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Gold spammers >.<
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Post by
151244
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
misinformed
Heck, I think Blizzard's current tactic is to make so many new dailies that are easy while simultaneously increasing the number you can do, that way nobody will have trouble making 1000g a day. At that point, why pay for gold? Hopefully, it works and drives all those stupid spammers out of business! Tired of them affecting my game play experience because they want to make an extra buck.
Post by
Arideni
The problem is that the entire real-money trading (RMT) issue is propagated by . . . to start with. For example, did you know that in China it is commonplace for time cards to be sold by the hour? For example, 4 hours of game time. In that time, a player farms the gold equivalent to the real money price for more time cards. That gold goes directly into the RMT market, helping make "the boss men" real money.
Furthermore, many of these players will actually work at their "place of business" & sleep there as well (on a different floor). There's a lounge, cafe, & computer room where they farm in 10 hour shifts (it varies).
In order for this type of business to be actually ended, action has to be taken by Blizzard themselves. A civil action is simply not good enough.
Post by
144903
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
89888
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Philmckraken
but i digress.... how long will it take until blizzard does something to put a stop to it. i get harassed in newb areas whenever i start a new toon. i go check my mail and theres one standing in front of the mail box-yelling or spamming. i get whispers and spam invites to buy gold!
Reposted from another thread: If you can't stand gold-spam, download the Spam-me-not addon (available at all popular wow addon sites). As the name would imply, it blocks spam. All of it. Gold-spam, power-leveling spam, whispered spam, Hormel canned Spam, etc. You will not see any spam, which creates the same effect as it would if Blizzard "put a stop to it." If a spammer spams people, but everyone blocks it, does it make a noise?
Post by
Lohr
but i digress.... how long will it take until blizzard does something to put a stop to it. i get harassed in newb areas whenever i start a new toon. i go check my mail and theres one standing in front of the mail box-yelling or spamming. i get whispers and spam invites to buy gold!
Reposted from another thread: If you can't stand gold-spam, download the Spam-me-not addon (available at all popular wow addon sites). As the name would imply, it blocks spam. All of it. Gold-spam, power-leveling spam, whispered spam, Hormel canned Spam, etc. You will not see any spam, which creates the same effect as it would if Blizzard "put a stop to it." If a spammer spams people, but everyone blocks it, does it make a noise?
How does this addon know it was a gold spammer from the first message? Your still going to get the message anyway before it even realizes it was a spam. Gold spammers are getting smarter day by day. I get whispers from them all the time so basically if blizzard trys they is always a way to get through to the public. As much as I hate it too your just going to have to deal with it.
Next thing you know we are going to have to use CAPTCHA to send and recieve messages in WoW. Wouldnt that be something ... lol!
Post by
Philmckraken
How does this addon know it was a gold spammer from the first message? Your still going to get the message anyway before it even realizes it was a spam. Gold spammers are getting smarter day by day. I get whispers from them all the time so basically if blizzard trys they is always a way to get through to the public. As much as I hate it too your just going to have to deal with it.
I don't know how it works; it could be magic, voodoo, or something else, but it works. I get no whispered gold spam, I don't see it in trade, general, LFG, /say /yell or anywhere else.
Or, could it be that the programmers were smart enough to create a filter that targets the key phrases that goldspammers always use? Like say, any message that includes a website, a dollar amount, and the words "gold" and "delivery" in it? Deep, isn't it?
Rather than attempt to refute me with nothing more than your theories, why not download it and try it for yourself? I didn't write the program, and they don't send me money or anything, so I have no reason to lie about it. Seriously, if everyone just downloaded the addon and ran it, there would be no more gold-spam.
(Sidenote: Spam-me-not indirectly effects wowhead forum spam, ie continual "Blizzard needs to stop the goldspammers" threads, which are just more spam.)
Post by
Arideni
I'm all for CAPTCHA typing & removing chat channels from macros as well as a more intensive throttle on all non-guild & non-party/raid channels.
Post by
Philmckraken
I'm all for CAPTCHA typing & removing chat channels from macros as well as a more intensive throttle on all non-guild & non-party/raid channels.
That just punishes those of us who don't spam people.
Post by
89888
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Philmckraken
and i, like Phil, have toggled the spam option in my WoW interface and get absolutely no spammers anyway
the ultimate solution imho is to do away with the chat feature all together (except for guild / bg / party / raid chat)
The Spam blocker that that comes with the wow client was basically useless in my experience; I had it on, but got spammed regardless. Like many other aspects of WoW, it took an addon program to achieve the desired result.
As for kill all the chat channels, it's an extreme solution, don't you think? There would be a a lot of people running around with unenchanted gear and unopened lockboxes...
Post by
89888
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Philmckraken
it was a joke - you know, hercules answer to gideons knot
You meant
Alexander and the Gordian Knot,
right?
(Oh wait, I see what you did there.)
:)
Post by
georgelopes
How does this addon know it was a gold spammer from the first message? Your still going to get the message anyway before it even realizes it was a spam. Gold spammers are getting smarter day by day. I get whispers from them all the time so basically if blizzard trys they is always a way to get through to the public. As much as I hate it too your just going to have to deal with it.
I don't know how it works; it could be magic, voodoo, or something else, but it works. I get no whispered gold spam, I don't see it in trade, general, LFG, /say /yell or anywhere else.
Or, could it be that the programmers were smart enough to create a filter that targets the key phrases that goldspammers always use? Like say, any message that includes a website, a dollar amount, and the words "gold" and "delivery" in it? Deep, isn't it?
Rather than attempt to refute me with nothing more than your theories, why not download it and try it for yourself? I didn't write the program, and they don't send me money or anything, so I have no reason to lie about it. Seriously, if everyone just downloaded the addon and ran it, there would be no more gold-spam.
(Sidenote: Spam-me-not indirectly effects wowhead forum spam, ie continual "Blizzard needs to stop the goldspammers" threads, which are just more spam.)
I got it 2 days ago and man does it work great it says some guy ive never heard of sent me a message would you like to view I checked it it was gold spam gave me a choice if I wanted to report it so i did it works nice.
Post by
Philmckraken
I got it 2 days ago and man does it work great it says some guy ive never heard of sent me a message would you like to view I checked it it was gold spam gave me a choice if I wanted to report it so i did it works nice.
See? Spam-me-not is so simple, even georgelopes can figure it out!! Download it today! It's free, and it stops spam!
(Just kidding, George. Thanks for helping me get the point across.)
Post by
Lohr
I got it 2 days ago and man does it work great it says some guy ive never heard of sent me a message would you like to view I checked it it was gold spam gave me a choice if I wanted to report it so i did it works nice.
See? Spam-me-not is so simple, even georgelopes can figure it out!! Download it today! It's free, and it stops spam!
(Just kidding, George. Thanks for helping me get the point across.)
Are you sure your not getting paid to advertise! lol you sound like a classified ad!
I have enough addons right now and to add another to stop spam that blizzard can easily take care of is just not even worth it to me.
This is what I do:
blahbalbhablahb blah blah 48.95 (love it how make it look like shop btw) / 800gold come to woeowoww.com blabalbabha.
You tell Phkkjjiepp:
stfu
(right click his name/ report spam)
Your complaint has been reported.
This is also ignores them.
-----
This beats an addon that asks you those questions about some random person asking you something blah blah .. Same concept and probably the same mouse movement!
Not worth the addon IMO
Post by
Interest
I don't even bother to report them. They...just....keep...coming...back...
Post by
Robotusch
I'm personally using SpamSentry, since I can keep it updated via the WAU ;)
Also, I think the reason that the spam has gone amok lately, is due to the increased means of grinding gold via the dailies. There's a lot of gold to be had for relatively little effort, so the goldspammers are starting to hurt and they're throwing all sort of discounts, free gold etc out to try and regain whatever they've lost.
As for Blizzard, it would appear that they themselves has been giving the gold spammers an easy entry into wow, by not checking the credit card numbers used to upgrade trial accounts to full accounts. Presumably a leftover from the early days (they didn't check when I first bought the game, only once they actually needed to collect money from it). Supposedly this has been changed or is going to change relatively soon, when they add a 3-day grace period where Blizzard can check the CC number and make sure it's legit.
The problem is that the entire real-money trading (RMT) issue is propagated by . . . to start with. For example, did you know that in China it is commonplace for time cards to be sold by the hour? For example, 4 hours of game time. In that time, a player farms the gold equivalent to the real money price for more time cards. That gold goes directly into the RMT market, helping make "the boss men" real money.
You're right, Chinese players pay by the hour to play which is apparently due to the laws China has in place regarding online gaming. Anyone remembering the HUGE scare a few years ago, where the debuff intended for chinese realms only accidently ended up on the EU/US PTR, should know what the Chinese players are looking at when playing. Basically, after a set amount of hours, the amount of gold, xp and loot recieved from killing a mob will be cut in half and then progressively decline until after a set number of hours, they'll get nothing from killing mobs and basically be forced to stop for another set number of hours. However, that only affects the Chinese clients on Chinese realms. The goldfarmers are using EU and US clients and are not affected by this.
Furthermore, many of these players will actually work at their "place of business" & sleep there as well (on a different floor). There's a lounge, cafe, & computer room where they farm in 10 hour shifts (it varies).
Try 12 hours on/off shift - and it's actually a rather large business, with some 100,000 people working in the industry according to 2005 figures. For some people it's better than working at a factory sweatshop or as a crop farmer. Usually less dangerous as well.
In order for this type of business to be actually ended, action has to be taken by Blizzard themselves. A civil action is simply not good enough.
The trouble is, it's damn hard for Blizzard to do so. Basically, the only ones they have a fair chance of hitting with a lawsuit are the actual gold sellers, and every time they manage to hit one of those, five new sellers spring up (usually with the same people behind it). Just look at the recent case against Peons4Hire, where Blizzard were unable to set precedent - I don't know about the US, but I haven't seen an ingame ad for Peons4Hire for about 1½-2 years. That's how long it takes to get through. The distributors (who buys the gold from the farmer sweatshops) are usually too well-hidden for Blizzard to target and I doubt the Chinese courts would be bothered looking at a lawsuit against a farmer sweatshop.
I'm all for CAPTCHA typing & removing chat channels from macros as well as a more intensive throttle on all non-guild & non-party/raid channels.
Trouble is, according to Blizzard they are using specially modified versions of the wow client to get around throttling. Or at least that's what Blizzard claimed in their suit against Peons4Hire (the first site that really started the whole goldspam business).
Post by
Arideni
Thanks for the detailed insight Robotusch. While I largely simplify, the point remains clear -- more than civil action needs to be done (e.g. lawsuits). I liked the "debuff," but that's really only a workaround since it doesn't limit the players from using North American or European accounts. That's one step which should be look at as a possible solution (tougher restrictions in the billing & accounting areas). I don't want to speculate too much, so I'll stop here.
Anyways, CAPTCHA for the text wasn't too serious of a comment. However, limiting or severely restricting the methods of chat via macros would at least help, despite the ease of third-party recorders using copy & paste tactics. That would be an additional rulebreaker.
Alas, these ideas are not for us to develop -- we need Blizzard working on this so that the market remains fair instead of catered to the rich & lazy. I would love to deviate further, but I feel my opinions on "real work" & having a life would be inappropriate.
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