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Q'nos Zone Chat Gold Spam
knuhteb5
Member Posts: 1,831 Arc User
Taken from Q'nos Zone chat about 5 minutes ago: "Bla bla bla PACK ==$68 Bla bla Ec==$4.99 Bla bla Keys==$11 Bla bla free for your order now Bla bla Cruilser=550M EC"
I'd like to request that the devs actually assign GM's at random hours of the day to the Q'nos, ESD, and Tau Dewa Command zone chats to start banning the jokers that are constantly gold spamming. I like to help new players and have discussions about gameplay with other people in zone chat, but I can't really do this with 2-3 messages like the one above being spammed every few minutes.
I'd like to request that the devs actually assign GM's at random hours of the day to the Q'nos, ESD, and Tau Dewa Command zone chats to start banning the jokers that are constantly gold spamming. I like to help new players and have discussions about gameplay with other people in zone chat, but I can't really do this with 2-3 messages like the one above being spammed every few minutes.
Post edited by knuhteb5 on
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Nice job skirting the issue. I was wondering...would you like to apply as a GM for STO?
I did, good call.
Yes, I do the same but 3-4 more pop up in the next few minutes. It's getting to the point that I actually have spend a few minutes a day spam reporting these people because the GM's are nowhere to be seen.
Yes, it is annoying. Unfortunately, with bots and unlimited accounts, I doubt any GMs that might try would have any better luck than you or I at stopping it.
On a positive note however, I think it bodes well for the state of the game that a second "gold" seller has entered the picture.
If you haven't seen it yet, you will!
I don't understand what you mean by "have any better lucky than you or I." GM's simply would be stationed in the 3 main zones for the factions. When they see a guy gold spamming, they are instantly banned. Is that so difficult a concept to understand? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell a gold spam message apart from a normal one.
Also, don't forget that new players who are coming to play for the first time don't necessarily know how to ignore the spammers so I'm curious as to how they're supposed to interact with other players in zone chat, assuming they aren't subscribers or lifers which means they can't use private chat, right?
Uh, but wait, who's a capitalist now?
It's more of a management style issue than a political conspiracy. The devs simply feel policing/moderating the main zone chats merits no resources or attention. Sometimes I wonder if they even care about this game.
Supposing 8 hour shifts that would mean six new people would need to be hired for just this purpose. If they share all chat then three at the very least. That is a major cost to accrue with very little return overall.
CRUISERS NEED A 206% HULL BUFF
No, I understand what you are saying. It would be more immediate coming from a GM. I'm just thinking back when the spam really started rolling in, I used to hit ignore every time and had similar results to what you just wrote. There would be spam from a new account moments later. Maybe the bot can tell it's been muted? I don't know.
But, what I was imagining is something like...
Spam
*account banned*
Spam from new account
*account banned*
Spam from new account
*account banned*
Spam from new account
*account banned*
Spam from new account
GM goes home/ Logs off for the day, whatever. Spam lives on.
You could 2-3 people doing random 2 hr shifts, for example. X moderator covers ESD for 2 hrs today, Y moderator covers New Romulus Command for 2 hrs tomorrow, etc. It doesn't have to long shifts. It's random, meaning the gold spammers can't predict it and won't be able to adjust accordingly.
Yes, the spam goes on, but during the shifts, the spam was at least kept under control; and the game benefited greatly from it because more new players could have their questions answered, more people could trade, etc. Also, let's do the math on how much time people are wasting having to ignore spam. Let's say on average people are spending 1 minute a day ignoring the spam. Let's also assume, on average, that 1000 players have to do this on a daily basis. That's 1000 players X 60 seconds (1 minute) = 60,000 seconds. 60,000 seconds = 16 hrs, 40 minutes if my math isn't wrong. So yeah if you reduce that 16 hrs, 40 minutes average by 1/4 to 1/2 using moderators, it's worth it because all of that lost time is time in which players aren't actually playing or spending money on the game.
CRUISERS NEED A 206% HULL BUFF
Send an undercover GM, "hey I want to buy your stuff", once they come with their real account they get an IP ban.
You then have raging because there is mods on at some times and not others and the spammers change their times. Rage ensues about how the mods are lazy and incompetent for only part time banning them and not all the time and we get back to where we started.
CRUISERS NEED A 206% HULL BUFF
So in other words if players spend less time playing they will spend more money? I'm not sure I follow your logic.
Truth hurts, huh?
BTW: I already have as much a job as GM as all the other GM's... Cause there are none.
There needs to be a way for them to make money off of GMs for there to be them in game enough to justify this.
CRUISERS NEED A 206% HULL BUFF
Except that spamming is less prevalent so that is a net gain in terms of player time. If I apply your line of reasoning to developing games, why develop games if players will always rage about lazy developers not squashing bugs? Just give up developers, right?
Ask yourself one question: have my posts contributed anything at all to this conversation or are they extraneous or off-topic?
It all goes right back to my previous statement about cost versus effort. I run a small remote IT team and I need to make regular decisions on repairs, whether it will require someone to spend four thousand dollars to travel to a location to fix equipment or spend a day or two attempting to repair it. Everything in a business is cost versus value and return of investment and GMs monitoring chat is very low on the priority list.
Let's just say that they add GMs and the GMs also monitor chat. Let's say they also try to stop the spam and other problems. You then have people raging because of 'TRIBBLE GMs' going 'too far', whether they did or not.
CRUISERS NEED A 206% HULL BUFF
Ideally, these GM's would be there for the sole purpose of banning Gold spammers, that's it. Does that alleviate your concern of a dictatorial gm going too far?
Btw, your argument is borderline strawman. I never said this was about policing chat for other reasons. I said the GM's would be there to moderate Gold spamming, not other infractions. That's a whole other debate.
Edit: So far, your arguments have been the following: no, the devs can't do it because "players will rage that devs are lazy and don't do enough" or that "TRIBBLE gm's will go too far," both of those borderline strawman arguments. The only legitimate argument you've made is that it isn't "cost effective."To respond, in general, the more players play, the more they will spend. The greater the amount of time players have to spend ignoring spammers on average the greater the loss of revenue and playing time.
That then brings up how you justify the costs of hiring someone for that for just Gold Spammers.
CRUISERS NEED A 206% HULL BUFF
Thought about it.. The answer is yes... Only, you chose to ignore it, and went into name-calling instead.
Where, at any time, did I call you names? Please quote me the post.
Make them community volunteers like the ones we have on the forums. To avoid abuse, they can only temp ban players for few days at a time and every time volunteers do it, they would have to submit a sample part of the alleged gold spam text so that devs can review unban requests.
Rofl. That gives me an idea. Maybe give us 5 dilithium for every gold spammer we report for spam?
In all seriousness, the devs need to give us a report for gold spam option so they can more easily determine which accounts are doing this the most and act appropriately.
How do you ensure that people will do this at the regular times? They would need to be at home online during peak periods, assuming then they do not have a real job.
CRUISERS NEED A 206% HULL BUFF
Policing the zone chat is never likely to happen, what I find curious is that they don't go after the actually "company" hiring these ppl to spam chat. :eek:
They encourage ppl to break the EULA by purchasing from them .....
Frankly not sure how some of those bind on purchase items are being transferred without hacking the system anyway. :eek:
But the companies that offer these "services" are who they should be going after imho.
That's what's done for other games involving powerleveling and such.
Sometimes you ends up with a TRIBBLE account, but hey, you gave your IDs to a third party company you knows nothing about, dealing in something that's considered as illegal in some countries. Nothing unexpected.
But not always, contrary to popular belief (a belief largely exploited and propagated by the videogames companies) . Some of those companies are just that, companies. Scamming the customers means they are less likely to come back and buy again.
Anyway, dealing with this kind of guys is opening the doors to have your account banned or TRIBBLE.