Discussion: What to do about unwanted game e-mail

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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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I like this suggestion.

Also, haven't seen pr0n ads yet, nor heard about them from any other players. And in my SG, I'd be getting text messages about it as soon as it happened.

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As I mentioned in the original announcement, we have several improvements to the game coming in Issue 12 to address. While I don't have an exhaustive list of everything we are doing, it does include much easier ways to report abuse as well as ways to prevent abuse from the start (including limitations to Trial accounts).

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Well, duh...I should have read further first, lol.

As to removing Emails...let me just say that I hope they will NOT do this. SGs use them a lot. It would be better to have email options like "Recieve From Members of SG and Friends List only" or something.

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I would like to say that the complete removal of email. Sounds like a grand idea. For I never use such methods to contact people. I will normally send a "tell" to there global name. It is then displayed upon logon. They logon and read it once and then they can be done with it . Then it is erased as soon as you log off. Although a method to save certain "tells" would be nice. So basicly I am making a proposition to create an "email/tell screening system".

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Although you yourself may not make use of it, many do.

Here's and example: When Recruits or regular members are inactive for too long, I send the email below to them then remove them from the SG:

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INACTIVE: 12 Days

Limit: 10 Days

Hello,

Your toon was inactive for too long in <SG Name>.

Unfortunately, our requirement is that all new members log on at least once every 10 days. With us being full, we're having to more strictly enforce the rule.

In cases where members have to go on a leave of absense, they are required to send me an ingame email listing their alts in the sg, their global handle and when they expect to return.

I've had to remove you from the SG, but you can be reinvited upon request assuming there is room for you!

If this toon was an alt, remember we have a sister Beta SG for Alts now. To get invited into it, send me a global at address below. Details about the Beta SG are on our homepage at <name>.com

- @<name>

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I also use it for other SG duties. So yes...it does have many uses.

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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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Here's another idea...how about IP banning computers that have a pattern of acquiring Trial accounts frequently. Then they cannot get them at all.

I would think that anyone who frivolously abused a delete / ignore / report button would themselves wind up a target for a ban; I'm going to hope the devs wouldn't implement a feature like that without first considering the consequences.

Needless to say, we'll never be completely rid of spam. These people sit around all day trying to find ways around the restrictions placed on them. It's a shame that all of their creative energy can't be turned toward more constructive ends; if the sum total of human endeavor that is spent scamming for money could be altered into something useful we'd have the cure for cancer by now.

Thanks to the influence peddlers I never join or fill for farm teams; I always worry I'd be helping some spammer do his thing.

Personally, what I'd really like to see is a global ignore that does more than just ignore global tells. Global ignore should allow for a permanent ban from that user's account from contacting you on any character new or old on that account. Furthermore, creating a permanent, unlimited ignore list would help to.

EVERY other MMO I've played (more than a dozen.) had an unlimited amount of people you can ignore. Only being able to ignore 20 people at a time is ridiculous, especially since with the addition of server transfers, spam and other random stupidity is at an alltime high.

Hate to sound rude, but c'mon DEVS, give us ignore functions that are actually, oh I dunno, "USEFUL," please.

Remember, there was some announcement a while back that i12 would include the option to CLICK ON NAMES in the chat window to bring up more options. I bet petition will be one of these options. If not, it should be easy enough to add, theyve already laid the ground work.

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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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So? they have a bunch of CC's from people stupid enough to buy from them and encourage them. I know its harsh, but those people *deserve* to get thier cc's charged. The only people who would cry are the ones who bought stuff from them. Then it would be in those peoples court to declare CC fraud and take legal action.

Make those who encourage these idiots be the ones who have to pay for the lawyers. Its not CoX fault if someone uses a cc not belonging to them. If you want to use that arguement, ANYONE could use someone elses cc, not just spammers. So what, eliminate all cc to prevent it? I dont think so.

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Remember, there was some announcement a while back that i12 would include the option to CLICK ON NAMES in the chat window to bring up more options. I bet petition will be one of these options. If not, it should be easy enough to add, theyve already laid the ground work.

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Good point. I'd completely forgotten about that. I suspect you're on the right track there.

Those influence peddlers should be strung up and boiled in oil!!! Well, at least permanently delete their accounts, and ban their credit card owner from ever sighning up again.

As far as the ingame e-mails go, a spam button would go a long way. That way we would only need to highlight the offending e-mail and click the spam button. Being able to select multiple e-mails would be even better.

This way, there will be no errors in reporting a spammer who has one of the long nonsensical names that have used uppercase i's to stand for lowercase L's, and such.

Peace out

Lighthouse,

We all thank you for the ability to transfer 100 billion infamy in a chunk. I would like to offer you THE SOLUTION and help you kill this spam once and for all.

Provide an account/server bank system so we can simply transfer amongst the characters/toons on a single account on a per server and game basis. The main reason for handing over 100 million infamy to another party is to transfer to a new toon. I propose to end that forever.

The Black Market and Auction House have given us a place to spend millions of influence and infamy. My Brute's build cost almost 2 Billion so far. Thanks for an awesome economy to help me be the best I can be!!

Now comes the overseas merchants peddling 100million infamy via email.

What if transfering 100 million was painful again. Maybe I shouldn't suggest rolling back to the 5 digit transfer window but hey why not, we don't need to use a friend for a toon transfer.

The economy for the money sellers has become more profitable even if you are making efforts to shrink the market because they can now transfer billions in a single transaction.

I consider them organized crime group, the farmers, the middle men using the BM/AH to launder the money, and the delivery mules. Heck, if a person doesn't want to risk getting caught they can sign up a trial account and create a mule to take it from their mule and give it to themselves.

It is a crazy thing and utter nonsense to keep reporting the spam since they never use the same email twice, nor do they spam in game tells with the same toon twice. I say why bother with /ignore_spammer and why petition them.... they don't care about their accounts..... They can make more

So back to the original idea for those that read this far.....

Give us an account bank to transfer Enhancements, Influence/Infamy, recipes and other valuables between the heroes on an account/server and between our villains on an account/server. Then the Mighty ZAP!! Shrink the money transfer to a useful yet painful size.

Make it cost the money sellers to transfer and the amounts of game money for sale will shrink.

While on the topic of TOS violations, is it against TOS to charge chocolate chip cookies for PL?

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I'm praying they are removing email availability from trial accounts. That'd go a long way to stop the spammers, I'm sure.

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A simple yet brilliant solution.

(QR)

I've been using the /ignore_spammer, like, forever. But I eventually got tired of it. Not because I get so many spam emails on a few characters, but it's irritating to type a sequence of letters like llwwlnwlmelwn where you can not easily distinguish between uppercase "i" and lowercase "L", a lot of m's, n's, w's and the like. It's just tiring and annoying.

I should've been sending the petitions as well, but I am lazy. I want to log into the game to play, for once, not to track down 15 or so unrecognizable usernames and petition them all. Mostly because I work with computers for the whole day and my brain does not work at that level of detail when I start playing late in the evening.

/end rant

However, I have petitioned (as many here, I believe) a "Report Spam" button in the Email window, to make things just a WHOLE LOT easier and headache-free.

I don't know if the devs have a plan for that feature, but here is how I see this "Report Spam" button working. first on the player's end:

1. show a confirmation message like "Report this message as SPAM?" with a Yes/No choice, to avoid accidental reporting. Further procedures only apply if the user chooses Yes;
2. /gignore the sender;
3. send a copy of the message to the GM team, or a part of the GM team dedicated to fight spammers;
4. delete the message automatically.

On the GM's end, after receiving a spam report:

1. manual verification of the message sent. This process cannot be automated (like, automatically verifying if such message is a spam based on a few content rules and patterns), otherwise it would be easily abused.
2. if the message is NOT a spam (say, someone intentionally trying to report a non-spammer as one), just ignores it, or warns (by ingame email, maybe?) the user who reported the message.
3. if the message is clearly a SPAM, flags/blocks the sender access to the game immediately, and save the message somewhere for future use (like using it as a proof in case the sender claims not to be a spammer).

Might not be the perfect idea, but I think it covers most of the flaws that might occur in a system like that.

Thanks for listening.

sounds good. They should make it like yahoo email, where it blocks the sender and reports them, and you can report multiple offenders. that would definitely put an end to it. Lets get the boiling oil rdy. I would be ashamed if I didn't earn my chars status myself. Whats the point of it then?

Peace

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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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Why no, I've never sent an email to DJ Shecky or Rain Fox, or DJ Angel and had them play my song on The Cape Radio. Nope, not once. Ever.

Could my attempts to send emails to @DJ Shecky possibly be the reason!?

/sarcasm

Now, as for what you said, I think I see why you said that, I should have said "Not everyone knows your global to send you a tell when you are offline". Yes, I know email is for characters not for globals, sorry for the confusion, and my sarcastic nature.

I have to admit as I don't need or want the services of these sites, I don't find them to disrupt my game play... the emails are annoying to have to delete but the in game tells I just gloss over already.

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I have to admit as I don't need or want the services of these sites, I don't find them to disrupt my game play... the emails are annoying to have to delete but the in game tells I just gloss over already.

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Well, they DO disrupt my game play, as on my main I had a mail that I was saving, had saved it for months, but when deleting 15 spam mails, I accidentally deleted that mail i wanted to keep, so that constitutes a disruption to my game.

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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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Why no, I've never sent an email to DJ Shecky or Rain Fox, or DJ Angel and had them play my song on The Cape Radio. Nope, not once. Ever.

Could my attempts to send emails to @DJ Shecky possibly be the reason!?

/sarcasm

Now, as for what you said, I think I see why you said that, I should have said "Not everyone knows your global to send you a tell when you are offline". Yes, I know email is for characters not for globals, sorry for the confusion, and my sarcastic nature.

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You cannot send an in-game email to a global, you have to send it to a specific character.

Using /tells to a Global name is something else entirely.

Don't confuse the two like you are doing with both of these posts.

As for the DJs using the email system, what makes the in game email so special that requests /have/ to be sent using that method? In game tells already handle communication so why is in game email so vitally important? Also all the DJs have out of game emails that could handle requests as well, and far better than the in game email system as most normal email providers these days have spam blockers.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

I'm still curious to see a Dev response to how these spammers are able to get character names when the characters have not been online to be seen on a /who list.

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how these spammers are able to get character names when the characters have not been online to be seen on a /who list.

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By watching the areas around Wentworths and the Black Market as well as other high population areas like the Talos Green Line.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

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how these spammers are able to get character names when the characters have not been online to be seen on a /who list.

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By watching the areas around Wentworths and the Black Market as well as other high population areas like the Talos Green Line.

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If the characters have NOT been on in the first place, they're not going to be hanging around the Wents / BM / Talos tram.

Exactly my point Cende. I left the game sometime in Oct. 2007. Before leaving, I made sure the mail boxes on all my alts were empty. I also had several lvl 1 alts at the time that had never made it out of the tutorial, I just made them because I got a nifty concept idea but never took the time to play them. I stopped playing until around March 2008. I had cancelled the subscriptions on my accounts during this time, so I know the characters had not been logged in at all in that time. When I came back, most of my toons had spam mail, including some of the ones still in the tutorial. So again, I wonder exactly how spammers are getting ahold of character names when they aren't around to be logged in even occasionally. Is there a character database somewhere that I don't know about? Are some of these spammers NCSoft employees with little businesses on the side? That might make sense to me considering they'd have access to the game databases with character names right at their fingertips.

I don't think just email limitations/changes should be looked at by the Devs. There's plenty of additional ways to put these spammers and sellers out of business. These are just suggestions, not something I'm demanding. But they're definately food for thought. And I do believe they've been mentioned by other posters, just not in so many words.

A.) increase the drop rates of the items that are costing a fortune. Force the prices down and fewer people will buy influence/infamy.

B.) Undercut the spam sellers by cutting in on their action. The Devs put out costume packages that are purchasable. And pretty soon we'll have purchasable character slots. Why not put together purchasable influence/infamy packages at a rate so low it will force the sellers out of business? Put a limitation on how many times a month an account can purchase these packages. Of course, something may have to be done with the coding so that purchased influence/infamy isn't counted toward the badges associated with the two. I'm not an expert so I don't know for sure.

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B.) Undercut the spam sellers by cutting in on their action. The Devs put out costume packages that are purchasable. And pretty soon we'll have purchasable character slots. Why not put together purchasable influence/infamy packages at a rate so low it will force the sellers out of business? Put a limitation on how many times a month an account can purchase these packages. Of course, something may have to be done with the coding so that purchased influence/infamy isn't counted toward the badges associated with the two. I'm not an expert so I don't know for sure.

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Bad idea here, this is making it so the rich can get better stuff in game faster than poor folks like me, or those that have to choose between CoX and Cable, or hell, maybe some food. It's NEVER a good idea to pack money for players that may extra, which is why these spammers are being such a pain.

Take an Example of MUDs where if you pay x amount of dollars you get x amount of 'credits' which can get you x amount of money for x training (Which IOs basically are) which interrupts game experience, especially for casual players that can't spare the money.

With Love,
Me! <3

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I left the game sometime in Oct. 2007. Before leaving, I made sure the mail boxes on all my alts were empty. I also had several lvl 1 alts at the time that had never made it out of the tutorial, I just made them because I got a nifty concept idea but never took the time to play them. I stopped playing until around March 2008. I had cancelled the subscriptions on my accounts during this time, so I know the characters had not been logged in at all in that time. When I came back, most of my toons had spam mail, including some of the ones still in the tutorial. So again, I wonder exactly how spammers are getting ahold of character names when they aren't around to be logged in even occasionally. Is there a character database somewhere that I don't know about?

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Ok, just to be absolutely clear:

Issue 9 brought the Markets to CoX. It was released May 1st 2007. You stopped playing Oct 2007. By my reckoning that is six months that you exposed yourself to be seen.

During that time the RMTs were in the places I said before (Markets, hub areas) and in the tutorials. While they were spamming, they were also writing down (or likely just taking screen shots) names that were "visible" either by sighting them directly or by searches. The RMTS at that point likely compiled their own database.

Also if your character name is "easy to guess" all they'd have to do is use the "search name" function and write down the names of any characters taken. From there they could try different variations of those names. Sure it would be a hassle, but possible. These too would be added to their database. Concept characters would be especially vulnerable to this.

As to the in game emails when you got back, well that doesn't matter because the game delivered the emails because the characters existed. It doesn't matter if they were logged in or not.

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Are some of these spammers NCSoft employees with little businesses on the side? That might make sense to me considering they'd have access to the game databases with character names right at their fingertips.

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Please stop drinking the funny looking kool-aid and remove your tinfoil hat. It looks silly.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

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Please stop drinking the funny looking kool-aid and remove your tinfoil hat. It looks silly.


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Come on now, this is a discussion thread, lets not turn it into a flame war please. It was a rambling thought in my post, not an accusation. It is possible for adults to discuss game topics without resulting to snarkiness. If that was a joke, I apologize for taking it the wrong way. I don't know the poster well enough to know for sure =/

My whole point is that it strikes me as odd that I created a few concept characters and had them logged on just long enough to get into the tutorial, then logged them off. They didn't get played after that because I already had too many other alts to juggle, but I liked the characters so kept them. Sure there's a chance one of these characters could have been spotted by a spammer. But I wasn't receiving spam mail back before I quit. Spam has always been a problem in game, but wasn't an issue for me until after my return. Though I can see how creating databases over time would be a tool they'd use. I can also see how sites like City Information Terminal and the like would aid spammers in compiling lists of character names. But I don't use the site, nor are many of my toons on virtueverse.

As for my suggestion on the influence/infamy packages, it was again, a rambling suggestion. Those that wouldn't/couldn't afford to purchase them would definately not like the idea, and I can understand why. However, IMO, the rich are still getting better stuff in game, and the poor are still struggling to make ends meet due to the sellers anyway. If the package feature were available I doubt I'd find myself doing much purchasing either because I have a budget too. However, I would much rather see NCSoft get the profits to go toward development of this game and put a hurting on the spammers, than continue to get spam mail and see the farmers get rich off the game.

Again, just to be perfectly clear, I am merely bouncing off ideas and contributing to this discussion. I'm not trying to argue with anyone, prove anyone wrong, or prove my points are more valid than anyone else's.

Make it so that in-game email is only available to those with a week-old (or 15 days) account.
And/or make it so that email cannot be used by trial accounts.

Email spam should be very easy to block. /Tells are another thing entirely. Those are much trickier.

IMO you should have an option for:
<ul type="square">[*] Allow tells from players not in your friend/team/supergroup[*] Allow tells from strangers only when "Looking for Group"[*] Allow tells from all players in the same zone as your avatar (or 1000m or whatever). This is because often /local chat goes ignored, and sometimes you want to talk to someone about their name or costume who is standing next to you. Or maybe you are standing outside the same mission door.[*] Do not allow tells (or emails) from any player who has been flagged as a spammer via the /ignore_spammer command.[/list]