OK, these credit spamming whispers are out of control

[Halinalle]

Couldn't this be resolved by implementing something like Warframe's Kickbot? An automated background screening that blocks/kicks based off of what characters are typed in what order. Digital Extremes uses it to eliminate trade chat in non-trade channels and for other spam. I just feel like there's solutions that are being overlooked.

 

There's already script monitoring everything typed to chat. Problem is that spam bots adapt to changes made to script too fast.

[Callaron]

Yer - this was a new one for me, until today.

I knew all about the spamming in "General". All very straight forward, click "Report SPAM", click ignore.

 

Same here. I've been getting quite a few of them on The Red Eclipse as well.

On the bright side... it must mean the game's doing pretty well to be so infested.

Now can someone spray the damn bastards?

[Juular_Yith]

There's already script monitoring everything typed to chat. Problem is that spam bots adapt to changes made to script too fast.

 

I gotcha. I'm just now entering my second month of this game, so I'm still familiarizing myself with the insides. I assume DNS/IP monitoring is a big "no"?

[Legolose]

Well, other games combat this by requiring a bunch of levels before opening whisper for f2p. Seems like maybe this is the way to go here. You still have /say which is a small area chat.

 

Sadly... that will alienate some players but, it may come down to that.

I agree this will probly be a quick fix for now ... Come on guys lets make this happen,, Say like for now if your have a f2p account then you cant use any of the chats or whispers expect the /say till each of your characters reach lets say level 30,,, I think this will knock out most of them...

Edited May 20, 2015 by Legolose

[AdrianDmitruk]

There's already script monitoring everything typed to chat. Problem is that spam bots adapt to changes made to script too fast.

 

Then it might be time for Bioware to add a new pane in preferences to let us set our own chat filters, like we can filter our emails?

 

The credit spammers might think they can outsmart Bioware's nonexistent filters, but outsmarting the filters of each individual player is quite another matter.

[sarbonn]

I'm kind of wondering if this is a symptom of the crack down. The old ones weren't really spamming the crap out of us because they probably had their established market. Now, their accounts have been frozen, and they're basically having to start from scratch, and probably lost all of their previous connections. I mean, the only variable that is similar is that Bioware cracked down on them, so perhaps that's a part of the process of the crack down.

 

For me, I just ignore the person, and I'm fine, but I only started to notice it after the huge crackdown, so I'm thinking perhaps maybe this is a good thing. Now they just need to use a rodent catcher to sweep up the ones that lost their previous home, and we might be a lot better off.

[Halinalle]

Then it might be time for Bioware to add a new pane in preferences to let us set our own chat filters, like we can filter our emails?

 

You can already disable Gen chat. Not sure about whispers though.

 

But this is MMO so it's a bit weird thing to do.

[Krikos]

Would be nice to hear from BW or EA on this problem. We are working on it" or something.

[Mystyrys]

You can already disable Gen chat. Not sure about whispers though.

 

But this is MMO so it's a bit weird thing to do.

 

Yep, you can disable whispers in Chat Settings on the chat window. Uncheck the box.

 

I did this because the gold seller whispers were driving me crazy.

[MiguelGx]

I've made lots of reports but EA never listens, the bots are the only ones who answer me not giving any solution

[Mithros]

I think disabling whispers for F2P is the easiest, surest way to go. Preferred are okay because they will have had to have subbed, and if they get a spammer that has subbed they can ban that account so they would be forced to sub again (and again, and again, and...) to keep going.

 

Otherwise I see myself disabling whispers in my chat window, and then people that are trying to communicate directly to me about whatever (they like my outfit, they want to thank me for healing them, even if they just want me to join their guild) will think that I am being a jerk by not responding to them.

 

Myself and others will be paying the price for them not acting to put an end to the spammers invasive activities.

[AdrianDmitruk]

You can already disable Gen chat. Not sure about whispers though.

 

But this is MMO so it's a bit weird thing to do.

 

I don't mean disabling Gen chat. Gen chat is useful for other MMO activities.

 

I mean giving us the ability to create custom filters to deal with the gold spammers, without having to sacrifice the availability of LFG ops, occasional interesting discussions, trade and queue pop status (i.e. for ranked PVP) that some people post in general instead of their respective channels, other legitimate MMO stuff, and so on.

 

I can tell my e-mail that I don't want to receive messages with "Instant Delivery" or "1000'K" in the title, for example, without having to completely shut out my e-mail from the outside world.

 

If Bioware cannot or will not act to clean up the spam in a timely manner, they should give us the tools to do that ourselves (I do NOT mean the ability to mete out punishment as that is very clearly their purview, I mean the ability to filter and remove their spam from our clients so we can play the game without being interrupted by their bantha dung).

[Rafaman]

Well, I've been playing a good bit as I recover from surgery and yesterday was a whisper spam fest, but... not one whisper today. I was playing a different toon but I'm not sure that makes a difference. Perhaps BW has done a wave of perma banning?

[Krikos]

Well, I've been playing a good bit as I recover from surgery and yesterday was a whisper spam fest, but... not one whisper today. I was playing a different toon but I'm not sure that makes a difference. Perhaps BW has done a wave of perma banning?

 

 

I have been noticing this as well today. High-5 for the Devs.

[MbaxterBeau]

Agreed I started getting these a few days ago. It's really disturbing when it happens.

[MbaxterBeau]

Well, I've been playing a good bit as I recover from surgery and yesterday was a whisper spam fest, but... not one whisper today. I was playing a different toon but I'm not sure that makes a difference. Perhaps BW has done a wave of perma banning?

 

I hope you recover quickly from surgery.

[CaptRogue]

Well, I've been playing a good bit as I recover from surgery and yesterday was a whisper spam fest, but... not one whisper today. I was playing a different toon but I'm not sure that makes a difference. Perhaps BW has done a wave of perma banning?

 

Still got them several times today on Pot5, and one this evening on Harbinger. I was on Corellia, and hubby on Belsavis, same person. *smh*

[Psychopyro]

Yes you can right click the name, but that doesn't answer the fact that I was on Voss & hubby was on fleet & same spammer at the same time hit us both up.

Next time I will ask around see how many people actually got it on different areas.

 

Are you in the same Guild? You can sort filter by guild name as well. I noticed it more when our guild was in the top 10 in conquest list. As soon as we fell off, the tells stopped. They probably figured the conquest list are the largest most active players and hence a larger customer base, essentially using the conquest board as a mass email marketing list.

 

And FWIW, if I wanted to, I could write a macro on my keyboard and mouse to mass /tell people once I had the list up that I wanted. People who know how to do it know what I am talking about and I won't post it here, if the devs want, they can PM me and I will tell them how, but I assume they know how to do it.

[Aumvaar]

What I've begun doing ... as soon as I log in, I switch to my alternate chat panel, on which I've shut off all chat channels that are not guild or game-support related. It sucks to avoid the social aspect of the game, but that's what I need to do to enjoy playing these days.

 

Of course, these maggots wouldn't exist if they didn't have a market, so IMO the player base needs to take a long, hard look at itself.

[MbaxterBeau]

I don't think F2P players should have whisper or general chat accessibility unless the person is on their friends list and should have no trade function unless it's a friend. They've got insane limitations on the rest of the game for F2P so why not exclude them from chat?

[DawnAskham]

What I've begun doing ... as soon as I log in, I switch to my alternate chat panel, on which I've shut off all chat channels that are not guild or game-support related. It sucks to avoid the social aspect of the game, but that's what I need to do to enjoy playing these days.

 

Of course, these maggots wouldn't exist if they didn't have a market, so IMO the player base needs to take a long, hard look at itself.

 

Agreed, I can't imagine what idiots buy credits from these fly by night companies, especially when playing the game provides more than enough credits, and Bioware's Cartel Market offers a way to obtain credits that doesn't involve supporting botters, hackers, spammers, and credit card fraudsters.

 

The biggest. Imagine for a moment that you are at some college somewhere, with a big-*** NAT at the edge of its network. Everyone on campus who plays shares the same IP address as seen by SWTOR's servers. If you ban one person's IP, you ban the whole college.

 

And it's worse, because some ISPs do this for vast chunks of their customer base, the so-called carrier-grade NAT.

 

And it isn't effective, anyway, because I can change my public IP address trivially - I just pull the ADSL line out of my router, wait a moment, then plug it in again. DNS montioring isn't much better, because most ADSL IP addresses will resolve to globbledigook.ispname.com or similar, which tells you no more than the IP address did.

 

Not to mention people running scripted bots, hacked farming clients, and using stolen credit cards to buy game time, all typically from outside the US, will be technically proficient enough to change their hardware MAC addresses as well as use proxy servers to mask their real IP address.

Edited May 21, 2015 by DawnAskham

[SteveTheCynic]

I gotcha. I'm just now entering my second month of this game, so I'm still familiarizing myself with the insides. I assume DNS/IP monitoring is a big "no"?

The biggest. Imagine for a moment that you are at some college somewhere, with a big-*** NAT at the edge of its network. Everyone on campus who plays shares the same IP address as seen by SWTOR's servers. If you ban one person's IP, you ban the whole college.

 

And it's worse, because some ISPs do this for vast chunks of their customer base, the so-called carrier-grade NAT.

 

And it isn't effective, anyway, because I can change my public IP address trivially - I just pull the ADSL line out of my router, wait a moment, then plug it in again. DNS montioring isn't much better, because most ADSL IP addresses will resolve to globbledigook.ispname.com or similar, which tells you no more than the IP address did.

[SteveTheCynic]

I think disabling whispers for F2P is the easiest, surest way to go. Preferred are okay because they will have had to have subbed, and if they get a spammer that has subbed they can ban that account so they would be forced to sub again (and again, and again, and...) to keep going.

That's not such a big deal. It costs them a stolen credit card number for each account.

 

And preferred accounts include f2p players who bought one or both the expansions, or a pile of CCs (as few as 450, no less...), not just ex-subs.

[Xorian-Lightborn]

I have just started over a month ago and dealt with the spammers in gen by ignoring them, now out of of the blue im getting whispers???? One was even in my group at one point and pulled multiple rooms and managed to spam it in group chat. I didnt pay 15 dollars a month for this crap bioware you need to get your stuff together and do something about this spammers then is way beyond annoying at this point.

[Malastare]

I have just started over a month ago and dealt with the spammers in gen by ignoring them, now out of of the blue im getting whispers???? One was even in my group at one point and pulled multiple rooms and managed to spam it in group chat. I didnt pay 15 dollars a month for this crap bioware you need to get your stuff together and do something about this spammers then is way beyond annoying at this point.

 

Feel free to suggest a way of doing that.

 

It's not that Bioware isn't aware of what is happening. The problem is that the spammers are using the exact same systems that legitimate players are. What do you expect them to do? Ban whispers? Loads of people use them for normal gameplay. Should they immediately ban/gag everyone after ten spam reports? What would stop a guild from getting together and triggering bans/gags on whoever they want? Should they limit non-subscribers to only one whisper per minute? That doesn't solve the problem, it just means that the spammers will put out more bots to do the whispering.

 

Being totally serious here: Try to find a rule that would stop this, then see how many legitimate players would be impacted by it and how easy it would be for other players to abuse it. If you can find a way to suppress just the spammers and let all the normal players continue to do their thing, then you're about to become very popular in the MMO industry.