Game mechanic addition, Tell & Mail, By the request of the Florendyl Community

[Shadowsniper]

Hi There,

I know this is the Test Server forums and thought it would be most appropriate to post this request to the Devs here to be added to the Test Server for testing.

We would like to see SOE add to the server side coding routines a routine to filter tells and mails.

Yes this would add additional chewed cpu cycles but we feel VERY strongly about the situation as it has already caused a number of known account cancellations from not having it implemented.

Tells sent by any user and mail sent by any user would be filtered against a list of known gold selling / powerlevelling website URLs which naturally are always present in these annoying tells and mails.

The likes of such parties as -www.GMWorker.com- and others when detected in a tell line of text or a mail message would be captured forwarded to a Game master review log / inbox to be assessed and appropriate action taken ... The tell / mail would end there. The destination user of the tell or mail recepient would not receive the tell / mail.

This is not a hard routine to add and the cpu cycles it would chew if coded properly would be nominal if at all noticable.

Please look into this as a combined request of the Florendyl community and keep in mind such annoying CONSTANT tells and mail hourly if not more frequently are leading to a number of accounts being cancelled.

SOE the ball is in your court and it is your call. This is one easy to implement defined solution to resolving the issue.

Thanks in Advance,
Shadowsniper.

GOLD SELLER SPAM ... Don't want it, should not have to put up with it. Fix It !

[Ysharros]

You might be better off posting this on the now-official forums over at SoE/VG. While I'm not a fan of the tells myself, I'd rather see time and effort spent removing these traders, and code implemented to stop the dupes and other exploits, than to see them code filters. "Quick and easy" still requires manpower... which may (from what we've lately read) be at something of a premium right now.

Anyway, to cover your bases and ensure visibility you should post this over there.

[Absalon]

I haven't seen that many gold sellers on Hilsbury. The few there have been have contacted only through tells and after reporting them, I never heard from them again. I saw some of their names pop up in broadcast messages saying they've been banned.

I played for several hours yesterday and didn't get a single tell/mail from a gold seller.

Maybe the situation is worse on Florendyl, IDK. I can't imagine it's as bad as it is in WoW though lol. I started playing again because my friends are playing it again because their machines can't handle VG right now, and I was getting tells all the time, as many as 3 in a 10 minute period. Fortunately there are mods to block them, but it's ridiculous. The economy is seriously inflated from what I remember also.

What I would really like to see in a game is for items to all be given a "market value". This value could be static or dynamic (dynamic based on # of that item on server, the availability of the materials it is made from, etc.). Basically, the idea would be that players must trade gold/items equal to the gold/items they are receiving, within 10%. So if an item had a market value of 1 gold, that player could trade it for anywhere from 90 to 110 silver.

Yes, this would limit what people can charge for items, but it would also stop gold sellers. If crafters have the means to improve their product via better materials, a la SWG, then they could increase the market value of their items and charge a higher price.

One way or another, it's time companies get smarter about the secondary market. Rather than dedicating manpower to finding and banning gold sellers, create game mechanics that make it impossible for them to ply their trade. If that means making gold soulbound and buying everything from vendors, so be it.

[Naiya]

two characters I *rarely* play (read only play when test is unavailable) had gold selling mail waiting for them when I logged into Florendyl.

I happily reported them. I can understand the desire to have this stuff filtered, at the same time, I delight in reporting them. I don't mind getting the email, I happily report it and go on my merry way with the "I did my good deed for the day" feeling...

but then, I'm evil like that

[TheKnight]

On Florendyl, I've only gotten a gold selling email once, and I reported the character for it.

[Shadowsniper]

Mail is not such an issue, the main part is tell spam, hence the title Tell & Mail

Each day in 16 - 18 hours of game play (a few breaks in this period naturally) I have received on average upto a 20 - 30 + odd tells as has the whole guild i am with.

This is not an uncommon occurance and can be verified with anyone who does play long hours.

With that being said, please don't shoot me as I am only relaying the following information ...

Currently people create macros to /tell platsellername message to basically annoy them ...

There is also a program now in beta release designed for eq2 & vg which I believe is against the eula which is a tell bomb messaging agent in which you enter the plat seller's name and it will firstly send them a message something along the lines of Since you spammed me, enjoy the return spam, /reports playname then it uses the /log with a tail -f style function to monitor the log file and continually spams them 2 tells per second until the time index stamp of the log file of tells to that player ceases to increase.

From what I read, next update has an auto function to scan the log for keywords, like thepowerlevel and gmworker etc which you can run while alseep or on a second computer to automatically bomb them /sigh

This is going to make one HUGE impact on the chat server sub-system which is already buggy as it is. I do not wish to see people using such programs to do such things, though can appreciate and understand where the annoyed person(s) who are writing and using this program come from.

Please SOE do something before this does become a problem for all of us.

I do not wish to play a game that takes 10 seconds to send 1 tell through because it is being overloaded by a couple of dozen of peeved off peeps taking action into their own hands to bomb back the plat sellers, even though I do respect their wishes to do so and know where they are coming from.

I myself have had enough of theire continued harassment to the point of wanting to leave the game as have MANY others have already done. So much for the aggressive stance of players running such businesses out of korea.

If SOE was serious, they would take some form of action ..

1) ban the Class C of anyone caught selling plat in tells in such a way IP xxx.xxx.xx#.ban the # range, anyone effected by such a ban should be qualified before being able to be effectively let through by the log in server.

2) Implement an intelligent spam (Specifically from gold sellers) sub routine within the chat server sub-system to capture and/or filter out such harassment.

Facts are the facts, it is not just an annoyance, it is straight out harassment.

~ Shadowsniper

PS. Program is being released under the GNU Prject as Freeware when released from what I can see of it.