Magic finding in large games questions

[Cozmo]

Hi Guys,

Everyone knows that the more players in a game, the more items drop, therefore increasing the likelyhood of finding something useful. My main method of doing this is simply browsing games named "duels" or "trades" or some such thing. Is that what you guys all do? This is obviously less than ideal as players can leave your game rather quickly, others might be mfing there, etc. Not to mention it seems to tick people off. But I know of no other way to go about it.

Secondly, is there anything I can do about the spam? I know that 'N' clears the screen, but my god, it is awful. Is there a script or something that will mute players as soon as they join? Would you risk getting banned for hacking?

Thanks!
Cozmo

[squishyfeet]

Hey Cozmo, I usually will mf in duel/trade games also. Personally I dont think its bad mannered to do it, although some might argue. I feel its the same as when people will come into Chaos/Baal games and go ahead of the bot and kill everything out of range of leechers. Which brings me to my second recommendation. I find popular Chaos Baal games, usually ones that do both and Ill mf in those following each run. There used to be a Cbaal game I used to follow quite religiously a month ago that had 4 bots going at once. IMO I dont feel you are harming the game/leechers in the game. If anything you are helping the leechers/botters get more exp and you also increase mf for everyone else. You arnt messing with chaos/baal so it shouldnt be a problem.

The only way I know that will 100% work to avoid spam...is private games. One thing I do is when I trade, I usually set the char diff by maybe 10 lvls for my 90+ chars and if they are like 70-80 I set them to 5-6. It helps keep a good bit of the spammers away but they will still come. They have them at every level, but will help cut down on the clutter. Otherwise if your doing pub games its just slowly amalgamated to be part of D2.

[Archone]

The spammers with the highest lvl are usually the lvl 61 ones..

Ill follow baal/dia runs when I mf. As long as there are more then 5 players Im happy..


Peace

[Cozmo]

Don't Baal games end pretty quickly? How long does the average game last?

I found a post where someone custom made a very long list of keywords used by spammers. I think I'll try editing my ignorelist file with his list.

[Pyrotechnician]

Baal games have varying run times, but a safe bet is about 5 minutes run time. Thats why the above posters look for games that run chaos and baal as they typically run longer.

The spam filter is quite effective, I usually only see 2 or 3 get through from a spam bot, and the message when they enter and leave of course.

[crawlingdeadman]

Everyone knows that the more players in a game, the more items drop, therefore increasing the likelyhood of finding something useful.

this is not strictly true. the more players in a game, the less likely you'll get a "no drop" it doesnt mean if you have x more players 4 times more items will drop.

there's a nice program in the diablo files forum called willowisp that will automatically clear your screen for you. check it out, it's nice.

[Greizer]

It clears whispers too though, or so I hear.

[crawlingdeadman]

yeah, but no one wants to talk to you so you'll be okay