Warhammer Online - Crackdown on gold spammers

[Cush]

Source : Mythic banning WAR gold spammers like crazy

'Mythic president Mark Jacobs has said that the developer's "zero tolerance policy" saw around 400 gold sellers banned during Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning’s first few days.

“I hate gold sellers/spammers… with every fiber of my being,” Jacobs wrote a blog post following the game 's release.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

Jacobs also revealed that he had turned down various proposals from gold selling companies in the past.

“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.”'

It seems Warhammer Online has taken an agressive stance on gold selling and spamming, with the current bancount standing at upwards of 5500 accounts in the past few weeks; Could they win the fight and keep the economy of the game in-tact after all? We all know how infamous gold spamming was in World of Wacraft, every major city full of randomly named players spamming their advertisments sometimes for hours at once before logging out and creating a new character, and the GMs seemed to not care or take any action when reported. This resulted in a broken economy where items were often ridiculously priced, and those who bought gold had all of the best mounts/enchants while everyone else couldnt afford them.

I, for one, am happy with the effort they are putting into removing these annoyances from the game, it shows how determined they are to keep it fun all around.

[TheFreak]

I love that they are so aggressive.

This was a good read, thank you for posting it.

[bezuca]

Wow... way to go!

[Piersd]

even with their "zero tolerance policy", i still receive a lot of gold selling spam

[Hasselhoff]

I finally got my copy yesterday, and in 1 1/2 Hours I got about 5 wispers selling gold, all for diff sites, I reported them all though.

[Verye]

I also recommend you read this article from the president of Mythic. It's quite enlightening:

A banning we will go, a banning we will go. Heave ho off the servers yo, a banning we will go! « Online Games Are a Niche Market

A banning we will go, a banning we will go. Heave ho off the servers yo, a banning we will go!

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.

[jappaex]

even with their "zero tolerance policy", i still receive a lot of gold selling spam

Atleast they do more then WoW does

[thebignoob]

If i owned a MMO I would sell gold acting as if i were a site you would make billions

[Farylon]

Yeah the amount of spam is just so horrible. It wouldn't be so bad if the ignore function would work but it just doesn't seem to work at all.
Best bet is to report them all and hope that spam goes away eventually.

(accidentally did this as a report, really sorry)