IDEA: Restricting Tells ?

[Gecon]

What about restricting tells ?

One could make a rule "dont allow tell unless the person in question is either

1. in my current party
2. in my current chunk
3. in my guild
4. in my friendlist
5. in my caravan (when we get that)
6. in my fellowship (when we get that)
7. equal or above level <n>, with configurable <n>"

This way goldsellers will have a MUCH harder time to spam everyone in the game.

I got DOUZENS of spam tells over the whole weekend and had to deliver a lot of /report's.

[Llwynog]

I have always been in favour of adding a clicky button "do not receive tells from players under x lvl" ....

[StabbyMcGee]

That would be wonderful. Just a little option in your interface window to disable those tells from anyone level 10 or lower, you won't even see their general chat. That'd be fantastic, great idea Llwynog :D

[Spatzimaus`]

Personally, I'd just like to have anyone under level 10 restricted from communication altogether, other than /say or a special /newbie channel. No tells, no regional chats, no shouts, and most especially, NO MAIL (incoming mail is fine, but no outgoing).

To a legitimate player, this isn't really much of a drawback; you'll reach level 10 in a few days of serious playing. Even the most casual person can hit 10 in a week or so once they know what they're doing. But to a gold seller, this could be crippling if done right.

[Illusive]

What about restricting tells ?
7. equal or above level <n>, with configurable <n>"


best idea I've heard so far, i'd take it one step further, and put a filter for regionsay and region auction, simmilar to EQ2's where they have level based chat.

IE regionsay for 1-10, region say for 11-20, region say for 21-30, ect.

then i can disable all the region say from 20 and lower and also disable tells from people 20 and below and not have to worry about gold seller spam without them investing an amount of time leveling to 20 to spam tells.

I'd also like the same filter for MAIL, because that would be their next logical step.

Once the communication is cut off they will have no way to advertize, and thus no way to make or sell gold.

[jonyak]

Personally, I'd just like to have anyone under level 10 restricted from communication altogether, other than /say or a special /newbie channel. No tells, no regional chats, no shouts, and most especially, NO MAIL (incoming mail is fine, but no outgoing).

To a legitimate player, this isn't really much of a drawback; you'll reach level 10 in a few days of serious playing. Even the most casual person can hit 10 in a week or so once they know what they're doing. But to a gold seller, this could be crippling if done right.

what about us pvp players who absolutley NEED a mule alt at lvl 1 to do any banking and any buying in game. If you don't you get killed an lose all your money. I send tells to guild members and all other kinds of people.

[Vaernimus]

Personally I think Eve had it right, with a message charge if that person was not on your friendslist.

[Sammy Sammy]

EVE gets a LOT of things right...the /tells being one of many.

Id suggest that the next genre of fantasy MMO developers lower thier noses and spend some time on EVE. Many creative ideas there for economy balance, trading, industry, pvp, chat systems, "guilds", etc etc....its mechanics outclass the current crop of MMO's in almost every way....

Could you imagine a guild system even 1/5th as complex as EVE's corp/alliance system in a fantasy MMO?

Could you imagine a trader/crafting/industry/economy system even 1/20th the complexity in a fantasy MMO? I CAN!

[Aegorian]

Good ideas. Also, going off of an idea that WoW is implementing with their next patch: include an option that when you click on a name within any chat box, an option will show up called "Report User". This will effectively instantly report the individual with the text they've written plus put them on your ignore list for the next hour.

Seems like the tools are becoming more and more advanced for fighting these kinds of battles... the game that wins is the game that implements all of them without being overbearing.

[seretogis]

what about us pvp players who absolutley NEED a mule alt at lvl 1 to do any banking and any buying in game. If you don't you get killed an lose all your money. I send tells to guild members and all other kinds of people.

So, you rolled on a pvp server and yet try to avoid the death penalty by exploiting the non-pvp level limit. Classy.

I'm sure you'll be using level 1 mules to scout raid zones too, to avoid pvp unless the coast is clear. Reroll pve or grow some balls.

[Spatzimaus`]

what about us pvp players who absolutley NEED a mule alt at lvl 1 to do any banking and any buying in game. If you don't you get killed an lose all your money. I send tells to guild members and all other kinds of people.

Let's see:

1> Last I heard, it was 15% of your cash-on-hand, not all of it. Was that changed?
2> I specifically said that INCOMING mail is fine, but OUTGOING would be unavailable. So, you can still mail money/items to your alt for them to bank/sell/twink. You'd just have to go back onto your main if you want to send tells.
3> Personally, I don't have sympathy for people who try and metagame the system by using alts for something their main should be doing (storage mules, crafting mules, banking mules...), and I don't think the current, flawed system should be preserved solely to maintain that style of play. I've been in favor of a level-based "gold cap", where a level 1 character couldn't have more than a silver or two, scaling exponentially upwards until a level 20ish character is basically unlimited. And yes, that'd apparently hose your style of PvP play, and I'm okay with that.

[StabbyMcGee]

I've been in favor of a level-based "gold cap", where a level 1 character couldn't have more than a silver or two, scaling exponentially upwards until a level 20ish character is basically unlimited. And yes, that'd apparently hose your style of PvP play, and I'm okay with that.

Above level 10 a gold cap would be totally unnecessary. Prior to that though, I support it to some degree.

[Bladefyre]

These spammers is out of control. It is sad they have such brazen antics to spam all day with no worry at all. I'm all for restrictive tells...no tells under 10 unless guilded or on friends list.

[jonyak]

Let's see:

1> Last I heard, it was 15% of your cash-on-hand, not all of it. Was that changed?
2> I specifically said that INCOMING mail is fine, but OUTGOING would be unavailable. So, you can still mail money/items to your alt for them to bank/sell/twink. You'd just have to go back onto your main if you want to send tells.
3> Personally, I don't have sympathy for people who try and metagame the system by using alts for something their main should be doing (storage mules, crafting mules, banking mules...), and I don't think the current, flawed system should be preserved solely to maintain that style of play. I've been in favor of a level-based "gold cap", where a level 1 character couldn't have more than a silver or two, scaling exponentially upwards until a level 20ish character is basically unlimited. And yes, that'd apparently hose your style of PvP play, and I'm okay with that.

do you play the pvp server?

If I did ANY banking on my main I would be killed, then griefed for a half hour until all of my money or at least a large portion of it is gone.

I don;t know why you are against useing an alt to bank. I think gold restrictions are regressive and not the right way to do it.

[Gecon]

Please only positive restrictions. Not negative ones. You cant own more than 2 silver at level 1, pfft, honstely, what are you guys thinking ? You have a level 50 and start a new character, whats the first thing you do ? Send him a gold piece so you dont have any trouble with money, of course !

[Zaraj]

Is called ./ignore

[Llwynog]

Is called ./ignore



sorry but /ignore doesn't work when i get a tell from ashkesdafa (random name i just made up) advertising RMT site X.... he spams 100 ppl then logs out and makes another random toon.. 5 minutes later you get a tell from another name advertisign the same shit...


On one particularly bad morning this week i got over 70 gold sales spams in the course of about 4 hours.. all from different names ofcourse...

[tinman_au]

Quick tip for reporting the scum:

Click on their name (say its Somescumbagwithalongname) and you'll drop to the chat box with this already preloaded:

"/tell Somescumbagwithalongname "

Just hit the "home" key, delete the "/tell" part and type "/report" instead, hit enter and your done.

[Gecon]

Problem is, that floods the supporters with reports.

How many supporters does such a server have ? I'd guess 1 per 500 or so, maybe even less.

Imagine 500 people sending you one /report every half hour. Thats 1000 reports per hour, or 3.6 sec you have per /report.

[Llwynog]

Quick tip for reporting the scum:

Click on their name (say its Somescumbagwithalongname) and you'll drop to the chat box with this already preloaded:

"/tell Somescumbagwithalongname "

Just hit the "home" key, delete the "/tell" part and type "/report" instead, hit enter and your done.

I always report them... there's little point though because the toon ceases to exist withen 10 mins of the tell you receive

[Zaraj]

sorry but /ignore doesn't work when i get a tell from ashkesdafa (random name i just made up) advertising RMT site X.... he spams 100 ppl then logs out and makes another random toon.. 5 minutes later you get a tell from another name advertisign the same shit...

Ok. You have a point. A option to ignore players below level # may help this, but is a lesser evil.

[Chae668]

I always report them... there's little point though because the toon ceases to exist withen 10 mins of the tell you receive
agreed. the way they are doing it now, i dont even bother reporting anymore. by the time i type out <woahgoieah> i get another one a few minutes later.

[tinman_au]

I always report them... there's little point though because the toon ceases to exist withen 10 mins of the tell you receive

They'll still know what account the post came from...

[Bladefyre]

agreed. the way they are doing it now, i dont even bother reporting anymore. by the time i type out <woahgoieah> i get another one a few minutes later.


LOL. Yeah I stopped reporting also. I just have a nice lil text macro I hit them back

[Chae668]

LOL. Yeah I stopped reporting also. I just have a nice lil text macro I hit them back
i actually asked them to take me off their list (like telemarketing) but that hasnt worked.

[Tindiyen]

All I wanna know is what happens to the level 1 who needs help figuring out a certain mechanic?

Stop the seller and buyers and the spammers go away.

[StabbyMcGee]

The level 1 could talk with other newbies in the area, refer to the manual or go online to a forum for help. Stopping 1-10 tells from non-friends will help more than it would ever hurt.

[Bladefyre]

The level 1 could talk with other newbies in the area, refer to the manual or go online to a forum for help. Stopping 1-10 tells from non-friends will help more than it would ever hurt.

Simple, add a lvl 1-9 chat.

[Spatzimaus`]

Exactly. I suggested using a /newbie channel, for anyone 1-9. If you asked a question in that channel, one of the hundreds of other people in the channel would probably know the answer, especially since chances are one of those people would really be a sixth or seventh alt of a high-level character.
I've played quite a few other games where this sort of system was used, and it always worked well.

And if you're a level 40 character, would you really be all that helpful to a level 1 character you don't know who sends you a tell out of the blue?

Now, that being said, level 10 might not be the best cutoff. Level 7 is probably better; that's the level you start suffering death penalties, and most zones have a "starter dungeon" at levels 8-9 that you might want to find groups for. But the principle holds.

[Vaernimus]

Exactly. I suggested using a /newbie channel, for anyone 1-9. If you asked a question in that channel, one of the hundreds of other people in the channel would probably know the answer, especially since chances are one of those people would really be a sixth or seventh alt of a high-level character.
I've played quite a few other games where this sort of system was used, and it always worked well.

And if you're a level 40 character, would you really be all that helpful to a level 1 character you don't know who sends you a tell out of the blue?

Now, that being said, level 10 might not be the best cutoff. Level 7 is probably better; that's the level you start suffering death penalties, and most zones have a "starter dungeon" at levels 8-9 that you might want to find groups for. But the principle holds.

Thats a good idea. The only problem that I can see with it is that you're effectively confining the gold-selling low-level chars to that chat, which is in exactly the same level bracket as the game 'hook'. It may be quite disconcerting to players to have their chat besieged by gold-sellers on the lookout for high-level player alts.

[StabbyMcGee]

Thats a good idea. The only problem that I can see with it is that you're effectively confining the gold-selling low-level chars to that chat, which is in exactly the same level bracket as the game 'hook'. It may be quite disconcerting to players to have their chat besieged by gold-sellers on the lookout for high-level player alts.

Oh well. I doubt it will turn off any but the most weird and sensitive individuals that would probably encounter an issue somewhere down the line anyway. Restricting chat is the easiest way to get gold sellers off of main channels. Think of it like EverQuest 2's system, you have level 1-10 chat, then 10-20 etc, on top of having class chat and the other channels. A high level player interested in helping the 1-10's would be able to do so, yet the 1-10 couldn't jump into the 40-50 channel and spam.

[Defmetal]

the only types of tells that should be restricted are tells that contain certain keywords (like gmworker.com)
and people not on your friend list.

Not letting people under level 5 or something send you a tell just means that your not playing an MMORPG.

"Hi I just joined Vanguard can you tell me where the Academy is?"
"Hello?"
"Are you there ??"
"jackass... I see you walking around and using emotes ... could at least say something"

[Gecon]

the only types of tells that should be restricted are tells that contain certain keywords (like gmworker.com)
and people not on your friend list.

Not letting people under level 5 or something send you a tell just means that your not playing an MMORPG.

"Hi I just joined Vanguard can you tell me where the Academy is?"
"Hello?"
"Are you there ??"
"jackass... I see you walking around and using emotes ... could at least say something"

Thats why I allowed tells from the same chunk.

[kjjjjjjk]

1. automatically block all URL's

2. automatically report anybody who uses a URL in a tell

3. block anybody with a random name

4. block tells from anybody under level 3 unless they are on your friends list

its not that hard people... just change the friggin code and you will light the fire under the gold-sellers/dupers/farmers without doing anything drastic like a coin wipe for crying out loud

[Gecon]

3. block anybody with a random name Please specify an algorithm that returns "true" if a name is a random name, and "false" otherwise. Thank you.

[Lord_Phoenix]

The easiest and least prohibitive way to do it is to restrict the number of tells/mails that someone may send in a period of time. It's also one of the better ways, as it forces the spammers to be on for longer periods of time in order to spam, thus giving them a higher chance of being caught.

[Zaraj]

Please specify an algorithm that returns "true" if a name is a random name, and "false" otherwise. Thank you.


function isUglyRandomName(name){
name = tolower(name);

if ( CountChars('aeiou',name) * 2 < CountChars('bcdfghjklmpqrstvwz',name))
return true;//maybe random

if ( CountChars('aeiou',name) > 2 * CountChars('bcdfghjklmpqrstvwz',name))
return true;//maybe random

if (CountChars('aeiou',name) < 1 and lenght(name)>3)
return true; //maybe random

return false;// maybe not random
}


I can do it better with fuzzy logic and returning a float.

[Gecon]

Gratulation ! So, basically, you change the character name generator of goldsellers from:


genname () {
int i, max;
string name;
const string z = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";

max = random(3)+random(3)+random(3)+random(3);

for (i = 0; i != max; ++i) {
name += z[random(strlen(z))];
}

return name;
}


to (intentionally not optimized at all):


genname_old() { ... // like before
}

isUglyRandomName () { ... // like your code
}

genname () {
string name;

do {
name = getname_old ();
} while (isUglyRandomName (name));

return name;
}


I mean, that will really have an effect.

[Bubbels]

What about restricting tells ?

One could make a rule "dont allow tell unless the person in question is either

1. in my current party
2. in my current chunk
3. in my guild
4. in my friendlist
5. in my caravan (when we get that)
6. in my fellowship (when we get that)
7. equal or above level <n>, with configurable <n>"

This way goldsellers will have a MUCH harder time to spam everyone in the game.

I got DOUZENS of spam tells over the whole weekend and had to deliver a lot of /report's.


Just wanted to add my vote that this is a great idea. Getting accounts banned for spamming gold is obviously a bandaid approach and a loss that gold sellers are just willing to accept.

[Hatto]

It would've been nice to see tell and global channel restrictions, I would prefer the solution that denies anything below lets say 8 tells and channel usage as already laid out, with a newbie channel. Word filters need too much maintainance.

It would be even better to deny people with a trial to send tells outside current chunk at all, except to people who have them on the friends list. After all its not so hard to coordinate a friends list entry using IM. Sadly gold sellers ruin the open communication in MMO, but as that hardly happens anyway these days, blocking it would not loose big.

As this is quite an obvious solution to the problem, and taking into account neither VG nor EQ2 nor WoW have implemented it the reason why they don't do it might be quite obvious as well...

[vjek]

Just CTD any client that sends a tell with any RMT website name in the tell. :cool: