Bot guild invite spammers

code65536 · December 5

Orbital78 wrote: »

This may have even been all done within the ESO API

Yes, it would be very easy to write a simple addon that auto-invites anyone who says anything in zone chat as well as anyone who happens to enter your reticle. No need for macros or external software. So instead of comparing this to automated fishing, which someone did earlier in this thread, the more appropriate comparison is with automated writs. Automated fishing is bannable because that requires external software, while automated writs is kosher.

And there are existing safeguards against spammy abuse of this: there is a cooldown that you must wait between each invite that you send (My guess is that it's in the ballpark of a minute? But I've never acutally stopwatch-timed it.) Of course, to the people receiving the automated guild invites, this cooldown probably doesn't mean anything to them since it doesn't matter to them if the previous person who received an invite received it 6s ago or 60s ago. But it does place a limit on the person doing the inviting.

And FWIW, when I started playing the first guild I joined was someone just inviting random people out of the blue. (This was also years before the Guild Finder existed.) While I didn't stay for long--I dropped it after a few weeks after I joined a number of better guilds--it was still useful for me as a new player who didn't know anyone or anything.

LennaTheRussian · December 5

code65536 wrote: »

Orbital78 wrote: »

This may have even been all done within the ESO API

Yes, it would be very easy to write a simple addon that auto-invites anyone who says anything in zone chat as well as anyone who happens to enter your reticle. No need for macros or external software. So instead of comparing this to automated fishing, which someone did earlier in this thread, the more appropriate comparison is with automated writs. Automated fishing is bannable because that requires external software, while automated writs is kosher.

And there are existing safeguards against spammy abuse of this: there is a cooldown that you must wait between each invite that you send (My guess is that it's in the ballpark of a minute? But I've never acutally stopwatch-timed it.) Of course, to the people receiving the automated guild invites this cooldown probably doesn't mean anything to them since it doesn't matter to them if the previous person who received an invite received it 6s ago or 60s ago. But it does place a limit on the person doing the inviting.

And FWIW, when I started playing the first guild I joined was someone just inviting random people out of the blue. (This was also years before the Guild Finder existed.) While I didn't stay for long--I dropped it after a few weeks after I joined a number of better guilds--it was still useful for me as a new player who didn't know anyone or anything.

Just because the API allows it, does not mean it can't be abused. A guild using alt throwaway accounts to go AFK and run the addon to automatically invite players is botting. They are automating a task and going AFK. Automated writs is nowhere near egregious as this, which is why it is still allowed (but that can always change if the devs say so.)

They clearly know that what they are doing is against TOS otherwise they wouldn't use throwaway accounts. I have yet to see a single real account doing these invites.

Why is there even a public API for invites? That's just asking for spam even with the restrictions. People can just use multiple accounts and multibox.

Also if I get an invite and decline it and tell the account not to invite me anymore, there should an expectation that I do not want to join and don't want to be spammed with invites to the guild. But no, I decline the invite and a few hours later a new throwaway account pops up and invites me as soon as I spawn in a town. This is harassment.

DoofusMax · December 5

To the OP's original complaint, my impression on PC NA is the invites from "that guild" are not coming from the usual bot-like stuff, but rather from specific players. As they showed up, I just blocked the player. It took several blocks to do it, but I haven't seen an invite from "that guild" in quite a while.

Orbital78 · December 5

DoofusMax wrote: »

To the OP's original complaint, my impression on PC NA is the invites from "that guild" are not coming from the usual bot-like stuff, but rather from specific players. As they showed up, I just blocked the player. It took several blocks to do it, but I haven't seen an invite from "that guild" in quite a while.

I think you are right, but I don't know for sure. I know they had multiple guilds in the past. My experience was around 2-3+ years ago. Always at the main Vvardenfell wayshrine with heavy traffic near the trader area. I think I too did ignore them at first, because it would happen quite often when I hung out in the city as a main hub. I do think they were using some sort of addon to do it. I rarely use zone chat, so I don't think it was scanning chat to auto invite similar to auto group invite addons. I am guessing some sort of crosshair invite.

At this point I remember the guild name and faction, but not the person who was doing it. Once I had 5 guilds, it was a moot point.

16BitForestCat · December 5

LennaTheRussian wrote: »

Just because the API allows it, does not mean it can't be abused.

Also if I get an invite and decline it and tell the account not to invite me anymore, there should an expectation that I do not want to join and don't want to be spammed with invites to the guild. But no, I decline the invite and a few hours later a new throwaway account pops up and invites me as soon as I spawn in a town. This is harassment.

This, this, and THIS. Tagging and @ZOS_Kevin and quoted for truth and all that. Just because something is "legal" doesn't mean it's "right." Something mods of almost every community seem to have trouble remembering is that you have the enforce the spirit of the rules, not just the letter of the law. Rules/laws/TOS's exist to maintain harmony and good behavior in a community (and cover the owners' backsides, of course). If someone is doing something to disrupt any of that, they need to be held accountable, even if their actions are not in direct violation of any specific rule. AKA things I've learned from over 30 years of modding various online communities, from IRC to eGroups mailing lists (later Yahoo! Groups) to forums and beyond.

I've seen communities crumble and implode too many times, just because the people in charge kept saying, "Well, they're not breaking any rules, so we can't do anything!" (As if they themselves didn't MAKE the rules they were hiding behind, and could alter their policies at any time to restore peace. We call these people "cowards.")

Also, just wanted to point out the Vulkhel Guard spammer I keep seeing/getting spammed by on my under-5-guild alt accounts is using a character name that ends in "suckstoes." Pretty sure that's a name that could be reported for sexual content. (The first part of the name, which I'm not mentioning due to the name-and-shame rules, makes it clear that it's the alt account of someone who has been spamming for this guild group for a very long time because I've seen that name many times before.) I'm normally against reporting such names in a game with an adult rating, but when it comes to the owner of said name participating in harassment, I'm willing to jump through a loophole and play dirty too. I've been taking screenshots of every single time I get hit with a spam invite as well as the exact location of the spammer. It's time to go to the ESO Support page do a mass-reporting from each of my accounts.

Everyone else should too. Annoy ZOS till they finally do something, if they won't act when they should.

Also, I agree that it's not just the individual spammers who need to be actioned. The people running these guilds need to face consequences too. The founder in particular is infamous for abusive behavior; that's been documented right here in some of the previous forum threads about this guild group.

Oh, and Kevin/ZOS mods, don't ignore this post about the guild group's suspcious behavior:

spantifical wrote: »

One of my old officers was also an officer there and she used to brag about how effective the script/macro was. She was told she had to get x number of new recruits a week or month to stay an officer. But this was easily 5 or 6 years go.

Back then, it seemed like their primary goal was just to be the biggest conglomerate on PC NA. I just googled and found their website. They boast over 38,000 guild members across 3 games and now are a "leading platform that provides computer science resources and coding challenges for programmers and technology enthusiasts, along with interview and exam preparations for upcoming aspirants" and boast over 12M registered users worldwide. Yet everything on the website is apparently about those 3 games (and nearly empty). So...that's interesting.

Is the spam for clout? So it looks like they have a huge network and can be trusted? So odd.

Tandor · December 5

DoofusMax wrote: »

To the OP's original complaint, my impression on PC NA is the invites from "that guild" are not coming from the usual bot-like stuff, but rather from specific players. As they showed up, I just blocked the player. It took several blocks to do it, but I haven't seen an invite from "that guild" in quite a while.

Nor had I until this week, and I have never blocked a single player since I started playing ESO at launch, so it's nothing to do with that. They'd either gone quiet or were operating outside the zones I have experienced them in (and personally visit) most, notably Vulkhel Guard and Daggerfall.

AzuraFan · December 5

I got one of these just yesterday in Shadowfen, near the Stormhold wayshrine. They hang around wayshrines and do this.

Destai · December 5

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, you can send either the name of the guild and what mega server you saw this on, or issue a report flagging the spam. We want to get rid of bot accounts when they show up. We can get whatever information you gather over to customer service. Or if you placed a ticket, we can escalate that.

Honestly dude, someone could just park themselves in each zone and watch it unfold. Like NW Alik'r routinely has bot farmers, so does Khenarthi's. There just comes a point where reporting isn't the solution, having some with a zapper on hand is.

Vonnegut2506 · December 5

ZOS doesn't care. I spent an entire month reporting them after asking them to stop inviting my characters every time I logged into Daggerfall. The response from ZOS was that no violation of their terms had occurred. They will spend time in this thread acting like they might do something about it and then ignore it just like last time.

LuC1ll3atTh3Wh33L · December 6

disable blind invites. wouldn't this resolve the spam invites?

valenwood_vegan · December 6

Since zos isn't interested in responding to these complaints that have been going on for years now, I do think a reasonable solution to this would be an "auto-decline guild invites" setting, like we have for duels and ToT matches.

SilverBride · December 6

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Since zos isn't interested in responding to these complaints that have been going on for years now, I do think a reasonable solution to this would be an "auto-decline guild invites" setting, like we have for duels and ToT matches.

I don't know why we don't already have one. If they gave us one it wouldn't be as beneficial to this guild to bot invites.

silentxthreat · December 9

i mean if you look there is 100s of complaints about said guild on reddit and forums. name and shame prevents me saying who but a google search will bring it up or just make a level 1 and port to vulkhel guard and u will get invited instant. if you complain to them that they spam invite they mass report you

Sythen88411 · December 9

There is addons called add block and add block plus. Never see a spam again

SilverBride · December 9

It's not spam that players are concerned about. It's about a particular guild auto inviting players at certain wayshrines. It is suspected that they may be using a bot to send the invites.

CatoUnchained · December 9

Sythen88411 wrote: »

There is addons called add block and add block plus. Never see a spam again

Um, that's a browser add on, not an ESO add on.

CatoUnchained · December 9

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Since zos isn't interested in responding to these complaints that have been going on for years now, I do think a reasonable solution to this would be an "auto-decline guild invites" setting, like we have for duels and ToT matches.

Or how about a "guild ignore" feature....wait, that might not work because of multiple guild membership issues...but it's a thought.

silentxthreat · December 9

I made a video and sent it to @ZOS_Kevin showing the guild in question in action. I should say one of 10 guilds with the same name

redlink1979 · December 9

AzuraFan wrote: »

I got one of these just yesterday in Shadowfen, near the Stormhold wayshrine. They hang around wayshrines and do this.

Yes, usually near the "main" wayshrines.
Daggerfall. Vivec City. That's where I once got a couple of invites.

Funny story: When they threw the 1st invitation at me I accepted (I didn't know the guild, I had a slot free so I thought why not?) but I got kicked out in-game a couple of days later because I wasn't voice active at their discord as they want ppl to be. Strange requirement. Lol

PS - For more "funny" stories, one can check the Steam forum aswell. The legacy preceeds them.

guarstompemoji · December 9

One of the leads of that Spam Guild is predatory towards female players.

The predation happens through discord, so it is "out of zoss's hands." By allowing that bot, tho, it enables that person's behavior.

This is why I keep my slots full, and others do as well. We will assign dead, empty guilds just to avoid the Predatory Spammer Guild with its Creeper Admin.

guarstompemoji · December 9

Destai wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, you can send either the name of the guild and what mega server you saw this on, or issue a report flagging the spam. We want to get rid of bot accounts when they show up. We can get whatever information you gather over to customer service. Or if you placed a ticket, we can escalate that.

Honestly dude, someone could just park themselves in each zone and watch it unfold. Like NW Alik'r routinely has bot farmers, so does Khenarthi's. There just comes a point where reporting isn't the solution, having some with a zapper on hand is.

Tbh, this shows they do not play their own game. ZOS these creeps are so obvious. X.x

Razmirra · December 9

CatoUnchained wrote: »

Sythen88411 wrote: »

There is addons called add block and add block plus. Never see a spam again

Um, that's a browser add on, not an ESO add on.

It's also the name of the addon for it. I know "No, Thank You!" and it's derivatives can have it to auto-decline guild invites too.

Soarora · December 9

An auto decline option would be awesome but also it’s mostly just this one conglomerate that’s doing this and no one should be joining them anyways.

SilverBride · December 9

They've been doing this for years now. Even if they find they aren't using a bot or some other ToS violation can't they somehow be stopped because of the nuisance they are creating for the playerbase?

LennaTheRussian · December 10

I doubt anything of significance will happen to solve the issue. I just made the thread to see if I was crazy or not. Happens everyday to me but the last discussion I could find was a year ago. You'd think something as annoying as this would get more people riled up about it.

silentxthreat · December 10

the fact the discord has malware and is a req should be enough to be acted on alone

LennaTheRussian · December 10

silentxthreat wrote: »

the fact the discord has malware and is a req should be enough to be acted on alone

That would have to be proven and even then I doubt it would do much. I doubt ZOS will punish for off platform behavior, especially something like that.

Artisian0001 · December 10

There are bots in Glenumbra that perma invite people. I reported and was told that it wasn't bannable. These same bots in glenumbra that invite to the gaming council or whatever its called have been there for over 5 years.

Soarora · December 10

LennaTheRussian wrote: »

I doubt anything of significance will happen to solve the issue. I just made the thread to see if I was crazy or not. Happens everyday to me but the last discussion I could find was a year ago. You'd think something as annoying as this would get more people riled up about it.

You’re deffo not crazy. I’ve been seeing sooooo manyyyyy chat advertisements from the conglomerate too. And what gets me is they don’t link the other guilds in the about section like other conglomerates do. I need to find an addon that lets me block specifically them… and that still doesn’t solve the problem of them being bad for new players.

Sluggy · December 10

DoofusMax wrote: »

To the OP's original complaint, my impression on PC NA is the invites from "that guild" are not coming from the usual bot-like stuff, but rather from specific players. As they showed up, I just blocked the player. It took several blocks to do it, but I haven't seen an invite from "that guild" in quite a while.

Indeed. I don't have many people in my blocked list but the ones that I do... well, let's just say someone might think I have a disdain for engineers if they didn't know better.