Blue Notes: Arena Season 2 delay, spam reporting tweaks
by Eliah Hecht 
Jun 7th 2007 at 6:20PM
The upcoming second Arena season, with new rewards, will be starting on June 19th, a week later than originally estimated (Drysc):As we mentioned in our initial announcement of the second arena season, the start of the next season is planned to coincide with the release of a small patch. Due to additional development time and testing needed we will be delaying the scheduled release of the patch, and thus the start of Arena Season 2 by one week, to June 19. This current schedule is of course subject to change as well.
Also, don't forget that team ratings will be reset to the default 1500 with the start of the new season, allowing all teams to once again compete for top honors with a fresh start.
The delay was necessary because the new items for the new season are contained in the patch (presumably 2.1.2), and the patch will evidently not be ready for the 12th. The new date will be June 20th instead for European subscribers, by the way.
Also, the new-in-2.1 "report spam" feature is getting slightly changed (Eyonix):
The new spam-reporting feature has been updated so that you can now report members inside your group or raid. This will allow players who are invited to groups created for purposes of spam to report the abuse appropriately. To report this type of spam, simply right-click on the player's name in the chat interface, and choosing the "Report Spam" option. Once you have selected this option, a dialogue box will open to confirm that you wish to report the target player, and your report will be sent once you confirm your choice.
Please make sure you're only using this reporting feature for spam. All other forms of abuse should be reported appropriately, by petitioning a Game Master.
This will keep people from pulling you into a group from the LFG tool just to spam you, which I've heard has been occurring here and there. How's the spam reporting functionality working out for you? Personally, I've been seeing very much less spam since 2.1 came out.
Filed under: Odds and ends, News items, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tseran Jun 7th 2007 6:48PM
Almost nothing in the way of spam, except the group spam. I have reported them through standard tickets enough that there is a good chance that many others did, and as such, this is where the report feature came from. I can't wait to see the numbers Blizzard has for the number of spammers they have removed with this patch. I bet its pretty impressive.
Paul Jun 7th 2007 6:56PM
I'm down to zero spam mails a day now, from 1-2, so i'm pretty happy already.
Sarah Jun 7th 2007 7:00PM
I used to get one every ten minutes, now I'm lucky to get even one a day (and if I do it gets reported immediately). This feature definitely solved a lot of problems.
John Jun 7th 2007 7:10PM
I just noticed that last night I ran skettis halls and shattered halls, and you know what?
Not a single spam whisper in the 4 hours i was running the instances or farming.
It was nice.
WatcherZero Jun 7th 2007 7:30PM
Only seen one whisper spam since the patch which is a big improvement, on the downside theirs now perpetually a bot on the IF bank mailbox spamming, after about 10 minutes it will change to a diffrent one and so on.
Mark S Jun 7th 2007 8:03PM
Thank goodness they're going to do something about the "invite to group" spam... I never saw this until 2.1 came out, and now that's all I get! Spam was much easier to ignore in the chat window, but the huge "Ssoapfpeksa has invited you to a group" in the middle of the screen was just getting insane!
RogueJedi86 Jun 7th 2007 8:16PM
The bad thing is that we'll have to join the groups to report them. You can't just right-click their name is the chat message "SpamBot has invited you to a group" and report. Getting in the group to report them? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?
Oh well, at least 2.1 worked. 2 weeks down, and still very little spam, if any.
Devilmachine Jun 7th 2007 8:55PM
Yeah 2.1 has had a huge improvement on spam. I haven't had any whisper spam since, and only one party invite from a spammer.
However, it shouldn't take to long for the spammers to find another method to spread the word of power leveling and gold buying.
Baluki Jun 7th 2007 9:46PM
Yea, the invite-spam is getting annoying now. But what I did was make a macro that I spam that says something like "/ra This person is a spammer, blizz doesn't allow goldselling, they tend to steal your money and accounts" (it's a bit more eloquent in-game). It's fun to get invited to a spamraid now, because I can sabotage their efforts from the "inside".
Kyle Jun 7th 2007 10:05PM
Im currently using SpamMeNot which works great, but after ready the part on spammers pulling you in LFG by inviting you, I realzed that today somebody with a name with a bunch of random letters (obviously a spammer) tried to invite me. I thought it was really odd and had never seen it before. I guess it's not an isolated event...
potatowedge Jun 7th 2007 10:44PM
The first time I got group-spammed it was very weird. I was in the Barrens. I'm an effing night elf! Only reason I fell for it is because I was in Horde territory and the name was something cohesive, for a change.
Savok Jun 7th 2007 11:27PM
Ok, but I can already report people inside a raid for spamming me.
Seriously, I always accept these invites because I can report the fuckers. They're adding a feature I already have, what?