In an effort to reportedly take on the ever-encroaching menace that is gold selling spammers, outside chat client support powered by XMPP will be ended for Star Trek Online, Champions Online, and Neverwinter, adding to a growing list of feature support caualties.
A copy-pasted message from the forums of each game being affected explains that XMPP support is ultimately being used by too many nefarious sources to be deemed worthy of being maintained.
“While this feature was interesting and often convenient, it also unfortunately makes it easier for gold spammers and others to reach our chat system. Allowing access via an XMPP client also creates several technical challenges that make it difficult to keep our in-game chat safe and smooth. At this time, we don’t have any plans to replace this with a different service.”
Overall reaction to this announcement appears to range from indifferent disappointment to outright anger, with a number of posts pointing out that access to XMPP features requires a lifetime subscription — something that supposedly no gold spammer or gold spamming company would purchase. Regardless of the reason, if you access chat for either of these games with a third-party XMPP client, you’re out of luck.
