Gold Spamming Solution

[Knightsong]

What about having web addresses, specifically the names of these supposed gold sites, banned from chat like bad language. So when a gold spammer tries to pimp their site endlessly in chat it just comes up as "******************************".

Another solution would be to autokick anyone who repeats the same phrase repeatedly in open chat. Like if you say website link removed three times in 30 seconds it kicks you out.

I think the first is the better of the two ideas, but what do you think?

[TastyTapioca]

What about having web addresses, specifically the names of these supposed gold sites, banned from chat like bad language. So when a gold spammer tries to pimp their site endlessly in chat it just comes up as "******************************".

Another solution would be to autokick anyone who repeats the same phrase repeatedly in open chat. Like if you say website link removed three times in 30 seconds it kicks you out.

I think the first is the better of the two ideas, but what do you think?


The first part could be bypassed by simply going website link removed or just website removed

However, I also thought the second solution you have would be GREAT in game. Censoring known webpages for farmers would be a great preventive tool.

[Twayblade]

I like the idea of banning websites from chat.. that seems like it could work. Although people could do something like "Tripple W DOT blahblah DOT com" or something to bypass it.

[Lorkhan]

I think it would be best to temp-ban a person for 24 hours if they repeat a phrase over and over, but only if it had a website url in it.:cool: Some new players, like me when I started, might just be having trouble figuring out how to exit the chat box.:eek:

Then again, I never read the guides or player helpers for games like this. I like to figure things out the hard way.;)

[Tamlinari]

I think it would be best to temp-ban a person for 24 hours if they repeat a phrase over and over, but only if it had a website url in it.:cool: Some new players, like me when I started, might just be having trouble figuring out how to exit the chat box.:eek:

Then again, I never read the guides or player helpers for games like this. I like to figure things out the hard way.;)

This is the best idea I have see so far and one that would actually work.
But you would not have to ban for 24 hours or make it specific to spams with urls, only auto kick the spammer and make them have to log in again.
That alone would be too much hassle for the bot spammers to have to deal with.
Simply auto kick anyone repeating the same text over and over.
The system could be refined to accommodate people calling out for a res.
Excellent idea.

Addendum:
99% of the credit has to go to Knightsong for originally proposing the idea.

GMs Give him a prize!

[Nerria]

Erm, the website thing would easily be tricked in seconds.

However, the auto-kick after repeating a phrase would be perfect. Just put it on a timer like - if you repeat a phrase repeatedly within 20 seconds you get auto-banned.

That way - newbies could ask over and over without getting kicked. If they actually spam the same question 30 times in 20 seconds they deserve to be kicked because they are batantly spamming.

An actual person not being a moron would ask once - if they don't get an answer, probably type it differently.

If someone goes: "how do i get in kq!?!?!?!?!"
Enter + Up Key over and over... well... good riddance in my opinion.

>.<

Good idea - just make it kick morons as well! =D

[berenim]

I say just silence them... Not in a way they recognize it. Mute them. Let them read their own spam, the chat channels everything, just stop broadcasting their messegas to others. I've seen this in chat systems and it worked like a charm. There we used this mute function to get rid of spammers or hostile people. Mute them, they spam (read their own spam), noone reacts, they get bored and leave...

Here: You mute them, they spam away happyly, don't create a new spambot, since they think they are acutally working and well.. that's it... Unfortunatly only if all works out perfect.

[Nerria]

I say just silence them... Not in a way they recognize it. Mute them. Let them read their own spam, the chat channels everything, just stop broadcasting their messegas to others. I've seen this in chat systems and it worked like a charm. There we used this mute function to get rid of spammers or hostile people. Mute them, they spam (read their own spam), noone reacts, they get bored and leave...

Here: You mute them, they spam away happyly, don't create a new spambot, since they think they are acutally working and well.. that's it... Unfortunatly only if all works out perfect.

Assuming that the programmers of them don't code in a recognizing flag that they are muted. Otherwise, this would be a golden idea. =D

[Knightsong]

Booting them off the game frees up space on the server to allow player who are there to actually play the game to play!

[Deedolith]

from a programmer point of view:
Bot softwares send character inputs to Fiesta using windows messages.

Back in MS-dos, we had 2 ways to read keyboard inputs:
- Either read the standard input (easyer since foreign keyboards are taken into consideration)
- Read directly from the keyboard buffer what we called "scancode" and use the bios table to translate the scancode into displayable characters if needed.

So, my 1st idea to prevent bots is to read the character input and the keyboard buffer to see if the corresponding scancode match. If that's not the case (there is nothing in the keyboard buffer), it mean inputs are soft sent (bot software obviously).

[Tamlinari]

from a programmer point of view:
Bot softwares send character inputs to Fiesta using windows messages.

Back in MS-dos, we had 2 ways to read keyboard inputs:
- Either read the standard input (easyer since foreign keyboards are taken into consideration)
- Read directly from the keyboard buffer what we called "scancode" and use the bios table to translate the scancode into displayable characters if needed.

So, my idea to prevent bots is to read the character input and the keyboard buffer to see if the corresponding scancode match. If that's not the case (there is nothing in the keyboard buffer), it mean inputs are soft sent (bot software obviously).

That sounds like a good way to detect bot spamming and then automatically kick and force them to log on again.
Still no need to ban so that no one gets banned by mistake.

[Deedolith]

I have no clue if Windows allow to read the hardware buffers directly tho.
Wich bring to m 2nd idea:
When you press a key, several events happen (I won't list them all). So, by checking if all the expected events are triggered, you can know if you have a true player or a bot behind the screen.

That sounds like a good way to detect bot spamming and then automatically kick and force them to log on again.
Still no need to ban so that no one gets banned by mistake.
Just block any "fake" inputs. A standing and disabled bot isn't any troubles.

[nachtwind]

from a programmer point of view:
Bot softwares send character inputs to Fiesta using windows messages.

Back in MS-dos, we had 2 ways to read keyboard inputs:
- Either read the standard input (easyer since foreign keyboards are taken into consideration)
- Read directly from the keyboard buffer what we called "scancode" and use the bios table to translate the scancode into displayable characters if needed.

So, my 1st idea to prevent bots is to read the character input and the keyboard buffer to see if the corresponding scancode match. If that's not the case (there is nothing in the keyboard buffer), it mean inputs are soft sent (bot software obviously).
No clue if Windows allow to readharcware buffers tho.
Wich bring to m 2nd idea:
When you press a key, several events happen (I won't list them all). So, by checking if all the expected events are triggered, you can know if you have a true player or a bot behind the screen.

Sounds very good, but back in Ultima Online there have been 'autopilots' (botlike things) that worked in the beginning that way. We tried such a solution for a short periode of time and came to the conclusion: useless.
Unfortunately such a thing increases the CPU usage and could, especially in 3D environments, lead to slower performance. Then also you can even emulate these events (end they were emulated soon after getting the modification running) - and thats not even complicated.. unfortunately.

Then the phrasebanning. You'd get rid of some goldspammers - but in the end would have about a thousand newbs a day who complain about getting banned in the forum - will THIS be better? Besides i have seen spammers doing this: "Buy Gold at way.to.go [BOGUS RANDUM STUFF]". That would evase such a system (or you could REGEX it, but WHO would suffer so much by free will and write a regex for that?).


*edit* I'd still propose a Karma and Reward system. How about being able to rate a player like rightclick him and approve or disapprove (like in this forum i think as well) him. If this happens often enough in a bad way someone gets muted/kicked/banned. Of course this has to be made unabusable
my2ct

[Knightsong]

I never offered the idea of banning anyone for spamming, just booting them when they did it.

[Cyrogen]

The trouble with in game methods, is there arn't really any good ones for a free MMO. Banning people that say the same thing?

"Hi come to www.IRGOLDSPAMMER" etc.

"www.IRGOLDSPAMMER has all you gold needs"

"Buy 100s for $10,000 at www.IRGOLDSPAMMER"

Rotating the message like that means it wont be detected as the same message.

Time delays between messages? They will find out what the delay is & have their message in the second after.

Booting them? GM's do that now. They log back on & continue.

Muting them? Was actually something I thought of myself a week ago, but they arn't on their own, they have other chars farming this silver that can see they've been muted. They'd find this one out pretty quick.

At this stage, I feel the best way is for us players to handle it ourselves with an ignore list. Count the amount of spammers in a town, probably 5 tops, teleport to town, ignore 5 people, continue playing with clean chat til the next one needs ignoring.

[FatalIncision]

I say just silence them... Not in a way they recognize it. Mute them. Let them read their own spam, the chat channels everything, just stop broadcasting their messegas to others. I've seen this in chat systems and it worked like a charm. There we used this mute function to get rid of spammers or hostile people. Mute them, they spam (read their own spam), noone reacts, they get bored and leave...

Here: You mute them, they spam away happyly, don't create a new spambot, since they think they are acutally working and well.. that's it... Unfortunatly only if all works out perfect.

Not too hard to figure out something is up once you realize you're the only one spamming to sell gold. And once someone figures it out then the jig is up and the mute thing would be useless.

[nightshaderz]

To the guy above me...this is fiesta and not Ragnarok. I've played ragnarok for many years (and was a GM on 2 sepereate private servers for bot control) and I agree SoS is like it. But Fiesta, is totally different :)

Back onto topic.

I know everyone hates World of Warcrap BUTTT they had a good thing going (when I last played) to get rid of the Goldspammers. Ofcourse, I don't know HOW it worked exactly...but one thing that could work is recording the IP of a person on a text file who repeats the same phrase over and over, using /s in towns. After a ceratin ammount of time, it will give a warning that you are spamming or so (perhaps something like an announcement only for that person so they hear a sound and read the message), meaning those unbot people wont get caught in an accident (people who are trying to go over bot sellers to sell their items and need to spam to do so...). Once they say that same message over a few more times, they get kicked and IP and perhaps even the text that was repeated logged. (Not sure how this would be implimented in the game, but if it's possible it would work nicely...) Next time they get kicked, it logs their IP again, and again. 3 times, and they get IP banned or so, by a GM and not the computer else that would be kindof bad XD. Then again...if someone gets IP banned accidently...just post it on the forums.

This idea may not work as people can periodically change their IPs and bypass the banning system. But something along those lines would be great. Or recruit a few new GMs to sit in town, record IPs of bot spammers and try to get rid of them since most IPs cant be fully changed (last 2-3 numbers only.)

Or just have a programm that auto-kicks anyone saying something pre-programmed into the program itself. For example: Welcome to www.fiestagold.com for the cheapest gold! (Or whatever...). The program will block the www automatically and fiestagold so anyone saying fiestagold will be kicked. That way if they happen to change their saying to: Welcome to www dot fiestagold dot com....they will also be kicked. But if they change it to w w w dot f i e s t a g o l d dot c o m....I have no idea XD

before this gets TOO long to read, I'll stop unless i think of any other ways of stopping this horrible gold spamming problem.

~NightShaderZ

[berenim]

A little addition to the mute thingy... let muted chars read their own anbd other muted chars spamming. This would make it harder for them to find out. So let's say 5 spammers, all muted, all get to tread their own spam and shout channel, that's it. Like muting pushes you to another chatgroup, that receives the shout channel, the channel itself, but only broadcasts to it's own group.

[Gravvi]

Ok the same phrase 3 times is good. Just make them so they can't say the same phrase in 30 seconds or u can't say anything until 10 seconds after u say something. The url thing can be bypassed in so many ways. But allowing people to say the same thing over and over for 3 min untill they get a response is so stupid. The issues isn't 100% what they are saying it is the fact they are spamming. I don't mind seeing someon advertise something but when there are 10 different people doing that u can't read anything else. (No i do not like gold spammers) And let people try and buy from the gold sellers. It is the persons fault for losing money and not getting anything. GMS does it say anywhere that buying from other websites is illegal(in rules or in a tutorial). IT should then if people get banned for buying gold then it is their own fault. And yes saying the same thing 3 is enough. You can repeat urself and not spam.

I know a solution to a bunch of things. IF you are in ur mushroom u cannot chat. People try and sell stuff from shouting. You could allow a chat box when ur in your mushroom. Make it like you open a private or public chat. THey can advertise something or just rant about stupid thing. That way they won't spam and they get their message across.

[MimutRice]

I like the idea of booting them from the server so they have to log in again.

I dont know much about programming or any of that jazz, but would it be possible to set something up that not only detects the same phrase over and over again, but possibly just looks for trigger words being used together. Looks for words like, gold, price, buy, site, cheap etc.. and say if it finds 3 or more of them in x amout of messages within a 30 second time frame it boots them.

Also, about the web site idea. I was just in Roumen and noticed that there are a few already adding spaces to the URL's

[Splixed]

Uh.. It's really as simple as having a GM log their IP and banning them that way...PERMANENTLY I also suggest putting in a chat cooldown so people can't spam to begin with.

[DarkCrystal]

game should pick up on word like com, www, dot, net, htm, and other net address word. then make it in to this "*****" as for spamming. i like your idea having auto kick out:D

[jqntaylor]

I like the scam police thing! I like bieng in authority and doing what it takes to make our world a good place

[teegra]

Let me tell you something about all the spam bots and bots in general we all see in games like Fiesta, they are extremely hard to get rid of. I play and have played SRO for some time, Silk Road Online for anyone that doesn't know what the abbreviation stands for, and to this day they STILL haven't taken care of all the bots that play that game. There are tons of people in towns spamming to sell gold and tons of bots playing the game to interrupt your gaming experience.

All these suggestions are great suggestions but I will tell you that not a one of them will work for very long unless the people of Fiesta are down right dirty about the whole thing and ban the IP address PERMANENTLY. Even this will eventually be overcome by the people that are selling and farming the gold for these types of games or any game for that matter. These people with these bot programs do nothing but spend their time making them and when you put a patch in to overcome them it isn't more then 2 days and they have a new bot to get past the new patch. It is a vicious circle that no one in the gaming industry has seemed to come up with a solution for yet.

Am I saying don't try any of these suggestions? Hell no, try them all. I am simply saying that they may work for a short period until such time as the people find a way around them and they WILL find a way around them. Go to any search engine and type in a search for bot programs for any game and you will get a list that is as long as your arm. People do this for a living and there doesn't seem to be anything games, or the people that want to play the game the way it was intended to be played, can do about it.

I see this on the forums for SRO all the time and the company keeps putting patches in to stop the bots and gold spammers but none of them work for long as I stated earlier. It may be that there is something more going on behind the scenes that we as players don't see but, for a game that can completely stop the gold spammers and the bots I give them a high 5 and a big kodos.

[jqntaylor]

Let me tell you something about all the spam bots and bots in general we all see in games like Fiesta, they are extremely hard to get rid of. I play and have played SRO for some time, Silk Road Online for anyone that doesn't know what the abbreviation stands for, and to this day they STILL haven't taken care of all the bots that play that game. There are tons of people in towns spamming to sell gold and tons of bots playing the game to interrupt your gaming experience.

All these suggestions are great suggestions but I will tell you that not a one of them will work for very long unless the people of Fiesta are down right dirty about the whole thing and ban the IP address PERMANENTLY. Even this will eventually be overcome by the people that are selling and farming the gold for these types of games or any game for that matter. These people with these bot programs do nothing but spend their time making them and when you put a patch in to overcome them it isn't more then 2 days and they have a new bot to get past the new patch. It is a vicious circle that no one in the gaming industry has seemed to come up with a solution for yet.

Am I saying don't try any of these suggestions? Hell no, try them all. I am simply saying that they may work for a short period until such time as the people find a way around them and they WILL find a way around them. Go to any search engine and type in a search for bot programs for any game and you will get a list that is as long as your arm. People do this for a living and there doesn't seem to be anything games, or the people that want to play the game the way it was intended to be played, can do about it.

I see this on the forums for SRO all the time and the company keeps putting patches in to stop the bots and gold spammers but none of them work for long as I stated earlier. It may be that there is something more going on behind the scenes that we as players don't see but, for a game that can completely stop the gold spammers and the bots I give them a high 5 and a big kodos.i agree and disagree, they may not completely stop gold spammers but at the same time getting rid of just one of them could save someone trouble during a conversation or something.

[cyberwin]

I still think the best option is to let us have a ignore list so we can just right click the offending spammers message in chat or on the offending char and ignore them. Then we can carry on with are chatting and all be merry little chatters :D

[Haruhi_Suzumiya]

Not sure if this works, but how about just giving players the ability to block people?

Like an extra option along "add" and "whisper" called "Block" then what they say will no longer show up in the chat box. It may still show in the chat bubble above their head but that won't bother people I think.

Edit: Like Cyberwin said.

[Hydr0]

the part about ban pepole who say the same not good.
cuz the botters will auto change what they say every 2 lines.
they will have:
Buy Now 10S for 1$
then after few times
You can Buy 10S for 1$..
so it won't work.