Fed up with ingame gold whispers
by Mike Schramm 
Apr 12th 2007 at 11:08AM
Like Sniffledoo, I'm done with it. This ingame gold whispering is getting worse and worse, and it's time something drastic was done about it.If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can consider yourself lucky, but I'm guessing it's become pretty widespread by now (at first, I'd just chalked it up to being on a high population server). Spammers are almost constantly sending whispers ingame to buy and sell gold and powerlevel characters. Blizzard has of course said that they are banning players who get reported as spammers, but, also like Sniffledoo, I think it's time they went another step-- it's time to go after the sites that are doing it.
As always, IANAL, but clearly we know where these spam messages are coming from-- they are being sponsored by the sites advertised (I can, unfortunately, list a few of them off the top of my head, but I won't link to any of them, because they just don't deserve it). Does Blizzard have a legal claim against these sites for ruining the player experience and consistently breaking the TOS? If they have documented this activity, couldn't they take it to court and at least sue these sites for ruining the game experience?
It's gotten to the point where I would almost be willing to agree to a TOS that says "I agree to be sued for spamming" if it means Blizzard has a better legal footing against these idiots. Reporting these players is the best thing to do right now (even though these are alts that are just created and deleted, maybe even in a matter of minutes), and there are even addons now that will block and report this stuff for us, but why can't Blizzard do more? Why haven't they gone after the sites sponsoring this junk?
Update: A couple of people have already mentioned the gold links on this site-- in case you missed it, we are constantly working to get rid of them. WoW Insider does not condone or endorse any activities that are against the TOS, including powerleveling and gold buying and selling.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Economy, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
IMAHunter Apr 12th 2007 11:44AM
Anyone know of a mod to ignor all tells from characters less than say lvl 5 ?
Aurendar Apr 12th 2007 11:47AM
Fortunately I don't get those messages popping up all the time. I just launch the combat log and 'walah!!' no more spam! (of course, I don't get any other messages...)
Scruffy Apr 12th 2007 11:48AM
@13
I imagine most people don't think of that because it does nothing good for anyone. Frankly, if some idiot thinks it's worth $168 to get a level 70 character, well, a fool and his money will soon be parted.
If Blizzard was behind all these tells, then all they're doing is pissing off a lot of players.
Add my vote to limiting tells to level 5+ players (unless the player you're trying to /t has you on their friends list, maybe?).
cuddlebug Apr 12th 2007 11:50AM
One more Cash reference and you win!
Sarah Apr 12th 2007 11:51AM
I was going to suggest that trial accounts be banned from whispering but as #15 stated they already can't (can you really not whisper in trial? it's been so long I can't remember) .
There are ways for Blizzard to ban IP adresses if they want (neopets can do it) and if they are legitimate accounts they have all of the company's credit card info too, so they could block that card from making anothere account. There are ways to get around this but its a lot more costly to get a new credit card everytime you get banned. I'm sure they'll find ways but anything that slows them down they might find it less profitable, and, oh yeah, don't buy from gold sellers because if it wasn't working they wouldn't be doing it.
Falgorn Apr 12th 2007 11:52AM
Looking at this from a legal perspective is a little complicated to get into, but let's start with the very basic stuff.
1. Jurisdiction
This is a huge problem. These sites may operate out of a foregin jurisdiction, and Blizzard would be required to take action through domestic courts.
2. Actual damage?
Can Blizzard prove that they have lost revenue from the actions of these sites?
Have people played less, or left the game as a result?
Blizzard has no competing system so can not claim loss of profit.
They could potentially claim under the idea of 'loss of chance' ie, loss of the abilitity to set up their own gold service, but they would need to prove that they intended to and were taking steps to implementing such a service.
Certainly Gold Selling has an affect on WoW, but is it enough to form the basis of a civil action? I doubt it.
If you look at WoW as a property instead of as a commercial entity, then you can start to consider the area of 'nuisance' law, which this problem seems to fall quite nicely into. However it requires quite a stretch of existing definition and really is something that would requrie novel though to say the least.
There are hundreds of small areas of law that could be invoked to support an action by Blizzard, ranging from Privety of contract to fraud but with the number of sites operating and the lack of a firm legal basis with which to challenge their operation, I really think they should look for an internal remedy, by banning accounts and keeping a close scheptical eye on money transfer.
That and Ban anyone under level 10 from using the whisper system should help!
Don't have time to re read above so apologies for spelling error.
Sarah Apr 12th 2007 11:53AM
*another
Strongmark on Arthas Apr 12th 2007 11:54AM
@ 9 Mr B:
This website does try to report the bad advertising that is provided by another company (there was a thread on this, which I dont have a link too, sorry). Google provides advertising for this site and when these spammers put up their website they include being in the WoW category (as so is this blog site), the advertisements appear here.
Hell, there is a periodical ad that appears on thsi site via Google which is "Put WOW back into your photos" which has nothing to do with the game itself, but only because googles ad has "WOW" in it and this is WOW insider, it links it as a proper advertisement for this site.
WoWinsider has never condoned the use of gold sellers or powerlevellers. Atleast not to my knowledge.
Ryan Apr 12th 2007 11:55AM
I really like Imogynn's idea.
But I think Blizzard would have a case in court based on the spammers' use of it's servers and intellectual property in unauthorized ways (stealing server time, basically). They should bring lawsuits against the sponsoring sites in states that have anti-spam laws on the books. Just like a spam email costs time and money, so does in-game spamming.
I would love to be able to block tells from certain levels of players, though. That would also be a nice feature to implement.
Karl Apr 12th 2007 12:02PM
@3. The armory is HARDLY the only way to get the information of who is playing. All I have to do is run a little script using the "WHO" function for a Zone or whatever I want. The script can then list out everyone who is currently playing and automatically set up a little Whisper script to react to those names. It whispers everyone who was on at the time that I ran my script (only takes a couple of seconds). The Armory is, in fact, about the most inefficient way to find information for spamming purposes. It is, however, probably the best method that people are using to spam Mail to my mailbox asking to sell gold, etc. This is because they can do it while I am not even on. It would take them more time, but they could use it.
As for the Armory...I still love the thing. Its here to stay. Get over it.
siorai Apr 12th 2007 12:04PM
Sure, the whispers are annoying, but seriously are they really *that* annoying? I mean come on, it's some pink text on your screen. It's not like some fullscreen window pops up, completely stopping your game. Just take a deep breath, look away from the pink text, and keep playing.
Another thing to think about: replying to them just lets them know that you're paying attention. Stop replying. You might feel that you're "sticking it to them" by replying with vulgarities, but you're not. You're just stressing yourself out even further all over nothing.
Juanca Apr 12th 2007 12:04PM
Hey, about those "A present from Argent Dawn" in-game mails? Does anyone else get those? They're actually kind of funny, since they're horribly written and all, but still...
Drifter Apr 12th 2007 12:09PM
"Add my vote to limiting tells to level 5+ players (unless the player you're trying to /t has you on their friends list, maybe?)."
Shoot, make it level 15+ unless the person is on their friends list or in the same guild.
I'm rather tired of it as well. Both the /w spam and the mailbox messages.
First, for /w spam, I think Blizzard should streamline the process of reporting them and let us avoid the GM's. I don't really want to mess around with a ticket and speaking with a GM cause then it's taking up even more of my time.
Second, take a page from EQ2 and provide an option on mail to report it with one click of a button (right with the reply, delete buttons). This reports the message as well as deleting it all within a single click.
Baluki Apr 12th 2007 12:09PM
Removing the ability to whisper from players under lvl. 10 or so should do the trick. Honestly, how many real newbie players even know that the whisper system exists? I can recall a time where I was standing outside WC using /s to try to get a group together because I had no idea how to use the chat channels.
How many actual newbies are going to miss the removal of whispers?
On the legal side, can you sue someone for breaking your TOS? Not that it would do them much good.
I think Blizz (or the game community itself) need to embrace a new tactic: hacking. If they would hire some hackers to take down these gold sites whenever they pop up, the problem would be decreased significantly. When the legal system fails you, sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. Hell, they could probably even pay the hackers with free WoW accounts.
If Blizz wanted to, maybe they could set up their own gold-selling site, to qualify for the "loss of chance" statute that Falgorn mentioned. Then they could set up outrageous prices (1g for $1,000) so nobody would ever use the service.
NotALawyerEither Apr 12th 2007 12:18PM
While I heartily agree with several of the points made earlier about the legalities in the violation of the TOS, I do disagree with the consensus in how it should be dealt with. I believe Blizzard has inadvertently created the gold farming market by overpricing in-game items.
The reason gold farming exists is simple supply and demand. The amount of hours spent farming the gold honestly to buy an epic flying mount is prohibitively expensive for many players to do in the time they wish to achieve it. If Blizzard made it so that you could buy anything in game in, say, 5 days of solo gold farming at about 2 hours per day, then the gold market as we know it would disappear 5 days later.
This could be accomplished easily by a) increasing gold drop rate from mobs or b) increasing buyout prices from vendors substantially or c) increasing gold from quest rewards.
Some would argue that a devaluation of items would crash the economy of WoW. This at best is a nuisance to 2% of the wow population. 1% being those who have the time to do everything in game the honest way, and 1% being those who have the ability to exploit the game for monetary gain (gold farmers). The rest of the population would stand to gain greatly and would lose nothing except actual bank account numbers.
The real problem with this strategy is this: Blizzard makes more revenue the longer it takes for players to do anything in-game. The real reason they are concerned about the gold farming market is primarily the shortening of the time individual players are spending in game, and secondarily the annoyance of spam.
Tyler Apr 12th 2007 12:21PM
Whoever said "WoW Insider has gold ads" well you're incorrect. See that little tag "Ads by Google". If you do a Google search for World of Warcraft or WOW it will come up with 10 gold farming/lvling companies for every 1 fan site. Thus, you got gold farming ads instead of fan sites up there. Sad, very very sad.
Kyane Apr 12th 2007 12:24PM
There's a mod ( Forgotten Chat ) that allows you to block tells from anyone not on your friends list, below a certain level, or on your alias list ( alts of your friends for example ). It alerts you when it blocks something, but at least you don't see the spam.
Halicante Apr 12th 2007 12:29PM
I don't see why they bother people so much. I just skim over them, recognize it as spam, then go on with life. There is no point in reporting them really or getting all irate over it.
Adam Apr 12th 2007 12:32PM
#24's made me think of the perfect way to stop these gold sellers: Blizzard should create an official way to buy gold, directly from them at no risk of banning or anything. That would certainly stop the gold sellers, because who would buy from www.chinese-gold-farmers.com when you could buy gold from www.worldofwarcraft.com
Of course, Blizzard would probably never do this.
TwhiT Apr 12th 2007 12:33PM
Just use the add-on SpamSentry. it works well.
And if you are like me and don't like to talk to a GM all the time just to report these crap-tastic websites, just send the GM the report before you log for the night.
They still get the report and you don't have to bother w/ GMs ^_^