considering PWE is forcing us to use zone chat for LFG ,trade,newbie help and political debates.
I'm not really on either "side" here, but I do want to encourage people to fix this for themselves--because really, it's the only way. The community has been given all the tools it needs to create a trade channel or channels, as well as LFG channels. Or a channel for anything else. Ask around the forums--someone may have beaten you to it. You might say, "But people wouldn't use an unofficial channel!" My (long) experience in online games has been that official channels aren't used either unless the players populate and popularize them. At the end of the day, someone creates something, people spread the word, BAM. Honestly, the faster you can get away from needing zone chat for anything, the more peace of mind you'll have in any Cryptic game.
_
[SIGPIC]Captain Electric and the Sapien Spider[/SIGPIC]
Now what you just described is pure abuse of the system...I would simply file a ticket to report that.
Fine, there are wait times, no big deal. It takes 5 minutes to file one every day, if I need to.
I play maybe an hour a day, so 24 hour ban to anything in ONE video game, means squat to me. It's a casual game to me, I want to relax and have fun. When I can't see my buddies whispers, because people keep trying to sell their junk, it irritates me and I report as Spam. It is really very simple.
I do NOT need to see anyone selling anything in the Zone channel, because it is very annoying and apparently quite a lot of people and devs also agree, hence...feature works. This is a game, not a flee market, go kill some stuff instead.
Are you understanding this a little better now?
All I see in your post is "me me me me me"
Just because YOU don't want to see items for sale doesn't mean other people want the same thing.
Just because YOU play casually doesn't mean everyone else plays casually.
Just because YOU play other games, doesn't mean everyone plays other games.
It sounds like You should make another tab for whispers or turn off zone because with or without reporting spam, zone chat in the main city will always be filled.
Are you understanding how an MMO works? This isn't a single player game.
And as far as submitting a ticket goes, if you bothered to read, you would understand it takes days to get a response. So you get stuck with a punishment from some report spammer (which you admitted to doing in your post)
I'm not really on either "side" here, but I do want to encourage people to fix this for themselves--because really, it's the only way. The community has been given all the tools it needs to create a trade channel or channels, as well as LFG channels. Ask around the forums--someone may have beaten you to it. You might say, "But people wouldn't use an unofficial channel!" My (long) experience in online games has been that official channels aren't used either unless the players populate and popularize them. At the end of the day, someone creates something, people spread the word, BAM. Honestly, the faster you can get away from needing zone chat for anything, the more peace of mind you'll have in any Cryptic game.
I find it impossible to popularize a second trade channel or a chitchat channel efficiently.
Let's be realistic , as I said in my earlier post sellers will always want to go where they have the most customers.
Buyers will always look for the cheapest deal.
People will always want to find a group fast.
People will want to ask "how do I open my nightmare lockbox" or "how do I queue for skirmish".
People will keep spamming "I just made a foundry mission ---CODE---- please play it add me as a friend and give me feedback.
At best I see that people will spam BOTH trade/chitchat and zone still.I have experience with this because I am currently inside most channels that other people have TRIED to popularize.
People will always report someone who spams every minute "Guys if you wanna talk political stuff join NWOpolitics, Guys if you wanna trade join NWOtradefest ,join NWOnewbies".How do you explain to a new player how to join a channel?
I'd rather throw money at PWE/and I will if they fix this issue/ for whatever than waste my time on fanbased forums or risk getting hate reported to fix their flawed design by trying to popularize a new chat, which is doomed to fail.
Not surprised. Posting something 3 times in 45 seconds is most definitely spamming.
Try thinking before you post next time.
Ah imagine if they followed in the footsteps of every other real MMO and implemented a rate limiter. Zone chat would have less spam, and people wouldn't have to be punished for playing the game. But I guess then all you self righteous cowboys wouldn't be able to abuse the power. What would you do if they took away that toy?
thequeueball if I may suggest, if you have time and can go through all the screenshots posted and edit your first post , it will be easier for new people who open this thread to realise the issue and realise that we are all making this not as a flame/trolling war but as a thread to provide feedback on possible solutions to the Dev's CM's.
I find it impossible to popularize a second trade channel or a chitchat channel efficiently.
Let's be realistic , as I said in my earlier post sellers will always want to go where they have the most customers.
Buyers will always look for the cheapest deal.
People will always want to find a group fast.
People will want to ask "how do I open my nightmare lockbox" or "how do I queue for skirmish".
People will keep spamming "I just made a foundry mission ---CODE---- please play it add me as a friend and give me feedback.
At best I see that people will spam BOTH trade/chitchat and zone still.I have experience with this because I am currently inside most channels that other people have TRIED to popularize.
People will always report someone who spams every minute "Guys if you wanna talk political stuff join NWOpolitics, Guys if you wanna trade join NWOtradefest ,join NWOnewbies".How do you explain to a new player how to join a channel?
I'd rather throw money at PWE/and I will if they fix this issue/ for whatever than waste my time on fanbased forums or risk getting hate reported to fix their flawed design by trying to popularize a new chat, which is doomed to fail.
I hear you and I can't argue against any of your points, but the catch 22 here is that if they took the "sheriff's badges" away from the community, you'd come up against another problem on the other side of the coin. I don't feel I need to explain what that problem would be. Now, that's not me defending the system (if anything it's me encouraging more dialogue beyond "TURN THAT DANG THING OFF!"). I think they ought to plan for a day to turn it off for a week actually, so that we can see how unusable zone chat and some other channels would become. Trolls would abuse their new free reign just as mercilessly as they had abused their sheriff's badge, or more so.
The larger elephant in the room is that when you put thousands of people in one room, the signal to noise ratio is staggeringly deafening. And depressing. That's your species in there.
There is probably a better solution, but it is likely more complicated than replacing the current system with the absence of any system.
_
[SIGPIC]Captain Electric and the Sapien Spider[/SIGPIC]
I hear you and I can't argue against any of your points, but the catch 22 here is that if they took the "sheriff's badges" away from the community, you'd come up against another problem on the other side of the coin. I don't feel I need to explain what that problem would be. Now, that's not me defending the system (if anything it's me encouraging more dialogue beyond "TURN THAT DANG THING OFF!"). I think they ought to plan for a day to turn it off for a week actually, so that we can see how unusable zone chat and some other channels would become. Trolls would abuse their new free reign just as mercilessly as they had abused their sheriff's badge, or more so.
The larger elephant in the room is that when you put thousands of people in one room, the signal to noise ratio is staggeringly deafening. And depressing. That's your species in there.
There is probably a better solution, but it is likely more complicated than replacing the current system with the absence of any system.
Or people would use the ignore function instead of just rushing to report just because they can. Or they could implement one of the solutions I listed in the first post.
Or they could leave the report function but only have the ban apply to zone chat.
Why ban me from my guild chat? Why refuse to let me communicate with my friends list? (keep in mind, they had to accept to be on that list) so banning whispers while still allowing friend whispers would essentially work.
Why ban me from teaching my party boss fights they might not be familiar with? Because I had no choice but to use LFG while banned from everything.
Not to mention no communication can make you look really bad during am instance run if people try talking to you in the party.
I'm not advocating the absence of any system.I am merely pointing that the current system is already being abused and exploited.
I[and many other,sadly mainly victims] believe it is not functioning as it is intended to.
Just like the Auction House this is gamebreaking for alot of us.And I believe as evident that people are asking other people to ignore guys in guild chat and zone chat that the number of victims will grow exponentially.THE SYSTEM needs to be revised.
Anyone can be a target of the report spam exploit,even if you turn of all your chat or whatever.
There are a number of possible solutions in my opinion , however I am not a designer/programmer , I do not know the code limitations nor do I see the full picture and reasoning behind the current one.I cannot say exactly what changes need to be made , its up to the Devs to decide and think about all the angles.
Besides pointing the flaws all I could suggests would be to draw knowledge from other MMO's that have General Chat / Trade Chat /Looking for Group Chat.
I do not know how they are planning to address the LFG que system - perhaps they will make it so good that people never use the 'chat' again?
In no other MMO/Game I have played or know to exist is there a 24 hour ban from speaking everywhere and even EMOTING/sending items to your alt.
-Reduce the ban duration?
-Increase the number of requests needed?
-Add more channels?not sure this would solve the problem alone.
-Reduce the mute to only zone chat , or limit how many people you can whisper per minute?
Or people would use the ignore function instead of just rushing to report just because they can. Or they could implement one of the solutions I listed in the first post.
Or they could leave the report function but only have the ban apply to zone chat.
Why ban me from my guild chat? Why refuse to let me communicate with my friends list? (keep in mind, they had to accept to be on that list) so banning whispers while still allowing friend whispers would essential work.
Why ban me from teaching my party boss fights they might not be familiar with? Because I had no choice but to use LFG while banned from everything.
Not to mention no communication can make you look really bad during am instance run if people try talking to you in the party.
All excellent points, and if I could make a dev answer just a few posts here, one of them would be yours. There is of course a battle against gold sellers in this industry. A battle that has some ethical aspects, too, if you ever want to go and read about where and how some gold sellers live and work. But I can't see how a ban from zone chat should disqualify you from your guild or private chat--actually scratch that, private chat could be heavily abused--but private chat with your friends or guildies ought to be safeguarded eh? It sounds like the chat ban system is a "one size fits all" thing without any internal way to distinguish between any of those things. If they rolled a few updates into that to give it some more advanced features, that'd be great. (If I'm even right about any of that.)
_
[SIGPIC]Captain Electric and the Sapien Spider[/SIGPIC]
Ah imagine if they followed in the footsteps of every other real MMO and implemented a rate limiter. Zone chat would have less spam, and people wouldn't have to be punished for playing the game. But I guess then all you self righteous cowboys wouldn't be able to abuse the power. What would you do if they took away that toy?
Get on with playing a spammer-free game. Lovely. I hope they implement it. Until PWE implement this new system we work within their existing system. And in this system if enough people consider you a spammer you get silenced. And even if I believed people were ganging up and <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> with players then that is just unfortunate. i'd rather have a system open to potential abuse than no system.
If PWE weren't such a poor company when it came to support they would review these bans and punish exploiters. They should have a flood limiter and they should make a Trade Channel and set an 'all trades in this channel or else' rule. But they aren't a good company. They don't give a flying frack and so have implemented a player-led chat monitoring system that costs them nothing.
This is the system we have. we know how it works. work within it or take the consequences. Don't come on here *****ing and moaning that it's 'not fair' that your gameplay is seriously affected. It is meant to be. PWE, in all their games, have made that the punishment. Whether you approve or not is utterly irrelevant to them. They don't want to hire half a dozen people just to regulate chat disputes 24/7 365/365. That would cost lots of money and they have obviously made the decision that this outweighs the lost income of ftp players leaving the game.
As a well-paying customer I'd take my ample gaming budget elsewhere if chat was a wild west free for all so there's the custom retained cost element of the equation.
If PWE cared one bit about how 'unfair' their chat system is they'd have 'fixed' it years ago. They don't care so your choice is to either accept that or fruitlessly buck against it and getting 24 hour bans. Or I guess you can come on forums and pointlessly wail on about it.
0
synkodeMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 6Arc User
edited May 2013
2nd day I have no motivation to play. Got banned approximately 8 minutes after my first chat ban came off.
If PWE cared one bit about how 'unfair' their chat system is they'd have 'fixed' it years ago. They don't care so your choice is to either accept that or fruitlessly buck against it and getting 24 hour bans.
If this proves to be true in time , it will be why they wouldn't have been be as successful as other major companies in the same business.
If they do not support and improve their product why should I support them and their product with money?
We are after all beta-testers and customers.It's good to listen to your customers.
Imagine how many people got chat banned and just deleted the game.People that would've bought zen/hero/guardian packs , traded diamonds and would've bought your overpriced items at the auction house.
People that really care about the game and take the time to post feedback regarding this on the forums are a minority I assure you.
You aren't going to get banned from chat simply from one or two people reporting you. As is the norm, pretty sure there is more to this story than you're saying.
I will say that outside those spamming sites for monetary purposes that others should only get banned from zone chat/whispers. They should still be at least able to use guild chat and especially party chat at the very least. That is one aspect I will agree with not making a lot of sense.
You aren't going to get banned from chat simply from one or two people reporting you. As is the norm, pretty sure there is more to this story than you're saying.
I simply dont like your forum post.I login my character on Dragon and go to the zone chat.I say
GUYS FFS THIS NINJA STOLE MY CLERIC HELM!!!!!!HIS HANDLE IS @fongador PLEASE REPORT SPAM HIM!!! HE COULD BE NINJA IN YOUR PARTY NEXT TIME!!!!!!!!!11111.Then I log my character on Mind Flayer.
And you know what?You will get chat banned for simply not agreeing with my point on this forum.
here is proof people are already doing that.
There are more screenshots that depict this further back in this thread if you want to look at it.
You aren't going to get banned from chat simply from one or two people reporting you. As is the norm, pretty sure there is more to this story than you're saying.
First, nobody said one or two reports. Not a single person in this thread.
Second, while I could be fabricating a story (which I'm not, but believe what you want as it's the internet) this thread is less about people reporting and more about the flaws of the system. If you read the first post, you would see the problems people face.
Lastly, why should someone linking an item in zone chat suffer the same ban as a gold seller who will delete the account 2 minutes later anyway?
It's the legitimate players that are getting the brunt end here. Not the gold sellers. They will remake a new account and contine to spam, mmeanwhile that level 60 who can only play for 4 hours a day can't do anything because there's no way to communicate. All because some people just decided to report him for spam rather than using the ignore function because he linked an item to fast in their opinion. There's the kicker, he might have thought it was acceptable but a minority of report spammers didn't.
I'll emphasize the main point again, it's not about the Zone chat ban, it's about being banned from every Avenue of communication in game.
If this is proves to be true in time , it will be why they wouldn't have been be as successful as other major companies in the same business.
If they do not support and improve their product why should I support them and their product with money?
We are after all beta-testers and customers.It's good to listen to your customers.
Imagine how many people got chat banned and just deleted the game.People that would've bought zen/hero/guardian packs , traded diamonds and would've bought your overpriced items at the auction house.
Their customers have been making the same complaints for years in their other games. PWE seem to be doing just fine financially. Their business model is probably based on fast customer churn. Get people in, get as much money off them as you can by nickel and diming them to death before they leave. A bunch of long-term players hanging around not buying Zen because they game the system effectively for AD are not an asset. Besides they can be lured back and re-fleeced with new expansion packs.
PWE is simply a very cynical, money-oriented company. They never have been interested in providing any sort of customer service. As it stands - if you spam, you will be silenced across all channels.
As a side note - is there a COD in this game? If not what is there to stop people ripping each other off in trades?
Their customers have been making the same complaints for years in their other games. PWE seem to be doing just fine financially. Their business model is probably based on fast customer churn. Get people in, get as much money off them as you can by nickel and diming them to death before they leave. A bunch of long-term players hanging around not buying Zen because they game the system effectively for AD are not an asset. Besides they can be lured back and re-fleeced with new expansion packs.
PWE is simply a very cynical, money-oriented company. They never have been interested in providing any sort of customer service. As it stands - if you spam, you will be silenced across all channels.
As a side note - is there a COD in this game? If not what is there to stop people ripping each other off in trades?
I hope you are not correct in saying this ,I have no previous experience with PWE.
I have some hope for this game seeing that the Devs do rollbacks and admit issues and the state of the game[ http://nw.perfectworld.com/news/?p=896631 ].They seem to put an effort and have a long-term vision.I hope its not bait.
I only speak for myself that my money support will be based on their product-support,however I believe this may apply to majority of the players.
First, nobody said one or two reports. Not a single person in this thread.
Yeah I know, that was the point. Hence whatever you were doing annoyed a significant portion of the player base to the point of reporting/ignoring you. Whether you agree with it or not it is quite evident you annoyed enough people they reported you. You wouldn't be the first to not realize how your actions annoy or infuriate others.
I also said you should not receive the same type of chat ban as gold sellers. That I agree with.
Yeah I know, that was the point. Hence whatever you were doing annoyed a significant portion of the player base to the point of reporting/ignoring you. Whether you agree with it or not it is quite evident you annoyed enough people they reported you. You wouldn't be the first to not realize how your actions annoy or infuriate others.
I also said you should not receive the same type of chat ban as gold sellers. That I agree with.
You ignored every other point in my comment and cherry picked one thing.
The rough estimate is 20 reports or ignores. There's hundreds if not thousands in the main city at any given time. Do the math. People also use report spam because there is no punishment and it's just as easy to hit as ignore. Also people in the thread have admitted they will report things they don't want to see regardless of if it's actually spam or not.
In fact, I have also been reporting things as spam that may not constitute it. Why? To get people to realize how bad the system is.
And the best part? I can't get punished because there are no guidelines to the report spam function. Everyone uses it how they see fit. Don't like items in zone chat? Report spam that guy. Don't like LFG in zone? Report that guy too!
The ironic thing is, the spam isn't going to go away because of some shotty system like this. Until they implement a real system, this is just a toy for the self righteous cowboys and Internet gangsters.
I didn't cherry pick anything. I simply don't agree with you completely and personally think there is more to the reason you were chat banned. There almost always is when people balk about this happening to them. If not then that does suck if you really were banned for simply asking a couple times for a dungeon run party.
Anyways, the ban from party chat is what really makes no sense at all. Simply because whether it was a legit ban or not by banning a person's party chat you not only punish that person but anyone that groups with them.
I hope you are not correct in saying this ,I have no previous experience with PWE.
I have some hope for this game seeing that the Devs do rollbacks and admit issues and the state of the game[ http://nw.perfectworld.com/news/?p=896631 ].They seem to put an effort and have a long-term vision.I hope its not bait.
I only speak for myself that my money support will be based on their product-support,however I believe this may apply to majority of the players.
I'm afraid I am right about their other games. This is a universal feature of their products. PWE buy up popular franchises, turn them into heavily-monetised at every turn FTP games and laugh all the way to the bank. They bought Cryptic out for this franchise. It was intended to be a 'proper' MMO originally, not an on-rails closed world action rpg.
Cryptic may or may not be a good company but they aren't calling the shots. I doubt it was their call to shovel out a half-finished, barely tested game with the store active. They are just the hired help now. You see the same thing with Warner and Turbine with LOTRO. Expansions released without half the content just to meet quarterly targets. The repeated attempts to sell bare-bones expansions and then charge again for instance-clusters until the community outcry becomes so intense the negative publicity is so much it starts affecting potential sales.
Maybe PWE is susceptible to pressure over some issues. This has proven not to be one of them. And people who want change do themselves no favours by saying it is 'unfair' they should be silenced in all channels. That just makes it look like you don't like the consequences. Players like me do like those consequences - we want people to be deterred from spamming.
What is 'unfair' is if people are using the system to grief. PWE should invest the resources to punish those who do. They never have and probably won't ever.
But when people say, 'I wasn't spamming, I was just posting every 20 seconds' then they lose their case. Enough people decided they were spamming so in that sense the system worked as intended. I'm sick of Chat being one long blur of trades. People are not exercising any self-restraint and at times no one else can get a post in edgewise before another dozen trade posts whisk their post away.
Of course people are getting annoyed. What do you expect?
I didn't cherry pick anything. I simply don't agree with you completely and personally think there is more to the reason you were chat banned. There almost always is when people balk about this happening to them. If not then that does suck if you really were banned for simply asking once or twice about finding a party member.
Anyways, the ban from party chat is what really makes no sense at all. Simply because whether it was a legit ban or not by banning a person's party chat you not only punish that person but anyone that groups with them.
It's not about me. After all I could be making up this story. That's not the reason I started this thread. Yea, I do think my ban was unjust, but it's about the bigger picture and the far reaching implications that report spam has on a player and those players around them.
At least you're starting to see an issue. So keep in mind, if someone in party isn't responding, chances are it's because they have no way to respond
But when people say, 'I wasn't spamming, I was just posting every 20 seconds' then they lose their case. Enough people decided they were spamming so in that sense the system worked as intended. I'm sick of Chat being one long blur of trades. People are not exercising any self-restraint and at times no one else can get a post in edgewise before another dozen trade posts whisk their post away.
Of course people are getting annoyed. What do you expect?
Yep
I can't even follow what the hell is going on in chat most times besides when I first zone in due to how quickly it flurries through everyone's chatting.
I can't even follow what the hell is going on in chat most times besides when I first zone in due to how quickly it flurries through everyone's chatting.
And report spam does nothing to stop the spam other than removing one player out of the thousands from chatting at all. Until a real solution is put in place zone chat will never change.
And report spam does nothing to stop the spam other than removing one player out of the thousands from chatting at all. Until a real solution is put in place zone chat will never change.
Don't get me wrong. I never said I support their system. It is pretty evident to most I would think that it needs to be filtered better along with other aspects being better fleshed out to at least cut down on those thinking their only choice or viable option to accomplish their task/goal is to spam chat.
Honestly, there are more than a few things that need to be reworked or fleshed out more. Which is why I'm taking a break from playing the game currently until they are. If they don't...then oh well. I like the game but in its current state it isn't worth playing far as I'm concerned. Least not as a long term investment.
I think that Zone chat being over-saturated needs to be addressed. There are people looking for a group, looking to trade, making comments on the gameplay itself (it is a beta, so that's legit), etc. It all gets to be a bit much, and entirely too noisy. Yes, there should be a channel dedicated to trade, or one for LFG. Personally, I would love to see all LFGer's simply travel to the nearest tavern and seek out an adventurer there, but I know that not everyone plays the way I do.
As annoying as it is, banning someone from party chat is a bit excessive. Yes, banning should be a noteworthy punishment for those that are abusing the system, but preventing them from communicating with their group is a little harsh.
That being said, this is the internet but there is no reason why we can't be civilized and refrain from basic name-calling. It demeans us all.
They bought Cryptic out for this franchise. It was intended to be a 'proper' MMO originally, not an on-rails closed world action rpg.
Actually, small nitpick, but Neverwinter was originally designed to be an RPG that incorporated co-op elements. At the time, Cryptic was keen to stress that it was not a massively multiplayer game.
I don't know if the switch from Atari to PWE had anything to do with the switch from CRPG to MMORPG. PWE is thought of as exclusively MMO but don't forget they also publish the Torchlight games. However, judging from the press, Neverwinter's team was happy to make the switch, as it meant they would be drawing on their strengths and experience to build the game.
I'll add that I've got a lot to be happy about too. I've bumped around in the dark a lot since having City of Heroes taken away from me, and despite its shortcomings (every MMO has em), I am really enjoying Neverwinter a lot and I think it's great as an MMORPG.
_
[SIGPIC]Captain Electric and the Sapien Spider[/SIGPIC]
As annoying as it is, banning someone from party chat is a bit excessive. Yes, banning should be a noteworthy punishment for those that are abusing the system, but preventing them from communicating with their group is a little harsh.
It doesn't make any sense at all. They can still queue can they not? Why in the hell would you ban their party chat then? It has the potential of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> over other people that have nothing to do with the individual that was chat banned. That one is a real head shaker to me.
Comments
I'm not really on either "side" here, but I do want to encourage people to fix this for themselves--because really, it's the only way. The community has been given all the tools it needs to create a trade channel or channels, as well as LFG channels. Or a channel for anything else. Ask around the forums--someone may have beaten you to it. You might say, "But people wouldn't use an unofficial channel!" My (long) experience in online games has been that official channels aren't used either unless the players populate and popularize them. At the end of the day, someone creates something, people spread the word, BAM. Honestly, the faster you can get away from needing zone chat for anything, the more peace of mind you'll have in any Cryptic game.
[SIGPIC]Captain Electric and the Sapien Spider[/SIGPIC]
"YES, PLEASE"
Vote YES for the Foundry in Champions Online.
@Captain-Electric | CoH/Virtue veteran | Proud new Champion
Also did you know that while chat banned and you go down in a fight, you don't even yell help when asking for it? Seems legit.
I am not chat banned as of yet, but have played with others who have andit is potentially putting them and their group at a disadvantage.
All I see in your post is "me me me me me"
Just because YOU don't want to see items for sale doesn't mean other people want the same thing.
Just because YOU play casually doesn't mean everyone else plays casually.
Just because YOU play other games, doesn't mean everyone plays other games.
It sounds like You should make another tab for whispers or turn off zone because with or without reporting spam, zone chat in the main city will always be filled.
Are you understanding how an MMO works? This isn't a single player game.
And as far as submitting a ticket goes, if you bothered to read, you would understand it takes days to get a response. So you get stuck with a punishment from some report spammer (which you admitted to doing in your post)
Let's be realistic , as I said in my earlier post sellers will always want to go where they have the most customers.
Buyers will always look for the cheapest deal.
People will always want to find a group fast.
People will want to ask "how do I open my nightmare lockbox" or "how do I queue for skirmish".
People will keep spamming "I just made a foundry mission ---CODE---- please play it add me as a friend and give me feedback.
At best I see that people will spam BOTH trade/chitchat and zone still.I have experience with this because I am currently inside most channels that other people have TRIED to popularize.
People will always report someone who spams every minute "Guys if you wanna talk political stuff join NWOpolitics, Guys if you wanna trade join NWOtradefest ,join NWOnewbies".How do you explain to a new player how to join a channel?
I'd rather throw money at PWE/and I will if they fix this issue/ for whatever than waste my time on fanbased forums or risk getting hate reported to fix their flawed design by trying to popularize a new chat, which is doomed to fail.
Ah imagine if they followed in the footsteps of every other real MMO and implemented a rate limiter. Zone chat would have less spam, and people wouldn't have to be punished for playing the game. But I guess then all you self righteous cowboys wouldn't be able to abuse the power. What would you do if they took away that toy?
I hear you and I can't argue against any of your points, but the catch 22 here is that if they took the "sheriff's badges" away from the community, you'd come up against another problem on the other side of the coin. I don't feel I need to explain what that problem would be. Now, that's not me defending the system (if anything it's me encouraging more dialogue beyond "TURN THAT DANG THING OFF!"). I think they ought to plan for a day to turn it off for a week actually, so that we can see how unusable zone chat and some other channels would become. Trolls would abuse their new free reign just as mercilessly as they had abused their sheriff's badge, or more so.
The larger elephant in the room is that when you put thousands of people in one room, the signal to noise ratio is staggeringly deafening. And depressing. That's your species in there.
There is probably a better solution, but it is likely more complicated than replacing the current system with the absence of any system.
[SIGPIC]Captain Electric and the Sapien Spider[/SIGPIC]
"YES, PLEASE"
Vote YES for the Foundry in Champions Online.
@Captain-Electric | CoH/Virtue veteran | Proud new Champion
Or people would use the ignore function instead of just rushing to report just because they can. Or they could implement one of the solutions I listed in the first post.
Or they could leave the report function but only have the ban apply to zone chat.
Why ban me from my guild chat? Why refuse to let me communicate with my friends list? (keep in mind, they had to accept to be on that list) so banning whispers while still allowing friend whispers would essentially work.
Why ban me from teaching my party boss fights they might not be familiar with? Because I had no choice but to use LFG while banned from everything.
Not to mention no communication can make you look really bad during am instance run if people try talking to you in the party.
I[and many other,sadly mainly victims] believe it is not functioning as it is intended to.
Just like the Auction House this is gamebreaking for alot of us.And I believe as evident that people are asking other people to ignore guys in guild chat and zone chat that the number of victims will grow exponentially.THE SYSTEM needs to be revised.
Anyone can be a target of the report spam exploit,even if you turn of all your chat or whatever.
There are a number of possible solutions in my opinion , however I am not a designer/programmer , I do not know the code limitations nor do I see the full picture and reasoning behind the current one.I cannot say exactly what changes need to be made , its up to the Devs to decide and think about all the angles.
Besides pointing the flaws all I could suggests would be to draw knowledge from other MMO's that have General Chat / Trade Chat /Looking for Group Chat.
I do not know how they are planning to address the LFG que system - perhaps they will make it so good that people never use the 'chat' again?
In no other MMO/Game I have played or know to exist is there a 24 hour ban from speaking everywhere and even EMOTING/sending items to your alt.
-Reduce the ban duration?
-Increase the number of requests needed?
-Add more channels?not sure this would solve the problem alone.
-Reduce the mute to only zone chat , or limit how many people you can whisper per minute?
All excellent points, and if I could make a dev answer just a few posts here, one of them would be yours. There is of course a battle against gold sellers in this industry. A battle that has some ethical aspects, too, if you ever want to go and read about where and how some gold sellers live and work. But I can't see how a ban from zone chat should disqualify you from your guild or private chat--actually scratch that, private chat could be heavily abused--but private chat with your friends or guildies ought to be safeguarded eh? It sounds like the chat ban system is a "one size fits all" thing without any internal way to distinguish between any of those things. If they rolled a few updates into that to give it some more advanced features, that'd be great. (If I'm even right about any of that.)
[SIGPIC]Captain Electric and the Sapien Spider[/SIGPIC]
"YES, PLEASE"
Vote YES for the Foundry in Champions Online.
@Captain-Electric | CoH/Virtue veteran | Proud new Champion
Get on with playing a spammer-free game. Lovely. I hope they implement it. Until PWE implement this new system we work within their existing system. And in this system if enough people consider you a spammer you get silenced. And even if I believed people were ganging up and <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> with players then that is just unfortunate. i'd rather have a system open to potential abuse than no system.
If PWE weren't such a poor company when it came to support they would review these bans and punish exploiters. They should have a flood limiter and they should make a Trade Channel and set an 'all trades in this channel or else' rule. But they aren't a good company. They don't give a flying frack and so have implemented a player-led chat monitoring system that costs them nothing.
This is the system we have. we know how it works. work within it or take the consequences. Don't come on here *****ing and moaning that it's 'not fair' that your gameplay is seriously affected. It is meant to be. PWE, in all their games, have made that the punishment. Whether you approve or not is utterly irrelevant to them. They don't want to hire half a dozen people just to regulate chat disputes 24/7 365/365. That would cost lots of money and they have obviously made the decision that this outweighs the lost income of ftp players leaving the game.
As a well-paying customer I'd take my ample gaming budget elsewhere if chat was a wild west free for all so there's the custom retained cost element of the equation.
If PWE cared one bit about how 'unfair' their chat system is they'd have 'fixed' it years ago. They don't care so your choice is to either accept that or fruitlessly buck against it and getting 24 hour bans. Or I guess you can come on forums and pointlessly wail on about it.
This is just ridiculous.
If they do not support and improve their product why should I support them and their product with money?
We are after all beta-testers and customers.It's good to listen to your customers.
Imagine how many people got chat banned and just deleted the game.People that would've bought zen/hero/guardian packs , traded diamonds and would've bought your overpriced items at the auction house.
People that really care about the game and take the time to post feedback regarding this on the forums are a minority I assure you.
I will say that outside those spamming sites for monetary purposes that others should only get banned from zone chat/whispers. They should still be at least able to use guild chat and especially party chat at the very least. That is one aspect I will agree with not making a lot of sense.
I simply dont like your forum post.I login my character on Dragon and go to the zone chat.I say
GUYS FFS THIS NINJA STOLE MY CLERIC HELM!!!!!!HIS HANDLE IS @fongador PLEASE REPORT SPAM HIM!!! HE COULD BE NINJA IN YOUR PARTY NEXT TIME!!!!!!!!!11111.Then I log my character on Mind Flayer.
And you know what?You will get chat banned for simply not agreeing with my point on this forum.
here is proof people are already doing that.
There are more screenshots that depict this further back in this thread if you want to look at it.
First, nobody said one or two reports. Not a single person in this thread.
Second, while I could be fabricating a story (which I'm not, but believe what you want as it's the internet) this thread is less about people reporting and more about the flaws of the system. If you read the first post, you would see the problems people face.
Lastly, why should someone linking an item in zone chat suffer the same ban as a gold seller who will delete the account 2 minutes later anyway?
It's the legitimate players that are getting the brunt end here. Not the gold sellers. They will remake a new account and contine to spam, mmeanwhile that level 60 who can only play for 4 hours a day can't do anything because there's no way to communicate. All because some people just decided to report him for spam rather than using the ignore function because he linked an item to fast in their opinion. There's the kicker, he might have thought it was acceptable but a minority of report spammers didn't.
I'll emphasize the main point again, it's not about the Zone chat ban, it's about being banned from every Avenue of communication in game.
Their customers have been making the same complaints for years in their other games. PWE seem to be doing just fine financially. Their business model is probably based on fast customer churn. Get people in, get as much money off them as you can by nickel and diming them to death before they leave. A bunch of long-term players hanging around not buying Zen because they game the system effectively for AD are not an asset. Besides they can be lured back and re-fleeced with new expansion packs.
PWE is simply a very cynical, money-oriented company. They never have been interested in providing any sort of customer service. As it stands - if you spam, you will be silenced across all channels.
As a side note - is there a COD in this game? If not what is there to stop people ripping each other off in trades?
I hope you are not correct in saying this ,I have no previous experience with PWE.
I have some hope for this game seeing that the Devs do rollbacks and admit issues and the state of the game[ http://nw.perfectworld.com/news/?p=896631 ].They seem to put an effort and have a long-term vision.I hope its not bait.
I only speak for myself that my money support will be based on their product-support,however I believe this may apply to majority of the players.
Yeah I know, that was the point. Hence whatever you were doing annoyed a significant portion of the player base to the point of reporting/ignoring you. Whether you agree with it or not it is quite evident you annoyed enough people they reported you. You wouldn't be the first to not realize how your actions annoy or infuriate others.
I also said you should not receive the same type of chat ban as gold sellers. That I agree with.
You ignored every other point in my comment and cherry picked one thing.
The rough estimate is 20 reports or ignores. There's hundreds if not thousands in the main city at any given time. Do the math. People also use report spam because there is no punishment and it's just as easy to hit as ignore. Also people in the thread have admitted they will report things they don't want to see regardless of if it's actually spam or not.
In fact, I have also been reporting things as spam that may not constitute it. Why? To get people to realize how bad the system is.
And the best part? I can't get punished because there are no guidelines to the report spam function. Everyone uses it how they see fit. Don't like items in zone chat? Report spam that guy. Don't like LFG in zone? Report that guy too!
The ironic thing is, the spam isn't going to go away because of some shotty system like this. Until they implement a real system, this is just a toy for the self righteous cowboys and Internet gangsters.
Anyways, the ban from party chat is what really makes no sense at all. Simply because whether it was a legit ban or not by banning a person's party chat you not only punish that person but anyone that groups with them.
I'm afraid I am right about their other games. This is a universal feature of their products. PWE buy up popular franchises, turn them into heavily-monetised at every turn FTP games and laugh all the way to the bank. They bought Cryptic out for this franchise. It was intended to be a 'proper' MMO originally, not an on-rails closed world action rpg.
Cryptic may or may not be a good company but they aren't calling the shots. I doubt it was their call to shovel out a half-finished, barely tested game with the store active. They are just the hired help now. You see the same thing with Warner and Turbine with LOTRO. Expansions released without half the content just to meet quarterly targets. The repeated attempts to sell bare-bones expansions and then charge again for instance-clusters until the community outcry becomes so intense the negative publicity is so much it starts affecting potential sales.
Maybe PWE is susceptible to pressure over some issues. This has proven not to be one of them. And people who want change do themselves no favours by saying it is 'unfair' they should be silenced in all channels. That just makes it look like you don't like the consequences. Players like me do like those consequences - we want people to be deterred from spamming.
What is 'unfair' is if people are using the system to grief. PWE should invest the resources to punish those who do. They never have and probably won't ever.
But when people say, 'I wasn't spamming, I was just posting every 20 seconds' then they lose their case. Enough people decided they were spamming so in that sense the system worked as intended. I'm sick of Chat being one long blur of trades. People are not exercising any self-restraint and at times no one else can get a post in edgewise before another dozen trade posts whisk their post away.
Of course people are getting annoyed. What do you expect?
It's not about me. After all I could be making up this story. That's not the reason I started this thread. Yea, I do think my ban was unjust, but it's about the bigger picture and the far reaching implications that report spam has on a player and those players around them.
At least you're starting to see an issue. So keep in mind, if someone in party isn't responding, chances are it's because they have no way to respond
Yep
I can't even follow what the hell is going on in chat most times besides when I first zone in due to how quickly it flurries through everyone's chatting.
And report spam does nothing to stop the spam other than removing one player out of the thousands from chatting at all. Until a real solution is put in place zone chat will never change.
Don't get me wrong. I never said I support their system. It is pretty evident to most I would think that it needs to be filtered better along with other aspects being better fleshed out to at least cut down on those thinking their only choice or viable option to accomplish their task/goal is to spam chat.
Honestly, there are more than a few things that need to be reworked or fleshed out more. Which is why I'm taking a break from playing the game currently until they are. If they don't...then oh well. I like the game but in its current state it isn't worth playing far as I'm concerned. Least not as a long term investment.
As annoying as it is, banning someone from party chat is a bit excessive. Yes, banning should be a noteworthy punishment for those that are abusing the system, but preventing them from communicating with their group is a little harsh.
That being said, this is the internet but there is no reason why we can't be civilized and refrain from basic name-calling. It demeans us all.
Actually, small nitpick, but Neverwinter was originally designed to be an RPG that incorporated co-op elements. At the time, Cryptic was keen to stress that it was not a massively multiplayer game.
I don't know if the switch from Atari to PWE had anything to do with the switch from CRPG to MMORPG. PWE is thought of as exclusively MMO but don't forget they also publish the Torchlight games. However, judging from the press, Neverwinter's team was happy to make the switch, as it meant they would be drawing on their strengths and experience to build the game.
Here's an old article about it I dug up in about 60 seconds using Google:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/171972/Turning_Cryptics_Neverwinter_RPG_into_an_MMO.php
I'll add that I've got a lot to be happy about too. I've bumped around in the dark a lot since having City of Heroes taken away from me, and despite its shortcomings (every MMO has em), I am really enjoying Neverwinter a lot and I think it's great as an MMORPG.
[SIGPIC]Captain Electric and the Sapien Spider[/SIGPIC]
"YES, PLEASE"
Vote YES for the Foundry in Champions Online.
@Captain-Electric | CoH/Virtue veteran | Proud new Champion
Dragon Guild
It doesn't make any sense at all. They can still queue can they not? Why in the hell would you ban their party chat then? It has the potential of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> over other people that have nothing to do with the individual that was chat banned. That one is a real head shaker to me.