IN-GAME SPAM EMAIL
By
008Zulu,
Posted on: 2009-06-11 09:36 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
You want to CONFIRM that your global is active? And actually READS emails? 
Hey! Maybe NCSoft could make some money out of this! Just sell email spamming privaledges to whatever companies will pay, all other non-paying spam company's emails would be blocked. 
American Dawg, Starblaze, Neanderthal Joe, Shining Dawn, Tokamak Dragon, Stinger Incarnate, Burning Tyger, Dover Tornado, Big Roach, Dark Paladin, Archmage Wylde, Kings Row Hornet, Prancing Deer
Avogadro, Science Lord
Edgar Nightcraft, Doc Cicada, Chupa Macabre, Dr Forchtenstein, Blood Shrew
I still think CS could just create a character on each server and have them stand around someplace for a few weeks. When the spam starts hitting them they can then go ban each account. I mean, it isn't like it's impossible for someone to tell it is an RMT e-mail.
Hire a couple of responsible teenagers (is that an oxy-moron?) to review the tons of emails the accounts would generate. Seems simple and effective to me and until they get serious about enforcing the rule it'll always be a problem in some way shape or form no matter what they do to e-mail.
Until they do get serious about it then we all might as well get used to the idea of spam. What I'm afraid of in an e-mail "fix" is that I'll start getting a ton of global offline RMT ad tells.
I suppose an unlimited, locally-stored, e-mail-only ignore list would probably be the least intrusive and least likely to force spam to another avenue, but I'm not sure it would help much.
OK, you're right. But, it has crossed my mind that a little payback to those guys would be great. 
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
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OK, you're right. But, it has crossed my mind that a little payback to those guys would be great.
[/ QUOTE ]Completely agreed. And it's crossed my mind, too. Multiple times.
Use the SPAM button. It flags the account sending the email for investigation, and appears to delete ALL emails from that account from your inbox. At least, I've seen multiple ones disappear with a single click.
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OK, you're right. But, it has crossed my mind that a little payback to those guys would be great.
[/ QUOTE ]Completely agreed. And it's crossed my mind, too. Multiple times.
Use the SPAM button. It flags the account sending the email for investigation, and appears to delete ALL emails from that account from your inbox. At least, I've seen multiple ones disappear with a single click.
[/ QUOTE ]Actually, the /ignore part of the action does that, I believe.
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Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
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OK, you're right. But, it has crossed my mind that a little payback to those guys would be great.
[/ QUOTE ]Completely agreed. And it's crossed my mind, too. Multiple times.
Use the SPAM button. It flags the account sending the email for investigation, and appears to delete ALL emails from that account from your inbox. At least, I've seen multiple ones disappear with a single click.
[/ QUOTE ]Yep. That's what I do all the time. It's nice to know that it does more than just add the name to 'ignore'. I've gotten 20+ e-mails and had them all disappear with only 3-4 names added to the list of ignores. These guys are tenacious to say the least. They most likely just get free trial accounts and only use them long enough to spam until they get shut down. Then they just sign up for another freebie. 
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
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I've probably been part of at least a dozen separate threads in the suggestion forum regarding this issue, as well a few here, and in Player questions.
I gave up a long time ago. lol
On a side note, you can effectively reduce your own spam by using /hide so people can't use a simple /search to get your name. It may take a little time for the spam to dwindle down, but it does work. AND/OR, since you don't intend to use the email at all, you can ignore the little red letters and the notification in the chat of new mail.
If that doesn't work, change your UI color to almost match the red color, so you might not notice it as much.
If that doesn't work, print your UI and cut out the Email button and tape it onto the screen so it looks like it's always empty. haha
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I would just like to point out my own personal experience with hide. It did not work. I have two characters that have been in hide for months. They only surfaced for a little while to get a team, started getting spam, went back to hide at end of that play session and have been getting spam ever since...despite my months of pressing that damn button.
I just ignore all emails now. I don't bother deleting them. If the devs do not want to provide the option to turn off email then they can store all the crappy spam. If I'm lucky my inbox will become full and the emails will start bouncing back. To me, it is pointless to continue reporting. It is a fact it does little to nothing to abate the stream of spam emails.
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I'd rather have the ingame email than not.
Why? Because I have received one non-RMT email? No.
Because if you turn it off you will force the spammers to find other avenues. If you think the AE spam in Atlas is bad, wait until that turns into RMT'ers.
Yes they will; I've seen it in other games.
I agree the RMT email is annoying. I would dearly like to see a "delete all email as spam" button. That would be more useful than removing emails and forcing spammers to find a more direct route to annoy and interrupt gaming.
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We are asking for the OPTION to turn if off not the obliteration of the system. Unless, you are saying once the spammers know the option exists they will find another avenue.
I don't know what it is but any time the disable option is brought up, people re-word it as if we are asking for the complete removal of email. I wish they would include that when refuting the argument so we know they understood what exactly we are and are not asking for.
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OK, you're right. But, it has crossed my mind that a little payback to those guys would be great.
[/ QUOTE ]Completely agreed. And it's crossed my mind, too. Multiple times.
Use the SPAM button. It flags the account sending the email for investigation, and appears to delete ALL emails from that account from your inbox. At least, I've seen multiple ones disappear with a single click.
[/ QUOTE ]Yep. That's what I do all the time. It's nice to know that it does more than just add the name to 'ignore'. I've gotten 20+ e-mails and had them all disappear with only 3-4 names added to the list of ignores. These guys are tenacious to say the least. They most likely just get free trial accounts and only use them long enough to spam until they get shut down. Then they just sign up for another freebie.
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Trial accounts cannot send emails. The email system is only available for use by paid accounts.
Yes, there was a bug for a while that was allowing a way around some of the restrictions, but those have been fixed.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
It's offical, the RMT email spam is back to annoying levels. Every toon gets anywhere from 4 to 30 emails at log in. The spammer button worked ok for a bit, but that ship has sailed.
The little red letters on my email button now tell me the email system is broken and to not open emails.
Hopefully at some point the Dev's will provide a player select email filter option like receive from SG only, and then the email system will work. It would even be nice if I got an advisory that I had an SG email by the letters on the button turning green. Green means go, green means the system works, green means bother opening the email.
Right now red means the system is BROKEN!
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If they let us turn email off, spam dies. WE NEED THIS FEATURE!
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The devs should also think a step or two ahead. Offline global tells are stored similarly to emails, which could make them just as attractive to the spammer. If they become a target of the spammer, that could make it difficult for authors to receive feedback on architect missions.
So a better solution would be looking at multiple channels of communication. I've proposed a "mindwipe" system where if a GMs cuts off access to an account by determining it to be a single-purpose spam account, there'll be an extra button to delete all emails and global tell messages sent by that account. If there's a privacy concern, just code the mindwipe button to work silently, not giving the GM any more info about the messages or recipients. That'll require dev work, though, probably by one of the behind-the-scenes guys.
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I'd rather see the limit at 15 or 20 per day.
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This will likely result in the spammer maintaining multiple spam accounts simultaneously for longer periods of time, sending 15 or 20 from each every day, as it'll take much longer for each account to get caught. Player-based reporting is directly tied to volume; volume goes down, reporting goes down.
It might frustrate the spammer enough to make him stop, but I doubt it. If restricting email to paid accounts wasn't frustration enough, I don't see how this will.
The only potential benefit I see is that the spammer might finally prune the duplicate names out of his player lists, but given the volume of resources under his control, I'm not sure he'll feel the need to economize.
The real question is this: As much as it is complained about... it's still here. After years of it, it's still here. Why?
If they have to actually *pay* for the accounts they're spamming with... Accounts that will fairly quickly, one would assume, be banned because of the activity... it seems like that might not be a breadwinner idea.
Is it because they are superfunded by (the game what's name shall not be mentioned) and others that they advertise on? I.e., this is a money loser, in reality, but because they make so much more (and some players work multiple games) off the other games, it doesn't matter?
Or is it possible that as much as this is complained about, we're the 10%ers. I.e., we are the squeaky wheel, but the rest of the populace goes to these websites and buys, therefore funding the problem?
I dunno myself. I doubt anyone except those who use the 'service' and those who run it do. But they're still here for a reason.
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
My list of possible fixes is also no more than a temporary patch.
Whatever methods are found to slow them down, they cannot be eliminated completely unless the market for their service is removed. And I have yet to see any desirable method to do that proposed, anywhere.
If you shut down their ability to email spam, then whos to say they wont go back to global channels and random whispering to annoy people?
If the good guy gets the girl, it's rated PG;
If the bad guy gets the girl, it's rated R;
And if everybody gets the girl, it's rated X
- Kirk Douglas
(qr) I'd a thousand times rather get useless spam email than for them to go back to using tells, going to broadcast, or any other means of communication we use that they're not in yet.
"Them?" It's just one guy (spoofing several "different" RMT websites) doing all the spam in the game. Maybe two, three guys, tops.
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(qr) I'd a thousand times rather get useless spam email than for them to go back to using tells, going to broadcast, or any other means of communication we use that they're not in yet.
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Not me, I'd rather catch them real-time. 5, 6 reports maybe before they are banned? Even if it is 20, that is better than let them reach 200 people when they mass email at 2am in the morning. That could end up frustrating them more. Also, I would think /hide would be more effective at that point.
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I would just like to point out my own personal experience with hide. It did not work. I have two characters that have been in hide for months. They only surfaced for a little while to get a team, started getting spam, went back to hide at end of that play session and have been getting spam ever since...despite my months of pressing that damn button.
I just ignore all emails now. I don't bother deleting them. If the devs do not want to provide the option to turn off email then they can store all the crappy spam. If I'm lucky my inbox will become full and the emails will start bouncing back. To me, it is pointless to continue reporting. It is a fact it does little to nothing to abate the stream of spam emails.
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Exactly...
I think I'm going to start doing this as well. No more reporting, I'm just going to let it accumulate. I'm sure if enough people do this the collectively enormous email files would get noticed. Then, maybe we might get an option to turn off email.
I've been doing this for a couple months and I have not yet found the inbox cap..... I think one of my toon has around 300 email right now.
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I've been doing this for a couple months and I have not yet found the inbox cap..... I think one of my toon has around 300 email right now.
[/ QUOTE ] After some self-testing, I can't find a cap either. I have one character now at 11,514 e-mails. I'd try for a 99,999 cap but I figured that going over a standard 9,999 cap is sufficient. I don't think I need to go any further. There shouldn't be any way to get even close to that through normal means. haha
[*]The ignore list is too short, and flagging mail as spam pushes the oldest off the list - however, I'm comfortable in believing those accounts are already deleted anyway.[*]Flagging emails as spam *does* work - when enough of you have done it before I see the mail, I see the sender as "empty". Those can simply be deleted. What I want to know is why those aren't deleted instead of changed to say "empty".[*]The reason your old characters are receiving spam after long periods of inactivity is simply this: The spammers keep lists (duh).[*]Add me to the list of those suggesting some sort of filtering, up to and including simply turning off in-game emails.
the only legite email i ever get is to myself from myself (like a little notepad)... and even that is questionable as spam 
I think if we want the devs to give us the option to turn off email or something, we need to take action...
1. never delete email - with all the daily spam... the mail servers would be off the hook in no time...
2. send lots of legit mail to everyone we know and dont delete it
sure now I will catch hell for this post... but this is america... its easier to beat up on the little guy who wants things fixed, then to actually stop the criminals who are screwing things up... but oh well...
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yeah, but that doesn't send a message to the people doing the spamming.
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Hmmmm.... what if everyone that got an e-mail sent one (or 100) back to the spammers? <evil grin>
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback