Spambots making Mindflayer unplayable

willfoot

I've about had it folks. The bots on the Mindflayer server (I can't speak for the others) is making Protector's Enclave near impossible to speak in. They are clearing the chat window with their CTRL-V spam EVERY THIRTY SECONDS (I have actually counted.)

In two hours, while I've been waiting for the GMs to answer my support ticket, I've been in Protector's Enclave. I have clicked the "Report Spam" (aka, The other Ignore feature; we all know those bots aren't reported to anyone) OVER FOURTY TIMES!

Perfect World. Cryptic. What the hell are you guys doing? Is the new module so important that you've pretty much ignored the live servers? Where's the countermeasures to stop the bot problem? Where's the scripts designed to block and silence everyone who spams a website more than 6 times over 10 seconds? It's not difficult, guys. Heck, even I could make the scripts for crying out loud!

The only fix I have for it is to simply not go to Protector's Enclave. Which means I'll lose out to access to pretty much anything, including group finding (since the group finding tool is broken), the auction house, real time trades, and all in all communication with the server as a whole. That's unacceptable to new and veteran players alike.

Do something about the bots, PWE. Slap a Cease and Desist order on that website. YOU KNOW THE URL! IT CONSISTS of 40% OF YOUR OVERALL CHAT LOG!

Fix it!
Healz.

wraithgore

First off, they need to grab the ip of the spambot(s) which takes a little time, secondly, they would have to possibly recode the chat section so that if a spambot started to occur where a recurrence of 3 times the same thing is said it either is booted or such. But that can cause people WHO are playing but being spammers because they feel like being idiots, or are annoyed etc, to be booted and thus loose interest in the game, which in IMHO is no big loss. Anyway...the big point is, whether your in this MMO or another, you'll be finding spambots across the board becuase it comes down to actually tracking the IP of where the bot HOPEFULLY resides and that it isn't a spoofed IP address, so they can block that IP Addy completely or for a time. However they work it. But legal action would possibly be a waste of resources just for spamming.
Figured I'd give a direct answer since no one else has yet.

Thanks and Take Care
Wraith

beckylunatic

It is really bad. As soon as you report one another is already replacing it.

willfoot

I appreciate the reply. However, finding the I.P. of the spam-botters in question is more difficult than that due to dynamic IPs and public proxies. If they get banned or silenced, they can just make a new account with a new proxy and start over. The only real fix that I can see is hard-code a Silence system in the chat server that places an account on mute for "X" amount of minutes when triggered with "Y" amount of posts in "Z" amount of seconds. Naturally, there would be problems with the more chatty, fast typing players. It also would be easily evaded once the spam-botters figured out the syntax of the code; they'll just start posting within the new guidelines.

The surefire halt to it is a Cease-and-Desist through their web-host company. Why go at the Gold Selling Company itself when you can go straight to where their site is hosted? Eventually, after paying $200 to transfer everything every week to a new host only to be Cease-And-Desisted yet again, the Gold Sellers would realize that attempting to establish business in Neverwinter is more of a money sink than a money maker. They'll lose revenue, and none of these Gold Sellers like that. Their only option beyond the CaD's are to find hosting overseas, and there's ways to fix that problem. (IP class bans, region bans to US servers, etc.)

Spam-bots are an epidemic on MMOs, I agree with you. However, many developers from many different companies have found their way to stop the advertising. They know they can't stop the site from existing (aside from the steps I stated above), so the only way to staunch the proverbial wound is to stop the users from spamming. It's obvious that there are actual people controlling these "Bots." The frequency of the posts is too sporatic and too full of human error to be automated.

So I don't know. I'm no expert on the matter, but I've been playing these Online RPGs for going on a decade now. Most Companies find a way; Perfect World Entertainment is just dragging their feet with the resolution. (I bet Cryptic games regrets signing that contract with em now.)

Thanks again for the reply,
Healz

wraithgore

Well the question Becky is, it the location of where these spambots are coming from an isolated "zone"/"Country" Like Thailand. Sorry to use that as an example, but I've seen many would be hackers/spammers circumvent that way through to the servers they want to exploit just because if they are caught, it's hard to legally place them in cuffs and toss away the key. All I can say it wait it out as best you guys can, I'm on that server as well with 1 GWF, so I can understand the annoyance when you're trying to sell/trade in channel chat.

yrtalien

I REALLY have to agree with the OP. I have to avoid P.E. now. Although I don't tend to talk much in zone I like to keep abreast of what's going on and watch my guild chat, unfortunately one has made the other virtually impossible. I click ignore and that saves me for a few minutes, then they cycle to a new name and BAM it's back.

This is an issue that will drive me from a game I have really come to enjoy. Spam in my email is bad enough but this constant stream of it in zone chat is beyond the pale.

Please look into it. I understand that they can create new accounts and that makes it difficult, but there must be something.

wraithgore

I know what you speak of, but honestly, I've followed gaming, legalities and the red tape that goes with it. For the people who DO the spamming, it's like trying to take down pardon me for mentioning this TPB. They are based in Sweden and fought tooth and nail to keep their illegal torrent site up, against the US fighting with Sweden in legal cases etc. But in the end TPB won the case THUS FAR. How much longer they can last I'm not sure. But Spambots I think are at this moment, one of the lower priorities the programmers at PW/Cryptic have due to the influx of users and daily glitches found. As per yesterday's Child's Play Marathon, the BlackDagger Boss, came through the gate WHILE CLOSED. Before Anyone entered into the dungeon, it was a very strange glitch even for all of us to see watching teh Production team try and fight the Boss. But as I said, to them the spambots may be a lower priority than the game mechanics and other issues. I could be very wrong on this one.

beckylunatic

I'm not trying to sell or trade, just banter and maybe help out a few people. I park everyone in PE most of the time because on nights when I can't get wrapped up in questing (which is most of the work week), it's easy to take care of invocation and swap around crafting materials from Leadership boxes. I usually end up staying logged in and chatting with people for a while.

To be absolutely flooded with ******* to the extent where conversation is impossible doesn't make hanging out appealing.

Edit: And another thing. See that **** up there? ^ Did you know that you can't actually use spam keywords when trying to submit a GM ticket regarding something to do with the spam/sellers? You'll just be informed that your message contained profanity, but since the window closed, you can't just modify your message to remove the flagged terms, but would have to retype the whole thing. Who can be bothered, at that point?

wraithgore

I do understand your frustration Becky, We all in this discussion feel it and know what it's like to try and have a talk, say "Hey How are you so and so" then next thing is 10 lines of C$@pola that just makes the person yuo were talking to miss the discussion. So I agree, this is an issue and can turn people away. If it was petitioned properly to Cryptic/PW maybe they might step it up. I don't know, sadly I don't work for them, though I wish I did, need a job so bad. LOL Anyway, let's see how it is in the coming day(s) week(s) because I can gaurantee you, the louder you shout even if it's 5 people the more you'll be heard.

Thanks
Wraith

kaerthus

Raise the level of being able to zone spam. Must have at least one lvl XX char to PE zone chat, or must have spent $XX on your account. Seems fairly simple.

wraithgore

It may seem simple but programming one thing into the code could actually cause a trickle down/or domino effect of errors/glitches/bugs in coming changes/addons etc...I know and agree, if there was an algorithm to this to make it easy, it would be nice but when I played on Stronghold Kingdoms, the chat HAD NO Ignore and still doesn't 2 years later. Now I talked to a Mod when Iwas going to return to that game and he said they were "FInally going to implement the ignore feature." Finally???? After 2 years? That's why I don't play that game anymore. Also, this game might have been in open Beta for 1-2 months but it is in some regards a "Post Beta" They are still finding their legs to stand on properly. So I simply say, please bear with them. All the ideas are good here, maybe on the Admins/Mod of the FOrum will pass this thread along to the PW Team.

willfoot

kaerthus wrote: »

Raise the level of being able to zone spam. Must have at least one lvl XX char to PE zone chat, or must have spent $XX on your account. Seems fairly simple.

It seems like a good idea, and it would be an easy fix, but I'm afraid that'd be a band-aid for a bullet wound. They'd find a way around that, I believe. I know if I was in that business (which I'm not,) I'd find a way. Even if it required "Powerleveling" a toon to max to use Zone chat, I could do that in a weekend.

rhoric

kaerthus wrote: »

Raise the level of being able to zone spam. Must have at least one lvl XX char to PE zone chat, or must have spent $XX on your account. Seems fairly simple.

That would screw the new players looking for help.

bioshrike

They need to impose a minimum level for zone - one which wouldn't be that big of a deal for a regular player to reach, but one which would impact the rate at which a spammer would be able to generate accounts and characters to achieve. Level 10 would be good because you'd not only have to go through the tutorial, but you'd also have to go through Blacklake. In addition, they should impose a 24 hour real-time limit on posting to zone. Again, this would be easy for a legitimate player to achieve, but would severely hamper spammer accounts, as they'd have to wait an additional day before they could even start spamming, thus backlogging their efforts.

Additionally, they should impose a typematic limit on zone messages - one message every 3-5 seconds should suffice. Since zone shouldn't be used to hold full conversations anyway, this wouldn't impact legitimate players.

Another option would be to add a simple CAPCHA when you first login and for each character change you perform.

goddessunique

Other games have already fixed this spam problem. They make it so you can't shout the same thing multiple times(spam), which IS the way to block spam. I guess cryptic gotta catch up with this feature.

morsitans

willfoot wrote: »

The only fix I have for it is to simply not go to Protector's Enclave. Which means I'll lose out to access to pretty much anything, including group finding (since the group finding tool is broken), the auction house, real time trades, and all in all communication with the server as a whole. That's unacceptable to new and veteran players alike.

Bit confused as to how you can't use the auction house. A)you can do it via the menu at the top (albeit at a markup), and B)you don't need the chat window to use the AH anyway. "Not going to PE" is essentially a misguided self-destructive protest, rather than a 'solution'.

Also, to be honest it's the work of seconds to rightclick>report spam. Arrive in PE, report spam/ignore 3-5 times, chat is clear again. Or at least, back to people having incredibly inane conversations.

bioshrike

If zone chat is intolerable for you, you can also go to your chat window options and disable it.

daschernacht

Wouldn't it be much easier if they just removed the ability to cut and past into the chat window AND remove the "up arrow" repeat last line feature? Make the gold sellers re type each message each time....that'll slow them down.

**AND getting the other meaningful but almost as annoying types of spam under control this way too?

h0p3i

This is 2013 and a game dev cannot control a simple thing, like chat. Ideas from other games implemented such a thing:

First and foremost: Separate trade, zone, lfg channels by default. Then you can turn off zone and who chares what they spam on that.
Second: Make trade, lfg accessible only above lvl10. Then people still got the chance to get help or just chat on zone.
Third: Spamblock players after 2-3 posts per 3second and don't let them enter anything to that channel for 10-20second.

Here, solution, easy as 1-2-3. It's free, you can use it devs I don't ask any money for it.

But we all know they wont do it because its a good business to sell gold for games like this. Business is booming man I'm telling 'ya! And devs want people to buy gold so they keep playing the game.

sockmunkey

rhoric wrote: »

That would screw the new players looking for help.

Not to mention the fact that it would be useless. The gold sellers already have a vast army of farmers, most at level 60, dominating various places generating cash. A level restriction would not stop or slow them down one bit.

One thing to note as well. The chat server is independent of NW. Cryptic uses the same central chat system for all three of its games. Its the reason you can cross chat from NW to CO and STO. ANY change made to the system would effect all games. And the other two games arnt having a problem. Considering this is a problem really only effecting NW, this might not even be anything on the chat teams radar. And even if it was, radical changes to fix one out of three games (Even if the one is the current money maker) might be hard to justify internally.