Stemming the tide of spam

[Credence_Aegis]

If it's a trial account, don't allow them to send tells until at they upgrade except to other trial members. Set up a server that acts as a gateway when you create a new character, regardless of trial account or standard.

Create a very basic tutorial quest line that will get you to level 20. Once you complete it, have the players kill an easy boss before they are given one final quest that requires the player has paid for the game and/or subscription in order to accept it. Once accepted, they are teleported to the server the player chose (or even have them make that choice at the end of the tutorial) to begin their adventures.

While I realize that this will make some of the initial quests trivial in the starting cities - you can always adjust the quest levels, difficulty, and rewards accordingly. By addressing the matter in this way, you can strongly stem the flow of spammers into a server and make the process of advertising much more difficult for them.

[Drkdays]

That's way too drastic. It would completely alter the game and invalidate novice network. : |