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Gold Spam Becoming a Sore Topic For Aion Players

Posted by Soulskill on from the ni-hao dept.

Usagi_yo writes "Endless whispers for Kinah (Aion's in-game currency), scrolling chat tabs of multi-line spam messages from currency traders, phishing scams, key-logger scam, power leveling — it's all there and it's very ugly for NCsoft's release of Aion MMORPG, as players are starting to revolt only two weeks into the game's release." This reader originally pointed to the Aion general forums, which displayed a ton of threads complaining about spammers. Many of those threads have since been deleted (though more continue to crop up). Make of that what you will. I've been playing Aion a bit, and the spamming is certainly becoming a problem. When it began, it was mainly just whisper-spam from level 1 accounts, which NCSoft quickly stepped on by denying whispers before level 5. Not the most elegant solution, but it was a decent attempt to complement the /anon command, which makes your character invisible to /who searches. Then the spammers just started leveling to 5, which doesn't take too long, but in order to make up for lost time, they co-opted the global "looking for group" channel, flooding it such that the channel is now useless. You can easily block the channel from view (giving up entirely on what was once a helpful channel), or individually block each of the spammers as they arrive, but hopefully NCSoft will soon implement a solution that's less annoying to players. They say they're still on the case.

11 comments

  1. Regular expressions! by dougisfunny · · Score: 2, Funny

    This sounds like a job for regular expressions!

    I should post an obligatory XKCD

    --
    This is not the funny you're looking for.
    1. Re:Regular expressions! by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      Sounds more like a need for more banstick wielding, shouldn't be too hard to thwack the spammers when they post a spam message in something like LFG, banstick them on the first message and since I don't think Aion accounts are free that should put a dampener on it.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    2. Re:Regular expressions! by dougisfunny · · Score: 1

      Well, that was my idea, but more that the regex would wield the ban hammer or at least ban hammer alert list.

      --
      This is not the funny you're looking for.
  2. They could take the easy way out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... unlock interface mods and the issue will be fixed and kept updated by 3rd party work, without spending a cent, like it works for a lot other MMOs

  3. *sigh* This is nothing new folks by Ka+D'Argo · · Score: 1

    Spammers have been around since the dawn of selling virtual items and services in a MMORPG. People complain about having chat huds full of stuff? I remember begging NCSoft/ArenaNet to do something about this in the original Guild Wars circa summer 2005 when it was released, cause they actually had a limit of how many players you could /ignore

    This is nothing new folks, it comes with the territory, especially in an Asian made MMORPG that has opened itself to a foreign audience. Honestly, stop complaining. Blizzard has the same issues with WoW, do I still complain about seeing spammers there? No, just like I didn't complain when they were in EQ, WoW, Diablo 1/2, etc etc etc

    Does it suck? Yea it's annoying but its just part of the game. If it bothers you that much, don't play. Want to communicate with people in your party? Group chat, guild chat or Teamspeak/Ventrilo.

    As for fixing it, some simple word filters and IP filters would work.

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    Aw Frell this
  4. Prediction tool by lumpenprole · · Score: 1

    Weird, DDO doesn't have this problem. Does this mean it's doomed? Can you now predict success of an MMO on spam levels?

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    Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
  5. spamming by chanrobi · · Score: 1

    I was one of the first ones on headstart (-2 days before actual launch). There was no gold spamming to speak of until about a week later. Not only is the spam in the LFG channel and whispers, they will also send you spam in your mailbox entitled "sorry to bother". The worst part is that you get a indicator on your GUI for new mail when this happens. Banning the spammers is in ncsoft's best interest, they'll just buy another $50 copy of Aion and continue spamming. The good news is blocking the several new ones that popup when you login usually cures the problem for the couple hours you're logged in.

  6. Warhammer Online by bar-agent · · Score: 1

    Warhammer doesn't seem to have much of a problem with gold spammers. When the game first came out, there was already a dedicated feedback button for "Report Gold Spammer." I have never seen more than 7 gold-spam mail messages in my box. And, plus, gold is easy to come by in that game anyway. There is just no market for the spammers to tap into.

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    i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
    1. Re:Warhammer Online by jaraxle · · Score: 1

      Warhammer doesn't seem to have much of a problem with gold spammers. When the game first came out, there was already a dedicated feedback button for "Report Gold Spammer." I have never seen more than 7 gold-spam mail messages in my box. And, plus, gold is easy to come by in that game anyway. There is just no market for the spammers to tap into.

      A couple months ago when my wife and I still played WAR, she would receive up to 10 in-game mails a day from gold spammers. Not sure why she got so many and I didn't, but gold spam is still a problem in WAR, albeit not as much. Part of the reason why as you touched on to is that there is such a small market... both because gold is easy to come by, and because the game is hemorrhaging subscriptions (or at least it was, not sure how the recent changes particularly to the low level experience have affected things). Not much point in spending good money to advertise to a clientÃle that barely exists.

      However, when WAR first came out and almost broke the "million mark", gold spam was an enormous problem, to the point that Mythic kept a counter on their realm war website counting up how many spammers were banned each day. They couldn't keep up.

      ~jaraxle

  7. Aion has it worse than most by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Having played my share of MMOs over the last decade or so, I have to say that outside of direct Korean ports like 2moon and 9 Dragons, I have never seen a spam issue as bothersome as in Aion. The very worst case spamming in the early days of WoW or GW pale in comparison to the problem Aion has right now. They've implemented some new reporting features recently, but I am looking forward to being able to turn on group chat....ANY group chap...again, soon.

  8. Johnny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I feel awful for the players who were impacted by NCSoft's mass banning. Actually, I think that mass banning is not the solution to problem. A game publisher needs to take a look at their own game design and figure out what they can implement to prevent spam from polluting the chat channels. They need GMs who can discern what is spamming/botting from legit playing. Let's start punishing the spammers, NOT THE CUSTOMERS!