Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

Put my name on that list.

I am so, SO sick of the RMT's in FFXIV... Its getting worse each day on Goblin. Its just not possible anymore to play without being /busy. I cant add new friends, i cant talk to friends... Im extremely annoyed. Sometimes we get 1-3 tells a minute. RMT shout in the cities and even in Mor Dhona! And now they start to make names that are advertising their website just by the name.

If i were a new player in this game i would probably quit right away because its just impossible to meet new ppl.

Signed - Izumi Curtis (Diabolos)

Signed! Salem Parrini-Ultros

It's intolerable. The tells were spammed so I turned off tell sounds. My blacklist is full, and even if it weren't I can't keep up with bl'ing spammers without it impacting my gameplay. Now there are shouts going off literally every second. And I know I'm not the only one on Ultros bc someone finally cried out in frustration after a spam of shouts (seriously this spam was about 15 messages in 30 seconds), and others chimed in to agree.

And if you think "just ignore it" is enough, no. Because I can't even chat in my FC or party chat without there being RMT shouts/tells in between every line of legitimate text I want to read.

I'm sick of this! Jeebus I get dozens of tells every time I log on... my BL is maxxed out now and that's after removing the top dozen of them every day

I am a new player and I'm loving FF14 so far, but the ridiculous amount of spam I get is really starting to kill my enjoyment of this game. It can be anything from 5-40 PMs per hour. Sure I can block all PMs or move them all the a separate tab, but what if I miss a genuine PM?

In all the MMOs I've played over the years, I have never seen RMT spam this bad before. Really disappointing that SE doesn't appear to be doing anything to combat this

Anyway, add me to this list. - Xarale Tia (Famfrit)

Gona have to say I use to ignore rmt tells but I am getting on average 20-40tells an hour.

This is the worse I have seen it in any of the mmos I have played and I have played most AAA mmos since EQ1.

SE needs to do something to stop these tells. At this point it is becoming SE's problem. Their current methods are simply not enough.

Also, putting this out there: There is a certain reddit post floating out there that shows people how to block RMT. It involves the use of a third party program, which is against the TOS, but the program does nothing harmful to the client, and if you don't go around screaming you're using it than you will be fine. I of course, deny any involvement in said use of this third-party program. Take that for what you will.

Gil seller friend requests are starting to get really f'ing annoying. The cure is simple. Implement filtering for tells and friend requests. This MUST include an option to filter all tells and friend requests by the level of the character sending it.

I think we need an SE rep to respond to this thread. Not doing so would tend to support the view that this is not an issue to SE because it is not a concern on the JP servers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elmeron

Also, putting this out there: There is a certain reddit post floating out there that shows people how to block RMT. It involves the use of a third party program, which is against the TOS, but the program does nothing harmful to the client, and if you don't go around screaming you're using it than you will be fine. I of course, deny any involvement in said use of this third-party program. Take that for what you will.

---

The main problem there is that 1. it doesnt work on playstation consoles, and 2. it doesn't behave well with certain other popular 3rd party tools (parsers and such). its really not a solution to everyone, which is what we are looking for.

I am shocked we haven't had a Dev response. The RMT have this game by the balls.

After #46 pages.... where is moderator?
I hope there is some reply.

Just asking.

You can add me to the list, though I have serious doubts that the list will make a difference, especially considering SE seems to be pretending that it doesn't even exist.

/signed
Princess Erin, Balmung

/signed

Limit character creation to 1/day. Ban the accounts (not the characters) of people spam-botting; SE will get more money because, to make a profit, the botters will need to buy more accounts to deal with the 1 new char/day limit.

Facilitate finding the accounts with a "Report RMT" button. If SE does these things together, they'll make a bigger profit than they're doing now and slow the /tell's.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Panteleon

Limit character creation to 1/day.

---

This is genius.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Panteleon

/signed

Limit character creation to 1/day. Ban the accounts (not the characters) of people spam-botting; SE will get more money because, to make a profit, the botters will need to buy more accounts to deal with the 1 new char/day limit.

Facilitate finding the accounts with a "Report RMT" button. If SE does these things together, they'll make a bigger profit than they're doing now and slow the /tell's.

---

Keep in mind, that due to issues with chargebacks, every time RMT has to make an account, they actually lose money. Its in their best monetary interest, to make sure that RMT gets the most use per account, but with less actual profit.

Also, that blocks new players from being able to try out the different character types, to figure out which race they actually want to main. I know when I started, I made and deleted 12 different characters until I found the one that I liked the most.

Now, if they updated the character creator engine to show emotes and character movements, this would be fine.

I agree with this threads letter. I've been playing MMO's for over 10 years, and this RMT situation is the worst I've seen.

/Signed
Athaleiya Eclesiance, Leviathan

As a suggestion, why not move the bar on when /tells are ALLOWED to be SENT? Many MMO's bar new characters from sending /tells until a certain level. For FFXIV, I suggest level 10, or even 15 before a character is allowed to send a /tell. The amount of extra work this will put on RMT's will hinder them significantly and limit real players minimally.

fresh back from my week ban from the forums for ths very subject either for tos violation for swearing or for saying I had been banned personally I belive the later.. this rmt stuff has been nothing short of a joke no reply from devs no fixes nothing ( I even had some what of a argument with a Gm about this subject to the point I was as usual told to basically complain on the forums and to turn off tells to avoid the constant spam) frankly with the huge amount of ideas that have been thrown around one would think they would listen even now as I type this I'm watching countless tell spams there even shouting in chat again which tells me they really have no fear.. The jp server tonberry there are hardly any if none .. But n/a servers it's like a plague .. Once again bigger blacklists Easier reporting systems among countless other great ideas SHOULD have been implemented at least a year ago.. And yet STILL nothing.. while I asked the Gm this very same question I will re ask it here with the countless amounts of spamming of rmt tells an alike do I pay SE a sub to report rmt or do I pay to play the game??? I for 1 SHOULD NOT be spending countless hours doing reports etc so I dont .. Simple logic to the powers to be less reports more rmt !! Frankly if an idiot like me can figure that it speaks even less for devs an alike yet STILL nothing even remotely has been fixed.. Spin your bs numbers about how many receiving action etc . On average after the messages we have removed this and that how come at most I get 3 -6 deleted on my blacklist? last unanswered question..

Is it a tos violation to question and get frustrated with a system that has gotten worse and worse with every passing week that just seems to fall on deaf ears constantly ???

You can add me I get daily friend requests, with the cheek of name like "iama gillseller"

Meg rejaan -lich

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Coltvoyance

As a suggestion, why not move the bar on when /tells are ALLOWED to be SENT? Many MMO's bar new characters from sending /tells until a certain level. For FFXIV, I suggest level 10, or even 15 before a character is allowed to send a /tell. The amount of extra work this will put on RMT's will hinder them significantly and limit real players minimally.

---

It might be a minimal hindrance to a lot of players, even most of them probably, but some players join with friends and contacting those friends is one of the first things they want to do. Say and Shout aren't available for that if they're in different cities. So for the first 15 levels until they can meet up, Tell is the main way to communicate with each other.

I think there have been plenty of other suggestions on ways to stop the spam that won't impact real players. (A proper reporting feature, filtering messages with spam text, mandatory delays between /tell messages, etc.) Those still allow /tell to be used as intended by real players without impact. Until all those type of solutions have been implemented, I don't think SE should branch out into solutions that negatively affect real players as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niwashi

It might be a minimal hindrance to a lot of players, even most of them probably, but some players join with friends and contacting those friends is one of the first things they want to do. Say and Shout aren't available for that if they're in different cities. So for the first 15 levels until they can meet up, Tell is the main way to communicate with each other.

I think there have been plenty of other suggestions on ways to stop the spam that won't impact real players. (A proper reporting feature, filtering messages with spam text, mandatory delays between /tell messages, etc.) Those still allow /tell to be used as intended by real players without impact. Until all those type of solutions have been implemented, I don't think SE should branch out into solutions that negatively affect real players as well.

---

I joined to play with a friend in different state.We'd played another game together for some years. Not being able to use tell is not a problem - we have things like FB messages, text on the phone and Skype.It's easy enough to let someone know your character name that way, and then they can communicate with you in game.
What I really want is to be able to block all incoming tells except from friends and Fc members if that is what I choose. Also a checkbox to block all incoming friend requests.

What about an "invisible" status (like FFXI had) so that you don't show up in player searches? If RMT are mining this to send out mass /tells, then this would probably help solve the problem, too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Thayos

What about an "invisible" status (like FFXI had) so that you don't show up in player searches? If RMT are mining this to send out mass /tells, then this would probably help solve the problem, too.

---

They can still dig up your name from the server data files that get loaded up when you're logged in the game with the tools they use to send out mass tells, doesn't matter if you're invisible or not, they can still find you. That's what I've heard and it's entirely possible. Blocking tells from all except friends list would generally "screw up" new players asking for help, but honestly, /busy already does that and it blocks everyone else too. They should just give us that during the time they figure out a better way to deal with the rmt spammers.

I'm surprised this is 47 pages and still no word or anything from SE. I love this game but this kills me everytime I go to a city

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by heynowjose

I'm surprised this is 47 pages and still no word or anything from SE. I love this game but this kills me everytime I go to a city

---

I'm not really surprised to be honest.. I was hoping they would come and say something but I'm losing faith they will.

/signed

As fun as RMT advertisers are to cuss out, sing to, or troll by chasing them around Eorzea and humiliating them in front of all your friends, their numbers must be rounded up, tied together, and thrown headfirst into the deepest pits of Witchdrop.

I think enabling mute to include entire accounts might be a step forward in the war on RMT. Who's to say they won't stock up on a bunch of trial accounts? But hey, at least it's a step in the right direction.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kikoten

/signed

As fun as RMT advertisers are to cuss out, sing to, or troll by chasing them around Eorzea and humiliating them in front of all your friends, their numbers must be rounded up, tied together, and thrown headfirst into the deepest pits of Witchdrop.

I think enabling mute to include entire accounts might be a step forward in the war on RMT. Who's to say they won't stock up on a bunch of trial accounts? But hey, at least it's a step in the right direction.

---

Trial accounts cant send /tells. I'm still not sure where people get this idea from.

Each of these RMT bots are using a paid subscription.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niwashi

snip

---

Why not have a quest that randomly creates a number (in Eorzean numbers) and the player has to look at something either in game or on a website (kind of like a captcha) to unlock tells? I mean, they HAVE symbols for Eorzean numbers, just look at the minicactpot next time you do it. If the information to do it is in game (like a billboard in front of the character) it shouldn't be too intrusive. I thought symbols of the 12 would work too, but perhaps this would be easier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tocsin

Trial accounts cant send /tells. I'm still not sure where people get this idea from.

Each of these RMT bots are using a paid subscription.

---

That's good. Do they still have /shout, /emote, /say, /yell? And do trial accounts cost money? I'd love to see a diminish in RMT whispers. Whenever my friends in my FC talk to me, there's a chance I'll miss their messages (and I've missed them before).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kikoten

That's good. Do they still have /shout, /emote, /say, /yell? And do trial accounts cost money? I'd love to see a diminish in RMT whispers. Whenever my friends in my FC talk to me, there's a chance I'll miss their messages (and I've missed them before).

---

Quote:

---

•[Level Cap]
- Class levels are capped at level 20 for Free Trial characters.
•[Currency Cap]
- Gil (in-game currency) is capped at 20,000 for Free Trial characters.
•[Chat Restrictions]
- The chat options /shout, /yell, and /tell cannot be used by Free Trial characters.
•[Market Board Restrictions]
- The Market Board cannot be used by Free Trial characters.
•[Trading Restrictions]
- Trades cannot be made with or by Free Trial characters.
•[Moogle Delivery Service Restrictions]
- The Moogle Delivery Service cannot be used by Free Trial characters.
•[Retainer Restrictions]
- Retainers cannot be used or hired by Free Trial characters.
•[Linkshell Restrictions]
- Linkshells cannot be created by Free Trial characters.
+ However, Free Trial characters can join already existing linkshells.
•[Free Company Restrictions]
- Free Trial characters cannot join free companies.
•[Party Restrictions]
- Free Trial users cannot invite other players to their party.
- Free Trial users cannot recruit party members via the Party Finder.
+ However, Free Trial users can be invited to parties and use the Duty Finder feature. (in-game matchmaking system)

---

Trial accounts are the equivalent of giving a game demo. It helps to draw in new players. As you can see, however, there is zero that they can do other than spamming in /say (completely useless due to range limitations) to aid RMT.

The only way anyone will see a lessening of RMT whispers is with filtering. There is very little that SE can actually do with these accounts, without hurting potential new customers in the process.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Thayos

I am shocked we haven't had a Dev response. The RMT have this game by the balls.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TinyMonster

I'm not really surprised to be honest.. I was hoping they would come and say something but I'm losing faith they will.

---

Keep hoping but don't be disheartened by the lack of response (it the norm on this subject) countless threads its almost as if SE supports this type of behaviour though there lack of action taken towards it .. Once again SE feed me your tos bs yet do nothing to ban it but the ppl who stand up and continually ask why nothing has been done!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by slml320

*snip* On average after the messages we have removed this and that how come at most I get 3 -6 deleted on my blacklist? last unanswered question.

---

You get 3-6 deleted? Back in the early days of all this, I was lucky to get 3 after a new "Actions Taken Against In-Game RMT & Other Illicit Activities" update. But that ended months and months ago. Now, after every one of the aforementioned updates, I get no (deleted) accounts on my list. Just the same ol' full blacklist.

Anyways..

/signed

Sureenah Diosdado
Server: Fairie

they will probably only respond if major gaming website gives them bad publicity, and some sort of big hashtag movement. They don't feel the pain we do, they don't care, and they are getting sub money from rmt accounts. They just look at their bank account increment per month and smiles (like assassin creed income tick lol).

May be the topic needs to be asked angrily every single time in front of a public crowd in game shows etc. idk, and may be ask them about that uk and us pricing that they don't want to respond as well.

Siru Kissaki, Ragnarok

Just because it's not bad on my server, I know it's really bad on some servers. Something needs to be done about the bots too!

i wonder if it's the n/a eu devs that sit on there hands and play stupid to the problem.. who really knows but when its such a issue/ plague on them data centres yet i know in tonberry (jp server) there is lucky to be 1 or 2 tell spams in months and little to no shouts in general chat ( being aussie i play on both n/a and jp data centres) .. either SE don't care and a happy for the rmt subs or the n/a eu gm devs whatever sit on there hands and have not told SE japan!!! as usual with no official word or response we are left wondering if they care is 2mill of there 4mill subs rmt are they EVER going to actually do something.. i have read somewhere that the are going to make it easier to report them soon ( not sure where i read that now so i cant say its official)..if so umm like nearly 1 1/2 years to damn late and at the very least where the hell is our bigger blist!!

out of it all i can't help but think they plaster there receiving actions numbers blah blah blah to shut the population up.. while secretly rubbing there hands together for the subs!! other wise why let this problem get so out of control!! something i want ppl who read this to take note next time you report a person either for harassment or for rmt .. id like to point out something they say in there very automated response .. something along the lines of due to tos rules we cannot let you know the out come of the report blah blah blah... plausible deniability we can't officially tell you we did nothing but we did nothing!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eorzean_Mog

You get 3-6 deleted? Back in the early days of all this, I was lucky to get 3 after a new "Actions Taken Against In-Game RMT & Other Illicit Activities" update. But that ended months and months ago. Now, after every one of the aforementioned updates, I get no (deleted) accounts on my list. Just the same ol' full blacklist.

---

Those "deleted" names are not coming from SE banning/deleting names/accounts. When you see a "deleted" it's because the account holder deleted the name themselves.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Syrehn

Those "deleted" names are not coming from SE banning/deleting names/accounts. When you see a "deleted" it's because the account holder deleted the name themselves.

---

Exactly. Banning or canceling accounts does not actually delete the character.

I get the same things, and can't go /busy a lot of times because I do crafting services with random people through PF. Kind of hard to do business without being able to send tells.

/signed Cheshire Kat of Ultros.

I'm seriously fed up with all this RMT spam, friend requests, and bot invasions. Report spammers called "Sellgils Sfihdsh" or something like that results in a "We're sorry that you receive a high number of friend requests, but sending friend requests is not against the rules". Even when the spammers are called "Sellgils".

I've been reporting at least 5 different bots a day, everyday, for the last month or so (getting a little obsessed with them). I even found a "nest" where level 50 thaumaturges level their archers to become Black Mages and go farm dungeons together, they farm the microchus at Naked Rock on Moogle, or just stay AFK stacked on top of each other.

I went as far as using /sea and setting filters to track bots. Clusters of AFK Black Mages in the same location (with identical characters/gear), bunches of 15 and below Archers in Central Shroud (the future aforementionned Black Mages),... they're super easy to spot, and checking their Lodestone profiles confims my intuition 100% of the time. They all have tons of alts on other servers using the same name with one more letter in their name/first name.

And of course, there's those botanist/miners bots that gather the same thing in the same gear, all day, ever day. Especially that one I see ALL THE TIME when I go from Eastern Thanalan to Central Shroud to gather my Lucis tokens. I've been reporting him everyday for more than a month now, using both Report Cheating, Report Harassment, Square Enix Support website, and the Lodestone report function. Result ? None.

/signed Yosuke Hanamura, Moogle server

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arkann

I'm seriously fed up with all this RMT spam, friend requests, and bot invasions. Report spammers called "Sellgils Sfihdsh" or something like that results in a "We're sorry that you receive a high number of friend requests, but sending friend requests is not against the rules". Even when the spammers are called "Sellgils".

---

All of my friend requests are from names like "Spambots'com Sellgils". :(

It's time to get Square-Enix to give us the opportunity to contact the Legal and Copyright divisions.

This is clearly an attempt by the RMT to take over the game and choke out legitimate play.