Greetings Champions,
As of September 19th, 2019, Champions Online will no longer be supporting connection to our internal chat system via an XMPP client. While this feature was interesting and often convenient, it also unfortunately makes it easier for gold spammers and others to reach our chat system. Allowing access via an XMPP client also creates several technical challenges that make it difficult to keep our in-game chat safe and smooth. At this time, we don’t have any plans to replace this with a different service.
Please feel free to discuss this change in this thread, and let us know any further questions. We will be updating this thread with any additional notices or clarifications as needed.
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I am going to be blunt, this is going to have a very negative impact on Champions as a whole. And it doesn't need anymore negative impacts.
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I think I may have encountered, players selling accounts and what not, but they were already in game with characters, and some may spam you in mail? completely unrelated to xmpp.
Anyway, I am sad to see xmpp support go, as it's extremely hard to keep track of CO chat, specially because the chat log wipes itself a lot, I'll often miss messages and tells with everything that's constantly going on in sg chats, zone, etc, it was really useful to manage and keep track of everything, big groups might suffer.
If they need to remove this for security reasons I understand, I hope you guys can figure out a good alternative
Well from what I heard STO and NWO had a lot of gold spammers, sucks we lose this but I get it
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Will they be upgrading Champions chat to be at least on par with STO and Neverwinter and things like having a second visible chat box and the like? I mean having the ability to /s or /g and instantly change channels is one of the things I would love in Champions.
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Man, I'd love that. Would be a big QOL improvement
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Removing this is doing way more harm than good and I feel like this solution to that problem is more annoying to the community than the goldspammers are. If they're using zone and enabling these accounts through pidgin' or trillian or whatever, then why not just apply restrictions to zone? (Letting people use zone like that with pidign' definitely seems like a bad idea anyway.)
Additionally, don't you need to be LTS/have a gold sub or have that premium pack (I genuinely can't remember if the last one allows it or not.) to be able to use pidgin'? That would imply there's are already checks and balances in place. There could be more, couldn't there? I feel like the xmpp should be an advertised feature for CO. One that's regulated through the site much like being able to port PTS characters. Now if I can no longer be seen in game as Mr. Pop'n'lockadopolis, that's a shame. But if that means this QoL gets to stay in the game, then so be it.
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Let me get this straight.
GOLD SPAMMERS spent $200 (however much it is here or in STO) for a Lifetime account to get access to XMPP (which AFAIK, can't actually connect to Zone chat, only private channels), to spam their wares?!?
I'm sorry, but try again. Care to tell us the truth this time? Is it more of the 'we're surprised that this feature still works in 2019 like the Foundry did in STO/NW, and we have no clue how to run it, thus we need to turn it off' instead?
Be honest with us. Don't lie.
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Heck same, I haven't logged in to the game for almost 2 months now but I log in on pidgin to chat with some friends and find out what's been going on in the game.
Same. Lots of people who clearly were are going to throw fits, but for the rest of us... nothing has changed.
Honestly, I don't believe that is the case even in those two games since the only time I see gold spam is resulted from in game emails, not the XMPP, which again, as you point out, is connected to the Cryptic chat server, which means given how most of those work would be spammed to CO players to. So either I have been extremely lucky when I play STO and NW to rarely see zone chat filled with such things (which zone chat as far as I am aware is not able to be reached with XMPP programs) or I had magically ignored all the potential spammers in existence that have played a Cryptic game.
And as pointed out, it would seem highly unlikely a gold spammer would drop a ton of money to be able to have access to this feature.
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There are times in Neverwinter where I will not see one for several minutes and times when I will see one every 8 to 10 seconds for the better part of an hour.
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It sucks that it has to be shut down and I'm indirectly affected as several players in one of the channels I participate in use it. But I have no say in the decision and their reasoning is plausible. Besides, keeping a channel such as this open for outside communication is a potential vector for third party abuse.
Which still seems bumkiss since I've been in both games and the only time I really see a gold spammer is through the in game email system which would be tremendously cheaper than actually trying to build up resources to get the zen for the VIP program, and once again zone doesn't seem accessible with the XMPP hook up that I am aware of, and since the channels are shared throughout all games, and a multitude of channels I am in are actually used in all games, it highly suspect to me that CO is not suffering this plague from the other games.
So, the blanket statement of combating gold spammers just seems highly suspect. And I will just say this is another thing coming down entirely and honestly, this removal should warrant they actually fix and improve Champions chat system to be on par with the other two games in the process because it's been several years now while both of those games have had their chat systems improved CO is still using a clunky mess instead while still connected to the same chat server.
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My super cool CC build and how to use it.
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You're a bit late with that.
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What can I do to stop this from happening?
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Because I'm not convinced either way. If you guys just feel that it's not worth keeping the service maintained just go with that. You don't have to make up reasons.
a) news section generally uses a lot of flair to end up giving very little actual information not to mention that it's often incorrect to the point of being a running meme
b) patch notes are generally not entirely transparent
c) steam news page is not frequently upd---AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
(d) trying to find or get some concise specific information in the unofficial discord often requires sorting through a crapton of shitposts) <- not cryptic's fault, since it's unofficial.
now someone naive would hope that the end of XMPP support would come along with improvements in communication regarding the above issues, but not even the reason given to XMPP's termination has been transparent, so guess I'll see y'all next year or some.
Do you often make a point of announcing you don't care and it doesn't affect you, when other people are sad after receiving bad news?
So, Ambassadorkael, where is that update with additional notices or clarifications?
This time, try being honest and upfront with us, instead of leaning into that same line of .. Bullpucky you guys pulled when you took away Subscriptions.
None of us are buying this "safe and smooth", by the way, hell even perenial troll spinnytop "DOUBTS" [nice use of a meme there, btw, Spinny].
We know XMPP can't connect to Zone chat in any of the games, so how on any earth could it allow goldsellers of any kind any useful function in any of the games? You can tell us now, it isn't like the information here will give anyone else here ideas about hacking in with it, when it's going away.
All the spamming I saw in NW for years was in emails. Spammers and goldsellers would just log in-game, open up search and send massive amounts of in-game email to every account they saw online that wasn't whitelisted from searches.
XMPP had nothing to do with that.
I am quite sure I've mentioned it to you at least once years ago. And considering it has been posted about on these forums a few times, not to mention a sticky thread on how to connect with XMPP I am finding this statement a bit... bizarre.
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A tool that has made life easier for a lot of people either in assisting with translating conversations for some or to track conversations easier, it has been an invaluable tool, especially considering Champions current chat set up is woefully disappointing. But you would be hard pressed to miss it since I know over the years there have been multiple threads pop up that you've had to have seen.
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