Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet was gracious enough to provide a message at the bottom of all mail that was not sent by ArenaNet staff, yet for some reason people STILL don’t realize that it is there. People get mail from other players and they still think it’s from ArenaNet despite that blatant message at the bottom.

I suggest you put that message at the very top of all player mail, in bold letters, maybe in a larger font, and maybe even flashing like an annoying pop up ad. No one looks at the bottom of the message, it seems. This might reduce the number of forum posts and support tickets about mail from other players… or maybe I should stop giving people the benefit of the doubt.

What do you all think? Would putting that message at the top of the message body of all mail instead of at the bottom be a good idea?

I second this. There must be a new guy going around sending out fake mails. I just submitted a report to Anet about this. I know to look at the icons, and the notice at the bottom the mail before trusting anything mailed to me, but I have friends who have no idea and could freak out and do something foolish (like give out their account info). Having the notice moved from the bottom of the mail to the top would make it simpler to see who sent it and if it was Anet or someone else.
+1 from me on the idea.

You can’t fix ignorance. I see those people in map chat too, but they DO actually see and read that message and STILL freak out and ask in chat for a dozen people to verify that their account really is okay.

I am really not sure that anything more would actually help. It’s like people that still complain about deleting characters after all the stop gaps in place to prevent them from deleting characters failed.

I think they should reverse the colors also. Red is considered a warning color and right now it’s the ANet mail that has the red text. Imo, the player mail message should be in red and the ANet mail be a more neutral color.

I guarantee that no matter how bold (or colorful) the warning message is, people will eventually stop noticing it. Sure, ANet should do some things to reduce the chance that someone will get scammed, but players need to take just as much responsibility to avoid being scammed.

People get used to any system that ANet could set up. Familiarity breeds not only contempt, but complacency and ends up with (some) people failing to pay attention when it matters the most.

If ANet is going to spend energy changing the warning message then I would want them to set it up so that it changes regularly, uses some sort of watermark, and the style of official messages is wildly different from those sent by players. Anything less won’t be effective for very long.

If people don’t get the lack of the red ArenaNet icon at the top and the huge message at the bottom it’s basically their own fault. No more stuff would help if these people already willfully ignore that.
Especially not noticing that while typing the scam address in the browser while also not noticing that the address does not include a “guildwars2.com/” in it.

I can understand people not knowing to look for the red Anet logo because until you’ve had mail from them (which not everyone has) you won’t know it’s there.

But the warning that the message is from another player is pretty clear. If people can’t be bothered to read it or choose to believe the badly written mail (seriously, all the ones I’ve seen are like “for protect of player we send mails” over the warning that is obviously official because it’s built into the window, something only Anet could do, then I don’t think anything is going to convince them.

Monkey Fritz.9052:

You can’t fix ignorance. I see those people in map chat too, but they DO actually see and read that message and STILL freak out and ask in chat for a dozen people to verify that their account really is okay.

I am really not sure that anything more would actually help. It’s like people that still complain about deleting characters after all the stop gaps in place to prevent them from deleting characters failed.

Yeah .. i guess they could write big red flashing text over the whole screen, or make
10 popup windows with a warning that you all have to clock away, and those
people will still not get it.

The only thing that would maybe work doesn’t exist. There must be a question to
answer where you need to understand the text, and if you haven’t understood it
a fist or big hammer will come out of you monitor directly in your face.
As soon as you are concious again, you have to answer that question again .. and again
until you finally have learned to read and understand

They should hide the message entirely and replace it with a warning that states the message was sent by a player. The message should then show a checkbox stating that if you fall for it, you agree to waive your right to an appeal. It should then end with a captcha and an accept button, which will then reveal the original message.

I have no doubt that people would still fall for it, then claim someone else did it, like their child or something.

If GW2 supported addons, this wouldn’t even be a problem because the players could flag spam far faster than ArenaNet could. I made an addon like this before and tested it in a trial account infested heavily spammed area, catching a few thousand messages per hour.

Healix.5819:

They should hide the message entirely and replace it with a warning that states the message was sent by a player. The message should then show a checkbox stating that if you fall for it, you agree to waive your right to an appeal. It should then end with a captcha and an accept button, which will then reveal the original message.

The problem with that is, that you annoy most of the players who just want to read
their mails to hell with that stuff, just because you want to reach a very view people
who you mostly never will reach no matter what you do.

Its like allowing only to drive 5 mph on all streets worldwide, because maybe there
is an ape driving a car, and apes are bad drivers.

Beldin.5498:

Healix.5819:

They should hide the message entirely and replace it with a warning that states the message was sent by a player. The message should then show a checkbox stating that if you fall for it, you agree to waive your right to an appeal. It should then end with a captcha and an accept button, which will then reveal the original message.

The problem with that is, that you annoy most of the players who just want to read
their mails to hell with that stuff, just because you want to reach a very view people
who you mostly never will reach no matter what you do.

Its like allowing only to drive 5 mph on all streets worldwide, because maybe there
is an ape driving a car, and apes are bad drivers.

I dont think healix was entirely serious there

GummiBear.2756:

Beldin.5498:

Healix.5819:

They should hide the message entirely and replace it with a warning that states the message was sent by a player. The message should then show a checkbox stating that if you fall for it, you agree to waive your right to an appeal. It should then end with a captcha and an accept button, which will then reveal the original message.

The problem with that is, that you annoy most of the players who just want to read
their mails to hell with that stuff, just because you want to reach a very view people
who you mostly never will reach no matter what you do.

Its like allowing only to drive 5 mph on all streets worldwide, because maybe there
is an ape driving a car, and apes are bad drivers.

I dont think healix was entirely serious there

Only partially serious?

Even that extreme wouldn’t work: people would just get used to clicking through everything that when they eventually got a scam message, they wouldn’t remember any of the warnings.

(Some experts argue that putting too many warnings or barriers is counterproductive — example: Windows 7 lacks a security feature from XP/Vista that required folks to give permission before certain types of changes were made to their system; it seems that people stopped paying attention to the warning, after installing a few legit programs.)

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

_(Some experts argue that putting too many warnings or barriers is counterproductive —

I believe thats also true. If theres too much of that stuff at some point you just
ignore it and simply click everything away cause you think its just the same
of that mostly unninteresting stuff you have to click away all the time.

I honestly don’t know if this is already in place or not, but maybe when a character gets their first mail there should be a little tutorial highlight on the bottom text so more players know that it is there.

I don’t think it would matter much more where the message is located even if it was a giant full screen popup. I’ve seen many posts from people that got the scam mails, acknowledged that they read the message saying it wasn’t from Anet and still ask if it is legit.

Just make mails from Anet have a big Anet Logo watermark in the place where the message goes, so there is no way people can miss it.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Just make mails from Anet have a big Anet Logo watermark in the place where the message goes, so there is no way people can miss it.

Trust me. People would still find a way to “miss” it.

If people can read a text saying: “Warning: This message was sent by another player. It was not sent by the Guild Wars 2 Team” and still ask if it came from the Guild Wars 2 team, there’s not a whole lot that can be done to make it clearer. Small tweaks, such as switching the text colors to red for the player, may help a few but the big problem is people thinking with their emotions and not with their brains. It’s why those emails that say they are going to send you X million dollars because they pulled your name out of a file somewhere are so successful. Schools teach people how to read but they don’t teach logic or critical thinking about daily living.

I also received the fake mail today. Reported it. Maybe a separate folder in the mailbox for messages from Anet would help. The mailbox design at Eve may be used as a reference point…

Ankushp.7245:

I also received the fake mail today. Reported it. Maybe a separate folder in the mailbox for messages from Anet would help. The mailbox design at Eve may be used as a reference point…

Here’s the thing: this is a social problem, not a technical one. It’s not going to be mitigated by technology alone, not even with the best design. As long as there are people who believe whatever they read, there will be scammers phishing for the gullible. All ANet can really do is make it easier on the majority of folks who need an easy way to distinguish legit official mail from the fake ones.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Just make mails from Anet have a big Anet Logo watermark in the place where the message goes, so there is no way people can miss it.

Ankushp.7245:

Maybe a separate folder in the mailbox for messages from Anet would help. The mailbox design at Eve may be used as a reference point…

The problem is NOT to identify posts from ANet .. the problem is that people
think that every mail where someone asks for your stuff is also from ANet even
if it clearly shows that it is not from ANet.

So it won’t help in anyway if real mails from ANet shows bigger logos or have
extra folders or whatever ^^

Lucretia.8507:

I honestly don’t know if this is already in place or not, but maybe when a character gets their first mail there should be a little tutorial highlight on the bottom text so more players know that it is there.

I know there is a “help” section for mail, but maybe bringing up the help section on it and saying something along the lines of “Every message from an official Anet employee will look like X” and have a picture of what a genuine message from Anet looks like compared to what a mail looks like from another player.

Making new players actually read through it (or at least scroll through it) might – please note I say MIGHT – reduce complaints etc.

If anything is needed past things like that to alert someone to the fact that it is not a mail from an official Anet employee, I see it as the player’s own fault if they get hacked/scammed/whathaveyou.

As it is, yes I do agree that what is in place right now is not obvious enough, but short of a voice yelling at you that “HEY! THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL ANET EMPLOYEE!!”, how far should it be taken? There will – unfortunately – always be the people who are stupid enough to fall for scams even when something as obvious as the exaggerated example I’ve put here are in place.

Miss Lana.5276:

but short of a voice yelling at you that “HEY! THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL ANET EMPLOYEE!!”, how far should it be taken?

Haha .. i like that idea somehow.

I imagine something like Angry Joe who shouts “WTF .. can you kitten not see that this mail is not fron ANet ?”

Beldin.5498:

Miss Lana.5276:

but short of a voice yelling at you that “HEY! THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL ANET EMPLOYEE!!”, how far should it be taken?

Haha .. i like that idea somehow.

I imagine something like Angry Joe who shouts “WTF .. can you kitten not see that this mail is not fron ANet ?”

If it was Angry Joe I’d get on my alt account to send my main mail ALL day!

From what I’ve learned, there’s only so much you can do. Some people just cannot be helped. Let’s not get to the point we need our mothers’ permission, blood samples and retina scans every time we perform an action.

I, for one, already find the message about mail not being from Anet and that this person might be trying to steal my account, quite insulting to my intelligence as it is. My good friend from before this game was released sent me a spare dye they didn’t need, there’s nothing malicious there people. =/