question for GM's

[Mirage]

Hello everyone,

I see there has been questions why the GM team have not replied to this thread yet and I would like to touch bases with those who have made posts.

I have explained, in past threads, that the GM team takes a general hands off to RMT Customer reports as the Special Task Force is the department which handles those violations and does thorough investigations into the claims. Square Enix recognized the RMT situation was a much larger issue than just the GM team could handle, so they created the Task Force just to handle this community concern.

While the GMs understand the reports and would like to be able to sweep in and remove the suspicious customers, but normally that is all we have to go on is suspicion; running around with no Linkshell, AH bought gear, level one characters following a high level character, not replying to tells, etc is not a Terms of Service violation. Without a solid Terms of Service violation the GMs need to pass on the information to our Special Task Force so they can do a deeper review.

If you place /helpdesk calls, the GM Team will take any names you report and pass them on to the Special Task Force who have the tools, time and resources to monitor the customers you report. Another thing we may want to consider is that the Task Force is also watching their actions to watch for trends, find the banks, mules and other characters and accounts involved; remember they go after not only the RMT supplies, but the customers of the sites too. But, for the most part, the Special Task Force keeps their agenda secret as they cannot have their investigation means made known public as all of their progress would be lost.

We are here to support you and hear everything you are saying about these suspicious characters, do not give up hope. Please do not stop reporting the cases to use, just be sure to include a name and general description on what they are doing. I know the report line is not very long, so you can say something like: “Bsssiojsoslso may be absentee fishing in Port Jeuno” or “Busususussjsj has been seen with multiple level one chars following while he hunts– please review”. Normally we do not need job/race combos , so if you include that in your reports, it is not always needed.

I am always trying to find better ways to help explain the GMs to our players because the players and GMs work as a team to help keep the game fun for everyone – if you do not report, we cannot review.

Thank you and I am sorry for the wall of text. I will keep this thread open as it has been civil. I may not be able to answer any direct questions, but I will keep an eye on this thread.

-SGM Jhanaka

Thank you for your reply. Is it necessary for us to report suspicious auction house activity, such as buying low-level items for extreme amounts of gil, or do you have other (perhaps automatic) methods of monitoring these things?

If you prefer us to report these things, would it be acceptable to do this with the /helpdesk command in the game itself?

Additionally, while I think I might get some negative feedback from the players for this, would it perhaps be an acceptable countermeasure to severely limit cruor gain in abyssea for characters that have not completed the lv70-75 limit break? The way I see it, this would not interfere with the majority of legitimate players. Players who have done the Maat fight would be completely unaffected by this when they took their next low-level job into abyssea, and the only way I can see this affecting legitimate players is when they have created a new character, perhaps a mule, and wish to have other players powerlevel this character up. Even then, it would only affect the new character the first time they took a job up (and only if they chose the chest-burn route). After that, everything would be as usual.

However, it would slow down things a lot if RMT characters were suddenly required to beat maat on every new character they created if they wanted to gain cruor with it. While it is possible for certain jobs to defeat maat with combat skills at 0 (thief, maybe white mage), I am sure it would slow them down and make life a lot less convenient for them. Without having beaten maat, the cruor gain in abyssea could be perhaps 5% of what it currently is.

As for the implementation, it could be done by introducing a key item (in this case, an abyssite) that would be obtainable by talking to an abyssea NPC after acquiring the title "Maat Masher". Without this abyssite, cruor gain would be reduced to 5% of the normal rate.

I don't think I've overlooked anything that would significantly impact legitimate players with this suggestion, but if I have, feel free to point it out.

[Jhanaka]

Mirage >> Good afternoon! Just a quick reply to your questions.

The Auction House transaction scheme is very odd, and that would be something I would report via the Report to Special Task Force feature at the Support Center. The GM team and the Task Force have many tools at our disposal, but that seems a violation that would take some deeper investigation, so the Task Force may be better suited.

If our players are on the PS/Xbox systems and do not have the means to reach the Support Center, then folks can report to the GM team via the /helpdesk. The GM team will then provide you a quick message back, thanking you for the report, stating we will review and also mention of the Task Force; the GM team will investigate if it falls under our policies and, no matter what, we pass the information onto our Task Force.

The above advice actually goes for any RMT behavior you wish to have reviewed. The GM team can be used as a means to report to the Task Force, so please feel free to use the /helpdesk anytime.

As for your suggestion on limiting Cruor due to Limit Break Fights, that is a great idea and I will pass that up to our team. Thank you for giving thought into ways we can stop the RMT, as I said we are all a team. =)

With that said, I shall step back out of this thread and let you everyone continue their discussion.

Have a great day.

[Secondplanet]

Jhanaka i do thank you to no ends for replying to this board and problems. I was wondering moreover isn't there anyway to autoscan names of new character evenmore so ones like a cat who played on on a keyboard to make the name?

That alone will cut down a fair amount of the problems i notice.

[EFFEFFEXXEYY]

I've seen them they hide in the walls or at the books all bunched up in exp places where average players usually don't go. Once you hit level 10 sky's the limit for book burns. This isn't the problem its the abbysea reverse chain groups that are abusing the system. These keyboard slam characters are what I call trailer trains.

As for that AH exploit, the trial accounts are being used to transfer massive amounts of gil. You can't trade to a trial account but if they put up a 1 gil item and instantly buy it for 10 million it could be outside the RMT pawner system. Trial accounts are limited to trades but not limited to the amount of gil they can post stuff in the AH for. This way a trial or newbie account can place an item up for 1 gil and then then transfer millions by having an alt instantly buy it.

I have no suggestions on how this could be fixed without restricting the ah some.

I understand that the heart of your post is good-natured, but I simply can't ignore that it contains two blatantly incorrect insinuations of truth which are not fact based.

First, your post follows the general assumption throughout this thread which is incorrect. These are not trial accounts. Trial accounts have a yellow and green badge by their name that cannot be removed under any circumstances.

The badge is actually this, which in Japan is used to indicate novice drivers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshinsha_mark

Point of fact, these are not trial accounts. They are paid accounts. Trial accounts cannot enter Abyssea, which defies the prevailing logic of your post.

Now let me explain something. FFXI with all expansions and 1 free month of play was selling for 9.99 on amazon last month. It has sold on Steam for as little as 4.99. If the company that makes this game were sincere about limiting the issues you seem to care so much about, the first thing they would do is stop practically giving away the game for free.

But make no mistake, it's not free, even at 5 dollars. And these "trailer trains" as you so cleverly coined the term are paying customers that bought the product. They are using it how they see fit, and an SGM in this thread just told you it's not the job of GMs to police the activity. Report them to the special task force as instructed.

Second, trial accounts are not being used to manipulate the auction house. PERIOD. You have clearly never used a trial account. It's not that they cannot buy or sell on the auction house. It's not that they can't trade. And it's not that they can't send or receive deliveries.

IT'S THAT THE THREE FUNCTIONS I JUST MENTIONED HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY DISABLED AND DO NOT EVEN APPEAR AS MENU CHOICES.

To even click an auction house counter is completely disabled.

So no, suspicious trades are NOT coming from trial accounts.

They are paid accounts.

They are a product of Square practically giving this game away for free.

At the point you can launder 55 million gil for the price of a 5 dollar license key, it no longer becomes relevant whether it is free to do so under a trial or whether it involves a negligible fee.

It is a small opportunity cost. The price of doing business.

But don't insult anyone's intelligence by pretending that

1) Square is clumsy/lazy/stupid enough to allow trial accounts to make such transactions
&
2) The persons engaging in this behavior haven't invested a significant amount of time and effort into formulating a solution to the problem of being banned for bad behavior.

The reason people are gaming the system is precisely because they HAVE outsmarted it, and until an admission of the facts is made, which is that the methods employed are organized, sophisticated, and effective, then all of this is really just a bunch of cry-babies on a forum whining that they didn't think of it first as far as I'm concerned.

[Jhanaka]

Hello Secondplanet.

Your reasoning is very sound on removing the ability to make alphabet soup names, as I call them; I will pass this suggestion on up, for you, thanks!

There are just a couple counterpoints as to why this may not work, though, so please let me explain.

For one, the RMT customers will just go back to using "normal" names. When this plague first started in our game, they used patterns in their name, like a color/fruit combo, Redapple for example. While those in the party had similar names, they were all still "real" names, so to speak. If we put in filters to prevent the keyboardbasing names, they would just go back to making "real" names and the problem does not stop.

I also worked as a GM for another company where the GM staff had to approve each name the customer's choose. I would like to say that stopped the RMT customers, but it did not.

I have been with you guys from Beta (though my name was changed) so I have seen how the RMTs have developed and adapted. It is an interesting beast and one with many heads, as was pointed out, but cannot be stopped easily. The best thing you guys can do is just continue your reports by either in game or through the email I provided. Trust me, my GMs do not mind as that is why we are here, to handle your concerns or make sure they are passed onto the right folks who can help.

I hope you guys have a good evening.

-SGM Jhanaka

[Sarick]

I understand that the heart of your post is good-natured, but I simply can't ignore that it contains two blatantly incorrect insinuations of truth which are not fact based.

First, your post follows the general assumption throughout this thread which is incorrect. These are not trial accounts. Trial accounts have a yellow and green badge by their name that cannot be removed under any circumstances.

Dear keyboard slam lvl 60 bst with a name I can't spell. You sound very angry about the information I posted. Have some courage and USE your real character name. Also, please understand the current system is broken. If solutions are created to fix the problems by bringing them to the attention of the developers so be it. Even if trial accounts are very limited that doesn't mean people aren't abusing the game in the way I mentioned.

They are a product of Square practically giving this game away for free.

So basically, another version of a trial account for a few pennies more? After some thought I decided to add this. The type of trail accounts I was thinking about where not the ones with the little flags on them as much as the ones where people pay for a few codes like you said and get the added FREE 30 day unrestricted subscriptions IE another type of trial.

It really doesn't matter how they exploit the game it only matters if nothing gets done to fix it.

Oh yea I saw a group of them in BLM reverse chain alliances Attawa Chasm today by the. Ironclad. I didn't report them because it's MORE of a hassle to report them then it is to ignore them. If SE wants to handle THESE RMT they need to kick it up a few gears with STF and investigate cases in a timely manner. Sometimes it's obvious whats going on.

[saevel]

Thank you SGM Jhanaka for your time and explanations. We appreciate you doing this for us. Continue the good work and have a good day ^^

[Sarick]

I have been with you guys from Beta (though my name was changed) so I have seen how the RMTs have developed and adapted. It is an interesting beast and one with many heads, as was pointed out, but cannot be stopped easily. The best thing you guys can do is just continue your reports by either in game or through the email I provided. Trust me, my GMs do not mind as that is why we are here, to handle your concerns or make sure they are passed onto the right folks who can help.

I hope you guys have a good evening.

-SGM Jhanaka

Jhankaka, I appreciate your comments, the most important factor is the response to obvious activity. If someone is floating in the sky or hovering inside a mountain etc and a player reports this they shouldn't be there 2 to a day hours later. When players report these things most of the time SE might as well allow it because by the time anything appears to get done the damage is already there.

On another note: What does SE think about MOVING all the RMT captured accounts to their own locked server?

[Mirage]

Then they would start new accounts on the regular servers. It would be no different than what banning does today.

[Sarick]

Then they would start new accounts on the regular servers. It would be no different than what banning does today.

This is true but they'd still be moved off the servers. The speed at which they are caught and taken care of is what will take it's toll.