I've alerted the GM team and they will be upping their patrols to identify and remove these characters. Please feel free to /gm report them if you see they aren't being removed quickly.
the best way to deal with those spammers is to do an Ingame petition
To create a petition, write the "/gm" command. Then select the type "Report a Bad User" and choose "On Fraud"
A good message is simple and clear for me : " [name of the toon] is shouting for a RMT site at [location] on [Server Name]"
It's clear, and GMs could act fast.
Exemple : " ISellAdenaaaaaa is shouting for a RMT site at Giran GK on Aria"
I always do that when I see any spammer, and I always get a response in less than one hour. And spammers vanish ;)
Thanks for letting us know. Which server are you seeing them on? Anyone on other servers seeing these more often?
Thanks!
-Moxie
Happens on Phoenix last couple of nights. I GM'd a few and they were taken out within minutes, but they were also replaced by new ones just moments later.
They are on the Bartz server too. but strangely on chars who i havent logged onto in months i log them on and they have a mail from one of the adena peole saying to buy there adena at blah blah blah site site site. make em go away GMs MAKE EM GO AWAY!!! :(
I've alerted the GM team and they will be upping their patrols to identify and remove these characters. Please feel free to /gm report them if you see they aren't being removed quickly.
Thanks all for your reports!
-Moxie
I have question to U.
can u tell us how many Gms working for Ncsoft (lower range gms)
im asking because for me its bit weird fact U need to alert GM's team..
so it means they not loging at least once or twice time a day on each server to check whats going on:)?
and if gms not playing/loging l2 not wonder when we petition about problem in game Gms cant help us..because they dont know game mechanics..
ps
Im sure if our Gms are busy Ncsoft can create few extras accounts/players with gm status to control situation on server..of corse 'choosen' gms cant have same status as full work GM..but i think they can have some privilages to kick/raport bots/spammers adena/maybe block pms or something
and of corse 'all their action' should be monitored to avoid situation with abusing their power/privilages
im prety sure many ppl here can/want help U, Just give them chance:)
I have question to U.
can u tell us how many Gms working for Ncsoft (lower range gms)
im asking because for me its bit weird fact U need to alert GM's team..
so it means they not loging at least once or twice time a day on each server to check whats going on:)?
and if gms not playing/loging l2 not wonder when we petition about problem in game Gms cant help us..because they dont know game mechanics..
ps
Im sure if our Gms are busy Ncsoft can create few extras accounts/players with gm status to control situation on server..of corse 'choosen' gms cant have same status as full work GM..but i think they can have some privilages to kick/raport bots/spammers adena/maybe block pms or something
and of corse 'all their action' should be monitored to avoid situation with abusing their power/privilages
im prety sure many ppl here can/want help U, Just give them chance:)
Hi there,
This is a great question! We have a full staff of GM's who monitor the game (both in-game and via logs) 24 hours, everyday. Since we re-introduced the free trial accounts, they have been monitoring towns everyday at regular intervals to identify and remove spammers. The spam tends to go in cycles, where we'll see an influx like we have currently and then it will slow down to nothing for awhile. When we see more activity, the GM's patrol the towns more often. When there isn't much activity, they still patrol, but not as often, so they can make better use of their time.
When I noted I alerted the GM's, I'd spoken to the lead GM to let him know about the reports here. Before I'd mentioned anything and before this thread even existed, our pro GM, GM Pommo had already identified and banned almost 100 accounts. So yes, they were already quite aware of it. :)
Hopefully you'll notice that they are removed fairly quickly. If you see a spammer in town before your buff round and again for your next buff round, they are probably different characters. If the same one is in-game for a longer amount of time, please take a second to report them with the /gm report. We get them as fast as we can, but it doesn't hurt to petition.
Moxie, if I can suggest smth, make auto chat ban for every text with .com .org .net etc on "!" "+" chat :)
If there will be again spammers doing same but with for example blablabla[.]com, make auto chat ban for "[.]" too.
In my opinion it should help but you are the GM :D
if you could archive the adena seller web sites, you might be able to add them to a database of censored words... but i'm sure they will just find a way around it...
..." oh, sorrry, just remove the space before com."
I've alerted the GM team and they will be upping their patrols to identify and remove these characters. Please feel free to /gm report them if you see they aren't being removed quickly.
Thanks all for your reports!
-Moxie
Did you get a canned response when you "alerted" them? Or did you reach over and slap them with a SuperSoaker?
if you could archive the adena seller web sites, you might be able to add them to a database of censored words... but i'm sure they will just find a way around it...
..." oh, sorrry, just remove the space before com."
buyjunkonline. com...
I fairly sure they know who is responsible and from what IP's they are doing it from what locations. After all, they have been hard at work on the update and the website. :rolleyes:
I've alerted the GM team and they will be upping their patrols to identify and remove these characters. Please feel free to /gm report them if you see they aren't being removed quickly.
Thanks all for your reports!
-Moxie
You should have them patrol GC a little more often considering those SS earlier....
had 3 in giran earlier...
it seemed as soon as one was banned, another would show up, or maybe it was just logging when it detected a gm, then relogging another toon to continue...
they all had similar names.
i found the site name particularly interesting, although i don't think i can say it here...
is it true if you go to those web sites you will be banned even if ou don't buy any services?
Thanks for letting us know. Which server are you seeing them on? Anyone on other servers seeing these more often?
Thanks!
-Moxie
I just re-subscribed to the game this past week. The adena sellers have been in town every day nonstop all week. I hope this isn't an indication of the state of the game right now. :mad:
Farmers usually switch toons constantly, not because they're banned, but because players in game ignore/block them as well.
They do it in WoW as well. You'll get a PM from them, and when you go to block them, they're offline. 1 minute later you'll get a PM from another toon.
No use staying online when 80% of the people in the area have you on their ignore list.
Plus, most of those are trial accounts, so they don't care.
On Aria, there seems to have been a sudden increase in EMT spammers. I'm not sure if it's because it's the weekend or not. All week there was spam leading to the same website, but not long ago, another website popped in and their spam is unbelievable. No one can get a word in edge-wise.
I agree with Fidgit on the idea of adding these URL's to the in-game chat filter. In fact, there is NO excuse for not doing so... none. There's not a single time in-game where someone will legitimately be posting these URL's, so what's the point of letting them through, day after day, and year after year? I see the SAME sites being spammed in-game now as in year's past.
Those are the two most common methods I see spammers using, and while I'm using generic terms here, the real website names generally don't include adena or purchase in the title, so there's little risk that a real message is going to be blocked.
Edit: Ironically, the fake URL I put in was originally blocked my the forums... the place the filter isn't even needed.
Edit, the sequel: By the time I wrote this post and looked back in the game, the spammer was gone. Good work NC :D
What i dont understand is the logic behind this. If the servers are losing players, if the market prices are falling, if the farmers are very few and far between, how come the adena is so cheap ? In Franz i saw about 100 usd a billion. Used to be about 80-90 but since then prices were cut to a third and lower in general.
Also, how can they have customers with this population ? This bothers me for some time.
I never received mails lately, used to be much worse in the past, also no PMs but in giran there are 3 adena companies competing.
M
is it true if you go to those web sites you will be banned even if ou don't buy any services?
No. I used to go to the RMT site to check prices for adena, i used that as a guide as to how much was being sold, and from that changed my in-game item prices accordingly.
It was also an indication of how many bot trains/ people selling adena to the sites were active as the lower the price, the more adena they had.
I remember seeing a website that had a kind of Nasdaq/FTSE index for us$ vs Adena shwoing what the trends were. and the famous L2 Warehouse site had a G20 index for the 20 most common items (iron/bone etc), to show trends in in-game items vs adena.
You will however most likely get banned if you buy something from the RMT site, so don't.
I agree with Fidgit on the idea of adding these URL's to the in-game chat filter. In fact, there is NO excuse for not doing so... none. There's not a single time in-game where someone will legitimately be posting these URL's, so what's the point of letting them through, day after day, and year after year?
Simply adding the URL to a blacklist isn't very effective. Since trial accounts cost the low, low price of $0, there's no reason why they can't change the URL up. Alternating spaces, random characters, etc.
The blacklist would be over 1,000 entries just for censoring like 5 websites.
Simply adding the URL to a blacklist isn't very effective. Since trial accounts cost the low, low price of $0, there's no reason why they can't change the URL up. Alternating spaces, random characters, etc.
The blacklist would be over 1,000 entries just for censoring like 5 websites.
That's true, but something has to be done about this. Since I made that post, there have been spammers of the exact same sort in Giran every single time I've been in that town.
It blows me away that they've timed their spam SO perfectly that they never even get chat banned, but me, sometimes when I'm talking to a friend, I end up talking so fast that I get chat banned. And it's not like I'm spamming the EXACT SAME message over and over and over
The in-game chat ban feature is useless. If it could at least detect that the same or similar messages were being spit through, then I'd have to imagine that the spam would be cut down significantly... not remain an absolute constant as it is now. It's stupid that I have to go to Party chat or something like that whenever heading into Giran, just to avoid this mass spamming, when there are a billion simple solutions to help remedy the situation.
with most players on the servers buying adena + what better way to market there product?
No adena buyers = no adena sellers?
in my opinion the chats not any worse then the priests of doom spamming....don't stand in range of white chat if it bugs u that much, being sent mail i found alot more annoying tho.
It blows me away that they've timed their spam SO perfectly that they never even get chat banned, but me, sometimes when I'm talking to a friend, I end up talking so fast that I get chat banned. And it's not like I'm spamming the EXACT SAME message over and over and over
They're clearing using a chat bot/macro and have it tuned right underneath the threshold.
The problem is, if you start looking for recurring lines you might nip a few people who are using a WTB/WTS macro. Which might be worth it if the problem is severe enough. Although now that I think about it, you could have a heavier chat ban policy on trial accounts. Make a little method that tracks and looks for recurring phrases that are over ~8 characters long (to avoid detecting things like "lol", etc).
Something should be done about it, but they don't bother me too much. Then again, I don't spend a whole lot of time in Giran, and when I do I completely ignore white chat anyway (especially since all chat in Giran happens in shout/trade regardless).
in my opinion the chats not any worse then the priests of doom spamming....don't stand in range of white chat if it bugs u that much, being sent mail i found alot more annoying tho.
So, just because someone doesn't like the spamming, they should just stand outside of range? Seriously? Whose side are you on, exactly?
I completely agree that the NPC spam is annoying though, and it should be tackled. But given it's been the same way for years, I don't quite see a fix for that in the near-future.
The problem is, if you start looking for recurring lines you might nip a few people who are using a WTB/WTS macro.
That's absolutely true, but to be fair, very few sellers "spam" at such a high rate, and honestly, if they did, they likewise should be chat banned as well. There's no need whatsoever to send through the same message over and over. I see short bursts of the same message four times over, and I don't have a real problem with it, but that's incredibly tame compared to some of this gold-selling spam.
I have to wonder why these gold-selling websites even strive to be so intrusive and annoying. The message once every half a minute is still noticeable, because after all, the text includes a URL, and those tend to stand out. I just don't understand their reasoning to spam the SAME exact message up to 20 times per minute. I've been tempted to e-mail the sites to politely ask them to tone it down, but for some reason I can't imagine these kinds of people are those who enjoy simple reasoning.
The potential solutions I see are:
A) Introduce certain penalties on trial accounts. To my knowledge, there are no penalties whatsoever on trial accounts, and that's a stark contrast to any other MMO I've ever seen. Most have penalties of some sort, and given that the spam is a real problem here, that seems like a natural issue to tackle.
B) Filter out all known gold-selling website URL's. Yes, spammers can get around such filters, but that's no excuse for not taking the first step and simply filtering out the unaltered website URL. If the filters become annoying enough to these spammers, then we're going to reach a time where they basically have to spam such a bizarre-looking URL, that they might not even bother (yeah, I'll keep dreaming).
C) Add the ability for people to add their own per-client filters. Given that I am constantly seeing the EXACT same websites being spammed in Giran, it'd be great to add those to a personal filter, which would in effect make it so that I wouldn't see ANY spam from that particular spammer whatsoever. I wouldn't just not see the URL, I wouldn't see the entire message from that person, making it completely transparent.
A) Introduce certain penalties on trial accounts. To my knowledge, there are no penalties whatsoever on trial accounts, and that's a stark contrast to any other MMO I've ever seen. Most have penalties of some sort, and given that the spam is a real problem here, that seems like a natural issue to tackle.
Trail accounts can't PM, interact with player shops or craft shops, can't trade with players, can't mail, can't get passed 40, can't use any chat but white chat and... uh.. that's all I can think of at the moment.
is it true if you go to those web sites you will be banned even if ou don't buy any services?
I doubt ncsoft could tell if you visited one of those sites (haha unless they run them :p)
But...everyone should be made aware that those adena sites commonly give you trojans/keyloggers just by visiting the site :mad: don't do it unless you want to get hacked and stripped :o
I'm not sure if this idea has been mentioned before but I notice the adena spammers use a shout and dance macro. I think if macro privilages were taken away from trial accounts this could solve the problem. :)
Thanks for letting us know. Which server are you seeing them on? Anyone on other servers seeing these more often?
Thanks!
-Moxie
I've reported about 20+ spammers, and yet I get the same reply from a GM in return.
Is it really that hard to use //kick NAME?
Or use //teleportto NAME -> Wait 2 min, see the spam, use the uber ALT+G gm console to check out their informations and get them banned? Is it that hard to trace it back to their main accounts and suspend those aswell?
I could ofcourse make a positive reply, but after reporting them so much, there is not much left except negative feelings about this....
I'm not sure if this idea has been mentioned before but I notice the adena spammers use a shout and dance macro. I think if macro privilages were taken away from trial accounts this could solve the problem. :)
Then they can use 3rd party macro software, or a bot to spam with (if they already aren't).
Stop suggesting terrible ideas. Trial accounts are already borderline useless.