WOOT another plat seller joins the fight [Archive]

Savanja

03-19-2007, 11:16 AM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Savanja wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>nitrous wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>OK I read where they made a lot of changes to reduce the plat spam...Tonight I am getting plat tells from a completely new company..I have recieved more tells in the past 2 nights that I got in the last 2 weeks...What's up with that? </blockquote> For every better mouse trap there will come a smarter mouse.</blockquote>Exactly. They can combat the problem, but the fact is, they will never cure it. Its kinda like e-mail spam. I'm not getting as much as I used to because companies have been pretty good at patching the problems as they go, but I certainly get less. But there will always be smart lil critters that can find a way around anything. </blockquote>No they can cure it..It's called chat filtering..they give US a chat filter and we filter the chat WE want to recieve. A few key words, such as the plat sellers .com URL can cure it. What are they going to do invest in a new domain everytime people add their curent one to the filter? Once again SOE takes the easy way out and [Removed for Content] the game for those who are honest players in hopes of stopping a few plat advertisers. They need to give us the tools to manage it ourselves...But they won't. </blockquote>You do realize that e-mail spam works the same way? They have filters enabled to weed out certain words or phrases. Spammers get around this by tossing in a random letter, word, or sometimes an entire randomized body of text to fool the filter. I get a spam email into my inbox occasionally that goes something like this "Visit yaddacrappywebsiteyadda com. whoops, forgot the dot!" This fools the filter until someone adds it. If they filter out the url, well then..they will find a way around it. Random domain names are cheap, buy tons of em and redirect, get around the filters, etc and they are back in business. You'll still get the spam, tons of words and phrases will be filtered, and eventually you'll start missing things you actually wanna see. Just about anything you all can come up with as a solution, they (or even I) can think of a way around. It's their JOB to.

Duave

03-19-2007, 11:26 AM

Wait so you guys are calling the devs dumb and not smarter than simple plat sellers? [Removed for Content] this is tolerated?

liveja

03-19-2007, 11:37 AM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>No they can cure it..It's called chat filtering</blockquote>Apparently, you don't understand that filters can be easily bypassed.

ChildofHate

03-19-2007, 11:47 AM

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>No they can cure it..It's called chat filtering</blockquote>Apparently, you don't understand that filters can be easily bypassed.</blockquote> They also appearantly dont know / understand there are other threads addressing this point as well. (not a slight against the OP... just people saying "we need chat filters".)I have found putting on /roleplay or /anon works wonders. Haven't had 1 single spam msg in 2 weeks. It also has not affected my ability to get groups in the least. So that arguement has as much worth as a fart in a windstorm. Level chat channels work great for finding groups or *gasp* starting one yourself has nothing BUT positive results.

ArivenGemini

03-19-2007, 11:48 AM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Savanja wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>nitrous wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>OK I read where they made a lot of changes to reduce the plat spam...Tonight I am getting plat tells from a completely new company..I have recieved more tells in the past 2 nights that I got in the last 2 weeks...What's up with that? </blockquote> For every better mouse trap there will come a smarter mouse.</blockquote>Exactly. They can combat the problem, but the fact is, they will never cure it. Its kinda like e-mail spam. I'm not getting as much as I used to because companies have been pretty good at patching the problems as they go, but I certainly get less. But there will always be smart lil critters that can find a way around anything. </blockquote>No they can cure it..It's called chat filtering..they give US a chat filter and we filter the chat WE want to recieve. A few key words, such as the plat sellers .com URL can cure it. What are they going to do invest in a new domain everytime people add their curent one to the filter? Once again SOE takes the easy way out and [Removed for Content] the game for those who are honest players in hopes of stopping a few plat advertisers. They need to give us the tools to manage it ourselves...But they won't. </blockquote> A filter to stop the plat spammers shouldnt be implemented at the player level, that requires each and every player to participate... it should be implemented at the server level, which allows SOE to then add in confirmed URLs of plat selling sites to do a oneshot takeout of that url in all their channels. Yes, filters can indeed be gotten around, and yes this isnt a solution to the whole problem, but it sure would cut down on the spam, and a bit on the customer service resources needed to respond to the /petitions resulting from spam...just because it isnt a perfect solution doesnt mean that it shouldnt be done... because there would be some benefit to it. Since you can connect to the chat system via a jabber server I have to guess that their chat system is based in some part on Jabber.. so most likely they have similar functionality to the pure baseline jabber servers in that they could code a filter module.. making it easier to maintain than if they had to recode the server itself.. the question then becomes whether or not the email setup uses the same codebase allowing it to take advantage of that filter module.

UlteriorModem

03-19-2007, 11:49 AM

Sometimes I feel like Im stuck in a revolving door.Or driving in circles.Keep seeing the same things over and over and over and......I can nearly gaurentee you that the folks that patronize these "plat sellers" do not read these forums.I can gaurentee you that SoE are aware of the situation.(Here come the consparicy posts)

ArivenGemini

03-19-2007, 11:51 AM

<cite>ChildofHate wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>No they can cure it..It's called chat filtering</blockquote>Apparently, you don't understand that filters can be easily bypassed.</blockquote> They also appearantly dont know / understand there are other threads addressing this point as well. (not a slight against the OP... just people saying "we need chat filters".)I have found putting on /roleplay or /anon works wonders. Haven't had 1 single spam msg in 2 weeks. It also has not affected my ability to get groups in the least. So that arguement has as much worth as a fart in a windstorm. Level chat channels work great for finding groups or *gasp* starting one yourself has nothing BUT positive results.</blockquote>I have noticed that /role helps a bit over going without.. but then I use /role for another reason..to stop guild poachers from trying to recruit me to a raiding guild just based on my class <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

rbritz

03-19-2007, 11:57 AM

Sony said they were going to implement this months ago, so I have no idea why it hasn't started yet. Block all outgoing emails/tells from Beginner Isle to start this off right. Allow us to block emails and tells from anybody we choose based upon criteria: Levels, Non Guildie, Non Paying player, Not part of friends list, etc. Me personally, this would fix 99.9 percent of all spam in the game. If your not a guildie of mine and your not on my friends list. Guess what, your not going to be able to do anything to me. Sony promised us a fix months ago, the ball is in their court, they need to stop giving us holiday events and use that programming department to write the code to fix the spammers. If they are not fixing this problem, then the conspiracy is GMWorker and Vsales and any other website is paying Sony some cash under the table.

UlteriorModem

03-19-2007, 12:22 PM

See told ya <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Dasein

03-19-2007, 12:27 PM

SOE never promised a fix, they promised to implement certain things to combat the spam, like restricting tells from Trial accounts and adding the Spam button to automatically report mail. None of these are foolproof, but are intended to make it more difficult to spam players. Blacklists and filters are not very effective, as your filter cannot tell the difference between www.goldseller.com and ww. goldseller . com. Furthermore, it is possible to create subdomains as needed, so the URL could easily change. One day, it might be gold.goldseller.com and the next it would be plat.goldseller.com, and they'd all point to the same place. Filters are also insensitive to context, so substring filters cannot tell the difference between 'gold' in the URL of an RMT website or gold in the context of a crafter negotiating a sale.

Zagats

03-19-2007, 12:43 PM

I dont buy plat. It's ridiculous to spend your hard earned money on something that isnt real. (Paying to play the game is real world entertainment.)To any of you who buy plat: Just remember that you're one of the jerks fueling this problem. If players dont buy plat, people will not be selling it. You're allowing these people to spam your fellow gamers. You're saying : "I'm a liar, and will not abide by the terms of the EULA that I accepted when I started playing".

nitrous

03-19-2007, 02:08 PM

<cite>rbritz wrote:</cite><blockquote>Sony said they were going to implement this months ago, so I have no idea why it hasn't started yet. Block all outgoing emails/tells from Beginner Isle to start this off right.</blockquote> Ummmm........you might want to go back and re-read some of the update notes. Sony did take action on this months ago. <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=253127" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=253127</a>. Even more recently they took simlar action like this on buddy accounts. That means that the spam plat seller tells you are getting are from paid accounts.

ChildofHate

03-19-2007, 02:43 PM

<cite>Zagats wrote:</cite><blockquote>I dont buy plat. It's ridiculous to spend your hard earned money on something that isnt real. (Paying to play the game is real world entertainment.)To any of you who buy plat: Just remember that you're one of the jerks fueling this problem. If players dont buy plat, people will not be selling it. You're allowing these people to spam your fellow gamers. You're saying : "I'm a liar, and will not abide by the terms of the EULA that I accepted when I started playing".</blockquote> LOL, wow... do you need a towel clean that up or you just gonna let this self-gratification post stay on your own hands and face?<img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

SteelPiston

03-19-2007, 02:59 PM

I don't think that SOE endorses the Plat sellers in any way, otherwise the problem would be much worse than it is. However, I do think they drag their heels when somebody is reported. I think they get sick of taking turns playing "Whack-a-mole" everyday, trying to kick the plat sellers faster than they pop up again.I would have thought by now that a big company like SOE would have issued a "Cease and desist" order to these companies and to threaten them with legal action if the don't stop bothering their customers. Filters are too easily defeated and I don't see the benefit of messing with them.I personally have not had any "Tell" spam in quite a while. I do get several mailbox flyers every week.

electricninjasex

03-19-2007, 03:10 PM

When certain content is more conducive to Chinese plat pharming than to regular player consumption, that content needs to be changed.

liveja

03-19-2007, 03:20 PM

<cite>SteelPiston wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would have thought by now that a big company like SOE would have issued a "Cease and desist" order to these companies and to threaten them with legal action if the don't stop bothering their customers.</blockquote>If those companies were subject to American or Japanese law, SOE almost certainly would have done just that by now.

liveja

03-19-2007, 03:21 PM

Icedaze@Permafrost wrote: <blockquote>When certain content is more conducive to Chinese plat pharming than to regular player consumption, that content needs to be changed.</blockquote>That's a wonderfully ambiguous assertion. Care to elaborate a little?

sayitaintso

03-19-2007, 07:38 PM

How about this....Now tell me why this hasn't been done... <<SYSTEM MESSAGE>> Greetings Norrathians...This is lead GM SOANDSO. It has come to the attention of our GM staff and game developers that many of you find that it is appropriate to circumvent the rules of the EULA and have purchased in game coin for real life currency. As of tomorrow's update we will be taking inventory of all coin on every active EQ2 account. This will give us a data base of who has what amount of in game cash. We will be taking this census on a weekly basis. Any large transfers of in game coin will be investigated to see if the transaction was legitimatley conducted. Any player recieving or giving amounts of coin TOTALING more than 50 PP in one weeks time will be contacted in game by a GM and will have to provide a reasonable explanation. All inquiries will be checked against transaction logs. All descrepencies will be investigated and any found to be out of bounds will result in the immediate confiscation of in game coin and a 3 day suspension. Any subsequent abnormal coin transaction will result in the permanent ban of your account. All banned accounts will be listed on the EQ2 forums. Thank you NOW that said...this could all be done...And it would catch just as many plat sellers as it would buyers. Sure the plat sellers would try to find ways around this...BUT do you really think that too many plat buyers would take the risk and continue to buy? Will SOE do this...NOT A CHANCE....They may not be in bed with the plat sellers, but they sure turn a blind eye to them. Instead of doing what needs to be done in order to put a hurting on the plat sellers they [Removed for Content] the game for any new players that might want to join their friends in game....

Decad

03-19-2007, 07:56 PM

This issue could very well become a very moot argument. Anyone else read this?<a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128270/article.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,1...70/article.html</a>Long and short of it is that the Feds are investigating the virtual gold market, and looking into ways of taxing it. Problem is that the author is hinting at the fact that the old fogies making the laws don't realize that in some games, virtual gold is illegal, and these fogies don't realize that. Some ideas apparently, or the impression I got from reading it is that if a rare sword is "illegally" selling for $50, whether or not you are going to sell it, or can even sell it or trade it, you would have to pay tax on $50.Yeah, yeah I know it seems pretty far fetched. But seriously, we're talking about old men making laws about video games being played on computers. How much information can they seriously have on the topic besides seeing the cash register ringing up none stop.I think this would be the quote of interest from the story:<hr />Taxing Trades But as any accountant can tell you, real-money revenues are not the only kind of income that draws the tax man's eye. The labyrinthine U.S. tax code includes many provisions that can leave you owing income taxes without ever earning a dollar. <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=128270&page=2&zoomIdx=1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"></a>Consider "bartering" and "prizes" as outlined in IRS publication 525 ("Taxable and Nontaxable Income"<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />: Anyone who acquires goods or services either in trade or at play must report as income the "fair market value" of those goods or services. Give your plumber a rare baseball card in exchange for fixing your pipes, and you both owe taxes on the dollar value of your respective ends of the deal. Win an SUV on Wheel of Fortune, and the government will want its share of the sticker price, whether you sell the car or not. So if virtual loot can be sold for real money and therefore has real value, what's to stop the government from concluding that every time a fallen virtual monster gives up its prize, or a fistful of Linden dollars is traded for a virtual hair weave, a taxable event has occurred? Don't ask the IRS. Pressed for an official opinion on the taxability of virtual trades, IRS spokesperson Nancy Mathis would say, via e-mail, only that "whether exchanges constitute bartering depends on the facts and circumstances of each case." As to whether that magic helmet won from a slain dragon is a taxable prize, the answer was similarly noncommittal. "[The] bottom line," Mathis wrote, "is this: You can receive income in the form of money, property, or services. Generally, your income is taxable unless it is specifically exempted by law." Translation: The IRS is keeping its options open. And according to former IRS lawyer Bryan Camp, now a professor of tax law at Texas Tech, those options definitely include taxing virtual gold. "Section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code says that gross income is any income received from any source," says Camp. "And if someone in the IRS thinks that a [virtual-world] transaction represents the receipt of either cash or services or property, and that has a fair market value, then yes, that's going to be income." When and if that that decision is made, Camp explains, there are only two ways to override it: Take it to the courts, which may or may not disagree with the IRS's interpretation of the law, or take it to Congress, which can pass new laws that leave no room for interpretation.

zaun2

03-20-2007, 01:19 AM

Dumb filters won't get the job done mainly because its easy for sites to add spaces, replace letters with numbers. However, all spammers fit a ruleset: 1: The account is either just created (which means a low age), or it was broken into. 2: The character or characters are very low level. 3: Likely the account will not have fae access (demo accounts from playthefae don't count, as /tells are not allowed.) 4: The character will do a LOT of /tells or Norrath Express mail in a short time, to many different people. 5: Generally, /tells are not replied to. 6: There is a burst of /ignores or /spam clicks. This will take some server side coding, as it would require the server to keep track of the number of /tells to DIFFERENT people in a period of time. Possible solutions that can be handled automatically server-side. Add a delay if someone is sending out a number of /tells past a threshold. Say if a person sends more than 30 /tells in a minute, add a 10 second delay between typing in a /tell and the server pushing it out until there is an inactivity timeout of 30 minutes or so. Disconnect someone if they hit a higher threshold of different people /told, with low replies back and high /ignore or /spam commands with the offending character name. Perhaps temporarly block the account from having access to the game for 15-30 min. Allow people to automatically ignore people who /tell them if the person sending /tells is on the newbie island, no expansions on the account, and the character is under level 5. Perhaps add functionality so one can allow a friend to send /tells with alts on his same account, or maybe perhaps a password (/tell person password hi this is my new character.) Have this feature toggle-able, so one can turn this off, if a friend is creating a new alt on that server, and wants to send a /tell. Slow down /who functionality similar to what WoW does. WoW does not let people pull everyone's name from online all at once. For someone to do an inventory of people playing, one has to keep doing multiple /who commands (which have a 10 sec delay between them). Add a /roleplay-like flag that removes people from /who lists (just like /role or /anon), but will show level and class if someone does a /who on them directly (/who playername) as opposed to an indirect search (/who necro 40-45) Have the server automatically disconnect the account (and perhaps lock them out for a time) of someone if they send out a threshold of /tells to DIFFERENT people, and a large percentage of people report the person with /spam.

Noaani

03-20-2007, 09:38 AM

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote>Icedaze@Permafrost wrote: <blockquote>When certain content is more conducive to Chinese plat pharming than to regular player consumption, that content needs to be changed.</blockquote>That's a wonderfully ambiguous assertion. Care to elaborate a little? </blockquote>As an assumption, he is refering to areas of the game such as The Oblisk of Lost Souls, the first floor in particular.Any area in the game where plat farmers (or those whom can be reasonably expected to be plat farmers) pervail is an area of the game that is broken, and provides too much of a monetairy reward for the time and effort put in. If all said areas were fixed to the point where these farmers needed to mix in with the regular population (either by reducing the rewards in those areas, or giving actual players a reason to be in there), we would see an increase in the time needed to farm in game coin, thus an increase in the cost of said coin, and hopefully a reduction in the number of people willing to pay for said coin.Put simply, if farmers are always farming Oblisk of Lost Souls, and no other player is in there for anything other than Borxx or the runes for Speak as a Dragon, that says to me something is broken in that zone. Fix it to the point where it is no longer a haven for farmers.

Bramwe

03-20-2007, 11:33 AM

I would be happy with a /tell level filter that can be bypassed by people on your friends list. I do not need or care about tells from people who are lower than level 65 or so and who are not alts of my friends/guild members.

Leatherneck

03-20-2007, 11:39 AM

SteelPiston wrote: <blockquote>I would have thought by now that a big company like SOE would have issued a "Cease and desist" order to these companies and to threaten them with legal action if the don't stop bothering their customers. Filters are too easily defeated and I don't see the benefit of messing with them.</blockquote> And they very well might have.What I find amusing is (and I'm not directing this toward you, SteelPiston) people claim "Sony isn't doing anything"..."Sony doesn't care"..."Sony's turning a blind eye blah, blah, blah"I'd love to see some proof of this assertation. Sony doesn't tell us when it bans someone for harrassment or exploiting or other offenses even when it directly affects you. Why on earth do you think SOE's CEO is going to send you an email every time it takes a step against plat sellers?

liveja

03-20-2007, 12:33 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>Put simply, if farmers are always farming Oblisk of Lost Souls, and no other player is in there for anything other than Borxx or the runes for Speak as a Dragon, that says to me something is broken in that zone. Fix it to the point where it is no longer a haven for farmers. </blockquote>Quite frankly, I think people should be very afraid of the idea of SOE "fixing" these zones so that farmers no longer find them a haven.

liveja

03-20-2007, 12:36 PM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>What I find amusing is (and I'm not directing this toward you, SteelPiston) people claim "Sony isn't doing anything"..."Sony doesn't care"..."Sony's turning a blind eye blah, blah, blah"I'd love to see some proof of this assertation.</blockquote>The very "proof" you seek will most likely turn out to be the fact that SOE doesn't & won't tell us specific details about bannings & other disciplinary measures.Welcome to Twizted Logik Wurld, enjoy your stay.

tass

03-20-2007, 03:21 PM

u want proof? Log on and check ur mail box. Log on... uve got mail! You scroll over to the letter and see that you have 11 messages without any attachments. wonder what they could be. WOOOOOOHEEEEEHAAAAAAA crazy easter egg prices BUY NOW!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOO HAXOR VALENTINES DAY PRICES BUY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO YAAAAAAAAAA WACKY WENSDAY PRICES BUY NOW!!!!!!!!! I mean seriously [Removed for Content] lol. I bet most of those bastages don't even celebrate easter.

Leatherneck

03-20-2007, 04:28 PM

<cite>tass wrote:</cite><blockquote>u want proof? Log on and check ur mail box. Log on... uve got mail! You scroll over to the letter and see that you have 11 messages without any attachments. wonder what they could be. WOOOOOOHEEEEEHAAAAAAA crazy easter egg prices BUY NOW!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOO HAXOR VALENTINES DAY PRICES BUY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO YAAAAAAAAAA WACKY WENSDAY PRICES BUY NOW!!!!!!!!! I mean seriously [I cannot control my vocabulary] lol. I bet most of those bastages don't even celebrate easter. </blockquote> That doesn't prove SOE isn't doing anything, or that they don't care.I've been playing again for 2 months, roughly. I've gotten one tell and zero emails.

Skua

03-20-2007, 06:04 PM

around 5 tells /day , 2 3 mails /week annoying? YEAH! , trying to speak with guild , 2 tells , and party , and some !$!$!$! spamming my chat.... is publicity IN A GAME , pay me soe LOL.....i am paying each month for a free and clean game ............what i get? SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM.....

Illmarr

03-20-2007, 06:26 PM

I have to wonder if the problem is worse on some servers than others. I might get an e-mail or two a week and maybe a tell every third day or so. Some of my toons are flagged r/p, some are not. No measureable difference between the two from what I have experienced.

Ildarus

03-20-2007, 06:26 PM

<cite>SkuaII wrote:</cite><blockquote>around 5 tells /day , 2 3 mails /week annoying? YEAH! , trying to speak with guild , 2 tells , and party , and some !$!$!$! spamming my chat.... is publicity IN A GAME , pay me soe LOL.....i am paying each month for a free and clean game ............what i get? SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... SPAM..... </blockquote>This is funny, just like the poster above you I havn't gotten any tells in months and maybe once a week I may get a mail, but in most cases I don't. I think there is a lot of exaggeration. I am from a pretty good sized guild and I don't konw of anyone that is getting the spam you are talking about.

liveja

03-20-2007, 07:27 PM

<cite>tass wrote:</cite><blockquote>u want proof? Log on and check ur mail box. Log on... uve got mail! </blockquote>I think I've gotten exactly 1 in-game email from plat sellers in the last month or so.I can't remember the last time I got a /tell from one.So much for your "proof".

sayitaintso

03-20-2007, 07:50 PM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>tass wrote:</cite><blockquote>u want proof? Log on and check ur mail box. Log on... uve got mail! You scroll over to the letter and see that you have 11 messages without any attachments. wonder what they could be. WOOOOOOHEEEEEHAAAAAAA crazy easter egg prices BUY NOW!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOO HAXOR VALENTINES DAY PRICES BUY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO YAAAAAAAAAA WACKY WENSDAY PRICES BUY NOW!!!!!!!!! I mean seriously [I cannot control my vocabulary] lol. I bet most of those bastages don't even celebrate easter. </blockquote> That doesn't prove SOE isn't doing anything, or that they don't care.I've been playing again for 2 months, roughly. I've gotten one tell and zero emails.</blockquote>Um...yes it actually proves that SOE has not done enough to stop teh in game spam and mail, So in a sense they have done nothing but be ineffective...So yes, they have done nothing.

Leatherneck

03-20-2007, 08:00 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>tass wrote:</cite><blockquote>u want proof? Log on and check ur mail box. Log on... uve got mail! You scroll over to the letter and see that you have 11 messages without any attachments. wonder what they could be. WOOOOOOHEEEEEHAAAAAAA crazy easter egg prices BUY NOW!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOO HAXOR VALENTINES DAY PRICES BUY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO YAAAAAAAAAA WACKY WENSDAY PRICES BUY NOW!!!!!!!!! I mean seriously [I cannot control my vocabulary] lol. I bet most of those bastages don't even celebrate easter. </blockquote> That doesn't prove SOE isn't doing anything, or that they don't care.I've been playing again for 2 months, roughly. I've gotten one tell and zero emails.</blockquote>Um...yes it actually proves that SOE has not done enough to stop teh in game spam and mail, So in a sense they have done nothing but be ineffective...So yes, they have done nothing. </blockquote>That's a load of hooey. What a twisted path of self-delusion you had to take to go from doing something to doing nothing.To paraphrase an old saying: Lies, [Removed for Content] lies and forum posts.

Ishya

03-20-2007, 08:03 PM

chat filters?? hehe do you really think that would help? on howmanyways can you type "buy gold"? b_uy g_old bu.y gol.d b_u.y g_o-l.d and hundreds of combinations, and then i dont even include "leet speek" so youcan forget "chat filters" as it won't help nada

sayitaintso

03-20-2007, 08:26 PM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>SteelPiston wrote: <blockquote>I would have thought by now that a big company like SOE would have issued a "Cease and desist" order to these companies and to threaten them with legal action if the don't stop bothering their customers. Filters are too easily defeated and I don't see the benefit of messing with them.</blockquote> And they very well might have.What I find amusing is (and I'm not directing this toward you, SteelPiston) people claim "Sony isn't doing anything"..."Sony doesn't care"..."Sony's turning a blind eye blah, blah, blah"I'd love to see some proof of this assertation. Sony doesn't tell us when it bans someone for harrassment or exploiting or other offenses even when it directly affects you. Why on earth do you think SOE's CEO is going to send you an email every time it takes a step against plat sellers?</blockquote>there is no way to provide the "proof" you seek, but any reasonable thinking human could easily come to this conclusion if they wern't blindly following SOE...let's take a look The spam and in game mail are still being used, although lowered a bit, they haven't been completely stopped. You can't tell me that a company with the resources of Sony can't come up with a way to filter these completely... In game plat BUYERS could be stopped nearly in a manner similar to what I outlined earlier in this thread. SOE has taken no steps to quell the purchase of in game coin for real $$ even though they have the tracking ability, they won't use the resources they have to put a stop to it. If there are no buyers, the source dries up, just like in any retail business But the REAL tale is here...SOE has a HUGE community. Many Many fan sites that use the SOE name and their game logos for advertising to make real cash money from their advertisers..and who are the advertisers? Why the in game COIN sellers..and if they don't have in game coin sellers, there are nearly always links to sites that DO have in game coin sellers..NOW SOE could easily pull their permission to use their copyrighted names and logos from these fan sites...but they don't...SO they are condoning the sale of in game coin...at the very least turning a blind eye to it.. The game rules are simple...anything found in the game belongs to SOE and cannot be sold for real $$. Buying anything found in game is against the rules. These rules are broken every single day and SOE does little to nothing to enforce them. A rule unenforced is no rule at all..A little simple logic shows that SOE turns a blind eye to their own rules...Now the question is why....Are they unwilling to dedicate the resources it would take to investigate these rule breakers? Would the mass bannings that investigting plat buyers could cause jeaprdize an already shrinking subscriber base? or are they really on the take either directly from the plat sellers or indirectly by profiting by their accounts?

liveja

03-20-2007, 09:38 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>there is no way to provide the "proof" you seek, but any reasonable thinking human could easily come to this conclusion if they wern't blindly following SOE...let's take a look</blockquote>So, IOW, those of us who don't agree with the unproven assertions are both unreasonable, & blind. Gotcha.<img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Leatherneck

03-20-2007, 09:44 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>SteelPiston wrote: <blockquote>I would have thought by now that a big company like SOE would have issued a "Cease and desist" order to these companies and to threaten them with legal action if the don't stop bothering their customers. Filters are too easily defeated and I don't see the benefit of messing with them.</blockquote> And they very well might have.What I find amusing is (and I'm not directing this toward you, SteelPiston) people claim "Sony isn't doing anything"..."Sony doesn't care"..."Sony's turning a blind eye blah, blah, blah"I'd love to see some proof of this assertation. Sony doesn't tell us when it bans someone for harrassment or exploiting or other offenses even when it directly affects you. Why on earth do you think SOE's CEO is going to send you an email every time it takes a step against plat sellers?</blockquote>there is no way to provide the "proof" you seek, but any reasonable thinking human could easily come to this conclusion if they wern't blindly following SOE...let's take a look The spam and in game mail are still being used, although lowered a bit, they haven't been completely stopped. You can't tell me that a company with the resources of Sony can't come up with a way to filter these completely... In game plat BUYERS could be stopped nearly in a manner similar to what I outlined earlier in this thread. SOE has taken no steps to quell the purchase of in game coin for real $$ even though they have the tracking ability, they won't use the resources they have to put a stop to it. If there are no buyers, the source dries up, just like in any retail business But the REAL tale is here...SOE has a HUGE community. Many Many fan sites that use the SOE name and their game logos for advertising to make real cash money from their advertisers..and who are the advertisers? Why the in game COIN sellers..and if they don't have in game coin sellers, there are nearly always links to sites that DO have in game coin sellers..NOW SOE could easily pull their permission to use their copyrighted names and logos from these fan sites...but they don't...SO they are condoning the sale of in game coin...at the very least turning a blind eye to it.. The game rules are simple...anything found in the game belongs to SOE and cannot be sold for real $$. Buying anything found in game is against the rules. These rules are broken every single day and SOE does little to nothing to enforce them. A rule unenforced is no rule at all..A little simple logic shows that SOE turns a blind eye to their own rules...Now the question is why....Are they unwilling to dedicate the resources it would take to investigate these rule breakers? Would the mass bannings that investigting plat buyers could cause jeaprdize an already shrinking subscriber base? or are they really on the take either directly from the plat sellers or indirectly by profiting by their accounts? </blockquote> Ah. The old you're stupid because you don't agree with me ploy. Ok, let's take a "reasonable, thinking" approach to it.1) Many of those sites are hosted in countries that historically have proven they don't care one whit for US law. They are countries that have condoned selling bootleg music and movies and software. Yet SOE is supposed to be able to force them to take down references to their game? What are they supposed to do? Hire a mercenary force to invade China? Coerce the American Government into sending it's military over? How exactly are they supposed to force them to take down their sites?What about the US companies? Well if I were going to set up one of those companies, I'd host it out of the country, preferably one that doesn't respond to US Gov't requests for information on who owns what site quickly, if at all. I'd move servers every so often, so that even if they DID respond to the request, by the time they get done with the paperwork and bureaucracy, that site doesn't exist anymore and has moved on. I'd have the monies from sales funnelled into a secure, off-shore account that won't report to the US Gov't. Hosting bills and salaries and such would be paid from the same kind of account.So much for your claim that because those sites exist SOE is condoning it or turning a blind eye toward it.2) WoW advertised a mass banning of accounts related to gold selling. In my very brief time playing that game, I received multiple tells and emails advertising these sites.During the Prohibition era, having alcohol could land you in jail...yet people still drank.Even now, posessing, distrubuting and manufacturing illicit drugs can land you in jail, yet there are still buyers for it.Back in the day they used to hang horse theives, yet people still stole horses.Accounts have been banned in other SOE games for having large amounts of coin. Yet still people bought in game currency.So much for your theory that you can punish buyers enough to stop the practice.3) You suggest that because spam and in game mails advertising these subjects still exist, SOE doesn't care.I'm sure Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and other companies, including the ones that make hardware spam filters, will be contacting you soon, because you must have some unknown method of blocking emails by intent, rather than content. I still get spam mail on a daily basis, so you need to contact Bill Gates and teach him a thing or two about spam filtering, since obviously you know something their millions-if not billions-of Research dollars do not.So much for your suggestion that because spam mails and tells still exist that SOE doesn't do anything.Now your answer to the whole buyer angle is to treat normal paying customers like criminals. You suggest a GM message going out stating that any transactions over 50pp (over how long a period? 1 day? A week? A year?) will have to give a satisfactory reason for why. Have you seen the hue and cry raised when someone is unfairly banned or suspended? And that's just one account. Now imagine how many people leave the game and give their friends all their plat. That's one account per being unfairly banned, and that's just one legit excuse I can think of off the top of my head for a large transfer.Oh...right. Investigate. So now, you have a GM tied up in chasing down perfectly legit transactions instead of getting people help, including getting plat farmer-bots to move off a spot so legit players can play.Now, who's not thinking?

Mawie

03-20-2007, 10:50 PM

Good god, every post you make is a beacon of sunshine and happyness. I spoke to the producer of the game himself a little less than a year ago. From his mouth to my ears, SOE would rather lose money on accounts who buy and sell plat than chase off good customers who don't partake in those activities. And he is passionate about this game and this community, knows I am pretty durn loyal (I'd stay even if they weren't doing anything about plat sellers), so I doubt he'd BS me on this. Oh, and the same way those killer chat filters don't work in game, I will reiderate what has already been said-- the sellers will find a work around.

Noaani

03-21-2007, 09:03 AM

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>Put simply, if farmers are always farming Oblisk of Lost Souls, and no other player is in there for anything other than Borxx or the runes for Speak as a Dragon, that says to me something is broken in that zone. Fix it to the point where it is no longer a haven for farmers. </blockquote>Quite frankly, I think people should be very afraid of the idea of SOE "fixing" these zones so that farmers no longer find them a haven.</blockquote>I agree, it could do more damage than it fixes if they went in with a heavy handed nerf to these areas. I do remember the agony of trying to get access to the lower portions of OoLS back when it was actually hard to spawn those named, and hope it never goes back to that state. I am also aware that changing these areas to make them less profitable to farmers will not end the plat selling/spamming that we are all getting. However, making small adjustments to drop and spawn rates in these areas could only help, if used in conjunction with a larger plan.

DngrMou

03-21-2007, 10:29 AM

<cite>rbritz wrote:</cite><blockquote> Allow us to block emails and tells from anybody we choose based upon criteria: Levels, Non Guildie, Non Paying player, Not part of friends list, etc. Me personally, this would fix 99.9 percent of all spam in the game. If your not a guildie of mine and your not on my friends list. Guess what, your not going to be able to do anything to me.You can implement this yourself, right now. Disable tells on all your chat windows. Create a new private channel. Tell all your bestest best friends about it. Problem solved. You will NEVER receive another plat tell again. As an added plus, SOE is'nt forced to devote resources into developing a system that addresses the issue for SOME players only, while entirerly ignoring the problem of plat sales. It's called 'Win-Win'. Sony promised us a fix months ago, the ball is in their court, they need to stop giving us holiday events and use that programming department to write the code to fix the spammers. If they are not fixing this problem, then the conspiracy is GMWorker and Vsales and any other website is paying Sony some cash under the table.I'd much rather enjoy a holiday event, than see SOE focus their efforts on developing a filtering system you suggest....especially since you can do that yourself right now. Oh....and please, unless you can offer up some real proof, drop the tired old conspiracy theories.</blockquote>

liveja

03-21-2007, 11:01 AM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>However, making small adjustments to drop and spawn rates in these areas could only help, if used in conjunction with a larger plan. </blockquote>Question: what, precisely, is the reason that "plat farmers" dominate OOLS, but "real players" don't ever go there? I have to admit that I've only been there once, long ago.Are there other zones besides OOLS that have this issue?

Noaani

03-21-2007, 12:12 PM

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>However, making small adjustments to drop and spawn rates in these areas could only help, if used in conjunction with a larger plan. </blockquote>Question: what, precisely, is the reason that "plat farmers" dominate OOLS, but "real players" don't ever go there? I have to admit that I've only been there once, long ago.Are there other zones besides OOLS that have this issue?</blockquote>I'll explain this to the best of my ability, which may leave you wondering even more, but oh well.On the first floor there are 5 mob spawn points that can spawn named mobs. These spawn points are fairly close together, and have about a 60 - 75% chance to spawn the name each time they are cleared. This is a convenient place for plat farmers because the time to clear all 5 names (as well as a 6th static spawn on about a 1 hour timer) the first set of these mobs is almost ready to repop. Basically, they run in circles killing 5 spawn points worth of mobs (there is no trash needed to be cleared between these mobs), and then kill the static spawn whenever it is up. On a cycle with few names (or none, which seems to happen on occasion) they will have enough time to drop down to the second level to see if any of the names there are up. On top of the convieniance of it all, these mobs are in a zone that is considered to be T5, and so even though these mobs are easily killed level 34 - 38 mobs, they drop T5 loot, and they drop it very often. Also, the second floor has a larger number of names than the first, but from my experiances that are rarer spawns, and are slightly harder to kill.The reason there are always very few actual players in this zone for the most part is that there is very little to do. There is a large number of book quests, but they are the annoying kill random # of xx mob, several times, then get a book for your house quests. There are 2 runes for speak as a dragon, and there are 2 ring events at the very bottom of the zone that drop what is now the starter for a quest that rewards you with a pet goblin for your house (this quest was access to The Vestible when I did it in T5). Also, on the bottom level is a 55x3 contested mob, and an instanced zone called (as mentioned) The Vestible. The reasons these things are hardly used any more is because first, to get to any of it, you need to do the access quest, which requires you to kill names in this zone, and thus puts you in direct compitition with farmers. Second, very few people know of the quest to get a goblin pet for your house, those that do are mostly too high a level to get the quest starter to drop from the names at the end of the two ring events. Those of the right level to get it to drop will have a hard time convincing a group of players to treak all the way to the bottom of the zone, completing access quests if they are not done, and fighting through what was, in T5, a fairly hard zone, just to get to a ring event that can drop a quest starter so that one person in the group can do a quest to get a pet goblin. The contested mob in there is still killed fairly often, and has a life expectancy of a day or two. The Vestble is increadably under utilised because as an instance it totally sucks. It has you sit in a room killing placeholders, waiting for a random spawn name so you can progress through the second door. It is not uncommon to camp this instanced random spawn for an hour just so you can get to the second room. Once in the second room, there is a ring event of types, but it is one that has a LOT of downtime, and you spend far too long waiting for the mobs to activate. The only use for The Vestible is to finish the quest for the pet goblin, and I would wager you could put a toon at the entrance of it for a week and not see a single group enter.Lastly, to my knowladge there is no other area in game now that has this issue quite as much as OoLS. Runnyeye does have what could be considered plat farmers, but it also has a healthy amount of regular players at most times of the day.Hope that helps.

nitrous

03-21-2007, 12:43 PM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>SteelPiston wrote: <blockquote>I would have thought by now that a big company like SOE would have issued a "Cease and desist" order to these companies and to threaten them with legal action if the don't stop bothering their customers. Filters are too easily defeated and I don't see the benefit of messing with them.</blockquote> And they very well might have.What I find amusing is (and I'm not directing this toward you, SteelPiston) people claim "Sony isn't doing anything"..."Sony doesn't care"..."Sony's turning a blind eye blah, blah, blah"I'd love to see some proof of this assertation. Sony doesn't tell us when it bans someone for harrassment or exploiting or other offenses even when it directly affects you. Why on earth do you think SOE's CEO is going to send you an email every time it takes a step against plat sellers?</blockquote>there is no way to provide the "proof" you seek, but any reasonable thinking human could easily come to this conclusion if they wern't blindly following SOE...let's take a look The spam and in game mail are still being used, although lowered a bit, they haven't been completely stopped. You can't tell me that a company with the resources of Sony can't come up with a way to filter these completely... In game plat BUYERS could be stopped nearly in a manner similar to what I outlined earlier in this thread. SOE has taken no steps to quell the purchase of in game coin for real $$ even though they have the tracking ability, they won't use the resources they have to put a stop to it. If there are no buyers, the source dries up, just like in any retail business But the REAL tale is here...SOE has a HUGE community. Many Many fan sites that use the SOE name and their game logos for advertising to make real cash money from their advertisers..and who are the advertisers? Why the in game COIN sellers..and if they don't have in game coin sellers, there are nearly always links to sites that DO have in game coin sellers..NOW SOE could easily pull their permission to use their copyrighted names and logos from these fan sites...but they don't...SO they are condoning the sale of in game coin...at the very least turning a blind eye to it.. The game rules are simple...anything found in the game belongs to SOE and cannot be sold for real $$. Buying anything found in game is against the rules. These rules are broken every single day and SOE does little to nothing to enforce them. A rule unenforced is no rule at all..A little simple logic shows that SOE turns a blind eye to their own rules...Now the question is why....Are they unwilling to dedicate the resources it would take to investigate these rule breakers? Would the mass bannings that investigting plat buyers could cause jeaprdize an already shrinking subscriber base? or are they really on the take either directly from the plat sellers or indirectly by profiting by their accounts? </blockquote> Ah. The old you're stupid because you don't agree with me ploy. Ok, let's take a "reasonable, thinking" approach to it.1) Many of those sites are hosted in countries that historically have proven they don't care one whit for US law. They are countries that have condoned selling bootleg music and movies and software. Yet SOE is supposed to be able to force them to take down references to their game? What are they supposed to do? Hire a mercenary force to invade China? Coerce the American Government into sending it's military over? How exactly are they supposed to force them to take down their sites?What about the US companies? Well if I were going to set up one of those companies, I'd host it out of the country, preferably one that doesn't respond to US Gov't requests for information on who owns what site quickly, if at all. I'd move servers every so often, so that even if they DID respond to the request, by the time they get done with the paperwork and bureaucracy, that site doesn't exist anymore and has moved on. I'd have the monies from sales funnelled into a secure, off-shore account that won't report to the US Gov't. Hosting bills and salaries and such would be paid from the same kind of account.So much for your claim that because those sites exist SOE is condoning it or turning a blind eye toward it.2) WoW advertised a mass banning of accounts related to gold selling. In my very brief time playing that game, I received multiple tells and emails advertising these sites.During the Prohibition era, having alcohol could land you in jail...yet people still drank.Even now, posessing, distrubuting and manufacturing illicit drugs can land you in jail, yet there are still buyers for it.Back in the day they used to hang horse theives, yet people still stole horses.Accounts have been banned in other SOE games for having large amounts of coin. Yet still people bought in game currency.So much for your theory that you can punish buyers enough to stop the practice.3) You suggest that because spam and in game mails advertising these subjects still exist, SOE doesn't care.I'm sure Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and other companies, including the ones that make hardware spam filters, will be contacting you soon, because you must have some unknown method of blocking emails by intent, rather than content. I still get spam mail on a daily basis, so you need to contact Bill Gates and teach him a thing or two about spam filtering, since obviously you know something their millions-if not billions-of Research dollars do not.So much for your suggestion that because spam mails and tells still exist that SOE doesn't do anything.Now your answer to the whole buyer angle is to treat normal paying customers like criminals. You suggest a GM message going out stating that any transactions over 50pp (over how long a period? 1 day? A week? A year?) will have to give a satisfactory reason for why. Have you seen the hue and cry raised when someone is unfairly banned or suspended? And that's just one account. Now imagine how many people leave the game and give their friends all their plat. That's one account per being unfairly banned, and that's just one legit excuse I can think of off the top of my head for a large transfer.Oh...right. Investigate. So now, you have a GM tied up in chasing down perfectly legit transactions instead of getting people help, including getting plat farmer-bots to move off a spot so legit players can play.Now, who's not thinking?</blockquote>I love it!! And, to repeat my original response to this thread. "For every better mouse trap there will come a smarter mouse. "

ArivenGemini

03-21-2007, 01:12 PM

Lynsi@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>chat filters?? hehe do you really think that would help? on howmanyways can you type "buy gold"? b_uy g_old bu.y gol.d b_u.y g_o-l.d and hundreds of combinations, and then i dont even include "leet speek" so youcan forget "chat filters" as it won't help nada </blockquote>That is why you dont filter on the "buy gold" part of the message.. you focus on the part that cant change without cost or effort.. the URL.. if, for example, one plat seller url was www.buygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm.com, you filter on "buygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm.com"... and drop all messages and emails that include it, and send a "so and so sent a /tell with a banned chat filter word" to customer service. Yes, there ARE workaround, but that kills the majority right there.. once you confirm and identify a site, bam.. filter added and chat filter wins again... there is no magic bullet.. all you can do is make it more and more difficult for them to get their gold sold... if they have to register more domains just to keep in business, it starts becoming less cost effective. And -then- you go to the big search engines, google, yahoo, MSN, etc.. and look in their advertiser terms of service and see if there is anything you can use against those who are violating the EULA to prevent the ads -there-. And THEN you start looking at their websites.. and if any are hosted in the US, and use graphics from the games (i.e. ones SOE owns copyright to), start issuing DMCA complaints and affect their websites... The trick isnt to kill them outright, it isn't going to be easy to do that.. the trick is to make it no longer profitable.. or not as profitable..

liveja

03-21-2007, 01:25 PM

<cite>ArivenGemini wrote:</cite><blockquote>you filter on "buygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm.com"... </blockquote>You do realize that text string can be easily circumvented also, right?Edit: to the best of my knowledge, all plat-seller sites are located outside the U.S., precisely because they are not covered by applicable U.S. laws. That point has been made repeatedly. It's almost wholly a waste of time for SOE to even think about taking legal action.

Leatherneck

03-21-2007, 01:31 PM

<cite>ArivenGemini wrote:</cite><blockquote>Lynsi@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>chat filters?? hehe do you really think that would help? on howmanyways can you type "buy gold"? b_uy g_old bu.y gol.d b_u.y g_o-l.d and hundreds of combinations, and then i dont even include "leet speek" so youcan forget "chat filters" as it won't help nada </blockquote>That is why you dont filter on the "buy gold" part of the message.. you focus on the part that cant change without cost or effort.. the URL.. if, for example, one plat seller url was www.buygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm.com, you filter on "buygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm.com" </blockquote>buygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm(dot)combuygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm (dot) combuygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm(dot) combuygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm (dot)combuygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm.combuygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm .combuygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm. combuygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm . combuygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm. combuygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm .combuygoldatbobscheapgoldfarm . combuygoldat bobscheapgoldfarm.cometc.Additionally, it's so cheap anymore to buy a web namespace, there's no real problem with just buying a new one as soon as one gets banned. I suspect one sale will more than pay for it."And THEN you start looking at their websites.. and if any are hosted in the US, and use graphics from the games (i.e. ones SOE owns copyright to), start issuing DMCA complaints and affect their websites..."And what about countries that don't recognize, or don't enforce copyrights like...say...China? Copyright law and DMCA mean nothing or close-to-nothing to those countries, so it'd be really difficult-if not impossible-to affect their sites.

sayitaintso

03-21-2007, 04:04 PM

<cite>nitrous wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>SteelPiston wrote: <blockquote>I would have thought by now that a big company like SOE would have issued a "Cease and desist" order to these companies and to threaten them with legal action if the don't stop bothering their customers. Filters are too easily defeated and I don't see the benefit of messing with them.</blockquote> And they very well might have.What I find amusing is (and I'm not directing this toward you, SteelPiston) people claim "Sony isn't doing anything"..."Sony doesn't care"..."Sony's turning a blind eye blah, blah, blah"I'd love to see some proof of this assertation. Sony doesn't tell us when it bans someone for harrassment or exploiting or other offenses even when it directly affects you. Why on earth do you think SOE's CEO is going to send you an email every time it takes a step against plat sellers?</blockquote>there is no way to provide the "proof" you seek, but any reasonable thinking human could easily come to this conclusion if they wern't blindly following SOE...let's take a look The spam and in game mail are still being used, although lowered a bit, they haven't been completely stopped. You can't tell me that a company with the resources of Sony can't come up with a way to filter these completely... In game plat BUYERS could be stopped nearly in a manner similar to what I outlined earlier in this thread. SOE has taken no steps to quell the purchase of in game coin for real $$ even though they have the tracking ability, they won't use the resources they have to put a stop to it. If there are no buyers, the source dries up, just like in any retail business But the REAL tale is here...SOE has a HUGE community. Many Many fan sites that use the SOE name and their game logos for advertising to make real cash money from their advertisers..and who are the advertisers? Why the in game COIN sellers..and if they don't have in game coin sellers, there are nearly always links to sites that DO have in game coin sellers..NOW SOE could easily pull their permission to use their copyrighted names and logos from these fan sites...but they don't...SO they are condoning the sale of in game coin...at the very least turning a blind eye to it.. The game rules are simple...anything found in the game belongs to SOE and cannot be sold for real $$. Buying anything found in game is against the rules. These rules are broken every single day and SOE does little to nothing to enforce them. A rule unenforced is no rule at all..A little simple logic shows that SOE turns a blind eye to their own rules...Now the question is why....Are they unwilling to dedicate the resources it would take to investigate these rule breakers? Would the mass bannings that investigting plat buyers could cause jeaprdize an already shrinking subscriber base? or are they really on the take either directly from the plat sellers or indirectly by profiting by their accounts? </blockquote> Ah. The old you're stupid because you don't agree with me ploy. NO, ITS THE OL PEOPLE WITH COMMON SENSE COULD DRAW THESE CONCLUSIONS POST Ok, let's take a "reasonable, thinking" approach to it.1) Many of those sites are hosted in countries that historically have proven they don't care one whit for US law. They are countries that have condoned selling bootleg music and movies and software. Yet SOE is supposed to be able to force them to take down references to their game? What are they supposed to do? Hire a mercenary force to invade China? Coerce the American Government into sending it's military over? How exactly are they supposed to force them to take down their sites?I'M SPEAKING ABOUT SITES WITH WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WITH SOE, ALAKAZAM, OGAMING, TEN TON HAMMER..THEY ARE NOT IN SOME FORIEGN COUNTRY What about the US companies? Well if I were going to set up one of those companies, I'd host it out of the country, preferably one that doesn't respond to US Gov't requests for information on who owns what site quickly, if at all. I'd move servers every so often, so that even if they DID respond to the request, by the time they get done with the paperwork and bureaucracy, that site doesn't exist anymore and has moved on. I'd have the monies from sales funnelled into a secure, off-shore account that won't report to the US Gov't. Hosting bills and salaries and such would be paid from the same kind of account.So much for your claim that because those sites exist SOE is condoning it or turning a blind eye toward it.2) WoW advertised a mass banning of accounts related to gold selling. In my very brief time playing that game, I received multiple tells and emails advertising these sites.During the Prohibition era, having alcohol could land you in jail...yet people still drank.Even now, posessing, distrubuting and manufacturing illicit drugs can land you in jail, yet there are still buyers for it.Back in the day they used to hang horse theives, yet people still stole horses.Accounts have been banned in other SOE games for having large amounts of coin. Yet still people bought in game currency.So much for your theory that you can punish buyers enough to stop the practice.a) wow has sokmething like 7 million subscribers on over 100 servers which would make policing plat sellers much harder than a few hundred thousdand in EQ2. Yes ban some plat buyers, let everyone know there is a crack down and be proactive about enforcement and you could eliminate enough plat buyers to make it not profitable for the plat spammers to advertise on EQ2 servers.b) you prohibition analogy is rediculous. You can't compare an era of little or no technology with today's computer based tracking ability. It's comparing apples and oranges 3) You suggest that because spam and in game mails advertising these subjects still exist, SOE doesn't care.I'm sure Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and other companies, including the ones that make hardware spam filters, will be contacting you soon, because you must have some unknown method of blocking emails by intent, rather than content. I still get spam mail on a daily basis, so you need to contact Bill Gates and teach him a thing or two about spam filtering, since obviously you know something their millions-if not billions-of Research dollars do not.So much for your suggestion that because spam mails and tells still exist that SOE doesn't do anything.Again, we are talking about 2-3 plat selling comapanies that use the same methods over and over to get their message out...Are you saying SOE isn't smart enought to be able to filter out their own chat channels? ROFL Now your answer to the whole buyer angle is to treat normal paying customers like criminals. You suggest a GM message going out stating that any transactions over 50pp (over how long a period? 1 day? A week? A year?) will have to give a satisfactory reason for why. Have you seen the hue and cry raised when someone is unfairly banned or suspended? And that's just one account. Now imagine how many people leave the game and give their friends all their plat. That's one account per being unfairly banned, and that's just one legit excuse I can think of off the top of my head for a large transfer.Oh...right. Investigate. So now, you have a GM tied up in chasing down perfectly legit transactions instead of getting people help, including getting plat farmer-bots to move off a spot so legit players can play.Now, who's not thinking?They are ALREADY treating their customers like criminals...not allowing new players access to common things ingame like joining guilds and sending mail...what would be the difference.. Apparently you have some gripe with us trying to get SOE to stop the plat sellers in game..You sell rots and rots of prat? </blockquote>I love it!! And, to repeat my original response to this thread. "For every better mouse trap there will come a smarter mouse. "</blockquote>

Jerr

03-21-2007, 04:20 PM

Every post I have recieved from a plat seller had gmworker.com in the message.Now if I had the ability to filter that name out I wouldn't get anymore plat spam. And when they change to a different message I'd pick the common word they use them.Doesn't seem that hard to remedy-don't understand why this isn't already an option unless the underlying motive is not to completely rule out platsellers.

DngrMou

03-21-2007, 04:35 PM

<cite>Jerril wrote:</cite><blockquote>Doesn't seem that hard to remedy-don't understand why this isn't already an option unless the underlying motive is not to completely rule out platsellers.</blockquote>No, it's because it won't work.

sayitaintso

03-21-2007, 04:40 PM

OK that was a bit harsh.. But tell me, why do you have a problem with implementing any of the ideas I presented in addition to anything SOE may be doing? Every little bit helps yes?

DngrMou

03-21-2007, 04:44 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>OK that was a bit harsh.. But tell me, why do you have a problem with implementing any of the ideas I presented in addition to anything SOE may be doing? Every little bit helps yes? </blockquote> What was a bit harsh was your inflamatory and racist 'rots and rots of prat'.

ArivenGemini

03-21-2007, 05:44 PM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>ArivenGemini wrote: "And THEN you start looking at their websites.. and if any are hosted in the US, and use graphics from the games (i.e. ones SOE owns copyright to), start issuing DMCA complaints and affect their websites..."And what about countries that don't recognize, or don't enforce copyrights like...say...China? Copyright law and DMCA mean nothing or close-to-nothing to those countries, so it'd be really difficult-if not impossible-to affect their sites.</blockquote> First off, did you not see the part where i said "if any are hosted in the US"? Secondly, just because it wont help on ALL instances, we shouldn't do ANYTHING at all? what type of logic is that? That is in the same vein as "we cant stop all robberies, so we won't stop any"... People keep getting up in arms about this issue, and complain left and right that "nothing is being done"... yet I continually see people shooting down ideas that are not 100% solutions... well guess what, I dont think there IS a 100% solution here.. all that can be done is do our best.. and doing our best means we do some stuff that is less than 100% of a solution.. If it has ANY positive effect, it should be done..instead of just waiting for an absolutist solution that isnt going to happen.

ArivenGemini

03-21-2007, 05:47 PM

Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote><cite>Jerril wrote:</cite><blockquote>Doesn't seem that hard to remedy-don't understand why this isn't already an option unless the underlying motive is not to completely rule out platsellers.</blockquote>No, it's because it won't work. </blockquote> It may not be a 100% solution but it will have SOME positive effect. That means that there will be SOME benefit... and honestly I can see it being much more efficient customer service manhourwise than launching draconian investigations of transfers of large amounts of plat.. This isnt an all or nothing deal here.. and it isnt a single battlefront.. things should be addressed with any reasonable method that can be come up with.

liveja

03-21-2007, 05:51 PM

Just so people know: to the best of my knowledge, Allakhazam's & Ten Ton Hammer do not sell plat. Allakhazam's accepts advertisements from companies that do. Ten Ton Hammer might, or might not; I don't visit that site, so I don't know. OGaming doesn't exist any more, as it was folded into Allakhazam's some time ago.SOE *might* be able to obtain a court order forcing those web sites to take down the plat-seller ads, & to never again accept such advertisements. I think their chances of obtaining such a court order would be slim-to-none with Slim on his way out of town, & I think it would be a massive waste of SOE's time & resources to even attempt such a lawsuit, but they could actually be silly enough to do it. The fact that they have not yet done so implies, to me, that their legal staff has already advised them of the very dubious chances of success.In any event, even if they forced all the American web-sites to stop advertising plat-sellers, the plat-sellers themselves ARE NOT IN AMERICA, & can't be touched. I honestly, truly, seriously, strongly wish people would get this through their heads: stopping the advertisement of plat-sellers WILL NOT stop plat sellers, nor will it stop plat buyers.No amount of claiming that those who disagree are unreasonable, lacking in common sense, &/or drowning in SOE fanboi-ism will change these simple facts. & finally, spouting off about "rots & rots of prats" only makes one look like a stereotypical racist buffoon, & IMHO, such language has no place on these forums, & I, for one, would like to see SOE take strong action to make sure it doesn't appear on these forums again.

liveja

03-21-2007, 05:55 PM

<cite>ArivenGemini wrote:</cite><blockquote>It may not be a 100% solution </blockquote>Ariven ... what people are trying to tell you is that it's not even a 10% solution, given that the text strings can be so easily manipulated to throw off the filter.I don't advocate waiting for a 100% solution, because there is no such thing. I advocate waiting for something that isn't a farce. Text filtering is a farce.

DngrMou

03-21-2007, 06:02 PM

<cite>ArivenGemini wrote:</cite><blockquote>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote><cite>Jerril wrote:</cite><blockquote>Doesn't seem that hard to remedy-don't understand why this isn't already an option unless the underlying motive is not to completely rule out platsellers.</blockquote>No, it's because it won't work. </blockquote> It may not be a 100% solution but it will have SOME positive effect. That means that there will be SOME benefit... and honestly I can see it being much more efficient customer service manhourwise than launching draconian investigations of transfers of large amounts of plat.. This isnt an all or nothing deal here.. and it isnt a single battlefront.. things should be addressed with any reasonable method that can be come up with. </blockquote>I don't see where it would require a lot of effort to put something like this in place....and so long as it's restricted to the client side of things, I have no beef with it. It just won't work though. Plat sellers will simply adapt...it's what they do. Getting their message in front of you is what matters...and adapting is going to be amazingly easy. They need only change their message on a weekly basis, and even with your filter, you still see their message.

Leatherneck

03-21-2007, 06:12 PM

<cite>ArivenGemini wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>ArivenGemini wrote: "And THEN you start looking at their websites.. and if any are hosted in the US, and use graphics from the games (i.e. ones SOE owns copyright to), start issuing DMCA complaints and affect their websites..."And what about countries that don't recognize, or don't enforce copyrights like...say...China? Copyright law and DMCA mean nothing or close-to-nothing to those countries, so it'd be really difficult-if not impossible-to affect their sites.</blockquote> First off, did you not see the part where i said "if any are hosted in the US"? </blockquote>First off, did you not see where I accepted that and went on to bring up the ones that are not in the US?Did you not see that? I could highlight it for you if you would like.I didn't say "That won't work because". I said "and what about", that's vastly different from saying what you're claiming I did.Please, reference for me where I even hinted that nothing should be done at all.I didn't shoot down jack squat about dealing with US based companies, though I have my reservations on the effectiveness of such an attempt. So stop putting words in my mouth, thanks.

Leatherneck

03-21-2007, 06:28 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>nitrous wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>*snip* </blockquote></blockquote> Ah. The old you're stupid because you don't agree with me ploy. NO, ITS THE OL PEOPLE WITH COMMON SENSE COULD DRAW THESE CONCLUSIONS POST Ok, let's take a "reasonable, thinking" approach to it.1) Many of those sites are hosted in countries that historically have proven they don't care one whit for US law. They are countries that have condoned selling bootleg music and movies and software. Yet SOE is supposed to be able to force them to take down references to their game? What are they supposed to do? Hire a mercenary force to invade China? Coerce the American Government into sending it's military over? How exactly are they supposed to force them to take down their sites?I'M SPEAKING ABOUT SITES WITH WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WITH SOE, ALAKAZAM, OGAMING, TEN TON HAMMER..THEY ARE NOT IN SOME FORIEGN COUNTRY What about the US companies? Well if I were going to set up one of those companies, I'd host it out of the country, preferably one that doesn't respond to US Gov't requests for information on who owns what site quickly, if at all. I'd move servers every so often, so that even if they DID respond to the request, by the time they get done with the paperwork and bureaucracy, that site doesn't exist anymore and has moved on. I'd have the monies from sales funnelled into a secure, off-shore account that won't report to the US Gov't. Hosting bills and salaries and such would be paid from the same kind of account.So much for your claim that because those sites exist SOE is condoning it or turning a blind eye toward it.2) WoW advertised a mass banning of accounts related to gold selling. In my very brief time playing that game, I received multiple tells and emails advertising these sites.During the Prohibition era, having alcohol could land you in jail...yet people still drank.Even now, posessing, distrubuting and manufacturing illicit drugs can land you in jail, yet there are still buyers for it.Back in the day they used to hang horse theives, yet people still stole horses.Accounts have been banned in other SOE games for having large amounts of coin. Yet still people bought in game currency.So much for your theory that you can punish buyers enough to stop the practice.a) wow has sokmething like 7 million subscribers on over 100 servers which would make policing plat sellers much harder than a few hundred thousdand in EQ2. Yes ban some plat buyers, let everyone know there is a crack down and be proactive about enforcement and you could eliminate enough plat buyers to make it not profitable for the plat spammers to advertise on EQ2 servers.b) you prohibition analogy is rediculous. You can't compare an era of little or no technology with today's computer based tracking ability. It's comparing apples and oranges 3) You suggest that because spam and in game mails advertising these subjects still exist, SOE doesn't care.I'm sure Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and other companies, including the ones that make hardware spam filters, will be contacting you soon, because you must have some unknown method of blocking emails by intent, rather than content. I still get spam mail on a daily basis, so you need to contact Bill Gates and teach him a thing or two about spam filtering, since obviously you know something their millions-if not billions-of Research dollars do not.So much for your suggestion that because spam mails and tells still exist that SOE doesn't do anything.Again, we are talking about 2-3 plat selling comapanies that use the same methods over and over to get their message out...Are you saying SOE isn't smart enought to be able to filter out their own chat channels? ROFL Now your answer to the whole buyer angle is to treat normal paying customers like criminals. You suggest a GM message going out stating that any transactions over 50pp (over how long a period? 1 day? A week? A year?) will have to give a satisfactory reason for why. Have you seen the hue and cry raised when someone is unfairly banned or suspended? And that's just one account. Now imagine how many people leave the game and give their friends all their plat. That's one account per being unfairly banned, and that's just one legit excuse I can think of off the top of my head for a large transfer.Oh...right. Investigate. So now, you have a GM tied up in chasing down perfectly legit transactions instead of getting people help, including getting plat farmer-bots to move off a spot so legit players can play.Now, who's not thinking?They are ALREADY treating their customers like criminals...not allowing new players access to common things ingame like joining guilds and sending mail...what would be the difference.. Apparently you have some gripe with us trying to get SOE to stop the plat sellers in game..You sell rots and rots of prat? </blockquote>I love it!! And, to repeat my original response to this thread. "For every better mouse trap there will come a smarter mouse. "</blockquote> </blockquote> Your attempt at a response amuses me."I'M SPEAKING ABOUT SITES WITH WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WITH SOE, ALAKAZAM, OGAMING, TEN TON HAMMER..THEY ARE NOT IN SOME FORIEGN COUNTRY"Because you know, capslock is cruise control for right, but still...Good luck with that.1) Ten-Ton Hammer is part of the VG affiliate network. That means SOE works with them specifically because they don't allow advertising currency sales.So much for having a clue what you're talking about.2) I don't think SOE has any "working relationship" with OGaming at all. Going to SOE's site and reporting what SOE reports is not a working relationship.3) How do you expect SOE to force those sites to take their logo off? Short of buying the site outright (assuming the owners would ever sell), I just don't see it happening.<hr />"a) wow has sokmething like 7 million subscribers on over 100 servers which would make policing plat sellers much harder than a few hundred thousdand in EQ2. Yes ban some plat buyers, let everyone know there is a crack down and be proactive about enforcement and you could eliminate enough plat buyers to make it not profitable for the plat spammers to advertise on EQ2 servers."I got multiple tells and emails every single day.In EQ2, I've had exactly one contact in (only counting the time I've restarted) 3 times as long.WoW's way clearly does not work."b) you prohibition analogy is rediculous. You can't compare an era of little or no technology with today's computer based tracking ability. It's comparing apples and oranges"You're wrong, but even casting that aside, that does exactly nothing to refute the point that if people want it, they will buy it. Whether it's drugs, prostitution, whatever if there is a demand for it, someone will fill it, and clearly the threat of banning buyers doesn't work.Further, relying on banning buyers is a failing prospect to begin with.People who buy plat have one thing for certain. Extra cash.So, you ban the account. The buyer goes to the mall and spends what? That's right, extra cash, to pick up the game again.Then they spend extra cash to buy that plat again, maybe some levelling services.If I was of a mind to, I could buy a new copy of the game every single day without worrying about it. Then spend a little cash to get some plat.So much for the idea of banning buyers will force the economy to dry up.<hr />"Again, we are talking about 2-3 plat selling comapanies that use the same methods over and over to get their message out...Are you saying SOE isn't smart enought to be able to filter out their own chat channels? ROFL"You're wrong. It's been proven you're wrong multiple times in this thread. It's not worth SOE spending the time chasing the latest way of saying "bobsplatfarm.com" because each minor change escapes the text filter. Now go on...I'm sure Redmond is waiting your phone call so you can explain to them how to 100% filter text.Next time, wait till you've got an actual valid point to be made before responding, please.

Echgar

03-21-2007, 08:22 PM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Next time, wait till you've got an actual valid point to be made before responding, please.</blockquote>I have a valid point. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> We understand that many in the community are frustrated with plat sellers and the tactics they use. You will note that <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=352249" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Grimwell recently posted</a> on changes made to the game to help combat them. These were not the first changes and they probably will not be the last. I would like to ask those of you participating in this discussion to refrain from attacking each other, dropping insults, calling each other names, and similar -- see the <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=176" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Forum Rules of Conduct</a>.

Leatherneck

03-21-2007, 08:38 PM

<cite>Echgar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Next time, wait till you've got an actual valid point to be made before responding, please.</blockquote>I have a valid point. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> We understand that many in the community are frustrated with plat sellers and the tactics they use. You will note that <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=352249" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Grimwell recently posted</a> on changes made to the game to help combat them. These were not the first changes and they probably will not be the last.Exactly my point. I just bristle at obviously false statements like "SOE isn't doing anything" or "SOE doesn't care". I would like to ask those of you participating in this discussion to refrain from attacking each other, dropping insults, calling each other names, and similar -- see the <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=176" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Forum Rules of Conduct</a>.Fair enough. If I have crossed the line, you have my apologies. </blockquote>

Sunlei

03-22-2007, 10:02 AM

At 5 am us time I logged into home city on guk server with a crafter character. Open mailbox and a gold selling mail is there. Send mail off with the report button. The mail spammer a lvl 1 character is standing at the mailbox. made a cool screenshot with open mail spam and the lvl 1 sender standing there.opened a /petition aswell.I know soe will answer the petition and ban that account but soe is not fast enough. The gold sellers are using a throw-away account to spam with. It must be worth the 20 dollars(to buy basic throw-away account) to break the tos as fast as they can during times they know few cs people are working.Couple weird-named single name characters run up to the mailer and looks like they are doing trades at the mailbox.1)Suggest to soe that you add some kind of 'quest' to use the mailbox for newbies and/or new accounts. 2)suggest No lvl one! should be allowed to send more than a few mails an hour. 3) if they are using a third party program to send mails superfast and gather serverwide names then investagate who is giving those lvl 1 accounts the POSTAGE-money to send mails. It's not free to send mails and those lvl one mail spammers are getting the postage from SOMEONE. Ban that account too sure the gold sellers will just spend another 20 dollars for another throw away account but please make them jump threw more hoops to sell gold!!! and please remove gold from those who buy from them! I've seen a lot of people buy gold from those web-sites, you know they give their lame reasons.."oh my time is more valuable".."i want to spend my time really playing and not have to spend my time earning game money." All lame cheater reasons. Those gold buyers are NEVER banned, never! I'm not your gold buyers police and I am not going to report guildies and others who buy gold...that's soes job and they need to make gold buying a much much harsher punishment.I want to see those gold selling websites prices go way way higher in stead of cheaper and cheaper. Look at what happened to eq1! The price that those sites sell their golds to the cheaters go way higher when soe is putting the squeeze hard on the sellers!! well the prices are lower. don't let the plat sellers own the eq2 game and market like they did with eq1!!It's just not worth the throw-away account sales income to not act much quicker is it?

SenorPhrog

03-22-2007, 12:06 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote:I'M SPEAKING ABOUT SITES WITH WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WITH SOE, ALAKAZAM, OGAMING, TEN TON HAMMER..THEY ARE NOT IN SOME FORIEGN COUNTRY I actually missed this yesterday so thank you to the person who pointed it out. I also apologize to anyone who reads this because plat ads are a serious pet peeve of mine...Lesson one in credibility is having your facts straight skippy.Number one, have you even BEEN to the Ten Ton Hammer site? I championed from my first day on the job there to get our ads down and they have been down since 12/15/2005 (yeah thats right I have a date). Do your homework before throwing around inaccurate accusations like that, because it tends to draw the ire of sometimes angry people.Number two, how do you know we aren't a foreign company? Did you know that most of our upper management is actually in Canada? Then again you probably haven't been to our site, so you might not know that. Seriously...I'm pretty offended and that is not easy to do. Your one statement right here destroyed any credibility you had about plat selling. Most of the people in here understand it is not a difficult thing to police in ANY game considering no one I've seen posting here probably works in SOE CS. It is something they take seriously, and yes it's extremely annoying, but slapping around fansites (especially without cause) isn't doing anything to curb the problem.

Calthine

03-22-2007, 12:38 PM

<cite>Radar-X wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote:I'M SPEAKING ABOUT SITES WITH WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WITH SOE, ALAKAZAM, OGAMING, TEN TON HAMMER..THEY ARE NOT IN SOME FORIEGN COUNTRY I actually missed this yesterday so thank you to the person who pointed it out. I also apologize to anyone who reads this because plat ads are a serious pet peeve of mine...Lesson one in credibility is having your facts straight skippy.Number one, have you even BEEN to the Ten Ton Hammer site? I championed from my first day on the job there to get our ads down and they have been down since 12/15/2005 (yeah thats right I have a date). Do your homework before throwing around inaccurate accusations like that, because it tends to draw the ire of sometimes angry people.Number two, how do you know we aren't a foreign company? Did you know that most of our upper management is actually in Canada? Then again you probably haven't been to our site, so you might not know that. Seriously...I'm pretty offended and that is not easy to do. Your one statement right here destroyed any credibility you had about plat selling. Most of the people in here understand it is not a difficult thing to police in ANY game considering no one I've seen posting here probably works in SOE CS. It is something they take seriously, and yes it's extremely annoying, but slapping around fansites (especially without cause) isn't doing anything to curb the problem.</blockquote> /cheers Radar. You know, if I farmed and sold plat I'd probably have a lot more money.

Rashaak

03-22-2007, 12:55 PM

How about...setting up a 'filter' in-game...much like setting up a filter for your e-mail, where certain words will send it to junk mail and/or delete it. So set up an 'ignore filter' that will allow us to ignore tells that have certain words like BUY PLATZ HERE! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Spyderbite

03-22-2007, 01:03 PM

<cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote>How about...setting up a 'filter' in-game...much like setting up a filter for your e-mail, where certain words will send it to junk mail and/or delete it. So set up an 'ignore filter' that will allow us to ignore tells that have certain words like BUY PLATZ HERE! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote> I suspect that such a system is already in the works as its the most obvious solution. The problem that some people seem to be having in this thread is that they want it done yesterday. Reality > Delusion. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Sunlei

03-22-2007, 01:05 PM

no offence, both Ala and Tenton are and have been longtime Everquest fan sites. And both you love eq2 and post frequently. Didn't both those websites get bought out by that 'Zam network"?? no searching for the news about what websites that largest plat/game-money seller bought and combined into 'Zam" (is it zam I forget) I remember Ogaming was one of those websites combined into game-money sales owners.Even if you don't have gold selling adds, the ownership of the Fansites, I do think soe should more carefully monitor.Remember what happened to the eq1 fansites? Yantus first big plat seller bought many EQ1 boards and sites. Very few large fansites were not sell-outs. If your 2 websites were part of the new recent buying of more everquest biggest fan sites and combining them to some "Zam" thing, then you're always going to be asked the question forever and will have to learn how to answer that question in a calm way. I;m sure it's upsetting to be asked on a messageboard, why soe continues to give you icons and special board notations. Got to understand that the public is going to continue to ask that question if a fansite is assoaciated with game money sites in any way by adds and/or ownership.

SenorPhrog

03-22-2007, 02:17 PM

<cite>Sunlei wrote:</cite><blockquote> no offence, both Ala and Tenton are and have been longtime Everquest fan sites. And both you love eq2 and post frequently. Didn't both those websites get bought out by that 'Zam network"?? no searching for the news about what websites that largest plat/game-money seller bought and combined into 'Zam" (is it zam I forget) I remember Ogaming was one of those websites combined into game-money sales owners.Even if you don't have gold selling adds, the ownership of the Fansites, I do think soe should more carefully monitor.Remember what happened to the eq1 fansites? Yantus first big plat seller bought many EQ1 boards and sites. Very few large fansites were not sell-outs. If your 2 websites were part of the new recent buying of more everquest biggest fan sites and combining them to some "Zam" thing, then you're always going to be asked the question forever and will have to learn how to answer that question in a calm way. I;m sure it's upsetting to be asked on a messageboard, why soe continues to give you icons and special board notations. Got to understand that the public is going to continue to ask that question if a fansite is assoaciated with game money sites in any way by adds and/or ownership. </blockquote>Allakahzam and OGaming merged into Zam from my understanding of the press release they put out. Ten Ton Hammer is an indepently owned network and has no other media site affiliations.

sayitaintso

03-22-2007, 02:53 PM

And yet ANOTHER plat selling company sends me EMAIL today...that's 2 new ones since these "Changes to stop them" went into effect... And you are trying to convince me that they are taking a proactive stance to do something about this....Even their REACTIVE stance doesn't work...and why BECAUSE THEY AREN"T DOING ANYTHING THAT WILL ACTUALLY WORK>>>> and why is that?? BECAUSE THEY DONT GIVE A CRAP!

DngrMou

03-22-2007, 03:05 PM

<cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote>How about...setting up a 'filter' in-game...much like setting up a filter for your e-mail, where certain words will send it to junk mail and/or delete it. So set up an 'ignore filter' that will allow us to ignore tells that have certain words like BUY PLATZ HERE! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote> I would also like to point out that any server/client side filter that is user settable will have one large, and immediate affect: CS is going to be swamped with the complaints of those same users who are no longer getting the tells they wanted, (and the funny part of this is they'll also be getting the plat spam they wanted to filter out to begin with).

liveja

03-22-2007, 03:07 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>And yet ANOTHER plat selling company sends me EMAIL today </blockquote>Nobody believed the boy who cried "Wolf" too many times, either.

SenorPhrog

03-22-2007, 03:21 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>And yet ANOTHER plat selling company sends me EMAIL today...that's 2 new ones since these "Changes to stop them" went into effect... And you are trying to convince me that they are taking a proactive stance to do something about this....Even their REACTIVE stance doesn't work...and why BECAUSE THEY AREN"T DOING ANYTHING THAT WILL ACTUALLY WORK>>>> and why is that?? BECAUSE THEY DONT GIVE A CRAP! </blockquote> I hear if you type in caps they listen better. Are you making a graph where we can see how many emails you are getting each day. I'm really more of a visual learner.

sayitaintso

03-22-2007, 03:56 PM

YOU DONT LIKE CAPS? TOUGH IT"S THE ONLY WAY TO SHOW FRUSTRATION AND THAT"S AN UNDERSTATEMENT

Grimwell

03-22-2007, 04:00 PM

<blockquote>And yet ANOTHER plat selling company sends me EMAIL today...that's 2 new ones since these "Changes to stop them" went into effect...</blockquote> My friend, there has been no post made by anyone in the employment of SOE stating that changes have been made to the game that will stop platinum sellers completely. The most recent changes made, in the my post which was linked above, were another step in the continuing battle. In that post, I specifically stated that the changes "...should help ebb the tide of spam from platinum sellers." which was no guarantee that the spam would end completely. I understand that it is frustrating when you receive spam mail or messaging from these folks. I don't like it either. So I file a /petition and /report every time it comes across my screen when I'm playing. I encourage you to do the same.

selch

03-22-2007, 04:22 PM

<cite>Grimwell wrote:</cite><blockquote><blockquote>And yet ANOTHER plat selling company sends me EMAIL today...that's 2 new ones since these "Changes to stop them" went into effect...</blockquote> My friend, there has been no post made by anyone in the employment of SOE stating that changes have been made to the game that will stop platinum sellers completely. The most recent changes made, in the my post which was linked above, were another step in the continuing battle. In that post, I specifically stated that the changes "...should help ebb the tide of spam from platinum sellers." which was no guarantee that the spam would end completely. I understand that it is frustrating when you receive spam mail or messaging from these folks. I don't like it either. So I file a /petition and /report every time it comes across my screen when I'm playing. I encourage you to do the same. </blockquote> Why do you even try to stop spammers?Why dont you try to stop their source? You are not dumb not to see who is serious cash-pressing in this game. There are very well known people who has non-stop selling plats in every single server for god's sake, they are still online, still playing, still farming with their random generated names with no idea what the hell is English in US servers. Spammers are just minions who are already risked to be banned. Why dont you make it so only 2 logins at same time from a single IP adress? Why don't you make it so that you can't sell an item more than X plats to stop buyers who put a resource stack for 600 plats on sale?

liveja

03-22-2007, 04:39 PM

<cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why dont you make it so only 2 logins at same time from a single IP adress? My older brother, nephew, & I all login to EQ2 using the same router, from the same in-house network. Why don't you make it so that you can't sell an item more than X plats to stop buyers who put a resource stack for 600 plats on sale?Yes, just what we need: SOE enforcing price controls. Heigh-ho, Big Brother. <img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote>

civilgeek

03-22-2007, 04:55 PM

Grimwell, I don't know if this has been brought up before or not... but a guildy suggested a game mechanic change the other day that was so simple yet functional at hindering plat farmers. Simply make chain follow so it can not be done. Most plat farmers run around with 3-5 toons chained on one another. If you made it so only one person could autofollow another it would be very tough for them to run around as they do and they would need to increase the manpower they need to accomplish the same... digging into the bottom line.

liveja

03-22-2007, 05:01 PM

Haldir@Oasis wrote: <blockquote>If you made it so only one person could autofollow another it would be very tough for them to run around as they do</blockquote>I'm not sure I'm following you on this one, as it would only take a few extra seconds to have Character B follow Character A, C follows B, D follows C, & so on. Any halfway competent multi-boxer could do that. So is there a detail I'm missing here? I don't see how this would change anything at all.Remember, we're talking about multiple accounts in the multi-boxed group, so you couldn't even enforce it that way; each of those characters, so far as the server is concerned, is one individual person.

Prrasha

03-22-2007, 05:05 PM

<cite>Grimwell wrote:</cite><blockquote> So I file a /petition and /report every time it comes across my screen when I'm playing. I encourage you to do the same. </blockquote>Sure. Going to give me a small credit to my subscription price every time I have to waste my time on this problem? Granted, last night was the worst I've had it so far this year, but over about a two-hour period from 00:00 to 02:00 central time, I got SEVEN plat spams, all from the company whose name calls to mind General Motors. A /tell every half-hour is moving beyond 'annoyance.' Two came close enough together that I was told "You can't file a /report so often." If /report was enough, fine. /petition, espcially with the new off-site browser-link lousiness, takes too much of MY time. I'm really supposed to stop and take 2-4 minutes out of every half-hour, to help Sony do their own work? If I'm solo, I'm asking to die to adds while I'm writing, or I need to take even more time to run to a safe place every time. If I'm grouped... you really think my groupmates want me /afking for that every 20 to 30 minutes? I don't think so. The VOLUME of spam necessitates a MUCH EASIER method of reporting. In game mail has a 'report spam' option that doesn't require a /petition to get a followup. Why not have a /report_spam command that sends a few lines of chat to the same bin? /petition is the wrong way to report spam. Leave it in for reporting names and abusive behavior and such, sure. But a /report-like command MUST be enough to report one advertisement /tell. Further, I got an in-game mail on every character on my account last week. I found the mailer toon, still standing in Nettleville at the mailbox. I complained in the level-based chat channels about her, and "report spam"ed every mail I got. Others in the chat channels said "yup, I got mail from her too." Twenty-Six hours later... she was still standing at the Nettleville mailbox. I had a few more mails from her, but only on certain alts this time. Quicker followups on reports might be nice. Why wasn't she booted much-more-immediately? If an obvious spammer can stand at a mailbox for 30+ hours, they can (obviously) spam the whole server, more than once. Easier reporting, more enforcement. Please. And the oft-asked-for /ignore-based-on-level would be nice to have also.

Stuge

03-22-2007, 05:05 PM

The in-game measures are about as good as they can get, with some minor tweaking here and there. At the end of the day nothing will stop it completely. IANAL, however it seems to me that going forward it would be more effective for Sony to take legal measures against the companies that are funding/backing and benefiting from the spammers rather than just playing Whack-A-Mole with their throwaway accounts.

SenorPhrog

03-22-2007, 05:08 PM

<cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why do you even try to stop spammers? Why dont you try to stop their source? You are not dumb not to see who is serious cash-pressing in this game. There are very well known people who has non-stop selling plats in every single server for god's sake, they are still online, still playing, still farming with their random generated names with no idea what the hell is English in US servers. Spammers are just minions who are already risked to be banned. Why dont you make it so only 2 logins at same time from a single IP adress? Why don't you make it so that you can't sell an item more than X plats to stop buyers who put a resource stack for 600 plats on sale?</blockquote> Why? Because spammers directly affect players. Yes the secondary market is annoying, and yes it's wrong, and yes it needs to be stopped, but it doesn't directly affect you (the economic affect is indire ct). The secondary market is fairly passive, a plat spammer is not.Come on...do you REALLY think if it was that easy they wouldn't "stop them at the source." You can't ban someone just because of their name and farmers are getting better and better at hiding with guildtags and everything.How about not limiting logins from an IP address? What if a family of 3 plays together? What if I want to run 3 machines from my house? There is a plat limit. It's like 999 plat isn't it?

civilgeek

03-22-2007, 05:09 PM

Basically only one person could ever follow another and no one could chain. If there were 3 players... player 1 could not be followed by players 2 and 3 only 2 or 3. In addition, Player 1 could be followed by player 2 but if player 2 is following player 1 then player 3 could not follow player 2. If they wanted to take it further they could make is so that only one player could ever follow in a group of 6 too. This could hinder some player functionality but in my opinion not too much.

liveja

03-22-2007, 05:16 PM

Haldir@Oasis wrote: <blockquote>This could hinder some player functionality but in my opinion not too much.</blockquote>OK, I understand now what you're talking about, & I was kinda-sorta afraid that's what your explanation would be. I think this idea would certainly cause some adverse impacts to the plat farmers. What it would do to "real player" functionality is much harder to think of, & I wouldn't want to say the impact wouldn't be "too much".It would pretty much eliminate doing anything more than 2-or-3-boxing, but maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Overall, I wouldn't be opposed to SOE taking steps like this, but that's just me; it's highly possible that lots of others would be, & for perfectly legitimate reasons. Still, I think your idea is worthy of consideration.

civilgeek

03-22-2007, 05:25 PM

Do you implement a mechanic like this that would effectivly stop 3 boxing of which there is a very small percentage of players doing or do you not implement these types of mechanics and allow an industry that is effecting 1000's of players (and sony's bottom line) to continue. Two boxing of which the majority of legit players do would still be feasable. It is a pretty simple choice IMHO.

selch

03-22-2007, 05:32 PM

<cite>Radar-X wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why do you even try to stop spammers? Why dont you try to stop their source? You are not dumb not to see who is serious cash-pressing in this game. There are very well known people who has non-stop selling plats in every single server for god's sake, they are still online, still playing, still farming with their random generated names with no idea what the hell is English in US servers. Spammers are just minions who are already risked to be banned. Why dont you make it so only 2 logins at same time from a single IP adress? Why don't you make it so that you can't sell an item more than X plats to stop buyers who put a resource stack for 600 plats on sale?</blockquote> Why? Because spammers directly affect players. Yes the secondary market is annoying, and yes it's wrong, and yes it needs to be stopped, but it doesn't directly affect you (the economic affect is indire ct). The secondary market is fairly passive, a plat spammer is not.Come on...do you REALLY think if it was that easy they wouldn't "stop them at the source." You can't ban someone just because of their name and farmers are getting better and better at hiding with guildtags and everything.How about not limiting logins from an IP address? What if a family of 3 plays together? What if I want to run 3 machines from my house? There is a plat limit. It's like 999 plat isn't it?</blockquote> You can't ban someone because of their name... But you should ban them for not knowing English to answer to "what is your name?" question in a US server. It is definitely harder to learn English than leveling 6 characters on follow to Level 70 and getting into plat selling business... Beside there are regional servers all around the world, right? When will see guild names "I-farm-or-family-die" ?Note: I'm not American citizien, I'm not even European nor from some place where native language is English or similiar. It should not be THAT hard to make a top earner list and how much played time and where those top-earners "give away" their money. There is NO HUMAN BEING that can play a character 24/7 for months exception of down times, it must be easier to say "you can't share your account" part of EULA.

liveja

03-22-2007, 05:40 PM

<cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>But you should ban them for not knowing English to answer to "what is your name?" question in a US server. </blockquote>I'm sorry, I'm unaware of rules in EQ2 specifying that you have to be able to speak English to play on a US server. Could you show me that part of the EULA?

Engulf

03-22-2007, 05:48 PM

/puts_on_thinking_cap Hmm. Limitting it so that only 1 person could AF? I guess a lot of legit people don't use this mechanism...except my friends in my guild. We use it alot. Let's say we just did a full DFC run. We zone out into Zek and evac is down. Since we've been in th ere for hours (we have to clear EVERYTHING) we are all tired and need to BIO. Alot of the times I'll say everyone AF me and I'll run us all back to the docks. They get to BIO and I keep the angry mobs off us with taunts while running. We do it often? Nope. Would we quit if the ability was taken away? Nope Would if spoil our fun? Yep, since we'd have to wait for everyone to get back to their keyboard before we could make the treck. Maybe it's different when we hit 70, but we do this all the time now. /puts_flame_retardent_suit_on

Stuge

03-22-2007, 05:51 PM

<cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>It should not be THAT hard to make a top earner list and how much played time and where those top-earners "give away" their money. There is NO HUMAN BEING that can play a character 24/7 for months exception of down times, it must be easier to say "you can't share your account" part of EULA.</blockquote> The hurdle here is proving account sharing. To prove account sharing by "how long the toon has been logged in" would require someone else to be logged in to witness it for that entire time less it be argued that the player simply rested when you did/is on a similar play cycle to you. If you go by server logs and parses on actual logged in time, then you'll blow people away who are simply logged in for long period but may be AFK (many people go AFK overnight in safe spots rather than logging out which can leave them with session times of far greater than 24 hours).

ArivenGemini

03-22-2007, 06:38 PM

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Grimwell wrote:</cite><blockquote> So I file a /petition and /report every time it comes across my screen when I'm playing. I encourage you to do the same. </blockquote>Sure. Going to give me a small credit to my subscription price every time I have to waste my time on this problem? If /report was enough, fine. /petition, espcially with the new off-site browser-link lousiness, takes too much of MY time. I'm really supposed to stop and take 2-4 minutes out of every half-hour, to help Sony do their own work? </blockquote> They changed it so the offsite petition loads up in an in-game browser now.. so it isnt as painful as it was And as for helping SOE do their work, yeah it grates on the nerves to have to do an effort to do something to push along what we think someone else should do... but if we are bothered enough about it to come post on the forums, the least we can do is spend a bit of our time helping by petitioning in game... the more we all work together on this problem, the better the situation can become.. And I agree, faster time frames on this stuff is needed.. though my last one was dealt with in 38 minutes... so I am seeing some good times with the bad times..

crumpledmonkey

03-22-2007, 07:04 PM

<cite>Grimwell wrote:</cite><blockquote><blockquote>And yet ANOTHER plat selling company sends me EMAIL today...that's 2 new ones since these "Changes to stop them" went into effect...</blockquote> My friend, there has been no post made by anyone in the employment of SOE stating that changes have been made to the game that will stop platinum sellers completely. The most recent changes made, in the my post which was linked above, were another step in the continuing battle. In that post, I specifically stated that the changes "...should help ebb the tide of spam from platinum sellers." which was no guarantee that the spam would end completely. I understand that it is frustrating when you receive spam mail or messaging from these folks. I don't like it either. So I file a /petition and /report every time it comes across my screen when I'm playing. I encourage you to do the same. </blockquote>grimwell dont they give u some kind of lvl 100 char or something i think if i were u and got that message i would log in and put the big old delete lightning bolt right then and there how much more prouf u need. would also show other players that are around at the time that soe actually did something about the spammers.

civilgeek

03-22-2007, 07:07 PM

Nobody wants to lose functionality, however, the question is where do you draw the line. Taking autofollow away for those rare DFC runs, 3 boxers, etc. takes away functionality for a few but benefits the entire community by helping to eliminating an industry that is hindering the entire player baseecconomy is my point. Travel in this game is a joke and there are so many ways to do it... After a DFC run all of your calls should be up... you could call to ro, qeynosfreeport, splitpaw or with druidmage you could portgate to 4 other locations. In addition, after your friends get back from their break... evac would probably be up. The bottom line: Would you rather keep the DFC run option or keep the incessant tells, emails, training, node stealing, mob monopolization and other garbage?

ke'la

03-22-2007, 07:36 PM

<cite>rbritz wrote:</cite><blockquote>Sony said they were going to implement this months ago, so I have no idea why it hasn't started yet. Block all outgoing emails/tells from Beginner Isle to start this off right. Allow us to block emails and tells from anybody we choose based upon criteria: Levels, Non Guildie, Non Paying player, Not part of friends list, etc. Me personally, this would fix 99.9 percent of all spam in the game. If your not a guildie of mine and your not on my friends list. Guess what, your not going to be able to do anything to me. Sony promised us a fix months ago, the ball is in their court, they need to stop giving us holiday events and use that programming department to write the code to fix the spammers. If they are not fixing this problem, then the conspiracy is GMWorker and Vsales and any other website is paying Sony some cash under the table.</blockquote>Accually they Impemented these rules months ago on TRIAL ACCOUNTS, the plat sellers(thinks to players selling there buddy keys) got around those rules by using Buddy Key Accounts wich where more or less flagged as full paid accounts, with full account permitions (including lvling beyond 10) but with only 7 days of play time. They are now flagging those Buddy Key accounts as Trail Accounts with the Trial Account rules appling to them.

ke'la

03-22-2007, 07:51 PM

Decadre@Najena wrote: <blockquote>This issue could very well become a very moot argument. Anyone else read this?<a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128270/article.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,1...70/article.html</a>Long and short of it is that the Feds are investigating the virtual gold market, and looking into ways of taxing it. Problem is that the author is hinting at the fact that the old fogies making the laws don't realize that in some games, virtual gold is illegal, and these fogies don't realize that. Some ideas apparently, or the impression I got from reading it is that if a rare sword is "illegally" selling for $50, whether or not you are going to sell it, or can even sell it or trade it, you would have to pay tax on $50.Yeah, yeah I know it seems pretty far fetched. But seriously, we're talking about old men making laws about video games being played on computers. How much information can they seriously have on the topic besides seeing the cash register ringing up none stop.I think this would be the quote of interest from the story:<hr />Taxing Trades But as any accountant can tell you, real-money revenues are not the only kind of income that draws the tax man's eye. The labyrinthine U.S. tax code includes many provisions that can leave you owing income taxes without ever earning a dollar. <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=128270&page=2&zoomIdx=1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"></a>Consider "bartering" and "prizes" as outlined in IRS publication 525 ("Taxable and Nontaxable Income"<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />: Anyone who acquires goods or services either in trade or at play must report as income the "fair market value" of those goods or services. Give your plumber a rare baseball card in exchange for fixing your pipes, and you both owe taxes on the dollar value of your respective ends of the deal. Win an SUV on Wheel of Fortune, and the government will want its share of the sticker price, whether you sell the car or not. So if virtual loot can be sold for real money and therefore has real value, what's to stop the government from concluding that every time a fallen virtual monster gives up its prize, or a fistful of Linden dollars is traded for a virtual hair weave, a taxable event has occurred? Don't ask the IRS. Pressed for an official opinion on the taxability of virtual trades, IRS spokesperson Nancy Mathis would say, via e-mail, only that "whether exchanges constitute bartering depends on the facts and circumstances of each case." As to whether that magic helmet won from a slain dragon is a taxable prize, the answer was similarly noncommittal. "[The] bottom line," Mathis wrote, "is this: You can receive income in the form of money, property, or services. Generally, your income is taxable unless it is specifically exempted by law." Translation: The IRS is keeping its options open. And according to former IRS lawyer Bryan Camp, now a professor of tax law at Texas Tech, those options definitely include taxing virtual gold. "Section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code says that gross income is any income received from any source," says Camp. "And if someone in the IRS thinks that a [virtual-world] transaction represents the receipt of either cash or services or property, and that has a fair market value, then yes, that's going to be income." When and if that that decision is made, Camp explains, there are only two ways to override it: Take it to the courts, which may or may not disagree with the IRS's interpretation of the law, or take it to Congress, which can pass new laws that leave no room for interpretation.</blockquote>The major issue with taxing virtual goods as "prize money" is that with some notable exceptions the Iteam you receave the rights to use is NOT YOURS, but the property of the game publisher(ie. SoE) and as such can not be consitered income as its not your property, it would be like saying that because a friend loaned you their car for a few weeks that you recieved that car as a gift and need to pay taxes on it. HOWEVER, if you do sell that iteam weither or not it's an EULA vilation that cash you just recieved IS taxable income(and I am not talking it can me I mean it is RIGHT NOW) and as such you better be declaring it on your tax forums, remember the reason Al Cappone went to Jail is not because he was Crime Lord but because he did not give the IRS their cut.

selch

03-22-2007, 08:04 PM

ke'la

03-22-2007, 08:30 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>nitrous wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>SteelPiston wrote: <blockquote>I would have thought by now that a big company like SOE would have issued a "Cease and desist" order to these companies and to threaten them with legal action if the don't stop bothering their customers. Filters are too easily defeated and I don't see the benefit of messing with them.</blockquote> And they very well might have.What I find amusing is (and I'm not directing this toward you, SteelPiston) people claim "Sony isn't doing anything"..."Sony doesn't care"..."Sony's turning a blind eye blah, blah, blah"I'd love to see some proof of this assertation. Sony doesn't tell us when it bans someone for harrassment or exploiting or other offenses even when it directly affects you. Why on earth do you think SOE's CEO is going to send you an email every time it takes a step against plat sellers?</blockquote>there is no way to provide the "proof" you seek, but any reasonable thinking human could easily come to this conclusion if they wern't blindly following SOE...let's take a look The spam and in game mail are still being used, although lowered a bit, they haven't been completely stopped. You can't tell me that a company with the resources of Sony can't come up with a way to filter these completely... In game plat BUYERS could be stopped nearly in a manner similar to what I outlined earlier in this thread. SOE has taken no steps to quell the purchase of in game coin for real $$ even though they have the tracking ability, they won't use the resources they have to put a stop to it. If there are no buyers, the source dries up, just like in any retail business But the REAL tale is here...SOE has a HUGE community. Many Many fan sites that use the SOE name and their game logos for advertising to make real cash money from their advertisers..and who are the advertisers? Why the in game COIN sellers..and if they don't have in game coin sellers, there are nearly always links to sites that DO have in game coin sellers..NOW SOE could easily pull their permission to use their copyrighted names and logos from these fan sites...but they don't...SO they are condoning the sale of in game coin...at the very least turning a blind eye to it.. The game rules are simple...anything found in the game belongs to SOE and cannot be sold for real $$. Buying anything found in game is against the rules. These rules are broken every single day and SOE does little to nothing to enforce them. A rule unenforced is no rule at all..A little simple logic shows that SOE turns a blind eye to their own rules...Now the question is why....Are they unwilling to dedicate the resources it would take to investigate these rule breakers? Would the mass bannings that investigting plat buyers could cause jeaprdize an already shrinking subscriber base? or are they really on the take either directly from the plat sellers or indirectly by profiting by their accounts? </blockquote> Ah. The old you're stupid because you don't agree with me ploy. NO, ITS THE OL PEOPLE WITH COMMON SENSE COULD DRAW THESE CONCLUSIONS POST Ok, let's take a "reasonable, thinking" approach to it.1) Many of those sites are hosted in countries that historically have proven they don't care one whit for US law. They are countries that have condoned selling bootleg music and movies and software. Yet SOE is supposed to be able to force them to take down references to their game? What are they supposed to do? Hire a mercenary force to invade China? Coerce the American Government into sending it's military over? How exactly are they supposed to force them to take down their sites?I'M SPEAKING ABOUT SITES WITH WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WITH SOE, ALAKAZAM, OGAMING, TEN TON HAMMER..THEY ARE NOT IN SOME FORIEGN COUNTRY Alakazem and Ten Ton Hammer both don't have plat seller ads on their sites, the only 1 I know for shure that does have Plat Ads on thier site is EQ2i wich is a Wikki site and last I checked does not have EQ2 IP on thier site. As such there is nothing SoE can do about it. What about the US companies? Well if I were going to set up one of those companies, I'd host it out of the country, preferably one that doesn't respond to US Gov't requests for information on who owns what site quickly, if at all. I'd move servers every so often, so that even if they DID respond to the request, by the time they get done with the paperwork and bureaucracy, that site doesn't exist anymore and has moved on. I'd have the monies from sales funnelled into a secure, off-shore account that won't report to the US Gov't. Hosting bills and salaries and such would be paid from the same kind of account.So much for your claim that because those sites exist SOE is condoning it or turning a blind eye toward it.2) WoW advertised a mass banning of accounts related to gold selling. In my very brief time playing that game, I received multiple tells and emails advertising these sites.During the Prohibition era, having alcohol could land you in jail...yet people still drank.Even now, posessing, distrubuting and manufacturing illicit drugs can land you in jail, yet there are still buyers for it.Back in the day they used to hang horse theives, yet people still stole horses.Accounts have been banned in other SOE games for having large amounts of coin. Yet still people bought in game currency.So much for your theory that you can punish buyers enough to stop the practice.a) wow has sokmething like 7 million subscribers on over 100 servers which would make policing plat sellers much harder than a few hundred thousdand in EQ2. Yes ban some plat buyers, let everyone know there is a crack down and be proactive about enforcement and you could eliminate enough plat buyers to make it not profitable for the plat spammers to advertise on EQ2 servers. Yes its harder to police more people, However, more subcribers = more money = more resources to devote to this issue as such they should be just as able if not more so(as they have more resouces) to combate spammers b) you prohibition analogy is rediculous. You can't compare an era of little or no technology with today's computer based tracking ability. It's comparing apples and oranges Your right on Alchoal proabition however I do beleave Drugs are STILL Illeagel today and that there are computer based tracking abilities today, yet there are still drug dealers today. So while yes you can CLAIM that Prohibition(of alchohol) does not aply today, the Prohibition of Drugs shure as heck does 3) You suggest that because spam and in game mails advertising these subjects still exist, SOE doesn't care.I'm sure Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and other companies, including the ones that make hardware spam filters, will be contacting you soon, because you must have some unknown method of blocking emails by intent, rather than content. I still get spam mail on a daily basis, so you need to contact Bill Gates and teach him a thing or two about spam filtering, since obviously you know something their millions-if not billions-of Research dollars do not.So much for your suggestion that because spam mails and tells still exist that SOE doesn't do anything.Again, we are talking about 2-3 plat selling comapanies that use the same methods over and over to get their message out...Are you saying SOE isn't smart enought to be able to filter out their own chat channels? ROFL So are you saying Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, Norton, Symatic, etc. are dumb because they can't stop spam? Its EXTREEMLY easy to bypass filters, those that are not easy to bypass have WAY to many False positives for a game that is based around a chatroom(and I am sorry but that is what an MMO is) Now your answer to the whole buyer angle is to treat normal paying customers like criminals. You suggest a GM message going out stating that any transactions over 50pp (over how long a period? 1 day? A week? A year?) will have to give a satisfactory reason for why. Have you seen the hue and cry raised when someone is unfairly banned or suspended? And that's just one account. Now imagine how many people leave the game and give their friends all their plat. That's one account per being unfairly banned, and that's just one legit excuse I can think of off the top of my head for a large transfer. Oh...right. Investigate. So now, you have a GM tied up in chasing down perfectly legit transactions instead of getting people help, including getting plat farmer-bots to move off a spot so legit players can play.Now, who's not thinking?They are ALREADY treating their customers like criminals...not allowing new players access to common things ingame like joining guilds and sending mail...what would be the difference.. Apparently you have some gripe with us trying to get SOE to stop the plat sellers in game..You sell rots and rots of prat? </blockquote>I love it!! And, to repeat my original response to this thread. "For every better mouse trap there will come a smarter mouse. "</blockquote> </blockquote>

3ofme

03-22-2007, 08:52 PM

Honestly, I dont see what the big deal is on this, before anyone gets all worked up and decides to start flaming away, I understand its against the EULA. However, maybe its due to fact I am on pvp server or maybe our population is low or something but I get these messages every so often. I get random tells from people that arent selling plat and I treat them all the same, I look down see someone sent me a tell, look back up and continue fighting said mobs. Meanwhile guildies are spamming inane chatter or sometimes even something worthwhile but in either case said tell is already off my chat screen.As far as the economy, I dont notice the plat sellers at all to be honest, anything worthwhile equipment wise is in a raid instance zone, and the few pieces that arent, if a bot group is in our way they die, plain and simple no muss no fuss. However most bots I see on my server are usually running around the outside zones gobbling up the trash mobs, making it easier for me to move around and also providing much needed tokens/faction.If people are worried that plat buyers are spending money to be competative with the twinks in low levels, I say so what, more competition the better as far as I am concerned, going around ganking greens/greys isnt exactly my Idea of a great time, Id rather face tough opponets, much like going into a raid zone and facing a tough AI mob vs the trash to get to said mob.I would venture that most people, not all but most, have a high level toon that funds their various alts, and said alts are pretty twinked, so if a new player wants to spend hard earned cash to enjoy the game without being victimized by "our" low level twinks, so be it, no skin off my back.So I guess I don't really understand why people get upset that a 1 sec transmission to their chat window can throw them so far off kilter that it would interupt their playstyle.This is just my opinion from a pvp server point of view

ke'la

03-22-2007, 08:55 PM

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why dont you make it so only 2 logins at same time from a single IP adress? My older brother, nephew, & I all login to EQ2 using the same router, from the same in-house network. compound that fact with the fact that IP adresses are easy to spoof, there by providing no reduction in farmers and now you again punish good players and accompish nothing at all, atleast requiring spamers to have full accounts requires them to spend $10 a day to replace there banned EQ2 classic accounts. Why don't you make it so that you can't sell an item more than X plats to stop buyers who put a resource stack for 600 plats on sale?Yes, just what we need: SOE enforcing price controls. Heigh-ho, Big Brother. <img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote> </blockquote>

Foolsfolly

03-22-2007, 09:21 PM

I've noticed signifigantly less spam lately. I'm quite happy with the results of the last patch =)

Fortai

03-22-2007, 10:29 PM

<cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Grimwell wrote:</cite><blockquote><blockquote>And yet ANOTHER plat selling company sends me EMAIL today...that's 2 new ones since these "Changes to stop them" went into effect...</blockquote> My friend, there has been no post made by anyone in the employment of SOE stating that changes have been made to the game that will stop platinum sellers completely. The most recent changes made, in the my post which was linked above, were another step in the continuing battle. In that post, I specifically stated that the changes "...should help ebb the tide of spam from platinum sellers." which was no guarantee that the spam would end completely. I understand that it is frustrating when you receive spam mail or messaging from these folks. I don't like it either. So I file a /petition and /report every time it comes across my screen when I'm playing. I encourage you to do the same. </blockquote> Why do you even try to stop spammers?Why dont you try to stop their source? You are not dumb not to see who is serious cash-pressing in this game. There are very well known people who has non-stop selling plats in every single server for god's sake, they are still online, still playing, still farming with their random generated names with no idea what the hell is English in US servers. Spammers are just minions who are already risked to be banned. We've been over this so many times. Just because someone has a randomly generated name, does not mean they are a plat seller. Sure, the name doesn't help, but it's not proof. Farming, although I look down on it, is not illegal, unless you are also a plat seller. Why dont you make it so only 2 logins at same time from a single IP adress? Why don't you make it so that you can't sell an item more than X plats to stop buyers who put a resource stack for 600 plats on sale?And hurt the people who are doing this legitimately. What about people who have LAN parties or guild bank sellers? </blockquote>

selch

03-22-2007, 11:07 PM

"This is not proof, that is not proof" ... With that mentality, nothing will get improved at all.Everyone know they exist. They do that in front of everyone's eyes.. You still talking about "proof on innocence", yeah, I'm pretty sure LAN party people love to walk their characters each inside other on follow. I'm pretty sure, everyone is angel and need "that" named for their quest for each of their 6 characters for 94th time. And sorry but.. who logs 6 guild banks at same time? Here it is: Beside Platsellers, noone has 6 computers running 6 games with 6 different accounts at same time, running non-stop 24/7, simple as that.. Yeah, sure , it does not prove that "legally" but I thought plat selling was not legal nor AFK grinding anything too... "Aww poor guy can't understand any english word but plays legally with his 6 computers in 6 accounts and he loves the game so much that he can't stop playing 24 hours every day, just logs of for 3 minutes every 8 hours of "SHIFT" Yeah, he should send you paypal number to donate and feed his family. Economy is already [Removed for Content] up while you still play the "good cop and looking for proof of it"

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 12:32 AM

<cite>Stugein wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>It should not be THAT hard to make a top earner list and how much played time and where those top-earners "give away" their money. There is NO HUMAN BEING that can play a character 24/7 for months exception of down times, it must be easier to say "you can't share your account" part of EULA.</blockquote> The hurdle here is proving account sharing. To prove account sharing by "how long the toon has been logged in" would require someone else to be logged in to witness it for that entire time less it be argued that the player simply rested when you did/is on a similar play cycle to you. If you go by server logs and parses on actual logged in time, then you'll blow people away who are simply logged in for long period but may be AFK (many people go AFK overnight in safe spots rather than logging out which can leave them with session times of far greater than 24 hours). </blockquote>One of the biggest misconceptions players have is that any game company has to PROVE anything. SOE choses not to investigate this sort of problem that way they can have "plausible denial" of the entire issue, but if they wanted to crack down they wouldn't have to PROVE anything. They reserve the right to deny service to anyone for any reason. Shared accounts that only play 10-12 hours a day once in a while would be impossible to "prove" but an account that plays nearly 24 hours a day 7 days a week like a lot of these plat farmer groups can only be one of 2 things...BOTS or shared accounts..BOTH are against the EULA>..And no one has to be logged in to see they are online. SOE keep logs of everything that occurs in game. All adventure encounters, all trade skill events, all player to player trades including cash, all loot recieved by whom, how long you are online, what zones you were in, even how long your toon remains motionless...and your movements down to the LOC coordinates you travel...Which means they can tell if you are online 24/7 and they can tell if your toon travels teh same exact path over and over again like a BOT would. Just more arguement for proof SOE doesn't really do anything to stop these accounts even though they have the "proof" they need in their logs..... but I have had a change of heart toward the plat sellers and buyers... SOE isn't actively attempting to shut down the farmer groups, or the plat spammers, or the plat buyers or the plat advertisers...They turn a blind eye to it because it's good for thier business. Despite the fact that probably the majority of their subscribers think that plat buying is cheating, those same subscribers aren't leaving the game in protest...SO why should SOE care? they are making profit from the accounts and subscriptions from the farmers they are getting free advertising from the same web pages that promote in game coin sales directly or in directly on their community pages. Not only that, but players who might have become bored or frustrated by not being able to outfit their toons with full fabled and masters have found new enjoyment in game because they can drop $50 on mom and dad's credit card and wallaa....instant in game wealth...Now their toon is ready for raiding without having ever set foot in end game raid instances....They can show off to their friends...and maybe their friends get jealous and do the same thing..SOE gets to keep subscribers happy, the plat sellers turn a profit and although we all view it as cheating, we are all still playing right? So why bother...the population of some servers are very low....SOE has lost a sizable portion of their subscribers...So to keep the game alive we should all be thankful fo the plat sellers. Without them there might not be as many people on the servers now as there are... So I say stop complaining about the in game EMAIL and Advertisers and be thankful they are there..You might even consider giving them some business..

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 12:43 AM

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>But you should ban them for not knowing English to answer to "what is your name?" question in a US server. </blockquote>I'm sorry, I'm unaware of rules in EQ2 specifying that you have to be able to speak English to play on a US server. Could you show me that part of the EULA?</blockquote>It's not. No one wants to deny anyone the ability to play on the server they chose...BUT... When SOE turned off the Asian servers and migrated those players to the US servers was about teh same time frame the plat spammers got bad. I think it was mainly coincidence, but I had never recieved one in game tell or mail from the plat spammers until Guk was inundated by Chinese players. And we never had a problem with zone mobs being monopolized until they came over. I don't want to see the Asian players being denied access to American servers, I just want to see them honor the rules.

sliderhouserules

03-23-2007, 01:52 AM

Didn't read the whole thread, or other threads on this issue, but on the subject of mechanics to "ebb the tide"... What legitimate player sends a tell to more than 10 people (not in their guild or on their friends list) in any given (short) time frame, say 1 minute? What legitimate player sends mail to more than 10 people (not in their guild or on their friends list) in any given (short) time frame? A little bit of server-side code to monitor this and these accounts will immediately pop up on the radar and we the players don't have to /report or /petition a thing.

liveja

03-23-2007, 02:09 AM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote> So I say stop complaining</blockquote>Promise??????

Noaani

03-23-2007, 11:07 AM

<cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>"This is not proof, that is not proof" ... With that mentality, nothing will get improved at all.Everyone know they exist. They do that in front of everyone's eyes.. You still talking about "proof on innocence", yeah, I'm pretty sure LAN party people love to walk their characters each inside other on follow. I'm pretty sure, everyone is angel and need "that" named for their quest for each of their 6 characters for 94th time. And sorry but.. who logs 6 guild banks at same time? Here it is: Beside Platsellers, noone has 6 computers running 6 games with 6 different accounts at same time, running non-stop 24/7, simple as that.. Yeah, sure , it does not prove that "legally" but I thought plat selling was not legal nor AFK grinding anything too... "Aww poor guy can't understand any english word but plays legally with his 6 computers in 6 accounts and he loves the game so much that he can't stop playing 24 hours every day, just logs of for 3 minutes every 8 hours of "SHIFT" Yeah, he should send you paypal number to donate and feed his family. Economy is already [I cannot control my vocabulary] up while you still play the "good cop and looking for proof of it"</blockquote>I have 3 accounts running at a time, often I leave myself logged in and go AFK for long periods (random offers of more interesting activities <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />&nbsp<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, does this mean action will be taken against me?Lets say, though, that somehow SoE DOES manage to stop the plat farming groups, and manages to keep them away permanantly, do you honestly think this will stop plat selling sites from spamming you?in the time I have been playing (since november '04) I have seen/heard of very top end raiders, hardcore crafters, and just random people that found exploits all selling plat to companies like IGE. These are people that to everyone else look exactly like normal players. They craft, group, do quests, raid, everything. Only thing is, they also sold plat to plat selling companies.Should bot farmers totally be taken out of the picture, these websites will simply offer a little more to each of us real players to sell them OUR gold, so they can onsell it to others. Hell, we may even start to get plat buying spam on top of the plat selling we get now.Point is, plat buying/selling will not go away, ever. As long as there is in game coin that can be used to advance your character, there will be an in game coin industry. All SoE can do is make it harder for the sellers, without too much of an impact on the gamplay of the rest of us. Personally, I think they are doing a better job than a lot of the compitition out there.

liveja

03-23-2007, 11:21 AM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>So why bother...the population of some servers are very low....SOE has lost a sizable portion of their subscribers...So to keep the game alive we should all be thankful fo the plat sellers. Without them there might not be as many people on the servers now as there are... </blockquote>Um .... just curious, but ... if the world's population is so low, & SOE has lost so many customers ... who is buying all the plat, that keeps the plat sellers in business?

Prrasha

03-23-2007, 01:01 PM

<cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite><blockquote>Didn't read the whole thread, or other threads on this issue, but on the subject of mechanics to "ebb the tide"... What legitimate player sends a tell to more than 10 people (not in their guild or on their friends list) in any given (short) time frame, say 1 minute? Someone organizing a pickup raid. Or politely declining a number of replies to "Unrest group seeks 1 DPS..." What legitimate player sends mail to more than 10 people (not in their guild or on their friends list) in any given (short) time frame? A heavy-duty crafter mailing out the results of a particularily busy night of mailed-in crafting orders. Yeah, my limit has been "two", but "ten" isn't completely out of the question, I don't think, since I only have word-of-mouth advertising from my customers. A little bit of server-side code to monitor this and these accounts will immediately pop up on the radar and we the players don't have to /report or /petition a thing. </blockquote>Of course, you still have the correct idea. The mail/tell spamming scripts work a lot faster than 10 per minute... as fast as the game will let them run, which may not be limited at all. Certainly faster than any mortal can type. Limit /tells to, say, 10 per 4 seconds and mails to 10 per 15 seconds and you'll probably snag most of them. And "/report or /petition" is part of the problem, as I mentioned upthread. It's "/report and /petition". After the first one, it's just not worth the time and frustration to type out yet-another-/petition for a spam account.

Tomanak

03-23-2007, 02:17 PM

<cite>Sunlei wrote:</cite><blockquote> Got to understand that the public is going to continue to ask that question if a fansite is assoaciated with game money sites in any way by adds and/or ownership. </blockquote>Not to get involoved in yet another 'kill the plat farmers' thread, but I wanted to respond to this. Unlike Radar-X I am in no way affiliated with Ten Ton other than being a semi consistant reader who belives IMO that they are one of the better EQ2 sites on the net..that being said, all the aforementioned poster had to do was take 2 seconds and actually go to their site and they would have seen on the front page a huge box announcing that they were plat seller free..research before retort..saves lives <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so the questions the public is going to ask can be answered pretty easily....On the plat issues, it always amazes me that all these posters seem to feel that they have all the answers that the professionals working for SOE somehow missed.. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

DngrMou

03-23-2007, 02:27 PM

Sugota@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote>On the plat issues, it always amazes me that all these posters seem to feel that they have all the answers that the professionals working for SOE somehow missed.. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote>And their suggestions almost invariably involve punitive restrictions on the gameplay of others....never themselves.

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 02:42 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>"This is not proof, that is not proof" ... With that mentality, nothing will get improved at all.Everyone know they exist. They do that in front of everyone's eyes.. You still talking about "proof on innocence", yeah, I'm pretty sure LAN party people love to walk their characters each inside other on follow. I'm pretty sure, everyone is angel and need "that" named for their quest for each of their 6 characters for 94th time. And sorry but.. who logs 6 guild banks at same time? Here it is: Beside Platsellers, noone has 6 computers running 6 games with 6 different accounts at same time, running non-stop 24/7, simple as that.. Yeah, sure , it does not prove that "legally" but I thought plat selling was not legal nor AFK grinding anything too... "Aww poor guy can't understand any english word but plays legally with his 6 computers in 6 accounts and he loves the game so much that he can't stop playing 24 hours every day, just logs of for 3 minutes every 8 hours of "SHIFT" Yeah, he should send you paypal number to donate and feed his family. Economy is already [I cannot control my vocabulary] up while you still play the "good cop and looking for proof of it"</blockquote>I have 3 accounts running at a time, often I leave myself logged in and go AFK for long periods (random offers of more interesting activities <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, does this mean action will be taken against me?Lets say, though, that somehow SoE DOES manage to stop the plat farming groups, and manages to keep them away permanantly, do you honestly think this will stop plat selling sites from spamming you?in the time I have been playing (since november '04) I have seen/heard of very top end raiders, hardcore crafters, and just random people that found exploits all selling plat to companies like IGE. These are people that to everyone else look exactly like normal players. They craft, group, do quests, raid, everything. Only thing is, they also sold plat to plat selling companies.Should bot farmers totally be taken out of the picture, these websites will simply offer a little more to each of us real players to sell them OUR gold, so they can onsell it to others. Hell, we may even start to get plat buying spam on top of the plat selling we get now.Point is, plat buying/selling will not go away, ever. As long as there is in game coin that can be used to advance your character, there will be an in game coin industry. All SoE can do is make it harder for the sellers, without too much of an impact on the gamplay of the rest of us. Personally, I think they are doing a better job than a lot of the compitition out there. </blockquote>AFK you wouldn't be moving and doing things now would ya?

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 02:52 PM

Sugota@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote><cite>Sunlei wrote:</cite><blockquote> Got to understand that the public is going to continue to ask that question if a fansite is assoaciated with game money sites in any way by adds and/or ownership. </blockquote>Not to get involoved in yet another 'kill the plat farmers' thread, but I wanted to respond to this. Unlike Radar-X I am in no way affiliated with Ten Ton other than being a semi consistant reader who belives IMO that they are one of the better EQ2 sites on the net..that being said, all the aforementioned poster had to do was take 2 seconds and actually go to their site and they would have seen on the front page a huge box announcing that they were plat seller free..research before retort..saves lives <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so the questions the public is going to ask can be answered pretty easily....On the plat issues, it always amazes me that all these posters seem to feel that they have all the answers that the professionals working for SOE somehow missed.. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote>Radar X is from Ten Ton hammer? Maybe he can tell us why his web site has links to sites with in game coin sales???

Leatherneck

03-23-2007, 02:53 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Sugota@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote><cite>Sunlei wrote:</cite><blockquote> Got to understand that the public is going to continue to ask that question if a fansite is assoaciated with game money sites in any way by adds and/or ownership. </blockquote>Not to get involoved in yet another 'kill the plat farmers' thread, but I wanted to respond to this. Unlike Radar-X I am in no way affiliated with Ten Ton other than being a semi consistant reader who belives IMO that they are one of the better EQ2 sites on the net..that being said, all the aforementioned poster had to do was take 2 seconds and actually go to their site and they would have seen on the front page a huge box announcing that they were plat seller free..research before retort..saves lives <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so the questions the public is going to ask can be answered pretty easily....On the plat issues, it always amazes me that all these posters seem to feel that they have all the answers that the professionals working for SOE somehow missed.. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote>Radar X is from Ten Ton hammer? Maybe he can tell us why his web site has links to sites with in game coin sales??? </blockquote> Maybe you could...I dunno...actually read his post where it says they haven't had such ads sinc 12/05.Then again, that might be asking a bit too much of you.

Tomanak

03-23-2007, 02:54 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>AFK you wouldn't be moving and doing things now would ya? </blockquote> I go AFK and continue to move and do things all the time. Sometimes its because I forgot to take off the AFK tag when I returned from being AFK, other times its because I want to game for a while w/o having to talk to friends, guildies or others. There are plenty of people who could be tagged AFK while they play for legitimate reasons.

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 02:57 PM

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>So why bother...the population of some servers are very low....SOE has lost a sizable portion of their subscribers...So to keep the game alive we should all be thankful fo the plat sellers. Without them there might not be as many people on the servers now as there are... </blockquote>Um .... just curious, but ... if the world's population is so low, & SOE has lost so many customers ... who is buying all the plat, that keeps the plat sellers in business</blockquote> I suppose many of the people who are still playing...I don't thinnk the plat spammers would waste their money and effort if no one was buying...If you are trying to infer that no one has left the game just take your SOE issued blinders off..And it will just continue to get worse..LoTR Online is released in a month...

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 03:00 PM

Sugota@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>AFK you wouldn't be moving and doing things now would ya? </blockquote> I go AFK and continue to move and do things all the time. Sometimes its because I forgot to take off the AFK tag when I returned from being AFK, other times its because I want to game for a while w/o having to talk to friends, guildies or others. There are plenty of people who could be tagged AFK while they play for legitimate reasons. </blockquote>Yeah, but you aren't playing 24/7 though...no one can...So you don't have to worry about it...Anyway, the plat farmers are doing us a service...they keep the game running..

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 03:05 PM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Sugota@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote><cite>Sunlei wrote:</cite><blockquote> Got to understand that the public is going to continue to ask that question if a fansite is assoaciated with game money sites in any way by adds and/or ownership. </blockquote>Not to get involoved in yet another 'kill the plat farmers' thread, but I wanted to respond to this. Unlike Radar-X I am in no way affiliated with Ten Ton other than being a semi consistant reader who belives IMO that they are one of the better EQ2 sites on the net..that being said, all the aforementioned poster had to do was take 2 seconds and actually go to their site and they would have seen on the front page a huge box announcing that they were plat seller free..research before retort..saves lives <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so the questions the public is going to ask can be answered pretty easily....On the plat issues, it always amazes me that all these posters seem to feel that they have all the answers that the professionals working for SOE somehow missed.. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote>Radar X is from Ten Ton hammer? Maybe he can tell us why his web site has links to sites with in game coin sales??? </blockquote> Maybe you could...I dunno...actually read his post where it says they haven't had such ads sinc 12/05.Then again, that might be asking a bit too much of you.</blockquote>Really?? so the link on ten ton hammer to EQ2fighers.com that advertises plat sales that I just saw 15 minutes ago was a mirage?? And Goeq2.com And several of them have powerleveling services advertised for Vanguard..

Leatherneck

03-23-2007, 03:19 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Sugota@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote><cite>Sunlei wrote:</cite><blockquote> Got to understand that the public is going to continue to ask that question if a fansite is assoaciated with game money sites in any way by adds and/or ownership. </blockquote>Not to get involoved in yet another 'kill the plat farmers' thread, but I wanted to respond to this. Unlike Radar-X I am in no way affiliated with Ten Ton other than being a semi consistant reader who belives IMO that they are one of the better EQ2 sites on the net..that being said, all the aforementioned poster had to do was take 2 seconds and actually go to their site and they would have seen on the front page a huge box announcing that they were plat seller free..research before retort..saves lives <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so the questions the public is going to ask can be answered pretty easily....On the plat issues, it always amazes me that all these posters seem to feel that they have all the answers that the professionals working for SOE somehow missed.. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote>Radar X is from Ten Ton hammer? Maybe he can tell us why his web site has links to sites with in game coin sales??? </blockquote> Maybe you could...I dunno...actually read his post where it says they haven't had such ads sinc 12/05.Then again, that might be asking a bit too much of you.</blockquote>Really?? so the link on ten ton hammer to EQ2fighers.com that advertises plat sales that I just saw 15 minutes ago was a mirage?? And Goeq2.com And several of them have powerleveling services advertised for Vanguard.. </blockquote> I don't know what tentonhammer you're looking at. The one I'm looking at has <a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=104" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">this</a> article with the headline "Ten Ton Hammer Network Pulls Secondary Market Ads". Now given the levels of blatant misinformation and bald-faced lies you've told so far, I simply won't believe anything less than a screenshot, and will trust Radar-X's word over yours.

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 03:26 PM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Sugota@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote><cite>Sunlei wrote:</cite><blockquote> Got to understand that the public is going to continue to ask that question if a fansite is assoaciated with game money sites in any way by adds and/or ownership. </blockquote>Not to get involoved in yet another 'kill the plat farmers' thread, but I wanted to respond to this. Unlike Radar-X I am in no way affiliated with Ten Ton other than being a semi consistant reader who belives IMO that they are one of the better EQ2 sites on the net..that being said, all the aforementioned poster had to do was take 2 seconds and actually go to their site and they would have seen on the front page a huge box announcing that they were plat seller free..research before retort..saves lives <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so the questions the public is going to ask can be answered pretty easily....On the plat issues, it always amazes me that all these posters seem to feel that they have all the answers that the professionals working for SOE somehow missed.. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote>Radar X is from Ten Ton hammer? Maybe he can tell us why his web site has links to sites with in game coin sales??? </blockquote> Maybe you could...I dunno...actually read his post where it says they haven't had such ads sinc 12/05.Then again, that might be asking a bit too much of you.</blockquote>Really?? so the link on ten ton hammer to EQ2fighers.com that advertises plat sales that I just saw 15 minutes ago was a mirage?? And Goeq2.com And several of them have powerleveling services advertised for Vanguard.. </blockquote> I don't know what tentonhammer you're looking at. The one I'm looking at has <a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=104" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">this</a> article with the headline "Ten Ton Hammer Network Pulls Secondary Market Ads". Now given the levels of blatant misinformation and bald-faced lies you've told so far, I simply won't believe anything less than a screenshot, and will trust Radar-X's word over yours.</blockquote>Yeah, bald faced lies, I am full of them...You are making excuses for plat sellers now..and too lazy to go to TTH and look foryourself...After all, I could EASILY photo shop and screen shot now couldn't I..I am just that manipulative...Fine you believe whatever you want....I know what I saw...and it hows beyond a shadow of a doubt that SOE allows community sites that have either direct plat seller advertising or links to other sites with plat seller advertising...Maybe you name should be Jar head instead of leather neck because you don't seem to have enough sense to see past the SOE issued blinders you wear.

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 03:33 PM

OH how conveinent...Radar X you turned off your web links didn't you you sneaky little guy...I went back to post the link and all web links have been disabled....Well that only shows you had something to hide... anyway here is the page that they had a link to up until they saw I found what they had.. www.eq2fighters.com Eq2fighters takes you to Eq2.raidmobs....see the nice little plat advertisment

Leatherneck

03-23-2007, 03:34 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Yeah, bald faced lies, I am full of them...You are making excuses for plat sellers now..and too lazy to go to TTH and look foryourself...After all, I could EASILY photo shop and screen shot now couldn't I..I am just that manipulative...Fine you believe whatever you want....I know what I saw...and it hows beyond a shadow of a doubt that SOE allows community sites that have either direct plat seller advertising or links to other sites with plat seller advertising...Maybe you name should be Jar head instead of leather neck because you don't seem to have enough sense to see past the SOE issued blinders you wear. </blockquote> Thank you for providing such an exquisite example of your duplicity. You claim I'm too lazy to go look for it myself (despite the fact that I have...then again, you like making up facts when you don't have any) and yet I provided a link I found while at that site I'm supposedly too lazy to go to.Then again, yet another lie from you.

DngrMou

03-23-2007, 03:35 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Yeah, bald faced lies, I am full of them...You are making excuses for plat sellers now..and too lazy to go to TTH and look foryourself...After all, I could EASILY photo shop and screen shot now couldn't I..I am just that manipulative...Fine you believe whatever you want....I know what I saw...and it hows beyond a shadow of a doubt that SOE allows community sites that have either direct plat seller advertising or links to other sites with plat seller advertising...Maybe you name should be Jar head instead of leather neck because you don't seem to have enough sense to see past the SOE issued blinders you wear. </blockquote> I've been on TTH all day...since I first saw mention by Radar-X about this. I've been hitting refresh...going back and forth between the 'main' site, (<a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.tentonhammer.com</a>), and the eq2 specific site, (<a href="http://www.eq2.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.eq2.tentonhammer.com</a>), and have seen no plat ads, and nothing that could be construed as a plat ad, nor neither of the two sites you mention specifically. So uh....yeah, to the bolded text.

Leatherneck

03-23-2007, 03:35 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>OH how conveinent...Radar X you turned off your web links didn't you you sneaky little guy...I went back to post the link and all web links have been disabled....Well that only shows you had something to hide... anyway here is the page that they had a link to up until they saw I found what they had.. www.eq2fighters.com Eq2fighters takes you to Eq2.raidmobs....see the nice little plat advertisment </blockquote> It's a conspiracy OMGZORZ. Black helecopters and the Syndicate, all out to make Stinkii look bad. Get out your tin foil, kiddies.

Leatherneck

03-23-2007, 03:37 PM

Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Yeah, bald faced lies, I am full of them...You are making excuses for plat sellers now..and too lazy to go to TTH and look foryourself...After all, I could EASILY photo shop and screen shot now couldn't I..I am just that manipulative...Fine you believe whatever you want....I know what I saw...and it hows beyond a shadow of a doubt that SOE allows community sites that have either direct plat seller advertising or links to other sites with plat seller advertising...Maybe you name should be Jar head instead of leather neck because you don't seem to have enough sense to see past the SOE issued blinders you wear. </blockquote> I've been on TTH all day...since I first saw mention by Radar-X about this. I've been hitting refresh...going back and forth between the 'main' site, (<a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.tentonhammer.com</a>), and the eq2 specific site, (<a href="http://www.eq2.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.eq2.tentonhammer.com</a>), and have seen no plat ads, and nothing that could be construed as a plat ad, nor neither of the two sites you mention specifically. So uh....yeah, to the bolded text.</blockquote> That's cause the aliens came and took them all away, with the help of a rogue element within the Federal Government. Someone call Fox and Dana, there's a conspiracy to uncover.

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 03:38 PM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Yeah, bald faced lies, I am full of them...You are making excuses for plat sellers now..and too lazy to go to TTH and look foryourself...After all, I could EASILY photo shop and screen shot now couldn't I..I am just that manipulative...Fine you believe whatever you want....I know what I saw...and it hows beyond a shadow of a doubt that SOE allows community sites that have either direct plat seller advertising or links to other sites with plat seller advertising...Maybe you name should be Jar head instead of leather neck because you don't seem to have enough sense to see past the SOE issued blinders you wear. </blockquote> Thank you for providing such an exquisite example of your duplicity. You claim I'm too lazy to go look for it myself (despite the fact that I have...then again, you like making up facts when you don't have any) and yet I provided a link I found while at that site I'm supposedly too lazy to go to.Then again, yet another lie from you.</blockquote> Whatever, prove me a liar...or shut you cake hole

Leatherneck

03-23-2007, 03:40 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Yeah, bald faced lies, I am full of them...You are making excuses for plat sellers now..and too lazy to go to TTH and look foryourself...After all, I could EASILY photo shop and screen shot now couldn't I..I am just that manipulative...Fine you believe whatever you want....I know what I saw...and it hows beyond a shadow of a doubt that SOE allows community sites that have either direct plat seller advertising or links to other sites with plat seller advertising...Maybe you name should be Jar head instead of leather neck because you don't seem to have enough sense to see past the SOE issued blinders you wear. </blockquote> Thank you for providing such an exquisite example of your duplicity. You claim I'm too lazy to go look for it myself (despite the fact that I have...then again, you like making up facts when you don't have any) and yet I provided a link I found while at that site I'm supposedly too lazy to go to.Then again, yet another lie from you.</blockquote> Whatever, prove me a liar...or shut you cake hole </blockquote>Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, is it?I posted a link...from TenTonHammer...dated 2006...specifically says they will not accept gold/plat selling ads. Now, you claim I'm too lazy to go there, yet obviously I have, given the link I posted.Proof, given.Game, set, match.

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 03:43 PM

Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Yeah, bald faced lies, I am full of them...You are making excuses for plat sellers now..and too lazy to go to TTH and look foryourself...After all, I could EASILY photo shop and screen shot now couldn't I..I am just that manipulative...Fine you believe whatever you want....I know what I saw...and it hows beyond a shadow of a doubt that SOE allows community sites that have either direct plat seller advertising or links to other sites with plat seller advertising...Maybe you name should be Jar head instead of leather neck because you don't seem to have enough sense to see past the SOE issued blinders you wear. </blockquote> I've been on TTH all day...since I first saw mention by Radar-X about this. I've been hitting refresh...going back and forth between the 'main' site, (<a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.tentonhammer.com</a>), and the eq2 specific site, (<a href="http://www.eq2.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.eq2.tentonhammer.com</a>), and have seen no plat ads, and nothing that could be construed as a plat ad, nor neither of the two sites you mention specifically. So uh....yeah, to the bolded text.</blockquote>Read what I wrote...I said tehy had LINKS to sites that had plat advertisement...not directly on THIER site...but 5 minutes after I posted about it the weblinks were mysteriously turned off....because they had something to hide...

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 03:47 PM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Yeah, bald faced lies, I am full of them...You are making excuses for plat sellers now..and too lazy to go to TTH and look foryourself...After all, I could EASILY photo shop and screen shot now couldn't I..I am just that manipulative...Fine you believe whatever you want....I know what I saw...and it hows beyond a shadow of a doubt that SOE allows community sites that have either direct plat seller advertising or links to other sites with plat seller advertising...Maybe you name should be Jar head instead of leather neck because you don't seem to have enough sense to see past the SOE issued blinders you wear. </blockquote> Thank you for providing such an exquisite example of your duplicity. You claim I'm too lazy to go look for it myself (despite the fact that I have...then again, you like making up facts when you don't have any) and yet I provided a link I found while at that site I'm supposedly too lazy to go to.Then again, yet another lie from you.</blockquote> Whatever, prove me a liar...or shut you cake hole </blockquote>Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, is it?I posted a link...from TenTonHammer...dated 2006...specifically says they will not accept gold/plat selling ads. Now, you claim I'm too lazy to go there, yet obviously I have, given the link I posted.Proof, given.Game, set, match. </blockquote>That proves absolutely NOTHING...because someone at TTH says so you and your SOE blinders are willing to just believe it cart blanche...When I found links to sites on TTH that had in game coin advertising on their front page...But you were too lazy to go look for youirself, instead you wanted mr to post a screenshot which you would have claimed I photoshopped....Now who is the liar...I certainly hope your name does not imply that you are a or were a U.S. Marine...Marine's have honor..

DngrMou

03-23-2007, 03:48 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Yeah, bald faced lies, I am full of them...You are making excuses for plat sellers now..and too lazy to go to TTH and look foryourself...After all, I could EASILY photo shop and screen shot now couldn't I..I am just that manipulative...Fine you believe whatever you want....I know what I saw...and it hows beyond a shadow of a doubt that SOE allows community sites that have either direct plat seller advertising or links to other sites with plat seller advertising...Maybe you name should be Jar head instead of leather neck because you don't seem to have enough sense to see past the SOE issued blinders you wear. </blockquote> I've been on TTH all day...since I first saw mention by Radar-X about this. I've been hitting refresh...going back and forth between the 'main' site, (<a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.tentonhammer.com</a>), and the eq2 specific site, (<a href="http://www.eq2.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.eq2.tentonhammer.com</a>), and have seen no plat ads, and nothing that could be construed as a plat ad, nor neither of the two sites you mention specifically. So uh....yeah, to the bolded text.</blockquote>Read what I wrote...I said tehy had LINKS to sites that had plat advertisement...not directly on THIER site...but 5 minutes after I posted about it the weblinks were mysteriously turned off....because they had something to hide... </blockquote>Yes....hide. I think they also have links to lists with links to sites with other lists, that link sites with links to other lists that link sites with links to other sites with plat ads. But now they're mysteriously gone! Gasp!

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 03:51 PM

Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Yeah, bald faced lies, I am full of them...You are making excuses for plat sellers now..and too lazy to go to TTH and look foryourself...After all, I could EASILY photo shop and screen shot now couldn't I..I am just that manipulative...Fine you believe whatever you want....I know what I saw...and it hows beyond a shadow of a doubt that SOE allows community sites that have either direct plat seller advertising or links to other sites with plat seller advertising...Maybe you name should be Jar head instead of leather neck because you don't seem to have enough sense to see past the SOE issued blinders you wear. </blockquote> I've been on TTH all day...since I first saw mention by Radar-X about this. I've been hitting refresh...going back and forth between the 'main' site, (<a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.tentonhammer.com</a>), and the eq2 specific site, (<a href="http://www.eq2.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.eq2.tentonhammer.com</a>), and have seen no plat ads, and nothing that could be construed as a plat ad, nor neither of the two sites you mention specifically. So uh....yeah, to the bolded text.</blockquote>Read what I wrote...I said tehy had LINKS to sites that had plat advertisement...not directly on THIER site...but 5 minutes after I posted about it the weblinks were mysteriously turned off....because they had something to hide... </blockquote>Yes....hide. I think they also have links to lists with links to sites with other lists, that link sites with links to other lists that link sites with links to other sites with plat ads. But now they're mysteriously gone! Gasp! </blockquote>It was ONE link, directly to a page with a plat add..Whats the difference? In game coin advertising on one page is as bad as on one you have a link too...it just gives them an excuse to say "we don't host coin sller advertisers" they let their web link sites do it for them...

sayitaintso

03-23-2007, 03:55 PM

But like I said in a previous post. I am all for in game coin sales now...and in game advertising of coin sales. If they are what keeps the game going then so be it... I am done here...It's pretty obvious that no one has any real suggestions how to deal with the plat sellers, not that there is a reason to any longer...and that some of you are actually taking up for them because you either sell or buy plat in game..Which Is now OK with me, and should be condoned and suppoted....

DngrMou

03-23-2007, 03:56 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>It was ONE link, directly to a page with a plat add..Whats the difference? In game coin advertising on one page is as bad as on one you have a link too...it just gives them an excuse to say "we don't host coin sller advertisers" they let their web link sites do it for them... </blockquote> Because it's not THEIR content! They are not responsible for EVERYTHING on the internet! Their RESPONSIBILITY begins AND ends at tentonhammer.com! They don't accept plat adertising on their site...some of us think this is a GOOD thing, (and we also realize there are any number of sites out their that turn a blind eye to the practice...yes, even some sites that TTH may link to!). Do you do anything other than spending every single day of your life looking for the negative in everything? Sheesh.P.S. IBTL

DngrMou

03-23-2007, 03:59 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote> I am done here...It's pretty obvious that no one has any real suggestions how to deal with the plat sellers, not that there is a reason to any longer...and that some of you are actually taking up for them because you either sell or buy plat in game..Which Is now OK with me, and should be condoned and suppoted.... </blockquote> Really? And I don't suppose you'll be bothered to show who exactly is 'taking up for them'? Did'nt think so. Oh...were'nt you some couple of months ago promising to leave forever once Vangard came out? How'd that work for you?

sayitaintso

03-24-2007, 01:37 AM

<a href="http://eq2.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Web_Links&file=index&req=visit&lid=65" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2.tentonhammer.com/modules...isit&lid=65</a> There. now cut and paste that into your web browsers and look right there in the middle of the page... See where it says EQ plat, EQ2 plat.... NOW that I have made my point and shown you that despite what they say, TTH still links sites with plat advertising... I am truly finished with this. If you want something done about it I suggest you let SOE know...If you could care less then you are part of the issue..

Leatherneck

03-24-2007, 03:32 AM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><a href="http://eq2.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Web_Links&file=index&req=visit&lid=65" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2.tentonhammer.com/modules...isit&lid=65</a> There. now cut and paste that into your web browsers and look right there in the middle of the page... See where it says EQ plat, EQ2 plat.... NOW that I have made my point and shown you that despite what they say, TTH still links sites with plat advertising... I am truly finished with this. If you want something done about it I suggest you let SOE know...If you could care less then you are part of the issue.. </blockquote> You dare impugn my military service claiming I'm dishonorable and you put up a blatant lie like that? That link actually goes to an entirely different website. <a href="http://eq2.raidmobs.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2.raidmobs.com/</a>. What, did you expect nobody would find your duplicity?What you said was:"1) Many of those sites are hosted in countries that historically have proven they don't care one whit for US law. They are countries that have condoned selling bootleg music and movies and software. Yet SOE is supposed to be able to force them to take down references to their game? What are they supposed to do? Hire a mercenary force to invade China? Coerce the American Government into sending it's military over? How exactly are they supposed to force them to take down their sites?I'M SPEAKING ABOUT SITES WITH WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WITH SOE, ALAKAZAM, OGAMING, TEN TON HAMMER..THEY ARE NOT IN SOME FORIEGN COUNTRY "My challenge still stands. I defy you to show a single ad on TTH's website. One. Until then, you're still lying and spreading falsehoods.Now, to deal with the absurdity of your latest whine...<a href="http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/ProductDetail.htm?ProdID=com.zondervan.97803102710 79&QueryStringSite=Zondervan" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/e...gSite=Zondervan</a>That links to christian website highlighting a book against pornography. However, there is a link to Amazon.com. Well Amazon sells [Removed for Content]. So I expect to see a copy of your hate mail sent to this christian site because that's even worse. There's only one degree of separation between that christian site and pornmongers.Or...you'll again, ignore anything that demolishes your weak attempts at dishonesty.

Lornick

03-24-2007, 05:20 AM

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote> A /tell every half-hour is moving beyond 'annoyance.' </blockquote> Really?

sayitaintso

03-24-2007, 09:27 AM

<cite>Leatherneck wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><a href="http://eq2.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Web_Links&file=index&req=visit&lid=65" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2.tentonhammer.com/modules...isit&lid=65</a> There. now cut and paste that into your web browsers and look right there in the middle of the page... See where it says EQ plat, EQ2 plat.... NOW that I have made my point and shown you that despite what they say, TTH still links sites with plat advertising... I am truly finished with this. If you want something done about it I suggest you let SOE know...If you could care less then you are part of the issue.. </blockquote> You dare impugn my military service claiming I'm dishonorable and you put up a blatant lie like that? That link actually goes to an entirely different website. <a href="http://eq2.raidmobs.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2.raidmobs.com/</a>. What, did you expect nobody would find your duplicity?What you said was:"1) Many of those sites are hosted in countries that historically have proven they don't care one whit for US law. They are countries that have condoned selling bootleg music and movies and software. Yet SOE is supposed to be able to force them to take down references to their game? What are they supposed to do? Hire a mercenary force to invade China? Coerce the American Government into sending it's military over? How exactly are they supposed to force them to take down their sites?I'M SPEAKING ABOUT SITES WITH WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WITH SOE, ALAKAZAM, OGAMING, TEN TON HAMMER..THEY ARE NOT IN SOME FORIEGN COUNTRY "My challenge still stands. I defy you to show a single ad on TTH's website. One. Until then, you're still lying and spreading falsehoods.Now, to deal with the absurdity of your latest whine...<a href="http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/ProductDetail.htm?ProdID=com.zondervan.97803102710 79&QueryStringSite=Zondervan" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/e...gSite=Zondervan</a>That links to christian website highlighting a book against pornography. However, there is a link to Amazon.com. Well Amazon sells [Removed for Content]. So I expect to see a copy of your hate mail sent to this christian site because that's even worse. There's only one degree of separation between that christian site and pornmongers.Or...you'll again, ignore anything that demolishes your weak attempts at dishonesty.</blockquote>Had you bothered to read the posts I added later I specifically said LINKS from their site to others contained ads for in game coin selling. Ten Ton Hammer has every bit of an obligation to police who they link to as they do to ad those advertisements themselves. Having a link to those websites is virtually the same as having them sponsored right on their own front page. they have an obligation to remove links to site that advertise in game coin sales, just as they have removed them from their own site.... You are trying desperatley to show my posts in a bad light when in fact they point out the very problem that exists and the fact that SOE has relationships with websites and companies that promote cheating in their game. Once again I say an honorable person would admit that and conceed that there is FAR more SOE could do to disuade the sale of in game coin but they chose not to. So yes, I am questioning you honor. We aren't speaking about [Removed for Content] we aren't talking about Amazon.com, we are speaking about Sony Online Entertainment and their working relationships with these sites. The difference is although the Christian site might have a link to buy a book from Amazon you don't see links from Amazon to the Christian site. There is only a one way relationship. Here we have SOE granting these sites permision to use their copyrighted Logo and product names on the same page as advertisments for cheaters. Once again you are comparing apples and oranges. I do not dishonor your military service. You sir choose to use a military reference as your screen name. By your own words and actions here you are showing yourself as less than honorable buy arguing against (and therefore FOR the in game cheaters) I just tied the two together.

liveja

03-24-2007, 12:08 PM

Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote><cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stinkii@Guk wrote: <blockquote>So why bother...the population of some servers are very low....SOE has lost a sizable portion of their subscribers...So to keep the game alive we should all be thankful fo the plat sellers. Without them there might not be as many people on the servers now as there are... </blockquote>Um .... just curious, but ... if the world's population is so low, & SOE has lost so many customers ... who is buying all the plat, that keeps the plat sellers in business</blockquote> I suppose many of the people who are still playing</blockquote>So, in other words, you don't have the faintest idea, but we're supposed to believe you anyway?Your credibility was destroyed when you slandered Ten Ton Hammer, & you tossed it right down the rat-hole when you accused them again of hosting plat seller ads.Go away already. Your lying, slanderous nonsense isn't welcome here.

liveja

03-24-2007, 12:18 PM

Ykalon

03-24-2007, 09:05 PM

Haldir@Oasis wrote: <blockquote>Basically only one person could ever follow another and no one could chain. If there were 3 players... player 1 could not be followed by players 2 and 3 only 2 or 3. In addition, Player 1 could be followed by player 2 but if player 2 is following player 1 then player 3 could not follow player 2. If they wanted to take it further they could make is so that only one player could ever follow in a group of 6 too. This could hinder some player functionality but in my opinion not too much.</blockquote> Really bad idea I'm afraid. In really long raids such as Emerald Halls you are bound to get a few afk's even if you schedule for a 5 minutes afk every hour you will still have more than 1 from the same group that would need to go afk a few extra minutes, with your suggestion we would risk a wipe every time more than one from the same group goes afk due to roamers.. There are perfectly legitimate reasons to be on auto follow. I'm sorry but we will have to live with the problem. The plat sellers are not gonna go away and SOE knows it, that's why they started the exchange server and even there you have third party companies profiting without going through SOE's system. The one thing that may help is if SOE sues a few of the companies behind it and win in a court of law.

Noaani

03-26-2007, 11:06 AM

rubels

03-26-2007, 12:10 PM

I am seriously disturbed by the additional boter/ plat farmers. The bottom line is Soe does have the ability to solve this if they wished. The developers early on in the game stated they had a program that was 99 % (message from smeed , it was mentioned) to be effective in Bot control. They even went as far as stating in the vary first mass bannings that they used the program and unfortunatly they got like 2 people out of 25 K + accounts and those 2 people where given free months as a where sorry gift. I whould really like to know why this program is no longer used ? I want this program in use at all times.... not when you feel like doing a clean up.Also if you honestly believe that soe is unable to plot and track automated programming on the basics of Vnums that a human can not reproduce EVER... then your sadly mistaken. The its a 2botter on autofollow , farming is a legit play style blah blah blah etc etc is not a excuss. They have the tools to auto check inhuman computer controlled movement... end of story.Thats a simple check vs /waypoint (virtual loc)that any C++ programmer with a basic education chould produce. The simple solution is they have the tools , programming ability , player backing and no excuss besides they dont wish the problem solved.- Krovax

Noaani

03-27-2007, 10:45 AM

<cite>rubelson wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am seriously disturbed by the additional boter/ plat farmers. The bottom line is Soe does have the ability to solve this if they wished. The developers early on in the game stated they had a program that was 99 % (message from smeed , it was mentioned) to be effective in Bot control. They even went as far as stating in the vary first mass bannings that they used the program and unfortunatly they got like 2 people out of 25 K + accounts and those 2 people where given free months as a where sorry gift. I whould really like to know why this program is no longer used ? I want this program in use at all times.... not when you feel like doing a clean up.Also if you honestly believe that soe is unable to plot and track automated programming on the basics of Vnums that a human can not reproduce EVER... then your sadly mistaken. The its a 2botter on autofollow , farming is a legit play style blah blah blah etc etc is not a excuss. They have the tools to auto check inhuman computer controlled movement... end of story.Thats a simple check vs /waypoint (virtual loc)that any C++ programmer with a basic education chould produce. The simple solution is they have the tools , programming ability , player backing and no excuss besides they dont wish the problem solved.- Krovax</blockquote>I think perhaps the funniest thing about this post is the fact that the poster has no idea what he is saying!Back when I was a little wizard, there were groups running round Antonica. They were exactly the same as the groups we have now in places like OoLS, except these groups were... diffrent.These groups would walk around similar to how the corrent groups do now, all on top of each other, except the old groups didn't have a leader! They would all start casting the same spell (they were usualy the same class) at exactly the same time! These groups were actual BOTS! Not the multiboxers we have now.I have not seen an actual BOT group (as opposed to a multi boxer group) for a very very long time (more than 2 years). SoE DID manage to get rid of them. There are no adventuring bots at all in this game any more. Just crafting bots.The groups we see now are from the same source as the old bot farmer groups, but have transformed in to multi boxer farming groups. People refer to them as bot groups, even though the name 'bot' is not at all applicable to them any more.SoE defeated BOTS.Bots, farmers, multi boxers, plat sellers. These are all diffrent things. People often think of them as one and the same. These people should be shot.

rubels

03-27-2007, 04:44 PM

I have no idea what im talking about ? Bottom line Soe in a letter from the editor at the start of the game stated they have the ability to auto check on botters and farmers. They used the program in the very first mass banning in this game and Moorgard even went on bragging about the success rate of the program giving it a 99 % detection of bot controlled programs. 2nd ... Do you honestly believe that they cant trace your pathing ? I know for a fact they can via waypoints. The game is really a grid .. if you dont know what a Vnum is download circle mud and you can see how basic database and room formation works (same concept as /waypoints) from <a href="http://www.circlemud.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.circlemud.org</a> you can find out what a virtual number is. I know its not "eq2" code but its basicly the same thing with a diffrent code language.3rd. There has always been bot crews from day one. They have always been visable just perhaps you didnt see them but I chould tell you about bot crews that where on Zek doing the quest at the front gate. Bottom line is still very simple. They have the ability or the program already , the need , they just dont want to solve the issue.- Krovax

ArivenGemini

03-27-2007, 06:51 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>rubelson wrote: These groups would walk around similar to how the corrent groups do now, all on top of each other, except the old groups didn't have a leader! They would all start casting the same spell (they were usualy the same class) at exactly the same time! These groups were actual BOTS! Not the multiboxers we have now.I have not seen an actual BOT group (as opposed to a multi boxer group) for a very very long time (more than 2 years). SoE DID manage to get rid of them. There are no adventuring bots at all in this game any more. Just crafting bots.The groups we see now are from the same source as the old bot farmer groups, but have transformed in to multi boxer farming groups. People refer to them as bot groups, even though the name 'bot' is not at all applicable to them any more.SoE defeated BOTS.Bots, farmers, multi boxers, plat sellers. These are all diffrent things. People often think of them as one and the same. These people should be shot.</blockquote> I have seen two seperate groups in the last three weeks that were "bot" groups and not multibox farmers.. so no, SOE hasn't gotten rid of the botters.. I agree that the multibox farmers are more prevalant.. but.. most botter groups fit in the profesional multibox farmers group TOO.. The biggest problem using imprecise terms to refer to these groups is that when you petition a group for "BOTTING" I suspect that CSRs tend to look for the complained about problem.. and when it turns out to be a farmer group, they move on... when in actuality the complaint should have been for monopolizing content to the exclusion of other players (i.e. a zone disruption).. and while I -have- seen the farmers do that.. doing it to a level where it is petitionable isnt something i have seen often.. its more of a localized phenomenom.. and that means they are at that moment following the EULA.. Where it is hard for us to nail them, as players, is when they go beyond the allowable terms of the EULA and are having more than one person playing the group... allowing someone else to use your account is against the rules... but thats hard to prove as a player, and as such is very frustrating.. So, while I dont like em, I try to keep my petitions to ones where they are clearly disrupting the zone, or are clearly botting (for example, all four necros are constantly spamming the mana regen from pet spell.. at exactly the same time, over and over and over, while not even in combat (and in fact are idle)... things that are clearly scripted).. It is hard to deal with the frustration, but we have to remember to use accurate terms and accurate descriptions otherwise it just wastes the CSRs time, and frustrates us more when we see them still ingame later..

Noaani

03-28-2007, 01:21 PM

<cite>rubelson wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have no idea what im talking about ? Bottom line Soe in a letter from the editor at the start of the game stated they have the ability to auto check on botters and farmers. They used the program in the very first mass banning in this game and Moorgard even went on bragging about the success rate of the program giving it a 99 % detection of bot controlled programs. 2nd ... Do you honestly believe that they cant trace your pathing ? I know for a fact they can via waypoints. The game is really a grid .. if you dont know what a Vnum is download circle mud and you can see how basic database and room formation works (same concept as /waypoints) from <a href="http://www.circlemud.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.circlemud.org</a> you can find out what a virtual number is. I know its not "eq2" code but its basicly the same thing with a diffrent code language.3rd. There has always been bot crews from day one. They have always been visable just perhaps you didnt see them but I chould tell you about bot crews that where on Zek doing the quest at the front gate. Bottom line is still very simple. They have the ability or the program already , the need , they just dont want to solve the issue.- Krovax</blockquote>Did I say SoE can not trace pathing? I dont actually care if they can or can not trace pathing, as it would not solve any current issues.Yes, I said there were bot groups on day 1. I was there, I saw them on day 1. I also said that the groups we have now are not bot groups.In order for an entier group to be a 'bot group' there needs to be no one at all in control of any characters. The term bot refers to them being automated characters, with macros and/or scripts sunning the characters. The reason *I* am sure there are no bot groups left in the game is simply because there are none left in the game.The plat farmer groups we all see in game are not bots. They all have a person in control. It may only be a single person in control of an entier group, but that is not against the EULA. Actual bot groups have been gone for a long time.If you think there is a bot group, download Frapps and get a minute or so of them running round on a set path, with no lead character. If there is a lead character (usually a tank) then you do not have a bot group, but rather you have a multi boxed farming group. These are what we have in game now. The diffrance is rather small/unintelligible to some people, but there is a diffrance. That diffrance, to be as exact as I can, is that one of these is against the EULA, the other is not.The only place in this game that has bots as a major concern is crafting. The reason for that is because it is easy to make a macro/script for crafting.I am going to restate what I said earlier, you do not know what you are talking about.

Galeden

03-28-2007, 04:25 PM

Just a comment about the posts saying there are no bot groups, they are all multi-boxing now which isnt against the EULA, what about the multi-box groups that spout out commands to control the other members? How is that NOT violating the EULA? They must be using some program to interpret the text into a command, ie using 3rd party software to control the game. I have seen these a good number of times, they will randomly "say" a string of numbers or something. *add* Also for full groups I do not see how they could not be using something to control each character, 2-3 box is possible for very hard core players, but 6? how could you have enough control to do what you need to do, ie heal nuke move etc, and not automate something? And i'm sure if its a plat farmer they wouldn't be able to keep up with it especially with the length they go on. So one way or another their automating something, and breaking the EULA.

rubels

03-28-2007, 09:10 PM

As the poster above mentioned , theres no way that 1 person can 6 box and have the ability to have 4 wizards nuke at the same time. There must be a 3rd party program involved. Also as for the pathing issue. I watch the same bot crew (call them what you want) run the exact same pathing over and over again. No variable. I even went as far as doing it /waypoint and yup guess what its down to the exact location on every single path. I am trying to come up with solutions to a problem that is if you dont want to agree to are easy ways to solve the problem. I mean unless you can cast 4 [Removed for Content] nukes at once .... come up with a solution or [Removed for Content] teach me the trick so its a level playing field.- Krov

ArivenGemini

03-29-2007, 12:20 PM

<cite>Galeden wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just a comment about the posts saying there are no bot groups, they are all multi-boxing now which isnt against the EULA, what about the multi-box groups that spout out commands to control the other members? How is that NOT violating the EULA? They must be using some program to interpret the text into a command, ie using 3rd party software to control the game. I have seen these a good number of times, they will randomly "say" a string of numbers or something. *add* Also for full groups I do not see how they could not be using something to control each character, 2-3 box is possible for very hard core players, but 6? how could you have enough control to do what you need to do, ie heal nuke move etc, and not automate something? And i'm sure if its a plat farmer they wouldn't be able to keep up with it especially with the length they go on. So one way or another their automating something, and breaking the EULA.</blockquote> At times I myself have spouted out a string of numbers in chat.. mostly cause I am trying to do something ingame while watching TV and hit enter before i try to spam the skills to save my life.. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> but personally I would guess if you are seeing the multiboxers do that, I would guess that something messed up locally and its piping out the numbers to chat (just like you see on tradeskill botters from time to time).. I look at things like this with occams razor.. why would someone write a program to parse commands from a group mate and hope that 1) they are able to identify that they are for them specifically to use, and 2 they have to hope that response time is fast... when they can simply just automate what they need to do. And as for multiboxing 6.. I could do it... as long as I dont have to deal with more than the tank meleeing.. when I play my healers, 95% of the time it is only 2-4 skills that I use.. and I am sure I could deal with just 2-4 skills on caster attacks, if I wanted to.. so yeah.. 6 keyboards on a desk.. pull with tank (on main keyboard) then once I have aggro established.. hit 1 on 5 keyboards to start a macro with two spells, then wait a bit and hit 2 on 5 keyboards for the next macro.. and so on.. Yeah it isn't ideal, yeah it wouldnt be as capable or effective as actual live players and definately not as responsive to sudden problems like aggro.... but as long as the tank stays up, getting 4 nukes hitting successively from 4 different casters, over and over, should kill most stuff fairly easily..

Pain Divine

03-29-2007, 02:11 PM

SOE isn't stupid. If they can create a sophisticated DirectX game, blocking the plat farmers tells would be incredibly simple. Those of you that don't realize how easy it would be, don't know programming. It's sooooo incredibly easy. Not only that, but through some simple database querying and filtering they could easily find out who's selling the plat, who's buying the plat and who's spamming. What has probably happened here is that SOE HAS run queries.... and DOES know who's buying, selling and spamming and it's probably scared the crap out of them. SOEs most dedicated customers... those with Station passes on 1, 2 or even 3 accounts... all capped out level 70 characters, are probably the main source of plat. SOE is probably scared to lose those players. Also, they are afraid that the buyers would get frustrated if they had to earn gold rather than buy it. SOE thinks the cheaters will quit playing if they can't cheat, and therefore does not want to fix the problem. I think SOE's hypothesis is wrong, and that the cheating is driving away far far more players than what would be lost if they just stopped the cheating. SOE has a bottom-line mentality that is destroying every game they touch. They need to wise-up and start worrying more about their credibility, which at this point is almost totally shot.

civilgeek

03-29-2007, 08:36 PM

<cite>Ykalon wrote:</cite><blockquote>Haldir@Oasis wrote: <blockquote>Basically only one person could ever follow another and no one could chain. If there were 3 players... player 1 could not be followed by players 2 and 3 only 2 or 3. In addition, Player 1 could be followed by player 2 but if player 2 is following player 1 then player 3 could not follow player 2. If they wanted to take it further they could make is so that only one player could ever follow in a group of 6 too. This could hinder some player functionality but in my opinion not too much.</blockquote> Really bad idea I'm afraid. In really long raids such as Emerald Halls you are bound to get a few afk's even if you schedule for a 5 minutes afk every hour you will still have more than 1 from the same group that would need to go afk a few extra minutes, with your suggestion we would risk a wipe every time more than one from the same group goes afk due to roamers.. There are perfectly legitimate reasons to be on auto follow. I'm sorry but we will have to live with the problem. The plat sellers are not gonna go away and SOE knows it, that's why they started the exchange server and even there you have third party companies profiting without going through SOE's system. The one thing that may help is if SOE sues a few of the companies behind it and win in a court of law. </blockquote>With option A above up to 3 people could follow one another per group. It would be just be that each would need to follow a separate guild mate in the group. The problem with farmers is it is simply too easy to get around by chaining. If you implement something like this you need an extra hand at the controls for each pair of players. If your in Emerald Halls and have more than 3 people afk in a single group... you should probably stop anyways. The problem is everyone wants a fix but no one wants to give up any of their perks. This is not a huge mechanics change! You can not be retroactive on plat farmers and expect SOE to catch everyone. The cost for SOE to read each players reports..... research they are farmers... and ban the player has got to be crazy and it is very time consuming. You must be proactive in order to limit their ability to farm plat. Legal battles will not help either as I assume many of these guys are international... good luck stickin it to them. In addition, it is being retroactive and when you kill one another will follow.

bleap

03-29-2007, 08:56 PM

Haldir@Oasis wrote: <blockquote><cite>Ykalon wrote:</cite><blockquote>Haldir@Oasis wrote: <blockquote>Basically only one person could ever follow another and no one could chain. If there were 3 players... player 1 could not be followed by players 2 and 3 only 2 or 3. In addition, Player 1 could be followed by player 2 but if player 2 is following player 1 then player 3 could not follow player 2. If they wanted to take it further they could make is so that only one player could ever follow in a group of 6 too. This could hinder some player functionality but in my opinion not too much.</blockquote> Really bad idea I'm afraid. In really long raids such as Emerald Halls you are bound to get a few afk's even if you schedule for a 5 minutes afk every hour you will still have more than 1 from the same group that would need to go afk a few extra minutes, with your suggestion we would risk a wipe every time more than one from the same group goes afk due to roamers.. There are perfectly legitimate reasons to be on auto follow. I'm sorry but we will have to live with the problem. The plat sellers are not gonna go away and SOE knows it, that's why they started the exchange server and even there you have third party companies profiting without going through SOE's system. The one thing that may help is if SOE sues a few of the companies behind it and win in a court of law. </blockquote>With option A above up to 3 people could follow one another per group. It would be just be that each would need to follow a separate guild mate in the group. The problem with farmers is it is simply too easy to get around by chaining. If you implement something like this you need an extra hand at the controls for each pair of players. If your in Emerald Halls and have more than 3 people afk in a single group... you should probably stop anyways. The problem is everyone wants a fix but no one wants to give up any of their perks. This is not a huge mechanics change! You can not be retroactive on plat farmers and expect SOE to catch everyone. The cost for SOE to read each players reports..... research they are farmers... and ban the player has got to be crazy and it is very time consuming. You must be proactive in order to limit their ability to farm plat. Legal battles will not help either as I assume many of these guys are international... good luck stickin it to them. In addition, it is being retroactive and when you kill one another will follow.</blockquote>Then tell us why Sigil, a company with FAR les experience and resources is doing exactly this in Vanguard? Because they have asked their players to report the suspected farmers/bots to them and they ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING with the information....LOL Sigil has just blown the entire SOE CANT DO THIS arguement out of the water....Now there is NO excuse why SOE cannot put a stop to this...They either do it or refuse to do it, but they can no longer tell us it cannot be done...

Andy0125

03-29-2007, 09:12 PM

Dasein

03-29-2007, 09:29 PM

"I still say chat filters are the best way to go. Why would I filter 'buy gold' when I can filter 'stupidworker'. They can't trick the filter unless they start spamming people with a different domain name, and guess what, the only way a different domain name would work is if they bought another domain name. Then their name is no longer known and they have a big cost with each spamming. Another thing, 'stupidworker' will automagically filter out any kind of alterations they do like 'stupidworker dot com' or stupidworker com'. Another gold seller comes along like 'vicdorks', I just add them to the list." It's easy enough to set up a new domain name, and if that domain contains some common words, it could lead to unintended consequences with filters. For example, www.buyeq2goldhere.com would ultimately end up requiring filters on 'buy' 'eq2' 'gold' and 'here', all of which are fairly commonly used words. "SOE isn't stupid. If they can create a sophisticated DirectX game, blocking the plat farmers tells would be incredibly simple. Those of you that don't realize how easy it would be, don't know programming. It's sooooo incredibly easy. Not only that, but through some simple database querying and filtering they could easily find out who's selling the plat, who's buying the plat and who's spamming." No, they really cannot. Text filtering is not nearly as effective nor easy as people think, as so much of language is based on context, while a computer interprets text excruciatingly literally. As for finding out who is buying and selling plat, that is beyond SOEs capabilities, as the transaction - the part that turns a perfectly acceptable transfer of coin or items from one character to another into an alleged violation of the EULA - occurs outside of SOEs domain. Thus, SOE has no data on any sales, because those sales take place outside the confines of SOEs servers. For example, let's say I ask my friend sitting next ot me for some plat. He says he'll sell me some for $5, so I get a 5 dollar bill out of my wallet and give it to him, and in return, he trades me some plat in game. SOE has no way to tell that transaction occured. They know the plat was traded, but not why or that real money was involved.

bleap

03-29-2007, 10:30 PM

<cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote> "I still say chat filters are the best way to go. Why would I filter 'buy gold' when I can filter 'stupidworker'. They can't trick the filter unless they start spamming people with a different domain name, and guess what, the only way a different domain name would work is if they bought another domain name. Then their name is no longer known and they have a big cost with each spamming. Another thing, 'stupidworker' will automagically filter out any kind of alterations they do like 'stupidworker dot com' or stupidworker com'. Another gold seller comes along like 'vicdorks', I just add them to the list." It's easy enough to set up a new domain name, and if that domain contains some common words, it could lead to unintended consequences with filters. For example, www.buyeq2goldhere.com would ultimately end up requiring filters on 'buy' 'eq2' 'gold' and 'here', all of which are fairly commonly used words. "SOE isn't stupid. If they can create a sophisticated DirectX game, blocking the plat farmers tells would be incredibly simple. Those of you that don't realize how easy it would be, don't know programming. It's sooooo incredibly easy. Not only that, but through some simple database querying and filtering they could easily find out who's selling the plat, who's buying the plat and who's spamming." No, they really cannot. Text filtering is not nearly as effective nor easy as people think, as so much of language is based on context, while a computer interprets text excruciatingly literally. As for finding out who is buying and selling plat, that is beyond SOEs capabilities, as the transaction - the part that turns a perfectly acceptable transfer of coin or items from one character to another into an alleged violation of the EULA - occurs outside of SOEs domain. Thus, SOE has no data on any sales, because those sales take place outside the confines of SOEs servers. For example, let's say I ask my friend sitting next ot me for some plat. He says he'll sell me some for $5, so I get a 5 dollar bill out of my wallet and give it to him, and in return, he trades me some plat in game. SOE has no way to tell that transaction occured. They know the plat was traded, but not why or that real money was involved. </blockquote>This shouldn't be a debate about wether filters will or ill not work. It should be a discussion about why SOE won't give them to us...ANYTHING is better than what SOE has done...which is basically [Removed for Content] the game for any new players...and it didn't do a thing to stop the spammers.. We aren't talking about $5...we are talking about transactions ranging from $25-$100 or more..for large amounts of in game coin...Of course friends might sell a few to each other for a few bucks...I don't think that's the major problem...You aren't going to completely outfit your toon in fabled gear for $5 worth of plat...the real problem is the cheaters who bascially buy their toon to max...It's cheating..

sah

03-29-2007, 11:56 PM

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote> ANYTHING is better than what SOE has done...which is basically [Removed for Content] the game for any new players...and it didn't do a thing to stop the spammers.. </blockquote> That first part is a bit of a lie...prior to the change affecting trial accounts I was getting 5-10 tells per hour and several mails per day, nowadays I get 1-2 tells per day and 1-2 mails per week which is a big improvement in my opinion...

bleap

03-30-2007, 05:08 PM

<cite>sahet wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote> ANYTHING is better than what SOE has done...which is basically [Removed for Content] the game for any new players...and it didn't do a thing to stop the spammers.. </blockquote> That first part is a bit of a lie...prior to the change affecting trial accounts I was getting 5-10 tells per hour and several mails per day, nowadays I get 1-2 tells per day and 1-2 mails per week which is a big improvement in my opinion...It's not a lie...OK maybe the spam has gone down some..But the real issue here isn't so much the spam..If people wern't actively buying plat there would be NO spam...no one is going to spend time and money to advertise in game if no one buys their product...it's just common sense... </blockquote>It's not a "lie" Yes OK the spam is down...BUT they did it by gimping the game....SOE does not advertise this game...So how do most people who want to play it find out about it...From friends....Now imagine you go out, spend $50 on the whole game, install it, roll a toon get to the island and find out that you can't talk to your friends, you can't join your friends guild and you can't send mail to your friends.......The game is boring and lonely....All because instead of actually fixing the spammer problem they put a band aid on it by gimping it for any new players....there were already very few true newbs...now how many will there be??

mellowknees72

03-30-2007, 05:13 PM

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>sahet wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote> ANYTHING is better than what SOE has done...which is basically [Removed for Content] the game for any new players...and it didn't do a thing to stop the spammers.. </blockquote> That first part is a bit of a lie...prior to the change affecting trial accounts I was getting 5-10 tells per hour and several mails per day, nowadays I get 1-2 tells per day and 1-2 mails per week which is a big improvement in my opinion...It's not a lie...OK maybe the spam has gone down some..But the real issue here isn't so much the spam..If people wern't actively buying plat there would be NO spam...no one is going to spend time and money to advertise in game if no one buys their product...it's just common sense... </blockquote>It's not a "lie" Yes OK the spam is down...BUT they did it by gimping the game....SOE does not advertise this game...So how do most people who want to play it find out about it...From friends....Now imagine you go out, spend $50 on the whole game, install it, roll a toon get to the island and find out that you can't talk to your friends, you can't join your friends guild and you can't send mail to your friends.......The game is boring and lonely....All because instead of actually fixing the spammer problem they put a band aid on it by gimping it for any new players....there were already very few true newbs...now how many will there be?? </blockquote>1) You can't send mail from the island anyway - there's no freaking mailbox there.2) You CAN talk to your friends if they put your character's name on their friends list.And "ANYTHING" is not better than what SOE has done. Because, ANYTHING can be...well, anything. A red hot poker to my eye, for example, would not be better.

bleap

03-30-2007, 06:48 PM

Pipes@Najena wrote: <blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>sahet wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote> ANYTHING is better than what SOE has done...which is basically [Removed for Content] the game for any new players...and it didn't do a thing to stop the spammers.. </blockquote> That first part is a bit of a lie...prior to the change affecting trial accounts I was getting 5-10 tells per hour and several mails per day, nowadays I get 1-2 tells per day and 1-2 mails per week which is a big improvement in my opinion...It's not a lie...OK maybe the spam has gone down some..But the real issue here isn't so much the spam..If people wern't actively buying plat there would be NO spam...no one is going to spend time and money to advertise in game if no one buys their product...it's just common sense... </blockquote>It's not a "lie" Yes OK the spam is down...BUT they did it by gimping the game....SOE does not advertise this game...So how do most people who want to play it find out about it...From friends....Now imagine you go out, spend $50 on the whole game, install it, roll a toon get to the island and find out that you can't talk to your friends, you can't join your friends guild and you can't send mail to your friends.......The game is boring and lonely....All because instead of actually fixing the spammer problem they put a band aid on it by gimping it for any new players....there were already very few true newbs...now how many will there be?? </blockquote>1) You can't send mail from the island anyway - there's no freaking mailbox there.2) You CAN talk to your friends if they put your character's name on their friends list.And "ANYTHING" is not better than what SOE has done. Because, ANYTHING can be...well, anything. A red hot poker to my eye, for example, would not be better. </blockquote>Pipes, all I can say is that you are very passionate for taking SOEs side of this issue...It's like you don't think that anyone on these boards can come up with a better idea to help SOE combat these cheaters...Why is that? Do you have a problem with people who dislike cheating in game? Of course we (the players) can come up with things that SOE could do to help with these issues...they could also look to other companies and see if their methods are more effective than what SOE is currently trying...Tell me whay SOE has not implemented most of the suggestions that we have made? Are they too expensive? too hard to code? Why is it that they barely respond to these posts...Why won't they have an open dialog with their customers like Sigil does? What is their reasoning for being so tight lipped about who they have banned? What difference does it make if they announce who was banned permanently? they don't play any longer, most of the ones who would be banned for these activities would probably have unpronouncible names....so what would it hurt? it WOULD make people think twice about cheating if they valued their acount....so it could only help SOE battle this problem..but they won't do it...they won't give us chat filters...so what if they are less than 100% effective...they would be better than the NO filters we have now...Why does SOE seem to ignore it's players ideas? We aren't stupid people...for the most part we are intelligent and I am sure there would be even better ideas out there if SOE would ask for help...but they don't and won't...why do you think that is? Because they have a big ego and refuse to ask for help? Because they don't value the input of their customer base? or because they make money from the plat sellers? I don't know the answer...but don't ask me to ignore my feelings...If tehy aren't enforcing their own rules then those rules are meaningless...I know SOE doesn't condone cheating, and I bet this entire issue is frustrating for them...Sigil has asked their players to help them and asked for assistance finding methods to track them down...The same couls be done here...but it's not...what message does that send the players??

sah

03-30-2007, 07:50 PM

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Pipes, all I can say is that you are very passionate for taking SOEs side of this issue...It's like you don't think that anyone on these boards can come up with a better idea to help SOE combat these cheaters...Why is that? Do you have a problem with people who dislike cheating in game? Of course we (the players) can come up with things that SOE could do to help with these issues...they could also look to other companies and see if their methods are more effective than what SOE is currently trying...Tell me whay SOE has not implemented most of the suggestions that we have made? Are they too expensive? too hard to code? Why is it that they barely respond to these posts...Why won't they have an open dialog with their customers like Sigil does? What is their reasoning for being so tight lipped about who they have banned? What difference does it make if they announce who was banned permanently? they don't play any longer, most of the ones who would be banned for these activities would probably have unpronouncible names....so what would it hurt? it WOULD make people think twice about cheating if they valued their acount....so it could only help SOE battle this problem..but they won't do it...they won't give us chat filters...so what if they are less than 100% effective...they would be better than the NO filters we have now...Why does SOE seem to ignore it's players ideas? We aren't stupid people...for the most part we are intelligent and I am sure there would be even better ideas out there if SOE would ask for help...but they don't and won't...why do you think that is? Because they have a big ego and refuse to ask for help? Because they don't value the input of their customer base? or because they make money from the plat sellers? I don't know the answer...but don't ask me to ignore my feelings...If tehy aren't enforcing their own rules then those rules are meaningless...I know SOE doesn't condone cheating, and I bet this entire issue is frustrating for them...Sigil has asked their players to help them and asked for assistance finding methods to track them down...The same couls be done here...but it's not...what message does that send the players?? </blockquote>What would be the point of releasing names of banned players? I personally don't care who gets banned and most of the people I know don't care either...SOE's policy is to not release any information about the banning process which is smart...the more information they release, the more information the plat spammers/sellers have to work with and the easier it becomes for them to find new ways around the system...The people running the operation are probably at least as smart as the people at SOE and are very good at what they do so secrecy is really SOE's best weapon at fighting them...Also, you make it sound easy to implement new security features into the game...like chat filters, what if the original chat system was implemented in a way that made it impossible to add in an efficient chat filter...would you rather that the devs spend several months implementing a new chat system with filters that would probably be buggy for at least a whole month after it's released or would you rather have them working on the next expansion...and really, how do you really know how easy it is to implement a chat filter? have you ever implemented a chat filter in a massive online environment? do you have any experience with parsing natural language (keep in mind that the game is available in multiple languages)? do you have any experience with statistical learning theory? do you know what a DBN is or how the EM algorithm works? In general, security features are something that is best built in to software from the beginning rather than added in later and it often takes much longer to add something than it would have taken if the software was originally designed with that same feature...companies learned from mistakes in EQ2 and other MMO's and are engineering the security features into their games such as Vanguard...

mellowknees72

03-30-2007, 08:52 PM

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Pipes, all I can say is that you are very passionate for taking SOEs side of this issue...It's like you don't think that anyone on these boards can come up with a better idea to help SOE combat these cheaters...Why is that? Do you have a problem with people who dislike cheating in game? Of course we (the players) can come up with things that SOE could do to help with these issues...they could also look to other companies and see if their methods are more effective than what SOE is currently trying...Tell me whay SOE has not implemented most of the suggestions that we have made? Are they too expensive? too hard to code? Why is it that they barely respond to these posts...Why won't they have an open dialog with their customers like Sigil does? What is their reasoning for being so tight lipped about who they have banned? What difference does it make if they announce who was banned permanently? they don't play any longer, most of the ones who would be banned for these activities would probably have unpronouncible names....so what would it hurt? it WOULD make people think twice about cheating if they valued their acount....so it could only help SOE battle this problem..but they won't do it...they won't give us chat filters...so what if they are less than 100% effective...they would be better than the NO filters we have now...Why does SOE seem to ignore it's players ideas? We aren't stupid people...for the most part we are intelligent and I am sure there would be even better ideas out there if SOE would ask for help...but they don't and won't...why do you think that is? Because they have a big ego and refuse to ask for help? Because they don't value the input of their customer base? or because they make money from the plat sellers? I don't know the answer...but don't ask me to ignore my feelings...If tehy aren't enforcing their own rules then those rules are meaningless...I know SOE doesn't condone cheating, and I bet this entire issue is frustrating for them...Sigil has asked their players to help them and asked for assistance finding methods to track them down...The same couls be done here...but it's not...what message does that send the players?? </blockquote>It's not that I'm passionate about "SOE's side"...It's just that I want to point out that they actually are doing things about the spam issue. Fixing this problem is not a magic-wand type of thing. There is no one simple fix that SOE can implement that will take the spam away. Hate to say it, but cheaters, theives, liars...these people are also smart (or have smart people behind them pulling the strings).I guess I fail to see how people who are not programmers, do not work for SOE, are not customer service reps, etc., can possibly give the be-all, end-all answer to this problem. SOE has given us tools, in the game (/report and /petition) that actually DO work. I know that it's not obvious from the player side of things, but they DO. Whenever I have petitioned about a spam plat-seller /tell, I have gotten a GM response usually within an hour or so. And then I don't see that particular player's name again. How is this not working?I agree that there probably are things that could be done to improve on what's already taking place, but how can I even pretend to know how to implement these things? I can't. I'm not a developer. I'm not a programmer. I may be a geek and a nerd and I may have an IT-related job...but that does not make me an expert on how SOE should handle this problem.SOE has also asked its players to help track down plat sellers. Why else do you think they gave us a "SPAM" button on our in-game email client? For fun? Why do we have a specific petition category for in-game solicitation? And let's not forget that Sigil and SOE are PARTNERS in relation to Vanguard. If it's ONLY Sigil doing all of this, why is the announcement listed on a station.com page?My point is that if you focus too narrow, you miss the larger picture. It's easy to sit back and blame SOE for everything and claim that they don't listen to us. I would counter that they DO listen to us. They even respond sometimes, in writing, on these forums! But it seems that some folks are never satisfied. Honestly...what would it take for you to believe that they DO actually investigate and ban people who are "cheating"? They've already told us that they are; they've posted an update about it (something I have never seen before in all my years of playing EQ/SWG/EQ2), and yet people still claim that nothing is being done.Also, and finally, I was trying to be FUNNY about "ANYTHING is better than..." That was my original intent. To point out how silly it sounds to claim that ANYTHING is better. ANYTHING means just that - ANYTHING. A rabid elephant, your computer being stolen, being run over by a car, plat sellers squatting in your inn room...see? Those things would all be included in "anything". But, alas, sometimes humor is hard to get across in a forum setting.

liveja

03-30-2007, 09:21 PM

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Pipes, all I can say is that you are very passionate for taking SOEs side of this issueDon't know about Pipes, but I'm personally passionate about good arguments. I've so far not seen very many good arguments coming from people on your side of this discussion.It's like you don't think that anyone on these boards can come up with a better idea to help SOE combat these cheatersDon't know about Pipes, but in my case: I don't think anyone on these boards can come up with a better idea. If there was such a person, he/she would have been hired already. Considering that I get probably 10 times as much spam on my regular e-mail account than I do in EQ2, I'd say that if Yahoo & Microsoft haven't figured it out, I'm pretty sure that Joe Blow Player on the EQ2 forums isn't going to do any better.Why is that? Do you have a problem with people who dislike cheating in game?Eh? What part of mature, adult discussion is that line coming from? The poster disagrees with you, so you surmise that he/she wants to protect cheaters? Do you know what the phrase "leap of logic" means? If not, you ought to now, because you just made a doozy of jump.Tell me whay SOE has not implemented most of the suggestions that we have made? Because none of them work? Ever thought of that? What is their reasoning for being so tight lipped about who they have banned?Because SOE doesn't believe that information is any of your business. I happen to agree with them.</blockquote>

bleap

03-31-2007, 01:11 AM

<cite>sahet wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Pipes, all I can say is that you are very passionate for taking SOEs side of this issue...It's like you don't think that anyone on these boards can come up with a better idea to help SOE combat these cheaters...Why is that? Do you have a problem with people who dislike cheating in game? Of course we (the players) can come up with things that SOE could do to help with these issues...they could also look to other companies and see if their methods are more effective than what SOE is currently trying...Tell me whay SOE has not implemented most of the suggestions that we have made? Are they too expensive? too hard to code? Why is it that they barely respond to these posts...Why won't they have an open dialog with their customers like Sigil does? What is their reasoning for being so tight lipped about who they have banned? What difference does it make if they announce who was banned permanently? they don't play any longer, most of the ones who would be banned for these activities would probably have unpronouncible names....so what would it hurt? it WOULD make people think twice about cheating if they valued their acount....so it could only help SOE battle this problem..but they won't do it...they won't give us chat filters...so what if they are less than 100% effective...they would be better than the NO filters we have now...Why does SOE seem to ignore it's players ideas? We aren't stupid people...for the most part we are intelligent and I am sure there would be even better ideas out there if SOE would ask for help...but they don't and won't...why do you think that is? Because they have a big ego and refuse to ask for help? Because they don't value the input of their customer base? or because they make money from the plat sellers? I don't know the answer...but don't ask me to ignore my feelings...If tehy aren't enforcing their own rules then those rules are meaningless...I know SOE doesn't condone cheating, and I bet this entire issue is frustrating for them...Sigil has asked their players to help them and asked for assistance finding methods to track them down...The same couls be done here...but it's not...what message does that send the players?? </blockquote>What would be the point of releasing names of banned players? I personally don't care who gets banned and most of the people I know don't care either...SOE's policy is to not release any information about the banning process which is smart...the more information they release, the more information the plat spammers/sellers have to work with and the easier it becomes for them to find new ways around the system...The people running the operation are probably at least as smart as the people at SOE and are very good at what they do so secrecy is really SOE's best weapon at fighting them...Also, you make it sound easy to implement new security features into the game...like chat filters, what if the original chat system was implemented in a way that made it impossible to add in an efficient chat filter...would you rather that the devs spend several months implementing a new chat system with filters that would probably be buggy for at least a whole month after it's released or would you rather have them working on the next expansion...and really, how do you really know how easy it is to implement a chat filter? have you ever implemented a chat filter in a massive online environment? do you have any experience with parsing natural language (keep in mind that the game is available in multiple languages)? do you have any experience with statistical learning theory? do you know what a DBN is or how the EM algorithm works? In general, security features are something that is best built in to software from the beginning rather than added in later and it often takes much longer to add something than it would have taken if the software was originally designed with that same feature...companies learned from mistakes in EQ2 and other MMO's and are engineering the security features into their games such as Vanguard...</blockquote>I think it would go along way in showing those of us who are skeptical that SOE is taking this seriously that they are in fact being proactive AND it might scare teh bejesus out of potential plat buyers and make them think twice before they do it...Like has been posted a ton of times already...Remove the buyers and the sellers have no market, no market equals no profits...No profits means they stop spamming...We all win.. No I have no idea how to code, but are you trying to tell me that a company as large as SONY cannot come up with a plan to filter it's own chat channels? They certainly can filter bad words...so the basic ability to filter is already built into the game..Just add words to the bad word filter....Like how about starting with the domain names of the plat spammers....This could have been done long ago...But have they done it? they use teh same code, make it redundent and called it SPAM FILTER instead of BAD WORD filter and it would have helped....But did they do that? nope....

bleap

03-31-2007, 01:21 AM

Pipes@Najena wrote: <blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Pipes, all I can say is that you are very passionate for taking SOEs side of this issue...It's like you don't think that anyone on these boards can come up with a better idea to help SOE combat these cheaters...Why is that? Do you have a problem with people who dislike cheating in game? Of course we (the players) can come up with things that SOE could do to help with these issues...they could also look to other companies and see if their methods are more effective than what SOE is currently trying...Tell me whay SOE has not implemented most of the suggestions that we have made? Are they too expensive? too hard to code? Why is it that they barely respond to these posts...Why won't they have an open dialog with their customers like Sigil does? What is their reasoning for being so tight lipped about who they have banned? What difference does it make if they announce who was banned permanently? they don't play any longer, most of the ones who would be banned for these activities would probably have unpronouncible names....so what would it hurt? it WOULD make people think twice about cheating if they valued their acount....so it could only help SOE battle this problem..but they won't do it...they won't give us chat filters...so what if they are less than 100% effective...they would be better than the NO filters we have now...Why does SOE seem to ignore it's players ideas? We aren't stupid people...for the most part we are intelligent and I am sure there would be even better ideas out there if SOE would ask for help...but they don't and won't...why do you think that is? Because they have a big ego and refuse to ask for help? Because they don't value the input of their customer base? or because they make money from the plat sellers? I don't know the answer...but don't ask me to ignore my feelings...If tehy aren't enforcing their own rules then those rules are meaningless...I know SOE doesn't condone cheating, and I bet this entire issue is frustrating for them...Sigil has asked their players to help them and asked for assistance finding methods to track them down...The same couls be done here...but it's not...what message does that send the players?? </blockquote>It's not that I'm passionate about "SOE's side"...It's just that I want to point out that they actually are doing things about the spam issue. Fixing this problem is not a magic-wand type of thing. There is no one simple fix that SOE can implement that will take the spam away. Hate to say it, but cheaters, theives, liars...these people are also smart (or have smart people behind them pulling the strings).I guess I fail to see how people who are not programmers, do not work for SOE, are not customer service reps, etc., can possibly give the be-all, end-all answer to this problem. SOE has given us tools, in the game (/report and /petition) that actually DO work. I know that it's not obvious from the player side of things, but they DO. Whenever I have petitioned about a spam plat-seller /tell, I have gotten a GM response usually within an hour or so. And then I don't see that particular player's name again. How is this not working?I agree that there probably are things that could be done to improve on what's already taking place, but how can I even pretend to know how to implement these things? I can't. I'm not a developer. I'm not a programmer. I may be a geek and a nerd and I may have an IT-related job...but that does not make me an expert on how SOE should handle this problem.SOE has also asked its players to help track down plat sellers. Why else do you think they gave us a "SPAM" button on our in-game email client? For fun? Why do we have a specific petition category for in-game solicitation? And let's not forget that Sigil and SOE are PARTNERS in relation to Vanguard. If it's ONLY Sigil doing all of this, why is the announcement listed on a station.com page?My point is that if you focus too narrow, you miss the larger picture. It's easy to sit back and blame SOE for everything and claim that they don't listen to us. I would counter that they DO listen to us. They even respond sometimes, in writing, on these forums! But it seems that some folks are never satisfied. Honestly...what would it take for you to believe that they DO actually investigate and ban people who are "cheating"? They've already told us that they are; they've posted an update about it (something I have never seen before in all my years of playing EQ/SWG/EQ2), and yet people still claim that nothing is being done.Also, and finally, I was trying to be FUNNY about "ANYTHING is better than..." That was my original intent. To point out how silly it sounds to claim that ANYTHING is better. ANYTHING means just that - ANYTHING. A rabid elephant, your computer being stolen, being run over by a car, plat sellers squatting in your inn room...see? Those things would all be included in "anything". But, alas, sometimes humor is hard to get across in a forum setting. </blockquote>Are you trying to say that out of 150,000 to 200,000 players that NONE of them are capable of giving knowledgeable advice to SOE? I know for a fact that there are game developers, data base coders and a whole host of sorted programers that play this game...and not one of them could give advice or ideas to SOE? Has SOE even ASKED? Come on now, you know that by anything I meant anything that would help eliminate the cheaters in the game...Let's not play symantecs.... Yes, Vanguard is covered under the SOE umbrella, but they have legal domain over their own product and as such can chose to handle the plat sellers in any way they see fit. I happen to like their heavy handed solution. I wish SOE would adopt the same stance. It's because they won't that leads me and many others to believe that they actually condone the actions of the plat sellers...We maybe wrong, but SOE has not given us any reason to think otherwise...They ban spammers but that works in their favor because then someone has to buy another account...if they started banning farmers/bots and plat buyers they would lose money...it's pretty obvious they are having financial problems with some of their products...and with Vanguard...Raising the price of Station Access plus the monthly subscription cost for several other games next month...they can't afford to ban those farmers/bots/buyers because they would lose even more money..They don't stand on principals...Removing cheaters>profits....it earns them respect...But then respect doesn't pay the bills....