so much RMT!

seriously SE time to update your filters on a daily basis, hire some dude to copy and paste all this RMT horse crap into a chat filter. EVERY DAY!

here let me help you add to your filter:

(RMT WEBSITE HERE) 10000K=5$ Promotion: Up To 50% Bonus, You'll get whisper after buying,Delivery in 10minutes--------------------------S> Crystal Items----------------RMT WEBSITE HERE)

Nothing crave, nothing have. Let's make things better. (RMT WEBSITE HERE), 50000 K GIL + 8% Bonus = 54000 K GIL = $ 178.86, Members enjoy more concessions... Ask for more. Wish you a happy game. IIMv

Hello my friend.(RMT WEBSITE HERE).1000K=3U$D and 30% as a gift.5 min delivery. we have the cheapest giL,come on,my friend uBG0

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I'M SICK OF IT!

While I see that SE does ban some RMT, I'm really feeling that STF needs to step it up. I really would like a report button that contains an "auto-add-to-blacklist"

I think they're already trying to use filters. Which is why RMT spammers have begun to use some random characters at the end of the message, and it's why RMT have been using replacement characters for several letters for quite some time (and probably why they're now using your own name in the tell as well, to mess up any detection).

Hitting the accounts that are generating Gil to sell is probably the most efficient method of dealing with the whole RMT problem. By tracking the source of the Gil, you can track which hands the Gil passed through, and then possibly back-trace some of it to other bot farmer accounts.

If SE could shut down bot accounts before they make any real amount of Gil, it would shut down the RMT since the only ways they would be able to make gil to sell would be; make it legitimately, steal accounts and sell their gil. The second option is almost impossible if the account has a one-time password.

The 1 click report/block option would be great to have.

Can't they create filter that recognize phrases like "Hello my friend. 5 min delivery. we have the cheapest giL,come on,my friend " like if the string of text contains key words like "delivery" "gil" "cheap" "handwork" or a few words in a certain order just block that from going out?

They've done it with the /shouts and /yells. Time to do it with the /tells.

I've been getting messages I put in the first post for over a week. same phrases. But nothing is blocked. They need to update their filter multiple times a day. the amount of spam is getting to the point of pure frustration.

Ya I agree. I am seeing more and more people go busy to avoid the spam it kinda ruins things as I have friends I wouldn't mind getting tells from but me having to go busy makes it harder for them to contact me :/ . It would also be nice if they created a filter to only get /tells from people on my friends list

Things to keep in mind:
- Gil spammers are banned (or retired by their creators) VERY quickly. If you notice, it is very, very rare that you will get an RMT tell from the same character twice. RMT have made a SCIENCE out of quickly creating characters in order to keep up the advertising as fast as SE is able to ban the characters.
- Similarly, RMT have made a science out of tailoring RMT ads to defeat any possible filters SE can put up to catch them, and these filter-defeating strategies are constantly evolving (which is why you'll frequently see different combinations of symbols, and "replace @ with 'gold'" or whatever).
- While SE DOES have part of their staff dedicated to stopping RMT, 100% of RMT staff is dedicated to promoting RMT. There is no reasonable way for SE to put together a task force comprehensive enough to counter the manpower offered by ALL the RMT in the world.
- The most effective ways to counter RMT - things like auto-banning any player who includes certain keywords in text, forbidding newbie characters from speaking with other players, or automatically blocking any shout or tell including a web URL, blocking the IP addresses of entire countries known to be notorious for RMT, among other strategies - impose harsh penalties on innocent people playing the game. Some might be comfortable playing under such limitations, but others aren't.

To sum up, RMT have pretty nearly all the advantages in this war. It speaks well of the RMT task force that things aren't much worse than they are - and if the ffxi gil inflation crisis of 2006 taught us anything, it's that things can be very, very bad indeed. Believe me when I say that SE DOES take RMT very seriously (the progress they made after the 2006 incident was VERY visable), but there is only so much they can do.

An FC mate that hasn't been on in a while came on last night. She got a ton of tells immediately. She was only on for maybe 10 minutes, and there were about 6 or 7 RMT tells for that short amount of time. She logged off soon after. Thats almost a tell per minute.
It's become disgusting on Couerl.
I sometimes get doubles from the same bot, within some seconds of each other.

The density of tells is stifling without the busy on.
NEEDS a "Receive tells from friends only" on the busy status -_- I feel it's the only way around it.

Nothing Crave, Nothing Have. So zen.

Huh, I guess Balmung is an awesome server. I haven't seen any RMT spam in a looong time personally, and I'm in the main cities a lot. Though maybe it because it's hard making new characters here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Miya_Carbuncle

Huh, I guess Balmung is an awesome server. I haven't seen any RMT spam in a looong time personally, and I'm in the main cities a lot. Though maybe it because it's hard making new characters here.

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I think since it is so full it is hard for new characters to be created so they just can't get in

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChiefCurrahee

They've done it with the /shouts and /yells. Time to do it with the /tells.

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I think its the same filter in place for all chats, if you think about its more efficient to /tell everyone with one character depending on how many rmt are advertising of course, but instead of having multiple characters in each and every city state/zones, they can achieve this goal by one simple character that sends /tells from a starter city.

Hi LineageRazor,

Last year, I posted a suggested functional description (to a non-SE website) for the mitigation of the /tell spammer threat. It was immediately "disapproved" by another player (spammer sympathizer perhaps?) who argued that implementation of keyword triggers would completely crash the Common 3D Tools/Crystal Code (Source Code) and the servers. I also suggested a global blacklist, whereby players benefit from blacklisting done by the first person to report the spammer.

The predictable words and phrases that spambot owners use with only the last 4 characters varied, indicates that gamemasters have set their filters to filter the entire message, where they should be filtering keywords that no ordinary player would ever use.

RMT harassment can be mitigated. CCP Software did it via Unholy Rage last July.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Miya_Carbuncle

Huh, I guess Balmung is an awesome server. I haven't seen any RMT spam in a looong time personally, and I'm in the main cities a lot. Though maybe it because it's hard making new characters here.

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Same with me, played around 6 hours a day or two ago and got no tells from spammers. Been that way for quite some time.

this does not happen in the Japanese servers hehehe...

Honestly for some reason it seems SE has stopped caring about rmt.. On my server there have been bots queuing up for dungeons for months now in the same spot. Everyone knows there there so how come SE lets them go?
I used to see deleted accounts on my black list all the time, now I never do.. RMT spam has gone up a thousand fold on our server at least.. Either they are to busy, short handed, dont care, gave up or something because it is clearly out of hand.

I cant send tells to friends because so many have shut them off.. Clearly SE has lost control on some servers.

Their messages are soooo freaky now.

I get one or two per day, with none some days. Still... it's better than at launch where you'd get 50 per day or more!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lucke

Their messages are soooo freaky now.

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Agreed when they start talking about enjoynig concessions I just find it odd and unsettling that they are blatantly telling you to give in to them

RMTs are a fact of life. Get used to it. Players have no one to blame but themselves. As long as there are buyers out there you will have RMT activity. SE will not ban most buyers as it would cut off a major revenue source. In most cases RMTs ply their trade in countries that turn a blind eye, if not actively support the sites for a kick back, to RMT activity. SE cannot attack them from that front. The only way to truly eliminate RMT activity is to eliminate the current economy and replace it with one strictly controlled by the DEVs. How far do you think that will fly?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rizon

RMTs are a fact of life. Get used to it. Players have no one to blame but themselves. As long as there are buyers out there you will have RMT activity. SE will not ban most buyers as it would cut off a major revenue source. In most cases RMTs ply their trade in countries that turn a blind eye, if not actively support the sites for a kick back, to RMT activity. SE cannot attack them from that front. The only way to truly eliminate RMT activity is to eliminate the current economy and replace it with one strictly controlled by the DEVs. How far do you think that will fly?

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But that shouldn't mean we players just bend over and bring lots of lube. This crap should NEVER be acceptable. We NEVER should say "Well, it's a fact of life, ehhhh". We fight them until the zombie apocalypse if we have to. SE may not do anything about it, or can't, whatever, but we players can then just not support SE for turning a blind eye.

This is what I need to endure all day every day and it's pretty steady and consistent as you can see by the timestamps. However I can't keep busy up 24/7 because I'm trying to network and socialize to meet decent / friendly end gamers to run stuff together. Eventually it starts to affect my mood in negative ways and I start getting grouchy lol =/

I now have 184 gil seller bots on my blacklist and not ONE says (Deleted) so what the hell?

http://puu.sh/fvvUD/6fd44addc4.png

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Magis

I get one or two per day, with none some days. Still... it's better than at launch where you'd get 50 per day or more!

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Lucky! That's what my server is looking like, right now. -.-; (50+ per day)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

This is what I need to endure all day every day and it's pretty steady and consistent as you can see by the timestamps. However I can't keep busy up 24/7 because I'm trying to network and socialize to meet decent / friendly end gamers to run stuff together. Eventually it starts to affect my mood in negative ways and I start getting grouchy lol =/

I now have 184 gil seller bots on my blacklist and not ONE says (Deleted) so what the hell?

http://puu.sh/fvvUD/6fd44addc4.png

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This is exactly what my chat box looks like, too

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rizon

RMTs are a fact of life. Get used to it. Players have no one to blame but themselves. As long as there are buyers out there you will have RMT activity.

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So you're saying whats going on in the above screenshot and experiences just like it is acceptable? That people logging in should just accept they will get that mass of pink bullhonkey plastered all over the chat 7+ times per 10 minutes is acceptable (note my FC mate's 10 minute log in experience)? It's really not. I and so many others are not to blame. SE can only lose players/revenue, regardless - newer players seeing this and getting turned off or long time players getting fed up as it gets worse... so they should have initiative to control this explosion - rather than 'deal with it'. I would expect this spam from F2P games, but not entirely hand-waved by companies like SE. Am I new to this kind of bull in MMOs? Hell no. I've poked around at MMOs a plenty. RO has it's steroid-injected spam-bot novies stationed all over the place, to the point that you -can not- communicate with guildies/party/anyone... but those are at least escapable by leaving the area. These bots you can not escape (without causing probs with actually wanted tells/party requests/trades/etc)
Other MMOs had it in shouts that could be filtered out - but shouts were not as used for friend-to-friend communication that tells are in FFXIV.

It was bad before, but never this bad (at least on my server). The RMTs are at an all time high for Couerl atm, and I'm sure plenty of other servers.

Simple change - make 'friends only' option for busy status. I'd keep that up all day. Maybe then, everyone can, and actually be able to enjoy the experience.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChiefCurrahee

seriously SE time to update your filters on a daily basis, hire some dude to copy and paste all this RMT horse crap into a chat filter. EVERY DAY!

here let me help you add to your filter:

(RMT WEBSITE HERE) 10000K=5$ Promotion: Up To 50% Bonus, You'll get whisper after buying,Delivery in 10minutes--------------------------S> Crystal Items----------------RMT WEBSITE HERE)

Nothing crave, nothing have. Let's make things better. (RMT WEBSITE HERE), 50000 K GIL + 8% Bonus = 54000 K GIL = $ 178.86, Members enjoy more concessions... Ask for more. Wish you a happy game. IIMv

Hello my friend.(RMT WEBSITE HERE).1000K=3U$D and 30% as a gift.5 min delivery. we have the cheapest giL,come on,my friend uBG0

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I'M SICK OF IT!

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you weren't around at release were you? with the spam shouts.. the odd tell doesnt phase me :P

edit:

having seen some of the replies looks like i am getting off easy, i get one every couple of days, report it instantly and dont get anymore

It is TURRIBLE on Sargatanas. I'm on Busy the moment I log on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

This is what I need to endure all day every day and it's pretty steady and consistent as you can see by the timestamps. However I can't keep busy up 24/7 because I'm trying to network and socialize to meet decent / friendly end gamers to run stuff together. Eventually it starts to affect my mood in negative ways and I start getting grouchy lol =/

I now have 184 gil seller bots on my blacklist and not ONE says (Deleted) so what the hell?

http://puu.sh/fvvUD/6fd44addc4.png

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Thats what mine would look like too if I didn't go busy :/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

I now have 184 gil seller bots on my blacklist and not ONE says (Deleted) so what the hell?

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Banned characters are not deleted. You can likely remove all 184 from your blacklist, and you will hear not a peep from any.

The deleted one indicates that the RMT managed to delete their own character before the banhammer came down (allowing them to reuse that account).

Give Me a Tell From FRIENDS ONLY Option please ---- Bye bye RMT.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Give Me a Tell From FRIENDS ONLY Option please ---- Bye bye RMT.

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That would solve all my problems as well.

I like the idea about only being able to receive /tells from people on your friends list with busy up. And take it a little step further - people should not be on your friends list until you accept. Because there was that time when the RMT would add us to friends list and then spam.

But it is a slippery slope... if I start getting tons of friends requests instead of /tells from these gil sellers I am going to go insane cuz that's A LOT more irritating omg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Give Me a Tell From FRIENDS ONLY Option please ---- Bye bye RMT.

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You mean bye bye RMT tells, hello 30 RMT friend requests per day.

Hrm.... does 'Busy' filter out friend requests like it does trades/party requests? o_o If it does, then RMT friend reqs won't be a prob (but I'm not sure if it does...)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

You mean bye bye RMT tells, hello 30 RMT friend requests per day.

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not if they give a option to turn on or off friends invites.

Only turn on friends invite if you need to, make it friends and free company can send tells.
I used to say Linkshell but they could make a linkshell and try to invite you that way so scratch that.

Though should be no excuse for this, we pay a subscription fee for a better service not to have RMT spam and it to be dealt with showing the number of bans every so often is not cutting it, you see the very same rmt still around and wonder if out of those 5000 bans why wasn't that person apart of that or the bot hacker who teleports.

so basically could do 3 things.
1 Free company and friends only private messaging.
2 Shut off and turn on friends invites option.
3 Bring the Shout filter from FFXI where shouts deemed as spam are blocked.

I mean they are already protected on forums, you can't say their name, you can't GM them in game because they tell you to come to the forums and report them, which basically you can't because if you mention name you are name shaming and you end up getting banned.

Pretty messed up if you ask me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DenzelTaru

you weren't around at release were you? with the spam shouts.. the odd tell doesnt phase me :P

edit:

having seen some of the replies looks like i am getting off easy, i get one every couple of days, report it instantly and dont get anymore

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I've been here since alpha 1 FFXIV 1.0 2010. I remember the gil sellers farming in 1.0, I remember the /shouts and /yells in 2.0 launch. I'm a paying subscriber, I feel that SE should set their task force into high gear to stop these spammers dead in their tracks. Either implement restrictions on /sh /yell /tell on characters below a certain level, implement a keyword filter to block messages or if a person sends more than X amount of /tells in Y seconds they get locked out of /tell for several minutes.

I noticed spam has been getting worse as of late. I swear I had gotten at least 30-40 RMT tells just yesterday. :(

If only they made it an option to receive tells from friends only, that or if you have a listing in party finder perhaps will you be able to receive tells from people who are interested in joining. I don't want to set myself to Busy and block out all tells just because SE can't do anything to resolve this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Saseal

Hrm.... does 'Busy' filter out friend requests like it does trades/party requests? o_o If it does, then RMT friend reqs won't be a prob (but I'm not sure if it does...)

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It does but gil sellers will be actively trying to get on people's friends list so they can get a message out to all the people who are frequently keeping /busy on. Besides, this is going to end up with half if not more of the game's population always keeping busy up which is a little silly really now that I think about it but it'll be more incentive for gil sellers to try to get in FCs and on friends lists to increase their advertisement potential.

Point is, they will just become more annoying in other ways.

Now if you look at other methods such as filters to let you restrict people under a certain level from messaging / friending you well that would just increase BOT activity and there is nothing more immersion breaking for me than seeing a swarm of bots... I had a damn bot tanking my tam-tara dungeon once so what the hell?

I say we do the EVE Online thing - give us the option to tax people gil for sending a /tell before we read it, and then give them the option to either pay or not send the tell at all. We wouldn't actually receive the gil, to prevent abuse, but losing all the extra currency would be absolute hell on their business model.

An easier solution would be to implement a filter that doesn't just look for plaintext keywords - changing an o into a 0, or a W into those... weird Wish shapes that have sprung up recently, shouldn't foil a filter made by a competent programmer. Making it too difficult to actually say the URL of the website might be the best option in the long run, not banning anyone who says 'life is acceptable' all the time. Multiple passes should be done as well - the message seems legit? What about with all punctuation and symbols cut out?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

It does but gil sellers will be actively trying to get on people's friends list so they can get a message out to all the people who are frequently keeping /busy on. Besides, this is going to end up with half if not more of the game's population always keeping busy up which is a little silly really now that I think about it but it'll be more incentive for gil sellers to try to get in FCs and on friends lists to increase their advertisement potential.

Point is, they will just become more annoying in other ways.

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It i s incredibly silly for server populations to require having busy symbols up just to play. I guess we should 'look forward to it' - seeing busy symbols -everywhere-. Kinda breaks immersion and will look silly/cluttered though.
I'm not sure getting their bots into FCs/friend lists would cause a prob - if everyone had the BUsy symbol, they wouldn't get the RMT tell even if they were. If the bot sent an RMT to someone/everyone in the FC, they will more than likely be reported by the FC and kicked.
Theorizing, though x.x