Is not allowing free players to use tells really necessary?
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2011-09-27 19:49 in Player Questions
Yes.
Spending $5 unlocks tells.
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You weren't here back when the RMTers first arrived, were you? I remember the night when they first started, I got one and thought it was just a rare incident... then someone on my team mentioned it, then someone else said they got one, and then EVERYONE was talking about getting it, and then everyone on my global channels started saying they were getting them.
There's a reason they crippled trial accounts so badly a good while back.
If they have to pay $5, it'll make it much more costly to spam. And, hell, if they decide to do it, at least Paragon will get some free money to make more stuff from all the accounts they get banned.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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So far, I haven't had any free players complain to me about it in game.
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It's kinda rough, I agree. But like others said it was one of the few things that actually sent the RMT spammers packing, so I think we have to put up with it.|
Originally Posted by Ateria
I mean... come on....
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Free players can use /local, /team, help channel (/hc), and I think /friends. So you can chat with your free buddy with the /friends channel at least. That's not as convenient as /tells and globals, but it's an option. Global friends should let you at least see when each other is on, if you need to set up a new toon as a friend.
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*snicker*
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
So far, I haven't had any free players complain to me about it in game.
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@Demobot
Also on Steam
/friends does indeed work. And, your friend can just use /friends to talk to you (I doubt too many of 'em will have multiple...), and you can just respond with /tells.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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I do not think this will work as well as intended...|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
If they have to pay $5, it'll make it much more costly to spam. And, hell, if they decide to do it, at least Paragon will get some free money to make more stuff from all the accounts they get banned.
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EDITed to remove:: I've never received a /tell RMT request/offer /EDITed to remove:: I have received one /tell RMT request/offer, and any time I am flooded with RMT spam it is always /local. (Little over a year game time.)
Which Free players start with access too...
If this was the only reason free players had /tells crippled, that is about as useful as using padlocks to keep out criminals.
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And thats because RMT use trial accounts which also don't have access to /tell..|
Originally Posted by Morgan Reed
I do not think this will work as well as intended...
I've never received a /tell RMT request/offer, and any time I am flooded with RMT spam it is always /local. (Little over a year game time.) Which Free players start with access too... If this was the only reason free players had /tells crippled, that is about as useful as using padlocks to keep out criminals. |
So.. yeah, its effective :P especially if your still getting /local spam.
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That's because by the time you joined the devs had already taken steps to stop the spam /tells. Way back when it was happening a lot.
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Originally Posted by Morgan Reed
I've never received a /tell RMT request/offer, and any time I am flooded with RMT spam it is always /local. (Little over a year game time.)
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Fair enough.|
Originally Posted by Supernumiphone
That's because by the time you joined the devs had already taken steps to stop the spam /tells. Way back when it was happening a lot.
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But there are still RMT /local spams.
It happens either way, and it is just as easy to report a person for spamming each way.
Sounds like a pretty good arrangement. Giving everyone tells would suck badly. The RMT spam would be horrible.
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I got them at least once every night when I was on. When my alt account was reactivated recently, I had four characters that still had emails about offers when the tells got taken away from the trial accounts. I don't know that I agree with the "no tells" rule, but I understand it.
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Originally Posted by Morgan Reed
I've never received a /tell RMT request/offer, and any time I am flooded with RMT spam it is always /local. (Little over a year game time.)
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Before they cut it out I received so many /tells from spammers it was crazy. Now the only time I see any /local spammer chatter is in WW in Atlas and really if they want to get rid of that they could.
So no I do not want /tells from spammers and/or freebies. If they wish to have it, then pay for it.
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That's much like saying that car accidents will happen either way is a valid reason to make brake pads optional. Spamming local has a limited range and is generally constrained to more active points, such as auction houses. Spamming tells... well. Nowhere is safe. We've been there and learned the hard way.
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Originally Posted by Morgan Reed
Fair enough.
But there are still RMT /local spams. It happens either way, and it is just as easy to report a person for spamming each way. |
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I loled |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
So far, I haven't had any free players complain to me about it in game.
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It's a 99.5% fix to the goldspammer problem. If you weren't here before, you don't know how bad it was. I remember logging on Aggrovac or S-Orbital and deleting 30 or 40 spam emails. Every day. |
Originally Posted by Morgan Reed
Fair enough.
But there are still RMT /local spams. It happens either way, and it is just as easy to report a person for spamming each way. |
If you want a feeling for the old days, put your global up and ask us to randomly pelt you with emails and messages for a week. I can even go to a character I haven't played since spring 2010 and send you authentic spam!
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And they only spammed us with emails because the Devs blocked /tells on trial accounts. Back when the RMTers first arrived in this game, 30-40 spam tells a play session wasn't unusual, and would have been a light session. It was so bad the Devs had to rush to add /ignorespammer (was that the command? it's been so long since I needed it!), and even then the spam tells were insane, they would just keep creating new alts/accounts. Eventually they put in a 'fix' to block tells from trial accounts.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
It's a 99.5% fix to the goldspammer problem. If you weren't here before, you don't know how bad it was. I remember logging on Aggrovac or S-Orbital and deleting 30 or 40 spam emails. Every day.
If you want a feeling for the old days, put your global up and ask us to randomly pelt you with emails and messages for a week. I can even go to a character I haven't played since spring 2010 and send you authentic spam! |
Then the email flood started. It took the Devs a long time to fix that. Even after they stopped trial accounts from sending out emails! (turns out they only blocked the UI, not the slash command!) Eventually they fixed that, I believe a bit over a year ago (I've still got many characters with inboxes full of spam messages). It made the email system completely unusable (not that it was a huge deal... it predated being able to send items, so few people used it).
Since then, I've seen, maybe 5 RMTers use local to spam (and I play on Freedom/Virtue, the two servers most likely to get the RMTers). And, quite frankly, that's being incredibly generous, I would actually be surprised if it was over 3.
Having people say stuff on /local only when you're not actually paying attention to it due to using the CM, is nothing compared to having /reply/backspace broken by spam tells every minute or so!
I certainly would be happy if the Freems could speak unhindered... but not if it lets the RMTers ruin communication again.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Yes!
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/this. |
Originally Posted by Arbegla
And thats because RMT use trial accounts which also don't have access to /tell..
So.. yeah, its effective :P especially if your still getting /local spam. |
It was *really* bad for a while. As in, even on the servers that *aren't* the highest population, it would make /tells (and emails) pretty well unusable. (Send a message to someone, get a bunch of spam in between so you're not sure if they replied or not... since hitting backspace sends to the last person you got a tell from, so you'd end up "replying" to an RMTer.)
And email... yeah. The "Spam" button helped - as soon as you selected one, it'd block all from that sender (which could take out 10-20 at a whack.) But not logging in a character for a week? Ugh. Spend the first ten minutes just cleaning out email.
Really, the only time I ever see RMT spam now is the *rare* occasion I go to Freedom/Atlas park (and maybe Talos) and use Wentworth's. Given I tend to use the Kings Row one... that's pretty rare. I'd call the measures effective.
I wouldn't mind SOME way of loosening up the freemium players chat options (maybe a freemium channel everyone can see?) but I don't want to open that door up to RMTers again, either.
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^This. It costs a fiver to unlock for ever more, which is an effective barrier against RMTer without being too extortionate for new players.
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Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
Yes.
Spending $5 unlocks tells. |
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Originally Posted by Patches O'Houlihan
Necessary?
Is it "necessary" for me to drink my own urine? No, but it's sterile, and I like the taste. |
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That's nonsense. The RMT companies usually use stolen card details so NCSoft wouldn't make any money, it would cost them to clear the fraudulent charges up.
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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
If they have to pay $5, it'll make it much more costly to spam. And, hell, if they decide to do it, at least Paragon will get some free money to make more stuff from all the accounts they get banned.
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I hope you are at least clicking on their names in /local and Ignoring them as spammers.
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Originally Posted by The_Larker
Before they cut it out I received so many /tells from spammers it was crazy. Now the only time I see any /local spammer chatter is in WW in Atlas and really if they want to get rid of that they could.
So no I do not want /tells from spammers and/or freebies. If they wish to have it, then pay for it. |
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And yet the history of chat restrictions on free trials has shown it has been 99% effective in stopping RMT spam. Global, tell, broadcast, and email spam is nonexistent. So as we have seen the RMT sites don't bother paying for accounts to send spam.
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Originally Posted by Suzumebachi
That's nonsense. The RMT companies usually use stolen card details so NCSoft wouldn't make any money, it would cost them to clear the fraudulent charges up.
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I mean... come on....