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RuneScape celebrates 'bot-nuking day' this Tuesday

Brendan Drain — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Events, in-game, MMO industry, Patches, RuneScape, Free-to-play

Last week we reported that veteran browser MMO RuneScape was losing its ongoing war on bots. Players have begun botting on a massive scale, and it's become increasingly difficult to distinguish bots from ordinary players. Developer Jagex asked for help from the playerbase in solving the botting problem and announced its intention to continue fighting legal battles against the creators of bot programs.

In a new community update this week, Jagex Chief Executive Officer Mark Gerhard announced the release of a new doomsday weapon in the war on bots. In an upcoming patch on October 25th, Jagex will be "launching our most formidable bot-busting weapon in our history, targeting what we believe to be 98% of the bots seen in game." This update permanently prevents reflection bots from working and the effects should be immediately visible in-game. To celebrate "bot-nuking day", Tuesday's patch brings four days of events and minigame bonuses for regular players.

[Thanks to David for the tip!]

RuneScape celebrates 'bot-nuking day' this Tuesday originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ask Massively: I don't get the point of character customization in a first-person shooter edition

Eliot Lefebvre — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Game mechanics, Opinion, Massively Meta, Ask Massively, Miscellaneous

Seriously, I just don't get it. I'm not knocking the gameplay style -- yeah, it's not my preferred style of game, but I totally understand why people like it. But why spend a whole bunch of time deciding on what your character looks like in a game where you're never going to get to see it? I'm impressed with what they're showing off with this Gotham City Impostors video, but I just don't see the point in this particular setting.

Obviously, I'm in the minority.

In totally unrelated news, it's time for this week's installment of Ask Massively, which covers the matter of games that don't require the wholesale slaughter of wildlife. It also addresses our notorious and persistent spammer. (You know the one I'm talking about.) If you've got a question for a future installment of the column, you can leave it in the comments or mail it along to ask@massively.com.

Continue reading Ask Massively: I don't get the point of character customization in a first-person shooter edition

Ask Massively: I don't get the point of character customization in a first-person shooter edition originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rise and Shiny recap: Dofus

Beau Hindman — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Dofus, Opinion, Free-to-play, Hands-on, Mac, Casual, Rise and Shiny, Livestream

Years ago I had to find a job in my new home state of Texas. Luckily for me, my wife hooked me up with a friend who helped me get hired at Starbucks. At first, I hung my head in shame. Later, though, I enjoyed dealing with customers and the free coffee. I had a co-worker, a real chin-scratching, coffee house wanna-be intellectual who would often spend more time dreaming about some game than about getting people on their breaks. He even brought his Macbook to work to sneak in time in the game.

I glanced over his shoulder one day and was delighted to see an odd-looking, cartoony, turn-based game on his screen. It turned out that the game was Dofus. I tried it immediately and fell in love with it, but that was years ago. I still found time to revisit the game, but once I started working at Massively, most of my time became dedicated to every other game in the world.

Well, it's time to visit it again. During the first part of this week, though, I thought this was going to be a disaster. I stayed strong and battled my way through bot after bot, spam message after spam message, and eventually found the great game I remember. Click past the cut to see exactly what I found!

Continue reading Rise and Shiny recap: Dofus

Rise and Shiny recap: Dofus originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 02 Jan 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: The RMT problem

Brendan Drain — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Economy, Game mechanics, MMO industry, EVE Evolved

Of all the problems that plague MMOs, RMT (real money trading) is perhaps the most disruptive to normal gameplay. By design, almost every MMO has some form of tradable currency that can be collected through normal gameplay. The time it takes to collect that currency has an inherent value, which varies from player to player as not every player values his free time at the same level. It's inevitable that cash-rich players who value their time highly will often want to shortcut normal gameplay by buying the currency directly for cash.

The negative impact of RMT and its associated problems is felt in every popular MMO, and EVE Online is no exception. The direct balance issues inherent in allowing players to buy ISK with cash are just the tip of a very unpleasant iceberg. Players who buy ISK from shady websites and services are the reason that the rest of us have to put up with spam-bots in popular chat channels, rampant account hacking, and macros taking up a disproportionately large cut of EVE's in-game resources and server load.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look into the problems caused by RMT, why macro-farming operations have become so wide-spread, and what CCP has done to combat this growing problem.

Continue reading EVE Evolved: The RMT problem

EVE Evolved: The RMT problem originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: Spam heal is the enemy of strategy

Jeremy Stratton — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic, Lost Pages of Taborea

Last week, I spoke a bit about whether Runes of Magic was too easy or not. In that article I harken back to the mana strike that players held to remove part of a patch that added a percentage-to-cost modifier on all spells for all classes. This week I wanted to flit around the same subjects, but from the viewpoint of healing and strategy.

I want my readers to be well-versed in RoM 101. Just like I set out to do with my community guide for new and old players, I want to educate players today on the fine art of button-mashing. Let's start by covering what spam healing -- or spamming any skill -- is, and why it's not always fun. I'll put this into the context of dungeon-running, cover some fun strategy that results from not being able to spam heal, and give my opinion on how well (or not-so-well) all this works in RoM.

Continue reading Lost Pages of Taborea: Spam heal is the enemy of strategy

Lost Pages of Taborea: Spam heal is the enemy of strategy originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: Banhammer time

Jeremy Stratton — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic, Lost Pages of Taborea

For a while now, Frogster has been fiddling with how a player can buy diamonds to later trade and sell in the auction house. Ever so slowly, they had to implement more and more restrictions because of credit fraud and gold sellers. Those restrictions came in the form of what you could no longer use to buy tradable diamonds, until there was almost no other way except to purchase game cards from select retailers. Now it seems the ongoing problem has come to a head with the announcement that Runes of Magic has temporarily turned off the trading of diamonds for gold completely.

While it certainly doesn't paint RoM in a good light and may look like it has marred their great track record, gold selling issues are nothing exclusive to the game. Bots and gold spam are something that many MMOs eventually deal with and it's a positive sign that the developers are working on it. Maybe they're taking a queue from Aion's RMT videos or maybe they had it planned for a long time, but RoM has recently gone after the player-side of the problem by laying down the banhammer.

Continue reading Lost Pages of Taborea: Banhammer time

Lost Pages of Taborea: Banhammer time originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Online devblog discusses account security

Brendan Drain — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, MMO industry

Every MMO suffers the horrors of gold spammers and EVE Online is no different. The RMT (Real Money Trading) industry is massive and EVE's developers CCP have waged a constant war against it in recent years. The PLEX initiative gave players a way to safely buy ISK for cash while at the same time helping players who couldn't afford their subscriptions pay with ISK. The result was a dramatic hit to the RMT market, who had to drop their prices to compete with a legitimate service replacing their own.

As part of Operation Unholy Rage in August of last year, EVE GMs also banned over 6200 accounts belonging to farmers known to be supplying the RMT industry. The effect on the market was instant, with the population in farmed mission systems like Ingunn disappearing overnight. Almost immediately, the farmers reacted with a spate of account hackings to claw back some ISK.

Continue reading EVE Online devblog discusses account security

EVE Online devblog discusses account security originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Linden Lab to crack down on events listing spam. Again

Tateru Nino — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Classes, Culture, Events, in-game, News items, Opinion, Second Life, Virtual worlds

Come February, Linden Lab is having yet another attempt at enforcing the existing rules for event posting in Second Life. In the past, the Lab's gone at the process in a rather determined fashion on a number of occasions, but its energy each time ran out after only a few weeks of vetting events listings.

One of the matters of concern would be how event rules are actually applied this time around. If we were to divide events listings into quality events and spammy junk, quite a large number of the quality events don't actually comply with the posting rules - usually due to the number of events being held, and limits on the number of listings (or of listing changes) that the events system will tolerate.

Continue reading Linden Lab to crack down on events listing spam. Again

Linden Lab to crack down on events listing spam. Again originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aion's spam filter is bigger, stronger, faster

Kyle Horner — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, News items

Gold seller spam got you down; keeping you from purchasing Aion? Fret not, fair... uh, would be Aionites, because NCsoft is working towards fixing the solution through improvements and good will. We already know that essential 24/7 GM support is on its way, so the news that the recent 10.5.0.10 added an improved chat spam filter is delicious, vengeful frosting on our Crytek-powered cake.

By our observations, spam has been reduced to the occasional whisper or channel message from a character with an odd umlaut or whatnot in their name. Hopefully the update continues to hold water, and the gold sellers simply recede into the darkness from whence they came. Should the spammers ever return in force, we hope that NCsoft is ready to sweep an otherworldly banhammer of justice across their maw in a manner most pleasing to all of us in the community.

Aion's spam filter is bigger, stronger, faster originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Comment spam, lewd advertising, and stolen assets abound for Evony

Seraphina Brennan — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, Culture, MMO industry, Free-to-play, MMORTS

If you've been on the internet for longer than five minutes then you've probably run into ads for Evony, an online free-to-play browser real-time strategy game. The game is a medieval MMORTS, but you probably wouldn't be able to figure that out from some of their recent advertisements, most of which center around lingerie and women.

The game's unorthodox marketing strategy has been a target of the blogosphere for some time, starting back when they were still called Civony instead of their current title. During that time the company was caught by bloggers for stealing images without permission from other sites and using them for their game's marketing. Since then, the name has changed and new advertising has appeared, including an overuse of blog comment spam.

Interestingly enough, the company has denounced the use of spam amongst their users of the iEvony codes, calling it a "unethical" and "abusive."

The company may have more to worry about than just poor taste in marketing, as many sites are also noting that the game's art assets and writing assets have been ripped from other real-time strategy games. Things such as text from Civilization 4 to the castle sprites from Age of Empires have been found in the game, creating the feeling for some users that this developer, whoever it is, is not entirely on the legitimate side.

Comment spam, lewd advertising, and stolen assets abound for Evony originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The suit of Square-Enix spam

Seraphina Brennan — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, News items, Consoles, Legal

When reporting this story, the sentence, "Never give your e-mail to anyone you don't trust," seems to come to mind. A Japanese man was bombarded with account re-registration e-mails from Final Fantasy XI's PlayOnline launcher, eventually bringing him to the point where he called Square-Enix and asked them to stop sending him the e-mails. The odd part about all of this is that he never played, or even touched Final Fantasy XI.

It seems that one of the gil/item sellers in Japan got hold of his e-mail address, and was using it to create all of their accounts that they use to spam FFXI. Of course the accounts were banned shortly after their creation, but the gilseller continued using the e-mail, creating a tidal wave of spam for this man's e-mail client.

After calling Square-Enix and being told that they could not stop the messages from being sent to his inbox, the man took Square-Enix to court in early 2007. His case was originally denied, but he appealed and won. Now Japan's High Court has blocked Square-Enix's appeal, and the man has been awarded a whopping 56,000 yen. Yes, that's right, two years of legal wranglings for only 556 US dollars and a clean e-mail inbox.

The suit of Square-Enix spam originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lame scams still profitable in Guild Wars, over 1000 bans every week

James Egan — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Exploits, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion

Would you fall for this? (Please say 'no'...): A complete stranger approaches you on the sidewalk outside of your bank and shows you a rare coin he says is worth twenty thousand dollars. "I want to just give this coin to you," he says, "but I don't want anyone to know we did this... tax issues, you see." The stranger suggests putting it in your safe deposit box, but because he's so concerned about privacy, he wants access to your safe deposit box to be sure the rare coin gets there, with no one the wiser. The problem is that he can only get in there with your express permission...

We're guessing 99.99% of you would never get suckered by something asinine like this, but why then do people fall for the exact same thing in the virtual realm? Specifically, it seems that Guild Wars players regularly turn over their login info to account thieves in hopes of getting something for nothing, as mentioned by Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats. This ultimately leads to a continuous deluge of stolen accounts, tears, and rage.

Continue reading Lame scams still profitable in Guild Wars, over 1000 bans every week

Lame scams still profitable in Guild Wars, over 1000 bans every week originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reporting gold spammers in WAR now easier than ever

James Egan — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, Economy, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Warhammer Online, News items

The gold seller scourge has fallen upon Warhammer Online, as you've likely noticed. But Mythic Entertainment has taken some rather extreme measures to silence the incessant spamming. To help reach that goal, they're making it easier for players to report gold selling activity and harassment. In keeping with their zero-tolerance policy on gold spamming, Mythic states, "We are committed to making life as hard as we can for Gold Sellers in game and maximizing player enjoyment. To that end we have added a new tool to streamline the gold seller reporting process."

That tool is found within the Appeal Interface, as the stand-alone category "GOLD/PL SALES" -- and is not found within the Violation category (which is used for most other types of harassment) as you might expect. Submitting these appeals via the GOLD/PL SALES category is a straightforward matter, as shown below the cut:

Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

Continue reading Reporting gold spammers in WAR now easier than ever

Reporting gold spammers in WAR now easier than ever originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ask Massively: Make the bad people stop

Kevin Stallard — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Game mechanics, MMO industry, Making money, Opinion, Ask Massively

After a 2 week hiatus, Ask Massively is back and crankier than ever.

In fairness, I had a really good reason for my absence the last 2 weeks, and I would apologize except I'm not remotely sorry. I think you'll understand.

On to business. In this case, old business.

Dear Massively,

I have a question that I would like posed to the people who defend gold-farming, and the accompanying in-game spam. I had placed a gold farmer on ignore (as is my habit), when I realized that I was receiving spam from them, again! I messaged them back and requested, (none too politely) that they stop messaging me, as I did not want to buy their golds.

The messages obviously continued, or I wouldn't be writing this message. So! My question runs thusly: How do you defend the harmless/can be ignored, etc. argument, when the gold farmers are obviously finding ways around the game's built-in protections from spam, and are continuing to annoy/harass players, even when they are directly asked to stop?

-Grummsh

Continue reading Ask Massively: Make the bad people stop

Ask Massively: Make the bad people stop originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Warhammer mod automatically reports tell spammers

Samuel Axon — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, New titles, Warhammer Online, News items

According to a ticker at the Warhammer Online Herald, Mythic has banned over 4,000 WAR users for gold farming and selling. Now to further the battle, its representatives at the Herald have suggested that players download a third party UI mod called "Spam Me Not" which not only automatically blocks incoming gold seller spam tells, but reports the sender of the tell.

We haven't used the app, so we don't know how well it works. It might block legitimate tells from friends. If you try it out, tell us how that works for you.

The post at the Herald says that the mod is not endorsed by Mythic, although one would think that mentioning it on the official site is at least a tacit endorsement. Mythic did go on to say that players should continue using the game's built-in spam reporting features as well.

Warhammer mod automatically reports tell spammers originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Online currency sellers rip off players (shocker)

James Egan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, News items

Well, here we are again... certain people among EVE Online's player base who buy their isk from shady sites are the focus of another dev announcement. GM Grimmi just posted the following: "We have had a number of cases recently with hacked accounts and similar issues and we have found that a lot of them are directly connected with a certain website. This website sells ISK and supposedly EVE Time Codes (ETC), though the ETCs always turn out to be faulty or already used. Players that go to this website and do business with them are running a very high risk of getting keyloggers placed on their system and subsequently having their EVE accounts hacked, and ISK and assets removed. Customer Support cannot correct damages that result from problems with the security of username and passwords. We strongly urge everyone to keep their virus protection up to date and stay away from dodgy ISK seller websites."

Here's another novel idea. Admittedly it's a radical concept and some people might not be ready for it: Play the game and stop trying to buy your way to the top. That said, the ability to legitimately buy and sell ETC is supported by CCP Games, but only from the official ETC resellers, paired with a secure system of buying/selling ETC at the EVE website. The incidents that GM Grimmi describes, as have numerous other dev blogs in the past, stem from players shelling out cash for their isk, presumably from those spam bot sites that turn up in popular channels from time to time. Standard practice with the GMs is to give the isk buyer a negative wallet balance and force him or her to claw their way back up to a positive balance; CCP bans sellers but not buyers. But perhaps this is too lenient. Do you think these players should get banned for buying isk? How does your MMO of choice handle players who try to buy their currency and gear?

EVE Online currency sellers rip off players (shocker) originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reproducing isn't nearly as much fun in Second Life.

Shawn Schuster — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Interviews, Second Life, Academic, Education, Virtual worlds

This quote and many other gems are showcased in a recent Esquire article featuring Vint Cerf: the infamous "Father of the Internet". He talks about his views on everything from the future of the internet, pornography and a vindication of Al Gore's claim to have invented the Internet. He also expresses his concerns on spam and what he remembers as the first spam message ever. He says it was possibly as early as 1979 when the Digital Equipment Corporation sent a note around announcing a product demo, and Cerf's team didn't appreciate the advertisement in a business setting.

What we feel as one of the most interesting and pertinent parts of this assemblage of quotations is his thoughts on World of Warcraft being an actual benefit to the parenting process. He says "It may seem like sort of a waste of time to play World of Warcraft with your son. But you're actually interacting with each other. You're solving problems."

[Update: link to actual product demo spam added]

[Thanks Dan!]

Reproducing isn't nearly as much fun in Second Life. originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Complete redesign of TTH WoW database

Kyle Horner — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, News items

A database is always useful, especially so after going under the digital knife for a redesign. You could say after something like that it would be even more useful -- and you'd be right. Today, Ten Ton Hammer unveiled their completely redesigned World of Warcraft database to the world. It boasts all sorts of new features, such as being more user friendly and easier to navigate. We especially appreciate that the new database is now 100% gold seller-free, which means less spam for everyone involved.

Doing a quick look through the database reveals that they weren't lying about the more user friendly stuff. Not only is the entire database easier to navigate and find what you need, but it now also features a download-ready WoW addon that grabs all sorts of information while you play. You can then take your gathered info-bits and upload them to the database where you're given credit for your efforts. All the details on the new additions and changes are in this FAQ here in case you're interested.

Complete redesign of TTH WoW database originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Turbine adding to their arsenal for gold-spammer warfare

William Dobson — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Patches, News items

No one likes gold spamming. It's intrusive and annoying, and takes away from your enjoyment of a game. In Lord of the Rings Online, spam in the chat channels has been cracked down on in a big way recently, so the spammers have gone back to doing a lot more mail-based spam. A recent post on the official forums clued us in on what's next for the on-going battle in the spam wars.

Book 12 will include an option when viewing mail to "Report as Spam", greatly increasing the ease of reporting a character for the player, and getting the information back to Turbine much quicker than before. But the really big weapon here is a solution that should already be in place: "...and we now have the ability to delete all mail sent by a character, so some of it you'll never see at all before it's nuked."

The ball is in your court spammers.

Turbine adding to their arsenal for gold-spammer warfare originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Age of Conan interview on Uberguild podcast

Chris Chester — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:10:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Podcasts, Age of Conan, Interviews, New titles, Previews

In the latest episode of Uberguild's "Grenade" podcast, the boys sit down for a chat with Age of Conan designer Jason Stone. While we were prepared for a bit of a puff piece, you'll be happy to know that they actually take Mr. Stone to task, taking listener questions and generally raking Stone over the coals for specifics about the hotly-anticipated title.

Of particular interest was Stone's discussion about Funcom's choice to de-emphasize the role of healing classes in the traditional sense, moving away from the chain-healing prevalent in games like World of Warcraft. Their plan to achieve this involves proliferating cheap, readily-available healing potions, and giving the game's hybrid healing classes more heal over time abilities instead of spam heals. They also go into depth about the guilds, large-scale PvP, the siege system, and more. If you're anticipating AoC as much as we are, it's probably worth throwing on the iPod.

Age of Conan interview on Uberguild podcast originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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