Gil Sellers - How long does it take to ban them?

I'd let the bots gather the gil and then I'd ban the source of RMT's. The Buyers.

Knocking out the source of the problem is much better I feel.

In order to do so though, we need bait~ We'll let the RMT's fish out the culprits.

Also, think about it this way, If you were to be in the RMT business would you shout on accounts that farm the gil or distribute the gil? no as that would be stupid and way to easy to get flagged and banned killing your business. The accounts that spam are low levels with no gil or hacked accounts, ones that have basically no effect on the RMT world, so they are likely the lowest level of priority to ban/remove.

The accounts that SE seeks and bans quickly are the actual RMT banks, farmers, and distributors. While it would be nice if the spammers got banned quick so we don't get spammed, it would have little to no actual impact on the RMT issue as they would just get back to the hack accounts to spam problem we had at release to avoid their accounts getting banned, and they also know anyone who wants to buy gil will find the way to the site another way, i mean just google FFXIV and at the top of the page is a sponsored ad for a gil seller...

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

Here's a challenge for you, and anyone like you.

Take screenshots of your blacklist so you have a record of all the people you blacklisted.

Empty your blacklist.

Now over the next week, play as normal.

Everytime you get another RMT spam in your chatbox, compare that name to your screenshots.

I'm willing to bet that unless it was someone you blacklisted in the last two weeks, you will not see any of them pop up again.

Please, prove me wrong.

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As much as I like suggestions, the thought of comparing lists of a hundred different variations of "dkajdklfa djfaldf" and fdwer dafein" just seems painful. I hate these guys. I am proud of myself though for spamming one back and then getting blocked. lol..so either they botted it to do that or they were actually at the keyboard to do it.

I'm eternally amused by forum posters who complain, "I reported bot X three weeks ago and he's still here! SE's task force is a liiiiie!"

It reminds me of my e-mail spam filters. I occasionally recieve spam e-mails. So, clearly my filters are doing nothing, right? Then I check the log of messages blocked by the filters, and they're three pages long...

Bots/spammers/whatever that exist in game are either new, or the ones who've slipped through the cracks, just like the spam e-mails that slip through. "But I REPORTED them!" is no proof either; blanket bannings or not, SE needs to take care before banning accounts because legit players who get accidentally banned tend to get snippy on the forums (imagine that!).

I can pretty much guarantee, if SE was doing nothing about the spammers and bots, you'd notice the difference. Or maybe not, since you'd have quit ages ago, and for good reason.

A large number of the spammers were compromised accounts. They were likely restored to the original owner at some point and therefore not deleted.

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Originally Posted by odie

As much as I like suggestions, the thought of comparing lists of a hundred different variations of "dkajdklfa djfaldf" and fdwer dafein" just seems painful. I hate these guys. I am proud of myself though for spamming one back and then getting blocked. lol..so either they botted it to do that or they were actually at the keyboard to do it.

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I transferred servers during the free chr transfer event. Doing so completely deleted my blacklist. Since then I have only added 5 names to that list. At this point, if you are too afraid to manage your blacklist then the problem lies with you, not with SE. It has gotten much better in the last few months and will continue to. If anything SE might need to explain what they are doing in bright big bold letters sent by personal message to each of us so fewer posts like these are made.

But seriously, take my challenge and prove me wrong.

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Originally Posted by Yurikitty

Lol SE announced that as of last night they banned exactly 1k players for RMT. OMG 1K out of a player base of what? At least 600k? Thats like throwing a deck chair off the Titanic to keep it from sinking! Good job SE, always good to know that you are right on those bans! Between the RMT, the bots and the trashed economy this game is SO freaking fun to log into now. Pretty soon all of Ezeroa will be ghost towns except for the RMT.

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I wish some of you guys would actually think before posting this drivel.

How many bots per server do you actually think that exist? How many accounts advertising gil?

In the past month I've probably received around 10 RMT tells tops. I honestly don't even believe that there are more than 100 bots per server, there's probably not even half of that. And here you are complaining that they only banned a total of 1k players this week. /sigh

Though, I do agree that they do take a very long time to ban bots. They survive a lot longer than they should. I'm confident that I can log in to Phoenix and still find the same two bots farmind wind shards in the Central Shroud like they've been in at least the last 3 weeks.