Pests: Referral Farmers > Gold-Selllers.

[Fevee]

Everyone hates the gold-seller bots. Machine-leveled just long enough to get up to the fleet and spamvertise 3rd-party sites selling ingame wealth for real-world money. uy credits at <Goldseller.com>! 1 million credits is 2 bucks! Fast! Secure! Yadda yadda yadda! At least Runescape recognized gold-sellers like that, and had a giant hand come out of the sky declaring "Bot user!" and then proceeding to crush the bot, sending springs and gears everywhere. And as an added Easter egg, there is an island where the bot is put on trial (Like the Salem witch trials) for being a bot. (It's all a pre-recorded show, where the bot just makes half-baked excuses for being a bot) When found guilty, the audience then votes on a few methods for which the bot gets to be punished/destroyed.

 

Getting back on track, you can't even tell the bot to stop, as it is just an automated machine. You can just report spam and ignore. (There should be a new button that mixes both those functions into one click.)

 

However, I find referral farmers to be even worse than the gold bots. These are actually human players who advertise that people should click their referral link. There may not be real-world money included in the transaction, but the act feels dishonest and even lacking ethics. If I referred a friend to SWTOR, then that means I've been playing the game, and talked them into joining. SWTOR has a reward system for that, and gives the both of us a prize for doing so. But advertising referral links ingame? Meaning only someone already ingame gets to falsely admit that someone they've never communicated with before is responsible for bringing the other player into the game?

 

Referral farmers tend to claim that it's a win-win scenario. They even offer to pay -bribe- other players hundreds of thousands of ingame credits to click the link. But are they really doing it out of the kindness of their own hearts? "Oh, players get a free character transfer and 7 days of subscription! They get, like, 1,800 Cartel Coins' worth of stuff! Oh, as well as 800k in credits that I'll pay them!" Yea, instant gratification seems real pretty, especially to naive young players who don't see the big picture. But the farmer seems to get a permanent increase to their monthly Cartel Coin grant.

 

Picture, if you will. I'm sitting around, paying people to sign my clipboard. You come up and sign it, and I hand you a big shiny bag of gold. You feel pretty good. But then a dumptruck filled with gold comes by and just unloads it all for me and me alone. You take another glance at your miniscule bag of gold, and now feel as though it's not exactly a win-win. Some other player comes by and signs the clipboard, I hand him another sack of gold, same size as yours, and then yet another dumptruck -even bigger than the last one that just came by- arrives and makes the mountain of gold behind me 120% bigger.

 

The farmer is clearly only in it for themselves, further proven by the fact that the advertisement almost always states "Looking for subscribers to click my link!"

If your referred friend becomes a Subscriber within 14 days from signing up, you receive:

 

Special in-game rewards including the Kurtob Alliance Speeder and adventurous Battle Droid pets for up to five referred friends

500 Complimentary Cartel Coins plus 100 Cartel Coins for each month your referred friend remains a Subscriber.

 

If subscribers click the link, it automatically fulfills the "If your referred friend becomes a Subscriber" portion, thus granting the Cartel Coin grant and monthly raise; clearly the part these farmers are exclusively interested in.

 

Such behavior is dishonest, greedy, unethical, and I move that it should be against the SWTOR code of conduct.

You are not allowed to advertise or offer to privately share your SWTOR referral link ingame.

Or in some other similar wording.

[Elracor]

First of all, I'm for your suggestion to make it against RoC to advertise referral links, but I think you're being silly about everything else.

 

Referral farmers tend to claim that it's a win-win scenario. They even offer to pay -bribe- other players hundreds of thousands of ingame credits to click the link. But are they really doing it out of the kindness of their own hearts? "Oh, players get a free character transfer and 7 days of subscription! They get, like, 1,800 Cartel Coins' worth of stuff! Oh, as well as 800k in credits that I'll pay them!" Yea, instant gratification seems real pretty, especially to naive young players who don't see the big picture. But the farmer seems to get a permanent increase to their monthly Cartel Coin grant.

 

What is wrong with claiming it to be a win-win scenario? Both parties gain from this referral link clicking, which fits the definition of win-win. The only real losers here are the players who are not interested in clicking referrals yet get tons of spam about it in General chat.

 

As for "kindness of their own hearts", you should know better as a 13+ year old player. You should at least be skeptic about it. It's hardly new for computer games (or IRL for that matter) that when people pay you for doing something, it's because it's worth it for them to pay you for doing it, that they stand to at least get their moneys worth back.

 

As for getting a permanent increase to their montly Cartel Coin grant obviously depends on how long the referral clicker stays subscribed. I have about 8 referrals from last year that never went past 700 (initial 600 + 100), I only have one referral that has gone above 1100.

 

Picture, if you will. I'm sitting around, paying people to sign my clipboard. You come up and sign it, and I hand you a big shiny bag of gold. You feel pretty good. But then a dumptruck filled with gold comes by and just unloads it all for me and me alone. You take another glance at your miniscule bag of gold, and now feel as though it's not exactly a win-win. Some other player comes by and signs the clipboard, I hand him another sack of gold, same size as yours, and then yet another dumptruck -even bigger than the last one that just came by- arrives and makes the mountain of gold behind me 120% bigger.

 

If the clicker gets 800k credits, stuff worth over 1800 Cartel Coins and a server transfer worth 1800CC and you get 600CC, it's really the clicker who gets the dumptruck and you who get the shiny bag. Sure, with enough referrals eventually those bags will be a monthly dumptruck but not without a fairly high amount of effort on your behalf.

Even if you feel it's better to be on the other side of the deal, you just got yourself 800k credits you can use to buy a referral click and start your own spamming.

 

The farmer is clearly only in it for themselves, further proven by the fact that the advertisement almost always states "Looking for subscribers to click my link!"

 

Such behavior is dishonest, greedy, unethical, and I move that it should be against the SWTOR code of conduct.Or in some other similar wording.

 

Agreed, though unethical is stretching it. I've yet to see referral spammers who openly advertise about what they get from the deal.

Edited May 9, 2015 by MFollin

[nafu]

You are not following rules while you are writing about them, original poster

 

In Suggestion Box Forum Guidelines it is written:

 

This forum exists so that Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ community members can discuss suggestions they have for the game.

 

I don't see any suggestions in your post, I see only statements of a mad player who possibly participated one of those deals he is talking about and found what he got not enough after he learned that he made referrer some cartel coins

 

Also if you don't want to be a part of referral system then don't be. Noone is forcing others.

Edited May 9, 2015 by nafu

[TrigPt]

A referral system that rewards people for referring people currently subbed to the game is another fine example of incompetence on Biowares part.

 

I'm sure the intention is for people to encourage new players to the game or former players to return to the game but in reality its just providing free cartel coins to people for referring existing players to click a link.

 

At least now people are up front about it. I got referred by someone posting a fake link on the forums back before they introduced the confirmation screen. So someone out there a got 2000+ cartel coins for reffering me.

[nafu]

A referral system that rewards people for referring people currently subbed to the game is another fine example of incompetence on Biowares part.

 

I'm sure the intention is for people to encourage new players to the game or former players to return to the game but in reality its just providing free cartel coins to people for referring existing players to click a link.

 

At least now people are up front about it. I got referred by someone posting a fake link on the forums back before they introduced the confirmation screen. So someone out there a got 2000+ cartel coins for reffering me.

 

Someone posted a fake link and you clicked on it without looking or reading anything. Then accepted his referral. So now you have decided to complain about him because you were incompetence to read whatever you click in a forum? Yeah, I am sure this is BioWare's fault too, rofl. Some people are unbelievable....

Edited May 9, 2015 by nafu

[Elracor]

Someone posted a fake link and you clicked on it without looking or reading anything. Then accepted his referral. So now you have decided to complain about him because you were incompetence to read whatever you click in a forum? Yeah, I am sure this is BioWare's fault too, rofl. Some people are unbelievable....

 

You can make referral links that bypass the confirm page and automatically accepts the referral. It's more simple to do than you'd think. If then you then hide the link in a URL shortener and name the link "How to earn 1 million credits in 30 minutes", people will click it.

Edited May 9, 2015 by MFollin

[nafu]

You can make referral links that bypass the confirm page and automatically accepts the referral. It's more simple to do than you'd think. If then you then hide the link in a URL shortener and name the link "How to earn 1 million credits in 30 minutes", people will click it.

 

Well this is even going further than a game, it is about using Internet safely. If they have any issues with this then they shouldn't use Internet or play a game they pay for unless they learn more about them. Clicking a link is their responsibility after all. BioWare is not to be blamed about their ignorance here.

 

Also I have reported original poster's post here because it doesn't include any suggestions about the subject at all. So this is more like a discussion about a topic not a suggestion and this forum is not the place of it. So notice how he is writing about rules but not following them himself.

Edited May 9, 2015 by nafu

[Elracor]

Well this is even going further than a game, it is about using Internet safely. If they have any issues with this then they shouldn't use Internet or play a game they pay for unless they learn more about them. Clicking a link is their responsibility after all. BioWare is not to be blamed about their ignorance here.

 

If someone makes helpful posts on this forum and generally seems trustworthy, it's a different matter than when you come across a random link.

As the link is not virus/malware as such, anti-malware etc won't pick up on the link.

Even if you use a virtual machine where you aren't logged in for additional precaution, the confirm-bypass link won't show obvious signs that it's a referral link, it will just lead to a SWTOR login/create account page. If you aren't aware a referral link bypass exists, it won't seem like a malicious link.

 

It's still down to Bioware to remove the ability to bypass the confirm page, so people won't use the bypass links.

Edited May 9, 2015 by MFollin

[nafu]

If someone makes helpful posts on this forum and generally seems trustworthy, it's a different matter than when you come across a random link.

As the link is not virus/malware as such, anti-malware etc won't pick up on the link.

Even if you use a virtual machine where you aren't logged in for additional precaution, the confirm-bypass link won't show obvious signs that it's a referral link, it will just lead to a SWTOR login/create account page. If you aren't aware a referral link bypass exists, it won't seem like a malicious link.

 

It's still down to Bioware to remove the ability to bypass the confirm page, so people won't use the bypass links.

 

It is a long shot, dude. You can dig out all the conspiracy theories or fantasies about how a random hacker by-passes that link, hides it with whatever method and lures innocent people to his link and gains more cartel coins as much as you want here, you may be right about too but in reality you can't explain why people just click on a link where it says "How to earn 1 million credits in 30 minutes" without thinking twice or hovering their mouses over the link to see where they would go if they clicked etc They can easily prevent this situation by simply not choosing to click on a link and you know that. Anyways this is getting more of an irrelevant discussion. If someone opens it to a discussion forum I would gladly discuss the matter. But not here This is not even a suggestion post and it is being topped by us by discussing an entirely different subject See you around

Edited May 10, 2015 by nafu

[Elracor]

... you may be right about too but in reality you can't explain why people just click on a link where it says "How to earn 1 million credits in 30 minutes" without thinking twice or hovering their mouses over the link to see where they would go if they clicked etc

 

That was only an example. It could also be "Powertech guide" (well, anything that might be worth a look) without an url shortener so it shows up as a swtor link. If you don't know how a bypass link exists or how it looks, you can't really know it's a bypass link.

Edited May 10, 2015 by MFollin

[anaralith]

I agree with your point about gold sellers, but the rest of your argument is stretching it a bit too far. The referral system is a part of the game instigated by BW. It is a win-win scenario for both parties. Of course, I think people are putting out their referral links out of pure self-interest, and not out of the goodness of their own hearts:sul_angel:, but again its is a win-win situation!

 

Ok, at times the spamming of referral links can fell a bit incessant, but thats it.

[branmakmuffin]

I agree with your point about gold sellers, but the rest of your argument is stretching it a bit too far. The referral system is a part of the game instigated by BW. It is a win-win scenario for both parties. Of course, I think people are putting out their referral links out of pure self-interest, and not out of the goodness of their own hearts:sul_angel:, but again its is a win-win situation!

 

Ok, at times the spamming of referral links can fell a bit incessant, but thats it.

By the same reasoning, buying creds is also a "win -win." The seller gets real money, the buyer gets creds. It just happens to be against the game's rules (and we have to ignore the credit card number stealing).

[Mournblood]

Also I have reported original poster's post here because it doesn't include any suggestions about the subject at all. So this is more like a discussion about a topic not a suggestion and this forum is not the place of it. So notice how he is writing about rules but not following them himself.

 

You should climb down from that high horse of yours before you fall off and hurt yourself.

 

If you read his entire post, he did make a suggestion about prohibiting referral advertisement/farming in-game.

....I move that it should be against the SWTOR code of conduct.

 

Just because the suggestion pertains to the ToS doesn't make it any less valid than a suggestion about adding hook allotment to Strongholds. While you're free to express your opinions here, within reason, you do not determine what is and what is not a suggestion on these forums.

Edited May 10, 2015 by Mournblood

[nafu]

You should climb down from that high horse of yours before you fall off and hurt yourself.

 

If you read his entire post, he did make a suggestion about prohibiting referral advertisement/farming in-game.

 

 

Just because the suggestion pertains to the ToS doesn't make it any less valid than a suggestion about adding hook allotment to Strongholds. While you're free to express your opinions here, within reason, you do not determine what is and what is not a suggestion on these forums.

 

Thanks for making me free to express my opinions here. Wow you are full of yourself. Maybe you should read his entire post again before that high horse you were talking about kicks your head. It is obvious that this post is opened for expressing original poster's frustration and anger about gold sellers and referral farmers not for any suggestion. You can pick out a sentence over there and say it is a suggestion all you want but it is obviously written to vent some of his heat off. Maybe you should open one too, since you are a mad guy too

Edited May 10, 2015 by nafu

[Mournblood]

Thanks for making me free to express my opinions here. Wow you are full of yourself. Maybe you should read his entire post again before that high horse you were talking about kicks your head. It is obvious that this post is opened for expressing original poster's frustration and anger about gold sellers and referral farmers not for any suggestion. You can pick out a sentence over there and say it is a suggestion all you want but it is obviously written to vent some of his heat off. Maybe you should open one too, since you are a mad guy too

 

How he chose to communicate the suggestion is irrelevant. The fact remains that it contained a suggestion regarding the ToS, whether you choose to acknowledge that or not. It doesn't matter if it was one sentence at the end of his rant, or an entire paragraph. It's not your job to police the suggestion forums, and what is or is not a valid suggestion is for Bioware to decide, not you. Although you clearly disagreed with the way he expressed himself, reporting his post because you don't consider it a valid suggestion is going beyond mere opinion. And having just noticed your forum signature, it's obvious to me that you have a personal agenda here.

 

As for me, simply suggesting that you remove the self-righteous hair that's up your bottom doesn't make me full of myself or angry, no matter how much you may stomp your feet on the ground like a child insisting it's true. My point has already been made, and proven.

 

Best of luck to you in life, Nafu. You'll need it.

Edited May 10, 2015 by Mournblood

[nafu]

How he chose to communicate the suggestion is irrelevant. The fact remains that it contained a suggestion regarding the ToS, whether you choose to acknowledge that or not. It doesn't matter if it was one sentence at the end of his rant, or an entire paragraph. It's not your job to police the suggestion forums, and what is or is not a valid suggestion is for Bioware to decide, not you. Although you clearly disagreed with the way he expressed himself, reporting his post because you don't consider it a valid suggestion is going beyond mere opinion. And having just noticed your forum signature, it's obvious to me that you have a personal agenda here.

 

As for me, simply suggesting that you remove the self-righteous hair that's up your bottom doesn't make me full of myself or angry, no matter how much you may stomp your feet on the ground like a child insisting it's true. My point has already been made, and proven.

 

Best of luck to you in life, Nafu. You'll need it.

 

Yeah, another rager comes here and says "You are a forum police to think about a post (with "Pests: Referral Farmers > Gold Sellers" subject and a body full of anger messages instead of useful suggestions) as not a suggestion post. But I am not a forum police while policing your thoughts and opinions just because they are different than mine. I am an innocent child who has no forum signature" Yeah, your point is proven, you are funny

 

I have every right to report a message that I don't think it fits forum rules. Moderators have every right to accept or ignore that report. You have all the right to be mad about it, end of story

 

Yeah, I have a secret agenda about making referral haters to click on my referral link What kind of an absurd fantasy you have here Sorry dude, not insulted at all, in contrary I am laughing your rage here. I have that forum signature for years. I am not ashamed of sharing my referral link with proper information by legit ways. If you are so angry about some players use referral system and you are not, you can just simply start using it too instead of raging around over others' signatures and making a fool of yourself

 

Oh by the way I have no interest in your illusory horse fetish or your delusions of grandeur. Now if you'll excuse me I have spare time to play the game instead of arguing a raging kid here. So you can chill down and discuss the matter with others all you want

 

Best luck with your adolescence, Mournblood. You will need it

Edited May 10, 2015 by nafu

[MaximusRex]

While I'm not sure why BioWare gives rewards out to people who get players who are already subbed to click on their link, I certainly support people giving out their links to non-sub players as that only helps the game grow.

[PetFish]

The referral-link spammers are definitely worse than credit farming bots but at least they don't last long and they are REAL accounts that get reprimanded. Here's what I do that seems to work really well:

 

1) Report Spam

2) File an "Inappropriate Player Behavior" Ticket that looks like this:

 

PlayerName

May 9, 2015 @ 2:11pm PST

Harbinger

Dromund Kaas

 

This player was spamming their referral link along with a 300,000 credit bribe to any SUBSCRIBER that clicks it.

 

They're usually gone after a day or two.

[Elracor]

The referral-link spammers are definitely worse than credit farming bots but at least they don't last long and they are REAL accounts that get reprimanded. Here's what I do that seems to work really well:

 

1) Report Spam

2) File an "Inappropriate Player Behavior" Ticket that looks like this:

 

PlayerName

May 9, 2015 @ 2:11pm PST

Harbinger

Dromund Kaas

 

This player was spamming their referral link along with a 300,000 credit bribe to any SUBSCRIBER that clicks it.

 

They're usually gone after a day or two.

 

Well, the question is just why they are gone after a day or two, can anyone confirm that referral link spammers get reprimanded?

If noone (or very few) wants to click his link despite spamming, I'd imagine the spammer would stop on his own accord after a day or two as it's simply not worth it to keep doing it.

[Fevee]

Just when I thought it's been a while since I've seen this, this activity props in in two different servers on the same day.

[James_Mcturney]

I don't know if i'm the first one doing this but i'm always offering credits AND legitimate friendship AND game tips that i've gathered through my time; also i'm one of those guys always open to help with game questions and further along the way.

 

I've referred a few people this way, most of them rejected the credits reward part. I'm trying to use this system as it should be.

if someone got inside the game all by himself, then by all means forbid him to be referred by anyone, if you can at least prove it. But imo even if he didn't got referred into the game; he STILL has the RIGHT to use a referral link and get its benefits as everyone else who already did (specially if he is a subscribber = eligible for the full reward).

 

It's a weird system and the description is messy, so i only understood once i started to use the system... but if they removed it/restricted it now it would be unfair with all the people that didn't use it. So nope, not going to happen.

 

observation: i try to invite my real life friends into the game all the time, even tried some facebook communities with star wars fans, gamer fans... it's not easy. SPECIALLY WHEN THE SUBSCRIPTION IS KINDA $$$$$$$$. (specially for people living in the "3rd world" like myself)

if you still got any argument left for me to deconstruct, bring it. ;p

Edited August 6, 2015 by James_Mcturney

[Theeko]

Referral spams are getting just as annoying as the credit spammers, should just blacklist out the word referral or anything close to it on general chat and local

[GythralSWTOR]

To all those that do not like x or y in general chat, there is a off button, you can turn it back on once off homeworld & fleet.

If you want to chat to friends, being in the same guild or even create a custom channel & then you do not have to deal with this spam.

 

Yes it would be nice if E(verything ) A(bandoned) would add filters etc. but they have no programmers available to work on QoL as there is no ROI

Edited August 6, 2015 by GythralSWTOR

[DOHboy]

To all those that do not like x or y in general chat, there is a off button, you can turn it back on once off homeworld & fleet.

If you want to chat to friends, being in the same guild or even create a custom channel & then you do not have to deal with this spam.

 

Yes it would be nice if E(verything ) A(bandoned) would add filters etc. but they have no programmers available to work on QoL as there is no ROI

 

what does a marketing and distribution company have to do with in game chat filters?

[branmakmuffin]

Referral spams are getting just as annoying as the credit spammers, should just blacklist out the word referral or anything close to it on general chat and local

Better to just filter out anything that looks even remotely like a URL. People can use the word "refer" in contexts other than referral links. They might be asking about marijuana cigarettes, for example.