Gold Spammers and poor chat box design

caryhammub17_ESO · April 2014

Not sure where to put this but it fits with bad design, so here it will sit.

When you guys built your chat systems you made it gold spammer friendly, and a headache for us with poor eyesight running large fonts.

When you want to scroll through chat to ignore report the spammers, they have their chat setup to fill the entire box max expanded, making me, and anyone with larger than 8 chat font have to lower the font to see the name ot ignore them, because you cannot scroll by line, only displayed message.

Change Chat to scroll line by line, so we can kill these spammers, and do it fast, you got a few more days before your game goes completely open, and it's gonna be hell if this isn't changed before then.

darkkterror_ESO · April 2014

Making the chat window scroll line-by-line instead of by message is a great idea and I fully support it. However, I'd also go a step further. Reduce the number of characters that can be in a single chat message. It's silly that gold spammers are able to make such massive, single messages in the first place.

Aulakauss · April 2014

Agree with the idea above, but also could make it so you can right click on any place in the message to get that option box. This would make it so they couldn't hide their username.

Of course, if there's a way to get rid of that silliness entirely that would be amazing, but until and unless.. character limits would be helpful.

Sakiri · April 2014

The message length could stand to be reduced too. There is no reason you need that many lines.

None.

Dunwyrd · April 2014

The developers need to make it so regular players can report spammers without having to re-size chat boxes and text.

Then, they have to go the extra step in adding another option in the menu when you right click names to ignore or report.

There needs to be a selectable option to report spam AND ignore the user at the same time.

I just want to right click a spammers name, select a Spam option, confirm the user to be blocked and reported, and then have it auto generate a complaint ticket while at the same time ignoring that user.

It's cumbersome to submit a spam ticket, then go back and ignore the person. Especially when you're reporting them at every opportunity.

The gold spamming garbage seriously needs to be addressed ...

ZOS_TristanK · April 2014

Hi, folks. Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. Be sure to also share your thoughts in-game using the /feedback command as well!

juduking · April 2014

I'm glad I looked around first. I logged out to see if anyone else had seen the spamming going on. It is illegal isn't it? To offer fake currency in exchange for real world money right? The one I saw said mmowin over and over again like 30 lines or something.

Santera · April 2014

Dear devs,
May be it's possible to include some words like PvPBank or Goldah (with their variations) in the chat filter? Patch Notes says that the filters work now.

Yshaar · April 2014

Install spam filter from esoui.com and don't worry anymore.

Santera · April 2014

Yshaar wrote: »

Install spam filter from esoui.com and don't worry anymore.

I've found three of them on esoui.com: SpamFilter (1.0), SpamFilter Menu Patch (1.0), and GoldSpamFilter (1.0)
What filter do you recommend?

Jujujitsu · April 2014

I had the filters installed but they started to filter MY comments in guild chat. Like when I give my "Welcome" statement during recruitment phases. Instead of requiring me to install a third party program, just fix the problem! It's pretty sad when the gold farmers are outsmarting the developers of the game.

Limit /zone text lines, let me scroll text line by line, give me a "report gold spammer" option that does a /ignore for me and puts the spammers acct name directly into their log. Lots of options for the company to use they just need to prioritize or HIRE more people.

Vyndetta · April 2014

@ZOS_TristanK‌
Can you confirm that you guys are actually doing something to help us out with this issue? I mean, even adding the right-click option to immediately select "Gold Spam" would go a long way for us players. The report feature now is very cumbersome and you have to make sure you're in a safe place to take the time to report them.

Yshaar · April 2014

please only use spamfilter. you can configure this addon and add new gold sites too. this is my recommendation. you will not run into trouble like Vyndetta did.

Ri_Dariit · April 2014

Dunwyrd wrote: »

I just want to right click a spammers name, select a Spam option, confirm the user to be blocked and reported, and then have it auto generate a complaint ticket while at the same time ignoring that user.

It's cumbersome to submit a spam ticket, then go back and ignore the person. Especially when you're reporting them at every opportunity.

Ri'Darrit agrees with your sentiment and has found temporary solution. Right click chat window, and disable zone chat. Yes, you will miss other conversation, but this one has noticed nothing of import. Khajiit also noticed that crafters /say around forges so legitimate tradesmen can be still heard.

KiroElmarok · April 2014

ESOUI.com
Get BadGoldSpammer.
Automute engage.

Hiddenbunny · April 2014

Even with the filter, its still a hassle. The same spammers have been redoing their site name using various combination of characters and you have to add that name each time they change, and at times it is difficult to tell what character they are using.
While I see why you want to allow use of all Unicode characters, but in this case it is just being abused.
The problem with gold spammer is demand. If there is no money to be made, there won't be any spammer. Just think about this, a copy = $60, and they are saying 1000g=$19, that means 3+ people have to buy gold at that price to cover the cost.
With the gold spammers able to keep getting new accounts, there must be a large demand for it right now...

Turgenev · April 2014

In City of Heroes, there was a tech they implemented that, because I can't remember it exactly, I'll just call "jelly borders". This gave you the ability to easily resize GUI components like Map, Chat, power trays, etc., to suit your particular style. They also gave you the ability to tint the chat of certain players, channels, etc.

Having a bit more flexibility with the chat system would be helpful long-term for a more cohesive and productive in-game communication system, and therefore community, where the ability to reach out and talk isn't compromised by the GUI and exploited by spammers.

And I love Aulakauss's idea of clicking anywhere on that message to flag a spammer. Cheers.

Vyndetta · April 2014

@Yshaar I didn't run into "trouble". They have a system in place, it's just not effective. Why should I use an addon that doesn't report the spammers or ignore them from future messages? This does not solve the problem, it hides it.

Again, @ZOS_TristanK are you guys going to actually put a system in place that makes it easier for us to report, or something that will stop these spam messages altogether?

I don't want to put add-ons on my system at this point, and people shouldn't be forced to do so. It's too early in the game to mess with them with all of the launch type patches that come with every MMO.

Altheina · April 2014

ZOS_TristanK wrote: »

Hi, folks. Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. Be sure to also share your thoughts in-game using the /feedback command as well!

While I think it's good to submit things via in game feedback, would also be good for ZOS devs and Community Managers to encourage players to post and discuss feedback in the forum(this is one of the reasons forum exists...)

PS: A good example of devs very engaged with their players is Marvel Heroes online.

Vyndetta · April 2014

silenthunter29 wrote: »

PS: A good example of devs very engaged with their players is Marvel Heroes online.

LOL Really? All they do is spew BS over there. It's rare to actually get a real response. They are big on "yeah, we'd like to do that" or "here's a teaser for you, but we can't say when"... Honestly, their forums are what ended up driving me away from that game. I know, sad.

Tipsy · April 2014

Please let Molag Bal consume their souls..most annoying thing at the moment are the goldsellers.
ALright there are a few bugged quests like "the ghosts of westtry" and "mastering the talisman" at DC area but still that doesn't annoy me as much as these walls goldsellers post while i'm trying to have a conversation.
I would stand behind anything that would ruin them.

MathisBorgen · April 2014

I agree, there should be a "gold spam" button. But the option must be supervised, so you can't press it on people who aren't gold sellers and they get auto-banned. There are always jerks who will do that just to be an idiot.. :-P And if someone does, they should be punished.

gardenia.ren67ub17_ESO · April 2014

ZOS_TristanK wrote: »

Hi, folks. Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. Be sure to also share your thoughts in-game using the /feedback command as well!

Unfortunately that does little to help, either. I have left /feedback on this in game and offered suggestions, and explained *why* this is a problem (because the spammers are taking up so much text deliberately in order to ensure their account name is hard to get to, to make reporting as difficult as possible) only to be given a canned response explaining how to report an account. I KNOW how to report an account, and how to manually resize my window, but if customer service can only send out canned responses after explaining that I am giving feedback because the reporting system is cumbersome and the spammers are one step ahead of them, then why bother? I even tried replying by email to show what we are up against several days ago, and I hear crickets

I love the game, and have tried to help, but it is becoming more hassle than it is worth to even bother reporting anymore. The info being sent back indicates that the reports aren't being read, or perhaps the CSRs need training or are ESL? Perhaps both? Even a generic reply of "We are working on a solution, stay tuned!" would be better received than giving me a link telling me how to report when I'm not asking how to report - I'm giving a clear narrative on why it has become too cumbersome to report and some ideas on how to deal with it.

Sorry for the rant.