Discussion: What to do about unwanted game e-mail

So, unfortunately they must have customers here, or they wouldn't still be around, or do they make so much money in WoW that they can afford to keep throwing money away trying to sell in every game, profitable or not?

Honestly, it sucks but really they need to put chat limitations on the trials. Yes, it sucks, it sucked when I did a trial of WoW that I was limited to only local chat and no emails, tells only to players who have me on their friend list, but it DOES work to keep the spammers out of broadcast, tells, and such.

Second, and WoW needs to go BACK to this, trials should require a credit card (just make sure it accepts prepaids and only charge a penny to verify, not $1 like some do, as some prepaids do NOT accept chargebacks). Yes, it sucks for those that don't have a credit card, but as I said, as long as you make sure to accept prepaids. It won't totally get rid of them, but when you ban that credit card and all accounts that used it, it will be a help.

In the end, I think stepping on the toes of the legit users sucks monkey *****, but unfortunately, it really needs to be done to combat the spammers using the trials and such.

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I probably be flamed for this because it is a radical idea. But ...


Why not remove the e-mail system all together? All MMOs have e-mail which is why I say it is radical. But, it's usage here is limited compared to some others. We cannot transfer influence, enchantments, salvage, or recipes like other MMOs. It is really only text based communication. In my opinion communication is handled much more conveniently with tells and offiline messages. It would be curious what the actual usage numbers for e-mail would be without those reported for spam. My perception (which is limited and quite possibly wrong) is that it is not used much outside of sending RMT and now p0rn messages. Removing it would stop one of their more powertools, the ability to send spam while the player is offline.

Just my .02 influence.

--Rad

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Well, not everyone knows your global to send you an email. Some players have friends they want to keep non-global friends. Plus, many DJs use the email to keep track of requests, with 100 people sending them tells of requests, there's no way they could keep track of that! The email allows them to. So, no... removing email would be a bad idea. Removing it from TRIAL accounts would be fine, I know most of the DJs if you tell them "hey, i'm on a trial so no email, but can you play this song for me" that's a few tells compared to the 100's they'd be getting with no emails

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Can you just offer a way to disable the in-game e-mail entirely? I have never, ever used it.

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Seconded. Make it a per-user setting, so those that REALLY use it can, and those of us who could care less (or use a website for SG communications) don't get spammed.

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I used to list my 50's here, but now there are too many, and I don't think anyone cared in the first place :P

Just because some never use it doesn't mean some don't. Removing it would be a VERY bad idea. Now, a OPTION in your user settings to disable emails, that would be fine.

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How about locking the email function for trial accounts?

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Hallalujah! I hate these guys! IMHO, they ruin games. Thanks very much!

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Can you just offer a way to disable the in-game e-mail entirely? I have never, ever used it.

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Yeah, this has gotten way out of hand. I dont even look at the emails anymore, i just delete them, but I am getting very tired of the trouble. Anyway, you guys really need to streamline the process of alerting you to these emails, as was mentioned in a few of the posts.

Just happy something is getting done finally. Thanks!

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How about a nice button where i can put spammers on ignore, cuz when i use the /spammer_ignore option...it doesnt work...and i still get spammed 15 minutes by the exact same people.....

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The proper syntax is /ignore_spammer

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Well, not everyone knows your global to send you an email. Some players have friends they want to keep non-global friends. Plus, many DJs use the email to keep track of requests, with 100 people sending them tells of requests, there's no way they could keep track of that! The email allows them to. So, no... removing email would be a bad idea. Removing it from TRIAL accounts would be fine, I know most of the DJs if you tell them "hey, i'm on a trial so no email, but can you play this song for me" that's a few tells compared to the 100's they'd be getting with no emails

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Have you actually -used- the in-game email? They have to be directed to specific characters, not a global names.

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the problem also is they are using the free 14 day trial accounts to do this. Hasn't anyone ever tried the /gignore one on them and noticed it's also a giberish ignore name. The other problem is these are PL farmers that have no problem getting a toon to lvl 50 in a few hours. So if your gonna do it by can't send emails till a certain lvl or stuff like that it's just not gonna work.

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Not so fun fact:

Using the /gignore on them has zero effect. There is a break down in the system so that /gignore only blocks global tells, not emails or tells from characters on that account.

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the problem also is they are using the free 14 day trial accounts to do this. Hasn't anyone ever tried the /gignore one on them and noticed it's also a giberish ignore name. The other problem is these are PL farmers that have no problem getting a toon to lvl 50 in a few hours. So if your gonna do it by can't send emails till a certain lvl or stuff like that it's just not gonna work.

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Not so fun fact:

Using the /gignore on them has zero effect. There is a break down in the system so that /gignore only blocks global tells, not emails or tells from characters on that account.

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I wouldn't say that /gignore has zero effect on them, I always when I get a spam tell /ignore_spammer and /gignore I might be very lucky but when I see tells in global channels alerting others to spam tells I never seem to get them, I can only assume it's because of my /gignore. I think for every 15 spam tells my wife gets I might get 1. She doesn't use the /gignore.

I've also never recieved one of these spam emails, touch wood, but again she's recieved several.

Maybe I'm just too much work for them but personally I'm getting off relatively lightly I feel.

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You are very lucky.

/gignore has been extensively player tested and it only blocks global tells. Tells sent directly to a character from a character on a /ginored account still get through.

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Hows about instead of SGs sending email!
Get rid of the email system all together

CoX gives yall a webpage for your SGs/VGs
then yall could put all your stuff on a FREE webpage

www.cityofheroes.com/sg(insert sg name-insert founder or leader name here)

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Thank you, Sir, for this clear announcement.

To the "Get rid of email" crowd, I do use email. I even occasionally send in-game emails to non-SG people and to non-friend people. I was slightly unconvinced when I couldn't send or respond to emails on new-under-level-10 toons, but I got over it. But please don't kill all in-game email.

The two best suggestions I have seen are:<ul type="square">[*]Make in-game email a 15 day, 3 week, or 1 month veteran “reward”[*]Make a button on in-game email to forward/report offensive email[/list]Thanks.

I will count this as an answer to my PM to Lighthouse.

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New Global: @American Decoy

�You are hereby promoted to Tiglath_Pilesest� - Squez

�no, you rocketed past ddx. you got LIGHTHOUSE -evil musak-� - DDH_Hamenopi

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The only problem with using the /ignore_spammer command I see is the continuous use of nonsensical names used by most spammers, that makes it often impossible to correctly ignore. For the email that has been flooding our accounts specifically could the Dev's please add an in-game email address (per server) that we can forward the emails to (IE Email Petitions; Pinnacle Spammers; Virtue Petitions, etc). The player base can then easily forward the email along to the support team for their review/actions. Or add a button to the current in-game email structure to forward the email as a petition.

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That's a really good idea

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http://tiny.cc/ArcaneDefenseItems
This is a bug, nothing more. Please put away the tin-foil hats, there's nothing sinister going on here.-Protea

http://tiny.cc/WhatBeatsADragon

The way to wipe this out is to prevent any Level 1 (or perhaps Level 1-3) character from sending tells or emails to people that are not on their global friends' list. This will make it more difficult for the rank-and-file, level 1 spammer from blasting emails and tells out shortly after creating a new character.

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Anybody happen to notice a pattern to how these get sent out at all? I only really get these e-mails on one or two toons and no others. And its not that I only log into two toons, I actually log into five or six on a regular basis, but really only get the e-mails on one, sometimes two.

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All you have to do is completely remove email from trial accounts. That way they have to pay to advertise.

I use the email system. If somebody I know is in the arena, I can't send them tells, but I can send them an email, so I use it for that.

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/t @Flame Enchantress, /em sends tell

ERROR: CANNOT FIND MOCKINGLAUGHTER.TXT

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The way to wipe this out is to prevent any Level 1 (or perhaps Level 1-3) character from sending tells or emails to people that are not on their global friends' list. This will make it more difficult for the rank-and-file, level 1 spammer from blasting emails and tells out shortly after creating a new character.

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Takes less than 10 min to get to lvl 5-6 if you know what you're doing and have a little help from your friends. This will pretty much accomplish nothing.

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Yes, those types of e-mails do exist... and worse. Child pr0n, for example. With an explicit description of what the supposed link goes to.

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*aghast*

CHILD Porn? &gt;:

That type of stuff should go to support and right to the cops!

What in the bloody 'ell is going on for those people to get in the game?

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I sit in my zen of not being able to do anything right while simultaniously not being able to do anything wrong. Om. -CuppaJo
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning. It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion.

I've discovered not only are they using lame toon names like asdfjkl, I think they're using there free trial accounts to spam everyone... I sent a global friend invite to one and they accepted it, I thought I was going to be able to report their global, but only realized their global was the same lame asdfjkl BS...

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I thought deleting email would be good, but then I realized they'd start sending tells which are more annoying.
Chat and email should only be available to credit card subscribers. If they are spammers, make all thier email and chat get diverted to a special dev/moniter account, without them knowing there has been a diversion. Any other account with the same credit card name will be immediately treated the same.
City of Heroes gets thier subscription money, they think they are spamming, and everyone gets left alone.

And to report those spam happy losers, the multi petition/ignore/delete button is genius.

Evil. Yes I know.

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The Credit card thing has been touched on before in the past.

The spammers have a large number of credit card numbers on file (from buyers) and happily use them to validate trials in other games.

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@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617

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The only problem with using the /ignore_spammer command I see is the continuous use of nonsensical names used by most spammers, that makes it often impossible to correctly ignore. For the email that has been flooding our accounts specifically could the Dev's please add an in-game email address (per server) that we can forward the emails to (IE Email Petitions; Pinnacle Spammers; Virtue Petitions, etc). The player base can then easily forward the email along to the support team for their review/actions. Or add a button to the current in-game email structure to forward the email as a petition.

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On the surface this is a good idea...

...but when you look deeper it has too great a chance for abuse. People could report players that just tick them off ingame, possibly causing an unfair, unwarranted cacelation of their account. Yes, devs would try to review the emails...but in truth, there is only so much time in a day.

The problem is the Free Trials. Spammers can easily get a toon to 10 within 1 Day, and then use that toon to send spams. Then they get another trial account and repeat. Ignoring globals won't even work because of it.

The Free Trials are a useful thing to promote the game, but as long as they are there, we will have spam...period.

If they do away with them? then they could implement an /ignore_global_of &lt;name&gt; or some such command.

And...btw...I had an SGer that I removed from my SG on heroes side for his use of foul language in SG Chat (a violation of our policies)...a few days later, I decided to play a villain for a little while, logged on the toon and there was an email from a toon with that same name...a spam email selling influence.

I replied, telling him I was reporting him...pure coincidence that I got the message from him after removing him from the sg. He later contacted me saying he wasn't a spammer. He seemed convincing to me.

But I don't see how a spammer could send a message with someone elses name a the sender. If there IS a bug that allows this (and it is possible after all the exploits I've seen in this game)...then how in the world will they stop spamming other then removing emails completely?

Even then though, I get random tells from these guys too.

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