Well I can't take it any longer. Never have I played a game where gold spamming is as rampant as it is in AION. It is getting worse every day and NCsoft apparantly aren't doing anything about it. It started out with mainly constant "tells" I could block those ,,,no problem but today when I logged in I noticed it has spread to an almost constant stream ..Litterally hundreds of gold spamming bots are flooding ALL the chat channels and blocking them has no effect in the chat channels. I can't even send or read a message as the chat is scrolling way to fast to keep track. And it's all gold spamming. It is driving me insane! I am almost to the point of cancelling my account and I was really enjoying the game! Any sugestions as I have been told that blocking the spam names stops it. But for me blocking them only has stopped the tells ...no effect on chat channels? Any suggestions would be welcomed!
Not sure if anyones mentioned it here but you go /anon ingame so they cant send you gold tells anymore. At least they dont for me anyway.
You have to do this command each time you log on. I usually forget but once I get my first gold spam its become automatic for me now. Hope this helps!!
That worked for a short time. The RMT have gotten wise to it, so now they simply spam the chat channels.
So botters are now lvling before spamming am I getting it right?
Their spam characters have to now, apparently. That won't stop them. Their farming bots just farm away.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Unfortunately /anon doesn't work in the world channels and the gold spammers have become quite adept quite quickly at coating all channels with an unhealthy layer of spam. It is indeed annoying.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Server economies are going to get wrecked if nothing is done about it.
oh please... how? that many buys gold eh?
You would be surprised how many that actually buys gold in online games. If people didn't buy gold, there would be no reason for gold sellers to exists. The more gold sellers you see, the better the sign is that lots are buying.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC) On my radar: TSW, MO MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
Unfortunately /anon doesn't work in the world channels and the gold spammers have become quite adept quite quickly at coating all channels with an unhealthy layer of spam. It is indeed annoying.
That's a good thing. Because while NCsoft could ignore them doing PM spam, world channel spam is much harder to ignore as it hits all their customers at once, and I expect they will have to react sooner rather than later.
Keep in mind that they have been pretty good about dealing with all the issues that have cropped up so far.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves in gaming period. I hate gold selling scum. And yes the gaming companies are NOT really trying to stop it. It IS simple. As another poster said you can google and find them easy. PROSECUTE THEM ALL, as it is illegal in most all countries now, including China. Every time one of them shows their face, put them in jail, period. Every time they find one in game, ban the account and prosecute the company they work for. It WILL stop if they start putting these slimes in jail. And yes they can put them in jail. I for one am so sick of this I wanna fly to China and punch somebody. I am tired of watching them ruin the games I play. I will keep reporting them and will do my best to stop them however I can. Ok rant over.
I'm old not dead. (Nov8tr is pronounced innovator)
With internet anonymity nobody is going to put anybody in jail over gold spamming. If you DO Google gold-selling websites try again a week later. All of those websites WILL be gone and new websites with slightly different names will have taken their place.
The gold sellers have a template for their websites and just throw up another one any time it goes down.
Accounts can and will be banned and gold sellers and farmers can and will buy new ones.
It is not a fixable problem, but it is a problem that should have resources put to reducing the volume.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Actually some of the gold selling companies have been in business for YEARS. They did not just POPUP. So yes the can be prosecuted. The game companies have done so a couple of times just to look good. They need to do it everytime. And if you followed this type of problem, you'd know that hiding behind anon/proxy stuff doesn't work for CRIMINAL actions anymore. The servers are forced by courts to reveal the CRIMINALS and they go to jail. Hurrah!! Now put these scum in jail too.
I'm old not dead. (Nov8tr is pronounced innovator)
Actually some of the gold selling companies have been in business for YEARS. They did not just POPUP. So yes the can be prosecuted. The game companies have done so a couple of times just to look good. They need to do it everytime. And if you followed this type of problem, you'd know that hiding behind anon/proxy stuff doesn't work for CRIMINAL actions anymore. The servers are forced by courts to reveal the CRIMINALS and they go to jail. Hurrah!! Now put these scum in jail too.
What you say is true, a lot of these gold seller sites are alive for years. And it is the best way to keep track of who are serious and not. However I doubt anyone would bother trying to put gold sellers in prison as the crime they do is really nothing at all compared to the people who should be in jail. The only way to fight gold sellers is for us the players to not buy gold from them, if no one buys they won't earn any money. For a police department to waste resources on putting gold sellers in prison is just an stupid thing to do. those resources are better spent trying to catch the real criminals out there.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC) On my radar: TSW, MO MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
Ugh, as usual it is those who accuse others of lack of information first who should try to read up more on the subject. Seeing people spam in games is not reading up on the subject.
Many companies may have been in business for years and, in the case of Chinese companies for example (just to bounce the ball), those companies are protected by their country and not allowed to be taken to court, their citizens may not be judged of crimes outside of their country, etc. Maybe they are forced to change their name or are bopped on the head (in China's case bopped on the head with the butts of rifles in some cases). That is what most companies do, change their website and change their name and do so within a few days before re-instating their template.
The few court cases, none of which included actual jail time, were based in the US and some, strangely enough, in France. The famous cases have been against bot creating companies such as the famous Blizzard victory and not the actual gold farmers and sellers themselves.
Anyway, I'm done hijacking this thread, hopefully people with some insight will continue or whatever. So long as selling virtual currency not of one's ownership makes money, so will the business thrive just like the black market.
Oh, and by the way, any names behind gold selling companies aren't real. lol. Court order telling who owns the website.. yeah, it's Duffy McDufferson from Ireland in China. Get him in jail, boys.
EDIT: In lazy response to the post below me, illegal and immoral in our minds = A OK! in many countries and, as stated, nobody is going to be allowed to sue or jail anybody for it. Dreams are nice though.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Oh believe me, I put most of the fault on the lazy asshats who buy the gold, It is indeed their fault. Problem is, you are always going to have lazy people who buy it. And by putting the sellers in jail, well that would be nice but maybe not practical. Fine them huge, like in millions so they won't have funds to reopen anywhere. And some should be prosecuted. In some countries they literally kidnap people and force them in huge numbers to "farm gold" in games. This is a fact, go google it. Those people need to go to jail. And the others make hundred of thousands of dollars to millions for the largest companies. While some may pay the people doing the work $2 a day, most pay nothing. In other words a sweat shop. So those people need to go to jail too, because that is a crime. So yes, some need to go to jail and is NOT a waste of time and money. Some need to pay fines equal to their total income. I don't have any magic answers or a wand to wave. But I do know that something SERIOUS needs to be done and not just some vague attempt at stopping them. Right now the industry stands at FAIL. Thats my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary.
I'm old not dead. (Nov8tr is pronounced innovator)
If you right click the name and then block, you shouldn't see a message from that person anywhere, tells or chat channels. Also there is a way to put you on anonymous so they can't see you on the player's list to send you whispers, but this will make you invisible to friends too. I don't remember how but someone explained it in the Aionsource forums. I'm afraid that the experienced asian farmers have invaded the NA and EU (seems not so much) servers. And companies like NCsoft (or also Blizzard) won't move a finger to at least have a decent working spam filter. In the case of WOW you can have an addon that solves it, but for Aion we are screwed.
I right click the spammers and add them to my block list. It stops the tells but I STILL SEE THE SAME NAMES IN CHAT CHANNELS> I know some people tell me that it stops them all . But it does not work for me! Anyone know why?
The 2 new things NCSOft added (right click block, and no whisper till L5) did absolutely nothing. The OP is not kidding, You will see a spam at least 3-4 times per minute. Block does nothing, their bots keep coming. I also agree with the OP that no other game has anything like this, not even FTP's. I am beginning to wonder if removing game guard was a mistake. Bots are absolutely everywhere. Something drastic needs to be done. I have no idea why right/click report and a human on other end to swing insta-ban hammer...but apparently, this is far beyond NCSoft ability. It would be a total shame to quit a MMO over this (trust me, it really IS that bad), but something drastic needs done, and soon.
Well I can't take it any longer. Never have I played a game where gold spamming is as rampant as it is in AION. It is getting worse every day and NCsoft apparantly aren't doing anything about it. It started out with mainly constant "tells" I could block those ,,,no problem but today when I logged in I noticed it has spread to an almost constant stream ..Litterally hundreds of gold spamming bots are flooding ALL the chat channels and blocking them has no effect in the chat channels. I can't even send or read a message as the chat is scrolling way to fast to keep track. And it's all gold spamming. It is driving me insane! I am almost to the point of cancelling my account and I was really enjoying the game! Any sugestions as I have been told that blocking the spam names stops it. But for me blocking them only has stopped the tells ...no effect on chat channels? Any suggestions would be welcomed!
Right click blocking should block tells and chat channels. It's worked for me. I rarely see a gold spammer now. I've blocked quite a few people. XD
Any popular MMO these days has gold spamming problems right after launch. LOTRO was awful in the early days. Not to worry, NCSoft will smash em. The spammers that were hitting chat channels last night were getting caught by GM's on my server. There was even an announcement that they were aware of them and what to do to report them. I'm usually too busy to even pay attention to them.
Right because Lineage 2 is the shining example of how NCSoft deals with gold farmers?
It's not just the gold spammers, it's the obvious bots that run rampant all over the place. Some are even in legions now. Server economies are going to get wrecked if nothing is done about it.
If something isn't done and SOON , Game play bots are just around the corner if they aren't already present!!!
All I can say is... Im actually happy there are gold spammers. means currency have a USE Unlike WAR. Its something that always will be there. If it goes overhand they need to reduce it. But a tell once in a while, who the hell bothers really?
DURAhell, All I can say is you must be very Durable indeed!
Type /anon and you will not show up in the search which is what the spammers use to find you so they can whisper you. Your friends can still wisper you, but will not see you so you will have to drop them a line if you want to chat.
Pair that up with the right click and block for the spam in the chat channels and you won't see a single spammer for hours on end. When there is a new one, block him. Rinse and repeat.
If your block list is filling up, simply delete the blocked names after a couple of days, since the spammers change their toons daily (usually).
As far as the scams go, common sense is key here. If it is too good to be true, it probably is. I saw a bot by the name of Marsso spamming 500K free kinah by signing up at a website. The stunner is, there were many folks admitting to going to his site in the chat.
the way they are dealing with gold spammers is idiotic.
The gold spammers use the general chats and find group ones constantly wihtout nothing happening to them.. at least they spam the websites and prices freely using the same nick for 1 2 or more days.
Add to that you get constantly spammed on wispers by them too.. i mean come on aint that hard to auto ban people sending messages with websites and $values or Euros altogether..
The few court cases, none of which included actual jail time, were based in the US and some, strangely enough, in France. The famous cases have been against bot creating companies such as the famous Blizzard victory and not the actual gold farmers and sellers themselves.
Originally posted by Wrender Originally posted by tanoril Originally posted by JonMichael Any popular MMO these days has gold spamming problems right after launch. LOTRO was awful in the early days. Not to worry, NCSoft will smash em. The spammers that were hitting chat channels last night were getting caught by GM's on my server. There was even an announcement that they were aware of them and what to do to report them. I'm usually too busy to even pay attention to them.
Right because Lineage 2 is the shining example of how NCSoft deals with gold farmers? It's not just the gold spammers, it's the obvious bots that run rampant all over the place. Some are even in legions now. Server economies are going to get wrecked if nothing is done about it. If something isn't done and SOON , Game play bots are just around the corner if they aren't already present!!! They are present. I know of one that has been made already. First you attack the spam, make it harder to do so. Second you can target the accounts that generate the spam (bans) and lastly after some control has been established you can go after the bots. Usually players do most of the reporting on bots anyhow, seeing as it is incredibly easy to test and see if you get human responses from certain actions.
As much as gameguard sucks and is a piece of crap, not having anything in place right now is going to cause some problems with this until they get a new preventative system in place.
True Neutral Half-Elf Ranger Mage Follower Of Silvanus
Yeah the gold farmers are running wild now. Sure there are ways to reduce the spam, but these are band-aids for a bigger problem. Does NCsoft condone this activity? If not then they need to get busy banning these morons. Sure there will always be a market for gold sellers, but you can do a simple google search to find them. People shouldn't have to put up with in game harrasment like this. It's not that hard to fight. GM creates a level 1 character and just starts swinging the ban stick.
If the multi-billion a year gaming giant Blizzard can't stop them in WoW, what makes you think anyone can? Gold farmers are like the cold virus, no one wants it, but theres nothing you can do to eliminate it from the face of the planet.
Never have I seen spam this bad in an MMO. WOW has a few but nothing like this. And Yes Gold spamming and gold buying will ruin an economy and unless they wipe all characters and start over the economy will be ruined for good. And then there is Lords of the Rings Online, although the game is way to casual friendly hand holding crap they have done an excellent job of squashing cheaters, bots and gold spam, they have a one click instant reporting function for removing undesirable players. Thus LotRO, as a result of this has one of the best communities in any MMO I have played and I have pretty much played em all. So don't tell me that removing Gold Farmers and cheaters is impossible. But so far NCSOFT has done nothing about it, I have noticed some goldspammers names that have been in the game since release and are still there with the same names. And sadly I am not really expecting NC to really ever do anything about it. I am im fact expecting it to get even worse and that is just sad cause Aion really does have the potential to make some serious money for the company. Could it be that NCSOFT is even more clueless than SOE? Look at Vanguard that game is a gold mine that landed in SOE's lap and they can't see it. Yeah I know it sucked at release but not now. It could be bigger than WOW if handled right as could Aion.
Any popular MMO these days has gold spamming problems right after launch. LOTRO was awful in the early days. Not to worry, NCSoft will smash em. The spammers that were hitting chat channels last night were getting caught by GM's on my server. There was even an announcement that they were aware of them and what to do to report them. I'm usually too busy to even pay attention to them.
Difference is, that's Turbine... they actually give a hoot about their players enough to do something about it.
This is NCSoft we're talking about. While it's true that there's RMT and botting in most any MMO... L1 and L2 are in a class all their own. You haven't seen RMT/botting 'til you've seen it in a NCSoft-developed and run MMO. It's almost legendary.
NCSoft sat back and did the whole "Naw... of *course* we care about RMT in our game!" in Lineage 2 for years, while entire groups of RMT bots to ran rampant right under theirs and players' noses. Report them and nothing happens. The RMT became so rampant in that game due to NCSoft's complete inaction against them that they actually took over the economy. The RMT are so brazen in that game that if you go after a group of their bots, an "enforcer" character will be logged in - max level and equipped to the hilt - and drop you. If you're in a room they want in a catacomb, they'll do the same.
RMT run rampant in Lineage 1 as well, and NCSoft does nothing, even as players still post in their forums to please do something about it.
Every so often - every 6 months or so, usually before a major update - NC will do a banning, purely for PR purposes. Within a couple weeks, it's right back to normal and they disappear into the woodwork again.
I mean this in absolutely no offensive or demeaning way to anyone posting in this thread, but having read through some of the optimistic posts about how NC will deal with it... yeesh... I hope I'm wrong, but I think some of y'all are in for some disappointment.
Now Aion is getting off on the same foot again, NCSoft is making only token gestures to put on a good face and make it appear they care. Meanwhile, the RMT is getting worse. As I figured, as soon as enough people figured out the /invisible deal, they started simply spamming the chat channels. I've turned off 3 chat channels already due to them spamming it. And of course, the GMs take their sweet time dealing with them, if they do at all. If they're this lax on it now.. just wait 'til the game's out a bit and they're not as concerned about "being on top of it" for good PR.
/blist them... sure. Going on invisible is getting into the annoying - what if you want to be visible to others for possible groups? Now what do we have to do, turn off entire chat channels because they're being spammed? Wrong. NCSoft has to get a freaking clue and do something about it.
I was hoping they'd have learned how to better deal with RMT/botting from the start this time, after the mess that L1 and L2 were. I was telling people "after the mess that L2 and L1 were, with AIon being such a high profile game - likely their new flagship - I'm sure they're going to be on top of that from the start". Well, seems I was wrong and my optimism was misplaced. They apparently haven't learned a thing, or simply haven't started caring enough. Either way, I'm not going to support them with my money while they let yet another MMO be overrun by botters and RMT while they keep their collective head stuck firmly in the sand.
Below is a shot I took last night before I logged out, cancelled my account and uninstalled. There are 3 or 4 more that are off the top of the chat box... and that was within the first 10 minutes that I was logged in. I posted a thread about this on the official forums and - le surprise - it was deleted. As always, they won't deal with RMT... but boy they'll ban your posts about it in a hurry.
{mod edit}
HEH now where was that screenshot again?? Has NCsoft paid MMORPG to delete it? I smell a conspiracy here....
The reason I asked you this is L2 is the case study example of how a game can get completely ruined by gold farming. You log into that game now and there are whole sections of the game that is just infested by gold farmers/botters. It does have an effect on the server if it's not handled properly.
No one denies that other games doesn't have this problem (WoW included), but NcSoft has a history of not being very aggressive towards the problem.
Lineage 2 had one major difference from Aion (that I've seen so far) and that is, in Lineage 2, crafted gear was the best, extremely expensive to buy (was quite easy for your levels to outpace your ability to earn enough adena to pay for next tier set) and therefore was a botting/gold selling paradise.
In Aion so far dropped gear has sometimes exceeded quest gear, and I've not seen any evidence that I need some sort of crafted gear at the lower levels to succeed.
If no one really feels the need to buy it, they gold sellers will subside on their own and move on to more profitable games.
(I've not reached the upper levels however, and perhaps you really do need a lot of gold to thrive)
It's not only gear that people buy in-game gold for. They buy it simply so they never have to worry about money for *anything* they want.
Ya know I never understood that mentality. Why don't they just make a game for 15 dollars a month you spend an hour or two creating your character and soon as you log in you are presented with an armor/weapon shop that has every possible item you could find all for free that you just pick and equip and when you leave the shop the entire game world consists only of a rotating pedestal to stand on and emotes for /dance /showoff? Maybe I should go into the MMO buisness myself .,I think I might be able to pull that off pretty easily **** Sarcasm OFF!
Well I can't take it any longer. Never have I played a game where gold spamming is as rampant as it is in AION. It is getting worse every day and NCsoft apparantly aren't doing anything about it. It started out with mainly constant "tells" I could block those ,,,no problem but today when I logged in I noticed it has spread to an almost constant stream ..Litterally hundreds of gold spamming bots are flooding ALL the chat channels and blocking them has no effect in the chat channels. I can't even send or read a message as the chat is scrolling way to fast to keep track. And it's all gold spamming. It is driving me insane! I am almost to the point of cancelling my account and I was really enjoying the game! Any sugestions as I have been told that blocking the spam names stops it. But for me blocking them only has stopped the tells ...no effect on chat channels? Any suggestions would be welcomed!
Not sure if anyones mentioned it here but you go /anon ingame so they cant send you gold tells anymore. At least they dont for me anyway.
You have to do this command each time you log on. I usually forget but once I get my first gold spam its become automatic for me now. Hope this helps!!
That worked for a short time. The RMT have gotten wise to it, so now they simply spam the chat channels.
Incidentally... I whipped up a quick new logo for them.. I'm thinking of presenting it to them, as sort of a "parting gift". Think they'll like it?
This is one of my biggest pet peeves in gaming period. I hate gold selling scum. And yes the gaming companies are NOT really trying to stop it. It IS simple. As another poster said you can google and find them easy. PROSECUTE THEM ALL, as it is illegal in most all countries now, including China. Every time one of them shows their face, put them in jail, period. Every time they find one in game, ban the account and prosecute the company they work for. It WILL stop if they start putting these slimes in jail. And yes they can put them in jail. I for one am so sick of this I wanna fly to China and punch somebody. I am tired of watching them ruin the games I play. I will keep reporting them and will do my best to stop them however I can. Ok rant over.
Hey man, If you want to go in halffers on a ticket I def go with you with my baseball bat in hand. Sounds better than gay-bashing, dwarf-tossing or anything like that anytime! I hate them with a passion myself besides the community these kind of people is the one main thing that irritates me to no end! Every time here lately that I log in the game and see these ridiculous messages everywhere I get so mad that I can't see straight. I have even started to send them tells of my own with the most nastyest vile cuss words that even I thought I could never have thought up in a milllion years. It is making me a very ugly and sad person inside. That's why I am cancelling this game . I don't like what it is turning me into . So much anger, so much hate, I rant so much now my wife is threatening to divorce me. I can't take it anymore AAArrrGGgHHH!!!
Comments
Not sure if anyones mentioned it here but you go /anon ingame so they cant send you gold tells anymore. At least they dont for me anyway.
You have to do this command each time you log on. I usually forget but once I get my first gold spam its become automatic for me now. Hope this helps!!
That worked for a short time. The RMT have gotten wise to it, so now they simply spam the chat channels.
So botters are now lvling before spamming am I getting it right?
Their spam characters have to now, apparently. That won't stop them. Their farming bots just farm away.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
If you type /anon the gold spamming will go away. It's simple and effective.
Good luck
Unfortunately /anon doesn't work in the world channels and the gold spammers have become quite adept quite quickly at coating all channels with an unhealthy layer of spam. It is indeed annoying.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
oh please... how? that many buys gold eh?
You would be surprised how many that actually buys gold in online games. If people didn't buy gold, there would be no reason for gold sellers to exists. The more gold sellers you see, the better the sign is that lots are buying.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
That's a good thing. Because while NCsoft could ignore them doing PM spam, world channel spam is much harder to ignore as it hits all their customers at once, and I expect they will have to react sooner rather than later.
Keep in mind that they have been pretty good about dealing with all the issues that have cropped up so far.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves in gaming period. I hate gold selling scum. And yes the gaming companies are NOT really trying to stop it. It IS simple. As another poster said you can google and find them easy. PROSECUTE THEM ALL, as it is illegal in most all countries now, including China. Every time one of them shows their face, put them in jail, period. Every time they find one in game, ban the account and prosecute the company they work for. It WILL stop if they start putting these slimes in jail. And yes they can put them in jail. I for one am so sick of this I wanna fly to China and punch somebody. I am tired of watching them ruin the games I play. I will keep reporting them and will do my best to stop them however I can. Ok rant over.
I'm old not dead. (Nov8tr is pronounced innovator)
With internet anonymity nobody is going to put anybody in jail over gold spamming. If you DO Google gold-selling websites try again a week later. All of those websites WILL be gone and new websites with slightly different names will have taken their place.
The gold sellers have a template for their websites and just throw up another one any time it goes down.
Accounts can and will be banned and gold sellers and farmers can and will buy new ones.
It is not a fixable problem, but it is a problem that should have resources put to reducing the volume.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Actually some of the gold selling companies have been in business for YEARS. They did not just POPUP. So yes the can be prosecuted. The game companies have done so a couple of times just to look good. They need to do it everytime. And if you followed this type of problem, you'd know that hiding behind anon/proxy stuff doesn't work for CRIMINAL actions anymore. The servers are forced by courts to reveal the CRIMINALS and they go to jail. Hurrah!! Now put these scum in jail too.
I'm old not dead. (Nov8tr is pronounced innovator)
What you say is true, a lot of these gold seller sites are alive for years. And it is the best way to keep track of who are serious and not. However I doubt anyone would bother trying to put gold sellers in prison as the crime they do is really nothing at all compared to the people who should be in jail. The only way to fight gold sellers is for us the players to not buy gold from them, if no one buys they won't earn any money. For a police department to waste resources on putting gold sellers in prison is just an stupid thing to do. those resources are better spent trying to catch the real criminals out there.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
Ugh, as usual it is those who accuse others of lack of information first who should try to read up more on the subject. Seeing people spam in games is not reading up on the subject.
Many companies may have been in business for years and, in the case of Chinese companies for example (just to bounce the ball), those companies are protected by their country and not allowed to be taken to court, their citizens may not be judged of crimes outside of their country, etc. Maybe they are forced to change their name or are bopped on the head (in China's case bopped on the head with the butts of rifles in some cases). That is what most companies do, change their website and change their name and do so within a few days before re-instating their template.
The few court cases, none of which included actual jail time, were based in the US and some, strangely enough, in France. The famous cases have been against bot creating companies such as the famous Blizzard victory and not the actual gold farmers and sellers themselves.
Anyway, I'm done hijacking this thread, hopefully people with some insight will continue or whatever. So long as selling virtual currency not of one's ownership makes money, so will the business thrive just like the black market.
Oh, and by the way, any names behind gold selling companies aren't real. lol. Court order telling who owns the website.. yeah, it's Duffy McDufferson from Ireland in China. Get him in jail, boys.
EDIT: In lazy response to the post below me, illegal and immoral in our minds = A OK! in many countries and, as stated, nobody is going to be allowed to sue or jail anybody for it. Dreams are nice though.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Oh believe me, I put most of the fault on the lazy asshats who buy the gold, It is indeed their fault. Problem is, you are always going to have lazy people who buy it. And by putting the sellers in jail, well that would be nice but maybe not practical. Fine them huge, like in millions so they won't have funds to reopen anywhere. And some should be prosecuted. In some countries they literally kidnap people and force them in huge numbers to "farm gold" in games. This is a fact, go google it. Those people need to go to jail. And the others make hundred of thousands of dollars to millions for the largest companies. While some may pay the people doing the work $2 a day, most pay nothing. In other words a sweat shop. So those people need to go to jail too, because that is a crime. So yes, some need to go to jail and is NOT a waste of time and money. Some need to pay fines equal to their total income. I don't have any magic answers or a wand to wave. But I do know that something SERIOUS needs to be done and not just some vague attempt at stopping them. Right now the industry stands at FAIL. Thats my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary.
I'm old not dead. (Nov8tr is pronounced innovator)
I right click the spammers and add them to my block list. It stops the tells but I STILL SEE THE SAME NAMES IN CHAT CHANNELS> I know some people tell me that it stops them all . But it does not work for me! Anyone know why?
Thank you vey much MMOfan!!!!!
Right click blocking should block tells and chat channels. It's worked for me. I rarely see a gold spammer now. I've blocked quite a few people. XD
It is NOT working for me... I'm going INSANE !
Right because Lineage 2 is the shining example of how NCSoft deals with gold farmers?
It's not just the gold spammers, it's the obvious bots that run rampant all over the place. Some are even in legions now. Server economies are going to get wrecked if nothing is done about it.
If something isn't done and SOON , Game play bots are just around the corner if they aren't already present!!!
DURAhell, All I can say is you must be very Durable indeed!
Type /anon and you will not show up in the search which is what the spammers use to find you so they can whisper you. Your friends can still wisper you, but will not see you so you will have to drop them a line if you want to chat.
Pair that up with the right click and block for the spam in the chat channels and you won't see a single spammer for hours on end. When there is a new one, block him. Rinse and repeat.
If your block list is filling up, simply delete the blocked names after a couple of days, since the spammers change their toons daily (usually).
As far as the scams go, common sense is key here. If it is too good to be true, it probably is. I saw a bot by the name of Marsso spamming 500K free kinah by signing up at a website. The stunner is, there were many folks admitting to going to his site in the chat.
the way they are dealing with gold spammers is idiotic.
The gold spammers use the general chats and find group ones constantly wihtout nothing happening to them.. at least they spam the websites and prices freely using the same nick for 1 2 or more days.
Add to that you get constantly spammed on wispers by them too.. i mean come on aint that hard to auto ban people sending messages with websites and $values or Euros altogether..
Blizzard vs Peons4Hire
Peons4Hire was a gold seller which was, as per the court ruling, banned from operating in WoW.
Right because Lineage 2 is the shining example of how NCSoft deals with gold farmers?
It's not just the gold spammers, it's the obvious bots that run rampant all over the place. Some are even in legions now. Server economies are going to get wrecked if nothing is done about it.
If something isn't done and SOON , Game play bots are just around the corner if they aren't already present!!!
They are present. I know of one that has been made already. First you attack the spam, make it harder to do so. Second you can target the accounts that generate the spam (bans) and lastly after some control has been established you can go after the bots. Usually players do most of the reporting on bots anyhow, seeing as it is incredibly easy to test and see if you get human responses from certain actions.
As much as gameguard sucks and is a piece of crap, not having anything in place right now is going to cause some problems with this until they get a new preventative system in place.
True Neutral Half-Elf Ranger Mage
Follower Of Silvanus
Kings of Chaos! Free to play! Great PvP!
If the multi-billion a year gaming giant Blizzard can't stop them in WoW, what makes you think anyone can? Gold farmers are like the cold virus, no one wants it, but theres nothing you can do to eliminate it from the face of the planet.
Never have I seen spam this bad in an MMO. WOW has a few but nothing like this. And Yes Gold spamming and gold buying will ruin an economy and unless they wipe all characters and start over the economy will be ruined for good. And then there is Lords of the Rings Online, although the game is way to casual friendly hand holding crap they have done an excellent job of squashing cheaters, bots and gold spam, they have a one click instant reporting function for removing undesirable players. Thus LotRO, as a result of this has one of the best communities in any MMO I have played and I have pretty much played em all. So don't tell me that removing Gold Farmers and cheaters is impossible. But so far NCSOFT has done nothing about it, I have noticed some goldspammers names that have been in the game since release and are still there with the same names. And sadly I am not really expecting NC to really ever do anything about it. I am im fact expecting it to get even worse and that is just sad cause Aion really does have the potential to make some serious money for the company. Could it be that NCSOFT is even more clueless than SOE? Look at Vanguard that game is a gold mine that landed in SOE's lap and they can't see it. Yeah I know it sucked at release but not now. It could be bigger than WOW if handled right as could Aion.
Difference is, that's Turbine... they actually give a hoot about their players enough to do something about it.
This is NCSoft we're talking about. While it's true that there's RMT and botting in most any MMO... L1 and L2 are in a class all their own. You haven't seen RMT/botting 'til you've seen it in a NCSoft-developed and run MMO. It's almost legendary.
NCSoft sat back and did the whole "Naw... of *course* we care about RMT in our game!" in Lineage 2 for years, while entire groups of RMT bots to ran rampant right under theirs and players' noses. Report them and nothing happens. The RMT became so rampant in that game due to NCSoft's complete inaction against them that they actually took over the economy. The RMT are so brazen in that game that if you go after a group of their bots, an "enforcer" character will be logged in - max level and equipped to the hilt - and drop you. If you're in a room they want in a catacomb, they'll do the same.
RMT run rampant in Lineage 1 as well, and NCSoft does nothing, even as players still post in their forums to please do something about it.
Every so often - every 6 months or so, usually before a major update - NC will do a banning, purely for PR purposes. Within a couple weeks, it's right back to normal and they disappear into the woodwork again.
I mean this in absolutely no offensive or demeaning way to anyone posting in this thread, but having read through some of the optimistic posts about how NC will deal with it... yeesh... I hope I'm wrong, but I think some of y'all are in for some disappointment.
Now Aion is getting off on the same foot again, NCSoft is making only token gestures to put on a good face and make it appear they care. Meanwhile, the RMT is getting worse. As I figured, as soon as enough people figured out the /invisible deal, they started simply spamming the chat channels. I've turned off 3 chat channels already due to them spamming it. And of course, the GMs take their sweet time dealing with them, if they do at all. If they're this lax on it now.. just wait 'til the game's out a bit and they're not as concerned about "being on top of it" for good PR.
/blist them... sure. Going on invisible is getting into the annoying - what if you want to be visible to others for possible groups? Now what do we have to do, turn off entire chat channels because they're being spammed? Wrong. NCSoft has to get a freaking clue and do something about it.
I was hoping they'd have learned how to better deal with RMT/botting from the start this time, after the mess that L1 and L2 were. I was telling people "after the mess that L2 and L1 were, with AIon being such a high profile game - likely their new flagship - I'm sure they're going to be on top of that from the start". Well, seems I was wrong and my optimism was misplaced. They apparently haven't learned a thing, or simply haven't started caring enough. Either way, I'm not going to support them with my money while they let yet another MMO be overrun by botters and RMT while they keep their collective head stuck firmly in the sand.
Below is a shot I took last night before I logged out, cancelled my account and uninstalled. There are 3 or 4 more that are off the top of the chat box... and that was within the first 10 minutes that I was logged in. I posted a thread about this on the official forums and - le surprise - it was deleted. As always, they won't deal with RMT... but boy they'll ban your posts about it in a hurry.
{mod edit}
HEH now where was that screenshot again?? Has NCsoft paid MMORPG to delete it? I smell a conspiracy here....
no
The reason I asked you this is L2 is the case study example of how a game can get completely ruined by gold farming. You log into that game now and there are whole sections of the game that is just infested by gold farmers/botters. It does have an effect on the server if it's not handled properly.
No one denies that other games doesn't have this problem (WoW included), but NcSoft has a history of not being very aggressive towards the problem.
Lineage 2 had one major difference from Aion (that I've seen so far) and that is, in Lineage 2, crafted gear was the best, extremely expensive to buy (was quite easy for your levels to outpace your ability to earn enough adena to pay for next tier set) and therefore was a botting/gold selling paradise.
In Aion so far dropped gear has sometimes exceeded quest gear, and I've not seen any evidence that I need some sort of crafted gear at the lower levels to succeed.
If no one really feels the need to buy it, they gold sellers will subside on their own and move on to more profitable games.
(I've not reached the upper levels however, and perhaps you really do need a lot of gold to thrive)
It's not only gear that people buy in-game gold for. They buy it simply so they never have to worry about money for *anything* they want.
Ya know I never understood that mentality. Why don't they just make a game for 15 dollars a month you spend an hour or two creating your character and soon as you log in you are presented with an armor/weapon shop that has every possible item you could find all for free that you just pick and equip and when you leave the shop the entire game world consists only of a rotating pedestal to stand on and emotes for /dance /showoff? Maybe I should go into the MMO buisness myself .,I think I might be able to pull that off pretty easily **** Sarcasm OFF!
Not sure if anyones mentioned it here but you go /anon ingame so they cant send you gold tells anymore. At least they dont for me anyway.
You have to do this command each time you log on. I usually forget but once I get my first gold spam its become automatic for me now. Hope this helps!!
That worked for a short time. The RMT have gotten wise to it, so now they simply spam the chat channels.
Incidentally... I whipped up a quick new logo for them.. I'm thinking of presenting it to them, as sort of a "parting gift". Think they'll like it?
Awesome Logo ! Can I use it?
Hey man, If you want to go in halffers on a ticket I def go with you with my baseball bat in hand. Sounds better than gay-bashing, dwarf-tossing or anything like that anytime! I hate them with a passion myself besides the community these kind of people is the one main thing that irritates me to no end! Every time here lately that I log in the game and see these ridiculous messages everywhere I get so mad that I can't see straight. I have even started to send them tells of my own with the most nastyest vile cuss words that even I thought I could never have thought up in a milllion years. It is making me a very ugly and sad person inside. That's why I am cancelling this game . I don't like what it is turning me into . So much anger, so much hate, I rant so much now my wife is threatening to divorce me. I can't take it anymore AAArrrGGgHHH!!!