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An Update on Squelching and Credit Spam


EricMusco

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musco I can tell you why some people buy credits because you have these people putting idiotic prices on the gtn like an ops pass for 4.5mil. eliminate the problem with that and you are bound to end the amount I have friends I have reported for doing that as well ( buying credits for it not the ones selling it)

 

I'm not sure how Bioware would eliminate that "problem." but I suspect that any methods they use to control it will be counter-productive at best.

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Pleas, please, please create an ignore account or ignore IP feature and allow the ignores to be shared across our legacy. This will reduce the number of times we need to ignore these spammers across our account. I am sure part of the issue is that we need to ignore the same spammer up to 22 times currently.

 

And while you're at it, allow us to request a global friend option from players as well.

 

Posts like this are half the reason BW doesn't take suggestions from the community. This is beyond clueless.

 

Do you seriously think that spammers are subscriber accounts that have purchased all ten additional character slot unlocks and used every slot? Do you seriously think that Bioware bans spammers by character rather than account? Do you seriously think spammers use the exact same IP address after it's been banned?

Edited by idnewton
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Posts like this are half the reason BW doesn't take suggestions from the community. This is beyond clueless.

 

Do you seriously think that spammers are subscriber accounts that have purchased all ten additional character slot unlocks and used every slot? Do you seriously think that Bioware bans spammers by character rather than account? Do you seriously think spammers use the exact same IP address after it's been banned?

It sounds like the poster you're lambasting is asking to be able to ignore on one character and have the ignore extend to every character in his/her own legacy, which would be a nice QoL feature. Having ignore extend to every character of the ignored target's legacy, however, is both problematic for privacy reasons and, as you note, unlikely to make much difference to the spammer issue.

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It sounds like the poster you're lambasting is asking to be able to ignore on one character and have the ignore extend to every character in his/her own legacy, which would be a nice QoL feature. Having ignore extend to every character of the ignored target's legacy, however, is both problematic for privacy reasons and, as you note, unlikely to make much difference to the spammer issue.

Yes.

 

 

Also, back to the main Credit Spammer discussion, they've now shifted to Emotes (as I hope you've gathered from yesterday's reports and investigations). Essentially they set up spam bots in the center of fleet and are using emotes (/greet) to fill up chat. They spam roughly every five seconds, and it cannot be ignored (which is a universal problem with emotes which has needed fixing since the beginning of the game). Hopefully now you'll fix this so ignore will block emotes too. Right now, it only blocks people from emoting you (using an emote with you targeted) if you have them on ignore, but any emote not targeted on an ignored player will still display for everyone in the area, including you.

 

Long story short, they're spamming fleet with emotes, and ignore doesn't block it. (This was on Harbinger in Imperial Fleet instance 1)

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Please right-click and report spammers.

 

Apologies if this has already been mentioned, but if you want to encourage people to use the report spam option make it have a more immediate and obvious benefit for the user, rather than the current hassle it is with no obvious benefit. In particular:

 

1. When a user reports spam, provide a simple confirmation in the *chat box* rather than a dialog box that you need to click ok to. When you've just logged in and need to report 15 spammers, that gets irritating fast.

2. When a user reports spam, remove all messages from that person from the chat window. It is often impossible to see genuine chat through all the spam, by making the report spam option clean up the chat window that makes it worthwhile to use.

3. When a user reports spam, it should automatically put that *account* on a temporary ignore list.

4. The cleanup from 2 and temporary ignore from 3 should also apply to emotes!

5. When I switch characters, I shouldn't have to start all over again. I shouldn't see my chat box fill up with messages I reported just minutes previously.

 

These improvements would certainly encourage the use of the report spam option.

 

Thanks!

Edited by ZavienUK
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"By having two factor authentication you make it much harder for them to improperly access your data."

 

Yet we weren't allowed to have that with email addresses, BW forces me to reveal half my login data. The email address I only use for my SWTOR business was still a million times safer.

 

Weren't even told why (lame reason that made no sense, if not the opposite). People suggested if they had to have it different from email, they should have added a field to the account a "login name" next to the "display name". Then we would now have a three factor authentication.

 

Still wouldn't help anyone visiting a credit seller site and getting malware sneaking in, but neither does the current or previous version of BW's security for people that open themselves up like that. I've heard about people with the security keys getting their accounts stolen/borrowed by the credit ring.

 

So for all we know we are on a one factor authentication, at least it's safe to assume people that visit those sites are.

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Thanks so much, Anonymouse Security Guys and Gals! for letting us know that while it may seem like nothing is happening, it is indeed being handled.

 

I personally haven't seen the emote credit spam, but I HAVE now seen where their toon's name looks 'legit' and they sell hypercrates on the GTN and then RIGHT after their 'wts' spiel they have their credit selling website.

 

Gah, seriously, these goldsellers need to find better jobs.

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Are the Dev's aware there is a toon standing on the Republic Fleet spamming the "Greet" emote every couple of seconds? It seems as though people have been reporting it for 2 days with no action?

 

I begin to wonder how many frustrated players have been caught whispering/yelling spam back at said toon (which is probably why they're doing it) and being banned themselves.

 

I have screen shot evidence should a Dev request it.

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Are the Dev's aware there is a toon standing on the Republic Fleet spamming the "Greet" emote every couple of seconds? It seems as though people have been reporting it for 2 days with no action?

 

I begin to wonder how many frustrated players have been caught whispering/yelling spam back at said toon (which is probably why they're doing it) and being banned themselves.

 

I have screen shot evidence should a Dev request it.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=816624

 

Keep a closer eye on Dev tracker, brah, knowledge is power :p

Edited by idnewton
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I'd really like to know what they're doing to stop trolls from mass reporting messages and getting accounts squelched. Wasn't spamming, wasn't filling chat with emotes, wasn't sending tons of messages in quick succession. But I was in the middle of a pretty heated conversation with three people in general chat, then a few minutes later I couldn't type and they started acting all condescending with comments like, "Why are you so quiet now lolololol" and custom emotes such as ".... squelches you".

 

I submitted a ticket about the issue and service rep tells me: "The short version is that it mainly works on /whispers, /tells etc. Your posting in general chat and being reported for spam won't get auto squelched though as normal it might get looked at by ourselves."

 

So either their customer support has no idea how their own security systems work, or we've got people that have found another way to abuse the system. In any case, I just thought I'd bring it to the attention of the developers and the community. I am fully on board with them cutting the amount of credit spammers down, but not at the cost of losing my ability to communicate in a game that requires communication to get anything accomplished.

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I'd really like to know what they're doing to stop trolls from mass reporting messages and getting accounts squelched. Wasn't spamming, wasn't filling chat with emotes, wasn't sending tons of messages in quick succession. But I was in the middle of a pretty heated conversation with three people in general chat, then a few minutes later I couldn't type and they started acting all condescending with comments like, "Why are you so quiet now lolololol" and custom emotes such as ".... squelches you".

 

I submitted a ticket about the issue and service rep tells me: "The short version is that it mainly works on /whispers, /tells etc. Your posting in general chat and being reported for spam won't get auto squelched though as normal it might get looked at by ourselves."

 

So either their customer support has no idea how their own security systems work, or we've got people that have found another way to abuse the system. In any case, I just thought I'd bring it to the attention of the developers and the community. I am fully on board with them cutting the amount of credit spammers down, but not at the cost of losing my ability to communicate in a game that requires communication to get anything accomplished.

 

So what? Be thankful that the system did something. You could still do other things (like play) in the game, right? And you were ok after a while, right? You're like the guy that gets pulled over by the Police for "not doing anything" and then let go without a problem and then goes to the media to complain about it.

 

You were slightly inconvenienced and didn't get to continue your virtual battle royale with anonymous strangers. You should be thankful.

Edited by PetFish
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I'd really like to know what they're doing to stop trolls from mass reporting messages and getting accounts squelched. Wasn't spamming, wasn't filling chat with emotes, wasn't sending tons of messages in quick succession. But I was in the middle of a pretty heated conversation with three people in general chat, then a few minutes later I couldn't type and they started acting all condescending with comments like, "Why are you so quiet now lolololol" and custom emotes such as ".... squelches you".

 

I submitted a ticket about the issue and service rep tells me: "The short version is that it mainly works on /whispers, /tells etc. Your posting in general chat and being reported for spam won't get auto squelched though as normal it might get looked at by ourselves."

 

So either their customer support has no idea how their own security systems work, or we've got people that have found another way to abuse the system. In any case, I just thought I'd bring it to the attention of the developers and the community. I am fully on board with them cutting the amount of credit spammers down, but not at the cost of losing my ability to communicate in a game that requires communication to get anything accomplished.

 

This isn't really a solution as it is more of a suggestion, but man I would just avoid general chat. I've never seen such a place of scum and villainy.

Edited by Papazmurf
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  • 2 weeks later...
I have to say honestly and complete thank you for dealing with this Im the kind of person who burns credit sellers when ever they sent there mail my way it royal Pive me off so again to the hidden development team and there security thank you and keep up the good work burn the buggers burn them all.:)
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  • 4 weeks later...

I posted in another thread about this, but can we try the following:

 

FTP can only send mail to those who are in same guild or if the receiver has them on their friend list.

 

This eliminates the FTP spam accounts from being able to reach anyone, and legit FTP accounts can still reach friends or guildies

Edited by Jamtas
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I posted in another thread about this, but can we try the following:

 

FTP can only send mail to those who are in same guild or if the receiver has them on their friend list.

 

This eliminates the FTP spam accounts from being able to reach anyone, and legit FTP accounts can still reach friends or guildies

 

We were discussing something like this in our guild the other day. The spam mail is every bit as annoying as the tells were.

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We were discussing something like this in our guild the other day. The spam mail is every bit as annoying as the tells were.
Yep a week or so ago I had on one of my alts 15 mail all from spammers they have got to fix this, which I know they will they got rid of the tells from spammers now the mail spam is something they got to work on ..
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