- Any sort of ban on /say and /zone NEEDS to include /tell as well. RMT spammers will start tell bombing if they can't use any other way of public advertisement.
Or allow players to toggle on an option that says "ignore private messages, guild, and team invites from people not on your friends list".
<::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::)xxxxxxxx(:::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> "Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
I've edited/moved a few posts in order to keep things on task. Lets remain focused on the challenge at hand, to improve the current system in place.
** Because the text chat systems are linked between Cryptic games, we may get some unique ideas from those who played CO/STO, but I do not want to get into any drama or past debates from those forums. Let's just stick to the role of developer as in the challenge, in order to stay on task...
So far, we've seen some great ideas... and I'm looking forward to reading many more!
All we were trying to say is that the chat system is shared by all three games and fixes should be for all three games, not just this one.
Cool. Yep, that was a misunderstanding on my part. I simply didnt realize how linked the chat system is.
I have no problem with seeing the same changes in other Cryptic games, but since I only play Neverwinter, and this thread caters to the Neverwinter audience, that's where my focus lies!
Fair enough. As is likely evident, those people that have been with Cryptic since the beginning feel rather strongly about this particular subject, as they've been under its abuse the longest. Fair to say some remain skeptical if anything will even be done about it, myself included. I hope I'm pleasantly surprised.
Fair enough. As is likely evident, those people that have been with Cryptic since the beginning feel rather strongly about this particular subject, as they've been under its abuse the longest. Fair to say some remain skeptical if anything will even be done about it, myself included. I hope I'm pleasantly surprised.
Yep yep, I see that. I've been to each thread linked here, and yeah some peeps were pissed off. The whole purpose of my thread... to involve the community. Get ya'll thinking. And to get Cryptic coding.
Let's just be about it (this means to stand up but be positive), and get something done about it!
Back to task. Anyone else willing to take the challenge?
- Take away the community's ability to chat ban other players entirely. Have both the /ignore and "report spam" functions ignore the player only on the account which issues the ignore/report, without contributing to any chat ban system, whatsoever. This is the only truly responsible fix.
Giving random players authority over other players is NOT the right way to handle spammers, period. You can't trust a random mob of players to handle this kind of authority responsibly... as we can plainly see by what's happening in Cryptic games (or anywhere else that justice has been left to a mob of people. :rolleyes:) This system doesn't resemble anything fair or just, and is obviously open to abuse.
If you refuse to implement that change, then there are several other things which could be done:
1. "Ignore" and "report spam" should be separate. Being ignored shouldn't contribute to a 24-hour chat ban. Players ignore each other for a variety of reasons, and not all of those are for spamming zone chat.
2. The report spam tally should reset periodically, at least once every hour. Reports shouldn't simply build forever until a chat ban is implemented, because those could all be completely separate reports concerning completely separate issues (in other words, they don't prove that you were annoying a large group of people at the same time; which, unless I've missed something, is the point of the system.)
3. Each chat zone should allow for separate bans. A ban in zone chat should be limited only to zone chat. If you are banned from zone chat, you should not also be banned from typing in custom chat channels, group chat, and certainly not in guild chat (let guilds moderate themselves, thank you very much.)
4. Implement a pop-up window which asks, "Are you sure you would like to ignore xxxx@xxxx, who wrote <copied chat text here>?" before allowing the spam report to go through. Many people have been ignored/reported by accident, due to players misclicking on their name. This option would allow players to double-check and ensure that they clicked the right name, and the right message, before going through with the spam report.
5. Chat bans should not extend to other Cryptic games. If I was not spamming in STO, then I shouldn't be banned from STO. Likewise, if I was not spamming in STO, then players in STO should not be able to type my @handle into their chat window to ban me from Neverwinter. Say I do get banned from people misclicking on my name, completely by accident. You're telling me I can't play ANY of your other games while waiting for that ban to wear off? How is that a good business model? (hint: it isn't.)
6. Implement an internal cooldown on zone chat messages. Players should only be able to post once every 5 seconds in zone chat. This would give us all a chance to read, and react, to a gold seller's spam messages before they fill the entire chat window. Anyone who is legitimately posting in zone chat doesn't post more than once every 5 seconds, anyway (it takes you 5 seconds to legitimately type another message after posting your last one.) This shouldn't negatively affect anyone who isn't intentionally trying to spam the channel, but it will make it impossible for a gold seller to fill the entire chat window with spam before being reported.
7. Allow us to the option to only accept mail from players within our guild and friends list. Gold sellers sending mail to every player on the server is almost as annoying as chat spam (more annoying, for those of us who turn off zone chat entirely.) I realize this has nothing to do with the chat system, but it's a good suggestion, so I'm including it.
8. Apply these fixes to both CO and STO, because they are long overdue.
-Travail.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
I was referring to Gold and AD selling spam ads. And yes, we are playing the same game
In my opinion you guys are going about this all wrong. There is no need for a chat ban if you put in place the difficulty of incentive for Spamming AD sales.
Here is an example. If you have to be level 15 before you can use zone chat then you prevent a player from making bot characters to spam zone chat. They would first have to level up to 15 before they could even spam zone chat. This makes it easier to ban them all together.
Okay so that opens up another problem. How do new players get information? Simple, make a new player channel that new players are automatically entered into until they reach level 15 when they are allowed to now use zone chat. Players higher level who want to help new players can (if they want) enter this new player channel to help answer questions. But it becomes pointless for spammers to spam this help channel. You can even place a warning on the channel saying not to visit AD farming websites because they are scams.
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warfluxMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
But it becomes pointless for spammers to spam this help channel.
Sort of skipped over why it would be pointless. If I was a gold seller I would love this channel. And you are also under the impression it would be hard for them to get a ton of throwaway characters up to that level with little effort on their part.
In general every idea I've heard as far as tweaking the chat is unrealistic. There is a general lack of understanding of just how skilled these gold sellers are.
Putting limits on how often you can chat does nothing to them. Even if they cared about it, which they probably wouldn't anyway, they could have multiple connections running to cut down that delay effectively as much as they want.
The truth is unless they do something to verify these accounts, there is nothing better than having the community police it the way it is now.
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warfluxMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
Ok so I will say I have seen one f2p fix this. This is how.
They set up a system to catch any player buying gold. They made buying gold illegal. They handed out a month ban and deleted every item and gold piece you owned if you were caught buying gold.
It fixed the problem. The gold sellers completely disappeared. It also ticked off a ton of players.
Sort of skipped over why it would be pointless. If I was a gold seller I would love this channel. And you are also under the impression it would be hard for them to get a ton of throwaway characters up to that level with little effort on their part.
In general every idea I've heard as far as tweaking the chat is unrealistic. There is a general lack of understanding of just how skilled these gold sellers are.
Putting limits on how often you can chat does nothing to them. Even if they cared about it, which they probably wouldn't anyway, they could have multiple connections running to cut down that delay effectively as much as they want.
The truth is unless they do something to verify these accounts, there is nothing better than having the community police it the way it is now.
To be honest, I'm pretty sure the main goal of this thread is to get ideas to fix the chat ban system so players can no longer abuse it and grief other players. I can always ignore gold sales spam. I'm personally more concerned with the abuse of the system that's been going on since shortly after CO launched in 2009. That's nigh onto four years of misuse that finally has an opportunity to be looked at.
This is big. King Kong big. Nah, he's a shrimp. GODZILLA big. Four hundred feet of radioactive lizard huge.
One cosmetic solution is needed to be add to all this ideas.
When you nearly to be baned there should appeared HUGE window with warning "YOU WILL BE BANED IF YOU WROTE AGAIN SOMETHING LIKE THIS!" and it should be closed automatically after 15-20 seconds countdown. It is very important to warn player if he doing something wrong!
Nearly week ago I have been permabaned for question in zone chat about spam mail, and I didnt see any warns that I did mistake.
Yesterday I have created new account and test antyspam system. When I wrote at first time name of spammers company I saw barely visible yellow colored notice and of course at the protectors enclave due to many messages you most likely pass this message coz it will be scroll out fast your chat window.
My friend and I decided to completely ignore chat while antyspam systems is untuned, because who knows which word would bring you permanent ban.
Return the /ignore function to the way it worked before it was changed, only muting other players to the ignoring player.
And considering you already have a system in place where anybody uttering a verboten word or phrase is automatically and immediately banned, why do you need a player-driven automated chat ban function anyway? You simply need the /report spam function to send the text to Cryptic so they can add the correct data to the naughty-words database.
1) Create Trade Channel
2) Create LFG Channel
3) Create Guild Recruitment Channel
4) Leave the /report system the way it is and allow players to report any Trade, LFG and Recruitment chat in the General Chat channel and, after 20 or maybe 30 reports, get the offender banned.
Eventually, all the offenders will eventually learn to post the correct chat in the correct channel.
How about we as gamers stop worrying about 'punishing people' for what we perceive as inconvenience communication that 'offends our sight', and simply just settle with an ignore feature. If you ignore them, you can't read what they say, and there is no longer a problem.
Spam penalty, if it exists at all, should be an hour.
The manual moderation so many suggest isn't feasible. Far too much chatting going on to moderate everything. Besides, privacy issues and all that (how do you moderate PMs sent by spammers, etc?).
Here is what I would do:
- Make the vote system weight based; Instead of all votes counting as simply 1 vote, votes now have a weight between 0.0 and 1.0
- The baseline vote weight is still 1.0
- Limit votes by IP. For example, if 3 votes have already been cast against a target from a given IP, ignore further votes from that IP against that target (vote weight set to 0.0).
- Diminish vote weight by guild / friend's list association. For example, multiply vote weight by 0.8 for every guild member or friend that has already voted against the target.
- Diminish vote weight by vote frequency. For example, multiply vote weight by 0.9 for any vote that the voter has cast in the past 24 hours.
Full example:
1. Joe@Bob votes that John@spammer is a spammer and should be silenced.
2. The baseline vote weight is 1.0.
3. This is the first vote from Joe@Bob's IP against John@spammer, so the vote is not ignored (stays 1.0).
4. However, two of Joe@Bob's guildmates have already cast votes against John@spammer, so his vote weight is diminished twice.
5. Vote weight = 1.0 * 0.8 * 0.8 = 0.64
6. Joe@Bob has also already cast 2 votes against two other people today, so his vote weight is diminished further.
7. Vote weight = 0.64 * 0.9 * 0.9 = 0.52
8. A "spam vote" of 0.52 is added to John@spammer's "spam tab," for lack of a better term.
9. If the total of John@spammer's tab over the past 36 hours exceeds 20.0 at this point, he is muted for 24 hours. (The 36-24 difference is intended to immediately catch and mute repeat offenders)
Specific numbers would need tweaking, of course, but I think this kind of system could be set up to automatically avoid abuse scenarios while still catching the spammers. Also, a throttle on how many messages a user can send to public channels per second would work wonders. Some heuristic analysis of messages for similarity (repeated messages with slight variation) and containing names of known gold sellers (even if separated by spaces/characters) would be icing on the cake.
Edit: Text analysis like that could tie into the vote weight system by simply automatically casting a, say, 0.5 vote for every repetition and/or content violation detected. Legitimate users should never rack up enough demerits like that to be muted (after all, votes time out after a day or two), but it would help mute actual spammers a bit faster and semi-automatically.
Also, while you're at it, please make an official Trade channel and LFG channel. Right now Enclave zonechat is just pure chaos... it makes it very difficult to use the chat system, no matter what you're trying to do. If the shards are merged, this would only get even worse. This shouldn't even be a matter of debate... it just makes sense to have separate chat channels for those two basic purposes.
Cool. Yep, that was a misunderstanding on my part. I simply didnt realize how linked the chat system is.
I have no problem with seeing the same changes in other Cryptic games, but since I only play Neverwinter, and this thread caters to the Neverwinter audience, that's where my focus lies!
Fair enough.
In that case I'll offer one change I've wanted to see for a long time now. Over on the STO side we have some endgame group mission content called "Special Task Forces" or STFs that can be accessed through a queue system. I'm sure you NW guys have some sort of dungeons or the like. CO I know has Alerts. Tensions can often run high in these events which can lead to the abuse of the chat ban system.
Once you ignore someone or use the report spam function, it adds them to your ignore list. The problem is that even though you won't see that person in your chat window anymore, you can still end up in games with them from the queue system. The change I would like to see is that if you put someone on ignore, the system prevents you from ending up in the same queued events as that person.
I'm not sure about NW but in STO we have a rather large AFK farmer situation. Basically people are joining events through the queue and then going AFK while everyone else does the work. They just pick up the rewards at the end. Unfortunately even though I have put a few of these on my ignore list, I still get into games with them. I'd like it if I put them on my ignore list and then never get queued up with them again. I think I remember something about you guys having a problem with AFKers in pvp matches? If so, then this change would benefit NW as well.
I know that this isn't exactly about the chat ban system itself, but since the ban is tied into the ignore function, I thought I'd add this up here as well. My apologies if someone already suggested this, however I would agree with it.
I've read through three pages now and have seen this idea eluded to but not in the way that I would implement it myself if I were programming this feature.
1. This is stated many times, must have separate channels for LFG (to cover searching for parties and guilds) and TRADE. Perhaps a separate localized RP channel as well (this works in other games for those RPing or looking for RP.)
2. Public channels should most definitely have some level restrictions on them, level 10 required to use any chat other than zone and restrict zone messages to once ever 5 minutes (this will allow a new player to ask a question but not allow a gold seller to spam at all.) Level 10 to 14 has access to all public chat channels but is limited to 1 message every 1 minute. Level 15+ all restrictions removed. The /say channel should not be restricted by this as even those of low level enjoy RPing once in a while.
3. The current system of banning based on number of spam reports is OK but needs a few tweaks. A player absolutely should not be allowed to report spam without posting a reason for the report (a little popup where they free type the reason for the report i.e. Gold Spammer.) Must be level 20+ to have a spam report count towards a chat ban (lower levels may still use it but it will only add the person to their individual ignore list.) Once someone is chat banned an in game mail is sent to them with an itemized list of each individuals reason for reporting him/her as a chat spammer, if the chat banned player disagrees and files a grievance with PWE and PWE finds that the reports were erroneous then each and every person who reported the chat spam is placed on a 72 hour chat ban themselves for abuse of the chat system. This will eliminate 99.9% of people being chat banned without just cause.
There is absolutely no functional way to fully automate a chat banning system. If you cannot provide people to monitor for spam reports, remove the system entirely and beef up the ignore part (so that people can fix the problem for themselves without false positives affecting someone that has done nothing wrong).
To repeat - there is NO functional automated system that will do the job of allowing players to ban other players from chatting, so if you cannot moderate reports with actual people, then nobody can be outright banned. Leave it to players to put other characters (or even better, accounts) on ignore. There is no way to abuse this system - the accused spammer cannot annoy the player who considers it spam (since he can ignore them), and the annoyed party cannot arbitrarily ban the accused based on a subjective interpretation of spam.
A level head
Institute a tiered approach to chat such that people have to play the game to certain levels to enable different level of chat. In essence they must earn chat privileges. I don’t have all eth current chat channels at hand but let this be something of a guide. Level ranges are approximate.
This way anyone who wants to sell gold via the Zone chat will have to be at least level 20 to even try it.
People still get to speak, party and guild up at level 1 if they want to. Unsolicited whispers should wait until the tutorial is completely done. Area channels like yell and Zone should be above level 10 and could serve as an additional milestone of reaching those levels.
#### ## #####
Use your chat filter to catch contraband chat messages and then replace the entire message with a filler character, like a “#” such that no part of the original message is discernible. Some tuning will turn your default word filter into a spam stopper. Multiple blocked messages (lets say 5 in 5 minutes) in a time frame can result in a chat ban to effectively stop the cut and paste spammers who flood the window.
Hush and play the game
Make chatbans apply only to “wide area” channels such as Zone and Yell. That will lower the dissatisfaction with the system to nearly zero. Being banned from Zone still lets people play the game, be in parties or roleplay. It just keeps them from doing whatever they were doing in the area channels. Spammers will have no impetus to use lower chat settings and anyone incidentally banned will still be able to play without bothering the larger channels. And they can still be ignored in the smaller channels if they just can’t behave.
Just the spam, ma’am
Make the “report for spam” option actually report to someone. IE. “Your spam report has been sent to the community development team.”
I think people will be less likely to use “report for spam” recklessly if they think someone will be looking at what they did. And I think they will be more likely to use it correctly if they think someone is on the other end looking for actual spammers. This can also be a way to help tune the chat filter above. Combine it with volunteers to help select words and letter combinations for the chat filter.
From brutes to tool users
Make tools that can be refined and then use volunteers to help refine the tools rather than police the populace. Note that putting the general populace on refining the tool will likely get you a system that filters out conjunctions and articles. So volunteers, just like you would pick forum mods.
A home of their own
Actually make a channel for trade and for lfg. Official channels mean far more than player created channels and those are clearly critical, plus being able to tell someone “Use Trade Channel for that!” might tone down the animosity both in the game and on the boards.
You again?
Offer an option to make ignore lists global to your account so you won’t have to ignore the same person with every toon you may have.
Changes to Global Mute
a. /ignore does not count towards global mute
b. Email/Zone/Whispers - Right Click - Report Spam = Counts toward Global Mute
c. Once an @account reaches 20 "Report Spam" counts their account is muted.
d. Once global muted an automated email is sent to the users registered email account with an "unmute" code. Same system as allowing a new PC to access your account could be utilized. The player then enters the unmute code to allow the player to activate global chat.
e. After the player enters the Global Unmute code their account is on a 24 hour probation period. If the users account is Global muted within the 24 hour probation period they receive a 2 hour mute ban. After 2 hours they receive another unmute code and their account is set with a 24 hour probation period. This cycle can continue for a value determined by the DEVs before a users account is flagged as "spammer" and requires a review by a GM for permanent closure.
The purpose of these changes are to reduce the effectiveness of spam bots, allow humans to reflect on why they were banned and correct their actions. Also for players falsely accused of spamming the ability to unmute themselves and abusive players accounts banned.
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ranncoreMember, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 2,508
edited June 2013
You're not going to be able to sell this account, because it's going to be deleted and you're going to get an IP ban.
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vaelosMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
No I like the current system of chat ban mafias picking my name off the AH because I undercut one of them
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ranncoreMember, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 2,508
The manual moderation so many suggest isn't feasible. Far too much chatting going on to moderate everything. Besides, privacy issues and all that (how do you moderate PMs sent by spammers, etc?).
So wait...when you're beebopping along at say....3 am and you come across a bugged mission that won't complete...and file an ingame support ticket...and...oh...let's say GMHersheysquirts comes along to solve your problem so you can continue playing......what makes it unfeasable that said GM is incapable of monitoring incoming report spam flags? Also, keep in mind, GMHersheysquirts has a couple buddies on moderating the game as well. GMPeptoBismol and GMKaopectate. I guarantee there are already ingame mods that can respond to tickets in a timely fashion at all hours of the day or night....why can't they also monitor spam reports? Wouldn't take but a second or three to look, read the text associated with the report and make a judgement call right then and there on who to chat ban.
Edit: And as far as the privacy card goes....you really think that there is such a thing here? Or in any MMO, for that matter? Consider: datamining. Nothing anyone does ingame is private. Not even chat.
- Limit votes by IP. For example, if 3 votes have already been cast against a target from a given IP, ignore further votes from that IP against that target (vote weight set to 0.0).
Targeting the IP doesn't work as well as it once did, there are many ways to gain a new IP or to spoof it.
To the topic, the only way to improve the system is to remove the 24 hr chat ban, it is too easy to abuse, and has been abused countless times. It is clear that there are players with in the community who are not responsible enough.
Placing any kind of level limit on it is unjust and does nothing to solve the problem. Adding a text box that asks for a reason will likely get filled with nonsense or single words. Making it more tedious to report someone isn't going to make the system better.
Comments
Or allow players to toggle on an option that says "ignore private messages, guild, and team invites from people not on your friends list".
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
I was referring to Gold and AD selling spam ads. And yes, we are playing the same game
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** Because the text chat systems are linked between Cryptic games, we may get some unique ideas from those who played CO/STO, but I do not want to get into any drama or past debates from those forums. Let's just stick to the role of developer as in the challenge, in order to stay on task...
So far, we've seen some great ideas... and I'm looking forward to reading many more!
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All we were trying to say is that the chat system is shared by all three games and fixes should be for all three games, not just this one.
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
Cool. Yep, that was a misunderstanding on my part. I simply didnt realize how linked the chat system is.
I have no problem with seeing the same changes in other Cryptic games, but since I only play Neverwinter, and this thread caters to the Neverwinter audience, that's where my focus lies!
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Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
Yep yep, I see that. I've been to each thread linked here, and yeah some peeps were pissed off. The whole purpose of my thread... to involve the community. Get ya'll thinking. And to get Cryptic coding.
Let's just be about it (this means to stand up but be positive), and get something done about it!
Back to task. Anyone else willing to take the challenge?
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- Take away the community's ability to chat ban other players entirely. Have both the /ignore and "report spam" functions ignore the player only on the account which issues the ignore/report, without contributing to any chat ban system, whatsoever. This is the only truly responsible fix.
Giving random players authority over other players is NOT the right way to handle spammers, period. You can't trust a random mob of players to handle this kind of authority responsibly... as we can plainly see by what's happening in Cryptic games (or anywhere else that justice has been left to a mob of people. :rolleyes:) This system doesn't resemble anything fair or just, and is obviously open to abuse.
If you refuse to implement that change, then there are several other things which could be done:
1. "Ignore" and "report spam" should be separate. Being ignored shouldn't contribute to a 24-hour chat ban. Players ignore each other for a variety of reasons, and not all of those are for spamming zone chat.
2. The report spam tally should reset periodically, at least once every hour. Reports shouldn't simply build forever until a chat ban is implemented, because those could all be completely separate reports concerning completely separate issues (in other words, they don't prove that you were annoying a large group of people at the same time; which, unless I've missed something, is the point of the system.)
3. Each chat zone should allow for separate bans. A ban in zone chat should be limited only to zone chat. If you are banned from zone chat, you should not also be banned from typing in custom chat channels, group chat, and certainly not in guild chat (let guilds moderate themselves, thank you very much.)
4. Implement a pop-up window which asks, "Are you sure you would like to ignore xxxx@xxxx, who wrote <copied chat text here>?" before allowing the spam report to go through. Many people have been ignored/reported by accident, due to players misclicking on their name. This option would allow players to double-check and ensure that they clicked the right name, and the right message, before going through with the spam report.
5. Chat bans should not extend to other Cryptic games. If I was not spamming in STO, then I shouldn't be banned from STO. Likewise, if I was not spamming in STO, then players in STO should not be able to type my @handle into their chat window to ban me from Neverwinter. Say I do get banned from people misclicking on my name, completely by accident. You're telling me I can't play ANY of your other games while waiting for that ban to wear off? How is that a good business model? (hint: it isn't.)
6. Implement an internal cooldown on zone chat messages. Players should only be able to post once every 5 seconds in zone chat. This would give us all a chance to read, and react, to a gold seller's spam messages before they fill the entire chat window. Anyone who is legitimately posting in zone chat doesn't post more than once every 5 seconds, anyway (it takes you 5 seconds to legitimately type another message after posting your last one.) This shouldn't negatively affect anyone who isn't intentionally trying to spam the channel, but it will make it impossible for a gold seller to fill the entire chat window with spam before being reported.
7. Allow us to the option to only accept mail from players within our guild and friends list. Gold sellers sending mail to every player on the server is almost as annoying as chat spam (more annoying, for those of us who turn off zone chat entirely.) I realize this has nothing to do with the chat system, but it's a good suggestion, so I'm including it.
8. Apply these fixes to both CO and STO, because they are long overdue.
-Travail.
In my opinion you guys are going about this all wrong. There is no need for a chat ban if you put in place the difficulty of incentive for Spamming AD sales.
Here is an example. If you have to be level 15 before you can use zone chat then you prevent a player from making bot characters to spam zone chat. They would first have to level up to 15 before they could even spam zone chat. This makes it easier to ban them all together.
Okay so that opens up another problem. How do new players get information? Simple, make a new player channel that new players are automatically entered into until they reach level 15 when they are allowed to now use zone chat. Players higher level who want to help new players can (if they want) enter this new player channel to help answer questions. But it becomes pointless for spammers to spam this help channel. You can even place a warning on the channel saying not to visit AD farming websites because they are scams.
Sort of skipped over why it would be pointless. If I was a gold seller I would love this channel. And you are also under the impression it would be hard for them to get a ton of throwaway characters up to that level with little effort on their part.
In general every idea I've heard as far as tweaking the chat is unrealistic. There is a general lack of understanding of just how skilled these gold sellers are.
Putting limits on how often you can chat does nothing to them. Even if they cared about it, which they probably wouldn't anyway, they could have multiple connections running to cut down that delay effectively as much as they want.
The truth is unless they do something to verify these accounts, there is nothing better than having the community police it the way it is now.
They set up a system to catch any player buying gold. They made buying gold illegal. They handed out a month ban and deleted every item and gold piece you owned if you were caught buying gold.
It fixed the problem. The gold sellers completely disappeared. It also ticked off a ton of players.
To be honest, I'm pretty sure the main goal of this thread is to get ideas to fix the chat ban system so players can no longer abuse it and grief other players. I can always ignore gold sales spam. I'm personally more concerned with the abuse of the system that's been going on since shortly after CO launched in 2009. That's nigh onto four years of misuse that finally has an opportunity to be looked at.
This is big. King Kong big. Nah, he's a shrimp. GODZILLA big. Four hundred feet of radioactive lizard huge.
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
When you nearly to be baned there should appeared HUGE window with warning "YOU WILL BE BANED IF YOU WROTE AGAIN SOMETHING LIKE THIS!" and it should be closed automatically after 15-20 seconds countdown. It is very important to warn player if he doing something wrong!
Nearly week ago I have been permabaned for question in zone chat about spam mail, and I didnt see any warns that I did mistake.
Yesterday I have created new account and test antyspam system. When I wrote at first time name of spammers company I saw barely visible yellow colored notice and of course at the protectors enclave due to many messages you most likely pass this message coz it will be scroll out fast your chat window.
My friend and I decided to completely ignore chat while antyspam systems is untuned, because who knows which word would bring you permanent ban.
And considering you already have a system in place where anybody uttering a verboten word or phrase is automatically and immediately banned, why do you need a player-driven automated chat ban function anyway? You simply need the /report spam function to send the text to Cryptic so they can add the correct data to the naughty-words database.
People are broken. - Lum the Mad
2) Create LFG Channel
3) Create Guild Recruitment Channel
4) Leave the /report system the way it is and allow players to report any Trade, LFG and Recruitment chat in the General Chat channel and, after 20 or maybe 30 reports, get the offender banned.
Eventually, all the offenders will eventually learn to post the correct chat in the correct channel.
Spam penalty, if it exists at all, should be an hour.
Yeah, that way spammers can just move to every public global channel, whispers directly to people, and emails.
Here is what I would do:
- Make the vote system weight based; Instead of all votes counting as simply 1 vote, votes now have a weight between 0.0 and 1.0
- The baseline vote weight is still 1.0
- Limit votes by IP. For example, if 3 votes have already been cast against a target from a given IP, ignore further votes from that IP against that target (vote weight set to 0.0).
- Diminish vote weight by guild / friend's list association. For example, multiply vote weight by 0.8 for every guild member or friend that has already voted against the target.
- Diminish vote weight by vote frequency. For example, multiply vote weight by 0.9 for any vote that the voter has cast in the past 24 hours.
Full example:
1. Joe@Bob votes that John@spammer is a spammer and should be silenced.
2. The baseline vote weight is 1.0.
3. This is the first vote from Joe@Bob's IP against John@spammer, so the vote is not ignored (stays 1.0).
4. However, two of Joe@Bob's guildmates have already cast votes against John@spammer, so his vote weight is diminished twice.
5. Vote weight = 1.0 * 0.8 * 0.8 = 0.64
6. Joe@Bob has also already cast 2 votes against two other people today, so his vote weight is diminished further.
7. Vote weight = 0.64 * 0.9 * 0.9 = 0.52
8. A "spam vote" of 0.52 is added to John@spammer's "spam tab," for lack of a better term.
9. If the total of John@spammer's tab over the past 36 hours exceeds 20.0 at this point, he is muted for 24 hours. (The 36-24 difference is intended to immediately catch and mute repeat offenders)
Specific numbers would need tweaking, of course, but I think this kind of system could be set up to automatically avoid abuse scenarios while still catching the spammers. Also, a throttle on how many messages a user can send to public channels per second would work wonders. Some heuristic analysis of messages for similarity (repeated messages with slight variation) and containing names of known gold sellers (even if separated by spaces/characters) would be icing on the cake.
Edit: Text analysis like that could tie into the vote weight system by simply automatically casting a, say, 0.5 vote for every repetition and/or content violation detected. Legitimate users should never rack up enough demerits like that to be muted (after all, votes time out after a day or two), but it would help mute actual spammers a bit faster and semi-automatically.
Also, while you're at it, please make an official Trade channel and LFG channel. Right now Enclave zonechat is just pure chaos... it makes it very difficult to use the chat system, no matter what you're trying to do. If the shards are merged, this would only get even worse. This shouldn't even be a matter of debate... it just makes sense to have separate chat channels for those two basic purposes.
Fair enough.
In that case I'll offer one change I've wanted to see for a long time now. Over on the STO side we have some endgame group mission content called "Special Task Forces" or STFs that can be accessed through a queue system. I'm sure you NW guys have some sort of dungeons or the like. CO I know has Alerts. Tensions can often run high in these events which can lead to the abuse of the chat ban system.
Once you ignore someone or use the report spam function, it adds them to your ignore list. The problem is that even though you won't see that person in your chat window anymore, you can still end up in games with them from the queue system. The change I would like to see is that if you put someone on ignore, the system prevents you from ending up in the same queued events as that person.
I'm not sure about NW but in STO we have a rather large AFK farmer situation. Basically people are joining events through the queue and then going AFK while everyone else does the work. They just pick up the rewards at the end. Unfortunately even though I have put a few of these on my ignore list, I still get into games with them. I'd like it if I put them on my ignore list and then never get queued up with them again. I think I remember something about you guys having a problem with AFKers in pvp matches? If so, then this change would benefit NW as well.
I know that this isn't exactly about the chat ban system itself, but since the ban is tied into the ignore function, I thought I'd add this up here as well. My apologies if someone already suggested this, however I would agree with it.
1. This is stated many times, must have separate channels for LFG (to cover searching for parties and guilds) and TRADE. Perhaps a separate localized RP channel as well (this works in other games for those RPing or looking for RP.)
2. Public channels should most definitely have some level restrictions on them, level 10 required to use any chat other than zone and restrict zone messages to once ever 5 minutes (this will allow a new player to ask a question but not allow a gold seller to spam at all.) Level 10 to 14 has access to all public chat channels but is limited to 1 message every 1 minute. Level 15+ all restrictions removed. The /say channel should not be restricted by this as even those of low level enjoy RPing once in a while.
3. The current system of banning based on number of spam reports is OK but needs a few tweaks. A player absolutely should not be allowed to report spam without posting a reason for the report (a little popup where they free type the reason for the report i.e. Gold Spammer.) Must be level 20+ to have a spam report count towards a chat ban (lower levels may still use it but it will only add the person to their individual ignore list.) Once someone is chat banned an in game mail is sent to them with an itemized list of each individuals reason for reporting him/her as a chat spammer, if the chat banned player disagrees and files a grievance with PWE and PWE finds that the reports were erroneous then each and every person who reported the chat spam is placed on a 72 hour chat ban themselves for abuse of the chat system. This will eliminate 99.9% of people being chat banned without just cause.
To repeat - there is NO functional automated system that will do the job of allowing players to ban other players from chatting, so if you cannot moderate reports with actual people, then nobody can be outright banned. Leave it to players to put other characters (or even better, accounts) on ignore. There is no way to abuse this system - the accused spammer cannot annoy the player who considers it spam (since he can ignore them), and the annoyed party cannot arbitrarily ban the accused based on a subjective interpretation of spam.
Institute a tiered approach to chat such that people have to play the game to certain levels to enable different level of chat. In essence they must earn chat privileges. I don’t have all eth current chat channels at hand but let this be something of a guide. Level ranges are approximate.
Level.....Chat channel
1..........Say, party, guild
4..........whisper
8..........(LFG?)
10........yell, (TRADE?)
20........zone
This way anyone who wants to sell gold via the Zone chat will have to be at least level 20 to even try it.
People still get to speak, party and guild up at level 1 if they want to. Unsolicited whispers should wait until the tutorial is completely done. Area channels like yell and Zone should be above level 10 and could serve as an additional milestone of reaching those levels.
#### ## #####
Use your chat filter to catch contraband chat messages and then replace the entire message with a filler character, like a “#” such that no part of the original message is discernible. Some tuning will turn your default word filter into a spam stopper. Multiple blocked messages (lets say 5 in 5 minutes) in a time frame can result in a chat ban to effectively stop the cut and paste spammers who flood the window.
Hush and play the game
Make chatbans apply only to “wide area” channels such as Zone and Yell. That will lower the dissatisfaction with the system to nearly zero. Being banned from Zone still lets people play the game, be in parties or roleplay. It just keeps them from doing whatever they were doing in the area channels. Spammers will have no impetus to use lower chat settings and anyone incidentally banned will still be able to play without bothering the larger channels. And they can still be ignored in the smaller channels if they just can’t behave.
Just the spam, ma’am
Make the “report for spam” option actually report to someone. IE. “Your spam report has been sent to the community development team.”
I think people will be less likely to use “report for spam” recklessly if they think someone will be looking at what they did. And I think they will be more likely to use it correctly if they think someone is on the other end looking for actual spammers. This can also be a way to help tune the chat filter above. Combine it with volunteers to help select words and letter combinations for the chat filter.
From brutes to tool users
Make tools that can be refined and then use volunteers to help refine the tools rather than police the populace. Note that putting the general populace on refining the tool will likely get you a system that filters out conjunctions and articles. So volunteers, just like you would pick forum mods.
A home of their own
Actually make a channel for trade and for lfg. Official channels mean far more than player created channels and those are clearly critical, plus being able to tell someone “Use Trade Channel for that!” might tone down the animosity both in the game and on the boards.
You again?
Offer an option to make ignore lists global to your account so you won’t have to ignore the same person with every toon you may have.
It is global. Since the ignore list is same on all characters.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Changes to Global Mute
a. /ignore does not count towards global mute
b. Email/Zone/Whispers - Right Click - Report Spam = Counts toward Global Mute
c. Once an @account reaches 20 "Report Spam" counts their account is muted.
d. Once global muted an automated email is sent to the users registered email account with an "unmute" code. Same system as allowing a new PC to access your account could be utilized. The player then enters the unmute code to allow the player to activate global chat.
e. After the player enters the Global Unmute code their account is on a 24 hour probation period. If the users account is Global muted within the 24 hour probation period they receive a 2 hour mute ban. After 2 hours they receive another unmute code and their account is set with a 24 hour probation period. This cycle can continue for a value determined by the DEVs before a users account is flagged as "spammer" and requires a review by a GM for permanent closure.
The purpose of these changes are to reduce the effectiveness of spam bots, allow humans to reflect on why they were banned and correct their actions. Also for players falsely accused of spamming the ability to unmute themselves and abusive players accounts banned.
Apparently we need one for the forums too.
So wait...when you're beebopping along at say....3 am and you come across a bugged mission that won't complete...and file an ingame support ticket...and...oh...let's say GMHersheysquirts comes along to solve your problem so you can continue playing......what makes it unfeasable that said GM is incapable of monitoring incoming report spam flags? Also, keep in mind, GMHersheysquirts has a couple buddies on moderating the game as well. GMPeptoBismol and GMKaopectate. I guarantee there are already ingame mods that can respond to tickets in a timely fashion at all hours of the day or night....why can't they also monitor spam reports? Wouldn't take but a second or three to look, read the text associated with the report and make a judgement call right then and there on who to chat ban.
Edit: And as far as the privacy card goes....you really think that there is such a thing here? Or in any MMO, for that matter? Consider: datamining. Nothing anyone does ingame is private. Not even chat.
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
Targeting the IP doesn't work as well as it once did, there are many ways to gain a new IP or to spoof it.
To the topic, the only way to improve the system is to remove the 24 hr chat ban, it is too easy to abuse, and has been abused countless times. It is clear that there are players with in the community who are not responsible enough.
Placing any kind of level limit on it is unjust and does nothing to solve the problem. Adding a text box that asks for a reason will likely get filled with nonsense or single words. Making it more tedious to report someone isn't going to make the system better.