[2020] Combating Advertisement

Hey all,

I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. Weve all had to adjust our daily lives, but were working it out, trying to stay focused, and continue our efforts to improve our game and your experience. About a month ago, we surprised everyone and released on Steam and its been very exciting to see so many new players along with many more who have returned to SWTOR. As a veteran player, its pretty fun to group up with players who joined us when we launched and are pleasantly surprised by all the changes weve made over the years. Its also very enjoyable to run with a group of Legendary Players, as well.

Im sure you have seen how lively our starter planets have been, and this includes all the credit selling advertisers. Its been an ongoing battle for years and weve had to try and strike a balance between potentially frustrating our legitimate players and shutting down all the credit sellers. Its an old battle every MMO has to fight whenever chat is available. Yet, to be perfectly honest, our efforts havent worked out so well. Sure, we made it harder for them, but they are persistent organizations who like to frustrate all of us.

You may have noticed we made a few adjustments, but the hope was you only noticed the results. It might be short-lived, but at least for the time being, we are experiencing a little peace and quiet. Our changes will not stop all the spamming! We need your help as it begins with your spamming reports. We decided if something wasnt bothering you, then were going to allow the chat to come through. So, if you see a credit sellers message right click, report it! That will initiate the new processes we put in place. Oh, theyll try to circumvent, theyll change their message, theyll spam more, theyll add more accounts, more bots, but keep reporting them. They wont like it.

Thats the first step.

But perhaps one of the most important is to stop buying from them. You put your credit card, your password, your account, and all your inventory at risk. You dont know these companies and based on the fact they are violating our Terms of Service every time they advertise, they obviously dont care about rules. We enforce our rules by typically banning the accounts they use, but we also know they have inventories of bot accounts, so its a never-ending battle. For example, over the past few weeks, weve eliminated tens of thousands of their accounts that theyve created or acquired over the years. I wont give you the details, but it took us some time to track down their networks. We have more efforts planned, but it was a good start.

With respect to protecting your account never give out your password and if you dont already have one, add a Mobile Security Key. That adds an extra layer of protection especially if your email has been compromised. And, remember to change your passwords periodically (on all your accounts), just as another way to protect you and yours.

Bottom line, weve implemented a variety of changes and will monitor/adjust as we can. The credit spammers might move around, change their tactics, and try to disrupt your gameplay. Just report them and well handle the rest.


Thanks,

--Keith--

I hear you. Let's see if the volume reduction will help us be more responsive. We will continue reviewing the results and make adjustments on the back-end.

---Keith