Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

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Originally Posted by Teryaani

I suspect you're right about this. Unless someone is conspicuous in their behavior (i.e. talking about it in game or somewhere that can be associated back to them), I'd guess they have somewhere near 0% chance of getting a ban.
WOW. I take it he never actually said he was buying right? He just used that "friend" euphemism to get around that?

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He never said that he was buying but we all knew, he had already paid us 20 mil that night but his item didnt drop lol

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Originally Posted by Amiaze

According to their updates, they do ban the accounts.

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But are they banning "subscriber" accounts or "free trial" accounts. That's the active thing to look for that isn't possible to discern from such posts.

I'm a fairly new player but even I can see the serious problem this has been.
It's more than just an annoyance, it's affecting the in-game economy and it seems
like the plethora of cheaters in this game go unpunished.

I love this title. I play nearly every day but it's becoming frustrating when I realize
my legitimate ways of trying to earn profit are being hampered by bots and buyers.

There's no way that this huge thread along with all the others are being ignored.
That's too baffling of an outcome for me to accept.

I will say though, that if this continues for much longer, as much as I adore this game, my sub will not.
I'm tired of seeing cheaters reap rewards without any visible means of punishment.
Just imagine when housing becomes available and all the buyers and bots snatch up eagerly awaited plots.

The RMT problem is by far, the largest canker on this game and for the sake of SE,
as well as the playerbase, I hope it's worked out before the fatigue of being honest becomes unbearable.

/signed

Hope nobody minds me reviving this thread. I'm very lucky that there seem to be very few RMT traders on Zodiark. Even so, they are very disruptive at times.

The reporting system is too cumbersome. It requires a lot of effort on the part of the player and having to type out the name leaves a wide margin for error. A lot of names seem to have been chosen to maximise the chances of mistyping; they are very long with weird letter combinations.

Surely it would be possible to have a right click and report function that automatically records the name, the world and the message?

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Originally Posted by Giruvegan

The RMT problem is by far, the largest canker on this game

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Agreed.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

Hope nobody minds me reviving this thread. I'm very lucky that there seem to be very few RMT traders on Zodiark. Even so, they are very disruptive at times.

The reporting system is too cumbersome.

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Right click>Add to blacklist.

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Originally Posted by Terribad

Right click>Add to blacklist.

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Well, doesn't that just hide them from me and allow them to continue? Or am I missing something?

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Originally Posted by Solarra

Well, doesn't that just hide them from me and allow them to continue? Or am I missing something?

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Well your complaint was that it requires a lot of effort and the player can misspell the name. With the method above that eliminates both of those problems.

I don't know if you've ever played an mmo before but RMT will ALWAYS be a problem. SE is very well aware of the fact that RMT is in game. They've gone through a lot of measures to hinder/prevent RMT (even though it mainly effects the players)
It's not an over night process. It's like a place that's heavily infested with roaches. For every 1 roach you see there's hundreds more behind the wall.

Stoping RMT is hard, yet who says you couldn't make it harder for Bots?

Changing Opcodes
Packets Changing (I'm pretty sure the one who developed these Programs sniffed Packets and uses them)
Anti-Bot Monster (Spawns when you're 1-2 Hours in the same Area / Place (If you haven't moved at all, like Gathering Bots) as a Legit Player you are given a Notice to move or else the Monster kills you or teleports you into a Jail. (Automatic Process for Reviewing Bots / Punishing them)

There is hundreds of Ways and yet, I haven't seen anything and the fact is, the Game Client is vulnerable, if they decided to add a Anti-Cheat Guard to it, it would mostly also prevent 3rd Party Tools such as Parsers, Radars or whatever exists out there.

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Originally Posted by Terribad

Well your complaint was that it requires a lot of effort and the player can misspell the name. With the method above that eliminates both of those problems.
I don't know if you've ever played an mmo before but RMT will ALWAYS be a problem.

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Sorry, looks like I didn't make myself clear. My issues are these: reporting is cumbersome and requires a lot of effort from the player and if the player makes a mistake, that effort is wasted.
I do play other MMOs. I don't think RMT is ever going away but making it easy for players to report such activity would help. WoW for example has a really simple Right click and report system.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

Sorry, looks like I didn't make myself clear. My issues are these: reporting is cumbersome and requires a lot of effort from the player and if the player makes a mistake, that effort is wasted.
I do play other MMOs. I don't think RMT is ever going away but making it easy for players to report such activity would help. WoW for example has a really simple Right click and report system.

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Ah I see what you mean. Yeah I don't think there's any easy way to report, like how it is too block. I apologize I misunderstood your original post. But yeah I agree the report system isn't easy to use or even find.

No RMT tell on Moogle for a week.

Even in the late nights not a single one - thats when they usually hit me when i craft in the mist or lavender beds.

Guess it worked against RMT that you cant buy a physical copy of the game on the mog station with credit card anymore. And stopping trial players from sending out friend requests helped tremendously as well.

So far im happy - but we will see what time brings and if they come back like the cockroaches they are

Greetings,

We would like to share a comment we received from the Special Task Force (STF).

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Originally Posted by STF Team

First off, we would like to thank you very much for reporting these incidents. Your reports have been extremely helpful when cracking down on users that have been performing illegal actions.

We would like to respond to the two following points that we have been receiving from everyone.

• Regarding the suspicious group of players
  

  In regards to the suspicious group of players that has been seen inside towns, we're aware that this group is collecting gil by hunting monsters within instanced dungeons. This collected gil is then used for RMT (Real Money Trade). When we take action against these accounts, we also investigate the flow of the gil and will freeze it accordingly.

• Regarding the handling of RMT
  

  We often see comments such as "I'm reporting these users, but it looks like nothing is being done about it." To make sure we don't falsely punish the wrong player, we first have to investigate before taking any actions, therefore it may require some time depending on the amount of information that has been reported for an incident. Unfortunately, we are not able to simply take action on users just because they seem suspicious. Please understand that the time it takes until any action can be taken will vary from case to case. Actions taken against these users can be found in the General section of the Information sub-forum.

Again, we really appreciate all of the reports you have been sending us as these reports help us fight against RMT. Even if the information is for just one character, it's valuable information to us.

You'll be able to report these in-game through System > Support Desk > Contact Us > Report Cheating, so we ask for your continued support in fighting against the RMT!

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Originally Posted by Zhexos

Greetings,

We would like to share a comment we received from the Special Task Force (STF).

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Thanks Zhexos, any chance that we may get a right-click-report feature in the future? It would make it easier for us to report and could, if done right, make the task force's job easier by giving them the metadata they need in the automatic report.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

On top of it, making reporting more convenient leads to more reporting.

Most folks I know don't bother because opening a ticket every bloody time is annoying as hell and a waste of time.

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Quoted for truth. The reporting system is really cumbersome to use.

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Originally Posted by Teryaani

Thanks Zhexos, any chance that we may get a right-click-report feature in the future? It would make it easier for us to report and could, if done right, make the task force's job easier by giving them the metadata they need in the automatic report.

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On top of it, making reporting more convenient leads to more reporting.

Most folks I know don't bother because opening a ticket every bloody time is annoying as hell and a waste of time.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

On top of it, making reporting more convenient leads to more reporting.

Most folks I know don't bother because opening a ticket every bloody time is annoying as hell and a waste of time.

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The only real problem with it is the fact that the in-game support desk is so damn clunky and cumbersome it takes about five times as long to open it as to just write/copypaste the report and send it....

Saying reporting helps while they still refuse to give us the proper reporting tool we've been asking for since the game started ... :(

I can understand no instant action on some people, but those who are spouting "Buy gil www.gilbuy" and such should be an automatic and obvious removal =/

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

I can understand no instant action on some people, but those who are spouting "Buy gil www.gilbuy" and such should be an automatic and obvious removal =/

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Yeah - I got 200 of em in my blist SE - I reported several and yet they still come. It should be very obvious - www.sgadxxx.xxsasdx should be an immediate ban.
Why is it that a 3rd party tool can block goldseller spam but SE can't implement a reporting tool?

What we need is a right click report function, that function will open up a comment boxed window for typing in the description of why being reported with drop box selection (report type) for easier sorting by GM's. It should automatically attach to the report before sending the name of the character right clicked/accused, your character was on when right clicked/reported the accused and world/server plus time and date metadata all automatically added to the end of the report by design of the function.

It would be simple by design and would merely have one drop box menu for report type, one comment box for description, send and cancel buttons plus maybe a confirmation popup once click send however like said above all the metadata about characters/servers and time/date should be automatically handled by the function not requiring players to do it manually as well as accessing this report function should be as easy as right clicking the offending/accused player and selecting report.

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Originally Posted by Snugglebutt

What we need is a right click report function, that function will open up a comment boxed window for typing in the description of why being reported with drop box selection (report type) for easier sorting by GM's. It should automatically attach to the report before sending the name of the character right clicked/accused, your character was on when right clicked/reported the accused and world/server plus time and date all automatically added by design of the function.

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Yes, all that should automatically be included when reporting them either in person or through chat. Plus if it was through the chat box, then the associated chat text should also be automatically included by the reporting tool and not left to the reporting player to re-enter.

The one in wow you don't enter text at all.

It's a menu selection. Automatically gives character name, world name, timestamp and chat log for the past few minutes including the message sent that prompted it.

That's just the chat log report. You can also report players in the world with a right click menu on their target frame name but most speedhackers and bots port around and are hard to target. They move out of range quick.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

The one in wow you don't enter text at all.

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There is nothing wrong with requiring a description box as it allows for not only more comprehensive description than the drop down menu report type but such additional information could help list more than one character present at that location you might be reporting at same time which is the only time I have not been able to target botters aka like when they stacked on top of each other so comment box would help let GM's known there is more than one. Even when botters are underground I can select them by selecting what they are targeting and then on them from that.

The problems I have with current system is annoying amount of effort to access the report function and requiring information manually input that could be easily obtained by the function itself automatically such as name of person selected, your name, world/server/location data and time/date. Such data is already stored in memory and could easily be handled automatically by the function. The comment/description box would be additional information you want to give on top of the metadata the function could gather as opposed to us currently having to put all that metadata in ourselves manually. Leaving additional information in that comment box would be optional.

Niwas idea about chat box report function would also be good and would attached a copy of the chat log to the report automatically. Again way I see it working as a function would be chat box GUI button/function for reporting opening up report window that has one drop down menu for report type, a comment box for explaining any additional information want to give plus all metadata such as time/date, your character/world/server/location information and chat log attached by the function itself automatically. The report window once again having send/cancel buttons and a confirmation popup when click send.

The right click target player report function would not attach the chat log though as it would be a different method of making a report which would attach selected target player data instead, a different function not related to chat reporting. The chat reporting function includes chat logs instead of selected/targeted player data. The current method in game feels like either lazy design or intentionally trying to put people off reporting. Many people feel like it is the latter but I feel it is probably the former reason though the lack of SE's desire to improve the situation via such solutions given above is also concerning.

I have some experience programming various coding platforms though limited in scope/experience even I know it should not be that hard to have the function handle most of the metadata mentioned above without the need for manual input plus adding the functions themselves should not be that difficult to do simply altering the GUI slightly and linking the new coded functions to it. SE could probably create these two functions described above and GUI changes in less than a week easily and it is the sort of thing people keep asking SE to do so no wonder people are frustrated by SE not doing such a minor amount of effort for a major improvement to the system.

There are two issues here, two parts to it. a) Report b) Response. The examples I gave above would help resolve the report problem even if the response issue is still perceived to exist (as in if once reported you see that same player still following what appears to be scripted bot routines days, weeks or even months later). That is a separate issue to the first one which is the report aspect of the equation and the report issue you could easily resolve and improve. The response issue is a bigger issue because it accounts for what actions you take in regard to the reports and how you can show the players that you are taking their reports seriously but in the meantime you could fix the first issue about reporting if wanted to quite easily yet have failed so far to do such.

Bump signed we need SE to get these spammers out of the game already.

I have been commenting all along (when I do comment) that like many others have said, it should be easier to report spammers.

1. Right-click name in chat, Report Person.

2. Game then pulls all chat log recently from that person, auto-fills out a form for you. The new window that pops up has a pull down to list various reporting type. RMT, Harassment, etc. This also lets you cancel the Report if you clicked the wrong name with chat log scrolling by fast or whatever. And you can also add in any additional info. The way they act/grief or whatever won't show up in chat for example.

3. Because the game already knows where you are, and where that other character is, all of that info is already included along with date and time and everything else.

4. Character still gets auto-Blacklisted.

5. When SE gives out these perma-bans on these accounts, these characters get auto-removed from your Blacklist. You don't have to keep clearing this list out. You will then know over time, the only people left on your Blacklist are people you don't want to hear. Instead of trying to remember, Idiot, or RMT? Safe to remove? I don't know! Also, <Deleted> (I think, forget) names on your Blacklist get auto-removed as well.

Some games do some or most of these. Some even go so far as Blacklisting the entire account, not just the current character. There should be an easier time, more people will use this Report feature, there will be less errors (and, when you capture standard data that we, as customers, CANNOT edit, you know the info you received is true), and your research will have a standard set of data received, making researching these things easier and faster.

Going to sign my name and add my suggestion as well.
I've played lots of other MMOs and the few that had a Player Search function included the option to opt out of Player Search. Mind you, I've seen this in Free-To-Play games and can't understand why a Pay-To-Play game doesn't offer this option.:confused: While this wouldn't solve every problem (such as the bots standing in starting towns spamming say/shout chat) it would definitely help the main issue.

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Originally Posted by Mykll

there will be less errors (and, when you capture standard data that we, as customers, CANNOT edit, you know the info you received is true), and your research will have a standard set of data received, making researching these things easier and faster.

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I wanted to quote this final detail for emphasis. Giving us proper tools to combat RMT would allow the task force to get proper tools at their end as well. If all this meta-data were provided automatically by the system itself, the team checking it wouldn't have to waste time and effort on trying to verify information that they should just always have as part of getting the report. We keep being told that the task force is working hard to find and stop RMT, and that may well be true, but we know for a fact that they don't have the tools to do so very effectively, because they can't have those tools until we have the corresponding tools for reporting.

Someone posted a suggestion awhile back that I personally loved, I don't recall the name but do something like this. Let us block tells from people who do not have a leveled class past X levels. Example being /level10block. No one level 10 or lower can message you unless they are added to your friends list. Make it a chore to have them level cus obviously we have 2 sets of RMT, we have those actively farming the gil (i am sure we have all seen the 10 blackmages standing around with random names and questionable gear (i saw one with str accessories ), these are the ones who are not going to be spamming us for sells cus that is a lot of work for them level, least it is time consuming even for a bot to work on. Then we have the dummy accounts that obviously don't care if they are banned, they are only here to advertise.

The downside I may see with this is we may see an increase on the number of Friend invites from bots but honestly, to me, would be a LOT less annoying.

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There is nothing wrong with requiring a description box as it allows for not only more comprehensive description than the drop down menu report type but such additional information could help list more than one character present at that location you might be reporting at same time which is the only time I have not been able to target botters aka like when they stacked on top of each other so comment box would help let GM's known there is more than one. Even when botters are underground I can select them by selecting what they are targeting and then on them from that.

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Having to enter text is one of the things that makes it take too damn long.

Even copy/paste the current gil seller messages adding world name to it is a pain in the ass, especially when I'm trying to go somewhere and/or do something.

The problem is, I don't even report anymore. Even though I literally see groups of bots, am I supposed to take the time to make a report on each and every one of them? I've done basic player searches and have come across more than 20 at a time on a list, see bot groups around and have screenshots to prove it. Not to mention, everyday, there's at least one in the main areas of Ul'dah, Limsa and Gridania spamming. At this point, transferring to higher populated server that you can never seem to make new characters on would be the only relief is my guess, but I'm sure they get their share as well.

with so much of the game designed around reducing rmt presence (useless crafting, gil sinks, vendor prices, etc.) it is entirely discouraging how disinclined SE is to doing anything about such a pervasive problem and forcing the players to put up with this for so long.

I've basically given up on blacklisting RMT. I get them all the time still but don't bother. Square clearly isn't, so why should we? Maybe they'll bother to implement proper tools when players start dropping.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

I wanted to quote this final detail for emphasis. Giving us proper tools to combat RMT would allow the task force to get proper tools at their end as well. If all this meta-data were provided automatically by the system itself, the team checking it wouldn't have to waste time and effort on trying to verify information that they should just always have as part of getting the report. We keep being told that the task force is working hard to find and stop RMT, and that may well be true, but we know for a fact that they don't have the tools to do so very effectively, because they can't have those tools until we have the corresponding tools for reporting.

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Hey thanks Niwashi. I sometimes ramble and don't make sense, but glad someone made sense of it on that point.

I love the "keep on doing what you're doing, and we will keep doing what we are doing" response.

I mean, 128 pages of complaints that the system doesn't work, and they toss out a response oblivious to the issue. Yes, you need to investigate suspicious players. So... hire some staff to investigate and deal with them.

If you have hundreds of people in the super market for check out, and there is only one lane open at the cash register, the correct response is not to thank customers for showing interest in buying groceries and urging them to wait patiently in one line. The correct response is to OPEN MORE CASH REGISTERS. If the support work is currently too much for your small team to deal with in a timely manner, GET A BIGGER TEAM.

How about if FFXIV sells their own gil for certian prices hence will lose RMT alot faster

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Originally Posted by Drakeos

How about if FFXIV sells their own gil for certian prices hence will lose RMT alot faster

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...why? Why does the game need even more ways for people to just buy their way into everything? Quick way to make gill even more useless, so eh, go nuts.

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Originally Posted by Drakeos

How about if FFXIV sells their own gil for certian prices hence will lose RMT alot faster

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Then it turns into "You know that item you you really want that is only 800k? Now its 4mil"

I think it is better than before.
Recently I have not recieved any Friends Invitation from RMTs, do you? ^^;

SE needs to do this little number - (Send the banhamanator)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcggXXoKCXw
Enough said - and give us a report click button for petes sake.

I like the right click report function idea with the added comment feature to put details in. So many situations require explanation and it also helps them in deciding why the report was sent.

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Originally Posted by Kio

I know of a handful of players whom just recently started the game due to the last free weekend event. The only thing I ever hear these new customers mutter is the astonishment of the sheer amount of /tell and /shout spam and dismay as to why nothing is being done about it. They bring up instances wherein other MMOs they play have been able to axe the problem completely. They report to me that it is something really distracting from their enjoyment of the game. I'm afraid these new friends of mine may discontinue play with the spam as one of the major deciding factors of that. It's sad that the reputation that people are walking away with when they try this game isn't the beauty of the graphics, the gameplay, the good storylines, or anything that has made 14 successful up until this point - it's the gilseller spam and the lack of response that they'll remember and share with others whom ask them about their experience here.

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It's so prevalent that I've convinced myself it is actually SE that is behind Gil selling.
How could they possibly have this little control over their own game?