I hate gold sellers/spammers. No, that’s not strong enough, let me try again. I HATE GOLD SELLERS WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING. Ah, that’s better. Now, why do I hate them you may ask? I hate them for a number of reasons, most of which have been detailed in various interviews I’ve done over the years. And now that they have taken their obnoxiousness to new levels with gold service spamming, I HATE GOLD SPAMMERS EVEN MORE NOW THAN EVER BEFORE. For years, lowlifes like IGE have told us, in defense of their behavior, that they a) are just providing a service; b) don’t interfere with players enjoyment of the game. Well, I can’t argue with (a), they are providing a service, just like maggots I suppose but I’ve always argued that (b) is totally and complete BS. Now, those old arguments aside, I can’t see how this new generation of pond scum (new and improved, with 25% more scummy action!) can argue that their constant spamming of chat channels doesn’t interfere with players enjoyment of the game (I’m waiting for the whole “Oh, you can always just turn off chat” argument). I hated seeing their messages when I played WoW or any other MMO and I’ve been waiting for the day that WAR launched so I could have the absolute pleasure of instituting policies to make their lives more difficult so we could drive them out of WAR.
Since WAR launched we have been banning these jerks like crazy. As of Saturday Night, we had banned about 400 of them. My CSRs have a zero tolerance policy. We don’t wait and let them stay in the game and ban them en-masse, my guys ban their useless, time-consuming butts right away. We have a strike team whose sole job it is to get these guys off our servers as quickly as possible. This weekend, we unveiled a new wrinkle in the fight against them, the public ban message. Players on our Phoenix Throne server have been treated to special messages when a gold seller/spammer is banned. I’ve given them a wide leash to come up with creative messages to tell the entire community who has been banned and we keep it within the Warhammer universe. Messages like “Tchar’zanek has ordered the slaughter of [Spammer] and all others of his kind who weaken the Raven Host by providing wealth and power to the unworthy” have been seen all weekend. We will continue this policy and expand it to the other servers. We are in for a real fight against these bottom feeders and it will be a long and costly battle but it’s one we are going to take to them and this is only the first step. After all, this is WAR…
BTW, for those who might be tempted to think that we are doing this so we could offer our own service or because we do make money off their boxes (traditionally, gold sellers will quickly shift to buddy disks and free trials though to lower their costs) let me tell you this. I’ve been offered “a piece of the action” both personally and corporately in the past if I will either turn a blind eye or help them in their actions. This would have netted me and/or Mythic a very, very tidy sum, far more than we would see from box sales. My answer was and always will remain the same:
Go to hell.
Online Games Are a Niche Market 
Sep 21, 2008 @ 22:51:53
As a player on Phoenix Throne, let me tell you that every time one of those messages popped up, my entire guild was cheering you guys on! We’re loving the pop-up messages, great touch!
Sep 21, 2008 @ 23:01:44
well said sir, well said.
Sep 21, 2008 @ 23:03:03
Sweet! Thanks so much for fighting the good fight!
Sep 21, 2008 @ 23:21:32
Keep fighting the good fight Mark. We all appreciate it.
In fact, I would love to be able to right click a spammer’s name in the chat box and flag his chat log for inspection by a GM. Help us to help you 🙂
Sep 21, 2008 @ 23:24:15
Bravo!
Sep 21, 2008 @ 23:26:25
Excellent! I especially like the server messages announcing a ban. I’d imagine it would be very satisfying to see someone who just spammed you get humiliated publicly. You can even host contests for the community to come up with new ban messages!
It will be interesting to see how successful this is. I think most mainstream MMOs claim to be against this kind of behaviour in principle but nothing is ever really done to stop it in practice. The GMs will be kept pretty busy for awhile I’m sure, but keep it up and you might just win the war!
Sep 21, 2008 @ 23:44:38
The in character ban messages on Phoenix Throne were a really nice touch 🙂
Sep 21, 2008 @ 23:46:26
Very well said, you have my and I’m sure the support from every normal player out there guys.
Sep 21, 2008 @ 23:51:49
Great news Mark, the burn the heretic path is a welcome choice. Too long have others games let this carry on and I’m happy to hear that WAR will stamp on this practice with one helluva size 10 steel boot. And on side note, love the game, thank you and the team for bringing such a rich and variant experience to the masses, been waiting a loooooong time.
Sep 21, 2008 @ 23:56:10
That’s the spirit! I really appreciate this hardline approach, WoW is just over-run by these people.
(Grammar nerd alert) The message would be better phrased as: “Tchar’zanek has ordered the slaughter of [Spammer] and all others of his kind who weaken the Raven Host by providing wealth and power to the unworthy”
Sep 21, 2008 @ 23:58:27
Please, lumping them in as “folks” as well makes me a sad panda :(!
Good to see you guys taking action here.
I say let them keep paying to farm – although if you find a goldfarmer, put them in the arena in the Inevitable city and let us kill them. Over, and over, and over
Sep 22, 2008 @ 00:25:17
You certainly have my gaming vote – and by the looks of things, for quite a long time to come.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 00:34:09
I encountered my first gold seller last night on Marius. It’s astonishing how quickly they spread…
Sep 22, 2008 @ 01:17:09
I hate gold farmers too, probably not with the same passion as you Mark but the escalation of their intrusivness into MMOs in the last couple of years is horrible.
That said, the 20 second cooldown on sending mail in WAR is hurting ordinary players far more than the mail spam that we’d get from gold spammers would. In my guild we share crafting mats and items we can’t use with one another and quite often I will have 10 or so items to mail to guildies after doing quests. This will mean a 3-5 minute stint at the mailbox due to the cooldown. I really hope some sort of alternative arrangement is found because at the moment its quite frustrating.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 01:23:01
Dear god, when you do offer trials – please make it so that they cant whisper without being whispered to first, use /1, /shout or even /say. Or chat in groups.
I can see it now.
Mythic blocks Whispering for trials
asdfadf has joined your group.
[asdfadf]: w w w . b u y g o l d . c o m
asdfadf has left the group.
*repeat*
Sep 22, 2008 @ 01:25:40
Could you please add that thing that WoW has that makes it so that you only need to right-click and name and click Report to report someone for goldspam etc? It would definately get you more information, or atleast faster information about these people
Sep 22, 2008 @ 01:44:16
Great policy, though I disagree with “a strike team whose sole job it is to get these guys off our servers as quickly as possible.” I appealed someone this afternoon for gold spamming, and he was still doing it an hour later. Granted, it is Sunday afternoon, but c’mon, get that strike team in gear! 🙂
Sep 22, 2008 @ 01:44:42
Very well said. I wondered what that message meant when I saw it. It makes me smile to know now =D
Sep 22, 2008 @ 01:54:24
Aside from all the normal reasons to not like gold spammers what does anyone even need to buy gold for right now? I mean seriously, any gear is realtively cheap and every single 20 I know was easily able to afford a horse immediately. I just don’t know what anyone why anyone would feel the need to have 100x more gold than they need right now.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 01:54:53
Rock on, Mr Jacobs, rock on.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 01:57:30
I experienced this very awesome “public banning” on the Phoenix Throne server just the other night. It was quite awesome, especially since it was a spammer who had tried to hit me up earlier that day.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 02:41:35
That is awesome. I hate gold sellers as well with a passion. You should definitely roll out some sort of quick report feature though so we can get you an offender very quickly.
Oh and brilliant idea on the cloning vs the old way, Volkmar was a nightmare till the cloning and now Magnus is coming alone great. There was a 4+ hour long 50 on 50 RvR match in Barak Varr yesterday afternoon and I was so pumped the whole time I had a smile that just wouldn’t go away. Well, punting 4 players off the top of the keep into the ocean with my Ironbreaker had me rolling in tears each time I got to set that up in the middle of a fight.
Looking forward to many years of this goodness, simply awesome.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 03:06:16
I really appreciate your efforts.
You already did a good job creating the game the way you don’t need massive amounts of gold to buy your epic flying mount and you should continue on that path, so nobody will ever even consider buying gold.
Until this day I haven’t encountered a single gold farmer on my (eu/german) server and I hope it stays that way and if it doesn’t, I hope GOA will be as fast at banning them.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 03:07:33
ALL BOW TO MARK JACOBS!
Let the blood of the weak and corrupted be sacrifice in his name!
Lashade – Phoenix Throne
(I mean it Mr.Jacobs, you are freaking awesome)
Sep 22, 2008 @ 04:47:57
Great work. I reported a few spammers myself, tried going anonymous but had to take it off when I found out people I wanted to talk to couldn’t send me tells.
Would be nice to have an option for “anonymous except to guild mates and people on friends list”.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 05:22:14
God I love you guys. I really can’t say that enough. It’s to the point where the actions of your company greatly overshadow anything good or bad with your games.
Having said that, I love WAR. Thank you for producing a fantastic product and thank you for giving it so much time and attention even after the initial sale. I am greatly looking forward to the future of this game and am honored to have been a small part of its development.
Expect to keep getting bug reports from me,
Tiresias
Sep 22, 2008 @ 06:15:34
Good to hear, that you see this problem in the 1st week after launch, and not weeks later like in other mmos
The best action of a gm regarding a goldspammer was in PotBS, when the GM ported the Spammer to a PVP Area where he could be attacked and looted, something like that would be nice
Sep 22, 2008 @ 06:29:19
HEAR, HEAR!
Glad to here it. I laughed so hard my eyes leaked when I first heard about how you were announcing the bannings. I can’t wait to see them on other servers.
It is good to see a company take such a solid, no-questions stance on these bastards. The only thing I dislike is the lack of ease in reporting them. Is there some possibility you could institute a feature (much like another major MMO) where we can right click their name to report their spam, AND ignore them for the day?
I dunno about others, but I got the title named “The Snob” in my first 2 hours in game on Wednesday from having to ignore those jackasses. Would make it much easier and faster to report them on the fly rather than having to stop and fill out a ticket. >.> I’m not lazy… I swear! Hah!
Also… not that I expect you to really address this, but is there some chance we could make our joined chat channels semi-permanent so that it rejoins them on log-in? This would make it much easier to get players to participate in global channels for things like RP, World RvR coordination and defense, and just plain chat channels in general! As it is, it’s hard to get people to remember to type /channeljoin (name) every time they log in. Heh!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 06:52:06
Amazingly enough, i reported 4 names for gold sale ads and never received /tell from them again. Bravo Mr Jacobs!
Since public executions stage is already set in Altdorf’s main square, maybe we could have some public execution ceremonies with banned toons? o.O
Sep 22, 2008 @ 07:13:29
Bravo!
Till now i never spotted a call or received a tell from a goldseller on the european servers.
Good Job!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 08:43:47
Burn em’ down, Mark!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 10:05:51
you sir, has just become my personal God
Sep 22, 2008 @ 10:15:00
Thank you so much!! I can not tell how much I liked your go-to-hell-speech!!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 10:15:49
We hear you! Nice to see someone from top management taking a personal stand about this. May you be the first of many.
We all know how gold seller (and accounts sellers too btw) can plague our experience. Spamming, cutting everybody enjoyment by providing shortcuts, using cheats, hacks, bots and so on.
They’re indeed a plague, but a very hard one to get rid of and I truly hope you will succeed on this crusade.
What is at stakes, it’s not only about WAR, but about the general industry as a whole and the way we want to shape it. Already, as an old gamer, I’m pretty horrified to see new generations of gamers (and old ones too) to see this whole RMT business as something more and more acceptable, or something just ‘normal’, that always been there. And that’s just plain wrong.
Good luck in your fight, it’s gonna be a tough one but the community is behind you.
-Jenthis
Sep 22, 2008 @ 10:44:25
I want to have your babies 😉
I applaud your attitude to these pain in the behind game ruiners!!!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 10:45:56
“Tchar’zanek has ordered the slaughter of [Spammer] and all others of his kind who weaken the Raven Host by providing wealth and power to the unworthy”
As an order player, I suddenly think ol’Tchar is a really swell guy!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 11:31:43
I have only seen one gold spammer, so you guys must be doing a good job.
I hope eventually you do something like LOTRO’s gold spamming report… mechanic. Basically the name pops up, you right click on the name, and then select report>gold spammer. Then you get an auto-ticket number. Easy peasy. /report [name] is helpful but typing in some incredibly hard names… can really suck.
Keep up the great work!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 11:33:13
Had my first run in with one on Red Eye Mountain last night. I just send them a tel back saying “Awesome! Reported!” then open up the appeals.
Any feedback on what kind of appeal we should open it as, to get it fast-tracked? I’ve been doing ‘Harrasment’ atm.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 11:38:36
Big cheer. They’re roaches, and as hard to get rid of, and will probably survive when everything else on the planet is extinct.
That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be swatted at every chance.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 12:24:25
The execution messages are brilliant. Keep it coming.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 12:31:26
They are all part of the same problem, without the gold farmers, the spammers have no reason to exist.
The bigger problem (long term) for you is the online sales, buddy keys etc. They will use stolen credit cards to buy hundreds of keys from online sellers.
The best way to stop the spammers is by restricting them, stop them registering, restrict the rate they can spam, restrict the number of players they can spam, stop their sales and they will go out of business. Banning them alone is not the answer, they’ll keep coming back, you need to stop the source.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 12:34:49
My first reaction: OMG! YES!
My second reaction: OMFG! YES!!!
My third….
Ok, I think you can see where this is going. I love the idea. I really do. Just implement it on all servers (US AND EU) and let the feast for Tchar’zanek begin!
On a side note: I just love WAR. I bought my very first Collectors Edition of a Game ever, and was not disappointed. This baby had a package as big as the ones of TFT 22″ Screens and wight 3.6 kilograms. It was just massive.
Just as massive as my gameplay experience. This game got me from the very first minute. I’ve never seen anything like it (and I’ve seen a lot: LotRO, WoW, GW etc.). War is truly everywhere. The only thing I didn’t like was that my special Tattoo for the Darkelves bugged out on my Sorceress and I have to wear it now although I told the trader not to apply it *shrugs*. And yeah: That’s the biggest bug I’ve encounterd so far.
If I could give Stars for this game like on youtube it would get 5 of 5. Especially for the RvR and PvP. Never seen anything like it before. It’s fun to play even with random groups! And there are no real loosers so you don’t have to feel bad I´if you lost to a better team.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 13:02:01
Nice job on going after the gold farmers. Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone would buy WAR gold, anyway – gold is not all-important in this game, unlike other unnamed MMOs.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 14:18:53
Myself and my friends on Phoenix Throne where cheering you on as well every time we saw one of those messages. Well done!!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 14:25:42
“Deese spammers makes it two easy fer stunties to gang up on mi squigs! Beat em with the Ban stick!!” ~Droxlug, Goblin Squigherder…Bard (yeah go figure that one out!)
As the man behind one of the few remaining gobbo bards, I applaud the zero tolerance policy. Now my hate for stunties inspiring “songs” dont have to be interrupted by these stupid gits.
Any chance of a title reward contest for write alternate global spammer ban annoucements? That would be awesome and hopefully encourage a greater active participation in keeping our wonder WARzone rtm free!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 14:26:41
Well, good on you, Mark! I know I hate them spamming me for anything, but thanks to Mythic’s standing against them I haven’t see any of them yet on Karak Eight Peaks [EU].
I trust GOA is as vigilant against them as Mythic? I would hate to see them all move to the EU side.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 15:13:08
Hello Mr. Jacobs,
I find this great that you pull through it and hunt the people! This simply does not belong to Warhammer online! Great work!!! Continues in such a way!
Greetings, Patrick from Berlin!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 15:21:47
Well, sir, you are my new hero. Keep up the good work.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 15:30:07
Excellent to see that steps are being taken. I’m averaging a minimum of 5 tells an hour (Ironclaw).
And you really should add that message to all servers. That is absolutely brilliant and will show people you have a hard line against this.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 15:48:30
As shameful as it is, I did use services such as IGE in World of Warcraft. I have no excuse ( well it was that everything was so expensive and I didn’t have time ) and I have none now, however Mark I pledge to never use gold purchasing services as long as I play Warhammer.
I just noticed Goldspammers myself. Last night I’m playing my main Olympus on Red Eye Mountain- so I’m running around in the forests of Ostland looking for some trouble, and suddenly I get a tell spamming me for gold.
I sarcastically reply to them what exactly was on my mind: “Well, if we’re getting gold spamming this early it means this game has finally made it to the big time.” Of course though I didn’t get a response.
I regret not reporting him- I wasn’t on for much longer. I can’t wait to see the public ban messages, I’ll help direct Mythic to these pests in the future.
-Robert.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 15:52:43
Argh, forgive the double post my friends.
“I have no excuse, and have none now.” was supposed to be linked together and the “justification” removed. Forgive me. I need coffee.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 16:14:52
I have to admit, I HATE the spammers. I don’t mind the gold market per se. Mythic could institute something like Second Life (a real exchange to foster transactions and to prevent fraud). By creating such a market, you would eliminate the incentive to spam because there would be only one real place for such transactions to take place.
It does raise game balance issues, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves—MMO’s aren’t meritocracies (like game designers would hope). People with more money have more advantages—they have better gaming rigs and tools. People with money can afford to buy gold and many will do it with or without the approval of the game developers.
Understanding these issues, it really becomes a balancing act for an MMO. And getting rid of spammers is one really nice thing to do for your customers. 🙂
Sep 22, 2008 @ 16:22:36
Avelorn & Phoenix Throne, I ended up reporting several spammers this weekend. I was annoyed that /ignore did not work.
I was pleased to see that as sunday went by, the number of gold sellers spams dropped sharply, down to none over the last few hours.
Bravo! And the orky ban message was well received… once I translated it.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 16:29:49
Mr. Jacobs,
You sir just earned an additional 3 months subscription to the 3 months I already have. You sir are da’ man…’Nuff said
Sep 22, 2008 @ 16:59:31
You folks need to know that this means a very large amount to whole lot of people. Every time that message appeared I giggled….not laughed….giggled like a little school orc.
Thank you heartily for this, sir.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 17:17:25
zero tolerance for spammers is definately better for the game and community in the long run as well as the short.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 17:41:19
I know this has been said before but… I’d have your babies. Yes, that’s right…. Plural. You are a gamer’s dream-dev. You know it. I know it. We all know it.
I’d take this time to tell you to keep up the good work and all but… I don’t think it’s needed. Your track record proves it’s not even a point of work ethics anymore. It’s just “you.”
Sep 22, 2008 @ 18:26:18
That’s an awesome policy! I hope WoW steals it soon.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 18:31:29
YARRRR!
FITE FITE FITE.
Yet another notch in the “KICK-ASS” belt that is WAR.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 18:32:15
That You for doing all you can to to make sure this scum does not get much of a toe hold.
The server messages are a great addition.
Kepp it up!!!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 18:34:50
I reported five or six on Phoenix Throne this weekend. Seeing the execution messages is very gratifying.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 18:47:02
Awesome. Yet another boon to leaving world of grindcraft.
Zealraug _Reikland
Sep 22, 2008 @ 18:54:18
Hell yes, thank you Mythic for doing everything possible to keep gold sellers out of WAR.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 19:20:21
I love you all at Mythic thank you for being true to your word.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 19:36:09
Mark,
I love your work!
Perhaps it would be good to let the public know that you are working on ways to improve performance? There are pages and pages of users on http://www.warhammeralliance.com with high end computers that are suffering from low fps.
Thanks!
Don
Sep 22, 2008 @ 19:38:09
All hail Mark Jacobs! Our community/guild cheers you on! Please bring the wrath of Tchar’zanek onto the Ironclaw servers!
I highly respect your ethics. Please do not submit to corruption by taking the money. It will be the start of Mythic’s brand (and your name’s) degradation. In the long run, all gamers will support your stance.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 20:20:34
There is no balancing act Capstonereport. Ban the gold sellers, ban the people buying the gold for enabling the gold sellers.
/profit
Oh, and thanks again MJ for taking this stance. As others have said this is a dream to have integrity from from the top down and keeping the game clean of these roaches.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 20:52:17
I apologize if this has been suggested in an earlier comment, but I think they should take it one step further and let subscribers submit some/most of the messages (Mythic could filter out good from bad suggestions). It would just be another step to let the fan’s participate in this great community and let the farmers know what we think!
Great move man, keep it up!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 20:59:12
I read about the RP banning messages on VN and I love them! I can’t wait until they come to Ostermark!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 21:05:05
Its reason like this that set aside certain games. Commitment to the game, its players, and their fun is why I’ll keep playing WAR!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 21:09:27
Awesome! Reading your blog put a huge smile on my face! Thank you and the team for being so diligent.
WAR Banhammer Striketh
Sep 22, 2008 @ 21:55:36
Sep 22, 2008 @ 21:57:30
My guild cheers after every one of those messages on Pheonix throne, keep them coming they are hilarious.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 22:19:18
finally, someone who’s a game dev and at the same time gets how to fight these creeps.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 22:56:19
I love you keep up the good work
Sep 22, 2008 @ 23:04:16
Why not encourage the players to put an active hand on bans? While I reprot any spammers sending me tells, encourage others to do the same by offering Tome unlocks or titles for factual reporting of spam they have recieved. Some players I know find it too much work to report such an incident, but make a title or a Tome unlock of it and I promise you they will report them as fast as the message is received.
Of a fashion, the whole thing would almost be a minigame. The more you get your players proactive in putting a stop to these guys, the less we will see of them.
Also on the note of free tiral accounts and buddy accounts being used by spammers… will Mythic employ the CC # needed for the free trial accounts? It seemed to help keept the population of these sellers down in other games. I was also curious if gold sellers using the grace period from the head start was the reason you guys originaly looked at ending the grace period so quickly.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 23:19:31
It is truly heartening to see such a firm stance on this issue. The constant spam in WoW was a major faction for me quitting the game (that and the fact I wanted to save my money for the CE of WAR. It’s HUUUGE!).
I guess I’m lucky to not have had the experience so far in WAR, and long may it continue. Give us the power to make your job easier.
“Help me, to help you!”
If you or your team are ever up at GW HQ (esp on a Monday evening) make yourselves known. You deserve a pint of Bugman’s Finest…
Sep 22, 2008 @ 23:29:23
Thank you for reminding me why I love playing Mythic games. =) OUTSTANDING blog, and cheers for all of you!
Sep 22, 2008 @ 23:44:23
One word: Bravo!
I hope you manage to keep up the bans of these scum in just such an avid manner for a long time to come. You’ve given me reason to give WAR a try.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 23:51:42
No wonder WoW has horrible CSR when it comes to gold spammers.
They are getting a cut of the profit to make it seem like they are taking a stance but in reality just shaking hands with them.
Sep 22, 2008 @ 23:59:40
Nice work Mark 🙂 Its great to see the CEO lead the charge against these annoying scumbags.. To see this approach taken from someone in a position to reap the rewards of looking the other way is refreshing. Hmmm. Ever think about running for President? LOL . Maybe just RAID leader to start 🙂
Roland
Sep 23, 2008 @ 00:42:26
Mark,
I’m not a WAR player. My loyalties and interests are in LotRO, but it suffers as much as any other MMO with the real-money gold sellers.
I think your idea and the way you implemented it is filled with more awesome than I thought humanly possible.
I’ve proposed a similar treatment on the LotRO forums here: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?p=2234933#post2234933
Whether or not Turbine or any other MMO developer will take your lead and go about humiliating the people that drag down these games.
While I’m realistic enough to know that the public humiliation tactic is not going to eliminate gold spammers, it does have some very positive impact on the players, as they have an obvious indication that the customer service team is doing something about the problem.
There will always be a market for people who want to buy a pre-levelled characters or in-game gold because they are too lazy, too stupid or too WHATEVER to play the game as it was intended and earn what they achieve in-game.
Kudos, Mr. Jacobs.
I hope you have begun a revolution of sorts.
– DP
Sep 23, 2008 @ 00:46:16
God, I wish this would happen over at EVE. People report the same farmers over and over and nothing ever comes of it. Even if they do ban somebody, they refuse to tell anybody but the person who was banned like it’s some sort of trade secret.
They also keep making game changes and nerfs to placate whiney carebears which also have the side effect of making it more difficult for players to take matters into their own hands to harass obvious farmers.
I’ll be keeping an eye on this to see how it works out.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 01:24:59
WAY TO GO MARK!!! God I hate those guys.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 02:14:16
I utterly despise them also. I wish I could afford the box I pre-ordered (but can’t pick up now) just so I could see the bannings. 🙂 I’d love to see them go ‘poof’ also.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 05:19:22
yeah! – come back to wow and do the same!
I do my bit by /slap when I see them in cities..
Sep 23, 2008 @ 08:19:48
YAY!
I was wondering what those weird messages were, its dam good to see you are doing something. Those bloody pricks can go spam there own MMORPGs (not to sound prejudice or anything), those korean mmo’s were made for gold spammers, whilst they come here and try to do there thing, I ran across some of them in WoW, 5 mages, had fun killing them, only to report and get a response about 2 months later from Blizzard, you can see whose turning a blind eye there 🙂
Sep 23, 2008 @ 08:29:21
yo hoo, ban’em a!!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 08:32:39
I seen 2 or 3 of these messages pop-up yesterday and wondered what they meant. Now that I know they say that someone has been banned for this kind of crap I’m happier than ever. People need to earn their stuff by questing or trading not by buying it online and having it delivered. I hope then bring the hammer down hard on these people and am satisfied with what they have done so far.
Good Job!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 08:34:55
I hate spammers with a passion. We call banning here “sweeps”. After I ban them, they come back after 10 fucking minutes. This shit is driving me crazy.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 09:16:48
Mark great post, love your stance on these pond scum. Good to hear someone in the industry speak out in this tone. Loving the game.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 09:40:13
As an ex-MMO CSR, I’m with you with all my heart! Keep up the great work, and ban the hell out of the b-tards!
Cheers!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 09:48:16
Mark, I didn’t like you much lately because of half finished gathering/trade skills but after this blog you are truly my IDOL.
Please implement some kind of in-game mechanics so we can all assist easily to burn those low life scums.
WAAAGH!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 09:50:16
I haven’t actually played your game yet but this post gave me a warm fuzzy feeling and actually made me want to check the game out 🙂
Sep 23, 2008 @ 09:57:44
Win.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 10:21:03
Good Job !!! I hope you would keep it that way as long as possible.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 10:31:44
Mark, You is Da man!
Really, it is knowing that you, and people like you – real people, with a real passion (e.g. Paul Barnett, Jeff Hickman) are behind WAR that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
Dem goldsellers ain’t nuffink but git eating scum bags an you is da Boss so yous gets ta stomp em fer us. Don’t hit me boss. Me loves ya … Waaagh!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 10:41:16
This is what I’m waiting for any mmo to be launched. Now I think I’m gonna try WAR. RMT really annoys me, they are poison to the basic foundation of what game is meant to be – fun. ‘m gonna dive in for WAR experience! Kudos to WAR!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 11:09:34
This is the best thing to happen to MMOs since, well, WAR!
I haven’t purchased this game yet, but it’s on my to do list this week. Look forward to playing in a game that actually goes after the gold selling/spamming scum.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 11:26:22
I Love it!
This is PVP at the top level!!
Go get `em WAR!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 11:53:34
beautiful! simply beautiful!
Well done Mark!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 12:19:04
Woah…I might have to look into Warhammer now…
Sep 23, 2008 @ 13:18:36
Excellent work on the gold sellers.
I think more of these guys got banned on White Tower than there were people actually playing.
BTW, ya kinda screwed us on that deal Mark.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 13:29:50
you guys are so awesome, and those messages were great and a lot of fun to read
Sep 23, 2008 @ 13:43:58
We salute you, sir! WAAAGH!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 14:01:58
We’re loving this over on Azazel. The first time we saw one of those ban messages our Vent went nuts with joyous laughter. We’re SO glad you’ve chosen to hit these guys over their virtual heads with a sledgehammer. Thanks for fighting the good fight!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 14:12:59
I LOVE IT!!
Finaly a MMO company that is open and straight forward with it’s user base. You never see talk like this from other companies. You guys rock and you have a loyal customer here for life.
Great job Mythic and I love the game. Having a blast!!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 14:17:57
And so it was digged.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 14:33:28
I play Age of Conan and get in-game mail and chat all the time from gold seller spammers. I wish they would do this!!!
Death to all spammers of every kind!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 14:34:49
LoL! I’m not on Phoenix Throne, but we’re seeing those messages on our server, and I’m loving it!
Glad to know that my reports on these guys are actually doing some good.
PS. Your CSRs are fabulous! SECONDS after I reported my first one someone contacted me!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 14:40:30
Here Here! Keep up the good work!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 14:43:30
From the bottom of my heart a BIG FAT THANK YOU. Down with the Gold Sellers, down with IGE and down with all the other creeps that need to be eradicated. I am happy to see you guys be an example to all other mmorpgs out there and take some serious action against these idiots.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 15:06:58
Well done, I saw one of these last night on Eerie Downs I believe and I was very amused.
Great stance on this, it’s good to see a developer/team with some balls for once.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 15:14:48
Much like everyone else who has posted, I am in awe over Mythic’s quick response to the gold seller problem.
Thank you for helping us enjoy your game!!!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 15:20:27
Thank you for taking the time and effort to go to this extent to deal with the problem. It really does impact the enjoyment of the game.
Nothing quit breaks the suspension of disbelief like a gold spammer.
Consequently I hope you’re this strict about banning for exploits.
I used to get a bit fatigued with watching guilds exploit raid mobs and get away with it!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 15:21:16
The Hordes of the Black Banner applaud your initiative, Lord Jacobs.
Wishing to see the goldspam-banning popups on the European servers as well…let’s hope GOA delivers. 🙂
Best of luck to all of you!
Andrei, zealot of , EU-RP Burlok.
Gotta ban ‘em all! « 38 Pitches
Sep 23, 2008 @ 15:21:46
Sep 23, 2008 @ 16:24:17
I cheer every time I see one of those messages. Its working and its great for morale.
Thank you.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 16:43:53
Look at all the customers you’re gaining just by doing the right thing? This is really amazing to watch! I’m glad to have this game.
Even though many are being sacrificed for their false and solicitous ways! Because of it many new and brave are coming forth to join and take up the banner of WAR!!
Great Job to all of Mythic keep it up! Thank you!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 17:02:57
I gotta say, this motivated me to report these spammers to see the message pop up!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 18:16:51
What a hero. May all MMOs become so ruthless sooner rather than later.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 18:23:16
*applause*
Sep 23, 2008 @ 18:39:52
Well they’re still trying to sell gold on their website although items, accounts, and power leveling are “We currently do not have any accounts for sale on this server.”
http://www.ige.com/warus/gold/marius/order/warhammeronlineus_en.html
Thank you for getting these jerks off the servers.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 18:51:05
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please keep up the WAR on the farmers/botters/spammers!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 19:00:37
Huzzah! Goldselling companies should go to hell! And their lackies along with them.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 20:17:24
You are my hero… Truly… /bow
Sep 23, 2008 @ 20:31:27
I absolutely love the messages about gold spammers getting banned. They detract from the game in so many ways, affecting the server economy, annoying tells in the middle of RvR (I died at the door of a keep last night but I just had to report one of them), and just overall a crummy service tailored to the lazy that just wants the rewards without putting in the time. I hated them on WoW, and I hate them here just as much. Worse part, half of the messages are mostly to sell WoW gold. Does it look like I’m playing WoW? This is WAR, and here we publicly hang your kind every chance we get. I have even spammed them back with “Dont want”
Sep 23, 2008 @ 20:34:07
Well Sir, you have made this GW and MMO fan very happy. Please bring your brand of gold seller killing to any MMO I play. (UO?) Thanks!
*begins foaming at the mouth and puts on the skull mask*
BURN THEM!
Take torch and blade, shot and resolve all in hand and let the heathens taste the fires of purgation! Leave not a gold seller trembling in the bowels of his bot farm! Suffer not the herretic to live! Burn them all!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 20:44:40
Great work. It really does bug the shit out of me when I play an online game and get spammed to hell every time I log in. Glad to see Mythic taking action.
Maybe if they’re hit with enough bans at $50 a box, they’ll stop coming back.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 21:08:58
You da man! Love the messages on bannings. Hope the hangings come next in game? Please?
Sep 23, 2008 @ 21:11:53
On my first day on WAR yesterday I was being mobbed by those hated gold farmers, and then those messages started popping up on my server (Badlands) and i felt a warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing they just got pwnd :D.
Sep 23, 2008 @ 21:13:23
cool, so instead of seeing spam from people selling gold we see spam from people banning the people selling gold.
thumbs up!
Sep 23, 2008 @ 21:40:16
Right on!
Throw them as far as you can see!
Ban them for Life, including their families AND grandchildren!
Zero tolerance for gold spammers!
I hope to see those popups on my server (Carroburg) too 🙂
Sep 23, 2008 @ 21:53:16
HAHA I saw this when playing some this weekend. Hilarious! 🙂 I was wondering what was going on…
Sep 24, 2008 @ 00:24:43
If only there was a way to get this into other games. BRAVO!!
Sep 24, 2008 @ 01:13:30
I know you are “not using this blog for community support of WAR or DAoC.”, but I just wanted to drop a line to say that the in-game in-character messages about the gold farmers bans are awesome, and that the Banhammer counter on the WAR website is wonderful. Thank you.
Sep 24, 2008 @ 06:56:04
I really hate the arrogance of some of these gold selling companies. They know full well what they are is against the rules but they see themselves as helping the players out anyway.
Also gold selling is only the tip of the iceberg as the money that goes into gold selling directly funds, botting, account theft and more serious crimes not directly part of the game.
I have to admit when WoW finally got round to implementing all those upgrades to the chat system to make it very easy to block and report gold spammers it was a dream come true.
Before that I had to depend on Add-ons which while effective had issues of their own only a UI upgrade could fix.
Personally I think the in game messages aren’t enough, you should consider in game executions! Perhaps I’m being a bit morbid but the idea of seeing GM’s in executioner gear dragging characters from the accounts of gold sellers (and buyers) to a podium then decapitating them feels strangely gratifying.
Sep 24, 2008 @ 10:32:30
i am glad that WAR will be clean of these people, enjoying the game a lot with my team so far, and great idea with Ban Message. Keep ze good work!
Sep 24, 2008 @ 14:04:14
Mark,
Can I make a suggestion?
While I’ve been reporting gold sellers every time I get a tell, the other night I got whispered by the same one 4 times over the course of 3 hours. It might be helpful (for maximum-bannage at super-speeds) to institute a “Gold Seller/Power-Leveling Spam” category that we can select on the report screen, and any reports that are in that category get bumped to the top of the list.
Thanks again for taking this stance on Gold Sellers, it’s been a long time coming! 🙂
Sep 24, 2008 @ 15:23:55
All hail Mythic! The hopefully soon to be killers of Goldspam….
However, last night, it got really really bad. I think I got 15 different tells in the span of a half hour. 😦
They’re trying to fight you, Sir Jacobs! We’ll keep fighting back. ><
Sep 24, 2008 @ 16:35:44
I saw one of those ban messages on Volkmar and loved it! It mentioned about 3 names and said that they, and about 50 of their craven friends had been fed to the cold ones. Kudos for the zero tolerance policy. i had been seeing gold spam messages every few minutes, and reporting every one, so it was good to see that my (and every other player who reported them) efforts were not in vain. Keep up the good work ❤
Sep 24, 2008 @ 17:20:53
Awesome work lad, in WoW I got so pissed about those Goldsellers heh. Can I expect to see those messages on the EU servers as well? Playing on Karak Norn and Id love to see a joyful message like that 😉
Sep 24, 2008 @ 17:57:35
Mr. Jacobs,
How much Awesome does Mythic have left in stock?!?!
Everything you’ve been doing lately is just chock full of Awesome, I don’t know where you guys keep getting it from (I suspect the columbians), or how you can cram so much of it into something so simple as a solution for gold spam, but keep it up!
I’ve been waiting a long time for WAR, and it was worth the wait. Now to watch it grow and change….this is indeed an exciting time for MMO fans.
Sep 24, 2008 @ 18:24:53
This by far is the best anti-farming statement I have seen in a long time! Excellent work! We are loving the game!
Sep 24, 2008 @ 18:41:36
Whooo!
This is the best response I’ve ever seen from an MMO developer. I’ve seen these messages on Iron Rock, and I love it every time I see one.
Each tell or broadcast from a gold spammer gets immediately sent to a CSR, and it normally doesn’t take more than an hour before the ban-hammer comes crashing down on them.
Kudos, Mythic. Kudos on making WAR a great environment to play in.
Sep 24, 2008 @ 20:30:31
I ❤ Mark jacobs
Sep 24, 2008 @ 21:35:45
Great article. I am so happy that you guys go this route as opposed to the blizzard route, that seems to care more about maximizing profits. (taking months to compile farmer’s accounts for 1 mass banning) I have to ask though can we expect the same hardline approach to scenario afkers as well? Sadly I’m seeing more and more of them especially in the t2 up scenarios.
Sep 24, 2008 @ 23:59:59
Hilarious! Bravo! I’m loving WAR, and you have my support all the way. I want to see these messages on Kragg!!
Sep 25, 2008 @ 00:24:44
Brrraaavooooo! /clap
Sep 25, 2008 @ 01:09:55
WAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH~!!
Love what you do with them, you guys rock!
Sep 25, 2008 @ 01:50:31
You, sir – are a hero!
Great game – great people and now finally someone steps up and takes a proper, no holes barred, hoping to crush bollocks swing at the pondscum that are goldsellers. Not only that, we’ll be able to be have a working economy and people who are playing highlevel characters are actually able to play them.
Big huge massive kudos!
Sep 25, 2008 @ 02:00:19
Thank you thank you thank you!!!! Ditto on the having your babies thing. It would be helpful if there was a “gold farmer” category for appeals. I appeal every one I get, but it makes me very grumpy to get them. I would reply to them and cuss them out, but then I’d be the one harrassing.
Sep 25, 2008 @ 13:51:20
Hmm.. I might just have to take a look at WAR. I’ve been hesitating but this is indeed good news.
Sep 25, 2008 @ 14:29:35
anyway to report these guys? i got several whispers and a few mails in my inbox from gold farmers.
Sep 25, 2008 @ 14:40:44
As much as I like this feature, I don’t the fact that each time someone is banned for whatever reason I have to click ‘OK’ to clear it off my screen.
Sep 25, 2008 @ 14:58:43
Keep up the good work. It matters to a lot of us.
Sep 25, 2008 @ 15:16:35
I applaud your efforts and absolutely love the messages.
Sep 25, 2008 @ 16:02:53
Thank you! Finally a game for the love of gaming.
Sep 25, 2008 @ 16:27:03
I think this little blog has probably generated more in-game chat than any I’ve ever heard of. I even saw people warcrying ‘A thumping we will go!’ in a scenario. I play in two guilds. One a bunch of friends from lotro on a core server and another a steaming pile of evil chaotica on a core-rp server.
This announcement made it into both guild’s chatter without me introducing it. Yes, it got a universal thumbs up, obviously. More importantly it encourages us to report. You get disheartend if you report somebody and they are still there a day later.
While I miss general chat I do not miss the spammers and knowing that reporting /tell spammers might result in action means I’ll actually start bothering. I’d given up in other games because it never seemed to have any effect.
GJ Mythic.
Sep 25, 2008 @ 16:29:56
Oooh, WAR is getting ever more tempting…
Sep 25, 2008 @ 18:24:17
Give em ‘ell Mythic
Sep 25, 2008 @ 19:06:07
I just love you guys for what you are doing. 🙂
I hate goldsellers with all of my heart cause they disrupt the feel and sense and everything that a game should be. It should be a strife to achieve something within the game limits and nothing else.
Thank you!!
Sep 25, 2008 @ 19:49:40
Burn baby burn!
Slap another shrimp on the grill!
Sep 26, 2008 @ 08:28:52
Wonder how GOA will handle this… Cheers Mythic! 🙂
Sep 26, 2008 @ 15:31:01
I don’t play WAR but I applaud your effort to rid your game of farmers. Finally, a company that works for the players. I hope other companies fall in line. If not then I may rethink my subscriptions.
Sep 28, 2008 @ 03:16:27
Great! Really ups that urge to go buy that box right now.
Sep 28, 2008 @ 04:25:39
I have been appealing these guys for days. and days. and days. PLEASE keep this up, I am so sick of them. I’ve seen no reason that a person would need to purchase gold in this game.
Oh and the banhammer thing on the herald page.. lol nice touch 😉
Sep 28, 2008 @ 21:17:40
In terms of the gold spammers is there any good reason to let Level 1’s send out tells?
Set a minimum level required – 3, 4 or 5 – for sending tells, add in a “/spam” command that indicates that sender is a gold spammer and if someone gets 3 /spams in X minutes bump it up to the team’s attention.
It should make them a lot more cautious about the rate of spamming and coupled with having to get a few levels it’ll eat nicely into their margins.
Sep 28, 2008 @ 21:56:39
Hi Mark, this is really great thank you everyone in our guild appreciates the bannings.
Would it be possible to add either a button to the Help UI or add a listing in the drop down labeled something like Gold Seller Report?
Then it would be possible to have more direct control of the reports and working them. As it is people are not sure how to report gold sellers, so I bet some are doing it in general and some are changing the category to harrassment. if we could get the gold selling reports out of the normal queue and into a seperate category they could be worked faster.
Another option that is fairly iffy would be to allow us to block /tell’s from anyone under level 10. Sellers would probably switch to emails at that point but that’s just a guess.
Thanks for listening.
Bane
Sep 29, 2008 @ 07:26:21
I don’t know why the same communication rights are given to free trials anyway. Most real people will never type more than about 20 characters in a post, and wont post more often than once every twenty seconds or so. Yet spammers do huuuuuge messages and very often.
It’d seem a relatively easy way of cutting their effect back to reduce their posting ability without actually effecting real people.
War - Discuţii Generale - Page 80 - Computer Games Forum
Sep 29, 2008 @ 12:51:06
Sep 29, 2008 @ 14:29:08
On Phoenix Throne the CSR’s were a bit slow with the Ban Hammer. I got spammer 12 times from one toon before he disappeared.
Great idea but needs more attention. Add a gold farmer item to your appeal process and directly route it to a swat squad to crush without mercy 🙂
Sep 29, 2008 @ 14:33:07
thank you for being awesome…
no really, gold selling chat spammers have always been a pet peeve of mine!
Sep 29, 2008 @ 16:11:13
Thank you so much for taking this stance. Gold sellers significantly impact the enjoyability of MMOs.
It’s obvious that the high priority you are placing on dealing with this is expensive, and the “bottom-line” types might give you grief, but I believe placing a high value on the intangible of morality will pay dividends in the end.
The notifications on the demise of gold sellers are wildly applauded whenever they occur. I have a suggestion to take it one step further (and this will cost you more money).
There is plenty of room for expansion in the capitol cities. Construct a public execution area. Whenever an account is banned, all of the toons from that account get queued for a visit to the executioner. Execute one every minute or so, or whatever frequency supports the “feed stock rate”. Depending on your choice of instrument (gallows, guillotine, lion cage, etc.), propagate the sound of the execution (trap opening, etc.) far and wide but at low amplitude in the city. You could also make it a PQ. Firing squads where players could get perks for participating….the possibilities are endless.
Anyway, keep up the great work.
Sep 29, 2008 @ 18:41:33
I absolutely love the steps you guys have taken (Banhammer FOR THE WIN). And while I know you mentioned suggestions or comments won’t be discussed here, but hopefully the way I’m bringing them up will work within the guidlines you have set forth. If not, please delete, with my apologies.
I’d like to bring up two suggestions because they’re related to the topic, and may lead to some interesting applications in the MMO sphere:
1) Make reporting gold spammers a standard violation report. Part of the issue with reporting gold spammers in any MMO is that they are lost in general appeals, complaints, and violations within the appeal system. Make a clear cut option to report one to reduce man-hours and increase efficiency. All MMO’s should have this option if they have a similar stance. So Help > Appeal> Gold Spammer > Enter the name. Make it a quick process to encourage the community to help police itself, and help your CSR staff cut through the muck.
2) Make self-policing options rewarding for the player. I’ll use WAR as another example here. Suppose you implement step one, and keep track of what reported violations are actually acted upon (Not specifics, just a +1 Gold Spammer credit kind of thing). You can then reward the player with a title in the ToK as an in-game pat on the back that will encourage others to do the same. They’ll be beating down the door attempting to turn these guys in. Imagine the title “Banhammer Warrior” under your characters name. Awesome..
Again, hope it wasn’t out of line. Excellent post, and keep up the great work!
Sep 29, 2008 @ 21:33:22
I hate gold sellers, I think they should be banned without a doubt. My only concern is that this is a war of attrition. It is a lot like the war on terrorism, a war of will. These MMO Terrorists are being funded by World of Warcraft. I just don’t know if they will give up in Warhammer when most of their money is coming from another game.
Sep 29, 2008 @ 22:51:04
So.. how about a temporary title.. the person reporting most (verified, or leading to a ban) gold farmers in a given month gets to wear a cool title for the following month. Just a thought.
Sep 29, 2008 @ 23:00:38
Mark – kudos for fighting the gold spammers but I am kept wondering why an in-game mechanism was not implemented to minimize if not eradicate this problem in the first place?
I suspect it’s only going to get worse with the Trial and Buddy keys once that is implemented.
Something so easy as SpamMeNot was not considered as part of the source code? Perhaps not that exact tool but have some logic that prevents such spam?
At $50/retail box X (the number of banned accounts)…that’s a nice hefty amount of change going to the stakeholders.
Sep 29, 2008 @ 23:24:16
Nice to see a company taking a hard line stance on this
I just hope you continue with this and not be swayed by
the profit cruse that blizzard seems to be under.
Blizzard so call 10 million subscriber base is a scam, majority of those 10 million subscribers are acutal gold spammers,
gold sellers and what not. Blizzard makes a profit off of
them and they do not care about the player community.
Banning gold spammers is right thing to do, supporting
player’s modding efforts like the SpamMeNot mod is great
However they will just keep coming back, buying up keys
online, or buying from the stores online. As long as you
keep producing game disks for the honest hardworking
player, the gold seller is not far behind.
Also these companies engages in other criminal activities like making sure you are infected with the key logger
trojan virus when you visit thier website, they have legal type players that farm and play the AH game by raising the prices up to a point that forces lot of people to use thier
services or cause honest players to quit the MMO
because the MMO company turns a blind eye to what is
going on.
The other day I saw a Rank 1 weapon being sold on the AH for nearly 300 gold. I mean come on, that is obvious gold
seller right there. How in the heck can a T1 player have
300 gold right away, impossible and so after complaining
and when the MMO CSR ignore the player, the player has
two choices the easy way or the hard way. Hard way would be to cancel the account, the easy way would be to
contact the gold seller and risk getting infected with the
keylogger trojan virus.
Lawsuits usually do not work as advertised, they just
bring up the US Constitution and Freedom of Speech and
your lawsuit is dragged in the courts costing serveral
hundreds of thousands of dollars. These gold selling
companies 90% of the time will have highly paid lawyers
on thier rolls.
When I first logged in, I was hit by over 30+ gold selling messages within first 5 minutes of gameplay. If it was not for noticing in chat channels that others were having same problem and somone suggested spammenot mods, I decided to install it and have not had any more problems. I was about ready to cancel my account and not come back. I had thought at first that Mythic supported these gold sellers, getting hit by 30+ gold sellers after creating your first character does gives that impression. 🙂
Not sure if you acutally read your own blogs. My advice Mark would be to have someone keep an eye on the AH prices on each server.
Some of those prices are way to high for a T1 or T2 player to afford. Decreasing ingame money is not going to work, increasing ingame money might work but not in the long run. Take Blizzard for example, they had more gold in TBC and significant rise in the Gold Seller Spammers and the prices in the AH skyrocketed. To a point that you have to be cheater or exploiter or gold spammer to advoid the extreme high prices.
Episode 4: The Gates of Ekrund :: Dead Workers Party Network
Sep 30, 2008 @ 12:41:46
Sep 30, 2008 @ 16:57:03
Sep 30, 2008 @ 20:07:06
And posts like this are the entire reason I’m playing Warhammer. What got me involved in the game was the ‘champion of the people’ approach the design team has taken.
Thanks a lot guys!
If I had more time I’d love to learn how to work to ban them. That’d be a rather fulfilling job imo 🙂
johninnit » Blog Archive » International Brotherhood of Gold Farmers and Associated Game Spam Operatives
Oct 01, 2008 @ 08:55:40
Oct 01, 2008 @ 12:57:29
I play on Sea of Claws and I have loved every single announcement of Gold Spammers getting banned.
Incidentally, one way to completely ignore spammers in-game is to make your character profile annonymous (just go to the Social window, and then click on the last tab). The disadvantage of this is no one can see your brags in the game. Also, your friends will always think you are offline.
Personally, I keep my profile public so that I can get their names and report them. I’ve probably reported 25+ so far.
SUGGESTION: maybe allow users to right-click on a spammer’s name in the chat box and just report them right there?
Keep the ban messages coming. And put the BANHAMMER back on the WAR website — loved that too.
Thanks!
Oct 01, 2008 @ 19:50:54
Mr Jacobs we really do need a feature that makes it easier for players to report these spammers to the CSR team directly, even if it is something like: right click spammers name /report spammer name ..record last ten lines of their text. That way if you are planning to some day shut these parasites down, you have the contact name (they usually provide that in their spam) and their website url. One other thing, I recently got my first ingame mail…more gold seller spam.
We need a feature on the mailbox for reporting this form of spam too.
Currently I have tried to put names in the appeal section and keep appending them, but I think the CSRs are SO busy haven’t seen any kind of response, not even the names being deleted as they are handled.
Getting impression the amount of these cretins is growing daily.
As a player would like to do my part as much as possible to prevent this game from descending into the pits..of cheats, gold farmers and botters. LineageII ..Bartz server was a good example of that. I don’t want to see that happen to Warhammer..ever.
Cend
Oct 01, 2008 @ 19:52:29
So is the banhammer still swinging? I haven’t seen anyone banned on Azazel in over a week. In fact, some of the people I reported as advertising gold selling over a week ago are still around and spamming it up.
Oct 01, 2008 @ 20:11:21
Mark, it seems that the add-on’s not working too great for some to help block the gold-spam.
I know this place isn’t for what’s going on in the game, but thought I’d express that I really hope the ignore list is growing and/or you lot are working on some sort of in-house spam blocker.
I’m just glad it’s not as bad for me as it is for Zubon.
Oct 02, 2008 @ 01:04:30
Read your blog and cheered aloud. We get the occasional morons over on CITY OF HEROES (both for ‘inf farming’ and for power levelling services), and many delightful suggestions on how to barbecue them have been made (my personal favorite – turning them into a killable enemy and then broadcasting that the spammer is in the zone – we can work our way to a badge for the number of spammers we kill in-game).
I applaud your efforts in singling them out and treating them like the scum they are. I hoist my glass to you, sir – slay on.
Digest of blogs (eng) » Blog Archive » Gold Spammers get the Hammer.
Oct 02, 2008 @ 11:06:16
Oct 02, 2008 @ 12:04:56
I play on Phoenix Throne, and I love the creative ban-hammer messages. I haven’t seen one in a while, I hope you haven’t stopped doing it.
WAR declares war on gold spammers - SLUniverse Forums
Oct 02, 2008 @ 14:53:20
Oct 02, 2008 @ 15:31:27
It’s great to block the spammers…but to create your own spam?
What’s the point? To let people know your banning them?
I think it kind of defeats the purpose.
Just list it in the forums or something.
Channel Massive » Blog Archive » Episode 60 - Start Wreck
Oct 02, 2008 @ 15:32:57
Oct 02, 2008 @ 16:43:03
I chose this game over one i was playing with rampant cheats and selling of gear/items etc.
On the 3rd day I saw one of these messages pop up and I felt great about my choice to play WHOAOR!!
Warhammer online CoFounder Mark Jacobs says NO to gold farmers | whackythinking
Oct 03, 2008 @ 11:22:28
WARP Episode 4 - WARP - Curse
Oct 03, 2008 @ 16:35:45
Oct 04, 2008 @ 01:03:35
If you don’t want gold sellers, then don’t design games the way you do. Don’t design games with so many annoying time sinks.
Marc, I know you have heard of Nick Yee. He has done extensive academic study on this phenomenon. He has found that at least 22% of all MMO gamers admit to buying currency (and imagine how many have that don’t admit it). This means a quarter, and perhaps more, of all MMO customers find the grind, grind, grind system too miserable to enjoy.
I agree with you about the spammers, but there are a lot of ways you could combat that more effectively than the pure PR waste of creative ban messages:
1) Let players turn off tells based on level. For example, let players auto-refuse tells from anyone under level X.
2) In the chat window, right clicking on a name should bring up the option to ignore. If enough people ignore a character below a certain level (like 5 or 10) in a given time, this should trigger a temporary mute and a notice to the CSRs.
But most importantly, you need to understand that this is a legitimate player demand being satisfied. Trying to stop this is as fruitless and silly as the utterly pointless “War on Drugs.” You will never, ever, ever, ever, ever stop it. You won’t even put a dent in it.
If you actually care about this and want there to be less of it, then find ways (through game design) to reduce DEMAND.
Don’t have stupid money sinks like mounts. Don’t have uber rare drop gear that people want to spend piles of gold on – instead give people multiple ways to obtain gear they want.
But seriously… don’t kid yourself (or us) by acting like you have any hope of putting a stop to gold selling. You can’t, and honestly you probably shouldn’t.
Oct 04, 2008 @ 06:41:11
Good job on the over 5000 banned gold sellers to date Mark, keep up the good work and don’t listen to fools like the poster Mr. Hartman above me. You absolutely should fight this and ban anyone who abuses your virtual property, because unlike drug smuggling gold sellers aren’t selling their own product their selling yours and illegally at that (thank you Blizzard for case law history on virtual property laws being violated).
On a related topic though, tonight for the first time in game I ran into someone abusing some sort of bug to walk right through keep doors and walls with some weird manuevering without the keep door actually being down. So this 25 DoK walks right into our keep and everyone who tried to hit him got dropped out of game to desktop leaving the keep completely undefended now due to this person (in two different keeps that night) abusing whatever bug he was using to cheat the system and allow his guild to take the keep uncontested. If there is one thing I hate more than gold sellers, it is exploiters and people like this wall hacker. Nothing will make me not want to ever give an MMO another dime than cheating. I reported him, took screenshots, as did many others who saw it. Here’s hoping your CSR’s do the right thing, because they haven’t given me much hope yet seeing how dozens of people have reported another guild for their guild name being vulgar and nothing being done about it.
Oct 05, 2008 @ 07:49:20
I hate them, as october 5th, been playing for 2 days and it’s insane the amount of tells I get from them. I agree with your b point, because it IS giving me a bad experience.
Although I am an experience player, I can try to ignore them, but still is annoying. I would like a better tool to report them or to ban them from whispering me. The action you describe about how to report them is not good enough. You guys made a wonderful game, that made me quit Wow, so please implement and develop a tool for them, shame on you to not have think about it earlier, but I still love your awesome game!
Burnie
Oct 05, 2008 @ 11:50:26
Great news! I detest not only the in-game spamming but also what it eventually does to the in-game economy: it removes the even playing field we all start on and benefits the cheats.
Just one thing though, can we please have a quick and simple way to report them, a quick, oneclick “This player just spammed me” methos so they can be reached before they delete the name and create a new one.
Oct 05, 2008 @ 23:32:00
good article thank you
Oct 06, 2008 @ 02:59:07
I’ve played a lot of MMOs and honestly, there is only one that solved mostly instantly the gold spammer problem.
Starwars galaxies. With the warden program. It was introduced in september 2007. It has 2 effects :
– in about 2 days, no one were receiving spam tells anymore.
– in a matter of weeks, it was totally impossible to buy golds on those crappy websites. (not that i tried, but this is what i’ve heard).
This has 2 other advantages :
– involving the community in the WAR against those sellers, and honestly, ppls liked it a lot.
– reducing the cost from SOE so they can put that saved money on content instead of a fake war. And ppls liked it too.
here is the link :
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?topic_id=464696
Oct 06, 2008 @ 19:19:52
Mr Hartman, with all due respect, you are absolutely wrong. What you propose is a stupification of the game and not an improvement. Mount money is NOT a big deal. Money for gear is NOT a big deal. I don’t go gold farming at all and have more than enough to buy most anything I see on auction. The one thing I’ve seen that I couldn’t afford was a purple axe that I couldn’t use anyway.
Mr Jacobs, keep up the good fight. Back in the early days of EQ, they used to send serverwide messages when someone got banned. Then they lost their spine and stopped doing it.
I have to say, though, that sadly I’ve not seen a banning message from your folks in quite some time.
However, I have an acceptable substitute. Scripted Executions.
There is an execution square in Altdorf. Instead of just banning them, take control of their client from them, summon them to Altdorf and summarily execute and ban them (if they disco, execute them anyway and ban them as normal).
Oct 06, 2008 @ 20:56:15
Mark Jacobs:
I feel sorry that you even THINK the players notice the Gold-sellers. The chat-box is FILLED with spam from:
* NPCs spamming
* Zone-changing-spam
* Loot spam
* Roll spam
* etc.
You sir, should choose better beta testers, who could SLAP your team in the face and say: WAKE UP! THE CHAT BOX IS MENT FOR CHAT ONLY!
Anything else, othe than chat, can go in an “action” box, like in daoc with the “combat”-box.
Now the game made it EVEN HARDER to organise raids, rvr-groups, etc. Warhammer is (cos of shitty chat box + solo quests to lvl 40) a massive SINGLEPLAYER online roleplaying game.
Wake up and smell the fucking roses.
Oct 07, 2008 @ 02:25:37
NN, you know you can edit the chat boxes right? Right click on a tab, use the filters and you can set it up anyway you want. The roses smell fine right now thanks! 🙂
Oct 07, 2008 @ 15:56:53
NN,
I sort of agree the chat box took me a few days to corral but it is similar to what I remember for DAoC. I haven’t used any LFG functionality cause there is never a lack of people in the public quests.
On the gold spammer and companies they represent.
IMHO,
1. If you cut off (disable) the product key they will keep buying more copies and you turn spanking them into a profit center 🙂
2. Look at restricting access and use of chat for any future free trial.
3. Use your TOS to file a Restraining Order against the gold and PL companies.
4) Make sure your CSR’s have all the tools they need to quickly look at chat logs and swing the ban hammer. I saw one spammer on for 3 hours on Sunday. Make sure the ban hammer is on the product key on the user name.
Oct 09, 2008 @ 20:23:34
I don’t know….I get hit by spam as soon as I login and it comes in throughout the day. I’m getting more spam now than I can ever remember seeing in WoW.
You guys really need a better reporting process and an ignore feature that works.
The banned count is cute, but it really just looks like PR crap when you log in and get a flood of spam.
Nov 10, 2008 @ 22:35:08
Leatherneck, Hartman’s right about the source of the problem; the gold selling demand is firmly rooted in the design decision to create grind. If grind is a component of your game design, there will always be demand to bypass it. Whether it’s leveling services, gold sellers, or some other third party service, the whole reason they exist is because of the game’s design.
You can fight it with ever-diminishing returns, you can design around it, or you can monetize it in-house with a dual-currency system like Puzzle Pirates. Whatever the case, the root of the problem is the grind. As long as you’re going to subject players to grind, the demand to bypass it will be there. Third parties don’t create the demand, they just respond to it.
Jan 03, 2009 @ 08:25:05
What happens when someone writes a virus that changes all chat entries to appear as spammer messages – or some other malicious act causes confusion? Will there be a way to contest the ban?
u wnat gold? pl half price? | Site of the Gaming Dead
Jan 04, 2009 @ 06:11:54
Jan 06, 2009 @ 18:37:18
Damn skippy! Ever since I was introduced to DAoC by my wife, Conqueress, I have loved Mythic and its games. I am VERY glad to see such an enthusiastic approach to ripping the carpet out from under…in the words of a famous game character…”Bottom feeding, scum sucking, algae eaters!” I am a developer by trade and have a good understanding of how much effort must have gone in (and continues to go into) games like WAR and can’t stand people trying to make a quick buck off of someone’s hard work. That being said, I share your passion of HATRED TO GOLD SPAMMERS, SELLERS, POWER-LEVELS, OR ANY IDIOT WHO INSISTS ON MAKING $$ AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS! As you said Mr. Jacobs, they can “Go to hell.” 🙂
Jan 07, 2009 @ 03:17:34
Read This:
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2009-01-03/20090103001643830,1.shtml
[Announcement 01/12/09] Public Ban List - Page 2 - AionSource.com
Jan 13, 2009 @ 22:46:13
Jan 30, 2009 @ 01:34:58
I am basically neutral with the issue of gold spamming services or anything of that sort. Not that I would want to personally advocate such acts, I would rather just play the game and enjoy rather than whine that some kid has been buying in game currency for better items. Nevertheless, if EULA or in game rules apply which would consider this act as illegal and in violation of any contract, then by all means I would commend the banning and rooting out of these players.
Mar 30, 2009 @ 21:19:10
I think they should find all gold spammers and stop banning their accounts. Instead, all characters created on that account will spawn in a giant arena. They cannot get out (ever), and if they die, they respawn in the middle of it.
The arena will have three things inside it:
a) a mailbox
b) a healer, except the cost per heal is 50g.
c) A level 60 lord inside it, which drops 5000000000000 gold if killed, but spams an AOE attack every second that does the same amount of damage. And this lord is aggro’d as soon as someone enters in the arena.
Apr 10, 2009 @ 22:23:43
Bravo!!! /claps loudly
Being a Mythic game player now for 8 years, this makes me smile.
Countless MMO games have seen the decline of their game experience due to gold farmers. The endless spamming of gold email is about as annoying as it gets for me.
Program ways to let us help you beat them, or at least make it damn expensive and difficult for them to operate.
May 08, 2009 @ 04:22:54
I don’t even play MMO’s, but you have my support.
Jun 17, 2009 @ 22:32:50
nice posts, was very help and usefull 🙂 thnx anyway!
i prefer online games and i agree with your opinion
Jan 03, 2010 @ 23:39:56
Wanna find Cheap WoW Gold 3000/$20 Lol…calm down man. The fact is the market id driven by supply and demand. Everyone demands gold, but its hard to get in online games..and with blizzard demanding HUGE amounts of gold for flying, expert flying, cold weather flying, ….geez the gold just adds up. Its an easy decisionf or someone if they have real money to spare but not days to spare grinding for gold to buy their epic flight.
Free Webgames and gamedownloads on Video Game Elite.com
Jul 06, 2010 @ 18:27:08
That is cool! Kind regards from Germany.
Aug 10, 2010 @ 07:34:45
Lovely, so instead of having gold spam, I can have banhammer spame… yay?