The Mana World Forums

Photo-based captchas which prompt the user to describe what's seen on a picture often suffer from a small sample size. They often use a small pool of a few dozend pictures. This can make it viable to automatize the process.

To make it harder you need a very large pool of reliably tagged images. The attacker must not have access to the images and their tagging information, so any public repository of stock photos is out of question.

This of course only applies to captcha systems which are so widely deployed that cracking them is economically viable. Small websites can rely on security by obscurity. When the benefit of breaking your captcha system outweights the necessary work, nobody will bother.

Crush, forums have currently NO CAPTCHA AT ALL.

We currently don't have that many posts by spambots either, so what's the problem?

http://forums.themanaworld.org/memberli ... le&u=16460
http://forums.themanaworld.org/memberli ... le&u=16458
http://forums.themanaworld.org/memberli ... le&u=16457
http://forums.themanaworld.org/memberli ... le&u=16440

This is from last week. Spambots, but with some retardation to look less suspicious. Those are only the obvious ones. It's really not bad for forums having about 10-20% users inactive spambots?

Let me rephrase my question: I what way do spambots currently impair your personal user experience of the forum?

argul wrote:EDIT2:
As of personal requests I will not upload the data.

Please don't post detailed logs. It's bad enough that some people "follow me around the game" using the online list. This would be a wonderful tool for certain stalker types.

I would honestly consider leaving the game if I thought that other people could track my game play as closely as you have.

It makes no difference whether *you* upload them or not, anybody could write a script to watch the online list themselves. (I had one myself a while back)

Either post the detailed logs, or make a request to remove the online list from the webserver.

@Crush :
Usually spams are reported quite quickly; and removed as quickly. Thanks to users and to you Crush
A question though: do you ban the obvious spammers from forum or are they kept inactive and counted among the almost 10,000 registered users?

@Argul: I'd be interested in using your stats script, now it confirms partially what I suspected after the accounts and char purges (cf http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... 12&t=15846).

In that order, Auctionbot could be a very useful tool for admins, along with it's mailing and broker features, as it could gather statistical information systematically. The only information, that misses is the one about game accounts that are created and not followed by a char creation (why is in the dreams range). :/

When I delete spam, I put a ban on the account; when a forum admin does it, the account gets totally deleted.

Spam comes in waves; it was pretty bad around my apotheosis, it's not quite so bad now.

Some spam accounts are created at one point in time, and start posting later, but some of the ones I've dealt with recently have been newly created.

Nard wrote:In that order, Auctionbot could be a very useful tool for admins, along with it's mailing and broker features, as it could gather statistical information systematically. The only information, that misses is the one about game accounts that are created and not followed by a char creation (why is in the dreams range). :/

Why would we need a bot when we could get that information directly from the server?

Super thread, we can definitely improve TMW communication profile. I am a communication professional, specializing in communication products (audio/video/web/print) and I volunteer to help to the extent of my availability (quite a lot this summer ). I also like light programming as hobby.

Here are my impressions and comments about this thread.

Nard wrote: I think the web site is one of the central part of it, if not the heart. It is not up to date.
I do think that even a small browser adventure (ending to registration page?) could bring a lot of players in TMW.
Maybe making a contest for best promo vid? With some really cool prizes? Like, ekhm, assassin boots?

Very good ideas, I would add :
- Optimise website for SEO keywords like "free mmorpg", "free linux game" and such. I can help with that.
- Maybe an online contest where all new suscribers get a chance to win an item. The contest can be reconducted every month, I heard Facebook is great to manage this. I could look into it.
- Lobby to get exposure in online magazines... this can get us a great influx of new users if successful.

ImNotPirate wrote:i dont know why but when i ask some friends about tmw they all say it sucks , they dont like it and they prefer 3D games .

- We can put forward that this game is netbook friendly... put a positive spin on it.

Reid wrote:Social networks are also a nice card, but does somebody know that they exist? There are none visible links which redirect there.
For the blog, there were hundred of gamer blog about tmw. http://charlestmw.blogspot.fr/ This one is particularly good, and there are none better advice than the one from a player of the game that you are looking at.
TMW's strong point is on the player community, from an outside view, the game looks like one of these try to do a 2D MMORPG, so playing with the community theme could be a nice thing.

- Linking to our social networks accounts would be crucial, I agree
- Blogs are time consuming... only good if new content is posted on a regular basis. If we have volunteer writers ready to write regularly that is a very good Idea. We can also contact established bloggers to promote new content when its ready since they already have readers.
- Youtube videos could be edited to start with players testimonies explaining how they enjoy the community, I can video edit if required. I can do it, even have a green screen at home

argul wrote:Around 50 percent of the chars have online times in the first bar, which is about 400 seconds, so they leave the game within the first 7 minutes.
Then there are waves which describe the days, but there is no significant drop rate after certain hours/days any more.
The huge drop is in the first 7 minutes.

The content is great and there is always room for improvement in any project. Please take the following critique as constructive:

From my personal experience, the first time I registered (probably under gagol) I was under the impression that the game was limited to the starting area since I did not saw any other player and there is not much to do there. It can also be a little tricky to unlock and go to Tulimshar.

The second time I saw some established character running across the area and THAT convinced me there was more to do. Allowing newcomers to go to Tulimshar directly would do a lot to have a better retention rate. Some incentive for higher levels to go back there would be good to to show newcomers the community.

A little bit less walking and talking to go to Tulimshar mine would be appreciated too... some newcomers find it annoying and boring. (24 hour drop peak?) It should also be more clear WHO you need to talk to to gain confidence from the Lieutenant and go have real fun instead of running around and talking to everybody randomly... a simple hint would do the job. Maybe directing the new player to find a specific NPC and make the first steps more linear and easy to unlock the Lieutenant's confidence would help...


That was my 2¢

gagolthegreat AKA Jimbo Rinfrette

cant we add the game for free on Steam ?
and i got a 75euro card from google i can use it to make ads of tmw .

Discussion about online list and privacy split to http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... 12&t=15887

I posted a redesign proposal for the website in the "website" section of the forums for those interested. http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... 11&t=15886