Holy fleet spam

[Foambreaker]

But what constitutes an URL? http://www.buygold.tld probably is one. What about http://www.buygold.tld? buygold.tld? buygold dot tld? b u y g o l d dot t l d? The spammers will invent some way to get people to their site. And what of legitimate URLs? Suppose someone asks for an ops guide?

 

It's not trivial to track which transactions are related to gold sellers. You wouldn't want to ban someone receiving two million credits from their friend to help them get started on a new character. It's unlikely the gold mules are the same characters or even on the same account as the advertisers.

 

This one at least would likely have no negative effects, though the spammers would quickly find a way around it.

 

Since the suggestions are not 100% foolproof perfect, we should just do nothing.

[Andryah]

Credit/Gold sellers are a problem that all MMOs have. There is a very simple solution, but one that most companies will not take.

 

Any game with a micro-transaction store has the ability to annihilate credit sellers by selling credits directly from the MT store. It costs the company virtually nothing ... they can dictate a cash to credit value well below the sellers price and make it an unsustainable business in their game.

 

Will some players boohoo about it, sure, but players get booboo-lip over anything anyway.

 

This would benefit players in two ways. First, it would eliminate credit spam. Second, those players that do engage in credit buying would be buying directly from the game company - that they already share their banking info with.

 

Is there a monumental difference between players who buy CM items and sell them on the GTN vs. players who buy credits on the free market? No, they are still spending real money to generate in-game money. The only real difference is that Bioware doesn't profit from it.

 

Selling new credits directly to players injects new credits into the player economy and causes notable inflation over time.

 

When a player buys items on the CM and then resells them in game, they create no new credits. They are simply using an external mechanic to move credits from one player to another in a manner that is permitted under the ToS/EULA.

 

I am in no way condoning the behaviors of credit sellers.... but they do not inject new credits into the economy by their actions. Most of these businesses actually are brokers these days... buying from one player and selling to another. Why? Because it is way more efficient for them then setting up a farm team. Sadly, there are many players that sell to these outfits. Credit sellers need to be addressed, but can never be eliminated completely.

 

Direct selling of new credits into the player economy is a BAD idea as it is inflationary. A mechanism that moves credits from player to player is economy neutral. Most MMO companies understand this.. which is why they just don't sell in game currencies directly.

Edited December 17, 2014 by Andryah

[Andryah]

Since the suggestions are not 100% foolproof perfect, we should just do nothing.

 

Nonsense.

 

His point was that these companies learned years ago how to bypass filters.

 

But about "we"... we can indeed do nothing about this other then report and ignore. And seriously... how hard is it to just ignore chat traffic? It's not. There is no need to put transients like these on your /ignore list. Your mind is actually your best filter.

Edited December 17, 2014 by Andryah

[Andryah]

Yesterday, however, one of those goldspammers began whispering me. At the speed of a whisper a second, my chat panel became unreadable.

I placed the guy in my Ignore List and reported him for spam and Harassment - because all in all, that's Harassment, in my book, the guy was actively preventing me from enjoying hte game.

 

Now, I logged for hte afternoon and returned in game about 3-4h later. Well, the guy was still there. As I logged I decided to have a look at my Ignore List and took him out by mistake. I'm not full, mind you, but I dislike to keep Goldspammers in there, they vanish fast anyway... And the fact I can't add notes to Ignore doesn't make it easy to distinguish, I've seen Goldspammers with a name htat made sense a few times.

At any rate, as soon as the guy came out of my Ignore List, my Chat Panel got filled with his whispers. AGAIN. Back into Ignore he went, but seriously, this is damn annoying...

 

I'm not discounting your claim here... but what purpose would it serve for a credit seller to spam-harass you via whisper?? It does not earn them a sale, and it raises their visibility for reporting for direct harassment. And whispers at that rate are clearly a subscriber account.

 

Are you sure it is not just someone having some fun with you? You know.. you complain to guild mates or friends about the spam and one of them decides to roll an alt and have some fun with you?

Edited December 17, 2014 by Andryah

[Andryah]

So far the ones I have reported have been closed. It's three so far.

 

This is getting a bit out of hand with 4 guys I had to ignore today because of gold sale whisper spam.

 

Is there some way to turn off whispers globally?

 

Yeah.. the time to resolve varies. I've seen the report tickets close within hours and I have seen it take days.

 

I imagine it depends on the number of reports they are receiving and how those get processed. Clearly, they are getting hammered with seller spam reports right now.

 

Personally, I simply ignore /whispers to me from anyone I do not know, unless I am out on planet and it is clearly a sincere whisper for information or assistance.

 

In game currency spamming ebbs and flows with the energy/interest around an MMO. Where there is no demand, there are no currency sellers of any note inside an MMO.

Edited December 17, 2014 by Andryah

[Grayseven]

Selling new credits directly to players injects new credits into the player economy and causes notable inflation over time.

 

When a player buys items on the CM and then resells them in game, they create no new credits. They are simply using an external mechanic to move credits from one player to another in a manner that is permitted under the ToS/EULA.

 

I am in no way condoning the behaviors of credit sellers.... but they do not inject new credits into the economy by their actions. Most of these businesses actually are brokers these days... buying from one player and selling to another. Why? Because it is way more efficient for them then setting up a farm team. Sadly, there are many players that sell to these outfits. Credit sellers need to be addressed, but can never be eliminated completely.

 

Direct selling of new credits into the player economy is a BAD idea as it is inflationary. A mechanism that moves credits from player to player is economy neutral. Most MMO companies understand this.. which is why they just don't sell in game currencies directly.

 

The other side of this is that Gold Sellers will just sell for less than what EA/BW sells for and they will still advertise and spam, so the game selling credits won't fix anything.

 

And you're right, the difference between selling credits directly and selling items that can then be sold for credits is huge. One creates new credits, the other simply moves already created credits around.

 

There is always...ALWAYS...and massive influx of gold spam after every new expansion in every MMO ever made. This is simply because there is also a massive influx of players both new and returning and this is when Gold sellers have their best chance at a sale.

[Grayseven]

To combat chat spam in general, including the childish crap that takes place on fleet daily, I simply have my second chat pane set up so that I don't get any of the "white" channels. While I still get whispers I have no problems ignoring anyone who abuses the system. Once someone hits my ignore list I never remove them, so I don't care how cluttered it gets.

[LordArtemis]

Yeah.. the time to resolve varies. I've seen the report tickets close within hours and I have seen it take days.

 

I imagine it depends on the number of reports they are receiving and how those get processed. Clearly, they are getting hammered with seller spam reports right now.

 

Personally, I simply ignore /whispers to me from anyone I do not know, unless I am out on planet and it is clearly a sincere whisper for information or assistance.

 

In game currency spamming ebbs and flows with the energy/interest around an MMO. Where there is no demand, there are no currency sellers of any note inside an MMO.

 

No doubt. So far I have had good luck with the report/close part of it.

 

And I certainly respect the idea that they are likely very busy with this at the moment, especially considering the level of staff is not what it was in the past.

 

As to the selling of credits, that is a sticky issue. Yes, it can severely hurt the economy, but in lieu of it happening anyway it is better that a company has control over the process.

 

But of course it can inflate prices over time.

[Kourage]

I'd really like to see every single subscriber ask other subscribers to use their referral codes and repeat the question every 2 minutes. That's the kind of spam I'd really love to see. Right now, we've just got a few of these beggars and they do it from characters they don't play in case they get ignored, but BioWare is ok with this sort of spam, so what we really need is a flood of it to end it all together.

[idnewton]

We definitely have quite a few systems in place to try to stop this type of thing and we are always continuing to improve them. As you can imagine, those spammers are doing the same.

 

What is really important is that you always report them when you see them. It helps us immensely in tracking and removing that spam!

 

-eric

 

What I want to know is how they are able to send spam mails again. Did you lift the mailing restriction for F2P, or are they using sub accounts to do it? Because it's happening again.

[chosonman]

Eric,

 

I would like to suggest implementing a minimum character level before a new character can enter fleet or send email to another character outside of their account. This would make the spammers have to level before they are allowed to spam on fleet and in emails. Also, you could think about adding filters to emails to let the user filter out emails from anyone not on their friends list or not of a certain level. For example you could make it so I can exclude any emails from anyone below character level 50. Or from anyone who is not a subscriber.

[MillionsKNives]

You can't reach the fleet until level 10.

[LyraineAlei]

You can't reach the fleet until level 10.

 

Level 8, actually. I tested during 12x EXP just because I wanted to run around the starter worlds with crew skills already.

[Cox_The_Beast]

I'm not discounting your claim here... but what purpose would it serve for a credit seller to spam-harass you via whisper?? It does not earn them a sale, and it raises their visibility for reporting for direct harassment. And whispers at that rate are clearly a subscriber account.

 

Are you sure it is not just someone having some fun with you? You know.. you complain to guild mates or friends about the spam and one of them decides to roll an alt and have some fun with you?

 

I wish I know... Makes no sense, but a person can't really whisper that fast, not even with copy-paste. And the name was a sequence of odd letters like Aqrhtnujkijt or the like, so the questioning is legit, right?

[Krakov]

SWG had a quite successful system in place - The Warden system. Every server had a chosen ammount of players that acted as "Wardens" and had the power to mute all communications for other players. Chat, mail, whisper - everything locked.

 

Obviously this could be abused by any "Warden" so several steps were taken to assue that wouldnt happen (Like signing an application) and if anyone were to abuse it anyway, we all knew we would likely be facing permaban from the game.

 

When a Warden muted another player, a report was automatically filed to the GM's who would then investigate chat history etc and take the final actions against any spammer.

 

Ofc, this kind of system requires a certain ammount of trust and BW handing out a tiny ammount of power...so i guess we're stuck with spammers huh?

 

I was a warden in SWG, Ahazi server...I had a blast silencing the credit spammers !!!

[idnewton]

Level 8, actually. I tested during 12x EXP just because I wanted to run around the starter worlds with crew skills already.

 

Actually it's level 7 or maybe even 6.

 

Eric,

 

I would like to suggest implementing a minimum character level before a new character can enter fleet or send email to another character outside of their account. This would make the spammers have to level before they are allowed to spam on fleet and in emails. Also, you could think about adding filters to emails to let the user filter out emails from anyone not on their friends list or not of a certain level. For example you could make it so I can exclude any emails from anyone below character level 50. Or from anyone who is not a subscriber.

 

F2P can't use any chat until level 10. F2P also can't send any mails ever, but apparently this restriction was (foolishly) lifted because everyone suddenly started getting tons of spam mails (including me).

[enigmacypher]

Actually it's level 7 or maybe even 6.

 

 

 

F2P can't use any chat until level 10. F2P also can't send any mails ever, but apparently this restriction was (foolishly) lifted because everyone suddenly started getting tons of spam mails (including me).

 

me too .. and annoying as hell as I never asked for anything and NEVER felt the need to purchase anything like this .. not lazy enough to do so..

[Andryah]

F2P can't use any chat until level 10. F2P also can't send any mails ever, but apparently this restriction was (foolishly) lifted because everyone suddenly started getting tons of spam mails (including me).

 

I do not think Bioware lifted any restrictions.

 

What I do think is that the credit sellers are taking advantage of inexpensive copies of the boxed copies of the game. They sell pretty much everywhere for 5-7 dollars, and come with a free month of play time with subscriber privileges.

 

Example: http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Old-Republic-PC/dp/B001CWXAP2/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1418867766&sr=8-7&keywords=swtor

 

There are a truck ton of these on the open market for sale. All they need is a local buyer to snap these up and then send the unlock codes to whoever they need to spam the servers. Most of the North America RMT businesses appear to be in Canada these days (easy path to immigration from Hong Kong) so they set up shop there, but they actually purchase credits from players and resell them.. so they are in essence just brokers for the most part these days.

 

People need to stop selling credits to RMT companies, and they need to stop buying credits from RMT companies. But don't hold your breath on this... credits are too plentiful in this game and many teens and young adults play and have no moral inhibitions in selling their credits I suspect. The RMT brokers make it extremely easy for both sides to flourish here. And the fact that players are culprits on both ends.. makes it pretty tough for Bioware to decide who to smack, how hard, and when.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Andryah

[Golathe]

My feelings are that this is being talked about in circles.

 

The resolution has to do with why there is a market for such a thing.

 

My earlier post in this thread has to do with the cause, not the effect.

 

In other words...

 

Wake up call is that it may very well be this establishment that needs to change its current methodology. Not Johnny Farmer who found an active business venture (although vile and annoying, I do agree).

 

MMO's have gotten us 15+ years under the ideal of looting or building what you need and desire, don't let them choke it to death in the next 3 due to items being over priced monetarily in game, or found obscure to condone micro transactions. Hear me out, I know what most are thinking right now, and I do not expect you to take what I am saying as an absolute.

 

The "now" status quo is that you play to enjoy the buffet style ponzy scheme, when it used to be closer to playing to THE interaction that spawned un-instanced non-focus group un-brainstormed enjoyment. What is not being seen for what it is however, is that for lack of a better term "Good Cop" is still present in the form of over priced items with in game credit.

 

Sure of course... you are not forced into micro transaction goodies, that certainly will quell that urge for some kind of long lasting effect or improvement? Yes you can!, buy most of what you need with a cavalcade of in game credits. Could you not have looted the chest plate and gun off of that hard as$ed boss npc you, and your buddies just took down though also?! Instead of "Junk Loot" or that weapon you needed during the leveling you completed last expansion?!

 

More thought needs to happen outside of the baited box (pun might be intended?).

 

I do earnestly hope any of you get the changes you desire, please choose wisely friends.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Golathe

[putinput]

We definitely have quite a few systems in place to try to stop this type of thing and we are always continuing to improve them. As you can imagine, those spammers are doing the same.

 

What is really important is that you always report them when you see them. It helps us immensely in tracking and removing that spam!

 

-eric

 

A big part of why there is so much spam is because bioware basically hands them the credits to sell. They are teleport botting security chests in most of the high level planets. If t Bioware doesn't have someone to ban these teleport botters then a change should be made. Personally I would love to see some mechanics added to opening chests so that it is sort of like a mini game. To be honest I wouldn't care if they just removed them because they have been nothing but trouble since the game launched. Cut off their supply of credits and then they can't spam what they don't have to sell.

[LordArtemis]

Spamming with whispers is similar to junk mail, hanging doorhangers on doors or spam in email. You will likely have zero sales from the folks that are targeted, but you might get, say, less than 1 percent of the folks you solicit to respond.

 

That is sales you would not have otherwise. Since it costs next to nothing to whisper, it is profitable to do so even if it means they will get banned.

 

It's basic cold sale tactics. Unfortunately, in a game like this it can be effective.

 

There are only three ways you can effectively end gold sales.

 

1) Bind all currency and items to individual accounts. This is the most draconian but most effective method. It you remove the ability to move currency you kill any RMT based on that currency. Of course you also kill any economy the game has.

 

2) The developer sells currency, or items that can be traded in for currency. Even if those items can be had in game (a common method when a developer sells currency) the economy usually suffers negative effects, not the least of which is inflation. Generally a developer can price out gold sellers using this method.

 

3) Using some kind of community policing system. This can be very effective if done properly. When players are given the ability to police themselves they can reduce gold sales dramatically. Naturally there is a possibility of abuse, but offering free subscriptions, in addition to the threat of permanent bans for bad behavior can work to diminish this kind of behavior.

IMO the third option is the best one to go with if you intend to stifle gold sales in a game.

[idnewton]

Spamming with whispers is similar to junk mail, hanging doorhangers on doors or spam in email. You will likely have zero sales from the folks that are targeted, but you might get, say, less than 1 percent of the folks you solicit to respond.

 

That is sales you would not have otherwise. Since it costs next to nothing to whisper, it is profitable to do so even if it means they will get banned.

 

It's basic cold sale tactics. Unfortunately, in a game like this it can be effective.

 

There are only three ways you can effectively end gold sales.

 

1) Bind all currency and items to individual accounts. This is the most draconian but most effective method. It you remove the ability to move currency you kill any RMT based on that currency. Of course you also kill any economy the game has.

 

2) The developer sells currency, or items that can be traded in for currency. Even if those items can be had in game (a common method when a developer sells currency) the economy usually suffers negative effects, not the least of which is inflation. Generally a developer can price out gold sellers using this method.

 

3) Using some kind of community policing system. This can be very effective if done properly. When players are given the ability to police themselves they can reduce gold sales dramatically. Naturally there is a possibility of abuse, but offering free subscriptions, in addition to the threat of permanent bans for bad behavior can work to diminish this kind of behavior.

IMO the third option is the best one to go with if you intend to stifle gold sales in a game.

 

You forgot option 4:

 

4) Discontinue F2P/Preferred Models, make game Sub-Only again. **** 'em all. Problem solved.

Edited December 18, 2014 by idnewton

[Edzew]

Gonna be a problem as long as there is FTP. So, essentially, it's gonna be a problem forever.

 

has nothing to do with FTP. you get the same thing in strictly subscription games as well.

[idnewton]

has nothing to do with FTP. you get the same thing in strictly subscription games as well.

 

It has everything to do with F2P, that's not even up for debate.

Edited December 19, 2014 by idnewton

[LordArtemis]

You forgot option 4:

 

4) Discontinue F2P/Preferred Models, make game Sub-Only again. **** 'em all. Problem solved.

 

Games have had this problem long before F2P became a business model. Also, plenty of games on the market that have no free component....including this one before the launch of the market/f2p had or have problems with gold sellers.

 

F2P is not the issue, it is one of the contributing factors. But there are many contributing factors.

 

The biggest factor is player greed, something that developers can do little about.

 

So no, getting rid of F2P would only have a temporary damping effect. In the end gold sales would resume in earnest, just like they did in this game in the past.

Edited December 19, 2014 by LordArtemis