The Gold-Seller and You (A Comprehensive Guide to Prevention)

Visinji

As things continue to improve, please continue to report and ignore the gold sellers.

nerevarine1138

Remember:

BluntedJ

There are TWO controversial approaches to this problem.

1) I first saw this in EVE Online, before F2P games gained traction here in North America. To prevent people from selling in-game currency for real-world money, CCP (maker of EVE Online) just made it possible for real players to buy things like a time card / flight card which a player could then go onto the in-game auction house and put up for sale. $14.99 real life money would get you tons of in-game currency. Some of the F2P game companies (Turbine with LoTRO, Perfect World with STO and NW, to name a few) allow you to purchase items for real life money, and I think even to get in-game currency (I am thinking of Age of Wushu here). This tactic (at least the way EVE Online does it) really seems to cut down on gold sellers - and the community over at EVE love it. The person who wants in-game currency gets to do it legitimately, and players who have tons of in-game currency get to play for "Free" that next month using the time card / flight card code.
2) To date, I have only seen one game do this - allow a player to click on the characters name and report them, but take it a step further and REPORT that they are selling in game currency for real life money. I know it would take a bit to program, but that simple RIGHT CLICK -> REPORT GOLD SELLER for the player would be so beneficial. On the back-end they could maybe copy the chat text directly after the gold seller's name and then someone can quickly review it for those terms (Buy "x" gold at "y" site for $"n"), and then issue a ban on the account. This way it prevents someone from trying to ban a player who is not selling gold but whom they just want to get banned.

These opinions are brought to you by Captain Obvious.

Thesiren

The only irony here is that the OP is telling people not to share their account logins, when Zenimax forces us to do this very thing with everybody else on the server, every day.

Why can't Zenimax allow us use global handles of our own choosing then? They could have people make them when they make their accounts (or, of course, now that some of us are already playing, give us the option to change to a global handle of our own choosing).

City of Heroes was doing it back before WoW and EQ2 even launched, that's how long that idea has been around-- for ten years now!

I don't like strangers in ESO spamming me with friend and guild invites-- it could be hackers. Knowing your login, they can crack your password in a couple minutes with a cracker program, which they commonly use. Lord knows that gold farmers (that's organized crime) are already overrunning ESO (and it hasn't even launched yet!), so we know hackers are definitely in-game already. And they either use stolen credit cards to fire up new accounts, or more preferably, steal real players' accounts, hack them and use those to spam their illegal sites.

In an age where most MMOs have multiple layers of security like authenticators besides telling you to keep your account login to yourself, we have ESO doing the polar opposite. I'd really like to know why global handles of our own choosing can't at least be used instead of our account logins in-game; ESO doesn't even have authenticators. It's one thing to make a great single player franchise, but it's quite another to deal with all the real issues of a massively multiplayer online experience. Zenimax seems sort of green there- that and with gold spammer tracking, reporting and suppression (seemingly nonexistent on their end, and quite tedious on ours).

Greydog

Four easy steps.
- See spammer
- Report spammer
- Ignore spammer
- Go your merry way

nerevarine1138

Thesiren wrote: »

The only irony here is that the OP is telling people not to share their account logins, when Zenimax forces us to do this very thing with everybody else on the server, every day.[snip]

Your username is 100% useless without your password. Now, as to in-game invites: these are harmless. Even if you were in a group, guild and in-game marriage with a gold-seller, they would not be able to infect your computer or crack anything through the game itself. That requires a visit to a third-party site.

Darlgon

@BluntedJ GW2 allows you to directly report gold spammers and ignores them at the same right-click function.
I have one other suggestion I would like to add. Limit zone chat / yells to 1 per hour played, So, for a gold spammer, they could only spam once in their first hour, twice their second.. and probably would never make it to where they could spam three times. Regular players could just use the /say function or guild chat functions to ask questions locally or of their guildies.

Theosis

Gold sellers only exist when people buy gold.
Only answer... don't buy gold.

It makes mud-crabs cry when you buy gold. Don't make my pet mud-crab cry.

Arawn

Bloodsip wrote: »

How are they starting new accounts? Do you have to pay to play?

The first do they have to purchase and register. If you track the registration number to the seller you can block the seller or get the payment information from him of them.

Rourke

Ban China.


Problem solved.


5 dollars please.

nerevarine1138

Also, I don't know if people noticed, but I didn't see the same kind of chat exploit happening when I was able to play this afternoon. Seems like they may have added some filters/limits.

Thesiren

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Thesiren wrote: »

The only irony here is that the OP is telling people not to share their account logins, when Zenimax forces us to do this very thing with everybody else on the server, every day.[snip]

Your username is 100% useless without your password. Now, as to in-game invites: these are harmless. Even if you were in a group, guild and in-game marriage with a gold-seller, they would not be able to infect your computer or crack anything through the game itself. That requires a visit to a third-party site.

If you'll notice, in another part of my post I stated that hackers and gold farmers who steal accounts have very commonly-used cracker programs that can hack through a password in seconds or a couple minutes max. Seriously. And once they have your account name, even if they use it but you get it back and change the password, they will keep a cracker running on it and get right back in the minute your account is put into good standing again.

And make no mistake about it, if your account is compromised by hackers, it's going to be frozen by Zenimax and rendered unusable until you prove that it wasn't you doing the spamming/farming/etc. It isn't going to be easy or quick for you to get it back. And it's going to be very unpleasant for you, having it continually hacked because hackers now have your login, and are constantly running a cracker on it to get by your "new" password every time you change it.

This game has a high box fee and a sub fee for every new account; they can and will use stolen credit cards to start that ball rolling if they must, but their preferred method is the quicker, less-illegal method of just stealing your account and abusing it instead.

It absolutely boggles my mind that Zenimax ever thought this was a good idea, this whole exposing of login credentials. We're sitting ducks. And the hackers are laughing their heads off because we make it so much easier. There are millions of accounts just begging to be stolen here.

MistryssNite

^ Wouldn't buying a prepaid game card help avoid this, as they won't have access to your credit cards?

nerevarine1138

Just to be clear, when you talk about a "cracker," are you talking about a malicious program that is delivered to you in-game? Because that's impossible.

myblackbox123

Never give out your username and password. Wait...for...it...

Thesiren

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Just to be clear, when you talk about a "cracker," are you talking about a malicious program that is delivered to you in-game? Because that's impossible.

No, I'm talking about a program that hackers run at their own computer. They put in your login into the game launcher, then the cracker inputs different combinations of passwords at lightning speed until it finds yours. Once they have your login, they can keep running the cracker every time you change your password, so they can keep getting back in.

Please remember that gold farming is extremely high profit; they take real-life money and give out nothing real in return, no product at all but your digital pixels. That's why hackers are so hard to get rid of, and why so many actual foreign governments like the Chinese and North Koreans oversee and run those types of groups. It's a multi-million-dollar industry for sure, and the organized crime groups who do it have a lot of financial backing and research to do what they do.

nerevarine1138

Ok, the program you're talking about is a brute-force attack. They are almost never used anymore, because too many login attempts in a short time locks your account. It's just not efficient.

You are far more likely to see keyloggers or phishing emails.

AgelessTimeless

I've never really thought of turning off the zonee chat. That's probably just what i need. very good guide lol

nerevarine1138

Pushing to the top, because apparently people in-game need a few of these reminders...

MaxBat

Thank you for posting this. While I knew some if, I didn't know all of it. Agreed it should be stickied so people will see it.

nerevarine1138

MaxBat wrote: »

Thank you for posting this. While I knew some if, I didn't know all of it. Agreed it should be stickied so people will see it.

You're welcome, and I think a sticky of some kind (even if it isn't this thread) would be nice.

YourNameHere

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Paks_ESO wrote: »

I'm betting some gold seller fixes will be included in the maintenance today.

Here's hoping. But every time a spam filter gets updated, the spam changes. It's like the circle of life.

If they do, I hope they DON'T announce it.

FF14 did this. And the spammers and gold sellers were able to make ways to get around what FF14 created to stop them.

Loose lips sink ships ... as the saying goes.

Avorniel

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Hellsaint wrote: »

Since the servers opened I've only been seeing one gold seller that is constantly spamming, every time an account is banned they create the same one, with a number after it. Zenimax could probably just ban the name they are using (which is also the name of the site) and then not allow that site name to be seen in chat. Problem solved, either that or keep reporting this person until they run out of numbers. : P

You may just be lucky (or whatever word you want to apply to that probability). I've seen plenty of different accounts spamming, and there have been multiple sites trying to lure in buyers.

And yes, Zenimax can ban that user ID, which will simply result in a new user ID being created. Anything they do has to be reactive. WoW's been running for 10 years. That's a decade of new chat filters to try and combat it, and they still haven't been able to eliminate the spam chat.

Guess WoW devs are not that good took SOE in EQ2(Everquest 2) 6 months to stop the spam chat when it all first kicked of in a big way around 2006,they stopped the mail and game chat spam,as long as the player switches it on it works 100% in chat.Was so nice 0 spam from 2004-2006 and now we have it in near enough every mmo we play ...and who's to blame..the players who buy it...so well done ....

I just find it hard to believe this wasn't added in for the launch,considering it's common knowledge how the RMT work and how they invade new MMO's.

MyForumName

I left diablo 3 for two years and when i returned i had 70 gold spam friend requests sitting there. They didn't fix the gold spam issue until the huge patch in preparation for the new expansion where they seem to have wiped them out. Until then though they were a pox. For some reason gaming company's never take it seriously enough for my liking.

What I keep telling myself though and what I'm amazed by is that for there to be that many gold spammers there must be enough idiots buying gold from them to justify the effort. Stop employing gold spammers people. Why [and it's another thing I never understood] would anybody ever pay someone to essentially play the game fro them? Isn't earning what you get a great portion of the fun in an mmo?

I've never been one of these people that covet what others have earned and then buy myself up to their level. I'm more then happy with that I've self earned regardless of how low or high it is in the overall picture. I know it annoys me. In everquest which I originally played for 6 years I self earned 90k plat to buy a very fancy horse. It took several years and a big hit to do that. It was annoying to see someone who had no clue how to actually play buy their gold off ebay on day two and get themselves a horse to feel equal [they aren't even close] but in their minds they must feel like they are somehow. I'll never understand it myself.

Thete

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Your username is 100% useless without your password.

An authenticator would still make your account more secure still. I hope they bring these out before too long.

demendred

Right click on name
Ignore player
Report player
Enjoy game

Gaudrath

Those gold spammers seem to have a new tactic exploiting scrolling in the chat box - not sure how, but I saw one today spamming with a really long message which somehow skipped the first part when I tried to scroll up to report. Basically renders players unable to report the spammer since their name never appears in the chat box. You just get to see their advertisement at the end of the message.

Murra

@Gaudrath If you go into settings>social>text size and make the text size 8, you can see the name of the spammer and you can get them there. I saw this too a few times.

It makes me sad to see that these gold sellers are already in ESO. I really hope ZOS finds a good way to keep them out. They need to do an IP ban, not an account ban, on these people IMO.
The security is also an issue. I do like that they have the e-mail when they see you're logging in from a new IP, but I'm not sure if that's enough to stop hackers. I hope they fix this soon because it's just worrisome to me, and I'm sure most other people too. I mean, lots of people are complaining of it after all.

Twicebit

Visinji wrote: »

Great post! This should be a "sticky."

I'd also add that folks who can't see the gold-spammers' name (due to multiple lines of spam at once), just go to:

• Esc
• Settings
• Social

Then change the font size to 9. Go back to your chat/message box and right click their name, ignore and report them. Go back and change your font settings back to normal. It's a chore but it will help in slowing these folks down.

I find the font 12 works fine, and all you have to do is max out the box as needed.

Scrambled_Brain

better solution: go to curse.com - search for "ESO spam filter" - download it. navigate and extract to the addons folder by going to "c" then "users" then "your user" (whatever that is , probably your name) now the odd part is - go to "mydocuments" THEN find the ESO folder and after it the add ons folder. Thank you microsoft *** *** for making folder navigation the most ridiculous process it could possibly be. This is their idea of making it "easier for the common user" - wtf was wrong with "program files" - "program" ... ... ... ... ...
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