An Official Notice is NEEDED - why did SE suspend those with high ammounts of Gil.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...095a614312461a

they did it there, and they probably will again

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Originally Posted by Design

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...095a614312461a

they did it there, and they probably will again

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That's not quite the same as "People with a whole lotta gil are gonna be suspended."

I'm just amazed that NOTHING has been posted by Square Enix regarding these suspensions. Is this the normal business practice for them?

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Originally Posted by Freyar

That's not quite the same as "People with a whole lotta gil are gonna be suspended."

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No i know im just saying they posted that after the ban went out, wouldn't be surprised if they did the same for this debacle

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Originally Posted by Aphraell

I'm just amazed that NOTHING has been posted by Square Enix regarding these suspensions. Is this the normal business practice for them?

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It appears that way...

So far this game seems to have the worst Customer Support out of any game I've played (where I have needed to contact support), this includes quite a few F2P games.

bump for justice.

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

It appears that way...

So far this game seems to have the worst Customer Support out of any game I've played (where I have needed to contact support), this includes quite a few F2P games.

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You haven't played Mabinogi then.

I have yet to play a game where the customer support (GM's) did anything within minutes unless *non disclosure agreement*, which means you're better off name-and-shaming them on youtube. It may not solve anything but when people look up "how to hack FFXIV" top hits are people seen exploiting it, instead of instructions how to.

I've played/beta-tested pretty much every MMORPG that has been released since 2008. Prior to that I was always too busy to play them post-beta test. Of note:
SW:TOR - I think the storyline was good, but the gameplay was too generic WoW knockoff. No Customer support
Star Trek Online - I think this was a good attempt, but the gameplay was a WoW knockoff other than the ship-to-ship combat. No customer support
Vindictus - No customer support
Wizardy Online - No customer support

In fact The latter two games have equal or worse problems to FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

You haven't played Mabinogi then.

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I've not, I'm not saying it's the absolute worst CS out there, but it is certainly very poor by comparison, from my experience at least.

Looking at what's happening to players with hacked accounts really shows how bad this is to be honest.

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

I've not, I'm not saying it's the absolute worst CS out there, but it is certainly very poor by comparison, from my experience at least.

Looking at what's happening to players with hacked accounts really shows how bad this is to be honest.

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Yeah, this is nothing new, and completely consistent with the lack-of-action taken on freemium games that I played.

I'm sticking with FFXIV for now, because it's still cheaper than playing a feemium game. That said, if they don't start having weekly reports on banned accounts, then I'm going to assume that they are trying to sink this ship. A whole lotta good it will do when paying subscribers cancel because they don't want to compete for resources that the bots are monopolizing.

It makes no financial sense for SE to be attempting to sink the ship purposefully. They redeveloped the game after it's expensive and abysmal launch.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Yeah, this is nothing new, and completely consistent with the lack-of-action taken on freemium games that I played.

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Of all the F2P games that I have played, none have had RMT issues as bad as ARR.

Most were anything but "lack-of-action", they usually have actual in game GM's to check on reported botters / RMT spam etc.

In an ideal world I'd much rather play a P2P game, but with all the cheaters etc in recent P2P games, you may as well be playing a F2P (Pay2Win) game, in my opinion.

That said, at the moment I'd rather continue playing ARR, it looks nice and plays fairly well, despite the seeming lack of endgame content (PvP).

Just a shame about the CS if something does go wrong...

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Originally Posted by Freyar

It makes no financial sense for SE to be attempting to sink the ship purposefully. They redeveloped the game after it's expensive and abysmal launch.

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Have you not seen SE's foray into Social gaming? You will need to google search "Square Enix “Will Focus On Social Gaming” ", as I'm not linking that site due to it's adult focus.

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

Of all the F2P games that I have played, none have had RMT issues as bad as ARR.

Most were anything but "lack-of-action", they usually have actual in game GM's to check on reported botters / RMT spam etc.

In an ideal world I'd much rather play a P2P game, but with all the cheaters etc in recent P2P games, you may as well be playing a F2P (Pay2Win) game, in my opinion.

That said, at the moment I'd rather continue playing ARR, it looks nice and plays fairly well, despite the seeming lack of endgame content (PvP).

Just a shame about the CS if something does go wrong...

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My opinion is that they didn't anticipate the launch issues, just like they completely ignored beta tester feedback, again.

The hacks IMO I'm going to chalk up mostly to user-responsibility/foolishness. Mayhaps there is something in the game client the hackers are reading (notice how you get RMT spam even if you just login and are in an INN?) and are using as leverage to hack people. It seems doubtful, but then again when I run a process monitoring application, there -IS- a weak point between the launcher and the game itself, and this weak point persists in all game launchers that use the web browser as an authentication point. But to exploit this you'd have to have a Proxy or a LSP that is specifically designed to MITM the login. Antivirus programs tend to be installed as LSP's so people with "launcher" issues should look there as well. It wouldn't surprise me much if such a rootkit exists. But again, to get such a thing on your system you'd have to share the system with irresponsible people.

But I digress, I've seem to have worked for companies that are more generally hated for their poor customer service, and I can tell you from experience that most of the time you people have no idea what it's like on the receiving end. To take an example from the ecommerce site, people report fake/counterfeit goods all the time, and we took listings down, all the time, but despite that the community was convinced we do no nothing, so much so that brands like LVMH and T&co felt it necessary to sue the company, repeatedly. The actual fact is that stuff remains on the site because these companies do not wish to tell the ecommerce company how to identify their counterfeits, and in turn we can't tell the customers what criteria we are using to take down their listings. We're just reacting to trends of communities reporting things. Much like how we're noticing bots and spam in FFXIV. If you see something, report it, don't whine about it on the forum. It's the easiest link to find in the lodestone
http://support.na.square-enix.com/co...382&la=1&fty=2

So yes, SE may have the appearance of poor customer support right now, but we simply don't know what the volume of phone, webchat, email is. We're just looking at the forum and using it as a gauge to how much or little SE cares. This is not how they work, I can pretty much guarantee it.

Would you like to know another secret of the email-customer-support queue?

Fraud cases get the highest priority, but the lowest number of staff working on it. Often the people who have responsibility to resolve such cases have access to things like Lexisnexis, and can pretty much see your entire life's history. This is to keep that data from leaking. So if you don't fill out the ATO form completely, you are causing delays yourself. This is why I've said in other emails NOT to phone them. They can not verify anything by you calling them by phone. They will call you if they need to.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Have you not seen SE's foray into Social gaming? You will need to google search "Square Enix “Will Focus On Social Gaming” ", as I'm not linking that site due to it's adult focus.

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Stupidity doesn't equal malicious intent or (financial) suicidal intent.

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But I digress, I've seem to have worked for companies that are more generally hated for their poor customer service, and I can tell you from experience that most of the time you people have no idea what it's like on the receiving end. To take an example from the ecommerce site, people report fake/counterfeit goods all the time, and we took listings down, all the time, but despite that the community was convinced we do no nothing

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Been there as a support guy and it's certainly changed my perspective on CSRs. That said, the belief that nothing has been done stems from the fact that companies refuse to present validation for reports. When you say "We got your report, but we can't tell you what happened" (which is what happens in XIV), there isn't a feedback loop to encourage users to keep reporting unwelcome behavior.

This is what has pushed Xbox Live to be as horrible as it is. The dude-bro mentality grew in and took over because those with some level of responsibility felt like the issues they reported were never addressed due to a privacy policy that just alienated people who were impacted by improper behavior.

It's time that companies look to giving proper feedback to reports. While it can have some side effects (such as groups conspiring to abuse someone else), the lack of that feedback makes people just give up on trying to do what is essentially the administrator's job in-game.

It wasnt a specific gil amount that got anyone banned, I assure you of this, more then likely it means you came in contact with gil sellers in some way.

I had business trips that had me gone sunday-wed and thurs-sat. When i got home saturday I had dozens of people 'happy' to see I wasnt banned. Savvy businessman I am, I spun it by throwing all my greedy competitors under the bus for getting their just dues for stiffing the player base with prices that encourage gil buying.

Most of my gil was made in personal deals, as on the market I cut first and deepest because the 40 items I list I NEED to sell. Regardless of all that, some told me a few different 'magic numbers' of gil that got people banned.

I checked my gil and my retainers, an can for sure say these numbers are not accurate. As im fairly casual, im certain others have had more time to make gil then me.. Even if I was the first 50 ARM and BSM on my server, ive made more money selling 2 stars recently, then all my "first and only dude selling it" gil build up.

I guess being fair and not being overly greedy has paid off for me, ive avoided forcing ONLY gil buyers to afford my items. Those not wise enough to not have ALL their fortune in gil, and those whove been too greedy, I can only laugh at your misfortune.

The good news is now I am selling those high end items, without the need to hire neighborhood kids to lower my prices (lol, yes I did that, im that nerdy to counter your more available time commitment nerdiness).

So in a nutshell, that sucks for those legit players, but im glad to see my rivals gone and the economy is actually stablizing for the first time in.. Well.. Ever.

Be proud of the service you did for your servers, by being suspended.

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Originally Posted by Bizzybeast

Those not wise enough to not have ALL their fortune in gil, and those whove been too greedy, I can only laugh at your misfortune.

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...

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Originally Posted by Bizzybeast

The good news is now I am selling those high end items, without the need to hire neighborhood kids to lower my prices (lol, yes I did that, im that nerdy to counter your more available time commitment nerdiness)

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Your showing off that now we are banned, you no longer need to account-share to make gil?

Account sharing is just as bad as botting/RMT and is equally cheating.

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Originally Posted by Freyar

Been there as a support guy and it's certainly changed my perspective on CSRs. That said, the belief that nothing has been done stems from the fact that companies refuse to present validation for reports. When you say "We got your report, but we can't tell you what happened" (which is what happens in XIV), there isn't a feedback loop to encourage users to keep reporting unwelcome behavior.

This is what has pushed Xbox Live to be as horrible as it is. The dude-bro mentality grew in and took over because those with some level of responsibility felt like the issues they reported were never addressed due to a privacy policy that just alienated people who were impacted by improper behavior.

It's time that companies look to giving proper feedback to reports. While it can have some side effects (such as groups conspiring to abuse someone else), the lack of that feedback makes people just give up on trying to do what is essentially the administrator's job in-game.

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Believe me, every time I tried to steer someone down the right path, someone in QA/Management would come tell me that we're not allowed to be honest. This was largely because the very second someone told something and a Chinese fraudster got wind of it... ALL of them did, and we were then with one less tool to legitimately take down things.

So if SE said they were banning everyone with 8 million in gil or higher, then everyone will just make sure they never have 8 million. That's why you won't see SE say anything about this. It's this problem that can't be solved legally. Taxpayer ID's and Credit Card numbers only prove you have that information, not that you're the owner of said information. Even games in Korea and Japan can no longer require their national id numbers to play. It's just a game, and the companies can't legally have the numbers so long as people aren't making real money from it...

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Originally Posted by Design

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...095a614312461a

they did it there, and they probably will again

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That is totally NOT what you claimed it was:

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Originally Posted by Design

They already announced anyone with 8MIL GIL or higher would be banned for 72 hours until proven otherwise that they are NOT a Gil seller.

It was announced 2 weeks ago and at PAX

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

I've never seen this announcement, could you provide a link please?

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Because you cheated, bought gold, scammed, or sold gil. I know plenty of people that have not got banned but have over 3 m gil. I call bullshit.

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Originally Posted by Jacotto

If my account is cleared of all charges against it, what kind of reparations can I expect for all this lost time? Also, if a 72 hour suspension of play time doesn't include weekends, I'd like to formally request that my subscription time not include weekends.

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Agreed!

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Originally Posted by Sphinxy

Because you cheated, bought gold, scammed, or sold gil. I know plenty of people that have not got banned but have over 3 m gil. I call bullshit.

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If your going to "troll" please at least read the posts first, 3mil is not a lot competitively and I'm not surprised they were not "blanket banned".

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Originally Posted by Woggers

I'm sorry but if you are putting crafted items on the market board for 1 mil+ who do you think is going to buy it? The gil sellers/buyers. More than likely you had set the prices so high in hopes a gil buyer will purchase. I think this is what SE was looking at. The game has been barely out a month. People should not have 10 mil+ gil already. If you do more than likely you RMTed or sold items to someone who did. Stop cheating and stop catering to people who cheat and you won't get suspended/banned, simple as that.

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This does not excuse SE from banning legit players accidentally. While it is unlikely.. it is very possible to have a crap ton of money without cheating. I am broke.. never had more than 250k at one time. But if I wanted to make money I know how I can do it. Mats sell for a crap ton, tomb mats sell for a crap ton, crafted good sell for a crap ton. Any gear used by gathers or crafters mid level sells for a crap ton. It would be very easy to make a crap ton of money if that was someones goal.

While I think it is important to get rid of cheaters... A company should never penalize legitimate players in an effort to accomplish that.

The other thing to think about in this situation is that 95% off all ppl banned for botting/rmt/cheating claim they didn't do it when they did really do it. But they usually don't line up in any official forum and make 11 pages of complaints about it when that is the case.

I feel the main problem currently is that EVERYTHING has to go through Japan. Why doesn't NA have their own anti hacking department or refunds department? Everyone that lost game time due to slow account recovery times and accidental bans should be able to get the lost time back WITHOUT question. Time = money and if SE cannot provide the service due to their incompetence, that money should be refunded to the customers.

It's not just NA, EU gets the same treatment...

They banned people who obtained gil from RMT violators. It's possible you sold a crafted item to an individual who cheated and this caused your account to be scrutinized. I'm glad you were able to get it back.

My items could have been bought by a gil buyer, I've no way to tell, especially on the market. I was selling at least 40 crafted items per day on the market, for quite a while.

I don't think anyone has even had their account "investigated" and I've not heard of anyone's suspension being lifted yet.

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

My items could have been bought by a gil buyer, I've no way to tell, especially on the market. I was selling at least 40 crafted items per day on the market, for quite a while.

I don't think anyone has even had their account "investigated" and I've not heard of anyone's suspension being lifted yet.

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That's what I think too, someone might have bought something from me with "tainted" gils... And the only things I was selling are mid 30s gatherer stuff from weaving and HQ DS ores, gold ores, etc. Made over 10 mils since I was server first 46+ miner and only supplier for the whole server for a few days... This suspension is getting very long, 5 days gone from my subscription already (I was a 1.0 player but wanted to start fresh)

Just so you know (and I'm sure you ALLLLLL really care) but people tend to be overtly defensive about "not doing anything wrong" even though, they definitely were. We don't know what data SE sees, or if it's the data was bad.

Earlier today I went and checked out the usual spots where I've seen bots, sure enough 16 days later, same bots, same place. But then I noticed something, there was one player that I'm certain is botting, but isn't hacking to do it. So I watched them for several minutes... yup same pattern.
- Doesn't have any storyline completed (no GC)
- Has a Gathering skill higher than 15, but no combat skill higher than the gathering skill
- Wearing gear unsuitable, or absent to their Gathering skill
- The FC the bot is in, has a similar name to the FC master.
- The bots do not use any skills

Now crafting, all crafting can be done with auto-clicking bots, by any script kiddie, and the end result is little different from that from a non-bot, so as much as I'd like to say "crafting bots are ruining the economy" until I actually see evidence of this, I'm not actively looking for it. Mainly just the Gathering ones. I am aware that there are fishing bots, but I'm not sure how prevalent those are since every game I've played with a "fishing skill" has always been an AFK activity, so it's also unlikely to tell the difference from crafting. Also it's RNG, where as Mining/Harvesting is not RNG.

I'd like to point out that while I am reporting bots, I'm not specifically going out of my way to find them. I have a list of bots I've seen and I go back and check when I'm in the same zone.

In another game, there was a whole bruhaha about some high level player getting banned, they were adamant that they were doing nothing wrong, yet they had a youtube channel filled with videos showing their hacks. Likewise they were affiliated with several people who run a website that's all about hacking the game.

You know what "6 degrees of separation" means right? In a MMO game, the RMT people are always 1 degree separated from those that are making the bots, and in turn those that are making the bots are 1 degree separated from those who are using the bots, but not for RMT. However their activities taint those that are not using bots and just want to play the game legitimately. So if you're crafting, you run a high risk of unintentionally buying from the RMT bots, or having your items sold to people engaging in crafting bots. Likewise there's data that SE can certainly see by examining who you're trading with, and for how much. If those trades are also tainted, then that's how we got to where we are now.

I've so far tried to avoid buying anything from the market, as the price scale for items doesn't reflect the ability to earn gil legitimately in the game. This is likely why SE
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...8d1f1df953c121 nuked 367,700 million Gil

My account is suspended with 4 days left and not a word why.

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Originally Posted by Jacotto

At the end of the day though, it boils down to whether or not we were playing as the developers intended. I can't believe the developers expect us to refuse to participate in the markets, buying or harvesting materials to sell at a profit, because of a fear that some gil comes from RMT. We don't have the tools SE does to identify RMT. We can of course take steps to not participate in obviously stupid stuff like buying items that are put up for absurd prices, but I fail to see how setting my prices in the exact same way I would if RMT wasn't around is anything other than 'playing as the developers intended'.

I'm sure RMT is rampant (as the bans this weekend prove), but again my biggest customers still aren't banned or suspended and SE has claimed they finished their 'investigation'. If my customers were really RMT, it makes *zero* sense for SE to punish the crafter who sold items to a gilbuyer and not the gilbuyer him or herself. Either way, SE is at fault for either not suspending my customers for RMT or, if they earned their gil legitimately, reinstating my account for lack of wrongdoing.

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I think a better question right now is to figure out what servers were impacted the most. Notice they did this before allowing enabling character transfers? All you need is one person to suck all the Gil from a server and then monopolize another one, ruin a server's economy. SE should point blank not allow any gil transfer and delete any unbound gear before transfer (including all materials.) This topic comes up a lot in *other game* because one server is known to be absolutely rampant with cheating (basically most of the people who get reported or banned, are from that server.) It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of the activity was localized to Faerie (due to at least one known hacking forum,) Gilgamesh (reddit's ffxiv subreddit), Excalibur (Something Awful forums), or some other server that has a dedicated community to showing off.

I have never done anything but fates and playing around with the story. I haven't even started crafting yet. I have never done anything wrong. I don't even use the marketboards.

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Originally Posted by Jacotto

I want SE to take a closer look at my account! Investigate me!

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Same here!

Nearly 6 days trying to contact someone with any info.

Finally I've been told by live chat support that the suspension should be lifted "on the 4th at midnight".

Don't you just love the fact that a mod hasn't replied yet.
Woohoo you go SE, you do your job!!!

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Originally Posted by SynbiosRex

Don't you just love the fact that a mod hasn't replied yet.
Woohoo you go SE, you do your job!!!

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They're not going to, I can pretty much assure "replying to customer support questions on the forum is bad PR"

They'll likely make a general announcement that addresses the complaints in this and half a dozen other threads as "We have investigated RMT and banned X, and reinstated Y accounts"

Plain and simple, if you have large amounts of potentially counterfeit money prepare to have possible action on your account. Even if it is just the suspension of said funds there may still be action. You can complain about it but the realistic thing about said funds is that they are earned illegally and thus forfeit to the government "SE" when they are found. The best options at the moment are A.) If you truly feel they are worth that amount halt sales until people can legally earn that kind of money. Only the crafters have the money to buy things obscenely priced. B.) Lower the price to something reasonable so that people will not feel the need to buy gil to afford said items. C.) Stop playing if you feel the need.

I am not trying to be mean, rude, or inconsiderate. Personally I stopped crafting after I made gear for myself and friends as I felt this situation coming and I did not want to invest the time and effort to undercut the market and then be looked at oddly by the Special Task Force.

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Originally Posted by tramayne

Plain and simple, if you have large amounts of potentially counterfeit money prepare to have possible action on your account. Even if it is just the suspension of said funds there may still be action. You can complain about it but the realistic thing about said funds is that they are earned illegally and thus forfeit to the government "SE" when they are found. The best options at the moment are A.) If you truly feel they are worth that amount halt sales until people can legally earn that kind of money. Only the crafters have the money to buy things obscenely priced. B.) Lower the price to something reasonable so that people will not feel the need to buy gil to afford said items. C.) Stop playing if you feel the need.

I am not trying to be mean, rude, or inconsiderate. Personally I stopped crafting after I made gear for myself and friends as I felt this situation coming and I did not want to invest the time and effort to undercut the market and then be looked at oddly by the Special Task Force.

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That's the thing though, none of my sales were obscenely priced, the 2 star robe was a high value item listed on the market, the mats alone cost me a small fortune, also from the market.

The rest of my sales consisted of accessories/what HQ/NQ items in the 2-15k range, 1 star green crafted items in the 15-80k mark, crafting materias at 5-40k and finally higher end crafting mats at 1-20k.

I don't see why people should be scared to sell fairly priced items on the market, just because it's possible a gil buyer may buy them. A gil buyer is just as likely to buy anything else on there too.

If you just lower the price of everything, the gil buyers will still be just as likely to buy it.

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

Nearly 6 days trying to contact someone with any info.
Finally I've been told by live chat support that the suspension should be lifted "on the 4th at midnight".

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Wait... that's the day SE starts billing new customers (after 30+7 days free trial). Coincidence? Not to raise alarms unnecessarily, but I hope someone is watching to see if SE re-suspends these accounts once they are charged, or whether SE credits or reimburses for those days they prevented people from playing.

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Originally Posted by Jacotto

I kind of doubt it's that much of a conspiracy.

Would still be nice to get an official statement that those of us showing continued concern based on unhelpful comments from SE are being directly examined for wrongdoing. This would be ideal, since I was playing exactly as intended by the devs at all times.

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A lot of people on reddit are saying they talked with SE phone support today and were told their account will be returned to them at midnight PDT since their account were clear

The next midnight coming PDT?

Greetings folks,

We appreciate you taking the time to report this concern you are having to us. However, since this sounds like a feedback/suggestions discussion rather than a technical issue, I will be closing this particular thread.

Good luck and have fun!