The point is since we are not involved in the battle against the spammers all we have to go on is what we see. The problem is we see nothing and are being told even less in regards to what Cryptic/PWE is doing about it. The perception is that nothing is being done. Until that perception is changed, it will be the reality as far as the player base is concerned. Therefore will remain a source of dissatisfaction and complaint.
The point is since we are not involved in the battle against the spammers all we have to go on is what we see. The problem is we see nothing and are being told even less in regards to what Cryptic/PWE is doing about it. The perception is that nothing is being done. Until that perception is changed, it will be the reality as far as the player base is concerned. Therefore will remain a source of dissatisfaction and complaint.
i think what you're referring to would be more like an uneducated perception.
if someone in my family has cancer, i might try to educate myself about cancer treatments as much as i could but there's no way that i am going to be able to have the education and experience of a doctor... or a team of doctors... or even multiple doctors with differing opinions about treatment. my perception in this scenario is definitely an emotional one and i may have very little faith in the medical profession if the prognosis is not good.
you have to use a bit of reason here... if pwe/cryptic were to make an official confirmation announcement that they are constantly battling gold spammers... would that even be enough to satiate the nay-sayers? it's not like they're going to publicly announce their strategies considering gold spammers have access to their websites. fact is, they don't have to publicly announce anything that involves internal proprietary information. that would include all internal policy and procedure.
you can think what you want about what is or isn't happening concerning gold spammers. i've seen the evidence. for me and probably for most people, it's not even a huge deal to either report the spammers or to turn off zone chat. while the company fights the good fight, i have total control over what bothers me and what doesn't bother me.
What they need to do is ban the farmers not the spammers. Banning a level 4 character or banning a level 30-60 character with millions of hours of AD on it, the later is much more effective.
Spend three minutes in Zone chat and you'll report spam three spambots . Spend thirty minutes in the Zone chat and you'll report spam thirty
Either Cryptic puts a 24/7 admin, or implements a filter.
Otherwise, in a matter of months the game is only populated with bots.
Spend three minutes in Zone chat and you'll report spam three spambots . Spend thirty minutes in the Zone chat and you'll report spam thirty
Either Cryptic puts a 24/7 admin, or implements a filter.
Otherwise, in a matter of months the game is only populated with bots.
And it's been said in every thread like this: You can implement a filter and they'll find a way around it. Why? Because these "bots" are merely the scripts that are run...but they're programmed by real people, with all the tricks and traps that come with that. Filter something and the people behind the bots will come up with another clever way to butcher the text so that their message still gets through.
As to having a 24/7 person just to monitor chats....um, no. Not as simple as you might think. These people come in, drop their three lines, and are usually reported into oblivion before any admin might catch them. Since this is a free to play game, it costs nothing to make a new account, so another one is ready to go in seconds.
FYI: Please do in the future refrain from racial overtones in your posts, as Rules of Conduct forbid such posts. Thanks. I've also merged this with an already existing thread on the matter, as it isn't necessary to have multiple threads going on the same topic.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
So if the answer is to ignore zone chat, how do new players get their questions answered? How do they find the player created non-spam channels? The answer seems to be just to roll over and surrender zone chat to the spammers. What a sad state of affairs.
IF you use the report button a few times when you first turn on Zone chat, there will be a window where the spam isn't present. However, it's only in PE that I've even found it to be an issue. On other maps, there really isn't much if any spam and questions won't get drowned out.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
Without holding Cryptic's feet to the fire it won't be the temporary solution it will become the permanent answer. I have used the Report button so often my ignore list quite lengthy at this point, and still the chat box is filled with their spam. How many new players will know about the report button, if the old players are not there? Every day I have seen comments where someone needs to be told how to use it. Also you have to think of the Zone Chat in PE as the entrance to the game. It is the first chat new players see after they have completed the tutorial, and it's filled with garbage. Would you go into a film theatre if the entrance had drink containers and popcorn boxes littered everywhere? New players don't immediately go off to one of the zones where the chat is spam free.
"holding cryptic's feet to the fire" by starting threads about something they are already on top of isn't going to do anything. they are fully aware of the continual problem that is gold spammers. but in your summation, because it exists, they are doing nothing. as i've said before, with every way that cryptic changes their system to battle spammers, the spammers adjust their tactics. as it's been said a hundred times in this forum, since this is a free to play game, spammers can go and create as many accounts as they want, use it once to advertise and then abandon it since it'll likely be banned rather quickly.
to be honest, i see more trolls in zone chat than i see spammers. just before the recent emergency maintenance, lots of people were in there spreading misinformation about what was going on. the only official information we had was the auction house was down. everything else is pure conjecture.
instead of beating the good guys to death about this problem, why not go and spam the spammers? tell them to keep their nonsense out of our game.
It is not that it exists, it's that is worse now than ever before. I do appreciate that it is a difficult problem to combat, however I have seen other F2P MMOs combat them and be mostly successful. Will they be eliminated entirely? No, not so naive as to believe that. I am not asking for proprietary information to be released, but a sign of progress would be nice.
Maybe that should just give us options not only to ignore a player but ignore a certain text string of messages. Then at least we could block lots of messages that are all the same. Also the reporting is quite unconfortable. Chat is scrolling so fast that you have to scroll up a little bit so it stops scrolling, the report the guy, then scroll down again to see new messages. And before you can do this you have to hit either F2 or open inventory or anything else so you can move your mouse curser. And you can do this literally 1-3 times a minute!
Spam isn't so bad when I log in, although while I'm levelling I have trade and lfg deactivated, and yeah it's annoying, but I've played games where it was much worse.
I don't spend much time in PE anyway.
Maybe they should add another city for high level players (like Dalaran in WoW) so at least you have another option to be when reaching the level cap.
At current cheapest exchange rate(11/5/13) of 383 AD to 1 Zen you would have to spend $26.11 on Zen for 1million AD. At 12.99 for over 900k AD the reason people are buying is clear. As long as there is such a huge reason to buy outside of the zen exchange people are going to do it.
Ara Atheanes GWF
Traxus Atheanes GF
Bastiel Atheanes DC
Ellara Atheanes CW
Keira Atheanes TR
Sarasin Atheanes SW
Jerkface McGee HR
-MANTARA- OP
Gold sellers will always have cheaper prices than the official, gold spammers aren't stupid. Lowering the prices would just make the gold sellers change their prices too.
Truth be told, there is no combating Gold Sellers until some basic tenets are updated and observed by Cryptic/PWE.
The overwhelming use of automation tools needs to be addressed!
The fact that NW is modeled as f2p makes for an endless supply of accounts. This will never change and should never change, but what needs to be done is change the ease of which scripting and macros can be used to create accounts. Along with slowing down the scripting and macros, there needs to be validation on a higher level than just a single click authorization link sent to new accounts email addresses. The only expense to those who make accounts, to misuse, is the time needed to create them. Right now there are scripts and macros that create and validate accounts faster than they can be removed for infractions.
There has to be a way to allow for account creation that is both friendly to new accounts that are actually being played by people and not so friendly to those who are automating the process. Account usage should also be included in this statement. If you don't think that existing accounts are being logged into and manipulated with scripts and macros you would be mistaken.
I would like to see a "hindrance" hurdle placed not only on account creation but also on account usage up to a certain player level that requires a human interaction to overcome.
Most of the offending accounts are "burn" accounts that carry no tangible loss if silenced due to spamming. The 24h silence is hardly an inconvenience to a spammer with a huge number of accounts in an automated rotation. Make is so that once an account has been silenced it takes human intervention to log back in.
While a "hindrance" hurdle will not stop the abuses, it would slow them down. These hurdles would be easy to negotiate with a human behind the wheel but much harder for an automated process to overcome.
gold sellers will exist in any MMO. it is ap roblem when they make prices lower than company prices, it kind of force the company to lower prices.
it is not much of a problem on games with "subscription" tho.
other way to "fight"this maybe make ah sell items for ZEN instead of AD.
i know the refine rought ad cap was made for "try to stop gold sellers, but keep in mind they create many accounts and probably use bots, for them will make no difference, so with "hard low" cap, you are actually pushing casual and normal players to buy from gold sellers, this why i dont believe AD cap is a solution, but it works the reverse way. same for "bop" items.
my opinion on this matter.
Dovahkiin Gannicus, GWF Sentinel- Enemy Team Guild
Gannicus Destroyer, GWF Destroyer retired
Kate Beckinsale NB DC, Link NB GF
"There is only one way to be a champion..., Never ...ing lose"
Talk to visa and see if they can make a deal with them. Purchase some AD from these sites, when it's transferred to them, ban the player that transferred it (the one who has all the AD) and back charge the purchase through visa, since it's no their product to sell anyways.
Gold sellers: We do it because there's a MARKET for it, and we can compete with and outdo the actual company while making a mockery of their detection and responses to our practice of farming and selling etc.
Publisher/Devs: We will not compete with the gold sellers because they're acting in an illegal manner
In short: It's two people, playing the SAME game (get da moneyz!) but one is refusing to play the actual game, and crying in the corner screaming to mommy/daddy/the referee that the other is "cheating" while the other runs rampant racking up the scores.
In other words, it's scrubby behavior and they'll always be on the back foot until they cop on and realize their own business models have left them wide open to this abuse.
In other words, it's scrubby behavior and they'll always be on the back foot until they cop on and realize their own business models have left them wide open to this abuse.
yes, but what it will end up coming to is all the people that get caught breaking the ToS by buying in-game currencies outside of the game will get banned. if you hate the business model, don't play the game. only a fool would continue playing just to see how far he/she can push it.
0
ulkaurMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited November 2013
Currently, Protector's Enclave is accessible at level 4, and is the easiest place for a new spambot to reach. It is also the ONLY zone in the game with access to an auction house, banks and mailboxes.
There are a couple of solutions to thwart this. Here's one:
Create a higher level area, or even a higher level version of the Enclave, where auctions, banking and mail can take place. While it won't eliminate everything, it will take longer to level a character to the point where they are able to spam everyone, easier to create a player footprint for Cryptic to track, and less spam chat for alot of the player base. For example, an area you have to be at least level 30 to enter, and another you have to be level 60 to enter.
Im not complaining about prices or saying they should be lowered. Im simply stating that as long as there are cheaper options people of lesser moral fiber will use their services. It will always be there.
Ara Atheanes GWF
Traxus Atheanes GF
Bastiel Atheanes DC
Ellara Atheanes CW
Keira Atheanes TR
Sarasin Atheanes SW
Jerkface McGee HR
-MANTARA- OP
0
zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
edited November 2013
. . . . . Folks, please simply right-click a spammer's name in chat and select "Report Spam" - this makes a GM Ticket. If you still see the same Spammers about after a while, even after being reported, press H then GM Help and file a GM Ticket directly and choose Behavior as the category. There's no need to discuss this on the forums as there are easy methods to silence them for you in game (Ignore or Report Spam) as well as report them (Report Spam or GM Ticket). The GM's do random patrols of the Instances and there is even a dedicated GM Team to look for and annihilate Exploiters and Spammers.
. . . . . Be aware, that just because you see a same character name, it doesn't mean it's the same person for Character Names are not unique. It may be a randomly generated name in character creation. Only the account's in-game @handles are unique.
Comments
i think what you're referring to would be more like an uneducated perception.
if someone in my family has cancer, i might try to educate myself about cancer treatments as much as i could but there's no way that i am going to be able to have the education and experience of a doctor... or a team of doctors... or even multiple doctors with differing opinions about treatment. my perception in this scenario is definitely an emotional one and i may have very little faith in the medical profession if the prognosis is not good.
you have to use a bit of reason here... if pwe/cryptic were to make an official confirmation announcement that they are constantly battling gold spammers... would that even be enough to satiate the nay-sayers? it's not like they're going to publicly announce their strategies considering gold spammers have access to their websites. fact is, they don't have to publicly announce anything that involves internal proprietary information. that would include all internal policy and procedure.
you can think what you want about what is or isn't happening concerning gold spammers. i've seen the evidence. for me and probably for most people, it's not even a huge deal to either report the spammers or to turn off zone chat. while the company fights the good fight, i have total control over what bothers me and what doesn't bother me.
Either Cryptic puts a 24/7 admin, or implements a filter.
Otherwise, in a matter of months the game is only populated with bots.
And it's been said in every thread like this: You can implement a filter and they'll find a way around it. Why? Because these "bots" are merely the scripts that are run...but they're programmed by real people, with all the tricks and traps that come with that. Filter something and the people behind the bots will come up with another clever way to butcher the text so that their message still gets through.
As to having a 24/7 person just to monitor chats....um, no. Not as simple as you might think. These people come in, drop their three lines, and are usually reported into oblivion before any admin might catch them. Since this is a free to play game, it costs nothing to make a new account, so another one is ready to go in seconds.
FYI: Please do in the future refrain from racial overtones in your posts, as Rules of Conduct forbid such posts. Thanks. I've also merged this with an already existing thread on the matter, as it isn't necessary to have multiple threads going on the same topic.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
or join a guild. you can then chat with your guildies and turn zone chat off.
to be honest, i see more trolls in zone chat than i see spammers. just before the recent emergency maintenance, lots of people were in there spreading misinformation about what was going on. the only official information we had was the auction house was down. everything else is pure conjecture.
instead of beating the good guys to death about this problem, why not go and spam the spammers? tell them to keep their nonsense out of our game.
I don't spend much time in PE anyway.
Maybe they should add another city for high level players (like Dalaran in WoW) so at least you have another option to be when reaching the level cap.
Traxus Atheanes GF
Bastiel Atheanes DC
Ellara Atheanes CW
Keira Atheanes TR
Sarasin Atheanes SW
Jerkface McGee HR
-MANTARA- OP
The overwhelming use of automation tools needs to be addressed!
The fact that NW is modeled as f2p makes for an endless supply of accounts. This will never change and should never change, but what needs to be done is change the ease of which scripting and macros can be used to create accounts. Along with slowing down the scripting and macros, there needs to be validation on a higher level than just a single click authorization link sent to new accounts email addresses. The only expense to those who make accounts, to misuse, is the time needed to create them. Right now there are scripts and macros that create and validate accounts faster than they can be removed for infractions.
There has to be a way to allow for account creation that is both friendly to new accounts that are actually being played by people and not so friendly to those who are automating the process. Account usage should also be included in this statement. If you don't think that existing accounts are being logged into and manipulated with scripts and macros you would be mistaken.
I would like to see a "hindrance" hurdle placed not only on account creation but also on account usage up to a certain player level that requires a human interaction to overcome.
Most of the offending accounts are "burn" accounts that carry no tangible loss if silenced due to spamming. The 24h silence is hardly an inconvenience to a spammer with a huge number of accounts in an automated rotation. Make is so that once an account has been silenced it takes human intervention to log back in.
While a "hindrance" hurdle will not stop the abuses, it would slow them down. These hurdles would be easy to negotiate with a human behind the wheel but much harder for an automated process to overcome.
it is not much of a problem on games with "subscription" tho.
other way to "fight"this maybe make ah sell items for ZEN instead of AD.
i know the refine rought ad cap was made for "try to stop gold sellers, but keep in mind they create many accounts and probably use bots, for them will make no difference, so with "hard low" cap, you are actually pushing casual and normal players to buy from gold sellers, this why i dont believe AD cap is a solution, but it works the reverse way. same for "bop" items.
my opinion on this matter.
Gannicus Destroyer, GWF Destroyer retired
Kate Beckinsale NB DC, Link NB GF
"There is only one way to be a champion..., Never ...ing lose"
Publisher/Devs: We will not compete with the gold sellers because they're acting in an illegal manner
In short: It's two people, playing the SAME game (get da moneyz!) but one is refusing to play the actual game, and crying in the corner screaming to mommy/daddy/the referee that the other is "cheating" while the other runs rampant racking up the scores.
In other words, it's scrubby behavior and they'll always be on the back foot until they cop on and realize their own business models have left them wide open to this abuse.
yes, but what it will end up coming to is all the people that get caught breaking the ToS by buying in-game currencies outside of the game will get banned. if you hate the business model, don't play the game. only a fool would continue playing just to see how far he/she can push it.
There are a couple of solutions to thwart this. Here's one:
Create a higher level area, or even a higher level version of the Enclave, where auctions, banking and mail can take place. While it won't eliminate everything, it will take longer to level a character to the point where they are able to spam everyone, easier to create a player footprint for Cryptic to track, and less spam chat for alot of the player base. For example, an area you have to be at least level 30 to enter, and another you have to be level 60 to enter.
Traxus Atheanes GF
Bastiel Atheanes DC
Ellara Atheanes CW
Keira Atheanes TR
Sarasin Atheanes SW
Jerkface McGee HR
-MANTARA- OP
. . . . . Be aware, that just because you see a same character name, it doesn't mean it's the same person for Character Names are not unique. It may be a randomly generated name in character creation. Only the account's in-game @handles are unique.
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