that was available was local dial-up BBS's with simple, crappy "Door" games and things haven't changed since then. Don't expect them to either.

But read the terms of service closer: from article 3: "You may not share your account(s) with anyone, except that if you are a parent or guardian, you may permit minor children in your home to use your account(s). You are liable for all uses of the Account." by admitting your husband used your account to post on the forums you violated the terms of service. "Posting threats or flaming another player on a horse page, ranch page, or any other portion of the Service is against the Terms of Service, and may result in your account being fined, restricted, or suspended." What your husband engaged in would be covered under "flaming another player" and finally: "If your account is suspended for violation of game rules or the TOS, you will not receive any refund of monies paid." so its all in the terms of service.

For the past few years this same stuff has been going on in this game. Just not quite to this extent before. All of the "old timers" are slowly being picked off, berated, lied about...or maybe words twisted to make them look bad and Nicole Ward to look like the helpless victim, which is by far not the case. This game is run very unprofessionally and when I seen with my own eyes that one of the owners does not care about the players, only the paycheck, that makes me feel not so good about paying to play this game. I have seen how players get treated now for the past several months, both people I am friends with and others that I have not spoken to before. The game owner is vindictive and mean. She is the very definition of cyber-bully. She gets snippy with people when they post on her threads on the forum there, but still keep up with the thread--just evolving it a bit, but staying true to the thread and not off topic. But if threads evolve elsewhere, nothing is said (as that is the nature of forums and threads on forums...they evolve to include a wide variety on the topic) I'm cutting my losses on the upgrade and other money spent on this game this year and getting out now. It's a very negative place to be. I would not let a child even ON the game, as Nicole has her personal blog linked directly to the game, it's mainly about the game and the language can get harsh. It says rated r at the top, but in what world will that stop a child from signing up anyway to view the blog? The game could be a great game, and it once did, but the owners and their lack of care about the players and bully like attitudes are ruining it.