Regarding RMT and their new use of Friend Requests

It has recently come to my attention that RMT Advertisers have started sending out Friend Requests at the same time as they send out their advertisements. I believe they are accomplishing this by using the [/flist add "PC Name"] macro command or something similar to enable them to automatically add people to their friends requests list that they are sending /tells to.

My suggestion is that in order to limit the ability of RMT to abuse the Friendslist macro commands in such a manner, that Square-Enix disable the Friends List related Macro-Command.

I am not however suggestion the disabling of the Blacklist Related Macro Commands, as those are too helpful to lose.

I was going to make a thread about this, but wanted to see if one was already up before I did. It really is annoying having to decline the friend invites as well as blist the RMT. It seems the RMTs are getting desperate.

You can simply use third parties software if that's the case, it will not change much, I guarantee you.

And there's already a good and long thread about this somewhere.

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Originally Posted by TsubasaHana

You can simply use third parties software if that's the case, it will not change much, I guarantee you.

And there's already a good and long thread about this somewhere.

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If the disabled the macro command and the RMT still managed to pull it off at the speed they currently are then SE would have two reasons to ban them: RMT Activity, and use of third party hacks.

As for there already being a thread? I was told to post this by a GM.

The RMT bots are relentless and they will never quit. But when they abuse that friend request, it is clear evidence of their harassment. It shows in the logs, and I use that information to report them along with their lousy RMT spam. If I have to stop to decline their request, I might as well report them while I am at it.

Awww, but I love getting endless friend requests from level 1 Bjjkjfoiak Abborhfal in Ul'dah.

I love that they had to devise a code for "100% Hand work" to get around what I assume to be a filter that flags their account for a ban.

I don't even know what it means or why it's so important. Just like they insist on making sure you know their website starts with www, or "3w" as they call it now.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

Awww, but I love getting endless friend requests from level 1 Bjjkjfoiak Abborhfal in Ul'dah.

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I know just what you mean!...but one day we'll have real friends we can add. ; ;

I think these RMT are full blown retarded.

They are in a game that doesn't require their services that they mention when spamming since everything is so easy to get in the game.

Believe they are in the wrong game, maybe they should hit up a MMO that is very hard to make money and grinding is a pain like secret of solstice <---- go rmt there is your new home get lost.

/macroicon "Virus"
/flist deny <r>
/blist add <r>

works every time ^^

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Originally Posted by HeroSamson

I think these RMT are full blown retarded.

They are in a game that doesn't require their services that they mention when spamming since everything is so easy to get in the game.

Believe they are in the wrong game, maybe they should hit up a MMO that is very hard to make money and grinding is a pain like secret of solstice <---- go rmt there is your new home get lost.

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If they were in the wrong game, we wouldn't see them anymore, but because we do, it means they do have enough customers to be worth the investment of buying the game for every single bot they use (the whole service account gets banned, not just the character).

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Originally Posted by AttacKat

Back to the same OLD suggestion ... disable TELL for low newly created characters and make it a GC quest given ability or something.

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Will cause more bots to run dungeons. Many of the spammers are compromised accounts anyway, most likely already having completed the required GC quest, if such a thing was added. The RMT can and will progress their spam accounts as far as it is necessary to be able to spam, that ability cannot be kept very far away from the beginning. Besides, SE doesn't want to cause more harm to players than it would cause for the RMT.

Back to the same OLD suggestion ... disable TELL for low newly created characters and make it a GC quest given ability or something.

It will not remove everything, but it will get rid of all those sdswad tjwah BFF wannabes.

Yeah yeah, new players cannot talk, but heck, there is still SAY, YELL and SHOUT for real players.

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Originally Posted by Sove92

Will cause more bots to run dungeons. Many of the spammers are compromised accounts anyway, most likely already having completed the required GC quest, if such a thing was added. The RMT can and will progress their spam accounts as far as it is necessary to be able to spam, that ability cannot be kept very far away from the beginning. Besides, SE doesn't want to cause more harm to players than it would cause for the RMT.

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Make them work harder, is better then just giving them free rides with those hsde hyhbnwh BFF wannabe characters. Remember, they want they bots to be making money, not wasting time. If the game makes it hard for them to make money, then the profit sign goes dark.

stop /tells and /shout /friend requests for anyone who hasn't done the lvl 10 jobquest.... problem resolved they dont have time to sit and do that all day long .. also add a delay timer between shouts and tells might help a little

Maybe add an option to disable friend requests if you haven't sent the person a tell? It doesn't fix the initial tell from them, but if you don't reply, they can't send a friend request. Or just disable friend requests from under 10, but allow the higher levels to friend the new people.

Or just give us a macro for reporting them without having to go through menus. "/report <why you're reporting> <r> would be nice, and auto blacklist. They'd need a warning box though so you don't report a friend!

Makes ya wonder how they can make so many accounts when my friends have been trying to join my server for weeks.

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Originally Posted by Taliph

Makes ya wonder how they can make so many accounts when my friends have been trying to join my server for weeks.

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I wonder the same thing.

Like when cactaur was locked down nobody could create and SE said they banned a lot of rmt but some how tons of RMT kept joining server and spamming everyone with warp bots.

its fishy.

Some games have various privacy settings, so that you can disable messages sent to you (/tell) and various invitations. Or only allow such things from those on your friends list, and within your guild. It would be nice if these were options available to us.

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Originally Posted by Taliph

Makes ya wonder how they can make so many accounts when my friends have been trying to join my server for weeks.

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It's really easy to join any server, you just need to know the players that play there and create you char in the sleep times for them. Done.

At this point I just ignore their request, they hardly ever send more than two tells and the request goes away in around 5 mins, hardly an inconvenience for me.

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Originally Posted by Taliph

Makes ya wonder how they can make so many accounts when my friends have been trying to join my server for weeks.

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Well - then they were doing something really wrong. You can join any server in less than 8 - 12 hours max. All you need to do is to create character at off peak hours (usually from about 1:30 am to 10:00 am at majority of the servers) for the given (most common) time zeone on that server.

I've also gotten a few of the RMT friend requests and I don't understand what they hope to accomplish.

Basically, when they send a tell to a player, there are two possibilities: Either the player is interested in their services or not.
For players NOT interested in their services, all they are doing is making it slightly more annoying to blacklist them---we'll definitely still do it. But making their messages more annoying seems counterproductive---the more annoying they are, the more we will complain to SE and they will try to do more to throttle them.

And for players who ARE interested, it seems like an even worse idea. Again, just because you might want to buy gold doesn't mean that you want that bot on your friendslist. So interested players have to go through the hassle of declining the friendlist invitation as well. Now they're also annoying their potential customers.

I don't see the point.

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Originally Posted by Amnesia

I've also gotten a few of the RMT friend requests and I don't understand what they hope to accomplish.

Basically, when they send a tell to a player, there are two possibilities: Either the player is interested in their services or not.
For players NOT interested in their services, all they are doing is making it slightly more annoying to blacklist them---we'll definitely still do it. But making their messages more annoying seems counterproductive---the more annoying they are, the more we will complain to SE and they will try to do more to throttle them.

And for players who ARE interested, it seems like an even worse idea. Again, just because you might want to buy gold doesn't mean that you want that bot on your friendslist. So interested players have to go through the hassle of declining the friendlist invitation as well. Now they're also annoying their potential customers.

I don't see the point.

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I have stated this before but RMT do not care, their goal is to spam their advertisements as much as possible before they are banned, even if someone is stupid enough to buy gill, they will still spam you, i don't get it either why annoying your customers helps but they are working on a timer, they just need to spam as much as possible untill the weeks later they are banned.

The FL crap is just to make you work a little to blist them, because they know people will QUICKLY blist them, so this is there way of a middle finger.

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Originally Posted by Amnesia

I don't see the point.

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The point is to break through any blacklisting and forcibly plaster their URL into your memory. If you blacklist them, the friend request lets them keep sending you tells.

They're not fishing for someone who wants to buy gil today. They're getting their name/URL plastered into as many heads as they can so it'll be remembered. Just like radio commercials that repeat a phone number or URL over and over and over and barely mention the service they're selling. You're not going to rush home and call that number, but hear it enough and it gets stuck in your head, so if you do happen to find yourself needing/wanting the service, you think of them.

It doesn't matter if they annoy Bob today as long as Bob remembers them six months from now when he's gotten frustrated enough to want to buy gil.

http://i.imgur.com/Q76hyXz.jpg

Cant SE just make ascript that auto-bans anyone who sends out more than 20 friemd requests an hour?
Because really, if you are sending more than that, you are definitely a bot.

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Originally Posted by Bixby

The point is to break through any blacklisting and forcibly plaster their URL into your memory. If you blacklist them, the friend request lets them keep sending you tells.

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No, you can't blacklist them until you deal with the friend request. And I don't know about you, but I never pay attention to the msg, once I determine that it's a gilspammer. I honestly could not tell you even one RMT website.

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Originally Posted by Amnesia

No, you can't blacklist them until you deal with the friend request. And I don't know about you, but I never pay attention to the msg, once I determine that it's a gilspammer. I honestly could not tell you even one RMT website.

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Ah, all right. Wasn't clear on the specifics because this isn't happening on Gilgamesh. At least not that I've seen.

And yeah, it doesn't work on me, either. But just like every other piece of spam in existence, it doesn't matter how many people it doesn't work on as long as it does work on enough to keep it profitable.

These RMT spam message seems to be only happening in North America servers, the crowded ones like Exodus. It happens a bit less in Adamantoise and Ragnarok. And it just "never" really happen in Japan servers. I have one character in Tonberry which is one of the busiest server and not once I ever get a spam from RMT ever. I also have one in Belias which is one of the smaller server, and again, not once do I ever get any spam. Odd, NA players must looooove their gilsellers since they seems to be a worthy target costumer for these RMT service.

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Originally Posted by Tharian

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/busy for the win. I rarely come out of these days. It's either rmt sales, friend requests or someone thinking its funny to interrupt my teleport with a trade. They should have an option that only lets people send you tells / trade if they are on your friends list. If it's an option it's up to the users discretion to use it or not.