Golf Farmers and Pharseing

k9mouse · April 2014

I just thinking what if someone (like a gold farmer with those funny names) get to many "Reported Players" and system auto phased that person to their own layer with others who are also are reported.

All Zone message will be only be seen by those who are also been reported in their own phased. Gold Farmers want to ad their "service" (aka spam) to many peeps as they can. If ZOS moved move to their own phased, no "real" player can see their spam.

They can still use party and guild chat.

If a person who is NOT a gold farmer and get reported and phased, they still play the game normal -- they just will see a LOT of spam in the zone channel.

They can send a ticket to ZOS to restore back to the "real player" phased. It is NOT a auto ban, just a "more nice" way to remove any one who might be a Gold Farmer. Also, ZOS could used those funny names and they long and repeating message as clues if they are really a gold farmer or not as well. With those factors in mind that should help from players "abusing the system and send a "real player" to the gold farmer phrased. If the Gold Farmer got reported a few hundred times in a hour and have those long, repeating messages -- they will be auto phased to their own "area" Thus, keep them from "sale their service" to the real players (no money to be mad = no gold farmers) and also it will help people who might abuse the said system. They can play, from parties and used the guild chat / bank, etc, but they will be speared from the "real player based" zone chat.

What do you all think of the idea? It is not as harsh as out-right ban will be, but it will take away their chat channel spam until ZOS / GM ban them after a time.

Zorak · April 2014

Sarenia · April 2014

Not a grammar police, but did want to make one minor point...

A phrase and a phase are two very different things.

People may not know what you're talking about when you repeatedly say "phrase gold spammers".

AbraCadabra · April 2014

Also not grammar police, but "GOLF FARMERS AND PHARSEING" -- I don't have a problem with golfers - Gold Farmers however .....

demendred · April 2014

The GMs needs to check the lower level public dungeons. The one in AD earlier was swarming with them. Reported them, yea. But lord, they need to post a GM there to watch the place. Hell, I'd volunteer my time to hunt down RMTs and nothing else.

Thesiren · April 2014

demendred wrote: »

The GMs needs to check the lower level public dungeons. The one in AD earlier was swarming with them. Reported them, yea. But lord, they need to post a GM there to watch the place. Hell, I'd volunteer my time to hunt down RMTs and nothing else.

They don't need to be hunted (although many a player, including myself, would love the chance to get them into Cyrodiil, haha). They need to be permanently suppressed automatically in chat, mail and /guilds, right when they start. Zenimax needs to get a lot better with its initial detection and flagging (or right now, lack thereof). This "picking up the pieces by hand, one at a time, after the damage is done" nonsense is extremely time consuming for both the devs and players and barely even makes a dent in the overall gold farmer population anyway.

demendred · April 2014

Haha, maybe hunt down was the wrong word for it. Something like Square does with their special task force for Final Fantasy XI.

k9mouse · April 2014

I was thinking of moving the farmers to a different phase and out of sight of real normal players. ZOS then do data collecting and/or banning on them. If a person gets reported to many times (few 100 in a hour or so), they will be auto put in that different phase until ZOS has the time to deal with it. They still can do anything (expect normal zone chat) in the game, but the normal real players no longer see them.

If a normal player get reported to many times (aka players abused the report system) ZOS can restore back to their "real player" phase or if they are really a gold farmer , they can ban them.

Players have some power to remove people, but the removed people still can play the game and can only see others who are also were reported until ZOS person can either restore them if they are report badly or ban them if they really did break ZOS's TOS. It is not a ban per say, but it does separate the sheeps from the goats. Since the megaserver uses phases tech, might as well use it to our advantage.

badmojo · April 2014

No, the bots need to be reported and banned, if you let them go off and live in their own little world, they'll be able to operate with impunity.

cabbageub17_ESO · April 2014

If they would just make it they you had to reset the Quest by leaving the public dungeon the bots would go away.

Cydramech · April 2014

Why so racist against golf farmers? I mean, someone's gotta pick up all of them golf balls...

Tajich · April 2014

The gold-spammers are using in game mail now. I report ever one of the gold spamming accounts I come across.

MysticAura · April 2014

I do admit seeing golf farmers would be quite the farce, but I've never heard of pharsing.

However, putting people reported into a different phase would be a nice idea. I've kind of wondered sometimes if they already do that to a point, since I've not seen near as many of since reporting them.

pavelcherepanskyrwb17_ESO · April 2014

k9mouse wrote: »

I just thinking what if someone (like a gold farmer with those funny names) get to many "Reported Players" and system auto phased that person to their own layer with others who are also are reported.

All Zone message will be only be seen by those who are also been reported in their own phased. Gold Farmers want to ad their "service" (aka spam) to many peeps as they can. If ZOS moved move to their own phased, no "real" player can see their spam.

They can still use party and guild chat.

If a person who is NOT a gold farmer and get reported and phased, they still play the game normal -- they just will see a LOT of spam in the zone channel.

While I totally understand your frustration with gold farmers and bots your suggestion leaves a lot of options for exploiting to harass normal players. Say, I'll send a word in my guild saying that everyone needs to report player XXX as a bot. And then suddenly this guy, who is totally legit is being phased out onto another layer with only the gold farmers over there. And restoring things back to normal will take some time... You can really drive some people mad with jokes like this.

k9mouse wrote: »

just a "more nice" way to remove any one who might be a Gold Farmer.

This one is wondering whether there is a Presumption of Innocence where you're from. You can't take a right of normal play from someone just because you think they 'might' be a bot/gold spammer.

k9mouse wrote: »

What do you all think of the idea? It is not as harsh as out-right ban will be, but it will take away their chat channel spam until ZOS / GM ban them after a time.

There are some very positive changes proposed for the next patch and hopefully they will get rid of most of the issue. Devs themselves said that this is their #1 priority, so I would suggest to keep doing what we're doing now - reporting, ignoring etc and wait for the change in game mechanics that will stop most of the issues.

dreildragb14_ESO · April 2014

badmojo wrote: »

No, the bots need to be reported and banned, if you let them go off and live in their own little world, they'll be able to operate with impunity.

Done that x67 players. Week later those bots are still here. Some have moved to train grinding whole open world towns.

So I go into a dungeon, see bots report them that's about 20 minutes im taking from playing doing a job that really isn't even mine, then spend 5- 20 minutes killing the boss for the loot (if I get it at all), then quest a little further to a open world town to see a 20 bot train event going threw waypoints, that's another 30-45 minutes to make sure I report them all, again not even playing the game anymore.

So in the long run im paying base game and the monthly subs, and by being a "loyal player" and reporting the bots I see im also a freelance contractor for Zenimax doing their job for free.

badmojo · April 2014

dreildragb14_ESO wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

No, the bots need to be reported and banned, if you let them go off and live in their own little world, they'll be able to operate with impunity.

Done that x67 players. Week later those bots are still here. Some have moved to train grinding whole open world towns.

So I go into a dungeon, see bots report them that's about 20 minutes im taking from playing doing a job that really isn't even mine, then spend 5- 20 minutes killing the boss for the loot (if I get it at all), then quest a little further to a open world town to see a 20 bot train event going threw waypoints, that's another 30-45 minutes to make sure I report them all, again not even playing the game anymore.

So in the long run im paying base game and the monthly subs, and by being a "loyal player" and reporting the bots I see im also a freelance contractor for Zenimax doing their job for free.

I didn't say reporting works instantly or very well at all. I'm just saying that if we sweep the problem under the rug(put bots in their own phase) the problem will never go away, it will actually get a lot worse. If we tolerate and change the game to live with the bots, we're basically accepting them into the game.

All we can do as players is report them, and hope they get banned. If ZOS fails to act on those reports, they will lose subscribers, and their game will suffer. I agree it is very frustrating to see the same bot groups farming dungeons day after day, same names, same dungeon, same bots, same reports I'm making every day.

I think it's wrong that this thread suggests we should accept ZOS's lack of action in banning bots. We shouldn't be suggesting ways to work around their lack of action, rather we should be scolding them for not following up on the hard work we(their customers) are doing for them. If they continue to neglect our bot reports, and let the bots operate for enough time to profit, the problem will never go away. Eventually people will become even more frustrated and in the end they will stop reporting the bots because it feels like a waste of time.

k9mouse · April 2014

I am NOT saying we should allow gold farmers in shape or form. The phase idea is just a temp holding cell before the gold farmers be drag out to the street and shot.

(aka ban)

This idea allows two aspects to happen 1) get rid gold farmers from the public eye before ZOS has time to ban them 2) gives ZOS time to see if the report is for a "real" player or a gold farmer.

pavelcherepanskyrwb17_ESO · April 2014

k9mouse wrote: »

I am NOT saying we should allow gold farmers in shape or form. The phase idea is just a temp holding cell before the gold farmers be drag out to the street and shot. (aka ban)

This idea allows two aspects to happen 1) get rid gold farmers from the public eye before ZOS has time to ban them 2) gives ZOS time to see if the report is for a "real" player or a gold farmer.

As long as you're not a GM or ZOS employee and you don't have access to player account activity information you can't identify that someone is a bot. Again, introducing the change you propose will open ways for lynching, pranks and harassment of normal players, maybe including yourself as well.

Just answer this - would you like to get into the 'holding cell' with all the bots/spammers as a result of a prank or just some people wanting to annoy the hell out of you?

k9mouse · April 2014

Just an idea, not saying it is good or bad. Just wanted some other people's feelings in this matter.

ZOS will not just used player reporting, also the system will check how many posts one made to the zone channel in certain amount of time,, if the post is repeating and they can also use other aspects to figure out besides just player reporting. So it will be some safe other guards in place to reduce abuse of the system.