Blizzard: Clean up your own game!

Q u o t e:

Actually, this is not true. Free Trial have restrictions that prevent players from using Chat channels. They CAN'T spam. There's even an up to 72 hour delay on upgrading online to prevent the crooks from using stolen cards to do so and then using the account to spam. Those restrictions are already a nuisance to legitimate players - but they do prevent Free Trials from being used that way.

The actual accounts used to spam are stolen accounts.

Restricting characters up to a certain level is not a solution. Stolen accounts just mean the crooks run botting software to level up to whatever minimum is set. And meanwhile, again, adding such restrictions would make things more complicated for legitimate players.

For the criminal account thieves it is a very profitable setup. There are enough players who think they're more important or that the rules don't really matter and pay real world cash for gold, epics, characters, even accounts. That cash funds developing nasty malware and the hardware involved in sending out all the variants on spam and phishing attempts. The product they deliver for that cash is obtained through stealing player's account. In fact, even their customers are fair game. As long as they've gotten paid, they don't really care is they don't deliver or that they're delivering stolen goods that will lead to account bans.

Remove the cash-flow, and the "industry" would dry up. However, if there's even a dozen potential customers out there, there's massive competition for that cash - and the spam seems to be everywhere. And as long as there's another dozen folk falling for a phishing scam or getting their computer infected, there's "product" to sell.


Honestly, the best action as fellow players to address sapm is hitting right-click and [Report Spam] the moment we see another. Enough do it and the account is muted / suspended very fast, then reviewed and locked down as compromised. Fast response means the stolen account is no longer accessible to the crooks, so they have to move on to the next.

On top of that, we can educate and warn our fellow players. There's always going to be new players who "don't know that buying gold is wrong" or who would fall for those "your account in violation currency" phishing scams. I've been in raids where we got "free trial zebra mount" whispers and at least one or two in Vent got excited until the scam was explained.

Eilethalua's post is spot on, and beautifully written. I'm quoting it in the hopes that those reading this thread read it twice.

I'd also like to address some of the misconceptions I saw quoted in this thread directly:

Q u o t e:
Unfortunately it's quite obvious that the customer service in this game has declined considerably. It's probably a combination of short staffing and employees being pulled to other projects, such as the Starcraft release or the new MMO.

I'm sorry if you feel that the service we offer has declined. I will respectfully disagree that our service has declined, however. In fact, we do more to help our players than we ever have in the past and we continue to find ways to make the play experience of our fellow players better. Additionally, the other games in development have literally zero impact on our support for World of Warcraft at this time.

Q u o t e:
Report Spam is just a temporary ignore that lasts until you log off that character. It doesn't report anything.

Report Spam does temporarily ignore all characters on an offending account - that is correct. The assertion that it does not also issue a report is completely false, however. I would encourage those who witness spam whispers or emails to make use of the Report Spam feature to allow our staff the opportunity to investigate.

Q u o t e:
people have to understand that in order to get rid of most of the gold spam would mean to discontinue free trials.

Actually, there are measures in place to limit the impact that maliciously created trial accounts can have on gameplay. I think it's safe to say that a preponderance of unsavory activities that currently occur within World of Warcraft are perpetrated on compromised accounts.

Q u o t e:
Blizzard can't control the world.

Too true, and justly so. We do our absolute best to make sure that the the aspects that are under our control provide the best possible experience for our players, and we'll continue to work to devise better methods to do so.

Q u o t e:
Anyone think that the gold farmers are pressing this so much is because less and less people are buying? Think about it.

A possibility. The fact remains that as long as there are those who will invest real currency to purchase exploitative services, these influences will continue to assault the game space:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/antigold.html

The bottom line that I was hoping to get at is that we can and do take steps to prevent these influences from ever reaching our players, we certainly do value reports, and we take the quality of the environment that we provide extremely seriously.

I have noticed some misconceptions regarding how Trade should work, however. Allow me to state that, as of now, players may use Trade how they wish, provided that they otherwise abide by our policies. While appropriate use definitely excludes 'body part' spam, profanity and other inappropriate language, it is not currently a violation of our policies to (for example) recruit for guilds in Trade, assemble raid groups, etc. It is best to restrict your Report Spam reports to "true spam" and advertisements. We've also provided special dispensation to use the feature for 'body part' and other fad spam.

When confronted with inappropriate or offensive language though, it is much better to submit an in-game petition including the name and realm of the offending player, as well as an excerpt of what was said. It might be a good idea to review our policies pages for more information on how account penalties work and for more information on what constitutes a violation of our policies:

Account Penalties
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=20221

Harassment Policies
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=20455

Q u o t e:
I agree completely. In reality it seems to me that it would be a GOOD thing to have actual LIVE GM's in game to look at and monitor things like spam, chat, etc. They have far to long been "hand offs" and it needs to change.

There are very good reasons why our response to these issues is reactive rather than proactive. We've covered this exhaustively in the past, and here are some links that explain in greater detail:

Game Master Proactive Policing Feasibility
https://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=86808775&sid=1#7

If you should have any further questions, I'd be happy to clarify if I can.

Q u o t e:
A lot of the blue and green posts in here would make a lot more sense if they applied sufficient solutions to the game. However, when you consider in-game flaws such as the one currently allowing compromised accounts to fly under Wintergrasp, and use gathering professions to farm up unheard of quantities of materials without conflict with other players, mobs, or other obstacles provided by the design of the zone, and recognize that this is something that has been pointed out for as long as the zone has been active, you come to grips with the fact that the system is broken.

I feel that it's important to point out that the activities in that zone (indeed, anywhere) have not been static or ignored. There is an ebb and flow in the activities of those responsible, largely because we have been in an ongoing 'conflict' with the exact form of exploitation you mentioned. We will implement measures to stop it, and then new methods come to light. It seems as though an easy solution should be available, but I'm afraid that isn't the case.

Q u o t e:
Simply put, when any other company finds out that their customers are being stolen from, they don't wait so that they better understand the methods using by the thieves. They find a solution, and they implement it.

We do very much the same, actually. Surprisingly enough, those whose exploitation we'd very much like to end permanently don't just give up when we make current methods impossible. Instead, they find new and imaginative ways to achieve the same goals, or move on to a different technique entirely.

Q u o t e:
I'd imagine a simple hotfix could prevent toons from moving beneath the map. If a player moves below a given point on the vertical scale in the Wintergrasp zone, they receive the Fatigue debuff. Or they're dismounted. Or they're ported to the nearest graveyard.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, there are no simple solutions. There certainly seem to be misconceptions regarding how simple changes are to make =/. I would even go so far as to say the complex solutions are not so complete, available, or even as effective as one would like. To use a metaphor; you want to stop the rats from eating your grain in the silo, so you fill the silo with cats, then the rats might just move into the kitchen and chew a hole into the pantry. This is why information gathering becomes necessary - to build a body of knowledge which gives us an edge in ending exploitation and keeps us a step ahead as we move forward.

If you have ideas that you think might be useful in our efforts toward making World of Warcraft free of exploitation, please feel free to contribute them via our Suggestions forum, where are development staff can have an opportunity to review them.

Q u o t e:

Those people you see are hacked accounts with high levels on them. Trial accounts can't whisper for that very reason. :]

Correct.

Q u o t e:
Thank you for clarifying this, I did not know. I suppose in that situation there is nothing viable that can be done on the spot outside of "report spam".

Ah well.

Indeed. Well, Report Spam and encouraging your friends and guild mates to ensure that their accounts remain secure:

Account Hacked? Security Issue? Look Here!
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24702231244&sid=1