Excessive characters = hi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or loooooooooooooooooooool (only reason official ruling put into place was because the community wanted an official statement on what they could and could not call spam punctuation, etc.) The 10 minutes is for things like events, contests, help requests, etc. Once again put in place to officially have a ruling on what you can and cannot call spam for normal conversation because we were getting reports left and right and the community requested a clear guideline. The 3 hours for shop adverts unsolicited we will not be budging on. WAY too often do people jump between all servers posting one line in economy chat only. The community (more than just a few members) requested that this be given an official limit because of the amount of spam it generates. Every time you hop servers, you are leaving 3 lines on the server: Log in, message, and log out. Let me see if I can explain it better with examples: Player ABC, DEF, GHI, and JKL all run shops on the Empire. With 3 hour ruling, their would only be 1-2 adverts per hour on average. With 1 hour ruling, that becomes 1 advert every 15 mins on average. Now I know that there are more than 4 shop owners on at most times of the day. The shop adverts in the past were disallowed. This isn't irrelevant because I'm reminding you that we are compromising. However, limits have to be put into place to prevent the spamming shop adverts. SOME shop owners already only advertize once per day and that's great. However, some were advertizing once every 30 mins and when players argued that it was spam, there was no clear rule to designate a limit. The community (more than a fair share) asked for these limits. Remember, this is not limiting your response if someone specifically asks "Who sells saddles?" and you respond with "Saddles sold at ####". This is only for unsolicited adverts.
It is irrelevant because it was added for good cause and also economy chat is really irrelevant if you cannot use it. You can turn economy chat off. Granted you can't turn off people joining/leaving but it would be nice if you could turn that off(can't you?). Economy chat until it was forced upon us through the logic was rarely even used. Many times I would see more, "use economy chat" and then an argument than people actually using economy chat. If we are going to have an economy chat, it would be better that people were told readily how to turn it off and allow us to use it as it should be, to stimulate the economy. I have never seen 4 shop owners jumping servers at one time thats a bit of an extreme example. I haven't been here forever but I have been here for 6 months, two of those I played about 14 hours a day so I have spent a bit of time around the server . Economy chat in any game that uses it whether they call it trade, market or economy is a spam fest, thats just how those chats work, especially when they have people that actually play. In 3 hours many players won't even be around for a second round of advertising. The players on will almost completely be different people. 30 minutes even this is somewhat relevant. I don't forsee this rule being enforced unless out of spite for the resistance to it. Which really makes it benign and just a point of argument which just causes problems. If people really aren't spamming then they shouldn't be lumped in with those spamming. Jumping on a server and advertising in a chat channel that is by definition the advertising channel isn't spamming, its utilizing a tool that really isn't used anyways. Again, I think educating players on how to turn it off would be far more productive. As far as being a compromise, I am not nor have I seen anyone ask for the rule to be completely thrown out the window, just not such a HUGE detriment to what that chat channel is. A HUGE detriment to new mall/shops that can't be known unless they are advertised. A HUGE detriment to people trying to get views/bids on their auctions when well over half of the EMC community would think that I and several others that float around the forums as much, if not more, than I do as crazy. Last and what I think makes this the most ridiculous is that the only time this is even is a problem is around "primetime" when so many people are on that you can't follow chat if you just look at it here and there. It goes by so fast that an advert won't even be seen for a couple seconds before it is gone and after less than two minutes you can't even scroll up to see it. All in all this is just silly. It doesn't solve spamming as you are still going to have people do it anyways and those of us that do actually recognize the rules are just going to get frustrated that it isn't enforceable and people ignore it and the only ones that are hurt by it are those of us that read everything on the forums. not to mention its going to cause so many arguments so many more /reports and just a huge head ache from every direction. If you want to accomplish the goal you were setting out to accomplish: Educate the player base on how to ignore economy chat, even I don't know how to do that as I have NEVER been annoyed by spam from it.
Even more reason that abc aren't actually spamming. Personally I like seeing people coming and going and I think most do but if it really is that big of a deal there is a solution! woot.
In a nutshell yes Eg, you can move between servers and say -> Shop at ###### <- once every 3 hours per server However if a player asks -> Does anyone sell bread then you can say -> Bread at ##### if you sell bread or you know of a shop that sells bread If every few minutes different players ask for items that are sold in shop and you sell them then you can say yes you sell etc. I think the point here is that you don't just keep advertising your shop every few minutes for no good reason, so that has been made that you only do that upto once every 3 hours. There are times when new players come on to the server and may not know that shops exist apart from EMC shop, also because of the different time zones not everyone will know that you have a shop so advertising is relevant. Its excessive advertisement that become the problem and that can be for anything from shops ingame to online Auctions to res events and so on. With regard to the rules this to help reinforce the point when a player is asked to stop and they believe that there is no rules that say they cant advertise etc and therefore they will continue, you can then send them the link to the ruling and ask them to abide by it. I have 3 shops on 3 different servers this applies to me as well I am not on 2 of those servers that much and for the most part not in town on my main server smp6 a lot so when I get a chance I will advertise my shop. But there are other ways to bring customers to your shop even when you are not there such as making a fish pond so they can fish and sell fishing rods next to it etc. You just have to be a little creative thats all. Its not just about making rupees its about giving players the opportunity to earn rupees also and letting them have some fun in the process.
So, no word on the Adventure Map thing? Still playing through all of them? How many entries were there? (Or am I blind, and someone already won?)
Thanks for doing these newsletters and advertising in game. The forums are a little overwhelming for us newbies, so this helps us keep up with what is going on.
