My MMO Blog

I, like a great many people using Wordpress, use Akismet for my spam protection. I’ve been noticing a problem recently though. It’s letting through things, more than once, which I have already filtered out as spam. This is annoying.

Not so say it isn’t a great filter, it still is, as it blocks hundreds of comments each day (and has never blocked a legitimate comment to my knowledge) but the ones that get through just seem like such a pain.

Where do MMOs come in to this picture? Primarily in thinking about how to detract from in-game spam (of gold, or power leveling services, etc.). I’m not sure how to go about it. My problem is, you see, not that I don’t have an idea on systems that could be put in place (beyond what any of the current games are doing) but that I can’t think of a system that is inherently beyond being overcome in a relatively short time.

I started using Akismet when this blog first went up. That’s just over a year now. In that time some comments are already starting to slip through the cracks. Spammers are not stupid people (or the people creating the bots doing the spamming, depending on what it happens to be.)

I’ve noticed this trend for a long time in my time administrating/moderating communities as well. As soon as you implement something meant to stop spammers it works for a short time and then they circumvent that and you are back to square one.

So, how can we combat this in an MMOG? Giving it some thought the best I could come up with was spam filters (similar to an Akismet or any other type of spam filter) is applied inside your chat system. Any messages that are considered “spam” by the computer system are filtered out so they are never seen by the general audience of your game but it will still show for the spammers. This would be similar to an “auto ignore” feature built into the chat system.

Text that the filter is unsure of would be sent through once and could then be “reported” by players as spam. After it reaches a certain threshold of reports it flags all additional messages in that same auto ignore bank.

Similarly players could report any message that slipped through the cracks as just a normal message and it could be then removed as spam and flagged as ignore. (I’ll ignore for the moment the obvious useful administrative options that this would give any CSR as far as reports go.)

Of course this isn’t flawless by any means. The system could be abused by players, and will be, no doubt. But, I think adding in an auto filter for chat is the next logical step to take. Pure reporting works fine for a while, but as games get bigger, and the business of breaking the rules of those games get bigger, we need to find different ways to attack it.

Just some random things I was thinking about, back to your business now.

Apparently, having already seen my glowing review of AFK Magazine and enjoying that so much I was recently sent an e-mail by Dave Taylor from Gamerzines.com Specifically he directed me to Issue #2 of their MMOZine.

I was not informed of Issue #1, which is just as well, because I seem to like second issues much more than first.

Now, as happy as I am to randomly pimp a site here for the free post it allows me, there actually was something in the e-mail I was sent that I did want to pass along, I’ll just quote to save time.

This issue we have a free LOTRO item giveaway thanks to CodeMasters, so the item is Europe servers only. All readers need to do is request a code via the form in the magazine and we’ll send them it via email. Then they retrieve it via their COG account for use in game. The item is called the Glass of Aglaral and it restores +1 Hope for a 1 hour period on each use. Handy when you’ve been defeated.

I don’t happen to be playing LotRO, nor am I European, however, if Sitemeter is to be believed a large portion of my readership is from various places in Europe (and a shockingly large number from Brazil, but that’s another story) so I thought it was worth passing on.

As for the magazine itself? Well, I haven’t gotten very far into it but a few things I did like. First being, you download the PDF to view it. We all know how I feel about in-browser viewing of magazines I think.

Another nice thing, their reviews. I didn’t see a single number anywhere. Just a few days ago I was discussing with my brother how I would much prefer to get rid of scores given to games and just make people actually read text so they could decide whether the game was for them and not be forced to look at some arbitrary number someone set up.

All things considered I’m liking it so far and I’ll be watching it from here on out. If you are interested you can check it out here.

mmozine, gamerzines, mmo, mmog, mmorpg, mmo gaming, mmo reviews

I’ve been enjoying several other bloggers taking the time to do this, so I thought I’d throw some rather odd search terms used to bring people to the site. I can’t be sure exactly what a great number of these people are looking for, but I’ll give it a shot anyway.

First, let’s start with some visit depth statistics based on search words.

• 37 people arrived here when searching for “rabbits” I assume they ended up here but I can’t be certain because I am actually listed several times under that search.
• 4 people arrived here when searching for “rf online wine” I’m not sure what they wanted. Did they misspell the word “whine”? Who’s to say, but my only thoughts on RF Online are posted here. A quick hint, don’t bother with the game.
• MORE THAN ONE person ended up here after searching for “http://www.gamingmmo.com”. Folks, I don’t mean to be rude, but at some point it is easier to just type it into your address bar rather than do a search for it.

Okay, enough with the numbers, let’s just move on to some normal, everyday, ridiculous search strings.

• wow stats kills the most players - One could assume you wanted to know about the player who has the most PvP kills in World of Warcraft, but with that kind of shoddy searching you’ll never find an answer. Try to write something comprehensible. Unless of course you were suggesting that WoW stats actually kill people, in which case I would disagree, but WoW itself does kill people…seriously, search it.
• turtle sex - Oh the many “Turtles do it…” jokes I could make here. I’ll refrain though, this is a kid friendly blog, assuming, you know, you’re kids are adults.
• i hate mmo’s - And you have to search this to find other people like you? I’m confused? I hate relish, but I don’t go searching for it on Google.
• wow cancer aldor - Scryer loving bastard.
• shirts outfitters adventure darkest - Random. Search. String. Anyone?
• mmocruch - Though some annoying bitches would yell at me over a typo, it looks like I get the last laugh because people searching make typos too.
• tabula rasa pets wont attack - Hint: They are non-combat pets.
• im running tabula rasa on vista - I’m running it on XP, do you want a freaking cookie or something?
• why won’t you talk to me? - I’m going to go ahead and guess it is because you are a little creepy.

I’ll stop there for now. I’ve purposely omitted a great number of some of the more disturbing search terms, for fear that my site gets higher in those rankings than it already is.

funny searches, stupid searches, mmo, mmog, mmo gaming, mmorpg

Rhyming not intentional but awesome regardless.

All this talk about the NDA on PotBS being lifted got me thinking. NDAs are annoying with the way they are currently handled. Don’t get me wrong, the idea behind the NDA and having testers agree to it is solid. Of course, those who actually care about the NDA aren’t the ones who would bash a game still in a testing phase anyway, but that’s another topic entirely.

Tobold, in a comment on his post (linked above) gave a quick and easy rundown of the purpose of the NDA which I think is one worth repeating.

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We fight because we have to. It isn’t our desire to engage in wars we can’t win, but that is where we find ourselves now. There is no stopping an enemy who will do what is necessary and ignore what is right. We cannot win.

We are fighting on two fronts. We get up every day and know our enemy is the Bane. We go to sleep every night wondering if our enemy is our brother. We kill them, and they us. And then we kill each other. It isn’t bloodthirst on our parts, we kill because we still question. Our questions destroy us. We cannot win.

Every one of theirs we kill they bring back, a more horrid incarnation than the last. Every one of ours we kill they bring back, mindless and willing. We cannot win.

We wonder if they feel, if they hurt like we do. We wonder, and we worry. We waste our time securing planets they come in solely to destroy. It is easier to ruin than to build. We cannot win.

Our desire for truth, for justice, causes our losses. They turn our men into machines. We feed theirs. They torture and experiment, we cry over their deaths. We cannot win.

We run from fights. Our allies run from fights. They demand loyalty. We cannot win.

We hold out or give to our friends, but always at the expense of another. We worry about who this will hurt. The only pain they care about is ours, more specifically making sure we feel it. We cannot win.

We put our own in harms way to try and gather information on our enemy. They know all they need to about us. They don’t want us alive, and that information sustains them because they are in control of this war. We cannot win.

We chase after languages long dead, in the hopes of our magical save. Among their numbers are those that speak it. We cannot win.

Our technology works if we are lucky. Their technology works without question. It works, and it is always with deadly precision. We cannot win.

We are tested to determine if we are worthy of a power strong enough to hold them back. They run through our numbers and take what they need. We cannot win.

We come to them with a few. They come to us with hundreds. We cannot win.

We do what we can to prove to these alien races that they need to join our fight. They eradicate those who oppose. We cannot win.

We have no hope of surviving for very long. They have numbers. Still, we fight. We fight because we are stubborn. We fight because we can’t just lay down and die. We fight because we must. We cannot win.

But we will go down fighting.

tabula rasa, fan fiction, plaync, ncsoft, destination games, mmo, mmog, mmorpg, mmo gaming, foreas, Bane, eloh

I have done things on Foreas that I would never have done on Earth. I have said this before, but negatively. Today, I mean it differently. I have not been perfect, I have done horrible things, things that I question every waking minute.

Still, I have done good things too. I have helped people, both humans and Foreans. I have disposed of our enemy, the Bane, by the hundreds. They know who we are now. They know that they have a fight on their hands, even if it is one they can still win.

I have seen what the enemy is capable of, and I have changed because of it. Things I never thought about doing before now suddenly don’t seem so bad, or they are at least more gray than before.

On principle I stand against torture. In practice I stand against torture of my allies and encourage it for my enemies. It is a selfish notion, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less how I feel. We didn’t start this war, and probably never would have, so, in my mind, we are justified in doing what is necessary to teach them a lesson.

It is easy to sit on the sidelines and talk about how horrid the things we do each day are, about how we need to look at all sides of the matter, but such thinking is purely foolish. I need only know one side of an argument, my own. And I will always stand by that.

I have not liberated Foreas, I have not beaten the Bane back, but I have caused them harm and that means they will lose time. If they lose it, we gain it, and that is the best we can hope for. Time is what we need. Time to learn, time to harness the teachings of the Eloh. I think it is our only chance of survival, and that is the ultimate goal. This war isn’t about winning, it’s about facing off against extinction and proving we are worthy of continuing our existence.

I don’t have all the answers yet, I don’t know that I ever will, but Foreas has taught me a great deal, and I plan to use those lessons to the fullest on Arieki. I’ll be heading out tomorrow and from there, who knows.

Previous Chapter

ncsoft, plaync, destination games, tabula rasa, mmo, mmog, mmorpg, mmo gaming, foreas, bane