Hmm.... I'm unsure on this. On one hand it prevents players from overusing the channel to the point where half of chat is trade, and on the other hand it prevents new players from getting to towns quickly. I'm tagging @Skylexia as I know she was involved with making the current rule.

 

How does it prevent new players from finding towns quickly? 9 times out of 10 players use their allotted 2 messages at once and therefore could still advertise. They would just need to be more concise.

 

-1, sometimes I have many things that I need to advertise. Ads go in trade chat for a reason, people can leave it if they don't want to see a lot of adds.

 

You may leave chat channels if you donate.

As for the suggestion, why?

 

On peak you literally see walls of solid trade chat flood out regular chat.

 

I prefer to ignore the "over" advertisers. That is one of the down sides of the macros.

 

I mean, honestly, macros deserve more of the blame than anything - They flood trade chat with their auto messages. Sure, limit trade ads will decrease some of the spam, but, in the end, it's macros that cause the problem, not lenient trade ad rules.

Want to get rid of autofarmers, fishers, players seeing vanished staff log in, and trade spam? Disable macromod on ECC altogther - That IS a possible solution to many problems. ;)

Am I suggesting to remove it though? No, it's quite unfeasible as many players already rely mainly on macros on ECC and use them, such as even myself. I'm just pointing out that macro mod is the primary cause of trade spam, not lenient trade ad rules.

 

I was about to post a suggestion that also suggests a fix to the walls of trace ads, but since this suggestion is already on the topic, I'll just do it here.
Maybe have an afk timer, one that kicks afk players who haven't moved in say, an hour. This would eliminate all of the users who leave their computer and put their macro's on for most of the day.

 

What about players on minechat?

 

A good point, but they can just come straight back on again after they get kicked. It is a little issue, but I think it's worth it just to get rid of some of the trade chat.

 

Even as someone who uses those 2 messages every 3 minutes, very often, I agree that trade chat could definitely be a bit more strict on how often you post. During peek times it's ridiculous.

I don't think macros are the problem, aside from the people who afk and use it all day. And on the plus side, it helps them make sure they don't post every minute, instead of 3, and I've seen people recommend it, so that people don't spam.

Also, I think only donators can ignore trade chat.

 

To answer your tag, I was the SA at the time who instituted this rule.
The purpose of having 2 messages allowed per 3-5 minutes (as it was originally written, I believe it's actually changed to just per 3 minutes, though I'm currently too lazy to go verify that) is to allow people to advertise things that take more description than 1 line allows. The big one I was thinking about at the time was towns and plots, to allow more room to describe the town, its features, and pricing, but there are other examples of things you can advertise that do take more than one trade message.

Personally, I don't think it should be lowered, because it'll make it harder for people who have complex things to advertise to effectively sell their product. If the staff and users are finding that trade is getting too spammy lately (and I'll admit I myself have thought this), I would just up the rule to 5 minutes instead of 3 minutes. And people will go "but that's too long!" (I know because I dealt with that complaint a lot), but to those people I say tough cookie for you. If the trade spam is to the point it's disturbing gameplay, imo everyone should just have to wait a little longer to try to slow down the spam a little for the benefit of the server as a whole, and the complainers should just have to deal with it.

Both sadly and thankfully, I'm not in the position to make those calls, but I thought I'd respond to the tag as this is one of the rules that I came up with without much other staff intervention because at the time it was instituted the trade spam was really that bad with macromod that I had to basically make a call to stop the abusers. I also agree with the sentiment that macromod should be banned, but that's another discussion entirely.

 

It's very simple. Install ClientPermissions on the server, and block the "ECHO" command in macromod.
If you want to advertise you can still post 2 messages every 3 minutes, but we'll be rid of the automated messages that require zero effort and post constantly even when users are AFK.
If you want to advertise you have to put effort into it. Simple.

 

Kuke, I see you state it is very simple. Are there downsides to this being installed? It seems that if was just that easy, it would have already been done.
This is why I still wish you were staff - you have such great ideas (most of the time :p) and were able to accomplish so much more then.

 

-1
I currently use my 2 Trade Ads to advertise 1 thing in detail, without being able to post the second message, I wouldnt be able to fully advertise my product.

I dont mind it going 2 messages every 5 minutes or 10, just dont take away the ability to have 2 messages.

 

I also rarely see you "monopolize" the trade ads and have never had to ignore you (although Lady has come very close a couple of times :D)
I am confused - why the potato rating?