Chat-Banned. Again.

forutnefire · July 2012

I have just been chat banned again before S.P.E.A.R's costume contest. (points to bottom link in signature)

I'd like to thank Cryptic for their wonderful work in removing the player-based chat ban system. No seriously, you guys are doing bang up job. I'd much rather get trivial content than play this game with my friends.

...fix your asinine system. pretty please?

p0temk1n · July 2012

This is beyond ridiculous. Please, please, remove this feature.

arti78 · July 2012

Yeah, this is getting rather annoying. Either dump the report spam system, or have someone focus on checking things more thoroughly.

No reason for this system anyways imo.

ashensnow · July 2012

My sympathies sir.

This is indeed ridiculous.

sekimen · July 2012

I am not really surprised this still hasn't been addressed yet.

angelofcaine · July 2012

OM:eek:G!

Seriously?

Just turn the "Auto" silence feature OFF until someone who's assigned to the task can determine if a 24 hour (or longer) chat ban is warrented :rolleyes:

How hard could this be to code?

*sympathies to Flare... AGAIN*

lo1processor · July 2012

Same here. It happened twice to me, both times when I was just standing around in the Powerhouse.

crypticbuxom · July 2012

angelofcaine wrote: »

How hard could this be to code?

The problem is not how hard it is to code, but that it requires staff to recode something that is already in place and is working as is intended. Cryptic doesn't fix things that work how its supposed to. And the chat spam is blocking users from chatting if enough people report them. Despite it being exploited or not.

clockwise · July 2012

Does anyone have any idea what the actual spam report count threshold is before an autoban is applied, and/or if frequency within a certain period is a factor?

visionstorm01 · July 2012

p0temk1n wrote: »

This is beyond ridiculous.

Thanks, saves me from typing the first words that came to my mind (so I typed this whole thing instead

).

Seriously, though, I wonder if there is something seriously wrong with this system (in addition to the horribly irresponsible idea of giving police powers to the player base itself, I mean :rolleyes:) and it bugs out and keeps chat-banning previous chat-banned victims, because I've seen a LOT of players get chat-banned multiple times--with smackwell even getting banned while not in-game once.

Also, on the question why Cryptic doesn't do anything about this, I think the answer should be pretty clear by now: Cryptic doesn't care.

If they did, they would have done something about it a looooong time ago. If I had to haphazard a guess as to why they keep this ineffective system around after all this time, I'd say its probably because they have the game running on maintenance mode, and they figure that having an automated system like this in place is cheaper than having an actual person pop by from time to time and take care of the actual moderation, and that they believe that any potentially loss from players leaving as a result is acceptable to them.

/tinfoilhat off on the last paragraph by the way

nepht · July 2012

Must be a certain group of people going out of their way to trolling S.P.E.A.R . Cryptic this has been going on for months get your CS to get their fingers out their *******s and GAME BAN the people that are doing this to them because it is obviously the same idiots at work.

Bad day when Cryptic are seen as ACTUALLY WORSE than Linden Labs when it come to banning people who abuse the system .

To be honest its far beyond a simple abuse of the ingame system its gone rather dark and disturbing some weirdo is stalking the OP. THIS IS CYBER BULLYING.

CRYPTIC FIND WHO IS DOING THIS AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!

Any players who know ANYTHING please post info on the champions online proboards.

http://champions-online.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=2314

jorifice1 · July 2012

I've posted this before, but it warrants a repeat.
The question, the ONLY question, is one of hard, cold Cost/Benefit. Simply put, the numbers, as Perfect Word/Cryptic see them do not justify the expense of:
1) Staff salaries spent in removing the offending Code and
2) Time lost preparing NEW items which can either be sold to the existing player base or possibly attract new customers, hence fresh consumers for their product.
Therefore, in order to attract attention from the people who matter, who, ultimately, will decide if this issue is solved or not, one must show, in real terms, how it effects their bottom line. Not just customer dissatisfaction. Most of the veteran players will not quit over this issue and the MMO tourist only here for a month anyway will likely not see their stay shortened by it enough to effect total money spent.
So it does not look good for a fix.
HOWEVER......
I also know that you are one of the larger names behind the player run costume contests. Weather you know it or not, you are providing a very lucrative service for Cryptic studios. Those Contests of yours MOVE C-STORE ITEMS. A lot of items. They do a FAR better job of showing off the potential of all of those purchasable Costumes than anything the Dev.'s have ever done. I personally credit the various Costume Contests with a good 25% of my total C-Store purchases.
You want the Chat Bans to end?
Start a new Topic. Get some data on the spending habits of the CO die-hards. Show them exactly how much money they are loosing EVERY TIME one of your costume contests is interfered with in this way.
The Chat Ban System will go away. It will be too expensive to keep.
Heck, I'd do it myself but I have a well deserved and hard won reputation as one of the generally silliest posters on the boards. Attaching my name to the byline of a thread is usually a good way to get it taken not particularly seriously. Because they typically aren't. Hopefully this is the exception that proves the rule.
Any way, just my two Local Resources. Hope it helps.
.
.
.

caycepollard · July 2012

visionstorm01 wrote: »

Also, on the question why Cryptic doesn't do anything about this, I think the answer should be pretty clear by now: Cryptic doesn't care.

Yup. This right here is pretty much the unofficial "correct answer". Since the topic never gets "official statements" from anybody who matters, we're left to assume the worst. As soon as "Perfect World" took over, things like "fixing the chat system" fell even further down the priority list than they already were. Also, we'd better get used to not saying "Cryptic did this" or "Cryptic didn't do that" -- there -IS- no more "Cryptic" involved with this game, as far as I can tell. It's now, at best, "Cryptic World" -- until the Overlords can scrub out any & all remaining traces of "Cryptic".:rolleyes:

jennymachx · July 2012

Like Vision has stated, Cryptic/PWE simply doesn't care a bleeding drop. It's not like they have any problems having a negative reputation anyway.

I have a proposed workaround to this problem and I'll mail to the OP ingame the next chance I get to log in.

chalupaoffury · July 2012

That's freaking bull. It's almost getting to the point where I'm nervous to announce an upcoming cc in zone for fear that this'll happen. I missed this, because work, but Flare's never had a bad word to say to anyone that I know of. A player that helps the community this much shouldn't have to face that kind of abuse. I don't think I could even imagine how many g he's thrown on his own costume contests, just to make people happy. It's not right.

Seeing as how CCs are a large part of what keeps a chunk of the playerbase coming back, this should be a WAY higher priority to get fixed. Hell, we've got players (myself included) that go out of their way to grind out resources just so they can give them away and give the players something fun to do as a diversion. And they're being punished, in his case, for doing so. I'm not gonna name names, because I'm not involved in it at all, but there was some stuff going down in pvp before I left that was similar. A pack of players was banding together and chat-banning one player every 24 hours, because of some rivalry or another that I wasn't trying to pay attention to. Someone said it earlier, it's cyber bullying. And not only that, when it pertains to CCs, it's a detriment to their product. Cryptic, it's harmful to your game.

Ffs, the forum got community mods, if you're not going to fix this stupid system, appoint some people in game to check in on this. I, for one, would gladly give up some free time in my already limited schedule to prevent what amounts to social pvp and system exploits. It's not hard to check contests and see that a cc is being advertised, then figure out that him being blocked is probably connected and abuse.

I just hope one of the other field directors or directors was on to at least save the contest. Like I said, I'da been there, but my schedule's nuts right now. If this got to the point of griefing an entire guild, something needs to be done. Hell, we spend pretty big chunks of time gathering the resources to do these. It's unfair to Flare, and it's unfair to SPEAR.

forutnefire · July 2012

chalupaoffury wrote: »

I just hope one of the other field directors or directors was on to at least save the contest. Like I said, I'da been there, but my schedule's nuts right now. If this got to the point of griefing an entire guild, something needs to be done. Hell, we spend pretty big chunks of time gathering the resources to do these. It's unfair to Flare, and it's unfair to SPEAR.

Luckily, some in S.P.E.A.R. have become very good at emote charades, and were able to pick up what went wrong--namely cause it's happened before. >.> We were prepped this time--though we should not of had to be. Yes, it's unfair to me and S.P.E.A.R., but it's also unfair to everyone else participating in the contests, as well everyone else who gets banned and for all those participating in their contests.

Aside from these harassers, there's not a single person or group this system helps--including "Cryptic World".

thisisgils · July 2012

The only time I ever experienced this was when I dared to call out the griefing "league" SG that purports to hail from "Brasil".

You know - you've probably experienced one of this nasty little SG's members more than once - they are the ones who ninja loot in nemcon, stand around in alerts waiting to pick up the rewards at the end, continuously answer "Need" to every Need or Greed prompt in a lair or attempt to scam you in trade chat etc etc.

Apparently they are a little sensitive about people talking about it too. Mentioned it in zone chat and WOOOOSH insta-chat ban within about 5 seconds.

Ironic that the one country that really need a regional ban, Brazil, actually seemed to escape from the recent PW country bans

jaazaniah1 · July 2012

Would going to http://www.pwe-inc.com/contact and sending multiple copies of emails to the various contact links do any good?

forutnefire · July 2012

thisisgils wrote: »

Ironic that the one country that really need a regional ban, Brazil, actually seemed to escape from the recent PW country bans

No country needs a region ban. I'm fully against against that form of ridiculously lazy problem solving from PWE. What needs to happen is better policing, active GMs, and for "Cryptic World" to take their hands out from under their arses to solve the problem of that selfish Report Spam SG.

And yes Jaaz, I have tried that.

ashensnow · July 2012

jorifice1 wrote: »

I've posted this before, but it warrants a repeat.
The question, the ONLY question, is one of hard, cold Cost/Benefit. Simply put, the numbers, as Perfect Word/Cryptic see them do not justify the expense of:
1) Staff salaries spent in removing the offending Code and
2) Time lost preparing NEW items which can either be sold to the existing player base or possibly attract new customers, hence fresh consumers for their product.
Therefore, in order to attract attention from the people who matter, who, ultimately, will decide if this issue is solved or not, one must show, in real terms, how it effects their bottom line. Not just customer dissatisfaction. Most of the veteran players will not quit over this issue and the MMO tourist only here for a month anyway will likely not see their stay shortened by it enough to effect total money spent.
So it does not look good for a fix.
HOWEVER......
I also know that you are one of the larger names behind the player run costume contests. Weather you know it or not, you are providing a very lucrative service for Cryptic studios. Those Contests of yours MOVE C-STORE ITEMS. A lot of items. They do a FAR better job of showing off the potential of all of those purchasable Costumes than anything the Dev.'s have ever done. I personally credit the various Costume Contests with a good 25% of my total C-Store purchases.
You want the Chat Bans to end?
Start a new Topic. Get some data on the spending habits of the CO die-hards. Show them exactly how much money they are loosing EVERY TIME one of your costume contests is interfered with in this way.
The Chat Ban System will go away. It will be too expensive to keep.
Heck, I'd do it myself but I have a well deserved and hard won reputation as one of the generally silliest posters on the boards. Attaching my name to the byline of a thread is usually a good way to get it taken not particularly seriously. Because they typically aren't. Hopefully this is the exception that proves the rule.
Any way, just my two Local Resources. Hope it helps.
.
.
.

My suggestion:

Going forward include a new rule for all of your costume contests that disqualifies C-Store costume pieces from winning.

Obviously make this known up front so as to avoid antagonizing contestants.

benevon · July 2012

Wow, just wow. The trolls were extra trolly yesterday it seemed. The player controlled chat ban should never have been implemented. Its a joke. Its a real shame that you, Flare, seem to be specifically targeted with this.

The function needs to be removed, period. It is not working as intended one bit and goes far beyond normal trolling at these events.

itsbrou · July 2012

Why don't we have a vouching option to lift the chat ban? Same way someone gets chat banned, it can be lifted?

benevon · July 2012

someguywhoplaysgames wrote: »

Why don't we have a vouching option to lift the chat ban? Same way someone gets chat banned, it can be lifted?

But why bother adding an extra feature to a failed system? Sure, I can see that working so the employess still dont have to do anything. But in the end, players shouldnt have that type of control. The ignore function works fine for me against trolls and spammers.

itsbrou · July 2012

benevon wrote: »

But why bother adding an extra feature to a failed system? Sure, I can see that working so the employess still dont have to do anything. But in the end, players shouldnt have that type of control. The ignore function works fine for me against trolls and spammers.

I'm just trying to work off of what they do.

benevon · July 2012

someguywhoplaysgames wrote: »

I'm just trying to work off of what they do.

I hear ya. And your suggestion is one that would work well for PWE since they dont want to take the time to handle these problems themselves.

Im just of the mind set that if you are going to do something, do it right. Continually adding jerry rigged "functions" to something already done half assed is silly and counter productive in my opinion. Now that is in an ideal world, of which we do not live but I still have high expectations.

crypticbuxom · July 2012

Removing the chat ban should be the only option. If you don't like what someone says than you can just ignore them.

rapierwhip · July 2012

Money talks.

I have spent a great deal of money on this game between CP purchases and monthly subs and even a LTS.

This game will not see another dime from me until this "feature" is removed. If you want it removed, then do the same and post on the forum that you are doing so. Do not just stop spending money on the game without letting them know why. If you are going to protest something, then two things have to happen, you have to let people know what you are protesting, and you have to actually follow through on the protest.

nepht · July 2012

Its said before by others but needs to be said again.

Silvers shouldnt be able to mute golds.

This isnt silver bashing its common sense it take minutes to make half a dozen silver accounts. One person could make many on different computers and use accounts to mute people.

This is what is probably happening to the OP.

ukatoenasni · July 2012

nepht wrote: »

Players shouldnt be able to mute other players through an arbitrary automatic system.

Fix'd a line. I think the entire chat-ban system as a whole is ridiculous, regardless of who gets affected by it.

nightr0d · July 2012

nepht wrote: »

Its said before by others but needs to be said again.

Silvers shouldnt be able to mute golds.

This isnt silver bashing its common sense it take minutes to make half a dozen silver accounts. One person could make many on different computers and use accounts to mute people.

This is what is probably happening to the OP.

My thoughts exactly. How could they overlook such an obvious exploit?...oh wait it's Cryptic :rolleyes:

forutnefire · July 2012

It's not a silver or gold issue, it's an issue of principle. Other players should not be directly consequential in limiting another player's game experience. Especially one who is a paying customer.

Galeforce, I thought we weren't allowed to do that on the forums? Saying that we'd stop paying unless our demand of the removal of the chat-ban system via "Report Spam" and "Ignore" functions was eliminated. If we are however, I'd like to co-create a new topic specifically for the purpose with you and get others to sign and follow through with this. If I'm allowed to publicly announce when/if I planned on relinquishing my subscription and refusal to give the game another cent until the problem was addressed and solved, I'm sure others I know in game would take a hard look at the future this place has and some might even follow my example.

What do you think?

ashensnow · July 2012

forutnefire wrote: »

It's not a silver or gold issue, it's an issue of principle. Other players should not be directly consequential in limiting another player's game experience. Especially one who is a paying customer.

Galeforce, I thought we weren't allowed to do that on the forums? Saying that we'd stop paying unless our demand of the removal of the chat-ban system via "Report Spam" and "Ignore" functions was eliminated. If we are however, I'd like to co-create a new topic specifically for the purpose with you and get others to sign and follow through with this. If I'm allowed to publicly announce when/if I planned on relinquishing my subscription and refusal to give the game another cent until the problem was addressed and solved, I'm sure others I know in game would take a hard look at the future this place has and some might even follow my example.

What do you think?

Im not sure how it works here but, in some other forums I've participated, you arent allowed to do that sort of thing. You can link to another site where you do.

nepht · July 2012

forutnefire wrote: »

It's not a silver or gold issue, it's an issue of principle. Other players should not be directly consequential in limiting another player's game experience. Especially one who is a paying customer.

I stated in my post that I wasnt silver bashing and its not gold vs silver thing.

A gold can easily make 4 or 5 free silver accounts and use them to mute another gold he has an argument with.

I know its a bit harsh on the silver players that dont abuse this system BUT if Cryptic start to track players that abuse this and stop silvers using report spam if they havent used valid credit card details that would mean the gold players that do it will think twice about putting their account in danger.

brianblack8281 · July 2012

What I want to know is why was it put into the game in the first place? What was wrong with the normal ignore feature that this chat ban had to be placed along side it?

It's like giving a microphone to a heckler at a comedy show and expecting them to use it wisely.

ukatoenasni · July 2012

Allegedly, the feature was put into place to stop goldspammers from being an issue.

Then people found out they could abuse it, and they have been ever since.

sockmunkey · July 2012

Cryptic simply does not have the in game support needed to police the game. So rather then doing it correctly with mods, volunteer or otherwise. They have this silly automated system in the hopes that we the players can police ourselves.

The results have been predictable.

flyingfinn · July 2012

Those darn goldspammers! Spamming the zone with their goldspam!! I guess the system is working since there's no darn goldspammers goldspamming in zone! Hey! Something actually working in this game!

ukatoenasni · July 2012

flyingfinn wrote: »

Those darn goldspammers! Spamming the zone with their goldspam!! I guess the system is working since there's no darn goldspammers goldspamming in zone! Hey! Something actually working in this game!

I feel bad for laughing at that one. Speculating as to why doesn't make it feel any better, either!

visionstorm01 · July 2012

ashensnow wrote: »

forutnefire wrote: »

It's not a silver or gold issue, it's an issue of principle. Other players should not be directly consequential in limiting another player's game experience. Especially one who is a paying customer.

Galeforce, I thought we weren't allowed to do that on the forums? Saying that we'd stop paying unless our demand of the removal of the chat-ban system via "Report Spam" and "Ignore" functions was eliminated. If we are however, I'd like to co-create a new topic specifically for the purpose with you and get others to sign and follow through with this. If I'm allowed to publicly announce when/if I planned on relinquishing my subscription and refusal to give the game another cent until the problem was addressed and solved, I'm sure others I know in game would take a hard look at the future this place has and some might even follow my example.

What do you think?

Im not sure how it works here but, in some other forums I've participated, you arent allowed to do that sort of thing. You can link to another site where you do.

To elaborate on this, the official word we've had on this (although, last time I checked this was not actually written in the forums rules/guidelines) is that Polls/Petitions are not allowed in these forums, however, we are allowed to start them in an external site dedicated to Polls, then start a thread on the topic and link that site here.

flyingfinn · July 2012

If i wasn't sarcastly smirking stuff Cryptic/PWE does/have done i would probably be crying my eyes out.

ukatoenasni · July 2012

flyingfinn wrote: »

If i wasn't sarcastly smirking stuff Cryptic/PWE does/have done i would probably be crying my eyes out.

Could be worse. Could be the STO development team.

...do not get me started. Suffice to say they make me rage harder then anything else, these days.

Somehow I don't think getting more attention from on-high in Cryptic is a good thing, if that's the kind of stuff they let happen...

jonsills · July 2012

At least STO has been getting some advertising.

The one that really cheesed me off was reading about the event at SDCC, where they were giving away STO-related prizes and talking up the game.

SDCC, as I'm sure you know, stands for "San Diego Comics Convention". Why was there nothing going on there about CO??? I mean, talk about your built-in audience!

ukatoenasni · July 2012

I agree that CO is deserving of more advertising then it's getting, but Star Trek is also a hotter/more visible property.

Fixing it'll cost money, and I dunno, I think maybe we should sweep up (to use a metaphor) a bit before we start trying to pull people back in. Though I won't argue if they decide to do so anyway.

flyingfinn · July 2012

Didn't they announce their new advertising plan while ago? Maybe it's called 'Total Silence!'. Using peoples own curiosity to stumble accidently upon CO and going' OMG! This is what i've been looking for!!'.

ukatoenasni · July 2012

...the sad thing is, I'd believe it, too!

visionstorm01 · July 2012

flyingfinn wrote: »

Didn't they announce their new advertising plan while ago? Maybe it's called 'Total Silence!'. Using peoples own curiosity to stumble accidently upon CO and going' OMG! This is what i've been looking for!!'.

Except that the "Streamlined Character Creator" ensures they would have play the game for a while before they even have access to the tools necessary to reach that conclusion...

flyingfinn · July 2012

But they don't know about it, since noone has told them that theres more.

jennymachx · July 2012

Nepht raises a good point. Anyone is able to create a dummy silver account for free for the sole purpose of exploiting the auto-silence. If the account gets banned due to it, another one can simply be created. All it takes is another email creation using a free webmail service.

This wasn't a problem before F2P because someone has to be idiotic enough to risk their account being banned and suffering a loss of all investment in time and money by exploiting the feature. Cryptic has to be equally idiotic to believe that trusting players to moderate themselves without any negative impact is an acceptable practice.

I've played MMO's such as City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars and Rift and none of them allowed players to moderate themselves. Each of them had a professional and responsive support staff to handle such matters.

florghhh · July 2012

ukatoenasni wrote: »

Could be worse. Could be the STO development team.

...do not get me started. Suffice to say they make me rage harder then anything else, these days.

Somehow I don't think getting more attention from on-high in Cryptic is a good thing, if that's the kind of stuff they let happen...

hmm.. i must say i'm extremely curious.. could you maybe PM me sometime to say what STO did? sounds extreme, but i always heard they at least did something in STO

jonsills wrote: »

At least STO has been getting some advertising.

The one that really cheesed me off was reading about the event at SDCC, where they were giving away STO-related prizes and talking up the game.

SDCC, as I'm sure you know, stands for "San Diego Comics Convention". Why was there nothing going on there about CO??? I mean, talk about your built-in audience!

Seriously? That fails a lot =\ i'd make a joke about how reverse they are and say they'd fail and advertise CO at a Sci-fi convention, but i'm sure STO would still takw the spotlight again, it's annoying

darknoxx · July 2012

florghhh wrote: »

hmm.. i must say i'm extremely curious.. could you maybe PM me sometime to say what STO did? sounds extreme, but i always heard they at least did something in STO

Seriously? That fails a lot =\ i'd make a joke about how reverse they are and say they'd fail and advertise CO at a Sci-fi convention, but i'm sure STO would still takw the spotlight again, it's annoying

oh don't worry Neverwinters the next in the spotlight soon enough

twg042370 · July 2012

visionstorm01 wrote: »

Also, on the question why Cryptic doesn't do anything about this, I think the answer should be pretty clear by now: Cryptic doesn't care.

I think it's kind of obvious On Alert was a Hail Mary kick made in the hope PWE wouldn't pull the game. I give it another year at most.

Chat-Banned. Again.

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