I’d intended to write an enthusiastic first impressions of my play in ArcheAge post. I logged in this morning, with the intention of bumming around, being social, maybe find some new friends to hang and level with, but…. gold spammers. Oh, gold spammers.
Anyone who’s ever played an MMO has encountered the dread gold spammers. It’s an old, dead, oft-beaten horse. So why beat it again?
I am beating that horse because in ArcheAge, the gold spamming is just that bad. It’s bad enough to send me into a near red-hazed vision rage. Bad enough to make me want to log out and never log in again. Bad enough that I think this is by far and away the worst spammed game I’ve ever played. I want to say Lineage 2 came close in its hayday, which is both interesting – because L2 was another Jake Song game – and likely inaccurate – because it’s been so long I simply can’t remember anything beyond that it was the gold spammers and farmers who caused me to ultimately quit.
Honestly, I was surprised by the flood. I play Rift fairly regularly, and from what I can see there and in Trove, Trion has a solid anti-spam system in place. I’ve certainly never been driven from Rift or Trove chat by gold spammers (by other players, yes, but that’s an entirely different kettle of fish…). But in ArcheAge, I am finding it literally impossible to hold down a conversation, or even follow one, because the gold spammers keep coming in and killing the chat. But thinking about it – AA isn’t a Trion game. It’s XLGames. From what I understand, everything Trion wants to do to it needs to be vetted first, which can turn simple quality of life decisions and fixes into long drawn out processes that allow for maddening player experiences.
What makes it so bad?
There doesn’t seem to be any system in place to prevent rapid floods of repeat commentary, and the chat scrolls not by line, but by block. So when a spammer makes a message long enough to completely fill the block, it is literally impossible to see their name. This combined with the requirement of right clicking someone’s name rather than their message to block them means that the only way players have to combat the flood is to actually find the spammer in the game world. Right now they are simply parked at the new character spawn in point so fairly easy for anyone inclined to take the time to simply teleport there, but I’m wondering how long it’s going to take them to start finding places to hide. I do remember hunt the spammer events in Lineage 2. I wonder if they’ll make a return in ArcheAge?
I’m intending to write a series of ArcheAge play impressions, but the sad fact is, right now, I have very little to say about the game because all of my thoughts are drenched in gold spam.
I’m not sure for whom I harbor the greater hatred; gold sellers or the players who buy from them. May both be condemned to the deepest, darkest pits of MMO suffering for all eternity.
