annoying plat seller tells

[Heynanni]

I'm sure a lot of you are aware of the law that is out there where it is illegal to be "annoying" to someone over the Internet? I say us EQ people get together, mass logs and screenshots of those awful tells (most prominently on Maelin for one particular website) and see if we can get an Attorney General in the US on it. Better yet try to respond to these guys with this threat. Anyone in with me or have better insight? Yes I know going anon gets rid of them, but his crap shouldn't exist in EQ all the same.

[Maevenniia]

These spammers are based in foreign countries, most probably in China...

I agree they are annoying, but good luck getting an Attorney General to take a complaint seriously, much less be able to do anything about chinese spammers

[Heynanni]

I only thought of that later, and of course on a scale of international problems we currently have this is last on that list. But there was a brief glimmer of hope there! I wonder if we could get Koreans in on this one, there's a ton of them playing MMORPG's...

[GrimwoodCT]

Tell then your main is in Vex Thal.

[Zolina]

SoE should allow players to autoignore any message containing certain text, like "domainname.com". Bounce a message back to the sender saying the text was ignored so they know they're not getting through.

[Gorse]

SoE should allow players to autoignore any message containing certain text, like "domainname.com". Bounce a message back to the sender saying the text was ignored so they know they're not getting through.

No auto message, please! That would jsut mean they would change formats again an again. Just ignored would be preferred to me.

I do send a reply to please stop sending tells and go away, but it never seems to work. =(



Gorse

[Hugin01]

I usually send a reply stating "May the Bird of Paradise crap on your head". That hasn't seemed to stop the tells either

[Drukin]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that it's really just all scripted and the people on the other end most likely wouldn't understand what you said anyway, so sending tells back really doesn't accomplish anything.

Not that I agree with the practice, but it's my belief that the majority of the people doing this are simply trying to keep their families from starving to death. According to various stats I looked up, the people on the other end are probably making less than $1,000 USD per year with about 75% of that income going towards housing. These are people who in most cases aren't fortunate enough to have a computer at home, or have the time or income to play an online game. I'm sure that most of them would rather not be bugging others, but when it comes down to having to find a way to feed and put clothing on your childrens back... well, if I was in their position and had to do it, I'd be sending you all spam tells too. And no matter what kind of tell you sent me back, I'd keep doing it because the survival of my family would be more important to me than keeping an overseas gamer from being annoyed at me.

[melkorr]

You make it sound like the only job over there is spamming EQ

People survived over there before EQ was around. They can do it without spamming us. Heck, with all the US industry thats relocating to that area, there should be plenty of jobs around.

That said, I don't hate the people, I hate the company who's trying to profit off of making underpaid foreign labor spam people in EQ. As much as I think they could be doing something else, it's not the people's fault I get plat spam.

[willimena]

Plat Farmers and spam

I find it very hard to believe that these people are getting paid $1000 a year to spam us...and all with no computers at home. This all coming from an area of the world that was the first to open up venues for internet addicts to "sober up". I find it more likely that the people in this mecca of technology have hacked the game and/or are running macros. Now perhaps they are paying some poor farm kid...that travels fifty miles...with bags on his feet...to sit at a computer and spam people. Maybe the macros do it all and they just watch the computers for the numerous times the game crashes. I commend this business for being more honorable then the black market blood scams that caused such havoc on the health of that side of the world. In the grand scheme of things would I rather they be doing this as opposed to using dirty needles to drain a pint from everyone in the village and thus spreading any and all blood diseases?? Sure.
While the new way of making money is not going to kill those that are a part of it, it is still a business that takes advantage of others. Aside from the fact that the business is taking advantage of the rules set forth in this online society, if the plat farmers are paying slave wages of $1,000 (considering the rate EQ players seem to buy plat, no to mention WOW)....they are taking advantage of these poor folks that are spamming. I don't care to support that.
Aside from all that, it took me a long time earn my first million. I am not uber, I don't raid, and I don't have the money it would take to have a raids worth of alts. I think that it stinks that there are others can pay seven dollars and have what it took me so long to earn. For people think that it does not affect them, look at the prices in the bazaar. Watch them. If you have been playing long enough, remember what it once cost to buy something uber, and look at what it costs now. The prices on my server have shifted greatly to reflect the people buying plat.

[Tyranthin]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that it's really just all scripted and the people on the other end most likely wouldn't understand what you said anyway, so sending tells back really doesn't accomplish anything.

Not that I agree with the practice, but it's my belief that the majority of the people doing this are simply trying to keep their families from starving to death. According to various stats I looked up, the people on the other end are probably making less than $1,000 USD per year with about 75% of that income going towards housing. These are people who in most cases aren't fortunate enough to have a computer at home, or have the time or income to play an online game. I'm sure that most of them would rather not be bugging others, but when it comes down to having to find a way to feed and put clothing on your childrens back... well, if I was in their position and had to do it, I'd be sending you all spam tells too. And no matter what kind of tell you sent me back, I'd keep doing it because the survival of my family would be more important to me than keeping an overseas gamer from being annoyed at me.

I had this very same argument with someone in the Rathe General channel a couple weeks back.

I'll say here what I said then: It doesn't matter the circumstances for the actions, the actions are in violation of the EULA and are therefore wrong. I couldn't care less if this is the only way you have to feed your family. If you can't respect the game enough to follow their rules, why should I have any respect for you or your "plight"? Get a real job.

Besides, these plat farmers/sellers are paying their subscriptions with stolen credit cards (you honestly think they'd come out of pocket? Hah!) and the charge-backs are costing SOE money. You would think SOE would actually do something about it, but I guess it's not costing them enough money to invest resources into eliminating the problem (yet).

Responding to tells does nothing but confirm that they sent a tell to an active player. It's like responding to spam e-mail, if you confirm your e-mail address is valid, expect to get much, much more spam.

Honestly, I've seen about 100 times more complaining about plat selling spam than I've seen plat selling spam. In fact, people in the Rathe General channel are complaining about plat selling spam as I type this. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely despise it, but I know that there is nothing I can do about it and it's not worth getting riled up over. If it bothers you that much, I suggest going /roleplay or /anonymous. Problem solved.

[Rinikku]

Yes I know going anon gets rid of them, but his crap shouldn't exist in EQ all the same.

OMG! Going annon gets rid of the spam tells???? I didn't know this. I will definitely try this out on my trader. She gets about 20 tells a nite from the same freaking company

[Laurelleii]

/roleplay seems to work pretty well also so you can still show your guild tag.

[GrimwoodCT]

/role is fine. Today was the first time I have had role off in months and 2 minutes later I got a tell.

[Montach_FV]

yep, i put /rol on my bard cause he kept getting spammed, sure enough they stopped... i hate to have /rol on him but i hate plat spam more =/