LOLOL

 This has had zero effect. I still get a whisper 2-3 times per minute and even if you use /anon you will see tons of spam on the LFG and other channels. For reasons beyond understanding, they do not do something more effective like /report and then hire a couple folks to insta-ban the accounts. If this very simple step was done, every time someone spammed, it would cost them $49 for the account that was just banned, plus they would have to (easy enough) get past the IP ban.  But again, AION (an Asian company, wink wink) seems to want to treat these farmers with the kindest of kid gloves 

In the open beta at least (I'm not sure about live), I know you couldn't send a message in general chat until level 5. This move really isn't any different.

As for getting to level 5, that takes about... 30 minutes or so? It doesn't hurt the players, nor does it hurt the gold sellers and their bots that run around like the fleas they are.

It is the same old NCSoft.  Nothing has changed, it is like this in all their games.  They could care less.  They don't bother to ban anyone.  You can bet the bot farmers are highly active right now.  Another reason Aion should be avoided.

That is the question I kept asking prerelease are they going to control the spammers and botters.  As usual, NCSoft comes through like a champ and does little to alter their activities.

It's a bit better, but it's still highly noticable. Getting to 5 doesn't take long. In my opinion they should raise it to 10. Everything is solable during those levels. They need to crack down on it big time, it's out of hand right now. This is my major con with this game. Eliminate or slow it down big time, and I'll be happy.

Originally posted by mmofan2112

 This has had zero effect. I still get a whisper 2-3 times per minute and even if you use /anon you will see tons of spam on the LFG and other channels. For reasons beyond understanding, they do not do something more effective like /report and then hire a couple folks to insta-ban the accounts. If this very simple step was done, every time someone spammed, it would cost them $49 for the account that was just banned, plus they would have to (easy enough) get past the IP ban.  But again, AION (an Asian company, wink wink) seems to want to treat these farmers with the kindest of kid gloves 

Well for starters, most gold sellers use fake/stolen credit card numbers and don't get charged a dime. All that banning does is cost them the time to create their new account, but they probably have a guy sitting next to them doing that so they can keep swapping to the next one. Now if they banned ip/hardware numbers it might slow them a bit more.

But it comes down to the line I say everytime there is any thread like this. Stop blaming the company which can only do so much to stop it. BLAME THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP BUYING GOLD IN GAMES! They cause all of these issues. If people weren't so ridiculous and lazy that they need to spend real world money to get gold and get a short cut then this wouldn't happen.

Originally posted by mmofan2112

 This has had zero effect. I still get a whisper 2-3 times per minute and even if you use /anon you will see tons of spam on the LFG and other channels. For reasons beyond understanding, they do not do something more effective like /report and then hire a couple folks to insta-ban the accounts. If this very simple step was done, every time someone spammed, it would cost them $49 for the account that was just banned, plus they would have to (easy enough) get past the IP ban.  But again, AION (an Asian company, wink wink) seems to want to treat these farmers with the kindest of kid gloves 

I doubt they are actually buying the game and sub... Most spamming is done through trial versions, Which then raises the question why not implement a 2 step system. Ban sub accounts and completely remove the whisper feature from the trial version :P 

 Takes about 10-20 minutes to reach lvl5. I don't think this will affect genuine players in any way.

 they should have blocked that till you ascend 

that way no gold seller and if there are would give plenty of time to ban em 

but its a great move from aion this will cool off junk seller 

but like i say aion will probably need to raise that from lvl 5 to after you ascend 

 Yep... 7+ years of ignor... err... combatting RMT in their other MMOs has provided them the wisdom to implement such a revolutionary tactic: Give the RMT a few more levels go grind through, in the earliest/fastest part of the game! That'll show 'em!

 one thing is sure it will raise the number of player that level from 1 to 5 by a lot (evil grin)

Loved that pic.

I mean look at Lineage II , that game can not even be played unless u are buying gold or running bots 24/7. Those are the types of games NCSoft makes.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

It is the same old NCSoft.  Nothing has changed, it is like this in all their games.  They could care less.  They don't bother to ban anyone. 

This is something you've said several times before.

"...it is like this in all their games."

Can you give us examples of this perceived dev apathy and excessive gold spam in Exteel, CoH/CoV and GW? Was this occurring in Dungeon Runners or Auto Assault?

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by Ozmodan

It is the same old NCSoft.  Nothing has changed, it is like this in all their games.  They could care less.  They don't bother to ban anyone. 

 

This is something you've said several times before.

 

"...it is like this in all their games."

 

Can you give us examples of this perceived dev apathy and excessive gold spam in Exteel, CoH/CoV and GW? Was this occurring in Dungeon Runners or Auto Assault?

+10 to you

Curious though...what are the names of the sellers there? If it's the normal garbage names, why not make character name rules. Like no numbers and such....

The only way to get rid of gold sellers is to put them out of business by selling gold officially.  When it's not lucrative for them, they will leave.

Originally posted by Stuckov

 

I doubt they are actually buying the game and sub... Most spamming is done through trial versions, Which then raises the question why not implement a 2 step system. Ban sub accounts and completely remove the whisper feature from the trial version :P 

There is no north american trial version.

Originally posted by MortisRex

Originally posted by Stuckov

 

I doubt they are actually buying the game and sub... Most spamming is done through trial versions, Which then raises the question why not implement a 2 step system. Ban sub accounts and completely remove the whisper feature from the trial version :P 

 

There is no north american trial version.

Which is why its boggling my mind why NCSoft doesn't just ban them. If they have to pay 49 bucks a pop to get a new key... that'd cut into their profit margin rather quickly (unless they're abusing CC's and digital downloads, in which case, stop the digital download keys from being able to speak for 10 levels in any other chat than "Say".)

LOL.

An MMORPG, an INHERENTLY social game, and you can't talk to anyone before level 5?   Niiiice.  /rollseyes

LOL.

What I think they should do (this is just my two-cents, mind) is not allow whispers from people that aren't on your friends list.  This doesn't have to be mandatory!  But it could be an option.  No one can whisper you unless you add them as a friend.  If someone else wants to talk with you (say, someone passing by), then they can either form a group with you and talk that way, or just speak out loud. 

Of course, banning ip addresses would probably work too... until the gold spammers find a way around it.

Why didn't they just add it so you can go anon like you could in WAR.  The thing is if you go anon nobody can search for you the people have to actually see you and remember and type in your name and usually that is just to much work for them gold sellers.  I went anon in WAR and got like 1 tell for gold spam after that in the month  I played.

I really don't see this working it take what maybe an hour or so to get to level 5. So basically all the gold sellers will get to past level 5 real quick and then start their tells again. NCSOFT should have already thought of that. lol

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

 . BLAME THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP BUYING GOLD IN GAMES! 

I agree, I got a great Idea. How about all you gold buyers just send me your real life money and Ill send you back some monopoly money. I just don't see why people spend real money for fake money, Id rather spend it on heroin cuz at least Id get something worth while out of it...... LOL J/K but I would rather buy some funky nuggets though.

MAKE DRUGS LEGAL AND THE STREET PHARMACIST WILL BE OUT OF BUSINESS

There is a /anon function by the way so I hope that was a joke.

Use it.  /anon or go to your Friends menu and set your status from Online to Invisible.

They will still be able to spam main channels such as class channels, area channels, trade channels, etc.. that's the annoying part for now.

This is the typical type of "fix" I see in a lot of MMOs these days.

That is, one that does nothing to fix the problem it is intended to, and only serves to frustrate and inconvenience the innocent people who are just trying to play the game.

Rather than set a level cap, they need to set up so people can report a spammer.  If you are reported for spam by say three different people you are silenced in all channels and await the banning.  The only thing is this would have to be restricted to whispers since there are jackasses out there that would purposely do it to others in OOC.

Indeed. I think that probably would have been a more effective solution than restricting it altogether.

it helps because, black list now has a better impact

but level 5 is to low, 10 will be a good thing

an other thing that will be good is to create a rules for naming that dont allow name without at least one "a" "e" "o" "i" "u" "y"

etc etc ...

I was floored to see gold sellers in the newbie areas in both closed and open betas.  I mean, it's a beta!?!  O.o

I think they have some challenges with this. Banning whispers except on friends list is rough for trying to get a rez since everyone is in the same general chat and adding someone to friends requires their permission.  Multiple reports producing an insta-ban could work, but you just know some of the many griefers in /General would take advantage of it and wreak havoc on their targets. =/

Originally posted by Locklain

Rather than set a level cap, they need to set up so people can report a spammer.  If you are reported for spam by say three different people you are silenced in all channels and await the banning.  The only thing is this would have to be restricted to whispers since there are jackasses out there that would purposely do it to others in OOC.

I like this idea.  A kind of community-powered graduated response.  Like an FPS server vote feature.  That's a good way to go IMO.  Sure it would be abused by some, but from my experience in FPS games it typically isn't (though sometimes is) abused far enough to get an innocent player kicked.

They could always add some simple code to the reporting tool.  If a website URL exists in the text that's being reported than the report could count as two "votes" rather than one.  This could also hit people spamming their guild website, but while that's not anywhere near as bad as  gold spamming it is still spamming.

A squelch response is a good first step.  Say a 15 minute block.  The 15 minute block could automatically force a "challenge" to the account identical to what is being done with the gathering of nodes.  Passing the challenge response could return the ability to speak in /guild , /group , and /say but not in /1 or in /tells or in-game mail nor any other public channel (/2 , /3 , /4 , so on).

Getting squelched a second time could get them booted from a server until a GM can review their log.  Failing the challenge response could get them disconnected from the server, but perhaps that wouldn't force a GM review?

Anyway, just brain storming here to add to Locklain's idea.

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

But it comes down to the line I say everytime there is any thread like this. Stop blaming the company which can only do so much to stop it. BLAME THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP BUYING GOLD IN GAMES! They cause all of these issues. If people weren't so ridiculous and lazy that they need to spend real world money to get gold and get a short cut then this wouldn't happen.

Absolutely. If there was no money to be made then they wouldn't bother.

Also, the edition of the option to block a person when you right-click their name has been just fine for me to block the spam (and the WoW trolls) entirely out of my chat box.

Originally posted by MikeB

A recent patch to Aion implemented a crude but temporary fix to address the rampant gold spam taking place in Aion: The Tower of Eternity. The patch disallows characters under level five from sending whispers, similar to general chat which also maintains this restriction.

Having never played Aion, roughly how long does it take to hit level five? Do you think this change will make an impact on gold spam? Or will it simply serve to annoy legitimate players? Let us know in the comments!

HAHAHA yep theres your FREE2PLAY game .. YOU PAY FOR IT!>> AHAHAHA

Originally posted by gofastlemon

MAKE DRUGS LEGAL AND THE STREET PHARMACIST WILL BE OUT OF BUSINESS

I don't think your opinion even slightly contributed to the subject. It's irrelevant and a rather bad analogy.
 

All caps isn't very "Forum ettiquette" either. :)

Anyways, I feel that the cap should have been raised to 10 at least. Level 5 is fine, but it's too easy for a dedicated gold farmer to take 20 min out of his/her work schedule to get there. I'm not saying it will work entirely. It WILL definitely cut down on the sheer numbers of tells and general chat spams. Fingers Crossed!

Originally posted by gorillaz951

Originally posted by gofastlemon

MAKE DRUGS LEGAL AND THE STREET PHARMACIST WILL BE OUT OF BUSINESS

I don't think your opinion even slightly contributed to the subject. It's irrelevant and a rather bad analogy.
 

All caps isn't very "Forum ettiquette" either. :)

Anyways, I feel that the cap should have been raised to 10 at least. Level 5 is fine, but it's too easy for a dedicated gold farmer to take 20 min out of his/her work schedule to get there. I'm not saying it will work entirely. It WILL definitely cut down on the sheer numbers of tells and general chat spams. Fingers Crossed!

It's also easy to bot-grind to level 5, but completing the ascension quest may be a little more difficult to pull off with a bot.

Why not just put in a filter for the gold site urls and block messages that contain them?  There are usually only a handful of sites that spam.

The only people to blame are those who actually use the goldspammers. I wonder why the gamecompanies have no brains after all those years to get some. Look at CCP. There people who want to buy ingame money do so legally trading with those player who sell their ingame money for addittional gaming time. It is win win situation. You keep players and support those lazy guys, who think money can buy them fun. Its neither new nor difficult to implement, but as I said, gamecompanies copy, steal everything, but not those easy to use stuff to make everyone happy. A real nobrainer...

As for the question in here, does not change anything. Set it to level 20, really. If new players stop to join the game, at least the old ones have some peace and perhaps even the gamecompany hires someone to think now and then.

Getting to level 5 takes about 10 minutes, so this is no deterent.

I have found the pairing up typing /anon to stop the whispers and right click and block for chat is very effective.

The /anon only dissables your showing up in the search, so you can still be whispered, but you do have to let your buddies know.  Likewise, if you are in a legion, it does not block that, so your legion can see you.

I don't get why no one tries to use the system of FFXI that you login in launcher then can launch games, I never saw gold spams apart of 2 maybe which happened past few days ago. 

Blocking Whispers until level 5 does nothing.  It's extremely easy to get level 5, 30 minutes, maybe even less.  If they make it any higher, as people have said, then it prevents players from enjoying the game with friends.  For example, sometimes me and a group of friends will all start new characters together and party throughout the entire game.  Blocking all types of communications for a long period of time can get to become more annoying then helpful.  It's good that they are trying to solve the problem, but in all honesty...it's impossible.  You can try a lot of things, but none of them will really solve the problem.

Originally posted by SagetheRage

Why not just put in a filter for the gold site urls and block messages that contain them?  There are usually only a handful of sites that spam.

 It is too easy to bypass filters now.  All we would see are a bunch of wwwdotbuyfromme2dotcom messages.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

NCSoft does a pretty impressive job btw in trying to balance the servers and faction balance.

But the gold sellers are smarter than any company. Always have been.

 

Indeed, even if the company had it figured out the system to prevent it could be exploited or could anger customers.

I think it'd be best if they just implemented the ability to right-click someone's name and have the option to report right there. The chat restrictions help very little when level 5 is so easily attained.

Nice patch but I get all my spams for gold via the mail system, so they are just getting around the mute anyway. I hate spammers and would not waste real money on buying in-game gold you can collect for free yourself...DOH.

Zoth

---

Originally posted by Zorndorf
One of the reasons why Xfire is of no use to detect player activity in Aion is that shops keep  the number of players and playing time way off the normal measurement.
Apparently gold sellers use these tools too to promote the game.
On a "normal" game, Xfire would show almost 1M western players playing, but wih 14NA/16EU servers this simply is not possible. The average logging in Aion was at 7Hr+ at one moment. Simply a lot of CPU's log in for 24/24.

NCSoft does a pretty impressive job btw in trying to balance the servers and faction balance.
But the gold sellers are smarter than any company. Always have been.
 

---

Not sure if this has been applied to the EU servers, but I've DEFINITELY noticed a huge improvement when playing today as opposed to yesterday. I got like 1 or 2 whispers, where I'd be getting one around every 15 minutes previously.

Maybe the above suggested method is better:

If 100 (or a set threshold) amount of people reported a spammer using an auto block/report spam function then the system auto ban the spamming account.

Welcome to NCSOFT LOL

I find it funny that the first thing I have to remember to do when I log in for a session, is to use my /anon to stop random gold-seller whispers. Annoying yes, game breaking, no. Blocking whispers until level 5 won't do anything. They spam general chat, they spam LFG chant, they spam class chat. So getting to level 5, 10, 15, 20 and so on will not stop them. That's because 100% of the gold-selling sites offer a leveling service as well. So it's no big thing to start a bot program, leave, come back later and resume your advertising session.

No I think most players here are naive to the fact that it's more than likely Asian MMO companies for a long time have been getting a piece of the gold-selling company's profits. This is why you will only see a couple of companies and not a whole slew of different companies within a game. They have figured out that it's better to get money from them buying accounts and a percentage of their profits, while at the same time collecting their own profits from gamers. In the mean time they offer options for gamers to make it appear that they are combating these gold-selling companies. Features like /anon, level restrictions, chat restrictions, name restrictions and so on....

Sometimes you even see mass banning of accounts. But I think it's just a new(or old) gold-selling company that either didn't play by the MMO company's rules or negotiations fell through for some reason, hence the banning you sometimes see these MMO companies post about on their websites. If they were really combating spammers all along, you wouldn't see mass bans as the filtering out of culprits would be more like a trickling out of them.

Anyway I've rambled on for long enough. But personally I've learn to develop thick skin over the years, especially if I really enjoy a game. So I'll over look things like this and just enjoy myself for as long as I can tolerate it.
 

Well guys you see they took out the gamegaurd right before release for a reason NCsoft like to make money in any way they can

their company their rules.

Originally posted by Player_420

LOLOL

level five... is like 20 mins if you know the game and your not a noob !

i think the time should be longer...

 like till level 7-9 at least  because in my book you know if you like the toon at level 9...

 also when you are about to ascend you totally know !

Dedicated players of AION making characters are not going to mind not chatting for 1 hour !

although people use the chat so what ban the chat let them use emotes / private store / and Ventrillo

if they are not on VENT they need to.

LMAO !

I am ambivalent. There are huge pros and cons to this. Gold spamming is so rampant in Aion currently that you cannot go more than 20 minutes (I judge by my skill timeouts) without either getting a message via whisper or in-game mail.

On the other hand, I don't really care that much. Its one whisper every 20 minutes and I ignore it. The idea of silencing new people in general chat until level 5 was a good idea, but now they will be mute during the most difficult time for a new player to start a game. Level 1-5 takes several hours during one's first playthrough, and I bet the goldfarmers have those first five levels down to a science.

I think they need to take a page from Fallen Earth's book, and create a chat for level 5 and under. There will be plenty of alts leveling to help people even if they can't provide volunteer support.

Originally posted by liddokun

Maybe the above suggested method is better:

If 100 (or a set threshold) amount of people reported a spammer using an auto block/report spam function then the system auto ban the spamming account.

They are only banning PLAYERs that are spamming?  That's a terrible idea.  They should be banning the accounts.  There's no chance that a character that is spamming gold advertisements isn't linked to an account that is part of that collective group anyway.  Essentially all they have to do is just remake their character and get to level 5 again.

---

Originally posted by Polantaris

---

Originally posted by liddokun

Maybe the above suggested method is better:
If 100 (or a set threshold) amount of people reported a spammer using an auto block/report spam function then the system auto ban the spamming account.

---

 
They are only banning PLAYERs that are spamming?  That's a terrible idea.  They should be banning the accounts.  There's no chance that a character that is spamming gold advertisements isn't linked to an account that is part of that collective group anyway.  Essentially all they have to do is just remake their character and get to level 5 again.

---

I think its the accounts.

More punishment for legitimate players with zero affect on the intended audience.

Pointless.

This will not hurt gold sellers. They already have bots out now for powerleveling and getting to level 5 is not a very hard task and can be done in as little as 20 minutes to a half an hour. I don't think this will do anything other than slow the seller's bots down by that amount of time.Either block people until after ascension or even better, just flat out ban the account of anyone who spams. If it was a stolen account, restore it from backup and return it to the previous owner when they call.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by Ozmodan

It is the same old NCSoft.  Nothing has changed, it is like this in all their games.  They could care less.  They don't bother to ban anyone. 

 

This is something you've said several times before.

 

"...it is like this in all their games."

 

Can you give us examples of this perceived dev apathy and excessive gold spam in Exteel, CoH/CoV and GW? Was this occurring in Dungeon Runners or Auto Assault?

Ok, I should have specified the game names.  It was rampant in both Lineage and LIneage II.  Both those games contained a lot of bots and loaded with gold spammers.   NCSoft did little to control them.  None of the others had enough population to matter to the farmers besides guildwars and I don't consider that a MMO.

Originally posted by Tisiphone

I am ambivalent. There are huge pros and cons to this. Gold spamming is so rampant in Aion currently that you cannot go more than 20 minutes (I judge by my skill timeouts) without either getting a message via whisper or in-game mail.

On the other hand, I don't really care that much. Its one whisper every 20 minutes and I ignore it. The idea of silencing new people in general chat until level 5 was a good idea, but now they will be mute during the most difficult time for a new player to start a game. Level 1-5 takes several hours during one's first playthrough, and I bet the goldfarmers have those first five levels down to a science.

I think they need to take a page from Fallen Earth's book, and create a chat for level 5 and under. There will be plenty of alts leveling to help people even if they can't provide volunteer support.

On 1 hand i dont care either way on the farmers ie. bots or  sites selling Kinah ... but  it is funny when you're saying that it is the most important time to ask question an have chat at 1-5  lvl   NOT true !

AION although unique is still should impliment a Handcuffing technique from the game of ROHAN  when there was  BOT  spamming, their were players that could handcuff the bots or  gold sellers and auto cuffing would report them and BAN them!

 in my view aion should set-up their chat like this

0-9 their own chat

10-19 same

20-29 same

30-39 same

40-49 same 

50-55 same

that way no more silly stuff and if there are its very easy to pin point where the trouble is

---

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

 . . . BLAME THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP BUYING GOLD IN GAMES!

---

Ding! Now There's an idea. No buyer = no seller = <sigh of relief>

well i dont know much about gold spamming

but 1 easy way to get rid of most of it is to remove trial accounts the permission to whisper and talk in general/trade or whatever its called in aion. Though u might need some trial whisper aswell so i've figured out trials only can whisper those ppl who have them on their friendlist. wouldn't that be nice? (:

(got that idea after a friend of mine got chat banned in wow and then only could whisper me as i had him on friendlist)

It takes very little effort to reach level 5.  The fix has a small effect, because previously the Ad-bots would stand around at the newbie starting point and spam away  Now at least some activity has to be involved in each character before it can be used to spam, but that isn't much of a barrier.  

In contrast, Aion provides the spammer ample tools to perform their task. The Social/Friends management screen allows for single character wildcard searches, and then allows each person on the list to be right clicked on with the option to whisper...so working ones way down a list is fairly easy. Add to that the built in feature in the Memo pad that allows one to click on a paragraph in the notepad and have it become the text of a whisper easily - this means that a human being could easily process a list of characters and send each one the same message, all with built in game features.

Aion has not provided the user a means to click on an offending message and select an option to block that user directly from the message, instead you must type /block <name>. The Ad-bots have used random switches of characters and numbers to make it very difficult to match the spelling. What's more, there is no option to 'block all except (Friends/Group/Alliance/Legion), so the player is stuck managing an ever growing list of blocks when adding the simple blanket block would reduce the problem of ad-bots drastically.

OMFG did you really think that a /tell lock on lvl 5 and lower players would even begin to touch the issue??? Wow!!! You really need to take a step back rethink of a way to better controle the RMTs in Aion. Maybe you should start a team of GMs that do nothing but keep track of the RMTs and block there IP Address. Granted there are ways around this but at least it will make it harder for the RMTs to keep doing business. All in all in boils down to ALL the GD people who actualy BUY the gold from these people. Dont do it!!! Just say no!!! Im REALLY having second thoughts about Aion ; ; and i really do like the game. Maybe in six months ill come back and see if the RMTs have calmed down a bit. FFXI is a better game in the fact that they dont allow RMTs.

ROFL

Anyone who honestly thought this would help was deluding themselves.  I've removed myself from all the Public Channels, and since I play with my Wife I have no need for them for a while. (No idea when the instanced dungeons or what have you occur.  We're only LVL 10 on a few toons) 

Now I have to wonder why the companies don't just get into the gold selling business themselves?  I mean might as well make the extra money yourself.  :p

(Yes I'm being silly) 

DarthSpike says
"Aion has not provided the user a means to click on an offending message and select an option to block that user directly from the message, instead you must type /block <name>. The Ad-bots have used random switches of characters and numbers to make it very difficult to match the spelling. "
......

WRONG!!! You can simplly Right Click on the users name in the Chat window and choose Wisper or Block. I've been doing that for a least the last week!

I do like your idea of block all except (Friends/Group/Alliance/Legion). But the rest of you comments are terrible. But I’m just a guy with an opinoin, just like you.

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

But it comes down to the line I say everytime there is any thread like this. Stop blaming the company which can only do so much to stop it. BLAME THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP BUYING GOLD IN GAMES! They cause all of these issues. If people weren't so ridiculous and lazy that they need to spend real world money to get gold and get a short cut then this wouldn't happen.

Was thinking exactly the same thing.

The game is so great all they complain about is Chat Spam?   Unbelievalbe there are that many little crybabys having to complain about something.   Let them figure it out and ignore in the meantime.  Be greatfull thats the only complaint with game.   Unreal.

---

Originally posted by Harvey_Scorp

DarthSpike says
"Aion has not provided the user a means to click on an offending message and select an option to block that user directly from the message, instead you must type /block <name>. The Ad-bots have used random switches of characters and numbers to make it very difficult to match the spelling. "
......
WRONG!!! You can simplly Right Click on the users name in the Chat window and choose Wisper or Block. I've been doing that for a least the last week!
I do like your idea of block all except (Friends/Group/Alliance/Legion). But the rest of you comments are terrible. But I’m just a guy with an opinoin, just like you.

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I am glad you liked the idea of the "block all whispers except" options. Here is another idea to go with it... apparently there is a command /anon that makes you invisible, and therefore not on the aforementioned search There is a dropdown list in your Friends list for invisible but I don't know for sure if it has the same effect (or what 'busy' does). The idea I have is to put the Invisible right next to wherever you put the whisper block exception options, with the same 4 exception options for it...Invisible to everyone except friend/group/alliance/legion. In my opinion, if we can block whispers, and remove ourselves from the search, while still being visible and able to talk to our friends, it would make it harder for the ad-bots to do their job.

I am curious what other comments you found so terrible? That I said that a person can hit V type in a single character in the Search, and then right click on each and every name on that list and whisper- its true, and you can check it in-game yourself. Is that the terrible part? Perhaps its the FACT that the memo pad feature tells you in the instructions at the bottom how ctrl-right click will copy a link from the memopad to the chat...nope that was true too so not sure how that is terrible.

Maybe you meant terrible in the "OMG he is right all of this stuff is provided by the game itself to become a spam-bot's dream come true" Either way, I certainly have no desire or interest in fighting or arguing with someone who also wants the game to be better than it is so it can be more playable and enjoyable. I think you are one of those people, but for some reason your response to my earlier post was 'flamy' but I guess that's your right. Just figure saving that vehemence for the Spammers and gold farmers is better than roasting me.

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Originally posted by Shreddi

The game is so great all they complain about is Chat Spam?   Unbelievalbe there are that many little crybabys having to complain about something.   Let them figure it out and ignore in the meantime.  Be greatfull thats the only complaint with game.   Unreal.

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That being said, I agree with you that if the ad-bot plague was gone there would be very little to complain about with this game. The graphics are great, the quests seem plentiful, classes seem balanced. If NCSoft invests some real effort into fighting these farmers and clearing up the incessant advertisements, I think this would become one of the best games out there.

Incidentally, I played in the OB for Aion, and it was ad-bot free at that point. It is an amazing game, facing an obstacle. I really want to see the obstacle overcome.

Do they have GMs in the game?

I read that as "good game" originally.  Then I saw your post and realized it was Game Guard.

As most of us know, GG would have zero effect on the spammers.  Nada.  It doesn't matter to me if it's in or out because I never had a problem with GG, but I know that others have.  There's no point in it.

What they need to do is add a Report feature to the right-click menu.  They already have an /autoreportwhatever command. I don't see why they didn't add it to the silly menu instead of a simple block.

This has me curious:  How many names can go into a block list?  It's not going to take long to fill it up, and then things are going to get all kinds of fun.

Originally posted by LilandraF

The only way to get rid of gold sellers is to put them out of business by selling gold officially.  When it's not lucrative for them, they will leave.

Just like anything banned in real life, once it is sold and regulated legitimately, the black market is destroyed.

You guys just don't get.... NcSoft  has gold selling in every game they own. The will make billions off of selling gold, do you really believe that some small dude in an apartment and now real way to laundry money is selling gold ? IN MY OPINION.

Originally posted by solareus

You guys just don't get.... NcSoft  has gold selling in every game they own. The will make billions off of selling gold, do you really believe that some small dude in an apartment and now real way to laundry money is selling gold ? IN MY OPINION.

Every mmorpg has gold sellers it's not ncsoft only... the only difference is that other games hide it more then ncsoft but they are still there.

I always thought.. what is wrong with you people? I've played tons of mmorgp's and still I haven't found the game that has no gold sellers. Why don't you get over it already? When I get spamed I just look at the msg and move on. They don't affect my gameplay whatsoever nor my joy of playing. This has turned into something normal in every mmorpg and if you don't pass trough this I wonder why you bother to play at all?

Honestly gold farmers are hard workers. they spend lots of time doing everything and anything to make gold. Their job is at the end of the day to make as much gold as possible, because they get paid by how much they make. Its nothing to them to get to a level that's needed to do as much farming as possible. They trade secrets among themselves that seem to make the most gold. Personally I've been able to tell who are gold farmers by just listening to them for a little bit. It seems that they start out small leveling, begging, ninjaing then somewhere along the lines graduate either to botting, or stealing accounts.

imo the only way to combat gold farmers is two fold. One stop hack tools from being run, and going after people who buy gold. Many people have grown way too comfortable with how easy it is to buy gold, run code to level faster, or farm.

5 min and you are lvl 5 do they make fun with os???

Originally posted by GozerTC

ROFL

Anyone who honestly thought this would help was deluding themselves.  I've removed myself from all the Public Channels, and since I play with my Wife I have no need for them for a while. (No idea when the instanced dungeons or what have you occur.  We're only LVL 10 on a few toons) 

Now I have to wonder why the companies don't just get into the gold selling business themselves?  I mean might as well make the extra money yourself.  :p

(Yes I'm being silly) 

 

 

are you being silly? or did you just uncover their master plan!?
 

and poor voiceless noobs :(

The EU version of Runes of Magic suffers from the same crap.

No amount of reporting makes any difference and sometimes the scum are using the SAME character 3 days after being reported.

At least there are some decent ADDONS to combat this now with custom and auto ban-lists. 

They seem to have added the level 5 ban to zonechat too but leveling is too easy as Aion.

But to the point on this game, why don't the devs build filters for the naming of characters to block keyboard hammerings like the good old goldspammers "sadfsadfghjk" deal?  And ANY name with the same character 3 times or more.

If they had to sit down and create real sounding names it would slow them another 5% I expect :)

(have the filter give them 3 tries then delete the account,  with a message warning that stupid names are not acceptible)

Raising the lvl for chat will not stop the spammers. Even other MMOs have issues. right now AION is being flooded by it as it is the new hot game of the moment.

You can right click the name of the offender and then click block. Today I blocked for the first 2 mins on and had very few issues afterward. If players do not buy the currency and promised powerlvling through bots then this will cause the advertisers to go away as they will be unable to make money.

There is only so much the GMs can do as the spammers change accounts faster than a super model changes clothes in a photo shoot.  If they are abusing the trial account then maybe this should be done away with to only allow paying players access or make a seperate server for trial accounts that does not affect players that play.

AION is pretty fun and I have no problem lvling and making kinah so I do not understand why anyone would use that route.

Keep in mind too that if you do buy from these spammers you could be compromising your account and personnal information.

The best prevention falls to players of all MMOs to stop buying from these gold sellers and stop buying their power lvling bot programs. This will cause them to not make money and they will go away. As long as they have customers they will continue to advertise.

Originally posted by Jalita

What I think they should do (this is just my two-cents, mind) is not allow whispers from people that aren't on your friends list.  This doesn't have to be mandatory!  But it could be an option.  No one can whisper you unless you add them as a friend.  If someone else wants to talk with you (say, someone passing by), then they can either form a group with you and talk that way, or just speak out loud. 

Of course, banning ip addresses would probably work too... until the gold spammers find a way around it.

make yourself invisible, no one can see you on the search menu, and only appear online to guildies

You said:

BLAME THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP BUYING GOLD IN GAMES! They cause all of these issues. If people weren't so ridiculous and lazy that they need to spend real world money to get gold and get a short cut then this wouldn't happen.

Which is partially true and partially untrue.

First, crime occurs when opportunity meets inclination - the spammers are like those nasty little men who hang out in alleys - "hey bud, c'mere, I got somethin for ya". They are trying to make a buck by convincing people that "hey, it's ok, look, it's not your fault the darn game is so hard - here, let us help you... " 

But if that opportunity is not pushed down your throat 10-15 times per MINUTE most of the players will happily grind away, killing the mob, rescuing the kidnapped, being the hero [or heroine]. That is called immersion and the best games have it and have it spades... Right now, the spam has ruined immersion - you CANNOT have general chat on or looking for group so your game world grows smaller and your engagement with your faction grows less.

As someone who looked forward to Aion from the first whispers I heard over two years ago, I must say I am somewhat disappointed. I know other games [as popular] have addressed the problem of gold sellers directly and indirectly, by banning and making it fast and easy for players to police the game. NCSOFT has done neither.

The "report-a-bot" button works five times. Supposedly that is five times / day but in reality, it is five times period. Which doesn't make a whole lot of difference because 2 weeks in, there are no longer any GMs in game during peak business hours. And to add insult to injury, the button is buried under 3 or 4 or 5 menus and sub-menus but whatever, it still doesn't work.

Two weeks in and I hear from my Legion that several players are already sick of this gold selling mess and getting ready to move on [Mirkwood is coming out] and that makes me a sad panda. Aion - the game - is a fun as it gets. Sharp graphics, crisp gameplay - really fricking hard quests [lol = TOO HARD~!] great pvp [though there is concern about how far ahead of the Elyos the Asmos are - pfft] but... but... but... the gold sellers are ruining it.

Why farm when for $24 you can buy a million Ki? So the lazy, time challenged, cheaters buy the ki/drugs the spammers/pushers sell and NCSoft/the law just looks the other way and the view that they are profiting by the gold sellers is re-inforced. Yes, this is worse than L2. There was a gold seller in Sanctum. A toon with some garbage name, selling on the main street of Sanctum. So the players click "block" "block" "block" and try to use NCSoft's report line - which is also convoluted - turns out that all of the reports which were initially supposed to go to the Aion Forum on the aiononline.com website instead were supposed to go to the help.ncsoft.com location. And since they haven't heard any complaints. So.

They got $60 for the early launch game. They got another $40 [roughly] for a 3 month sub. A $100 x 2 cause my spouse plays. And if they don't clean this up, we are leaving. Everything else to the side, we play MMORPGs to relax, talk with friends and like that. All we ask for is a fair game [guess what gold buyers - you're cheaters!] and no spam - right now, Aion is definate fail on the second count and the influx of bought ki is destroying the economy [there's that Lineage 2 model again] with the result that the new players will be squeezed into either cheating [buying] or they will leave - when a mob drops something worth 200K that was something... but now prices are up = $12 Million for items?

Finally - as most of the spam traffic arises in the East and NCSoft is based in Korea, is there a "helping out the folks back home" message being played out? I don't know but I do know that WoW, Eve, LotRO had a very similar problem with in-game gold sellers and addressed it. Ban buyers and sellers would be a good start. Compare transactions with ki levels - be creative.

Or don't. If you ban some accounts, yes, you will lose those customer cheaters but if you don't you will lose people who want to play a very cool immersive rpg - something incredibly like Aion only without the spam.

Urantia, Brig Gen
Valkyries, Israphel

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

But it comes down to the line I say everytime there is any thread like this. Stop blaming the company which can only do so much to stop it. BLAME THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP BUYING GOLD IN GAMES! They cause all of these issues. If people weren't so ridiculous and lazy that they need to spend real world money to get gold and get a short cut then this wouldn't happen.

EEEEt! WRONG. If Blizzard can impliment systems to control gold spamming (which they have done a very good job at), so can NCSoft.  You can blame the people who buyt he gold, but is that really gonna accomplish anything? Blame away! It's not gonna cease because they are getting blamed.

Between the constant spam whispers & the looOOOOooooong queue times, I've gone back to my regular MMO, WoW until something is done about the spammers & queue times. (WTF is with the coding on this post!)

Originally posted by abyss610

Originally posted by Jalita

What I think they should do (this is just my two-cents, mind) is not allow whispers from people that aren't on your friends list.  This doesn't have to be mandatory!  But it could be an option.  No one can whisper you unless you add them as a friend.  If someone else wants to talk with you (say, someone passing by), then they can either form a group with you and talk that way, or just speak out loud. 

Of course, banning ip addresses would probably work too... until the gold spammers find a way around it.

 

make yourself invisible, no one can see you on the search menu, and only appear online to guildies

I've tried that, I still get 4-5 whispers a minute from spammers selling ki. Nothing seems to work & it seems NCSoft is none-too-concerned about it.  You'd think they would hear us literally SCREAMING for them to do something. 

Spammers get your name from chat participation so going anon doesn't always work. If they had your name before you went anon that's also a factor. No one thing is going to fix this problem. It'll take actions from gamers and NCSoft to really get this under control. This weekend's spam bots will probably give NCSoft some legal avenues they can look into as well.

1) Stop buying gold you lazy asses.

2) NCSoft should look at what Blizzard has done to combat gold spammers and use what will work from their actions for Aion game.

3) Report any bots you see. Stupid names like Gffggqq are a dead give away. There's a function under Actions (I forget the actual name) that lets you target the character and auto report them. The problem is as far as I can tell it only gives you 9 or 10 reports. This should reset after a certain time, so they really need to change that.

4) Sending a list of spammer names to help.ncsoft.com really isn't affective since the spammers get to 5 spam to hell then delete that character. Rightclick <name>: Report Spam and having it send the spam text associated with the name plus the account name is needed.

5) Newbies should have their own channel until level 10. Harsh but ya gotta do what you gotta do for the greater good. This limits the number of players affected by spam and makes it easier for a GM to monitor that channel.

6) Filter chat looking for certain keywords known to be common to gold spammers. It won't catch it all but like I said no one thing is going to fix this.

7) Stop enabling these assholes by just thinking it doesn't affect you. Gold spam/selling/buying/powerleveling affects everyone in an MMO in one way or another, so stop being an enabler and report them.

8) NCSoft needs a group of GMs who's only job is to track down spammers/botters/buyers/sellers.

And I'm sure there's more that can be done as well.

 lol wow is just diff lol 

go on 

zam.com  all those site there are all gold seller site and thats just the tip of that company 

they sell everything from gold to item in all game yes including wow

they own wowhead 

they own thottbot.com

yep gold seller own very close to all website linked to gaming ,soe opened their own site for gamer eq2 but its one of the very few one that actively combat  that gold selling company (ige if i recall exactly)

As I explained before how I handled them in WoW is to turn off chat sounds, put all non guild chat into a window close, or cover that window, and avoid, or leave all other chat channels. Addons may help as long as guild chat and whispers don't consist of filter words. Even addons don't help when gold spammers can't spell or mix up their words. Bye gold now! Buy g0ld P@ydotc(om.

I'm the type of person who spends a few hours dealing with my broker. I've noticed the gold farmers will stand there next to me asking everyone who walks up for gold, and as soon as one leaves another one shows up to start again, so even being in the public areas makes me get more whispers despite my efforts to reduce the amount of whispers I get a minute.

Originally posted by MikeB

A recent patch to Aion implemented a crude but temporary fix to address the rampant gold spam taking place in Aion: The Tower of Eternity. The patch disallows characters under level five from sending whispers, similar to general chat which also maintains this restriction.

Having never played Aion, roughly how long does it take to hit level five? Do you think this change will make an impact on gold spam? Or will it simply serve to annoy legitimate players? Let us know in the comments!

considering the huge amount of discussions on the forums here, this "fix" simply has not solved anything.

but alas, ncsoft did not get to terms with botters and goldsellers in lineage2 (the worst thing i ever tried) and here they do it no better.

*Enjoying the Developments*

So? Why are there so many Gold Sellers in AION? Is it as I have thought...another Lineage II with Wings?

since they do not allow addons nobody out there can make anything to help them combat this...i would say to them to look into some of the Mods players have developed for WoW to fight off spammers of all times, they work extremely well and maybe they could implement that behavior into their chat.

Originally posted by Lansid

Do they have GMs in the game?

At the rate this is going...I don't think the GMs log on.

I'm on Zikel.  In the newbie area, ALL channels have spam, including General (/1).  In every other area, every public channel but /1 is flooded with Goldbot spam.  This was the worst idea the history of goldbot spam killing attempts, imo.  Now the gold bots easily have access to not only every character's name due to the Search feature, but also access to every public channel.  It is literally impossible to do single public channel related thing like Trading and Finding Groups without using General.  Nice job NCSoft.

Well...in Lineage II the word was that NCSOFt itself was involved in the Gold Selling...I left that game because of RMT first and foremost and  vouged never to play another NCSOFt game unless I have confirmation that it is not made for RMT...

Seems like the Team from Lineage II is back to their old tricks and made another game for RMT to an unsuspecting new generation of players.

I am glad I did not fall for the "breathtaking graphics" trap this time around and held off getting AION.

Originally posted by reowens3

You said:

BLAME THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP BUYING GOLD IN GAMES! They cause all of these issues. If people weren't so ridiculous and lazy that they need to spend real world money to get gold and get a short cut then this wouldn't happen.

Stop putting the blame on gold-buying players. Players, whether or not they have purchased virtual currency , are not the suspects here , they are only victims. The damned game REQUIRES more in-game gold than any MMO ever released. Do you really think that I'm going to grind 40 hours a week just to play the game I already pay a TON of money to play? Get a grip. Or change the game design. Idiots.