Someone got a new job.

[Nebu]

I may accept something soon which will make everyone lol.

This would suggest SoE, perhaps?

I certainly won't lol.  Having a job in these economic times is a good thing. 

[angry.bob]

McQuaid?

[Evildrider]

I may accept something soon which will make everyone lol.

This would suggest SoE, perhaps?

I certainly won't lol.  Having a job in these economic times is a good thing. 

That was my thought as well.  So tell us all the news on what's going on with SWG Lum!

[Lantyssa]

I'm betting on Hello Kitty Online's Austin office.

[Signe]

I'm betting on Hello Kitty Online's Austin office.

I hope that's it!  That would be awesome.  (for real)

[Sir T]

I'm betting on Hello Kitty Online's Austin office.

They sell those at Toy Joy in Austin. So hes set for his lunchbox! 

[WayAbvPar]

Late to this thread, missed awesome derail much better than the original topic.

1) Yes, it pays, no, it's not a full time job.
2) Yes, they expect something once a week (I'm finishing up one on bugs right now which I'm sure LC will enjoy to DEATH) which I manage to file in between fielding job offers for cities I can never move to. I may accept something soon which will make everyone lol.
3) Yes, I should update my blog more but I've been fairly busy.
4) English is the linguistic mutt of the world - has no particular lineage, is looked down upon by pseudointellectual snobs and is everywhere.

There is no shame in being Richard Garriott's major domo as long as the benefits are good.

[Lum]

Heh, close. Now that I actually accepted: it's with NCsoft, working as a data analyst to help quash RMT/botting in Aion.

The irony of not needing to ask directions to the office for the interview did not fail to escape me.

[Soln]

Heh, close. Now that I actually accepted: it's with NCsoft, working as a data analyst to help quash RMT/botting in Aion.

The irony of not needing to ask directions to the office for the interview did not fail to escape me.

congrats on a return to liquidity

hang in there on the AION stuff

[Nebu]

Grats on the new position!  No laughter from the Jackalope. 

[Nyght]

That is amazing considering the state of the nation and game industry. Guess all the that bad karma fro the LTM days hasn't followed you. 

Grats oh guru of the MMO blog

[Merusk]

I think it's mostly that he learned not to burn bridges somewhere along the way.   Grats again, Scott.

[Signe]

Good news!  I  hope you love it and it loves you back. 

[Venkman]

Heh, close. Now that I actually accepted: it's with NCsoft, working as a data analyst to help quash RMT/botting in Aion.

Now THAT'S a growth industry! Congrats Lum. 

[UnSub]

And I was so hoping for a "Lum Joins The Darkfall Team" post...

[Triforcer]

Congrats!

[Slyfeind]

Heh, I thought it was going to be about casual or social games. I am lol'ing, but more like a "muahahahaha."

[Trippy]

Heh, close. Now that I actually accepted: it's with NCsoft, working as a data analyst to help quash RMT/botting in Aion.

The irony of not needing to ask directions to the office for the interview did not fail to escape me.

Can you fix the Gold spam email problem in CoH/CoV as well? Shouldn't be hard to fix.

[LC]

Heh, close. Now that I actually accepted: it's with NCsoft, working as a data analyst to help quash RMT/botting in Aion.

The irony of not needing to ask directions to the office for the interview did not fail to escape me.

By this time next year, that will be 60% of the player base. Good luck with that one.

[Redgiant]

Goddamnit, don't take away my reasons for quitting Aion please.

[Severian]

Job security might involve not entirely quashing the bots / one's reason for being there.

[sam, an eggplant]

Once you get rid of the spam and botting, datamining remains incredibly useful to facilitate gameplay improvements by simply watching how players behave in the real game. You can tell which content players like and why, watch the economy to eliminate exploits and properly place goldsinks, balance PvP by looking at data aggregated over thousands of matches, and so on. Why do players take so long to finish this quest? Maybe an item icon looks like a healing potion rather than a club? All that data is in there somewhere, you just need someone with the free time and inclination to dig around and try to draw conclusions from it.

[Sir Fodder]

Bot/RMT czar... that doesn't make me lol, it makes a lot of sense. I was astounded at the extent of RMT/Bots in Aion and even more astounded at the poor response by NCSoft. So, a nod and a "good on you NCSoft, though you're still idiots for not addressing it many moons ago." Wishful thinking, but if NCSoft are sensible they would use Lum for more than data analysis, they need some consultation on the overall direction for that project.

[Sir T]

Grats Lum. :)

Bot/RMT czar... that doesn't make me lol, it makes a lot of sense. I was astounded at the extent of RMT/Bots in Aion and even more astounded at the poor response by NCSoft. So, a nod and a "good on you NCSoft, though you're still idiots for not addressing it many moons ago." Wishful thinking, but if NCSoft are sensible they would use Lum for more than data analysis, they need some consultation on the overall direction for that project.

To be fair to NCSoft, botting is a thing that's pretty impossible to stop till the game goes live. Botting companies will actually use Beta to perfect their programs and get ready for launch, to see what woks and what dosen't. They will only do it with one or 2 accounts to minimise the risk of detection. In effect they are beta besting their botting programs. They will only unleash their bots and RMT when the game goes live, when they know there will be the max amount of new players desperate to get ahead. And that's really only when you can start anti-botting measures, when you have something to detect. Botters and RMT are running a business and that's what I would be doing in their situation.

And in the chaos of launch there's little time to be thinking of anti-botting measures anyway, and admitting that their could be a problem is the last thing that the PR side want to do. "AION ADMITS THERE WILL BE HUGE BOTTING PROBLEM" are not the headlines you want.

[Lantyssa]

Bot/RMT czar... that doesn't make me lol, it makes a lot of sense.

It's a 'lol' because not too long ago NCSoft let Lum go from another project.

Grats though, Scott.  Glad you found something so quickly.  So do we post botters here or send you a PM? ;)

[Evildrider]

Grats Lum!   

[Xuri]

Congrats Lum :)

Just as a side note, if anyone ever fancies creating a covert, international strike-force for hunting down and putting a halt to gold-farming operations around the world, I'll gladly join. As long as I get a free hat.

[Sheepherder]

Heh, close. Now that I actually accepted: it's with NCsoft, working as a data analyst to help quash RMT/botting in Aion.

May I be the first to call you a failure and rage at you like a retarded manchild?

[patience]

Good to see that the concept that languages are living things whose primary purpose is to allow communication between two or more entities continues to be very hard to grasp for people who seemingly know a great deal about language.

Hold on a minute. I certainly get how language is a living thing but I typically rail against that in conversation because a lot of time gets wasted deciphering another person's interpretation of a word. Just last week a conversation stalled for 10 minutes because we wouldn't agree on what the word Christian means.

Don't you agree it would be preferable to try and maintain the definition of words instead of allowing our interactions to twist the meanings into something new?

[Numtini]

To be fair to NCSoft, botting is a thing that's pretty impossible to stop till the game goes live.

But the game went live what? A year ago? This was just the launch of a regional version.

[HaemishM]

Heh, close. Now that I actually accepted: it's with NCsoft, working as a data analyst to help quash RMT/botting in Aion.

The irony of not needing to ask directions to the office for the interview did not fail to escape me.

I really hope your first report begins with "Botting in Aion is so prevalent because of the insanely boring PVE level grind, you miserable jackalopes."

[Glazius]

Heh, close. Now that I actually accepted: it's with NCsoft, working as a data analyst to help quash RMT/botting in Aion.

The irony of not needing to ask directions to the office for the interview did not fail to escape me.

Can you fix the Gold spam email problem in CoH/CoV as well? Shouldn't be hard to fix.

You can now disable your email or only enable it for people in your SG and friends list. I'm not sure how that setting starts out, though.

I realize that doesn't stop the sellers, but they've been flushed out of global tells, and they don't seem to have gotten that people aren't getting their emails anymore.

[Trippy]

Heh, close. Now that I actually accepted: it's with NCsoft, working as a data analyst to help quash RMT/botting in Aion.

The irony of not needing to ask directions to the office for the interview did not fail to escape me.

Can you fix the Gold spam email problem in CoH/CoV as well? Shouldn't be hard to fix.

You can now disable your email or only enable it for people in your SG and friends list. I'm not sure how that setting starts out, though.

I realize that doesn't stop the sellers, but they've been flushed out of global tells, and they don't seem to have gotten that people aren't getting their emails anymore.

Oh thanks, that'll help. I haven't played in over a month cause I've been busy lately so I didn't know they changed that.

[Redgiant]

Grats Lum. :)

Yes.

To be fair to NCSoft, botting is a thing that's pretty impossible to stop till the game goes live.

No.

A minimum wage human can easily, from the moment servers open, monitor the common chat channels and put anyone they see doing it on a global ignore list in real time. Give players a "Filter using global ignore list" checkbox if you want to make the two people happy who want to see the spam. With decent tools for just this purpose, you could rpobably have one guy monitor a few servers not just 1:1.

They should do that while they are figuring out a better automated solution which does take more time. But they could have nixed spam from the beginning from a players POV if thy had done somethign simple like the above.

Ignoring solutions that an average Joe can see blindfolded tends to make a Company look rather stupid.

[sam, an eggplant]

Actually you could probably staff up in gangbangalore at around US$4k/year per hire. They speak english well enough to differentiate spam from non-spam.

Or just datamine and instantiate automated systems to do the same thing, which makes a lot more sense. For example, the WoW addon "badboy" is maintained by a single part-time developer and catches 95%+ of the spam in WoW, hiding it from view and automatically reporting it, all based upon a very simple set of paired blacklists, phraselists, and filters. It's maybe 100 lines of code.

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/bad-boy.aspx