Discussion: Zero Tolerance RMT Tells and Spam
By
Agent_Kendt,
Posted on: 2007-08-07 13:34 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
On test as of yesterday
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USER INTERFACE
Players below level 12 can no longer use the in-game Mail system.
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Its a sledgehammer approach but will be very effective in this case.
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So, here's the thing: award a hidden badge, invisible to us players, to each and every character on an account that has applied at leats one full retail code, or which has paid for at least one month of play-time.
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That's what I said two weeks ago :P
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On test as of yesterday
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USER INTERFACE
Players below level 12 can no longer use the in-game Mail system.
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Its a sledgehammer approach but will be very effective in this case.
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No complaint here. I've only ever received a VALID in-game email about twice in the history of my gameplay, and both were someone from a supergroup sending me information about their group that I asked for. This would be worth it to avoid having 3 of these things every time I log on my brute.
Although last night I got a tell from someone selling while playing my mastermind.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Leandro, your link didn't work for me...
In general, I have noticed a marked decrease in the number of spam tells. But they only seem to have moved to the e-mail system.
So, perhaps the reference to "a more robust e-mail system" made by.... Statesman, I think.... will mean including a "friends filter" of some sort. Just guessing/hoping, there.
I do like the hidden badge idea, seems much simpler to implement.
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Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson |
YUMMY Low-Hanging Fruit for BASE LUV
I posted this idea in another thread before I noticed this one.
Maybe this would be useful to stem the tide of the misuse of in-game Tells.
Could it be that simply limiting the rate at which tells can be sent would be sufficient to make a difference? How about requiring accounts to have a minimum of 5 or even 10 seconds between sending 'tells'. Plus no more than say 60 tells can be sent in an hour. Of course these numbers are arbitrary. The devs studying the logs would know what exact values would be useful to stem the tide of SPAM.
In my usage I only send 'tells' infrequently when trying to coordinate a team or to chat briefly with a buddy. These restrictions wouldn't be a burden on my playing even if they were on full-time for normal accounts.
Chat within a channel (Local, Team, Super Group, etc.) is a different matter. Lots of discussion happens there at a quick rate. I'm not sure what the devs should do with Broadcast, if anything, but I don't want SPAMmers to find refuge there.
Assuming that the devs could limit 'tells' and not other forms of chat at the same time, I think this is a workable thing that may dampen in-game SPAM quite a bit. SPAM is only profitable if it can be sent at high volume with low cost. Dialing down the rate allowed means that the SPAMmers have to exert a lot more cost to generate a high volume. It may no longer be profitable then.
I think I have the perfect solution for the current email issue.
give the email system a brand new shiney button that toggles between letting any one email you and letting ONLY global friends to email you.
when the global friends option is toggled on, the email that is sent by any one else is sent back to thier mail box with a message that says something like "The player you have attempted to email is only accepting emails from friends."
this will do two things:
! it will flood THIER inboxes of thier characters and make THEM get irritated with spam and also giving them a clear and concise message that WE DONT WANT YOUR SURVICES. hopefully this will discourage thier desire to hastle us with undesired advertising.
2. we wont have to put up with them any more and customer service can get a ticket every time an email is returned to sender making it easier for thier accounts to be banned faster and faster.
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I don't know about the rest of you, but in the last week alone, I've noticed a significant drop in spams, both tells and emails, from the companies that had been sending them all the time, that's not to say that I haven't been getting them, but it's from some jackhole telling me to "watch King Road" or something. It appears that maybe the server updates might have been something more than just hardware improvements, either way it's nice.
"You aren't the sharpest tool in the shed, but you are a tool nonetheless."-American Demon.
Well, as announced in the Comic and Hero/Villain Culture forum, Blizzard won theri lawsuit against Peons-4-Hire, gaining a permanent injunction against the owning company ever being at ALL involved with RMT activities on ANY network Blizzard has an interest in - WoW or otherwise.
The legal precedent this provides is not to be underestimated: it has been accepted by the courts that, yes, RMT damages an MMO.
Blizzard winning is GREAT
:-( sadly it didn't go through as a CLASS ACTION suit... so more lawyers and more lawsuits will need to be persued every couple months as they re-organize under different company headings
I would think there should be SOME way to shut down, not only the account that the spams originate from, but also ALL THE TRIAL ACCOUNTS THEY SENT INVITATIONS FOR.
In theory, this would work it's way backwards, till they got all current, active spammer accounts. As a more drastic measure... you could even institute a reverse ban.... any account that gave a trial code to a confirmed spammer also gets the boot(with an appeal process, for the truely unfortunate/stupid who get suckered into giving a trial code to one of those #$&^ )(#$* #$&^#$ $&^# in nigeria or china, or wherever those muck dwelling bottom feeders live.
Sadly, a more secure e-mail system won't help me. I've only ever gotten ONE e-mail spam.. on Freedom server... on Pinnacle(home is where the beer is), all I ever see is tells. and they manage to find me through multiple days of both /hide AND /ghide.... at all hours of the day or night :-(
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Blizzard winning is GREAT
:-( sadly it didn't go through as a CLASS ACTION suit... so more lawyers and more lawsuits will need to be persued every couple months as they re-organize under different company headings
I would think there should be SOME way to shut down, not only the account that the spams originate from, but also ALL THE TRIAL ACCOUNTS THEY SENT INVITATIONS FOR.
In theory, this would work it's way backwards, till they got all current, active spammer accounts. As a more drastic measure... you could even institute a reverse ban.... any account that gave a trial code to a confirmed spammer also gets the boot(with an appeal process, for the truely unfortunate/stupid who get suckered into giving a trial code to one of those #$&^ )(#$* #$&^#$ $&^# in nigeria or china, or wherever those muck dwelling bottom feeders live.
Sadly, a more secure e-mail system won't help me. I've only ever gotten ONE e-mail spam.. on Freedom server... on Pinnacle(home is where the beer is), all I ever see is tells. and they manage to find me through multiple days of both /hide AND /ghide.... at all hours of the day or night :-(
[/ QUOTE ]That isnt going to do much when you got sites like MMORPG.com sending out tons of free trials. You would have to stop them too.
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Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
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Blizzard winning is GREAT
:-( sadly it didn't go through as a CLASS ACTION suit... so more lawyers and more lawsuits will need to be persued every couple months as they re-organize under different company headings
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No, they can't re-organise either - the wording was quite clear:
Defendant and all persons acting in concert with it, are hereby permanently enjoined and restrained from knowingly:
That phrase, "and all persons acting in concert with it", goes beyond the simple name of the company. Also:
Defendant, and any persons or entities controlled directly or indirectly by it, are hereby permanently enjoined and restrained from holding anything other than a passive investment or financial interest in any enterprise that it, he or she knows is engaging in any of the activities prohibited by this Consent Order.
The phrase "any persons or entities controlled directly or indirectly by it" would include any reorganised company, regardless of what name it bears.
And, the final nail in the coffin:
The Court shall retain jurisdiction to entertain such further proceedings and to enter such further orders as may be necessary or appropriate to implement and/or enforce the provisions of this Consent Order.
IOW: "The court will be keeping it's eye on you."
I was thinking that a better idea than the lvl 12 fix would be to make it so you can only recieve emails from people on your friends/gfriends/sg and coalitions lists. This wouldnt stop you from being able to send a tell to someone who isnt on one of those lists. The only problem I see is that anyone can right click and add you to THEIR friends list without the benefit of being on yours. However if they only worked it off of the recievers lists this would work quite well.
Does anyone use "/ignore_spammer"? Sorry if this has been discussed, i only read thru the first 10 pages..
Advice has been given to /petition a spammer, but I was given the impression that /ignore_spammer asdf was a quick and easy way to petition..
I'm not gonna /petition every email and spam i get, but usually I /ignore_spammer most of um..
perma jump is ---> /up 1
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Does anyone use "/ignore_spammer"? Sorry if this has been discussed, i only read thru the first 10 pages..
Advice has been given to /petition a spammer, but I was given the impression that /ignore_spammer asdf was a quick and easy way to petition..
I'm not gonna /petition every email and spam i get, but usually I /ignore_spammer most of um..
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Yes, we use "/ignore_spammer." And yes, it petitions automatically. The request to ignore AND petition is old and outdated.
~Missi
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Well I really do appriciate the toons lvl 10 & under won't be able to send ingame e-mails at this time. Though I have to admit after the 1st 2 weeks of being able to use the /ignorespammer in conjunction with an actual petition for tells, along with /gignore + petition for e-mail spammers, I noticed a marked decrease in spam tells & e-mails to the point where most of my toons have been spam free for over 2 weeks now. Mind you using the /gignore may not have actually stopped the e-mails, but it does give me a global handle that I can send in the petition, making it easier for CS to track those Spam accounts. The /gignore also works if the toon that was used to spam is logged off, making it easier to identify the actual account. If you have problems typing those random names like I do just use backspace for the auto reply if the spam was the last tell recieved. Then all you need to do is delete the text you don't need & change /tell to /gignore.
Yes it was irritating like Hades to do that work, but if it helped to not only highlight the problem, but make it easier for the CS to actually be able to track the ClusterBucks down, I'm enough of a teneacious Bint to do so. I have to say I'm appriciative of what they have been able to do so far & if not permitting toons under lvl 10 to be unable to send e-mails id what's going to work for now, I'm all for it! What few e-mails I send or recieve are usually technical info on binds or macros coding, otherwise I'm a Tel/Chat kind of gal.
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[...] hidden badges [...]
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*epiphany*
That's it. That's the answer!!
What have we been told is the biggest stumbling block, in terms of limiting Trial Accounts' access to Email, Tells, and so on? THEY CAN'T BE IDENTIFIED FROM REGULAR ACCOUNTS ... right?
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So, here's the thing: award a hidden badge, invisible to us players, to each and every character on an account that has applied at leats one full retail code, or which has paid for at least one month of play-time.
POOF, you now have a badge that only NON-TRIAL accounts possess. Which means, those that lack it?
Are Trial Accounts.
And they can be identified as such.
...
EUREKA!!!!