Guild advertisement, in-game chat ruined!

Demendra · December 2014

ESO was a gift for Christmas and enjoying it very much thus far as a big fan of the Elder scrolls series.

One factor that's obviously new to the game with It's multiplayer aspect is being able to socialize with others.

I've noticed though that this has been difficult as guilds are always advertising in this chat, if It's not spamming It's different guilds posting over top of a previous guilds advertisement.

This is making it very difficult for players to interact with one another.

I have seen players in-game make comments about this, like "spam!" And "Do you expect people to join your guild if you advertise it in the chat like this". It obviously annoys players.

I do realize that reporting a player for spam is an option, but I'm concerned as I will be the one at fault as some guilds are advertising only one post, but because of that one post it activates another guild to post over top of that guild and it creates a chain reaction.

Please do something about this...

I'm one to make suggestions,

Possibly make an official announcement that advertising guilds in-game is a reportable offence. So that players know if It's right or wrong when it comes to reporting and advertising a guild.

I'm not suggesting that you can't talk about your guild name in-game, but more that It's not announced to the world and discussed in a general conversation where an invitation comes up.

Thanks for reading,

hope something can be done because of my rant.

Demendra

dharbert · December 2014

Zenimax won't do anything about it. We've been asking them for months to simply give us a separate trade chat channel and they won't do it.

Gyudan · December 2014

I agree that this is pretty bad, especially for very lengthy texts repeated several times. It was worse at launch when zone chat was plagued with gold sellers though.

xMovingTarget · December 2014

Its still the best way to recruit. But i have to agree that some ppl exaggerate with their posts.
When i recruit over the chat i put a text like once per 30 min. Works also.

Recruiting in Forums doesnt work really. Most players just play the game and dont check any forums. If it wasnt for the ingame recruitement, many guilds wouldnt even exist. Which would be sad.

Elsonso · December 2014

Some do repeat the guild ads too often. Really, they only need to say it once per 15 minutes or so.

Once you find a guild, you may discover that Zone chat is just noise that you can turn off. I have a Zone tab in the chat box for when I want it and the main Chat tab has Zone turned off.

Sublime · December 2014

I agree that the long chats are disrupting, but I'd prefer something like a "recruitment board", where a guild master guild register a guild with some info about it and players could also apply to registered guilds. This would be a solution over making advertising a guild in zone chat a bannable offense in my eyes.

tinythinker · December 2014

Demendra wrote: »

One factor that's obviously new to the game with It's multiplayer aspect is being able to socialize with others.

I've noticed though that this has been difficult as guilds are always advertising in this chat, if It's not spamming It's different guilds posting over top of a previous guilds advertisement.

This is making it very difficult for players to interact with one another.

I have seen players in-game make comments about this, like "spam!" And "Do you expect people to join your guild if you advertise it in the chat like this". It obviously annoys players.

There is an ignore command for chat. You can right click the name in the chat window to access it if someone is spamming, being a tedious troll, etc without having to report them.

Sublime wrote: »

I agree that the long chats are disrupting, but I'd prefer something like a "recruitment board", where a guild master guild register a guild with some info about it and players could also apply to registered guilds. This would be a solution over making advertising a guild in zone chat a bannable offense in my eyes.

There is a section on these forums for guild recruitment.

Sublime · December 2014

tinythinker wrote: »

Sublime wrote: »

I agree that the long chats are disrupting, but I'd prefer something like a "recruitment board", where a guild master guild register a guild with some info about it and players could also apply to registered guilds. This would be a solution over making advertising a guild in zone chat a bannable offense in my eyes.

There is a section on these forums for guild recruitment.

Unfortunately only a very small percentage of the playerbase use the forum (generaly).

Demendra · December 2014

tinythinker wrote: »

There is an ignore command for chat. You can right click the name in the chat window to access it if someone is spamming, being a tedious troll, etc without having to report them.

Ignore every single player that advertises there guild?

I don't think this is a very good suggestion sorry.

tinythinker · December 2014

Demendra wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

There is an ignore command for chat. You can right click the name in the chat window to access it if someone is spamming, being a tedious troll, etc without having to report them.

Ignore every single player that advertises there guild?

I don't think this is a very good suggestion sorry.

There are usually a limited number who keep repeating the same spam. Ignoring them or reporting them are your current options unless and until ZOS changes its current policies and procedures. What you do until that happens (if it ever does) is your choice. My post was just adding an option that hadn't been listed.

OrangeTheCat · December 2014

Oh come off it! I advertise my trade guild ONCE per zone per day. Hardly obtrusive and not spam. Hardly an offence. And what else can we do what with an anemic and contacting player base? If there was a guild or trade channel I'd use that but as it is...

Vyle_Byte · December 2014

Actually, ignoring those that "spam" guild recruitment is the most valid option there is. It works, you will see a noticeable difference. And I'm only talking about the obnoxious ones. Don't mind recruiting that is done politely, not posting long dredged out posts over and over, yes this is annoying.

However, this is the only place there is to recruit... as someone else said the section at the forums doesn't get the attention because a lot of people don't use the forums. Until ZOS gives us a recruiting chat tab, which is highly doubtful as we've been asking for the past 8 months, just ignore them.

Besides, once you get out of the first zone, its really not that bad.

Valen_Byte · December 2014

Demendra wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

There is an ignore command for chat. You can right click the name in the chat window to access it if someone is spamming, being a tedious troll, etc without having to report them.

Ignore every single player that advertises there guild?

I don't think this is a very good suggestion sorry.

This is the best option, if you want to interact with people in zone chat. Ignoring the guilds that spam does work because its always the same ones that spam. Ive been playing since beta...ignore works. The only downside is that you can only ignore 50 people lol

DeLindsay · December 2014

dharbert wrote: »

Zenimax won't do anything about it. We've been asking them for months to simply give us a separate trade chat channel and they won't do it.

When will people understand that a "Trade chat" will solve NOTHING in regards to this or any other topic about players buying, selling, LFM, asking others for gold, asking others for help, Guild recruitment, etc. ZoS hasn't done anything about this because there is NOTHING they can do about it. If there is a chat that is open to any player, players can spam said chat with whatever they want to, whenever they want to. Ignore is your friend if you don't want to see this, or make a new channel, then set it so you don't see zone chat, done.

abigfishy · December 2014

So how else can guilds recruit? This is basically the ONLY way for a guild to be active and try to increase its membership that actually works.

You know you can just minimise the chat or just not look at it.

Except for the starter zones the zone chat tends to be 95% LFG, sales and guild advertising what are you missing out on?

Honestly I can't understand how people get so precious about their valued cyberspace. I was helping out a new player on Stros M'kai once who had a lot of questions when someone went beserk calling us all sorts of profane names and telling us to take it to private chat. I noticed it was about 20 minutes until anyone said anything again and that was guild spam. How do people get so angry about something that is so easy to ignore?

MissBizz · December 2014

lordrichter wrote: »

Some do repeat the guild ads too often. Really, they only need to say it once per 15 minutes or so.

Once you find a guild, you may discover that Zone chat is just noise that you can turn off. I have a Zone tab in the chat box for when I want it and the main Chat tab has Zone turned off.

Yup. I do advertise. But I do it randomly and try not to do it too often. We do get most recruits this way. I also agree about the zone chat... For me its off 98% of the time. I'm always in my guild chat.

reften · December 2014

The problem is the free 500 slot backpack... And the 5 guilds per player.

Ourorboros · December 2014

Not a good idea to eliminate guild advertising from chat. OP may not realize that many guilds are dying, and chat is the best way to recruit. I've been in several guilds that died or were ineffective. I rely on the guild chat to find other guilds to join. The guild ads never used to be that bad. Perhaps there are more guilds in trouble now. Read what you will into that

.

Elsonso · December 2014

The game needs a Looking For Guild tool. I see all of these guilds that run kiosks and occasionally hear about guilds. Finding out information about the guild is next to impossible, sometimes even if they have a website.

I generally feel disconnected from my guilds in the game world. They exist mostly in chat. I had to write an add-on to alert me when a guildie ran past me.

Demendra · December 2014

OrangeTheCat wrote: »

Oh come off it! I advertise my trade guild ONCE per zone per day. Hardly obtrusive and not spam. Hardly an offence. And what else can we do what with an anemic and contacting player base? If there was a guild or trade channel I'd use that but as it is...

The issue isn't that one clan advertises once per day, It's that thousands of clans advertise all day every day, doesn't matter if It's once or not.

NordJitsu · December 2014

They're trying to reach other players. You may not like it but a lot of people appreciate it.

Deal with it or turn off zone chat.

Demendra · December 2014

NordJitsu wrote: »

They're trying to reach other players. You may not like it but a lot of people appreciate it.

Deal with it or turn off zone chat.

There's other ways to reach out to people other than spamming a chat, that's the whole point of this thread.

NordJitsu · December 2014

This is the best way though. And it's not spamming unless it's flooding the chat such that no other messages can be seen.

A few minutes apart is all you need.

WraithAzraiel · December 2014

The big problem is that these knuckleheads sit in 1 spot and spout out the same message every 3-5 minutes.

It's a helluva lot less of a hassle on peoples text boxes if you utilize the wayshrines and go from zone to zone. Some people just sit there and all they do is advertise.

For that reason, you'll notice it a LOT less once you leave the starter areas. Once you get into your 2nd or 3rd zone they'll be all but completely gone. Until you get into the last zone, Reaper's March if you're AD and just watch all the WTS/WTB scroll past.

WraithAzraiel · December 2014

It comes with the territory of online gaming. Welcome to the party, grab a beer and just go with it.

Fact of the matter, you're not going to change over a decade habit with a forum post. It's not just going to dawn on them that they're activities and behaviors are an annoyance to other human beings. That's why they flock to the webbernets, to get away with being annoying with no fear of consequences.

You'll learn to tune it out. I highly recommend not being a purist and checking out some add-ons. There's likely an add-on that blocks guild adverts and messages on or around a certain post length.

Happy hunting.

redspecter23 · December 2014

I'm a trade guild GM and I use zone chat to recruit. I don't like it, but it is the best way to get your guild name out there for new members. There have been many other suggestions made to ZoS in both in game feedback, forum posts and even direct communication with their reps. So far, nothing.

When we are given better tools to recruit, I'll be cheering just as loud as the OP. Until then, people will use the tools at their disposal. Zone chat is one of the best ways to recruit for guilds, groups, sell and buy items, etc. That is the core problem. When your tools for those key gaming aspects are either non existent or so useless nobody uses them and moves to zone chat instead, you have failed at providing a useful communication system for those game aspects.

SFBryan18 · December 2014

You can click ignore on anyone who is spamming. I don't think you really have enough time played to be dictating how the game should run. I always look for these posts so I can see if there are better guilds recruiting. In DC zones 1-6, they are actually very rare.

Rosveen · December 2014

Demendra wrote: »

NordJitsu wrote: »

They're trying to reach other players. You may not like it but a lot of people appreciate it.

Deal with it or turn off zone chat.

There's other ways to reach out to people other than spamming a chat, that's the whole point of this thread.

What ways? We have no LFG tool, so the only things left are the forum (hardly anyone uses it), inviting friends and attracting new members during public guild events. Neither is as effective as zone chat. Let's face it, it may be mildly annoying, but it works.

I tune out of zone chat most of the time. You will too when you find interesting guilds. For now just use ignore.

By the way, welcome to ESO.

I hope you enjoy it despite the chat issues.

Joejudas · December 2014

Maybe you should join one of those guild's....then you wouldn't have to find your friends in the zone chat.

MornaBaine · December 2014

I seldom advertise our guild over zone (though I do it now and again) because A) yes it annoys people who are not looking for a guild and B ) because most of the people who will see the advert are NOT looking for a guild it can be a waste of time. Now if there was a Looking for Guild channel that would be absolutely fantastic! A new player actively looking for a guild would know right where to go to find one and those of us wishing to grow our guilds would have a ready-made audience to pitch to. It would be heaven. Alas, ZOS seems to feel this is NOT at all important and can't be bothered with such small trivial details while they're still busy creating the game they couldn't get to us at launch and for which we are now the paying beta testers.

Point is, this is ZOS's fault... not the fault of guilds looking to attract players. So put the blame where it belongs and put pressure on ZOS to fix this issue instead of blaming the guilds, which currently have no other viable in-game means for letting people know about their guilds.

smacx250 · December 2014

You can make a new chat tab without zone, and only use the tab with zone on it when you are legitimately using zone chat. Don't use zone to talk to your friends. Get together and "say", or directly "wisper", or even better, group and use group chat. It will all be on a nice clean tab separate from the zone chat. Keep zone to the minimum of things that need broadcast - such as soliciting guilds, groups, or asking for help.

That said, if some individual really is abusing zone (or any broadcast channel) with lots of spam - report them. However, you shouldn't report someone legitimately using zone just because there are a lot of people legitimately using zone.