the only change in this that i have a problem with is the ability to trade i like to be able to help my friends be strong right out of the gate when i get them to play
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vampirecavyMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 55Arc User
EDIT: Okay I should clarify - this is actually a fairly large sized time investment, particularly for players who just want to make a guy to RP. Maybe making it just two of those instead?
The restrictions on /say, /zone and /emote are causing troubles all over already. Honestly, I've seen like one or two goldspammers in these channels through my time playing (at least a few years). They mostly come through in-game mail or whispers anyway.
Not only do these restrictions prevent new players from asking for help, which has already been mentioned. They also prevent people from communicating with their alt-characters, since apparently this isn't tied to account, but to the character directly.
I doubt that goldspammers are going to have a lvl 70 character sitting around on their account. It makes no sense to me that, when I already have multiple high level characters, I can't use these channels on a new low level character.
In addition, you're completely HAMSTER over a large part of the roleplaying community. I know it's probably a minority, but we're still here, and still very active. A lot of us make extensive use of low level alt-characters to play out our stories and act as actors in our plotlines. This is now impossible unless we tediously level up Every. Single. Character that we make.
This has been a "solution" to a nonexisting problem, in turn causing more problems than you've solved. Please, I really wish you'd reconsider this change.
Well, there is a lot less chatter from the Gold Sellers. Still a few coming through...if you inspect them, at least the 2 I inspected they were only level 15 with hardly no gear. I reported the spamming which blocked them. So I guess as low as level 15 they can circumvent the filters/rules put in place.
I am glad something is being done. the spammers are just terrible at times and make it hard to really read what is being said.. I report them all, when I see them.. gold/ad whatever it be sellers are the bane of all online games.. anyone caught doing it should be account/email/ip banned on the first offense.... no tolerance at all.
toward the restrictions.. to light.. should be harsher.. if its just blacklake.. that is to easy to complete.. it needs to be all the way up to towers at least... that way a bot user would not waste as much time leveling a toon that high.
but then again even that is not true.. I used to know people with level 99 bots in d2 that did it to get around level restrictions players would put on their games so they could join and spamm the room.
the auto profession idea posted by another member is just terrible.. it would not work as they think for it would make it even easier for the spammers to get more and thus newer players not wanting to wast the time with professions would still be tempted to buy from them.
there should be no simple easy way.. the easier it is the worse bots and selling will get.
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lordgio1984Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 17Arc User
Everything you do to reduce gold sellers and/or bots is well done.
Considering what a boring grind this game has become since it stated three years ago, and that botters only effect an legit customers is some stupid emails and chat spams we can simply ignore (and which could be removed without any inconvenience to them) and keeping prizes for RP, wards, etc. in the AH reasonable, any inconvenience due to such a stunt as this or captchas every n minutes is not acceptable.
Developers launched a sort of program that tracked the connections to the servers for a long period and it was able to find all the accounts that were driven by bots and... a nice day, after a patch, the ban-hammer hit them all with a perma ban.
English is not my native speech, so it's likely I have misunderstood... Summarizing: I should be thankful to bot users because they keep down the prizes on AH and, after all, they have the right to spam because, if I don't like them, I can just ignore them. Such a statement is worthy of just one answer, that is: lol. Maybe you don't consider that their activities disrupts the economy of the game and (even more important than the economy itself): they reduce the longevity of the game. People reach the top in a shot time, they get bored, they quit. Botters farm big amount of items (enchantments, RPs, event items, just to bring some examples): they overload the AH and, therefore, the prices drop. Players who farm and use leadership and enchantments like quartermaster, usually use their provents on their own characters, and the amount of RPs they farm is nothing in comparison with bot users's activity. They sell them when they are not in need of them anymore, and usually the earnings are low because the AH prices are undercut as there are too many items available to be bought. If you have to use them on you, there is no difference whether those items are bound to account or free; and even if you don't need them anymore, you should use them, for example, to refine a free enchantment and sell it. The game has been structured ina way that you have to take a certain period of time to reach some targets, if you want to grow faster you can shop from the game owners or just play more. Bot users simply damage the game owners because a big part of their expected earnings finish in the hands of the bot users... And if I were the owner, this would be a good reason to be very, very angry...
I didn't want to tell the name of my previous game but, considering that you're instilling the doubt that I've invented what I've said, you've just won the name of that game: the game was Drakensang Online, and this was the announcement of the permaban, on their forums:
In the end (but this is just a personal opinion of mine), it's better a game with less players but playing legit, than a crowded game where a substantial part of its customers use illegal ways to grow and even to gain real money from the game: and we both know that it's forbidden by the terms of service. Greetings!
So, now that we have these massive restrictions on new characters I find a bunch of my profession assets stranded for a while on a character I created this past week. Now I have to go level up that character through 3 of 5 possible quest lines before I can recover my profession assets... it would have been nice to have some sort of warning this was going to happen.
Why are these massive new restrictions on a per-character basis? I don't understand, once an account has a character that has reached level 70 shouldn't that be enough to remove these restrictions on newly created characters on that account? I guess I can see why you'd add these restrictions to totally brand new account... though I don't see how such severe restrictions are going to help new player retention... but for accounts with max level characters already? It doesn't really make sense.
At the very least, could you at least let us move our profession assets around our own account via the shared bank? Having to use the mail system only to move around these assets is just strange, why can't we transfer them with the shared bank?
We've seen crowded areas where bots flicker in and out of dungeons/instances (prolly not for nodes since most were removed). Getting to lvl 70 isn't something they'll have a hard time overcoming, so unlocking an account's new chars just based on having reached lvl 70 shouldn't cut it.
Hopefully, if their measures are effective, they'll realize it's going to crank up the prices and will introduce more AD gains or increase the ones we have. I could see having more drops from epic dungeons, for example. Bots shouldn't be able to reach the boss chest(s)...
Quick question. Did the exp rate get changed? I was doing influence runs with guildees tonight and none of the lower level toons were able to get much in the way of exp. One guildee went from level 6-8 in a run where usually that would be from 6-14ish
Excellent! I don't blame farmers/sellers (except for being annoying on chat and email) but the people who buy from them because it does disrupt the economy. However, someone once pointed out to me that those who work long hours should be able to spend their cash to buy stuff that compensates for the little time they can play. I believe that NW does give additional vacation xp, though, and items are available to buy through purchasing zen or arc money which pays for game development. So cheers for a clever strike in the ongoing battle.
You know what disrupts the economy even further? Bad design decisions that prevent new players from catching up to old players.
Guilds help New Players catch up to Old players.. if they are decent and not just focused on Pixels (the guilds and the players).
Guilds help New Players catch up to Old players.. if they are decent and not just focused on Pixels (the guilds and the players).
How are they gonna do that, if they can't find, them, talk to them, invite them and equip them?
... If they can't figure out how to make it to level 15 (or even 30) before asking people for help... they have more issues than whether or not they can chat in game.
“Improvise, Adapt and Overcome!”
― Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge
Guild Leader of Ardent Justice HQ: Always recruiting People not Pixels.
... If they can't figure out how to make it to level 15 (or even 30) before asking people for help... they have more issues than whether or not they can chat in game.
That is a very elitist attitude you have there, who are you to decide when people should be able to ask others for assistance? Not everybody speaks English as a first language, nor is everybody is a gamer. Some people just need help getting the basics down, especially if this is their first MMO.
I just think this latest salvo against the "botters" of Neverwinter is going to catch a lot of players unawares, especially those new to the game... and since they've decided each and every character needs the unlock, even veteran players are having issues... you'd think having a level 70 on an account would be enough to prove someone isn't a gold seller. Sigh.
I don't see many new players coming in if they can not even ask for help against Karzov etc. if they feel the boss is too hard to finish. Removing the MM part from an MMO sounds like a very, very desperate measure.
I am not saying I have a much better solution, just that one should consider the consequences of removing all communication.
* If I make a new character, how do I get invited to my guild? * Why is it character based and not account based? * What about a 2-way communication opt-in to help others?
Imaginary Friends are the best friends you can have!
I made a suggestion over in the Player Feedback forum about a way they could change the Auction House to change the primary source goldsellers use to transfer AD... the Auction House!
Simply changing the Auction House could cut the head off the entire system goldsellers use to move their illicit diamonds around. If the AH was no longer available for them to use then we should see a dramatic decrease in goldseller activity.
Other games that use a blind Auction House system have drastically reduced, or even non-existent goldseller activity... maybe it is time for Neverwinter to try this method instead of punishing all players for the actions of goldsellers!
Have these measures not been in place for a while now? We started an account for my son a few months ago and I remember trying to go through to kill Karzov with him and he was unable to message me, zone, or anyone for that matter. I don't remember what other restrictions were on it though. He was a new player so he didn't have anything to sell and I never tried to trade with him.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Have these measures not been in place for a while now? We started an account for my son a few months ago and I remember trying to go through to kill Karzov with him and he was unable to message me, zone, or anyone for that matter. I don't remember what other restrictions were on it though. He was a new player so he didn't have anything to sell and I never tried to trade with him.
Chat has been blocked for sub-15 characters that have never spent money for a very long time, but I believe only if the account had no higher level characters. It didn't help then either.
Excellent! I don't blame farmers/sellers (except for being annoying on chat and email) but the people who buy from them because it does disrupt the economy. However, someone once pointed out to me that those who work long hours should be able to spend their cash to buy stuff that compensates for the little time they can play. I believe that NW does give additional vacation xp, though, and items are available to buy through purchasing zen or arc money which pays for game development. So cheers for a clever strike in the ongoing battle.
You know what disrupts the economy even further? Bad design decisions that prevent new players from catching up to old players.
Guilds help New Players catch up to Old players.. if they are decent and not just focused on Pixels (the guilds and the players).
you cannot get into a guild if your mouth is stutured. Ask Neo.
Imaginary Friends are the best friends you can have!
For the AH they should put a cap in there on items. I know that it would cut into legit players AD revenue, but it would prevent third party sellers from exchanging AD like they do. They ask you to list any random blue/purple item for 1 million and in house cost. To make the exchange of the AD. So you can't list a level 20 set of Agile boots of parrying (not sure if that is a actual item I'm just trying to make an example) That has really crappy stats on it for 1,110,000 Astrals. The cap would prevent this
And this, IMO, touches on what I believe is *the* solution for botting & gold spammers. It has nothing to do with the actual botting, or trying to prevent it. You kill the purchase of the gold by simply removing the ability to engage in unbalanced trading. Whether that is direct player to player, e-mail, AH, or guild bank.
Give everything tradeable an initial price set by the devs. When you put something up for sale in the AH, you don't set a price, but you are told the current price. The price on the AH deviates based on how many of the item is for sale vs. how many are being bought vs how long they've been for sale. When you buy an item you buy the oldest one of it's kind there, and that seller gets the money. In direct P2P trades, (or different account e-mail) trades must be balanced based on the current AH prices, with an option to "autobalance" using currency. For guild vaults, you can only take out items less than or equal to the value of items you've put in. Etc.
Sure, this means you can't do drive-by gifting of good stuff to random newbies. Sure, guilds can't deck out new players in full high-end stuff. Sure, it'll be much harder, (maybe even impossible?) to simply make money playing the market/arbitrage. I'd say that's a small price to pay for freedom of being able to design all the other systems without having to worry about how botters can exploit them to make money.
About the only way I could see botters/gold sellers operating under those conditions would be by selling well-furnished accounts, and I doubt the demand for something like that is anywhere near the demand for gold, and I'd imagine creating a well-furnished account would be significantly more difficult than botting a bunch of gold across multiple accounts then pooling it together whenever there's a buyer... lower demand and higher cost of supply may well make it profitless.
I understand that you want to protect the players from spammers but at least make the zone chat available to new players it is frustrating to play when you need instant info and you have no one to ask from the chat,good if you have your friend to play with and if not you just want to stop playing.
Change the way players earn Astral Diamonds by invocating - That didn't work,
Change the way players get Astral Diamonds from Skirmishes and daily dungeons - That didn't work,
Change new players not being able to use Chat until they reach level 15 so they can't spam for those outside vendors - (is that still in effect?) - That didn't work,
Remove players ability to earn Astral Diamonds in Gateway Leadership - That didn't work,
Change players ability to earn Astral Diamonds by invoking again... this time by doing away with the ability to earn Astral Diamonds by invoking all together.
Each of these steps only made it more difficult for a player not affiliated with a guild or not already in possession of gear that allows them to repeatedly "grind" areas where Astral Diamonds are still awarded, to obtain Astral Diamonds.
To me it very much seems the game is giving people more incentive to consider buying Astral Diamonds from those third party vendors - not less.
**IMO every quest where a person opens a chest upon completing it should award Astral Diamonds at least the first time a person completes that quest, the more difficult the quest the larger the amount of AD's earned. That way everyone has the ability to earn Astral Diamonds by actually playing the game and completing quests - if anyone thinks they need more Astral Diamonds than what they can earn by questing they purchase keys from Cryptic/Perfect World (Cryptic/Perfect world can then sell Zen and Keys - but Zen can no longer be used to purchase keys).
**IMO every quest where a person opens a chest upon completing it should award Astral Diamonds at least the first time a person completes that quest, the more difficult the quest the larger the amount of AD's earned. That way everyone has the ability to earn Astral Diamonds by actually playing the game and completing quests
I hate bots. The way I see it is that bots equals cheating and I hate cheats. Why bother playing a game at all if you have to cheat?
Anyway, I hope I don't get banned for this but I also played a game where they dealt with bots very well. I have no idea how they did it but my husband and I both played it for a long time and got sick and tired of the bots clogging up the maps etc. So we stopped playing the game for a while. When we went back, the problem was the same but then, if memory serves, there was an announcement that there would be extended maintenance. When the maintenance was ended and we logged back in - no bots. They'd perma banned all of the accounts that were botting I think. The maps were quiet and legit players could go back to enjoying their game. As I said, I have no idea of exactly how they did it or even if it lasted (as I stopped playing it when I found NW) but it can be done and the only affect it had on the legit players was that we couldn't play for a few hours while they did it. Small sacrifice! That game was Dark Orbit. Funnily enough, that game is made by Bigpoint which also made Drakensang Online which a previous poster mentioned. If they can do it......?
The chat restrictions, as others have said, just punishes new players who may have questions to ask. Aside from the usual morons who think they're being clever with their asinine comments, there are some very helpful players who answer these questions properly and new players need this. And we need new players!
The aspiration to fight bots is perfectly understandable if they are slowing down server performance and reducing revenue for the people who actually work to create the game. I just kinda hope the next/ongoing fight against bots doesn´t make my chosen playstyle even more unviable. I don´t want to do the profession clicketiclick on 20+ toons and I don´t want to play some wall street comedy on the auction house. I just want to do the dungeons and dragons and while I´m fine with other players doing it differently progressing faster I´m not fine with feeling like a squirrel in a wheel getting nowhere (yea I´m being a drama queen, so what, it´s perfectly regular in this forum ). Make harder dungeons with better loot. FBI seems like a good start on the first part - there just seems to be a problem with the second. Not that I can access it yet. I´ll attach a lil vid showing me trying to farm this game. Please help. I´ve stopped even hoping to open a chest with some loot that´ll make even a tiny dent in my rp needs. I do hope wholeheartedly you succeed in fighting the bots and not me. As the vid shows I'm one tough little critter but..............
Here are some ideas. Not all that well thought through, I admit, but none the less they are ideas and meybe they might work.
Introduce pure randomness in the game. Never have the same spawn point for the players nor for the enemies. Randomize all locations for user to interact with. That means skill nodes and chests and what not will vary to such a degree that including all variations would require too much processing power. This would also make grinding the same quests over and over (due to lack of content or wanting a special loot drop) more challenging and less monotone.
Make all regular drops be account bound as well as possible to use by any class, until equipped, when it becomes character & class bound. That way we would always get items that our toons can use. And if we have more then one toon and an other is in greater need they could still get that item instead.
You could try removing AD completely from the Auction House. Replace it with Gold instead. Just like its predecessors in Champions and Star Trek Online does. Save the AD for special stuff like upgrading mounts, buying special gear in stores, etc. You should also change so that AD is pooled for an account and possible to deposit in to guild banks just as Gold is. That way the the player would still get all the AD they earn but the need to buy AD from others will be slightly lowered as you will have more AD at your fingertips in case you need something for a toon.
Guild Bank tabs should have their price changed to Gold as well. Just like its predecessors in Champions and Star Trek Online
Implementing an adaptive piece of software that scans the chat server for gold-spammer's adverts must be child play for a programmer. This software should have a player editable section that we could ourselves add phrases or words to in case int software itself miss something.
Adding an incrementally growing auto banning feature that easily logs the player account using the chat and for each time a ban is triggered the time they will be banned for (lets start with 30 minutes) would double, quickly adding up to a permanent ban (doubled 21 times is more time then a normal human lifespan). It should be easily implemented to watch the chat server for those accounts that often in quick succession send friend invites, then a /tell and cancel the friend invite followed by a report spam notice, in matter of seconds. If an other formula is used it can be made faster or slower.
I will say the idea of this is good. The first free type game to play that has done this. As stated the limits are removed once a player progresses. Fact is bots do not really progress in a game. they reach level 10 maybe 20 and give up and then sit in the town trying to farm. They do not continue to progress. As for the captcha is considered anyone that does not know that a bot program can bypass that really should take up a bit of coding classes. Truth is that is so easy to bypass. however this idea forces the player to progress. I like the idea. I will be just starting to play the game when it is done installing and from what I have read great idea. Oh and for those of you that are having a fit about the idea re read it. those that are not new players will not have the restriction. Anyways this was my two cents and maybe i will see you all in game.
Here are some ideas. Not all that well thought through, I admit, but none the less they are ideas and meybe they might work.
Introduce pure randomness in the game. Never have the same spawn point for the players nor for the enemies. Randomize all locations for user to interact with. That means skill nodes and chests and what not will vary to such a degree that including all variations would require too much processing power. This would also make grinding the same quests over and over (due to lack of content or wanting a special loot drop) more challenging and less monotone.
For an MMO in this day and age I am seriously surprised at the very static nature of this game. I fully think that randomness would be a great addition... though it may not stop the botters, but it would slow them down for a while at the very least. Sadly, while having everything be static helps the botters making things random wouldn't be terribly hard for them to adapt to,
Make all regular drops be account bound as well as possible to use by any class, until equipped, when it becomes character & class bound. That way we would always get items that our toons can use. And if we have more then one toon and an other is in greater need they could still get that item instead.
I agree that making more things be Account Bound would be so very, very nice. It would make this game become considerably more alt-friendly than it is now... and now it seems like they go out of their way to make it alt-unfriendly!
Not sure about the idea of making all equipment usable by every class though.
You could try removing AD completely from the Auction House. Replace it with Gold instead. Just like its predecessors in Champions and Star Trek Online does. Save the AD for special stuff like upgrading mounts, buying special gear in stores, etc. You should also change so that AD is pooled for an account and possible to deposit in to guild banks just as Gold is. That way the the player would still get all the AD they earn but the need to buy AD from others will be slightly lowered as you will have more AD at your fingertips in case you need something for a toon.
Guild Bank tabs should have their price changed to Gold as well. Just like its predecessors in Champions and Star Trek Online>
All this would do is make the goldsellers actually be, well, sellers of gold instead of Astral Diamonds!
Implementing an adaptive piece of software that scans the chat server for gold-spammer's adverts must be child play for a programmer. This software should have a player editable section that we could ourselves add phrases or words to in case int software itself miss something.
As a coder myself I have thought of a number of ways in which the activities of the goldsellers could be detected. They seem to love using punctuation in their messages to avoid filters... so why not detect messages that use excessive punctuation? Or, remove all punctuation from messages/mails and then check whatever is left. Some judicious RegEx usage could do wonders for detecting the goldsellers. Detecting an account that has sent excessive mails that are 99% similar to previous mails could also be a technique to use to detect them. I could go on...
Adding an incrementally growing auto banning feature that easily logs the player account using the chat and for each time a ban is triggered the time they will be banned for (lets start with 30 minutes) would double, quickly adding up to a permanent ban (doubled 21 times is more time then a normal human lifespan). It should be easily implemented to watch the chat server for those accounts that often in quick succession send friend invites, then a /tell and cancel the friend invite followed by a report spam notice, in matter of seconds. If an other formula is used it can be made faster or slower.
I don't think I quite understand what you are suggesting here... I almost never get friend requests from random accounts, nor /tells, usually most of the goldseller spam I see is via the mail system or the usual PE chat spam.
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obsiddiaMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,025Arc User
What about the people (or bots) who buy your Level 70 pre-mades? Will they have to go back and run areas that are laughably easy? Of course if they aren't, then botters can use pre-mades to gold spam. (Tho at least it would use up some of their AD.)
Did you really think anyone could steal the power of the god of thieves?
Comments
of the gate when i get them to play
EDIT: Okay I should clarify - this is actually a fairly large sized time investment, particularly for players who just want to make a guy to RP. Maybe making it just two of those instead?
Not only do these restrictions prevent new players from asking for help, which has already been mentioned. They also prevent people from communicating with their alt-characters, since apparently this isn't tied to account, but to the character directly.
I doubt that goldspammers are going to have a lvl 70 character sitting around on their account. It makes no sense to me that, when I already have multiple high level characters, I can't use these channels on a new low level character.
In addition, you're completely HAMSTER over a large part of the roleplaying community. I know it's probably a minority, but we're still here, and still very active. A lot of us make extensive use of low level alt-characters to play out our stories and act as actors in our plotlines. This is now impossible unless we tediously level up Every. Single. Character that we make.
This has been a "solution" to a nonexisting problem, in turn causing more problems than you've solved. Please, I really wish you'd reconsider this change.
But yes, a lot less spam which is nice....
toward the restrictions.. to light.. should be harsher.. if its just blacklake.. that is to easy to complete.. it needs to be all the way up to towers at least... that way a bot user would not waste as much time leveling a toon that high.
but then again even that is not true.. I used to know people with level 99 bots in d2 that did it to get around level restrictions players would put on their games so they could join and spamm the room.
the auto profession idea posted by another member is just terrible.. it would not work as they think for it would make it even easier for the spammers to get more and thus newer players not wanting to wast the time with professions would still be tempted to buy from them.
there should be no simple easy way.. the easier it is the worse bots and selling will get.
English is not my native speech, so it's likely I have misunderstood... Summarizing: I should be thankful to bot users because they keep down the prizes on AH and, after all, they have the right to spam because, if I don't like them, I can just ignore them.
Such a statement is worthy of just one answer, that is: lol.
Maybe you don't consider that their activities disrupts the economy of the game and (even more important than the economy itself): they reduce the longevity of the game. People reach the top in a shot time, they get bored, they quit.
Botters farm big amount of items (enchantments, RPs, event items, just to bring some examples): they overload the AH and, therefore, the prices drop. Players who farm and use leadership and enchantments like quartermaster, usually use their provents on their own characters, and the amount of RPs they farm is nothing in comparison with bot users's activity. They sell them when they are not in need of them anymore, and usually the earnings are low because the AH prices are undercut as there are too many items available to be bought. If you have to use them on you, there is no difference whether those items are bound to account or free; and even if you don't need them anymore, you should use them, for example, to refine a free enchantment and sell it. The game has been structured ina way that you have to take a certain period of time to reach some targets, if you want to grow faster you can shop from the game owners or just play more. Bot users simply damage the game owners because a big part of their expected earnings finish in the hands of the bot users... And if I were the owner, this would be a good reason to be very, very angry...
I didn't want to tell the name of my previous game but, considering that you're instilling the doubt that I've invented what I've said, you've just won the name of that game: the game was Drakensang Online, and this was the announcement of the permaban, on their forums:
http://www.bigpoint.com/drasaonline/board/threads/bot-ban-wave-2-release-136.53697/
In the end (but this is just a personal opinion of mine), it's better a game with less players but playing legit, than a crowded game where a substantial part of its customers use illegal ways to grow and even to gain real money from the game: and we both know that it's forbidden by the terms of service.
Greetings!
Why are these massive new restrictions on a per-character basis? I don't understand, once an account has a character that has reached level 70 shouldn't that be enough to remove these restrictions on newly created characters on that account? I guess I can see why you'd add these restrictions to totally brand new account... though I don't see how such severe restrictions are going to help new player retention... but for accounts with max level characters already? It doesn't really make sense.
At the very least, could you at least let us move our profession assets around our own account via the shared bank? Having to use the mail system only to move around these assets is just strange, why can't we transfer them with the shared bank?
Hopefully, if their measures are effective, they'll realize it's going to crank up the prices and will introduce more AD gains or increase the ones we have.
I could see having more drops from epic dungeons, for example. Bots shouldn't be able to reach the boss chest(s)...
― Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge
Guild Leader of Ardent Justice HQ: Always recruiting People not Pixels.
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I just think this latest salvo against the "botters" of Neverwinter is going to catch a lot of players unawares, especially those new to the game... and since they've decided each and every character needs the unlock, even veteran players are having issues... you'd think having a level 70 on an account would be enough to prove someone isn't a gold seller. Sigh.
Removing the MM part from an MMO sounds like a very, very desperate measure.
I am not saying I have a much better solution, just that one should consider the consequences of removing all communication.
* If I make a new character, how do I get invited to my guild?
* Why is it character based and not account based?
* What about a 2-way communication opt-in to help others?
Simply changing the Auction House could cut the head off the entire system goldsellers use to move their illicit diamonds around. If the AH was no longer available for them to use then we should see a dramatic decrease in goldseller activity.
Other games that use a blind Auction House system have drastically reduced, or even non-existent goldseller activity... maybe it is time for Neverwinter to try this method instead of punishing all players for the actions of goldsellers!
The trade restrictions are new.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Give everything tradeable an initial price set by the devs. When you put something up for sale in the AH, you don't set a price, but you are told the current price. The price on the AH deviates based on how many of the item is for sale vs. how many are being bought vs how long they've been for sale. When you buy an item you buy the oldest one of it's kind there, and that seller gets the money. In direct P2P trades, (or different account e-mail) trades must be balanced based on the current AH prices, with an option to "autobalance" using currency. For guild vaults, you can only take out items less than or equal to the value of items you've put in. Etc.
Sure, this means you can't do drive-by gifting of good stuff to random newbies. Sure, guilds can't deck out new players in full high-end stuff. Sure, it'll be much harder, (maybe even impossible?) to simply make money playing the market/arbitrage. I'd say that's a small price to pay for freedom of being able to design all the other systems without having to worry about how botters can exploit them to make money.
About the only way I could see botters/gold sellers operating under those conditions would be by selling well-furnished accounts, and I doubt the demand for something like that is anywhere near the demand for gold, and I'd imagine creating a well-furnished account would be significantly more difficult than botting a bunch of gold across multiple accounts then pooling it together whenever there's a buyer... lower demand and higher cost of supply may well make it profitless.
- Change the way players earn Astral Diamonds by invocating - That didn't work,
- Change the way players get Astral Diamonds from Skirmishes and daily dungeons - That didn't work,
- Change new players not being able to use Chat until they reach level 15 so they can't spam for those outside vendors - (is that still in effect?) - That didn't work,
- Remove players ability to earn Astral Diamonds in Gateway Leadership - That didn't work,
- Change players ability to earn Astral Diamonds by invoking again... this time by doing away with the ability to earn Astral Diamonds by invoking all together.
Each of these steps only made it more difficult for a player not affiliated with a guild or not already in possession of gear that allows them to repeatedly "grind" areas where Astral Diamonds are still awarded, to obtain Astral Diamonds.To me it very much seems the game is giving people more incentive to consider buying Astral Diamonds from those third party vendors - not less.
**IMO every quest where a person opens a chest upon completing it should award Astral Diamonds at least the first time a person completes that quest, the more difficult the quest the larger the amount of AD's earned. That way everyone has the ability to earn Astral Diamonds by actually playing the game and completing quests - if anyone thinks they need more Astral Diamonds than what they can earn by questing they purchase keys from Cryptic/Perfect World (Cryptic/Perfect world can then sell Zen and Keys - but Zen can no longer be used to purchase keys).
**Anyway that would be my suggestion.
Anyway, I hope I don't get banned for this but I also played a game where they dealt with bots very well. I have no idea how they did it but my husband and I both played it for a long time and got sick and tired of the bots clogging up the maps etc. So we stopped playing the game for a while. When we went back, the problem was the same but then, if memory serves, there was an announcement that there would be extended maintenance. When the maintenance was ended and we logged back in - no bots. They'd perma banned all of the accounts that were botting I think. The maps were quiet and legit players could go back to enjoying their game. As I said, I have no idea of exactly how they did it or even if it lasted (as I stopped playing it when I found NW) but it can be done and the only affect it had on the legit players was that we couldn't play for a few hours while they did it. Small sacrifice! That game was Dark Orbit. Funnily enough, that game is made by Bigpoint which also made Drakensang Online which a previous poster mentioned. If they can do it......?
The chat restrictions, as others have said, just punishes new players who may have questions to ask. Aside from the usual morons who think they're being clever with their asinine comments, there are some very helpful players who answer these questions properly and new players need this. And we need new players!
Make harder dungeons with better loot. FBI seems like a good start on the first part - there just seems to be a problem with the second. Not that I can access it yet. I´ll attach a lil vid showing me trying to farm this game. Please help. I´ve stopped even hoping to open a chest with some loot that´ll make even a tiny dent in my rp needs. I do hope wholeheartedly you succeed in fighting the bots and not me. As the vid shows I'm one tough little critter but..............
youtube.com/watch?v=E8eNyAoNoJE
Introduce pure randomness in the game. Never have the same spawn point for the players nor for the enemies. Randomize all locations for user to interact with. That means skill nodes and chests and what not will vary to such a degree that including all variations would require too much processing power. This would also make grinding the same quests over and over (due to lack of content or wanting a special loot drop) more challenging and less monotone.
Make all regular drops be account bound as well as possible to use by any class, until equipped, when it becomes character & class bound. That way we would always get items that our toons can use. And if we have more then one toon and an other is in greater need they could still get that item instead.
You could try removing AD completely from the Auction House. Replace it with Gold instead. Just like its predecessors in Champions and Star Trek Online does. Save the AD for special stuff like upgrading mounts, buying special gear in stores, etc. You should also change so that AD is pooled for an account and possible to deposit in to guild banks just as Gold is. That way the the player would still get all the AD they earn but the need to buy AD from others will be slightly lowered as you will have more AD at your fingertips in case you need something for a toon.
Guild Bank tabs should have their price changed to Gold as well. Just like its predecessors in Champions and Star Trek Online
Implementing an adaptive piece of software that scans the chat server for gold-spammer's adverts must be child play for a programmer. This software should have a player editable section that we could ourselves add phrases or words to in case int software itself miss something.
Adding an incrementally growing auto banning feature that easily logs the player account using the chat and for each time a ban is triggered the time they will be banned for (lets start with 30 minutes) would double, quickly adding up to a permanent ban (doubled 21 times is more time then a normal human lifespan). It should be easily implemented to watch the chat server for those accounts that often in quick succession send friend invites, then a /tell and cancel the friend invite followed by a report spam notice, in matter of seconds. If an other formula is used it can be made faster or slower.
Recruitment: Neverwinter Online (spotlight)(wiki) - Star Trek Online Federation - Star Trek Online Klingon - Star Trek Online Romulan - Champions Online
Guild FAQs: Neverwinter FAQ - Star Trek FAQ - Champions FAQ ..........Facebook: Mattachine Guild
Truth is that is so easy to bypass. however this idea forces the player to progress. I like the idea.
I will be just starting to play the game when it is done installing and from what I have read great idea.
Oh and for those of you that are having a fit about the idea re read it. those that are not new players will not have the restriction. Anyways this was my two cents and maybe i will see you all in game.
Not sure about the idea of making all equipment usable by every class though.
I don't think I quite understand what you are suggesting here... I almost never get friend requests from random accounts, nor /tells, usually most of the goldseller spam I see is via the mail system or the usual PE chat spam.
Will they have to go back and run areas that are laughably easy?
Of course if they aren't, then botters can use pre-mades to gold spam.
(Tho at least it would use up some of their AD.)