Hopefully, you will also improve the customers support the ability to combat these through reports and tickets, there are several times where myself and others have reported characters spamming on fleet, starter planets or via mail to you via the ticket system, then had the ticket closed with the standard reply and then see the same character posting on general chat or getting a mail a few weeks later.

 

When that happens it has a diminishing effect on players will to continue to report these characters.

Edited August 21, 2020 by RikuvonDrake

But perhaps one of the most important is to stop buying from them. You put your credit card, your password, your account, and all your inventory at risk. You don’t know these companies and based on the fact they are violating our Terms of Service every time they advertise, they obviously don’t care about rules. We enforce our rules by typically banning the accounts they use, but we also know they have inventories of bot accounts, so it’s a never-ending battle. For example, over the past few weeks, we’ve eliminated tens of thousands of their accounts that they’ve created or acquired over the years. I won’t give you the details, but it took us some time to track down their networks. We have more efforts planned, but it was a good start.

 

Bottom line, we’ve implemented a variety of changes and will monitor/adjust as we can. The credit spammers might move around, change their tactics, and try to disrupt your gameplay. Just report them and we’ll handle the rest.

 

 

Thanks,

 

--Keith--

 

Hey Keith, might I suggest that EA go the way of WoW and start selling in game currency yourself. I have never purchased from one of these spammers, but must admit to having been tempted. That being said, given the need for millions upon millions of credits under the current economic situation in game, I would love to be able to actually purchase credits from EAware. Just a suggestion I would love to see at some point.

Let's stipulate that for obvious reasons BW is not going to provide details on actions taken against specific accounts. Completely understandable. But...

 

I do think you could publish twice a year (or so) the overall number of actions taken.

 

Doing so would go a long way to incentivizing the player base to submit reports. Frankly, I stopped submitting reports b/c it seemed like I was playing whack-a-mole. While I love that game, I prefer playing SWTOR -- so instead -- I just decided to turn off general chat, which has its own pros and cons.

 

Regards,

 

Dasty

Edited August 21, 2020 by Jdast

Hey Keith, might I suggest that EA go the way of WoW and start selling in game currency yourself.

You already can, though you have to go through the extra hoop of getting cartel coins, buy something with cartel coins, hope you bought something worthwhile, sell that something on the AH, pay the AH tax, PROFIT!

 

... which is quite cumbersome.

 

I understand there might be reluctance to directly link real world currency to in game credits.

 

A solution would be something like the Guild Wars 2 model, where you can sell the premium currency (cartel coins) on the AH directly, while also implementing a "buy order" system. If the current AH doesn't support this, maybe develop a new AH that is (initially?) limited to cartel coin trades.

Maybe you should make an anonymous poll and find out why people buy credits in the first place and address it. When the expansion launched people were upset about prices being so drastically high for set pieces and tacticals for a normal player and this has since never been addressed. Theres so much you have to buy/spend credits on that i'm not surprised in the slightest people buy from the sellers and create a reason for advertisements to happen in the first place.

Well Keith. With 6.0 Onslaught of RNG and credit sinks, you gave them more business. I'm not advocating using these sites but there are many who cannot afford to gear up and craft anymore.

 

In order to enjoy this game to the fullest you need lots of credits. And as much as I deplore that, you've created the need and therefore the business.

 

It's all good and well to point at players for pulling their wallets but ask yourself why they're risking this? Some of those reasons are in your hands. And I mean I can afford some CM purchases but even I think the pricing is ridiculous.

 

And let's be honest. If all people started buying CM items and selling them on the GTN, prices would go down and it would lose its appeal. So the high pricing only serves a small segment of the player base and yourselves. If all players started crafting and selling their craftables on the GTN, then you couldn't make a profit either. In short, anything that makes enough credits to keep up with the CREDIT COST OF PLAYING THE GAME is only for some players. The vast majority can never do that because the more people do it the less profitable it becomes.

 

So perhaps players would take your words a bit more seriously if you didn't push them towards these credit sellers. It's my view on things but there they are. Ever since 6.0 the in game credit cost of playing the game (namely gearing and crafting) has become a LOT higher. You know this. So how can you expect players to not feel that's unfair and feel motivated to use these credit sellers? Their prices are low. There is a risk but when people cannot enjoy the game because they have to grind dailies every day then I ask you, what did you expect?

Edited August 21, 2020 by Tsillah

You may have noticed we made a few adjustments, but the hope was you only noticed the results. It might be short-lived, but at least for the time being, we are experiencing a little peace and quiet. Our changes will not stop all the spamming! We need your help as it begins with your spamming reports. We decided if something wasn’t bothering you, then we’re going to allow the chat to come through. So, if you see a credit seller’s message – right click, report it! That will initiate the new processes we put in place. Oh, they’ll try to circumvent, they’ll change their message, they’ll spam more, they’ll add more accounts, more bots, but keep reporting them. They won’t like it.

 

Thanks,

 

--Keith--

 

Hopefully there is something in place to protect honest people from being spam reported. Not a mindless code that just counts reports and bam, your account is deleted. Imagine all the people trying to sell items through chat without going through the GTN or those trying to recruit people in to their guild just getting whacked because of a right click.

You already can, though you have to go through the extra hoop of getting cartel coins, buy something with cartel coins, hope you bought something worthwhile, sell that something on the AH, pay the AH tax, PROFIT!

 

... which is quite cumbersome.

 

I understand there might be reluctance to directly link real world currency to in game credits.

 

A solution would be something like the Guild Wars 2 model, where you can sell the premium currency (cartel coins) on the AH directly, while also implementing a "buy order" system. If the current AH doesn't support this, maybe develop a new AH that is (initially?) limited to cartel coin trades.

which would also screw over all the referral buyers, now that there would be a direct price on CC. win-win!

You may have noticed we made a few adjustments, but the hope was you only noticed the results. It might be short-lived, but at least for the time being, we are experiencing a little peace and quiet.

 

Could you elaborate on what adjustments you did? I am completely surprised by your message, because I have not noticed anything which would have made me think that you adjusted anything.

Could you elaborate on what adjustments you did? I am completely surprised by your message, because I have not noticed anything which would have made me think that you adjusted anything.

 

I haven't noticed any difference on the starter planets, but then again, I rarely notice what is going on there, so maybe something has changed, but longer term players are so used to ignoring chat we haven't seen it. Will have to keep my eyes out next time and see if I can see any difference

Hey all,

 

/snip

 

Bottom line, we’ve implemented a variety of changes and will monitor/adjust as we can. The credit spammers might move around, change their tactics, and try to disrupt your gameplay. Just report them and we’ll handle the rest.

 

 

Thanks,

 

--Keith--

 

Hi Keith

 

Was just wondering, are you going to do anything about the ref spammers too?

Hey all,

 

I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. We’ve all had to adjust our daily lives, but we’re working it out, trying to stay focused, and continue our efforts to improve our game and your experience. About a month ago, we surprised everyone and released on Steam and it’s been very exciting to see so many new players along with many more who have returned to SWTOR. As a veteran player, it’s pretty fun to group up with players who joined us when we launched and are pleasantly surprised by all the changes we’ve made over the years. It’s also very enjoyable to run with a group of Legendary Players, as well.

 

I’m sure you have seen how lively our starter planets have been, and this includes all the credit selling advertisers. It’s been an ongoing battle for years and we’ve had to try and strike a balance between potentially frustrating our legitimate players and shutting down all the credit sellers. It’s an old battle every MMO has to fight whenever chat is available. Yet, to be perfectly honest, our efforts haven’t worked out so well. Sure, we made it harder for them, but they are persistent organizations who like to frustrate all of us.

 

You may have noticed we made a few adjustments, but the hope was you only noticed the results. It might be short-lived, but at least for the time being, we are experiencing a little peace and quiet. Our changes will not stop all the spamming! We need your help as it begins with your spamming reports. We decided if something wasn’t bothering you, then we’re going to allow the chat to come through. So, if you see a credit seller’s message – right click, report it! That will initiate the new processes we put in place. Oh, they’ll try to circumvent, they’ll change their message, they’ll spam more, they’ll add more accounts, more bots, but keep reporting them. They won’t like it.

 

That’s the first step.

 

But perhaps one of the most important is to stop buying from them. You put your credit card, your password, your account, and all your inventory at risk. You don’t know these companies and based on the fact they are violating our Terms of Service every time they advertise, they obviously don’t care about rules. We enforce our rules by typically banning the accounts they use, but we also know they have inventories of bot accounts, so it’s a never-ending battle. For example, over the past few weeks, we’ve eliminated tens of thousands of their accounts that they’ve created or acquired over the years. I won’t give you the details, but it took us some time to track down their networks. We have more efforts planned, but it was a good start.

 

With respect to protecting your account – never give out your password and if you don’t already have one, add a Mobile Security Key. That adds an extra layer of protection especially if your email has been compromised. And, remember to change your passwords periodically (on all your accounts), just as another way to protect you and yours.

 

Bottom line, we’ve implemented a variety of changes and will monitor/adjust as we can. The credit spammers might move around, change their tactics, and try to disrupt your gameplay. Just report them and we’ll handle the rest.

 

 

Thanks,

 

--Keith--

 

Sir ..

 

This is very welcomed news. VERY much appreciated !!

 

TYVM !

Hi Keith

 

Was just wondering, are you going to do anything about the ref spammers too?

 

I hate referral people as much as the next guy, but they are players, not bots, running a ToS compliant business in BW's eyes. insanely profitable, exploitative of new players, and easily transferred to scam format, but it is what it is. there are things they could do to make it harder, not scammable, and less profitable, but they probably won't for its own sake.

Well Keith. With 6.0 Onslaught of RNG and credit sinks, you gave them more business. I'm not advocating using these sites but there are many who cannot afford to gear up and craft anymore.

 

In order to enjoy this game to the fullest you need lots of credits. And as much as I deplore that, you've created the need and therefore the business.

 

It's all good and well to point at players for pulling their wallets but ask yourself why they're risking this? Some of those reasons are in your hands. And I mean I can afford some CM purchases but even I think the pricing is ridiculous.

 

And let's be honest. If all people started buying CM items and selling them on the GTN, prices would go down and it would lose its appeal. So the high pricing only serves a small segment of the player base and yourselves. If all players started crafting and selling their craftables on the GTN, then you couldn't make a profit either. In short, anything that makes enough credits to keep up with the CREDIT COST OF PLAYING THE GAME is only for some players. The vast majority can never do that because the more people do it the less profitable it becomes.

 

So perhaps players would take your words a bit more seriously if you didn't push them towards these credit sellers. It's my view on things but there they are. Ever since 6.0 the in game credit cost of playing the game (namely gearing and crafting) has become a LOT higher. You know this. So how can you expect players to not feel that's unfair and feel motivated to use these credit sellers? Their prices are low. There is a risk but when people cannot enjoy the game because they have to grind dailies every day then I ask you, what did you expect?

I would argue that even casual players should be able to acquire credits fairly easily. There are so many ways to do so. Sure, farming anything, even credits can be boring, but it isn't difficult. They made gearing so easy now that people expect to not have to grind for anything.

 

With 6.0, they did reemphasize credits, added some costs for gearing, added some credit sinks and greatly nerfed the vender value for loot gear (especially lvl 70-75 gear). This was an effort to cater to people that cry about high GTN prices and curb inflation within the game's economy. As a player, all you have to do is adapt. There's always a way to make credits and there's always a way to save credits. I mean, you could use your credits and tech fragments to buy the gear sets you want directly, or you can farm renown crates and acquire gear via RNG and no credits (while earning credits at the same time). Another choice you have is to deconstruct stuff for mats and tech fragments or you can sell them to the vendor for credits.

 

The problem lies with the people that can't wait, and not with the economic design. The players that have a lot of credits (earned legitimately without buying from spammers) got there by investing their own time and learning how to build wealth within the game. They didn't just try for a couple hours one day and never had to do anything again after that. Smart players (economically) are always making decisions to earn more credits than they spend. It's that simple and there are multiple ways to get there without cheating.

Edited August 22, 2020 by BRKMSN

Could you elaborate on what adjustments you did? I am completely surprised by your message, because I have not noticed anything which would have made me think that you adjusted anything.

 

Umm...have you not been on the starter planets?? Or even fleet?

There is no spammer's advertising.

 

ETA:

Probably why so many lately have been on the forums whining that they have been squelched also.

Edited August 22, 2020 by CaptRogue

Umm...have you not been on the starter planets?? Or even fleet?

There is no spammer's advertising.

 

ETA:

Probably why so many lately have been on the forums whining that they have been squelched also.

 

also if they said what they did the spammers would be all too happy to skirt the detection

...... Edited August 22, 2020 by Ner_idia

Hey all,

 

I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. We’ve all had to adjust our daily lives, but we’re working it out, trying to stay focused, and continue our efforts to improve our game and your experience. About a month ago, we surprised everyone and released on Steam and it’s been very exciting to see so many new players along with many more who have returned to SWTOR. As a veteran player, it’s pretty fun to group up with players who joined us when we launched and are pleasantly surprised by all the changes we’ve made over the years. It’s also very enjoyable to run with a group of Legendary Players, as well.

 

I’m sure you have seen how lively our starter planets have been, and this includes all the credit selling advertisers. It’s been an ongoing battle for years and we’ve had to try and strike a balance between potentially frustrating our legitimate players and shutting down all the credit sellers. It’s an old battle every MMO has to fight whenever chat is available. Yet, to be perfectly honest, our efforts haven’t worked out so well. Sure, we made it harder for them, but they are persistent organizations who like to frustrate all of us.

 

You may have noticed we made a few adjustments, but the hope was you only noticed the results. It might be short-lived, but at least for the time being, we are experiencing a little peace and quiet. Our changes will not stop all the spamming! We need your help as it begins with your spamming reports. We decided if something wasn’t bothering you, then we’re going to allow the chat to come through. So, if you see a credit seller’s message – right click, report it! That will initiate the new processes we put in place. Oh, they’ll try to circumvent, they’ll change their message, they’ll spam more, they’ll add more accounts, more bots, but keep reporting them. They won’t like it.

 

That’s the first step.

 

But perhaps one of the most important is to stop buying from them. You put your credit card, your password, your account, and all your inventory at risk. You don’t know these companies and based on the fact they are violating our Terms of Service every time they advertise, they obviously don’t care about rules. We enforce our rules by typically banning the accounts they use, but we also know they have inventories of bot accounts, so it’s a never-ending battle. For example, over the past few weeks, we’ve eliminated tens of thousands of their accounts that they’ve created or acquired over the years. I won’t give you the details, but it took us some time to track down their networks. We have more efforts planned, but it was a good start.

 

With respect to protecting your account – never give out your password and if you don’t already have one, add a Mobile Security Key. That adds an extra layer of protection especially if your email has been compromised. And, remember to change your passwords periodically (on all your accounts), just as another way to protect you and yours.

 

Bottom line, we’ve implemented a variety of changes and will monitor/adjust as we can. The credit spammers might move around, change their tactics, and try to disrupt your gameplay. Just report them and we’ll handle the rest.

 

 

Thanks,

 

--Keith--

 

Hi Keith,

 

This all really good news. I always report those guys on the starter planets and encourage others in chat to do so as I see them pop up.

 

Another poster suggested selling credit chips like World Of Warcraft does. Is this something you guys might consider doing to help combat this credit spamming problem?

 

Lastly, is it possible you can look at the rest of your reporting system and make it easier to report bots, cheats or hackers in the game. Wether they be in pvp or free roaming, the current reporting system can be very time consuming and mostly a broken. Ie, sometimes you write up a very detailed report and go to click save and it says an error has occurred.

 

Can we please get a simple report system for cheaters that is similar to the report spammers system. Ie, right click player or player name and it gives you a drop down to report wintrading, hacking, exploiting, bots, etc. The system could then collect all the relevant data like the the player name, server, time stamp, location. Because currently, the onus is on the players to have to add all of that before we can even get to reporting what we saw. And many players have Alt letters in their name, which makes it difficult to get accurate.

Been on both Korriban & Hutta, as well as DK, no sign of any credit farmers, or ref links....long may it last

 

Still had the usual trolls though, so a legacy ignore would be nice

 

Then peace would reign in the galaxy once more.....well for a while anyway...lol

Thank you for taking action. Reporting/ignoring gold spammers is the first order of business when I log a character in and it's good to know it's making a difference.

I would argue that even casual players should be able to acquire credits fairly easily. There are so many ways to do so. Sure, farming anything, even credits can be boring, but it isn't difficult. They made gearing so easy now that people expect to not have to grind for anything.

Boring is exactly the problem. This game is easy but boring and repetitve. I really am baffled that you find this ok. I'd rather it be a bit more challenging and interesting.

With 6.0, they did reemphasize credits, added some costs for gearing, added some credit sinks and greatly nerfed the vender value for loot gear (especially lvl 70-75 gear). This was an effort to cater to people that cry about high GTN prices and curb inflation within the game's economy. As a player, all you have to do is adapt. There's always a way to make credits and there's always a way to save credits. I mean, you could use your credits and tech fragments to buy the gear sets you want directly, or you can farm renown crates and acquire gear via RNG and no credits (while earning credits at the same time). Another choice you have is to deconstruct stuff for mats and tech fragments or you can sell them to the vendor for credits.

Honestly, your use of "some" is preposterous and just means you don't seem to see what's right in front of you. How much is ripping gold mods these days? Exactly a HUGE increase. Not just "some" and on top of that you have more reasons to rip mods because of the amps, which in and of themselves are ridiculous and full RNG. So tank amps will appear on dps mods and there will be the listing of medtech on hilts etc. And you can easily blow 100s of millions of credits on amps because of that, if you're not careful. This game shouldn't be about impulse control really.

And besides, I do crafting as a way to be self-sufficient so selling those mats is not a good idea.

The problem lies with the people that can't wait, and not with the economic design. The players that have a lot of credits (earned legitimately without buying from spammers) got there by investing their own time and learning how to build wealth within the game. They didn't just try for a couple hours one day and never had to do anything again after that. Smart players (economically) are always making decisions to earn more credits than they spend. It's that simple and there are multiple ways to get there without cheating.

Well that's not the only problem but BioWare is using it as their default position. So they enable and encourage that behaviour...and that's where they go wrong. This drives people not to the boredom you seem to celebrate but rather buying their way out of the grind. And when you cannot afford CM prices then you go to the alternatives.

 

It's that simple really and BioWare CAN do something about that.

I would argue that even casual players should be able to acquire credits fairly easily. There are so many ways to do so. Sure, farming anything, even credits can be boring, but it isn't difficult. They made gearing so easy now that people expect to not have to grind for anything.

 

 

They fixed it so the the easiest way to make credits were to buy them from goldsellers, or buy stuff from the CM, and sell it on the GTN. That is the easiest way to make credits. All other ways take time and effort.

 

Crafting, you have to either spend a ton to get the mats, or spend ages gathering, etc.

Doing missions, even doing dailies, you won't make the 'millions' you used to, they've cut the credits from that.

 

And then they raised the costs for ripping mods etc, and pushed people in to the arms of the credit sellers.

This may be just my cynicism , but the only reason they are acting on these credit sellers is they are prolific and taking away cash that they want going on their CM.

Their behavior changed a bit, yesterday I received spam mail from a lvl. 24 merc, who was on Balmorra (!). (Didn't report it, though... I was too baffled

 

And every now and then, I saw different characters logging on the fleet (The character was even in a guild) announcing credit selling crap. (Not the last days, but I remember seeing that during the last years)

Edited August 22, 2020 by Minzurion