Guild Spamming Issue

ZOS_Kevin · February 26

Hi All, we are going to closed this thread for the time being as we work to resolve this. We need everyone to cool off for a bit and will follow back up once a solution is met. In the meantime, if other threads are started about this topic, they will be deleted. We cannot work toward a solution while also having to moderate this at the same time.

Thank you for the reports and for other perspectives on the general issue. We are working to resolve this with all feedback in mind.

ZOS_Kevin · February 27

Hi Everyone. Wanted to close out the week with an update here. After having conversations with customer service, we have some things we will be doing over the next week to make sure we can cut down, if not remove, the spam many have reported.

In conversations with customer service, we have confirmed that automated invitations are not permitted, as they are considered spam, harassment (by proxy of the spam), and automated gameplay. We have gotten enough reports of this behavior that it is clearly very disruptive to the average player. Customer Service will be reaching out to all involved guild leaders to highlight this fact and issue a final warning on this behavior.
Any guild participating in this should cease the automated invitations immediately.
Customer Service will be in touch with the guild(s) leader(s) to highlight this point more specifically to them and outline next steps if they continue these actions.

If guild members want to dispute this, please have the conversation with customer service. They will be reaching out to guild leaders to facilitate these conversations.

Currently, no actions on the addon being used will occur. We do not want to take away an addon that is not being used as a spam tool for most of its users, to our knowledge. We will revisit if more evidence points to increased misuse.

If you encounter such actions again as you play, please make sure to take a picture or video to send with your report. We do not want any false claims thrown into the mix, and having photo or video will help in making sure claims are authentic.

We know this was a long process to get to this point. We will continue to monitor this situation to look at other points of improvement.

We are going to reopen this thread now. However, we want to highlight that targeting guild members in this thread or forum will not be tolerated. If we see this action taking place from here on out, this thread will be closed and actions on accounts will be made. We understand the spam is frustrating, but targeting guild members is not helpful and against our Community Guidelines.

Thank you for your patience as we worked to address the tickets and claims being made.

spartaxoxo · February 27

Are there any plans to make a guild invite auto decline feature like we have for duels?

OutLaw_Nynx · February 27

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Are there any plans to make a guild invite auto decline feature like we have for duels?

This needs to be a thing 1000%. Just have it as default off. Make a quick guide pop up of how to unblock it for new players and problem solved. I hope people on PC will no longer be harassed and can venture around those targeted area without being hounded by invites. Props to Kevin for addressing this situation quickly.

DeathandDebauchery · February 27

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Currently, no actions on the addon being used will occur. We do not want to take away an addon that is not being used as a spam tool for most of its users, to our knowledge. We will revisit if more evidence points to increased misuse.

Hey @ZOS_Kevin,

Thank you for the update here. Just to clarify a point. The add-on being discussed is not a public facing add-on it is an add-on explicitly utilized by one organization explicitly for the function of spamming invites. No one else has access to it. There would be no damage to the community in saying this add-on's usage is not allowed.

Looking forward to seeing this behavior stopping.

ZOS_Kevin · February 27

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Are there any plans to make a guild invite auto decline feature like we have for duels?

This has not been discussed yet as this would involve other teams to coordinate and see what is possible. The main goal was to get the immediate reports of spamming under control. Hence the coordination with Customer Service. However, we will raise this concern up to the required teams and go from there.

ZOS_Kevin · February 27

DeathandDebauchery wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Currently, no actions on the addon being used will occur. We do not want to take away an addon that is not being used as a spam tool for most of its users, to our knowledge. We will revisit if more evidence points to increased misuse.

Hey @ZOS_Kevin,

Thank you for the update here. Just to clarify a point. The add-on being discussed is not a public facing add-on it is an add-on explicitly utilized by one organization explicitly for the function of spamming invites. No one else has access to it. There would be no damage to the community in saying this add-on's usage is not allowed.

Looking forward to seeing this behavior stopping.

Thank you for the clarifying point. We will note this to customer service as well. That may have been lost in translation as we were going through several threads in our conversations.

valenwood_vegan · February 27

Thank you for addressing this to some extent Kevin; I really hope the behavior stops now.

And I hope zos will consider other longer-term improvements like like an auto-decline setting for guild invites, and / or changes to the API to restrict (ie: by limiting the number of invites that can be sent in a given time period, or similar) if not completely prevent an addon from being used in this manner.

jetplane_18 · February 27

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Are there any plans to make a guild invite auto decline feature like we have for duels?

I wouldn't want a general guild invite autodecline -- just a guild-specific one to block one specific guild and their spammy inviters.

Tandor · February 27

Thanks for the further update Kevin, and I have to say in all fairness that the speed with which this appeared has taken me by surprise

! Kudos to all concerned.

As someone who chooses not to belong to any guilds, I would welcome an auto-decline feature.

However, by way of a compromise I would happily accept the default setting for that feature being disabled, so that new players would not be prevented from receiving approaches from guilds while all players who didn't want to receive such approaches would be able to turn them off through an easily found toggle in settings.

SilverBride · February 27

Thank you for looking into this concern and coming up with a solution. It is so refreshing to feel like we can move about Tamriel now without having to avoid certain wayshrines, and is more of a relief than I can express.

LittleLionLeone · February 27

Glad we all came together to put an end to it. Hopefully they understand from now on.

Edit: But as said by DeathandDebauchery, this addon is private and inaccessible to any other guilds. So there would be no community impact outside of the guild if it was not allowed anymore.

LennaTheRussian · February 28

Thank you Kevin for the quick response! I was worried this would get buried once more.

wolfie1.0. · February 28

Keep in mind that this wont stop players from doing manual guild invites.

So a decline guild invites toggle would be a welcome tool to have. So long as it doesn't interfere with the recruitment pages

Arunei · February 28

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Keep in mind that this wont stop players from doing manual guild invites.

So a decline guild invites toggle would be a welcome tool to have. So long as it doesn't interfere with the recruitment pages

It might not stop the manual invites, but if people manually doing invites are told to stop and people keep getting invites, it would still be considered harassment/spam. And if that's the case and the guild continues to get reported for still spamming and harassing people, that would likely lead to actions taken against the guild leaders, since Kevin mentioned they're getting a 'final warning' about the automated things. I expect that would apply to manual ones as well, since even if it wouldn't be happening at the speed and frequency as it was, it'd still be the same concept of pestering people just trying to go about their gaming business.

Frayton · February 28

Thanks ZOS!

jetplane_18 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Are there any plans to make a guild invite auto decline feature like we have for duels?

I wouldn't want a general guild invite autodecline -- just a guild-specific one to block one specific guild and their spammy inviters.

Good idea.

A guild invite ignore list is a much better solution than a blanket on/off toggle bc I don't want to have to constantly toggle it on or off just to avoid guild invite spammers when I'm looking for a guild to join.

wolfie1.0. · February 28

Arunei wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Keep in mind that this wont stop players from doing manual guild invites.

So a decline guild invites toggle would be a welcome tool to have. So long as it doesn't interfere with the recruitment pages

It might not stop the manual invites, but if people manually doing invites are told to stop and people keep getting invites, it would still be considered harassment/spam. And if that's the case and the guild continues to get reported for still spamming and harassing people, that would likely lead to actions taken against the guild leaders, since Kevin mentioned they're getting a 'final warning' about the automated things. I expect that would apply to manual ones as well, since even if it wouldn't be happening at the speed and frequency as it was, it'd still be the same concept of pestering people just trying to go about their gaming business.

No I get that and agree. My point was that just ending the addon and scripting wont exactly stop the process. We all know that the main culprit is one category of guilds. But a toggle or block list would go a long way to prevent this from happening again if another guild decides to continue the annoyance.

SilverBride · February 28

I think we should wait and see how things go now before we start looking for solutions for things that haven't happened.

shadoza · February 28

SilverBride wrote: »

I think we should wait and see how things go now before we start looking for solutions for things that haven't happened.

I would like a toggle to turn off all guild invites in the chat. I don't mind the casual invites that come along player to player; however, having a seven-line guild advert in the middle of your conversation is a bad thing.

Soarora · February 28

shadoza wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I think we should wait and see how things go now before we start looking for solutions for things that haven't happened.

I would like a toggle to turn off all guild invites in the chat. I don't mind the casual invites that come along player to player; however, having a seven-line guild advert in the middle of your conversation is a bad thing.

I would agree except that guild finder is horribly bad at the moment. In my opinion, upgrade guild finder with better categories, protection against selecting every option (irrelevant guilds in wrong sections), favorites, and a search bar... then disallow recruitment messages in zone chat or have a toggle to turn it off.

SilverBride · February 28

shadoza wrote: »

I would like a toggle to turn off all guild invites in the chat. I don't mind the casual invites that come along player to player; however, having a seven-line guild advert in the middle of your conversation is a bad thing.

Are you referring to the guild advertisements in zone chat? If so, I don't know how they could distinguish those from just normal zone chat to be able to block them that way.

shadoza · 12:16AM

SilverBride wrote: »

shadoza wrote: »

I would like a toggle to turn off all guild invites in the chat. I don't mind the casual invites that come along player to player; however, having a seven-line guild advert in the middle of your conversation is a bad thing.

Are you referring to the guild advertisements in zone chat? If so, I don't know how they could distinguish those from just normal zone chat to be able to block them that way.

Yes, and I do not know how either. That is a coder question. I do world building, terrain building, and assets; my code understanding is limited to those areas.
I do know that I am getting frustrated with having too many guild adverts spinning the chat when I am having a conversation. Things get missed. Sometimes players asking for help gets missed.
Maybe just fix the guild finder and forbid adverts in chat completely.

SilverBride · 12:41AM

@shadoza

I don't mind guild advertisements in zone chat myself but I may be the minority.

I wonder if they could make a guild recruitment chat channel and players could uncheck it in their chat window if they don't want to see it, like we can do now with guild chat or whispers, etc..

Guilds could type /recruit or something similar instead of /zone to list their advertisement in the proper channel.

karthrag_inak · 1:31AM

Khajiit feels there's a big difference between sharing info in zone chat, which is easily ignored, and receiving intrusive interactions directly that have to be responded/reacted to.

This one would be against silencing zone chat guild invites - that is how khajiit learns about new guilds, and this one has made friends just interacting with folks even if he did not join their guild.

But the weaponized auto-invites? Those people....THOSE are the ones...

shadoza · 3:25AM

SilverBride wrote: »

@shadoza

I don't mind guild advertisements in zone chat myself but I may be the minority.

I wonder if they could make a guild recruitment chat channel and players could uncheck it in their chat window if they don't want to see it, like we can do now with guild chat or whispers, etc..

Guilds could type /recruit or something similar instead of /zone to list their advertisement in the proper channel.

That sounds like a good idea.

hiyde · 4:40AM

Apologies, @ZOS_Kevin, while I appreciate a stance being taken by ZOS, I am so confused on exactly what stance was taken.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

[*] In conversations with customer service, we have confirmed that automated invitations are not permitted, as they are considered spam, harassment (by proxy of the spam), and automated gameplay. We have gotten enough reports of this behavior that it is clearly very disruptive to the average player. Customer Service will be reaching out to all involved guild leaders to highlight this fact and issue a final warning on this behavior.

I take this to mean that any addon that operates on it's own, targeting every nearby player and automatically sending an invite.

But what if the addon is targeting everything that moves and the user just needs to press "V" to deploy each invite? (I.e. someone just sits there and mashes "V" all day to send random invites as the auto-prompts come up). Is that OK?

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

If you encounter such actions again as you play, please make sure to take a picture or video to send with your report. We do not want any false claims thrown into the mix, and having photo or video will help in making sure claims are authentic.

What actions are we being asked to report? The first unwanted invite? Subsequent invites? Subsequent invites but only if they are asked to stop first?

What is it you'll be asking the guilds to stop doing?

- Not send fully automated invites?
- Not send ANY unexpected invites?
- Not send multiple invites to the same people?
- Not send multiple invites to the same people but only if they ask you to stop?

I'd greatly appreciate clarification. Thanks!

imPDA · 8:19AM

I think there are addons hiding zone guild recruitments - you can detect guild invite link and ignore this message. And it is 100% possible to create an addon to ignore all incoming guild requests (including message on the center) and collect them somewhere else, so you could accept some if they were intentional (like if you asked friend to invite you).

Tandor · 8:25AM

imPDA wrote: »

I think there are addons hiding zone guild recruitments - you can detect guild invite link and ignore this message. And it is 100% possible to create an addon to ignore all incoming guild requests (including message on the center) and collect them somewhere else, so you could accept some if they were intentional (like if you asked friend to invite you).

It shouldn't be required that you install third party addons if you wish to avoid third party harassment.

I have no more desire to receive guild invites than I have to receive ToT or duel invites. The default UI allows me not to be inconvenienced by those, it should allow me similarly not to be inconvenienced by guild invites.

imPDA · 9:22AM

Tandor wrote: »

imPDA wrote: »

I think there are addons hiding zone guild recruitments - you can detect guild invite link and ignore this message. And it is 100% possible to create an addon to ignore all incoming guild requests (including message on the center) and collect them somewhere else, so you could accept some if they were intentional (like if you asked friend to invite you).

It shouldn't be required that you install third party addons if you wish to avoid third party harassment.

I have no more desire to receive guild invites than I have to receive ToT or duel invites. The default UI allows me not to be inconvenienced by those, it should allow me similarly not to be inconvenienced by guild invites.

The point is addon community is more reactive, it will take like 1-2h to set up addon on PC, and it will take 1-2 years for ZOs to add this toggle into base game :P

scrappy1342 · 1:26PM

having a search function in guild finder (it is ABSOLUTELY MIND BOGGLING that this has never been put in...) would go a long way to help players looking for a guild.

nothing you do will keep ppl from spamming zone chat though. you can give them better search functions in the finder. you can give them their own recruitment channels. you could even find a way (someone mentioned there's an addon that does it) that prevents any message from showing up in zone chat with a guild link. ppl would still post there. they would just take the link out of it. it's like this in any game. personally, it doesn't bother me. i like to see what guilds are out there and what events they have going on (although this doesn't happen as much in eso as it does in other mmos). if i am having a conversation, they are easy enough to scroll past.

hiyde wrote: »

But what if the addon is targeting everything that moves and the user just needs to press "V" to deploy each invite? (I.e. someone just sits there and mashes "V" all day to send random invites as the auto-prompts come up). Is that OK?

just them acknowledging this is against the rules now is a huge step forward. it doesn't matter if it is completely automated or if the guy in the bushes has to keep pressing V over and over... if you get multiple invites, you can now report it and they will do something because both now fall under harrassment.