Gold Spammer chat box exploit.

SMW1980b14a_ESO · April 2014

Some of the gold spammer spam so much junk in their message, that viewing their username to ignore or report them is impossible with the default interface.

You can maximize the size of the chat window, but you cannot ever see their username. Scroll up one line at a time, and you'll get skipped over their name and only see the last person to post before them. The only way I've found to be able to see them is to turn the font size way down to a tiny 13, which is far too small to be comfortable to me on my large monitor. It's not really an option to constantly toggle back and forth either, given the high frequency they cycle names.

There needs to be quick right click report option for a one click ignoring and reporting of gold spammers. And if you report someone as a gold spammer, why not have it ignore the entire account? That way they can cycle characters all they want without making themselves the tedious annoyance that they are.

Socratic · April 2014

Yeah do something about this FFS. I've heard of admins dishing warnings out to abuse in chat from players but let the spammers sell gold? Get an effing grip!

Vyndetta · April 2014

Ignoring any player name does ignore the entire account. To verify, look at your ignore list.
Unfortunately, until Beth/Zen fix the chat box sizing, you'll need to deal with the font size in order to click on their names. Yes, it's annoying and I hate it, but I can't stand the spam!
We also need the report feature to ignore players for us automatically. Heck, just right clicking the name should give us an actual "Gold Spam" option for reporting that reports and ignores the player.

Stonebreath · April 2014

I wish they'd fix the chat scrolling so that it doesn't skip lines like that. I've never seen a scroll feature do that before, and I really can't think of a reason to do it like that. Just have the scroll show you each line of text not skip to the previous person to speak.

Jujujitsu · April 2014

Agreed this issue is really pissing me off...hehe. They need to make it easier for me to help them get rid of these spammers. And installing a third party program to "hide" the spam before I see it is not fixing the issue, it's just sweeping it under the rug for someone else to deal with.

ThommyGunn · April 2014

How about let us just right click their whole chat instead of just their name. It would make it so much easier. Same with whispering, just right click what they say and/or the name, not just the name so we get all same options.

its getting out of hand

caelumpanache · April 2014

It would be nice if you didn't have to click on the name, and could just click on anything in the chat box. Then it wouldn't matter that they have huge long posts and it would be easy to ignore them.

Socratic · April 2014

If there was only a live admin instant banning these guys it would deter them from buying new accounts.

SMW1980b14a_ESO · April 2014

I quit playing my alt this morning because of this. I like to keep up with chat and since there are now people newer than me I was happily answering questions, but dealing with the spammer just annoyed me to no ends. I was literally spending more time reporting them/adjusting font size over and over doing my duty as a good citizen and also because over the years I've developed an intense burning hatred of these dirty parasites.

But enough is enough. I wonder what Rift and SWTOR did to disrupt them, because I hardly ever saw gold spammers in the entire several months I played them. Here they spam every 10-30 seconds.

fool2074b14_ESO · April 2014

You can see/ignore them even when they use the chat box exploit, you just need to reduce your font size a bit.

Hit Esc
Select Settings
Select Social
Font size is then adjusted with a slider, dropping it to 10 will allow you to see them by either scrolling or adjusting your chat window size. Fortunately ignoring them will ignore the entire account and remove any alts. My ignore list is up into the 20's now and I seldom see them anymore.

I agree however that Zenimax needs to streamline the reporting process and "Flag as Spam" option in the dropdown menu item that ignores the player and auto reports them as Spammers with no further player intervention would be optimal. It would also help if we could click on any part of the text block to flag/ignore someone would be awesome and avoid the occasional spoofing of names that they attempt by filling the window with white space then opening the comment with a bogus name. (This can also be defeated by adjusting the window size and font size as it throws their spacing off.)

Melian · April 2014

Stonebreath wrote: »

I wish they'd fix the chat scrolling so that it doesn't skip lines like that. I've never seen a scroll feature do that before, and I really can't think of a reason to do it like that. Just have the scroll show you each line of text not skip to the previous person to speak.

Yeah, this. The gold spammers are irritating enough, without having to resize my font just to report them.

Stormydove · April 2014

This needs to be dealt with publicly. Show us you respect your player base and call these gold spamers out by name, post it in the public forum and go out of your way, spend your money to remove this from OUR game.

Once you shatter the illusion of us being "in" this world by outside gold spamers ruining our gaming experience, all you surveys and listening to the players goes to crap.

Jeralrik · April 2014

I noticed the Gold Spammers advertisements have gotten longer and longer to the point they fill up the whole screen, Also I thought sending mail messages was disabled in game, because I was trying to figure out how the Spammers were sending me mail this morning when I logged on I had 57 mail messages all but 1 was gold spammers the 1 was a message from my craft assistant getting supply's.
For some odd reason the Gold Spammers are way terrible in ESO than any other game I've played lately.
I've gotten to the point I just uncheck Zone chat and watch guild chat, I like to help answer questions if someone has one but not with the spammers sending every 5 to 10 seconds.
Coarse I wish we had a System like Dungeons & Dragons Online in chat where you type /advice and ask a question and someone try's to answer the question and is separate from general chat.

dpgirl · April 2014

They do need to fix it... but right now I use SpamFilter add on, and set up a lot of filters for auto-ignore. Its not so bad now as the first spam post, it auto-ignores the account and I no longer have to worry about it.

mattshiloh · April 2014

Socratic wrote: »

If there was only a live admin instant banning these guys it would deter them from buying new accounts.

No... it wouldn't. They figure if there are a million players and even 1 percent of those buy gold, they've made money. And invariably there will be one or two jacktards for every 100 players who will buy gold (akin to cheating if you ask me). Add in the fact that the majority of these posts are being made from accounts they are farming the gold or power leveling for (they spam once they have the access to the account), or accounts purchased with stolen credit cards, and it's just a money making scam.

What needs to happen is that ZMax needs to put together a group of volunteers like every other MMO out there has in the past who work a Customer Service Queue and handle things like this while the GMs work on higher level stuff. Have some wandering "Counselors" or whatever you want to call them that can summon a character to a "jail" zone and if that char logs out and back in on another char on that account, it notifies the queue and they can be dealt with again. Provide the counselors the tools they need to handle the issues. GMs in other games even have the option to remove that ability for players to post any text into any chat, or kick and ban them. Maybe some senior level counselors could have this option. All commands are logged on the server.

It's an option that worked for Ultima Online, EverQuest, and World of Warcraft for years...

mewmew34_ESO · April 2014

They definitely need to do something about that. I've reported a couple of folks but others I've tried to report were impossible to get to. -_-

robsonsb14_ESO · April 2014

A globally shared spam list to go along side of the current ignore list would be nice. After so many people have put an individual's account on their spam list they are ignored by everyone. Kind of like a rep system. Or bad rep...

eltheria_ESO · April 2014

dpgirl wrote: »

They do need to fix it... but right now I use SpamFilter add on, and set up a lot of filters for auto-ignore. Its not so bad now as the first spam post, it auto-ignores the account and I no longer have to worry about it.

I just installed this add on this morning and chat has been gold free bliss.

Shadow27 · April 2014

It has to be solved fast. Its really annoying to see that long messages every 30s...ESO team-you should get it solved before 4.4.! Its a real need...

caryhammub17_ESO · April 2014

Fix Chat to scroll by line #1

3 type of chat spam, Gold Spammer auto ignore, and reports player is 1st, Abusive Disruptive player ignore report is 2nd, finally, Troll Trash talker 6, 24, or permanent ignore, no report. # 2

Chat text per message limit to 255 characters. or whatever it is to keep a player from filling the chat box up maxed expanded, and font set to 18. #3

PointMaid · April 2014

I've been rooting around in forums trying to dig up any official responses to the gold spamming issues, and I haven't found a single one. There is plenty of player speculation about what is being done and how it is being handled, and tons of great ideas being mentioned by players, but no comment from ZOS.

So how about it? Are the developers hearing us and addressing the problem?

MysticAura · April 2014

Until they come up with a more permanent solution, I've just started using a spam filter add-on. It catches and ignores almost every single gold spammer, and you can add to the filters if you find a new one it misses.

caryhammub17_ESO · April 2014

they commented in the one I made in technical support last night/this morning. Said use feedback in game...

PointMaid · April 2014

My bad - I did find a Dev asking us to continue reporting them, that they are being banned.

This is still tedious to do, as it calls for resizing chat text, etc., and nets players a form letter in their Email for each report. I had about a dozen from yesterday in my in box...

SkOODaT · April 2014

SpamFilter ESO addon @ ESOUI ... auto blocks goldsellers

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?s=85be78545754df97fbc3ae27932a0fa3&id=89

I litterally have 20 plus goldspammers blocked on my list allready going to just screenshot it and send the list in to ESO through a ticket LOL

t.steve1991ub17_ESO · April 2014

I did not think you could get trial accounts for this game. If you had to pay 80 dollars for early access I would think they would be losing money doing the spam thing. If not it means a lot of people are buying gold which is more disturbing.

Mix · April 2014

I reported them too, until i got tired of reporting them. The report window is too complex for such a simple request and takes 30 sec to 1 min to "send". Which doesn't seem like a long time but standing in the middle of nowhere, possibly vulnerable to attack...

I did suggest in my email feedback that they needed a one click report->spam option and it should also ignore the reported account.

I do have to say I have seen two clever tactics by the gold sellers. It is quite clever of them to notice the chat box scrolling and make their posts so long that we cannot ignore them without changing font size. I also saw one that left a huge blank space and then put [superman] as if it was his toon name. So you had to realize that his actual name was way up the chat past the blank. Annoying but hilariously clever at the same time:p

davidregalub17_ESO · April 2014

I just want to put in my 2 cents, and say that they need to fix this problem, both with your ability to ignore these parasites, and secondly to be able to report them easily.

caryhammub17_ESO · April 2014

SkOODaT wrote: »

SpamFilter ESO addon @ ESOUI ... auto blocks goldsellers

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?s=85be78545754df97fbc3ae27932a0fa3&id=89

I litterally have 20 plus goldspammers blocked on my list allready going to just screenshot it and send the list in to ESO through a ticket LOL

Thats great, and a nice stopgap, but the fact remains, chat is broken as it is deigned, and implemented, and that addon does not report the slimy trolls.

MysticAura · April 2014

t.steve1991ub17_ESO wrote: »

I did not think you could get trial accounts for this game. If you had to pay 80 dollars for early access I would think they would be losing money doing the spam thing. If not it means a lot of people are buying gold which is more disturbing.

Pre-ordering at some stores only required 5 dollars down, and you get the access code..

true2moon_ESO · April 2014

yea and it only gets worse, they are not taking enough action on this. You have to make new chat tabs and turn off all chat except guild.

you figure they could put some basic filers on like (www.) or .com etc - but I guess that might be too advanced for their lead programmers or something.