Easy method for crushing the goldfarmer disease

[DEATHICIDE]

4 Easy steps to stop credit farmers in their tracks:

 

1. Create list of goldfarming sites, who exploit SWTOR customers (Stolen credit cards are a big deal EA)

2. Create filter that will block any message containing any of the above addresses

3. Add filter that will ignore any characters between the letters of any of the above addresses so that

"w wW.**mmo*c^r^e^d^i^t*f*r*a*u*d*.c0m" etc work arounds will be detected

4. Automatically deliver a warning display to those who trigger the system that they will not be able to post for 5 minutes(or whatever) and further use of blocked websites will result in a permanent ban, while flagging the poster for account review

 

 

Problem = solved

[Kalfear]

4 Easy steps to stop credit farmers in their tracks:

 

1. Create list of goldfarming sites, who exploit SWTOR customers (Stolen credit cards are a big deal EA)

2. Create filter that will block any message containing any of the above addresses

3. Add filter that will ignore any characters between the letters of any of the above addresses so that

"w wW.**mmo*c^r^e^d^i^t*f*r*a*u*d*.c0m" etc work arounds will be detected

4. Automatically deliver a warning display to those who trigger the system that they will not be able to post for 5 minutes(or whatever) and further use of blocked websites will result in a permanent ban, while flagging the poster for account review

 

 

Problem = solved

 

I prefer my suggestion as it actually addresses those breaking the rules on both sides of equation

 

1) Ban the spammers. IP bans. Gone for good

2) Review all reports DAILY (not over 2 months which is whats left open on my reports sadly) and ban those who are guilty of credit spamming (by shout/yell/chat/mail/whisper )

3) Put in a report option to specifically report credit farmers so you can investigate the claims (will be very easy to see if true or not) and ban those guilty of it (these are paid account so thiese bans will be the ones that truly hit the farmers/sellers)

4) Ban any players who are found to have purchased credits (they to willingly broke ToS. Not just the sellers)

 

Couple months of this will have all but dried up the entire issue on all servers with VERY LITTLE overhead on your part.

 

But honestly as long as you're not suggesting EA start selling credits themselves (as some posters have tried to suggest) I would be happy for any solution being put in place to diminish the Credit sellers and credit farmers from game.

[DEATHICIDE]

Ip bans can't work because spammers can use any computer anywhere they want to log into the game, it would be an annoyance to the spammers at best, not a solution.

 

I would sooner opt for a bit of easy code that will take care of the problem without forcing users to see spam or report it personally.

 

This is my suggestion to the devs, because it's a no brainier, and we don't willingly pay money to police someone's game, I pay money to play it unmolested.

 

(I do like your ideas though, and share the sentiment that any action against them is a good action, but since this game has gone FTP and you don't need a CD key to install and use the game, we can't rely on fixes geared toward the user end)

Edited February 1, 2015 by DEATHICIDE

[Soul_of_Flames]

No, this is a bad idea. Any fixed filter is always a bad idea. Not everyone who uses these "flagged" phrases is going to be a spammer. People who might, say, just be joking about a spammer might end up tripping the system.

 

I posted an idea regarding spammers (as well as any other annoying things that happen in chat) that I believe is much more acceptable and no where near as invasive as a global filter.

 

Check it out here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=788397

[DEATHICIDE]

Thats why my idea warns not to use banned websites, blocks chat for a small amount of time, then flags your account for review when conditions are met.

 

That is not an auto ban, and will not impede people talking about farmers, only people spamming farmer websites, which they need to post in order to do their dirty business, and there is no need to allow players to post specific farming sites in chat.

If you would like to make comments on my suggestion, it would be nice if you read it before doing so.

 

cheers

Edited February 1, 2015 by DEATHICIDE

[Taramayne]

..for cryin out loud, just pay a moderator to spend an hour or two each day popping in and out of fleet instances marking and banning the plethora of spambots that are currently hitting general chat several times a minute.

 

I think the LONGEST I have ever been in fleet the past few weeks before getting a spammer in General has been maaaaybe 30 seconds.

[Soul_of_Flames]

Thats why my idea warns not to use banned websites, blocks chat for a small amount of time, then flags your account for review when conditions are met.

 

That is not an auto ban, and will not impede people talking about farmers, only people spamming farmer websites, which they need to post in order to do their dirty business, and there is no need to allow players to post specific farming sites in chat.

If you would like to make comments on my suggestion, it would be nice if you read it before doing so.

 

cheers

I did read it. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't like global filters. They are the same as censorship and I absolutely don't condone it.

 

All filters should be client-toggled and should not trip any system-flagged wires. Meaning, you should be able to say whatever you want without the game recognizing you as such-and-such player. With a client-toggled filter, you can personally decide what you think is worth reading and it doesn't impact other people's freedom to say it.

[DEATHICIDE]

I did read it. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't like global filters. They are the same as censorship and I absolutely don't condone it.

 

All filters should be client-toggled and should not trip any system-flagged wires. Meaning, you should be able to say whatever you want without the game recognizing you as such-and-such player. With a client-toggled filter, you can personally decide what you think is worth reading and it doesn't impact other people's freedom to say it.

 

There is no need to allow players to post website addresses of known sites that exist solely to exploit SWTOR, such as the 3 current prominent goldfarming sites. Using them violates the ToS and there is no reason they should be allowed publicity in any form within the game.

Edited February 17, 2015 by DEATHICIDE

[branmakmuffin]

Filter anything that looks like a URL. There is no reason anyone absolutely has to post a URL.in chat.

[Jrr_hypernova]

Best solution ninja assassins. One smoke bomb a few shurikins and boom no more gold spamming site because the guys running it got the point... of a throwing star. Or hire black water or whatever they changed there name too science iraqs over I'm sure the need work and every company can use a PMC.

[Mithros]

Cred1tfraud,c0m

 

I just defeated your filter.

 

And how does the "ignore letters and spaces in between the letters" filter work, anyway?

How many letters and spaces will it ignore to detect the words? Pretty sure I could type a paragraph containing all of those letters in sequence with some amount of letters and spaces in between.

 

Tell me again why this is such a great use of time and money.

[DEATHICIDE]

Cred1tfraud,c0m

 

I just defeated your filter.

 

And how does the "ignore letters and spaces in between the letters" filter work, anyway?

How many letters and spaces will it ignore to detect the words? Pretty sure I could type a paragraph containing all of those letters in sequence with some amount of letters and spaces in between.

 

Tell me again why this is such a great use of time and money.

 

I am only bothering to explain such computer basics to you for the bump.

 

Example:

 

Filter - Identify URL sequence from list " http://www.fakewebsite.com etc"

Parameter - Ignore characters ".,_*^%$#@!123456789"

Parameter - Group Repetitive characters

 

=

 

"dubyah.f###ake**webs*i*t*e*.c0m" -Detected

"111111111www!fake**c*r*ed**its.com" - Detected

"buy my computervirus at ffffffake_w.e.b....site" - Detected

 

Etc, etc, etc.

 

 

Done, costs the coder 20 minutes of time.

Thanks for the bump, filter breaker

Edited February 18, 2015 by DEATHICIDE

[Mithros]

I am only bothering to explain such computer basics to you for the bump.

 

Example:

 

Filter - Identify URL sequence from list " http://www.fakewebsite.com etc"

Parameter - Ignore characters ".,_*^%$#@!123456789"

Parameter - Group Repetitive characters

 

=

 

"dubyah.f###ake**webs*i*t*e*.c0m" -Detected

"111111111www!fake**c*r*ed**its.com" - Detected

"buy my computervirus at ffffffake_w.e.b....site" - Detected

 

Etc, etc, etc.

 

 

Done, costs the coder 20 minutes of time.

Thanks for the bump, filter breaker

 

And none of that detects what I posted.

 

Everything you propose requires that the specific characters are put into the message and that other specific characters are ignored for filler purposes, but simply replacing an "O" with a "0" is nothing you covered. Replacing the "." with a "," is nothing you have accounted for. Replacing a single letter with a number goes unchallenged by you.

 

And, if I said "credit card fraud is pretty rampant. Check with a well-known company" would that be blocked? Would red flags go up requiring people to check out my post that has absolutely nothing to do with spamming for credit sellers?

 

It's all there. Credit, fraud, a ".", and "com" as part of company. All in order with spaces and other characters in between.

 

So keep explaining how you think basic coding works if you want, but you haven't shown at all how this would work to fix what you are saying it will.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Mithros

[Rankyn]

4 Easy steps to stop credit farmers in their tracks:

 

Problem = solved

So every MMO everywhere is infested by these guys and that's literally rooms full of people who could potentially solve the problem once and for all and yet none of them have.

 

As an MMO lead once told me, "If it really was that simple, we'd have done it by now."

 

 

They will never, ever get rid of these guys without implementing restrictions that are so draconian that the game becomes 1) less fun to play and 2) inaccessible to an enormous pool of current and potential customers.

 

So that means that whatever is left will not completely solve the problem and must, therefore, weigh development resources against the limited potential benefit of whatever they might do to slightly inconvenience the credit sellers.

 

Truthfully, the easiest thing they could do is to combine the report and ignore functions into a single click.

It doesn't solve the problem but it improves the user experience.

[AdrianDmitruk]

If you're not going to moderate your game, at least give your customers a viable and efficient way to exterminate the problem for you (mine is the second post in that thread)

[Jrr_hypernova]

If you're not going to moderate your game, at least give your customers a viable and efficient way to exterminate the problem for you (mine is the second post in that thread)

 

First rule of running an asylum never give the patients the keys and for the love of all that is good don't give some of them guns to police the place. And before you say comparing an mmo community to a asylum is stretching it I just have to say from the forums and player in game asylums have nothing on this level of crazy.

[AdrianDmitruk]

First rule of running an asylum never give the patients the keys and for the love of all that is good don't give some of them guns to police the place. And before you say comparing an mmo community to a asylum is stretching it I just have to say from the forums and player in game asylums have nothing on this level of crazy.

 

Second rule of running the asylum is never, ever leave the aslyum unguarded (and if Bioware wasn't leaving the asylum unguarded we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place, now would we?). I have the feeling you didn't actually read what was posted there, and based your reply only off my link description.

 

Seriously though, when I report spam, why the hell should the report not actually remove the spam from MY CLIENT so I can see the rest of chat? All of the improved functionality I suggested in that thread is on the client side, not the server side; it just gives us more and better ways to remove ourselves from the spammers, and makes it easier for us to report them for Bioware's banhammer. If Bioware won't police the spammers, the least they could do is give us the tools to fully and completely remove them from our playing experience (to be differentiated from removing them from the game--which BW *should* be doing but isn't.) It's still up to Bioware to actually ban them. Literally the only downside to what is suggested and posted in that thread is the risk of ignore lists becoming full, which would not be a problem if Bioware actually acted upon the spam reports they do receive in a timely manner.

 

Making it easier for the playerbase to shun spammers would also increase their costs of doing business and hopefully decrease their market penetration. Which is a good thing.

Edited February 19, 2015 by AdrianDmitruk

[Jrr_hypernova]

Second rule of running the asylum is never, ever leave the aslyum unguarded (and if Bioware wasn't leaving the asylum unguarded we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place, now would we?). I have the feeling you didn't actually read what was posted there, and based your reply only off my link description.

 

Seriously though, when I report spam, why the hell should the report not actually remove the spam from MY CLIENT so I can see the rest of chat? All of the improved functionality I suggested in that thread is on the client side, not the server side; it just gives us more and better ways to remove ourselves from the spammers, and makes it easier for us to report them for Bioware's banhammer. If Bioware won't police the spammers, the least they could do is give us the tools to fully and completely remove them from our playing experience (to be differentiated from removing them from the game--which BW *should* be doing but isn't.) It's still up to Bioware to actually ban them. Literally the only downside to what is suggested and posted in that thread is the risk of ignore lists becoming full, which would not be a problem if Bioware actually acted upon the spam reports they do receive in a timely manner.

 

Making it easier for the playerbase to shun spammers would also increase their costs of doing business and hopefully decrease their market penetration. Which is a good thing.

 

Never mind I thought I you linked to the there'd saying bioware should appoint people from the player base to ban chat offenders and spam bots. I agree its asinine that ignoring someone doesn't remove there existing message from chat and that its only per toon not per account.

[AdrianDmitruk]

Never mind I thought I you linked to the there'd saying bioware should appoint people from the player base to ban chat offenders and spam bots. I agree its asinine that ignoring someone doesn't remove there existing message from chat and that its only per toon not per account.

 

Yeah it took me a moment to realize that my description sounded kind of like that thread.

 

Yes, I want spammers exterminated with extreme prejudice.

 

But I want Bioware to do the exterminating server side. I just want the proper tools to disinfect my client from the spam while I wait for the exterminator.

[DEATHICIDE]

And none of that detects what I posted.

 

Everything you propose requires that the specific characters are put into the message and that other specific characters are ignored for filler purposes, but simply replacing an "O" with a "0" is nothing you covered. Replacing the "." with a "," is nothing you have accounted for. Replacing a single letter with a number goes unchallenged by you.

 

And, if I said "credit card fraud is pretty rampant. Check with a well-known company" would that be blocked? Would red flags go up requiring people to check out my post that has absolutely nothing to do with spamming for credit sellers?

 

It's all there. Credit, fraud, a ".", and "com" as part of company. All in order with spaces and other characters in between.

 

So keep explaining how you think basic coding works if you want, but you haven't shown at all how this would work to fix what you are saying it will.

 

I am not about to post a complete functional model, as I am not employed to do so.

 

Filters work off of a list of barred addresses, and are told to recognize variables.

 

I can tell the code to look for any grouping of characters on my blacklist that are near eachother, then pass filters to see if we get a detection match.

 

Such a thing would obviously be able to account for a "." becoming a "^" or anything else.

(Ex: Paramater: Character O may = o, 0, "zero")

Etc upon many Etc until we have all our bases covered, given a box with a very low amount of max possible characters, this is not as big of a feat as you'd imagine)

 

Because the chat window can only hold so much text, this makes the filter's job much easier.

 

There are many filters in place all over the internet, just because you have it in your head that it is somehow impossible to compensate for goldfarmers tossing in special characters does not make that true in the least.

 

You can continually improve the filter list and restricted sites list as you please to counter anything they can come up with, because if it gets to the point where they are doing something like this: "CfhhghfgdfhjRdhfjgkdhEfjkghdfkjDkgjghfdIghfjkghTghdkdhSfkhggPfhjghAlkfgjhghgMkjfhjg^CofgingOklgjhhM"

Then their posts will be pointless at that point and the issue is again moot.

Edited March 2, 2015 by DEATHICIDE

[anonnn]

Let us pay 100 credits to report a player as a credit spammer. It has to be only a right-click menu on the name in the chat log, or tricks could be played with the character names and using special characters to make it appear at a glance as someone else's character name. Anyone found reporting someone who isn't a credit spammer would be locked out of the report tool until the 3rd next Tuesday (even if it was by accident).

 

Then pay a moderator to be on-call and get alerted when any character receives more than 20 credit-spammer reports upon them. When the moderator logs into the system and checks whether that player was a credit spammer, if it was indeed a credit spammer then they ban that character and issue prizes to the mailbox of every player who reported that credit spammer.

 

Whether they ban accounts that repeatedly credit-spam with their characters is sort of their domain, I'm not sure of all the issues involved with that. They also have to be careful of watching out for people logged into someone else's character and trying to cause them trouble by staging credit spamming messages to General Chat.

 

If you trim the credit-spammer characters often enough, it might make it non-feasible for these people to keep leveling characters to level 10 to get them to Fleet to do more credit-spamming. The level of effort just to get a character TO fleet would start to outweigh the amount of business they can rake in during the time they START credit spamming, and the time that their lowbie character gets banned for credit spamming. It's guaranteed that at some point they'll just give up . . .

[anonnn]

Best solution ninja assassins. One smoke bomb a few shurikins and boom no more gold spamming site because the guys running it got the point... of a throwing star. Or hire black water or whatever they changed there name too science iraqs over I'm sure the need work and every company can use a PMC.

 

Hmmm . . how about an instant-bounty-contract on anyone that was found by the moderators to be a credit spammer? Those who have their special Bounty Hunter implant (from the Cartel Bazaar) equipped get an instant mission in their log and a tracking beacon to find the offending credit spammer and blast them to smithereens, and collecting a bounty if they got in at least 1 hit.

 

As soon as the offending credit spammer is hit once, they get a 5-minute debuff of -90% movement speed and -98% heals that refreshes every time they're hit. Look at 'em try to get away so they can continue spamming! When they're defeated by an anti-credit-spammer Bounty Hunter, they get respawned in a semi-random remote location on Tatooine with all their travel options on a 1-hour cooldown and a residual 1-hour -90% movement debuff. Mounting a vehicle would add an additional -9% movement debuff. The 'You're a Credit Spammer' debuff would also cause shuttle travel to cost 100 times the normal amount of credits.