New players beware

[Collec]

This is not jjust for new players, but mostly directed at them and those unaware. Beware when you see someone posting in general chat ingame, how if you click their refferal link, they will pay you X million credits. What they never post, when they spam this, is that they ge 600t FREE CARTEL COINS every month you are subscribed for EACH player that clicks their links. And they always target starter planets such as Tython, Coruscant,Hutta,Korriban,Dromund Kaas ,where they know players are most likely new to the game and to get millions at start is like heaven for new players (and it's not hard these days to make credits ingame). But it is a scam: Because then they say,it's no big deal or scam,if both parties are happy. You'll never see them click your link,if it's no big deal. DO SOME RESEARCH BEFORE YOU CLICK ANYONES LINK !!!

 

1) It's a refer a friend , not players who are already playing game. Go outside of game and post your links there (forums,social media,etc.)

2) While you think you might get alot for just clicking their link, know this that they will turn those Cartel Coins into BILLIONS. While you might (and most probably will) spend some real life cash on Cartel Market, they will do that for FREE, buy stuff from Cartel Market and sell that then on gtn for millions upon millions. It's nothing wrong with that of course, but it's just an example of how they turn your 1 click on refferal link into their profit, while you don't get much out of it.

3) BW you need to somehow fix this. Ban those who spam "CLICK MY REFFERAL LINK" ingame. It's costing you money too. They never pay with real cash for Cartel Coins, so all those sales that you think you have...check again,how many are bought with free Cartel Coins from those click my link spammers.

4) Solution is simple..ban those spammers and somehow limit how many people you can refer or diminish Cartel Coinss after 50 players reffered,then again after 100 and so on. And for how long they get Cartel Coins.

5) Again refering people INSIDE GAME WHO ARE ALREADY PLAYING GAME in general chat should not be allowed unless they ask for link

[SteveTheCynic]

Accuracy is essential.

 

It's 500 CC for a first click, one time only (for the clicker), plus 100 CC a month if the clicker is already subscribed or subscribes within 14 days, until the subscription ends.

 

That is:

* Freddie joins the game, clicks a referral link, subscribes: the person whose link he clicked gets 500 now plus 100 a month.

* Jane does the same, and clicks the same link. The link's owner gets 500 for Jane plus 100 a month for Jane (and still the 100 a month for Freddie).

* Freddie drops his subscription. The 100 a month for Freddie's click ends but the 100 a month for Jane continues.

* More than 90 days later, Freddie comes back and clicks a other link and subscribes. This time, the link's owner gets just the 100 a month, but not the 500.

[UlaVii]

3) BW you need to somehow fix this. Ban those who spam "CLICK MY REFFERAL LINK" ingame. It's costing you money too. They never pay with real cash for Cartel Coins, so all those sales that you think you have...check again,how many are bought with free Cartel Coins from those click my link spammers.

...

5) Again refering people INSIDE GAME WHO ARE ALREADY PLAYING GAME in general chat should not be allowed unless they ask for link

Although you keep saying "in-game" I still can't help but notice your forum footer:

REFERRAL LINK : [i removed it in this post]

 

I think referral link spam in-game is crap. We have someone who does nothing except this on Darth Malgus. He tells his guild he sells the credits to gold spammers and him and his friends try to monopolize on it by denouncing anyone else that posts their link as scammers

[Xina_LA]

Accuracy is essential.

It's 500 CC for a first click, one time only (for the clicker), plus 100 CC a month if the clicker is already subscribed or subscribes within 14 days, until the subscription ends.

I never got 100CC a month for anyone subscribed that used my referral link,and I got enough referrals to get all the goodies. I get 100CC a month for having a security key on my account. Everything I received for people using my referral link was one time only.

 

Also, I got no CC if they were already subscribed, only credit towards the next tier of goodies.

 

Maybe they used to do it differently, but not in the last couple of years.

 

Of course, the system's so broken, maybe it's not supposed to work that way. Three of the referrals had to go through customer service because they didn't work at all.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Xina_LA

[SteveTheCynic]

I never got 100CC a month for anyone subscribed that used my referral link,and I got enough referrals to get all the goodies. I get 100CC a month for having a security key on my account. Everything I received for people using my referral link was one time only.

 

Also, I got no CC if they were already subscribed, only credit towards the next tier of goodies.

 

Maybe they used to do it differently, but not in the last couple of years.

 

Of course, the system's so broken, maybe it's not supposed to work that way. Three of the referrals had to go through customer service because they didn't work at all.

I have loads of people on my list who've provided way more than 500 CCs for the click itself. The last time I looked was a couple of weeks ago, and I found one person who's still subscribed and whose click has provided me with 3600 CCs in total. I wouldn't be surprised to find that some accounts are broken in some way, but I don't seem to have any problem getting CCs from referrals.

[Collec]

Although you keep saying "in-game" I still can't help but notice your forum footer:

 

 

I think referral link spam in-game is crap. We have someone who does nothing except this on Darth Malgus. He tells his guild he sells the credits to gold spammers and him and his friends try to monopolize on it by denouncing anyone else that posts their link as scammers

 

Yes it's in my signature...but I don't talk about it. Read forum rules. You can have it as far as I know,but not promote it or talk about it. It's just there...nothing else worth putting in signature...shall I do some lame rip-off quote from some movie that everyone else do?

 

And if that guy is selling credits to gold spammers, I think that is ground for ban,no? I never deal with that trash and as soon as I have mail about some gold spammer I just report it as harassment.

 

And I only gave my refferal link to my friend 2x and vice versa. I never spammed it ingame in genral chat. I did post it on some YouTube comments. And this is what I am saying...it should not be allowed to prey on new playrers on starter planets or any planet. Yes they spend whole day just spamming this...not every 5s, but I notice it alot of times. Even on fleet.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Collec

[UlaVii]

I never called you a hypocrite. I just pointed our the irony that you are passively doing what you want other people banned for. It's similar to how the referral link spammer on our server writes that everybody else doing it is scamming.

 

They should just remove them entirely and give the rewards to anyone new that is starting the game as default.

[JattaGin]

We have someone who does nothing except this on Darth Malgus. He tells his guild he sells the credits to gold spammers and him and his friends try to monopolize on it by denouncing anyone else that posts their link as scammers

 

Does he sell the credits for real-life money? Thus this referral link thingy is some kind of job for him?

 

In general, I don't really mind those referral link players - as long as they are honest about the deal, don't scam the people and actually pay the promised credits. I do think though that an information text like in this thread is a good thing. Someone could copy the link in-game if the topic comes up.

[Xina_LA]

I have loads of people on my list who've provided way more than 500 CCs for the click itself. The last time I looked was a couple of weeks ago, and I found one person who's still subscribed and whose click has provided me with 3600 CCs in total.

Good to know! Time for me to talk to customer support. It probably won't help, but it's worth a try.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Xina_LA

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

Accuracy is essential.

 

It's 500 CC for a first click, one time only (for the clicker), plus 100 CC a month if the clicker is already subscribed or subscribes within 14 days, until the subscription ends.

 

That is:

* Freddie joins the game, clicks a referral link, subscribes: the person whose link he clicked gets 500 now plus 100 a month.

* Jane does the same, and clicks the same link. The link's owner gets 500 for Jane plus 100 a month for Jane (and still the 100 a month for Freddie).

* Freddie drops his subscription. The 100 a month for Freddie's click ends but the 100 a month for Jane continues.

* More than 90 days later, Freddie comes back and clicks a other link and subscribes. This time, the link's owner gets just the 100 a month, but not the 500.

 

Is there anything about this game that you don't know?

 

I hereby grant you the title - GuRu of ToR Star Wars Land.

 

You're like the Encyclopedia Britannica SWTOR edition.

 

All you need now is a hotline and you're good to go!

[Collec]

I never called you a hypocrite. I just pointed our the irony that you are passively doing what you want other people banned for. It's similar to how the referral link spammer on our server writes that everybody else doing it is scamming.

 

They should just remove them entirely and give the rewards to anyone new that is starting the game as default.

 

Yes it's passive. I don't promote it,talk about it or spam it in game. And in game means,when you are logged in your character and are spamming it in general chat. And this is the last time I talk about my signature.

 

What BW should do is,if someone clicks your refferal link, you get 100 CC and 100 CC if they sub. If it's not a new players then only 100 for sub. And then that's it. No additional CC from subbed players that clicked your link. New players that do click should get something good yes to start game. But I am also ok for BW to just drop CC reward you get from someone clicking your link and just reward new players with some goodies.

[Collec]

Does he sell the credits for real-life money? Thus this referral link thingy is some kind of job for him?

 

In general, I don't really mind those referral link players - as long as they are honest about the deal, don't scam the people and actually pay the promised credits. I do think though that an information text like in this thread is a good thing. Someone could copy the link in-game if the topic comes up.

 

It is a scam. Go make some business, let someone give you 10k euros/dollars/whatever currency you want and then watch them profit millions and billions out of it just by you running your business and doing your own thing. How do people not see this? And by the way...the aren't honest about it. They spam "click my link" X millions for 1st time clicker, X for 2nd sub or whatever...they never mention, how they'll keep getting CC's every month that player is subbed, because then every general chat would be FLOODED with these spammers.

 

Whatever I said my peace.

[Ylliarus]

Yes it's in my signature...but I don't talk about it. Read forum rules. You can have it as far as I know,but not promote it or talk about it. It's just there...nothing else worth putting in signature...shall I do some lame rip-off quote from some movie that everyone else do?

 

And if that guy is selling credits to gold spammers, I think that is ground for ban,no? I never deal with that trash and as soon as I have mail about some gold spammer I just report it as harassment.

 

And I only gave my refferal link to my friend 2x and vice versa. I never spammed it ingame in genral chat. I did post it on some YouTube comments. And this is what I am saying...it should not be allowed to prey on new playrers on starter planets or any planet. Yes they spend whole day just spamming this...not every 5s, but I notice it alot of times. Even on fleet.

 

Eric Musco has said the practice is considered perfectly fine, as long as people do fulfill their end of the bargain and pay up the promised credits. The referral link can be posted in general chat ingame, it's considered a perfectly fine practice by Bioware and there's nowhere in the rules that says people can't do it. If that is how they want to gain CC, that is their right and you're railing against something that is not forbidden + spreading misinformation.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Ylliarus

[UlaVii]

Yes it's passive. I don't promote it,talk about it or spam it in game. And in game means,when you are logged in your character and are spamming it in general chat. And this is the last time I talk about my signature.

It is spam when it is displayed every time you post a reply in the forum. You have posted your referral link 4 times in this thread already but regardless, I never said you are a hypocrite.

 

I still say that the best thing they can do to stop these people that fuel gold spammers is to remove referral links entirely and give the rewards to anyone new that is starting the game as default. An alternative lesser solution would be to reward legacy locked items instead of CC.

[SteveTheCynic]

It is spam when it is displayed every time you post a reply in the forum. You have posted your referral link 4 times in this thread already but regardless, I never said you are a hypocrite.

No. The stated policy is that making good posts that contribute to the community is just fine, and it's still just fine if your referral link is in your signature block.

 

What's regarded as spam is posting either new threads or new posts that are clearly there just to spam your link, but in fact it doesn't matter what the link is, referral, Rickroll YouTube link, blog post, whatever, especially if you post the same thing multiple times.

[Ylliarus]

No. The stated policy is that making good posts that contribute to the community is just fine, and it's still just fine if your referral link is in your signature block.

 

What's regarded as spam is posting either new threads or new posts that are clearly there just to spam your link, but in fact it doesn't matter what the link is, referral, Rickroll YouTube link, blog post, whatever, especially if you post the same thing multiple times.

 

That may be the case on the forums, here you are not allowed to advertise referral links in forums posts or threads, only in your signature. However, you are not forbidden to advertise your referral link on genchat ingame. Frankly that's been even encouraged by Bioware, I recall Charles or Eric saying it in a livestream.

[SteveTheCynic]

That may be the case on the forums, here you are not allowed to advertise referral links in forums posts or threads, only in your signature. However, you are not forbidden to advertise your referral link on genchat ingame. Frankly that's been even encouraged by Bioware, I recall Charles or Eric saying it in a livestream.

Correct, but I was replying to someone talking about the forum rules.

[UlaVii]

I didn't say it was a forum rule. I said it was spam. It's my right to class it that way just as you feel the right to defend those who do it which sadly includes yourself.

 

The fact is BW clearly don't care about it as long as their moderators don't have to waste time clearing up the trash. The op wants them to ban the people who do it in-game but refuses to acknowledge they do the same with every forum post they make, because in their eyes it is different. Spam is spam. In this thread alone there have been 9 referral links posted and when you post your rebuttal of my reply there will be 10

 

On a side note, are you a moderator on the SWTOR Reddit?

[SteveTheCynic]

I didn't say it was a forum rule. I said it was spam. It's my right to class it that way just as you feel the right to defend those who do it which sadly includes yourself.

Of course you can call it spam. That doesn't mean that the forum moderation policies agree with you, and unfortunately (for you), in this subject, the forum moderation policies' definition of spam matters, and yours does not. (My definition doesn't matter either, mind you.) Posts made *to promote* any kind of link, as previously mentioned, are classed as "link spam", which isn't allowed. A post made to contribute to a debate, and which contains a link relevant to the discussion, of course, is not link spam, and there is a specific exception made for "contributory" posts that have links (of any kind) in the forum signature block, provided that the posts are not of the "hey guys, click the link in my signature" type.

The fact is BW clearly don't care about it as long as their moderators don't have to waste time clearing up the trash. The op wants them to ban the people who do it in-game but refuses to acknowledge they do the same with every forum post they make, because in their eyes it is different. Spam is spam. In this thread alone there have been 9 referral links posted and when you post your rebuttal of my reply there will be 10

The cited fact is not a fact and the reason you can tell they care is that there are rules against link spam (think: if they really didn't care, they'd remove the rules, and the forums would drown in a sea of link spam. The moderators do, indeed, have to spend time clearing up "here's my link, please click it" posts, and that is just one of the things that can be reported using the Report button above every post.

On a side note, are you a moderator on the SWTOR Reddit?

On a side note, absolutely not. What is the relevance of this question to, well, anything?

[UlaVii]

Of course you can call it spam. That doesn't mean that the forum moderation policies agree with you, and unfortunately (for you), in this subject, the forum moderation policies' definition of spam matters, and yours does not. (My definition doesn't matter either, mind you.)

Personally I don't really care if people feel the need to spam every post they make with their referral link, even if it's tastelessly done in all caps to draw attention to it as the original poster has. I posted here because I thought it was very funny and ironic that they want other people who do the same in-game to be banned. If they feel that strongly about it then they should sort themselves out first.

 

The cited fact is not a fact and the reason you can tell they care is that there are rules against link spam (think: if they really didn't care, they'd remove the rules, and the forums would drown in a sea of link spam. The moderators do, indeed, have to spend time clearing up "here's my link, please click it" posts, and that is just one of the things that can be reported using the Report button above every post.

I think you misunderstood what I said but that was probably due to the way I wrote it. I meant that they don't care about referral link spam itself as long as it is not flooding the forum. So footers and in-game junk is fine by them but the entire first 3 pages of the forum being separate "Click my link" threads is a no-no as it would give the moderators a lot of extra cleaning work to do. We both seem to agree on that.

 

The entire "Refer A Friend" system is crap:

 

 

• It results in a lot of extra spam in fleet chat
  
• It results in footer link spam (we're up to 10 in this thread already)
  
• Several referral links spammers use multiple characters and regularly create new ones to get around being on people's ignore lists
  
• It feeds the gold sellers since people like the main one on my server sell them their credits for real world currency
  
• People get upset when they get ripped off and there is no official support or moderation e.g. you can't complain to CS when a link spammer does not honor their end of the agreement
  
• Frequent arguments in fleet chat when one refer a link spammer calls another a scammer after they post (although it's strangely amusing to watch spammers fight)
  
• Most people who spam it are not "Referring a friend" unless you go by the "Every stranger is a friend you have not met yet" philosophy
  

 

The only positive is that new players get some goodies which again goes back to me saying Bioware should scrap the system and just give those items to new players as an Introduction mail.

 

On a side note, absolutely not. What is the relevance of this question to, well, anything?

It wasn't relevant to the post which is why I said it was a side note. It was just because of a couple of things you said which were similar to recent comments made by some of the Reddit mods. I was just curious if you were one of those mods carrying the same problems to this forum in which case I would of taken it to private messages. Sorry, I didn't mean to insult you.

 

Anyhow, I'll leave you people who spam every forum post you make with your referral link to talk about how people who do the same in-game are bad and should be banned

 

P.S. I like a lot of your posts SteveTheCynic, it's just on this one I disagree with your defense of the practice.

[JJKerryee]

You say you want to warn new players about what everyone gets and that's fine, both parts should know exactly what each one is getting, before making the deal.

 

As long as both parts are aware of everything, there is no problem in advertising your referral code as long as you don't spam it or do it in the forums. Other than that, it is even encouraged by the devs.

 

What the OP is implying is that even if both parts know everything, it is still a scam, but it really isn't. How can someone be scammed if they know exactly what they're getting and what they're giving? Also, let's not forget that no one ever loses anything.

 

A real scam would be advertising your code for free and not mentioning that there are a bunch of people out there who would give 6 to 7 million credits for them.

[SteveTheCynic]

You say you want to warn new players about what everyone gets and that's fine, both parts should know exactly what each one is getting, before making the deal.

 

As long as both parts are aware of everything, there is no problem in advertising your referral code as long as you don't spam it or do it in the forums. Other than that, it is even encouraged by the devs.

 

What the OP is implying is that even if both parts know everything, it is still a scam, but it really isn't. How can someone be scammed if they know exactly what they're getting and what they're giving? Also, let's not forget that no one ever loses anything.

 

A real scam would be advertising your code for free and not mentioning that there are a bunch of people out there who would give 6 to 7 million credits for them.

The usual scam (or at least dishonesty) is the people who say "I pay X million if you click my link", but who, once the link is clicked, they do not pay.

[SteveTheCynic]

* People get upset when they get ripped off and there is no official support or moderation e.g. you can't complain to CS when a link spammer does not honor their end of the agreement

Actually, you can complain. They won't necessarily ban or suspend the spammer, but it is possible to get them to cancel the referral, apparently, if it's clear that the promised credits were not provided. (CS can access the server logs to see that no exchange of credits happened and that the link spammer promised credits.) It does require a bit of luck, as with all CS requests, of course.

Edited February 9, 2019 by SteveTheCynic