[2022] Do something about the gold farmer

We are working on a multitude of improvements for this now, and will have more to share as things start rolling out – it is going to take a combination of efforts to address this appropriately, including but not limited to improvements in filters, tools, systems, and additional processes.

I do want to call out that having a 24/7 GM to ensure insta-bans is not a viable solution. With some quick math, area chat is separated by zone, which means there would need to be an individual in each affected zone on each server. Let’s be generous and say there are only 5 zones that have it bad on each of our nearly 60 servers (rounded), which means there would be 300 GMs doing this at any one time. Say they have 8 hour shifts each, then to cover 24 hours, you’d need 3 different people… so with a low estimate, that would be 900 staff members dedicated only to this. While that would be crazy convenient, it’s not a feasible solution.

Regardless, we are actively making improvements, and the best thing players can do to help in the meantime is report these folks in-game. When spammers are reported, they get axed pretty quickly, so it is a big help to us