Taking Down a Credit Selling Ring

[Fidelicatessen]

A simple solution would be to give a number of players GM abilities who can then instaban gold sellers from chat within seconds of their first post.

 

So that they could then immediately make a new account and level it to 10 in under an hour?

 

Simple solutions aren't always so great for complex problems (although they certainly are easy to come up with!). This problem is complex not least because there is SO BLOODY MUCH money to be had, and playing wack-a-mole with spammers doesn't work. There are simply too many of them, and they are organized. Besides, the gold spam you see on the fleet is simply the marketing side of the company.

 

NINE BILLION CREDITS! Sounds huge! How many credits (estimated) get sold for $US every year by credit selling operations, though (only in SWTOR, because if we took other games into account we'd be here all day)? 9B sounds like a lot, but what if it's only a tiny dent?

[Legolose]

Outstanding so hopefully I can turn my general chat back on at the fleet... Edited May 13, 2015 by Legolose

[KJOhio]

Looks like those credit sellers are back.

 

On the bright side, they are back because the game is healthy

[ronaxxle]

Just wanted to say I for sure see that Bioware took action as some of the usual chest teleport bots are gone. I just hope that you are going to continue to take action and this wasn't a one time thing to look good.

 

It appears their main area of credit farming besides teleport farming chests is the [HEROIC 4] Breakthrough quest phase in Belsavis. There is usually 10-40 operatives/snipers depending on server in Belsavis farming that quest phase. They need to be banned more quickly or change something so they can't farm that. If they are able to go for weeks before GMs gets them or only ban on a player report then you won't be getting anywhere in this battle.

Edited May 13, 2015 by ronaxxle

[BraxxGaming]

Can you give me the credits

[Danery]

A simple solution would be to give a number of players GM abilities who can then instaban gold sellers from chat within seconds of their first post.

 

Yes, I couldnt see how that could turn out to be a bad idea at all

[lightSaberAddiCt]

A simple solution would be to give a number of players GM abilities who can then instaban gold sellers from chat within seconds of their first post.

 

That has to be about the worse idea I have read so far...

[-Damask-]

That has to be about the worse idea I have read so far...

 

Typical troll response; no actual substance as to WHY it would be a bad idea. The point of a discussion is to discuss, not mindlessly say you disagree with no reasons.

 

So that they could then immediately make a new account and level it to 10 in under an hour?

 

Simple solutions aren't always so great for complex problems (although they certainly are easy to come up with!). This problem is complex not least because there is SO BLOODY MUCH money to be had, and playing wack-a-mole with spammers doesn't work. There are simply too many of them, and they are organized. Besides, the gold spam you see on the fleet is simply the marketing side of the company.

 

No, actually that would work perfectly.

 

Dozens of other MMOs have GMs. I guess most of you started playing SWTOR as your first MMO. Having players help ease the burden of administrative in-game duties is a well tested system, and by no means a new idea. Look it up. OBVIOUSLY you wouldn't give chat-banning abilities to everyone, or to new players, or to people who abuse the privilege, as some of you clearly misunderstood. As I said in my first post, it would only affect chat privileges, and would still have to be reviewed by a company employee before it became permanent.

 

Bottom line here is that bioware is too understaffed and underbudgeted to properly handle this issue. Asking for help from players would in no way cause them to lose respect, quite the opposite in fact. This whole post by bioware is nothing more than a poor attempt to appease angry players by stating the obvious. All they really said was "we have banned some spammers based on your spam reports, keep it up" but yet the spammers are back as if they had done nothing at all.

 

The problem is- currently you can report a spammer a hundred times and they can still post in chat, it takes a day to ban them sometimes. If they know they can post their spam for say 12 to 24 hours, per hour spent leveling, then that is a good payoff for them.

 

However if they know they will be banned from chat after a few seconds, the hour spent leveling will be cost prohibitive.

 

Not to mention why the **** are level 7 characters on new accounts allowed on fleet anyway? There should be severe restrictions on no-legacy characters vis-a-vis general fleet and starter planet chat. One should certainly be not allowed to post messages with identical content

 

A simple algorithm designed to catch repeated messages with the same text would be incredibly easy to code as well.

 

Furthermore, when a real player who knows whats going on comes across a family of 4 bots on hutta or ord mantell leveling in perfect sync, they cant do a damn thing about it to grief them (with a single exception, which is incredibly tedious to actually get them killed). There needs to be a way for players who went to grief these Chinese pieces of **** to do so. The only way now is to essentially turn yourself into a bot and try to steal their kills before they spawn, but that is so boring most people give up after a few minutes.

 

The problem is that bioware is doing nothing to combat these guys except banning them based on spam reports or other retroactive metrics. They need to take PROACTIVE steps to make their lives miserable and remove their ability to get X number of guaranteed posts per account before a ban. That's what its all about for them- how many posts they can get vs how many hours spent getting to fleet. They are sitting in a room somewhere in China with dozens of computers each running dozens of virtual machines and maybe one guy checking each account for a few seconds every half hour or so. Whatever bioware can do to cause that guy to have to spend a few more seconds per account would be a huge victory, but sadly they are doing nothing. A simple CAPTHA popup that they would have to solve to avoid PVP on starter planets would be a good start. (i.e. if it is a bot, they fail it and are able to be killed by other players)

 

But a far more simple approach would be to give a handful of trusted players the ability to silence spammers immediately. It's certainly worth a try. Maybe offer a CC reward for every 10 spammers they block or something.

 

The point is that from a programming standpoint it would be very simple to implement a few ideas on how to be proactive against spammers, instead of simply banning people after the fact based on chat reports, or high-credit trades between accounts, or from tickets submitted against level 5s on starter planets.

 

Currently the only way to get an actual human to respond within a day is to report a suicide or death threat, and only then if the player is in close proximity to you in game (???) My idea would solve that quickly and efficiently.

Edited May 14, 2015 by -Damask-

[Drockter]

 

 

Typical troll response; no actual substance as to WHY it would be a bad idea. The point of a discussion is to discuss, not mindlessly say you disagree with no reasons.

 

 

 

No, actually that would work perfectly.

 

Dozens of other MMOs have GMs. I guess most of you started playing SWTOR as your first MMO. Having players help ease the burden of administrative in-game duties is a well tested system, and by no means a new idea. Look it up. OBVIOUSLY you wouldn't give chat-banning abilities to everyone, or to new players, or to people who abuse the privilege, as some of you clearly misunderstood. As I said in my first post, it would only affect chat privileges, and would still have to be reviewed by a company employee before it became permanent.

 

Bottom line here is that bioware is too understaffed and underbudgeted to properly handle this issue. Asking for help from players would in no way cause them to lose respect, quite the opposite in fact. This whole post by bioware is nothing more than a poor attempt to appease angry players by stating the obvious. All they really said was "we have banned some spammers based on your spam reports, keep it up" but yet the spammers are back as if they had done nothing at all.

 

The problem is- currently you can report a spammer a hundred times and they can still post in chat, it takes a day to ban them sometimes. If they know they can post their spam for say 12 to 24 hours, per hour spent leveling, then that is a good payoff for them.

 

However if they know they will be banned from chat after a few seconds, the hour spent leveling will be cost prohibitive.

 

Not to mention why the **** are level 7 characters on new accounts allowed on fleet anyway? There should be severe restrictions on no-legacy characters vis-a-vis general fleet and starter planet chat. One should certainly be not allowed to post messages with identical content

 

A simple algorithm designed to catch repeated messages with the same text would be incredibly easy to code as well.

 

Furthermore, when a real player who knows whats going on comes across a family of 4 bots on hutta or ord mantell leveling in perfect sync, they cant do a damn thing about it to grief them (with a single exception, which is incredibly tedious to actually get them killed). There needs to be a way for players who went to grief these Chinese pieces of **** to do so. The only way now is to essentially turn yourself into a bot and try to steal their kills before they spawn, but that is so boring most people give up after a few minutes.

 

The problem is that bioware is doing nothing to combat these guys except banning them based on spam reports or other retroactive metrics. They need to take PROACTIVE steps to make their lives miserable and remove their ability to get X number of guaranteed posts per account before a ban. That's what its all about for them- how many posts they can get vs how many hours spent getting to fleet. They are sitting in a room somewhere in China with dozens of computers each running dozens of virtual machines and maybe one guy checking each account for a few seconds every half hour or so. Whatever bioware can do to cause that guy to have to spend a few more seconds per account would be a huge victory, but sadly they are doing nothing. A simple CAPTHA popup that they would have to solve to avoid PVP on starter planets would be a good start. (i.e. if it is a bot, they fail it and are able to be killed by other players)

 

But a far more simple approach would be to give a handful of trusted players the ability to silence spammers immediately. It's certainly worth a try. Maybe offer a CC reward for every 10 spammers they block or something.

 

The point is that from a programming standpoint it would be very simple to implement a few ideas on how to be proactive against spammers, instead of simply banning people after the fact based on chat reports, or high-credit trades between accounts, or from tickets submitted against level 5s on starter planets.

 

Currently the only way to get an actual human to respond within a day is to report a suicide or death threat, and only then if the player is in close proximity to you in game (???) My idea would solve that quickly and efficiently.

 

 

 

 

I like the idea of players being GM's ... of course it creates the issue where some (not all) would/could abuse this power (especially if CC are offered). I've seen it work, and I've seen it fail. The one thing that I saw work relatively well is an automute when X number of players report as spam. They would be muted and would have to state their case to CS to get unmuted.

[Ghisallo]

That has to be about the worse idea I have read so far...

 

This can work BUT you have to have strict controls on it. Example EQ2

 

You have to have an up to date account to apply and if accepted you get a free "Guide Account". The character(s) on this account can not fight, and get leveled up based on your participation in the program. This character(s) MUST be on a different server than you "play" account. You can reveal you are a guide but NOT your Guide Character name or server to anyone in game.

 

You are pretty much watched like a hawk and since you can't fight anyone (outside of the occasional guide quest event where the scripts says you can) etc. Add the limitations + the interesting application https://forums.station.sony.com/guide/index.php?threads/guide-program-application-english.5327752/ and it pretty much weeds out the trolls one way or the other.

 

I can honestly say that in 6 odd years of EQ2 I saw many a troll... but never a bad guide.

Edited May 14, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Kianabamin]

That has to be about the worse idea I have read so far...

 

Oh come'on whats so bad about giving Joe-Blow the power to shut people up.

Certainly Joe wouldn't abuse that power, would he?

[-Damask-]

If they abuse the power they don't get to do it again. Obviously there would be prerequisites to screen out the trolls, and most importantly, they would only be able to use the power against non-legacy accounts under a certain level.

 

All the gold sellers are new accounts with no legacy name and are usually level 7 bounty hunters. Obviously these GMs wouldn't be able to silence random subs just because they don't like them. C'mon people use your imagination a little.

[Bachannal]

If they abuse the power they don't get to do it again. Obviously there would be prerequisites to screen out the trolls, and most importantly, they would only be able to use the power against non-legacy accounts under a certain level.

 

All the gold sellers are new accounts with no legacy name and are usually level 7 bounty hunters. Obviously these GMs wouldn't be able to silence random subs just because they don't like them. C'mon people use your imagination a little.

 

 

Eggsactly. I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down.

[RoboArthurDayne]

If they abuse the power they don't get to do it again. Obviously there would be prerequisites to screen out the trolls, and most importantly, they would only be able to use the power against non-legacy accounts under a certain level.

 

All the gold sellers are new accounts with no legacy name and are usually level 7 bounty hunters. Obviously these GMs wouldn't be able to silence random subs just because they don't like them. C'mon people use your imagination a little.

 

Rather than have mistakes and abuse happen THEN remove the player's banning powers later, players should never ever be trusted with any sort of GM powers in the beginning. Simple put, none of you can be trusted because there is no real consequence for screwing up or messing around.

 

A paid employee GM who screws around or screws up can lose their job and salary, whereas a player gets a typed or copy and paste chat warning and removal of powers or ban from game which is no consequence at all.

 

Dream on folks.

[Aumvaar]

A paid employee GM who screws around or screws up can lose their job and salary, whereas a player gets a typed or copy and paste chat warning and removal of powers or ban from game which is no consequence at all.

 

Quoted to enhance & reinforce truthiness.

[Datu_Solo]

A friend of mine, a former subscriber, has been offline for close to 6 months. Today he told me that he received an email saying his account was permanently banned for involvement in credit selling. I know for a fact he's not a credit seller nor does he facilitate/support it.

 

Are there any steps he can take to reinstate his account?

[Ghisallo]

A friend of mine, a former subscriber, has been offline for close to 6 months. Today he told me that he received an email saying his account was permanently banned for involvement in credit selling. I know for a fact he's not a credit seller nor does he facilitate/support it.

 

Are there any steps he can take to reinstate his account?

 

First did they check to see if this was an actual e-mail and not simply a fishing attempt?

[Lewintelamon]

A friend of mine, a former subscriber, has been offline for close to 6 months. Today he told me that he received an email saying his account was permanently banned for involvement in credit selling. I know for a fact he's not a credit seller nor does he facilitate/support it.

 

Are there any steps he can take to reinstate his account?

 

Egads, this happened to me too. Here's what he'll have to do.

 

1) Assuming the email he received was authentic, send an email to accountdisputes@swtor.com to dispute the action. No action can otherwise be taken on the matter until this email is sent.

 

2) Once the response is received by support and reviewed, he'll likely receive another email from support@swtor.com outlining the procedures to unlock a compromised account. A photo of your ID will be required.

 

3) Send that, and then contact support by phone to confirm the receipt. Phone support will walk him through the rest of the steps (it's likely he'll have to change both his SWTOR password/email AND his Origin email/pass as well, and highly suggested to do so if it isn't required).

 

Hope this helps.

[Lyshar]

Still have my doubts.

No, not saying he's lying, but he may have been lied to, or it may have been for a single server, I don't know.

 

No evidence any were removed (Ignore lists still just as full).

More spamming and more ways, now drowning in whispers too for the first time.

 

THEY ARE DOING BETTER! Yesterday I got one with an offer for x amount, that amount today from the same site has gone up by 50% over night. DOESN'T MEAN I'M GONNA BUY, they can drop the price to 1% while offering to deliver 1000 times as much, I don't need their crap.

 

On the other hand I'm tempted to whisper them bad wishes back, which if they weren't just bots they'd report me for and get me into trouble...

 

So assuming any were cleaned up, not working as you need to constantly fight them. But I doubt BW/EA is reading these comments.

[ALaggyGrunt]

Egads, this happened to me too. Here's what he'll have to do.

 

1) Assuming the email he received was authentic, send an email to accountdisputes@swtor.com to dispute the action. No action can otherwise be taken on the matter until this email is sent.

 

2) Once the response is received by support and reviewed, he'll likely receive another email from support@swtor.com outlining the procedures to unlock a compromised account. A photo of your ID will be required.

 

3) Send that, and then contact support by phone to confirm the receipt. Phone support will walk him through the rest of the steps (it's likely he'll have to change both his SWTOR password/email AND his Origin email/pass as well, and highly suggested to do so if it isn't required).

 

Hope this helps.

 

On top of these steps, make sure these new passwords on his SWTOR and email accounts are strong. Mine are strong enough it wouldn't matter if someone stole the password database-they're not getting the passwords in plaintext if the passwords are stored as MD5sums or (better) something stronger. 16 characters of totally random letters and numbers take a ridiculously long time to guess against one-way encryption: in order to be dead sure they got it, they would make 4.76 * 10^28 guesses. Yes, that's about 47672400000000000000000000000 guesses, and even if you threw every computer in the world at that, you would be at it for a REALLY long time. If you use something "clever" to make the password, a professional password cracker will have seen it before, which makes it a much simpler matter to break it. More reading if you want to get serious about not getting your passwords broken-and the comments are as good as the article. On top of making your passwords strong, you want to make sure your computer doesn't have any spyware on it: the strongest and most diverse passwords will do you precisely zero good if you have a keylogger installed.

 

As for the OP, it's a nice symbolic victory, but doesn't appear to have done anything permanent. The gold spammers have basically taken over fleet chat again. If the admins want to do something about spam and gold farmers, they will have to find players who will be able to mute people in chat, and watch them carefully. These will be the casual types who just don't get serious about being first or best at anything-those types wiil have an axe to grind. If the gold farmers continue, anything shiny worth buying will go out of reach of people who actually play the game. There's a topic about the F2P/pref credit caps, and gold farmers are going to make real F2P/preferred players unable to buy anything.

[Icykill_]

I think the credit sellers have a new tactic... I've been private msg spammed 20 times in WZs today... By the time I go report spam they have logged off or it says player cannot be found... And the report doesn't work... Ignore doesn't seem to work either because the same guy did it to me 3 times through out the day

Bio please make report spam instant instead of having a pop up... And allow ignore lists to be legacy wide

[Icykill_]

Still have my doubts.

No, not saying he's lying, but he may have been lied to, or it may have been for a single server, I don't know.

 

No evidence any were removed (Ignore lists still just as full).

More spamming and more ways, now drowning in whispers too for the first time.

 

THEY ARE DOING BETTER! Yesterday I got one with an offer for x amount, that amount today from the same site has gone up by 50% over night. DOESN'T MEAN I'M GONNA BUY, they can drop the price to 1% while offering to deliver 1000 times as much, I don't need their crap.

 

On the other hand I'm tempted to whisper them bad wishes back, which if they weren't just bots they'd report me for and get me into trouble...

 

So assuming any were cleaned up, not working as you need to constantly fight them. But I doubt BW/EA is reading these comments.

 

I tried to whisper back and it says player not found... I'm not sure if they spam, then put you on an ignore list or log off... But I was unable to respond to each private spam I recieved today... I really just wanted to tell them to stop spamming

Edited May 19, 2015 by Icykill_

[ALaggyGrunt]

Ignore lists don't empty when the ignored disappear. If there were a "purge nonexistent" button in the ignore list, that would mean something.

[Datu_Solo]

TVYM for the suggestions & responses, Ghisallo, Lewintelamon & ALaggyGrunt.

It turns out, his main account was fine, it was the first subscriber account he created at launch that he left inactive that got hacked. He's following the steps outlined by Lewintelamon and seeing if BW will merge the accounts.

 

I told him to get a security key.

[Crazyqdog]

Taking down those spammers was the best news I've heard all day They were extremely annoying and took away the enjoyment of the game. Keep up the good work and I will continue to do my part in reporting these improprieties to you. These folks should be sent to the phantom zone