Speed_Bump

But it does cost him. It costs him the impulse sales. I agree with Tony V, those have to be a large percentage of their business.

And if their accounts have to be replaced less often, they'll just raise their prices. The extra money for accounts is just another business expense that they will pass along to their consumers.

There are plenty of differences, but they don't make as big a difference as you might think.

OK, in game spammers have to replace accounts. These accounts are expendable. They know that they will be banned, but they budget for it. An account gets banned? They break open the next box, start a new account, mash their face into the keyboard for a character name, reload their bind files, and they are back in business.

I looked at a site that sells inf and powerleveling. If they made 4 sales of their least expensive service, that would pay for a new account if they bought it from NCSoft (It would take two or three if they bought it from a place like Amazon). Most of their services would make a profit after one sale.

That is assuming, of course, that they aren't doing this on trial accounts or accounts that they have stolen from people using their service, or paid for it with credit card numbers stolen from their customers. Stolen accounts and card numbers won't last long, anyway, so there is no reason not to get them banned.

And game companies take action to block spammers, like banning accounts and preventing trial accounts from sending tells or using broadcast. Spammers find other means to reach prospective customers (and annoy everyone else). Just like spammers outside of games.

There is more at stake with internet spammers, granted. In game spammers can only pick the low lying fruit (unfortunately, there is plenty of that to be picked). The question, though, isn't "How much is at stake?" The question is "Is enough at stake to make it worth it for them?" Even if the spammer (in or out of game) only does what they claim -- buy time shares or sell inf and power leveling -- the answer is "yes."

Another reason why I think they will find another way to spam us is impulse buys. I've never bought inf, but there have been times when I've been tempted (usually when I was looking at some of the prices at WW). I'm sure that other people just like me have given in to the temptation.

As with any form of advertising, if you've seen the name of the product recently (even if it was just the e-mail header as you were deleting it as spam), you're more likely to buy it. Because of impulse buys, everyone who plays CoX is a potential customer. The spammers will keep trying to put their names in front of us.

You'd think that. It looks obvious.

But it's not true of the people who spam normal e-mail addresses. They are always trying to get around spam blocks by changing the spelling or using misleading headers. The guys in game appear to work the same way.

Which changes nothing. The character names were there, but faded. If I had forgotten them, I would have been reminded. If I had lost the names of my favorite characters, I would not have reactivated. This would have cost NCSoft two and a half years worth of subscription, minimum.

Quibble about wording all you want. Taking names from inactive accounts could cost NCSoft money.

I have seen many posts over the years asking for the names of characters on inactive accounts to be released. I have yet to see anyone stating that they would quit the game if they didn't get the names that they wanted.

NCSoft can either take an action that may cost them money, or do nothing, which would cost them nothing.

Unlike major game changes, there is a system in place to purge names if they want to use it. There has only been one name purge that went higher than level 6. After they ended it, NCSoft said that they were not planning to do it again.

It appears to me that NCSoft has chosen to do nothing about this issue.

There is no memory to it. When you log in after a name purge, all of your characters are there, with their names. The ones that are vulnerable are faded out. You don't know if you lost the name until you log that character in. If nobody else took the name, you still have it. If someone else took it, you rename the character on the spot.

I lost a couple of names on the first name purge. I'm not complaining -- they sent me an e-mail saying they were doing it. I did lose two character names, though. I ended up deleting both characters. Seeing them on the log in screen brought back all of the old memories, and they just weren't the same.

If my main had been taken (her name was safe, since she was 36 at the time), I probably wouldn't have reactivated my account after the free weekend that drew me back. I've played for about two and a half years since I reactivated, so purging that name would have cost them $540 from me, so far.

Actually, there is one. At the north end of the zone, there is a sewer entrance under the street. To get to it, you have to go over the wall. drop down, and go back north underground. Still not as hard to spot as the ones in Brickstown, Skyway, and Faultline, though.