Please do something about Wayshrine Guild Invite spam on PC-NA

Pevey · January 18

I don't disagree with any of what you're saying, but I also want to point out that these are classic components of a cult. Nice bombing new members and looking for "lost" people so that they can help them find their way (meaning these people are more steerable and also begin to feel like they owe the group something in return, so they are more willing to do stuff that is asked of them later that they otherwise might not do)... These are defining elements of a cult.

Orbital78 · January 18

Kind of crazy the same guild(s) are doing this after all these years. I ended up avoiding them because of it. It was at Vivec city years ago. An auto-decline option like duels would suffice.

Pevey · January 18

They were in Vivec way back when Vvardenfell was where the tutorial spit you out. They like new players because they are more susceptible. These days you will find them mostly in Glenumbra and Auridon.

16BitForestCat · January 18

"Cult guild" is 100% what people call them on a couple Discord servers I'm on. I fake-joined one of their guilds to document the active members some time back. There was a ridiculous amount of initial lovebombing, followed by "don't you WANT to be part of OUR community" guilt-tripping from the GM (because I refused to respond, talk in chat, or join the Discord), followed then by "I hate to say it, but we just HAAAAAVE to kick you out if you're not ONE OF US" from the GM when I continued not responding. All that reminded me very strongly of the local religious cults that used to prey on people outside various schools and businesses in my small Southern town growing up. Probably still do. I got the heck out of there when I grew up and never looked back.

And I know the overall guy in charge and his loyals read these threads. You don't want your little "club" to get called out? Then stop behaving like boundary-ignoring predators. That's legitimate life advice, not an insult.

wolfie1.0. · January 18

While their recruitment tactics are questionable and annoying.

Lets not devolve into guild bashing. There is a way to address this without resorting to that, and violate the forum code of conduct.

16BitForestCat · January 18

Hopping back on to add that this is a long holiday weekend in the US where ZOS is based, so if there's no evidence of mod/dev eyes on this thread by Tuesday, you can try tagging in a ZOS person again. I mean, it's probably not gonna do any good since ZOS seems determined to let toxic guild people engaging in cultlike recruitment tactics BE toxic guild people engaging in cultlike recruitment tactics, but it warms my heart to know the perpetrators don't like seeing these threads. Just like everyone else doesn't like seeing unsolicited guild spam-invites in game. Circle of gamer life, apparently.

Pevey · January 18

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

While their recruitment tactics are questionable and annoying.

Lets not devolve into guild bashing. There is a way to address this without resorting to that, and violate the forum code of conduct.

I disagree for a couple of reasons.

One, this has been going on for years unimpeded, but more people talking about it recently has helped some former members recognize better what was going on. Speaking out is an important warning to the wider community. This is not naming any particular guild, so in the context of this forum thread, it is just a general warning of a dynamic to be wary of with guilds in general.

And, two, I don't actually think the individual accounts spamming these invites should be banned. The wider context of how the guild operates like a cult is important for ZOS to know, since the accounts sending the invites are probably alt accounts of members who have been groomed over time by the guild leader to do these things. He insulates himself. Action should be taken against him and/or the guild itself.

As another poster pointed out, one good response by ZOS would be a setting to auto-decline guild invites just like duel invites. Most new players wouldn't know to enable this, so the cult would still exist. But players would have a way to opt out without constant annoyance, and I suppose it is the quintessential Elder Scrolls RP experience to join a cult if that's what someone wants to do.

Artisian0001 · January 18

This is 100% a bot, it's in glenumbra, it gets reported constantly. I received a message saying it wasn't a violation even though it very clearly is months ago and stopped trying. The older bot that used to spam it years ago got banned, don't know why this one hasn't. Inconsistent and weird to say the least.

hiyde · January 18

There are lots of 450+ active member guilds, filled with lots of awesome people where the guild got there without having an unattended bot spamming invites to everyone that walks by.

imo, the guilds that are being recruited for need to be told to stop it or face guild disbandment along with permabans on the officer accounts. Members are being provided this recruiting addon/bot/whatever by guild management.

I also think this puts new guilds / guilds focused on helping new players at a disadvantage unless they spin up bots of their own to hide in the bushes by the wayshrines...

As for a technical solution, I don't love it, but I could live without the invite option. It's just as easy to send someone the application link. Or perhaps a severe limit on invites per day for special situations (while guiding anyone else to the application link). But since this doesn't seem to be an issue beyond one cluster of guilds, perhaps the threat of drastic consequences will prevent the need for a coded solution.

wolfie1.0. · January 18

Pevey wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

While their recruitment tactics are questionable and annoying.

Lets not devolve into guild bashing. There is a way to address this without resorting to that, and violate the forum code of conduct.

I disagree for a couple of reasons.

One, this has been going on for years unimpeded, but more people talking about it recently has helped some former members recognize better what was going on. Speaking out is an important warning to the wider community. This is not naming any particular guild, so in the context of this forum thread, it is just a general warning of a dynamic to be wary of with guilds in general.

And, two, I don't actually think the individual accounts spamming these invites should be banned. The wider context of how the guild operates like a cult is important for ZOS to know, since the accounts sending the invites are probably alt accounts of members who have been groomed over time by the guild leader to do these things. He insulates himself. Action should be taken against him and/or the guild itself.

As another poster pointed out, one good response by ZOS would be a setting to auto-decline guild invites just like duel invites. Most new players wouldn't know to enable this, so the cult would still exist. But players would have a way to opt out without constant annoyance, and I suppose it is the quintessential Elder Scrolls RP experience to join a cult if that's what someone wants to do.

Please dont get me wrong. My intent with my comment was not to say that we shouldn't discuss the topic. But more so to focus it on the core issue. Which is that a guild or an alliance of guilds is using a tool via the addon api to bot spam guild invites. Which based on my understanding of the TOS should be considered a violation of the addon policy in regards to botting and automated scripting.

What i dont think we should do is accuse said guild of facilitating cult like behavior. If only so we dont trigger a Forum mod to come in and shut down the conversation before someone higher up can take a look at it. The fastest way to get something like this disregarded is by resorting to such things.

But I guess the real question is this. Is such a tool allowed, and does zos condone it? If so I know plently of gms that wouldnt mind tasking somone to use a botted guild invite at every single wayshrine in the game.

But if its NOT allowed then I think it's a good time to drop the hammer on it hard.

fizl101 · January 18

Removing access to guild invites via the api to make it a manual only process should stop it rather than using an addon of some kind

DenverRalphy · January 18

fizl101 wrote: »

Removing access to guild invites via the api to make it a manual only process should stop it rather than using an addon of some kind

Honestly, I don't understand why they don't do exactly this. Afterall, addons have an anti-spam measure in that chat messages are prevented from being automatically sent. An addon can generate and queue one up, but the human still has to send it. You'd think they'd have the same approach to sending invites, as those too are being used as a form of spam.

kevkj · January 18

If you truly want to do something about this, you could try cutting off the head of the hydra which you can find on the most well known corporate/career socialization network that rhymes with BingBin.

WolfStar07 · January 20

The fact that an addon exists specifically to block these guilds' ads with the ability to also auto-decline invites by those same guilds means it's absolutely possibly for ZOS to allow users to auto-decline guild invites the same as we auto-decline duels. That is what would ultimately solve the problem since ZOS won't act on the issue in any meaningful manner.

DeathandDebauchery · January 20

WolfStar07 wrote: »

The fact that an addon exists specifically to block these guilds' ads with the ability to also auto-decline invites by those same guilds means it's absolutely possibly for ZOS to allow users to auto-decline guild invites the same as we auto-decline duels. That is what would ultimately solve the problem since ZOS won't act on the issue in any meaningful manner.

Agreed. This has been going on for quite some time and the fact the community has had to make an add-on just to stop bad actors feels kind of crazy when you think about it.

Gabriel_H · January 20

Guild recruitment should have it's own chat channel (which can be turned off like the others), and any message with a guild link or name should be blocked from Zone/Say/Yell etc.

If I had a $ for every time I saw someone ask for help in zone chat only for their plees to disappear because of a wall of recruitment text, I'd have enough money to buy ZOS and make the change myself.

Guild spam isn't helping players find like-minded people, it's actively hurting it.

DestroyerPewnack · 12:33PM

Can you be invited to a guild you've already been blacklisted in? If not, maybe you can join the guild, and make them regret the day they invited you. Advertise your other guilds and sell items in the guild chat. Maybe start some drama with the guild officers.

Lagzee · 5:05PM

This game has lost too many players in the last couple years to be banning people for silly reasons like this. And zos already has an over moderation issue. is it really that much of a disruption to hit decline? You are playing a game with other players, and you are given every tool to ignore them, aside from removing everyone from your screen.

Even though some people dont want to use it, the answer is already given to you. If you dont want to be bothered by other players there is an addon to turn it off. I dont turn it off because its really not a big deal for me to decline an invite.

DeathandDebauchery · 6:41PM

Lagzee wrote: »

This game has lost too many players in the last couple years to be banning people for silly reasons like this. And zos already has an over moderation issue. is it really that much of a disruption to hit decline? You are playing a game with other players, and you are given every tool to ignore them, aside from removing everyone from your screen.

Even though some people dont want to use it, the answer is already given to you. If you dont want to be bothered by other players there is an addon to turn it off. I dont turn it off because its really not a big deal for me to decline an invite.

You must be playing with 5 guilds. If you were playing with less then 5 guilds you would understand how massive of a problem this in. This is not an "occasional" invite that you get every few days. This is literally everytime you go to certain wayshrines you will get spammed with invites, they rotate people too so even if you put them on ignore or block them.

The fact that a person created an entire addon just because of this guild should tell you how prevalent the problem is.

valenwood_vegan · 6:50PM

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

Can you be invited to a guild you've already been blacklisted in? If not, maybe you can join the guild, and make them regret the day they invited you. Advertise your other guilds and sell items in the guild chat. Maybe start some drama with the guild officers.

FWIW, I don't recommend this, as they're (rather ironically) known to mass report people.

JavaRen · 7:51PM

This sounds like the intended use case for social bans.

wolfie1.0. · 7:51PM

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

Can you be invited to a guild you've already been blacklisted in? If not, maybe you can join the guild, and make them regret the day they invited you. Advertise your other guilds and sell items in the guild chat. Maybe start some drama with the guild officers.

FWIW, I don't recommend this, as they're (rather ironically) known to mass report people.

One can be a severe annoyance and still be within the Terms of Service and code of conduct.

Drinks_from_Ponds · 8:01PM

This is common in WoW too, there is an addon that queries people in a zone who are not in a guild then you click it and spams them a guild invite. I was actually going to make something similar for ESO but the API is much more limited, I am happy to see this behavior in the game, as it's a good way to get people into your guild

valenwood_vegan · 8:19PM

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

Can you be invited to a guild you've already been blacklisted in? If not, maybe you can join the guild, and make them regret the day they invited you. Advertise your other guilds and sell items in the guild chat. Maybe start some drama with the guild officers.

FWIW, I don't recommend this, as they're (rather ironically) known to mass report people.

One can be a severe annoyance and still be within the Terms of Service and code of conduct.

Sure, there are all sorts of possibilities. I simply offered some advice from my own point of view, based on past interactions that people I know have had with this guild.

Anyway, per the original topic, I think zos clearly isn't going to do anything as this has been brought up numerous times for years. At the very least I wish they'd provide an "ignore guild invites" option so people don't have to use addons and workarounds to make the spam stop.

scrappy1342 · 10:54PM

DeathandDebauchery wrote: »

Lagzee wrote: »

This game has lost too many players in the last couple years to be banning people for silly reasons like this. And zos already has an over moderation issue. is it really that much of a disruption to hit decline? You are playing a game with other players, and you are given every tool to ignore them, aside from removing everyone from your screen.

Even though some people dont want to use it, the answer is already given to you. If you dont want to be bothered by other players there is an addon to turn it off. I dont turn it off because its really not a big deal for me to decline an invite.

You must be playing with 5 guilds. If you were playing with less then 5 guilds you would understand how massive of a problem this in. This is not an "occasional" invite that you get every few days. This is literally everytime you go to certain wayshrines you will get spammed with invites, they rotate people too so even if you put them on ignore or block them.

The fact that a person created an entire addon just because of this guild should tell you how prevalent the problem is.

this... it's the worst in vivec because they sit in the crafting area. and they just keep spamming it. so you sometimes get hit with it 3-5 times while you are trying to do your daily crafting... on each character... they are the reason i keep 5 guilds