First Avatar now John what can be done??

the RMT spamming is out of control.... i block them but they must be EJ accounts because they just keep coming US the paying user's shouldn't have to deal with this...

You would think that EJ account would be on HELP chat like YOUNG are forced to be??

the simple solution appears to be EJ accounts must use help but for whatever reason this is not used to stop them maybe the system should itself spam a users who use RMT sites will be banned as i know it is posted here but not every player uses either board...

And nothing shall be done... why? LoL
 
IBTL

Drakelord said:

You would think that EJ account would be on HELP chat like YOUNG are forced to be??

What good would it do, to an EJ account of a player in need for help, advice or get started, that hardly any regular player is logged in the HELP Channel ?

There is a reason why most players only log in the General Chat, because most of the players are there....

Therefore, anyone looking for help, advice or getting started can only most likely find that in General Chat.

That's it.

Forbidding EJ accounts from accessing the General Chat is NOT, to my opinion, the right way to address RMT spammers. Other ways should be found to deal with this issue but certainly not ways that would have the grandest majority of EJ players suffer from their implementation.

Hey why not sub if you like the game like the majority of others mmo...ej suppose to be there to give you a taste of the game not a permanent scripting bots...like most of them are use to

there are many ways to insure that real EJ accounts get the help they might want but the bottom line is the needs of the many(paying) are more important than the needs of the few(not paying)

popps said:

Drakelord said:

You would think that EJ account would be on HELP chat like YOUNG are forced to be??

What good would it do, to an EJ account of a player in need for help, advice or get started, that hardly any regular player is logged in the HELP Channel ?

There is a reason why most players only log in the General Chat, because most of the players are there....

Therefore, anyone looking for help, advice or getting started can only most likely find that in General Chat.

That's it.

Forbidding EJ accounts from accessing the General Chat is NOT, to my opinion, the right way to address RMT spammers. Other ways should be found to deal with this issue but certainly not ways that would have the grandest majority of EJ players suffer from their implementation.

And your suggestion?

Make them develop chars to chat. Some private wow servers (maybe official too?) Require you to get to level 20 to chat on trial/free accts. This adds lots of time for botters, and seemed to reduce spam. Make them get 2 skills to 80 to get into gen chat.

Fortis said:

Hey why not sub if you like the game like the majority of others mmo...ej suppose to be there to give you a taste of the game not a permanent scripting bots...like most of them are use to

Endless Journey are eligible to upgrade, with quite a good expenditure of money for a game of 23 Years, to High Seas and Times of Legends.

I do not think that it would be a good idea to further restrict EJ players who went as far as sending money to upgrade to those expansions and, perhaps, even spent more money on Soulstones and what not from the UOStore.... 

vortex said:

popps said:

Drakelord said:

You would think that EJ account would be on HELP chat like YOUNG are forced to be??

What good would it do, to an EJ account of a player in need for help, advice or get started, that hardly any regular player is logged in the HELP Channel ?

There is a reason why most players only log in the General Chat, because most of the players are there....

Therefore, anyone looking for help, advice or getting started can only most likely find that in General Chat.

That's it.

Forbidding EJ accounts from accessing the General Chat is NOT, to my opinion, the right way to address RMT spammers. Other ways should be found to deal with this issue but certainly not ways that would have the grandest majority of EJ players suffer from their implementation.

And your suggestion?

Well, for example, how have other game Companies dealt with RMT in regards to their games ?

Maybe, looking at how other Game Companies have dealt with this issue regarding their games might give some suggestions to how it could perhaps be dealt with for Ultima Online ?

Don’t buy from them.  I have noticed it too.  Don’t mind seeing it once in awhile but now it comes up all the time while I am trying to play the game.

I hate it also and if I am in Luna selling/buying I have Gen Chat on but if I am out doing spawn or other activities I turn chat off and honestly I should not have to do this in order to play UO.

popps said:

vortex said:

popps said:

Drakelord said:

You would think that EJ account would be on HELP chat like YOUNG are forced to be??

What good would it do, to an EJ account of a player in need for help, advice or get started, that hardly any regular player is logged in the HELP Channel ?

There is a reason why most players only log in the General Chat, because most of the players are there....

Therefore, anyone looking for help, advice or getting started can only most likely find that in General Chat.

That's it.

Forbidding EJ accounts from accessing the General Chat is NOT, to my opinion, the right way to address RMT spammers. Other ways should be found to deal with this issue but certainly not ways that would have the grandest majority of EJ players suffer from their implementation.

And your suggestion?

Well, for example, how have other game Companies dealt with RMT in regards to their games ?

Maybe, looking at how other Game Companies have dealt with this issue regarding their games might give some suggestions to how it could perhaps be dealt with for Ultima Online ?

I cannot see an example there Popps?

so to add to your thoughts above, EJ free accts have no access to gen chat, but as soon as they sub, or buy an expansion they get access,  that will work of course and the RMT scammers won’t pay to upgrade etc as they get banned all the time and restart.

common knowledge that the banned players on the newsletter are these RMT sellers throw away accts.

I have no idea how many new players are EJ Acct holders, most will be RMT sellers or current players with EJ 2nd, 3rd accts 
with the restrictions not many players stick around with EJ accts they either sub quickly or leave

i see no reason why they cannot default new players to help etc, as I understand there is a new player experience in place to help them learn the game, they can chat to others players hen they see them. They have new player tags to let other know so help can be offered that way.

A word of caution here. Helpful, realistic suggestions will remain, slurs against players & Broadsword staff will be removed.

@Mesanna. WHERE ARE YOU> Can you please at least answer this to let us know WHY you wont block EJ accts from Gen Chat?  I think its what YOUR customers want....

There is a THIRD one spamming on occasion as well. This s*** has gotten way out of hand. It is also pretty common knowledge that the vast majority of the "EJ" accounts are nothing more than the RMT players "support" accounts. @Mesanna @Bleak @Kyronix SOMEONE give us an answer on what is actually being done to combat the RMT crowd. My advice: Start banning the MAIN accounts of the sites (because you DO know who a lot of them are). Along with the gold sellers passing themselves off as honest players! If they see you are serious about it, they might think twice, or get banned. It would be a win for the honest players. 

@KHAN In theory I agree with you %10000000000 but how many paid accounts could we talking about and we all know that they get their gold/items from somewhere that appears to be an endless supply.  Could UO stay profitable if all those accounts are shut down, I am no way saying it is right what these sites/accounts are doing but it has gone on for so long EA/BS/UO may not be able to do anything about it without running the chance of shutting down UO and if UO closes then I would thing BS/DAoC would not be far behind.  EA has created a world that we must allow evil to reside in UO in order to survive. 

Bilbo said:

@ KHAN In theory I agree with you %10000000000 but how many paid accounts could we talking about and we all know that they get their gold/items from somewhere that appears to be an endless supply.  Could UO stay profitable if all those accounts are shut down, I am no way saying it is right what these sites/accounts are doing but it has gone on for so long EA/BS/UO may not be able to do anything about it without running the chance of shutting down UO and if UO closes then I would thing BS/DAoC would not be far behind.  EA has created a world that we must allow evil to reside in UO in order to survive. 

I still think it would be the right thing to do. Ban 2 or 3 of the "biggest" ones, and perhaps the rest will decide that the chance of losing their 14+ year accounts forever isn't worth it. OR, as an alternative, at least have @Mesanna come out and make it "legal" for EVERYONE to do it, aboveboard. Let everyone play on the same "level". Not a good solution, but much better than what is allowed to happen now. 

@KHAN it is sad that we must allow this but if we want UO to survive we may have to bite the bullet as they say and while they are at it look at all the 3rd party programs out there and allow us to use them as long as there is NO AFK or MULTIBOXING allowed.  Have the GMs make it a priority to respond to calls that report this and if they are caught start running up a point system on them and for the accounts that report them if it is determined that it is a form of harassment against a player then the reporting account gets points.  Might have to go as far as making this a paid account only reporting because we all know that the majority of EJ accounts are just throw away accounts used to protect their paid account.

i see three possible solutions
1. EJ help only channel
2. have the UO store everything the RMT site does for less
3. make Abator2 and do reverse sting stuff banning the buyers....

@McDougle
#1 YES
#2 NO RMTs sell items/gold already in the game and if UO sold the same things then alls they would do it make new ones, could you see the gold glut if UO just made gold to sell at $0.12 per mil not to mention that you would destroy the open market in UO.  Why would you hunt/gather anything when you can just buy unlimited quantities from the UO store not to mention all the player run vendors you would put out of business.
#3 EA has allowed this for +20 years and you want to ban the buyers, sorry NO.

It was brought up when EJ was first talked about, allowing them in Gen Chat, and it fell on deaf ears.

They are obviously using some sort of script engine(s) to do the spamming.  Block the scripting and the spam goes away.

1. Update the clients to remove the ability for a macro to write to the chat window.
2. Add protection to the input field to prevent another app from writing to it using Win32 api calls.

TimSt said:

They are obviously using some sort of script engine(s) to do the spamming.  Block the scripting and the spam goes away.

1. Update the clients to remove the ability for a macro to write to the chat window.
2. Add protection to the input field to prevent another app from writing to it using Win32 api calls.

For number 2 I am referring to using the Win32 API function: ChangeWindowMessageFilterEx

Incase of a skeletal spamming client and not an official client add cryptographical signing to the chat messages.  If not properly signed the message is not forwarded onto other players.  Protect the signing certificates through code obfuscation and secure in memory data cleanup.

Checked the site.  Looks legitimate.  It appears to have Ultima's official art from the Ultima Online Website as a header.  Could be wrong about this my eyes are not as good as the used to be but the image looks pretty familiar to me. Don't appreciate all the messages I have from John4, but I don't think anyone else reading this does either.  Not sure I would take the risk of going to this site again.   

I don't buy from these third party websites, but I would from the official Ultima Online site.  Have always wondered why it does not carry more items useful to players.

Anybody care to take a minute and explain what IS actually being done to combat the RMT floodgates that are currently open? My understanding is that it is still against the ToS. If that has changed, please let us know that as well! @Mesanna @Bleak @Kyronix ;

So avatar, Chuck Norris, John, Johnz freely spamming illegal good and codes, obtained, according to EA Customer service with stolen, cancelled credit cards.

@Messana @Kyronix @Bleak @Misk

I have a slightly darker concern than the rest of the posters.

The RMT sellers are one thing, but this now has the potential to devolve into a cesspool of unmoderated internet hate as more and more people discover they can say anything they want in UO. Especially with automation that repeats their nastiness constantly.

You've got the pieces in place for UO to be co-opted in the same way as the Ok sign, Pepe the Frog, etc. 

I'm sorry to say it, but the basics are there and these things break fast when they happen. It's only going to take a couple suggestions in a chat room and a couple willing people to initiate something. It wouldn't cost anything to wreck UO, and participants could cause a multinational corporation (EA) embarrassment in the process.

As the speech in UO disintegrates, and it will, people will start questioning EA's involvement with the things UO is allowing. EA will have to react, both to protect it's image and to keep the Ultima brand from becoming stained and unusable. Occam's Razor.

Even if it delays UO's development schedule, you all might want to take some time and get a handle on this now, before it goes where it's heading.   

Fair winds and following seas. 

Something has happened.  I have not seen a spam message on Pacific all morning.  Late last night it was crazy.  The new spammer johnz was spamming almost every minute.

John is still on LS.  

Yes 4 total sellers spamming the chat incessantly. It’s getting more out of control. These people don’t care about the good of the game. They just want money. It shouldn’t be tolerated. 

McDougle said:

the RMT spamming is out of control.... i block them but they must be EJ accounts because they just keep coming US the paying user's shouldn't have to deal with this...

why cant they link ej accounts to credit card accounts and ban card accounts when miss behaving

would work many only have one or two getting more messes up real life 

I logged in a shard hopping char and was in help and guess who all showed up to spam their shit, you got it.

Complete ban on all channels to EJ accts needed, one of the privileges of paying subs is the use of all channels. EJ accts are supposed to be for people to try out the game again or for the first time. This is a joke. These parasites are abusing the system and for years getting away with it. With no DEV action they will just get worse. 

Just a heads up, I went to this site of "Johns" and looked very similar to the avatar one so I thought maybe they just renamed themselves. I noticed the prices used comma's and like they sometimes do in other countries. I just wanted to see if I could get an idea of where registered and seems like it used a  company that is .ru which is russia. I don't know all the ins and outs of registering domains etc but might want to be careful with it.

My thoughts too.  Will not be going back to that site.

Agree with this post too.  Don’t know who operates that site.  My main concern is the spamming and the site itself.  When I accessed the site, it did not display very well on my computer, its operation appeared a little odd to me and it did not appear to be professionally done.  Quickly decided too get off of it.  Really think overall concern is that unauthorized sites should not be advertising in game as if they are authorized.  Don’t really understand why the owners can’t identify the accounts generating these message and then take appropriate action.  It’s their game.  They set the rules. Maybe, they could explain the problem. If the problem was known, a solution might appear from the player base.

JohnKnighthawke said:

Why is the consensus solution to ban Endless Journey accounts from Global Chat by the way? Are we sure these are even Endless Journey accounts? Even if so, are we sure they wouldn't just find a way to exploit trial accounts and hacked/stolen gametime codes or card numbers and whatnot?

My concern would be someone either coming on board or returning using an Endless Journey account being closed off from the primary means of finding out about events, group hunts, etc.

Whether that is a legitimate concern on my part or not I can't say. (I don't really know how many EJ accounts there even are.)

I'm against the idea that we should further restrict free accounts because Broadsword is either unable or unwilling to enforce the Terms of Service with respect to RMT spammers.

One compromise would be that free accounts can only start posting in general chat once they reach a certain age (say, a week). This would have the effect of at least slowing the sellers down provided that the accounts are in fact free accounts and that Broadsword actually has the ability to ban them in the first place.

But then, there's nothing stopping someone from making several accounts at a time, with each reaching the age threshold in a staggered way.

Something they can do is require a captcha code be used when ever an EJ account logs in.

I like the wait a week idea.  Also you have to have x amount of skill points.  

That would let them goof around a week in Haven and get some skills and then go to chat.

Also would annoy the sellers because they have to do stuff then the account is banned.

Do something,  anything! Give us a report what you have planned. Quit sticking your heads in the sand. This is not going away. I am now basically just turning off chat. It's affecting your paying customers.  At this point I vote for only help channel to EJ accounts.  If they want full access,  let them pay like the rest of us. Say something @Kyronix!!

TimSt said:

Something they can do is require a captcha code be used when ever an EJ account logs in.

"Check all the pictures that contain a mongbat." 

Pawain said:

I like the wait a week idea.  Also you have to have x amount of skill points.  

That would let them goof around a week in Haven and get some skills and then go to chat.

Also would annoy the sellers because they have to do stuff then the account is banned.

Adding a skill point restriction is probably the most reasonable idea so far, actually.

loop said:

Adding a skill point restriction is probably the most reasonable idea so far, actually.

Ya because it would not affect the returning players and ones who purposely went to EJ.

It would just affect the completely new accounts which the spammers are using.

These guys aren't even randomizing their messages, all you have to do is remove the spaces from the text string, or look for the phrasing they use other than the website. Even a novice could build something to automatically detect these guys and squelch them to be reviewed by a gm/person later. 

restricting chat by skills point is completly dumb you can train any skill from npc to get to 720 cap in 2 minutes...remove ej from chat you wont see any post in general chat...only like before book on the ground everywhere link to website...i can live with it a spam in chat getting 1/3 of your gameplay screen for a third aprty sellers it s kinda sad

Fortis said:

restricting chat by skills point is completly dumb you can train any skill from npc to get to 720 cap in 2 minutes...remove ej from chat you wont see any post in general chat...only like before book on the ground everywhere link to website...i can live with it a spam in chat getting 1/3 of your gameplay screen for a third aprty sellers it s kinda sad

Make it 60 in x number of skills.  So when they get some of the NPC rewards they move to gen Chat.

This has been happening since before EJ accounts existed. I don't see why everyone thinks they have to use EJ accounts to spam gen chat. Also, if you would stop giving them your money, these sites wouldn't even exist. I wonder how many people come here and complain about the spam in GC then go buy stuff from those sites.

I assume they are EJ accounts because i have 7 johns blocked and i assume they are not all paying accounts....

Fortis said:

restricting chat by skills point is completly dumb you can train any skill from npc to get to 720 cap in 2 minutes...remove ej from chat you wont see any post in general chat...only like before book on the ground everywhere link to website...i can live with it a spam in chat getting 1/3 of your gameplay screen for a third aprty sellers it s kinda sad

This is a good point. The simplest solution is to have mechanisms for identifying specific accounts and banning them. It goes back to the real crux: that Broadsword is either unable or unwilling to enforce the Terms of Service with respect to RMT spammers. We can't do anything about willingness, but given that the simplest solution is so apparent and that RMT spam is a problem in many MMOs I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that the issue is more complicated, which means that speculating about other means to obstruct the spam isn't entirely wasted.

Regardless, I don't think it would be entirely trivial if a 720 skill restriction were in place. I think you can start a character with 120 points, maybe? So that leaves 600 points, and let's say 40 points to train per skill, which I think costs 400 gold. Let's also say that 40 meditation and 40 focus are freebies given how fast they increase.

So we're at 520 skill points to train. That's 13 skills and 5200 gold. For every new account, you need to give it a little bit of gold. The gold, of course, is trivial. The act of actually having to transfer it is the real obstacle. Some NPCs can train in more than one skill, so let's say you have to hit at least 4 to cover the 13 skills.

Could a script do all this? Yeah, but this gaming of the system would at least yield identifiable actions that Broadsword can more easily take action against -- assuming, as I mentioned up top, that they are in fact just unable but not unwilling to enforce their own rules by monitoring the chat alone.

And then there are other ways: Perhaps you need one skill above 70 (not counting Meditation or Focus!), perhaps two skills...

Here's my glorious ban list. This is really getting out of control! I'm so tired of this ...

Aayla said:

Here's my glorious ban list. This is really getting out of control! I'm so tired of this ...

Why isn't Allen on there?

I think we only get like 25-30 ignore spots?

Sometimes no reply speaks very loudly.....

EJ itself just needs to go away.  It is a total failure on all accounts.  Just put the old two week trial back with heavy restrictions.  Everyone knew this was gonna happen when you made free accts that last.  Nothing but RMT spam and tons of accts bot farming illegally.  Id say less then 1% of the current EJ's are playing legally.  Complete failure, just remove it already.

The_Higgs_1 said:

EJ itself just needs to go away.  It is a total failure on all accounts.  Just put the old two week trial back with heavy restrictions.  Everyone knew this was gonna happen when you made free accts that last.  Nothing but RMT spam and tons of accts bot farming illegally.  Id say less then 1% of the current EJ's are playing legally.  Complete failure, just remove it already.

I can agree with you as they might be being used, to my opinion, in bad ways too much.... (think about free, EJ accounts being used as Cams... whether Ghost Cams or Hidden EJ characters or to multi-Client several characters at once by the same single player, sometimes even botted and scripted..... etc. etc.) BUT, unfortunately, too many players have by now invested real money on them, perhaps buying High Seas and/or Time of Legends expansions, perhaps buying Soulstones or else from the Store, or they may have spent lots of gold to scroll them up, Primers to have several Masteries on them and all that.

If a refund was given to these players for whatever they spent on EJ accounts, Scrolls of Power and Mastery Primers be refunded/restored as items to use on other, subscribed characters, as well as Recipes which they might have learned, then, perhaps, I would highly favour the idea to get rid of all EJs and I would actually find it beneficial to Ultima Online....but definitively full refunds should be given to all players who invested real money on them as well as Scrolls of Power, Mastery Primers, Recipes....

popps said:

The_Higgs_1 said:

EJ itself just needs to go away.  It is a total failure on all accounts.  Just put the old two week trial back with heavy restrictions.  Everyone knew this was gonna happen when you made free accts that last.  Nothing but RMT spam and tons of accts bot farming illegally.  Id say less then 1% of the current EJ's are playing legally.  Complete failure, just remove it already.

I can agree with you as they might be being used, to my opinion, in bad ways too much.... (think about free, EJ accounts being used as Cams... whether Ghost Cams or Hidden EJ characters or to multi-Client several characters at once by the same single player, sometimes even botted and scripted..... etc. etc.) BUT, unfortunately, too many players have by now invested real money on them, perhaps buying High Seas and/or Time of Legends expansions, perhaps buying Soulstones or else from the Store, or they may have spent lots of gold to scroll them up, Primers to have several Masteries on them and all that.

If a refund was given to these players for whatever they spent on EJ accounts, Scrolls of Power and Mastery Primers be refunded/restored as items to use on other, subscribed characters, as well as Recipes which they might have learned, then, perhaps, I would highly favour the idea to get rid of all EJs and I would actually find it beneficial to Ultima Online....but definitively full refunds should be given to all players who invested real money on them as well as Scrolls of Power, Mastery Primers, Recipes....

Clearly they are not going to do that, If people have upgraded then they are most likely in a guild, and have guild chat, discord etc.....chat is a privilege not a right, we survived before without it, EJ accts are full of abusers so to protect players like us, paying customers EJ accts should have ALL chat channels disabled. That way these RMT sellers wont have a market. They spam on help channel as well
If EJ players complain then the question has to be asked, WHY ARE YOU NOT SUBBING, and they certainly do NOT have more rights over subbed players.  These scam/spam sellers are getting out of hand and the DEV'S need to do something RIGHT NOW.

If it not for the endless journey account, I would not be playing UO.  I played the EJ account about 8 months before subscribing.  One major reason I did not sign up years earlier was the two week trial period.  Back in the day that might have been workable, but in today’s environment with most games I have looked at offer a play for free option, I don’t think many players are going to commit to paying a rather significant monthly fee after a two week trail period.  I think EJ accounts have the potential to bring new players and returning players Into the game so I think they should stay.

What I don’t understand is why management cannot deal with these unauthorized sellers.  Seems like management could prohibit this activity in its terms of agreement that players agree to when they create an account.

Really, after reading all of these posts, maybe management should provide an explanation of what is preventing them from dealing with these accounts so that players writing and reading this discussion know what the real problem is and this discussion can end.

Lets keep the discussion related to the issue of the spamming.

Pretty hard to have a discussion when only one side will communicate.  We have heard from many players, where is "the team"? The longer the silence,  the more it looks like the back room handshake. I mean really, where are they? What are they doing? Gen chat is a fubar more then ever.

lack of communication frustrating but the more replies and discussion we can have might help drive some change....

They replied here as posted from a Newsletter.

https://forum.uo.com/discussion/8059/third-party-resellers#latest

They post Bannings for soliciting in Newsletters.

Are they supposed to respond in regard every new spammer?

The_Higgs_1 said:

EJ itself just needs to go away.  It is a total failure on all accounts.  Just put the old two week trial back with heavy restrictions.  Everyone knew this was gonna happen when you made free accts that last.  Nothing but RMT spam and tons of accts bot farming illegally.  Id say less then 1% of the current EJ's are playing legally.  Complete failure, just remove it already.

What they should have done is just removed then 2 wk time limit on trial accounts and kept all the restrictions in place.

they are banning the EJ accts form Avatar and the like, but NOT making any progress, So its time to look after the paying customers that are totally fed up with the constant spamming of illegal sites

that talks about not being legal to buy from third party sites that YOU the player will be banned it says nothing about any plans for stopping the spam in chat...what you allow will continue and if even one PAYING customer  gets banned because they see the spam ALLOWED in chat then its a loss...

could also add long squelch timers, if they same the exact same thing more then 3 times in a given time amount, then squelch them for 24 hours, if repeated the next day 48 hours, then if happens again disconnect the player

I sent @Mesanna an email with a link to this thread yesterday. Hopefully a developer will respond, as requested.

ive played alot of WoW over the years, , when people did this in WoW they got banned fast, their IP's got banned their websites got shut down by blizzard, they even got takin to court is some cases when the refused to shut their web sites down, Now Broadsword can do the same thing they have the power to do so, they even have EA to back them up if they so choose so, now we cant speak negative of broadsword here well because they own this website and these forums .but i think most people know why they wont go after these gold sellers. just remember not to speak it on these forums.

1. With the exception of the sale of in-game items for in-game items or services, you may not market, promote or advertise anything, or make any other form of solicitation (including pyramid schemes and chain letters) through the Ultima Online service or Ultima Online web site.

From their own ToS...

EA still owns UO not BS so it would have to be EA not BS and the first thing a judge is going to ask is why did it take you 20 years to do this.  Sadly EA has allowed this to happen and it should have been done when EBay kicked all the sellers out the door.  BS/UO needs to find a way to stop the spamming is about the only thing they can do.

I'm getting really tired about this. Please do something!

Aayla said:

I'm getting really tired about this. Please do something!

Ya, there have been several posts in this thread tagging @Mesanna @Kyronix @Bleak with no response. Along with a couple of emails. I think a quick answer, letting us know what is being done shouldn't be too much to ask. 

KHAN said:

Aayla said:

I'm getting really tired about this. Please do something!

Ya, there have been several posts in this thread tagging @ Mesanna @ Kyronix @ Bleak with no response. Along with a couple of emails. I think a quick answer, letting us know what is being done shouldn't be too much to ask. 

Honestly i don't expect or even need a response i just need it to stop....

Can I first say, I find the spamming just as annoying as other players, however I will make a couple of points.

1. Blocking all EJ accounts from accessing chat is pretty much 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'. There are genuine returning and new players in there who may need our help. A delay in allowing such an account to access chat might work, I'm not sure, but there is precedent, and therefore coding, in that there is a timer on [young] accounts and a timer on joining thieves guild. So, say 10 hours logged in before chat can be accessed? 
@Arnold7 in the interests of researching this idea, how long (roughly) would you say you had logged in before you accessed chat. Input from anyone else who started or returned as EJ and has since subscribed would also be welcome.

2. This 'spamming' is basically an exploit, and you don't normally tell the people who are exploiting what you are planning to do to fix it. That gives them time to find a work-around before you've even got the fix in and that's exactly what the team would be doing if they posted their plans here. Exploiters read forums too.

What we players can do is report the exploit, daily. Wait till you have the current user id in chat for all three of them, then send it in via the 'harassment' option in help. The 'report from chat' option, rather handily, has 3 slots for offender's names and id numbers.  I know this because it's what I did with the user ids on Europa yesterday.

I wouldn't even be bothered if the one guy wasn't just a massive @$$ and spam like 3 times in chat at all times in the day (who the heck is looking for RMT at 6am??) with a bunch of crap like ------------------------------HI ULTIMA------------------------- CHECK OUT THIS LINK ---------------------- WE HAVE BLAH BLAH BLAH--------------------- GREAT DEALS--------------------YEAAAAA.

Then he does it with another account with simply adding a "z" to his name... oh and he's the 4th one in that chat... 

To Petra_Fyde

Only monitored general chat when I started.  Saw very few player messages.  Usually, someone checking to see if someone else was on, or occasionally someone selling something or looking to buy something.  Did not see any chats between beginners and experienced players (maybe once) or anyone else.  See pretty much the same now except for the endless stream of messages from John (using several different variants of the name.)  Have to wonder sometimes if I am on the same general chat as everyone else since I just don't see any conversations among players.

When I am at the bank, I can see players conversing with one another and join in if I want to.  But never see these conversations if I don't see other players. 
 
Players I met in New Haven and while exploring helped me along.  Otherwise, it was mostly Internet research. I am now in a guild and the other players in the guild help me along.  Also, in June of last year started using the forums if I needed help.  Responses from players have been very helpful.

Have been playing about two and a quarter years now.  Hope this answers your question.

Arnold7 said:

To Petra_Fyde

Only monitored general chat when I started.  Saw very few player messages.  Usually, someone checking to see if someone else was on, or occasionally someone selling something or looking to buy something.  Did not see any chats between beginners and experienced players (maybe once) or anyone else.  See pretty much the same now except for the endless stream of messages from John (using several different variants of the name.)  Have to wonder sometimes if I am on the same general chat as everyone else since I just don't see any conversations among players.

When I am at the bank, I can see players conversing with one another and join in if I want to.  But never see these conversations if I don't see other players. 
 
Players I met in New Haven and while exploring helped me along.  Otherwise, it was mostly Internet research. I am now in a guild and the other players in the guild help me along.  Also, in June of last year started using the forums if I needed help.  Responses from players have been very helpful.

Have been playing about two and a quarter years now.  Hope this answers your question.

What shard? LS chat is often busy. We have EJ players using chat.

Here are potential solutions  :  


1: Sting operation. Have a dev buy from the sites. When someone comes on to deliver the goods - ban that account. Perma. I would bet they aren’t storing all these sale items on an EJ account.  

I put two on block this morning and haven't seen any spam since.  Having to open the filter menu once a day doesn't seem too bad.

Theo said:

Here are potential solutions  :  

2: Better chat blocking. Strip out spaces. If the chat message has .com in it - filter it out and kick them out of chat for 24 hours. 

This one needs a re-think. It would stop players posting links to uo.com and any other helpful site, uo-cah, uoguide & stratics to name just 3

This isn't some Siberian web hosted.

GET THIS OUT OF MY GAME!

@Mesanna