As far as I know advertising for boosts is only allowed for players that will partake in the advertised group. Or rather characters that only serve to spam advertisement may have their account closed. Is this assumption correct according to https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/187406 ?
Now to the main point: Why do characters that will violate this rule even get access to this channel? Why isn’t it restricted to level60. The level “range” that 99% of these services aim for? For now I will just straight up report any Murloc I see spamming in this channel. Same goes for any lvl1 character since their sole purpose is to spam this (and receive gold).
And as a sidenote: Exposing new/trial players to this spam as a baseline is terrible for the first impression. It should be deactivated as long as the account is on trial/in the mentor program. It doesn’t help entertaining the idea of joining a group for combined efforts when there is constantly this alluring message of “just drop gold and get the result”.
I noticed a lot of lvl 1 characters advertising for boosting too in the last days… its getting worse again.
Months later, I just reported 7 murloc characters in the services chat within a minute.
Does communicating this here have any purpose? Do the TOS regarding services (not on low level chars) have any purpose? Why are characters way below endgame level that are also on a trial account even allowed to view and use this channel?
Also more than half of the characters posting in services chat during my login were murloc characters.
Furthermore a manual spammer (lvl60 regular character) confirmed on simple request that their spam is done for a cross realm organisation. I mean, what was the purpose of updating the services regulation?
At this point a conservative estimate for my server at peak hours is probably 20-25 murloc characters constantly spamming. Add to that several characters way below lvl70 (but not in the mentor system) doing the same. Maybe a handful of characters is left that do not violate the (updated) TOS rules. Why were those changes even made if they do not seem to be applied or the lose role of non-participation in the group being ignored? A really simple solution to dampen this spam would be to at least remove access for trial accounts all together. Why would the first action that a new or returning player seeks out in this game be: Boost or get boosted? It looks absolutely terrible.
There is nothing happening against boosting communties … i personaly know at least two people that are regularly boosting at oblivion boosting community in the same way as it was before the rules changed.
I just think blizzard doesn’t care anymore as people don’t complain anymore since the service chat arrived.
These were statements made towards me a few years back but specifically “Olivion Boosting” did RMT on a grand scale with a registered company in Germany and regular 3 digit payouts for long term members.
A new low and repeated confirmation for these characters being spam bots: A trial char starts spamming these messages in mentor chat. If an actual person would do this they would correct it and stop it.
Is there any intend by the team to even remotely act on this anymore?
As long as it drives token sales I dont think they mind
I do agree that for channels such as the new Trade (Services) channel, That it should be restricted to characters at maximum level for posting messages in.
On my server, I see lots of Level 1s advertising services in this channel which is clearly against the Terms of Service. Yes, I do report them all as well to Blizzard as lots of those accounts that are spamming are accounts that have been hijacked by other people.
I know as per the In-Game Advertising Policy, The person that is advertising the services has to participate in the services being offered on the character that they are advertising on. If they don’t do this it is a actionable offense by Blizzard.
All in all, Restrict it to max level for advertisements. But let anyone else below able to view this channel. They would only be unable to chat in it.
In case people want the source, since it’s for some reason not listed in the policy article, here’s Kaivax’s post specifying that the person advertising must be on a character that’s participating in the run:
I’m torn on max level being a requirement, because I know of at least one friend who uses that channel to advertise stockades level boosting on a level 30 twink. With a max level requirement, they’d have no way to advertise. (Since per the policy, they have to advertise on the toon they plan to do it on - they may be able to access it on a 70, but if they advertise it on said 70, but then do it on a 30, they’d be actionable)
The amount of (falsly set up spam bots probably) spamming in mentor chat is creeping up to double digit numbers per day.
I’ve reported the same character for 4 days straight and still hasn’t been actioned too. I understand there was a weekend and holiday, but surely there’s SOMEONE moderating while most of the staff is off, no?
(And it feels bad having to encourage new players to report a bot in newcomer chat when they complain about the advertisements. They shouldn’t have to be introduced to the report system like that)
I feel like Bots spamming and LFG carry groups would go down if they hired more people to check the system like in the old days.
Mentor Chat spam is dealt with within minutes. I usually get a reminder for my report rather quick. Services Chat should just not be accessable to trial/unsubbed accounts at all. They can’t get anything from it and otherwise only promote being used as burner accounts. Having that barrier of entry would reduce it by a lot. Beyond that you are risking a payed sub account or even a purchased xpac. And I will claim that 99% of all advertised services are about endgame boosting, none of your customers don’t own DF. Make it a high risk once and for all and restrict services chat to lvl61+ characters. If you ever punish any TOS abuse in there it’s more than just getting a new burner account.