Why can't we have the same anti-spam feature that WoW has?

[fixitman]

They also made it where they were it was required to be level 10 on their character to whisper.

Yep, that started around the same time they made it F2P up to level 20(?).

They also gave players the option to choose what level someone had to be in order to send them a tell. This occurred sometime around WotLK launch. The option could be adjusted at any time the player chose to do so.

I've been asking for this option in FF14 ARR for a couple months now. I'm guessing SE is ignoring my requests because they think it will reduce RMT reports. It won't reduce my reports, because I stopped wasting my time on them after 6 months of doing so. RMT is just as bad as it was at launch, the only thing that changed was their switch to a more personal approach....

[Gerolan]

Yep, that started around the same time they made it F2P up to level 20(?).

They also gave players the option to choose what level someone had to be in order to send them a tell. This occurred sometime around WotLK launch. The option could be adjusted at any time the player chose to do so.

I've been asking for this option in FF14 ARR for a couple months now. I'm guessing SE is ignoring my requests because they think it will reduce RMT reports. It won't reduce my reports, because I stopped wasting my time on them after 6 months of doing so. RMT is just as bad as it was at launch, the only thing that changed was their switch to a more personal approach....

Personal approach, you mean the "hey how are you? By the way buy..."
I swear every time I see an rmt spam another hair goes grey, I will be white by November

[Sacred-Oblivion]

Once a month on WoW? You must've played on a dead server. Most servers it's about the same as here. 20-30 minutes. The only difference was WoW blocked the account from spam (until you logged out) instead of ignoring the player. Also in WoW, you have flying dead player advertising like a giant undead billboard, plus /say all the time.

Actually, I played on Gorefiend which is a medium populated server. Before WoW implemented their anti-spam system the frequency of RMT spam was comparable to FF14, but since then it has become very rare to receive them (eg 1/month) since the spammers are blocked from using the chat stream after their first few spam messages. This is why their system is so effective at reducing them. And I have no idea what you're talking about when you say "flying dead player advertising like a giant undead billboard" -- This was something I've never seen or heard of throughout my years of playing and I've trolled the forums quite regularly. Seriously, that comment makes me suspect that you're just a troll making things up, which means I've just wasted a precious 2 minutes to quote and respond to you. D'oh.

This part we would want to be very careful with, and consider being a lot more lenient with. I've seen it on other MMOs where groups would simply decide they don't like what another player is saying in regional/party/global chat, and coordinate to get them silenced, just because they can. Stopping RMT is good. Enabling bullying is bad.

This is a legitimate concern, but throughout my years of playing and trolling the forums I've never heard of a single instance of someone innocent being abused by this system. You can easily mitigate this by increasing the number of allowable spam reports before restricting an account's chat privileges temporarily. Once an Admin investigates the matter they'll know right away if the reporters were just bullying someone. Obviously anyone who abuses the system would need to be punished... And obviously that punishment should be to de-level all of their classes by one level...

[Inosaska]

Years ago in my WoW days I use to get a lot of RMT spam too. Then in one patch a system was implemented where after receiving spam you follow these steps:

1) Right-click their name and select "Report Spam"
2) ???
3) Profit.

That's it. The report spam feature delivered all the information the GMs needed to investigate the matter. And if at least 5 people reported someone for spam, then that person was prevented from using the chat stream on every character until an investigation happened.

This system worked. The number of RMT spam I received afterwards went to almost 0% -- It didn't eliminate them entirely but the difference in frequency was huge. So I'm seriously asking, why can't we have a feature like this?

That would mean World of Warcraft is still ahead of the curb in terms of dealing with bots but some companies don't like to admit to it and try to solve a problem on there own that they never truly fix properly.

[SeekerScorpio]

Yep, that started around the same time they made it F2P up to level 20(?).

They also gave players the option to choose what level someone had to be in order to send them a tell. This occurred sometime around WotLK launch. The option could be adjusted at any time the player chose to do so.

I've been asking for this option in FF14 ARR for a couple months now. I'm guessing SE is ignoring my requests because they think it will reduce RMT reports. It won't reduce my reports, because I stopped wasting my time on them after 6 months of doing so. RMT is just as bad as it was at launch, the only thing that changed was their switch to a more personal approach....

Good to see someone else knew what I was talking about. Ole boy earlier said I got confused with trial... I played since vanilla, heavily in TBC... I have a good to decent memory over the course of game (everything before firelands in cata).

[Kelthos]

I think there are a few easy fixes for the gil spammers:
1) Report Spam, and after the same character gets 10 or more they instantly get locked (the entire account not just the character) until reviewed by SE
2) Limit number of tells per minute to 6-7 or something like that, there is no reason you need to send more than 6-7 in a min to different people (perhaps this should be as high as 8 so you can message everyone for getting a full group together)
3) Limit new characters to not be able to shout or tell for the first 30min (or more), this prevents spammers from just making a new character right away to get to spamming again

[Inosaska]

I think there are a few easy fixes for the gil spammers:
1) Report Spam, and after the same character gets 10 or more they instantly get locked (the entire account not just the character) until reviewed by SE
2) Limit number of tells per minute to 6-7 or something like that, there is no reason you need to send more than 6-7 in a min to different people (perhaps this should be as high as 8 so you can message everyone for getting a full group together)
3) Limit new characters to not be able to shout or tell for the first 30min (or more), this prevents spammers from just making a new character right away to get to spamming again

To number 2 would really hurt the players of the community to greatly as many people like to chat in tells and prefer not to have clutter at times when discussing certain matters that come up to the general public.

[Kelthos]

To number 2 would really hurt the players of the community to greatly as many people like to chat in tells and prefer not to have clutter at times when discussing certain matters that come up to the general public.

Are you really sending more than 7 tells in a minute though, thats more than 1 every 10 seconds, and i wasn't saying total lock out of chat if you try to send more than that, just to block if the user trys to send more than that and have to wait the few seconds. It could even be pushed to 12 so you can send 1 every 5 seconds should be more than enough for normal use.

[RandMierdin]

And I have no idea what you're talking about when you say "flying dead player advertising like a giant undead billboard" -- This was something I've never seen or heard of throughout my years of playing and I've trolled the forums quite regularly. Seriously, that comment makes me suspect that you're just a troll making things up, which means I've just wasted a precious 2 minutes to quote and respond to you. D'oh.

The dead player advertising wasn't that common but I saw it a few times in Orgrimmar(Crushridge server). They would spell out the name of some goldseller site with dead bodies. Usually they appeared on the ground, but sometimes they'd be floating in the air.

[Sacred-Oblivion]

The dead player advertising wasn't that common but I saw it a few times in Orgrimmar(Crushridge server). They would spell out the name of some goldseller site with dead bodies. Usually they appeared on the ground, but sometimes they'd be floating in the air.

Wow, that's actually borderline hilarious. They can't annoy players by spamming them directly so they resort to spending all that time positioning character bodies into a recognizable pattern. I'd happily trade spam tells for that.