Where did all the plat spam go?

[Deathseeker]

I had taken some (wife enforced) months off from the game before and after EU was released. It just hit me...I don't think I've seen a single plat spammer ad/tell since I've been back. That's months! So what happened?

When I went on break, it was a big deal. Huge threads, many claims of conspiracy between the devs and farmers (which I always found quite humurous), many "OMG Im quitting because I got a plat spam" posts, etc.

Now, it's like the topic, and issue, disappeared. Poof.

Was it the plat cap on ftp/lowbies, or tell restrictions on accounts, or what? Just curious, what did I miss? Or did they ban the topic from the boards and this post is about to get me in hot water?

Not complaining of course, Im thrilled. I just realized I never really got to appreciate what was fixed as whatever it was it's been so effective I didn't notice until now.

So enlighten me please...guess it's kind of like a good IT systems engineer, no one ever appreciates when he/she does their job right because everything just continues to work well...

[stainer]

I had taken some (wife enforced) months off from the game before and after EU was released. It just hit me...I don't think I've seen a single plat spammer ad/tell since I've been back. That's months! So what happened?

When I went on break, it was a big deal. Huge threads, many claims of conspiracy between the devs and farmers (which I always found quite humurous), many "OMG Im quitting because I got a plat spam" posts, etc.

Now, it's like the topic, and issue, disappeared. Poof.

Was it the plat cap on ftp/lowbies, or tell restrictions on accounts, or what? Just curious, what did I miss? Or did they ban the topic from the boards and this post is about to get me in hot water?

Not complaining of course, Im thrilled. I just realized I never really got to appreciate what was fixed as whatever it was it's been so effective I didn't notice until now.

So enlighten me please...guess it's kind of like a good IT systems engineer, no one ever appreciates when he/she does their job right because everything just continues to work well...

True, it has died out it appears. No special announcements have been made regarding it that I am aware of. If Turbine has a plan for combating it I doubt they will give details as it will give the spammers a leg up on finding ways around it.

[blitzschlag]

i still wonder that there isn't already a "buy special plat" button in the shop. this plat would only be usable in ingame shops and brokers (so can't be traded or used at the ah) and thus had only minimal to low impact on the currency stability and would be a better option than selling **** items in the shop themselves.

[Razcar]

I've gotten two plat spam mails the last months. Both contained a copper piece each, probably so it would stay longer in the mail box and I would be forced to open it and detach the coin before deleting the mail.

[Zaodan]

1. Ftp accounts now have a max gold limit based on character level
2. Ftp accounts can only have 1 auction going at a time

Those two changes alone really hamstring plat farmers, not to mention the "Unconfirmed" mailbox feature and "Report spammer" feature.

[Aristalla]

Whatever happened, it has resulted in, by far, the best control of the spam/gold farmers that I have seen in any MMO.
This doesn't get enough attention in my opinion. In most MMO's (even the smaller ones), the gold spam is INSANE! Accounts hacked left and right, tells and in-game mails, even e-mails and forum phishers. It's exasperating and can really kill a game experience for ya'.

From the time I started DDO to now, I have recieved one, and only one gold seller message, right when I started my first character...in the unconfirmed mail...that I almost totally missed, heh.

So yeah, whatever you guys are doing, please keep it up. Fantastic job on this front.

[Eladiun]

Whatever happened, it has resulted in, by far, the best control of the spam/gold farmers that I have seen in any MMO.

Agreed. When I left in the fall of 08ish, it seemed like plat farmers outnumbered players now it's much improved.

[Djeserit]

I would offer an economic explanation.

Plat farmers served a market function (just like any black market).

People who wanted a 'premium experience' had to use plat farmers to get more out of their gaming hours. This included everyone from noobs to the most renown players in the game.

Now, if players have extra money to spend, they can go direct to turbine for pots or funny hats.

Turbine has eliminated plat-farmers the only way that could ever really work. Technology would never get rid of a black market. The invisible hand defeats any barrier.

Like ending prohibition, Turbine has eliminated the need for a black market.

BTW, There is a technical name for this in marketing-speak. Turbine has started 'marketing along the demand curve', which every successful company does, from Starbucks to Paccar.

Yay for Turbine! Not only producing great games but making even more money at it now!

[Mudcnd]

Agreed. When I left in the fall of 08ish, it seemed like plat farmers outnumbered players now it's much improved.


Outnumbered??? Lots sure , but no where near outnumbered the players.

[Hendrik]

Back to China?

[Deathseeker]

I would offer an economic explanation. <snip>

While I agree with the logic, I don't believe this was the reason. Games such as EvE, that actually have a developer backed method of buying in-game currency (through selling game time codes) still are plagued with plat spam. The spammers just undercut the price. As DDO still has a somewhat viable economy, plat is still demanded and the store doesnt sell things like large scales. True, I do think mana pots in the store has likely dropped demand, but not eliminated it.

The thing is, if plat sellers didn't exist for DDO, then your theory could be proven. As we all know, buying plat is against the EULA and is a sure fire way to get banned, so I won't even suggest that they do/don't exist any more for DDO. But if they still do, then by their existence, it shows the DDO store isn't what eliminated the spam, something else just eliminated their ability to market their illicet goods in-game.

As a side note, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Turbine did not go down the path of providing items in the store that were transferrable as a way of the store getting in on the plat market. I think that would be a horrible decision if they did, but was kind of expecting to see it before EU actually launched. Good for them...combats some of the "Turbine is just greedy" mentality that is out there.

[Eladiun]

Outnumbered??? Lots sure , but no where near outnumbered the players.

Seemed:
1 : to appear to the observation or understanding
2 : to give the impression of being

[knightgf]

Hmm...not that you mention it, the spamming and such went down a lot. Granted, I have gotten some unconfirmed mail, but its not enough to bug me nor have I heard from others about how bad gold selling is these days. Oh im sorry, I should have said "Plat selling".

The last game I played, gold selling was a HUGE, HUGE issue, alongside scammers and cheaters. The in-game community was ridiculous. This game though, is MUCH better when it comes to that.

[...v...]

I had taken some (wife enforced) months off from the game before and after EU was released. It just hit me...I don't think I've seen a single plat spammer ad/tell since I've been back. That's months! So what happened?

When I went on break, it was a big deal. Huge threads, many claims of conspiracy between the devs and farmers (which I always found quite humurous), many "OMG Im quitting because I got a plat spam" posts, etc.

Now, it's like the topic, and issue, disappeared. Poof.

Was it the plat cap on ftp/lowbies, or tell restrictions on accounts, or what? Just curious, what did I miss? Or did they ban the topic from the boards and this post is about to get me in hot water?

Not complaining of course, Im thrilled. I just realized I never really got to appreciate what was fixed as whatever it was it's been so effective I didn't notice until now.

So enlighten me please...guess it's kind of like a good IT systems engineer, no one ever appreciates when he/she does their job right because everything just continues to work well...

The plat farmers know something you dont, LoTR has to go F2P also Turbine is looking for another cash cow. How does the Hobbit sound? They bought the rights to develope it according to this months Gameinformer magazine.

[Jiipster]

I won't lie to you.

I ate the plat spammers. All of them.

[cardmj1]

I remember when they used to send tells to every player on the server alphabetically. We would be in party and we let people know that the tells are coming so they would know the tell wasn't of importance. But it was ridiculous, at one point it was every 5 minutes you would get tell.

[Eladiun]

I remember when they used to send tells to every player on the server alphabetically. We would be in party and we let people know that the tells are coming so they would know the tell wasn't of importance. But it was ridiculous, at one point it was every 5 minutes you would get tell.

Or the party could try to quickly squelch fagbeyecfsv.

[stainer]

Or the party could try to quickly squelch fagbeyecfsv.

Don't squelch mah paladin! fagbeyecfsv is l33t!

[Cylinwolf]

Or the party could try to quickly squelch fagbeyecfsv.

Interesting choice of name with the first three letters, there.

[DoctorWhofan]

I won't lie to you.

I ate the plat spammers. All of them.

No, Ghoste did. They were all FLeshlings.


Seriously, I still see the favourite plat farmer player names once in a while, fsjkhrworpur with no mic, horrid build and so on...


Saying that, New players, don't name your character anything like that, and don't invite them to a party.

[Eladiun]

Interesting choice of name with the first three letters, there.


Didn't even notice I just banged on the keyboard; 100 monkeys style.

[kernal42]

I completely agree Deathseeker - Turbine has been doing some very hard and very, very effective work eliminating plat spammers; in the last ~7 months, I've received one plat ad, and I hardly noticed since it was sitting in my "Unconfirmed" box. I have no speculations as to how this was done, but Turbine definitely deserves some acknowledgement and praise over a job well done.

Cheers,
Kernal

[kinar]

Didn't even notice I just banged on the keyboard; 100 monkeys style.
you have 100 monkeys sitting around just for that occasion?

awesome!

[Eladiun]

you have 100 monkeys sitting around just for that occasion?

awesome!


Of course. I let the monkeys run my characters till Level 7.

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

Didn't even notice I just banged on the keyboard; 100 monkeys style.

You talkin' bout me cousins?

[stainer]

Of course. I let the monkeys run my characters till Level 7.

Do they get upset with how gimpy they end up being after you get a hold of them? :p

[Eladiun]

Do they get upset with how gimpy they end up being after you get a hold of them? :p

No, I just tell them it's a flavor build.

[Yagi]

is it bad that in an older game I had a macro that replied asking them why they keep sending me tells criticizing the Chineese government in mandarin?

[Stormwine]

I FOUND THE SPAM!
http://howtosplitanatom.com/images/spam.gif

[Targoth1]

Whatever happened, it has resulted in, by far, the best control of the spam/gold farmers that I have seen in any MMO.
This doesn't get enough attention in my opinion. In most MMO's (even the smaller ones), the gold spam is INSANE! Accounts hacked left and right, tells and in-game mails, even e-mails and forum phishers. It's exasperating and can really kill a game experience for ya'.

From the time I started DDO to now, I have recieved one, and only one gold seller message, right when I started my first character...in the unconfirmed mail...that I almost totally missed, heh.

So yeah, whatever you guys are doing, please keep it up. Fantastic job on this front.

Everquest / Everquest 2

Never have to deal with plat spam in either of those games. On the handful of occasions over the years that I have seen a gold seller spamming, he was offline within minutes.

[Grecan]

I hope you know where the word spam comes from...

if you don't (or just want to exercise your abs) click on the link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

[Grond]

Wait wait wait, I was assured by many people in shiny hats that the devs didn't care about plat farmers/were in league with the plat farmers/were secretly plat farmers in their spare time/had brother's cousin's sister's 3rd roommates that were plat farmers. are you telling me that *gasp* those reports were false?! :D

[Falco_Easts]

1. Ftp accounts now have a max gold limit based on character level
2. Ftp accounts can only have 1 auction going at a time

Those two changes alone really hamstring plat farmers, not to mention the "Unconfirmed" mailbox feature and "Report spammer" feature.

Add to this F2P can only send X amount of tells every minute.

[Stormwine]

I will sell you 100k plat for 5 cases of Bacon Spam and 6 cases of Hot and Spicy Spam
http://lifeinthenhs.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/spam-collection-2007-06.jpg

[TataLebuj]

I hated the spammers and I have a full ignore list because of them.

I learned a trick that was almost as much fun as it was vindictive. They spam me, I would spam invite them. Which made them either accidently join my group and get berated by my team or force them to stop typing (an incoming invite window automatically takes you out of the text box) to click "NO".

99 times out of 100 - they logged off. Victory is mine.

As it was mentioned earlier, this used to be a problem. Good job Turbine for fixing it....however you did it, it has worked.

Cheers,

PS: Increase my ignore list please. I shouldn't be limited to the number of people I can ignore.

[DocBenway]

I've never actually gotten tells from the spammers, but have hopped through marketplace1-4 to settle in 5 as there was a lvl4 character at the mailbox in each with the "Jhsaffwefkdh" type random letter name that I have gotten the 1 copper attached mail spam from. At least those go in the Unconfirmed box.