Two more plat seeling companies today

[bleap]

I got tells and in game mail from two previously unheard of RMT companies today.... Your methods are working really well there SOE... No need to respond...we see what we see..

[Jerr]

<p>Obviously SOE has no intention of ever getting rid of plat spam.</p><p>These people pay for accounts and SOE will only put on window dressing to make us think they do something every once in awhile.</p><p>Not in SOE's interest (unfortunetly) to get rid of paying customers no matter how much they iritate other players. </p>

[Mawie]

Actually, it isn't in SOE's best interest to keep plat sellers around. Legit players are the people who will reccomend friends join them here in this game-- which means MORE revenue for SOE. If a legit player leaves because they are annoyed with the plat spam, that is lost marketing via word of mouth. And every major MMO supposedly has this plat spammer issue. It isn't like it is EQ2 specific.

[Dasein]

There is nothing the devs can do to prevent anyone from sending out in-game advertisements for any sort of service. However, I would be more worried if RMTs aren't looking to sell EQ2 goods and services, as it means they do not see EQ2 as a worthwhile market. A strong secondary market is a sign of a healthy game.

[interstellarmatter]

<p>Is this a welcome thread for them or what?</p>

[bensilvi]

Can a topic get anymore beaten to death? I mean come on really this is so old.

[bleap]

<cite>bensilvi wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can a topic get anymore beaten to death? I mean come on really this is so old.</blockquote>Terrorism is old too, shall we stop talking about that? or murder? Or coruption? Or blackmail? Or ...well just about anything annoying or illegal...... There might be a reason why a lot of players bring it up...some might see it as a blatant inability of SOE to police their own rules...some might see it as SOEs unwillingness to police their own rules...Some might even see it as turning a blind eye for the betterment of their bottom line... it's news when SOE claims to be getting a handle on the issue and then we see even more companies openly flaunting the TOS...And to top it off hiring someone who basically empowered the entire RMT market.... it speaks volumes about their real agenda don't ya think...

[Mawie]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bensilvi wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can a topic get anymore beaten to death? I mean come on really this is so old.</blockquote>Terrorism is old too, shall we stop talking about that? or murder? Or coruption? Or blackmail? Or ...well just about anything annoying or illegal...... There might be a reason why a lot of players bring it up...some might see it as a blatant inability of SOE to police their own rules...some might see it as SOEs unwillingness to police their own rules...Some might even see it as turning a blind eye for the betterment of their bottom line... it's news when SOE claims to be getting a handle on the issue and then we see even more companies openly flaunting the TOS...And to top it off hiring someone who basically empowered the entire RMT market.... it speaks volumes about their real agenda don't ya think... </blockquote>But your initial complaint was that SOE didn't preemptively stop the new guys... like they have any control over what other entities do or don't do. Unless you think they do have control, but it is clear from your posts you are a conspiracy nut.

[sah]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bensilvi wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can a topic get anymore beaten to death? I mean come on really this is so old.</blockquote>Terrorism is old too, shall we stop talking about that? or murder? Or coruption? Or blackmail? Or ...well just about anything annoying or illegal...... There might be a reason why a lot of players bring it up...some might see it as a blatant inability of SOE to police their own rules...some might see it as SOEs unwillingness to police their own rules...Some might even see it as turning a blind eye for the betterment of their bottom line... it's news when SOE claims to be getting a handle on the issue and then we see even more companies openly flaunting the TOS...And to top it off hiring someone who basically empowered the entire RMT market.... it speaks volumes about their real agenda don't ya think... </blockquote><p>so based on your post...all the murders that happen mean that the government is unwilling to try to stop it...</p><p>like everything that is illegal, this is a very difficult problem to solve...very smart people have been trying unsuccessfully for over a decade to solve this problem and you expect SOE to be able to just push a magic button and make this problem disappear...as mentioned before, EQ2 is not the only online game to have this problem...the only reason that his problem may appear to be more severe in EQ2 or WOW is because sellers focus their efforts on these games because of the large amounts of palyers... </p>

[kukubird]

What server?  Think station exchange servers have some exploit going on..  Where people are dumping 1000's of plat a day... but SOE's bells and whistles ( they say they have in place ) must be broke lmfao. If it is just a  regular server..... there is also another exploit starting to surface.... so probably they will slow down when someone at SOE actually gets a clue that something is very wrong right now. Until then probably expect 100's of new rmt traders to enter as they get the exploits..... on regualr servers... and if on SE enabled server... expect plat prices to drop to pennies until they fix that also.

[bleap]

<cite>sahet wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bensilvi wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can a topic get anymore beaten to death? I mean come on really this is so old.</blockquote>Terrorism is old too, shall we stop talking about that? or murder? Or coruption? Or blackmail? Or ...well just about anything annoying or illegal...... There might be a reason why a lot of players bring it up...some might see it as a blatant inability of SOE to police their own rules...some might see it as SOEs unwillingness to police their own rules...Some might even see it as turning a blind eye for the betterment of their bottom line... it's news when SOE claims to be getting a handle on the issue and then we see even more companies openly flaunting the TOS...And to top it off hiring someone who basically empowered the entire RMT market.... it speaks volumes about their real agenda don't ya think... </blockquote><p>so based on your post...all the murders that happen mean that the government is unwilling to try to stop it...</p><p>like everything that is illegal, this is a very difficult problem to solve...very smart people have been trying unsuccessfully for over a decade to solve this problem and you expect SOE to be able to just push a magic button and make this problem disappear...as mentioned before, EQ2 is not the only online game to have this problem...the only reason that his problem may appear to be more severe in EQ2 or WOW is because sellers focus their efforts on these games because of the large amounts of palyers... </p></blockquote>/boggle...try to stay on topic with me quoting the post there....NO...I was mearly asserting that there is no reason why we should stop posting I.E. complaining about in game advertising when SOE keeps assuring us that they are doing everything they can to stop it....They haven't given us chat filters, they haven't blocked IP strings, they haven't tried chat channels filters on their end...obviously they haven't tried everything... As for you assumtion that "very smart" people are trying to solve this problem...what proof do you have that SOE is really doing much of anything? Sure they made some changes that were suppose to put a dent in the number of messages we recieve....and along with  it make it harder for legitimate new players to communicate in game SO again I ask where is your proof? You have none....just like I have no hard evidence that they aren't....BUT I do have some pretty hard circumstantial eveidence that they aren't doing enough....

[bleap]

Mawie@Mistmoore wrote: <blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bensilvi wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can a topic get anymore beaten to death? I mean come on really this is so old.</blockquote>Terrorism is old too, shall we stop talking about that? or murder? Or coruption? Or blackmail? Or ...well just about anything annoying or illegal...... There might be a reason why a lot of players bring it up...some might see it as a blatant inability of SOE to police their own rules...some might see it as SOEs unwillingness to police their own rules...Some might even see it as turning a blind eye for the betterment of their bottom line... it's news when SOE claims to be getting a handle on the issue and then we see even more companies openly flaunting the TOS...And to top it off hiring someone who basically empowered the entire RMT market.... it speaks volumes about their real agenda don't ya think... </blockquote>But your initial complaint was that SOE didn't preemptively stop the new guys... like they have any control over what other entities do or don't do. Unless you think they do have control, but it is clear from your posts you are a conspiracy nut. </blockquote>Nooo...My initial post was an observation....nothing more...I recieved advertising from 2 more RMT companies and I was merely posting my observation that whatever SOE was doing to slow them was not working...In fact I have recieved more advertising from more RMT companies since the changes they made that were suppose to help control some of the ads... But like I posted to answer another message...they have other options that they haven't tried, and probably won't try...Like IP blocking, server wide chat filters or client side chat filters....NONE of which would remove the in game ads completely, but every little bit helps...I don't personally believe that SOE is doing it to be malicious or has anything to gain by not stopping them....But I was saying that it could easily be extrapilated that by not doing EVERYTHING in their power to stop the ads, they are actually turning a blind eye to it, if not doing it to pad their bottom line...

[liveja]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>BUT I do have some pretty hard circumstantial eveidence that they aren't doing enough.... </blockquote><p>From your point of view, they're not doing enough.</p><p>From my point of view, they've succeeded in eliminating plat seller spam almost entirely.</p><p>/shrug </p>

[liveja]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>But I was saying that it could easily be extrapilated that by not doing EVERYTHING in their power to stop the ads, they are actually turning a blind eye to it, if not doing it to pad their bottom line... </blockquote><p> It could just as easily be inferred that by not doing EVERYTHING in their power to stop the ads, SOE has decided that the impact of EVERYTHING possible would be too intrusive to legit customers, & thus, they decided not to do EVERYTHING.</p><p>When I played WoW, the same arguments were made there: that Blizzard wasn't doing EVERYTHING it could to stop the exploiting farmers that were driving the real money transfers, because Blizzard itself was profitting, or whatever. I didn't believe those conspiracy-nut claims then, & I don't give them any more credibility now when they're made about EQ2.</p>

[bleap]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>But I was saying that it could easily be extrapilated that by not doing EVERYTHING in their power to stop the ads, they are actually turning a blind eye to it, if not doing it to pad their bottom line... </blockquote><p> It could just as easily be inferred that by not doing EVERYTHING in their power to stop the ads, SOE has decided that the impact of EVERYTHING possible would be too intrusive to legit customers, & thus, they decided not to do EVERYTHING.</p><p>When I played WoW, the same arguments were made there: that Blizzard wasn't doing EVERYTHING it could to stop the exploiting farmers that were driving the real money transfers, because Blizzard itself was profitting, or whatever. I didn't believe those conspiracy-nut claims then, & I don't give them any more credibility now when they're made about EQ2.</p></blockquote>Yep, that's true enough...but I was posting reasons why people keep re opening this topic...No one really knows if SOE is benifiting from the coin sales...But it's a good bet they are profiting off the in game advetising...not on purpose, but the RMT companies have to buy the game software to open a new account right? SOE says that people with trial accounts can no longer send tells so they have to be making a bit of money on the sale of the software....

[Mawie]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Mawie@Mistmoore wrote: <blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bensilvi wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can a topic get anymore beaten to death? I mean come on really this is so old.</blockquote>Terrorism is old too, shall we stop talking about that? or murder? Or coruption? Or blackmail? Or ...well just about anything annoying or illegal...... There might be a reason why a lot of players bring it up...some might see it as a blatant inability of SOE to police their own rules...some might see it as SOEs unwillingness to police their own rules...Some might even see it as turning a blind eye for the betterment of their bottom line... it's news when SOE claims to be getting a handle on the issue and then we see even more companies openly flaunting the TOS...And to top it off hiring someone who basically empowered the entire RMT market.... it speaks volumes about their real agenda don't ya think... </blockquote>But your initial complaint was that SOE didn't preemptively stop the new guys... like they have any control over what other entities do or don't do. Unless you think they do have control, but it is clear from your posts you are a conspiracy nut. </blockquote>Nooo...My initial post was an observation....nothing more...I recieved advertising from 2 more RMT companies and I was merely posting my observation that whatever SOE was doing to slow them was not working...In fact I have recieved more advertising from more RMT companies since the changes they made that were suppose to help control some of the ads... But like I posted to answer another message...they have other options that they haven't tried, and probably won't try...Like IP blocking, server wide chat filters or client side chat filters....NONE of which would remove the in game ads completely, but every little bit helps...I don't personally believe that SOE is doing it to be malicious or has anything to gain by not stopping them....But I was saying that it could easily be extrapilated that by not doing EVERYTHING in their power to stop the ads, they are actually turning a blind eye to it, if not doing it to pad their bottom line... </blockquote>Except I gave a perfectly good reason why SOE would not want to keep these spammers around, which you have yet to even address. Why would SOE want to get rid of legit players who are the best (and cheapest) marketing tool SOE has? Banning IP addresses could potentially block out genuine, good players from regions people have charactorized as being gold seller havens. Not only that, but then it would be a form of SOE discriminating against people because someone may or may not sell gold. That is a good reason not to do that. Chat filters, and let's be real for a moment, as that has been suggested to death, for every word added to the filter, the spammer could EASILY find a way around it. They will be ahead of the curve. SOE can't think of every possible thing a spammer could and would do to get around that. You really don't have any good, hard evidence that SOE isn't doing anything beyond some conspiracies and opinions that you tout as the truth. On the contrary, I have seen a lot less of our original spamming friends around, which to me says that SOE has done something.

[Mawie]

Oh, and the game is selling for like, what, $20 at this point? I doubt SOE is profiting much from the original game deployed at launch. And plat farmers/sellers don't really need expansions to do what they do.

[sah]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>/boggle...try to stay on topic with me quoting the post there....NO...I was mearly asserting that there is no reason why we should stop posting I.E. complaining about in game advertising when SOE keeps assuring us that they are doing everything they can to stop it....They haven't given us chat filters, they haven't blocked IP strings, they haven't tried chat channels filters on their end...obviously they haven't tried everything... As for you assumtion that "very smart" people are trying to solve this problem...what proof do you have that SOE is really doing much of anything? Sure they made some changes that were suppose to put a dent in the number of messages we recieve....and along with  it make it harder for legitimate new players to communicate in game SO again I ask where is your proof? You have none....just like I have no hard evidence that they aren't....BUT I do have some pretty hard circumstantial eveidence that they aren't doing enough.... </blockquote><p> uhmm...you're the one who originally went off topic by mentioning murders and terrorism...if you don't want people quoting you then don't say it...and if you want people to stay on topic, then you should too...</p><p>and I wasn't talking SOE trying to solve this problem...I was talking about online spam in general...I've had professors that are Turing award winners and do research on spam filtering but guess what, I still receive about 3 spam emails per day...hell, I even receive a spam text message on my cell phone every once in a while...if Microsoft and Google can't stop spam what makes you think SOE can?  I've implemented a simple email spam filter based on simple statistical learning principles so I am very well aware of their flaws...</p><p>and about your ideas...blocking IP strings won't work...you're the one who talks about SOE's previous actions making it harder for legitimate new players...I remember someone once suggested in another thread about just blocking all of China...talk about hurting legitimate players.  and do you have any idea how easy it is to find someone else's IP address and make it appear as if it's your own?  I do, cuz uhmm...I've done it! (now don't go calling the FBI about me!)  seriously, if I were working for plat farmers and SOE did implement this, what I would do is attack top guilds' websites to get the guild members' IP addresses then use those to get them banned...now that would be fun!  <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  even if the spammers don't do that, it would still be very easy to just use random IP addresss...</p><p>chat filtering is not as easy either...if you're talking about looking for specific words or websites, this sort of thing would be virtually impossible...as anyone can tell you, geting through a simple chat filter (such as the language filter) is trivial but more sophisticated filters take significantly more time to run which would mean more lag...this is essentially the same problem as email spam filters except that now you need the algorithm to run in real-time...</p><p>if you're talking about something like filtering chat from low levels which is an idea that I personally would like to see implemented...yeah, blocking tells from people on free trial accounts hurts legitimate players...how about blocking tells from anyone below lvl 70???  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>and I'm not sure what you mean by "chat channels filters"...personally I have yet to see a single plat spam in a public channel although, frankly, I'm not sure why...channels like the global class channels would be an ideal target for plat spam if I were a plat spammer...</p>

[bleap]

Mawie@Mistmoore wrote: <blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Mawie@Mistmoore wrote: <blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bensilvi wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can a topic get anymore beaten to death? I mean come on really this is so old.</blockquote>Terrorism is old too, shall we stop talking about that? or murder? Or coruption? Or blackmail? Or ...well just about anything annoying or illegal...... There might be a reason why a lot of players bring it up...some might see it as a blatant inability of SOE to police their own rules...some might see it as SOEs unwillingness to police their own rules...Some might even see it as turning a blind eye for the betterment of their bottom line... it's news when SOE claims to be getting a handle on the issue and then we see even more companies openly flaunting the TOS...And to top it off hiring someone who basically empowered the entire RMT market.... it speaks volumes about their real agenda don't ya think... </blockquote>But your initial complaint was that SOE didn't preemptively stop the new guys... like they have any control over what other entities do or don't do. Unless you think they do have control, but it is clear from your posts you are a conspiracy nut. </blockquote>Nooo...My initial post was an observation....nothing more...I recieved advertising from 2 more RMT companies and I was merely posting my observation that whatever SOE was doing to slow them was not working...In fact I have recieved more advertising from more RMT companies since the changes they made that were suppose to help control some of the ads... But like I posted to answer another message...they have other options that they haven't tried, and probably won't try...Like IP blocking, server wide chat filters or client side chat filters....NONE of which would remove the in game ads completely, but every little bit helps...I don't personally believe that SOE is doing it to be malicious or has anything to gain by not stopping them....But I was saying that it could easily be extrapilated that by not doing EVERYTHING in their power to stop the ads, they are actually turning a blind eye to it, if not doing it to pad their bottom line... </blockquote>Except I gave a perfectly good reason why SOE would not want to keep these spammers around, which you have yet to even address. Why would SOE want to get rid of legit players who are the best (and cheapest) marketing tool SOE has? Banning IP addresses could potentially block out genuine, good players from regions people have charactorized as being gold seller havens. Not only that, but then it would be a form of SOE discriminating against people because someone may or may not sell gold. That is a good reason not to do that. Chat filters, and let's be real for a moment, as that has been suggested to death, for every word added to the filter, the spammer could EASILY find a way around it. They will be ahead of the curve. SOE can't think of every possible thing a spammer could and would do to get around that. You really don't have any good, hard evidence that SOE isn't doing anything beyond some conspiracies and opinions that you tout as the truth. <span style="color: #ff0033">On the contrary, I have seen a lot less of our original spamming friends around, which to me says that SOE has done something. </span> </blockquote>That's why we have now gone from 2 companies spamming us to 6? Where you find inconsistancies with a story you will find conspiracy theories....SOEs claims that they are working on the situation and doing more to prevent the in games ads while all the time we are getting more ads from more companies don't mesh...it would be better for SOE to just come out and admit they can do little or nothing to prevent the in game tells and mail, and then just let the players decide if they can continue to play with a few interuptions...Instead they treat us like mushrooms on nearly every topic that the players take issue with....including this one...they keep us in the dark and feed us manure...

[liveja]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>it would be better for SOE to just come out and admit they can do little or nothing to prevent the in game tells and mail</blockquote><p>Common sense tells us that's precisely the issue: they can do little or nothing.</p><p>Common sense, unfortunately, is something rarely exercised by those inclined to conspiracy theories.</p>

[bleap]

<cite>sahet wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>/boggle...try to stay on topic with me quoting the post there....NO...I was mearly asserting that there is no reason why we should stop posting I.E. complaining about in game advertising when SOE keeps assuring us that they are doing everything they can to stop it....They haven't given us chat filters, they haven't blocked IP strings, they haven't tried chat channels filters on their end...obviously they haven't tried everything... As for you assumtion that "very smart" people are trying to solve this problem...what proof do you have that SOE is really doing much of anything? Sure they made some changes that were suppose to put a dent in the number of messages we recieve....and along with  it make it harder for legitimate new players to communicate in game SO again I ask where is your proof? You have none....just like I have no hard evidence that they aren't....BUT I do have some pretty hard circumstantial eveidence that they aren't doing enough.... </blockquote><p> uhmm...you're the one who originally went off topic by mentioning murders and terrorism...if you don't want people quoting you then don't say it...and if you want people to stay on topic, then you should too...</p><p>and I wasn't talking SOE trying to solve this problem...I was talking about online spam in general...I've had professors that are Turing award winners and do research on spam filtering but guess what, I still receive about 3 spam emails per day...hell, I even receive a spam text message on my cell phone every once in a while...if Microsoft and Google can't stop spam what makes you think SOE can?  I've implemented a simple email spam filter based on simple statistical learning principles so I am very well aware of their flaws...</p><p>and about your ideas...blocking IP strings won't work...you're the one who talks about SOE's previous actions making it harder for legitimate new players...I remember someone once suggested in another thread about just blocking all of China...talk about hurting legitimate players.  and do you have any idea how easy it is to find someone else's IP address and make it appear as if it's your own?  I do, cuz uhmm...I've done it! (now don't go calling the FBI about me!)  seriously, if I were working for plat farmers and SOE did implement this, what I would do is attack top guilds' websites to get the guild members' IP addresses then use those to get them banned...now that would be fun!  <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  even if the spammers don't do that, it would still be very easy to just use random IP addresss...</p><p>chat filtering is not as easy either...if you're talking about looking for specific words or websites, this sort of thing would be virtually impossible...as anyone can tell you, geting through a simple chat filter (such as the language filter) is trivial but more sophisticated filters take significantly more time to run which would mean more lag...this is essentially the same problem as email spam filters except that now you need the algorithm to run in real-time...</p><p>if you're talking about something like filtering chat from low levels which is an idea that I personally would like to see implemented...yeah, blocking tells from people on free trial accounts hurts legitimate players...how about blocking tells from anyone below lvl 70???  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>and I'm not sure what you mean by "chat channels filters"...personally I have yet to see a single plat spam in a public channel although, frankly, I'm not sure why...channels like the global class channels would be an ideal target for plat spam if I were a plat spammer...</p></blockquote>I was drawing anology with the post about why people insist on re opening this topic...It had nothing to do with changing the topic at large... Chat channel filters....Server side filters that would block certain keywords...again, according to people here won't work, even though there is already a chat filter in the game know as the "bad word filter"..... Again, it probably would be better if SOE just admited that they cannot remove the advertisers from the game and let the players decide if they can handle the intrusions....it certainly would look better for them than having these companies laugh every time they find another exploit to get around whatever SOE is attempting to block..

[bleap]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>it would be better for SOE to just come out and admit they can do little or nothing to prevent the in game tells and mail</blockquote><p>Common sense tells us that's precisely the issue: they can do little or nothing.</p><p>Common sense, unfortunately, is something rarely exercised by those inclined to conspiracy theories.</p></blockquote>Then why do they insist on blowing smoke up our butts and tell us what they are doing to prevent the in game ads...How about they just throw their hands into the air and admit they can't fix it...

[liveja]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Chat channel filters....Server side filters that would block certain keywords...again, according to people here won't work, even though there is already a chat filter in the game know as the "bad word filter"</blockquote><p>Yes, a "bad word" filter that can be very easily gotten around, simply by changing the text a little. After all, why do you think people spell it "[Removed for Content]"?</p><p>That's why people keep telling you that text filtering doesn't work very well. I think that point has been made *repeatedly*, & I just demonstrated one example.</p>

[liveja]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Then why do they insist on blowing smoke up our butts and tell us what they are doing to prevent the in game ads</blockquote><p>OK, how's this sound: Common sense tells me that SOE has already done everything it deems "reasonable".</p><p>Now, you get to decide whether or not what they've done fits your definition of "reasonable", & then take appropriate action.</p>

[sah]

<img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />bleap wrote: <blockquote>Chat channel filters....Server side filters that would block certain keywords...again, according to people here won't work, even though there is already a chat filter in the game know as the "bad word filter"..... Again, it probably would be better if SOE just admited that they cannot remove the advertisers from the game and let the players decide if they can handle the intrusions....it certainly would look better for them than having these companies laugh every time they find another exploit to get around whatever SOE is attempting to block.. </blockquote><p> the bad word filter is horrible...as someone just said, if it blocked [Removed for Content] all someone has to do is type [Removed for Content], or even harder to block, p orn, po rn, por n, p 0rn, p0 rn, p0r n.....  now before you go saying "[Removed for Content]! just remove spaces", how about iwatchporneverynight...do you have any idea how many freakin iterations a computer would have to go through to find that one word especially if the filter is simultaneously looking for a hundred or more different words???  and then there's the good old P.O.R.N.  now you can remove punctuation, so what about when PL/T becomes PLT???  I know that all of these things seem really stupid to a person reading it, but when it actually comes down to making a computer understand this sort of stuff, it is incredibly difficult...</p><p>just because SOE doesn't say what they're currently trying to do stop spammers doesn't mean that they are doing nothing...it is actually very smart to not say what they are doing...when trial accounts were banned from sending tells, plat spam almost completely disappeared for a month or two, probably while the accountants for the plat spammers were calculating how profitable it would be for them to switch over to real accounts...now if SOE had announced this change months in advance, it probably would have only stopped spam for a day or two before the spammers were back up and running...every little bit of information that SOE releases, gives the plat selling operations more info that they can use to bypass SOE's security measures...</p><p>and EQ2 is not the only game with spam...if you go to the WoW boards you see just as many posts about spam...and really, the only difference between EQ2 and Vanguard is that Vanguard GM's send out really annoying and useless messages every time they ban someone...if you are some weird conspiracy theorist who thinks that SOE is working with plat sellers, then you have to say they same thing about Blizzard and Sigil and pretty much every other online game company...although the recent hiring at SOE is quite suspicious...  <img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Mawie]

Here's something I just thought of... In reality, if SOE announced what they were doing or planned on doing, the spammers would catch wind of it, and just do what it takes to get around it. Then what? SOE doesn't have this crystal ball bleap seems so convinced they do have. As for SOE just giving up and saying they can't or won't do anything about it, I can bet that bleap would be back here moaning that SOE doesn't care enough to fix the problem. So, basically, SOE is screwed.

[Mawie]

...and I should have read Sahet's post. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Despak]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>it would be better for SOE to just come out and admit they can do little or nothing to prevent the in game tells and mail</blockquote><p>Common sense tells us that's precisely the issue: they can do little or nothing.</p><p>Common sense, unfortunately, is something rarely exercised by those inclined to conspiracy theories.</p></blockquote>Then why do they insist on blowing smoke up our butts and tell us what they are doing to prevent the in game ads...How about they just throw their hands into the air and admit they can't fix it... </blockquote><p>I know what they could do, track all the coin movement in the game and ban anyone found to have plat that came from a specific source.  Of course a few "innocents" may get banned but then they shouldn't allow their goods to be bought by people that buy plat.</p><p> In reality I think they have done everything they can do to stop plat sellers, and can only continue relying of /reports to keep banning new sellers. </p>

[Despak]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Mawie@Mistmoore wrote: <blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Mawie@Mistmoore wrote: <blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bensilvi wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can a topic get anymore beaten to death? I mean come on really this is so old.</blockquote>Terrorism is old too, shall we stop talking about that? or murder? Or coruption? Or blackmail? Or ...well just about anything annoying or illegal...... There might be a reason why a lot of players bring it up...some might see it as a blatant inability of SOE to police their own rules...some might see it as SOEs unwillingness to police their own rules...Some might even see it as turning a blind eye for the betterment of their bottom line... it's news when SOE claims to be getting a handle on the issue and then we see even more companies openly flaunting the TOS...And to top it off hiring someone who basically empowered the entire RMT market.... it speaks volumes about their real agenda don't ya think... </blockquote>But your initial complaint was that SOE didn't preemptively stop the new guys... like they have any control over what other entities do or don't do. Unless you think they do have control, but it is clear from your posts you are a conspiracy nut. </blockquote>Nooo...My initial post was an observation....nothing more...I recieved advertising from 2 more RMT companies and I was merely posting my observation that whatever SOE was doing to slow them was not working...In fact I have recieved more advertising from more RMT companies since the changes they made that were suppose to help control some of the ads... But like I posted to answer another message...they have other options that they haven't tried, and probably won't try...Like IP blocking, server wide chat filters or client side chat filters....NONE of which would remove the in game ads completely, but every little bit helps...I don't personally believe that SOE is doing it to be malicious or has anything to gain by not stopping them....But I was saying that it could easily be extrapilated that by not doing EVERYTHING in their power to stop the ads, they are actually turning a blind eye to it, if not doing it to pad their bottom line... </blockquote>Except I gave a perfectly good reason why SOE would not want to keep these spammers around, which you have yet to even address. Why would SOE want to get rid of legit players who are the best (and cheapest) marketing tool SOE has? Banning IP addresses could potentially block out genuine, good players from regions people have charactorized as being gold seller havens. Not only that, but then it would be a form of SOE discriminating against people because someone may or may not sell gold. That is a good reason not to do that. Chat filters, and let's be real for a moment, as that has been suggested to death, for every word added to the filter, the spammer could EASILY find a way around it. They will be ahead of the curve. SOE can't think of every possible thing a spammer could and would do to get around that. You really don't have any good, hard evidence that SOE isn't doing anything beyond some conspiracies and opinions that you tout as the truth. On the contrary, I have seen a lot less of our original spamming friends around, which to me says that SOE has done something. </blockquote>That's why we have now gone from 2 companies spamming us to 6? Where you find inconsistancies with a story you will find conspiracy theories....SOEs claims that they are working on the situation and doing more to prevent the in games ads while all the time we are getting more ads from more companies don't mesh...it would be better for SOE to just come out and admit they can do little or nothing to prevent the in game tells and mail, and then just let the players decide if they can continue to play with a few interuptions...Instead they treat us like mushrooms on nearly every topic that the players take issue with....including this one...they keep us in the dark and feed us manure... </blockquote><p>I think you'll find all those companies start up advertising WoW gold more than EQ2.  We're just a side market.</p><p>Even the mighty anti plat seller Vanguard can't stop them.</p><p>Although, of course, our amazing player base of the best coders in the world could, I'm sure, do a better job than all the games companies out there. </p><p>Or then again, they could just be armchair warriors that bleat about everything, sure in the knowledge that they'll never actually have to prove that they aren't anything more than whining idiots without a clue how to code a game on the scale of an MMO.</p>

[sah]

Despak wrote: <blockquote>I know what they could do, track all the coin movement in the game and ban anyone found to have plat that came from a specific source.  Of course a few "innocents" may get banned but then they shouldn't allow their goods to be bought by people that buy plat.</blockquote> Actually, I think that they already do some tracking...but if they do ban someone, you'll never know about it...and legitimate players who are investigated generally don't talk about it.....

[tass]

lol and maybe god will come down and police the servers to. I got a message to day in my mailbox from some [Removed for Content] who has actually established a credit company for the sales of plat. Im waiting for the irs or someone to get in there and start confiscating armor and things to make payments on added credit charges.

[Kri]

<p>Just keep reporting them. It won't make them go away, but it's better than doing nothing. The other day I got my third email spammer banned. For some reason, the stupid mofos are always standing at the same mailbox. Report the email and then send in a petition. The GMs have responded very quickly in all three cases.</p><p>You can play around with filters and heuristic searches all you want but if there are ways around it, the plat seeling companies will find them. That's why the actions of the community play a crucial role in limiting the disturbance of these companies. It's our responsibility to keep our "playground" clean. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Despak]

Shadowbreath@Splitpaw wrote: <blockquote><p>Just keep reporting them. It won't make them go away, but it's better than doing nothing. The other day I got my third email spammer banned. For some reason, the stupid mofos are always standing at the same mailbox. Report the email and then send in a petition. The GMs have responded very quickly in all three cases.</p><p>You can play around with filters and heuristic searches all you want but if there are ways around it, the plat seeling companies will find them. That's why the actions of the community play a crucial role in limiting the disturbance of these companies. It's our responsibility to keep our "playground" clean. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote><p> Oi Shadowbreath; what do you think you are doing?  You are not supposed to be here unless you are ranting and raving about SoE personally sponsoring plat selling and ignoring everything.</p><p> Gawd, some people <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Sunlei]

<p>  yes a couple new urls sent for different selling websites. so? that's the way it always has been, there are a few big fish sellers and the small fry come and go. heck the big sellers I bet even 'report' the small fry and get rid of them for us.</p><p> I think soe is doing a good job stopping the mailers and in game tell senders. It's very rare I ever get a second mail or tell from the same name twice.</p><p> If you noticed in the world news..china has "closed the internet" for their people. They have no access to outside their own country. What does this mean for the gold sellers and us the players? some of the people who would 'work' for cheap gathering golds for wholesale sales to the selling sites are no more. I'm sure they will find more peon wage slaves. This could be related to their gold site changes..who knows what goes on in the world of amassing play money.</p><p>  Still see the major plat buyers on the brokers. One or 2 on every server. Can't tell me someone who has 10 pages of worthless markers for sale for 100plats-999 plats is on the broker for any other reason then wholesale plat sales. Not sure why soe leaves these big fish alone, <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> have some imo guesses though.</p>

[bleap]

Just an update...I got another new one today...that's 3 in 2 days....Is there a new exploit that is allowing them to multiply??? Seriously...It doesn't matter to me any more..in fact I am thinking about starting to buy plat to outfit all 6 of my level 70 toons in fabled..I should be able to recoup my costs by selling an account with 6 level 70 toons all fabled out right? I mean RMT can be done the other way...selling the entire account, I might even be able to turn a profit...

[bleap]

<cite>Sunlei wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>  yes a couple new urls sent for different selling websites. so? that's the way it always has been, there are a few big fish sellers and the small fry come and go. heck the big sellers I bet even 'report' the small fry and get rid of them for us.</p><p> I think soe is doing a good job stopping the mailers and in game tell senders. It's very rare I ever get a second mail or tell from the same name twice.</p><p> If you noticed in the world news..china has "closed the internet" for their people. They have no access to outside their own country. What does this mean for the gold sellers and us the players? some of the people who would 'work' for cheap gathering golds for wholesale sales to the selling sites are no more. I'm sure they will find more peon wage slaves. This could be related to their gold site changes..who knows what goes on in the world of amassing play money.</p><p>  Still see the major plat buyers on the brokers. One or 2 on every server. Can't tell me someone who has 10 pages of worthless markers for sale for 100plats-999 plats is on the broker for any other reason then wholesale plat sales. Not sure why soe leaves these big fish alone, <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> have some imo guesses though.</p></blockquote>You asume that all coin sellers are chinese nationals? If in fact the Chinese government has made a "Chinese population only" version of the internet it would be a pretty good bet that indeed some or all of these plat sellers are not Chinese at all...or at least Taiwanese....My guess is that China doesn't have very good control over their "intranet" and people get access to the WWW anyway...

[Te'ana]

<p>/ignore is not enough. Even though I am on Station Exchange where there are legal ways to buy plat and characters I am still inundated with tells from plat farmers and 'leveling ' services. I dpon't want anymore e-mails or tells by such people.</p><p>However, if it wasn't profittable the poor plat people wouldn't even bother with Station Echange.</p>

[sah]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just an update...I got another new one today...that's 3 in 2 days....Is there a new exploit that is allowing them to multiply??? </blockquote><p> You must have like a bullseye on your back or something...I was online for about 5 hours today and didn't receive a single plat tell and I don't even use roleplay/anon...</p><p>and just because the companies have different names, doesn't necessarily mean that they're not being run by the same people...I have yet to receive a single tell/email from anyone other than gmworker so I don't know what's really going on...</p>

[Rahatmattata]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>I got tells and in game mail from two previously unheard of RMT companies today.... Your methods are working really well there SOE... No need to respond...we see what we see.. </blockquote><p> Yea, blame SOE like it's really their fault. There's nothing they can do, plat sellers can't be stopped by SOE or any other MMOG company. If it's really that big of a deal, stop buying platz and the sellers will dissappear off the face of Norrath forever. Instead of blaming SOE, why not put the blame where it really belongs: on the community. We are the ones buying the plat. We are the ones providing these RMT companies with a business. Whether you buy tons of plat on a regualar basis, or you're the guy that once a long time ago bought 10 bucks worth of plat, the community is to blame. Not SOE, and not the plat sellers. SOE has even gone to the extent of creating whole servers for people to legally participate in RMT, yet the community *STILL* choses to blatently disregard the eula and purchase coins outside of those servers.</p><p>I'd rather SOE concentrate their time money and efforts on creating exciting and challenging new content than trying to mess with plat sellers who won't go away because their (SOE's) own customers keep buying it. I know some of you just find it the most annoying thing ever in life, but it's just some purple text popping in your chat box once or twice every day or 2, and maybe a letter in your mailbox.. big deal. They aren't using vulgar language or sending you dirty tells or mail, so ignore it, report it, delete it, move on. SOE is doing what they can, but they can't stop it, only we can (and it's quite obvious we won't).</p><p>(no I'm not a fanboi)</p>

[Despak]

<cite>JohnDoe061 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>I got tells and in game mail from two previously unheard of RMT companies today.... Your methods are working really well there SOE... No need to respond...we see what we see.. </blockquote><p> Yea, blame SOE like it's really their fault. There's nothing they can do, plat sellers can't be stopped by SOE or any other MMOG company. If it's really that big of a deal, stop buying platz and the sellers will dissappear off the face of Norrath forever. Instead of blaming SOE, why not put the blame where it really belongs: on the community. We are the ones buying the plat. We are the ones providing these RMT companies with a business. Whether you buy tons of plat on a regualar basis, or you're the guy that once a long time ago bought 10 bucks worth of plat, the community is to blame. Not SOE, and not the plat sellers. SOE has even gone to the extent of creating whole servers for people to legally participate in RMT, yet the community *STILL* choses to blatently disregard the eula and purchase coins outside of those servers.</p><p>I'd rather SOE concentrate their time money and efforts on creating exciting and challenging new content than trying to mess with plat sellers who won't go away because their (SOE's) own customers keep buying it. I know some of you just find it the most annoying thing ever in life, but it's just some purple text popping in your chat box once or twice every day or 2, and maybe a letter in your mailbox.. big deal. They aren't using vulgar language or sending you dirty tells or mail, so ignore it, report it, delete it, move on. SOE is doing what they can, but they can't stop it, only we can (and it's quite obvious we won't).</p><p>(no I'm not a fanboi)</p></blockquote><p>QFE.</p><p>Finally someone has more brains than to ignore the true root of the problem.  There is a percentage of this community that are a bunch of plat buying, cheating a-holes.  if they weren't then we wouldn't have this problem.</p><p>I wonder; are the folk getting 4000 tells and mail an hour on some sort of mailing list? Exagerrating? more than likely! </p>

[liveja]

<cite>JohnDoe061 wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'd rather SOE concentrate their time money and efforts on creating exciting and challenging new content than trying to mess with plat sellers who won't go away because their (SOE's) own customers keep buying it. I know some of you just find it the most annoying thing ever in life, but it's just some purple text popping in your chat box once or twice every day or 2, and maybe a letter in your mailbox.. big deal. They aren't using vulgar language or sending you dirty tells or mail, so ignore it, report it, delete it, move on. SOE is doing what they can, but they can't stop it, only we can (and it's quite obvious we won't).</p></blockquote><p>QFE. I'm still struggling to figure out why people get into such a tizzy over someone sending them a few lines of text. People act like they got personally violated or something.</p>

[liveja]

Despak wrote: <blockquote><p>I wonder; are the folk getting 4000 tells and mail an hour on some sort of mailing list? Exagerrating? more than likely! </p></blockquote><p>I can't help wondering if some of the people who claim to get so much plat spam, get it because they're already known customers.</p>

[Rijacki]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just an update...I got another new one today...that's 3 in 2 days....Is there a new exploit that is allowing them to multiply??? Seriously...It doesn't matter to me any more..in fact I am thinking about starting to buy plat to outfit all 6 of my level 70 toons in fabled..I should be able to recoup my costs by selling an account with 6 level 70 toons all fabled out right? I mean RMT can be done the other way...selling the entire account, I might even be able to turn a profit... </blockquote> 3 in 2 days? When it was bad, before SOE started implementing changes and restricting the trial accounts, I would get 2 to 3 an -hour- whether I was on Guk or AB. The amount of plat spam HAS reduced.  Every once in a while it will spike and be 2-3 in a week (which could be across the span of 2 days in that week), with several weeks of nada. Yes, I find it irritating and wish it would all stop. I'm a realist, though, and see the trickle now vs the flood before as proof positive there are measures in place from SOE's side to combat it. I find those who buy or say they'll buy "because everyone else is", even if they're only saying it in 'jest', to be far more irritating.  It's the buyers that keep those businesses running. If you want to participate in RMT, transfer to the Exchange server (it's a FREE transfer at all times).  Use the Exchange service: buy your plat, sell your characters, whatever you want.  But, if you sell, or say you'll sell on a non-Exchange server, you are adding to the problem.

[Kenazeer]

I wonder if any people will be affected in transferring toons by the "nothing in your incoming...mailbox" rule. It would be nice if SOE could give us a switch to set so no mail is accepted during the transfer period.

[liveja]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>selling the entire account, I might even be able to turn a profit... </blockquote><p>I looked into selling my WoW account, just to see what I'd get for it. 2 level 60s, one of them in mostly epics, one of them with a couple hundred gold -- nothing "uber", but solid, well-equipped level 60 characters just in time for the expansion & leveling to 70.</p><p>I was offered $80. $80 for more than a year's worth of gameplay & memories. I laughed & deleted the offer without responding. So I'd have to say that unless you've got multiple level 70s & they're all Fabled & Mastered out, don't bother.</p>

[Kosh]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote>Despak wrote: <blockquote><p>I wonder; are the folk getting 4000 tells and mail an hour on some sort of mailing list? Exagerrating? more than likely! </p></blockquote><p>I can't help wondering if some of the people who claim to get so much plat spam, get it because they're already known customers.</p></blockquote> I wonder the opposite. I can't help wondering if some of the people, who claim that plat sale mail and tells are nothing to worry about, buy plat. 

[mellowknees72]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>...selling the entire account, I might even be able to turn a profit... </blockquote><p> ...please do...it seems like you're torturing yourself playing this game.  All I see are complaints from you - from your very first post where you said "I usually just read these posts and laugh at a lot of the people who post here."</p><p>If you don't like SOE, and apparently playing EQ2 just makes you so angry you can't take it, and you don't like any of us who post regularly on these boards...</p><p>...why in the heck are you playing?</p>

[liveja]

Kosh@Blackburrow wrote: <blockquote><cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote>Despak wrote: <blockquote><p>I wonder; are the folk getting 4000 tells and mail an hour on some sort of mailing list? Exagerrating? more than likely! </p></blockquote><p>I can't help wondering if some of the people who claim to get so much plat spam, get it because they're already known customers.</p></blockquote> I wonder the opposite. I can't help wondering if some of the people, who claim that plat sale mail and tells are nothing to worry about, buy plat. </blockquote><p>That may be true of some; it's not true of me. I've earned every copper penny I have.</p><p><img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p>

[sah]

Kosh@Blackburrow wrote: <blockquote>I wonder the opposite. I can't help wondering if some of the people, who claim that plat sale mail and tells are nothing to worry about, buy plat. </blockquote><p>Actually, I think it's more of a psychological thing.  The people who say they don't get a lot of plat spam are the people who don't let themselves get annoyed by the spam...I know that in my case, I never spend more than half a second thinking about a plat spammer's tell so I probably forget about the tells and under-estimate the actual number of tells I've received.  On the other hand, people who claim about a hundred tells per day, are the people who get severely annoyed and can continue thinking about a single plat spam tell ten minutes after they received it and they are probably the same people who spend a minute or two after receiving a tell spamming the spammer back...so in their case, they probably over-estimate the actual number of tells they've received...</p><p>Also, my theory is that plat spammers use a 3rd party program to send out their spam and that the same program logs their replies and interprets those replies as interest in their services...and they basically sort their list of people to spam based on interest...so highest on the list would be people who have bought plat, then people who reply to tells, then people who don't reply to tells, and at the bottom are people who aren't online...and if someone gets low enough on their list, then they start to cut back on tells to that person since it's a waste of their resources... </p>

[wilba]

<p>Yeah they annoy the becheapers out of me too as it appears they promote their empire more often when there is no OFFICE hours SOE action.</p><p>Try being online when the Aussies are regularly playing during the week and see if you get a LOT of their spam. They also tend to camp and fire up a new account after approximately 30mins and start again which beats the ignore to hell.</p><p> Funny how SOE find the time to cut small things like sharebank access to Newbie isles sharebank but still won't cut the Direct tell chat from players under level 10 which is probably the best way to address it.</p><p>(under level 10 is best since I was getting tells in sets of three AND email spams from a level 1 clown in Willow Wood on the weekend)</p><p>If you need  to have dialogue with someone on the isles you can chat down to the 1-9 open chat or if need be they should implement a Filter system that allows players on guild/friends list to bypass the under level 10 chat block.</p><p>Come on SOE try someting constructive instead of just peeing on the paying players parade with nasty little LU additions like reducing twinked newbie isle  fun!</p><p>I believe I am PAYING SOE to play this game, the whole point is to ACHIEVE my petty goals (whatever they may be) in the game MYSELF ( tend to get a LOT of satisfaction from these simple tasks, the REASON I play EQ2). I sure as hell don't see why I should pay some GF buttmunkee to harvest nodes and goldrape mobs I am after.  AND to top it off the players who BUY their PL services are PAYING SOE so these guys can PLAY the game free?  Hmmm.... how do I get a job there? ;p</p>

[Lord_Quaymar]

<cite>bleap wrote:</cite><blockquote>I got tells and in game mail from two previously unheard of RMT companies today.... Your methods are working really well there SOE... No need to respond...we see what we see.. </blockquote><p> <img src="http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p147/Quaymar/ohnoomg.gif" border="0"></p><p>Every game has them. NONE of them have been able to get rid of them. Report and petition then move on and get over it....no sense letting it spoil your fun.</p>

[Raveller]

<p>As others have pointed out in the numerous threads on this subject, the solution lies not in attempting to eliminate the plat sellers, since they are driven by real world profit motives. The solution to the problem lies with the subcribers who buy the plat. </p><p>SOE has already built the solution to the problem, they simply need to choose to use the tools they have created. Identifying players who buy the plat would really only need a little detective work using queries on the data already collected (presumably) with every trade and broker purchase made in the game. Once a plat buyer has been positively identified, SOE need only transfer all of the characters on that account to an Exchange server (which is where that player belongs in the first place) applying all of the in-place rules for character transfers to Exchange servers, and restrict that account to only creating new characters on Exchange servers. </p><p>Plat buying players would be happier since they would now be playing in the ruleset environment designed to specifically cater to their gaming interests, which they somehow didn't learn about when they started playing. The plat sellers would find a continuously shrinking market on the normal servers, making the normal servers less and less profitable.</p>

[montaillou]

Raveller wrote: <blockquote><p>The solution to the problem lies with the subcribers who buy the plat. </p><p>Once a plat buyer has been positively identified, SOE need only transfer all of the characters on that account to an Exchange server (which is where that player belongs in the first place) applying all of the in-place rules for character transfers to Exchange servers, and restrict that account to only creating new characters on Exchange servers. </p><p>Plat buying players would be happier...</p></blockquote><p>So, the answer is to coddle ppl that break the rules?  No way.  SOE should investigate, and follow the movements of the sellers, find out who the buyers are and BAN THEM ALL.  Oh, and other games should too.  Just because it's happening to practically every other game isn't an excuse.</p><p>Of course SOE won't do that.  If alot of ppl weren't already buying plat/items then it wouldn't be profitable to farm them.  Ban the farmers and they'll be back, ban the players and they probably won't be.</p><p>SOE should know that I have a limit as to how much spam I'm willing to put up with, and I'm almost at my limit.   Since I can't do anything about the sellers, my only recourse of avoidance would be to cancel the game.  I play to have fun, if I'm not having fun, I'm sure not gonna pay for the misery. </p>

[Raveller]

<cite>montaillou wrote:</cite><blockquote>Raveller wrote: <blockquote><p>The solution to the problem lies with the subcribers who buy the plat. </p><p>Once a plat buyer has been positively identified, SOE need only transfer all of the characters on that account to an Exchange server (which is where that player belongs in the first place) applying all of the in-place rules for character transfers to Exchange servers, and restrict that account to only creating new characters on Exchange servers. </p><p>Plat buying players would be happier...</p></blockquote><p>So, the answer is to coddle ppl that break the rules?  No way.  SOE should investigate, and follow the movements of the sellers, find out who the buyers are and BAN THEM ALL.  Oh, and other games should too.  Just because it's happening to practically every other game isn't an excuse.</p><p>Of course SOE won't do that.  If alot of ppl weren't already buying plat/items then it wouldn't be profitable to farm them.  Ban the farmers and they'll be back, ban the players and they probably won't be.</p><p>SOE should know that I have a limit as to how much spam I'm willing to put up with, and I'm almost at my limit.   Since I can't do anything about the sellers, my only recourse of avoidance would be to cancel the game.  I play to have fun, if I'm not having fun, I'm sure not gonna pay for the misery. </p></blockquote>Banning the plat buying subscribers would mean a loss in revenue. Moving them to the Exchange servers means the players continue to  pay subscription fees while the plat farmers follow them to the Exchange servers and leave the rest of us alone. It's win-win.