Avatar and his ads

I'm going to assume that he/she is using throw away EJ type accounts for this as he/she switches them up often. Any chance you can add yet another limitation to EJ accounts and make it where they can't join any channel but the Help channel ? Is that asking too much ? @Kyronix @Mesanna @Bleak

You and Several Others like this.


Please make the Grizzled Mare a 5 slot mount, it's incredibly rare and deserves it. Some of us have been waiting a long time for this simple addition.
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  • Remember how trial accounts used to be restricted to the Help channel and that was where you'd see the "Avatar" advertising spiel?  It was really disappointing when Endless Journey came out to find out that those accounts would not be limited to the Help channel and therefore anyone in General chat would have to read it. 

    The advertising spiel by the "Avatar"gives such a bad, bad impression of the game and I'm really disappointed that the dev team hasn't been able to find a way to quash those accounts that are blatantly violating the ToS.  That in-your-face and never-ending complete disregard for the rules every 15 or 20 minutes has, in my opinion, done a lot of damage to the game.  It constantly sends the message that no one seems to care about enforcing the rules, or worse yet, it eventually can lead one to the conclusion that perhaps someone on the dev team is connected to that website and therefore has no interest in stopping the advertising for it. Of course, no one can prove that, but it isn't much of a leap to draw that conclusion.  And, if that is the case, how many people eventually start to ask themselves if they want to keep pouring money into the game if that is what is really going on.

    It really needs to stop and I certainly don't understand why nothing's been done about it over all these years and why that website was given an even wider audience when Endless Journey was introduced. If nothing else, I would expect the dev team to at least put something on the intro screen and in the newsletter reminding people that in-game advertising is prohibited.  I can certainly remember Jeremy making an issue out of it in the past and the hubbub some of her comments caused. Can't understand why that attitude from game officials eventually seemed to go away.
  • FortisFortis Posts: 408
    edited February 2020
    Every mmo games have this problem in chat about gold seller we should sadly move on 
  • Fortis said:
    Every mmo games have this problem in chat about gold seller we should sadly move on 
    I disagree.  I think more should be done.  If the statistics in the official newsletter are to be believed, there have been 45 actions taken against accounts for solicitation in the last 20 months. Given how frequently we all see the in-game illegal advertising by the same website day in and day out, it's hard to not question what the heck is going on. Those accounts are only caught in the act two times every month or that activity is just consistently ignored.  Which is it?

    In the same period of time, the GMs apparently were able to catch the following other violations:

    807 unattended macroing
    164 multiboxing
    107 disruptive behavior
    58 duping
    13 abusing game mechanics
    12 naming violations
    7 harrassment
    4 illegal house design
    2 exploitation
    1 staff impersonation

    So why can't they catch and action the illegal advertiser who spams all day and night throughout the game? It's not like no one knows where the character shows up, for goodness' sake.

  • TimTim Posts: 790
    Bottom line People still go to the A*& hole's web site and give him money.

    The only way to stop him would be if everybody boycotted his site and anyone who used it.
    God knows there is no shortage of gold resellers who don't advertise or are at least discreet about it. Last time I "googled" it I came up with 4 or 5 sites. (sad but true)
  • Garth_GreyGarth_Grey Posts: 1,453
    My guess would be he's either using throw away accounts by the 100s or in combination with paying other players to help. 
    You and Several Others like this.


    Please make the Grizzled Mare a 5 slot mount, it's incredibly rare and deserves it. Some of us have been waiting a long time for this simple addition.
  • UO has an obscenity filter that you can turn on to filter the language of other characters.  What I have never understood since "Avatar" started with his schtick is why the development team didn't just add a non-optional, universal filter to block his website address and then update it if/when it changes. Consistently blocking the website address out of the spiel seems like it would be an effective way to nullify the advertiser's efforts.
  • They. Don't. Care.
  • DrakelordDrakelord Posts: 1,730
    have you ever wonder that the Avatar is in fact a Dev?  That they do not wish to stop it?
    Remove Trap = Bad News
    for
    Treasure Hunters
    Drakelord#5598
  • I went to Avatar's site once.  He is way over priced compared to the other sites.  Dunno how he sells anything at all lol
  • monkgamermonkgamer Posts: 100
    edited February 2020
    Drakelord said:
    have you ever wonder that the Avatar is in fact a Dev?  That they do not wish to stop it?
    Ive often thought of that. Do these companies sell on the black market? even create items and gold to do such a thing? I mean, selling gold might look bad as a microtransaction but what about on the down low?

    Im not accusing them of this, as I am sure a big company like EA would not do such a thing which they would also have to hide from investors.

    But its still a thing that makes you go hmmmmmmm
  • Petra_FydePetra_Fyde Posts: 1,321
    So how would you do it?
    Catch him on the spot - he logs in, spiels and logs out, young char, no time out. Gone in seconds, and can have a new [young] several times per day.
    Block his ip address - vpn
    block his web address - someone suggested that some months ago on Stratics. The devs listened. We got "w e b a d d r e s s" in place.

    Next idea? 
    Instead of suggesting the devs are involved, how about thinking they're as frustrated by the damn man as the rest of us? They should pay someone to sit on the spot in Haven 24/7 on every shard?
  • Garth_GreyGarth_Grey Posts: 1,453
    edited February 2020
    If this were my game and it were being invaded (ad bots) and slandered ( unauthorized web sight) I would be using incentives (game time codes/sovereigns/etc) to compensate my newly created Integrity Team members.
    You and Several Others like this.


    Please make the Grizzled Mare a 5 slot mount, it's incredibly rare and deserves it. Some of us have been waiting a long time for this simple addition.
  • MargretteMargrette Posts: 549
    edited February 2020
    Here are some of the things I would be doing:

    - Write a program to monitor chat and flag messages about selling gold. A real person would be checking the results periodically and entering the website addresses into a list to squelch in chat.  Beforehand I would have already added to the squelch list a multitude ol spacing variants of the website's name.. 
    - Disallow the use of "Avatar" in the names of newly-created characters.  Investigate and monitor any accounts that already have characters with this name or variations thereof.
    - Prohibit newly-created characters from using chat for a set period of time.  This prohibition could obviously be overruled for characters on accounts used by Broadsword contractors/employees.
    - Disallow newly-created characters from being able to paste text into chat or regular conversations for an even longer period of time. Ditto the above for overruling the prohibition on certain classes of accounts.
    - On newly-created characters, disable the function of any macro actions that create typed text for a similar period of time. Ditto the override comment above and there would be obvious exceptions for "commands" that actually make something happen in the game, e.g., commanding a pet to follow or kill or releasing or locking down items.
    - Disallow newly-created characters from using a pre-typed, canned text-creating application like UOWedding for a similar period of time. Ditto the override comment above.
    - Aggressively ban accounts that use older characters to spam gold- and item-selling website information. These would be identified by monitoring the program mentioned at the top of the list.
  • I just checked on the other forum and people have been complaining since at least December 2011 about the spammer in Haven promoting his gold/item site. That's a whole lot of bad impressions about lack of rule enforcement in UO that he's made on players in the meantime.
  • Here is another possible way to thwart the spammer:  When you log a character into UO, it returns to whichever chat channel (if any) it was in when it last logged out, same as how it works today.  However, the first time you try to say something in chat, you have to do something like complete a captcha or type the answer to a simple math question. If you fail, there's a one minute delay before you can try it again; two minute delay if you fail again; etc.  You wouldn't have to complete the challenge again until the next time you logged in the character and tried to say something in chat again.
  • TimTim Posts: 790
    Nice suggestions but all ether have a fairly simple work around (Bvatar rather then Avatar), outside the control of BS (cut and paste is system level not UO client so could it be stopped??), require a lot of extra staff or make life so difficult for the rest of us want to quit.

    The only way BS itself could stop him is to under cut him on the UO store. Of course we could stop him if NO ONE would deal with him.
  • MargeMarge Posts: 720
    "'Of course we could stop him if NO ONE would deal with him. "

    THIS!!!!!
  • TjalleTjalle Posts: 77
    Just add every variation he comes up with to advertise his site to the filter and within a month or two his spam will be so complicated no one will be able to read it. Problem solved.
  • Is his spam really detracting from anything gen chat has to say.  Like lol.
  • TimStTimSt Posts: 1,779

    His spam always seems to come out right after I make a comment in gen chat.  Then I have to wait and wonder if people saw my comment or did his spam hide it.


  • FortisFortis Posts: 408
    remove ej accounts and you wont see any avatar posting site
  • MakasouleaterMakasouleater Posts: 29
    edited February 2020
    Margrette said:
    Remember how trial accounts used to be restricted to the Help channel and that was where you'd see the "Avatar" advertising spiel?  It was really disappointing when Endless Journey came out to find out that those accounts would not be limited to the Help channel and therefore anyone in General chat would have to read it. 

    The advertising spiel by the "Avatar"gives such a bad, bad impression of the game and I'm really disappointed that the dev team hasn't been able to find a way to quash those accounts that are blatantly violating the ToS.  That in-your-face and never-ending complete disregard for the rules every 15 or 20 minutes has, in my opinion, done a lot of damage to the game.  It constantly sends the message that no one seems to care about enforcing the rules, or worse yet, it eventually can lead one to the conclusion that perhaps someone on the dev team is connected to that website and therefore has no interest in stopping the advertising for it. Of course, no one can prove that, but it isn't much of a leap to draw that conclusion.  And, if that is the case, how many people eventually start to ask themselves if they want to keep pouring money into the game if that is what is really going on.

    It really needs to stop and I certainly don't understand why nothing's been done about it over all these years and why that website was given an even wider audience when Endless Journey was introduced. If nothing else, I would expect the dev team to at least put something on the intro screen and in the newsletter reminding people that in-game advertising is prohibited.  I can certainly remember Jeremy making an issue out of it in the past and the hubbub some of her comments caused. Can't understand why that attitude from game officials eventually seemed to go away.
    I 1000 percent agree, I report that guy all the time. I really hope they change thier attitude towards that stuff, I mean they deleted my post and banned it one time when I linked a guy here to doing all the stuff avatar is doing. I really wish they would just ban these people, they dont even try to hide it, and it is disgraceful. I could find out where his website is located, and the game masters could easier figure out who he is and what accounts he uses by making a purchase on his site and busting him when he goes to deliver it and ban the entire account and all accounts linked to it. 

    I also wish the uo community would stop supporting these people, there is no reason for it. They have a cash shop now. People should not be supporting the cheaters living by buying thier illegal stuff. I just hope one day they ban them all. They 1000 percent could find these people, I mean I have found them it isn't hard, and if I can find them so could the game masters. 

    Makes me wonder like you said are the developers so corrupt they get paid by these low life people who do that? Who knows kinda weird they dont ban these people. 

    As for worthless avatar they could stop him easy enough for some reason they dont want to? There are a bunch of excuses people give as to why he cant be stopped, but I think they either support him or are him. As i said just go to his website make a deal as the developer, find his in game name, review all the people who made transaction with the low life, and ban them all. Then call pay pal, and say listen this guy is using your site to sell illegal items from my corporations intellectual property here is the transaction, I need his funds seized and his account banned. End of story. It literally would take them like 8 hours to get him out of the picture. 

    He probably isn't in the usa, but if he is like I know some of these low life are, they could inform the IRS too, I am sure they evade taxes. 
  • MordredMordred Posts: 102
    Wow someone here above me is  really high or have some sort of weird imagination. Those thing will never happen. Keep dreaming. People should care about their own life and not much for the other , your life will be a lot better.
  • SkettSkett Posts: 1,312
    He spams every channel even the help channel
    uses the same AD over and over it seems 
    you would think they could some how block this WW in all channels 
    very annoying to say the least it’s like a commercial every 15 minutes or so (never timed them) 

    I’m sure the devs are working on this there’s no way they want this kinda disrespect in there game 
  • From a coding perspective, it would be difficult and time intensive to figure out how to block this, if it's even entirely possible. The easiest way would be to block EJ accounts from having access to chat, but that would just be a group punishment for those who don't abuse the system.
  • Garth_GreyGarth_Grey Posts: 1,453
    From a coding perspective, it would be difficult and time intensive to figure out how to block this, if it's even entirely possible. The easiest way would be to block EJ accounts from having access to chat, but that would just be a group punishment for those who don't abuse the system.
    It would only take a dev to log into gen chat and perma ban every account as he advertises, it doesn't take rocket science or some hard line of code. 
    You and Several Others like this.


    Please make the Grizzled Mare a 5 slot mount, it's incredibly rare and deserves it. Some of us have been waiting a long time for this simple addition.
  • PolarisPolaris Posts: 106
    edited February 2020
    They should limit EJ to the help channel only. This would definitely solve most of the trouble... and would give them only 1 single channel to monitor instead of all of them. Also... they should spam their own message every 20 minutes or so to NOT buy from his website. That is the best that can be done.

    I might also go as far as blocking EJ accounts from dropping items in Luna (runes / books.) I dunno if this is possible, but would be nice. I'm tired of throwing away those books. Someone on Pacific just started changing all of the names to SCAM. I like that idea too... we all need to be doing that for him....

    I could tell you guys who this is, but I should not state that I'm guessing. He is the one who owns the most castles in the game, I will say that much. He could be found by tracking the gold transactions... the "other" scripters sell gold to him directly so that he can resell it. But they all sell gold to each other.... and even some of the more famous people who were at the 20th anniversary party are also buying / selling / using tonnage of accounts. The problem runs deep......

    To get him out of chat, simply limit EJ accounts to the Help channel. Then the Dev team spam their own message every 20 minutes for everyone not to buy from that site, it is illegal.
  • Garth_GreyGarth_Grey Posts: 1,453
    The absolute easiest fix, sell gold in the In Game store, end of story.
    You and Several Others like this.


    Please make the Grizzled Mare a 5 slot mount, it's incredibly rare and deserves it. Some of us have been waiting a long time for this simple addition.
  • TimTim Posts: 790
    From a coding perspective, it would be difficult and time intensive to figure out how to block this, if it's even entirely possible. The easiest way would be to block EJ accounts from having access to chat, but that would just be a group punishment for those who don't abuse the system.
    And how long would it take to find a work around for any block. I think they see fixing the problem by coding to be at best a temporary fix and not worth the effort ($$$).

    The only easy fix that has a chance of working is for people to stop dealing with the a-- hole.
    Enough people obviously are to make it worth his time and effort.

    Once again my solution is once a month for someone at Broadsword to check out the web and put anything they find on sale there on the UO store. As with music if there is a simple and legal source most people will go with it rather than the shady (in this case another word that starts with s) source.
  • SkettSkett Posts: 1,312
    The absolute easiest fix, sell gold in the In Game store, end of story.
    This right here ^^^

    Some believe that certain developers are running this website I highly doubt it 

    the team could make a lot of money from the store if they sold gold there 

    and a retouch tool to change mount color lol 


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