MMO' Harassment and Spam Issues

[WOLFFIE TIGGRAIN]

There seems to be a major problem in MMO's, and thats Harassment, and Spam. I was the target of Annoying Game Invites for almost a week, before I finally got fed up and contacted the in game GM's or Game Masters, who promptly got back with me.

Now some of you who might not be aware or play games like I do, I'll explain what happened. I play World Of Warcraft which is an MMORPG. It is an online only game, so you are playing with players from all over the country and sometimes the world in some cases. Like in any community you have your wonderful people you get along with, and then you have those you want to strangle. You can solo through the game, but there are times in which you might need the help of other players.

In WOW you have the ability to invite people to join up for doing general quests, to major Raids. When you invite them a little box comes up and gives you the option of Accepting the Invite or Declining it. You don't necessarily have to know the person to give an invite. You also don't even have to be near the person to throw out an invite. There is a screen in the character stat section of the interface box, that allows you to find people just typing a name in. It will give you location, level of player and their Class. This can be a plus or a negative depending who you were talking to.

Some people use it for because they are new to the game, and want to find people to make friends with. Unfortunately some people use it to become a nuisance, as I found out.

I had someone who kept looking me up and sending me Invites, relentlessly, even though I kept declining them. They never sent me a Whisper, which is a quiet message for a specific player only. They just kept sending me Invites. So I looked them up and it kept coming up a Lvl 1 Warrior who wouldn't even be in the same Zone that I was currently playing. I even tried to Whisper to them to please stop and leave me alone, because 1.) I don't join up with people who don't ask me first. 2) I was currently busy working on Leveling my characters. They never replied and just kept sending me an invite.

I finally put the annoyance on Ignore, and one of my friends in my guild put me in a group with him, even though we didn't do any quests together since he was higher level and in higher level areas. That worked for a while. The person who was bothering me kept changing his name even though it was just a variation of the name he initially was bothering me under. This only happened when I wasn't grouped and so my friend grouped with me to help out.

I finally clicked the "Help" Icon in the interface and went to the section where you can air your problems, whether its, a environmental game glitch to if your being Harassed. They contacted me within I think 30 minutes and I explained with deep detail. They were so nice and let me know the would investigate this situation. There was also some hints that this was a way for Spammers to try and spam players with their business info.

This business info is for groups that offer their service to players who don't have the time or inclination to level their characters, until the character is high level. They also offer to sell you huge amounts of Game Gold for real money, which is against game policy, as is letting a service play for you, since it can compromise your account.

I haven't really received random invites anymore, that are persistent. I sometimes get whispers with people trying to sell me stuff but I just put them on Ignore and report them for spamming.

It does seem like Blizzard is trying to do what they can to keep spammers and other problem people from making the game unpleasant. They are trying to root these people out, especially if they can get the names quickly and track down who's account they are being made from. They also are putting up filters the they are adjusting to help handle these situations. They can only do so much, unless we players help them find these problems, and thus letting them work on the solutions.

>^,,^<

[QueenB]

I dont really play MMO games so I wasnt aware of any of this - thanks for posting the story, Im not surprised that there are people looking to cash in somehow but, its a damn shame none the less.

[Mommy Munch]

Even though I have never played WoW and never will, I can understand your frustration and aggrevation. I play an MMO as well called Neverwinter Nights, and every once in a while there are spammers and harrassers. Some servers are worse than others. The one I play on (and have for a few years now) does not have this problem, thank God! I have been on some, though, that are constantly getting hit with spammers for other servers, (which end up being really crappy servers...lol), and it totally ruins the feel and fun of trying to RP with others. So, I stay in my own little corner of the world and enjoy the peace and no longer venture out to see the rest of the server world.