Gil Sellers Becoming More and More Annoying

Within an hour of playing I have received at least 4 whispers with friend requests and it completely fills up the chat window: IE;

Gil Sellers Name >> WWW.(sellsite).COM★★★★★★★★★★★★★★WWW.(sellsite).COM★★★★★★★★★★★★★★WWW.(sellsite).COM★★★★★★★★★★★★★★WWW.(sellsite).COM★★★★★★★★★★★★★★1000K=$2 And 7% Bonus★★★★★★★★Instant delivery after you pay.★★★★★★★★★★★WWW(sellsite).COM★★★★★★★★Welcome★★

This goes beyond RMT and is plain out harassment. If anything will make me quit this game, it is this since there is no easy way to decline request and then just blacklist and report. At times I swear that SE is still living in the feudal age with how antiquated some of their systems are. Some days I feel like I spend as much time reporting RMT as I do playing the game.

I know that RMT cannot easily be stopped, but making it easier for the player base to report should be a pretty high priority.

Please note that I have edited the actual websites name by inserting (sellsite) in place of the original websites name.

The whole thing is infuriating and I have to wonder... for the players/losers that do buy gil, who amongst them would pick the vendor that was the most annoying? Seems these would go out of business fastest. I got so many today I thought about sending them the most hate-filled rant imaginable but didn't seem like a good idea plus watch me be the one who gets punished for it which isn't fair.

/flist deny <r>
/blist <r>

Maybe a good idea to edit your post..well intentioned maybe..but a link to a Gil selling site?

I know these friends requests are damned annoying. Last eve a few seconds after starting an S Rank just outside of Moraby Drydock, bam, dggfddd etc would like to be your friend. Can't move, skills greyed out.. very, very annoying to put it in printable TOS acceptable language!

I logged in for 5 minutes today to see what my retainers had sold, crafting bots everywhere plus RMT spam and a bot friend invite, it's beyond harassment, I've never had this much trouble trying to enjoy a game ever, I regret my purchase and wish I had stuck to my F2P's, there might be bot's in them too but at least I don't have to turn off my /tell just to stop them completely, they are just to aggressive for me in this game to ever enjoy it, I just wish SE actually gave a crap about anything but making money and instead strives to make this game community a pleasant place to be, not a living hell

yeah it is indeed becoming more of just harassment than them doing the occasional spam. Not only did the messages change from short 2 line tells to star spammed full box tells, they now send 3 or 4 tells back to back within 15 seconds or so.

Things had gotten better with patch 2.35, but I think it has now gotten to be as bad or worse (they didn't used to do friend requests, too - amazingly annoying!). Additional steps really do need to be taken:

1. Create a link to report RMT from the actions on the chat log, just like we can blacklist.
2. Create internal processes to identify, flag, and freeze accounts automatically if enough reports are received, and don't tell players any detail of how it works.

they figured out a way by the filter is all. a new one will be implemented. Still its annoying as hell. especially when they use cyrillic letters.

I actually feel a little bit cheered when I get tell-spammed by a seller who just uses a single line. Those friend requests are beyond the pale :(

I can see why people use them... But honestly, even if I was inclined to RMT, being an annoying prick isn't going to get you my business

they gotta prep for 2.4 and the mass housing rush that will ensue!

And again:
Give us an "ignore by level" function!

RMT spammers almost never level. So ignoring all below lv 10 would eliminate that problem almost completely.

Friggin ridiculous, in WoW we can do it with a simple addon. Here, we have to endure that crap.

Also ban those dumb bots already. There is the same goddamn bot that kills the same 2 Bats in the cave to Urths since I started this game nearly 2 months ago.
It's painfully obvious that SE doesn't give a damn.

Not true! I've seen lvl 50 bots at lvl 30 btn nodes, and lvl 50 Blm bots surrounding the aetheryte in Ul'Dah too. Ignoring by level won't work anymore. There needs to be a flagging feature or something so that a GM can pop in to see the area, see the bots at work, and if they don't get a response from the players, then they should be temporarily locked out of the game until the player contacts them via a link in the email or something idk I just came up with that off the top of my head. But if someone doesn't respond after being GM jailed then it is more than likely a bot, and if it isn't, then a real player could just go to their email, unlock the restriction and gain access again. Again, IDK, but it is certain that they need to do SOMETHING.

Um yeah sure, botting players do level.
I'm talking about all those "guzwa egtuah" gil spam characters that are gone 5 minutes after they whispered you. Those rarely level.

But then again, this is an asian MMO. RMT spam and botting is always rampant in those.
I honestly don't think SE cares, even if some Forum CM pops in here right now and tries to tell me otherwise.
Caring looks differently.

No but that's the thing, I'm getting rmt spam from actual names, and that is the problem lol and I go into Uldah and sure enough 'XYZ summers' is standing right at the crystal in all lvl 50 gear lol

Probably a hacked account.
While existent, these should be rare and very easy to track for SE once they are reported.

I mean seriously: Implement a report function SOLELY for RMT spam.
Hire a person to investigate these reports and let it look at the chatlogs.
Let that same person travel through the usual botting locations and investigate suspicious players.

Swing dat Banhammer, baby!

BTW: I adore your signature! Sanctus cast animation is sooo cute. <3

Yes, they need to be more serious about these things I feel. If they really cared and tried, I'm sure we would see less spam, not more. and thank you very much! ^_^

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Originally Posted by Buff_Archer

/flist deny <r>
/blist <r>

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Simply making a macro of this blists the last person who whispered you. Quite useful against those friend requests.

In patch 2.3 they (SE) implemented: "The number of Say, Yell, Shout, or Tell messages that may be sent per second has been limited". That limit made an immediate improvement; the amount of spam I received dropped off to almost none. However, here we are less then 3 months later and the problem is back with the addition of the friend requests. For a long time I have wanted a whitelist that I can turn on/off; only those on list can /t me or friend request. Since that is unlikely to ever happen, I would be happy to at least get an option to turn off friend requests. If somebody new wants to be friends they can say so and I can temporarily enable friend requests.

I agree with OP and Disagree with some who say Blist and /busy or decline a invite.

I don't even wanna log in sometimes because of that stuff going on, you say do the above I shouldn't have to spend the time i am on the game blisting, declining and /busy on my head.
I went to general options and shut off my tells and bam invited had to decline /busy its rather annoying which causes me not to want to play.

once in a while it doesn't bug me but every day? or every time I log on for a few then once it happens I don't feel like even playing I lose my motivation even to blist or decline them cause im tired of doing that when I shouldn't even need to do it.

everyone is paying a subscription fee I expect this on a free 2 play game but not this even FFXI stopped it with their filter and mass banning, here not so much.

It's because SE can't stop the sellers that easily and the more important part: SE will not ban gil buyers.

So let's hope they find something really soon to cut down the rediculous amount of sell advertisement.

The order of priority is what's messed up. If we blacklist someone, it should automatically cancel all requests (whether friend, trade, FC, LS, party, whatever) immediately and remove or at least hide their chat from our logs automatically.

Instead, we can't even blacklist until we've denied all their requests, and their message sit in the logs until you do something to get it out of the way. If not much is going on, I've got a macro that'll fill a page with /echo text, but it only lasts until the next gil spam message pops up.

Its incredibly hard for RMT to survive in p2p. Not only is there competition, but theres the expense of subs and a p2p companys sheer anti bot resources. Theyre aggressive bc they are essentially broke and desperate.

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Originally Posted by Nyxia-Salix

Not true! I've seen lvl 50 bots at lvl 30 btn nodes, and lvl 50 Blm bots surrounding the aetheryte in Ul'Dah too. Ignoring by level won't work anymore. There needs to be a flagging feature or something so that a GM can pop in to see the area, see the bots at work, and if they don't get a response from the players, then they should be temporarily locked out of the game until the player contacts them via a link in the email or something idk I just came up with that off the top of my head. But if someone doesn't respond after being GM jailed then it is more than likely a bot, and if it isn't, then a real player could just go to their email, unlock the restriction and gain access again. Again, IDK, but it is certain that they need to do SOMETHING.

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Those aren't the ones spamming. The bots farm then stuff to sell go make Gil. And SE doenst ban bots it seems. Just the occasional Gil spammer

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Originally Posted by Kaaylryn

I know that RMT cannot easily be stopped, but making it easier for the player base to report should be a pretty high priority.

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If it isn't because your achievement list is having movement. I also start to believe that RMR became so cunning by pretend to complain about RMT but actually doing advertisement on the official Fourm.

Look at you post, all the detailed information such as name of RMT, price, and an URL. Are you really legit and not a hacked account? I am keep pondering.

I did edit my post and replaced the original URL with (sellsite). The post is legitimate and I have not linked to any RMT site since the link goes nowhere. I know it is against the rules to post actual RMT sites on the forums so therefore the edit. Thanks for your concern.

Does anyone know if the EU servers have this problem too? I honestly can't remember the last time I saw RMT advertised anywhere on my server.

Seems clear enough to me you're not RMT, for one thing your English is too impeccable. I remember getting tells including stuff like 'Good Lucky!'

Here's my idea to make this visible to SE in new ways since all our reporting is going nowhere. Next time there's a competition where they want users to submit their videos and screenshots of stuff... stage them in front of botting teams. I'd love it if all these submissions were sent in with RMT and gathering/spirit binding bots in the background.

i get maybe one or 2 rmt tells a day. sometimes not a tall in a week or once even no rmt tell in a month

Someone put up a theory that they "filter" somehow whome they sent a tell too. Don't ask me how but it seems that some players get way more tells than others

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Buff_Archer

Seems clear enough to me you're not RMT, for one thing your English is too impeccable. I remember getting tells including stuff like 'Good Lucky!'

Here's my idea to make this visible to SE in new ways since all our reporting is going nowhere. Next time there's a competition where they want users to submit their videos and screenshots of stuff... stage them in front of botting teams. I'd love it if all these submissions were sent in with RMT and gathering/spirit binding bots in the background.

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That wont work.

1) The people who look at screenshots are Community PR. They can't and won't do anything.
2) Screenshots do not include interface and therefore player names do not display.
3) Nobody wants to waste their entry on something so whiny.

You can take screenies with the interface up...

Bots are notoriously difficult to ban because unless they are blatently position hacking there's NOTHING that says they're botting. Just because they don't reply to a GM /tell doesn't mean they're not sitting there at the keyboard and just ignoring it. There's nothing in the ToS that says you have to respond to a GM. GM can't be gaoling you for Logging for 24hrs straight if your char is legitely moving from node to node. GMs don't have time to sit on every bot character for days on end...and that still wouldn't prove anything with enough certainty to risk the potential of banning a legit account. GMs therefore forward suspect char names to the task force who can investigate. Trace the bots to a bank character and banhammer the char sitting on billions of gil waiting to sell.

The /tell bots get abandoned fairly rapidly after sending a batch of tells, so yes a limit on tells etc. for low level chars could have SOME impact...but it would be temporary as the RMT sites would just prelevel accounts to 10 or whatever before putting them through the /tell spam cycle and wind up with a bank of level 10+ chars to cycle through. Or worse...they'd get more aggressive with hacking accounts.

Do not get rid of the gil sellers. Use 'em.

Ban the people who buy the gil from the gil sellers. Keep doing it until there is no demand from the player base.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Granyala

And again:
Give us an "ignore by level" function!

RMT spammers almost never level. So ignoring all below lv 10 would eliminate that problem almost completely.

Friggin ridiculous, in WoW we can do it with a simple addon. Here, we have to endure that crap.

Also ban those dumb bots already. There is the same goddamn bot that kills the same 2 Bats in the cave to Urths since I started this game nearly 2 months ago.
It's painfully obvious that SE doesn't give a damn.

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Sure, why not. Let's test that theory.

http://i.imgur.com/Ct4t7WL.png
http://i.imgur.com/ayGihCw.png

Source: http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/10...el-characters/
Oopsies. It's already not working for ArcheAge.

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Originally Posted by Sammich

Does anyone know if the EU servers have this problem too? I honestly can't remember the last time I saw RMT advertised anywhere on my server.

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EU-Cerberus:
get about 5+ Wispers a day.
Annoying but not crippling.

It's the ones with attached friend invites that make me mad, because as someone stated: Blacklist should auto reject any open requests immediately!

Quote:

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Oopsies. It's already not working for ArcheAge.

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Yeah sure if the Company is too incompetent to actually break the bots / ban bot users it will not help.

I don't get it why almost every experienced player can spot an obvious bot, yet the company full of professionals apparently CANNOT BAN THAT BOT even if tons of people report it.

Only one conclusion: They don't want to.

If SE did what Archage did to their bots (level req to tell/shout/PM/ect.) can you imagine all the bots leveling in low level zones and destroying the fates in the process? getting atma from low level areas would be near impossible as fates would be finished too quickly... At least, thats what I think would happen.

FYI, on Ultros I've now seen a legion of farming bots running around the Thanlan areas, underground. You can see mobs dying and then sometimes target them underground. They're all Thaumaturgist so they can spam fire upwards at mobs above ground.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SekhmetM

Sure, why not. Let's test that theory.

http://i.imgur.com/Ct4t7WL.png
http://i.imgur.com/ayGihCw.png

Source: http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/10...el-characters/
Oopsies. It's already not working for ArcheAge.

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Its working fine that i can see, nobody wants to recieve tells from those pesky new players anyway (sic)

But joking aside, The limiting based on player level does work, so long as it is implemented properly.

New players should only be able to /tell people on their friends list
New players should not be able to friend request players (but should be friend requestable.) - There can be a safety for new players who want to be friends with each other, that works by them both friend-requesting each other.

New player can be anywhere from level 5 to level 10, honestly, the RMT /tell bots are NEVER, higher than level 1 that i have seen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Madamepancake

If SE did what Archage did to their bots (level req to tell/shout/PM/ect.) can you imagine all the bots leveling in low level zones and destroying the fates in the process? getting atma from low level areas would be near impossible as fates would be finished too quickly... At least, thats what I think would happen.

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More people doing fates = atma farming getting easier.
Those bots would actually help atma farmers.
Yes they would finish the fates quickly, but that would also trigger them much more rapidly, enabling you to stay in one area of the map.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

SNIP

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What may seem obvious to us does not equal enough proof to ban the bot. The only thing a char can really be doing that is blatently wrong is position hacking. the pos hacking bots I see are usually gone pretty fast on my server. If they are not position hacking how do the GMs/Task Force confirm they're bots? Send them a /tell? There's normally SOMEONE manning those 5-6 computers running the bots who can reply to a tell and even if there is no reply it isn't against ToS to ignore a /tell from a GM. I know people who Gather/Craft for hours on end. They'd fit the criteria for most peoples' idea of a bot but they clearly aren't. It also isn't against ToS to have a legion of alts on /follow all wearing the same gear.