Trial accounts need changes.

[Crysta]

Need to make it so ALL trial accounts can't use the chat system, mark or carry runes or runebooks, carry or edit books, rename runes or runebooks, carry or rename ships or ship keys, use engraving tools or carry any items engraved with them, own any pack animals, rename any pets, own or use any herald NPCs, put anything in mailboxes, apply makers' marks to exceptional items or carry maker marked items, rename houses, or use player bulletin boards. The spamming is annoying enough.. would be nice to limit them to just that.

Am I forgetting any instances where a player can change the text of something that would be accessible to trial accounts?

And mind you when I say ALL trial accounts, I mean ALL trial accounts. There are too many from-box trial account codes out there to do otherwise. And "carry" includes being able to touch or move them.

 

[Sweeney]

Trial accounts might need the help channel. Better to require a credit card and not allow the same card to open more than 1 trial account.

 

[Taylor]

At least keep them out of global chat. The spamming is making the chat utterly unusable.

 

[Crysta]

It needs to be anything where they could edit text or distribute items with edited text, otherwise when one method is removed they'll just move on to another, even if it means making trial accounts more restricted. Might even need to include not carrying containers so they can't figure out buggy ways around the other restrictions.

The damage currently being done to the game by this stuff being allowed is far worse than the damage that would be caused by limiting trial accounts so severely, especially since its seemingly so poorly regulated to begin with.

 

[Splup]

Trial accounts might need the help channel. Better to require a credit card and not allow the same card to open more than 1 trial account.

Agreed.

 

[Nails]

While we are at it we can nerf them so badly that anyone that tries UO through this system cannot experience anything that resembles the game at all. I am sure they will sign up and increase the player base after that trial experience. Yeah, trials are an issue but so is getting new players that would come through that system. I certainly hate the same abuses you do to but seriously, if we are going to go that far, just shut down trial accts in whole.

 

[pgcd]

I still believe it's better to take measures against the spammers' site, since that is where they make their money.

 

[Schuyler Bain]

A simple disclaimer at trial account sign up stating that the trial is more of a single player experience with a "Look but don't touch" multi-player experience and explaining why this is so, should be all that is needed to retain legit potential customers. Heck I would completely understand such action and would know if I wanted to continue on playing the game well before the end of the 14 day trial period.

There is no easy solution, but letting the potential player know up front would most likely do more good than harm (yes I meant it this way and not the other way around). If someone is looking for a free-2-play game they have plenty of choices that would be better for them and our current player base.

 

[Mapper]

I really think this is a stupid idea and agree fully with Nails. We need new players, Doing this will not help at all. Hopefully EA aren't stupid enough to go through with the ideas here.

About books with websites being left in Luna.. So what? Don't even read them, I don't. What is the big deal?

 

[Tazar]

The big deal is that the one I think most people here are talking about is extremely-highly-anything-but-proven to be hacking accounts of people that go to his website.

This does need to stop - though I am not sure the things above will really help. Where there is a will, there is a way so to speak.

Linking them to a credit card will not work because it is way too easy to get multiple "prepaid" cards - many of the bank-card "gift cards" that we see this time of year will do.

Limiting the chat features as Crysta suggested could help - till they find a new route... communications crystals - even spelling it out in water barrels... they will find a way...

 

[Crysta]

If they could actually have taken action against these sites they would have by now. If anything, them adding the restrictions they did was verification that nothing can be done about the sites themselves.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

What EA needs to do is get their lawyers on this. Send the feds to the guys house and arrest the mofo.

 

[gunneroforgin]

No trial accounts allowed at all! also perhaps off shard transfer should be limited or elimenated.

 

[hakeem]

Why not just make it to where if a player pages that a site is spamming in such a manner, that a GM actually does a dang thing about it.

 

[Wonton fooey]

They need to use Credit Card or Bank Card only. Not this prepaid bull**** you can buy at walmart. All the person has to do is go out and buy another card once the Acc is banned and start over.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Why not just send them to a Test type of Shard?
When I want to give a trial to a skill (etc), that's where I go.
Seems geting instant gratification of items and skillsets would hook them faster.

 

[the 4th man]

Why not just send them to a Test type of Shard?
When I want to give a trial to a skill (etc), that's where I go.
Seems geting instant gratification of items and skillsets would hook them faster.

That'd be a good idea, have trials on test only, or a trial shard.....all I know is, there are naive people out there that WILL go to this site. Kids may ask, "dad, can I try your game??"....."sure son".......wham, jr runs off to a site and does something stupid.

Somewhere, there's a computer whiz smarter than this rip-off moron.......

 

[Trebr Drab]

If the powers that be were interested at all over this, they'd have done something already. It's not like this is a new issue, forchristsakes. You all need to understand. They don't care. They may say they do, to ease the grumbling "masses", but if they did this wouldn't still be going on.

 

[Smokin]

I think this would be great if they did this but to counter it for new players they should make it free to play but a very restricted free play much like many other browser style games are. Its free advertising and it brings in new blood to the game I think.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

> browser style games
I like that - Limited like most of those are, I'd let 'em play that for free.
No trials on regular prodo shards, the abuse from young status is plenty for me.
IMHO, I think that would fix a lot of on-going complaints users have, and I feel it'd make the value of Gold worth more.

 

[Widow Maker]

Ok Devs, Powers that Be...looks like the trial account monster is coming back to bite your paying customer's in the ass again.

Linking trial accounts to a valid credit card and allowing only 1 trial account per credit card NEEDS to be implemented.

No real need to worry about the pre-paid card. No fool is going to go out and buy 300 cards+ at (usually minimum) $10 each to circumvent the system. Any trial account not linked to a valid credit card gets the noose.

 

[georgemarvin2001]

I don't like the idea of trying to stop the spammers by stopping or severely limiting trial accounts. I do, however, like the idea of having trial accounts on their own server, separate from our paid accounts, but with the provision that veteran players can visit the trial server and show the new players the wonders of UO. That would solve several problems at once. Also, you could let new players keep the skills they gained during the trial period, and they could choose whichever shard that they wanted to keep playing on once the trial period ended. In this case, UO could get players interested in the game without having to deal with all of the problems that sending trial accounts to the production shards causes.

 

[aarons6]

i told them how to fix it in another post awhile ago..

other ea games you need a "sponsor" to make a trial account.. those are paid customers.. they get a few points built up over time that they can give to people to try for free.. this way a paying customer is responsible for the "free" ones..

this will get rid of all scammers and spammers as 1) you dont get the points right away and 2) they know where those points came from to make the trial accounts.

 

[Schuyler Bain]

i told them how to fix it in another post awhile ago..

other ea games you need a "sponsor" to make a trial account.. those are paid customers.. they get a few points built up over time that they can give to people to try for free.. this way a paying customer is responsible for the "free" ones..

this will get rid of all scammers and spammers as 1) you dont get the points right away and 2) they know where those points came from to make the trial accounts.

This is an interesting idea as well.

 

[Sweeney]

A separate server is a terrible idea.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Need to make it so ALL trial accounts can't use the chat system, mark or carry runes or runebooks, carry or edit books, rename runes or runebooks, carry or rename ships or ship keys, use engraving tools or carry any items engraved with them, own any pack animals, rename any pets, own or use any herald NPCs, put anything in mailboxes, apply makers' marks to exceptional items or carry maker marked items, rename houses, or use player bulletin boards. The spamming is annoying enough.. would be nice to limit them to just that.

Am I forgetting any instances where a player can change the text of something that would be accessible to trial accounts?

And mind you when I say ALL trial accounts, I mean ALL trial accounts. There are too many from-box trial account codes out there to do otherwise. And "carry" includes being able to touch or move them.

YES WHAT CRYSTA Says and more. Come on. I want EA to win. New trial accounts done need half the stuff that is abused.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Supreem_EAMythic
We are working on a feature to allow you to ignore other players in the chat channels. We will release it as soon as it is ready.

Keep in mind, you can petition on players in chat if they are violating the TOS. There is a new way to target players in the harassment petition system for global chat.

Supreem.... man

1. Prevent 15 day trial accounts from talking over a whisper.
2. Prevent 15 day trial accounts from writing on runes.
3. Prevent 15 day trial accounts from holding books.
4. Prevent 15 day trail accounts from naming beasts.
5. Prevent 15 day trail accounts from dropping runes. They can only go to trash can.

7. Limit the amount of time 15 day trial account can speak. Normal game play.
8. Auto jail the guy when his site is spammed in any order.
9. Tag books to the writers and ban their accounts.
10. Require trail accounts to have either a credit card, email address, phone number, address.... something that can be tracked.

If this were a footbal game it would be EA 0 SPAMMER 2345 and your still in the first quarter. Its embarrassing.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

I don't like the idea of trying to stop the spammers by stopping or severely limiting trial accounts. I do, however, like the idea of having trial accounts on their own server, separate from our paid accounts, but with the provision that veteran players can visit the trial server and show the new players the wonders of UO. That would solve several problems at once. Also, you could let new players keep the skills they gained during the trial period, and they could choose whichever shard that they wanted to keep playing on once the trial period ended. In this case, UO could get players interested in the game without having to deal with all of the problems that sending trial accounts to the production shards causes.

Dude your talking 14 days. Thats 14 days. No one is going to make or break joining UO because of limited abilities for 14 days. Argh.

Seperate server is a TERRIBLE idea. UO is UO because of the people you meet. Argh. Limit the accounts and let new players meet in game players. Site spammers would be glad to have a seperate server. WHAT COULD BE BETTER. Spamming where new players are coming and you can sit there spamming selling your site. GEEZ.

 

[Crysta]

Just realized I forgot "editing their profile" as something they shouldn't be able to do.

 

[Jhym]

Yeah, let's make it that trial accounts can only stand in Luna and watch people prancing around in artifacts and garish clothing while using greater dragons to barbeque their brisket.

This is a short-sighted and foolish idea and gains you nothing.

The simple answer is, as others have stated, link the accounts to something accountable. However, you don't want to limit retail purchase of gametime as there are folks who don't want to/can't use credit cards and thus have to use those alternative methods of payment.

One possible way to do it is to link all accounts to a valid phone# that can accept sms messages and have them sms the activation codes to that phone# for trial accounts. Any account violation linked to that phone number deactivates ALL accounts linked to that phone number (which is validated by an ask/answer system similar to how yahoo/google validate account email addresses.)

In any case, if you see accounts spamming external site addresses you're supposed to page on them or ignore them and go somewhere else. Perhaps you should try that instead of making trial accounts take the brunt of your anger.