Currently there seems to be a single company that is spamming players on every server with their web adress. I would like to suggest that you make intelligent use of the censor system to stop them.
It would take 5 minutes of your time to add their web adress to the list of censored in game words. This would make it impossible for them to blatantly ignore the rules and promote their web site like they have done up until now.
It's very frustrating for legal players to see this issue being ignored month after month. It takes hours if not days for a spammer to get banned and in a couple of hours he's back to spam the same message with a new account.
Getting spammed in private PMs is a constant reminder of the bad situation in L2. Please, you need to take action.
I wholeheartedly agree, it's absolutely disgusting that this website is intruding our gaming privacy and perverting it with their insufferable pm's to "Buy Adena".
First of all who the hell do these guys think they are, and secondly how on earth do they get a hold of your characters names? I am utterly bewildered and ever-so-slightly bemused at how they are doing it, and how they are getting away with doing it, constantly and consistently.
I have never had any pm's in the past with regards to such an activity, neither has a lot of my friends and they are experiencing the same problem; and it all started within the past 24hours.
It's no good blocking them, another random alphanumeric name just pm's you 30minutes later, and you cant tell them to 'piss off' so-to-speak because they log before you even get the chance.
Eggy, I think we all know that web adress by now. It's been hammered into our skulls. But I suggest you edit your post and censor the adress before you get banned from the forums...
I agree - just block the website from chat - but they could get around this by putting in spaces between the letters - but then we would know that NC is doing something about it.
Just for kicks I went to the site to see if I could request them not to spam my toons and they have this listed:
Warning: MMOSpa agents will NEVER contact you via in-game email or whisper unless delivering. Please ignore all contact from ANYONE on behalf of us.
LOL!!!! I wish they would go play in heavy traffic.
Eggy, I think we all know that web adress by now. It's been hammered into our skulls. But I suggest you edit your post and censor the adress before you get banned from the forums...
Regardless of whether people know the website or not i think its only fair to those who do not know to exploit the source of the problem...
...but for the sake of good grace, and for the sake of following forum guidelines the URL has been edited.
Careful Cabbie, alot of times they setup "fronts" so to speak and when you visit their sites (for whatever reason) they install a trojan into your system intent on stealing your password.
I agree - just block the website from chat - but they could get around this by putting in spaces between the letters - but then we would know that NC is doing something about it.
Just for kicks I went to the site to see if I could request them not to spam my toons and they have this listed:
Warning: ****** agents will NEVER contact you via in-game email or whisper unless delivering. Please ignore all contact from ANYONE on behalf of us.
LOL!!!! I wish they would go play in heavy traffic.
I asked them even after I saw that message and I was supriced that it worked (had to ask 3 times). I haven't recieved any advertisment on any of my chars for weeks.
I left a shop in Giran not long ago and saw an agent in Giran collecting names and I got a PM from it advertising a new web-site so I went over to their site and they refused that it was theirs so I said "fine, then you won't mind that I have /gm'ed the char"...I have never seen a support staff close the chat so fast in my life after I said that lol
Careful Cabbie, alot of times they setup "fronts" so to speak and when you visit their sites (for whatever reason) they install a trojan into your system intent on stealing your password.
Be wary.
True...be sure you have updated Spyware, Antivirus and Firewall before going to any site that is being advertised...and run a Hijackthis check after you have rebooted your computer just to be sure nothing runs in the backround that you don't know about.
Eggy, I think we all know that web adress by now. It's been hammered into our skulls. But I suggest you edit your post and censor the adress before you get banned from the forums...
After thoroughly reading the Forum Rules/Guidelines, i see in no way in which i was breaching any code of conduct by mentioning the name of the site (i may be mistaken and maybe i have overlooked it feel free to correct me if i am wrong ^_^), and in all fairness i stand by my reasoning that i believe those who do not know of it SHOULD know of it, nothing more than the purpose of raising awareness.
I am a dedicated member of the L2 community and try to contribute to the forums via giving comprehensive and reasonable advice and/or personal opinions to subjects that affect either me or fellow members.
The post shall remain edited, as i said for the sake of good grace but i stand firm in my belief.
... but again i digress, the actions of the site are unacceptable, which is something i am sure we all can agree on... that is all.
lol, I can't imagine NC doing something against these PMs.
Turbine is working very hard to stop the spammers in LOTRO, trial PM restrictions, ignore and report spammer, filtres, etc.
I don't know if NC can do these things, because all the programers are in Korea :p
Warning: MMOSpa agents will NEVER contact you via in-game email or whisper unless delivering. Please ignore all contact from ANYONE on behalf of us.
That shows an incredible dedication on the part of these completely independant spammers, who obviously have nothing to gain from what they're doing XD
Warning: MMOSpa agents will NEVER contact you via in-game email or whisper unless delivering. Please ignore all contact from ANYONE on behalf of us.
That shows an incredible dedication on the part of these completely independant spammers, who obviously have nothing to gain from what they're doing XD
Don't believe everything you read on the internet. The spammers are theirs...they will talk to you about their "agents" that does it if you ask them.
Actually, I don't know if any of you have noticed this yet:
You actually get a lot more peace if you DON'T report the spammers. /block them, don't report them. If they aren't kicked and banned, they don't have to create a new name, and the name that you /blocked CONTINUES to do the shouting.
I was reporting them pretty religiously until I realized that after I ran out of petitions, I would go a few hours until I got another pm...
We need an active client side filter for incoming messages. I'd be so happy to add their website to my filter and I won't see those message. Yup, it's going to lag.
Other way is to prevent private messages for trial accounts unless they are in your friends list.
NC should add another feature besides the block all option and make them both similar to how they have auto decline duels in the game options. A check box so you don't have to type /blockall every time you log on.
Something like, only accept pm's from clan/ally members and friends list would suffice.
This could help somewhat in combating these evil doers.
i do not read tham anymore, but its really annoying whan i pm with someone and that "nice person" jumps into it, or im reading some spam in party/clan/ally and than hups... looong massage apears ... its just %@$@#$@%^@%
and no you can only block only all, if you block one by one they just pm you with different names again and again, and block all is not a solution :mad:
In the beginning i /gm'ed all the pm's i got. Now i have given up on that, so i just ignore them all.
I suggested earlier that NCsoft whould disable the creation of free accounts, untill they could cope with the problem. It's so annoying with the messages. :mad:
Currently there seems to be a single company that is spamming players on every server with their web adress.
Actually, there seem to be a second (Russian one) concentrating on spamming the white chat (in transliterated Russian, again) in Giran, advertising cheap adena, powerlevelling services, and so on - at least on Teon. Can't tell if they're active on the other servers.
Currently there seems to be a single company that is spamming players on every server with their web adress.
Actually, there seem to be a second (Russian one) concentrating on spamming the white chat (in transliterated Russian, again) in Giran, advertising cheap adena, powerlevelling services, and so on - at least on Teon. Can't tell if they're active on the other servers.
Curiously, their web site is hosted in Malaysia.
Yup there is one in Aden too and the pm'in is getting really out of hand now, I'm getting them once every 10/20 mins now, and i know lot of ppl are getting them too.. and while AD selllers have always been around, they are waayyyyyyyyyyyy more of them in the last ~6 months imo. their breeding like frisky Elpies!
Isn't this issue totally solvable? Its widely known these spam pms are sent from trial accounts. If they make it so that trial accounts can only PM people on their friend list, this issue would be totally avoided. God knows, they put enough other restrictions in the game, this one seems reasonable.
I'd also like to know why on earth our block list is limited? If they're not making any progress in stopping the spammers, they should at least give us a way to stop them from annoying us (without limit).
Can we get them outta game please i hate logging in and soon as i'm in game that is 1st thing on my chat bar is a pm from those companys. either put it on billboards or take outta game please cuz it is agravating trying to pm friends and that crap interfering with it.
(Note from Alyra: Please don't post links to these sites. In doing such, you are advertising for them, and will be banned from the forums if it occurs again.)
Not only are we getting spam about buying adena in our own game, Ive gotten pm's about buying gold in WoW. If I happen to be crafting and see a pm come thru I just msg them back: HI! Welcome to L2. You have been reported. Have a nice day! Now, they log out immediately after pm'ing me though.
My solution to the **** problem was to go to their site and ask their live suport to remove me from their list...after I did that I no longer get the unwanted spam from them.
I think the GMs are banning them, but they use so many triall account (btw where are they finding them??) that it's hard to keep up.
I would love to know how the hell they know I am even in game half of the time.
Yesterday I logged in, where I was hunting the day before.......in the middle of nowhere, not one person in sight.
First friggin message I get.
Please buy our adena blah blah blah........
OMG you gotta be kidding me.
My toon isnt clanned and has nobody on its friend list to even see I logged in.
How did they know ?
They run a script with 1000s of names that they run through every 10min or so PMing everyone on that list...if you happen to be online you will get the PM
I started pming them back with various forms of F U. I did it over and over and over again. Just under the chat ban.
After a day of doing this to every different name I quit getting them. I guess they dont like getting spammed back, and what are they going to do report me? Now that would be insanely funny.
Every time i got a pm from the "shall not be names" company i would quickly reply with some sort of response, ranging from slander to quirky comments.
On a serious note i am very disappointed that NCSoft hasn't given the community any official response on there actions they are taking against this mass-pm group.
Personally i can handle spam if i have the option to block it, but a form of spam where we cannot block it is breaching the harassment section of L2's EULA, This is beyond just annoyance.
I hope NCSoft is taking note and will at least publish a comment to the community about what there going to do.
It's an incredibly easy fix. just make trial accounts unable to pm. They can still chat with friends if they are real players in a bunch of ways. friendlist chat, msn(ingame even) voice-com
I really don't know why this hasn't been done already.
There is a similar problem growing: there are some non-english bots that spam in normal chat their ads. Initially they were standing near Giran GK but now I see them in MRT and Aden too.
We cannot /block so many, especially when they have such well-loved names as HiijVv0OmJn.
ps: I really find it funny that legit users risk getting a ban when they refer to these. Alyra, I understand you follow the letter of the politically correct rules but some common sense wouldn't hurt.
I used to get these all the time, last couple of days though I havent gotten any at all, and I have been mostly in shop mode in Giran.... maybe they run out of free trial accounts? :p
1. Allow trial accounts to only REPLY to PMs, not start PMs.
2. When I have a toon targeted, make it possible to report them for botting, spamming, advertising or for being an elf with a simple command that is NOT using a petition and NOT needs their name to be typed in. I got it targeted, that should be enough. ... As the text we put into petitions is absolutely meaningless anyway, we could just make our life (and GM life easier).
I think everyone should post the websites that are advertised here. If it's good enough to display in game it should be good enough to display here. Perhaps then they'll start blocking them.
So, every time you get one, post it with the name of the toon.
In sheer frustration at the lack of action in L2 (both support and on Sieghardt) I have started playing WoW. I came across a toon spamming an advert for a gold selling sight. I right clicked his name in the chat list, selected "Report Spammer" then blocked him in the same way.
Logged back in two hours later and the spammer was "removed from my block list as the character no longer existed". So not only was the toon banned, but they tidied up my Ignore List for me as well.
I'm totally sick of this too. I report every one. Sometimes, I've gotten so many spams that the GM's reply that they allready have a petition from me on the issue and close the petition. :mad: It isn't the same petition its a different name.
Seriously, is this even a problem anymore? I can't remember when I was spammed by any seller.
Go and sit in Giran with a couple of rechargers whilst you make soulshots. You'll soon find out if it's a problem or not.
i sit in giran selling my stuff pretty well every day. i havent had a spam ad in over a week. i have one channel that ive marked for JUST PM. and its nearly always empty nowadays except for the occasional person trying to bargain with my AFK shop.
Seriously, is this even a problem anymore? I can't remember when I was spammed by any seller.
Go and sit in Giran with a couple of rechargers whilst you make soulshots. You'll soon find out if it's a problem or not.
i sit in giran selling my stuff pretty well every day. i havent had a spam ad in over a week. i have one channel that ive marked for JUST PM. and its nearly always empty nowadays except for the occasional person trying to bargain with my AFK shop.
Well bully for you. It's quite obvious that other people's experiences don't match yours. Just because a problem doesn't affect you doesn't mean it isn't there.
I find it interesting that the adena spammers not only had my selling toon's name, but as soon as I logged on my main I got one on him. I spend most of my time elsewhere. How in the hell do they have all my toons and do I get automatic pms when I switch toons?
Like I said before I spam them back now and it has stopped. My favorite was the adena seller who was posted in the looking for party window advertising. I reported it, but it stayed up for several hours. Talk about having some balls. Is NCsoft that powerless or is it a lack of concern?
Um i don't understand how they can get away with advertising like this in game and i get told i can't make new players aware of the website we are talking about here on the forums but ohh well i can at least get away with making it known in game to the new players i have met so they become very aware of the problem and know that ncsoft is aware of it and has been hard at work developing a cure to block any and all adena shop spammers so us as the lineage 2 community can go back to gaming in peace.
If ya can't censor it start advertising it on billboards in game so we at least stop getting harrassed in pm's from it.
I heard Blizzard just won a lawsuit against gold farmers spamming on WoW, maybe that will push NCSoft to hire some lawyers and do the same.
It would be easier and cheaper to fix the code than hire lawyers. They can shut down one website but in an hour another will be up to take its place.
@kitten
1. Allow trial accounts to only REPLY to PMs, not start PMs.
This sounds good but I prefer that trial accounts can't send any pm to anyone not in their friends list. Or no PM at all and with a friend list they can use the ingame mesenger.
You realize you get spammed there too right? Also e-mails.
I am not so naive to believe that these things don't go on. However, you have to look at how the company handles them. Like someone above said, they get banned & deleted.
As an example, I used to petition people that spam !WTS with lengths that are impossible with the official client. They never got banned. Ever. The length of the shout is absolute, irrefutable proof of using a third party client yet nothing happened to them. This is not customer service.
I find it interesting that the adena spammers not only had my selling toon's name, but as soon as I logged on my main I got one on him. I spend most of my time elsewhere. How in the hell do they have all my toons and do I get automatic pms when I switch toons?
It may be possible but I doubt they know when you switch toons. They probably just mass PM 1000's of names and both of your toons is on the list.
As an example, I used to petition people that spam !WTS with lengths that are impossible with the official client. They never got banned. Ever. The length of the shout is absolute, irrefutable proof of using a third party client yet nothing happened to them.
+1 to that. I have even taken a watch and timed their shouts. Then I wrote petitions like "ijsdklww is shouting a 3-line message every exactly 20 seconds for the last 5 minutes, please ban him".
I had even a live chat with a GM (!!) about a year ago, telling him the exact details of who/where/what. He told me "I'm going to investigate now" but the bot was still there the next day.
As an example, I used to petition people that spam !WTS with lengths that are impossible with the official client. They never got banned. Ever. The length of the shout is absolute, irrefutable proof of using a third party client yet nothing happened to them.
+1 to that. I have even taken a watch and timed their shouts. Then I wrote petitions like "ijsdklww is shouting a 3-line message every exactly 20 seconds for the last 5 minutes, please ban him".
I had even a live chat with a GM (!!) about a year ago, telling him the exact details of who/where/what. He told me "I'm going to investigate now" but the bot was still there the next day.
I have seen and talked to botters that shout:
<font class="small">Code:<hr /><pre>charname: +++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++SELLING+++++++
+++++++++item1++++++++
+++++++++item2++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++</pre><hr />
Every 5 min for hours and they tell me they are using the ingame macro to shout it and when I show them what is the maximum the client can send and what is the maximum of the macro I sometimes see this in the chat:
And then they still try to convince me that they used the in game macros and the real client to spam:
<font class="small">Code:<hr /><pre>charname: +++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++SELLING+++++++
+++++++++item1++++++++
+++++++++item2++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++</pre><hr />
LOL and the GMs don't find the lenght of the text in the shout or any other chat channel a proof of 3rd party program use...WTH????
Uhm, you can just use break line to make the message much longer. And if you have a programmable keyboard, not that hard to make macros that are way over the ingame ones. And as long as you're present, they're not even forbidden.
Charmille, we are referring to a single shout which has 3+ full lines of text (not even shift-click item descriptions). Number of steps in a macro or times it repeats is irrelevant.
It is just not possible to write such a line using the client or the in-game macro system or a macro on your programmable keyboard that emulates typing.
Example:
WTS Draconic Bow, Carnage bow, Blue Wolf Tunic, Blue Wolf Helmet, Blue Wolf Stockings, Battle Manual Scorn, SB Invigor for PPs, Plated Leather Boots, Soul Bow Staves CHEAP /target me in Giran Square
Charmille, we are referring to a single shout which has 3+ full lines of text (not even shift-click item descriptions). Number of steps in a macro or times it repeats is irrelevant.
It is just not possible to write such a line using the client or the in-game macro system or a macro on your programmable keyboard that emulates typing.
Example:
WTS Draconic Bow, Carnage bow, Blue Wolf Tunic, Blue Wolf Helmet, Blue Wolf Stockings, Battle Manual Scorn, SB Invigor for PPs, Plated Leather Boots, Soul Bow Staves CHEAP /target me in Giran Square
Try to write all that in a single line...
It was possible atleast in Interlude. Havent tried now.
Do you know the break line mark? It looks like /W and with it, you could make mega long chat messages. With your name appearing only once. Apparently they've fixed it atleast on some systems, but it is still there :)