Sorry for bringing this idea back

We already had a talk about it, but there are some trends that start and we can't always have a full control over it. The idea was brang up when the forum spambots were being mean to us, now those spambots are all over Arlor.

We do understand the fact that some issues must NOT be judged by the players, but there are some obvious problems that can be solved by normal people like us.

I highly suggest that STS opens a special unit of players that secretly report spambots with an hour ban or so or create temporary mute. Those players will have a priority over reports because they are very carefully chosen by STS and the cases are very simple and straight. Therefore they must be rules for them to respect too. There are many other simple problems that can be solved by those special players.


Its not about being superior to anyone, its just making things better for arlor... Secretly. :)

Edit:

I'm not asking for special players with purple or cyan names; or a special vanity (like Star Guard... that made sooo many players jealous - I'm one of them jelly nubs); or a special button for us. It's just a programming line in your system that detects our account's report and give them an automatic reply: the reported player is muted for a 30 min time span and the support technician receives a flagged report for him to check out and take actions right away. Please think about it again.

I think it's a great idea... Integrity Patrol, lol

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

Agreed ... I think it's a great idea and STS should really consider that ^_^

I wanna be a spambot police !!!

If this is about the (w)(eb)(site)(.)(c)(o)(m) type of spam.. I think it can be fixed easily if you make every town map except windmoore (1st one) to be level 2+. since bots are level 1 and cant gain any XP points anyway[emoji14]

-Mim

i dont think this post is about that spam peoples. i am confused. who do u mean drgnclwz?

-Mim

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Originally Posted by Mimmay

If this is about the (w)(eb)(site)(.)(c)(o)(m) type of spam.. I think it can be fixed easily if you make every town map except windmoore (1st one) to be level 2+. since bots are level 1 and cant gain any XP points anyway[emoji14]

-Mim

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Ive seen lv2+ spam bots. It isn't that hard to make the macro run brackenridge and ydra in order to get to outpost and kraag and collect exp in the process.

I agree with Dragoonclaws about the effectiveness in theory this has of silencing these bots, but in truth, it gives too much power to anonymous people under no legal contract. STS would be putting a lot of faith into people they dont even know, and something like this could very easily be abused and be detrimental to the core of the game. Let alone the jealousy people would harbor for the individuals who have such power to apply an immediate and even temporary ban on any account for a short time.

Very bad idea.
This kind of power & control can only be trusted in the hands of someone who has nothing to gain out of it, in other words, the game creators.

As much as I'd like to have a secret group of players in AL helping in the war against the bots,
what may have started with a good intention will soon enough cause player jealousy, rivalries, and attempted bans on players they dislike
And sure, the secret group will remain secret for some time, but eventually, one of them will tell their friends "I'm a playermod", and its no longer secret anymore.

I like to compare the spambots to computer malware. When a new type of malware is discovered, AV companies work to be able to keep their AV-users' computers safe from it.
Same can be applied to the Spambots in AL. A bit of tweaking within the AL chat system is all that is needed to stop them.

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Originally Posted by Ruizhe

As much as I'd like to have a secret group of players in AL helping in the war against the bots,
what may have started with a good intention will soon enough cause player jealousy, rivalries, and attempted bans on players they dislike
And sure, the secret group will remain secret for some time, but eventually, one of them will tell their friends "I'm a playermod", and its no longer secret anymore.

I like to compare the spambots to computer malware. When a new type of malware is discovered, AV companies work to be able to keep their AV-users' computers safe from it.
Same can be applied to the Spambots in AL. A bit of tweaking within the AL chat system is all that is needed to stop them.

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it's not about being a player mod. The duty is to kick spambots or something else given by StS. If it goes somewhere else and you get reported for that, you're out of the system. That's why you don't want to share your "player mod" identity. That's why it needs rules. That player mod is enforcing rules, not playing the superhero and show off his tiny power. Obviously, it would need a detailed search by StS to find those decent people who rather help and enforce rules, and help the mods. They need to find the decent people who won't do those stupid errors of telling everyone he is a player mod. There are many mature people in this game. Forums is an awesome place to find those people. They know their players.

The range of players is very targetted, don't meet criteria ===> out

They picked Star Guards, Guardians of Arlor, and Guardians for DL and PL, and they picked CoC first tier champs with very targetted criterias. They're hiring new staff every 2-3 months or even for 2 weeks (Twjsted). Well yea they are payed so they better do their job. The thing is, we're not payed and we better <<JUST>> do the job and nothing else, to keep it.

I've asked Remiem about this, I asked why there isn't any Guardians of Arlor , She told Some people Abused their Powers in PL so they don't want to implement this into AL.

EDIT: (Found that Old Message,Back in 2014)
Attachment 146383

I think sts already give priority to few people like u guys who r senior member.... And i hope report clicked by senior members goes on higher priority...
Just my thought....

Thanks :)

It's really the power of anonymity, whether or not someone chooses to do the job or to abuse it, there are absolutely no dire consequences for any player who goes rogue and decides to be a troll. Most every player is anonymous and not signed under a contract or agreement with STS, other than the ToS which only governs behavior.

STS would be instilling a lot of faith into faceless people, which is really risky. A few of the GoA actually used the title to gain trust of several players and used that trust to scam.

The only real consequences would be given to STS, as any bad behavior would result in potential player/profit loss from pissed off players being banned for absolutely no reason. The harshest consequence a player can get is a ban, which in reality isn't very much of a consequence as nothing would affect your personal life.

I think that the AL minute men, if they still exist would be a good option when it comes to this. I think they deserve this role!

If STS is losing a significant amount of money due to these spam bots, they could easily have a couple of employees to monitor the game and issue bans on a regular basis. Based their inaction, I'd guess that these spam bots are more of an annoyance than anything else, but not losing them actual business.

... Ok seriously, we re not talking about 5000 players. Its about 10 players. Zylx, Hoardseeker, Ruizhe, would you seriously break rules and abuse if you were given a such duty?

NO!

Now lets find a few more players that play daily, are forum addicts, are friendly with everyone and never break rules. StS doesnt know you since last 2-3 months, no they know us since over 2 years!!!

Hey guys! Thanks for the feedback. This is a great idea and I am so happy that you all are so ready to step up to help out in Arlor. To give you some insight behind the scenes, we do have a group of devs that are currently dedicated to squashing the spam bots. We've made great progress so far and will continue to work diligently to eradicate them from the game. As you might have guessed, it's no small task, but it is one of our top priorities right now. Please continue to report the ones that you see in game. It really does help!

Just to avoid problems, idk if it was intentionally unlocked or a bug happened...

Anyways its an idea. The decent people are there. Doesnt have to be intense players, or rich people, or plat buyers, or anything else. Just dedicated players who have proven to be loyal, honest, fair and all the good qualities a good "player mod" can be. Make it visible so everybody knows, and report when that player turns evil. Jealousy... You better be careful with what you say and what you do so people can't pin you down. Maybe StS could give those players a mini formation or document for them to read and understand so they can do the right thing. Such programs exist in other games, decent people exist. We can make the weight lighter for the devs and the mods.

One of the largest problems with the Guardians & Star Guard programs was that players would do good deeds simply to get the coveted title. This resulted in the forums being cluttered with fake helpful posts and guides.

You can argue that since the members of your proposed program are anonymous, nothing of the sort would happen. Trust me though, most people (yours truly included) would do anything for feeling that they're better than the rest. It would be like working in a desk job at the CIA/MI5/whatever. You'd be a 'government employee' to everyone else, but you'd know you were special.

Another issue is the problems that would naturally arise if people are given power. In nine cases out of ten, it wouldn't be abused, but there's always the one to worry about. A banning right is a huge responsibility and far too risky, IMO, to bestow it on a player. I have PvPed for over 2 years and I can assure you there are a lot of people who seem nice but would use the first opportunity to ban an enemy.

I think the team is doing a good job so far in quashing the bots. Making a simple addition like a Captcha in the character creation part of the game may solve everything.

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Originally Posted by Majin Vineet

I think sts already give priority to few people like u guys who r senior member.... And i hope report clicked by senior members goes on higher priority...
Just my thought....

Thanks :)

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Not really, Forum titles are changed when you reach X amount of posts. Some people may post a lot and reach Senior member, even if they haven't played that long. Some may play for over Y amount of years, and are still not a Senior member.

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Originally Posted by Endkey 2.0

I think that the AL minute men, if they still exist would be a good option when it comes to this. I think they deserve this role!

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Some of us are still here :)

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Also, while we're on this subject against the war of spambots,

There is another webforum I have been active on recently. They have an interesting feature.

They have what they call "Column Cleaners", which are basically mods (elected by the admin/mod group; and orange names) whose powers only apply to a certain sub-forum. Outside of that sub-forum, they are like any regular forumer, no special powers. (For those that participate on a certain music forum, you may know what I'm talking about)

What the Column Cleaners do is keep the sub-forum they are assigned to, in order, and actively delete threads created by spambots, and place bans (I'm unsure how long, I'll have to ask one of them the next time I'm on that forum) on those likely spambots (or at least keep them from spamming that sub-forum)

I think this will be beneficial to helping the battle against the Spambot on the CoC sub-forum.
Since it's mostly spambot spam, and rarely anyone posts there anyways (because a separate CoC forum exists for CoC-specific threads).

If the idea gets implemented and If a New Forum Board for reporting Players gets added that would be great as Normal People can Report those People Abusing their Powers with appropriate screenshots .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Remiem

Hey guys! Thanks for the feedback. This is a great idea and I am so happy that you all are so ready to step up to help out in Arlor. To give you some insight behind the scenes, we do have a group of devs that are currently dedicated to squashing the spam bots. We've made great progress so far and will continue to work diligently to eradicate them from the game. As you might have guessed, it's no small task, but it is one of our top priorities right now. Please continue to report the ones that you see in game. It really does help!

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We do our part :) no way to trace the ip on these spambots? I do like the original players suggestion and giving a few players within the community some powers to ban these bots. STS doesn't work on the weekends and that's when these guys multiply!

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Originally Posted by Kakashis

We do our part :) no way to trace the ip on these spambots? I do like the original players suggestion and giving a few players within the community some powers to ban these bots. STS doesn't work on the weekends and that's when these guys multiply!

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VPNs can change the IP that shows up on STS's servers.
If the spambot creator simply switches to another VPN, that IP is now changed to something else.
And since he has multiple accounts, and when one get banned, another appears, he doesn't need to worry whether they track his IP and ban it or not.

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Originally Posted by Ruizhe

VPNs can change the IP that shows up on STS's servers.
If the spambot creator simply switches to another VPN, that IP is now changed to something else.
And since he has multiple accounts, and when one get banned, another appears, he doesn't need to worry whether they track his IP and ban it or not.

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Silly question, but is it possible for STS to block devices that use a VPN?

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Originally Posted by Zylx

Silly question, but is it possible for STS to block devices that use a VPN?

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Probably. But I dunno what goes on in the Support team.
And for countries with Internet Censorship, players have to use a VPN from another country.
Blocking those players doesn't seem fair.

pretty much why we need some brains in the operation, when the bigger brains are getting some earned rest.

Nice bRO nice

Nice bRO nice nice

hmmmm i dont think is a good idea tht power always is bad!!!!!!!!ppl will rage and start ban every1 is against them!!!!!!!