GOLD SPAMMERS

[LORD_Dreago]

Seriously People I am up to 16 Blisted and every one of them are gold sales only 2 of them have been deleted which means the other 14 are Still blasting the server can we not get a fast reporting option installed and a right click to ignore someone or how about even a easier way to invite people u are talking to your company like A right click list of options like most mmos.

[Mycrosys]

Seriously People I am up to 16 Blisted and every one of them are gold sales only 2 of them have been deleted which means the other 14 are Still blasting the server can we not get a fast reporting option installed and a right click to ignore someone or how about even a easier way to invite people u are talking to your company like A right click list of options like most mmos.

Don't think it is that easy - a good report function won't probably be in the game for a while, not if there are only 14 goldsellers - but it would be nice to get a couple of square GMs to work this out on the servers.

Don't think fighting Goldsellers is that easy - they are constantly finding out new ways and to really get rid of them is both a time consuming task as well as expensive (because you need at least some technical implementation to get the community to help).

[zebnatsan]

Seriously People I am up to 16 Blisted and every one of them are gold sales only 2 of them have been deleted which means the other 14 are Still blasting the server can we not get a fast reporting option installed and a right click to ignore someone or how about even a easier way to invite people u are talking to your company like A right click list of options like most mmos.

you can make yourself a macro like this. (will blist the last tell received)

/blist add <r>
/echo <r> added to black list

[LORD_Dreago]

The macro is only good for the whispers I am up to 22 now every time I enter a main city u get Slammed where all u see is a scrolling of it. A requirement of entering Ulduah atm is stopping to Blist the shouting sellers.

[Filmire]

Yeah, the spammers add two problems. They take up a spot on the servers that a real player can use, and they annoy everyone w/ spam.

If it were a little easier to black list someone, the second problem would be lessened. If you could click the spammer's name in the chat window and hit black list from there, for example. (Right now you can click their name to choose to send them a tell or to send a friend request).

Sometimes they spam so quickly that their name scrolls off the chat log and trying to remember and type their name for black listing takes extra time.

[SECRETAGENTX-9]

you can make yourself a macro like this. (will blist the last tell received)

/blist add <r>
/echo <r> added to black list

I did this and it said that person was blist. Then the next line in red said /blist <r> used wrong. The Gil sellers txt was in pink, and even though it said blisted pink text still showed up

[SECRETAGENTX-9]

I did this and it said that person was blist. Then the next line in red said /blist <r> used wrong. The Gil sellers txt was in pink, and even though it said blisted pink text still showed up

Wow sorry for double post but I just proofread my response and answered myself....carry on lol

[lordjoosie]

In FFXI with the chat filter option, I'd see a gil seller shout or tell about once a month at most. I don't understand why it's so difficult to give the folks at XI a call and figure out how to add a filter to XIV.

[Aurongroove]

I suggest either a faster way of reporting: click user, select "report for gold spamming".

Or something no MMO RPG ever does, but really really should; incentivise users to report bots/spammers with in game rewards:
A few company seals (or something) for genuine spammers that eventually wind up getting their accounts deleted.

It'd just add a sense of role play to the proceedings. Sure the report takes a while to fill out, but you'd actually be getting rewarded in game, even if it's a token gesture.

[KisaiTenshi]

I suggest either a faster way of reporting: click user, select "report for gold spamming".

Or something no MMO RPG ever does, but really really should; incentivise users to report bots/spammers with in game rewards:
A few company seals (or something) for genuine spammers that eventually wind up getting their accounts deleted.

It'd just add a sense of role play to the proceedings. Sure the report takes a while to fill out, but you'd actually be getting rewarded in game, even if it's a token gesture.

Incentives just makes it worse.

From every MMORPG I've played there's only two constants with Gold bots and spam
1) The Company running it, is hopelessly incompetent at solving it, no matter how well intentioned, tools provided, volunteers, GM's are available
2) The chances of reporting people for being bots/spam/ijustdonotlikeyou's increases with tools, but the ability to do anything is decreased.

Like overall the only real way of killing the spam and bots is to make it expensive to do so. This can be done in plenty of ways:
- When someone yells, put them on the map for 5 minutes, and make them vulnerable to PvP. While "dead" from PvP characters can not use any form of communication except (raise?) or "go to jail" (for losing the PvP)
- Another option is simply have a "report" with a double-confirm. If someone gets enough reports, the game "strikes down" the character and teleports them into "Jail", or basically any place that nobody would hear their yells.

Those two options basically gives the game masters the option of having a single GM babysitting the jail and nuking characters that were indeed spamming.

Other things tried in other games, that aren't super-effective but better than nothing
- Double-confirm with a screenshot, eg you right-click on the chat and hit "report", the game takes a screenshot just before the form shows up, and hitting submit, effectively emails the GM with the proof. Tradeoff is that they may get more reports than they can do anything with. Or the support server just gets DoS'd.
- "Bot bombs" that can be bought from a specific NPC that is only reachable upon reaching far enough into the storyline. (Causes griefing)
- IP bans (they get around them the same way anyone else does)
- chat filters (they just delete client-sided filters, and sever-sided ones tend to break actual conversations or throttle them, rendering them difficult to do at all)
- chat throttles, where the game just throttles on duplicate words said in consecutive (Eg last 3 minutes) shouts, or throttles based on characters per second being faster than a human.