/5 Trade(Services) spam ofc

[Speedahx-dun-modr (Speedahx)]

Hi,

I know most of you guys have faced this at least once in your WoW life; I’m talking about the /2 (or /5) level 1 advertisers.

In this post, I would like to discuss about the necessity of adding some sort of filter for those general chats, such as level-based or time-played based, or both, because there’s a problematic that Blizzard might (or might not) have forgotten.

Trade services, aka boosting, is a thing that has been in WoW since its beginnings, however, it was few years (or months; can’t remember by hearth) ago when it went out of hand with all of those LFG boosts everywhere.

Blizzard did some stuff, tweaked some things here and there, and limited the LFG usage to low level characters, which helped alot infact, reducing the annoying spam groups in several pages from LFG.

However, this fix was the tip of the spear, and it’s been silently like that for few months now; but it came to me again when, today, I tryed to sell some stuff in the general trade chat (/2 /5).

It’s hilarious to see alot of level 1 characters (who, obviously, aren’t from the server) spamming on cooldown all of those macros with 255 characters spamming all the same; m+ boost, ahead of the curve boost, lvl 10-70 boost, and whatever content is fashionable nowadays; not because of the boost itself which, I’m not against; but because they spam the chat so much, that it is impossible to offer my own services in my server; and makes me unable to kickstart my bussiness because I have no visibility.

There are more reasons to be against the lvl 1 spammers, some would argue that they acting as the old WoWmarket or offering services for RMT, but those aren’t my war, I’m only against the macro-spam fiesta.

If it could be in my own hand to fix that, I’d add a restriction of minimum lvl 39 in order to use a text macro that sends messages through a public channel, such as /2 or /5; but I know that it’s kinda complex to code; so I’d go and investigate all the gold and activities that those lvl 1 accounts are into; check who are the buyers, and who are the boosters, and see if everything’s legit; wich probably everything is legit, but at least, it would reduce the ammount of unbearable spam in every server.

Cheers

[anon8701015]

I think only level 70 chars should be able to advertise there and the account must be older than 3 months for example. I also think it’s kind of weird to see so many level 1 boost spammers there.

[Saneko-ragnaros (Saneko)]

If the level cap goes up then the botters would just bot themselves right up there so nothing would change with the spam.

Though Hokage’s age requirement would be interesting and may mitigate spammers somewhat up to the point that their massed accounts are old enough but not stop hijacked accounts for example.

Blizzard also only check players through reports. After which a very long investigation occurs for all parties involved in suspected goldselling so this isn’t quite new just takes a long time.

[anon8701015]

@Saneko-ragnaros

If the level cap goes up then the botters would just bot themselves right up there so nothing would change with the spam.

Though Hokage’s age requirement would be interesting and may mitigate spammers somewhat up to the point that their massed accounts are old enough but not stop hijacked accounts for example.

They could also add some sort of achievement requirement like the requirement to be a guide in the newcomer’s chat. For example 10k achievement points and a certain account age. I wish them good luck with this. Especially if blizzard bans them, it will probably not be worth it to keep selling time-wise, and maybe they move to another game.

I also bought services in the past, but I would prefer being able to buy a leveling boost for example from actual players on my server, even if the cost would go up a lot. Services is so heavily spammed, it’s impossible to find actual players who are on their actual character.

[Speedahx-dun-modr (Speedahx)]

@Saneko-ragnaros

If the level cap goes up then the botters would just bot themselves right up there so nothing would change with the spam.

Indeed; but if a botter is spamming in /2, he will not get enough reports because most people will just ignore the message and read the next one; however, if the character needs to be more level, and it’s gonna be leveled with bootting, It’s risking more reports which can result in an enough threat to reduce the ammount of spammers; not the 100%, but let’s say an average of 50% of people willing to risk it; and the reduction would be noticeable even more through the servers, because not every botter would ding a lvl 39-70 in every server to fish a customer every now and then.

Also, about Blizzard’s actions, I’m sure that the metadata analyst science has grown enough through the years to develop a tool that would identify the fishy patterns automaticly, and scale the evidences to a human team that would doublecheck that. They have the money, but it seems that they aren’t willing to invest for quality.

[Shatogtar-sanguino]

Why dont you filter it? You have the correct tool for.

[Speedahx-dun-modr (Speedahx)]

@Shatogtar-sanguino

Why dont you filter it? You have the correct tool for.

I could, but my potential customers would too?

[Shatogtar-sanguino]

Wow, a politically correct action: demanding rights for others xD.

Wokecism.

[Speedahx-dun-modr (Speedahx)]

It’s like I have a technician who repairs my bathroom pipes.
With the time (short), a small leak appears somewhere, and instead of comming back and fix it, he suggests me to use an empty water bucket to collect the water replying: “Why don’t you use the tool that I told you?”

@Shatogtar-sanguino

Wow, a politically correct action: demanding rights for others xD.

Wokecism.

Not rly, It’s for my own bussiness. I want people to see my advertisemets above from the others. I’m okay competeing with legit human beings trying to sell their stuff too. I’m not okay competeing with people with lvl 1 characters spamming a macro on 8 accounts at a time on different servers.

jUst uSE THe tOOl

[Demonseed-frostmane (Demonseed)]

I havent seen a public chat channel in 15 years.

[Beerwolf-sunstrider (Beerwolf)]

Grab BadBoy addon. It does a great job of tackling spam.

[Razgard-draenor]

@Speedahx-dun-modr

In this post, I would like to discuss about the necessity of adding some sort of filter for those general chats, such as level-based or time-played based, or both, because there’s a problematic that Blizzard might (or might not) have forgotten.

Not really how that helps, since i can 100% guarantee that anyone advertising will clear any time-played or level metric. Everyone of those are long term players with some serious gold.

@Speedahx-dun-modr

Trade services, aka boosting, is a thing that has been in WoW since its beginnings, however, it was few years (or months; can’t remember by hearth) ago when it went out of hand with all of those LFG boosts everywhere.

More than a few years.

@Speedahx-dun-modr

It’s hilarious to see alot of level 1 characters (who, obviously, aren’t from the server) spamming on cooldown all of those macros with 255 characters spamming all the same; m+ boost, ahead of the curve boost, lvl 10-70 boost, and whatever content is fashionable nowadays; not because of the boost itself which, I’m not against; but because they spam the chat so much, that it is impossible to offer my own services in my server; and makes me unable to kickstart my bussiness because I have no visibility.

It is more about number of advertisers than spam by itself.

If you remember this patch cross server trading became a thing, this means that advertisers (not only low level but any advertisers) are encouraged to advertise in high pop realms, even if boosters are in low pop servers. This drives up the number of people advertising their services.

@Speedahx-dun-modr

If it could be in my own hand to fix that, I’d add a restriction of minimum lvl 39 in order to use a text macro that sends messages through a public channel, such as /2 or /5; but I know that it’s kinda complex to code; so I’d go and investigate all the gold and activities that those lvl 1 accounts are into; check who are the buyers, and who are the boosters, and see if everything’s legit; wich probably everything is legit, but at least, it would reduce the ammount of unbearable spam in every server.

It would do nothing.

If someone is advertising for services in wow, investing a miniscule amount into a boost or even time to level up, is nothing. Your problem is that there are just TOO many advertisers/buyers for an ancient 10 lines chat window to be useful.

Sorry but if the description of your services is between 2-4 lines, at any time it is impossible for more than 3-4 advertisements to be shown at the same time. With some hundred to thousands of players playing at the same time, this method is just not feasible for proper communication.

[Moontear-ravencrest (Moontear)]

trade chat is filled with casino slot machine spamming professions and items that they can craft. I mean, it’s an addon that spams every 10 secs. SO annoying.

same like services, just less annoying since i just left that chat.

[Sumpls-silvermoon]

@Speedahx-dun-modr

but because they spam the chat so much, that it is impossible to offer my own services in my server; and makes me unable to kickstart my bussiness because I have no visibility.

And this right here is why some of the boosters has decided its worth taking the punishment (whatever that is) and start advertising in /2 again atleast its occuring on populated realms. one person shows up untill muted (i think) then its silent fora day then comes the next one and starts a advertising spree fully aware of what they are doing, its a price they feel is worthy taking since /5 is complete chaos. Same website everyday, wont name it. Im fine with boosting for gold but i dont want that back in /2

[Karluk-outland]

@Speedahx-dun-modr

If it could be in my own hand to fix that, I’d add a restriction of minimum lvl 39 in order to use a text macro that sends messages through a public channel, such as /2 or /5; but I know that it’s kinda complex to code; so I’d go and investigate all the gold and activities that those lvl 1 accounts are into; check who are the buyers, and who are the boosters, and see if everything’s legit; wich probably everything is legit, but at least, it would reduce the ammount of unbearable spam in every server.

I usually /leave trade and services immediately because of this spamming problem. It’s much common in big realms. Yes lvl restriction could reduce it a bit but it won’t solve the problem completely. Zones/maps were unplayable before layering the players in the zone. Maybe same kind of stuff can be done for big populated realms as well. For example, if there are 100 players in trade channel, divide it to 5/10 layers and it will reduce the spam a lot.

@anon8701015

I think only level 70 chars should be able to advertise there and the account must be older than 3 months for example. I also think it’s kind of weird to see so many level 1 boost spammers there.

This is also a good one. Maybe we should add auction house restriction to this as well. lvl1-10 characters are used a lot with channel spamming/auction botting so adding these restrictions will be positive.

[Gram-ghostlands (Gram)]

/5 leave

/sigh

[Tyssera-ravencrest]

Do real players even have those channels active? I had no idea.

I thought it was just bots talking to bots.

[Shatogtar-sanguino]

@Tyssera-ravencrest

Do real players even have those channels active? I had no idea.

I thought it was just bots talking to bots.

You can always put those channels in other chat-tab, but it seems its only for hardcore players.

Also there’s a few addobs which works perfectly filtering messages. Or even some like “Elephant” to save all the messages shown on your chat-tabs.

[Tahra-earthen-ring (Tahra)]

I just turn off the channels. Peace and quiet is good.
There certainly is no reason to keep the services channel active, unless you’re a player who is actually looking for a boost; in which case, imo, you deserve all the mess that comes with being in that channel.

[Amonet-ravencrest]

Just leave /trade(services) chat, most people have and try selling your stuff on /trade.