Local chat is doomed -_-

- A trade island or zone is not going to solve the problem. The same rude people who sell in local will use the same logic. "I can't sell my stuff fast enough on the trade town. No one is visiting so I'm going to keep spamming local."

- An auction house is not going to solve the problem because as Arkantos or someone else pointed out earlier then people will just spam their auction # in all available channels. We would still have the same situation.

- A constantly updated filter might help a little but will require a lot of overhead at ANet. This situation isn't totally their problem, but is part of the communities problem as well.

- Weapon/Mod traders. This very well could solve the problem or at least make a huge dent in it. The game should have weapon, offhand, and mod traders just as there are material, rare material and rune traders. They would buy from people for a higher price than the merchant price and then be available for people to purchase.

This way people don't have to waste so much of their time playing trader unless they want to. The people who like to wheel and deal can do that. Having the traders will reduced the amount "wheeler dealers" and could also help keep prices down on gold, greens, and mods.

Exactly, that's all I keep hearing too. Just more excuses not to use what was provided for trade.

So, their solution is to take over a different channel and spam there as well? Because:

1. It's too hard to read
2. Nobody buys from there
3. The text is pink
4. There's too much spam in there already
5. It takes too long to sell
6. It's broken, because nobody buys my junk

Now, I know there's been suggestions in sardelac for an auction house of some sort, but in the meantime, these are just excuses. Will the auction house (if one is implemented) be declared broken too, because nobody buys your junk?

I think even if an auction or trade house was implemented, you guys would still be disappointed to some degree, and probably refuse to use it once again. Who's to say that everyone playing doesn't have everything they need already anyway?

If you can't beat them join them...

Rather than trying to get players to use the correct channel, encourage ALL the trade spammers to use local chat.

Advertising in a chat box that half of the world leaves muted 90% of the time seems like a rather fruitless endeavor, does it not?

There is no reasonable alternative! You can't ban people for driving the economy. Half of the GW balance system is based upon trades between players.

IT"S PINK!! The pink blends into the game while the stark white stands out. On top of that it's actually the variance between the two colors that helps your ad get noticed. If all of the ads were just in trade chat it would be harder to single out an ad in the blur of pink. Same goes for when the majority of the people are using white chat. I use whatever chat color most of the advertisers aren't using and just pick one or the other when the color variation seems balanced.

And let me repeat this last phrase again because people don't seem to be notcing the irony here:
The people that say we should all use trade chat are the exact same people saying they frequently mute trade chat.

Exactly, and what was the point of turning that channel off again? lol, oh that's right, because people aren't interested in buying anything usually, or don't want to see spam.

That wasn't his point. A lot of times people buy/sell when they aren't really interested in doing so. In a sellers perspective, if most people automatically have the trade channel disabled.. then why use the trade channel? It's just not reasonable. Using the local chat seems like a viable alternative even though nobody appreciates it that much. I am almost sure that a lot of sellers/buyers would stop using the local chat from time to time if an improved trading system is implemented. In the meanwhile, the argument works both ways.

Well said TheMosesPHD.

Ok, this is the only on-line RPG I have ever played, so my xp is limited to
GW, do the other biggies like WoW and Everquest do it this way ?????
I personally would love to see an auction house, now how well this would
work I don't know.
If there were an auction house I could spend less time trying to buy or sell
things, you could just pop into town see if what your looking for is available
and then leave and go back to playing, seems like a good idea.

p.s. I know to use the scroll bar to go up and down to look for stuff, but my
poor eyes are getting old and just gets tiring after awhile.

-thx

Hmmz. Not sure about WoW. I tried out Lineage2 for a very short while and just started up Silkroadonline to see what it was like. Lineage and Silkroad have a thing where you set up a "stall" in the middle of town or where ever you're standing and you can put a text box above your head to explain what you're selling like "Armors/Weaps lvl 30-37 | Weap Elixer". I don't think this would work too well in GW because there are just so many people in each district.

Here's the trade in Silkroad

I imagine in GW it would be at least twice as cluttered as it is in the screenie.

You're exactly right, TheMoses. So why should those that don't want to see your trades be forced to view them? They turn the trade chat off For a reason. Nobody likes to be forced to view advertisements. Doesn't everyone skip the commercials when they have a chance? It's just plain rude to spam the local channel. Period.

LOL, thats usually what I do.

Ive noticed people saying there should be a weapon/mod trader like their are material traders. A good idea so people can get more money than a regular trader a slow down the spam everywhere.
But I don't like the idea that much seeing as how I think most (not all) weapons and mods are worth pretty much what they say underneath. Merchants are the all mighty price checkers. Sometimes I think if we follow theier way and adjust gold drop, the economy would be more smooth.

I once heard someone say "I don't use the trade window becuase no one is in there and it's dead"
You're one of those really special people who types your sales adverts in all CAPS I bet...I'm among the crowd that is annoyed by the trade spam in the local chat and yes, I do mute the trade chat 99% of the time. Also seeing as I don't buy weapons or items from other players ingame (thus my reason for muting trade chat in the first place) you posting in the local chat doesn't increase your chance of making a sale to people like me anyway, it just further serves to annoy us. Logic, try it out sometime.

Soon I'll be keeping Local muted along with trade and seeing as I spend more time with Henchies than with people, my game will soon becuase a lot more quiet.

Let's see then. Now there are only two things I can think of that one would use Local Chat for other than advertising: Forming groups and having conversations.

The above quote applies to having conversations too. If you're looking to hang around in channel and chat you can easily take a few seconds to switch districts. If you're just passing through the town to move on to something else you can easily mute the chat, or just plain ignore it. You still have plenty of the light on your monitor that's not dedicated to a chat window.

Actually I do not type in all caps.

Get your head out of your ass man, you're not the only person in the game. Oh noze I can't sell items to "people like you". The people I can sell to, though, is everyone else on the planet. And why are you even posting in this thread? You said you don't buy from other players in-game so this thread has nothing to do with you.

This thread has plenty to do with me as one of the many people who are sick of the spam.

I’ll admit I might have come of a little harsh, but still the fact that you’re trying to defend your position as a local chat trade spammer is laughable. It's like the Nazis and the KKK defending their right to have marches and speeches expressing racism and hate mongering.

"If you don't like the spam in the local, go to a higher district" And why should the people who are using the local chat for what it was meant for be pushed out by the spammers? Logic again.

TheMosesPHD, you make great cases for the "Why should I care about you? This game is all about me" population. Except this game isn't all about you. If it were single-player and offline, you'd be right. But it isn't. It's an online game with thousands of people playing. No offense, but your making 500g is not more important than my ability to have a conversation in local chat. You are not king of the world, so get the hell off your pedestal you selfish jerk.

This exactly the selfish attitude I'm talking about. Local Chat is not for trade, so this thread has something to do with everyone. Get the hell over yourself man, and respect those who wish to use Local Chat for what it's for.

The auction island/house/zone would work if they made trade advertising in the normal areas a bannable offense ;]

Indeed.

You're so right. Comparing Local Chat spammers to notorious hate-mongering organizations isn't an overstatement at all.
...The hate is coming at Local Chat spamming, not from it.

So moving the problem to another district is going to decrease the problem? You'll still quite often get zoned into the district where all the trade spam is, so you would have to zone to the first district instead of zoning to the later district anyway. It's no different than zoning to a later district. International district? There has been plenty of discussion about why dedicating a district just for trade has no appeal at all. And though the first districts are in a way dedicated to trade, people randomly zone into the first districts and have a chance at seeing your ad. People don't usually randomly show up in international districts.

The international districts used for trade don't work that well anyway. Do you know how many hours those Chinese farmers stand around in Droks id1 spamming their ad? It's many more hours than I actually have time to play the game.

And of course you don't buy from players, and you said you use henchies all of the time. I'm still not seeing why you have a reason to be in this thread.

It was an analogy for how ridiculous you sound trying to defend you “right” to spam the local chat with your trades.

Get over yourself man.

Well this thread looks like its turning into a flame war, and people are ignoring good arguments from both sides and repeating how local chat is not meant for trading. That is obvious.

No. You just don't get it, it's that simple. We need a solution; A system where we can sell our trash and be able to have conversations as well. This solution does not exist yet. Therefore, we have to work around it until A.Net gives us a better system. Many types of items would take far too long to sell in a channel solely dedicated to chat. If a channel was only for trade then when you're selling a specifically modded/skinned item you would have to stand around forever hoping that by chance someone who is looking for your specific weapon would float through at the exact same time you're there. Now plenty of people use the auction system to sell items. I do whenever I can but not all items sell that well or that fast on GWGuru.

There isn't a great solution to the trade system. All of you morons who tell us to stick to trade channel also keep adding on that you keep that channel muted. I can't sell anything with an advertisement no one can see. But ads need to be out there where they are noticable so you can sell to people that are just passing through, and not just people in "buy mode", without interfering with conversations. There isn't a way to do this ingame though at present time though. So we've gotta work around it until there is.

I don't think I'm being selfish at all by trying to tell you how you can avoid the ads you don't want to see until the system is fixed. I'm not telling you to move to the later districts because I think I'm more important than you. I'm telling you to move districts because, simply, that's the only solution you've got.

And did you read the post of the person I was refering to? The person who doesn't participate in ingame trade and just uses henchies instead grouping with people. I don't think a person that does this has any reason to complain about a chat system that they don't have many reasons to use.

I just read this whole thread. Its not fair for the traders to have to wait 2 hours to sell their overpriced crap.. instead people that want to form a group should have to wait until its convient for the traders to decide that its convient for them to allow others to borrow some time on the all chat. Thats much more fair.

Use the trade chat. Its the chat for trading...hence the name

Because, he, like I, are getting a little tired of the abuse of the system at play.

Two (there are others as well) issues in hot debate right now because of abuse of the in game system are afkers whom leech off of others during missions. There is no rule against doing this, but it's plain rude and immature. The second is hearing people spam trade garbage in All Channel. This also isn't against the rules, but knowing that it annoys many people... well, common curtesy should tell you to use the proper channel to peddle junk.

The "fix" that came out can work if Anet puts more effort into it, or allows the player base to "turn in" various forms of the spam - however, more importantly; it should have been taken as a hint that people are tired of it and those doing it should have enough curtesy to respect others. If for even a second someone comes back and says "What about respecting the traders?" - I say just this: "Use the proper channels for peddling and you'll be respected"

edit This is what I mean by common curtesy. Because it's convinient to you, everyone else should just suffer your choice. This is the exact attitude of those that afk and leech the missions. How about rather than wanting everyone to work around you, you use the tools the way they were supposed to be used and stop trying to find a way around the system that was designed so we don't end up with another negative change to the game.


Final edit: lol, I killed the word Courtesy throughout and never noticed till just then. Oops.

...What you don't realize is that it was a terribly bad analogy. Comparing spammers to Nazis is like comparing house painters to Da Vinci. They both use paint and brushes, but that's about it. Not a good analogy.

You're pretty adamant about proving that there is nothing wrong with spamming in the local chat.
#1- No one ever buys if i post in the trade chat.
answer- maybe you're selling crap that no one wants

#2- People should do what I want them to do and go to another district if they dont want to see trade spam.
answer- Please. This just proves the selfish nature everyone is begining to see in your posts. Why should I have to change districts to suit your selfishness?

#3- oh noez!!!1!! Pink Text!!!
answer- again, Please. People that want to buy something, look for it. they turn on their trade chat to see whats available.

I still have not seen a valid point as to why people CANT use only the trade chat.

All that you loons are giving me is a solution to your problem. It doesn't solve everyone's problems. Players need to sell things to other players. It's what drives the game economy.

Give me the solution right now before you complain your one-perspective ass off about chat spam.
>Tell me how players can sell there items to other players in a timely manner and get back to what they are doing.
>Tell me how a player is going to sell an item in a chat channel that way too many people have claimed, in this thread and ingame, they mute most of the time.
>Tell me why you think it's a punishable offense to get a good drop? Why should we have to stand around forever to sell an item?
>Explain to me how pushing sellers into districts dedicated just for trade and banning them from the main channel isn't going to make selling an item go that much slower?

Give me the solution to the trading problem. We all know how to solve your problem with being annoyed by spam but you're not solving the problem of the people who drive the economy.

The analogy is not Spammer to Nazi as you seem to want to think it is. It's a comparison between Nazis arguing their "right to express hate" and LC spammers arguing their "right to spam" Both are equally ridiculous.

Though after reading your post at the top of this page I am starting to see your daft reasoning. Anet does need to make a solution like you said, but people like you forcing everyone else to share your “pain” is the not the way to go about it and that is where the observations of your selfishness are coming from.

Most of you wont remember mplayer, but they had moderators called wizards that policed the chat. The wizards where players that sign up for the position and where selected by mplayer staff. They had the power to kick you out or ban you. I think this would work in guild wars. The problem i see is there are a lot of players and not that many staff or devs to moderate the game.Yes there is a way to report ppl but we all know this is slow or nogo at best.If we had (wizards) that had the power to ban for a sort time for repeted breaking of the rules there would be a lot less of it going on with the trade chat,scams cheating,boting(ect). It all comes down to us making the game better not just running to anet every time someone breaks to rules. (Just my two cents)

Solution: GWG Auction = no spam. That way you can get your drop, go back to what you are doing. Before you log off at night, log into auction, post your findings. Before loging into game, check the auction, log in make your trade and repeat.

In game options: Be polite. Trade to those that are looking for goods and not force spam. Ever been to a car dealership and get insta-saled the second you walk onto the lot? It's annoying. Be polite.

@Whitedragon

EQ originally had a player volunteer system in play where instead of paid GM, players were given the duty of up-holding the rules and such. I recall seeing many warnings and bannings occuring for various reasons during the game time I played for no other reason than saying some "flametory" towards another player. I wish we had that here as well.

>Tell me how players can sell there items to other players in a timely manner and get back to what they are doing.

::No solution. Use Trade chat for as long as you like to trade items.

>Tell me how a player is going to sell an item in a chat channel that way too many people have claimed, in this thread and ingame, they mute most of the time.

:: You dont seem to understand that the people who mute their trade channel DONT WANT TO SEE WHAT YOU HAVE TO SELL.

>Tell me why you think it's a punishable offense to get a good drop? Why should we have to stand around forever to sell an item?

:: Again, Your choice. No one is forcing you to sell it. Go to the auctions on this site. Save yourself some time.

>Explain to me how pushing sellers into districts dedicated just for trade and banning them from the main channel isn't going to make selling an item go that much slower?

:: Again, people who want to buy things look for them. I'm not arguing that the trade system is perfect or even good by any means but it still does not give you the "right" to spam a channel designated to be used for people to chat or get a party. Use the trade channel.
Hope that clears up your questions.

One problem with that is the theory that we would need one "wizard" for every outpost in every district and given the fact that new districts form and vanish automatically as people come and go, this could be a problem.

I've gone over all of this before. I have. Let's do this again though...just for fun.

You're quite right that many items do not sell off easy. There is always someone around that needs crafting material. There isn't always someone around who wants to buy an Amulet of the Mists. But just because they aren't in a certain district or aren't taking time out of playing the game to go into buy mode, there are many people out there that are willing to buy an amulet of the mists.

First off I addressed claims that I'm being selfish on the bottom section of page 5. Quote it and refute it before you call me selfish again. And how are you not being selfish by kicking sellers/buyers away from potential buyers/sellers. Let's tie this into your next point.

This is not true at all. How often have you been running through town just to finish a quest or form a group and you see someone selling an item that you want, or wanting to buy an item that you just happen to have in storage. Nearly all transactions happen in this way. It's like if someone is walking through the mall to shop for shoes or just hang out with some friends. That is the reason they are in the mall. But, while they're walking around they see an ad for some nice pants on sell in the store across the walkway. "Hey! I was thinking about getting some pants soon and looky there, someone has pants on sale! I think I'll head in and get some!"

This is how the trade needs to be. It needs to be easy for a passerbyer to notice that something is available even if they aren't at present time setting aside time to search for it. The problem is that we can't currently do this without interfering with other communication.

I can't solve the problem. You can't solve the problem. So we've just got to work around it. I'm not being selfish at all. I'm telling you how to get around the problem if it annoys you that much. You see it only takes a few seconds to zone to another district to avoid the ads you hate so much. But at the same time. During those few seconds you are in the selling district, there is a chance that you might see an ad for something you need. In this way you are able to escape being flooded by ads, and the advertisers have a chance at getting their message to you, their passerbyer.

Im sorry i forgot about the /help you typed in to call a wizard to where u were at. so u dont need 1 for every dis. (maybe 1 for every town) and trust me there would be no shortage of ppl trying to become a wiz.

Read the 3rd and 4th paragraphs of my last post (#112). This is my main point. GWG Auctions is good for reaching the people that take the time out to go into "buy mode". It works well for many things, but does not support the needs presented in my two paragraphs there for traders to be able to reach common passerbyers.

At the moment there are spammers in just about every district, that "wizard" would be stretched pretty thin if he were assigned an entire outpost to himself.

Why has this thread become about the "right" to spam in local chat? It is very simple actually. They don't have a right, but they are also inadvertently being encouraged to do so because the trade channel is insufficient for trading. The economy is bad enough in guild wars so that people need to find more extreme methods to sell. Very similar to how some people may randomly open a trade window if you are of the profession that may need the item in question.

Lets put it in point form.

Should people be allowed to spam local chat with trade things? No.

Are they encouraged to use the trade channel? No.

Is there any alternatives to the horrible trade channel? No.

Can the root of the problem be addressed with the poor trading system? Yes.

"My items sell faster on local chat. Turn it off if you don't like it"

is another way of saying:

"My enjoyment of the game is more important than your enjoyment of the game. I have no consideration for anyone else."

Which is another way of saying:

"I am rude"

---------

"I advertise on local chat because I know that people turn tradechat off, and I want my advertisements to reach them"

is another way of saying:

"I enjoy harrassing people who do not wish to buy my items with advertisements; I know they don't want to see my spam, so I put it everywhere I can in an effort to make sure that they DO see it."

Yet another way of saying:

"I am rude"

-----

Just FYI: You, the rude ones, have won this battle. I have local chat off 100% of the times in outposts. I do this because you will NOT SHUT UP and are constantly trying to sell me crap that I DO NOT WANT. The result is that I will not participate in any friendly conversations with people in town. I will never be able to help new players or answer questions. I will not be able to interact with or meet new friends. Why? Because YOU think that selling your crap is more important than all of that. And I think you suck.

My solution:

1. ANet expands the ignore list to "infinite"
2. ANet enhances the ignore list to block ALL ingame messages from ignored accounts: Local chat, Guild chat, Team chat, Trade chat, Whispers, Emotes, and Alliance chat.

If they would be so kind as to implement these two items, I will fill my ignore list with every "WT.S" jerk I see and, eventually, I'll get them all.

Those of you arguing against the local chat spam have to realize, you are the ones with the problem. The sellers certainly don't have the problem here, they are, after all, getting their stuff sold. The buyers don't have a problem. The AVERAGE USER does NOT have a problem, they simply accept the spam as part of what you would hear in town. It is you, the select few, who choose to have the problem because "oh my god! he is using a local chat for something that belongs in trade chat! ban him!". No one else has a problem with finding groups or carrying on conversations. I don't have a problem keeping up with what's being said in Lion's Arch Dis 1, and there isn't much that is worse than that. You are the minority here, not us defending the spam on local chat.

Spamming on local chat works. It works better than any other method currently at the player's disposal. And, quite frankly, it are these spammers that are CREATING the economy of Guild Wars. You should be thanking them. Players will continue to use it until a better method is introduced. This is really all there is to this conversation. If you don't like the spam, well, too bad. You are going to have to learn to adapt, at least until Anet decides to change things. Communities evolve, this is a result of it.

For a real world scenario, imagine walking through the streets of a heavy trade area of a real world city. Imagine walking through Morroco on a Saturday afternoon. A majority of what I imagine I'd hear are peddlers trying to sell off their goods, stuff collected from all over the world. This is no different.

Maybe, just maybe, if you wish real hard, Anet just might introduce that trade house, and a majority of the spam will disappear. It works in WoW, and they have a wonderful, player driven economy.

/cheers for Ghull Ka

I don't think you've read through most of the thread. I've made many posts addressing all of you people coming and and just pinning the word selfish on every problem. Shut the hell up and read all of the posts. QUOTE ME on my responses and make your response directly oppose mine. All you do is complain about how things are inconvenient for you instead of presenting an alternative that will work for both sides.