The Plane of Spammerwrath

[Litz]

When the mail plat seller filter went in, I'm sure some plat sellers were miffed. Then they had to resort to tells. Turbine countered with the click report tool. I'm sure there has been significant reduction in tells even though it appears to have no effect to alot of us. Now that the tool is disabled, I have been getting them non-stop when I'm playing on a average of 1 every 5 to 10 min. Often from the same company. Since the reporting tool was disabled They are able to spam longer on any one toon than they were before. I have formulated my own countermeasures. I highlight a sellers competitor spam message hit Ctrl-C, then Ctrl-V that in a reply. It serves as spam on his end and if they look at it they might get into a bidding war with each other which could drive the profit out of the business. Shh don't tell them my plan though they might get wise.. In the least if every spam message that went out from them went right back it could make them more annoid than I get when I get the one and two every 10 min..

I know Turbine has a full plate and will be working on getting things right, I just hope its soon. Its the suxor to be in a raid and get distracted by the "Ding" tell message from [some spammer]

[MageLL]

I'm still curious has to how they are getting names. I run all my characters on annoymous settings, yet I still get the tells. I assume the macro spammer they are using has some sort of memory and just go through all names they have reached at one point or another.

Or they could be using characters that park theirselves in high traffic areas and run some other macro that tabs through people then exports those names to a spam bot.

All I know when you get on the list you're on the list no matter how under cover you try to be.

[GATORZ]

i was wondering how 1 of my toons names got to the spammers.....guildie told me bards were virtually useless no insta kill spells and not able to tank....so i created a war chanter whos gonna tank anything...from the moment he was created was anon,unguilded and in a quest everytime he was on so how do i get spam why im in kobolds new ringleader for over 5 mins. when my toons name appeared nowhere?????????????

[Kerrn_Siff]

i was wondering how 1 of my toons names got to the spammers.....guildie told me bards were virtually useless no insta kill spells and not able to tank....so i created a war chanter whos gonna tank anything...from the moment he was created was anon,unguilded and in a quest everytime he was on so how do i get spam why im in kobolds new ringleader for over 5 mins. when my toons name appeared nowhere?????????????

all new toons have to show up in the newbie harbor tavern.

[unionyes]

i was wondering how 1 of my toons names got to the spammers.....guildie told me bards were virtually useless no insta kill spells and not able to tank....so i created a war chanter whos gonna tank anything...from the moment he was created was anon,unguilded and in a quest everytime he was on so how do i get spam why im in kobolds new ringleader for over 5 mins. when my toons name appeared nowhere?????????????

You know that 'other' new guy, the total noob who was just sort of standing there on the dock, just off the boat to Stormreach? The one who looked like he was getting his screen all set up, hotbars, that kind of thing...............

[GATORZ]

i was level 3 b4 i recieved spam and as i said i was in quest for over 5 mins

[Cherry]

What about disabling 'tells' from trial accounts? It would be a small concession. If the plat farmers want to pay for a real account let them. They can then be 'squelched'.

This might suck a bit for the person who actually wants to send legit tells on a trial account but I think it's more than worth it.

[MageLL]

Disable tells from trial accounts is a good idea, but you may also allow them to tell 2-3 people per hour, that way a real friend could find you and let you know to enable tells from trial accounts.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I'm still curious has to how they are getting names. I run all my characters on annoymous settings, yet I still get the tells. I assume the macro spammer they are using has some sort of memory and just go through all names they have reached at one point or another.

Or they could be using characters that park theirselves in high traffic areas and run some other macro that tabs through people then exports those names to a spam bot.

All I know when you get on the list you're on the list no matter how under cover you try to be.

Even when you are on anon when you walk by people see your name. I wonder if that means you name is sent in the background to anyone in your instance and that they have hacked the code somehow to capture those names for everyone who walks through a highly trafficed area they park in like the market... Total guess mind you, but it is currious.


all new toons have to show up in the newbie harbor tavern.

That might be it. I seem to get less tells that most people, but I haven't rolled any new chars since the server merge except on my second server and I do get more tells on that char...

To the people getting 25+ tells per hour, are you on a newer char?

Oh, and if the plat farmers read these forums...what the heck are you thinking? What customer in their right mind would deal with a company who constantly harresses you? **** stupid to be that annoying, you aren't even helping yourself. Go away. People who want you will find you without bothering the player base like that.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

What about disabling 'tells' from trial accounts? It would be a small concession. If the plat farmers want to pay for a real account let them. They can then be 'squelched'.

This might suck a bit for the person who actually wants to send legit tells on a trial account but I think it's more than worth it.

Don't disable tells from trial accounts completely, it will make the game too unfriendly. New ppl need help!

But, limit them to a small number of tells/hour (unlimited to guildies, people in your party, and people who have you on their friend's list). Also stop tells until they have finished the first quest for Sigmond. That should substantially slow the plat farmers (say 5 or 10 tells and then they have to recreate a char...which will take 10 min to do)

[Quanefel]

Don't disable tells from trial accounts completely, it will make the game too unfriendly. New ppl need help!

But, limit them to a small number of tells/hour (unlimited to guildies, people in your party, and people who have you on their friend's list). Also stop tells until they have finished the first quest for Sigmond. That should substantially slow the plat farmers (say 5 or 10 tells and then they have to recreate a char...which will take 10 min to do)

I tend to agree with that. Don't limit it completely from trial accounts but put a random and reasonable number of tells per minute/hour. Whichever would work best. I doubt many of us send out 100 tells in an hours time, so it generally would not effect us at all since we are on payed accounts. But, I'd take it a step further. Once this is done, the farmers will go about spamming us as quickly as they can then log off. Knowing full well a GM does not look into an offline toon. To combat this dirty trick, allow gm's to look into offline toons to investigate further. If they are using credit cards to make trial accounts, ban that number and any account attached to it. The plat farmers for a long time felt safe once they logged offline, make it where even offline they are no longer safe.

[alans240]

I wonder if that means you name is sent in the background to anyone in your instance and that they have hacked the code somehow to capture those names for everyone who walks through a highly trafficed area they park in like the market... Total guess mind you, but it is currious.



I often wondered the same thing. Before MOD6 I would never get tells from platt farmers because I was always annon. Then a couple weeks after the new mail system came out I started getting tells on all my toons. Even my mule gets spamm tells and I'm never on him for more than a min or two at a time. Seems to me they now have a way to see you online even tho you are annon.

[Ardanroth]

go to their site ask for your chars to be removed from their list. List the chars they already know about and the server.

problem moved if not solved

edit: my english was as bad as theirs

[Hambo]

all new toons have to show up in the newbie harbor tavern.

I have created several characters recently (to reserve Monk names) and each time there has been at least one "player" just standing there on the pier where we first appear. Since I usually stand there for a few minutes myself, re-arranging the screen windows to my preferred layout, I never thought anything about it.

I know that at least one of these was a seller as I was looking directly at the name over the alt when I got their tell.

You aren't anonymous until you change your settings, which prompts an idea... The devs should be able to alter the initial character settings to where "anonymous" is default. In real life people don't know you until you introduce yourself anyway, right? While suggesting changes it would also be nice if a "default settings.ini" file could be implemented to save your preferences locally and have them deployed to each new alt, so you don't need to stand around making adjustments.

Any opinions on this helping the situation?

[Lorichie]

Clicking on anon in the who panel doesnt always make you anon either. Click the anon button, then search for your name in the who panel, i am almost always there. This i found, because i would almost always still get tells from whoever, even when i have anon clicked.

i have to click on anon, find me in the who panel, uncheck and check anon again, make sure i cant see me on the who list, log out, switch toons, and log back in. If when i log in anon is checked, then i seem to be really anon.

This is just what i noticed has happened several times. Just ask someone to tell you if they see you on the who list (although that kinda defeats the purpose of being anon lol).

FWIW

RIch

[SlipperyPete]

go to their site ask for your chars to be removed from their list. List the chars they already know about and the server.

problem moved if not solved

edit: my english was as bad as theirs

Uh....no.

Turbine do something about it already. I average a plat seller spam about every ten minutes, it's ridiculous.

[Reisz]

This may cause more problems than it solves, but would be a fun way to deal with plat sellers. Nothing would be more satisfying than placing a +5 flaming battle axe in the head of Asdfsasdfs. Ah... good times.

P.S. sorry to Asdfsasdfs if you are a legit player.

[FluffyDucky]

I will never understood why a simple filter can't be added. The spammers have to include their web address or the tell/email will be useless. Any tell/email that contains an address on the list gets deleted and generates a report to a GM just like you hit the harassment button. Also send a reply to the sender in case something innocent was accidentally blocked. Sure they can register new addresses but how many times can they do that if the new address is blocked within a few days. Somehow I just can't see spam saying "Come to www.asdfg345345.com for the best deals!!!"

If there's something I missed and a filter can not be added then put tell/email limits on trial accounts. Most people expect a trial account to have restrictions so I doubt it would even be noticed. From what I read in the past this may be more of a programming headache than the filter since DDO currently has no tag for trial accounts outside of billing.

[Lynxal]

I will never understood why a simple filter can't be added. The spammers have to include their web address or the tell/email will be useless. Any tell/email that contains an address on the list gets deleted and generates a report to a GM just like you hit the harassment button. Also send a reply to the sender in case something innocent was accidentally blocked. Sure they can register new addresses but how many times can they do that if the new address is blocked within a few days. Somehow I just can't see spam saying "Come to www.asdfg345345.com for the best deals!!!"

If there's something I missed and a filter can not be added then put tell/email limits on trial accounts. Most people expect a trial account to have restrictions so I doubt it would even be noticed. From what I read in the past this may be more of a programming headache than the filter since DDO currently has no tag for trial accounts outside of billing.

Exactly what I was thinking.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

Devs: Make a regular expression filter!!!

Players: don't send the plat farmers tells back at them. If you do that, they can legitimately report you and get you a three day ban.

Garth

[Mockduck]

I know they also get player names from people who reply to them, and pick up the names of entire guilds when guildies "invite the spammers into the guild" in order to attack them through tells. Best advice is to completely ignore them after reporting them. Don't reply back! It's a "hey, this person likes to chat with plat sellers" giveaway.

[Missing_Minds]

What about disabling 'tells' from trial accounts? It would be a small concession. If the plat farmers want to pay for a real account let them. They can then be 'squelched'.

This might suck a bit for the person who actually wants to send legit tells on a trial account but I think it's more than worth it.

And guarentie one way to kill new people from sticking with the game when they can't meet up with people what so ever. There are no tutorials about how to use the LFM panel at all, no videos out there, no anything.

[Missing_Minds]

Clicking on anon in the who panel doesnt always make you anon either. Click the anon button, then search for your name in the who panel, i am almost always there. This i found, because i would almost always still get tells from whoever, even when i have anon clicked.

i have to click on anon, find me in the who panel, uncheck and check anon again, make sure i cant see me on the who list, log out, switch toons, and log back in. If when i log in anon is checked, then i seem to be really anon.

This is just what i noticed has happened several times. Just ask someone to tell you if they see you on the who list (although that kinda defeats the purpose of being anon lol).

FWIW

RIch

please bug report this if you have not.

[Litz]

I know they also get player names from people who reply to them, and pick up the names of entire guilds when guildies "invite the spammers into the guild" in order to attack them through tells. Best advice is to completely ignore them after reporting them. Don't reply back! It's a "hey, this person likes to chat with plat sellers" giveaway.

No fear here.. If we reply in masses, even though they make money for nothing, the poor shlep pasting those messages into tells will quit and go find a better job rebuilding mopeds. If they can't find good employees then they might give up.. If we give in saying that because they will spam me more if I reply then your giving into thier counter-countermeasures.. In this game the hardest heads wins.. I strongly urge people to reply back with the same spam they send you. If it is recycled, then they get more than any one of us. If I get 1 message, or I get 100 messages, it is still broke and ignoring it wont fix it..

[Xalted_Vol]

I am currently teaching a plat seller how to play and teaching him English over Skype he says he will send me plat for my troubles. HAHAHA just kidding.

[Kalanth]

My favorite counter measure suggested so far was to call the phone number and ask the operator if it annoyed them when they receieved spam phone calls. Then hang up... wait 5 minutes and call them again and ask if it annoyed them when they received spam phone calls. Then hang up... wait 5 minutes and call them again and ask if it annoyed them when they received spam phone calls. Etc....

[Quanefel]

My favorite counter measure suggested so far was to call the phone number and ask the operator if it annoyed them when they receieved spam phone calls. Then hang up... wait 5 minutes and call them again and ask if it annoyed them when they received spam phone calls. Then hang up... wait 5 minutes and call them again and ask if it annoyed them when they received spam phone calls. Etc....

Hmmm..well one of these companies I found out has a California number and is based in California. So if someone like me who has Vonage and unlimited calls anywhere in the USA....*Hatches evil plan* >.>

[Stormanne]

I like the idea of a filter that looks for certain terms. Sends up a flag for tell that have any one of the plat seller websites in it. Really wouldn't be that hard to implement.

[BlueLightBandit]

I will never understood why a simple filter can't be added. The spammers have to include their web address or the tell/email will be useless. Any tell/email that contains an address on the list gets deleted and generates a report to a GM just like you hit the harassment button. Also send a reply to the sender in case something innocent was accidentally blocked. Sure they can register new addresses but how many times can they do that if the new address is blocked within a few days. Somehow I just can't see spam saying "Come to www.asdfg345345.com (http://www.asdfg345345.com) for the best deals!!!"

If there's something I missed and a filter can not be added then put tell/email limits on trial accounts. Most people expect a trial account to have restrictions so I doubt it would even be noticed. From what I read in the past this may be more of a programming headache than the filter since DDO currently has no tag for trial accounts outside of billing.

Because this filters out the "Hey, what's our guild website again?" and "What's the url for that crafting spreadsheet?" tells.

[Cendaer]

For those who inexplicably find themselves on every farmer/spammer's mailing list, I want to ask:

Have you had a guild-hopper lately?

You know them. They ask to join your guild, but don't seem to stay very long? Then you look around, and notice they've already joined another guild? And then they join yet another different guild, just a few days later?

If someone were to do such a thing, they'd be able to see LOTS of "good" player-character names. They'd see the names of player-characters which are online AND all the names of those who are offline.

Maybe your guild has been farmed?

Sounds paranoid, I know, and I probably shouldn't even be voicing my suspicions here, but after the spate of plat-farmers-harassing-me threads on the forums lately, I can't help but wonder about some things sometimes.

Sorry to interrupt. I now return you to your regularly scheduled plat-farmers-harassing-me thread.

[Falco_Easts]

I will never understood why a simple filter can't be added. The spammers have to include their web address or the tell/email will be useless. Any tell/email that contains an address on the list gets deleted and generates a report to a GM just like you hit the harassment button. Also send a reply to the sender in case something innocent was accidentally blocked. Sure they can register new addresses but how many times can they do that if the new address is blocked within a few days. Somehow I just can't see spam saying "Come to www.asdfg345345.com for the best deals!!!"

If there's something I missed and a filter can not be added then put tell/email limits on trial accounts. Most people expect a trial account to have restrictions so I doubt it would even be noticed. From what I read in the past this may be more of a programming headache than the filter since DDO currently has no tag for trial accounts outside of billing.

I have asked for this many times

[KIELBASEE555]

to make a reverse spam option on your report. yes i liked the report spam option. but also put a option that sends 10 pages of spam back to the plat farmer. and have all players do this to any farmer. the farmer sends us a tell, and we send him back 10 pages of non-sence data back to him. i suppose that cause lagg in the game. If you could cause the farmer to have a mail tell jamm up some how, they would have to give up.

[Ganadai]

go to their site ask for your chars to be removed from their list. List the chars they already know about and the server.

problem moved if not solved

edit: my english was as bad as theirs

I tried your way. Here is how the live chat went...

Them: hello
Me: Hi, can I have my character names removed from your list so I don't receive spam from you in game?
Them: hello
Me: Hello?
Me: Can I have my character names removed from your list so I don't receive spam from you in game?
Them: we will not cheat you
Me: what? That has nothing to do with what I asked.
Them: can I have your order no?
Me: You're not to bright are you?
Them: no sorry

[ThrasherGT]

I will never understood why a simple filter can't be added. The spammers have to include their web address or the tell/email will be useless. Any tell/email that contains an address on the list gets deleted and generates a report to a GM just like you hit the harassment button. Also send a reply to the sender in case something innocent was accidentally blocked. Sure they can register new addresses but how many times can they do that if the new address is blocked within a few days. Somehow I just can't see spam saying "Come to www.asdfg345345.com for the best deals!!!"

If there's something I missed and a filter can not be added then put tell/email limits on trial accounts. Most people expect a trial account to have restrictions so I doubt it would even be noticed. From what I read in the past this may be more of a programming headache than the filter since DDO currently has no tag for trial accounts outside of billing.

This would be great, but I just had a thought.....they could just type in: www dot sitename dot com, or some other variant (which if they're creative, could be quite numerous) and again bypass the filter. Would be nice if Turbine could figure out a way to do it, though...........

[FluffyDucky]

Because this filters out the "Hey, what's our guild website again?" and "What's the url for that crafting spreadsheet?" tells.

Only if your guild or crafting website uses the same name as the plat sellers. I did not say kill all messages with web sites, only messages with web sites on the 'prohibited' list.


This would be great, but I just had a thought.....they could just type in: www dot sitename dot com, or some other variant (which if they're creative, could be quite numerous) and again bypass the filter. Would be nice if Turbine could figure out a way to do it, though...........

All those variants make it harder for people to respond, which makes the ad less effective, which reduces the incentive to spam. Advertisers have to make their ads easy to respond to or they will lose business. When they have to start using "Come to w-w-w dot p-l-a-t dot c-o-m " and people have to figure out to remove the -'s and change 'dot' to '.' their response rate will drop way off.

Also the variants can be added to the 'prohibited' list so they will need to come up with a new variant every few days or register a new site name. All of these cost them time and money making the plat selling business less and less attractive.

[Rekker]

i was wondering how 1 of my toons names got to the spammers

All they have to do is hang out in Meridia and get a ton of names.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Hmmm..well one of these companies I found out has a California number and is based in California. So if someone like me who has Vonage and unlimited calls anywhere in the USA....*Hatches evil plan* >.>

lol now that could be a fun game... Hmm...too bad they don't have 800 numbers...maybe that's why they don't :p

[Kris_P._Letus]

I will never understood why a simple filter can't be added. The spammers have to include their web address or the tell/email will be useless. Any tell/email that contains an address on the list gets deleted and generates a report to a GM just like you hit the harassment button. Also send a reply to the sender in case something innocent was accidentally blocked. Sure they can register new addresses but how many times can they do that if the new address is blocked within a few days. Somehow I just can't see spam saying "Come to www.asdfg345345.com for the best deals!!!"

If there's something I missed and a filter can not be added then put tell/email limits on trial accounts. Most people expect a trial account to have restrictions so I doubt it would even be noticed. From what I read in the past this may be more of a programming headache than the filter since DDO currently has no tag for trial accounts outside of billing.

becouse even if they did implement this, they would find a way around it. you notice in your email, how you always get spam email in your inbox instead of your spam box? www dot isellplat dot com. or www/isellplat/com. that kind of stuff. no matter WHAT happens, people figure out how to break the system. it never fails.

[FluffyDucky]

becouse even if they did implement this, they would find a way around it. you notice in your email, how you always get spam email in your inbox instead of your spam box? www dot isellplat dot com. or www/isellplat/com. that kind of stuff. no matter WHAT happens, people figure out how to break the system. it never fails.

I may not get rid of ALL of it but it would greatly reduce the number of messages. The company I work for gets over 1 million spam emails per day. 99.99% of them are filtered out. I still get spam, but no where near what I would get without the filter. A simple filter could easily catch 90% of the spam tells.

[Tolero]

Welcome to the Plane of Spammerwrath!

Here in the Plane of Spammerwrath, we will discuss all things spammer related. From suggestions, discussion, or just general frustrations, let's bring all the spam talk together so that we aren't spamming the forums with.... spam. You need to remember only 3 things during your visit here in the Plane of Spammerwrath...



1. No naming names

If you're going to talk about the spammers, remove any reference to their names.
2. Do not provide any spam website URLs, site names, phone numbers, email addresses, or messenger information.

Don't do their advertising for them!
3. Forum guidelines still apply

Remember, the Cube is watching! Keep those discussions within the rules
4. Spam related discussions will be brought to the Plane of Spammerwrath

Let's keep the spam discussions in the related thread. Spam about spam is...well... spam.

Other things of interest in the Plane of Spammerwrath

Read the recent Letter to the Cube (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=1688207&postcount=72) about spam (for more letters from the cube, visit the First (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=5944) and Second (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=142919) edition of the Dear Cubie series)
Our In-game support team is still actively banning spammers
You can still report spammers using the help panel

[ArkoHighStar]

mmmm spam


http://www.appscout.com/images/spam%20boy.jpg

woohooo in first, thought I would get lagged there for a minute

[ArkoHighStar]

ok suggestions

First mail spam, unconfirmed mail and locking out the sending of mail from trial accounts has been great, it has however basically sent spam to tells instead. So some recomendations



Trial accounts should not be able to send more than 10 tells per hour to those not on their friends list or guild list
Regular accounts should not be able to send more than 200 tells per hour except as above


Thinking about it the character needs to be on the receivers friends list in both cases, otherwise they would just create a huge friends list and import it to every new trial character

[Lithic]

The spammers are coming, the spammers are coming!

They use to be annoying, but now I sometimes get 3+ tells in a 5second period from the same guy. It clears away all party and guild chat from my window unless i scroll up (probably their plan).

[Missing_Minds]

Trial accounts should not be able to send more than 10 tells per hour to those not on their friends list or guild list

Don't even bother with this one. Why? What is a friend's list? Just an export of character names. This is going to be sooooooo easy for them to generate as well.

Now Guild list... that is a possibility, but if they are in a guild, I'd not limit the tells to them at all.

[ArkoHighStar]

Don't even bother with this one. Why? What is a friend's list? Just an export of character names. This is going to be sooooooo easy for them to generate as well.

Now Guild list... that is a possibility, but if they are in a guild, I'd not limit the tells to them at all.

see my edit, the receiver has to have you as a friend not the other way around. I agree otherwise as we both said they would import a big list to every new character

[JayDubya]

In my mind, the key to fighting plat spammers is to slow them down.

For trial accounts:
* add code that measures the number of unrequited tells per hour. I'm willing to bet that there's an order-of-magnitude difference in the number of unrequited tells from plat farmer accounts vs. all regular accounts. An unrequited tell is one where there isn't a response from the receiver.

For example, let's say that a real player averages 10 unrequited tells per hour, with a max of 30. A plat farmer, I'm guessing, will make like 300 per hour.

So figure out what the threshhold is - let's say 45 seems like a reasonable number. So you allow 45 unrequited tells per hour, and then you silently discard every tell after that. You don't clue in the plat farmer that their tells are not working.

Once you have the unrequited tell number, you can correlate that with the 'report harrassment' button - if someone is past the UT threshhold, and has at least, say, 3, Harassment Reports, silently discard every tell from that character forever more. Eventually, they'll clue in, but they have to waste time testing their own tell system, and correlating results, instead of blinding vomiting forth messages.


I have other ideas, but I'm short on time :)

[rawfocat]

A couple ideas to combat the tell spam without really maiming real trial accounts

1.) No tells on trial accounts for 1 or 2 days. New players do not learn /tell the first day anyway. I know spammers could still spam, but it slows them down.

2.) Limit tells for trial accounts not by number of tells, but number of players per day. You can only sent a tell to 3 players per day on a trial account. Unlimited tells to the first 3 players that day. This should let the newb talk to a friend but limit spammers from blasting adds. Note: might be hard to code.

3.) Require an email response with a password (one of the scramble cypher things) to unlock tells. 2 minutes and web access for a real player. A pain for spammers, plus you can block their email addresses once you idenify them (I know how easy this is to spoof.)

4.) Allow trial tells after completing the goodblades quest chain. Again easy for a new player, slows down spammers.

[Beerthirty]

Block all ip addresses originating in China?

[Gratch]

Any trial account that receives 3 harassment reports from unique character names is instantly blocked from sending tells.


Not referring to the harassment reports that have been counted and confirmed by a CS representative. If 3 unique non-trial accounts report your trial account - bam. Blocked! This would encourage players to use the Report button as well.

Edit: changed from 3 anyones to 3 non-trial accounts. Non-trial accounts that false report harassment would in theory get their own notice from CS.

[Litz]

Does the plane of spammerwrath only exist on the forums or is it on Risa yet? I want to fight..!

[Borror0]

see my edit, the receiver has to have you as a friend not the other way around. I agree otherwise as we both said they would import a big list to every new character

I'm 99% sure it'd be incredibly hard to acheive. Plus, 10 tells per hour is riddiculously small.

[ArkoHighStar]

Any trial account that receives 3 harassment reports from unique character names is instantly blocked from sending tells.


Not referring to the harassment reports that have been counted and confirmed by a CS representative. If 3 unique toons report your trial account - bam. Blocked! This would encourage players to use the Report button as well.

this could also cause griefing for legitimate chars by plat farmers or others

[Borror0]

Any trial account that receives 3 harassment reports from unique character names is instantly blocked from sending tells.


Not referring to the harassment reports that have been counted and confirmed by a CS representative. If 3 unique toons report your trial account - bam. Blocked! This would encourage players to use the Report button as well.

Three?? You're kidding me?!

It takes three player who wants to have fun with a trial account and, boom!! Locked tells.

[Shiranai]

I want to be able to cast the spammer protection spells. It would be a big help.


lol...seriously though, it would be a HUGE benefit to all of us that we have a checkbox that would could check that would disallow ANY /tell from trial accounts. Anyone who would be wanted to try the game, would not be joining a guild until they are on a payment plan. Any trial accounts should not be allowed in any guild. I'd like to see some specific discussions as to why this or that would / wouldn't work as far as these types of restrictions. Also, I'd like the ability to remove my name from users logged in (the who panel).

I'll start with some simple scenarios:

1) Trial account; created a character, entered the game, and will actively try to progress in the game (gain exp, etc..). They will probably try the pre-harbor area quests etc.. There will not be very many people in this newbie area to even chat with. Trial account's last concept is going to be /tell messages. They probably are just trying to see if they like this game. They also probably do not know anyone in the game yet. They will use OPEN chat before /tell.

2) Paid account, Mostly the same as #1, except they will probably use the /tell system as they probably know someone who suggested they start on this game. They may even be invited to a guild fairly soon. Depends.

3) Trial account; created a character, entered the game, sat in the newbie harbor area sending the same message repeatedly to the people that are displayed as being in-game or imported friends list. Unless they are a god, I don't see how anyone could send the same 150 character or so message to different people in just a few seconds. I type pretty fast, and it would take me at least 30 seconds to type a whole message with that much info. This is a SPAMMER.

It seems to me, that if there was a mechanism for return messages with keywords that would autoboot the character. If 5-10 different characters send a /r message within 300 seconds, with the keyword <BOOT SPAMMER>, that the system would auto log that character off and lock that character for 24 hours. This character would then be subject to investigation by the GM staff. And it needs to be investigated as soon as possible. If within 1 hour, a second character is auto-logged, then that account is frozen until investigated, the account holder (if payed account) is notified via email of the lockout status which includes a phone number to call Cust Service for reinstatement if certain conditions are met. If this offender is a trial account, that account is closed period.


Any other thoughts or scenarios?

[Beerthirty]

It seems to me, that if there was a mechanism for return messages with keywords that would autoboot the character. If 5-10 different characters send a /r message within 300 seconds, with the keyword <BOOT SPAMMER>, that the system would auto log that character off and lock that character for 24 hours. This character would then be subject to investigation by the GM staff. And it needs to be investigated as soon as possible. If within 1 hour, a second character is auto-logged, then that account is frozen until investigated, the account holder (if payed account) is notified via email of the lockout status which includes a phone number to call Cust Service for reinstatement if certain conditions are met. If this offender is a trial account, that account is closed period.

This feature would be subject to abuse.

[Shiranai]

This feature would be subject to abuse.

True. But it is a rough idea...I'm sure there is some validity here. Again...suggestions...not exact 'this is the only way'. Just rough ideas. I'm sure you could think of similar, but alternative methods.

maybe the keyword function would just silently throw the rest of the tells away for the next hour? Alternatives. Plenty of them.

[Starrloom]

One idea could be to create a filter for tells that blocks multiple combos of web addresses - for example:

www.Isellplat.com
www Isellplpat com
isellplat.com
isellplat com

would all be converted to **************** - given enough variation the spammers could not send you there address - thereby killing off their business.

You could enact this filter for any trial account but not paid subscriptions. If a paid subscriber gets reported for spamming - well then that's the end for them.

[Ransacked]

I thought the idea of sending more than 5 tells per minute would put you on a decreased frequency timer. Say for those 30 seconds you can only send 2. Sending more than 2 tells causes you the inability to send tells at all for the duration in addition to your frequency timer duration is increased to 1 minute. After the initial 30 seconds you can only send 1 tell. If you send more than 1 tell the duration is increased another minute where you can not send a tell at all.

This would allow gm's more than enough time to take appropriate action and would decrease the frequency in which tells are sent in a spamming fashion drastically.

[Tap4black]

GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

[BlueLightBandit]

The forums have a timer that say something to the extent of "You have already posted on these forums. You must wait an additional xxx seconds before posting."

How about a 15 or 30 second timer on tells for trial accounts? Newer players can still send tells, and they would have time to digest what they've just received before replying.



Any trial account that receives 3 harassment reports from unique character names is instantly blocked from sending tells.I like this one... but make it for all accounts, not just trials. I know some people who actually play that would get hit with this.

Combine the two, and you've got a situation where a plat farmer may only be able to get five or ten tells out before that character is "locked". 10 Tells at 30 seconds between each is 300 seconds, (five minutes)...

Then add the following: Players cannot send tells until they complete the Wavecrest quests. Make it so that a player has to play about five minutes before they can communicate with other players... and you've made it so that plat farmers can only send spam tells for 50% of the time.

Then again, it's just a suggestion.

[Rickpa]

Of course we can't be sure of the country of origin for most spammers, but I make sport of returning their tells with subversive political messages against Beijing. If I am busy, I let them off with a simple "Free Tibet!"

[alans240]

Make it so that if your anon, you cannot get tells from anyone unless they are in your friends list, in your party, or in your guild.

[Borror0]

You know what I dislike most about these suggestions?
They're causing us trouble too, usually more than refceiving a tell...

[Dimicron]

GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

I'd also like this.

[Borror0]

Make it so that if your anon, you cannot get tells from anyone unless they are in your friends list, in your party, or in your guild.

What if you're anon but don't mind receiving tells from people not on your friend list?

[Dungnmaster001]

One idea could be to create a filter for tells that blocks multiple combos of web addresses - for example:

www.Isellplat.com
www Isellplpat com
isellplat.com
isellplat com

would all be converted to **************** - given enough variation the spammers could not send you there address - thereby killing off their business.

You could enact this filter for any trial account but not paid subscriptions. If a paid subscriber gets reported for spamming - well then that's the end for them.

There are soo many ways around this there would be no way to account for every variations, plus it would require Turbine to know each of the addresses they use (unless turbine just did it automatically for all web URLs regardless of content) For example (using your example site)


Visit us for cheap platz at w w w (d o t) I s el l p la t (dot) com (remove all spaces, replace all (dot) with . ) All they have to do is include instructions for "decoding" whatever method they used to get by the filter.

[alans240]

What if you're anon but don't mind receiving tells from people not on your friend list?

I can see your point, then I would point to the no tells from Trial Accounts "Option" in the control panel.

Personaly it's why I go anon, to not get tells from people asking me to do X quest with them. And before MOD6 this kept me from getting tells from platt spammers, but somehow they have found a way around this.

[Dark_Helmet]

Welcome to the Plane of Spammerwrath!

Here in the Plane of Spammerwrath, we will discuss all things spammer related. From suggestions, discussion, or just general frustrations, let's bring all the spam talk together so that we aren't spamming the forums with.... spam. You need to remember only 3 things during your visit here in the Plane of Spammerwrath...



1. No naming names

If you're going to talk about the spammers, remove any reference to their names.
2. Do not provide any spam website URLs, site names, phone numbers, email addresses, or messenger information.

Don't do their advertising for them!
3. Forum guidelines still apply

Remember, the Cube is watching! Keep those discussions within the rules
4. Spam related discussions will be brought to the Plane of Spammerwrath

Let's keep the spam discussions in the related thread. Spam about spam is...well... spam.

Other things of interest in the Plane of Spammerwrath

Read the recent Letter to the Cube (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=1688207&postcount=72) about spam (for more letters from the cube, visit the First (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=5944) and Second (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=142919) edition of the Dear Cubie series)
Our In-game support team is still actively banning spammers
You can still report spammers using the help panel


Ways to deal with SpamTells:
1) Limit trial accounts to not be able to send unsolicited tells at more than 1 per 10 seconds or 10 / 5 minute.
Need to program the /R to be sent normally. While this may seem a pain for those newbies who want help, I bet they can't type fast and they can join a Party chat or send info out in General. As people start getting the tells, they can put in the Harassment and it can be dealt with before the whole server gets inundated with Tells over and over again.

2) Gain favor for a normal account to be able to sent tells at a higher rate (say 100 favor) than 1 per 10 seconds.
This will require plat farmers to have to invest a little time to get the favor generated instead of a scripted account that creates a character using stolen credit card info.

3) Automated Tell squelching.
When more than 20 people report harassment (10 for a trial account) about a user (using right click), the account is squelched from sending tells for 1 hour. That gives time for an Admin to examine the account to determine if the whole account needs to be suspended. Requires scripting on the server end, but it provides immediate results for the players with the ability to review by Turbine.


...Discuss...:D

[Fanabeam]

Why not just filter out all website addresses period in tells?
If I need to send a friend or guildy a website address, I'll do it in guild chat or invite them to a party and give it to them in party chat.

Whole problem, gone.

[MTG]

Make it so that if your anon, you cannot get tells from anyone unless they are in your friends list, in your party, or in your guild.

I'd like this, I spent all day saturday soloing cause I was on watch and was anon the whole time and I was still getting spam.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

Block all ip addresses originating in China?

Turbine tried this. It didn't work - apparently they have legitimate customers in China. I know you're joking, but any kind of IP block just isn't going to work because it's going to inevitabiltly block real customers.

Devs: please give us a regular expression filter on tells!!!!

Here's the code for you:



#pragma comment(lib, "regex.lib")

#include <regex.h>

...
if ( player_regex == NULL ||
!regex_match( tell_text, player_regex ) )
{
send_tell_to_player( tell_text );
}
else
{
drop_tell_on_floor();
}


Garth

[Gratch]

Three?? You're kidding me?!

It takes three player who wants to have fun with a trial account and, boom!! Locked tells.

I edited my original suggestion. How about 3 non-trial separate accounts that report harassment block tell use until a CS rep can check things over. Currently it appears that even 100 harassment reports on a specific trial account don't lock it out...

[ENGRAV0]

Nice, yet another post to compile posts so that the issue doesn't seem as big an issue as it is.

Ok, here goes, plain and simple:

Is it possible to add a check box to the options panel, under UI, so that each player can make his / her own decision to block unwanted /Tells from Trial accounts that are not listed in their Guild or on their Freinds list?

See, kept it short, and to the point.


-Peace

[Quanefel]

I have a few rough ideas that could help with closing them off to spamming the players.

1. Have all trial accounts have a security deposit of say $5-15. It will not be touched(charged) unless that account is marked for spamming in-game. No money is sent to Turbine until the no plat spamming rule is violated. The moment a GM gets x number of spam reports from players, have a GM instantly block AND charge the account immediately in case they try to block their credit card from being charged. Also have that credit card number be blacklisted from any Turbine game such as LoTR. In case they want to use that credit card number for other games.

2. Limit the number of /tells per minute or per hour for trial accounts only. Regular accounts would not be effected and if they attempt to use paying accounts, Turbine still collects their monthly fee AND can ban that account.

3. Put some type of filter to block web address's already turned in by players for plat farming companies. Find all variants of those web address's to block any attempt to bypass the filter, from trial accounts. It would not effect payed accounts for this. I seriously doubt a plat farming company would try to use a payed account since it would cost them more money to spam.

4. Since all the spam tells will start to take a hit, cut them off from spamming general chat once they catch on to #1-3 listed above. Since the spam filter was put in place for the mailbox, it funneled all spam to tells. Learn your lesson and think ahead of them. Maybe code the harbor from being allowed to type in web address?

5. Prevent any and all tells from being sent from Smugglers Island. Its where they camp out and sit for hours scanning for names from each server, they also spam from there since it keeps them out of the eyes of players within Stormreach. Force them to go to Stormreach so they are visible to players and GM's. Once in Stormreach, all the other measures vs spam will come into effect. Not sure how to stop them from farming player names from Smugglers island. I am sure someone can think of a good idea with that.

6. Put MORE effort into going after their farming accounts. Hit them in the pocket book and the tells might decrease as well as the plat farming companies might look elsewhere for business. Allow GM's to look at ALL toons, not just the ones who are on-line. They learned a long time ago that if a GM contacts them, logging out immediately will keep them safe. If they are no longer safe off-line from GM's eyes, it might help in the search for all their ill-gotten loot. Maybe instead of banning the farmers, instead...strip them of everything. Every copper piece and every piece of loot. Let them build up more loot then strip them again. Only after that toon/account is throughly investigated mind you.

7. I talk alot so I will stop here. :P

[Rameses]

GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

agreed. Add an option in the UI that looks like this:

[X] Allow tells from Trial accounts

[Riddikulus]

My spammer solutions:

1) As other's have said, have a preferences checkbox which is on by default that says "Block tells, email and trades from trial account characters that are not on your friends list". If the friends list part isn't doable it would still be useful just to block trial accounts out entirely.

2) Improve the /ignore command to ignore whole accounts so that someone cannot just create another character and continue spamming you. There would be other good uses for this as well. ;)

[Kisaragi]

Tolero, if you guys are really serious about this. Honestly, seriously. I would like you guys to first give us an idea of where we stand.


About how much of the player base has been banned due to this activity?
According to your records are we making any difference?
Can you give us percentages on those who are using trial accounts versus full accounts?
Are the people busted all from one particular website?
Any progress to dissolving these companies using the legal team?
What methods is turbine discussing about using to stop them. I hope you really respond to this one, because if it puts the burden of proof on us the players, it's not much of a solution.
What caused the error with reporting as harassment? When is it expected to be fixed?
Some people have suggested that trial accounts are sending out all the spam. Someone suggested that we have a tab in options that says "Do not accept tells/messages from trial accounts" could we have this installed? I know it just encourages them to get full accounts but it makes it a little more expensive on them. Ultimately, could we have an option that says "I do not wish to recieve mail or tells at this time"? This way, if I'm doing a raid, or a high level quest and I don't want to be bothered, I can check that option.
My opinion on this one; I believe that the reason that plat farmers convince people to buy plat/items from them is because they realize that the loot system is broken. That some people will never get decent loot, no matter what they run. It also seems that new high level quests are +4 to loot when they first come out, and then everything gets reduced to level 6 loot, no matter the level. Can we spend sometime and commitment to reanalyzing the loot, so that high level characters aren't stiffed on loot, and even consider plat farming? If you do a level 14 quest on elite, you should get level 14 loot, not a box of rocks and ghost touch shield of lesser acid resistance.

[Gypsy_Mouse]

There are some really good ideas here.

I'm totally in favor of a "Disable tells from trial accounts" option with the added "except those who are on my Friends list".
The only trial accounts I've ever needed to communicate with are friends who would be in my party or on my Friends list anyway.


However, I think Turbine really needs to give us more options for /tells anyway.


Anonymous used to mean that. Anonymous.
Not Anonymous until you log off which then means every person with you on their Friends list knows you were on and have possibly logged onto another character.

If I'm anonymous, I should not be seen on the Who list nor should I be receiving tells from people I don't know (or those I do know for that matter) unless I have initiated communication. I don't know how the hell plat spammers are getting around the Anon feature, but it needs to be figured out.

If it can't be figured out, then give ME control over my tells!

-If I want to be Anonymous and receive NO tells from anyone, give me that option.

-If I want to be Anonymous to the Who list, but visible to people on my Friends list, give me that option.

-If I want to receive tells ONLY from people on my Friends list, give me that option.

-While in a party, if I ONLY want to receive tells from people on my Friends list AND party members, give me that option.

It ain't brain surgery. Every chat program I've ever used has these features available in some fashion. It needs to be implemented into DDO's chat program, too.



And as Riddikulus suggested:
When someone is squelched it should not only go into effect for my entire account, but apply to the squelched person's entire account.

If I didn't want to run/communicate with their Character A, I am certainly NOT going to want to run/communicate with their Characters B, C, D, etc.


If better chat/tell options can't be implemented, then just don't let trial accounts be able to use the Anonymous feature AND give us a bigger /squelch list.
Yeah it would suck for the legit people, but if I can see all the ASDFGS names when I log on and add them to my squelch list, I might get fewer tells. Sure I'd have to keep an eye on the level 1 part of the Who list periodically.
If it means more work for me, but then I'm able to play in peace and quiet, then so be it.

[The_Ick]

It seems to me that you have done a success job of stopping the spammers at the mail level, so all that is left is really the "tells".

Sinc ei can only assume that most plate formers use some kind of keyboard override so send out tells to everyone on the list or every combination of aaaaaaa to zzzzzzz. Seems like a simple solution would be to auto log out any toon that send more then 25 tells within a minute. Not sure how doable that is to, but something along that line would probably work.

Just my 2 cents...

[captain1z]

So last nite I got into a war with a spammer. had been logged on for about 5 mins and I got 2 tells from the same guy........ I ignored it and went about my business. about five mins laters he sends me another ......... I sent him a tell that said "please stop it youve sent me 3 tells" before I could actualy end him the tell he sent me another and I editted mine to say 4 tells and sent it. He replied with "sorry" and 30 secs later sent me another spam. 1 min later he sent another and I sent him a tell that said "stop it"..... his answer was another spam. I then sent him over 300 tells and party invites that said everything from "go go power rangers!!!!" to " GO AWAY CJ7" he then logged off.

2 mins later he sent me another spam with almost the same name +1 extra letter...... I said to him " you think your funny" he then sent me a spam. I told him "When you pass from this world it will be un-noticed and without honor, like a bug in a field of grass; may you live an interesting life". I then squelched him...... he switched back to his 1st account and I squelched that one as well after his 1ST spam sent to me after logging on.

He was a real jerk and loaded up my chat window with yellow spammy text............... he frustrated me but some other players cooled me out.

I understand all the anti-spam barriers are temporarily down and I cant wait till they work again. advertising is 1 thing, this guy wasnt advertising, he was openly harrasing me and I was harrassing him I guess.... after the fact.

[Magehound]

I like the idea of the mailbox being in a pvp area. They want to send tells, we can go lay the smack down on them. It might not stop them but it will make me feel better.:D

What happen to the anon list? Used to be that if you where anon your name wasn't anywhere people could see it..ie the player looking for more. your name didn't show up in the party it just said anaon. Personally I liked that but I do know there were issues with that approach also.

[adamkatt]

This one is my favorite plat farmer spam of all time. I just rolled up a new character. Plop down in the starter area and i get greeted by sgfsgsfgsf. He happily spams in gen chat his goto msg of of the day. (something about soiling pants.) Hes does that about 5 times in gen and then....AND THEN!!! The ahole sends me a tell. WHILE IM STANDING RIGHT THERE!!! OOhhh i wanted to reach through the internets and kick his...well you know.

[Rowanheal]

I don't have any true suggestions that are new. Most of those have been covered.

I just want to see it stopped for goodness sakes. Since we got rid of the mail spammers I get a ton of tells. It's just annoying as heck.

See ya in Stormreach,

-R

[sugarat]

How about limiting the trial accounts to only see the quest panel? no more white pages lookup for them in the who's online tab...

[Invalid_86]

When player crafting is introduced bind all non-consumable magic items in the game and eliminate consumable magic item venders. Then make it so all new non-consumable magic items bind when you pull them out of the chest.

Not only would you get a better balanced game plus a closer to DnD experience but you will also kill off the spammers.

Short of doing this you are just wasting your time, you will not get rid of spammers.

[ShadesofGreen]

QFE



GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

Best possible solution that could be done very quickly. This gets my vote. If they're going to spam me, make them pay for an account.

Or if you want to get really wild, give all players with a month or more of playtime under there belt 5,000,000 plat. Its not like the economy is balanced anyway. With no need to harvest plat, they would leave DDO altogether. :D

[captain1z]

I'd prefer the Jay & Silent Bob method and treat the spammers like their name was "magnolia fan"






as a side......... the farmers are gunna have a field day with ingrdients and crafting.

[Nevthial]

If you spam tells ( and reported by more than say 20 persons ) you become an orange named and thus deemed an immediate threat to the safety of Stormreach. :)

[Dungnmaster001]

I realize I'm in the minority but I felt it needed to be said: I'm AGAINST anything that limits a trial account's ability to communicate. I've made way too many trial accounts for DDO and other games over the years for various reasons. And gotten several friends to try games by sending buddy invites/links to trial acct signups. Anything that limits communication from one player to another is a bad idea.

You all mention having a checkbox to make it seem like it's an option but it's not really going to be an option. after getting 2 tells from a plat spammer just about everyone will check the box and forever close the door to trial players that try to be socialble.

And if you did manage to completely block /tells ... the spammers will find other ways to annoy us.

Imagine this scenario, standing around in Gianthold watching 4 plat spammers from different websites spamming GENERAL chat for 3-5 min, switch characters spam for anther 3-5 min, occasionally a GM shows up and bans them, 10 minutes later new account with new characters begin spamming again. This would be much worse than a few (or even many) /tells after awhile. Not to mention the ones that join low level groups just to spam party chat several times before they get booted. The only way this would work is if we remove trial accounts all together, which is an even worse idea. Though it would solve the problem.

It might help the problem if trial accounts required a credit card (it used to but around christmas I was able to make one without a card...not sure about now) and along with needing the card for verification, it charged a fee that was refunded if the account's trial ended normally or upgraded to a full account but was forfeited if the account were banned.

[Nictolopy]

GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

This is the best solution by far. I don't want to have to report spam. I don't want to get it at all. Plus, this frees up a LOT of computer/manpower since no one has to report/evaluate various harassment reports. The computer does not have to filter every tell being sent, which would slow down the servers a wee bit, methinks. It's a one-click solution that solves everything.

I really don't see much of a downside for the paying customers. I'm sure new players will learn the ropes soon enough.

Can I vote for this solution to be implemented? Wait. I'm my guild leader. I unilaterally cast all of my guildie's votes for this. You heard me! All four of em!

[cdbd3rd]

Nice, yet another post to compile posts so that the issue doesn't seem as big an issue as it is.

Quite the contrary. It means they're paying attention to what we're coming up with, but don't have the time to go hunting through umpteen different threads for bits of constructive info. I sit here most of the day browsing threads, and could not even come close to covering all threads with legitimate complaints/suggestions.



Ok, here goes, plain and simple:

Is it possible to add a check box to the options panel, under UI, so that each player can make his / her own decision to block unwanted /Tells from Trial accounts that are not listed in their Guild or on their Freinds list?



So far, I really like this one the most. Anything that allows the players to set their own preferences is a very good thing.

[Wizzly_Bear]

GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!




PROBLEM SOLVED!

i like this. a lot.



Why not just filter out all website addresses period in tells?
If I need to send a friend or guildy a website address, I'll do it in guild chat or invite them to a party and give it to them in party chat.

Whole problem, gone.
i like this a lot to, however i think theyd just leave out the ".com" so i dont see it working.


Is it possible to add a check box to the options panel, under UI, so that each player can make his / her own decision to block unwanted /Tells from Trial accounts that are not listed in their Guild or on their Freinds list?
best idea ive seen. please implement this.



1. Have all trial accounts have a security deposit of say $5-15. It will not be touched(charged) unless that account is marked for spamming in-game. No money is sent to Turbine until the no plat spamming rule is violated. The moment a GM gets x number of spam reports from players, have a GM instantly block AND charge the account immediately in case they try to block their credit card from being charged. Also have that credit card number be blacklisted from any Turbine game such as LoTR. In case they want to use that credit card number for other games.
i want to like this one, but what about when they use stolen cards? what if they steal your card and it gets blocked?


5. Prevent any and all tells from being sent from Smugglers Island. Its where they camp out and sit for hours scanning for names from each server, they also spam from there since it keeps them out of the eyes of players within Stormreach. Force them to go to Stormreach so they are visible to players and GM's. Once in Stormreach, all the other measures vs spam will come into effect. Not sure how to stop them from farming player names from Smugglers island. I am sure someone can think of a good idea with that.
what is smuggler's island?


6. Put MORE effort into going after their farming accounts. Hit them in the pocket book and the tells might decrease as well as the plat farming companies might look elsewhere for business. Allow GM's to look at ALL toons, not just the ones who are on-line. They learned a long time ago that if a GM contacts them, logging out immediately will keep them safe. If they are no longer safe off-line from GM's eyes, it might help in the search for all their ill-gotten loot. Maybe instead of banning the farmers, instead...strip them of everything. Every copper piece and every piece of loot. Let them build up more loot then strip them again. Only after that toon/account is throughly investigated mind you.
agreed


Tolero, if you guys are really serious about this. Honestly, seriously. I would like you guys to first give us an idea of where we stand.

About how much of the player base has been banned due to this activity?
According to your records are we making any difference?
Can you give us percentages on those who are using trial accounts versus full accounts?
Are the people busted all from one particular website?
Any progress to dissolving these companies using the legal team?
What methods is turbine discussing about using to stop them. I hope you really respond to this one, because if it puts the burden of proof on us the players, it's not much of a solution.
What caused the error with reporting as harassment? When is it expected to be fixed?
Some people have suggested that trial accounts are sending out all the spam. Someone suggested that we have a tab in options that says "Do not accept tells/messages from trial accounts" could we have this installed? I know it just encourages them to get full accounts but it makes it a little more expensive on them. Ultimately, could we have an option that says "I do not wish to recieve mail or tells at this time"? This way, if I'm doing a raid, or a high level quest and I don't want to be bothered, I can check that option.
My opinion on this one; I believe that the reason that plat farmers convince people to buy plat/items from them is because they realize that the loot system is broken. That some people will never get decent loot, no matter what they run. It also seems that new high level quests are +4 to loot when they first come out, and then everything gets reduced to level 6 loot, no matter the level. Can we spend sometime and commitment to reanalyzing the loot, so that high level characters aren't stiffed on loot, and even consider plat farming? If you do a level 14 quest on elite, you should get level 14 loot, not a box of rocks and ghost touch shield of lesser acid resistance.
qft, and yes, please let us know.


I realize I'm in the minority but I felt it needed to be said: I'm AGAINST anything that limits a trial account's ability to communicate. I've made way too many trial accounts for DDO and other games over the years for various reasons. And gotten several friends to try games by sending buddy invites/links to trial acct signups. Anything that limits communication from one player to another is a bad idea.

You all mention having a checkbox to make it seem like it's an option but it's not really going to be an option. after getting 2 tells from a plat spammer just about everyone will check the box and forever close the door to trial players that try to be socialble.

And if you did manage to completely block /tells ... the spammers will find other ways to annoy us.

Imagine this scenario, standing around in Gianthold watching 4 plat spammers from different websites spamming GENERAL chat for 3-5 min, switch characters spam for anther 3-5 min, occasionally a GM shows up and bans them, 10 minutes later new account with new characters begin spamming again. This would be much worse than a few (or even many) /tells after awhile. Not to mention the ones that join low level groups just to spam party chat several times before they get booted. The only way this would work is if we remove trial accounts all together, which is an even worse idea. Though it would solve the problem.

It might help the problem if trial accounts required a credit card (it used to but around christmas I was able to make one without a card...not sure about now) and along with needing the card for verification, it charged a fee that was refunded if the account's trial ended normally or upgraded to a full account but was forfeited if the account were banned.

i understand the sentiment, but i really dont care if someone whoi dont know and who is brand new to the game wants to send me random tells or not. i learned the game through experience, so can they. i think effort to protect current customers from the hassle and aggravation of these incessant tells is much wiser than to allow it to continue because some new player (who isnt even a paying customer) wants to send out random tells. current paying customer > future non-paying customer. additionally, there are already a lot of people (myself sometimes, not very often though) who go out of their way to help newbs. these people would be able to turn off this option. so...

those who dont want random tells dont get them, and those who do can. i dont see a loss here.

[Zaganoth]

2 ways to fix it.


Tell filter, using a "filtered words box", and have it filter all tells containing that text. Just give us a box that we can type our own filters
in. example : If we type "buymyplat" no tells including buymyplat, llike buymyplat.com would get sent to us. Seperating keywords by a ( , ) or a ( | )

Or just add a "filter tells from friends/guildies only" check box.

[captain1z]

what is smuggler's island?




after character creation you end up standing on the docks at smugglers island. Unless you skip all the training quests and port directly to Wavecrest tavern in the harbor at Stormreach you would go and take Euphonias challenge to get a grasp of the game.

Very few people stick around to do this anymore and now that the necropolis has both a mail box and a banker smugglers island is the only place you can go if you wanna be alone.

[Falco_Easts]

Will suggest it again in this thread.
Have the Devs implement a word filter to tells and all chat channels that only they can edit. Every time a spam is reported as harrasment, have the GM place the website listed in that tell into the banned word filter. Won't take long till all plat selling websites and varietions of will be blacklisted. Unless the spammers wish to keep changing addresses and losing out on repeat business from their loyal "customers" they will have no choice but to give up.
Does not effect legit trial accounts in any way so new players can still ask questions while quite quickly Turbine builds up a nice "blacklist" that I assume could be ported across to all their games.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

ok suggestions

First mail spam, unconfirmed mail and locking out the sending of mail from trial accounts has been great, it has however basically sent spam to tells instead. So some recomendations



Trial accounts should not be able to send more than 10 tells per hour to those not on their friends list or guild list
Regular accounts should not be able to send more than 200 tells per hour except as above


Thinking about it the character needs to be on the receivers friends list in both cases, otherwise they would just create a huge friends list and import it to every new trial character

I agree with this approach, except I'd add "or in your party" to the unlimited tell list.

I'd also limit regular accounts to far less than 200.. maybe only 30ish. Otherwise they will just pay $15 for a gamecard (less, odds are they can get them wholesale) and figure its costing them $15/200 spam messages they send. I mean really, how often do you need to send out large numbers of tells to people who aren't in your guild, party, and wouldn't have you on their friends list?

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Have the Devs implement a word filter to tells and all chat channels that only they can edit. Every time a spam is reported as harrasment, have the GM place the website listed in that tell into the banned word filter. .

Well its not hard to bypass filters, but yup, its worth a try. It will at least slow them down a lot and make their life more difficult.

[Vesuvia]

Or everyone can do what I do. I spam them back =) not so much with tells (ok sometimes), but party invites. In fact it's a really fun game that I made up called 'Spam Hunter'. It's really easy to play! You simply look on the who list find the level 1 guy named adfasdfafwe (NOT AN ACTUAL SPAMMER NAME, BUT PROBABLY IS OR WILL BE, KEEP THE GREEN JELLO OFF ME I'M NOT IN VIOLATION OF SPAMMERWRATH RULES!) and spam party invite him until he finally gives into your dominant will. See the objective to the game is to collect spammer heads! Which is actually just a spammer who you got in the party and they disconnected so there name stays in grey in the party! You then can have others join the party or raid if your awesome at it, and they can bare witness to your glory! In a way it's quite funny because you simply tell those that have joined you that you are the true hero of stormreach purging the greatest evil of all! It's quite a good laugh at a spammer's expense and yes I have been actually offered PLAT from players from smiting down plat spammers! We all know good and well when your in the middle of something and somebody sends you that invite it kinda stops what your doing, til you accept it or decline it. The greatest thing is most of them don't either realize or know how to turn off party invites! :) So they get all irritated and they will occasionally send you "bad" tells that probably break there companies policies and they try to make new characters but thanks to the good old Who Search any guild lvl 1 of 1! :) They can never escape your undying wrath! ;)

EVIL IS AS EVIL DOES.

PS. Yes, I do admit I have purged Ghallanda's server on more then one occasion of spammers, if only for a very bored night or two. Also, none of them ever have voice chat enabled, which is sad..but party chat is a different story =)

[Tahlyn]

One idea could be to create a filter for tells that blocks multiple combos of web addresses - for example:

www.Isellplat.com
www Isellplpat com
isellplat.com
isellplat com

would all be converted to **************** - given enough variation the spammers could not send you there address - thereby killing off their business.

You could enact this filter for any trial account but not paid subscriptions. If a paid subscriber gets reported for spamming - well then that's the end for them.

Just as all the viagra sellers use variations to spell viagra in email to dodge the spam filters.. plat sellers would find a way around this too, but Gods it sure would make it harder on them wouldn't it? I like it. Of course the real cure for this problem will never come to be, and that is if NO ONE EVER BOUGHT GAME GOLD OR ITEMS there wouldn't be a market, so there wouldn't be salesmen.

Sorry guys I just had to get that out. *sigh*

[Auran82]

Best idea I can think of:

When you are setting up chat windows and choosing which input should go to that window (Loot, Tell, General, Guild etc) 'Tell' should be split into 'Tell - Guild, Friend and Group' and 'Tell - Other' so that way you could have a separate window if you so wished for tells from people not on your friend/guild/group list so your main window wasn't cluttered with spam etc.

[FoxOne]

another way would be to limit the capacity to send tells either

a) to someone i added to my friends list

b) tells disabled to anyone that is not within 3 levels of the sender.So when we play a capped toon,if we get a tell,it's a lvl 13 we will get banned et voila.
we'll be annoyed the first week of creation of a new character until he passes about lvl 6 but then that's it

[Vesuvia]

This is actually a true story and my boy Exsivia who is the co-founder of "Spam Hunter" also (see previous post) had this happen. He actually had one of spammers send him her email address, etc and wanted to actually stay in contact with him. Apparently from what she has told him, that plat spamming is a job that she doesnt even get paid for. It's basically for the job experience, and to better learn the english language. She wanted to stay in contact with him via emails/IMs to learn more of the language outside of the stuff they do on our game.

Basically what I'm saying is if you believe you can simply fix this problem you cannot, these people aren't even getting paid to work for these companies.

Of course this is really funny now making fun of him and his plat farming "girlfriend" :)

so ask yourself, have you hit on a plat farmer today?

[Lorien_the_First_One]

It might help the problem if trial accounts required a credit card (it used to but around christmas I was able to make one without a card...not sure about now) and along with needing the card for verification, it charged a fee that was refunded if the account's trial ended normally or upgraded to a full account but was forfeited if the account were banned.

Then it wouldn't be a free trial anymore.... no thx

[Raes]

GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

People keep suggesting these intricate, situational, overly complex solutions. There is no reason not to do what the above guy suggests. (It's what I was going to suggest myself) Also, I would add not allowing trial accounts to use general chat either. Why? Because if you take away their tells it's the obvious next step for them to start spamming gen chat.

There is absolutely no reason not to restrict tells and gen chat from trial accounts. If you think it will cause some people to not buy the retail game, well, there's not much proof of that is there? WoW has 10 million subscribers and their trial accounts are much much more restrictive. Check it out...

- A level cap of 20.
- A maximum of 10 gold.
- Trade skills are capped at 100 ranks.
- Inability to trade via the auction house, mailbox, or player-to-player.
- In-Game public chat channels will be unavailable. (Players will still be able to communicate using say, party, or whispers).
- Characters will be unable to create or join existing guilds.
- Accounts will no longer be able to whisper other players unless they have been added to those players' friends lists or have received a whisper from them first.
- Characters will not be able to invite players into a party.
- Characters will not be able to join parties with other players above level 20.
- Voice Chat is disabled on trial accounts.
- Realms with login queues will give priority to customers with retail accounts.
- Will not be eligible for any Character Transfer service


They don't seem to be having any problems attracting users...


Also, from my personal experience, I've been playing for a little over a month. My main is level 11, I have about 5 alts from level 2 to 7. I have sent zero tells. I have received maybe 6 tells that weren't from spammers. And have used general chat exactly zero times.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

They don't seem to be having any problems attracting users....

Different users... and the need for community is higher here...

Oh, and the little tiny specialty shop needs to offer better customer service than the well established mega corp to attract people. WoW has big stars, lots of press, huge ad campaign, lots of word of month. What do we have? A couple little articles and a free week.

[Raes]

I realize I'm in the minority but I felt it needed to be said: I'm AGAINST anything that limits a trial account's ability to communicate. I've made way too many trial accounts for DDO and other games over the years for various reasons. And gotten several friends to try games by sending buddy invites/links to trial acct signups. Anything that limits communication from one player to another is a bad idea.

You all mention having a checkbox to make it seem like it's an option but it's not really going to be an option. after getting 2 tells from a plat spammer just about everyone will check the box and forever close the door to trial players that try to be socialble.

So what? It should still be *MY* choice. I'm paying for an account, they are not. I wouldn't answer a tell from a level 1 anyway, regardless of what the tell was about. I hate blind tells. And that's my right.

And if you did manage to completely block /tells ... the spammers will find other ways to annoy us.

Imagine this scenario, standing around in Gianthold watching 4 plat spammers from different websites spamming GENERAL chat for 3-5 min, switch characters spam for anther 3-5 min, occasionally a GM shows up and bans them, 10 minutes later new account with new characters begin spamming again. This would be much worse than a few (or even many) /tells after awhile. Not to mention the ones that join low level groups just to spam party chat several times before they get booted. The only way this would work is if we remove trial accounts all together, which is an even worse idea. Though it would solve the problem.

It might help the problem if trial accounts required a credit card (it used to but around christmas I was able to make one without a card...not sure about now) and along with needing the card for verification, it charged a fee that was refunded if the account's trial ended normally or upgraded to a full account but was forfeited if the account were banned.


So you're against anything that limits a trial accounts ability to communicate, BUT you want to enforce a limit on the ability to make a trial account in the first place??? Sounds to me like you want a solution that suits you perfectly and disregards everyone else.

[Wizzly_Bear]

after character creation you end up standing on the docks at smugglers island. Unless you skip all the training quests and port directly to Wavecrest tavern in the harbor at Stormreach you would go and take Euphonias challenge to get a grasp of the game.

Very few people stick around to do this anymore and now that the necropolis has both a mail box and a banker smugglers island is the only place you can go if you wanna be alone.
wow, i had honestly forgot all about that area, lol. i always skip it and go straight to the wavecrest. i should probably check those out again, if just for the nostalgia. probably been more than a year since ive done them.

[Kistilan]

Good forum thread! I don't have anything to bring to the discussion, but centralizing common threads is def FTW.

Also, I believe this thread bodes well for the future of DDO content. Planar Champions and Gate Crashers in Sigil and The Outer Planes, Oh My! (+100 Coolness Reference)

PS: 39 Days until D&D 4th Edition! (this is a spammish message)

[geoffhanna]

But I do not believe any punitive or preventive action will work, long term. People are too creative. Instead I propose we make it less convenient for spammers to do things incorrectly but at the same time give them an avenue to ply their wares legitimately and remove their motivation to cheat.

Restricting

Put a one minute cooldown timer on /TELLs to anyone who does not have your name in their friend list, or is not in your guild, or did not send you a /tell already since your last login.
Put a thirty second cooldown timer on /say and /emote for trial accounts only

The thought is that you can start a conversation only once per minute but you can continue one without restriction. I think we apply this to all accounts not just trial accounts (anticipating that restrictions on trial accounts may only cause them to move to paying accounts).

The restriction on /say and /emote is anticipating that they may move to /say when they can no longer /tell

Rewarding

Create a trading tab in the LFM user interface, something along the lines of Looking To Trade (LTT).
Get the turbine legal team to cruch the eula, insuring no Turbine liability for transactions gone bad, retaining all intellectual property rights regardless of who trades what in return for whatever, etc.
Charge a premium to an account to be able to post on the LTT interface
Get out of the way

They'll stop annoying players when they have a legit way to get their word out. This has a pleasant side effect of propping up the game a little too.

[Talish]

It is quite easy for me to answer 20+ tells from a single new player in a 10 minute time period.

New players are not idiots, many know how to use /tell since they come from other games. Do not assume they do not know how to use it. It is the MAIN method of communication used when they are seeking help as many people do not want to be made fun of or embarrassed because they are perceived as asking a stupid question. I have seen veteran players pick on and tease new players in general chat.

Do not restrict general chat. It is the secondary method used by new players in order to ask questions.

Sure say you don't care about new players and trial accounts. Watch the game die wihtout new blood. Imagine trying a new game that is hostile. Where there is no way to ask a question or even if you could ask a question no one will listen to you because their tells are turned off. As was stated earlier eventually almost all players will turn off tells from trial accounts after receiving a few plat tells until a new player is left with nothing but a ghost town.

Trial accounts are important to the health of this game whether veteran players wish to admit it or not. Many people want to try a game before they purchase it. I know I do. I'd say out of every 10 players I answer questions for at least 4 or them are still around a few weeks later. I help on average around 15 players per day. Many of them stay because of the friendly welcome, the ability to get help and to have their questions answered. Take away their methods of being able to do this and you loose potential players PERIOD. I would not stay in a seemingly hostile game like another frequently mentioned game which I could not stomach partly because of how unfriendly it was.

Do I know the solution? No. But I spend several hours almost daily helping out new players many who are using trial accounts. Some of those accounts ARE being transferred to full accounts. These new players are helping to keep this game alive.

These are just what I have found to be true in over 2 years now of helping new players on an extremely regular basis. I wish I knew the answer. Somehow there has to be a way to achieve a balance between the ability to help/seek help on a new players part and a way to deter plat sellers.

Do I dislike the plat tells? YES... but I would dislike not being able to play this game even more.

[ENGRAV0]

It is quite easy for me to answer 20+ tells from a single new player in a 10 minute time period.

New players are not idiots, many know how to use /tell since they come from other games. Do not assume they do not know how to use it. It is the MAIN method of communication used when they are seeking help as many people do not want to be made fun of or embarrassed because they are perceived as asking a stupid question. I have seen veteran players pick on and tease new players in general chat.

Do not restrict general chat. It is the secondary method used by new players in order to ask questions.

Sure say you don't care about new players and trial accounts. Watch the game die wihtout new blood. Imagine trying a new game that is hostile. Where there is no way to ask a question or even if you could ask a question no one will listen to you because their tells are turned off. As was stated earlier eventually almost all players will turn off tells from trial accounts after receiving a few plat tells until a new player is left with nothing but a ghost town.

Trial accounts are important to the health of this game whether veteran players wish to admit it or not. Many people want to try a game before they purchase it. I know I do. I'd say out of every 10 players I answer questions for at least 4 or them are still around a few weeks later. I help on average around 15 players per day. Many of them stay because of the friendly welcome, the ability to get help and to have their questions answered. Take away their methods of being able to do this and you loose potential players PERIOD. I would not stay in a seemingly hostile game like another frequently mentioned game which I could not stomach partly because of how unfriendly it was.

Do I know the solution? No. But I spend several hours almost daily helping out new players many who are using trial accounts. Some of those accounts ARE being transferred to full accounts. These new players are helping to keep this game alive.

These are just what I have found to be true in over 2 years now of helping new players on an extremely regular basis. I wish I knew the answer. Somehow there has to be a way to achieve a balance between the ability to help/seek help on a new players part and a way to deter plat sellers.

Do I dislike the plat tells? YES... but I would dislike not being able to play this game even more.

And that, is your choice. I myself helped someone out today, brand new to the game. Gave him a lot of advice to keep him from the farmers, to helping learn the lfg and lfm's. Where to find potions and how they worked, and a lot of other stuff. I even eventualy invited him to the guild so that our lowbie runners can group with him, and learn him (Tongue in cheek there) the ways and mechanics of the game.

How did I find this individual? Well, funny enough, he was in House J, I presume lost, and using GENERAL CHAT, no tells, just general chat.

Each person has a "RIGHT" to make a choice. For many that choice may well be either to continue with getting harrassed here, or find another game, soon to be released, that already has the function of no tells from trial accounts. DDO will either live (Notice not thrive, and that is because the Devs, QA team and GMs do NOT communicate well with each other) or Die. If the servers can't handle the load with the "NEW and IMPROVED" AI now, what is going to happen when they figure out a way to further the beating they are recieving from competition by putting more players on fewer servers? Think it wont happen, Eh, could be right. It "IS" about money, it is their income, and if it comes down to your enjoying the game and them going broke, or you being miserable, but continuing to pay in hopes of improvement and them making bank, honestly, which do you think is the choice they are going to make?

"MY" choice is to turn tells off from trial accounts. After a while, the only option for the farmers will be to use the paid accounts to send the tells, and those can get caught eventualy, a LOT easier than the 5 minute guy who logs on, sends out a mad rush of tells, then logs off, deletes his character, makes a new one, then repeates the proccess. He has nothing to lose, even if caught, his IP can be changed, there is no way to figure one trial account out from the next, and nothing that can be done legaly.

Maybe after a while, I might be enticed to turn the /tell from trial feature off and allow them again, but that would be "MY" choice, and not the choice of some dev or gm, mine and mine alone. In the time that everyone had them off, how would the farmers make their money? Only one way, using paid accounts to bypass the security measure, and reporting a paid account is much easier, and less cost effective for a farmer.

I respect your choice, and do NOT care if you respect mine. That is why we each have our own choices.

[Kargon]

Kargon favorimite suggestimion so far are to make all plat spammer webmasite names show up as @$@#&#37;. sounds very easy to add them to filter, and while plat farmermers can still send tells, the tells not going bring them as much new businamess. Kargon not claim credit for this idea, but forget who post it. Kargon also too lazy to check if already mentimion in this thread, maybe kargon go eat some tasty ham cheer up...

[Borror0]

WoW has 10 million subscribers and their trial accounts are much much more restrictive.

You cannot use WoW as an example, sorry.

That's like they do this, so let's do that too. WoW is WoW, it has the publicity budget of WoW. It has the playerbase of WoW talking about WoW. WoW has the fame, everyone talks about how incredible WoW is. The point of any game in this industry is to perform good enough, even though WoW is taking a huge part of the market. As a result, they must offer something different from WoW.

Otherwise, they'll play WoW!!

It's like saying "Hey female genital mutilation is a good idea, they do it in some other countries.":rolleyes:
(Little extrem example, but you get the idea. I couldn't use death penalty as some silly states are for it.)


Also, from my personal experience, I've been playing for a little over a month. My main is level 11, I have about 5 alts from level 2 to 7. I have sent zero tells. I have received maybe 6 tells that weren't from spammers. And have used general chat exactly zero times.

That's your experience, but not mine... not mine at all.

[Borror0]

Kargon favorimite suggestimion so far are to make all plat spammer webmasite names show up as @$@#%.

I agree.

[Talish]

How about turning off the ability to send mass tells in game? Currently admin can send a tell to everyone in the game at the same time BUT they can also send a world broadcast. I'm not a programmer but somehow the software plat spammers are using must be tapping into the admin ability to send mass tells. So turn it OFF.

It's probably not that simple but there has to be a way to stop tells being sent on mass within a few seconds.

As for choices currently no one has a choice as far as plat spams are concerned. I thought the purpose of this thread was to discuss possibilities rather than steadfastly push for only one option without considering any others? I have only entered the details of my experiences with new players in order to help find a solution.

[Raes]

You cannot use WoW as an example, sorry.

Actually I can and will use whatever I choose to as an example.


That's like they do this, so let's do that too. WoW is WoW, it has the publicity budget of WoW. It has the playerbase of WoW talking about WoW. WoW has the fame, everyone talks about how incredible WoW is. The point of any game in this industry is to perform good enough, even though WoW is taking a huge part of the market. As a result, they must offer something different from WoW.

That wasn't the point of my example at all. WoW was just an easy choice for example. I could have used EQ2, but the trial island isn't as close to what DDO's trial offers. Please don't respond to my post unless you are actually going to repsond to my post, not go off on some WoW-hate tirade. I despise WoW myself. I believe their game design is ruining the mmo industry and the playerbase. But that is not the issue here. The issue is for Turbine to take a stand and stop plat-spammers from annoying their paying customers.

Otherwise, they'll play WoW!!

It's like saying "Hey female genital mutilation is a good idea, they do it in some other countries.":rolleyes:
(Little extrem example, but you get the idea. I couldn't use death penalty as some silly states are for it.)



That's your experience, but not mine... not mine at all.


Let me preface the following with this statement: "I really like DDO." Except for a few issues (not being able to hit mobs that are running in front of you, etc) and some design decisions, I think it is a great game and really wish it had a larger playerbase.

That being said, it seems that most people who are against limiting the trial accounts ability to send tells are worried about losing potential new players. I would somewhat agree *IF* DDO's playerbase was either growing, or large and thriving. It simply isn't. The playerbase is unfortunately dwindling. DDO is a niche game. I believe that at this point that it is much more important to keep your existing playerbase happy.

Please do not respond with some delusional statement that the userbase could still vastly increase in size, or that this or that addition or Mod or expansion is going to change the number of subs. It's not going to happen. I wish it was possible, but it isn't.

[Jefro]

I get tells from the harbour to help a newbie learn certain rules to the game and answer cleric questions atleast once a month. So do not want to make the game even more unfriendly to those trial account players that actually play.


My suggestion: Trial accounts tells are a seppart type of communication, that unless checked in a chat box, it will only appear in general window chat. It will not make a ding noise either. So this allows you to see such chat in its own window or left in general chat window or shut it off completely. This should lessen the pain till a better solution arises.

[Dymond]

GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

I still agree this is the best solution.. Only thing to make it nicer would be the 'exception of friends list'

To those that are worried they'll be nobody to help the newbies.. Your wrong.. You'll still be there! Just don't check the box and your golden! You can hang out in the harbor and answer questions and receive unsolicited tells and at the end of the day feel good about yourself.. The rest of us can run our quests w/o getting tons of tells that interrupt our communication and bug the heck out of us.

[Arundil]

I just want an option, a checkbox somewhere, where I can turn off tells that come from people outside of my guild, my current party, or my friends list.

[Borror0]

Please don't respond to my post unless you are actually going to repsond to my post, not go off on some WoW-hate tirade. I despise WoW myself. I believe their game design is ruining the mmo industry and the playerbase. But that is not the issue here. The issue is for Turbine to take a stand and stop plat-spammers from annoying their paying customers.

This isn't a WoW-hate tirade, point is, it's not becauyse a game does it that it's good. The point is, you cannot use Wow as an example of "they do it, it's not harmful". Whatever WoW does, they'll keep to have so many subscribers. WoW is liek a brand, peopel play for it for the name. There are, like at the grocery, better products that are just less known.

Lots of subscribers doesn't better product. Does mean becuase they do it it's a good idea for DDO to replicate it.
DDO needs the player from the trial. Wow? Not so much. Mouth to Mouth and commercials help them a lot already.


That being said, it seems that most people who are against limiting the trial accounts ability to send tells are worried about losing potential new players. I would somewhat agree *IF* DDO's playerbase was either growing, or large and thriving. It simply isn't. The playerbase is unfortunately dwindling. DDO is a niche game. I believe that at this point that it is much more important to keep your existing playerbase happy.

Please do not respond with some delusional statement that the userbase could still vastly increase in size, or that this or that addition or Mod or expansion is going to change the number of subs. It's not going to happen. I wish it was possible, but it isn't.

Then, you do not play in the same game as I do.

There are a lot of new players coming to this game. However, I'll respect your request and not state that the playerbase is vastly increasing in size, that'd be a lie anyway. however, the playerbase is renewing itself. Some players leave, other joins. Some leave, they come back later.

DDO has a small population, they need the players they get from trials.
That's how I started playing. Might have not if it was so restrictive.

[Mistinarperadnacles]

MY SOLUTION:

A "semi anon" facility. Check this box in your options and you enable:

1- You will only recieve /tell messages from people in your guild, in your current party or in your friends list. All other /tells are automatically ignored.

2- You can recieve /tells from anyone tagged "leader of a party" provided you are LFG.

Uncheck the box, you can recieve /tells from anybody. Completely eliminates spam when turned on without hampering /tell functionality too much.

[Uska]

A couple ideas to combat the tell spam without really maiming real trial accounts

1.) No tells on trial accounts for 1 or 2 days. New players do not learn /tell the first day anyway. I know spammers could still spam, but it slows them down.

2.) Limit tells for trial accounts not by number of tells, but number of players per day. You can only sent a tell to 3 players per day on a trial account. Unlimited tells to the first 3 players that day. This should let the newb talk to a friend but limit spammers from blasting adds. Note: might be hard to code.

3.) Require an email response with a password (one of the scramble cypher things) to unlock tells. 2 minutes and web access for a real player. A pain for spammers, plus you can block their email addresses once you idenify them (I know how easy this is to spoof.)

4.) Allow trial tells after completing the goodblades quest chain. Again easy for a new player, slows down spammers.



All of these would serve to turn off new players and are a bad idea sorry.

[Uska]

Block all ip addresses originating in China?

Umm no some real players are there as well and not are farmers are in China so that wont really help

[NJDaniels]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/ndaniels/spam-c07.jpg

This is what I think of spam.

[Wizzly_Bear]

How about turning off the ability to send mass tells in game?
i dont think the farmers are able to use mass tells. frequently in parties people get the tells in a sequence, not all at once. i.e. aredwarrior gets a tell, then 3 minutes later theredwarrior gets a tell, with mightyredwarrior getting one somewhere inbetween.


All of these would serve to turn off new players and are a bad idea sorry.
and? let them pay or learn without bothering us. im tired of people sending me tells in quests, and most esp from farmers. when i feel like helping, ill uncheck the box and go help. at least if we had the checkbox option i wouldnt be squelching them, which is what i do now when i receive random persistent tells. then, later, when i felt like helping, i could uncheck the box and help out. maybe its just me, but i really dont feel like helping out the newbs when they constantly send me tells while im in the middle of something. it leaves bad taste in my mouth and then im not inclined to spend time helping them as i usually do. im sure im not the only one who feels this way. honestly, how often do you actually tell your party "hey guys/gals, hold on a min, got to help out this newb," while youre in the middle of a quest?

[Riddikulus]

You cannot use WoW as an example, sorry.

That's like they do this, so let's do that too. WoW is WoW, it has the publicity budget of WoW. It has the playerbase of WoW talking about WoW. WoW has the fame, everyone talks about how incredible WoW is. The point of any game in this industry is to perform good enough, even though WoW is taking a huge part of the market. As a result, they must offer something different from WoW.

Otherwise, they'll play WoW!!

It's like saying "Hey female genital mutilation is a good idea, they do it in some other countries.":rolleyes:
(Little extrem example, but you get the idea. I couldn't use death penalty as some silly states are for it.)



That's your experience, but not mine... not mine at all.
I think your example is terrible. You should strive to have all the good features of your competitor and none of his flaws. After all by your logic... WoW has mobs so that means DDO shouldn't have mobs because that would be duplicating WoW. :rolleyes:

Anyway with that said the fact that WoW has really restrictive trial accounts (where you cannot send tells, email, or do trades) IMO makes no difference in the amount of tell-spam that you get... the spammers do it anyway from regular accounts with bravado. I get maybe a dozen a night on my low level characters. You also get tons of gold for sale spam in the regular general chat too.

DDO's regular accounts are so cheap now that even if Turbine was to completely lock down the trial accounts you would still see spammers just buy the $4.99 clearance copy of DDO and spam away anyway.

Again it would be better to just have an checkbox on the options panel to ignore tells from trial accounts... that way the spammers would not know that the tells are going into the bit bucket.

And also again please change /ignore so it works by account rather than by character...

[Wizzly_Bear]

I think your example is terrible. You should strive to have all the good features of your competitor and none of his flaws. After all by your logic... WoW has mobs so that means DDO shouldn't have mobs because that would be duplicating WoW. :rolleyes:
qft, esp the bolded part.



And also again please change /ignore so it works by account rather than by character...
/signed

[Borror0]

You should strive to have all the good features of your competitor and none of his flaws. After all by your logic... WoW has mobs so that means DDO shouldn't have mobs because that would be duplicating WoW. :rolleyes:

I meant that it's a bad feature, a flaw... so we should avoid it. I just meant that it's not because WoW has lots of players, even with that restrcited trial, that it's a good idea to do so or that it won't hurt DDO in the long run. I don't think anyone has left for SPAM, but I'm sure we'd loose a few new players from a more restricted trial.

Clearer now?


And also again please change /ignore so it works by account rather than by character...

That'd be nice.:)

[Ghoste]

I agree with some kind of limit on trial accounts being able to send tells.

[Quanefel]

This is actually a true story and my boy Exsivia who is the co-founder of "Spam Hunter" also (see previous post) had this happen. He actually had one of spammers send him her email address, etc and wanted to actually stay in contact with him. Apparently from what she has told him, that plat spamming is a job that she doesnt even get paid for. It's basically for the job experience, and to better learn the english language. She wanted to stay in contact with him via emails/IMs to learn more of the language outside of the stuff they do on our game.

Basically what I'm saying is if you believe you can simply fix this problem you cannot, these people aren't even getting paid to work for these companies.

Of course this is really funny now making fun of him and his plat farming "girlfriend" :)

so ask yourself, have you hit on a plat farmer today?

I do not know where you are getting your information but plat farmers do in fact get payed for their "job". You are also greatly incorrect in suggesting that this problem can not be fixed, DDO has already partially fixed it from the spam mails. They just need to take it a step further. Further more, this "Spam Hunter" game you talk about amounts to harrassment. Unless you are 100% sure they are plat spammers, you might want to reconsider your actions.

[Quanefel]

Three?? You're kidding me?!

It takes three player who wants to have fun with a trial account and, boom!! Locked tells.

If for the fact that all spam harassment reports are sent to the GM with exactly the typed message sent to the player turning in the spam harassment report, the scene you are painting might seem believable. When any of us right clicks a name from a spammer, its all recorded for a GM's eyes.

Also, from reading all your other posts in here it is obvious you personally will shoot down any and all ideas we players come here to suggest. No matter how reasonable or good the idea may be. In fact, I notice your first post in here is saying we players should not even be having a discussion at all about plat spams and how to fix it. That this does more harm than good....why? Turbine made this thread and asked us all to come here to discuss this topic, you do not wish us to discuss it regardless. I think we will stick with Turbines wish on this one, thanks.

Since you seem so adamantly opposed to any discussion on plat spams, please explain to us why if you could. Even when a large number of the player base is against being harassed by plat spams, you think we should not have ANY discussion on how to curb that harassment. We are here coming up with constructive ideas here, you and a few others seem to only want to shoot them down. Please explain why so we know where you and others are coming from. If these reasons stem from social/economic/political reasons, please bare in mind this is a game and none of those have anything to do with the problem of plat spamming in the game. I would like to think us players would be on the same page here, work together and come up ideas that might be effective.

[Talish]

i dont think the farmers are able to use mass tells. frequently in parties people get the tells in a sequence, not all at once. i.e. aredwarrior gets a tell, then 3 minutes later theredwarrior gets a tell, with mightyredwarrior getting one somewhere inbetween.



Actually my husband and I play in the same room and more than once we have received tells from plat spammers at the exact same time from the same person. Our player names are not close together alphabetically. Mine starts with a A his with a T

Also I have only once since head start received a tell on my higher level while questing from a new player.

Requests for help seem to come when I am visable and in the harbor. Perhaps making it so trial accounts cannot send tells to higher level players but must stay with a few levels, say 1-3. That would allow upper level characters to play without being harassed, still allow new players to get help, find groups etc and severely limit who the plat spammers can send to on a trial account.

Also any experienced player would be beyond level 3 in a very short time so would not have to worry so much about plat spam.

[drachine]

so is it true that [eaten by cube] and Turbine are owned by the same parent company?

[Sambvca]

In the chat window, where the Ignore/ Invite /Report dropdown is, add a PVP button. You and the person who sent you the tell would be transported to a 20X20 room. Add in you can't /tell when dead. This would allow us to fight spam & blind invites.

[RazorrX]

My solution would be to simply set it so that you can only receive tells from those people in your friends list. There needs to be a new channel that is able to be turned off for sending messages to people lfm (sort of a LFMTELL channel). That would take care of all of the plat farmer tells, without penalizing new players on a trail account.

IF a guildie wants to send you a tell and he/she is not in your friends list they can yell on guild channel for you to temp add them, etc. Same as when you group with a party. Or add more channels for Guild Tell and Party Tell.

[Targonis]

The terms and conditions(which every player must agree to) could include things like "There will be a $1000 charge for any advertising of services for each incident, meaning that if a spammer sends 5 tells, that becomes a $5000 charge." It would be easy enough to broadcast this to the credit card companies as a legit charge as well, so spammers can not avoid it. It would also be upheld in the legal system since it would be stated clearly.

There is a very valid reason why exchange of in-game money and items would be considered against the rules as well. Since item availability is a random thing, it could be seen as a form of gambling. Think about it, if it were real money, you pay your monthly subscription for a random chance at reward. If it is for entertainment only, then it is acceptable, but the moment there is a payout of real money, it falls under the laws of such behavior. No MMO developer wants to get involved with the laws that govern casinos and such.

So, considering the spammers are in violation of the terms and conditions, they could be charged a lot of money in addition to being banned from the game. There could be legal action taken against these companies as well, including having their domain name revoked.

Other things that could be done would be to have an in-game filter applied, so that the spammers could not even list the URL. The IP block that the spammers are connecting from can and probably has been identified, so it also becomes an issue where the ISP of the offending person could turn these people off.

Most ISPs do NOT allow spammers on their networks, so Turbine has a legit gripe that they could take to the ISPs to turn spammers off. If the spammers are using different providers, then it just means contacting different ISPs to have these people turned off. E-mail SPAM is something that most governments try to stop, or at least regulate. In-game SPAM would probably fall under the same laws, so why not try that approach.

One of the SPAM companies is based in the 310 area code, so they fall under the laws in the USA and California.

[Wizzly_Bear]

Actually my husband and I play in the same room and more than once we have received tells from plat spammers at the exact same time from the same person. Our player names are not close together alphabetically. Mine starts with a A his with a T
hmm...i had not seen this myself. interesting...

[lissa_981]

It is quite easy for me to answer 20+ tells from a single new player in a 10 minute time period.

New players are not idiots, many know how to use /tell since they come from other games. Do not assume they do not know how to use it. It is the MAIN method of communication used when they are seeking help as many people do not want to be made fun of or embarrassed because they are perceived as asking a stupid question. I have seen veteran players pick on and tease new players in general chat.

Do not restrict general chat. It is the secondary method used by new players in order to ask questions.

Sure say you don't care about new players and trial accounts. Watch the game die wihtout new blood. Imagine trying a new game that is hostile. Where there is no way to ask a question or even if you could ask a question no one will listen to you because their tells are turned off. As was stated earlier eventually almost all players will turn off tells from trial accounts after receiving a few plat tells until a new player is left with nothing but a ghost town.

Trial accounts are important to the health of this game whether veteran players wish to admit it or not. Many people want to try a game before they purchase it. I know I do. I'd say out of every 10 players I answer questions for at least 4 or them are still around a few weeks later. I help on average around 15 players per day. Many of them stay because of the friendly welcome, the ability to get help and to have their questions answered. Take away their methods of being able to do this and you loose potential players PERIOD. I would not stay in a seemingly hostile game like another frequently mentioned game which I could not stomach partly because of how unfriendly it was.

Do I know the solution? No. But I spend several hours almost daily helping out new players many who are using trial accounts. Some of those accounts ARE being transferred to full accounts. These new players are helping to keep this game alive.

These are just what I have found to be true in over 2 years now of helping new players on an extremely regular basis. I wish I knew the answer. Somehow there has to be a way to achieve a balance between the ability to help/seek help on a new players part and a way to deter plat sellers.

Do I dislike the plat tells? YES... but I would dislike not being able to play this game even more.

If they added a checkbox to ignore /tells from trial accounts, guess what...you could leave it unchecked and nothing of what you do would change.

I don't really do much newbie helping. That's my choice, and I'm allowed to not help newbs if I don't want to....it's a strictly volunteer job. If they added this checkbox to ignore /tells from trial accounts, guess what....I would check it and nothing of my gameplay would change.

I would also be fine with refinements of the idea like exceptions to trial accounts on your friends list or in your guild or party or some sort of cooldown timer on /tells per timeunit.

As a paying customer, there is no reason for me to be FORCED to receive /tells from anyone that I don't want to get them from.

As trial account users, they should expect to not have full access to all features.

Adding this checkbox will not harm the influx of new blood to this game one iota, IMHO.

[FoxOne]

and wont do a thing about it.I mean it's only been about 500 threads on spammers and plat farmers,we really needed to re-re-re-repeat everything.Only been a hot topic for let's see... EVER?let's see if anything concrete will come out of this since the lag is soo bad i can't even play the game i pay for...well i can,i just get nothing done so it's useless.been looting the vale for a week now and getting tired of it.Forget about soloing with this lag,it's guaranteed death.And that is the only guarantee we have now.

[akla_thornfist]

tolero why are you asking us to solve your spam problems, tell your bosses at turbine to hire someone who can fix it. i got no less than 30 tells in the 3 hrs i was on last night couple this with the lag from hell and im about to take a break from the game untill this stuff is fixed.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

so is it true that ***BAY and Turbine are owned by the same parent company?

Actually according to that site I believe they own all of the MMOs out there....

[Starrloom]

I have often thought abt doing this but since it would be a grey area IU have not - Another way to hurt the farmers is to hit them where it hurts - and where it would hurt is if you managed to find and ban the acocunts where all the plat and items are stored - seems like there is a easy way to do this - send someone undercover - have them buy some plat - usually under $10 and then wam bam - ban the account that that person traded with - and if they are trying to use intermederies I am sure you could track the trades - do this a few times and they will be out of business quite quickly.

[Hambo]

I have a "temporary fix" for the tell issue. I removed "tells" from the recieved massage types in all of my chat tabs. I then created a new tab to only recieve tells called "tells".

As a result, since I am usually looking at another tab, the only tell notification I get is the annoying *DING*. At that point I can decide to see if it's a legit tell or otherwise, or wait until the beatdown is over, if in quest. I then report all tells recieved, when the selection is working.

One suggestion I'd make is to have all brand new characters set to "Anonymous" by default. I know spammers sit there on the dock because a newbie I rolled recently was looking right at the spammer's alt when I got his tell. Being "anonymous" by default would prohibit spammers from gathering alt names for their lists, and also makes sense from a roleplay standpoint... I for one don't know anyone's name until I've met them.

If you want your new alt to be inducted into your guild, you can make arrangements from an alt to do so. If you have a buddy to bring to the game you can make real life arrangements to get their alt recognized as well.

[Altarboy]

GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

/signed

[ENGRAV0]

I have a "temporary fix" for the tell issue. I removed "tells" from the recieved massage types in all of my chat tabs. I then created a new tab to only recieve tells called "tells".

As a result, since I am usually looking at another tab, the only tell notification I get is the annoying *DING*. At that point I can decide to see if it's a legit tell or otherwise, or wait until the beatdown is over, if in quest. I then report all tells recieved, when the selection is working.

One suggestion I'd make is to have all brand new characters set to "Anonymous" by default. I know spammers sit there on the dock because a newbie I rolled recently was looking right at the spammer's alt when I got his tell. Being "anonymous" by default would prohibit spammers from gathering alt names for their lists, and also makes sense from a roleplay standpoint... I for one don't know anyone's name until I've met them.

If you want your new alt to be inducted into your guild, you can make arrangements from an alt to do so. If you have a buddy to bring to the game you can make real life arrangements to get their alt recognized as well.

I tried this, main issue I have is I RAID a LOT, and get MANY invites, through preset tells first. Not only that, but as I am an Officer, many people send me /Tells when they want their new toon brought into the guild. I (Used to) spend a LOT of time online, which (Was) a current luxury (spelling) that wont always be there. Also, I am cross guilded, and get /Tells a lot from the other guild I am in when not on the characters that are in the other guild. If I did this, I would find myself constantly (and I do mean constantly) switching between two windows all the time.

[FluffyDucky]

I would like to see client side filter to block tells/email/chat and everything else
that contains 'prohibited' text. Allow each user to maintain a list of 'prohibited'
words/phrases and automatically delete any message/tell/chat/email that contains
the prohibited word/phrase.

This filter would never be 100% effective however it will reduce the number of
unwanted messages. More important it will allow users to feel they have some
control over spam. I believe you will see a major drop in spam complaints if
you just give users a way to individually fight spam.

As a bonus spammers will have no way to determine that their messages are being
blocked. A system wide filter would quickly be noticed and the message changed
to get around the filter but a client side filter would be undetectable to the spammers.
Since they don't know the messages are being blocked they are less likely to alter
the text of the messages to get around the filter.

A second bonus is by running the filter on the client you avoid burdening the server
with the extra work of filtering messages.

Pro's
- Reduce (if not eliminate) spam.
- Give users the feeling of control (even if it isn't effective it will make users feel better.)
- Spammers don't know they are being filtered so filter list effective longer.
- Reduced server load compared to server side filtering.

Con's
- Each person must maintain their own list.
- Possibility of unintentionally filtering out a 'good' message.
- Not 100% effective (but then nothing is.)

[DragonKiller]

GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

Remember the KISS methodology. Keep It Simple Stupid... If you follow that methodology you will solve 99.9% of the problems 99.9% of the time (Yes, I just made up those stats, because I can).

This option right here is the German Engineered version of KISS! It's almost PERFECT! With the caveat that if they are in your guild or in your friends list this restriction doesn't apply.

[Fartzalot]

This can be achieved in two ways.

1) Create a squelch list that is updated from the servers on login have it include all names reported and verified by a DM. Second squelch idea for ones we make ourselves is to allow export and import like friends list.

2) Open a vendor that accepts payment for plat this will allow plat buyers to buy the plat, will cut off plat farmers sales and will drive them out of stormreach. Extra income for DDO equals lower subs for the players.

[Andora]

No to number 2. http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=247 I for one do not want to start paying real life money on taxes to play a game. Number 2 would take it one step closer for the powers that be to say YES to taxing us. Better to be annoyed then be broke.

[Whargoul]

...but would prefer a different approach.

For example, I would prefer to see a /spam feature (similar to /squelch) be implemented as a client/side string search feature. After invoking the command, your chat window would ignore any post that contained "www.mmo4game.com" (or better still "mmo4game"). The /spam command can be used with any of your characters, and it's effects should apply to your account (all current and future characters).

This would be useful for two reasons. First, plat farmers NEED to have their websites advertised in the spam messages, and they cannot change their website addresses constantly. Second, the number of farming sites soliciting ddo clients is finite, and it would be easier to manage than /squelching a new name every 5 minutes.

That's it.

Turbine should be able to do a lot more behind the scenes. Spammers could be identified using in-game statistics. Turbine could gather data on trial and paid accounts to see how many characters are built or destroyed per hour, or how many /tells are sent per minute, etc. There should always be ways for Turbine to stop the spam before it starts (or soon after it does). The process should be automated so that devs can allocate their time to bigger and better things.

-Whargoul

[Guaire]

MY SOLUTION:

A "semi anon" facility. Check this box in your options and you enable:

1- You will only recieve /tell messages from people in your guild, in your current party or in your friends list. All other /tells are automatically ignored.

2- You can recieve /tells from anyone tagged "leader of a party" provided you are LFG.

Uncheck the box, you can recieve /tells from anybody. Completely eliminates spam when turned on without hampering /tell functionality too much.

Works for me.

The farmers are getting both bold and lazy. sfdsdf must have gotten tired of /tell tonight because after hitting me 3 times with spam via tell the knucklehead starting spamming general chat with his flaming website. We need the spam reporting fixed. General chat?!? Bold and stupid.

[Kistilan]

Kargon favorimite suggestimion so far are to make all plat spammer webmasite names show up as @$@#%. sounds very easy to add them to filter, and while plat farmermers can still send tells, the tells not going bring them as much new businamess. Kargon not claim credit for this idea, but forget who post it. Kargon also too lazy to check if already mentimion in this thread, maybe kargon go eat some tasty ham cheer up...

Or or or.... instead of @#@#%, replace any www.yourplatfarmnamehere.com (http://www.yourplatfarmnamehere.com) with the phrase "a tasty ham establishment."

So a tell from Plat Farmer A would be "Hey we have .73/1kplat for you at "a tasty ham establishment."

It will be immersive AND entertaining!

[Rambin]

Here are some more effective and more doable way to eliminate plat sellers.

Method 1
Require a credit card when creating trial accounts for ID verification
When an account is Verified by a DM to be guilty of plat selling, close the account and ban the credit card number from being able to set up another account.

Method 2
When a player logs into an account have the account server keep track of the IP address of the user of that account.
When an account is Verified by a DM to be guilty of plat selling, close the account and ban the IP address.

[Borror0]

Or or or.... instead of @#@#%, replace any www.yourplatfarmnamehere.com (http://www.yourplatfarmnamehere.com) with the phrase "a tasty ham establishment."

I say a like to the wiki (http://ddo.enterwiki.net).:D

[Accelerando]

For all of those out there sick of the spam, well here is one idea to fight back.

1. Any time you get a plat spam, write down the website.

2. When you log off, visit said website, and write down all those contact e-mail addresses. Now you have this businesses line to the outside world.

3. Visit a website such as this: http://www.toastedspam.com/freespamlist

4. Sign up the plat spammers for all of these wonderful offers.

5. Enjoy the lulz.

On a side note, can't Turbine find 5 highschool kids or college students to sit in the newbie area and wait for these trial account logins with the
name asrefosiaf and immediately ban them? Maybe then I could game in peace.

[Quanefel]

Great idea and great website. I'd avoid the idea about the randomly named toons though, most are changing tactics and using partial normalish names. But still an idea with merit.

[MerlinSylver]

I'm not a high school kid OR a college student. I'm in my 30's, and have a wife and pets. I would still perform this duty, for a nominal fee.

[Quanefel]

Works for me.

The farmers are getting both bold and lazy. sfdsdf must have gotten tired of /tell tonight because after hitting me 3 times with spam via tell the knucklehead starting spamming general chat with his flaming website. We need the spam reporting fixed. General chat?!? Bold and stupid.

Hmmm in general chat you say? See, that might be the route they will take if /tells are fixed. Good job for pointing that out, something the Dev's need to bare in mind when they do get around to fixing the /tell spams. Much like the mailbox fix, it will funnel the problem two fold somewhere else. So a good idea for Turbine is to cut them off at the pass and prevent them from seeking other means to spam all at once. So they fix trial accounts to some degree AND at the same time make it difficult for them to spam general chat as well. Also keep in mind, any idea that only payed accounts should have some checkbox or feature to prevent trail accounts from sending out /tells needs to be added that it would push all those unwanted spam tells into real player trail accounts. We who have been around a long time know better than to buy or listen to spam for plat, trial account users would be more of an easy target since they do not know all the rules yet. So, a way must be found to keep real trial account users from having to take the brunt of these spam tells if they are fixed. Just something to consider here.

[Wizzly_Bear]

Hmmm in general chat you say? See, that might be the route they will take if /tells are fixed. Good job for pointing that out, something the Dev's need to bare in mind when they do get around to fixing the /tell spams. Much like the mailbox fix, it will funnel the problem two fold somewhere else.
does any1 even ever have general chat window open? i never do, except for checking quest timers and completions

[SlipperyPete]

To counter this action they would start using names that didn't sound like plat farmer names thus tying up an already depleted pool of names for new and legitimate characters.

Even if I needed plat badly enough where I considered buying it I'm so disgusted by these cockroaches at this point I wouldn't give them my business no matter how desperate.

BTW - 21 tells in 3 hours yesterday. PLEASE DO SOMETHING TURBINE!!!

[ThrasherGT]

Here are some more effective and more doable way to eliminate plat sellers.

Method 1
Require a credit card when creating trial accounts for ID verification
When an account is Verified by a DM to be guilty of plat selling, close the account and ban the credit card number from being able to set up another account.

Method 2
When a player logs into an account have the account server keep track of the IP address of the user of that account.
When an account is Verified by a DM to be guilty of plat selling, close the account and ban the IP address.

Method 1 is virtually impossible with the advent of Visa cash cards, which could be used to create an account, then when that number gets banned, replaced with another cash card.

Method 2 is difficult (if not impossible) because of non-static ip addresses.........

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Require a credit card when creating trial accounts for ID verification

Not everyone pays by credit card or even has one.

Prehaps more importantly you can get a "1 use" credit card number without too much difficulty so it would solve nothing.


When a player logs into an account have the account server keep track of the IP address of the user of that account.
When an account is Verified by a DM to be guilty of plat selling, close the account and ban the IP address.

People keep bringing this one up, it doesn't work, at all. Most people do not have a 1:1 relationship with an IP number. The IP number I have today may be reassigned at any time (and in some cases at my request) to anyone else in the city on the same ISP as me. What's more, if the ISP I use NATs my address then what you think is my IP address is actually the IP address for everyone on the same router as me (ie ban me, take out everyone in part of my city).

Also if I know you are doing this I'll just go to one of the hundreds of free proxie servers and I won't even look like I'm in the same part of the world I'm in. You think you are banning a plat farmer in Idaho, meanwhile I'm really in India and now on to using an Irish proxie server and happily getting in. Of course some people using the Idaho proxie server for legit purposes now have a problem playing.

[Wire_Paladin]

Actually to eliminate the tells from spammers the best thing to do would be to give our toons the capabilty to only accept tells from players of a certain level or higher. How many times does a lvl 16 toon get a tell from a lvl 1 player unless its a spammer.

[Rambin]

Method 1 is virtually impossible with the advent of Visa cash cards, which could be used to create an account, then when that number gets banned, replaced with another cash card.

Method 2 is difficult (if not impossible) because of non-static ip addresses.........

The visa cash card might be a work around on that if they are accepted. The visa cash cards are not accepted by a lot of online payment services (I know this for a fact because I have worked for different online services that did not accept them.) In my opinion they should not be accepted for setting up accounts because the whole point of requireing them was for Identification purposes. After an account is set up with a credit card for ID purposes they can allow payments to be made with visa cash cards at that time. This would just make it to where Visa cash cards cannot be used to set up a new account.

Summary of what is said above:
Must have a credit card for identification when creating an account, then will have the ability to choose payment option after that.
Can either choose to pay with the credit card used for identification, or choose other payment methods to include Visa Cash Card, DDO Game Time Card, or possibly even E-Checks or Paypal

[Rambin]

Actually to eliminate the tells from spammers the best thing to do would be to give our toons the capabilty to only accept tells from players of a certain level or higher. How many times does a lvl 16 toon get a tell from a lvl 1 player unless its a spammer.

I send and recieve tells from level 1 characters alot. There are some people out there that try to help new players to the game and if we eliminate level 1 players from being able to send tells it would nearly kill the games ability to keep new players.

Also, when we create new characters in our guild we send a tell to an officer from our guild to get our new characters invited to the guild. This would make it more of a pain to get our new characters into the guild.

[Quanefel]

does any1 even ever have general chat window open? i never do, except for checking quest timers and completions

Newer players and trial account user would, if the /tells were fixed those people would only be hit harder than us in the general chat. That is why I am suggesting if they do fix the /tells, they also be careful and make sure the general chat is not the new target of plat spammers.

[fatherpirate]

As strange as this sounds...I found a cure.

I turned off 'receive tell' and told my friends, if ya need me, ask in guild chat.

this has improved my gaming experience

[Wizzly_Bear]

Newer players and trial account user would, if the /tells were fixed those people would only be hit harder than us in the general chat. That is why I am suggesting if they do fix the /tells, they also be careful and make sure the general chat is not the new target of plat spammers.
i suppose that could become a concern. prob would be wise to nip it in the bud before it happens. right now though, i just want the tells gone. even if i create a brand new character and immediately turn on annon, i still get the tells.

[Ildaron]

My thoughts on battling the plat spam is two fold.

Ban some of the plat buyers. Post saying you banned some plat buyers. Sellers will always be there as long as there are people willing to purchase plat. We can fight the good fight and reduce their pressence, however they exist because they can make money. It is my belief, but I do not believe any of the plat buyers wants to loose their accounts. When the threat of their accounts being banned for buying plat is real (hence posting showing that cheating players are being banned) I believe the same will occur (ditto for exploiters).

The second part I believe requires help from both Turbine and the legitimate playerbase. Hire at least on GM on during all game times who handles nothing except spam reports. This way the moment a plat farmer starts sending tells the report is sent in and a GM can ban them on the spot 24/7. This will cut down on the plat sellers sending spam after a few months simply because they won't be able to do so for very long.

Now how do we get players to always report the plat sellers? Because to be honnest it is not our jobs to report them. (I filled out the spam report even before we could right click and report the spam easilly and still do so now.) For other players who do not wish to make it their problem (and people like me who want to battle it) reward us. For every confirmed Plat Farmer report sent in give us (and I'm going to steal the game posted here) Plat Farmer Head Hunter points. After you get so many you can redeem it for a prize. GOOD prizes at that. Not like the collectable, things people will use. Perhaps 25 Giant Hold relics of your choice, Ingredients for the Shroud, A potency item, elemental item. A NICE trinket!

This will give an incentive for players to report the spammers and with the 1 or more GMs at all times just waiting to investigate those Plat Spammer reports (just plat spammers nothing else) plat farmers will be shut down. Now if the items given to players are worthless the majorty of the players will not report. If the GMs are not on 24/7 the problem will just be diverted to when GMs are not on. If the player rewards are not high enough players won't help Turbine in battling the spammers.

Just my 2cp!

[MerlinSylver]

How about creating a moderator PC near the end of the alphabet spectrums, to wait for incoming plat farmer tells. I assume the farmers use some sort of list to send tells to. Assuming that the list is alphabetical, you could have a character named Aaba, and another named Zyzz. As soon as one of them receives an illicit message from a plat farmer: BAM, insta-ban. Of course, that's assuming there is such a list, and that it is alphabetical.

I've seen, once or twice, it mentioned that Turbine has some way of monitoring in-game chatter. If this is so, then perhaps simply saying the name in general chat with more than a couple of witnesses to back it up, would also be a way of getting them to investigate. The report button sure doesn't do anything.

[The10man]

There will NEVER be an end to plat farmers as long as it is a lucrative business. Turbine doesn't really want to get rid of them or the code could easily be wrote or they could require a credit card or they could report them to their ISP's for illegal activities. They can get this by reading the spam getting the addresses provided logging on and researching the IP not hard at all trust me. Turbine understands that there are players who want it all and won't play if they can't have it. Dispute that point? Why then does every FPS come with a "god mode"?

So until they stop being used they will be around annoying those of us that don't use their services.

[bnrilfun]

First, require a Credit Card check for trial accounts. If the account is not based in the US and they are signing up for a US server then require further authentication.

Second, trial accounts have no needs to send messages to non trial accounts. First if you have a buddy trying out the game 7 days is not enough time to get the job done, but if it is, you can still allow perm accounts to send mails and they can invite to group this temp account people/

Third, if you implement these two then as spammers start using a CC to create a real account I expect this to happen to them each time they start to send tells. They immediately get summoned to an arena in which all players who are bored can go and watch as a Giant Hand of Bigsby comes swooping in slapping the **** out of them.

Fourth, since they are now using RL CC's for regular or temp accounts add a $5000 fine per spam message sent and auto deduct it from thier credit card. This way DDO gets more money to use for development and we get to watch spammers pay for it.

Fifth Turbine should create some dummy accounts that are online that look like regular players that even show up as different levels in different zones so when they get a tell they will have the immediate proof needed and recorded for final documentation.

[Wire_Paladin]

I send and recieve tells from level 1 characters alot. There are some people out there that try to help new players to the game and if we eliminate level 1 players from being able to send tells it would nearly kill the games ability to keep new players.

I'm not saying make it mandatory, I'm saying give us the option for us to choose what level of players a specific toon wants to receive tells from. If you want your toon to to receive tells from a level 1 toon feel free to do so. A lot of us don't. Give us the option of choosing.




Also, when we create new characters in our guild we send a tell to an officer from our guild to get our new characters invited to the guild. This would make it more of a pain to get our new characters into the guild.
So it difficult to log in a toon that is in the guild, see which leader is online, ask them to invite your new toon, get confirmation that they will, and then log in as the new toon for the invite.

As opposed to sending a tell to a member to see if a officer is online, let him look to find an officer, have the member send you a tell indicating who the officer is and then you send an officer a tell to invite you.

Oh... well.

[Yvonne_Blacksword]

OOOOOHHHH!


Any trial account attempting to sent more than 3 /Tells in an hour will have copy sent to customer service...
Any trial account sending a /Tell with over 40 characters immediately gets a copy forwarded to customer service.
Any trial account sending 10 /Tells in less than an hour gets a warning that they are suspected of spamming..."You have ransacked the /Tell chat server."
Any trial account that sends 20 /Tells in an hour gets a 6 hour ban.There would be no need to report them if they reported themselves.
If there was a better monitoring system installed there would be less disgruntled paying legitimate non Plat Selling Customers.

There have been times, Random Newbie 101 lessons where I have had to send 10 /tells and recieve replies in order to help them understand how to switch to party chat. Or adjust settings... Or give other help...like how do I get out of the stinking Wavecrest and into the game...lol.

Most of these were due to player spamming general chat with questions. Or just asking a question that is within my scope to explain.
Sometimes it is due to chat server issues...the person loses connection to the chat server and voice chat and must communicate by sending /tells to one nice responsive understanding person.
Luckily... Most do not mistake me for one too often...lol.

[Wxob]

"lol...seriously though, it would be a HUGE benefit to all of us that we have a checkbox that would could check that would disallow ANY /tell from trial accounts. Anyone who would be wanted to try the game, would not be joining a guild until they are on a payment plan. Any trial accounts should not be allowed in any guild. I'd like to see some specific discussions as to why this or that would / wouldn't work as far as these types of restrictions. Also, I'd like the ability to remove my name from users logged in (the who panel)."

Best idea I heard yet!

[Ganadai]

I tried your way. Here is how the live chat went...

Them: hello
Me: Hi, can I have my character names removed from your list so I don't receive spam from you in game?
Them: hello
Me: Hello?
Me: Can I have my character names removed from your list so I don't receive spam from you in game?
Them: we will not cheat you
Me: what? That has nothing to do with what I asked.
Them: can I have your order no?
Me: You're not to bright are you?
Them: no sorry

I tried a different one and got somewhat better response...

ME:
http://messenger1.providesupport.com/static/root/images/spacer.gifCan I have you remove my characters names from your spam list on Dungeons & Dragons Online?
http://messenger.providesupport.com/static/root/images/module/room/message/dash.gifhttp://messenger.providesupport.com/static/root/images/module/room/message/info.gif
Welcome ****! Your request has been directed to the Customer Service department. Please wait for our operator to answer your call.http://messenger.providesupport.com/static/root/images/module/room/message/dash.gif
http://messenger.providesupport.com/static/root/images/module/room/message/dash.gifhttp://messenger.providesupport.com/static/root/images/module/room/message/info.gif
Call accepted by operator Customer Service. Currently in room: Customer Service.http://messenger.providesupport.com/static/root/images/module/room/message/dash.gif
Customer Service:
http://messenger1.providesupport.com/static/root/images/spacer.gifchar name plz
ME:
http://messenger1.providesupport.com/static/root/images/spacer.gif
[Name 1]
ME:
http://messenger1.providesupport.com/static/root/images/spacer.gif[Name 2]
ME:
http://messenger1.providesupport.com/static/root/images/spacer.gif[Name 3]
Customer Service:
http://messenger1.providesupport.com/static/root/images/spacer.gifsorry sir we will remove ur char name from our spam list asap
Customer Service:
http://messenger1.providesupport.com/static/root/images/spacer.gifsorry for all the inconvenience caused
ME:
http://messenger1.providesupport.com/static/root/images/spacer.gifthank you
http://messenger.providesupport.com/static/root/images/module/room/message/dash.gifhttp://messenger.providesupport.com/static/root/images/module/room/message/info.gif
Customer Service has left the conversation. Currently in room: Customer Service.

Now to wait and see if I really stop getting spam from them.

[Vesuvia]

I do not know where you are getting your information but plat farmers do in fact get payed for their "job". You are also greatly incorrect in suggesting that this problem can not be fixed, DDO has already partially fixed it from the spam mails. They just need to take it a step further. Further more, this "Spam Hunter" game you talk about amounts to harrassment. Unless you are 100&#37; sure they are plat spammers, you might want to reconsider your actions.

Like I said, the information gained was from a SPAMMER ( ps. they are people and at times will do more then copy paste text) , so no they all do not get paid for their "job". There are places that hire students overseas to do jobs like this without pay but they gain work experience using english.

I didn't say it can't be fixed, just not simply.

AND, it's pretty easy to tell someone's a spammer when they spam you.

Use your head.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

First, require a Credit Card check for trial accounts. If the account is not based in the US and they are signing up for a US server then require further authentication.

That's pretty ignorant. Any clue how many Canadians, Auzis and other non americans plan on these servers? Besides, its not like they couldn't pay someone a couple bucks to pick up 100 prepaid US visa cards for them.


Second, trial accounts have no needs to send messages to non trial accounts.

Simply not true. New players need help.


Fourth, since they are now using RL CC's for regular or temp accounts add a $5000 fine per spam message sent and auto deduct it from thier credit card. This way DDO gets more money to use for development and we get to watch spammers pay for it.

Which would of course be a violation of Turbine's credit card merchant agreement, would get them banned as a merchant, and possibly charged criminally.


Fifth Turbine should create some dummy accounts that are online that look like regular players that even show up as different levels in different zones so when they get a tell they will have the immediate proof needed and recorded for final documentation.

They don't need dummy players. They have these things called logs that tell them what happened, which is why they want farmers reports, so they can check the logs.

[Accelerando]

Consolidated threads are boring.

[Wizzly_Bear]

id just like to say that this new system of spamming is much more annoying than the old one. i never really cared that i got spam mail. it wasnt a concern to me as it didnt interrupt anything i was doing. these tells are reallyreally **** annoying though, and im nearly to the point of taking a break from the game because of them (not quitting, but an extended leave until the issue gets resolved). please fix this.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

The visa cash card might be a work around on that if they are accepted. The visa cash cards are not accepted by a lot of online payment services

You should be aware that the "cash card" concept is not a universal one outside of the US. All visa cards are visa cards in some other areas and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference at the autorization level between a prepaid card and a non prepaid card.

By the way, for my corp credit card I can order as many cards as I want for employees and each has their own number. With a similarily friendly bank it wouldn't be that big a deal to keep getting new numbers every time one gets banned.


Must have a credit card for identification when creating an account, then will have the ability to choose payment option after that.

Not everyone has a credit card or is comfortable giving them out for "identification". Personally I'd never give out a card online if I didn't trust the merchant enough to charge my monthly fee to it.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

or they could report them to their ISP's for illegal activities. They can get this by reading the spam getting the addresses provided logging on and researching the IP not hard at all trust me.

For the ISP to care they would have to be breaking a local law. What law is being broken? This does not for example meet the definition of theft or fraud. What exactly would the chineese ISP be acting on? "These guys are annoying and they broke a civil contract in the US"?

[query]

I found the lag much more anoying. Even when I got my ISP connection back again (another story another time) I stayed away from DDO the lag was so bad. Having me alive one minute and dead with 50 enemies around you the next while frozen in the interim is not my idea of fun for a L 5 character.


So far, the majority wants an option to stop trial accounts from sending tells to them (unless on their friends' list.) Why not do that? I've heard every other excuse for x will dooooooooooooom the game. Why not do this and show it won't either? As stated, those who choose to help the lowbies with any level character in the harbor will simply uncheck that box. What's a few tells then when you're doing good deeds for others?


And giving stuff away to low levels doesn't require me to use tell for anything.

That's my take on it.
Others have a right to agree or disagree with it, but it's still my opinion none the less.
Civil responses are appreciated so we won't have an exploit thread outcome please.

[Hakushi]

I think I may have an idea. Instead of removing the ability to send tells for trial accounts, why not removing the ability to copy and paste in the chat windows for these accounts. All their messages are a copy and paste and if they cannot paste their message, maybe it could help with the present problem. I don't think they will type their entire message to the whole list every time.

[ENGRAV0]

I think I may have an idea. Instead of removing the ability to send tells for trial accounts, why not removing the ability to copy and paste in the chat windows for these accounts. All their messages are a copy and paste and if they cannot paste their message, maybe it could help with the present problem. I don't think they will type their entire message to the whole list every time.

I admit, I find this idea to have some merit. And, not to disagree, especialy with liking this one, but I only see one problem, and it IS minor. Meaning, it would occur so rarely, and in general would not REQUIRE a copy/paste. The only problem is: If someone encountered an error and wanted to know what it meant and how to get rid of it. Again, this is EXTREMELY rare, and would be even more rare amongst the Trial accounts.

Please forgive me for saying that, but if I did not, then someone else would come along and make it rather snidish in their remarks. Hopefully, the way I represented the only I see with it will prevent that.

The next question would be: Is it possible for Turbine to change the format without a massive reprograming of the text windows. I can copy / paste things from outside the game, and I have no idea if they could do that without spending a massive amount of time which would be better suited to trying to solve their lag issues and AI deficiencies.

[Quanefel]

I think I may have an idea. Instead of removing the ability to send tells for trial accounts, why not removing the ability to copy and paste in the chat windows for these accounts. All their messages are a copy and paste and if they cannot paste their message, maybe it could help with the present problem. I don't think they will type their entire message to the whole list every time.

I actually like this idea. It does not seem to hard to make happen nor would it put off people who want to use trial accounts. Since spammers use trial accounts for this and do in fact copy/paste it would really only effect those spammers. Now, since they are also using third-party programs to mass spam I am wondering if this will even change that aspect of it. I am not a programmer and have no clue about computer programs much so I can not pretend I know if this is possible. Your idea is still valid and maybe worth a look into more.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I actually like this idea. It does not seem to hard to make happen nor would it put off people who want to use trial accounts. Since spammers use trial accounts for this and do in fact copy/paste it would really only effect those spammers. Now, since they are also using third-party programs to mass spam I am wondering if this will even change that aspect of it. I am not a programmer and have no clue about computer programs much so I can not pretend I know if this is possible. Your idea is still valid and maybe worth a look into more.

If they are using the paste feature it will definately help.

If they are using a macro that simulates keyboard imput it won't help.

Hard to know either way how the spammers operate. The speed makes me think bot, but the fact they hit you more than once says sloppy tells by hand.

[Quanefel]

If they are using the paste feature it will definately help.

If they are using a macro that simulates keyboard imput it won't help.

Hard to know either way how the spammers operate. The speed makes me think bot, but the fact they hit you more than once says sloppy tells by hand.

True it is hard to know either way but bare this in mind. There are many plat farming companies out there, they may or may not have to same business plans. They may or may not go about their own business the same way. It is reasonable to assume that each one has their own tools, tricks, hack, exploits, etc that their rival might not have. So one company might use a person to type out each tell, another might use a macro type program. We will never really know on a case by case basis but....in us understanding that aspect DDO can fight all their means instead of focusing only on one means of the spamming.

Look at the mailbox issue that was fixed. A great job but it was not done with foresight. Common sense tells you if they have one means blocked, they will push that means into another area. If DDO plans and thinks ahead of them, hitting them with a 1-2 punch, it might actually cause the plat farmers to take a step back. It will never push them 100% out of the game but might...might make them think this game is not worth all the effort they have put into it. People will still buy items/plat but...the swarm of plat tells would not be so overwelming to the rest of us.

[geoffhanna]

After several days of thought I retract my idea to restrict starting conversations via TELL. Yes I think it would help with the current issue of random TELLS from trial accounts, but I do not believe it will solve any problems.

We cannot restrict new accounts, we need new players!
Plat farmers use these tactics because they work.
Plat farmers exist only because someone is buying their wares.

The conclusion: it is pointless to try and legislate platfarmers out of existance. It's an endless game of whack-a-mole. As long as there remains demand then there will also be supply.

So let's funnel their efforts into places where those who want their services can see them but the rest of us do not have to deal with it. And require them to have paying accounts to do their business.

[sirgog]

I think I may have an idea. Instead of removing the ability to send tells for trial accounts, why not removing the ability to copy and paste in the chat windows for these accounts. All their messages are a copy and paste and if they cannot paste their message, maybe it could help with the present problem. I don't think they will type their entire message to the whole list every time.

Please no.

I'd rather deal with the spam than to be unable to repeatedly, efficiently, use the /tell function for the main reason it is in-game - to aid in filling a group.

Need two arcane casters to fill a PUG? Copy and paste from /tell Caster1 want to run Devils norm? Usually takes 10-20 /tells to fill the group.

It would drive me crazy - in a way that a minor spam problem never will - to have to type that every single time.


Better solution is to add an option that stops you recieving tells from level 1 and 2 characters if you click a particular box. Let the spammers grind to level 3 EVERY time they want to make a new spambot.

[ENGRAV0]

If they are using the paste feature it will definately help.

If they are using a macro that simulates keyboard imput it won't help.

Hard to know either way how the spammers operate. The speed makes me think bot, but the fact they hit you more than once says sloppy tells by hand.

Just an observation here, when you invite them to the guild (for the fun of interupting their /Tell sends) and then kick them out, if it were a bot sending the /tells, you would always get either an approval or a declination to join your guild. I get various replies, sometimes the same person will accept 10 times ina row, then decline 2 times in a row, then log off. Sometimes they logg off after only 2 invites, thinking someone is onto them. A bot would not distinguish between these and change it's decision. I would gather, that unless they had one heck of an intelligent AI Bot, there is no way for it to be a bot. That, or Turbine perhaps should hire them to redo their AI. LoL!

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Just an observation here, when you invite them to the guild (for the fun of interupting their /Tell sends) and then kick them out, if it were a bot sending the /tells, you would always get either an approval or a declination to join your guild. I get various replies, sometimes the same person will accept 10 times ina row, then decline 2 times in a row, then log off. Sometimes they logg off after only 2 invites, thinking someone is onto them. A bot would not distinguish between these and change it's decision. I would gather, that unless they had one heck of an intelligent AI Bot, there is no way for it to be a bot. That, or Turbine perhaps should hire them to redo their AI. LoL!

Ah good point, I forgot how much the guild invite can be :) You're right, that means at least a good chunk of them are doing it the 'ol fashioned way. I guess paying 20 year olds in asia to ctrl-v is cheaper than paying them to write a bot :p

[Hakushi]

Please no.

I'd rather deal with the spam than to be unable to repeatedly, efficiently, use the /tell function for the main reason it is in-game - to aid in filling a group.

Need two arcane casters to fill a PUG? Copy and paste from /tell Caster1 want to run Devils norm? Usually takes 10-20 /tells to fill the group.

It would drive me crazy - in a way that a minor spam problem never will - to have to type that every single time.


Better solution is to add an option that stops you recieving tells from level 1 and 2 characters if you click a particular box. Let the spammers grind to level 3 EVERY time they want to make a new spambot.

Read again, I said only for trial accounts, not the paid subscribers. For us, it will remain unchanged, and most new players will never notice this change. Your idea seems valid, but more than once I recieved a tell from a lvl 1 or 2 player asking for help with his new rogue, but most of the times, these tells are coming from subscribers, not trial accounts, giving us an option to block all tells and/or mails from trial accounts or from any character lower than 4 on a trial account would be a good solution, but not from low lvl subscribers.

[Naso24]

My solution - if a trial account gets more than 15 squelches from tells to paid accounts, the account can send messages but they don't go anywhere. The plat sellers could be sending tells to nobody, wasting their time. Sure, they could check on another account to see if their message is getting through, but it would slow down the process. Also, it would force them to create a new account to get maybe 30 more tells out.

There is no reason a legitimate player should have 15 squelches directly from tells they send.

[tihocan]

Just popping in to say that the current harrassment reports just don't work well enough, I am getting tons of /tells from plat farmers.
We really need automatic spam detection/blocking for trial accounts who are sending too many tells during a short period of time.

[Laith]

I think I may have an idea. Instead of removing the ability to send tells for trial accounts, why not removing the ability to copy and paste in the chat windows for these accounts. All their messages are a copy and paste and if they cannot paste their message, maybe it could help with the present problem. I don't think they will type their entire message to the whole list every time.
scripts do not require copy/paste to function. they are completely capable of "typing" out a tell each time it is sent... infact, that's probably what's already done.

[Nash]

a good solution , however while your at it allow us to cut and paste chat into the help spamm reporting panel ...

or better yet! fix the error message when we report a text chat spammer...

this problem plagues Lotro but i'm surprized here with the lack of subscriptions you would think its hardly economically viable...

work on tracking and outting the buyers would help too....
;)

[ENGRAV0]

scripts do not require copy/paste to function. they are completely capable of "typing" out a tell each time it is sent... infact, that's probably what's already done.

They aren't running Scripts, try inviting one to a guild. A script wont distinguish between guild invite or a party invite, and wont change it decision from a yes one time, to a no the next. And hitting enter when you recieve one does nothing. These are clearly manual labor being put in by hand. A script would sit there for eternity trying to keep putting information through while the invite panel has popped up on it's screen, and not even realize it.

[Laith]

They aren't running Scripts, try inviting one to a guild. A script wont distinguish between guild invite or a party invite, and wont change it decision from a yes one time, to a no the next. And hitting enter when you recieve one does nothing. These are clearly manual labor being put in by hand. A script would sit there for eternity trying to keep putting information through while the invite panel has popped up on it's screen, and not even realize it.someone's gotta get these spammers in gear then... that's a model of inefficiency. :)

actually though, i've got a piece of scripting software that can determine the difference from such dialogs. a perk of being one of those lazy-washout comp sci majors.

[Invalid_86]

You guys are still ignoring the big elephant in the room.

Nothing will change as long as DDO keeps some key items in the game that don't appear in DnD and are thus adding to both balance problems and creating a farmer haven.

Twinking. We aren't binding non-consumable magic items like we should.

Consumable magic item venders still exist.

We have grind based raid crafting that makes overpowered gear, requiring rare unbound components.

Fix these and you fix the problem of farmers and bring a whole mess of balance back into the game. Or you can just dance around the elephant in the room.

[ENGRAV0]

I will dance then, since the only thing they would do is bind everything. make everyone weaker, then 4 mods into the future they will FINALLY bring down the AI HPs. Not very inticing to wait to see just how much of a smack in the face they give everyones characters by doing such actions, and how many would have to reroll, after all the work that has been put into these guys.

If I wanted to start fresh to make my characters match the current (or future rather) way the game would be made, I would just find some fresh market.

[paradox123]

Here in the Plane of Spammerwrath, we will discuss all things spammer related. From suggestions, discussion, or just general frustrations, let's bring all the spam talk together so that we aren't spamming the forums with.... spam. You need to remember only 3 things during your visit here in the Plane of Spammerwrath...


1. No naming names
If you're going to talk about the spammers, remove any reference to their names.
2. Do not provide any spam website URLs, site names, phone numbers, email addresses, or messenger information.
Don't do their advertising for them!
3. Forum guidelines still apply
Remember, the Cube is watching! Keep those discussions within the rules
4. Spam related discussions will be brought to the Plane of Spammerwrath
Let's keep the spam discussions in the related thread. Spam about spam is...well... spam.



lets look at the rules here
1. why would you name the name of a criminal the last time i testfied in court i told the judge i dont name names.
2. why would i provide the address of the criminal to the people who could or would do somthing about it. NO sir I will not tell you where the crook is even if you would get off your ass and do some thing about it
3. In other words george bush is running turbine we accept what we wanna hear and nothing else. Oh yeah the cube is watching. what is the cube watching his pay check that seems to be about it if you ask me
4. where is the plane of spammerwrath? There does not apear to be one unless you count the plane of free money. Oh yeah lets not forget that paying custmer have to obey rules while crooks can do as they please. spam that

[paradox123]

Method 1 is virtually impossible with the advent of Visa cash cards, which could be used to create an account, then when that number gets banned, replaced with another cash card.

Method 2 is difficult (if not impossible) because of non-static ip addresses.........

So your saying there is no way to track a ip addesses anymore? screw the telephone taps al-qaida just needs to use the internet right? its plain and simple either fix it or dont i dont have people spaming me for home loans or car loans why is that? besides the spam there are a bunch of other bugs in this game mico shaft doesnt even put out this kind of bugged up software. back to the point if you cant track a ip address anymore then then the us govermant should end all internet connection unless its tracable simple as that gw thinks your life depends on it

[ENGRAV0]

Hey Paradox, honestly, please, distinguish between the resources Turbine has, and the resources the government has.

As far as IP addresses go, each and every time a dial up is used, it has a different IP address. You can reroute your connection through various methods and change your IP address, it is not hard. If Turbine spent the money on those resources, we would never get another MOD, Patch, or hotfix, EVER!

[paradox123]

Hey Paradox, honestly, please, distinguish between the resources Turbine has, and the resources the government has.

As far as IP addresses go, each and every time a dial up is used, it has a different IP address. You can reroute your connection through various methods and change your IP address, it is not hard. If Turbine spent the money on those resources, we would never get another MOD, Patch, or hotfix, EVER!

lol turbine needs untold hotfixs at this point you tell me they cant track a ip? i can pretty simple are you a plat farmer or a turbine employee?

[paradox123]

lol turbine needs untold hotfixs at this point you tell me they cant track a ip? i can pretty simple are you a plat farmer or a turbine employee?

i didnt make the eula turbine did and it clearly removes them from any Responsibility 22 says that you may not use the game/or services for illegal activities turbine is not RESPONSIBLE for anything you TEXT or say. CLEARLY this puts doing anything about spams at there Discretion. SO much for fixing it good luck on your hot fixs

[Vance71975]

Great ideas all but i have one even better than Those!!!This one may get me flamed but it would get rid of the spammers FOR GOOD!

Turbine Should Put a Link up on the Forums to a Site that they themselves Create and SELL PLAT themselves. I don't personally buy Plat but the idea doesn't offend me,this would (A) Generate more income for Turbine which could translate into a Lower Monthly cost to play(B) If Turbine Sells the Plat at 1/4 of what the plat farmers Do they would put them out of business Which means no more SPAMMERS!(C) who cares if some rich guy buys plat online because he cant spent 8+hours per day playing, it doesn't effect me the AH prices are crazy as is not like they can get much worse.Just a thought.

[Vance71975]

Ok just a thought here, i know what im about to imply will anger some and that is not the purpose, but i feel the need to point out something. If NO ONE is actually buying plat then these Sites would not stick around long. Its all Back to High School Economics IF the Market to SELL wasn't there IE if no one EVER bought Plat then we wouldn't get Spammers because NO Demand = No reason for supply. Of Course no one on any of these forums will ever admit to buying plat(although SOMEONE IS OR THE SITES WOULDN'T BE THERE)And ya know I said it in a previous post If Turbine was Smart they would Simply sell the plat themselves and Put the Spammers out of Business!But then again i heard a RUMOR that ONE of the Plat sellers can be traced to the same company that Owns Turbine I DO NOT know if this is true or not. IT WAS A RUMOR! I mean really Whats the big Deal Turbine Sells plat= they make more money(cause the demand must be there) = Lower cost to play and more funds to better maintain the servers sounds and it shuts down plat spammers Sounds like a WIN WIN to me!

[geezee]

GIVE US THE OPTION TO NOT ACCEPT TELLS FROM TRIAL ACCOUNTS IN OUR USER CONTROL PANEL!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

/signed

[FoxOne]

I have canceled my account,not for this single problem with spammers but due to the general incompetence and inaction of turbine.See you in Age of Conan on may 20th folks.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

lol turbine needs untold hotfixs at this point you tell me they cant track a ip? i can pretty simple are you a plat farmer or a turbine employee?

You obviously didnt read or understand what engraver had to say...

Yes, tracking an IP is easy...and near meaningless. Most people do not have a fixed IP, it can and will be reassigned at will by your ISP. Sometimes you have it for a while, sometimes just for one connection. So if you ban IP 192.168.0.1 today because I did something bad on it, you can be pretty much guarenteed tomorrow that you are blocking some other poor sob and not me. My work connection for example assigns me a new IP if I've been offline for more than 3 hours. My home connection generally keeps the same IP as long as I log in every 24 hours but they can and do change it at will and I can change it anytime I want by request.

What's more if the ISP uses NATing (or if the user is in a building that is a NAT'd environment such a college dorm) that single IP may be shared by dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people. For dial up users in particular you could cut out an entire city of dial up users using the same ISP with one banned IP.

Plus if I know you are in an IP banning mood I can just use one of hundreds of free services on the net that let me mask my IP.

Now banning MACs is a bit better but a bit more complex, and since someone who knows what they are doing can change their MAC address, that isn't foolproof either.

As for your comment about the government being able to do it. Rest assured the US governement could not easily track someone who knew what they were doing. Route through half a anon secure proxie services around the world in different countries (russian ones are nice...good luck with that US search warrent) and tracking would be difficult indeed. Even for the novice, I can hide from Turbine, a private company without power of search warrent, much easier than I could hide from even a foreign government like the US persuing a valid warrent for something that is also a crime in my area.

[marcosoneghett]

You obviously didnt read or understand what engraver had to say...

Yes, tracking an IP is easy...and near meaningless. Most people do not have a fixed IP, it can and will be reassigned at will by your ISP. Sometimes you have it for a while, sometimes just for one connection. So if you ban IP 192.168.0.1 today because I did something bad on it, you can be pretty much guarenteed tomorrow that you are blocking some other poor sob and not me. My work connection for example assigns me a new IP if I've been offline for more than 3 hours. My home connection generally keeps the same IP as long as I log in every 24 hours but they can and do change it at will and I can change it anytime I want by request.

What's more if the ISP uses NATing (or if the user is in a building that is a NAT'd environment such a college dorm) that single IP may be shared by dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people. For dial up users in particular you could cut out an entire city of dial up users using the same ISP with one banned IP.

Plus if I know you are in an IP banning mood I can just use one of hundreds of free services on the net that let me mask my IP.

Now banning MACs is a bit better but a bit more complex, and since someone who knows what they are doing can change their MAC address, that isn't foolproof either.

As for your comment about the government being able to do it. Rest assured the US governement could not easily track someone who knew what they were doing. Route through half a anon secure proxie services around the world in different countries (russian ones are nice...good luck with that US search warrent) and tracking would be difficult indeed. Even for the novice, I can hide from Turbine, a private company without power of search warrent, much easier than I could hide from even a foreign government like the US persuing a valid warrent for something that is also a crime in my area.


- Ok, as i remember when i were an trial account user, i didin't used the /tell function. That doesn't says that all players will not use that function, but i would block the /tell function from the trial accounts.
- If you block the /tell function from the 1-2 days from the trial acc what do you get are spammers making trials PRIOR to using them.
- If you control the number of /tells sent by an trial account you would escalate the number of trial accs made (by the spammers) so they could reach their objective.
- One good alternative, that already had been cited in this forum is to implement channells for /tells (guild, friends, etc...). That would work also, even tough would make social interactions more difficult to be made outside the party/guild chat.
- Another good one is to BLOCK the /tell function for all TRIAL ACCOUNTS. That would work just fine.

[MageLL]

I’m a business entrepreneur and a fellow DDO player. I have for the last four years of my life run a website that sells online games and online gamer merchandise. Before you jump to any conclusions, this does NOT include in game items or virtual currency of any kind. I mention this because as a game seller I have dealt with many companies who do sell virtual items. This has given me personal relationships with some of the higher ups in companies that pander to this sort of selling and in turn, answered a lot of questions I personally had about this practice.

For those who maybe wondering a gold farmer in the MMORPG world is a person who plays a game for the specific purpose of acquiring in game items or currency to re-sell for real life currency. The gold farmer is typically a person but can be in some online games bots (macro scripts), that repeatedly perform specific task to reach a goal.

From a business standpoint, the less you pay your employees the more money the company makes. This is why most gold farmers are located in low-pay countries such as China. A gold farmer earns an average wage of $150 USD per month and works about 65 hours per week. In China for example, it is customary to provide your workers housing and meals in addition to pay. In turn at the end of the month the worker who has not broke or destroyed any communal item has $150 in his or her pocket.

Despite the rampant hate that is displayed by most forum posters towards gold farmers and their companies, they are in fact making money, in some cases lots of money. I have talked with managers who are constantly having problems with withdrawing this money and converting it to RMB (Chinese currency). These problems have to do with Chinese business laws, PayPal and Credit Card restrictions, but mostly due to the amount of money they are dealing with. I once was offered a 3% cut to setup a US wire transfer account that would feed a Chinese bank $9999.99 every 2-3 days. I respectfully declined, but couldn’t help wonder how much these companies were in fact making. The answer told to me confidently by the manager, was gross sales of about $50,000 a week. Having learned employee wages, and dealing with Credit Card fees, and PayPal myself I was able to conclude they are making, well.. a lot.

The cost of virtual currency is fueled by the standard supply and demand. The more popular a game is, the more demand and vice versa. The online gamers are the ones who are in fact, keeping the gold farmers in business. This is why we are targets of their annoying tells, in game mails, and general spam. You and I are targets simply because we as a whole are their customers.

There are also companies who buy in game items and currency from normal people like you and I. If somebody offered you $50 for your wounding of puncturing rapier would you take it? How about $500, $1000? If you said no to all those, kudos to you, you’re not the problem. The cold hard fact is that there is a price that can be put on most anything. There is always somebody willing to spend money on something you have. The threshold to sell however is different from person to person. For the Chinese that threshold just happens to be much lower.

Often I see it mentioned that the game publishers don’t take a strong enough stance against gold farmers. There are few games which allow the sale of their intellectual property to be sold for real life currency and most if they know about it will ban the accounts that participate in this practice. The company itself is in a no win situation. The more farmer accounts that get banned the more games and subscriptions they sell. The farmer considers a lost account the cost of doing business nothing more. The company has to appeal to the player base that condones the idea of cheating by buying something out of game, while knowing that a certain percentage of their income is coming from the companies that do just that.

I’ve seen many companies go on banning sprees making it publicly known they banned 10,000 accounts this month. This lets the anti gold farmer crowd know they are doing something and they do care. However, they won’t tell you how many new accounts were activated after this banning spree. It is also a very good tool for game publishers to do this right before a new expansion comes out. This allows them to dry up the supply of older version games so when a new expansion comes out it sells really well. The basic problem is, if they were able to purge their game of farmers the subscription numbers would go down, new account activations would be low, and this data isn’t very appealing to investors or share holders. Then the not so vocal pro-farmer community would get upset frustrated and leave because they actually have to earn or put the time in to obtain certain items. Right before they quit, they throw more fuel in the fire igniting the power-gamers vs casual gamer argument.

Now since I run a small business that sells online games I’ve had to explain to accountants, friends and family how things work. Whenever the topic comes up about farmers buying X amount of games they always ask why? I have to explain the whole virtual selling thing that goes on, which always leads to this question. Why would anybody in their right mind spend money on something can only be used in a video game? It took me awhile to come up with the answer, but I think I finally can rationalize it enough to make sense. An online gamer can be anybody from a moms basement dwelling 40 year old, to a professional lawyer. Those who have money to spend on their hobbies may spend it on new set of golf clubs, or they can spend it on some new armor and weapons for a character they play. It may not make them any better of a player but at-least it looks like they know what they are doing.

It all comes down to this. Like it, hate it, it will go on. Companies don’t have any overwhelming incentive to stop it. If there is money to be made morality aside, somebody is going to make it. Play to have fun, worry more about what you do have and less about what you don’t. Enjoy your time in game, because dollar for dollar online gaming is the best entertainment value out there. Life isn’t full of special belly rubs with happy endings, so make the most out of it. Happy gaming.

[Vistram]

I can't take it anymore. Triple spams. Hourly spams...

I just lost it and had to vent:

In conversation with 001001 : 11:40:45
Hello, what can I do for you?
I: 11:40:56
I want to buy golden bracelets
I: 11:41:14
This kind person was so nice to inform me you have gold for sale
I: 11:41:32
(Tell): Hgjghjghjjh tells you, 'Welcome to WWW.XXXXX.COM we are providing some special items(+2tomes) and Gold is being sold at the price of$0.064/1K.delivery within 15 minutes.'
001 : 11:42:10
yes
I: 11:42:30
I would like to purchase your product, do you have an online catalog?
001 : 11:43:17
bracelets? i dont understand.yes,we have the catalog in our website
I: 11:43:35
I want to buy a gift. Is your gold of high quality?
001 : 11:44:33
sorry ,the gold is the game currency
I: 11:44:47
I do not understand. Do you have gold or not?
001 : 11:44:48
not the real currency
001 : 11:44:57
yes,we have
I: 11:45:01
Huh? You mean you have no gold?
001 : 11:45:16
we have
I: 11:45:26
So what quality is it? Is it 24 Karat?
001 : 11:47:05
sorry,this is the game website,not the practicality website
I: 11:47:18
So you have no products for sale?
001 : 11:47:46
i think you are joking
I: 11:47:57
I think that your whole business is a joke.
I: 11:48:08
You advertise then have no product to sell
001 : 11:48:18
yes,we have no the product you want
I: 11:48:38
Then why do you keep harrassing me day in and day out, numerous times per day to buy your product?
001 : 11:49:16
this is our job,please understand
I: 11:49:34
I don't care what your job is. maybe you should get a real one instead of a virtual one.
I: 11:49:43
I PAY to play a game, not to be harrassed
001 : 11:49:58
i know,sorry
I: 11:50:02
Your advertising generates alot of ill will. You do yourself NO favors
001 : 11:50:05
but we have to do that
I: 11:50:17
NO you don't the XXXX that will buy your XXXX know how to find you.
I: 11:50:24
Have a great day.

[Ki_Draken_Magus]

Yep...pretty much straightforward High School economics. Demand + Potential Profit = Suppliers! It doesn't matter what you are selling, and it doesn't matter if it is legal or illegal.

As for who would spend their money on a virtual item.....I could ask the same question about people who spend their money on beer, cigarettes, online (and offline) pron, coffeee from Starbucks, soda, etc.

[Lucian_Navarro]

Yes... Plat farmers are losers and those who sell and buy from them are losers too.

Just stop sending me tells!

and No, i wont give you the names of my toons because I may change them or make new toons so...

Leave the Sarlona Server alone!

It is a Plat Farmer Free Zone!!!

[JacknCoke]

go to youtube and search "gold farming documentaries" they are fun to watch. Its good to put a face to the player name "asdfghjkl".

[artvan_delet]

Yes... Plat farmers are losers and those who sell and buy from them are losers too.

Just stop sending me tells!

and No, i wont give you the names of my toons because I may change them or make new toons so...

Leave the Sarlona Server alone!

It is a Plat Farmer Free Zone!!!

If I needed to feed my family and this was the job I could get, I would be a plat farmer. If I needed money to send my sibling to school because the state did not offer free schooling, then you bet I'd be a plat farmer.

Sure the spam is annoying. Sure it affects the game. But in the end, it's just a game. There but for the grace of god. So, I'll just play the game and try not to judge.

[ccheath776]

OK to counter the OP's opinion. It was a good post although I am not sure if it violates forum policy or not. But regardless it is a nice look into the business end.
Unfortunatly thats not the point.
( Op this is not directed at you at all. Your post was very good. )

As I have now gotten a good taste of the game design business and the game industry as a whole I can say I agree with your assesment but disagree with the reason that its just business.
I myself, having understood much more now than then, am a stickler and strictly against gold farmers and i say any MMO should be in support of banning them all regardless of the sub numbers.
Why?

Because they are effectively stealing ideas. think about it like this. Lets say you build a chair, you design the chair and you build it. Its not only great its amazingly awesome and popular, people want it and are willing to spend money to get it. You feel awesome and make alot of money off your new chair idea and design. Now lets say you sell 100 chairs a day. Gold farming is like someone walking in to your shop, building 100 more chairs, using your design templates, then walking out the door and selling them somewhere else as their own property. They are stealing your intellectual property and design. Your design assetts as we call them in the industry. Not only that ,they are making money off of them. To put it even worse, your own customers who use to buy chairs from you are now going to this theif and buying from them.

Like it or not, justified or not, its still your design. Same with game money. You designed the game, programmed it, went through hell to get it on to market, now some person comes by, who did absolutely nothing to get the game on the market, and makes money off your design. to put it blunty, not just heck no but heck Frikin NO!!

Those games who allow it, fine, they are still making money off of their design.
But those who dont, like DDO, I am on the side of the game designers.
I dont care if they are legitimate business owners, I dont care of it empowers some chinese poor citizen and provides them with an income. I dont care.
If I am the DDO game designer, my opinion, its my idea, dont make money off my idea and hard work.
BAN THEM ALL and ban all who buy the gold. I dont care if I have only 5k subs after that, Id rather have no game than one that gets leached on by some idiot who's only contribution to the game is a 15$ sub that they are making 900 million off of. Screw that.
Did these gold farmers program the game? Did they model it? Did they go through years of design school or college to get a degree to get into the game industry? Did they spend the money on my education to get into the game industry that allowed me to make these digital assets? No they didn't. So they can bite me as far as I am concerned they deserve nothing, they should get nothing, and the only acknolwedgement that they exist should be an e-mail stating they are banned from my game.

Does that put it lighly enough?

[Girevik]

Because they are effectively stealing ideas. think about it like this. Lets say you build a chair, you design the chair and you build it. Its not only great its amazingly awesome and popular, people want it and are willing to spend money to get it. You feel awesome and make alot of money off your new chair idea and design. Now lets say you sell 100 chairs a day. Gold farming is like someone walking in to your shop, building 100 more chairs, using your design templates, then walking out the door and selling them somewhere else as their own property. They are stealing your intellectual property and design. Your design assetts as we call them in the industry. Not only that ,they are making money off of them. To put it even worse, your own customers who use to buy chairs from you are now going to this theif and buying from them.

I don't agree with your analogy. Unless the company is selling virtual gold themselves, it is more like the Gold Farmers are selling seat cushions. They are not taking any customers from you, but they do rely on your sales in order to sell their product.

[Lucian_Navarro]

If I needed to feed my family and this was the job I could get, I would be a plat farmer. If I needed money to send my sibling to school because the state did not offer free schooling, then you bet I'd be a plat farmer.

Sure the spam is annoying. Sure it affects the game. But in the end, it's just a game. There but for the grace of god. So, I'll just play the game and try not to judge.

I dont buy this retort.

I could say that the only job I could find was a contract killer so I'd do it to feed my family.

What is "wrong" is "wrong" no matter how you spin it.

It is like a personal desire, religion, addiction, sexual orientation. If it is what you are into, fine.
Just stop putting it in my face or i will throw it back in yours.

[petegunn]

Hmmmmm very interesting indeed . Your last paragraph is worthy to be quoted in a signature , unless i've missed my guess .

[artvan_delet]

First off, you called someone a "loser." I'll reserve judgment on that.
Second, what is wrong is not always wrong. Defending an absolute is often difficult. Stealing might be wrong, but stealing food to save a life isn't wrong, is it?

[Laith]

If we're gonna play the metaphor game, I figured plat farmers would be compared to drug running/dealing before murder for hire & stealing.
It's actually quite pertinent: people providing a product/service for those that want it, even though the legal authorities declares the service and the product illegal.

Here, it's deemed "bad for the game" as opposed to "dangerous to the user"... of course, i suppose that's really the same as well.
The issues come when the populace starts questioning if the goings on are as dangerous as presented.

[Brummbar]

Well I disagree with your assumption that ' wrong is wrong'.

Wrong is a standpoint based on 'your' perception morality and personal perspective.

Some think prostitution is wrong, some don't.

It is legal in some areas, it is not legal in sorry places. That doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong... It's all about your perspective.


DO the Gold Farmer tells bother me? Yep, just a little. But not much. Do I ever buy stuff from any of them. Nope.

I do remember making quite a few hundred dollars during the infancy of Ebay selling Asherons Call I items many, many years ago... every one was please.. me, the people who bought from me, and Turbine, because I kept my subscription up, the other person kept there subscritpion up, and and Turbine made an extra $20.00 a month ( was $9.99 a month back then, or maybe $7.99)

Would I do it now? Nope. I like my account in good standing.










I dont buy this retort.

I could say that the only job I could find was a contract killer so I'd do it to feed my family.

What is "wrong" is "wrong" no matter how you spin it.

It is like a personal desire, religion, addiction, sexual orientation. If it is what you are into, fine.
Just stop putting it in my face or i will throw it back in yours.

[Pellegro]

FACT: Some players (lets call them the Buyers) are willing to spend lots of real money to improve their online experience. LOTS of money. And they are in fact spending lots of that real money buying plat and items. LOTS of money.

FACT: The game developer gets precisely 0% of that money back. None of that money helps with development, none of it helps with paying more and better devs, none of it becomes profits for the developer or publisher. Yet the game developer has the most right to be receiving such funds as they are moneys being spent for the enjoyment of their product ....

FACT: Other players (lets call them Purists) are very offended by Buyers. They feel that Buyers harm/ruin their own fun.

FACT: Still other players don't care about any of it. Lets call them Ambivalents.

FACT: Some Buyers (perhaps many, it not all) pretend to be Purists. Lets call them Denyers. Denyers exist for many reasons, including that being a Buyer will get you banned, but also including that one of the reasons for being a Buyer is to look accomplished, skilled, or "uber", all of which is lost if one reveals themselves as a Buyer. This pressure is so great that some Denyers would likely not even play a game if buying were out and out accepted.

FACT: Some Buyers wouldn't Buy if everyone could buy .... They buy specifically to achieve advantages that others don't or can't have. Lets call them Cheaters.

FACT: Nobody knows what % of the player base are Ambivalents, what % are Buyers, and what % are Purists. Nor does anyone know how many of the Buyers are actually Denyers, nor how many of the Buyers are Cheaters.

***

As a Game Developer, you're in a no-win. If you succeed in getting rid of plat-sellers, then you likely lose alot of customers who are Buyers (especially the Cheaters). If you legitimize plat-selling or do it yourself, you likely lose the Purists, as well as the Cheaters, and likely a good portion of the Denyers.

Its an extremely important issue for a game developer, I woudl think, as it shows that the playerbase is very willing to put up TONS of money to play .... but only for strange reasons (e.g. ability to avoid grind, ability to be better than everyone else, ability to better enjoy the game, etc.). How the game developers can tap into that is a big big issue (I'd think).

[Strakeln]

An online gamer can be anybody from a moms basement dwelling 40 year old, to a professional lawyer.Is a professional lawyer now the top of the employment food chain?

/shudder

[Cowboy]

My 2 cents on it. In my naive opinion there are 2 ways to stop it. One let turbine sell plat and items, but leaves turbine open for trouble for stuff getting lost and or getting power games mad and less accounts active. Two make everything bind on acquire no more plat sellers and no more ah and will prob result in less accounts active. So there isn’t really good way to get rid of them as long as someone will buy from them. Only reason alcohol is legal is the US government was loosing too much money (tax’s) and too hard to enforce. Just my thoughts :) So the best way IMHO would be to make it all bind on acquire if you really want them gone that is, if not then just ignore them and enjoy your game, that’s what I do. And I try my best not to be the Judge on how a person feeds his Family unless it impacts Children and or my Family

[Strakeln]

As for who would spend their money on a virtual item....I've never understood this question/argument. Most of us already crossed the "buying a virtual item" threshold a looooooooong time ago. Personally speaking, I do not own one physical piece of anything relating to DDO. I downloaded the trial and purchased the game, never received any CD/DVDs. That was $35. I paid for 2 years at around $140/year. So far I have spent $315 on DDO, yet all I have to show for it is a bunch of virtual goods.

I guess my point is that people playing DDO have no place asking the question. :)

[Leyoni]

My 2 cents on it. In my naive opinion there are 2 ways to stop it. One let turbine sell plat and items, but leaves turbine open for trouble for stuff getting lost and or getting power games mad and less accounts active. Two make everything bind on acquire no more plat sellers and no more ah and will prob result in less accounts active. So there isn’t really good way to get rid of them as long as someone will buy from them. Only reason alcohol is legal is the US government was loosing too much money (tax’s) and too hard to enforce. Just my thoughts :) So the best way IMHO would be to make it all bind on acquire if you really want them gone that is, if not then just ignore them and enjoy your game, that’s what I do. And I try my best not to be the Judge on how a person feeds his Family unless it impacts Children and or my Family

What if when you got things they bound not to your character but to your account? What if you could trade among your characters but only get rid of things by selling to vendors or by auctioning at the AH? What if you could only find items, buy items from vendors, or buy from the AH?

The real issue is the ability to trade directly between characters. If I can't trade to you and you can't trade to me then we exchange things or mail items to one another.

This has a problem inside of quests where doofus forgot to bring healing pots (or whatever). But that seems a relatively small price to pay.

Just random thoughts, likely very hard to impliment now given the relatively mature state of the game.

[dejafu]

Thanks to the OP for this concise, informed explanation. I'm a graduate student in media studies, and have tried to explain the plat farming phenomenon to my colleagues with a lot less success ;)

I remember that one of the only experiences I ever had in this game of nearly dropping group was during an argument with another player about plat farmers. His point was basically the point of one of the previous posts, that wrong is wrong, and that the farmers themselves have a moral obligation to stop doing an activity that is ruining the game experience for a lot of people. My point was that in the often brutal economic realities of those parts of the world that don't enjoy a middle to upper-middle class lifestyle, postindustrial infrastructure, etc., that trying to make some kind of moral argument about ruining an insanely wealthy (at least from the farmer's perspective) Westerner's enjoyment of a fictional game world is laughable at best, especially when he has a family to feed. His bosses may be making a killing, but as the OP pointed out, the actual "field hands" that we all deal with are often working at subsistence level.

At that point, some racial comments got thrown out, and I decided to drop out of the debate before I started off on my own moralistic tirade :eek:

My point in posting this is that there are a lot of deeply political issues at stake here, ones that cut to the heart of three topics that are guaranteed to make most people immediately uncomfortable when they're just trying to relax and enjoy a game: class, race, and culture (incidentally, I'm teaching a college course dealing with all three this fall, so for anybody who feels like opening a big ol' can of worms in some other venue, feel free to look me up :D ). So be careful about oversimplifying the situation - as bizarre as it sounds, what we do in games like this have very real, very drastic consequences for other folks in the "real world."

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I can't believe you got them to respond, they always ignore me when I try to engage them...

[Quanefel]

Why do I see people try so hard to make it seem ok what plat farmers do? The simple fact of the matter is the plat farming companies are stealing property that is not theirs to sell. There is no if's, and's or but's about it. Its thief.

Now, I hear people trying to defend their actions because "It might help some starving person". I do not remember Turbine or any on-line game making an announcement to start supporting people all over the world. That is the job of charities. To force "charity" onto others like this is wrong, on every level. These companies are making millions upon millions of US dollars OFF the work of someone else, they are by no means....poor. As far as the people working for those plat farming companies, prove they are so poor as its claimed. Even if some may or may not be so poor, that makes it ok to steal something that does not belong to them? No. As far as I know, no one is allowed to disregard the property of others IF they are poor. And who gets to decide who is poor and at what level of poverty is ok the steal?


People try to justify it all they want but does not change the fact its theft. People want to say that plat farmers make X amount of money a month, not acknowledging the cost of living is very different than other areas of the world. And that amount is by no means a small amount to them. They do it for money AND because its an easy job to do. I have heard people claim their are no other jobs in these countries and its laughable. Every area of the world has jobs, its people willing to work those jobs thats the issue. In the end, it still does not justify stealing something and selling it.

I hear the argument from still others saying that the on-line games are not selling to items in game, that means they are not really "losing" any money. True but not the point. The companies who designed, created, etc with any game has the right to sell or not. They are the ones who has the right to make any and all money off THEIR work. It does not become a free for all if they decide not to sell items in game. If they decide not to sell their items in-game, I do not remember any on-line game telling people around the world to have at their products and sell all they want. Have they? No, of course not. Yet those who defend plat farming companies would have us believe that.

Blaming all of this on the buyers is not right either. Everyone involved has responsibility in what is going on here. Even though I personally do not think people should be buying, I'll never put ALL the blame on them. Those who sell are as much to blame as anyone else involved.

There is also more about plat farming than what is on the surface. It is well known they use hacks,cheats, data mining and even credit card thief. They want to make money off other people and do not care about any laws or rules. They want money, and they use any means they can to get it. If someone is stupid enough to trust some nameless person half-way around the world with their credit card information, they will learn the hard way why its not such a good idea to do.

[tango44]

I'm a non-professional lawyer. Does that count? :D

[Starrloom]

Before I continue - let me state I don't like farmers, I am proud of my accomplishments within the game and I have never even felt the remote need to purchase items. I find the spam tells annoying and would love to never see them again - that being said .....

My guess is that if they really wanted to kill the gold farming business they could but here is the thing - in the end it is AGAINST the companies best interests to end it. They will make efforts to control it because they really have to but they won't kill it. Why? The question here is how many accounts are purchasing items? My guess is more then a few (confirmed by the OP in a way ) - how many of those accounts would be lost if those people did not have the ability to purchase items? Again my guess is more then a few. So, by having farmers in the game - the company is actually getting more business. So, in the end the company will make an effort to ensure the game is not overrun with farmers but they will never be gone.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Because they are effectively stealing ideas. think about it like this. Lets say you build a chair, you design the chair and you build it. Its not only great its amazingly awesome and popular, people want it and are willing to spend money to get it. You feel awesome and make alot of money off your new chair idea and design. Now lets say you sell 100 chairs a day. Gold farming is like someone walking in to your shop, building 100 more chairs, using your design templates, then walking out the door and selling them somewhere else as their own property. They are stealing your intellectual property and design. Your design assetts as we call them in the industry. Not only that ,they are making money off of them. To put it even worse, your own customers who use to buy chairs from you are now going to this theif and buying from them.

If you let me walk into your factory and use your equipment to build chairs using your designs I can resell them. Good luck stopping me, please show me a specific law that would stop it.

[Quanefel]

I've never understood this question/argument. Most of us already crossed the "buying a virtual item" threshold a looooooooong time ago. Personally speaking, I do not own one physical piece of anything relating to DDO. I downloaded the trial and purchased the game, never received any CD/DVDs. That was $35. I paid for 2 years at around $140/year. So far I have spent $315 on DDO, yet all I have to show for it is a bunch of virtual goods.

I guess my point is that people playing DDO have no place asking the question. :)

So buying the game is the same as buying items within the game from companies that never put 1 dime into Turbine making the game, is the same to you? If you planned on grouping both plat buyers and non-plat buying players as one and the same, sorry. They are not even close to the same.

[Quanefel]

If you let me walk into your factory and use your equipment to build chairs using your designs I can resell them. Good luck stopping me, please show me a specific law that would stop it.


Unless someone shows you personally a law against stealing and reselling another person's property, its ok? Huh?

[dakmillennium]

Hey Guys... I have a cool idea. Considering the reality that this is indeed a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Pretend that all those tells you receive while wandering about Stormreach are just the marketplace peddlers.

The OP has a solid point and proves the vicious cycle that is a plat Farmer.

Let us consider this as well. Any certain venue that reserves the rights to sell exclusively within said market technically has monopolized the industry. Do not believe me? Ask Microsoft.

What one person calls corruption another calls as an opportunity. Of course I never saw anything in the Ten Commandments that prevented the sale of an item as a service to player base. The fact is that so long as the company does not offer the sale of online currency then their is technically no grievence.

Also.. think of all the GENERIC parts one can buy for a vehicle. I suppose as long as their are players there will be this argument. People feel it is morally wrong to purchase the gold, though I have to wonder.. if games were meant to be played in a pure form with this moral perfection. Why do we have cheat codes dating all the way back to Atari?

[Quanefel]

Hey Guys... I have a cool idea. Considering the reality that this is indeed a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Pretend that all those tells you receive while wandering about Stormreach are just the marketplace peddlers.

The OP has a solid point and proves the vicious cycle that is a plat Farmer.

Let us consider this as well. Any certain venue that reserves the rights to sell exclusively within said market technically has monopolized the industry. Do not believe me? Ask Microsoft.

What one person calls corruption another calls as an opportunity. Of course I never saw anything in the Ten Commandments that prevented the sale of an item as a service to player base. The fact is that so long as the company does not offer the sale of online currency then their is technically no grievence.

Also.. think of all the GENERIC parts one can buy for a vehicle. I suppose as long as their are players there will be this argument. People feel it is morally wrong to purchase the gold, though I have to wonder.. if games were meant to be played in a pure form with this moral perfection. Why do we have cheat codes dating all the way back to Atari?

If someone calls something an "opportunity" it then becomes free to sell things that do not belong to you? Everything in the game belongs to Turbine. Even our toons and what our toons have. Its their right to sell or not sell those items. No one else in the world has that legal right.

[dakmillennium]

Buddy - America is founded upon selling those things that do not belong to you. It is considered the basis of our economy. So the next time you want to get any sort of emotional qualms about this method. Walk outside and look around. Congratulations, your entire life has been based upon this sort of practice. So when something that does not harm anybody (Truth be told it has more benefits than negatives) occurs, forgive me for finding it a bit hypocritical in sense. Some of the greatest epics of our times were freely given on the basis of free trade. Art and stories were all offered by word of mouth with no ill intent, only the thought of enriching the lives of others. So forgive me if I can not see your side that is skewed by years of repressed social dogma.

[KristovK]

It all comes down to this. Like it, hate it, it will go on. Companies don’t have any overwhelming incentive to stop it. If there is money to be made morality aside, somebody is going to make it. Play to have fun, worry more about what you do have and less about what you don’t. Enjoy your time in game, because dollar for dollar online gaming is the best entertainment value out there. Life isn’t full of special belly rubs with happy endings, so make the most out of it. Happy gaming.

Best post concerning this subject yet, edited by me to include the most relevent part :)

I don't like gold sellers, never have, never will, but I'm fully aware of the industry that is thriving on the money from the players who buy from them. And the lack of incentive for the game publishers to actually stop that same industry, after all, they make money off them too, initial game sales and monthly fees, same as every other player of the game, actually they usually make a lot more, since they regularly ban the gold sellers knowing full well that they'll just go buy the game AGAIN. Like the OP said, Blizzard loves to announce every so often that they just banned 10,000+ accounts. Want to know the REAL reason they love to announce that? It means they just SOLD over 10,000 copies of their product...that's the reality of the situation.

Stopping the gold sellers cold is easy, really, but it's not profitable for the publishers, and that's why it's not likely to happen, it's a bad business call.

[Laith]

Buddy - America is founded upon selling those things that do not belong to you. It is considered the basis of our economy. So the next time you want to get any sort of emotional qualms about this method. Walk outside and look around. Congratulations, your entire life has been based upon this sort of practice.umm... not quite.

[Strakeln]

The simple fact of the matter is the plat farming companies are stealing property that is not theirs to sell. There is no if's, and's or but's about it. Its thief.The problem is, it is not simple, nor is it fact. It's not simple because we're not talking about property, at least not in the traditional sense (it doesn't really fit into intellectual property either). If it's not property, no one owns it. If no one owns it, then can it be stolen? Furthermore, no one actually "stole" the "property"... they "earned" it.

Once again, you confuse your black and white version of morals as the absolute code of morals. Morals are not absolute, Quan... they are subject to every person's judgement.

[Strakeln]

So buying the game is the same as buying items within the game from companies that never put 1 dime into Turbine making the game, is the same to you? If you planned on grouping both plat buyers and non-plat buying players as one and the same, sorry. They are not even close to the same./sigh.

Focus on what was being discussed (the absurdity of buying virtual items with real money). I was pointing out that we all have purchased virtual items (DDO), so the concept should really not be so foreign to us. Time after time I hear people yapping about plat farmers and saying they'd never spend "real money" for a "virtual item", while the fact that they are posting here shows that they have indeed purchased a virtual item with real money.

My point had absolutely NOTHING to do with who invested money into what, or grouping plat buyers with non-plat buying players.

[Strakeln]

If someone calls something an "opportunity" it then becomes free to sell things that do not belong to you? Everything in the game belongs to Turbine. Even our toons and what our toons have. Its their right to sell or not sell those items. No one else in the world has that legal right.No, Quan, we ALL have the legal right.

What we don't have is permission from Turbine to do so. This discussion has very little, if anything at all, to do with the real world legalities of selling or purchasing virtual goods.

[Trinarius]

...What one person calls corruption another calls as an opportunity. Of course I never saw anything in the Ten Commandments that prevented the sale of an item as a service to player base. The fact is that so long as the company does not offer the sale of online currency then their is technically no grievence. ...

Aside from inappropriate references and grammatical errors...

I'm sure that the United States government would have a serious problem with your buying U.S. currency from someone else, particularly if they reside in another country. If you buy "legal tender" through a third-party at a discounted rate, that's money laundering. If you buy counterfeited money, well...

Either way you look at it, the United States government will be pretty upset with you, likely throw you in prison while you get to know your friends *much* better, and track down your "associates" from whom you obtained the currency, possibly using armed representatives.

As a real-life representative of their citizens, the government has that right.

If someone sets up a subscription, collects every last copper they can find and then sells it to you for real-life cash, that is the virtual equivalent of money laundering, because you're obtaining the real thing for less than the standard rate of exchange.

If someone sets up a hack to alter the mechanics of the game so that your character now has more cash than they should have otherwise, that's the virtual equivalent of counterfeiting.

The only difference here is that we're all the "citizens" and Turbine is our on-line government. Should Turbine decide to do something drastic about the situation, they have that right. It is not a matter of morals. As the "government" Turbine has declared plat farming and selling to be "illegal", regardless of your own personal opinion on the subject. You either choose to accept those "laws" or you choose to accept the risk associated with violating them.

[Quanefel]

The problem is, it is not simple, nor is it fact. It's not simple because we're not talking about property, at least not in the traditional sense (it doesn't really fit into intellectual property either). If it's not property, no one owns it. If no one owns it, then can it be stolen? Furthermore, no one actually "stole" the "property"... they "earned" it.

Once again, you confuse your black and white version of morals as the absolute code of morals. Morals are not absolute, Quan... they are subject to every person's judgement.

Intellecutal property is still propery even if you and others think otherwise. You are incorrect also in the belief that "no one owns it". Turbine owns it, they own all your characters and every single thing within the game, including items your toons have. We pay to play the game, thats all. Turbine has legal rights to all aspects of the game.

If anyone would be foolish to go along with your ideas about intellectual property, no company in the world would make a game because anyone who wanted could walk away with it and do what they pleased with it. It would be a free for all and the ones who spent the millions of dollars making a game would not want to make another game again. The idea that no gaming company has any rights to their own game is frankly, absurd.

You are making it personal towards me when its simple law. Not my idea or your idea of morality, selling something that does not belong to a person is illegal. If you do not personally agree with people owning their own property, you might be in the minority in that belief.

[Quanefel]

No, Quan, we ALL have the legal right.

What we don't have is permission from Turbine to do so. This discussion has very little, if anything at all, to do with the real world legalities of selling or purchasing virtual goods.

How do anyone in the game have a legal right to sell anything within the game? If you are suggesting because we pay a monthly suscription we become part owners in Turbine, nothing personal but that is false. We have no rights to this game as well as another person playing WoW has rights to that game. I think the lawyers for these games would have a different opinion than yours.

[Strakeln]

Intellecutal property is still propery even if you and others think otherwise. You are incorrect also in the belief that "no one owns it". Turbine owns it, they own all your characters and every single thing within the game, including items your toons have. We pay to play the game, thats all. Turbine has legal rights to all aspects of the game.My point was, it doesn't fit in with intellectual property, and may not be considered as such. For sake of argument, let's say that plat is considered intellectual property. When a plat farmer sells it to person X, has possession of the plat changed at all? The answer is, no. Turbine still has full control and "ownership" of it.


If anyone would be foolish to go along with your ideas about intellectual property, no company in the world would make a game because anyone who wanted could walk away with it and do what they pleased with it. It would be a free for all and the ones who spent the millions of dollars making a game would not want to make another game again. The idea that no gaming company has any rights to their own game is frankly, absurd. Again, I stated that the plat may not fall into the realm of IP, and even if it did, the ownership of said plat never once changed. You're off on your own subject here.


You are making it personal towards me when its simple law. Not my idea or your idea of morality, selling something that does not belong to a person is illegal. If you do not personally agree with people owning their own property, you might be in the minority in that belief.This is not "simple law"... there is no law against selling DDO plat. There are in-game rules, and EULA/ToS violations, but there are no real world laws regarding this practice. And, as pointed out above, possession of the plat never changes.