CASH BOTS

So far since I haven't logged in tonight I've only seen 4 bots total this whole weekend, so it's working well so far

I'm amazed at the lack of profanity and racism I'm seeing, as well. I might even turn shout back on in my default channel if this continues.

It's working so far, there are like 3-4 spam bots during the weekend (most of them stick to shout, there are like 2 who use trade/lfg), not 20-30 like we used to have.

The level option in my opnion is still better and hope it's implemented sometime in the future, BUT, it's nice to see that the game is getting like $10 daily just to see a 1 guy spam that can easily be ignored.

Well good news and bad news tonight folks. I was on for about 3 hours tonight and while I do not spend every waking moment in game staring at the chat window I have been keeping an eye on it the past few days since chat was changed to limit the spammers. SO..

Good News

In 3 + hours I didn't see a single Gold Spammer in the LFG. Considering there were as many as 4, 5, 6 or more all posting as fast as they could only a few days ago that is a huge improvement

Bad New

I encountered 2 different spammers while I was in Gotham both in shout. I reported both in game and hopefully they are still actively banning any they find

New I hit Metropolis and had the same thing occur. As soon as I stepped out of the safe house two different spammers were post in shout. I reported them as well

Last stop for the night was the Watch Tower and I found one more spammer there. Reported and hopefully on the way to being banned.

All 5 I saw were associated with that new Gold Spammer group that starts with AO... The ones that started that whole spamming war between the 3 to start with. Now its kind of hard to tell if they have decided that $5 is not a lot to pay to make their spammers premium or not since none were using the LFG and I was not about to sit around doing nothing to see how long before any of them posted again.. I placed all 5 on my ignore list. Reported them and moved on with my Bounty Hunt/Exobit farming.

Stil not perfect but a lot better than a few days back... Still not sure if this or anything else will stop them completely. BUT you could actually see teams being build on the LFG again .. I'll take THAT any day.

I think we should keep reporting the ones we do find to help make it easier for them to be found and banned. Along those lines I saw a suggestion the other day that I thought could help. How about a little easier reporting set up? The one I saw that I kied involved a small change to the Social Menu. I'm a PC player so bear with me if you are Play Station. When you hit f4 and the menu drops and you access recent text.. Add an option when some one highlights a name. One that allows the player to report the spammer. Maybe have a couple added tabs for where the spam occurred, what time it occurred, and in which chat it occurred. It would take some coding I'm sure but would help the DBG staff in checking to see if in fact the player being reported had actually violated the TOS or if it was some other player trying to troll. With a few quick clicks we'd give them a detailed report and hopefully cut the spamming even more. ... Oh and I think it would be a VERY good idea to make it clear that IF Daybreak discovers the person making the report is lying.. Then THAT person gets at least a temporary ban for the first offense and could lead to a permanent one if they continue to abuse the system.

I’m sorry, what I meant was did it explain the $5 threshold and it’s exact benefits? I’m only asking because of the hundreds of f2p players I’ve had to teach it to over the years in private chats etc.

I saw a spammer the other day in the HoD, I tried seeing if you could trade with it, since obviously if you're upgrading to premium, then the trade option would be there if you clicked on their name. Well it wasn't so they were still F2P, but had posted well over 5 messages in shout, so I think there's a bug somewhere in the system that they can exploit to bypass the chat restrictions.

It's been a long time since I saw any of them, but yes, it mentioned how much you needed to spend for Premium or Legendary status, and gave a brief overview of the benefits. However... I tended to just dismiss the notices without really reading them (after the first couple of times, once I knew what they were) and I suspect others did the same.

Well we all knew going in that IF they could find a way around the restrictions especially one that didn't involve shelling out any cash they'd hunt for it and then use it.

Still if the only thing they managed to get around was the 5 posts a day its not so bad. I think we can all agree the biggest issue the past week was that wall of text tying up the LFG and Trad chat that made it much harder to find or build a team OR to fins people to trade/sell that item you had to give away or sell. Them posting in shout is annoying but it only happens in certain spots.. Gotham, Metropolis, The watch Tower/Hall of Doom and the Safe Houses. All areas where most players, except those still under 30 doing those missions, just run through to get some place else. Still annoying but not as disruptive as screwing with the LFG. Like I said I was keeping an eye of that last night and did not see one post in a little over three hours.

As usual I'll be doing my Bounty/exobit run later tonight..... IF I see more spammers there I will hold off on reporting/ignore and see just how often they manage to post .. THEN ignore and report them.

Big thing now I think is to keep reporting them. Only takes a little bit of time and if enough of us are doing it hopefully Daybreak continues to take the time to ban them. We make it a big enough pain in the butt and MAYBE they will just go find another game to disrupt. Now I do not go to the web site and fill out a report on all of them.... Frankly I'm not about to put the game on hold that long that many times.. so hopefully DEVS (this part is for you) they respond to the in game reports.

Better than trade as a test, send them a piece of scrap. Trade requires proximity and I think trade is one of the blockable interations. If you mail the bot an ancient vellum, it should go if they are premium...it will not if they are F2P. I did not think of doing this last night, but it might be a fun test. Might want to send from an alt though....in case they think they found a friend....you know how enticing those ancient vellum are.

I did notice that in shout I saw bots sending more than 5 messages in the span of less than 24 hours (yeah, like in 15 min), but I'm not overly concerned with shout personally, and honestly leaving them an out for their advertisements probably makes figuring out how to get back into LFG/Trade that much less attractive and not worth the effort.

LFG has been a dream the last few days. Maybe the best QOL upgrade all year, and that includes allowing for soda/exo/mats to stack to 99. Kudos Devs.

BTW, speaking of QOL, did anyone else notice that with styles unlock now 'NONE' is at the top of the list of styles per piece? Not sure if that was in the notes, but again....huzzah! Always hated scrolling through 20-30 pages of styles to select the option to wear no shirt/shoes/cape...whatever. Kudos #2 Devs.

Reinhled

Last time I checked, I could send items to free to play players through the mail, but the message would return to me after 30 days. I lost an aura once due to sending to a free player without realizing he was free, and the attachment returned to me broken.

This is true. I tried to send stuff to my second account once I inherited it, and it all came back after 30 days.

Forget ancient vellum, though. Send them a rubber chicken.

UGH Field Report.. So okay I had a small errand to run in Metropolis and Damned if i didn't run across a Gold Spammer from AO???? .wewantyourmoney.com. In the eight minutes I was in the city this guy posted his ad four times in shout. Now supposedly they can only post 5 times a day so if this guy has not found a way around that in ten minutes or some he was done for the entire day? I had finished my errand AND got an invite to run the Phantom Zone while I was typing up the report I sent on the guy to try and get him banned so I don't know if he posted a 5th or 6th message. he's on my ignore list along with all they others I run across.

Now I REALIZE he could have multiple free accounts and just keep switching but HOW many accounts can this one guy own that he has no issue using up all his posts in 10 minutes or so? Heck he'd need between 5 or 6 just to advertise that much that fast for one hour. Now let us say he works his JOB (can we call that a job???) eight hours every day.... He needs to have between 40-50 separate account to post that fast. Now on average let's say he can switch between account in one minute.. That means he''d spend at least 1 hour a day just switching back and forth. The good news is I was on for about 90 minutes .. just logged off .. and still am not seeing any messages like before in the LFG. But either they have found a way around the 5 post limit or we are dealing with some very dedicated Spammers. Still better than before but let's keep reporting them and hope they take the hint and go find another game to annoy.l

So we invited a Gold seller to league for LULZ, in doing so I think I know how they are doing it. a simple relog seems to be the key?

So it's a 5 message limit as long as you're online? It resets upon log in?

I don't recall seeing those any spammers on the PS side before the server merge. Then again population on the PS side was considerably higher than it is now...so it's possible the one or two gold sellers just weren't too noticeable.

Pretty much.

Worked for me back in 2012. I don't even remember HOW I stumbled on to this game, but when I saw free to play, I decided to try it out. It only took me a couple of weeks to decide to go premium (buy a few episodes), and after butting against the cash cap a few times decided to just sub up. So restrictions can work....sometimes.

Yes, that's how it works, apparently.

Agreed....took me longer than a few weeks to sub, but I think I went premium by the time I hit CR 35 or 36. I'm still shocked to find out that people who will easily drop 120$ on a game(other game) just to get some 'special' gun or skin or whatever vs buying the 60$ basic game would still balk at a $5 pay in to gain more character slots, auction ability, item trade ability, more stabilizer fragments daily, more inventory and bank slots, a higher (although not much higher) cash cap and now the ability to use 2 of the more useful chats. I have had a bunch of conversations with newbies in the game....people who were F2P and did not know about the $5 premium upgrade....and explained premium level to them. I have NEVER heard the reply 'Five BUCKS!!!? No sir I will not spend that!' Most of the time the response is 'really, so five bucks...one time....and I'm premium upgraded?' and off they go to buy a teleporter, episode or extra armory (the 3 things I normally suggest as best bang for their buck).

Who is really objecting to this? Oh...let me guess 'I have several league mates/friends who are F2P, and they said they are leaving the game now that they cannot use LFG/Trade....it was the main reason they loved the game and now feel alienated'...right?

Reinheld