Block list – MMO Fallout

Mark this as a feature that all MMOs should adopt. For as long as online games have had gold farmers or abuse players, and ignore lists that are capped in how many people can be blocked, there has been the drudgery of spring cleaning said ignore list. Wouldn’t it just be easier for the game to automatically remove players who have been permanently banned, saving you the trouble of unblocking someone only to have them start harassing you again? NCSoft thinks so, and back in November Aion was treated to an update where the game now performs weekly sweeps of block lists, automatically removing any characters that have been removed from the game.

In the patch notes for March 13th’s server maintenance, Lineage II is following suit with its own implementation:

Block List Removal begins. Any characters that were banned since last week and were on your block list will be automatically removed during the maintenance. This will be a recurring process every week.

Maintenance should last about four hours.

(Source: Lineage II)

Don’t you get tired of blocking people who are harassing you, only to later wonder if it is safe to remove them from your list? What about gold farmer accounts, how can you be sure that they haven’t been banned? They could be waiting just around the corner to surprise you with cheap gold at fast delivery speeds and customer satisfaction guaranteed. And no one needs that after a long day at the Pottery Barn picking out new bed sheets. Luckily, NCSoft has just the idea: Periodically sweeping banned accounts from everyone’s ignore list.

Starting with tomorrow’s maintenance, every week we will be clearing players’ block lists of permanently banned accounts! This means that banned accounts–including RMT spammers!–will no longer take up space in your block list! We will continue to perform this function every week.

(Source: NCSoft)