Patch notes for another game just recently released. Chat Filtering has been added. Players will be able to access the new personal chat filter via the ESC menu. This menu will allow you to register words you want filtered from chat. Filtered words can be up to 50 character long. The chat filter is literal, not case sensitive and does not support wildcards. Any chat entry containing the filtered word will not be displayed in your chat window.
Been 3 years, your competitor implements in less than 3 months.... Sigh... It's not like the clientside filter wasn't suggested years ago either....
And why would a client sided chat filter be "stupid"?
Sure AD sellers and trolls will go haywire about a working client sided chat filter... No more AD advertisement, and no more religions, political or other non game related nonsense in the chat either. And all a regular player would have to do is add a few keywords to the client sided chat filter.
Combine the chat filter with a better working ignore list, a list that we can wipe clean with one click, with options to sort ignores into different tabs, and that should also take some extra load of the client too.
So, any official comment on why we have to beg for years now for a working client sided chat filter?
Elder Scrolls online has no gold seller spam now what so ever and its a game that is still very much going well. The thing is they need to put in a delete limit, this is how they operate, this would cull them down. It might hamper them enough where they would be forced to move on. But in order to help make sure they do move on is to change from astro dimands to gold for the in game economy. The ah is and the way they designed it has attracted the gold sellers here.
Make it impossible for them to automate account creation more human measures in place maybe an easy text that is all random, in order to stop that problem. Maybe easy math, but math and questions that can't have automated answers like no copy and past measures.
They might never kill the bots but they can in fact cull them by measures such as a delete limit (Which drove them away and got rid of them completely in elder scrolls online. There might be bots there but there is no gold spam whats so ever.) Another happen is a short scroll down then hit I am not a bot feature, when they go tocreate characters. I in game forced human player test. So simple things they need to do. Delete Limit Currency change for Ah From Astro Dimands to Gold. Better Account creation, measures that can't be automated. All this will get rid of bot spam or at least lesson it so chat is not filled with it twenty four seven. Another thing that could hurt new free to play players but basically could get rid of the bots. A forced pay for something option from zen store, before you get access to zone trade and lfg. They won't touch something that is buy to chat. Because they lose money this way. Also another thing needed is permaban people that buy from gold spammers. We don't need those people in game and it goes to show that they allow this if its a three day ban.
A delete limit wont work here, because accounts are free, spammers can make as many as they like. ESO, on the other hand, still requires you to buy the game. Reducing throw away accounts. In addition, disciplinary actions here are made againt the account and not the character. So you gain nothing by deleting or by limiting it.
Patch notes for another game just recently released. Chat Filtering has been added. Players will be able to access the new personal chat filter via the ESC menu. This menu will allow you to register words you want filtered from chat. Filtered words can be up to 50 character long. The chat filter is literal, not case sensitive and does not support wildcards. Any chat entry containing the filtered word will not be displayed in your chat window.
Been 3 years, your competitor implements in less than 3 months.... Sigh... It's not like the clientside filter wasn't suggested years ago either....
Do you know what would happen if they force spammers stop using zone or trade channel in PE?They would start PMing people or start throwing party invites right in the middle of the dungeon bossfight or tiamat.I am not making this up.It happened here.
There was another game I played.They had filter some sort so bots just stood right in the middle of the center of the game and keep PMing people.They couldnt find solution so they let them do whatever they want to do and game died.Ofc, that wasnt the only reason game died but there were a lot of ragequitters because of those bots
You dont get it. The filter will be client side. The spammers wont even know they are being muted. Without knowing how each and every player has configured their own client settings. They would have no way of knowing who or how many player can see their message. And if any messages do get through, players can change their settings on the fly. They can react faster then the spammers who will be reduced to broadcasting in the dark unaware if its even being heard.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,403Arc User
Their spam to the default unprotected channel is not a problem for me because I simply do not view those channels unless I intentionally go there. However, they do PM me. That is a bigger problem if that happens as often as the spamming. In addition, asking me to be their friend is more annoying (for me) than their spam in common channel.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
Any PM would be filtered as well, and any messages triggering the spam filter could be redirected into a separated chat window, which you could check from time to time, to see if everything is working as it should be.
Friend requests could also be limited to being in the same group and in the same instance.
Just disable Zone, Trade and LFG posts - as noted elsewhere, if you need them, create a custom tab for them. I generally don't even bother. You really don't miss anything, unless you like the PUG activity that mixes with the goldspammer pitches.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
The reasons filters wouldn't work is the same reason you still see spam...
The game was launched without a filter system. We asked for it to be added... Over the course of three years the filter has made the spam bots become more and more inventive in how to type their websites but it has obviously not stopped them. Filters are a nice way to irritate spam bot creators but it is really ineffective.
Easiest solution if it bothers you is to turn off zone chat.
As long as they see a benefit to spamming the spam bots will spam.
There's no complete solution. Even magenubbies claim of removing the search tab being the solution is completely incorrect because bot spam is a fact of life even in games without a search tab. Where there is a will there is a way.
The more accurate claim is that we can't have nice things because of bots. The easiest way to avoid bots is to turn off features you may like such as zone chat or limiting PM's to friends only. Otherwise reporting for spam is the best option as it will put the account on your ignore list and mute (and ultimately result in a ban) the gold spammer.
I've been playing MMO's for a decade and a half. Every MMO has players that complain about spam bots and for some reason every MMO community claims that they have it worse than everybody else. It's definitely bad in NW but it's mainly because there's no paywall to prevent people from accessing the game. A new spam account is a few clicks away and every way to limit the ability of spam bots from spamming is a detriment to legitimate [new] players.
So as my motto has been...there is no magic wand to remove bots. Bots are the biggest expense the MMO Industry has. There's no simple solution. I haven't seen a unique player solution in over a decade and the solutions players propose have either been tried and failed in the past, are based on false beliefs or are made with a lack of knowledge on how the internet works.
Examples in order: Capcha's, not only are bots not exclusive to China but it's just plain morally wrong to suggest barring countries from playing games, and IP bans are not done by large companies because they are rarely static and easily changed.
Bots are annoying...but they are a fact of life in MMO's. It's better to avoid or report them than to complain as if the developers of any MMO don't realize they are annoying. If there was a magic wand to remove them then they would be removed but there is very little that can be done and the solutions the average player proposes are riddled with flaws.
It's like half you people can't read. Never did I say it was gonna rid bot/gold spammers. It's a QoL feature, that should of been implemented years ago.
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Removing "Free Trade" as it was called in another game actually was not a solution. There were still gold spammers until the company caved in to player complaints and removed the trade restrictions they added in. On top of that the scum who would have botted for money ended up learning to bot to gain goods directly.
Barring counties from accessing the game has to do with country laws. Nothing more. Russia and China have slightly different laws so they are not permitted to access the international version of the game however they do have a local version. I only know of two countries which could not access the international game but I wouldn't be surprised if countries such as North Korea do not legally allow their citizens from accessing the game. The end result is that it is all on the countries, not PWE.
My reference was more that every once in a while some racist comment originates such as "A lot of botters are from Turkey so please don't allow IP's from Turkey to access the game!!" That was a player suggestion on this forum which I moderated a couple of years back. Not only is this such a morally wrong statement but anybody with enough knowledge to maintain a botting program would have little trouble using a VPN or spoofing their IP.
WARHAMMER online didn't start with a chat filter either, a player made a mod. and it worked pretty well for the time... So, if a player can come up with something like that for a game he/she is playing, why can't the Devs here not come up with something similar for their own game?
1-3 days to come up with a working chat filter, 1 week of testing on the PTS and then let it go live. That would be two weeks at the most, and it could have been done 2 years ago...
And it is really starting to bother me, how this issue is being ignored by the Devs. Why is it so hard to a. recognize that this is an unsolved issue for YEAERS now, and b. to come up with a client sided chat filter against it?
I would really like to see an official answer to that.
Also if they allready have a spam filter in place on the server side, what would be the problem to open up a filter option on the client side, that we can feed with keywords on our own? Or let me ask it this way, only because email providers do spam filtering, would you suggest to all the people using their own filter to throw them away or not update them?
And turning off a public chat channel isn't the solution either. Let's say you do that, what will the next step be? Turning off the whisper chat too? Because the AD sellers will start whispering their messages a lot more frequent, when they realise, that Zone chat isn't cutting it anymore. Or they will try to befriend you more often too, and then what? Can you turn off the option to receive friend requests too?
As allready mentioned over and over again... the point why a client sided chat filter could work is: We, the players, can adjust that spam filter faster then the AD seller can react to it in the end, and it would filter all channels, not just the Zone chat.
From there the next step could be an improved ignore list with different tabs in it, and that we can clear those list with one push of a button, and not just one entry at the time.
The server sided chat filter can stay in place, nothing needs to be changed there.
I think it is high time that the Devs give us the tools to "reclaim" PE and any other Zone chat from the AD sellers and trolls.
Comments
Patch notes for another game just recently released.
Chat Filtering has been added.
Players will be able to access the new personal chat filter via the ESC menu. This menu will allow you to register words you want filtered from chat.
Filtered words can be up to 50 character long.
The chat filter is literal, not case sensitive and does not support wildcards.
Any chat entry containing the filtered word will not be displayed in your chat window.
Been 3 years, your competitor implements in less than 3 months.... Sigh... It's not like the clientside filter wasn't suggested years ago either....
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
Sure AD sellers and trolls will go haywire about a working client sided chat filter...
No more AD advertisement, and no more religions, political or other non game related nonsense in the chat either.
And all a regular player would have to do is add a few keywords to the client sided chat filter.
Combine the chat filter with a better working ignore list, a list that we can wipe clean with one click, with options to sort ignores into different tabs, and that should also take some extra load of the client too.
So, any official comment on why we have to beg for years now for a working client sided chat filter?
Make it impossible for them to automate account creation more human measures in place maybe an easy text that is all random, in order to stop that problem. Maybe easy math, but math and questions that can't have automated answers like no copy and past measures.
They might never kill the bots but they can in fact cull them by measures such as a delete limit (Which drove them away and got rid of them completely in elder scrolls online. There might be bots there but there is no gold spam whats so ever.)
Another happen is a short scroll down then hit I am not a bot feature, when they go tocreate characters. I in game forced human player test.
So simple things they need to do.
Delete Limit
Currency change for Ah From Astro Dimands to Gold.
Better Account creation, measures that can't be automated.
All this will get rid of bot spam or at least lesson it so chat is not filled with it twenty four seven.
Another thing that could hurt new free to play players but basically could get rid of the bots. A forced pay for something option from zen store, before you get access to zone trade and lfg.
They won't touch something that is buy to chat.
Because they lose money this way.
Also another thing needed is permaban people that buy from gold spammers. We don't need those people in game and it goes to show that they allow this if its a three day ban.
There was another game I played.They had filter some sort so bots just stood right in the middle of the center of the game and keep PMing people.They couldnt find solution so they let them do whatever they want to do and game died.Ofc, that wasnt the only reason game died but there were a lot of ragequitters because of those bots
However, they do PM me. That is a bigger problem if that happens as often as the spamming.
In addition, asking me to be their friend is more annoying (for me) than their spam in common channel.
Friend requests could also be limited to being in the same group and in the same instance.
The game was launched without a filter system. We asked for it to be added...
Over the course of three years the filter has made the spam bots become more and more inventive in how to type their websites but it has obviously not stopped them. Filters are a nice way to irritate spam bot creators but it is really ineffective.
Easiest solution if it bothers you is to turn off zone chat.
As long as they see a benefit to spamming the spam bots will spam.
There's no complete solution. Even magenubbies claim of removing the search tab being the solution is completely incorrect because bot spam is a fact of life even in games without a search tab. Where there is a will there is a way.
The more accurate claim is that we can't have nice things because of bots. The easiest way to avoid bots is to turn off features you may like such as zone chat or limiting PM's to friends only. Otherwise reporting for spam is the best option as it will put the account on your ignore list and mute (and ultimately result in a ban) the gold spammer.
I've been playing MMO's for a decade and a half. Every MMO has players that complain about spam bots and for some reason every MMO community claims that they have it worse than everybody else. It's definitely bad in NW but it's mainly because there's no paywall to prevent people from accessing the game. A new spam account is a few clicks away and every way to limit the ability of spam bots from spamming is a detriment to legitimate [new] players.
So as my motto has been...there is no magic wand to remove bots. Bots are the biggest expense the MMO Industry has.
There's no simple solution. I haven't seen a unique player solution in over a decade and the solutions players propose have either been tried and failed in the past, are based on false beliefs or are made with a lack of knowledge on how the internet works.
Examples in order: Capcha's, not only are bots not exclusive to China but it's just plain morally wrong to suggest barring countries from playing games, and IP bans are not done by large companies because they are rarely static and easily changed.
Bots are annoying...but they are a fact of life in MMO's. It's better to avoid or report them than to complain as if the developers of any MMO don't realize they are annoying. If there was a magic wand to remove them then they would be removed but there is very little that can be done and the solutions the average player proposes are riddled with flaws.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
Barring counties from accessing the game has to do with country laws. Nothing more.
Russia and China have slightly different laws so they are not permitted to access the international version of the game however they do have a local version. I only know of two countries which could not access the international game but I wouldn't be surprised if countries such as North Korea do not legally allow their citizens from accessing the game.
The end result is that it is all on the countries, not PWE.
My reference was more that every once in a while some racist comment originates such as "A lot of botters are from Turkey so please don't allow IP's from Turkey to access the game!!" That was a player suggestion on this forum which I moderated a couple of years back. Not only is this such a morally wrong statement but anybody with enough knowledge to maintain a botting program would have little trouble using a VPN or spoofing their IP.
So, if a player can come up with something like that for a game he/she is playing, why can't the Devs here not come up with something similar for their own game?
1-3 days to come up with a working chat filter, 1 week of testing on the PTS and then let it go live.
That would be two weeks at the most, and it could have been done 2 years ago...
And it is really starting to bother me, how this issue is being ignored by the Devs.
Why is it so hard to
a. recognize that this is an unsolved issue for YEAERS now, and
b. to come up with a client sided chat filter against it?
I would really like to see an official answer to that.
Also if they allready have a spam filter in place on the server side, what would be the problem to open up a filter option on the client side, that we can feed with keywords on our own?
Or let me ask it this way, only because email providers do spam filtering, would you suggest to all the people using their own filter to throw them away or not update them?
And turning off a public chat channel isn't the solution either.
Let's say you do that, what will the next step be?
Turning off the whisper chat too? Because the AD sellers will start whispering their messages a lot more frequent, when they realise, that Zone chat isn't cutting it anymore.
Or they will try to befriend you more often too, and then what? Can you turn off the option to receive friend requests too?
As allready mentioned over and over again... the point why a client sided chat filter could work is:
We, the players, can adjust that spam filter faster then the AD seller can react to it in the end, and it would filter all channels, not just the Zone chat.
From there the next step could be an improved ignore list with different tabs in it, and that we can clear those list with one push of a button, and not just one entry at the time.
The server sided chat filter can stay in place, nothing needs to be changed there.
I think it is high time that the Devs give us the tools to "reclaim" PE and any other Zone chat from the AD sellers and trolls.