Discussion: What to do about unwanted game e-mail

I've never recieved any spam in the Ingame Email system...just lots and lots of tells...

How about expanding the /ignore_spammer command so that it does the following things all at the same time:

1) Does what it does now.
2) does /gignore on the account (As if you had also typed /gignore <Charactername&gt
3) Automatically sends a "form-petition" that simply says "Flagging global account (Globalaccountname) As Spammer account" containing the last tell the account using the /ignore_spammer command recieved from the referenced character.
4) Compares the tell text being sent in Step 3 with a list of known spammer websites (so if it detects the virgames, etc, URL in the tell) and if a match occurs, immediately locks the offending account from sending tells for 2 hours of ingame time.


If it worked this way, not only would more information get to where it needs to go faster, the "shaddap!" function (muting outgoing tells from the offending ACCOUNT if the last tell contains a URL for known spam sites) will make the entire prospect of doing this impractical.

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The Optimist says the glass is half full.
The Pessimist says the glass is half empty.
While they argue about it, the Opportunist comes along, drinks what's left, and removes all doubt. - Redwood

Alvays remember, schmot guy...any plan vere you lose you hat...is a BAD PLAN!

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Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement.

Unfortunately, you may be sent an unwanted in-game e-mail advertisements. Should you receive one there are several things you can do that will alert us to the problem and allow us to address it:

First, make use of the /ignore_spammer command on the sender of the unwanted e-mail. This will fast track the process of identifying the account doing the sending as a spammer and also add the user to your ignore list to prevent you from receiving further tells from them.

Second, make use of the /petition command to let us know what happened. This can be as simple as “/petition I received a spam e-mail from <name> that was advertising buying influence.” You can also enter or manage your support tickets via the web at http://www.plaync.com/us/support/ask.html.

Third, don’t visit their website! Even if you want to see how stupid their selling practices are or are curious, often times these sites will attempt to infect your PC with viruses or keyloggers so that they can gain access to your account.

Lastly, get back to playing and enjoying City of Heroes!

We have a number of changes coming to the game in the next free expansion, Issue 12: Midnight Hour, to address this problem in a number of ways. Thanks as always for your support!

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Here's an idea...

Since you're unwilling to disable the e-mail system, why not incorporate a "Spam" button right next to my delete button in the e-mail window?

Personally, it seems like the players are the ones having to jump through hoops just to get an account reported that, frankly, is probably a trial account that isn't going to be used by the influence/infamy peddlers anyway.

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[color=yellow]As I mentioned in my last post in this thread I am one of the regular users of e-mail to ppl whom are NOT on my friends/gfriends/sg or Coalition lists. E-mails are the only way I can tell someone how to get a CLEAR chat bubble background since every tell I've tried to send with the color codes for it, it Does the command instead of show it. Same with a couple of the other macro/ bind commands that I use that ppl in game ask me how to do.

Of course I only send the e-mails to ppl I don't know when they ask me how to do something that either can't be sent via tell, or won't be effective if sent by tell. It's a lot easier to type a bind or macro when you can look at the actual command while you're typing it, even if the chat screen is scrolling up. That's one specific benefit that e-mails DO offer over chat, period.

This is what I'm hoping for what they may be doing for I12:
<ul type="square">[*]spam button in e-mail options to report/forward &amp; erase spam-mail[*]Block Trial accounts from e-mailing (I'm sry but this I have to kind of agree with) [*]Options to allow e-mails/tells from specific groups, much as the options to see opposing side tells &amp; chats[/list]
I do not think non-credit card users should be punished, but trial accounts are just that TRIAL accounts. They are to give a person a "taste", so to speak, of what the game is like so they can decide if they want to actually purchase the game.

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Confusion is Lord & Chaos is my Best Friend!! Shall I introduce you??
MArc# 5232 Bastet's Unleashing *a Solo-able arc*
Gae'Atha- lvl 50 Emp/Ele/Psi Def
Sekmet's Fel Blood- lvl 50 Rad/Ther/GW Corr

Not going through the pages this early in the morning for me but I have a simplistic solution... under options have a setting for in game e-mail that is as follows in a check box form so you can have more than one option "All"- get e-mail from anyone in the game. "Supergroup" recieve e-mails from sg members, "Friends list" recieve e-mail from anyone on your friends list. "Global Friends" recieve e-mails from anyone on your global friends list.

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add an email off option for those who dont want any email.

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add an email off option for those who dont want any email.

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add an email off option for those who dont want any email.

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I don't really have a problem with this per se, but why?!?

If you're not using your email at all, you can just ignore it and who cares how much spam is cluttering your inbox.

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If you're not using your email at all, you can just ignore it and who cares how much spam is cluttering your inbox.

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Instinctual reaction to seeing any Red in the interface is that it is important. Even one email turns the option red, and it becomes distracting.

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If you're not using your email at all, you can just ignore it and who cares how much spam is cluttering your inbox.

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Instinctual reaction to seeing any Red in the interface is that it is important. Even one email turns the option red, and it becomes distracting.

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Otay...

Meh like I've said, not against the idea of having a "turn all email off" function, just don't see it as anything resembling a high priority. The email spam is a bit annoying, but it's the RMT tells that just have to go.

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I got this suggestion from a friend I think it could possibly reduce email spam. Most people who do send spam use trial accounts. Do these 10 day accounts need the email function? or is that punishing the inocent? Just my 2 cents.

&lt;&gt;
JJ

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PVPEC Justice server Rep / Tournament Chair

No one is truly innocent.

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What I don't understand is why the burden of policing the spammers, both sending tells and emails, is the burden of the paying customer. If this was truly viewed as a burden by ownership, an action planned would have been formulated, implemented, and working presently. What I suspect is that the the financial aspect of creating that sort of plan is greater than the loss of membership due to the inconvenience. If the in game spammers actually affected the bottom line of CoH, then your head would spin at how fast this would happen. This "wait until it's convenient for us to fix it" approach is an all too common of a way that problems are approached. If the developers wanted to show the respect and appreciation for their customers, this would have been immediately addressed. The lip service it has recieved so far is a far cry from the answer, and nothing will be done until financial jeopardy is attributed toward it.

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What I don't understand is why the burden of policing the spammers, both sending tells and emails, is the burden of the paying customer. If this was truly viewed as a burden by ownership, an action planned would have been formulated, implemented, and working presently. What I suspect is that the the financial aspect of creating that sort of plan is greater than the loss of membership due to the inconvenience. If the in game spammers actually affected the bottom line of CoH, then your head would spin at how fast this would happen. This "wait until it's convenient for us to fix it" approach is an all too common of a way that problems are approached. If the developers wanted to show the respect and appreciation for their customers, this would have been immediately addressed. The lip service it has recieved so far is a far cry from the answer, and nothing will be done until financial jeopardy is attributed toward it.

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You are aware of the fact that the dev team has been 15 people total (after Cryptic gutted them) since in-game spam has actually become an issue (I9), right? The kind of decisive and immediate attention you describe takes quite a bit of man-hours.

Also, steps have been taken to help with the problem. When spam tells were at their peak, I was getting a spam tell roughly every 5-15 min every single night. Now I see 1-3 per week.

I would suspect that precisely because the tell route has been addressed (not completely, but with some definite success) is the reason the email spamming has become an epidemic. Now, in I12, further tech is being implemented to combat email spam. We'll see how successful it is.

I think that it's interesting that you decry the supposed lack of a show of respect and appreciation that the devs have for the players, while showing you have a lack of either for them yourself.

The devs here are not perfect, far from it. But no other MMORPG dev team has ever shown how much they appreciate their payer-base as this one does (to my knowledge and experience anyways).

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What you are failing to distinguish here is that City of Heroes is a business. You are actually defending the ownership as if they were a bunch of good guys doing something for our benefit, without any compensation. Your rhetoric is nothing shy of "fan-boi support". They are selling a product, and customer service is an important part of any successful business.

If I buy a burger at McDonald's, and it is incorrect, or lacking something that I expect to be there, I have a legitimate gripe with the company. I do not expect the person behind me to tell me that I just don't appreciate the effort that WAS put into it and I should just live with what I got, and I do not expect many others to feel differently. I am paying for something, and I should get what I pay for, within reason.

An economy was created by the developers. In-game at first, but is now being exploited by others with no affiliation to the CoH staff. Real money is being traded as part of an in-game mechanism. I cannot believe that there is not some sort of legal action that can be taken, because in essense, the spammers are making money off of selling intellectual property. It is akin to the music industries issues with digital downloading.

What's more, is that the non-action against in-game spamming is just another of the many issues the game has. There is outdated content that is not updated, nor eliminated, that is popular enough to warrant action, like the eden trial and the sewer trial. There are multiple bugs in the animations of certain powers that affects game play, like the radiation/storm debuffs and the like. What seems to be most important to the development team is creating new content, and not addressing long standing playability issues. A saying that is common in the circles I play within is "Costumes are the opiate of the masses". Distract us from current issues rather than address them.

Do not degrade this into a flame war. I have a valid opinion, and one that I am sure is shared by many. This is an open discussion about the issue, and my only forum for letting the staff know how I feel.

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What you are failing to distinguish here is that City of Heroes is a business. You are actually defending the ownership as if they were a bunch of good guys doing something for our benefit, without any compensation. Your rhetoric is nothing shy of "fan-boi support". They are selling a product, and customer service is an important part of any successful business.

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So, you don't want to start a flame war, because you have a valid opinion, yet when I state mine, you feel justified to call me a "fan boi"?!? Yeah, ok. I just love hypocrites.

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If I buy a burger at McDonald's, and it is incorrect, or lacking something that I expect to be there, I have a legitimate gripe with the company. I do not expect the person behind me to tell me that I just don't appreciate the effort that WAS put into it and I should just live with what I got, and I do not expect many others to feel differently. I am paying for something, and I should get what I pay for, within reason.

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It's been stated many times: What you pay for is access to the game. Nothing more, nothing less. You can hope and ask that the game deliver things that you, specifically, like. If the game fails to deliver those things, or other negative aspects outweigh the positives for you, you can choose to vote with your wallet and leave. When you accuse the devs of a lack of respect for the player-base, you delve deeply into the realm of rhetoric.

To use your (rather poor) analogy, if you're not happy with your burger, and you say "I'm not happy with this burger because of a, b and c. Fix it" you may get results (especially if you're polite and nice about it). If, on the other hand, you say "you clearly don't appreciate and respect me enough if you're going to serve me this burger" then you're an [WARNING EXPLICIT LYRICS], and the odds of getting a satisfactory resolution drop considerably.

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An economy was created by the developers. In-game at first, but is now being exploited by others with no affiliation to the CoH staff. Real money is being traded as part of an in-game mechanism. I cannot believe that there is not some sort of legal action that can be taken, because in essense, the spammers are making money off of selling intellectual property. It is akin to the music industries issues with digital downloading.

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As you yourself state, the exploitation is not coming from the CoH staff. This would be an entirely different discussion if it were and then your complaints of a lack of respect would certainly have some validity. However, the CoH staff has been putting in systems to deal with in-game spam. Depending you ones point of view (for myself, the RMT spam as it stands now is not a really issue anymore), the steps may not be sufficient, but to deny that they have done so is pure fallacy. Additionally, they have announced that additional systems will be put in place with I12. Only time will tell how effective these new measures will be.

Furthermore, just because you can't imagine that some legal action can't be taken, doesn't mean that's the case. Since I'm not a lawyer, I simply don't know, and won't speculate. Even if this falls under the domain of IP violations, actually legally pursuing such a claim would be, at the very least, time-consuming and expensive. Personally, I'd rather see the money spent elsewhere.

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What's more, is that the non-action against in-game spamming is just another of the many issues the game has. There is outdated content that is not updated, nor eliminated, that is popular enough to warrant action, like the eden trial and the sewer trial. There are multiple bugs in the animations of certain powers that affects game play, like the radiation/storm debuffs and the like.

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Completely separate issues. They have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

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What seems to be most important to the development team is creating new content, and not addressing long standing playability issues. A saying that is common in the circles I play within is "Costumes are the opiate of the masses". Distract us from current issues rather than address them.

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I reiterate again... fifteen people. That's the size of the entire development staff that's been working on the game for the last 3+ issues after Cryptic gutted the staff.

That's barely enough people to run a decent-sized fast-food joint, let alone an MMO.

So, the development team had a choice: They could dedicate all their time to finding and fixing existing bugs, with no guarantee of success (bug hunting, especially in a complex and seemingly not clean program such as CoH/V is a daunting task), letting the game stagnate, or they could develop new content.

Let's put that into perspective. They need to keep the content of the game fresh enough to keep their existing player-base, many of whom are long-term veterans and have seen most, if not all, that the game has to offer, interested and excited. They have to do this with the 8million pound gorilla of WoW in the room. And, to top it off, they know that the "replacement for CoH/V" is being developed (until recently in house, no less). So, if they don't continue to add more content, there is a very real chance that the game looses enough subscribers to no longer be considered financially viable and they are all (or at least most) out of a job.

So, given the option of doing something that continues to expand the game, or having the game grow stagnant (or even just appear to grow stagnant, which is bad enough) and potentially loose your job, what would you choose?

Also, even if they had "I X: Statesman Gets a Makeover" which they dedicate to bug-fixing, there will be bugs they won't find or can't fix. Not only will a large portion of the player-base not care about bug-fixes, and consider the issue to be a complete waste of time, but of those that do care, there will be some who will be p/o'ed just because the bug they think is "game-breaking/ruining" doesn't get addressed.

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Do not degrade this into a flame war. I have a valid opinion, and one that I am sure is shared by many. This is an open discussion about the issue, and my only forum for letting the staff know how I feel.

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When you have a request like this, it's best to:
a) Choose your words carfully.
b) Not begin your post with abject dismissive categorization of the other party.
c) Not bring in other, unrelated issues.
d) Avoid statements like "costumes are the opiate of the masses" which, while clever, will automatically alienate some.

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On the legal issue...Blizzard successfully sued into oblivion several companies that were offering similar services in their game. It took them a while to test and develop solutions, but once implemented said solutions did work and continue to do so. There, we are talking about the MMO juggernaut with a huge staff and they took their time to implement corrective measure properly.

Here, we have a company that is very loyal to its playerbase. NCSoft is a much smaller company, but they are doing the same thing. Testing, before implementing. Why? Because coding is complex work and just slapping something in place could have severe issues that affect anything from enjoying immersion into the game (a problem already being caused by the spammers) to causing game (or worse server) crashes. Give the developers time and they will do what can be done to make these jerks have as difficult a time as ever.

Now, to add to the No E-mail for Trial Accounts I say also eliminate the ability to Trade and use Wentworths for said accounts. That will be a quick end to a lot of this. Everything will become unprofitable quickly.

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Third, don’t visit their website! Even if you want to see how stupid their selling practices are or are curious, often times these sites will attempt to infect your PC with viruses or keyloggers so that they can gain access to your account.

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I hope nobody gets alarmed. I don't think there's any evidence these spammers are doing this. (Yet.)

That said, though, it's a good rule to never visit any unsolicited web link, whether you're receiving the link in a game, or in your regular e-mail, or by instant messenger, or anywhere else. Treat it the same as you would treat an unsolicited attachment, because opening it is a similar risk.

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how about a program that screens all Emails and tells for keywords like "sell, influence, infamy, delivery" and the URLs for identified spam sites like gagora (who i am spamed from each day) so if a keyword is in the Email it is scrutenized by someone, if too many keywords are in the Email it is deleted before it is sent and is reported as spam and a copy is sent in the auto-petitien. (the FBI did the same thing on phones after 9-11 to identify terrorists, so if you said "bomb" your phone was taped.)

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how about a program that screens all Emails...

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This sort of server side filter is completely vulnerable to datamining. A spammer would simply set up a test dummy recipient and see which spams go through and which don't.

User-defined blocklists, on the other hand, would be invulnerable to datamining. So long as spammers receive no information as to whether their tells and emails go through or get blocked, and as long as nobody's dumb enough to give their blocklists out to other people, the spammers will never know what recipients' filters are. False positives can be dealt with in a variety of ways I won't get into here.

The next step for spammers would be random text hack1fy1ng and brute force, though, and that could overwhelm user-defined filters. So if and when user-defined blocklists get implemented, the devs should already be working on some way to throttle how many bytes of messages one sender should be allowed to send per unit of time. As I mentioned recently on another board, in computer security, you have to be two steps ahead.

Finally, the devs need to take advantage of GM omnipotence. Unlike regular e-mail on the open Internet, sender and receiver are both on the same system, and no outside systems are involved. This means that unlike regular e-mail, GMs can trace in-game spams to their true originators, and trace all the messages sent from those originators as well. If the devs give the GMs the ability to mindwipe all emails and offline gtells sent by a spammer, that will reduce the amount of spam piling up on logged-out players to nearly zero.

Edit: P.S. I hate g****a.com too. I just logged in to 35 emails on my level 50 blaster.

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If the devs give the GMs the ability to mindwipe all emails and offline gtells sent by a spammer, that will reduce the amount of spam piling up on logged-out players to nearly zero.



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I support this statement 100%

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You can't spell Slaughter without laughter

All your gonna do is just farm behemoths anyways.

My thoughts on November 30.

[color=yellow]Ya name deleted by Niviene are my only spam-mail source right now , which means this is probably the main organized group of spammers. Since if I recall infl/pl selling is against the gaming agreement &amp; the fact that Blizzard has already paved the way for lawsuites, is this something that NCSoft will also be able to persue now? I know they're a smaller "company" as such compared to the monster that is Bizzard &amp; therefor their resources may not be as much, but with the ground work already layed they should make it easier for them to pursue legal repercusions against spammers, no?


Please do not give spammers advertising by mentioning their names on the forums. Please use the in game method of /ignore spammer
Thanks,
Niviene

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Confusion is Lord & Chaos is my Best Friend!! Shall I introduce you??
MArc# 5232 Bastet's Unleashing *a Solo-able arc*
Gae'Atha- lvl 50 Emp/Ele/Psi Def
Sekmet's Fel Blood- lvl 50 Rad/Ther/GW Corr

Why hire lawyers to do a security guy's work? Code monkeys are way cheaper, anyway. Hell, I get paid in Diet Dr Pepper.

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&lt;qr&gt;

Some of the issues brought up here are answered in this thread:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...umber=10736634

Enjoy!

Storm

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Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm ...

well with issue 12 my email box is still over flowing by the forementioned company --ty nivene I agree with you--I would like to cast a vote to sue them or something-- 10 emails per toon over the weekend is insane

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At any rate, thanks to the devs for the "Spam" option in my email and the "click on the name and take action" option. It has definitely helped (although They Who Should Not Be Named appear to be taking advantage of the greater numbers online this weekend for the Rikti Invasion to re-double their efforts).

I fully agree - SUE!

In the meantime, to hopefully cheer up those who've been put out, annoyed, and generally inconvenienced by "THEM", I offer you... this.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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