It has been observed a marked increase of RMT spam over the past few weeks. Understanding that there is a huge workload in tracing and banning every single one of these accounts that are spamming and given that many of these accounts are hacked and used for spam, wanted to give a solution that has worked very well for over 5 years now.
Back in the summer of 2007, there was a user by the name of 'Grawp' on the English Wikipedia who began moving pages to variations of 'HAGGER???', 'HERMY????' or personal attacks against the Wikipedia editors. After months of banning several IP blocks ranging from the Continental US to Zimbabwe, Wikipedia implemented a feature called the "Abuse Filter". What this does is disallows or flags certain edits that users may perform and brings them to the immediate attention of the admins, in this case in an IRC channel monitored by volunteer admins around the clock.
Why this is being brought up is that after leaving myself online overnight, while going to work, etc I have found that over 98% of RMT tells use 'pvpbank' and various ASCII iterations of the string to get around what Square-Enix has implemented so far to prevent RMT spam. Being that RMT can gather accounts as fast as Square-Enix seems to find them, I suggest to the developers implement an 'AbuseFilter' type of system for this game.
This would have several benefits:
1. RMT would not be able to effectively advertise, GMs would have active access to the abuse filters and could add a string of characters reported by a user immediately.
2. It would immediately flag advertising RMT accounts that attempt to bypass the filter with similar strings, removing the need for users to go through the cumbersome process of manually reporting it.
3. It would significantly decrease the presence of RMT in the game as any coded strings would flag for immediate GM intervention.
In summary, while this idea may seem Orwellian, it has operated for nearly five years now on Wikipedia with minimal issues and with great approval from the community and seems to be an effective solution for a very interminable problem.
[DEV SOLUTION] RMT /tell Spam
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02-05-2014, 04:01 PMXayoc[DEV SOLUTION] RMT /tell Spam
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02-05-2014, 05:16 PMmisterdapi
This makes too much sense. +1 Vote
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02-05-2014, 05:21 PMMayin
What if im sending a tell and I accidentally trigger a flag without knowing it? Not nit picking, a legitimate question!
/tell SoAndSo Hey man, I keep getting these RMT tells. I don't want to buy gil for $10 and get a free xmas seasonal gift! What is this christmas gift anyway, and for crying out loud its February? LOL
Am I flagged? : S -
02-05-2014, 05:27 PMArrak
There are a ton of blocked phrases and whenever SE blocks or flags something, they change how they send the tells. The best way to do it is what WoW does. Every message sent in game has a report feature by right clicking their name in chat. When you report a person it puts them on a temporary black list for yourself. If enough people click report for that person, that person is locked out of posting publically and sending tells to people not on their friends list or guild. That user can also be flagged without someone having to fill out a GM report. SE is trying too hard to combat against RMT messages when they should allow the community to help them. The report feature can also be used against spammers and annoying people in /shout.
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02-05-2014, 05:29 PMCrimson-Falcon
flagged =/ 100% ban
flagged = you have triggered the filter and your msg will be noted and GMs will investigate your msgs to guarantee that you are not RMT spammer and remove flag on you -
02-05-2014, 05:29 PMZaels
One of the ideas I thought up was to make it so you have to reach level 10 (or some other arbitrary number SE decides on) to send a tell to someone that isn't on your Friend list, FC, or Linkshells. However, you may respond to tells (as in send one back to someone that sent you one initially) regardless of level.
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02-05-2014, 05:31 PMXayocBeing flagged doesn't mean you get any negative action against you, it merely send the /tell to a running stream to the Anti-RMT taskforce. Pretty sure you wont be saying 'pvpbank' or other similar terms used by the RMT in the past accidentally. However, the purpose of the filter is to deny the /tell in the first place, not merely to report it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mayin
This system incorporates that sort of idea into it without the obvious potential for abuse. All AbuseFilter additions are done by the Anti-RMT Taskforce, but the actual contents of the additions are crowd-sourced.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrak
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02-05-2014, 06:27 PMKincard
I have a hard time understanding why I have a much more irritating experience with RMT in this game compared to other games. True that RMT will be a permanent fixture with MMOs but this is the only game where I manage to have 3 or 4 separate people spamming tells at me every minute, and when I filter them they'll just be back with another account/character 2 minutes later. I already stopped bothering to blacklist them because not only is it completely ineffective, removing names from the blacklist is so incredibly annoying to do.
Either SE doesn't have enough GMs monitoring this, or their word filter is rubbish. -
02-05-2014, 06:39 PMWadoka
This place is strange. Given, I've only played 3 of the more-modern MMO and that's including just 3 or 4 hours of WoW - but I can't remember getting *any* RMT chat spam or tells/whispers playing SWTOR. May just be my faulty memory but I only remember obnoxious players who used gen chat instead of trade chat to auction items, and obnoxious players who spammed gen chat with Guild recruitment.
Makes me wonder what the Bioware bunch knows, that the SE folks don't? Or do RMT types just not take SWTOR seriously any more? -
02-05-2014, 09:39 PMAzell
Simple solution: to send /tell to anyone NOT in your FC/LS/FL you need to be in a grand company.
So, need to be at least lvl 20 and do a lot of quests.
RTMs will only spam using stolen accounts, which will probablly be under investigation already. -
02-05-2014, 09:43 PMSeleneSinclair
Wasn't there a filter in FFXI? Surprised it's not implemented here. Seems like it would be simple to take a feature they have coded already and adapt it to this system.
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02-05-2014, 10:51 PMItseotleNaw this is bad for new players, so I doubt SE will go this route.Quote:
Originally Posted by Azell
EDIT: although putting a spam timer wouldn't be a bad idea either as a band-aid. If a player sends to many chat messages (or even just tells) in a short time they temporarily lose the ability to do so. -
02-05-2014, 11:00 PMTheonekittenLike they've taken other good ideas from XI and implemented them in XIV? Oh wait.... ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by SeleneSinclair
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02-06-2014, 01:22 AMMayinLuckily it will take 3 months to complete the investigation, so I should be ok.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimson-Falcon
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02-06-2014, 01:27 AMMorsmordie
This could work. Hopefully a representative will see this thread. I receive about 5-10 daily /tells from spammers these days and I always blacklist them. This could be a way to curb their spam. I'm sure they are looking into a good solution for the problem.
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03-07-2014, 11:14 AMXayoc
Wanted to bring additional attention to this with the sharp increase of RMT spam recently. I guarantee this will solve the issue without unduly inconveniencing new players like some other solutions I have seen on here.
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02-20-2015, 04:20 PMSender_Kayl
The dev team is either incompetent, indifferent, or corrupt, because the problem has only gotten worse despite all of the options available to them like the manifold sensible suggestions found in this thread. I'm reading these threads and SE hasn't implemented any of these techniques. After multiple years the dev team has done NOTHING. They're doing NONE of the things suggested here and most players have either stopped caring or stopped playing. I'm joining that second distinction after playing for two months. The last time I was subjected to this much goldseller spam was on free to play games. Contemptible, and in my opinion, unacceptable.
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02-20-2015, 04:23 PMSaccharin
There's a simpler method: report spam. A GM can look at each report and if it gets so many reports at once it's an account ban.
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02-20-2015, 04:29 PMtocsinwow, necro thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sender_Kayl
The main problem that SE has with eliminating RMT spam right now, is that their hands are tied, as far as effective action. each and every "solution" listed here, would hurt the regular playerbase, by not allowing them to do certain things.
SE's word filter has done wonders in changing how RMT people can post. it also already hurts a lot of people. I have plenty of times that im trying to have a conversation with someone, and one of the /tells that im sending them doesn't get through, because a piece of a word is banned, like "gathers bring in mats, and crafters sell for gil for the crafters", or other things.
RMT advertisers don't actually hinder your gameplay. they do in a LOT of other games. SE is doing what they can, banning thousands of accounts and damaging their own cash flow in the process weekly, but they can only do so much. RMT people are smart. professional level smart. They see new SE word filters, as just a minor obstacle. -
02-20-2015, 05:29 PMFaileExperimentNope, the original suggestion doest hurt the playebase in any way and is a proven technique in other games. And honestly, for the other suggestions, being unable to sent tells for a while does not hurt anyone, new or not. At worst, a minor inconvenience. But moot, since the original suggestion doesnt do that, except if you trigger the threshold in getting blacklisted, which no normal player can do.Quote:
Originally Posted by tocsin
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02-20-2015, 05:36 PMKisaiTenshiOther games have done this, and it just increases the amount of l33t code anti-filter anti-echelon type of cruft thrown into the tell, and does nothing to reduce it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xayoc
What is happening is that (I speculate, but can only prove it by how quickly the bots disappear, only to re-appear again):
a. They are creating new accounts with stolen/prepaid cards
b. spamming and deleting using new characters every few minutes
c. possibly cycling which servers they use them on to evade detection.
In a different game, the bots just keep taking up all free player capacity (eg Exalibur is never available for example), when they lock account creation spam disappears entirely as the bots get banned, but once creation is available, huge uptick in spam.
It would help immensely to just be able to right-click "report abuse" and just throw a quick tickbox and have the game client send a screenshot. -
02-20-2015, 05:57 PMtocsinthe "unable to send tells under a certain level" issue, actually would hurt my experience. I have had over 3 dozen times that someone I am having a conversation with on these forums have created a level 1 char on my server, just to continue the conversation in a more personal manner. the lack of a PM system on the forums makes this the most convenient way to do so. adding a level requirement would mean that in order to have the conversation, they would not only have to make the character, but level it up as well, which is more work than a conversation is worth.Quote:
Originally Posted by FaileExperiment
The problem with the "abuse filter" idea, is that:
1. it requires a group of people to moderate it, which apart from the GM's that ALREADY do this, people aren't overly willing to man. this is a subscription based game, not an online encyclopedia. the people who are online want to play.
2. using this would require actual people looking at private messages. /tells are not public wiki pages, they are private messages, and are protected uner the privacy policy. The last thing I want is to be complaining about someone in private chat, not knowing they are a part of the RMT verification squad, and they see my post and cause drama as a result.
3. it would not actually reduce the amount of RMT, because if a single RMT owner sneaks into the RMT verification team, then they will know the exact searches that the system does, and craft a message to bypass any filter it may come up with, via inside information. the RMT team cannot be volunteers, and must be paid, which makes them equivalent of GM's anyways.
there is something we already have like this. its called the task force. They can do that job. -
04-14-2015, 10:17 PMKaylie
hmm what i understand that se is afraid of is pure spam report trolling legitimate players.
theres actually a solution to this.
if its made so you can only report spam on /tell's and friend requests it would be impossible to use this feature like a troll as u would have to send a godlly amount of tells to alot of people as well as friend requests to pick up enough trolls
to improve even more there should be a 5 friend request limit so no spammer can hit the entire server