Guild Wars 2

I was not sure where to post this, so I decided to put it here.

I have noticed a fairly massive influx of gold seller spammers, probably due to the all the sales that anet has had recently. I have noticed that me, and a friend, have been spammed heavily with messages in game from the gold sellers. I asked LA chat in the Tarnished Coast, and no one appears to have this problem of spammers. Both me and my friend are currently on the leaderboards for Achievement points, so I think that is where they are harvesting the names from, if that helps the staff at all to reduce this problem. I have posted on the forums a bit before, but my friends tends to never, so I do not think they are taking them from the forums.

Anyways, I hope this information helps the team out. If not, oh well I tried. Thanks, and have a good day.

It’s not just you I have sent 3 gold seller reports within the last hour and 2 of them were whispers to me. Also everyone else in my guild have also received whispers even when they are in WvW which makes me wonder if that’s why all the maps are in queue cause its full of gold sellers.

Silvercyclone.1462:

It’s not just you I have sent 3 gold seller reports within the last hour and 2 of them were whispers to me. Also everyone else in my guild have also received whispers even when they are in WvW which makes me wonder if that’s why all the maps are in queue cause its full of gold sellers.

People don’t have to be in the same map to whisper to one another, or even the same world/server. All that is needed to whisper to anyone in-game is their character or display name.

Just report and block anyone that whispers you with unwanted messages, and they will be dealt with accordingly.

Unfortunately the block option is not available in wvwvw only report option. Anet should look into this.

You can’t block someone from your chat window in WvW? Or your friend’s list? Really? I was unaware of that.

That is kinda useless block em while those gold sellers just get new accounts. I have blocked those all the time but new message with new account coming in day or 2 and again same spamm starting. Have noticed those have been 0 ap accounts so anet should put some ap limit for whispering at least that is way to block those zero ap whispers.

I am on their “list” it seems and I believe they are getting that list from the forums.

Personally for me? I am glad I am on their list. I block them, then report them. You rang the wrong doorbell buddy. Its like shooting fish in a barrel now.

I keep blocking and reporting them, but they keep whispering me at least once per day from different account each time. It’s so annoying…

We need feedback or wall of reflection skills that we can use to annoy them and make their life as uncomfortable as possible

Gaile Gray.6029:

We definitely need to work on this situation, and from what I understand, we have a few recommendations and thoughts about how to ease RMT (gold seller) harassment via whispers.

If we had a means to remove those spammers instantly, we’d do it. But because we want to — and need to — verify each report, it can take time to nail the… I mean “address the issue.” ~ahem~

Please DO know that your reports are recorded and if an agent can’t “take out the garbage” instantly, he or she will do so as soon as possible. Please DO keep on reporting, and know that we sincerely appreciate your taking the time to do that.

In other games when you “report” a gold seller it sends the actual gold spam text to a GM or automated collection file. If you had a live person who saw these reported spams, that person could immediately close the account (either temporarily or permanent). If gold spammers started getting the accounts closed within 5 minutes of the first spam, it would stop pretty kitten quick.

The argument that many of the gold spammers are from stolen accounts is not a real argument. If an account is stolen, no matter what it is used for, the owner will always have to contact Anet and go through the process of retrieving the account. Getting a “account closed” email from Anet will simply let people know even sooner that their account has been hacked.

Another option I’ve seen used is to only allow characters to send tells/whispers once they’ve reached some milestone that is highly inconvenient for disposable spam accounts to achieve, such as minimum level or perhaps achievement points or karma, etc.

It doesn’t totally prevent then from making a throw away account, leveling a character high enough to finally send gold spam, and then getting shortly banned, but it does make it take so much time invested as to make it not worth doing so. Time = money, even for gold sellers.

I would not want to see yet another “punish everyone for the sins of a few” fix to a problem caused by gold sellers/spammers. Messaging is necessary for community, and especially if you have a friend coming in game, or are genuinely new and need help. City of Heroes implemented a new account messaging restriction with disastrous results on the community.

For me there is something viscerally enjoyable when one of them messages me and I can immediately report them. Sort of like swatting a fly that has been flying around the room for a while.

Bam! Got you, you little $%^&#

I got PM twice last night, so this seems to be getting frequent and more. And more annoying.

I used to find this spam somewhat annoying, but having read how people deal with it through reporting, i now treat it like a mini game. You spam me, i report you, anet kills the account.

I found the system in CoH to be wonderful; I think it was refined to no one could send whispers/tells to you unless they were already on your contact list.

Disabling that security layer long enough to add someone to that list was a more than fair exchange for the lack of spam.

Ok I got 3 pm’s from these people/bots today alone. Its more than a little frustrating. The problem isn’t that its repeating from the same user. The problem that it seems pointless because a new user pops up. I block/report all of them and its not doing any good. Its to the point that I want to turn off my PM because of this nonsense. I nor anyone else should have to tolerate this harassment. I’m more frustrated that it seems like I can’t do anything to stop this garbage from ruining my gaming experience. The sit in the starter zones and just spam this stuff. Its really gotten out of hand over the last couple of weeks. My block list has never been so full and I have no idea how I got on this list of theirs.

I posted this exact same msg here in this forum section with no reply. Obviously they are targeting people with above 10k ap. As soon as I broke the 10k ap cap I’ve been getting 3 to 4 whispers a day from the same company. I’ve blocked and reported every single one and nothing is being done. Please give me an option to disable whispers from people not in my friend list and or in my current repped guild.

Getting 2-4 every day. Im blovking and reporting them, but i think im slowly out off free space on my blocklist. Is there a limit how many people u can have on your blocklist?

I hope something is being done soon with these spambots. There is still one sitting in one of the starter zones for 8 hours straight.

Don’t believe they are going off ap I have two accounts one with 10k ap / 1.5ap I receive the same amount of spam on both accounts. Only time I receive spam is in a heavy populated town or zone. The spam will slow after the holidays. Report and move on.

I had a total of six gold sellers whisper me on the 7/12/13, I reported and blocked them all. Would it not be possible to stop people who are not on your friends list from whispering you? It could help to solve this issue.

I’m reporting many gold seller that maybe I was wrong with the last person … Gaile Gray, you have a PM of repair…
My apologies if I made a mistake. :-(

Uh oh. I have about 9,900 achievement points and i already get about 1 spam message a day from these folks. Sounds like its about to get worse.

Yes, i report each one that spams me. I don’t block because that seems unnecessary. I never receive more than 1 spam from the same account. I do believe that they are getting banned quickly after the reports because I see them go “offline” within a half hour, but there’s always a fresh account to take it’s place.

I’d love an option to only allow pm’s from folks on the same server as you. I don’t want to restrict it to friends only or guildies only since i do receive random pm’s from folks on the same map sometimes that are legit.

I do not believe the spam messages have anything to do with how many AP you have. If anything they would be targeting players with lower APs because they are the ones who would be more likely to make a purchase to “catch up”.

What is needed is an automated filter to block any message that contains the website addresses they are using. I have seen only 3 websites spammed over and over again and 2 of them where the same site, just renamed. If it’s possible to add a black list to all chat, when a new site comes up, support could just add that site to the list and have done with it. I do not know if this is something that could be added, but it should be looked at.

Squirrel, it’s a nice idea but it doesn’t work. I’ve seen that with other games. Let’s say for example the spam site is www.goldspamRus.com.

You get a spam pm something like: “Shop now at www.goldspamRus.com!! Cheap prices!!!!”

Anet blocks the website name and next you get: “Shop now at www.g0ld$pamRus.com Cheap!!”

Another round of filtering and next you see “Shop @ www.g o l d $ p a m R u s.com!!”

Anet does some more filtering and now you get spammed with “Shop now. We meet all your MMO adventuring needs. Cheap prices. www.tinyurl.com/……”

It’s a lot of work on Anet’s end for no results. I wish it worked. If it did I’d be all for it.

Short question: Why dont you just block all connections to China and Russia? Would make things a lot easier. Especially since China got their own version of GW2.

pessimist.7294:

Short question: Why dont you just block all connections to China and Russia? Would make things a lot easier. Especially since China got their own version of GW2.

Because there are legitimate customers in Russia and China playing this game on the NA/EU server. They are usally bi-lingual, which would allow them to play with others. Also, gold companies could invest in proxies which would bypass region locking; makes no sense to block and hurt your customers more than the gold sellers.

Also the gold selling in this game is very minimal, try playing another game and be bombarded with gold sellers all day long

pessimist.7294:

Short question: Why dont you just block all connections to China and Russia? Would make things a lot easier. Especially since China got their own version of GW2.

Hey, I play from China. I’m working here and there’s a whole bunch playing from here.

a) The problem isn’t exclusive to those countries, b) gold sellers would be undeterred with blocking attempts, c) only legitimate players would be hurt.

China will supposedly have its own version but I would dread on being mandatory to play in servers cutoff from the rest of the world. Also, considering that major updates would need to be authorized by the respective government branch (2-week rotation DLCs included), I’d expected GW2 to lag way behind…

Chase.8415:

pessimist.7294:

Short question: Why dont you just block all connections to China and Russia? Would make things a lot easier. Especially since China got their own version of GW2.

Because there are legitimate customers in Russia and China playing this game on the NA/EU server. They are usally bi-lingual, which would allow them to play with others. Also, gold companies could invest in proxies which would bypass region locking; makes no sense to block and hurt your customers more than the gold sellers.

Also the gold selling in this game is very minimal, try playing another game and be bombarded with gold sellers all day long

^^^This.
I have made friends with players from China playing on the NA servers and even have some in my guild.

I had some Gold Sellers whisper me yesterday. I reported them both immediately as I do with each that hits me but yesterday I noticed something different:

Two of the whisper spams I got, happened the instant I Asuran Gated into a new map (Southsun Cove from LA, as I recall on one of them).

I guess it could be coincidence but it seems somewhat unlikely.

My concern about the Goldspammers is also that you still see the whispers in Chat even if you put them on ignore. This is especially annoying when you often switch characters where the Guild Chat always disapears but the spam stays on the screen.

I am not getting near the amount of whispers I was. And when I did, I always blocked, then reported. Once the name goes “dark” on my blocked list (which has to this point only been one day—-GOOD JOB ANET) I remove them from my block list.

Come on, I dare you, gold sellers, whisper me! I got my report button all set.

For the record, there is only one unrecognized name on my “followers”.

The worrying question is how are they even targeting players then pming them with gold sales as soon as you log in. The pms received are surprisingly fast and the actual gold seller is no where to be seen.

I usually report and ignore their messages as they were never that persistent, and they will be permanently blocked anyway.

I just did a quick search on RMT websites and they’re not cheap! Why would people want to spend 300 bucks for 2000 gold? And for the more affordable prices of 100 or 200 gold, it’s not that difficult to get this amount in game anyway. It’s just not worth it.

Those high prices could mean that ArenaNet is doing a pretty good job in handling real money traders.

Also, I think that one of the reasons people get their accounts hacked is that they actually register in these websites and don’t bother to add a different email from their game account. Maybe go as far as using the same password. Again, not worth it…

I’ve taken notice that a lot of these newer gold sellers are fresh accounts with 0 AP, doing their whispering from their races’ starting instances. Any chance to neuter some whispering sellers by restricting whispers from the five starting instances? This would force gold sellers at least go through the first 5-10 minutes of the game before they could commit an offense…perhaps slow them down a little.

abasedfear.6051:

I’ve taken notice that a lot of these newer gold sellers are fresh accounts with 0 AP, doing their whispering from their races’ starting instances. Any chance to neuter some whispering sellers by restricting whispers from the five starting instances? This would force gold sellers at least go through the first 5-10 minutes of the game before they could commit an offense…perhaps slow them down a little.

Along those lines, here are my suggestions:

1. Disallow ANY communication with any other player during the starting character instance (You can’t party up with anyone during this, so there is no reason for communication until you finish the story instance).
2. Disallow the TYPING IN of a name to whisper chat for X time after the character completes the character creation story instance. You can whisper someone by selecting them only (allows for local whisper only). EDIT: make sure you put some sort of YOU CAN’T DO THIS YET message when this is attempted so legit users know why they cannot whisper a friend. Maybe require either some # of XP be gained or APs be earned before you can communicate (they have already turned off mail for some period of time….right?).

Don’t know if this is possible, but it might make this new practice such a chore that gold sellers quit using it.

I’d say allow /say, /map, and /guild (for those in a guild prior to creating the character, disallow guild invites in the starting/tutorial areas) in the tutorial areas. ?guild especially can have a legit reason for being used.