The Devs Strike Back!

Combatting Coin Sales Spam

By: Savanja

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More annoying than pushy kill stealers. More obnoxious than whiny noobie panhandlers. And more frustrating than loot lotto bickerers. We have, the coin seller spammers.

In all my years of MMO gaming (and I assure you, it is many..not that I'm old, because I'm not darn it!) I've never come across something so completely and game-stoppingly annoying. I'm not one of those that gets a ton of them, but it's still enough for me to wish I could reach through my cable modem and virtually strangle the jerk that is trying to ruin my game! I have gamer friends that get them nearly everytime they log in, and sometimes repeatedly in one game session. Being the good little helpers we are, we stop whatever it is we are doing and do a /report and file a petition. It's a very small thing that we can do to at least get the loser that is spamming this crap potentially banned if the GM is actually paying attention and/or cares enough to his/her job. Of course, the troubles there is 1. It takes up in game customer service time that could be much better spent on dealing with real issues, and 2. That same person can go make another free trial account and be back at it within minutes.

This whole situation brought about outrage amongst the playerbase. Countless threads were opened (and just as quickly closed, thanks MiB!) complaining about this in game plague. People were demanding a solution! And of course, many people had all sorts of ideas on how it should be handled. Varying from the most unreasonable "discontinue trial accounts, it's not worth it", to the more reasonable "limit trial account users access to the "outside" world".

Slowly but surely, those Gods of SOE heard the cries of their public, and finally came up with something that looks like it may be exactly what we had been hoping for.

Confirmed by the test updates notes found here, we have, my friends, an actual solution:

The Trial of the Isle is a free demo of EverQuest II that gives players a chance to try out the game. Unfortunately, some unscrupulous individuals have been using the Trial to perform actions that break the End User License Agreement, such as spamming legitimate players. In order to prevent many of these abuses, Trial accounts now have certain limitations placed upon their ability to interact with other players. These limitations go away when the Trial player subscribes to the game. Trial of the Isle players:

- Cannot send /tells to players on other servers or games

- Must be on someone's friends list in order to send /tells to them

- Cannot trade with other players

- Cannot be invited into guilds

- Cannot create a guild or assist in the creation of a guild

- Cannot purchase items from the broker or from consignment vendors

- Cannot list items for sale on the broker

- Cannot send or receive in-game mail

- Cannot talk in server-wide chat channels (level channels, class channels, etc.)

If I were anywhere near San Diego right now, some unfortunate red name would be getting flowers, kisses, and proclaimation of adoration for bringing about this most desired change. Hmm..wonder how much a plane ticket would cost?

The question of the hour now is, will it actually work?

It may not stop it altogether. Coin sellers are a persistant breed (much like insects), this is how they make their living, and clearly they ARE making a living at it, otherwise they wouldn't bother. But this puts a serious dent in their diabolical plans. They will now have to actually pay for accounts if they wish to be able to send from the isle (or anywhere else), so if the GMs stay on top of things, and ban these buggers as they crop up, it will become a less profitable form of advertising, and will hopefully cease.

The key to that plan being that the GMs stay on top of it. Occasionally, we have in game customer support that lacks in this area. It's very disappointing to see a coin spammer online and going about his business hours after myself and several guldmate shave reported it, and have recieved responses. I plead..PLEAD with in game support..Heed our pained cries! Be just a little bit quicker and more aggressive with that ban button. Or give me control of it! I'd be tickled to give the axe to a few of those plat pushers myself. I promise I won't abuse it! Maybe..

 

Questions? Comments? I welcome discussion! Feel free to drop me an e-mail!