A Call To Arms: Elliminating traders in local chat

To QuietWanderer:
I don't think a fee would be a very good idea because it would deter people from selling there as they would not want to pay it. I know I wouldn't even if it's like, say, 100 gold or something. They would just go back to selling in normal chat.

To Enchanted Warrior: Read my post #32. I've done most of the work on how a trade "bazzar or vendor", as you put it, should work. If you did read it, then I don't know what to say except; why did you just reitterate what I said? Sorry if I came of as pissed (as I'm not), I value people's suggestions even if they are redundant or totally wrong or against what I believe.

- Riplox

Thats why theres a whisper chat =D

no... whisper chat is if you know who you want to talk to and you want to have a one on one discussion. Party chat is if you want to make a party and talk with the people in there, 8 max.

However what if you wanted to, as i said, organize a party, or ask a question, or just have a general conversation. The community is there for these kind of things. Not having an enviournment where these things flourish is a waste and a shame.

Let me guess: All of the people in favor of all traders moving to trade chat only are the same people that always have trade chat muted? I'm sure you'll come up with excuses for it, but, plain and simple, it's absurd what you're asking for. I'm just gonna make this one post because the last thread like this went on forever...

If you don't want to see trade spam, zone out of the 1-3 districts of the main cities. People always talk about moving all traders to other "trade" districts or the last districts (as if the last districts are any diff than the first), but we already have trade districts: the first few districts of the main cities. Anyway it has to be the first 1 to 3 districts because those are the districts that are constant.

People talk about wanting to be able to form groups and talk, but common sense tells every single person in the world that actually does want to chat that if they move out of district 1-3 then they'll be, for the most part, free and clear from trade spam in chat. You randomly zone into districts, so if you randomly zone into the one you don't like, move.

Until ANet impliments a better system, this one works best for the economy, and it only aggrivates a minute population of GW players.

Good luck with the thread. I'll come back in the morning and see what people are saying on page 15 of this thread.

Lemme requote my first sentence, because people in favor of hating traders always overlook the pitiful irony:
"All of the people in favor of all traders moving to trade chat only are the same people that always have trade chat muted." <--ironic

EDIT: Oh, and everybody should use GWGuru Auction house thx

as much as i would love a "trade" district it would never work. we cant get people to advertise in a trade channel and you want them to move to a different district? way to much work. the entire idea behind advertising in local (which i do not do) is to reach all the people you can. no one would move to a new district because you would only get the people who are looking for something specificaly. but i do detest spammers in every way when i see people spamming

E/MO LFG............1
E/MO LFG............2

and so forth i make sure they dont make it into my group. thats just how i roll.

forgive me for my spelling. -sky

well too bad the floor of kaineng centre has the same color as the trade text

stop whining

spam sux.. it takes the fun out of some of the hilarious conversations that happen in town, it would be great if there were some way to fix this properly, I personally dont think an inhouse auction system will be the complete answer, there will still be spammers

Stop being so damn reasonable, how are people supposed to rage against traders if there is a reasonable and sensible soloution damn you.

Its the principle of the matter errrmm YEA.........

cough

last time i checked... which is right now.... trading is still going on in pretty much every district i see in KC that people are actually in.... so yea... your 1-3 idea thing, i beleive i already adressed that by saying i was staying out of D1 in most areas and D1-3 in major trading areas.
you should try reading posts you are argueing about.

no, i don't always have trade chat muted... only when i don't want to trade/buy/sell anything. what a novel idea. just like if i don't want to talk to anyone localy i don't turn on local chat. I turn it on when i have something to sell or buy and turn it off when i am done. The poeple that are complaining here are the people that are annoyed with other players interupting thier game play or conversation with offers on things they don't want. Everything has it's place. Local Chat is not the Place for Trade.

The spamming WTS/WTB in mission outposts is very hard to get around. There is often only 1 district these days. Not only that, it doesn't take very many people trade spamming in all chat to make it impossible to find a group for anything. In places like Ascalon, Droks, LA, and KC there is no district that is not considered a trade district. It is not acceptable to me that one of the basic principles of the game fails in those cities.

I mean the trade channel gets maybe 20% of the trade activety that the all channel does. If it was more even I wouldn't care as much, it would mean people are actually trying to use it. It is so obvious that people don't care to use it that I don't think a place devoted to trading will be enough to solve this problem. A mere auction house will not be enough. Something has to be implimented that is more convienent than spamming. An in game auction listing that allows people to set a specific price for the item they wish to sell(such as materials) or to set a minimum bid with a time limit like the guru system. Something like that would allow people to haggle while continuing to farm which would cut down on a bit of trade spam.

They need to give us something that lets people be lazy while getting what they want. That is the only way to promote the use of it. The trade channel does not make things easy enough for eveyone to want to use it.

EDIT: Something with booths and a specific place you have to go to to buy from there, or to begin the auction just won't work. It will require time that people don't want to give

it's not that much of a problem for the most part, i feel. There's only a few major towns that are major trading centers. Lions Arc, K Center, and Ascalon to name a few. While I agree it's utterly annoying, i think, at the very least, WTS should be kept in the trade channel and WTB should be acceptable in chat channel. Oh, I left out the Monestary, Cavalon, Droks, ToA.....but there's plenty of places that are somewhat spam-free.

where my Auction house anet?
i am geting old here
seroiusly tho,
anet has said that the auction house has been on the cards for a while now.
either implement it or spill the beans that it can't be done.
i am getting tired of waiting.
here starts the campaign to free droks int dis 1

Corsted, i agree completely. The using the local channels for now IS much easier because people who don't look at GW as a "group game" or "co-op" game are the ones supporting the local chat traders. These are the people who only log on to farm and get cooler stuff for themselves (for the most part this has been my observation) or run through the entire game with henchies simply because it is easier then making a party instead of getting to know people.

I apologize if some people who use local chat for trade are reading this and don't think this describes them, however it is none the less my point that this local chat trade was implemented by people who are just worried about pushing thier stuff as fast as possible on people who aren't even in the market for what they are selling, kind of like door to door salesmen or really sleezy used car salesmen.

A point was brought up. Some of the people posting to keep it in trade chat always have thier trade chat off. I personally do not however if others wish to do that that is thier choice. The entire game is not a market place and if people never what to turn trade on to buy or sell anything then that is thier buisness. What's next? After making them listen to everything you have to sell when they just want to talk to some people in a town or organize a party, are you going to make them buy what you have to sell? Seems ridiculous to me.

So as i said before, please keep it in trade chat. You want to give something away for free... fine advertise it on local (since that hardly ever happens anyway) however if you are looking for gold or any other service or item in return for your service or item, trade chat is where your proposal belongs.

Wouldn't an auction house change "W T S SUNDERING ONI BLADE!!!!" to "W T S SUNDERING ONI BLADE!!!! CHECK AUCTION HOUSE!!!!"

Doesn't help much in my mind...or am I missing something?

well the idea of auction house is they have pretty much everything so it is automaticly assumed if you are looking to buy something you will be in auction house. So the WTS in auction house wouldn't really happen, because if you are saying "I'm Selling something in the Place where everyone sells something" you sound less like a seller and more like a special kid looking for a cookie.

You are missing nothing, because you are exactly right.

Sadly

i think moderators will be the only way to get rid of the WTB/WTS problem once and for all. Everytime someone uses local chat to sell/buy items ban them for one day. Repeat, and bam..banned again. That should educate people. Telling them to pretty please use the proper channels will not.

The autofilter, as most people predicted, only caused people to adjust their messages -- and make them annoying. It's no longer "WTS blah ". It's "\/\/TS blah" and "^&?#$*^@$*%$#(@* selling blah! |||||||||||||||||"

Natalie, I agree with that whole-heartedly. And that ban isn't unreasonable either. The only problem is that that ANet isn't about to go sinking more money into a freeplay game. So unless GW become a pay-to-play game, we won't be seeing that any time soon.

Vahn Roi: A way to solve that problem would be to make the people who open a store in the Auction House stay there in order to sell their stuff. Disable local and trade chat in the House and you're golden.

Then for people who still go about the game trying to sell their stuff without using the auction house, you ban them from chat for some amount of time. Have the "ban bot" recognise an entire list of selling techniques and not just wts, WTS, wtb, WTB. Or as was suggested earlier: Take numbers out of local chat, and my little addition, remove trade chat altogether once the Auction House is implemented.

- Riplox

Yes you are missing something

A % of people are simply doing it because they feel its quicker, a % of people would not use the trade/local channel at all if there was an auction house, so trade spam would drop by a %.

The ONLY thing you can argue is what that % is, and as none of use know, anyone who claims to is simply pulling figures out their arse.

Before the update where all trades would automatically go to trade channel I was in Ascalon and saw some purple text (like Gaile's) that stated "Please use the trade channel for all trade purposes". It is an annoyance and these spammers are inherently lazy, as shown by their usage of 'WT B, WT S, W T B, W T S"

Gets on my nerves.Forge last D and this guy spammed his sales pitch, had to say something to this idiot. Check the response I got.

-----w T S Perfect Gold Max Dmg Sundering Zodiac Bow - +18hp When Hexed - 20/19 Sundering - Req15 - 100k + 750ecto + Your First Born Child!! Serious Offers Only - No N00bs!!-----

This sort of spam is present in every MMO, some worse than others. Ragnarok Online/ROSE and Priston Tale had in-game personal shops... When I played those games prior to GW, trade spam was actually pretty low, of course there was the occasional person here and there saying WTB/WTS blah blah blah but was never to the degree to be considered spam.

As someone else has said, a dedicated town/outpost for trade/personal shops/auction house would be nice.

I used to stand in Droks and take some time out when i was bored to ridicule what people were selling in local chat, was quite funny seeing how annoyed they would get.

I think that people who spam their selling stuff in the local chat consistently should be banned. First for a day, then a week, then permenently.

Harsh, but its the only way to stop it. And it does need to be stopped.

Either that or put an auction house in, that would help, but then people just stand around saying "Now selling in auction house.." instead of "WTS.."

That's why you make it so that they must stay in the "House" to sell their stuff. If they're allowed to travel about while having their stuff in the "House", then you get instances similar to what you mentioned. Either that or implement the ability to have personal shops to be opened. But therein also lies a problem. You have to make your shop motionless, and when you do that, you get a-holes that will stand on you so other people can't open your shop.

If you make it so that people can't stand on you or move through you, then you're going to have bodyblocking issues where people will lock merchants and traders out from other people. This could create market instability where you have one or a group of very rich people with nothing to do but to spend their money, and buy out the good stuff, then jack the prices.

They would do this with the organized help of the "bodyblockers" as they would stand around the merchant/trader and only let the said group of rich people in to buy all the stuff.

More to come later...

- Riplox

my favorite thing to do is to put exactly enough spaces in my message so it's RIGHT on your character.
hee hee

Well, WoW have a perfectly good auction house but it doesn't stop them trading in chat and it never will the solution is to turn off local you'll be amazed at how much you don't miss the useless crap anymore. Stick to guild chat and team chat when in missions and battles.

Whoever said that only districts 1-3 get spammed forgot to inform the spammers.

Sometimes if someone is getting annoying I'll whisper, "I just came from Ascalon D1 and someone was looking for that."
It sometimes works. They'll thank me and warp away.

If there is a problem with spam, I really only see it when people get around the chat filter and rapid spam. However, no matter what, spam is a minor annoyance at most, I really don't see why so many people are getting so bent out of shape about it. The people who spam WTS and such generally don't care if it pisses you off, so in most cases, confronting them usually just ends up in two people bickering like school children with no outcome changing anything, save creating a new grudge between the two people.

If you really want to do something about spam, boycot people who spam and encourage others to do the same. Petty arguments will solve nothing.

Yeah! I was in LA1 the other day trying to have a conversation with a friend in local and it was impossible!


/sarcasm

Exactly- which is why just a few minutes ago I told a spammer "Someone is looking for that in ascalon D2" and they actually whispered back "ty" and left. nonconfrontational, and it's not my fault if the "guy" looking for it left ascalon d2 before the seller got there. This was in a b.f. town with maybe 20 other people in it, by the way.


Spam is a minor annoyance, but so is flicking someone upside their head. How many flicks would it take to get to your gooey pissed-off center?

It's fun to pretend to be interested and ask about items, bid on stuff and such... kinda pisses people off if you aren't actually interested buying their stuff

It might not bother you, but not all of us are as easygoing as you

They try to stop traders using general chat and its useless.

THEY NEED THE AUCTION HOUSE!!!!!

Then towns will instantly become a friendly place to meet and greet.

I dont have a problem with people selling and buying in all and trade channle i dont know why so many get annoyed about it, i mean what do people talk about in towns anyway. Team guild alliance and whisper is what i use to have conversation. Although i think a trade house or wahtever it is would be a good idea and would save people a lot of time buying and selling.

How Would this trade thing work tho? I havnt played wow etc how do they do it?

Go read my earlier post #32. I outlined a relatively good system. WOW, Lineage 2, Ragnarok, and Priston Tale, among others, give the person two options. The can either spam WTS/WTB messages or use a built in command to create a shop. A window with your items pops up and you can drag and drop items into another window beside or below it. That window is your shop. You then specify a price for your items and confirm it. Once you're done, it make your character sit down and then a bubble with your store's description appears above your character's head. People can click on you to open your store and buy your items/view stats/etc.

EDIT: Updated text on post #32, paragraph #3.

Only noobs trade in local? What did you expect?..

But some noobs have execellent stuff that they don't know it's good and sell it for a cheap price ;o

well aside from taking advantage of noobs... some people actually like to talk to new people every once and a while... so sticking with alliance chat and guild chat isn't a solution. for a long time i had local chat turned off and it isn't as fun so that isn't the answer either.

For those of you who think my method of nicely asking people to go to trade chat i have a good report to tell you. So i was waiting on a friend to run through a quest with, and i had some time. So i wanted to see how effective simply asking people to move to trade chat would be. my initial response was in local chat "Please use trade chat for trades". This got some responses. Not everyone switched over to trade chat though. so to those people i sent PMs asking them to, once again, "Please use trade chat for trades... thankyou". I got several, "oh ok ^^ sorry", some "trade chat color is same as floor so it is hard", and i got some rather rude messages. To the people that said the floor was a difficult color to deal with. i told them the bottom level of KC was a darker color... so they could go there and use trade chat. These people all stopped using local or jumped into group 3,the rude people.

The rude people were interesting folk. First i asked them if they were having any sucess. They were not (go figure, i but from rude people ALL the time). So i then told them they would have better luck either going to a higher district (we were in D6) like D1 or D2, or if they used trade chat. They either stopped or REALLY started to get nasty.

I then let them know that ANET does not look kindly on suck unprovoked language, especially coming from someone spamming the wrong channel with trade offers.

This stopped everyone. It took some time.... but not more time then i had. The trading in local chat did not continue for the entire time i was there.

I did not use abusive speach (although you are free to do your own thing). I did not spam the spammers. i did not insult the spammers or thier items. most importantly i did not at any time claim to be on the anet staff (as i see some spammers have the custom of doing but are thwarted by the simplest of questions like, "well then who is your boss", "what is your name", "what team are you on")

So i method does have some degree of sucess. Now then onto the test as to whether buying stuff in trade chat works.

i decided i was going to try this as well. so i picked a few collectors items that i would need anyway and decided instead of farming for them i would buy them. i open up trade chat channel and typed "WTB Minotor Horns" and almost instanly was given a price and number available. I wasn't in a key trade area. I know selling things using this method works as well since i have sld many green items this way. Although i know my results may be abnormal (which i doubt) it is possible to not spam and still buy and sell things.

Well hope you enjoy that. I'm not saying don't insult spammers. You can do whatever you want to, aside from spam me to death with WTB or WTS. but i wanted to prove it was not nessicary to insult when dealing with this and that it doesn't take alot of time.

There is one thing, and one thing only that will "fix" the public channel trade spam:

ANet should ban those annoying suckers, just like they ban bots. Spamming is against the User Agreement / Rules of Conduct.