The #1 Question Asked For The Letter From The Producer:

RMT spammers just create tons of new characters on one account, deleting old characters as they go. On my server, you don't get tells from the same person more than once, so blacklist options do not help. And no, you can't stop RMT in a game of this nature, you can only limit the damage the abusive behavior causes.

The only way to prevent the type of spam we currently experience is to have moderators taking immediate action against accounts that are being reported for spamming. A brief glimpse at the /tells coming from the account, and a gm should immediately lock the account BEFORE an investigation. Accounts cost RMT spammers at least $15-$20, so getting the entire account locked after one wave of spam would make it impossible to profit from randomly targeted spam. That would effectively remove these /tells from the game.

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Originally Posted by Elmeron

Again, only 3 people working on this...

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Correction, 3 people listed in the credits as part of the task force, there could be more now... You also forgot all the GMs that field the spam reports and filter them up to the task force for additional action.

In a way, combating RMT in a game like this is like combating DDOS attacks in the real world. For every attack thwarted, or attacker found, there are dozens more lined up, waiting for their chance.

From this interview:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen..._yoshida_this/


Yoshida Regarding RMT Spam

"We actually have a special task force dedicated to control and get rid of much spam, and control it within the game and not only the incidents that are reported by our players. Internally we have a special group always checking, allways researching, allways going after RMT spam and trying to find them and strike them and make sure to removed this incidents as much as possible. We also are going through with like an undercover investigation where we try to find out larger groups of people who are doing the RMT spam and try to control it from there as well. Also from a daily basis we are banning a few thousands accounts and tens of thousands of accounts per month so on the players inpoint it may not seem that the incidents have reduced but we are doing that best to control it, there is a lot of RMT spam thats happening so we have to be continously vigilant in order to stop them and avoid those incidents."


I don't think he or they know we want solutions to significantly reduce the /shout & /tell spam from gil-sellers...

Which makes me seriously frustrated & has me wondering... do they not understand that the bans mean next-to-nothing if the spam remains roughly the same?

All we see is RMT /tell spam every minute of every hour.


I don't get what's so hard about implementing:

1) a /tell filter for FC Members & Friends Only.

2) an auto-blacklisting, right-click report RMT feature.

3) a /shout & /yell restriction for level 15 & above only.

Among other fantastic ideas...

Speaking of #3, they could make it to where the feature doesn't unlock until after having beaten Sastasha in the MSQ.


Bans won't solve the problem, they'll just keep coming back stronger & multiplying.

We, the players, care most about not having our chat pinged every 30 seconds with a huge wall-of-text gil sale promotion.

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Originally Posted by DragonFlyy

I can totally see people buying gold at $8 to get a token to pay for their subscription.

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Actually you can now use in game gil to pay for subs in wow according to a co worker of mine

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Originally Posted by Chibilidawg

I don't think he or they know we want solutions to significantly reduce the /shout & /tell spam from gil-sellers...

Which makes me seriously frustrated & has me wondering... do they not understand that the bans mean next-to-nothing if the spam remains roughly the same?

All we see is RMT /tell spam every minute of every hour.

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I don't know if they realize how much of an issue it is because the /tells and /shouts are incredibly uncommon on JP servers for a stack of reasons (RMT ads show up on various websites instead of in-game). I don't think this is the main reason for the lack of response, but it contributes to how slow the response is. The "I do believe in faeries! I do! I do!" part of my brain is hoping that they're keeping quiet on the quality of life changes to keep the gil sellers from being ready for them when they come.

I got an idea. Show of force. Everyone just keep making threads titled stop RMT (or something of that likeness). Fill the whole forum up with them until the devs reply. Even if you're not personally having an issue with it, let's do this as a community, because it is big issue on many servers.

idk what you're talking about, I don't get a single RMT tell on Masamune o.o

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Originally Posted by Spy

idk what you're talking about, I don't get a single RMT tell on Masamune o.o

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Again, the JP servers (and hyper populated NA/EU servers like Balmung) don't have the same scale of problem. Funny story though, the tells do happen on your server. Someone posted a thread about receiving one a couple of weeks ago. On servers like Siren, it's freaking constant.

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Originally Posted by Teryaani

Again, the JP servers (and hyper populated NA/EU servers like Balmung) don't have the same scale of problem. Funny story though, the tells do happen on your server. Someone posted a thread about receiving one a couple of weeks ago. On servers like Siren, it's freaking constant.

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True.....I think I got one tell a few weeks ago myself now that I think about it. However, I don't think SE's ignoring the issue as much as the OP and a few others seem to think, though. Just like as much as it irks me, I don't think they're ignoring the housing space issue as much as I think they are (I'm sadly still very salty about that whole thing). I don't think the issue should be ignored by the players, but I don't think pitchforks and threats are going to solve the issue any faster. And Gilbuyers aren't helping the matter.

make gil untradeable *sarcasm..somewhat*

I'd say make the gilsellers come up with at least better names. I am sure you can right in a code that won't allow "faceroll" names :P.

What I don't understand is, an mmo is social experience, why are ppl buying gil instead of asking friends to help them get started making gil. It seems like it would build the community up more if ppl relied less on quick fixes and more on their buddy to the left or right.

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Originally Posted by AreeyaJaidee

I got an idea. Show of force. Everyone just keep making threads titled stop RMT (or something of that likeness). Fill the whole forum up with them until the devs reply. Even if you're not personally having an issue with it, let's do this as a community, because it is big issue on many servers.

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I would participate, but the next ban I get will be a permanent one. I've been banned once for something somebody else said, once for calling somebody ignorant, and the third ban seems to be permanent no matter what the infraction is. So I'd rather not take my chances with spamming the forum.

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Originally Posted by AreeyaJaidee

I got an idea. Show of force. Everyone just keep making threads titled stop RMT (or something of that likeness). Fill the whole forum up with them until the devs reply. Even if you're not personally having an issue with it, let's do this as a community, because it is big issue on many servers.

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You might want to be careful when you advocate a flood attack on a forum, admins tend to take a very dim view of that. I know I do.

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Originally Posted by Starlord

I'd say make the gilsellers come up with at least better names. I am sure you can right in a code that won't allow "faceroll" names :P.

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http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ng-Conventions

I know the gil sellers dont usually pick sea wolves but lore-wise they're pretty on point with their names. :P

OP, please remember that the name of these forums are the "Good Ship Lollipop" and are Moderated by Pollyanna. The logo is an Ostrich with its head in the sand. Anything of a negative nature is not permitted and will be completely ignored. Only positive vibes are allowed and only softballs lobbed to the team will be acknowledged.

Meanwhile you can do this.
I haven't been getting any tells lately, now you just needs to block out those pesky friend requests somehow...

No offense but the #1 Live Letter question was actually this one:

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Originally Posted by JillyBean

When will we be able to (fully) share our personal house with our Eternal Bond Partner and/or have settings allowing others (friends/FC members) use of any/all amenities?

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(66 likes atm)

______________________________________

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Originally Posted by Canadane

RMT seems to be a trending issue. Is there any more aggressive counter actions you plan to take to stop RMT?

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(62 likes)

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Originally Posted by Zephanoa

RMT spam seems to be a large problem, is there any plans to be more aggressive on this front?

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(63 likes)

I totally agree about RMT and did "like" both of those posts, and yes I did post the EB House sharing post myself. When I saw the title of this thread I was just hoping that was what it was about. :p

Worse is that they didn't answer any Forum Q&A but just did their own thing. I hope we get some answers about these other issues sooner rather than later.

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Originally Posted by JillyBean

(62 likes)

(63 likes)

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This is exactly why they rarely pull questions from the NA threads. If those latter 63 people had simply upvoted the first post, it would have had 125 likes. Instead, we just like to repeat post for some inane reason and dilute the votes.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

This is exactly why they rarely pull questions from the NA threads. If those latter 63 people had simply upvoted the first post, it would have had 125 likes. Instead, we just like to repeat post for some inane reason and dilute the votes.

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It was more likely the same people liking 2 posts, not 2 separate groups of people. Which is another problem that happens often on these forums. "My smn pet's suck thread got 50 likes!" "Hey mine got 70! There must be 120 players that SE doesn't care about!"

So often times you get the same people patting each other on the back over the same threads while thinking that the number of threads is somehow relevant and not just a sign of how bad people are with the search function.

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Originally Posted by Mellaz

Why do I feel as if I'm the only one not bothered by this. I'm always on, get a lot of spam and I just don't care, I ignore it, move on, and play. I have my chat set so that it will display everything except tells and if I get a tell I'll simply quickly switch over to check what it was and then switch back. Sure they should mediate how much RMT there is but I think cancelling a preorder and saying that they don't care for the community sounds like a child throwing a fit because he didn't get what he wanted. Have fun in whatever other game you want to play! I'll be preparing for Heavensward :P

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I also have /tells in a separate tab with the chime off. I usually get a /tell every minute. I rarely even check the tab because I know it's RMT 99.9% of the time. A child throwing a fit? The /tell option has been pretty much taken away. Our social ability has been hamstrung in a genre which thrives on its community and social interactions. This is extremely troubling, as is the constant harassment. If this isn't something to complain about and make the devs acutely aware of, I don't know what is. This issue is so bad it has gotten to the point where it's something worthy even unsubbing over, given SE's lack of initiative to improve the situation.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

This is exactly why they rarely pull questions from the NA threads. If those latter 63 people had simply upvoted the first post, it would have had 125 likes. Instead, we just like to repeat post for some inane reason and dilute the votes.

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They were from two different threads. One about XIV, the other about heavensward. One would assume the same people upvoted in each thread. (I did.)

I also didn't link my similar post from the Heavensward thread. I didn't really think it fit that subject, but others were posting in both threads so I thought I'd get the word out in both, too.

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Originally Posted by Wulfyn

Stopping it starts with the players. Don't buy gil, Don't buy carries/loot drops etc.. Report player's that buy/bot etc. Otherwise I never see rmt going away. Instant gratification is not always worth it.

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That's like saying, "I shouldn't have to use a bike lock or lock the doors on my house if people would just stop committing crimes." The reality is that this is not an issue players can solve as there will always be someone who will do it. If you want to cut down on the annoying /tells, it starts by banning the people who buy gil. Eventually enough people will stop buying gil, either because they are banned or are to afraid to buy, that the gil sellers will be forced out of the market. That is the solution to this.

I have an alt on Jenova that I hardly play and honestly the amount of rmt tells is a big part of it. Why play on Jenova and get constantly harassed when I can play on Balmung where I only get tells directly after a maintenance (that's when they are able to get on the server to make a character) and it's usually only one or two tells a month? The last time I played on Jenova I got hit with probably a tell per minute. It's like someone posted earlier; on the less populated servers you would never actually be able to enjoy the game if you just spent your time reporting every rmt tell. I set myself to busy to counter it but when it comes down to it, that's just a bandaid. There needs to be a long term solution because this is a long term problem. Especially since not everyone has an alt on a heavily populated server they can play with if they want to avoid spam, so it's really in SE's best interest to be more aggressive with getting rid of rmt.

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Originally Posted by Ahnthistik

Yoshida answered a question about the RMT situation btw:


Source : http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen..._yoshida_this/

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Yeah... That seems to be suuuuuper effective. :rolleyes:

P.S. Will be spamming your forum SE daily with an update on RMT. See how you freaking like it!

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Originally Posted by Rendecrow

That's like saying, "I shouldn't have to use a bike lock or lock the doors on my house if people would just stop committing crimes." The reality is that this is not an issue players can solve as there will always be someone who will do it. If you want to cut down on the annoying /tells, it starts by banning the people who buy gil. Eventually enough people will stop buying gil, either because they are banned or are to afraid to buy, that the gil sellers will be forced out of the market. That is the solution to this.

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Problem is there are players that know others that are buying but don't want to "snitch". Then there is the possibilities of gil being sold to rmt for rl cash, and players knowing who is doing that. The bike and the house comparison would be valid back in the day. Today it is moot since we are talking about online gaming and being a ghost so to speak.

In the end we can all agree that there really needs to be consequences swift and severe.

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Originally Posted by Elmeron

P.S. Will be spamming your forum SE daily with an update on RMT. See how you freaking like it!

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Considering that the forums get spammed daily with updates on 'lag', 'screenshots', 'embarassing moments', 'whines' and other non-important issues, I don't think the moderators will care.

Busy status made 99% of rmt spam problems go away.
Busy status = new online status.
Don't remember the last time i actually played with online status for more than a minute ( due to trading etc ).

best way to avoid rmt spam?

transfer to a crowded server with 23/7 character creation limitations and you will nearly never get a tell

got my last rmt tell 2 or 3 weeks ago

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Originally Posted by ServerCollaps

best way to avoid rmt spam?

transfer to a crowded server with 23/7 character creation limitations and you will nearly never get a tell

got my last rmt tell 2 or 3 weeks ago

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I have friends and an FC on my World, so that's not a solution. A lot of people are in the same boat.

I just turned off the /tell sound. Problem solved.

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Originally Posted by Gunspec

Accounts cost RMT spammers at least $15-$20, so getting the entire account locked after one wave of spam would make it impossible to profit from randomly targeted spam. That would effectively remove these /tells from the game.

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Just saying, but new accounts don't cost RMT a penny. They just charge it to a stolen credit card, and then issue a chargeback as soon as they finish spamming with it. They can literally create 100,000 accounts a week, and the only person who will lose money is SE, in chargeback fees.

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Originally Posted by Nadrojj

Lol cancelling your pre-order because of tell spam? Do you blist and report each one? I only get maybe one tell a day on Balmung, when i do /blist add <ctrL+R>.

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Er.. I'm on Balmung also, and there are times where if I'm getting only one RMT tell per 10 minute window I'm thanking my lucky stars.

Half a year ago it didn't seem this bad, but lately those tells are coming in really often.

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Originally Posted by LunaHoshino

I just turned off the /tell sound. Problem solved.

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Gee, what was that item I just looted? Let me just scroll up 26 lines of text to see what I got 5 seconds ago. Whoops, I thought my friend was going to ask me to tank a dungeon for him. Guess he asked an hour ago, but I didn't see his /tell in the middle of 300 lines of /tell spam.

This is like silencing your cellphone because you've gotten too many telemarketer calls.

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Originally Posted by tocsin

Just saying, but new accounts don't cost RMT a penny. They just charge it to a stolen credit card, and then issue a chargeback as soon as they finish spamming with it. They can literally create 100,000 accounts a week, and the only person who will lose money is SE, in chargeback fees.

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I hear the "they just steal credit cards" argument a lot, usually listed as a reason not to purchase currency from the scum bags. While I wouldn't put it past them, I doubt stolen data is the key source of any of their actions. I mean, why use stolen money to earn money illegitimately in a video game? Why not just USE the stolen money? And considering the enormous number of RMT accounts, if this really was a matter of thousands of accounts with stolen credentials being created each week, I would assume SE would be better about stopping it for financial reasons. And even IF what you say is true, rapidly banning accounts that spam would still be a deterrent, since creating accounts would still eat up the RMT company's time and resources. Other mmos do it, it works for them. FFXIV isn't doing it, and here we are.

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Originally Posted by Gunspec

Gee, what was that item I just looted? Let me just scroll up 26 lines of text to see what I got 5 seconds ago. Whoops, I thought my friend was going to ask me to tank a dungeon for him. Guess he asked an hour ago, but I didn't see his /tell in the middle of 300 lines of /tell spam.

This is like silencing your cellphone because you've gotten too many telemarketer calls.

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Yeah, I can see how it could be more of an issue if you keep your tells and LSes and other general chat all in the same window. I have a separate chat window for tells because my LSes tend to be very talkative and thus I had the "scroll up 26 lines of text" issue even without gilsellers being involved.

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Originally Posted by Gunspec

I hear the "they just steal credit cards" argument a lot, usually listed as a reason not to purchase currency from the scum bags. While I wouldn't put it past them, I doubt stolen data is the key source of any of their actions. I mean, why use stolen money to earn money illegitimately in a video game? Why not just USE the stolen money? And considering the enormous number of RMT accounts, if this really was a matter of thousands of accounts with stolen credentials being created each week, I would assume SE would be better about stopping it for financial reasons. And even IF what you say is true, rapidly banning accounts that spam would still be a deterrent, since creating accounts would still eat up the RMT company's time and resources. Other mmos do it, it works for them. FFXIV isn't doing it, and here we are.

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The thing is, they cant use the stolen money. it isn't really there. We are talking credit cards, not debit ones here. you don't just "withdraw cash" from them that simply. the card gets charged $20 for an account, and then the bank charges wherever the money went to, to get the money back. that means that if RMT directly used the stolen money and just withdrew it, whatever institution they withdrew it from would be on the hook for the money, and if there is anyone more tenacious about getting back money, its financial institutions themselves.

They just buy the account, use it until either SE bans them for RMT, or until SE bans them for chargebacks, then moves to make the next account in much the same way. In this way, SE gets charged more for each account that they ban, so it makes sense for them to wait for ban waves to make sure that RMT'ers Get the least effectiveness, out of the least accounts per time period. that way, less accounts made, less chargebacks.

This is also one reason why MMO RMT is one of the most popular forms of money laundering. it turns stolen money into good money.

Its one of the reasons that SE seems to be almost complicit in RMT. its disgusting. I'm personally in favor of IP bans for any countries that FFXIV is not supported officially. it may have a bit of collateral damage (a couple thousand players suddenly cant play) but it would eradicate RMT near completely.

I mean, even just banning all Chinese IP's would even make sense. SE has official Chinese servers for a specific reason, with very different rules. Chinese players use the other servers as a means of bypassing their national restrictions, so SE would even be taking the "legal" action by IP blanket banning.

I would think a large amount of chargebacks would raise a red flag with the institution from which the card is issued from.

Account blocking instead of just character blocking would be a small start and something that should be implemented. I block people because of the person themselves not because of a particular character they might be using.