Guild advertisement, in-game chat ruined!

Merrak · January 2015

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.

While I agree that spamming /z every 5 minutes with the same guild postings over and over are a bad idea, please tell us which ways in game there are to properly advertise your guild to get the 80+% of the population that choose to ignore these or any game forums? Would you prefer random guild invites just to see if you are interested? Probably not so much. How about random /t In game to interrupt you while you are doing something else? Maybe a mail that pops up telling you to join another guild?

I'm sure you can see the point I'm trying to make by now.

Nestor · January 2015

I just thought of something. What if they came up with a "Bulletin Board", say in the major city in each zone. That board would have all the guild adverts listed. We could click on the board, choose the type of guild we are looking for (PvE, PvP, RP, Trade etc) and then see a list of adverts with the GM or Recruitment Officer listed.

Limit the text blurb to some reasonable length. But all guilds that are recruiting could be seen in the listings. Make it random as to who is at the top of the list and then people could see the guilds that are looking for players in one place and not have to rely on some unsolicited zone chat message.

This should not be hard to implement, and Guilds could choose to set an option to be on the list or not as they see fit.

Razzak · January 2015

Nestor wrote: »

I just thought of something. What if they came up with a "Bulletin Board", say in the major city in each zone. That board would have all the guild adverts listed. We could click on the board, choose the type of guild we are looking for (PvE, PvP, RP, Trade etc) and then see a list of adverts with the GM or Recruitment Officer listed.

Limit the text blurb to some reasonable length. But all guilds that are recruiting could be seen in the listings. Make it random as to who is at the top of the list and then people could see the guilds that are looking for players in one place and not have to rely on some unsolicited zone chat message.

This should not be hard to implement, and Guilds could choose to set an option to be on the list or not as they see fit.

A board would be great, and I would even like to see somethin similar done for LFG, since in game tool is not working or being used.

Observant · January 2015

Nestor wrote: »

I just thought of something. What if they came up with a "Bulletin Board", say in the major city in each zone. That board would have all the guild adverts listed. We could click on the board, choose the type of guild we are looking for (PvE, PvP, RP, Trade etc) and then see a list of adverts with the GM or Recruitment Officer listed.

Limit the text blurb to some reasonable length. But all guilds that are recruiting could be seen in the listings. Make it random as to who is at the top of the list and then people could see the guilds that are looking for players in one place and not have to rely on some unsolicited zone chat message.

This should not be hard to implement, and Guilds could choose to set an option to be on the list or not as they see fit.

@ZOS_EveP‌

Would you be so kind as to pass this along?

Lied · January 2015

I wouldn't say it ruins chat for me personally, but that being said:
1) Periodic attempts to overwrite one advertisement with a different advertisement really seems about as cool to me as gold spammers.
2) If there actually was any way to effectively get rid of it, or force it into a designated channel, then I would support it. There's not, so no reason to bother worrying about it.

Artemiisia · January 2015

Demendra wrote: »

Artemiisia wrote: »

I see like 3-6 each day, my life is totally ruined, I have no where to go from here, I just cant live with it, think ill call my shrink to talk about my problems now...

/sarcasm might have been used

This is why immature people should stay out of conversations regarding information that potentially can determine change. If you don't have anything helpful or critical to say, then don't bother posting!

I actually see this the other way around, its immature to get annoyed over as little as a 3-6 guild adverts each day.

nobody is forcing you to read them.

if I see a message that start with something Join our guild, I stop reading if it dont interest me.

liquid_wolf · January 2015

There is no better way to recruit players than to advertise in general chat.

Active recruitment is far more lucrative than passive recruitment.

anitajoneb17_ESO · January 2015

We're not talking about how useful it is for guilds but about how ennoying it is for players. And trying to suggest alternatives.

I should park my car in the middle of your garden if it is the most convenient place for me ?? And why should you complain, nobody forces you to look at it and you can easily walk around it...

I really have problems with this attitude "it suits me, thus I don't care if it disturbs you".

@Artemiisia : I guess you never interact with anything or anybody in zone chat. I do ! And nothing is more ennoying than having to scroll back the chat window because a 15-line-long guild advertisement was thrown into the conversation.

And we're not talking about 5 or six ads per day but about 10-20/hour in starting zones and in Craglorn.

Artemiisia · January 2015

General Chat is what it is for everyone

if you need to have a conversation with others or another, use whisper, group up and use group chat, change to a zone that there aint so many in it, or use general chat like everyone else is allowed to and live with it.

you are your own restriction

or find a spam filter that uses words to spam out, like the gold spam filter that was made

liquid_wolf · January 2015

General chat is not your garden, it is the street everyone drives on.

There is no better place for players to look for a guild than general chat at this time. While I'm certain there are many alternatives and potential solutions, to tell guilds "you can not use general chat to recruit" will never happen. So long as players are not violating the message-spam requirements, there is no problem with them using it.

That fifty guilds advertise one right after another really only shows how active the game is.

Don't new players like seeing that? The activity, and search for new blood to add to their ranks?

Guilds will stay in general chat... they are the heart of MMORPGs after all.

anitajoneb17_ESO · January 2015

Oh yes *I* should change everything so that guilds can carry on with their polluting advertisement.

As I said, I'll park my car in the middle of your garden because it suits me, and if it disturbs you, nobody forces you to look at it, go to your garage so that you don't see it anymore. Easy.

What I would like is ZOS offering a specific tool / area for guild recruitment.

liquid_wolf · January 2015

Your analogy is incorrect.

It is my garden. Like guild-recruitment via whispers. That you can report.

But general chat is simply a public street/highway where people put up billboards and signs... fifty stores one right after the other.

That is the purpose of general chat... communication, notification, requests, and advertisement.

morvegil · January 2015

I got banned for 3 days for advertising my "Guild". I dont see anything wrong with this, all the guilds Im in have been because they were advertised. Unless they make a guild market or something expect this. Dont blame the players, blame ZOS.

anitajoneb17_ESO · January 2015

I complain about advertisement making IRL streets and public spaces noisy and ugly too :-)

Slurg · January 2015

This is one of the areas in which I'd really like to see more official guidelines from ZOS. Zone chat is a great tool for guild recruitment and I believe the vast majority of recruiters don't intend to violate spam guidelines or annoy the people they are trying to bring into their guilds. But how does anyone know for sure what's acceptable if there aren't clear rules (length of ad, frequency of posts, etc.)?

Clear rules would also cut down on false reports so admins can focus on real offenders.

Alphashado · January 2015

I really try hard to respect other people's opinions. That's what this forum and all forums are about after all. But honestly, the two or three people who are bent out of shape on this issue.. what is it exactly about low level zone chat that you find so precious?

The Trolls?
The arguments over which business model is better?
The yelling in CAPS LOCK?
The childish sexual comments?
The arguments over which MMO is the best or was first?
The debates about political views?
The insults?
The debates about religion?
ETC

Every MMO low level zone chat is cluttered with garbage. If it really bothers you so much, just /ignore that person. ZoS will not help you here because that's all you have to do. It's as easy as right clicking their name and hitting "ignore player". This is nothing like an analogy about parking a car into a private garden because if it were, and you found a car parked in your garden, all you would have to do is waive your hands in the air and say to yourself "I ignore this car" and POOF! The care would be gone. If for some reason ZOS decided to cave to your demands, Guilds would suffer immensely. Is that what you want?

This just seems like some kind of silly crusade that you guys are on about something that is so miniscule in relevance that you are just making yourself sound silly.

Zone chat is for everyone that pays a sub. If you don't like it, then ignore it. If you think it's a violation of rules, then report it. That's why the option is there. Be grateful that it's as easy as right clicking a name and hitting ignore. Many MMOs are not so simple.

anitajoneb17_ESO · January 2015

Guilds would suffer from having a dedicated advertising space in game, outside from zone chat ??? How's that ?? Please explain.

And yes zone chat is for everyone so I don't like the guild advertising taking all the space, since it is a space for everyone.

What I like in zone chat ? Just to name a few :
- people asking friendly for help for whatever world boss/dungeon/area
- people buying/selling stuff at interesting rates
- people looking for groups / raids
- Groups / raids looking for people
- People looking for guilds (indeed !! You probably miss them...

)
- Some funny conversations
- Some people who are worth getting friends with
- etc etc...

Shortly : it's a space for *socializing* and developing an "MMO-feeling". This space is being vampirized and destroyed by guild advertising (and a few other unenjoyable things like the ones you mention). There would be more interesting/socializing stuff if there was less advertising and clutter.

I'm not telling you to stop advertising (even though you probably don't realize how counter-productive it is : none of my in game buddies would EVER join a guild that advertises in zone chat, simply because it's a signal of a declining guild), I'm just suggesting ZOS to give it a dedicated space.

As to the aspect "has always been like that in MMOs", well if you don't consider ESO to be a better or aiming it to be a better MMO, that's your opinion. In my opinion, there's always space for improvement.

Alphashado · January 2015

Wow. Ok then. Safe travels.

Demendra · January 2015

morvegil wrote: »

I got banned for 3 days for advertising my "Guild". I dont see anything wrong with this, all the guilds Im in have been because they were advertised. Unless they make a guild market or something expect this. Dont blame the players, blame ZOS.

If you got banned for this, then It's completely contradicting everything you're protecting and showing there is an issue.

I haven't actually seen anyone advise why this is not a problem.

I've mainly seen that:

1. Players can ignore it - Thanks to those that advised the custom tabs to edit out zone chat, this does help allot.
2. It's the best method for advertising a guild - Which yes I do agree, everyone in the Zone can see this.

I don't understand though why players should have to resort to completely blocking the zone chat, I often see people advising they're selling things, people asking for groups to take on dungeons etc. And often I've seen players asking for help from the community through the Zone chat.

The zone chat is clearly being used for things that are important to the game, and I'm not saying that guild advertisement isn't important, because guilds are! But the public chat just isn't a place for all of the guilds to be advising a paragraph simultaneously, one after another.

The guilds as a whole, are spamming the chat.

Ourorboros · January 2015

Beat a dead horse. Spit into the wind. Pee in your own pot. Rob Peter to pay Paul. Don't feed the trolls.
Thread crosses code of conduct, surprised it hasn't been closed yet.

DragonMother · January 2015

As a guild leader, I do not advertise in zone, nor do I encourage any of my members to do so. I do not believe in spamming for recruitment, and encourage my members to recruit through personal reference or encounters rather than filling chat windows with blabber and polish that doesn't make sense for my guilds purpose. I try to encourage the guilds I have joined to do the same, to help cut back and outright eliminate the spam.

Psychobunni · January 2015

- people buying/selling stuff at "interesting" rates

It is soooo hard not to troll when people are (WTS:Overpriced Item) or in reverse (WTB:Massively Underpricing hoping to dupe a player)

Behaving ones self is extremely hard some days

Alphashado · January 2015

There is a gigantic difference between advertising/recruiting in zone chat and spamming zone chat. Some people seem to be unable to distinguish the difference.

Trade guilds are an entirely different monster than PvE guilds. They need to be full of active accounts to be successful and they need to recruit daily in order to stay full and active. Advertising once in each zone is perfectly acceptable. Now if someone is spamming (yes, spamming which is the same person posting the same message over and over), then you can feel free to report them for doing so.

But there is a HUGE difference between someone posting an add in zone chat and someone spamming it. Lumping everyone that uses zone chat to recruit into some kind of preconceived stereotype is ridiculous. People are people. Some are good and some are bad. I still fail to understand why it is so much if a hassle for someone to take 5 seconds out of their life and "ignore" those that are truly spamming.

If you guys or ZoS somehow comes up with a reasonable alternative to zone chat recruiting, then fine. But don't bother trying to convince us about what works and don't work unless you are doing it yourself. Because those of us that bust our ass every day trying to keep a roster full of 500 active accounts understand what it takes. And unless you do this yourself, then you have no freaking idea how much work is involved.

This game needs good trading guilds. I am responsible for keeping a roster full. So until someone can prove to me that I can fill 10-15 spots every single day without using zone chat, then I will continue to do it. I don't spam. I post once in each zone and move on. Because it is the only thing that works. If you don't like it, then ignore it. Like I said, it takes 5 seconds to click ignore.

I pay a subscription. My guild mates pay a subscription. All the happy people that have joined a guild due to an add they saw in chat pay a subscription. And they all have just as much of a right to use zone chat as you do as long as no rules are broken.

smacx250 · January 2015

Every guild I've joined had been in response to advertisement in zone. Joining those guilds has been very helpful (and fun) for me - and by virtue of how much of my stuff others have bought (including non-members at kiosks), other players as well. As such, I value the guild advertisement in zone and hope that non-spam advertisement is not in any way restricted. Now the idle zone chatter I could really do without. The way I see it, zone is the broadcast domain. You broadcast in zone, and once contact is made, it is moved to another channel. "Conversations" are not to be had in zone (with Cyrodiil being a reasonable exception).

timidobserver · January 2015

If you create a guild channel that people can disable, guilds will just post in general anyway because more people will see it. It is that way in all MMOs that I've played.

anitajoneb17_ESO · January 2015

You can play with "rules", vocabulary and what not... we already understood everything you said. But you haven't understood what WE said, which is :

1/ doesn't matter if intentions are good or bad, guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is highly disturbing
2/ doesn't matter if it is allowed, "legal", "authorized", "admitted", "by the rules" or not, guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is highly disturbing,
3/ doesn't matter that you have paid a subscription (so have we, by the way), guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is highly disturbing
4/ doesn't matter if you do it "only" once a day, since many guilds are doing exactly the same, the result is that guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is highly disturbing
5/ doesn't matter if it is the only option available to you for recruiting, guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is STILL highly disturbing
6/ we're not saying you're a bad person, we just say that guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is highly disturbing

The "ignore" thing is no solution at all since the general use of zone chat for guild recruitment takes so much space in said zone chat that nothing interesting happens there, the channel being too cluttered with ads for everybody.

Now I have one good news for you : yes, you will carry on advertising in zone chat, because it is either allowed or tolerated, and because it is technically possible. And because you have so far no other space to do it. And because you need it to keep your guild full and active.

And I have one bad news for us (at least, some of us) : guild recruitment advertising will still be highly disturbing.

Reverb · January 2015

I want to go on record as saying that guild recruitment does not ruin my in-game chat (as per the OP) nor do I find it "highly disturbing" (as per the above poster).

AoEnwyr · January 2015

I guess there are a couple of things here. Firstly until there are dedicated LFG and WTB channels, people have no option but to use the general Zone chat.

Secondly, everyone has different tastes in as much as what they like to see in /zone. Personally if I feel that people who want to have extensive conversations with another person should use the /whisper function or join a group or guild together if you get along that well. I find zone chat really off-putting when I have to witness a 20 minute conversation about rehashed topics such as "Wow was the first mmo", "Girls don't play games", "Oooh pay attention to me 'cause I'm a girl" and "Weed/Alcohol" (honestly, when people go on about this it just makes me think they are 12 years old and have never actually touched the stuff). Yet while I find those things dull and repetitive, not to mention juvenile, I don't begrudge people the right to talk about it, I just turn /zone off most of the time and have only my guild chat active. If you do enjoy zone chat you can always ignore people who you feel are bothering you as an interim measure until Zenimax implements an alternative.

AoEnwyr · January 2015

DeLindsay wrote: »

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.

It can be implemented reasonable effectively when it comes to trade. One thing they can do which I have seen done in other MMO's is to prevent item linking in /zone (physically could not link in /zone if you tried it would auto switch your channel to trade or tell you that the action was not permitted). This forces people who wish to trade to use the TRADE channel where item linking was permitted. People could then create a chat tab and uncheck TRADE so they didn't have it clogging up their chat windows.

Alphashado · January 2015

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

You can play with "rules", vocabulary and what not... we already understood everything you said. But you haven't understood what WE said, which is :

1/ doesn't matter if intentions are good or bad, guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is highly disturbing
2/ doesn't matter if it is allowed, "legal", "authorized", "admitted", "by the rules" or not, guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is highly disturbing,
3/ doesn't matter that you have paid a subscription (so have we, by the way), guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is highly disturbing
4/ doesn't matter if you do it "only" once a day, since many guilds are doing exactly the same, the result is that guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is highly disturbing
5/ doesn't matter if it is the only option available to you for recruiting, guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is STILL highly disturbing
6/ we're not saying you're a bad person, we just say that guild recruitment advertising in zone chat is highly disturbing

The "ignore" thing is no solution at all since the general use of zone chat for guild recruitment takes so much space in said zone chat that nothing interesting happens there, the channel being too cluttered with ads for everybody.

Now I have one good news for you : yes, you will carry on advertising in zone chat, because it is either allowed or tolerated, and because it is technically possible. And because you have so far no other space to do it. And because you need it to keep your guild full and active.

And I have one bad news for us (at least, some of us) : guild recruitment advertising will still be highly disturbing.

It's disturbing to you. It's very useful and helpful to others. That is why you have the option to ignore people that disturb you. It's really that simple. Honestly in all my years of MMO forum browsing, I don't think I have ever seen anything so blown out of proportion.