Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Starcade

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.

---

I really hope this is a troll post....

If not, then you really need to play more. if it weren't for the chat spam, you probably would never even have been able to tell that RMT exists. They don't inhibit anyone, because there is no content that is server limited, like shared gathering nodes.

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.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LandricFrey

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

---

That's even worse. lol SE should be DELETING those characters too, so they never come back.

I'm tired of living on busy while I miss ready checks and tells from my friends.


/signed.

Final Heaven -Lamia

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eorzean_Mog

That's even worse. lol SE should be DELETING those characters too, so they never come back.

---

Actually, its better, because it means that those gibberish names cannot be reused.

The RMT bots are already having to go to 9 characters, because they keep running out of usable new char names to use.

BIND GIL TO ACCOUNT
SE PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS PROBLEM
/signed

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Avenger

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

---

And that is just embarrassing. That's like someone holding a sign that says "I will rob you," then gets on a loud speaker and repeats that, and then he robs you, gets away with it, all right in front of the police station, with the chief saying "It's not a big deal."

OK so maybe that's not a great simile (or even a good one), but you get where I went with that. If it was my game I'd feel like I was a joke or something.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tocsin

Actually, its better, because it means that those gibberish names cannot be reused.

The RMT bots are already having to go to 9 characters, because they keep running out of usable new char names to use.

---

Does it matter? Gibberish names are Gibberish names. The problem with not deleting names is that they fill up the loadstone character listings with tons of bogus characters. These characters need to be removed so when I do a search for "Karli" I don't get 60,000 responses.

They multiply.
http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/53...2015131037.png

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tocsin

If not, then you really need to play more. if it weren't for the chat spam, you probably would never even have been able to tell that RMT exists.

---

You must think everyone to be going through life very, very blindly indeed. It would take much more than a little inattention to not notice the bots in this game. Looking the same, moving in the same place at the same time, teleporting. Claiming that the person you quoted would probably "never even have been able to tell" is quite insulting, in my opinion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Riepah

snip.

---

The question is, do they actually do anything actively to bother you? or is it just the elitist "if you arent playing the game my way, its cheating and i hate you" attitude that a lot of the players in this game have?

Honestly, if I see a group of 4 characters moving around in one spot, I couldnt care the slightest. there is zero that they are doing to directly harm my gameplay, and the bots usually keep to themselves. You dont generally see the lvl 50 black mages spamming people. you see level 1's doing so.

I dont meanliterally that they wouldnt be able to see them, I meant that they wouldnt notice their effects on gameplay. people seem to severely overestimate the damage that bots do, especially with as broken of an economy as FFXIV has. The specialist system in heavensward will fix it slightly, but IMO it will likely still be completely reliant on Bots, unless they eliminate the shard system entirely.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Laraul

Does it matter? Gibberish names are Gibberish names. The problem with not deleting names is that they fill up the loadstone character listings with tons of bogus characters. These characters need to be removed so when I do a search for "Karli" I don't get 60,000 responses.

---

alternatively, someone has a small gibberish name blacklisted. the character gets deleted, and the character gets taken off your blacklist. the next day, a new bot with the EXACT SAME name starts spamming you again, and it looks like SE never even banned the first one.

Keeping old names is a way to tell that they are at least making an insignificant action against them.

On Zalera, the spam situation was hella bad. I switched to Sargatanas and the issue was brought down, dramatically.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Avenger

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

---

They make me feel popular
http://i.imgur.com/tJWNVeC.jpg

Hey everyone I am back! I have updated the signatures.

If I might suggest a simple fix to assuage the blacklist issues without even increasing the blacklist capacity.

-Allow a player to delete every name on the blacklist through a delete all button.
-Allow a player to shift click to select a group of names on the blacklist to delete.(This would be useful for deleting the first 100 names off a 200 name blacklist for example.)
-Allow a player to ctrl + left click to select individual names on the blacklist to delete all at once.

P.S. I think somewhere in the thread someone said something about getting this petition to Yoshi-P? Just how would I do this? I am genuinely curious :o.

P.S.S Probably gonna have to change the format of the signatures once it passes 200. Most likely encapsulating them in spoiler tags.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tocsin

The question is, do they actually do anything actively to bother you? or is it just the elitist "if you arent playing the game my way, its cheating and i hate you" attitude that a lot of the players in this game have?

---

Is this supposed to be a joke? Botting is cheating no matter how you look at it, and knowing that has nothing whatsoever to do with elitism. It is against the rules, and when people cheat in games, it's rather normal for many who play the game the way it's intended to take offense at it.

Do you know who else doesn't "do anything actively to bother" me? Drug dealers. And pretty much every single criminal out there. Does that mean I should condone their behaviour? Am I an elitist for having a dislike for people who decide to do things they shouldn't be doing, just because they aren't doing it to me directly?

Those level 50 bots are the ones bringing in the cash the level 1 bots spam us about. So unless you love being spammed (or buying gil), you really shouldn't be defending bots of any level.

Somethings gotta give. Either bring the hammer down on the RMT harder/faster or increase the blacklist amount. I took an extended break a few months after PS4 release I've been back a month or so now and some of the names I figured I could delete because it had been damn near a year since I added them are some of the very same names the still spam the server today along with their half dozen (one letter off) alternates.

It's pretty annoying seeing that they are still around and having to go through the list to remove a blocked spambot based on how frequently they spam compared to the next. Just a revolving door of block unblock shuffling around to weed out the most annoying of them. It takes no time for SE to identify these names. They are all giberish and the notion that it may be a real player with a FUBAR'D name is folly.

I'd argue if a real player goes out of their way to create such an ass character they "deserve" to be collateral damage. The hammer needs to swing swiftly and with little regard for "real person" with dumb name chances.

One other MMO I've played stacks up to the RMT in FFXIV and that would be Age of Wushu a title born and bread in China. Defunct headquarters of RMT'ing that game is/was at the time racked with botting and RMT spam. It killed the unique experience of the game totally draining out most immersion.

I hope SE mans up and becomes even more heavy handed in their approach towards dealing with sellers and buyers. It's nearing a critical mass on small servers such as Jenova where a PM from a real person is pretty much non-existent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tocsin

The question is, do they actually do anything actively to bother you? or is it just the elitist "if you arent playing the game my way, its cheating and i hate you" attitude that a lot of the players in this game have?

---

What? This is not a matter of "playing the game my way", it is cheating. All players are expected to advance through the game, gil buyers are getting more gil through a third-party that SE bans for. Leveling bot are advancing their character using a third-party program that SE bans you for. If this were a single-player game, whether or not someone cheats wouldn't matter, they are only competing against themselves.

But this is an MMO. Everyone is expected to play by the same rules.

Now my question to you, do you only disagree with things that directly negatively effect your own gameplay? If so, that's an extremely selfish self-centered attitude.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Riepah

Is this supposed to be a joke? Botting is cheating no matter how you look at it, and knowing that has nothing whatsoever to do with elitism. It is against the rules, and when people cheat in games, it's rather normal for many who play the game the way it's intended to take offense at it.

Do you know who else doesn't "do anything actively to bother" me? Drug dealers. And pretty much every single criminal out there. Does that mean I should condone their behaviour? Am I an elitist for having a dislike for people who decide to do things they shouldn't be doing, just because they aren't doing it to me directly?

Those level 50 bots are the ones bringing in the cash the level 1 bots spam us about. So unless you love being spammed (or buying gil), you really shouldn't be defending bots of any level.

---

right its not elitist just because you hate bots I agree and how is it elitist to hate them don't really get him

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tyrn

They make me feel popular
http://i.imgur.com/tJWNVeC.jpg

---

Sweet mother of all that's friend-list spam... when they're so blatantly using "sellgil" etc. as their name they are all but screaming that they aren't worried about SE trying to stop them.

It is definitely getting out of hand when you see this same group of blatantly obvious bots logging in and out every minute or so for hours. on hand. Check the button below for picture of my account. It is as annoying as it ever was.. and getting worse day by day.

http://i.imgur.com/Xi96SjQ.jpg

I hear the "Special Task Force" whispering to my ear.

"You know you want that easy gil. You know where to download the bots. Come on. Try. Just for a little while. It's OK. We don't judge."

I already started mass-crafting Sanguine Scepters since it's their weapon of choice. Quick Square, I'm on the eeeeedge.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chitara

It is definitely getting out of hand when you see this same group of blatantly obvious bots logging in and out every minute or so for hours. on hand. Check the button below for picture of my account. It is as annoying as it ever was.. and getting worse day by day.

---

They aren't logging in and out, they're entering duty, farming something. Possibly entering a dungeon, teleporting to treasure chests containing gil or sellable items. They may also actually finish duties by teleporting in the air over a boss and hitting it while the boss cannot retaliate, I've seen bots doing that in a vid someone posted.

I'm getting really tired of RMTs. I can't even talk to my friends anymore because we are all in busy mode. Though now we even have shouts! A dev should really come talk about this. It's getting way out of hand!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aerowaffle

What? This is not a matter of "playing the game my way", it is cheating. All players are expected to advance through the game, gil buyers are getting more gil through a third-party that SE bans for. Leveling bot are advancing their character using a third-party program that SE bans you for. If this were a single-player game, whether or not someone cheats wouldn't matter, they are only competing against themselves.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Riepah

Is this supposed to be a joke? Botting is cheating no matter how you look at it, and knowing that has nothing whatsoever to do with elitism. It is against the rules, and when people cheat in games, it's rather normal for many who play the game the way it's intended to take offense at it.

---

Glad that finally got a reaction. This thread was starting to go stagnant, and I was trying to stir the pot a bit to keep this on the front page a little more often. I had a feeling bringing out the word "elitist" would grab a reaction

However, Considering I keep my tells turned off, and often forget that the system even exists, spamming doesn't bother me much. and, other than being the blessed people undercutting on the shard market and keeping my profits alive, I don't even ever see an RMT bot.

Consider this. SE releases an anti-cheat program and eliminates all bots. Most endgame non-botting gatherers (read 80% of gatherers) would need shards to be priced at least at 400 gil or better per shard, to make them more profitable than mining or harvesting any other item. now, look at a lvl 19 iron hoplon (shield). in order to craft that you need a total of 9 shards. that means, that at minimum cost assuming you gathered all mats except shards, this item would already have a minimum value of 3600 gil. adding the cost of materials, and you have an even 4000 gil. Tell me if any lvl 19 new player, without RMT or veteran help, has earned 4000 gil themselves to spend on a single shield. These numbers do nothing but rise as levels go higher.

Like it or not, RMT is the only thing keeping crafting alive in this game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tocsin

Glad that finally got a reaction. This thread was starting to go stagnant, and I was trying to stir the pot a bit to keep this on the front page a little more often. I had a feeling bringing out the word "elitist" would grab a reaction<snip>

Like it or not, RMT is the only thing keeping crafting alive in this game.

---

I don't care what it does to prices. Ban the cheaters and botters - they are nothing but filth and scum. Give me a fair and honest market or give me none at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Orspeth

I don't care what it does to prices. Ban the cheaters and botters - they are nothing but filth and scum. Give me a fair and honest market or give me none at all.

---

Quite agreed. I'm just saying, that unless SE changes the entire crafting system to not use shards, "Honest market or none at all" would quickly go to "Not at all", rather than "honest", mainly because the crafting system as currently composed is, honestly, broken.

I just resubbed from a break on 2.1, and I don't think I've ever been spammed so much with gold seller paragraphs in any MMO, and I have decades of MMO play among different MMO's. It's just constantly adding people to Blacklist, I think I blacklisted 15 people today, that's just dumb.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tocsin

Most endgame non-botting gatherers (read 80% of gatherers) would need shards to be priced at least at 400 gil or better per shard, to make them more profitable than mining or harvesting any other item. (.......) Like it or not, RMT is the only thing keeping crafting alive in this game.

---

IMO, the market will suffer but eventually will reach equilibrium point, as for the pricing it is mainly controlled by the demand and supply. For me as a crafter and gatherer I put a value of time for me to gather, personally I don’t gather any mats if their enlisted MB price is less than 300 gil/per piece.

If I had more time to play my least list price would have been lower, its gil generation per hour of play.

Now speak of BOTs/RMTs & Players using Gathering bot programs. Their time value is Zero. Every mat and every shard gathered consumed 0 of their time. So they are gaining gil from nothing, like selling air.

RMTs keep the game alive, TRUE, but RMTs are not free gil-shard trading company. They are cycling out gil-shards in-game to extract real money. So for them to continue the gil-shard trade for the mentioned crafting issue, real money MUST be used.. thus promoting buying Gil for real Money. (Bizarre).

On Server:Faerie, latest average price for shards is 67-74 gil. As mentioned above BOTs consume 0 real person’s time so you are profiting regardless of what price you are selling. In September-December 2013, shard prices on Faerie were 4-17 gil per shard. Why did the prices went x5 time more?! Other than RMTs already control the MB. After all you need more gil to buy 10K shards for 70gil that when it was 7gil. Any normal gatherer cannot supply what a non-real-person x100 can gather, so there is no way honest gatherers can crush, in addition doubtfully gatherers also want to maximise profit.. so its less likely to crush them by lowering their price, even so their stock will be sold and RMT's will be top list again.

Again, tell me why someone would buy 10K shards again? Oh, to level up ASAP? This game is designed to last for years.. you’ll have time to level up. As for your humble example of the shield which needs 9 shards.. 9 shards need 30 seconds to gather at a stonethrow distance of any state city gate.
Many new players go solo now, knowing that he/she can go unpunished, buys gil to get whatever he/she needs off MB. When prices hop high, he/she will try to blend into a group “FC” so he can get some discount or help.. promoting the FC involvement which what this game is about multi-player.

If a system in game is broken, I read MB is broken, Crafting is broken, Gathering is retarded. Any case it was.. if we want to fix it, we fix it in the right way.. We should not fix something by corrupting another.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crescent_Dusk

I just resubbed from a break on 2.1, and I don't think I've ever been spammed so much with gold seller paragraphs in any MMO, and I have decades of MMO play among different MMO's. It's just constantly adding people to Blacklist, I think I blacklisted 15 people today, that's just dumb.

---

Once your blacklist reaches 200 you'll find it's too much effort to remove people from blist to add new ones. A separate /tell tab or /busy status is the solution nowadays. In other words, crippling one's social connections to maintain one's enjoyment of a social game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuwaitum

IMO, the market will suffer but eventually will reach equilibrium point, as for the pricing it is mainly controlled by the demand and supply. For me as a crafter and gatherer I put a value of time for me to gather, personally I don’t gather any mats if their enlisted MB price is less than 300 gil/per piece..

---

Same here, I wont even put something up on the marketboard for under 500 gil apiece. not worth my sell slots.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuwaitum

Now speak of BOTs/RMTs & Players using Gathering bot programs. Their time value is Zero. Every mat and every shard gathered consumed 0 of their time. So they are gaining gil from nothing, like selling air..

---

Actually, Bots and Player bot programs don't exactly have a time value of zero. Even with the best teleporting bots, there still is a limited amount of shards that a bot can gather in an hour. doing a small google search (and not even clicking the links), most gathering bots can only gather a maximum of 600-700 items per hour. that's 16,800 max per day of paid subscription. its a lot larger amount than any normal player has, but its a far cry from zero time value.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuwaitum

Again, tell me why someone would buy 10K shards again? Oh, to level up ASAP? This game is designed to last for years.. you’ll have time to level up. As for your humble example of the shield which needs 9 shards.. 9 shards need 30 seconds to gather at a stonethrow distance of any state city gate.

---

9 shards, yes, those can be gathered at a city gate. now, consider this. When I am crafting materials to create mastercraft desynth tools, I use 21 shards per synth. and it takes 52 seconds to run the in-game macro to synth them. so, allowing 8 seconds to finish synth, repress the synth button, and resynth it, that's 21 shards per minute. and I do this for 3-4 hours at a time. for a single session, I might use 5-6 thousand shards. For my normal gathering speed of ~300 per hour, that's 18-20 hours of gathering. I simply don't have time to spend 18 hours gathering shards on top of 4 hours of crafting, in order to make an honest 500knet profit.

Yup demand and supply rules.
There will be a supply for Gil when there is a player who demand for easiest way to gain Gil.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tocsin

Actually, Bots and Player bot programs don't exactly have a time value of zero. Even with the best teleporting bots, there still is a limited amount of shards that a bot can gather in an hour. doing a small google search (and not even clicking the links), most gathering bots can only gather a maximum of 600-700 items per hour. that's 16,800 max per day of paid subscription. its a lot larger amount than any normal player has, but its a far cry from zero time value..

---

Again, i repeat. Zero value. a non-zero value is a value that consumes a real person's time. in which case both a real person and a BOT user are paying the exact same subscription.

16K shards a day. Set the BOT and go out for a whole day. Work, shop, hang with friends, and go to the movies. For the Cry, a person gathers on his own all day, and the other lives the fullest day knowing that he will have his 16K shards ready to use. Now that's fair, isn't it? :)

Another thing, why aren't RMTs/BOTs selling shards as they used to in Sep-Dec 2013, ie. in range of 20 gil a shard?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuwaitum

Again, i repeat. Zero value. a non-zero value is a value that consumes a real person's time. in which case both a real person and a BOT user are paying the exact same subscription.

16K shards a day. Set the BOT and go out for a whole day. Work, shop, hang with friends, and go to the movies. For the Cry, a person gathers on his own all day, and the other lives the fullest day knowing that he will have his 16K shards ready to use. Now that's fair, isn't it? :)

Another thing, why aren't RMTs/BOTs selling shards as they used to in Sep-Dec 2013, ie. in range of 20 gil a shard?

---

Not saying that its fair, just making the point that it isn't at zero value.

Not everyone who bots does so completely AFK. otherwise, you would see a bunch of broken bots. many people use bots in order to do the same thing they would be doing normally, but for a longer period of time at a faster pace.

I knew someone in the fc I was in a few months ago who did that. he was actually there, and was one of the primary gatherers for the FC, but had to resort to botting, just because his in-game workload (dealing with requests for materials) became more than he could handle on his own. he would still watch it go, and type in chat and enjoy his multiplayer experience, he just let the program handle his boring tasks for him.

then, even botting couldn't keep up the requests, and he inevitably fell behind and lost a bunch of gil in delivery guarantees and bankrupted his character. Goes to show that even bots have limits.

Personally, this thread is about RMT. I care about hindering and blockading RMT at every corner. Player run bots aren't even on my radar of things I have issues with. Bigger fish to fry.

Does anyone know why RMTs send you friends requests? I usually don't even get one accompanied by a /tell, just randomly(pretty much always from some variation of "gg" and "sellgil". What can RMTs possibly get out of this besides harassing you?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zabuza

Does anyone know why RMTs send you friends requests? I usually don't even get one accompanied by a /tell, just randomly(pretty much always from some variation of "gg" and "sellgil". What can RMTs possibly get out of this besides harassing you?

---

If you accept it, they will usually spam your mog mail with gil selling messages. They are preying on people just randomly accepting friend requests from anyone.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arkann

I hear the "Special Task Force" whispering to my ear.

"You know you want that easy gil. You know where to download the bots. Come on. Try. Just for a little while. It's OK. We don't judge."

I already started mass-crafting Sanguine Scepters since it's their weapon of choice. Quick Square, I'm on the eeeeedge.

---

What would you say if I told you...one of the special task force members is a bot in disguise?!

http://www.blastr.com/sites/blastr/f...?itok=tSWQdCNj

The real issue here is not the Gil Sellers themself, but that their business is profitable.

A demand will ultimatly lead to a market.

Players must stop buying gils (they do, the amount of sellers indicates it), or be prepared for being able to buy gil in the mogstation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Spoekes

Players must stop buying gils (they do, the amount of sellers indicates it), or be prepared for being able to buy gil in the mogstation.

---

Personally, I would not really be against this. Granted, I have been more of an advocate of a PLEX system, allowing players to pay each others subscription time in return for gil, but even just a pure gil fountain would be effective.

Would sure get the market running, at least faster than it does now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Spoekes

Players must stop buying gils (they do, the amount of sellers indicates it)...

---

I fear this would be a losing battle... ^^;

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adire

What would you say if I told you...one of the special task force members is a bot in disguise?!

http://www.blastr.com/sites/blastr/f...?itok=tSWQdCNj

---

lol That would have been perfect for the task force thread

I started playing about a week ago and here is the number of RMT's I have had to blacklist: 109/200.

Now blacklisting is fairly easy to do, however, I have a MAJOR complaint. Clearing my blacklist is going to take me an hour when I reach 200/200 which should be within the first two weeks of play. PLEASE, consider making it possible to mass delete from your blacklist. The confirmation button required for each deletion is a cute feature, but I'm not sure it makes sense. Logically, if a player is going through the trouble to review and clear out their blacklist, they have probably already committed to the process and a confirmation is ridiculously redundant.