How to eliminate Real money gil sale spammers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arkista

Hell SE should just sell GIL.....

---

That would be the day the economy would truly be destroyed.

C'est ridicule, s'il n'y avait pas d'acheteurs il n'y aurait pas non plus des vendeurs et inversément. Si il y a demande il y a offre, c'est aussi simple que cela, interdit ou pas.

Les interdits n'ont jamais été un obstacle aux marchés parallèles. C'est une règle immuable, partout et depuis toujours. Les jeux en lignes n'y font pas exceptions.

C'est un combat perdu d'avance, les acheteurs sont aussi, si pas plus coupable que les vendeurs, il ne faut oublier que dans une transaction commerciale il y a deux parties toujours impliquées. Cette chasse aux sorcières ne sert rien, à moins que des dénonciations pénales ne soient engagées, mais ça c'est pas envisageable et surtout pas utile.

Les acheteurs contrôlez-vous et il n'y aura plus de vendeurs..c'est pourtant simple non?

Mei

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shirai

That would be the day the economy would truly be destroyed.

---

lol what economy....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MeiUshu

C'est ridicule, s'il n'y avait pas d'acheteurs il n'y aurait pas non plus des vendeurs et inversément. Si il y a demande il y a offre, c'est aussi simple que cela, interdit ou pas.

---

True
/10char

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arkista

Yes level 15 shouldn't be to big of a deal to get to But.....

Let's say I go to GameStop, Pickup a copy of FFXIV. I get on, I don't know anyone who plays. With your restrictions in place. If I got lost, Died, or couldn't find out how to progress I wouldn't be able to get help. Unless someone ran over my dead body, Or I would have to run around a zone trying to find people just so I could talk to them in /s

---

If this happens to someone in this game with the giant maps with the markers and the giant arrows that point you in the direction of everything you need to do. If this situation EVER happens to someone (especially before 15) they have bigger issues they need to tend to.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arkista

lol what economy....

---

You mean people don't use food, level secondary jobs completely naked, aren't leveling crafts or spirit bind on your server?
Your marketboards are completely devoid of any item and there's not a single sould spending gil?

Must be tough...

now excuse me while I make some more stuff that I can sell.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hanabira

If this happens to someone in this game with the giant maps with the markers and the giant arrows that point you in the direction of everything you need to do. If this situation EVER happens to someone (especially before 15) they have bigger issues they need to tend to.

---

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't each zones map darkened out until you explore? Pretty sure it is cause you get EXP for mapping zones. So yes a new player could get lost and further down in that post I gave an example.

sure, but the directions given to you in quest clearly state which area you need to go to, plus what direction you need to travel, PLUS the minimap icon still points in the direction you need to go. ive never once seen anyone shout for help on a quest. The only thing people would need help for is finding their hunting log marks.

OP's suggestion is similar to what WoW did. It was slightly (very slightly and on rare occasions) annoying, but it absolutely cut down on the gold spammers. WoW's spammer situation went from what FFXIV was like on launch (whisper every 10 seconds, shout chat unreadable) to maybe one whisper from a spammer every month.

Ban anyone that talks about sllling gil through /tell. Even if its some legit players trolling. ban them as well.

hopefully soon everyone without a one time password gets their account stolen so the rest of us wont have to deal with them having their accounts turned into spam bots. Seriously people, its free on your cell phone.

The only way to ever truly end RMT is for people to stop buying gil. Unfortunately, IMO SE is going about stopping RMT exactly the wrong way. They're trying to make it so hard to get gil (making crafting worthless, low resell to vendors, low gil drops, teleport fees) that only RMT can succeed at making gil, as they're the only ones who have the time to devote themselves to making gil because they've literally nothing else to do. Meanwhile, people who are desperate for gil, whether to buy a house or get materia or level a craft, end up being the ones buying gil. They have, ironically, created a marketplace where RMT can thrive.

They're very efforts to stop RMT are enabling RMT, and they don't see it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Synapse

Ban anyone that talks about sllling gil through /tell. Even if its some legit players trolling. ban them as well.

---

Easier said than done. You ever wonder why the tells often say "Visit {W}.br()s4le.c()m (replace {} with w's & () with o's and 4 with a)!!!" or some such similar nonsense? It's exactly to foil this kind of detection. There's simply no time for anyone to sort through every /tell in the game manually, and so SE uses searches to try to find evidence of gilsellers. The gilsellers know this, and so are constantly evolving new methods to avoid detection by these searches.

And that's for the gilsellers who even CARE about detection; plenty rely on brute-force spam, not caring how many accounts get deleted or ip's get blocked; they have the resources to keep up the pressure regardless.

All in all, though, the situation as it stands right now isn't that bad. I generally don't get more than one or two gilseller /tell's per day, and it takes only a second to highlight their name and block them. Blacklist fills up, just remove the first twenty or so, since those accounts are long-since banned or abandoned.

I do appreciate that SE has announced plans to add a "Blacklist and report" option to help differentiate gilseller blocks from annoying-people blocks. (Though, I'd imagine that many will use "Blacklist and report" for both types, in the hopes of getting an annoying person banned. :p)

They will sort it, just a matter of when and how

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cons

They will sort it, just a matter of when and how

---

no they wont, ffxi has been dealing with the exact same problem fo years. the best they came up with was a RMT filter feature, which was junk compared to the ffxi windower's version.

Real solution to eliminate RMT spam advertisements:

- Ban the gilbuyers.
- Be A LOT more pro-active in banning bots. SE only seems to ban the obvious bots that teleport between gathering nodes or mobs, they do nothing to the bots that follow game mechanics but are completely automated. On Phoenix there's two bots that have been farming wind shards/crystals for months in the Central Shroud and they've had a new friend in the last two months.

People still don't understand that the reason these people are not getting banned is because they work for SE... Its the only way for them to add a "cash shop" without actually adding one. If they did add one people would whine and cry all day about "WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO PAY MONTHLY FOR BLAH BLAH".

How about an extra option in the settings menu?

Won't receive tells from people outside your zone unless they're on your friends list.

Checking this would cut down RMT tells almost entirely.


I really think this would be the best solution. Most RMTs idle in the starting areas. If you stayed away with this checked, it would cripple their business. There would be no way for them to get around it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

There would be no way for them to get around it.

---

Besides them walking their NPC to other areas? Not exactly hard to do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gilthas

Besides them walking their NPC to other areas? Not exactly hard to do.

---

Because the entire game population sits in one area. Most of the time you're playing, you'll be constantly moving around. You'd only risk RMTs if you stayed in one place that's heavily populated for a long period of time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

Because the entire game population sits in one area. Most of the time you're playing, you'll be constantly moving around.

---

That's irrelevant. They don't just have 1 character for spamming, they have several.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gilthas

That's irrelevant. They don't just have 1 character for spamming, they have several.

---

You don't seem to understand how many missed tells this solution would bring. It would significantly cut it down no matter what they did. Even if they had a bot in every single zone. You'd just have to ignore that one to stop it for that zone.

Not saying it would stop them entirely. That isn't possible. But it would make a huge day and night difference in the amount received.

Best passive solution Ive seen, by far, for protecting your account is that IP tracking, account lock thing they had with Rift. Sign in from a new IP and it locks your account with a passcode thats sent to your email. Locked accounts can play, but no communicating or mail/bank transactions until you put in the code. It saves the IP as well so it wont pester players repeatedly.

IMO they should do this at least for those who do not have a registered Security Token on their account ... with the option to do both.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

How about an extra option in the settings menu?

Won't receive tells from people outside your zone unless they're on your friends list.

Checking this would cut down RMT tells almost entirely.


I really think this would be the best solution. Most RMTs idle in the starting areas. If you stayed away with this checked, it would cripple their business. There would be no way for them to get around it.

---

This would work out really well. SE could at least add an option to turn off /tells to anyone that isn't on your friend list. Could always turn it back on when you need to talk to someone else.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kayo

Best passive solution Ive seen, by far, for protecting your account is that IP tracking, account lock thing they had with Rift. Sign in from a new IP and it locks your account with a passcode thats sent to your email. Locked accounts can play, but no communicating or mail/bank transactions until you put in the code. It saves the IP as well so it wont pester players repeatedly.

IMO they should do this at least for those who do not have a registered Security Token on their account ... with the option to do both.

---

If you login at a different IP SE locks you from signing in and you can't play at all.

In a general sense, we would like to avoid restricting the ability for new players to communicate with others, so we don't currently have any plans to make changes along the suggested lines. However, we will continue to evolve as we take measures against RMT and in-game spam, and likewise continue to ask for your help in reporting these violations.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hvinire

In a general sense, we would like to avoid restricting the ability for new players to communicate with others, so we don't currently have any plans to make changes along the suggested lines. However, we will continue to evolve as we take measures against RMT and in-game spam, and likewise continue to ask for your help in reporting these violations.

---

I stopped reporting GM, after 6 months of continued harassment I give up. Reporting needs to be easier. And you need to ban them in a more timely fashion, the auto ban idea is the best. We are not saying instant account ban but just ban them from using /tell, /whisper, /shout, /say until you investigate.

• Create bait character(s).
• Bait character(s) receive RMT tell.
• Ban RMT account.

It really are no hard for find and stop RMT that advertise through tells...

A possible solution would be to instead of targeting the seller, target the receiver. Have a script in the background that scans a player wealth and compares it to the last scanned value and it there is a large change (in the millions) then a sub routine is invoked to check for market board sales. I the players retainers have no market sales to compare to the "sudden" wealth then the system locks the account pending SE review and or the player explain how they "magically" have such wealth.
Once players realize that buying gil targets them by the system the willingness to buy gil decreases, then the market for the gill sellers dries up and they move on to another easier to sell in game. Database scripting should not have that much overhead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MurakumoMillennium

• Create bait character(s).
• Bait character(s) receive RMT tell.
• Ban RMT account.

It really are no hard for find and stop RMT that advertise through tells...

---

Eh, they're being banned fast enough.
It's pretty rare to get two or even three tells from the same char before it is banned.

Yes, they are annoying. No, we can't stop them, stop thinking we can.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gadzi_h

I stopped reporting GM, after 6 months of continued harassment I give up. Reporting needs to be easier. And you need to ban them in a more timely fashion, the auto ban idea is the best. We are not saying instant account ban but just ban them from using /tell, /whisper, /shout, /say until you investigate.

---

Or at least auto mute/auto blacklist upon right click > Report Spam

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shirai

No, we can't stop them, stop thinking we can.

---

No, RMT characters that advertise through tells can most definitely be stopped. This are easy for do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gadzi_h

We are not saying instant account ban but just ban them from using /tell, /whisper, /shout, /say until you investigate.

---

Right, because there's no way that would be abused by griefers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hvinire

In a general sense, we would like to avoid restricting the ability for new players to communicate with others, so we don't currently have any plans to make changes along the suggested lines. However, we will continue to evolve as we take measures against RMT and in-game spam, and likewise continue to ask for your help in reporting these violations.

---

Let's look at this realistically to see why your solution is no solution at all.

Problem: Players are being harassed by spam bots. The bot will spam the player with messages every 30 seconds unless the player black lists the bot. Player must drop whatever they are doing, even fighting, to report the bot.


I have been spammed even inside dungeons like Coil. It's everywhere, not just towns.

Even as I type this message, I've seen THREE bot spam messages.

And after black listing, a new bot springs up within 5 minutes, who must also be black listed.

Every single one of them has nonsense names; gibberish made by a bot.

The most effective way to report characters is to look them up on lodestone and use the website report.

If I was to report every account that spammed me, I would have no time to actually play the game.

The whole problem is the bots interrupt gameplay. I can't see what is happening in chat with them spamming me.

Your solution interrupts gameplay even more. I have to actually go to the Lodestone and type up a report


You need to decide what is more important; new players needing to add people to a friend list before they can PM other players, or the paying players to be constantly harassed in-game by bots enticing them with offers to steal their accounts.

In my opinion....

New player needing to add someone to a friend list before they can send a PM: Irritation level 3.

Every player getting spammed by bots constantly: Irritation level 100.

No matter how many reports we file, the hackings and in-game spam will continue until YOU stop it by closing their #1 advertisement channel; PMs.

The problem is there is too much freedom to message other players. You will HAVE to reduce some of that freedom in order to address the problem. There is no way around it. And the only way you can prove to me you care about the ingame spamming and hacking of accounts is by doing something to stop it in the first place.

Besides. There is no way a manual process like players reporting the bots can compete with the automatic process the spammers use to make new characters and send out the spam messages. You need to change the scenario so the bots don't have the advantages anymore.

If you are seriously at war with the RMT sites, you need to understand you cannot win a war by making no sacrifices.

Honestly, what does new players need to PM random people for anyone? Party Finder might be the only thing, and even that is a stretch given new players have no need for PF groups.

I bet when Yoshi P gets a RMT tell they get the Ban Hammer ASAP.


The other day I played most of the day (1st time in forever) I only had two RMTs sending me tells. I didn't delete them.... I spammed them. Hopefully I wont get reported lol. I don't know if its my server or the times I play or the order of how they pick players names to send tells to, but I get 2-4 RMT tells a week.

One thing they could do is ban the accounts faster. I still have like 5 Goldceo dijgf or w/e on blacklist along with about 50 others and they have been on there for months.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

snip.

---

When people stop buying Gil, That's when you will stop getting tells inside dungeons. ^^

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

I have been spammed even inside dungeons like Coil. It's everywhere, not just towns.

---

Can you please explain this further?

The system is designed to not allow /tells inside instances.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ReplicaX

Can you please explain this further?

The system is designed to not allow /tells inside instances.

---

I don't know. It happened last night while I was in the loading area for T4. I don't think it is instanced.

He probably got a spam tell while in the "between Turns" lobby area which is technically part of La Noscea NOT part of the dungeon. As far as I know they moved the filter system they were using on FFXI to FFXIV so Im not sure why these tells are happening so much. As soon as they implemented the filter system in FFXI the RMT tell spam slowed down IMMENSELY. Perhaps the FFXIV filters aren't as tight right now I don't know. I wouldn't mind if the RMT Team did another post for FFXIV like they did for FFXI where they explained all the tools they use. If you can find that article on POL it's actually pretty interesting and one of the tool is more or less what a previous poster described about flagging large gil transactions.

Here's how you get rid of it (or at least limit it)

1. Allow whispers (/tells) only from players in a "whisper distance" (limited to a zone size like a town or so)
2. Have an option to only receive /tells (whispers) from people in your friends list additionally.


Basically put, I don't want you to whisper me something you can't ask me out loud, it makes no sense, if I don't want to talk to you THEN I have the option to tell you politely or if you persist in an unfriendly manner to blacklist you on a list made up of people I actually don't want to talk to rather than a list of 250 people who have tried to sell me Gil.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hvinire

However, we will continue to evolve as we take measures against RMT and in-game spam, and likewise continue to ask for your help in reporting these violations.

---

I, like others in this thread, have simply given up on reporting these violations. I know that I *should* but in all actuality, it takes far too much time away from my playing, if I were to report each and every one of these violations I experience. The fact remains that SE has not done enough/all they can, to alleviate the burden from the players - and that, quite frankly, is both discouraging and frustrating. I shouldn't have to keep spending my time writing reports, deleting ppl from my blacklist, only to free up room to blacklist other people. It may only be a mild annoyance at times, but the fact that the issue persists, so rampantly, this far from launch, speaks volumes.

well there are 2 problems 1) ffxi is a much older game with an outdated chat system, what you can do in chat there is more limited 2) they explained the tools they used. so with the new chat system and information on the tools it is easy to find what will and will not be filtered. Would I like a little more information as to what they are doing about the rmt spam yes, however the more info they release the less effective those methods become. I read the special task force reports on ffxi while I was still playing (before the level cap increase to 99) and they were very detailed, enough so that someone with enough knowledge could find ways to bypass most of their filters, have the farmers avoid bans long enough to gather gill etc.

Restrict duplicate posting(s)

Spam filter (temp. chat-suspension for gross misuse)

Automate the suspension/ban system for repeat offenders