Discussion: Zero Tolerance RMT Tells and Spam

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I must be either sheltered or not in game when these happen.

Has anyone noticed a patern concerning server/time/day?

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Twice last night on Liberty, 2 different accounts, advertising 2 different websites. I ignored/gignored and petitioned.

I heard from others on our server global channel that dozens of other players were also being spammed, this has been ongoing on Liberty for a while and is ramping up in frequency. It sounds like a 'bot program. The usernames are longstrings of randomletters like sdasffeqzrp or likewise.

(PS: That's NOT AN ACTUAL NAME of one of the spammers - I made that one up, I'm not indulging in a EULA violation here.)

I dont want to post the site address
ip 220.166.64.54

You just DID

I'm of the opinion that markets will form regardless of what you do. I submit that:

(1) RMT has negatives, but getting spammed in game is more negative than the other effects
(2) People who want to engage in RMT will be able to do so. They may have to go looking. It can't be stopped, it won't be stopped, so acting as if it CAN be prevented is foolish.
(3) RMT is potentially dangerous in an unregulated market. Also, unregulated RMT can result in people doing things like attacking account passwords to try to compromise accounts to steal items, or spreading viruses which drop keysniffers on systems. (Note that there are already a LOT of these spreading because of WoW - how hard would it be for virus writers to check for many games and not just WoW?)

Consequent to these points, I submit that NCSoft is better off implementing a "Station Exchange" type system. Basically, accept that the secondary RMT market exists and cannot be stamped out, and rather than try, promote your own legitimate service to protect players and stop spammers. (A robust legitimate market will make spamming worthless)

I've never played an SoE game, but their exchange page makes it fairly clear what some of the major issues were. In an ideal world, I think getting rid of RMT completely might be a legitimate goal. But if you can't get rid of it, better an open, regulated, legitimate and secure market than one run by spammers and scammers underground.

I get these tells in the evening on my 50s (I almost never hide). Has everyone else been seeing this on 50s or a mix of toons? They are always for the same site. At least their bad English is getting better. "Step on a billionaire with single click..."

As long as folks are willing to pay for PLs and inf instead of playing themselves these services will exist.

just have ncsoft sell the inf at 25 cents less a million than the farmers are willing to do.

No more farmers.
People who are willing to buy inf are happy
ncsoft makes more money and can fix the old bugs that are still around

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just have ncsoft sell the inf at 25 cents less a million than the farmers are willing to do.

No more farmers.
People who are willing to buy inf are happy
ncsoft makes more money and can fix the old bugs that are still around

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What? You are out of your gord man! If they were to do that, they would be inserting artificial (non-earned) inf into the system and prices in the market would sky-rocket! It would be like the government selling $1 bill for $.75 people would buy them up and prices on things in the real world with super inflate due to the increased cash flow. All those not willing to purchase more bucks would be left to suffer. Also along with that inf earned in game comes pieces of salvage that get put on the market as well.

I've gotten one tell from these losers. Ignored and petitioned.

I just don’t see the point of buying INF anyway. With out even trying I can play my lvl 50 for an hour and earn 1 million + INF... Not to mention the salvage and receipt drops. My SG mates are always passing things between us none of us is short on money.

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I have read some work written by game theory experts regarding Silent Auctions and though all the literature I've seen appears to promote it for lots of different things interested in fairness, it's never, to my knowledge, been attempted on the scale that Cryptic has attempted. I think that in any large system involving money, corruption is bound to seep in, and I've definately seen signs of extensive oddities in the ebb and flow of the market. Also at issue is that in the academic studies of silent auctions that I've seen, the participants had no way of speaking with one another to achieve a mutually beneficial result.

I recognize this is essentially a rough blueprint for market manipulation, and cause to have this post censored, however I think it's an activity that needs to be monitored, and as it only takes a few minutes a day, the return for time invested could be phenominal.

After a complaint like this, I like to offer some constructive advice to solve the problems mentioned, and the easiest way is to change how prior transactions are listed. Showing the last 5 or 6 transactions is a poor market indicator. Something showing the average or mean, or both, over the last 30 days would be brilliant. Computers are glorified calculators, let them calculate.

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FFXI's auction system is more or less exactly the same as CoH's, except that you can't "queue" bids there like you can here. (That is, place a bid on an item not available for sale so it will automatically be bought when someone places one for sale.)

And it has had famous RMT issues.

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Then make use of the in game /petition command to let our Customer Support Team know of the activity so we can address it.

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could you elaborate on this, as to exactly what information you need the petition to contain, what petition topic to enter it under. also how do you globally ignore someone without knowing their global name ?

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I use Conduct/Terms of service violation, but it probably doesn't matter.

Just give the name you have of the RMTer.

And always petition imediately.

Sometimes, i throw in the website, if I an not busy.

But the name is really all they need, as they have full chatlogs of EVERYTHING said in City of Heroes - Private tell or not. And they can find out peoples accounts from that easy.

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Let's say I wanted to stalk someone - I can /gignore them, get their global handle, and then send them tells no matter who they are on as. If they are not aware of the chat-handle system, they may have very little recourse.

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Well, not really - the other person can /gignore you in turn, and the harassment ends there. Not only that, now THEY have YOUR global handle, which they can use to petition you for harassment if you press the issue further.

Mad props to NCSoft for being swift to address this issue. I'm not happy about what gold farmers do to the in-game economy, but I could overlook that. It's the constant spamming that was the irritating part in WoW.

For best results, mention the character name that sent the tell, the global handle, the server, and the time of day in your petition so they can pinpoint it in the chat logs.

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I understand what you're saying, and yes, you're right. However, if the stalkee wasn't aware of the slash commands, they'd be pretty screwed. That's why I say that...

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Even if they don't know slash commands, it's in the friends window, and there is the petition function anyway.

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I must be either sheltered or not in game when these happen.

Has anyone noticed a patern concerning server/time/day?

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I have started to get in-game tells from one about 2 or 3 days ago. I petitioned them in game last night. First time I have ever petitioned anyone.

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I wonder though if someone buys items from one of these merchants do they get banned also?

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They should because all they are doing in encouraging them.

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Do they sit around playing the game to raise influence?

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That's basically it. They hire kids to play the game and collect inf and then they resell it to suckers. Those are the big operations though. There are however just individuals out there that do it as well. I knew a guy that played EQ and made good money just leveling up characters and getting all kinds of loot and selling the accounts.

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I dont want to post the site address
ip 220.166.64.54

You just DID

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Domain Name vs IP address. I think if I post the domain name, more people would remember it, VS posting a bunch of numbers in an ip address.

Which is easier to remember?

Sorry I guess I should have wasted more time and petitioned the guys who have been doing this...

Sigh excuse me if they can block words that could be offensive anywords would it be so hard for them to find the offending person since they can see the original copy of the logs.

Petions are great and if they work great. You ask to discuss : Zero Tolerance, I can't enforce it we still suffer form things reported in the past so why should I bother interupting my game play when several heroes I know will petion them and we will still get the offending / bothersome messages.

Bottomline guys I'll petition if you will enforce the zero tolerance.

Valor

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I'm of the opinion that markets will form regardless of what you do. I submit that:

(1) RMT has negatives, but getting spammed in game is more negative than the other effects


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I won't really disagree with your other points, but there is a *huge* one that you've missed here.

The IRS.

The IRS has a commission to look at things like this and decide how to tax it, and I do mean specifically RMT. It was created in the last year or so.

Obviously, the people receiving money should be taxed. However, there is case law that receiving something that has real world value (as indicated by RMT) is taxable in and of itself.

E.g. if that Miracle: +Recovery unique has a real world value thanks to RMT, you owe taxes on it *whether you sell it for actual cash or not*.

Can you imagine NCSoft sending you 1099's every year to outline your drops?

In other words, we're all *much* better off with it being banned by EULA.

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While very useful for reporting offenders, I feel that being able to get anyone's global handle is a big security risk.


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No, it's not. However, I keep seeing this from paranoid people so I'll dig into it for you.

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Let's say I wanted to stalk someone - I can /gignore them, get their global handle, and then send them tells no matter who they are on as. If they are not aware of the chat-handle system, they may have very little recourse.


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This presupposes that Joe Random decides to "stalk" someone completely at random. That really doesn't happen much. (I haven't heard of it happening at all, ever, but that's besides the point.) (and people stalking celebrities isn't picking someone at random either.)

More than likely, it's already someone they would have contact with and would be able to get the global handle from other means anyway.

And what sorts of abuse can they give a person? Sending tells whenever they want while the person may or may not be online? A gignore fixes that. And honestly, if the person doesn't know about gignore they are pretty likely to just accept a gfriending which opens the door to even more abuse.

Also, globals *aren't* account names. In fact, I remember reading in the dialog specific instructions to make sure they aren't the same.

Beyond eliminating the handle, there are lots of practical limitations. For instance, you have someone gignored, how do you ungignore them if you don't know the handle?

Of course, completely hiding the global also opens even more abuse. Do you realize how bad SG/VG bin theivery was before I9? How much worse it got when people stocked IO's? And do you know how much worse it would be if you couldn't even tell if the same guy that ripped you off before was back with a new alt?

In short, finding some way to hide globals gives very, very little benefit while actually hurting those who may need it.

Nearly every MMO game I've played that has any kind of economy has had this issue to deal with, eventually. Unfortunately my experience is that they come up with a fix of some sort to get rid of the bots or whatever and then a workaround is discovered, and on, and on. I'm glad they have a zero-tolerence policy and are actively looking into it but I suspect it is just something we'll have to live with as a part of the game.

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You calling me out Janlee???

Yeah I believe this is bad for in game. Yeah I think such things most be earned.

However a market place for that exist its called e-bay they don't need to advertise it in game.

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Actually, e-bay no longer accepts those kind of sales and there are none currently up there. It is now against their terms-of-use.

Yeah, try listing anything with the words 'Gold" Wow, World of Warcraft (yes Virginia, there are other products with the name, i.e the role-playing game books).

I have had a problem listing stuff on e-bay that do not contain these words, and when I go to list I get an error telling me that selling virtual items are not allowed.

And I've gotten a couple of these, on Pinnacle and Freedom.

Come, on Inf/ infamy its not hard to come buy like in other games. People who do buy this are just lazy players in my opinion.

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You calling me out Janlee???

Yeah I believe this is bad for in game. Yeah I think such things most be earned.

However a market place for that exist its called e-bay they don't need to advertise it in game.

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Which doesn't mean that they don't know about it and shut it down. Try it, auction an account on ebay and see if you have an account to auction at the end of a week.

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You calling me out Janlee???

Yeah I believe this is bad for in game. Yeah I think such things most be earned.

However a market place for that exist its called e-bay they don't need to advertise it in game.

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Actually, e-bay no longer accepts those kind of sales and there are none currently up there. It is now against their terms-of-use.

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Using the search term "city of heroes imfamy" I found this

Granted that was in the sponsored links section and I imagine a further search would find "masked" sales in their listings.

If City were truly zero tolerance on this matter I would think they would go after these sites and those reported via petition. Then again it may just be a legal hassle that they don't care to pursue.

...just sayin



.....just sayin

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Well thats great news.
I know for a fact that a "global" had sold account. Got invite from someone on that account that wasn't who it use to be.

Now I complained about it because its not fair. Why should you be able to buy vet rewards that's wrong.
We have earned ours and wear them with pride roll 24 months next month.

The guy said he bought account for wings which we all know any level 1 can now get.

I got 2 of these annoying messages & used /ignore & /gignore & reported the lowlife of a parasite via petition. It was very annoying to have this tell smack me in the face in the midst of fighting a Ritki zone invasion with heavies surrounding me & having to not lose my temper over such sickening behaviour in game.

Anything PlayNC can do to reduce such exploitation is a step forward in my opinion. Good riddance!

As for suggestions? Here are mine:

(1) I like the brilliant idea that Luerim12 gave, to better moderate exploitation on the auction house. Show the prices max, min & average for the last month!

(2) <EDITED> Deleted after reading the Red Name's post stating that such going's on in the auction house is allowed.

(3) Track any banned accounts back to their credit card number - and ban their credit card on trying to open any PlayNC account. This means they have to go to the trouble of getting a new credit card - that in itself will help to discourage the spammers.

(4) Increase the drop rate for the rare precious shiny things.
For example - Numina's convalescance, or any other recipe, or rare salvage that sells for over 1million. Increasing the drop rate means the sales price will lower. This is a good thing for all players, and is only bad for someone who expects to profit on the auction house.

(5) Alter TF completion offering of the rare recipe!
Modify it so you can pick from a certain area - heals, Targeted AoE damage, defense, etc. To give you a higher chance to get what you really need. The screen could be modified to click "rare recipe" which opens up another screen, and you click "Heals", and a random rare heal recipe is given to you.

(6) Alter TF completion to offer you rare salvage!
The screen pops up at the end of the TF. You can pick from SO, recipe, salvage. So you click Salvage, and you can then click "Arcane" or "Tech" to get whichever side of the rare pool you are after, which offers you a random rare from that type.
(When I say arcane, I'm referring to stuff such as Mu Vestment, Pangean Soil, etc, I'm not sure on their real classification).

(7) Level restrict Peregrine Island.
OK I will upset some people here. But this is how I feel. Please, change Peregrine Island to have a level restriction - make it level 40+ for example (just a suggestion). Yes, people will farm in other zones, but eventually those farms will level up & have to move on as it affects xp. <EDIT> (added) It just makes it that little bit more difficult for the RMT's who run farms in PI which is why I suggested it.

(8) <EDITED> some text deleted due to the overly hot topic of farming.

I don’t mind farming when the people grinding away are experienced players & helping their friends level up without any catch, and everyone is *learning* how to play their hero.
When people PAY to have their level 2 levelled up in PI and go from 2 to 50 in a week & have no clue how to play, that bothers me. And surprisingly there are accounts sold with alts PL'd up to 50, and I get stuck teaming with some idiot who has no idea who to play his level 50 fire/kin, and I check out his info to see he is a 2 year veteran yet has no idea how to send tells... and then realise he bought the account from some leech that PL'd it... and that upsets me. The game to me is about playing & *learning*, which unlocks your potential to be worthy of level 50, the pinnacle of your success, a super hero.

Zloth summed it up nicely for me:
"Paying $500 to have somebody PL your hero up to 50 is like paying somebody $50 to tell you the end of the latest Harry Potter book.

So long as farms have people willing to pay to join them, it encourages RMTs to exploit this for their own gain. This is why I think the zone restriction & fixing the “mapping” can help a bit to reduce this problem.

These are just my suggestions, please don’t crucify me. I was asked for my opinion, so this is my feedback & in no way a criticism on anyone.

Thanks for your time.

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You calling me out Janlee???

Yeah I believe this is bad for in game. Yeah I think such things most be earned.

However a market place for that exist its called e-bay they don't need to advertise it in game.

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Actually, e-bay no longer accepts those kind of sales and there are none currently up there. It is now against their terms-of-use.

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Using the search term "city of heroes imfamy" I found this

Granted that was in the sponsored links section and I imagine a further search would find "masked" sales in their listings.

If City were truly zero tolerance on this matter I would think they would go after these sites and those reported via petition. Then again it may just be a legal hassle that they don't care to pursue.

...just sayin



.....just sayin

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Actually, I just clicked that link.. and got "0 results" .. I even did one for influence for the same.. and again... "0 results"

Guess they aren't as slow as you assumed?

Peace