Guild Wars 2

So, this has been happening increasingly since the Wintersday event ended, presumably as more and more Unbreakable Choir Bell users grow bored. Players stand around in Lion’s Arch and repeatedly spam the same note over and over. It’s incredibly obnoxious and there’s not really any way to block in, in the way chat spam can be blocked.

When this happens, I typically report the players abusing their bells for spamming. I suspect that these reports are disregarded, however, because the logical place to check for evidence of spamming infractions would be chat logs, not combat logs. This assertion is backed up by the fact that I’ve seen the same player spamming a choir bell in Lion’s Arch several times this week. The character this individual uses is a mesmer, and frequently uses Time Warp to exacerbate the spamming effect.

My question is, does ANet consider bell abuse to be reportable as an infraction? If not, is there a plan to implement a way to mute specific player’s attack sounds?

I would remove the player name from your post. I think it’s against the rules.

I thought you couldn’t name names on the forums. Even so I don’t see it being Abuse in anyway(Although others will say differently). There was a thread not to long ago about this. The only real help that person got was to port to another city or turn off your SFX. Turning off your SFX is the best option.

Blocking or Muting said player has no effect in blocking EVERYTHING they do(I wish it did other wise a bunch of wannabe commander’s Icons would be wiped off my Map) only there chat,PM and mail I think.

If I was you I’d stop reporting those players with the bells. It could very well lead you to Never hearing the sound of those bells again. ( Account Termination)

Torqueblue.1945:

I thought you couldn’t name names on the forums. Even so I don’t see it being Abuse in anyway(Although others will say differently). There was a thread not to long ago about this. The only real help that person got was to port to another city or turn off your SFX. Turning off your SFX is the best option.

Blocking or Muting said player has no effect in blocking EVERYTHING they do(I wish it did other wise a bunch of wannabe commander’s Icons would be wiped off my Map) only there chat,PM and mail I think.

If I was you I’d stop reporting those players with the bells. It could very well lead you to Never hearing the sound of those bells again. ( Account Termination)

Edited accordingly.

I don’t think there’s any question of it being abuse. Spamming the same note at maximum attack rate is clearly intended to harass and annoy others. Additionally, since posting this I’ve spoken to a guildmate who had the misfortune of encountering three people doing this at once. When one of them, a mesmer, used Time Warp, my guildmate encountered the client sound bug commonly associated with the Claw of Jormag battle, which caused a CTD.

I don’t view disabling SFX or zoning out as a viable solution to this problem – that’s tantamount to recommending that players minimize the game if they see offensive content in chat. Fortunately, we have ways of filtering chat – but there needs to be a way to deal with choir bell abusers.

Until I hear otherwise from an ANet representative, I will continue to report choir bell abusers for spamming. They are a detrimental impact on the game’s community – not only are they spamming, but they are also utilizing an exploit by circumventing the game’s block and possibly report feature. If reporting players who not only abuse but exploit is grounds for account termination, then I am deeply disturbed at the state of the policies.

I think the concern is that GMs may not have a way to verify that bell spamming was happening. They might check the player’s chat logs, see nothing, and assume you were abusing the report feature.

Urthona.3198:

I think the concern is that GMs may not have a way to verify that bell spamming was happening. They might check the player’s chat logs, see nothing, and assume you were abusing the report feature.

I understand that, which is the point of my post essentially. It’s been discussed enough on the forums that it should be on the GMs’ radar, but the report feature does not allow for any sort of elaboration to indicate that it’s sound being spammed rather than text.

While the issue certainly merits discussion, the purpose of my post was to find someone with information based on more than speculation – such as verification that this is actionable, or that it’s an unaddressed issue. I can (and did) speculate, and it led me to the conclusion that nothing is being done because GMs aren’t checking combat logs.

Its a public place. If you dont like it you can go somewhere else. Same as real life.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

Its a public place. If you dont like it you can go somewhere else. Same as real life.

That’s simply not ANet’s stance on spamming and exploitation. Nobody offers your argument as an approach to dealing with gold seller spam.

Blueshield.6291:

but they are also utilizing an exploit by circumventing the game’s block and possibly report feature.

The bell thing would be annoying, but this is clearly not true.

Amos.8760:

Blueshield.6291:

but they are also utilizing an exploit by circumventing the game’s block and possibly report feature.

The bell thing would be annoying, but this is clearly not true.

How so? They’ve found a way to spam and harass players which is not filtered by any of the game’s mechanics. Exploitation is defined as “using unfairly for one’s own advantage.” Here they’re using the bell choir to spam with the advantage of being apparently (since nobody’s proven otherwise yet) unreportable.

Blueshield.6291:

Orion the Cursed.1206:

Its a public place. If you dont like it you can go somewhere else. Same as real life.

That’s simply not ANet’s stance on spamming and exploitation. Nobody offers your argument as an approach to dealing with gold seller spam.

Maybe because its different circumstances? Imagine you in a park and a little boy starts ringing a bell. Are you going to insist that child be arrested? Now replace that person with someone selling stolen goods.

You have so many options. Being so petty as to insist that there is no other solution than the noise maker be punished shows that you are no better off.

Add a cooldown to the perma-bell’s ringing ability. Problem solved!

Orion the Cursed.1206:

Blueshield.6291:

Orion the Cursed.1206:

Its a public place. If you dont like it you can go somewhere else. Same as real life.

That’s simply not ANet’s stance on spamming and exploitation. Nobody offers your argument as an approach to dealing with gold seller spam.

Maybe because its different circumstances? Imagine you in a park and a little boy starts ringing a bell. Are you going to insist that child be arrested? Now replace that person with someone selling stolen goods.

You have so many options. Being so petty as to insist that there is no other solution than the noise maker be punished shows that you are no better off.

First, your real world example is simply not applicable. A better example would be if someone in a subway station started bashing on a gong. In that case, I have no doubt that he would be instructed by law enforcement to depart. The real world does have public nuisance laws, and bell abusers are not simply little boys in parks – they’re deliberately going out of their way to annoy.

Second, I’m not insisting that there’s no other option than that people abusing bells be punished.

My question is, does ANet consider bell abuse to be reportable as an infraction? If not, is there a plan to implement a way to mute specific player’s attack sounds?

I’d be happy as a clam if ANet implemented an SFX mute option because it would solve the problem 100%. What are the “so many options” you allege are available? Muting sound is not an option; players shouldn’t have to be forced to disable core gameplay elements to avoid harassment.

@blueshield

Newsflash, children go out of their way to annoy you. Do you think a sensible adult would bother with any of this? How you are acting now, this is what they want. That’s why there’s trolls on the internet. Because like most people, you can’t be the bigger person and let it go. Is it worth wasting time raging about some nameless stranger? Do you actually think you are helping enforcing justice for everyone?

Just politely ask the person to stop or move. And if they refuse just leave. If they use offensive words, report them. Eventually if they dont get any reaction they will give up. If the person acts like a child, treat them as such.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

@blueshield

Newsflash, children go out of their way to annoy you. Do you think a sensible adult would bother with any of this? How you are acting now, this is what they want. That’s why there’s trolls on the internet. Because like most people, you can’t be the bigger person and let it go. Is it worth wasting time raging about some nameless stranger? Do you actually think you are helping enforcing justice for everyone?

Just politely ask the person to stop or move. And if they refuse just leave. If they use offensive words, report them. Eventually if they dont get any reaction they will give up. If the person acts like a child, treat them as such.

Newsflash, there is a function for reporting spam and verbal harassment for a reason. It should really cover all abusable features be they text or sound. Who said anything about enforcing justice for everyone?

I’ve tried politely asking them to stop, back when this first started during the Wintersday event. Instead, the individual proceeded to follow me throughout Lion’s Arch while continuing to spam. In my experience they don’t give up when they don’t get a reaction, and even if that were the case, I am not in personal control of the reactions of every player in the area.

Since you seem to be unable to grasp this crucial point, I’ll reiterate one final time: if ANet were to implement a way to mute SFX from specific players, possibly as a function of blocking them, this wouldn’t be a problem at all. Since they haven’t I posted to inquire as to whether they had adjusted their GMs’ procedures to fit a new form of harassment.

Tried sending an email to support@arena.net?

Some games I played had the option to turn off sound effects that were from other people. I.e any skill sounds, weapon sounds, item sounds etc.

I would love to see this function on GW2. I like to play with sound on but whenever I’m in a party with someone that either has a bell or a chainsaw weapon I will mute GW2.
I don’t care if you can play Beethoven’s entire 5th symphony on the bell. I don’t like the sound of the bell and do not want to hear it. But alas, I don’t have that option so GW2 has been muted on my pc more often than not ever since the chainsaw weapons hit the game.

Aren’t these bells temporary items? The ones I have are. Just turn your sound off and go somewhere to XP (then turn your speaker on again) I say, I don’t like making an issue out of everything. This bell thing was a stupid feature. They should have made a bell playing a song instead.

Also, what is spam? Imo it is advertisement involving something illegal like RMT. Otherwise LFG would also be spam & guild advertising themselves is also spam.

@blueshield

Its not what i’m unable to grasp. Its that you cant accept that you aren’t entitled to selfishly dictate people to doing what you want. Your idea is bad and a waste of time better spent fixing real issues of the game. If you disagree feel free to report me and start a thread about how you cant mute people on the forums.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

@blueshield

Its not what i’m unable to grasp. Its that you cant accept that you aren’t entitled to selfishly dictate people to doing what you want. Your idea is bad and a waste of time better spent fixing real issues of the game. If you disagree feel free to report me and start a thread about how you cant mute people on the forums.

Reporting people without a good reason or for the wrong reasons maybe will get you in trouble with the GM as well.

If this is legit then I wish to report Anet to Anet because of all the NPC’s in LA that just spam the same thing over and over. They were deliberately made to annoy people that’s why they repeat the same speech over and over….

Dedlaw.9130:

If this is legit then I wish to report Anet to Anet because of all the NPC’s in LA that just spam the same thing over and over. They were deliberately made to annoy people that’s why they repeat the same speech over and over….

Like “Creatures of metal and steel!” in the norn home city. Always makes me start running out of there.

I have yet to actually play around with my unbreakable bell, but my concern is that all these people abusing it will end up causing the bell not to be usable, then I’ll be left with an item of no value what so ever

This is why we can’t have nice things
I don’t know about you but I would turn off effects volume (what affects bells) or eighter get away from that place… overflow is an option too. To me there are more than enough ways to avoid those situation even without a block option.

Also you can do as much in other capital cities (exept for "LFxM for this or that, but for that you have gw2lfg) as you do in LA.

For whatever reason, Anet likes to give players the ability to generate really annoying sounds for really long periods of time. I can only assume its their subtle way of trolling everyone in the entire game.

Ah, ghost in the box. Good times.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

@blueshield

Its not what i’m unable to grasp. Its that you cant accept that you aren’t entitled to selfishly dictate people to doing what you want. Your idea is bad and a waste of time better spent fixing real issues of the game. If you disagree feel free to report me and start a thread about how you cant mute people on the forums.

Selfishly dictate? Everyone is selfish and every action ever performed in the history of human kind has selfish aspects to it. What is your point?

Spamming the bells to simply annoy and harass other players breaks the Rules of Conduct.

“While playing Guild Wars 2, you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the Game. To this end, you may not defraud, harass, threaten, embarrass or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players.”

Orion the Cursed.1206:

@blueshield

Newsflash, children go out of their way to annoy you. Do you think a sensible adult would bother with any of this? How you are acting now, this is what they want. That’s why there’s trolls on the internet. Because like most people, you can’t be the bigger person and let it go. Is it worth wasting time raging about some nameless stranger? Do you actually think you are helping enforcing justice for everyone?

Just politely ask the person to stop or move. And if they refuse just leave. If they use offensive words, report them. Eventually if they dont get any reaction they will give up. If the person acts like a child, treat them as such.

If people can crash others, this is more in the territory of game exploits. Imagine if I spam bells with TW up outside a busy keep wall in WvW, this would be no different than the endless tonic abuse.

The OP is right to bring this to attention. You completely missed the point and the essence of the topic. To read the OP’s post the way you did… you have my sympathies.

I haven’t run across this yet, but it definitely screams abuse to me. Though I’m admittedly touchy about annoying sound effects – in my opinion, costume brawl was a terrible, terrible addition to the game simply because of how loud and annoying it is.

I think you’re overreacting. When I encounter the choir bell spammers, I just chuckle and move on. Turn your sound off if you don’t like it.

I sincerely doubt the GMs are going to terminate your account without warning for ‘false reports’ when your issue is a real issue.

You are safe to report this.

I have yet to hear anyone getting banned over abusing the report feature.

I agree it’s annoying but not sure there is much that can be done at this time but to turn off sound. The report feature isn’t set up for players making annoying sounds of various types. People get annoyed by the warriors in cities who have the skill, For Great Justice, on autocast or those with weapons that make annoying sounds. Nothing can be done about them either. Sooner or later the trolls spamming the bells will get tired of it if no one reacts and move on to something else.

They started doing this to us RPers in TC now. I had it happen and thought my ears were ringing… I made my disdain known in-character by saying, “Who the hell was that crazy lady?!”

Weindrasi.3805:

I think you’re overreacting. When I encounter the choir bell spammers, I just chuckle and move on. Turn your sound off if you don’t like it.

It’s like the endless tonic abuse. Most people’s computer can handle it, but the spam will crash users on less robust machines.

When I saw this topic I assumed that it was people yelling obscenities in Morse code.

beren.6048:

Aren’t these bells temporary items? The ones I have are. Just turn your sound off and go somewhere to XP (then turn your speaker on again) I say, I don’t like making an issue out of everything. This bell thing was a stupid feature. They should have made a bell playing a song instead.

Also, what is spam? Imo it is advertisement involving something illegal like RMT. Otherwise LFG would also be spam & guild advertising themselves is also spam.

There is a rare version of the bell that is permanent. Also, if you repeat LFG and guild advertisements too fast, the game DOES consider them to be spam, and starts to limit your ability to speak.

Palador.2170:

beren.6048:

Aren’t these bells temporary items? The ones I have are. Just turn your sound off and go somewhere to XP (then turn your speaker on again) I say, I don’t like making an issue out of everything. This bell thing was a stupid feature. They should have made a bell playing a song instead.

Also, what is spam? Imo it is advertisement involving something illegal like RMT. Otherwise LFG would also be spam & guild advertising themselves is also spam.

There is a rare version of the bell that is permanent. Also, if you repeat LFG and guild advertisements too fast, the game DOES consider them to be spam, and starts to limit your ability to speak.

That’s to stop gold spammers. They should just allow the ignore feature to remove any sound the ignored character can make. Someone could also grief by using emotes.

Mute. Nothing they’re doing is outside the boundaries of the game. That is the cold hard truth. I get annoyed by that sometimes too, so I just turn down the game sound until I move areas..

I remember in GW1 they removed the sounds of tonics and minipets in towns and outposts because of griefing.
Sadly I coundn’t play the flute anymore as a Gwen doll, that was the cutest thing.
And yes there are some peeps that do this to annoy, but I’ve also seen the most amazing bell players near the bank in LA.
I would hate to have those people punished over some griefers.

Pff,just move away from the kitten area and let people have fun…..Want anet to remove the sounds so you can be happy again and dissapoint those players that actually like the bell and arent that easily annoyed by it ?

Wow, over reacting much? Just because it annoys YOU doesn’t make it wrong. For the game crash, did you tell the person it did so? You also assume that someone is supposed to know the audio bug exists. and, that this could even trigger it.

Simply ask the people to stop nicely. Then, lower the volume if they don’t.

DeWolfe.2174:

Wow, over reacting much?

It’s a good quote, I’ll borrow it from you.

I found a good quote to summarize your reaction.

DeWolfe.2174:

Wow, over reacting much?

Orion the Cursed.1206:

Its a public place. If you dont like it you can go somewhere else. Same as real life.

I don’t know about your place, but in mine someone doing that (in RL) would eventually be approached by police and asked to be quiet – or fined straight away, depending on the exact circumstances. Causing a commotion and disrupting the public order, if done deliberately, are usually considered to be violations in real life.

Between the NPCs in town and the warriors always spouting off about their “great justice” I have just learned to use my mute button while within cities. Although this may now be the best solution it does work.

I like to break out mine and teach myself a song, I apologize if I annoyed you during my tone-deaf musical symphony.

For whom did the bell toll?
Just give it time, as it marches on
Whom did that bloody bell toll?

:P

But yeah, it is annoying although I only noticed it when a guildie was sat on it ringing the same note over and over again for about 10 minutes. It was funny, then annoying, then I muted it and carried on with listening to my music. Just mute the in game sound when you are in LA.

There should be an option to report for griefing. I was sat at LA TP looking for some runes to buy, and there was a necro spamming his Warhorn skills… I came back an hour later… he is still there… It’s incredibly sad what lengths people go to, to troll in games these days.

I spam the highest note in LA to annoy gold sellers. Whenever I log into LA first thing I see is Selling 100g for 115 usd www… etc. I’ll go search for these players and just spam them till they leave

I’d like to report the Red Cross spammers ringing their bells every year. Always in my favorite spots…Please ban them…

The Seattle seaport police once pulled over the tall ship the Lady Washington for firing blanks having forgotten to get a sound permit.

Personally I would encourage Arenanet to add a `player music` volume slider while also expanding the system, ideally making it as roboust as in lotro. As for why bother to expand, because of the huge music community this sort of system has been shown to draw to games.

I’ve had to kill my game sound now and then because of this; I have bad tinnitus due to a medical condition, and the spamming of that high piercing note triggered that, which then triggered a huge migraine, nausea, etc. _ It just took a few seconds for me to be hosed for a few hours.