Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

As annoying as it is, why not use captcha verification when making new accounts. characters?

And maybe do it every once in a while if a person doesn't have a security token?

Although I don't think it'll be too effective
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zuyrs5GjZg...6_65592125.jpg

Nothing changed back from my forum ban. Yet the same RMT bot groups remain on my server right now even after this most recent account wipe. Look at their reported numbers. Yeah SE is doing tons... '_'

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tiggy

Larger team to deal with RMT and more chat filters. They are likely already quite aware of those options. Outside of flat out IP bans there is only so much you can really do. There is a reason even older MMOs struggle with this issue even to this day. If players would stop buying the gil we wouldn't even have this problem.

---

tiggy you come in here have a whaa whaa white knight on a situation that hardly affects you spout unsubstantiated claims as if your a dev or yoshi himself..report ppl who don't agree with your bs .. plz move along!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by slml320

tiggy you come in here have a whaa whaa white knight on a situation that hardly affects you spout unsubstantiated claims as if your a dev or yoshi himself..report ppl who don't agree with your bs .. plz move along!!!

---

But you right there gave me such a good reason to come back to a thread. Funny how you say unsubstantiated when everything you just quoted from me had been done in other games and only worked but so well.

Four man BLM FC confirmed still active on Jenova. U'ldah steps.

Jenova server people already know which group.

What I don't understand is why after all this time you still can't have an option to right click a spammer's name to report and block them without clogging up your blacklist.

"Greetings Yosuke,

Let us spit in your face s'more, m'kay ?"

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crescent_Dusk

What I don't understand is why after all this time you still can't have an option to right click a spammer's name to report and block them without clogging up your blacklist.

---

Because the people that matter to get things done are on JP servers, so they don't really understand the severity. The minimal banning they do (yes, thousands of accounts when dealing with RMT is considered minimal), because of the lack of occurrences on JP servers, will always seem like the only necessary step to take. Maybe our GMs aren't able to express these things due to limitations in protocol (or they're just bad at relaying collected information to the necessary folks in Japan). It's not an apparent issue to them, so there's no need to work on something as small of a QoL change as right-click report... yet.

Leviathan just now had 37 DIFFERENT bots spamming RMT /tells in the span of 10min. I was AFK for a while, came back to that... decided to count it up. Quite a high number as of late, whereas normal is maybe 15 or so different ones every 10min. Unnecessarily long messages per /tell, as we are all aware of... we, as in those of us on NA/EU servers.

RMT are rather clever for this game, in that they know not to mess too much with JP servers (as they easily could, regardless of profitable outcome). It really doesn't have too much to do with less buyers on those servers. When they really made their presence known across every server at launch, that was when SE stepped up to stem it. Now, they don't do that for every server because it's a lot more problematic. If all you do is bot, it really doesn't matter about the "effort" put in lol. It's not like RMT tend to dig into their own pockets to support these thousands of banned accounts, afterall.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tiggy

But you right there gave me such a good reason to come back to a thread. Funny how you say unsubstantiated when everything you just quoted from me had been done in other games and only worked but so well.

---

to put it in plain terms for you tiggy you spin your bs as if you know everything.. you always have and always will in all the posts you have made in this thread have been nothing more than a claim that se has done this doing everything they can they AND will fix the situation.. enlighten us all to your source tiggy… PLEASE BECAUSE IM INTERESTED TO KNOW!! While I'm on it answer me why you come here and still spout crap on things that have very little bearing on you? .. as your server doesnt have much rmt as you have said!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by myahele

As annoying as it is, why not use captcha verification when making new accounts. characters?

And maybe do it every once in a while if a person doesn't have a security token?

Although I don't think it'll be too effective
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zuyrs5GjZg...6_65592125.jpg

---

It's completely ineffective. They just capture the captcha request and run it through OCR or some crowd-sourced AI solver where people are paid pennies to do it.

The only real solution to combating RMT and Spam would require everyone to have a unique token to login. If you think people have enough problems remembering passwords, just wait till you have to find that Amiibo to login.

Abandon all hope.. Ye who enter here..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by slml320

to put it in plain terms for you tiggy you spin your bs as if you know everything.. you always have and always will in all the posts you have made in this thread have been nothing more than a claim that se has done this doing everything they can they AND will fix the situation.. enlighten us all to your source tiggy… PLEASE BECAUSE IM INTERESTED TO KNOW!! While I\\'m on it answer me why you come here and still spout crap on things that have very little bearing on you? .. as your server doesnt have much rmt as you have said!!

---

It's called common sense. In the last year and a half they have told us changes as they were made and the changes were visible in game but only for a month or two at best. You don't need an inside source to see what's obvious and what many people in this thread are ignoring. As a software developer myself I also explicitly understand what deadlines are like. Right now they are working very hard to meet the expansion release. Once again no inside information needed at all. This is all common sense stuff. Maybe you should simmer down and use your head instead of vilifying me for pointing it the plainly obvious truth.

Another reality is no mmo has ever perfectly handled this situation. Ever. So you need to temper your expectations in general.

Sorry Tiggy but SE is doing nothing of impact in this situation. Also it's common sense that GMs are not the actual developers and coders for the game. They are separate teams. The amount of people on the teams is something to consider... HOWEVER... You don't need to know the code to simply ban an RMT account or take action against large hordes of bots in an area.

I don't think folks deny that Square is hard at work making sure the expansion is ready to make more money off of people (us the monthly subscribers).

All we ask is the considerable amount of attention this issue needs is also implemented and not showing up every other week with a continually dwindling list of RMT bans.

The problem is getting worse and worse. I was doing crafting for my FC mates and I had to keep busy on to prevent from screwing up due to all the pop-ups from friend requests from level 1s in ul'dah. All of my FC were on busy due to spam bots. In the time it took for me to do a trade and my friend to give me 4 mats, she had 4 spam tells and a friend request. /r is useless right now because it will most likely be a spam bot you got a tell from last. It's utterly ridiculous.

I'm going to say it openly: I think Square-Enix is getting money from these illegal outfits.

Since the STF is overwhelmed, it's a clear merchandise-counterfeiting situation otherwise, and the only real alternatives are either that Copyright/Legal has to get in on it as a merchandise-counterfeiting operation or that Square-Enix somehow sanctions and allows for it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Starcade

I'm going to say it openly: I think Square-Enix is getting money from these illegal outfits.

Since the STF is overwhelmed, it's a clear merchandise-counterfeiting situation otherwise, and the only real alternatives are either that Copyright/Legal has to get in on it as a merchandise-counterfeiting operation or that Square-Enix somehow sanctions and allows for it.

---

No need for all that SE theoretically would be happy with the $15 a month and the bump to subscription numbers...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Morbid

No need for all that SE theoretically would be happy with the $15 a month and the bump to subscription numbers...

---

Theoretically, maybe. However, SE is a business, and only obtaining $15 a month from all the subscribers only nets the company a little over ten million a year, which isn't a sustainable amount of money, for a company with as much going on as SE does.

They make more money, because they can get away with making more money. and the bigger the cash cow that FFXIV is to them, the more support it will get.

The question it all comes down to is: is the money they would make from the added subscribers that stay due to lack of RMT, worth more profit than the money that RMT brings them (illegal money).

Personally, I think SE has a different answer to this question than we do.

You can't spell corporation without the letters G-R-E-E-D..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tiggy

It's called common sense. In the last year and a half they have told us changes as they were made and the changes were visible in game but only for a month or two at best. You don't need an inside source to see what's obvious and what many people in this thread are ignoring. As a software developer myself I also explicitly understand what deadlines are like. Right now they are working very hard to meet the expansion release. Once again no inside information needed at all. This is all common sense stuff. Maybe you should simmer down and use your head instead of vilifying me for pointing it the plainly obvious truth.

Another reality is no mmo has ever perfectly handled this situation. Ever. So you need to temper your expectations in general.

---

why do you keep spinning the expansion bs with your posts i don't give 2 shits about there 3.0 deadline etc blah blah … they have had at least a year to add bigger blists easier reporting methods stoping low lvl tells as well as many other great ideas long before development started.. they will never eradicate rmt but with a few simple things in place a year ago plus may have helped curb the rmt.. instead they have sat idle and its clearly gotten worse .. why is there so much rmt on the n/a servers and practically none on the jp servers.. should the n/a severs be treated like shit while the jp servers aren't ?? and why shouldnt ppl stand up and say hey wtf why are they doing nothing??? and where is our dev or whatever team to give us some info on what they should be doing??? tiggy!!!

ps biddy yarrr isn't spamming in limsa anymore next day they were replaced by another lowbie toon been there for 4 days now.. and this is SE at its where doing something best!!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by slml320

words

---

Best stop feeding her (him?). This thread is still our last, best hope for victory, so we'd better not let it go toxic and get locked by a well-meaning forum mod.

Right-click reporting. Not a perfect solution, to be sure, but it's better than what we have at the moment, which is nothing. We can use the existing systems as workarounds for sanity preservation, but an actual UI component would help us help them do their jobs better, since they seem to be so very overextended. How is that not win-win?

This thread has been on the front page for weeks now - and still no SE response.

I guess we know that they just don't care. It would be so easy to add a feature that allows you to set (in character configuration) an option so that you do not get tells or friend requests from anyone below a level of your choosing. With a bit more effort, they could also add a white list to the feature so that people on your friend list, in your FC, etc., are not affected.

It is funny how the ONLY intelligent (and possible) solution to this issue would be most likely shunned by most of the playerbase.

Allow players to buy Gil legally, directly from SE.

Yes, it would be a "pay to win" system. Yes, people would hate it. Yes, RMT would disappear.

Other games implemented this quite successfully already, like EVE Online.

I do not agree with pay to win being a solution since, as I said before, you're using a fire hose to put out a grease fire; RMT itself is already pay to win in a sense, so all you're doing is swapping the face of RMT with SE. Prices for in game goods would massively inflate and nothing would have any value. People are already skittish on the cash shop itself, despite it selling only vanity items. The minute gil becomes buyable directly, you're gonna open a huge can of worms that will never be closed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fenral

Best stop feeding her (him?). This thread is still our last, best hope for victory, so we'd better not let it go toxic and get locked by a well-meaning forum mod.

Right-click reporting. Not a perfect solution, to be sure, but it's better than what we have at the moment, which is nothing. We can use the existing systems as workarounds for sanity preservation, but an actual UI component would help us help them do their jobs better, since they seem to be so very overextended. How is that not win-win?

---

Right-click report function would be nice, but it doesn't alleviate player irritability. It's a helpful feature for them to find RMT easier assuming the function is for use exclusively for illicit advertising, no doubt, but it doesn't change much on our end. No amount of reporting will change the speed that they ban (which is currently as realistic as it'll get), so RMT will continually annoy us. They need to change a number of things to make QoL possible. This being adding filters for Friend Requests and /tell functions.

Ideally, a right-click feature will function similar to how Blizzard did it, where it will filter/remove all current chat log interactions by this person and automatically block them. Obviously, this means they'll need to remove that stupid 200 name limit too. Honestly though, this particular change isn't nearly as important as the others, if it came down to a choice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Waeksyn

This thread has been on the front page for weeks now - and still no SE response.

I guess we know that they just don't care. It would be so easy to add a feature that allows you to set (in character configuration) an option so that you do not get tells or friend requests from anyone below a level of your choosing. With a bit more effort, they could also add a white list to the feature so that people on your friend list, in your FC, etc., are not affected.

---

Given that it's mostly a problem on NA/EU servers, I'm assuming they just don't understand how dramatic of a difference it is. Our GMs and CMs likely understand, but for one reason or another, it doesn't mean much. Communication might be severely lacking, in the form that the only actual interaction is through a list of concerns, unable to stress how impacting they are. CMs can't say much if they don't have anything meaningful to say.

Many could argue that Heavensward is the reason, and that might be true right now... but it certainly wasn't true back during launch... and anytime after launch. This isn't a problem that exists only as of late, their means have always been around. It was nice that SE actually stepped up to do something during launch, but that was only because RMT presence impacted every server (spamming /shout and /tell with messages non-stop every millisecond) and pretty much made it impossible to communicate at all.

RMT were very stupid about their approach back then. Since that time however, RMT have dropped back from such ridiculous measures and somewhat moved away from JP servers. "Out of sight, out of mind"... and that works. Our asking for things like appropriate player controlled optional filters and right-click reports have been around since the beginning, yet overlooked as something too destructive for players to use. Had they done it, we wouldn't have the problems we do now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

Yes, RMT would disappear.

---

Ignoring the obvious of the other parts, you underestimate RMT. They'd simply undercut when dealing with popular games. If there's more people willing to buy because it's viewed as acceptable in the game, there's more business to be had. Bots don't care about time spent, nor about morals regarding hacks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Welsper59

Ignoring the obvious of the other parts, you underestimate RMT. They'd simply undercut when dealing with popular games. If there's more people willing to buy because it's viewed as acceptable in the game, there's more business to be had. Bots don't care about time spent, nor about morals regarding hacks.

---

I kinda forgot to mention the other, needed step that SE would need to take.

Fall HARD with the banhammer on all RMT sellers.

The revenue they will lose (or the additional costs sustained) for this operation would be covered by all the people now suddenly buying gils from legal sources. Once SE starts to seriously hammer down on illegal sellers AND buyers, people would NOT risk it simply because "official" gil is a bit more expensive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Welsper59

Right-click report function would be nice, but it doesn't alleviate player irritability. It's a helpful feature for them to find RMT easier assuming the function is for use exclusively for illicit advertising, no doubt, but it doesn't change much on our end. No amount of reporting will change the speed that they ban (which is currently as realistic as it'll get), so RMT will continually annoy us.

---

On the contrary, it will give them an actual trackable metric to better monitor the distribution of RMT bots across worlds (and thus, let them know where their attention is needed most), and greatly reduce the time between report, confirmation, and ban by streamlining the way the initial reports are handled. It'll force bots to adopt even less conspicuous measures.

I'm not saying it's a magic bullet solution, because there's no such thing, but it's at least one bullet for our otherwise empty clip. So long as it remains more trouble to properly report spam than to simply blacklist and move on, it's definitely not going to get any better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

It is funny how the ONLY intelligent (and possible) solution to this issue would be most likely shunned by most of the playerbase.

Allow players to buy Gil legally, directly from SE.

Yes, it would be a "pay to win" system. Yes, people would hate it. Yes, RMT would disappear.

Other games implemented this quite successfully already, like EVE Online.

---

Are you admitting to being a Gil Buyer then?

No game has ever implemented this and not have the bots/RMT take advantage of it. And you're in some alternate reality if you think they don't. Archeage tried this, and the RMT just commit a lot credit card fraud to sell it to players, then they turn around and launder the gold so they turn around and sell the gold back to the players too. That's how it works every single time.

If you want to see the end to bots, the technology for it was used back in the 80's, called a "hardware dongle" to prevent piracy. Back then the DRM was just some trivial to crack code on the dongle that could just be emulated, since there was no online component. Put a 4$ crypto processor on a NFC card or USB stick and all forms of account theft go away since the game won't connect without the device present. Then to raise the axe on RMT, you only send these cards paired to their accounts, and don't send them to places like China where RMT comes from. Ta-da RMT solved. Or at least it makes it so risky, inconvenient and expensive to do RMT.

But hey we could get half way there already by requiring authenticators on all accounts. This does nothing to prevent RMT from just running authenticator emulators, but it slows down the process so much that "spamming" becomes inefficient.

EVE Online doesn't sell Isk (Currency), they sell Gametime which can be converted into Isk but at the players discretion and at what ever price they feel. This is how they try to alleviate any RMT by basically putting it into the playerbases hands.

It's a great system in the fact that you can essentially play the game and never have to open your wallet to buy gametime. The issue however is that Gil is much easier to accumulate here than Isk in EVE. The price on any Gametime like item would near 20-30mil+ depending on server. They'd have to implement something that keeps people from purchasing low on one server and transferring to another.

That's one other difference in the systems/games is that EVE is one mega server for all players. Not seperate shards and servers like FFXIV.

They could maybe put the Gametime item as a Vendor only item perhaps but that would mean that Square Enix sets the price which could still open up avenues for RMT...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Are you admitting to being a Gil Buyer then?

---

Where does this insinuation come from?

I've never bought any kind of virtual currency via illegal means. When I did buy currency, it was in games that allowed it to be bought via official channels (again, EVE Online).
I strongly hate both gil sellers and gil buyers, because I hate people who make money exploiting the intellectual property of others.

I fail to see where what I am saying implies that I buy gil.

At any rate, yours is a valid suggestion. Still too complicated, at the end of the day - especially when gil sellers clearly are advantageous for SE. When and if they will take the effort to remove them, it will be because they will have found a way to speculate on it themselves, somehow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Morbid

EVE Online doesn't sell Isk (Currency), they sell Gametime which can be converted into Isk but at the players discretion and at what ever price they feel. This is how they try to alleviate any RMT by basically putting it into the playerbases hands.

It's a great system in the fact that you can essentially play the game and never have to open your wallet to buy gametime. The issue however is that Gil is much easier to accumulate here than Isk in EVE. The price on any Gametime like item would near 20-30mil+ depending on server. They'd have to implement something that keeps people from purchasing low on one server and transferring to another.

That's one other difference in the systems/games is that EVE is one mega server for all players. Not seperate shards and servers like FFXIV.

They could maybe put the Gametime item as a Vendor only item perhaps but that would mean that Square Enix sets the price which could still open up avenues for RMT...

---

Yes, CCP sells game time, which is tradeable, so as you say it is basically the same thing. It is like when SE put up the Wedding item on the Mogstation and made is sellable on the marketboard. Same issue - legal RMT. Too bad people whined and they changed that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

It is funny how the ONLY intelligent (and possible) solution to this issue would be most likely shunned by most of the playerbase.

Allow players to buy Gil legally, directly from SE.

Yes, it would be a "pay to win" system. Yes, people would hate it. Yes, RMT would disappear.

Other games implemented this quite successfully already, like EVE Online.

---

as much as i hate cash shops pay to win bs… you have hit the nail right on the head it is and will be the only true way to stop rmt with in the n/a server.. the down side being it will lose subs most are not going to pay a sub and then a cash shop for gil double dipping customers ffxiv will drop like a lead ballon and with no sub and just cash shop it will be more of a slower demise.. although in its current state with so much rmt its just a little slower again!!..
i do love this game 2 accounts 5 lvl 50 characters most with at least 4 classes at 50 my main is 50 everything.. it saddens me to see such crappy response or lack there of from devs and alike about the n/a server problems not just rmt but most stuff in general..enforcing my belief that with this type of rmt offer me something a little better game wise with less rmt.. why would i hang here.. ESO on the ps4 and xbox.. PPL WILL GET SICK OF THIS BS AND THE AMOUNT NOT DONE !! THEY WILL SLOWLY LEAVE IF THERES SOMETHING AS A ALTERNATIVE .. i just can't see why SE is so short sighted to this fact!! and if not why hasn't things been done!!

People still continue to miss the point. Until you can force Naoki Yoshida to publicly acknowledge that there is even a problem you are wasting your breath and forum space. We need to begin posting suggestions and recommendations on how to force a 2 way dialogue with SE on all aspects of the RMT problem. I am open to suggestions. The only one that comes to mind with me (Boycott) is also Anathema to me. You are all bright people out there. Either get Yoshida-san to acknowledge and openly deal with this or shut this thread down and move on to the next powder-puff issue.

Ain't going to even happen bub. One poster trying expressing this problem on the Japanese forum and it got quickly locked before it's 7th post. Why, it was in English.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Morbid

No need for all that SE theoretically would be happy with the $15 a month and the bump to subscription numbers...

---

Not with the number of RMT outfits that are running around and the apparent levels of business they seem to be doing, if all the RMT spam is any freaking indication.

It makes me wonder if we're back to the point where XI had 2 million players -- half of whom (at least!) were RMT-farmers.

Already reported three RMT friend requests since the servers went back online today (in the time I wasn't in duty), but just now I saw one advertising via /say. Thought I'd share, since it's something I've not seen for a long, LONG while...........

Spam and request spam starting to increase on Phoenix again. Let's look at getting this sorted please.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BreathlessTao

Already reported three RMT friend requests since the servers went back online today (in the time I wasn't in duty), but just now I saw one advertising via /say. Thought I'd share, since it's something I've not seen for a long, LONG while...........

---

this ^^^^^ same issue at least 3 friend requests this is not improving it getting worse!!!

I sure hope they at least implement some anti-RMT features the moment Heavensward comes out. If they keep it like this and willfully ignore it, then RIP Heavensward subs. Veteran players will stay, new players will run away as fast as they can.

You know, I'm willing to bet if the majority of the NA/EU customers were to suddenly CANCEL all at once with "RMT" as the reason for leaving, S-E would suddenly friggin' notice ( and remember, canceling still allows you to play until your times up and you can always renew later ).

If the internet can have an international "black out day", then I'm sure FFXIV players can organize an international "NO MORE RMT!" day for one game.Money talks, BS walks. You want S-E to listen, make their pocketbook give out a frightened squeal.

Random comment: I realized that whenever I see a black mage in artifact armor first thing on my mind is "he must be a gil-farming bot"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sicno

Random comment: I realized that whenever I see a black mage in artifact armor first thing on my mind is "he must be a gil-farming bot"

---

This. Same thing with casters wearing a sugarloaf hat and red velveteen dress, gatherers wearing a combination of a cotton doublet and dark blue sarouel, and every Hyur with either of these faces. I could just look at their name tags but I disabled them because they take too much space.