Apparent bots

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5552/...5b9322df_o.png
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https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5112/...59532a1b_o.png
https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2917/...9b20f0ac_o.png
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As you can see, quite probably random-named, very similarly dressed, no FC/GC-related, jobless characters just appear, queue for duty, disappear and reapper again - doing that every (other) minute. Or just standing there.

Been going on for long, reported them too (sure others did as well), and yet they remain... doing what I think is obviously something RMT-related.

Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same on other servers? With such characters being left intact for too long?

Also, I've 130+ RMTs on my blacklist, been gathering there since the start of the gamebasically, and yet, one hand would be enough to count how many have changed to '(deleted)'. With SE regularly claiming permanent bans on hundreds of accounts, how are those characters not purged from the system, I wonder...?

If I understand correctly, banned doesn't equal deleted. That's only for those who delete the character. I believe most people will regularly purge the oldest names from their blacklist without hearing from them again.

This thread will likely be nuked as "player shaming" is not allowed on these forums, even when it's apparent that they are bots.

Now as to a little explanation why these seem to take longer to be banned:

Bots like these are usually part of a farming group/cluster, the taskforce "leaves these be" for a while to see how many characters (sellers, farmers, banks and buyers) can be linked so that they can take out a whole bunch in one fell swoop.

As for your blacklist problem, it is safe to delete any entry older than a week, probably after a day too.
When SE bans accounts they do not delete the characters attached to those accounts.

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Originally Posted by BreathlessTao

Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same on other servers? With such characters being left intact for too long?

Also, I've 130+ RMTs on my blacklist, been gathering there since the start of the gamebasically, and yet, one hand would be enough to count how many have changed to '(deleted)'. With SE regularly claiming permanent bans on hundreds of accounts, how are those characters not purged from the system, I wonder...?

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Too many times. The number of bans gets meaningless when you see the same group of bots you reported farming in the same spot for multiple consecutive weeks.

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Originally Posted by Tiraelina

Too many times. The number of bans gets meaningless when you see the same group of bots you reported farming in the same spot for multiple consecutive weeks.

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As annoying as it seems, as I explained above, they are "left alone" on purpose.
These farmers are usually part of a network of farmers, gilbanks and several transport channels in between.
By monitoring them instead of instantly hitting them with the banhammer they can identify the other characters that are part of the network and at the same time buyers as well.

Unfortunately for us, this is a process that can take a few weeks.

There is a group of farming WHM/BLM bots on my server which has been here since january. They even have an FC. They were reported countless times, and yet....

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Originally Posted by Shirai

As annoying as it seems, as I explained above, they are "left alone" on purpose.
These farmers are usually part of a network of farmers, gilbanks and several transport channels in between.
By monitoring them instead of instantly hitting them with the banhammer they can identify the other characters that are part of the network and at the same time buyers as well.

Unfortunately for us, this is a process that can take a few weeks.

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Meanwhile what resemblance of an economy is left gets eroded permanently. Blizzard has been doing this since WoW launched, I can tell you it never worked in favor of the players it's effecting.

the easiest way to counteract theses bots is to not buy their gil. anything beyond that seems pointless at this time. report or dont, get mad or dont. the one saving grace of all of this scandal is the fact that if this game wasnt successful then they wouldnt even bother. so i guess you can bathe in that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tiraelina

Meanwhile what resemblance of an economy is left gets eroded permanently. Blizzard has been doing this since WoW launched, I can tell you it never worked in favor of the players it's effecting.

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I agree completely, but no matter what course of action SE takes, RMT will always have a negative impact on an economy.