Sucks to be Squelched

[IanArgent]

Well, then - I suppose the Word Of Devs says it can and should not be abused in the fashion the OP is describing.

[TUXs]

Good to know you guys are looking into this Eric. Thank you!

[tolaez]

Hey folks,

 

Let’s talk a little bit about our squelch system that is in the game. This system was implemented quite some time ago as a method for players to not only avoid filling up their /ignore list, but to also help in getting a lot of those pesky Credit Sellers out of chat. This has been very successful for us since its implementation as we have experienced a dramatic drop in this type of chat spam. Please continue to report Credit Sellers and any other spammers you encounter as it is helping!

 

Lately, we’ve been receiving reports of this system being abused by players. Typically, the squelch abuse is in the form of Guild members targeting individual players or anyone in a rival Guild and deliberately impacting their game play. We take these type of abuses very seriously and as with any exploit, we will be taking appropriate action against anyone who participates. Depending on the severity of the abuse, action includes everything from warnings and suspension time to account closure. Please note, if this action is taken by a Guild, we will be particularly tough on Guild Masters and Guild Officers who coordinate, participate, or simply do not stop their Guild members from abusing the squelch system.

 

If you have been on the receiving end, what you must not do is retaliate! If you do, you have added yourself to the list of participants and you are putting your account at risk. If someone, or a group of users, has used squelch in an abusive way against you please file a detailed report with Customer Support. They will investigate and take the necessary action(s).

 

With all of this in mind, we are constantly looking at ways to improve this functionality. In the meantime, please use it wisely against spammers and advertisers/credit sellers, but please don’t ruin the game play of legitimate players.

 

-eric

 

As someone who uses the 'report spam' button against credit spammers every day and never seen one actually get squelched as a result - you've given me no reason to continue to do so now. After this post it seems to me like I'd be better off not using it at all as to avoid coming up as a false positive for abuse of this feature. I've literally never seen a credit spammer squelched and I use it all the time on them...

[Nonumbersfails]

As someone who uses the 'report spam' button against credit spammers every day and never seen one actually get squelched as a result - you've given me no reason to continue to do so now. After this post it seems to me like I'd be better off not using it at all as to avoid coming up as a false positive for abuse of this feature. I've literally never seen a credit spammer squelched and I use it all the time on them...

 

That's because too many people think the same way you do, that reporting them just isn't worth it. As a result, not enough people report them for the automatic squelching to get triggered. While they have never provided the exact number, based on my conversations with EA Customer Relations, it takes about 10-15 reports within a short period of time to trigger the automatic squelching.

 

So if you and everyone else don't bother to report the credit spammers, because you assume nothing will happen, they will never get squelched. You also would never be punished for a false positive for reporting a credit spammer because the credit spammer would have to file a ticket claiming they were improperly squelched, and a quick review of their chat log would show they were in fact spamming and worth of the report.

[Magiko]

Hey folks,

 

Let’s talk a little bit about our squelch system that is in the game. This system was implemented quite some time ago as a method for players to not only avoid filling up their /ignore list, but to also help in getting a lot of those pesky Credit Sellers out of chat. This has been very successful for us since its implementation as we have experienced a dramatic drop in this type of chat spam. Please continue to report Credit Sellers and any other spammers you encounter as it is helping!

 

Lately, we’ve been receiving reports of this system being abused by players. Typically, the squelch abuse is in the form of Guild members targeting individual players or anyone in a rival Guild and deliberately impacting their game play. We take these type of abuses very seriously and as with any exploit, we will be taking appropriate action against anyone who participates. Depending on the severity of the abuse, action includes everything from warnings and suspension time to account closure. Please note, if this action is taken by a Guild, we will be particularly tough on Guild Masters and Guild Officers who coordinate, participate, or simply do not stop their Guild members from abusing the squelch system.

 

If you have been on the receiving end, what you must not do is retaliate! If you do, you have added yourself to the list of participants and you are putting your account at risk. If someone, or a group of users, has used squelch in an abusive way against you please file a detailed report with Customer Support. They will investigate and take the necessary action(s).

 

With all of this in mind, we are constantly looking at ways to improve this functionality. In the meantime, please use it wisely against spammers and advertisers/credit sellers, but please don’t ruin the game play of legitimate players.

 

-eric

 

Be in mind what they often do is to create a new email/F2P-account with the solo purpuse to abuse the system.

 

Ideia: I belive that to use a custom filter text file where we can type and share lines with things like:

 

[delimiters]

'"!@#$%¨&*()_+=-¹²³£¢¬§´[~],.;/|\`{^}<>:?ªº°{SPACE}{TAB}{ENTER}{DOT}{WWW}{COM}

 

[texttofilter]

creditseller

spammersite

 

To make the game autofilter/ban any chat with lines like:

 

www.spammersite.com

w w w DOT c r e d i t s e l l e r dot com

w_w_w@c-r-e-d-i-t-s-e-l-l-e-r@c+o+m

W W-W+C´°R~E¬D*I^T<S¹²E¹²L¹²³L,E.....R.C°O°°M

 

And with an "append and share" option so the more players create lines with info to share the faster we can filter/ban all those spammers

 

BTW a custom filter like that also could be used for in-game emails

Edited March 21, 2016 by Magiko

[PorsaLindahl]

If the Report Spam option was done right, to include the last 50+ lines of text from chat, a player would not have to submit a ticket for being squelched erroneously. And it would provide data to see if it was, in fact, being abused.

 

In Guild Wars, they had such a system. If someone was spamming, and got ignored by 10 people, each person's chat (to include the one being reported) was recorded for the previous hundred lines. Then the devs, moderators, etc. could go through the chat logs and see if it was legitimate, and issue a warning/ban accordingly or if it was abused and issue a warning/ban to the ones reporting. It would even work for trolls.

[tolaez]

That's because too many people think the same way you do, that reporting them just isn't worth it. As a result, not enough people report them for the automatic squelching to get triggered. While they have never provided the exact number, based on my conversations with EA Customer Relations, it takes about 10-15 reports within a short period of time to trigger the automatic squelching.

 

So if you and everyone else don't bother to report the credit spammers, because you assume nothing will happen, they will never get squelched. You also would never be punished for a false positive for reporting a credit spammer because the credit spammer would have to file a ticket claiming they were improperly squelched, and a quick review of their chat log would show they were in fact spamming and worth of the report.

 

You missed my point and overlooked the fact, not assumption, that my 'report spam'ing of the credit spammers has not done anything already. So what incentive do I have to do it now that there's potential for me to be flagged incorrectly for abuse. Heard too many stories from people about their accounts being disabled for other false positive situations so I don't have much faith in BWs system. One flag should be enough for example. They could just read the logs and ban the account. Instead we have the same spammers spamming day in and day out.

[Fleurdelis]

Please note, if this action is taken by a Guild, we will be particularly tough on Guild Masters and Guild Officers who coordinate, participate, or simply do not stop their Guild members from abusing the squelch system.

-eric

 

This is not thought out at all. It is probably the craziest thing I have ever read a dev post.

 

Me, being a GM since guilds were implemented can get in trouble if someone in the guild is abusing this system and I can't control them and make them not do it? How am I suppose to know who is abusing this system? GM's have very little tools in the way of communication, tracking or even basically running their guild. To even suggest WE would get in trouble for something a member of a possible 1000 member guild does makes me want to give up on guilds and the game. I would suggest Eric that you rethink what you posted and make further clarifications.

[kissingaiur]

Hey folks,

 

Let’s talk a little bit about our squelch system that is in the game. This system was implemented quite some time ago as a method for players to not only avoid filling up their /ignore list, but to also help in getting a lot of those pesky Credit Sellers out of chat. This has been very successful for us since its implementation as we have experienced a dramatic drop in this type of chat spam. Please continue to report Credit Sellers and any other spammers you encounter as it is helping!

 

Lately, we’ve been receiving reports of this system being abused by players. Typically, the squelch abuse is in the form of Guild members targeting individual players or anyone in a rival Guild and deliberately impacting their game play. We take these type of abuses very seriously and as with any exploit, we will be taking appropriate action against anyone who participates. Depending on the severity of the abuse, action includes everything from warnings and suspension time to account closure. Please note, if this action is taken by a Guild, we will be particularly tough on Guild Masters and Guild Officers who coordinate, participate, or simply do not stop their Guild members from abusing the squelch system.

 

If you have been on the receiving end, what you must not do is retaliate! If you do, you have added yourself to the list of participants and you are putting your account at risk. If someone, or a group of users, has used squelch in an abusive way against you please file a detailed report with Customer Support. They will investigate and take the necessary action(s).

 

With all of this in mind, we are constantly looking at ways to improve this functionality. In the meantime, please use it wisely against spammers and advertisers/credit sellers, but please don’t ruin the game play of legitimate players.

 

-eric

 

As a player who experienced this type of harassment, this really, really makes me happy that Bioware is taking these kind of trolling seriously. I am honestly pleasantly surprised and that doesn't happen often! These systems are suppose to be put in place to make our experience better and yet if players are finding ways to abuse these systems there should be some kind of retribution.

 

Seriously, Thank You Eric.

Edited March 21, 2016 by kissingaiur

[ShepardSpock]

Hey folks,

 

Let’s talk a little bit about our squelch system that is in the game. This system was implemented quite some time ago as a method for players to not only avoid filling up their /ignore list, but to also help in getting a lot of those pesky Credit Sellers out of chat. This has been very successful for us since its implementation as we have experienced a dramatic drop in this type of chat spam. Please continue to report Credit Sellers and any other spammers you encounter as it is helping!

 

Lately, we’ve been receiving reports of this system being abused by players. Typically, the squelch abuse is in the form of Guild members targeting individual players or anyone in a rival Guild and deliberately impacting their game play. We take these type of abuses very seriously and as with any exploit, we will be taking appropriate action against anyone who participates. Depending on the severity of the abuse, action includes everything from warnings and suspension time to account closure. Please note, if this action is taken by a Guild, we will be particularly tough on Guild Masters and Guild Officers who coordinate, participate, or simply do not stop their Guild members from abusing the squelch system.

 

If you have been on the receiving end, what you must not do is retaliate! If you do, you have added yourself to the list of participants and you are putting your account at risk. If someone, or a group of users, has used squelch in an abusive way against you please file a detailed report with Customer Support. They will investigate and take the necessary action(s).

 

With all of this in mind, we are constantly looking at ways to improve this functionality. In the meantime, please use it wisely against spammers and advertisers/credit sellers, but please don’t ruin the game play of legitimate players.

 

-eric

 

So that's why they fill up my mailboxes with their gold spam? <sarcasm>Thank you, Bioware.</sarcasm>

[branmakmuffin]

This system was implemented quite some time ago as a method for players to not only avoid filling up their /ignore list, but to also help in getting a lot of those pesky Credit Sellers out of chat. This has been very successful for us since its implementation as we have experienced a dramatic drop in this type of chat spam.

You may have noticed a dramatic drop-off in cred selling spam, but I sure haven't. Whenever I go the fleet, most of the time (and by "most of the time" I mean simply more than half, not the vast majority) the first thing I see in chat is a cred seller spam message. I am still finding it necessary to constantly prune my ignore lists to get rid of cred sellers (thank goodness they usually have obvious names) to make room for more permanent membership.

[Nonumbersfails]

You missed my point and overlooked the fact, not assumption, that my 'report spam'ing of the credit spammers has not done anything already. So what incentive do I have to do it now that there's potential for me to be flagged incorrectly for abuse. Heard too many stories from people about their accounts being disabled for other false positive situations so I don't have much faith in BWs system. One flag should be enough for example. They could just read the logs and ban the account. Instead we have the same spammers spamming day in and day out.

 

I missed nothing, but you certainly did. You claim that reporting credit spammers "has not done anything already", which is simply not true. If enough players report the same character for spamming, that entire account, legacy wide, gets squelched for 24 hours.

 

Now, if by "has not done anything already." you mean that it has not actually stopped credit spammers as a whole, you're right. But wrong to think that they would ever be able to stop them completely. They plague every MMO in existence and will never be stopped completely. But refusing to report their spam simply because you don't feel the result is significant enough is the worst kind of logic imaginable. Every account credit spammers use that gets squelched makes their lives that much more difficult in order to spread their spam. Squelching is legacy wide, so simply making a new character isn't enough to get around the squelch.

 

As to what you missed in my post, you can not and will not ever be punished under a false positive for properly reporting actual spam. Credit spam is always spam, regardless of its frequency, because its content is still against the ToS. The issue with the squelching system is its automatic, with no actual review by a live person, that's why people who are not spamming are getting squelched.

 

But when those of us who are being improperly squelched file a harassment complaint over the squelching, those reports are being reviewed by a live person. They take a look at the chat logs of the person who was squelched during the time period leading up to them being squelched. If and only if they do not see that the person was not actually spamming do they review the people who reported them for spam in the first place. If that person was not actually spamming, then every person who did report them for spam 100% deserves whatever warning or punishments are issued because they abused the system by reporting someone who wasn't actually breaking the rules.

 

None of this is assumptions either, I've spoken directly to customer relations about this issue. And no, I don't me the people at the Bioware support phone line. The tickets I filed about being improperly squelched were investigated and they found I really was being harassed. So someone from EA Customer Relations reached out to me to conduct a phone interview, and I spent over an hour with him on the phone discussing all of this. Everything I have related to you about how the system works and how you can't and won't be punished for reporting real spam comes directly from Customer Relations and the team that investigates ToS violations.

 

This is not thought out at all. It is probably the craziest thing I have ever read a dev post.

 

Me, being a GM since guilds were implemented can get in trouble if someone in the guild is abusing this system and I can't control them and make them not do it? How am I suppose to know who is abusing this system? GM's have very little tools in the way of communication, tracking or even basically running their guild. To even suggest WE would get in trouble for something a member of a possible 1000 member guild does makes me want to give up on guilds and the game. I would suggest Eric that you rethink what you posted and make further clarifications.

 

What he is referring to, but doesn't make clear in his post, is taking action against guilds and guild leadership when harassment is coordinated between members via in game guild chat. For example, when they investigate abuse of the report spam feature, and the chat logs of the people abusing it shows those people talking about it via guild chat, they expect guild leadership to take appropriate action to make sure their members aren't breaking the rules like that.

 

Its no different than the times in SWtOR and other MMOs where entire guilds are issued various bans and guilds disbanded as a whole because a group of guild members were hacking or abusing exploits. Its all against the rules and if guilds coordinate that rule breaking with in game, the guild as a whole can be held responsible for it. Innocent players not involved with the rule breaking, but choose to stay in a guild they know is openly breaking the rules, must accept some measure of responsibility for tolerating that rule breaking. They should be leaving the guild on their own at the very least, and technically, in the eyes of Bioware/EA, they should be reporting their fellow guildmates for the rules breaking in the first place.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Nonumbersfails

[DreadtechSavant]

BY Nonumbersfails

"Its no different than the times in SWtOR and other MMOs where entire guilds are issued various bans and guilds disbanded as a whole because a group of guild members were hacking or abusing exploits. Its all against the rules and if guilds coordinate that rule breaking with in game, the guild as a whole can be held responsible for it. Innocent players not involved with the rule breaking, but choose to stay in a guild they know is openly breaking the rules, must accept some measure of responsibility for tolerating that rule breaking. They should be leaving the guild on their own at the very least, and technically, in the eyes of Bioware/EA, they should be reporting their fellow guildmates for the rules breaking in the first place. "

 

What about players who are not involved or even awhere of any wrong doing. Most of the larger guilds have some players online at any time over 24 hours. So if a officer or/and several guild members are doing something wrong at lets say 1pm to 4pm but 30+ members only come online at 6pm to 9pm it's not unreasonable at all to say they don't know anything about it.

As such it not unreasonable for Fleurdelis who you quoted Nonumbersfails, to ask for more clarification. Even more so as no guildmaster is online 24/7 and very few guildmasters know anything about any members within there guild. Even there officers! As such if BW has evidence of any wrong doing by a guild they should also have evidence of the actual members within that guild, as such blaming the entire guild is overkill.

 

While we all like the fact BW is doing something, If what they do is equally as wrong then all that will happen is good players will walk away from the game, if they are blamed for doing nothing wrong. That is not in BW's interest not in the interest of any players and doubt very much even players who are the most vocal on this issue, would be happy with blanket bans across entire guilds.

 

So BW needs to make sure what they do is fair and right by everyone.

Edited March 22, 2016 by DreadtechSavant

[Nonumbersfails]

What about players who are not involved or even awhere of any wrong doing. Most of the larger guilds have some players online at any time over 24 hours. So if a officer or/and several guild members are doing something wrong at lets say 1pm to 4pm but 30+ members only come online at 6pm to 9pm it's not unreasonable at all to say they don't know anything about it.

As such it not unreasonable for Fleurdelis who you quoted Nonumbersfails, to ask for more clarification. Even more so as no guildmaster is online 24/7 and very few guildmasters know anything about any members within there guild. Even there officers! As such if BW has evidence of any wrong doing by a guild they should also have evidence of the actual members within that guild, as such blaming the entire guild is overkill.

 

While we all like the fact BW is doing something, If what they do is equally as wrong then all that will happen is good players will walk away from the game, if they are blamed for doing nothing wrong. That is not in BW's interest not in the interest of any players and doubt very much even players who are the most vocal on this issue, would be happy with blanket bans across entire guilds.

 

So BW needs to make sure what they do is fair and right by everyone.

 

We can debate hypotheticals all day, and it will get us nowhere. And don't hold your breath for Bioware, EA or any other developer to ever disclose exactly what action they will take and when in regards to rule breaking. While its important for policies to be clear as to what behavior will and will not be tolerated, punishments for breaking said policies are always very broad because the punishment each person receives can vary in severity based on whether or not a person has broken the rules in the past. Even minor past infractions, that resulted in nothing more than a warning, can be taken into consideration for future punishments for future rule breaking.

 

Again, trying to stay away from hypotheticals, when there is widespread rule breaking within a guild, its nearly impossible for people not directly involved in the rule breaking to claim ignorance of the behavior. While they may have not been breaking the rules, it will be hard for them to claim they never once saw other members discussing the rule breaking via chat, or overheard people talking about the rule breaking via the guild used VOIP, or never suspected rule breaking when all of a sudden guild members down content they were never geared for in the first place, or the G Bank all of sudden explodes from millions of credits to billions of credits.

 

So while there may be guild members who never actually break the rules themselves, its difficult in the eyes of the developer for them to claim complete ignorance to the behavior. Having any such knowledge of the behavior, and failing to report it and failing to remove themselves from the guild, makes them guilty by voluntary association. In the rare, and verifiable, cases where action has been taken against entire guilds in the past in various games, its typically only people directly involved in the rule breaking, and guild leadership, that find their accounts banned for any significant amount of time.

 

Those members who may or may not have known about the rule breaking face nothing more serious than finding themselves in need of a new guild. And yes, that is an entirely reasonable thing for a developer to do, to disband a guild that was guilty large scale ToS violations. Any issues like loss of credits or items put into the G Bank by those other players who weren't breaking the rules are irrelavent. As soon as they deposited those credits or items in the bank, they renounced all claim of ownership to them.

 

Also, the hypotheticals like you are proposing are also why games have appeals processes in place. As it stands, you and other people posting in this thread are worried that Bioware will start actually enforcing the rules already in place because you may get caught up in such nonsense as false positives. Abusing the Report Spam feature has always been against the rules, but after weeks and weeks for forum posts, phone calls, emails and tickets, Bioware and EA are finally catching on to the fact that there is widespread abuse going on. With the guilty parties actively bragging about their rule breaking in their recruitment posts in gen chat, its hard for anyone in those guilds to claim they don't know anything about the abuse.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Nonumbersfails

[PorsaLindahl]

This is not thought out at all. It is probably the craziest thing I have ever read a dev post.

 

Me, being a GM since guilds were implemented can get in trouble if someone in the guild is abusing this system and I can't control them and make them not do it? How am I suppose to know who is abusing this system? GM's have very little tools in the way of communication, tracking or even basically running their guild. To even suggest WE would get in trouble for something a member of a possible 1000 member guild does makes me want to give up on guilds and the game. I would suggest Eric that you rethink what you posted and make further clarifications.

 

You're making too much of that. If it's a couple of members, then yeah, they probably won't hold the GM responsible. But if it's 10 members of the same guild dropping these spam reports/ignores on someone who doesn't deserve it, then yeah, I'd go as far as to say the GM should take some responsibility for that.

 

GM's should make sure they have quality members, whether it's 20 members or 1000 members. If a member is acting asinine, kick them out. If you have people constantly causing problems, or being abusive in chat, kick them out. If you have members giving your guild a bad rep, kick them out. If you keep them around, then it's on you.

[eriksarcasm]

You're making too much of that. If it's a couple of members, then yeah, they probably won't hold the GM responsible. But if it's 10 members of the same guild dropping these spam reports/ignores on someone who doesn't deserve it, then yeah, I'd go as far as to say the GM should take some responsibility for that.

 

GM's should make sure they have quality members, whether it's 20 members or 1000 members. If a member is acting asinine, kick them out. If you have people constantly causing problems, or being abusive in chat, kick them out. If you have members giving your guild a bad rep, kick them out. If you keep them around, then it's on you.

 

This. With great power comes great responsibility, a great rice maker once said....

 

All you really have to do is make policy. Put in your guild rules that these kind of shenanigans will not be permitted in your guild. Maybe make an example of someone once in a while. Having said that, Bioware should give guild masters a warning to take action before they drop the hammer on them. This is a game, after all.

[Nonumbersfails]

You're making too much of that. If it's a couple of members, then yeah, they probably won't hold the GM responsible. But if it's 10 members of the same guild dropping these spam reports/ignores on someone who doesn't deserve it, then yeah, I'd go as far as to say the GM should take some responsibility for that.

 

GM's should make sure they have quality members, whether it's 20 members or 1000 members. If a member is acting asinine, kick them out. If you have people constantly causing problems, or being abusive in chat, kick them out. If you have members giving your guild a bad rep, kick them out. If you keep them around, then it's on you.

 

But the most important thing of all, is those of us suffering from this abuse know for a fact the abuse is being coordinated between members of the guild in question via in game chat. We've seen it first hand, and is easily verifiable by the team at Bioware that handles ToS violations. Everything someone types into chat, no matter if its a public chat channel or private whisper, the people at Bioware can see it. Not only that, but that GM of that guild is one of the people actively participating in the abuse.

 

So there is no need for widespread fear of GMs being held accountable for a single rogue player who breaks the rules while no one else in the guild knows about it. That's simply not the case in this situation.

 

This. With great power comes great responsibility, a great rice maker once said....

 

All you really have to do is make policy. Put in your guild rules that these kind of shenanigans will not be permitted in your guild. Maybe make an example of someone once in a while. Having said that, Bioware should give guild masters a warning to take action before they drop the hammer on them. This is a game, after all.

 

And I have it direct from EA Customer Relations that this situation is being dealt with on an escalating punishment system. Warnings>short term bans>long term bans>perma ban with account deletion. But, like with any escalating punishment system, more severe punishments may be handed out for this current situation if the guilty parties have previous warnings and bans on their accounts already for prior rule breaking.

 

That's true for a guild as a whole too, if a whole guild was issued a warning for a major rule violation in the past, they can find their guild disbanded.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Nonumbersfails

[Nonumbersfails]

*delete Edited March 22, 2016 by Nonumbersfails
accidental double post

[Andryah]

This. With great power comes great responsibility, a great rice maker once said....

 

All you really have to do is make policy. Put in your guild rules that these kind of shenanigans will not be permitted in your guild. Maybe make an example of someone once in a while. Having said that, Bioware should give guild masters a warning to take action before they drop the hammer on them. This is a game, after all.

 

Yep. And in any well run guild with actual active leadership... the members follow the leadership. Thats' why guilds have leadership roles. If a guilds members are actively griefing with a game mechanic, and the leaders are unaware or don't care... they deserve sanction for what their membership is doing. It does not matter what the mechanic is, the mere fact that the leadership sanctions it actively (or through "alleged" ignorance) = guilt.

 

Any good guild leader and subordinates would know if members of their guild is engaged in griefing, so the "I was unaware" excuse is weak sauce. If nothing else, in most cases if members of a guild are griefing in game, someone is going to take the initiative to find the guild leadership and present a protest. What the guild leadership does, and how they do it will speak volumes about the leadership. AND... AND.. every single in game conversation is logged by Bioware so they certainly can open the logs and call B.S. on a guild leader who feigns ignorance AND did nothing about the griefing, even in the face of log data showing one or more players having contacted the leadership about the issue.

 

This is not thought out at all. It is probably the craziest thing I have ever read a dev post.

 

Me, being a GM since guilds were implemented can get in trouble if someone in the guild is abusing this system and I can't control them and make them not do it? How am I suppose to know who is abusing this system? GM's have very little tools in the way of communication, tracking or even basically running their guild. To even suggest WE would get in trouble for something a member of a possible 1000 member guild does makes me want to give up on guilds and the game. I would suggest Eric that you rethink what you posted and make further clarifications.

 

If you sincerely believe what you wrote, then IMO, you are bad guild leader. For all the reasons I outlined above. That said, I don't think you actually believe what you wrote, I think you are just trying to avoid accountability. It's your guild, you are the GM, nobody is a member of your guild without your consent (you either invited them, or you gave permission to someone else to do so, AND they remain members only if you let them remain). You cannot duck your responsibility here.

 

Here's the thing.... in actuality, if they determine multiple members of a guild are colluding to grief, they will probably disband your guild out from under you, and leave you alone. IF they found a log of a chat where you were one of the chatting parties and the topic is about the griefing being discussed here... then you knew about it and did nothing, and you might get a temp ban over it on top of everything else. If there is no record you knew about it.. then you probably just loose the guild when they nuke it.

 

There are many really good guilds in game. There are also some that deserve to get the Server Guild D-Bag award. If a few of these bad ones were to get nuked... it would send a clear message to every other guild to knock off the bad behaviors and to actually manage and control their membership.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Andryah

[Nonumbersfails]

Yep. And in any well run guild with actual active leadership... the members follow the leadership. Thats' why guilds have leadership roles. If a guilds members are actively griefing with a game mechanic, and the leaders are unaware or don't care... they deserve sanction for what their membership is doing. It does not matter what the mechanic is, the mere fact that the leadership sanctions it actively (or through "alleged" ignorance) = guilt.

 

Any good guild leader and subordinates would know if members of their guild is engaged in griefing, so the "I was unaware" excuse is weak sauce. If nothing else, in most cases if members of a guild are griefing in game, someone is going to take the initiative to find the guild leadership and present a protest. What the guild leadership does, and how they do it will speak volumes about the leadership. AND... AND.. every single in game conversation is logged by Bioware so they certainly can open the logs and call B.S. on a guild leader who feigns ignorance AND did nothing about the griefing, even in the face of log data showing one or more players having contacted the leadership about the issue.

 

 

 

If you sincerely believe what you wrote, then IMO, you are bad guild leader. For all the reasons I outlined above. That said, I don't think you actually believe what you wrote, I think you are just trying to avoid accountability. It's your guild, you are the GM, nobody is a member of your guild without your consent (you either invited them, or you gave permission to someone else to do so, AND they remain members only if you let them remain). You cannot duck your responsibility here.

 

Here's the thing.... in actuality, if they determine multiple members of a guild are colluding to grief, they will probably disband your guild out from under you, and leave you alone. IF they found a log of a chat where you were one of the chatting parties and the topic is about the griefing being discussed here... then you knew about it and did nothing, and you might get a temp ban over it on top of everything else. If there is no record you knew about it.. then you probably just loose the guild when they nuke it.

 

There are many really good guilds in game. There are also some that deserve to get the Server Guild D-Bag award. If a few of these bad ones were to get nuked... it would send a clear message to every other guild to knock off the bad behaviors and to actually manage and control their membership.

 

This pretty much hits the nail right on the head. I think part of the problem with the people freaking out over this is they have never experienced the constant and widespread abuse that those of us trying to draw attention to this issue are suffering from. This isn't some one off case of one or two people getting squelched after some dumb argument in gen chat.

 

There are people on our server, many of them members or alts of members of a certain guild, who simply do a /who of our guild name, or the names of people they know are officers within our guild, and mass report them for spam on a daily basis. Day after day, after day, after day, going on for more than a month now, people getting squelched over and over again to prevent them from ever speaking in any chat channel. As soon as the 24 hour squelch is up, they simply mass report again to trigger another 24 hours of being squelched.

 

Throughout this entire thread people keep trying to claim we are making it up, that we are really just spamming and are crying about suffering because of it. But its a little hard to spam anything when you can never actually post in any chat channel, public or private, because you get squelched every 24 hours like clockwork.

 

Then there is the fact that the big squelch waves, when they hit as many members as possible and not just leadership, always happen while we are in the middle of trying to do things in games like run Ops or conquest groups. When I got squelched on Thursday, I was in a TFB Op with 7 other guild members. All of a sudden, halfway through the Op, all 8 of us ended up squelched. And at that same exact time, members of the guild griefing us zoned into TFB to mock us in the Ops gen chat.

 

And just last night, we pulled ahead for 1st on the Conquest leaderboard, as we were running multiple groups through KP and EC lockouts, and every member of our guild who was online at the time ended up squelched. Even people who had been in the guild for a couple of days, and people who only get a chance to play a few hours each week on the weekends, everyone got squelched in order to limit our ability to use our guild chat to keep forming and reforming out groups for farming content.

 

And the result was exactly what the griefers were going for, they were able to pass us for the lead again because they crippled our ability to function as a guild. So what's going on here is on such a massive scale that there is no way any GM would be able to claim innocence or ignorance of the behavior.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Nonumbersfails

[TxAstarte]

Typically, the squelch abuse is in the form of Guild members targeting individual players or anyone in a rival Guild and deliberately impacting their game play. We take these type of abuses very seriously and as with any exploit, we will be taking appropriate action against anyone who participates.

 

I have not been the victim of this kind of abuse, but that it has gone on for a freaking month is absolutely ridiculous. So much so I actually logged in for the first time in months to comment.

 

BW, you are letting one set of players actively harass and abuse another one. This isn't "all in good fun" or "all part of the game".

 

This is one set of people setting out to derail other players enjoyment of the game. It's abuse. Pure and simple.

 

The appropriate response is to disband the guild, including the loss of any items in their guildbank, and the permabanning of every officer in the Guild. Rank and file members would depend on whether they had engaged in the activity, but they are laying down with fleas.

 

I do not run a guild in this game, but I do in another. If any member of that guild abused people like this, they'd have been shown the door, and IDGAF what a good player they might be.

 

And if I didn't do that, I'd deserve being held responsible for their actions.

 

So, if you're an officer for such a guild, you have a decision. No excuses What are you going do?*

 

*This is a rhetorical question to be clear. It matters not one whit to me if you're gonna be a stand up officer or not. It should matter to you.

[TxAstarte]

Well, then - I suppose the Word Of Devs says it can and should not be abused in the fashion the OP is describing.

In all candor, I don't think anyone should have needed the Devs to say that.

[ckreskay]

Probably more that no one cares about anything you're saying, and I don't mean that in a negative way. People rarely use the report spam feature because you're going to leave the area soon anyways. BBB is exploiting the game no different than cheating.

 

thats a bit harsh, are you seriously slandering and picking on a guild, i thought that was frowned upon to pick on a guild like that

[ckreskay]

I have not been the victim of this kind of abuse, but that it has gone on for a freaking month is absolutely ridiculous. So much so I actually logged in for the first time in months to comment.

 

BW, you are letting one set of players actively harass and abuse another one. This isn't "all in good fun" or "all part of the game".

 

This is one set of people setting out to derail other players enjoyment of the game. It's abuse. Pure and simple.

 

The appropriate response is to disband the guild, including the loss of any items in their guildbank, and the permabanning of every officer in the Guild. Rank and file members would depend on whether they had engaged in the activity, but they are laying down with fleas.

 

I do not run a guild in this game, but I do in another. If any member of that guild abused people like this, they'd have been shown the door, and IDGAF what a good player they might be.

 

And if I didn't do that, I'd deserve being held responsible for their actions.

 

So, if you're an officer for such a guild, you have a decision. No excuses What are you going do?*

 

*This is a rhetorical question to be clear. It matters not one whit to me if you're gonna be a stand up officer or not. It should matter to you.

 

from what i have seen of your posts, you are trying to get rid of a particular guild just because it beats you in conquest every week. seeing as your guild cant beat them, you want them to be dismembered. i'm starting to think you have made all this squelching up to get rid of your opponents. this has got to be some of the dirtiest tactics i have ever seen. shame on you

[Nonumbersfails]

from what i have seen of your posts, you are trying to get rid of a particular guild just because it beats you in conquest every week. seeing as your guild cant beat them, you want them to be dismembered. i'm starting to think you have made all this squelching up to get rid of your opponents. this has got to be some of the dirtiest tactics i have ever seen. shame on you

 

Yes, shame on you for trying to defend people who are making the game unplayable for over 200 people. Eric Musco didn't respond to this thread the way he did because we're making it up. I also personally received a phone call this morning from someone in EA Customer Relations, not just the normal Bioware phone support, after trading emails with him last week. I have no doubt Eric Musco's post is in relation to that escalated investigation that has now been underway since the end of last week.

 

Community managers don't make public posts warning all users that a serious rules violation has occurred, and will not be tolerated, if the people filing the complaints were liars. They would have shut down the thread and taken action against all of us reporting the harassment. But instead they fired a warning shot at anyone who thinks they can abuse the system to stifle other players or guilds.

 

I'd link the website of the guild guilty of the harassment, but I know you'd instantly report the post in order to silence me. The front page of their website alone has more than enough proof on it to completely justify their guild, and everyone of their alt guilds, be erased from the server. Its full of pictures insulting and mocking our members, including proof they have someone inside our guild monitoring and reporting on our guild chat, and has a shoutbox full of constant celebration over their successful harassment of our guild.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Nonumbersfails