The spammers have won

loudent

Still all out of ignores and the addons require me to constantly add new filters. In town my chat box seems to never stop scrolling with constant spam for gold and leveling services.

Jadeviper1974

Agreed. I know they have tried different things, however, I can't tell that any of it has made a dent in the gold spammer or botting problem. Not trying to be critical, but these problems are things that really should have been anticipated.

rawne1980b16_ESO

It's easier to turn zone chat off. I know it's not the best solution especially for new players that want to ask questions or people that want to sell things .. even people that just like to chat...

I just can't cope with the sheer amount of gold spam and it's annoying to have to ignore someone every 20 seconds.

Thesiren

I shut /zone chat off a while ago. As Zenimax is apparently incapable of stemming the endless time of hacker spam here, I wish they'd put their efforts into at least implementing an auction house instead.

After all, it's impossible to sell your wares on /zone chat, and unless you're one of the favored children in a huge megaguild, you can't sell anything any other way.

Greydog

I've taken to closing the chat window all together when I'm not using it.

Cablethewolfb14_ESO

I haven't turned off mine. But i do have a tab for guild, group and pms.

The spammers will in time die off, but what is happening is people are buying from them. getting hacked and then their accounts are becoming spammers. What we need is in game Moderators.

I report 5 to 10 gold spammers a game. and i report the bots farming bosses then i see them.

an Auction house won't help. the gold spammers with start farming rares and selling them there for a huge amount, then spam gold to get you to but the gold to get the item. I love this game buy it does have its problems. I do hope Zenimax is watching the forums, and if they are I want them to know, The report system is fine for reporting game bugs and stuff like that NOT spammers and bots.

Coggage

loudent wrote: »

Still all out of ignores and the addons require me to constantly add new filters. In town my chat box seems to never stop scrolling with constant spam for gold and leveling services.

I see no goldseller/levelling spam at all, with judicious use of filters in my spam addon and the regular updates from the addon author. Try being pro-active instead of passive and complaining about it.

I also have to block trade chat and guild recruitment adverts because otherwise my chat box would be overrun with endless streams of it. They're almost as bad as the gold-sellers.

loudent

Cablethewolfb14_ESO wrote: »

The spammers will in time die off

I 'd like you know the reasoning behind that sentiment. Gold sales in MMOs do brisk business and nothing is really stopping them, why would it die off?

On another note, the endless reporting now has ESO spamming my inbox with acknowledgements that My report was received.

Greydog

Coggage wrote: »

I also have to block trade chat and guild recruitment adverts because otherwise my chat box would be overrun with endless streams of it. They're almost as bad as the gold-sellers.

Don't blame the players ..this is the system they were given

Coggage

Greydog wrote: »

Coggage wrote: »

I also have to block trade chat and guild recruitment adverts because otherwise my chat box would be overrun with endless streams of it. They're almost as bad as the gold-sellers.

Don't blame the players ..this is the system they were given

Oh, I don't blame them, but when people from various guilds each post 3 to 6 lines of recruitment spam it gets ridiculous. There really needs to be a trade channel and a guild recruitment channel, with anyone posting this kind of stuff in general chat getting an immediate 24-hour ban.

Greydog

agree +1

Meogi

it's indeed a sad day when you turn off /zone due to the gold bot spam there. I have done so. It's either that or breaking away from what I am doing to report yet another spammer.

At least, if we could have a simple right-click feature with the "report gold seller + ignore account", would make the entire process less intrusive in our game play.

DLaren

Once you leave the starter zone for your faction gold-spam becomes much less of an issue. The bots hang-out in the low-level areas because that's where all of their customers are (new players who need gold).

Hang-in there until about lvl17, by then you should be out of your factions starter zones.

GLaDOS

DLaren wrote: »

Once you leave the starter zone for your faction gold-spam becomes much less of an issue. The bots hang-out in the low-level areas because that's where all of their customers are (new players who need gold).

Hang-in there until about lvl17, by then you should be out of your factions starter zones.

This. Once I progressed to the level 17ish zone I was able to turn zone chat on again. It was beautiful.

I know it isn't comforting for the folks toughing it out at lower levels. All we can offer is a 'hang in there' til you get a higher level or the devs get a better handle on all the spammers.

Elsonso

GLaDOS wrote: »

This. Once I progressed to the level 17ish zone I was able to turn zone chat on again. It was beautiful.

I know it isn't comforting for the folks toughing it out at lower levels. All we can offer is a 'hang in there' til you get a higher level or the devs get a better handle on all the spammers.

Surprisingly, this is true. I completely ignored Zone chat for the longest time but now that I am far and away from the starter zones, things are considerably better.

Well, at least as far as gold spam goes. Those people in Zone chat are still boring to listen to...

Hakoke

What area are you people seeing zone chat filled up with gold seller spam in? Only time I ever see it is when I go back to the first zone of my faction. And even then, for me atleast, it is a pleasure to report and ignore them.

I haven't seen any gold seller spam outside of there in over a week.

BETAOPTICS

I ignore it but last night, there was a thread about this same topic and some people use this add-on that automatically only shows Enghlish posts, only shows one ot of 4 of the posts if they are the same and automatically takes out every post that contains WTB/WTT/WTS. Note that this add-on bans posts, not users so it will never flood banbox and will always work.

Another noteworthy thing was that someone said that when they tried it, it crashed their game as long as it was installed so it might be incompatable or it was otherwise messed up load for him. Be wary if you happen to come by the add-on and investigate preferably before installing but it sure does sound good.

Edda

DLaren wrote: »

Once you leave the starter zone for your faction gold-spam becomes much less of an issue. The bots hang-out in the low-level areas because that's where all of their customers are (new players who need gold).

Hang-in there until about lvl17, by then you should be out of your factions starter zones.

They need to just park someone with a BigBan-button in Stonefalls. Today the spammers wouldn't shut up for 30 seconds. If they had someone monitoring it live, they could have banned 100 accounts in less than an hour.

Coggage

BETAOPTICS wrote: »

I ignore it but last night, there was a thread about this same topic and some people use this add-on that automatically only shows Enghlish posts, only shows one ot of 4 of the posts if they are the same and automatically takes out every post that contains WTB/WTT/WTS. Note that this add-on bans posts, not users so it will never flood banbox and will always work.

Another noteworthy thing was that someone said that when they tried it, it crashed their game as long as it was installed so it might be incompatable or it was otherwise messed up load for him. Be wary if you happen to come by the add-on and investigate preferably before installing but it sure does sound good.

That might well have been me mentioning the addon X4DLibAntiSpam although it doesn't restrict the language of the posts you see in chat unless you add words to the custom filter. I have the word "guild" in several foreign languages in my custom filter, so I don't see non-English guild recruitment ads in the chat box. As you mention, I do also have WTS, WTT and WTB in my filters as well.

It does include a "flooding" time setting which further cuts down on chat box clutter.

Lalai

Just to echo what some have mentioned, I mostly see the spamming issue in the main faction city zone (so Glenumbra for DC side). Once I got to the next zone up around level 17 or so, it decreased drastically. At level 38, in the second to last zone for the faction (Alik'r Desert) I don't see any gold spam messages in zone. The only ones that get through are those in the mail, and even then I'm getting maybe 1 or 2 a day, if that. Some days I don't see anything at all.

That isn't to say they shouldn't fix the problem in the lower level areas, as going back to one of those zones is just a huge wall of spam in zone chat for me.. but more to offer a light at the end of the tunnel for those fed up with it.

software_goddess

I have given up on chat and use the phone or Skype to talk with group members. What really ticks me off is the spam filling my message box every day. Is there any way to block their mail?

Paks_ESO

I hit my /ignore limit earlier today so will keep zone chat off for now. I sent a suggestion that Zeni at least double the ignore limit while they try to get a handle on this mess. But even with /zone turned off, they can still get through to you with email spam.

The worst MMO for gold spamming I've come across to date was Aion right after it released. It was horrible. You couldn't take a step in town without seeing gold seller spam on player stores, and there were times when chat would just scroll with gold seller spam. Needless to say, I didn't play Aion long, and GS spam was one of the reasons. ESO isn't to Aion level yet but RMT spam in this game has definitely gotten damn bad and it seems to be getting worse.

There are few things more annoying to a new player than to log into an MMO and see a bunch of gold seller spam. If I had a choice of whether to put a team on chat just to ban spam even if it's a temporary measure, I would do that rather then let my new players be exposed to that nonsense and think as a developer I'm incompetent or condone gold selling somehow. I'd rather spend money trying to fix the problem than risk losing customers.

Lalai

Paks_ESO wrote: »

The worst MMO for gold spamming I've come across to date was Aion right after it released. It was horrible. You couldn't take a step in town without seeing gold seller spam on player stores, and there were times when chat would just scroll with gold seller spam. Needless to say, I didn't play Aion long, and GS spam was one of the reasons. ESO isn't to Aion level yet but RMT spam in this game has definitely gotten damn bad and it seems to be getting worse.

FFXIV has been the worst for me. When the game first came out they didn't even have a right click to ignore/blacklist option.. and chat would snap down everytime a new message was posted so there was literally no way to even blacklist people unless you spent a good few minutes entering a few letters at a time (assuming the name stayed long enough on the screen to even do that). Even now it's still bad. Everytime I log on I'm flooded by whispers from 3-4 gold sellers at once, regardless of where I'm located in the world.

I would like to see GM's actively in game banning both gold sellers and botters. Seems a lot of new MMOs have moved away from that method and I'm not sure why, perhaps it wasn't cost effective or something.. but at least it was good PR. Kinda miss the days I'd see a GM talking in general/zone chat type stuff.

R1ckyDaMan

The prices people are charging in game gold for stuff does not help either..

tafoya77n

or you can just not pay attention it is no big deal that doesn't mess with the way the game is played.
If it really bugs you report them and move on.

MercyKilling

Cablethewolfb14_ESO wrote: »

I haven't turned off mine. But i do have a tab for guild, group and pms.

You're a braver man than I am, Gunga Din.

Cablethewolfb14_ESO wrote: »

The spammers will in time die off, but what is happening is people are buying from them. getting hacked and then their accounts are becoming spammers. What we need is in game Moderators.

While I agree with that last sentence, I don't agree with everything before it. From what I see here on the forums, and before I turned off zone chat...people universally despise what's going on. I'd say NOBODY is buying from them.

Cablethewolfb14_ESO wrote: »

I report 5 to 10 gold spammers a game. and i report the bots farming bosses then i see them.

My ignore list is full, and until something is done about the WHY it's full, my zone chat is off..so I can't see zone chat to report gold spammers. However, I do take the time to report EVERY group of bots I come across in public dungeons.

Cablethewolfb14_ESO wrote: »

an Auction house won't help. the gold spammers with start farming rares and selling them there for a huge amount, then spam gold to get you to but the gold to get the item. I love this game buy it does have its problems. I do hope Zenimax is watching the forums, and if they are I want them to know, The report system is fine for reporting game bugs and stuff like that NOT spammers and bots.

I disagree. Here's why:

Once a farmer/botter gets enough loot to post on the market...how do they post it? Very likely with a front/dummy account, sure. But this at least gives Zenimax a place to start the trace from. Investigate the activity on that account and see where transfers/trades are coming from. Then isolate those accounts and backtrack even further.
The way it is now, that guy selling stuff in zone could very well be the frontman account for a whole slew of bots/farm/spammer accounts and nobody would be the wiser, including Zenimax. That guild store you just bought from? Could be very similar to a laundering business for the spammers...and again..NOBODY WOULD BE THE WISER.
At least with a centralized, visible auction house to funnel trading into/from there's only one place they can go to hock their wares for the end product they're selling, thus removing a great deal of their camouflage.

Vagrant0

Erm, when you're talking about all the goldsellers you see around:

The majority of bots being run out there are not selling the stuff they get to players or to guilds... They are vendoring it all, turning it into coin, then passing the coin around between a tangled web of accounts to hide the transactions while funneling the gold to a small number of "banker" accounts which keep the gold. The gold sits there before being passed through another series of accounts before ending up at a "distributor" where the gold gets sent to some pathetic individual who paid money for that gold.

From there it becomes dependent on whatever malware was passed along to that pathetic individual's computer or through whatever insecure process was used to pay for the gold in order to steal that person's account. After the account is tested and some cool-down time has passed, the account gets hijacked, everything on the account gets stripped off, goods and gold passed to one of the intermediary accounts where it gets lost in the web, characters get deleted, and account gets re-purposed for advertising or bot-driven behavior in order to get the most out of it before it can be reclaimed or banned.

Smaller scale operations generally don't spam since they want to remain off the radar until they can establish themselves within a game.

copperlocke_ESO

I have no problem turning off Zone to avoid the goldspam, considering the chat there is usually not worth watching anyway. I do wish there was an option to auto-reject mail from those not on my friend or guild lists, though.

Though on Day 2 of full launch, I got a random mail from someone with two pieces of cloth armor and a glyph. Thank you, random kind stranger, but I would still like to be able to control what kind of mail I can receive. I guess this would be difficult to do considering the filter may also delete the crafting mat delivery mails as well.

It'd also be nice to have a one-click report option that won't spam my out of game mailbox with notifications, either. The primary reason I don't report them is because it's such a hassle to have to open the report, fill it in, then go clean out my mail account because I've had to report 22 spammers today, so Zenimax spammed ME 22 times in return. The ignore function is much easier.

tengri

What I don't get is why Z does no active monitoring here... I mean there are only 2 servers with only so many "primary target zones".
Hire a couple students from the nearest school/college and have them monitoring those chat logs 24/7; they could pretty much catch anything gold spam related in a heartbeat and instantly nuke those accounts.
And only if someone officially appeals such a quick ban, have a real support guy investigate it further.

Thesiren

Edda wrote: »

They need to just park someone with a BigBan-button in Stonefalls. Today the spammers wouldn't shut up for 30 seconds. If they had someone monitoring it live, they could have banned 100 accounts in less than an hour.

No-- that just creates even heavier credit card fraud. I feel like a broken record here, but no one is listening. It isn't your paltry two dollars for buying gold that they are after: it's your credit card number you use to buy the gold with, and your personal info!!

They are organized crime; they are credit card and identity thieves. They either A.) hack accounts they have sold gold to (after embedding key loggers in "thank you for your business" emails), and use those to lure more victims in with gold spam ads or B.) use stolen credit cards from former gold buyers to roll up new ESO accounts.

ALL that happens when they get banned is more credit card theft, more stolen credit card use, and more hacked accounts.

Is anyone getting this? Anyone at all? Big MMO devs like Sony know this!

Gold spamming must be nipped in the bud, never seeing the light of day. Once it shows up, it's all downhill and a losing game of cleanup that never really cleans up anything. Reporting is worthless. Banning is worthless. Choking them off before they can type a single character is the only thing that works. Zenimax desperately needs to get to this stage, period. Then the hackers get no spam out there, they get no "buyers" so there are no new credit cards or identities to steal.

TwixtMYnethers

tafoya77n wrote: »

or you can just not pay attention it is no big deal that doesn't mess with the way the game is played.
If it really bugs you report them and move on.

But the methods they use to get the gold they sell DO mess with gameplay for many. Check out all the threads on node and public dungeon botting. ~ "It IS our fight!"