"Hey, want to learn how to level the fastest way possible?" If you've played a character below level 30 any time recently, that probably looks infuriatingly familiar. Ever since the new spam protection features in patch 2.1, party chat has been one of the few ways spam has actually been getting through to many of us. You get an invite from a random level 1 character somewhere on a trial account, and then the fun starts in /p. I usually respond with "hey, want to get reported for spamming the fastest way possible?", but it still happens at least every fifteen minutes or so on some servers. A few hours ago, Blizzard went ahead and made the obvious and frequently suggested change: players on trial accounts can no longer send invites (
Drysc).
They can still be invited to groups by subscribers, so people who are using trial accounts because they're legitimately curious about the game will continue to have a chance to experience group play. I'm optimistic that this change will greatly reduce the amount of spam I get, although I'm also sure the spammers will not take too long to find yet another way to share with us the opportunities of buying gold and powerleveling.
Tags: blue, drysc, forums, gold-spam, spam, trial
Filed under: News items
Dec 14th 2007 at 5:01PM .jpg)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Thunderhide Dec 14th 2007 5:09PM
Good Change!
icer Dec 14th 2007 5:14PM
why not disable trial accounts in the first place, i mean if someone is going to play just buy the game and you get a free month it is simple as that
Nails Dec 14th 2007 5:19PM
why would someone buy the game if they don't know if they're going to like it or not?
thousands of people have played 10 days free, and then became hooked.
those ten free days for me have translated to probably around $165 revenue for blizzard. and that's just my account!! i may never have played the game in the first place if it wasn't for the free trial.
Chris Anthony Dec 14th 2007 5:24PM
...because the free month of play and trial accounts serve different purposes?
Lack of trial accounts is the sole reason I don't play more MMOs. At this point in my life, I don't want to sink $40-50 on a game I don't enjoy, and if I don't enjoy it, the free month is just a 30-day reminder that I blew a week's worth of dinner on something I don't want.
Baluki Dec 14th 2007 5:48PM
I agree, Trial accounts (or demos) are essential to the success of a game. There are so many times that I've wanted to check out a game, but if I can't find a trial or demo, I'm not going to bother. I'm not dropping 50 bucks on something I may not even like.
WoW is one of the very few MMOs that allow people to try it out first. I've wanted to try several other MMOs, but so far the only one I've found that lets you try it out first is Anarchy Online, and that was crap. I would be very mad if I had actually purchased it.
Michael Sherman Dec 14th 2007 5:17PM
Good
Rudolphe Dec 14th 2007 5:17PM
@ 2
What if they dont know that they want to buy the game, and they play it for two weeks and they dont like it. They've wasted money buying it.
Mike Dec 14th 2007 5:21PM
Why are people just accepting group invites from random lvl 1 characters anyway?
Jasperwind Dec 14th 2007 5:57PM
Exactly! I don't accept invites from someone my own level if they don't talk to me first.
Ugkul Dec 14th 2007 7:00PM
They're not. But getting an invite every 15 mins is bloody annoying.
Zakk Dec 14th 2007 9:59PM
I accept so I can press the little "Report Spam" button. As far as I know, there's no other way to report them without opening a ticket, and I don't think GMs would appreciate me bugging them just so I don't have to accept an invitation and report them specifically for what they're doing.
About the change, I'm real happy about it. It got tiring reporting those guys. For some reason I don't have as big a problem with reporting them in /say as I do in /p. I just hope this doesn't turn away too many players that are on their trials, though. I suppose if they really wanted to group with another trial, they could just have somebody invite both of them to their party, and the inviter could leave. Would be a pain, but what're ya gonna do, right?
I was wondering why I never saw gold-selling/stat-changer spam on my Alliance lowbies. I haven't played a new Alliance character for a while, and I just started an alt frenzy (recently hit 70 on my main) with mostly Hordies. I got so many random invites, and I probably saw a giberish-named Orc sitting in the spawn point of The Den every time I was there. Today I made an Alliance Paladin, and I haven't gotten a single invite for him yet. I thought the problem was almost totally isolated to Horde because of that, but after reading this article, I guess it's a different story. Maybe when I was playing my Allies that method wasn't super popular for some reason, and now my Ally was created right when the problem was fixed. What a coincidence =)
AvidCasualGamer Dec 14th 2007 5:23PM
I love the level 1 that runs to Ogrimmar, stands in front of the bank and advertises goldsellers by means of "/say".
Jasperwind Dec 14th 2007 5:57PM
Yeah, we get those in SW and IF all the time. Reporting them is pretty much a waste because they'll only be logged in for a few minutes and then it's off to creating another human or dwarf character. Wonder why I never see gnomes selling gold.....
Chris Anthony Dec 15th 2007 8:07AM
@Jasperwind (bah, no threading!): But the report attaches to the account, not the character, as far as I remember.
Dave Williams Dec 14th 2007 5:23PM
Had to be done, but I do hope that they allow trial to trial invites in case 2 people decide to try the game together. By shutting down trial to subscriber invites, they've likely killed the problem, so allowing a pair of real trial people to play together would be good.
Druid dude Dec 14th 2007 5:50PM
Could just get to level 2 couldnt they?
Charlie Taylor Dec 14th 2007 7:05PM
@14
Doesn't matter. Still a trial account. So they still can't send invites.
deviationer Dec 14th 2007 5:35PM
Trial Account should be only able to level and interact with NPCs, excluding banks and AH.
No say/yell
No whispers
No chat channels
No join or starting groups (expect for BG's)
No more than 25G
No higher than level 20
Also they should have kind of mark on their name plate showing they are a trial character
now I know some of that is already in place, but I think trial accounts should be as restricted as possible.
outforprophets Dec 14th 2007 8:31PM
I don't think he meant that literally.
Rudolphe Dec 14th 2007 5:42PM
@ 10
And while we're at it lets just rewrite the constitution...