RMT Advertisers are ruining the game for me and many others.

Sadly, when playing the game, especially in the past two months, I have noticed an extremely high amount of RMT Advertisers, and I'm getting them Quite Frequently. We used to get them, don't get me wrong, but there were far less back before the free trial.

This wouldn't normally be a problem, especially in most other games I have played, because there are actually ways to avoid seeing them, and reporting them quickly.
As soon as I got a PERSONALIZED RMT Advertisement, I snapped (Personalized as in, "Hey {Character Name}, listen to this! ...." etc. I couldn't take it anymore.

So I'm going to create a List of Things that Can be done, Features that can be added, or tweaked, to help alleviate this problem, As I consider whether or not to renew My subscription, which is sad, because I love this game.

Sadly since there is a 1000 Character Limit, I'll have to Add the other ideas In the comments... Sigh....

1 - We need The Ability to remove /Tells from the Chat log. Not all of them mind you, just the ones that are from bad people. (IE RMT Advertisers, etc.). I would Highly Recommend this feature automatically happening with People who you blacklist, for ease of user use. (Probably the Best Short Term Idea)

2 - We Need An Easier Way of Reporting. The current way of reporting Players for violations is quite time consuming, and atrocious. The current way requires more time than it's worth, seeing as how I get at least 2-3 other RMT advertisements by the time I'm finished reporting one. (Not all the time, but a lot of the time) An example of an easier way of reporting would be,
>Right Click Player Name< = >Report< = and then the user selects the violation that the user has caused. This would allow Square to see the exact message that was sent, the time, etc.
Reporting a User auto Blacklists, or adds the option to blacklist player after reporting.
This could also be used for other methods of Game Abuse & Player Harassment.
(I believe this feature would be the Best Long Term Solution, other than option Y)

3 - I have had so many RMT Advertisers that I have had to clear my Blacklist once a week. (I mostly have the game on, 24/7) and sure, while that may not seem like a lot to worry about, it causes a problem. The Blacklist is limited to 200 Accounts. This causes a problem because once your blacklist is filled with 200 people; you have to manually delete every single one. This takes time. A lot more than it should really, when there is no easy way to report them. Either the Ability to Fully Clear the blacklist or an unlimited amount of accounts in the Blacklist, With the Latter being more preferred by me.

X - (The Following is an Idea, from other Games I am aware of, something I mention, but don't necessarily want, to show just how bad this can get) Auto-Temp Ban. Players start out with a rating of 1/10, (or whatever numbers, just for an example) this number counts towards Votes against a player. Say it only takes 2000 votes against a player to cause an Auto-Temp Ban, if the Player was right to report the player; they get a 1+ to their Rating for reporting other players. (So they end up with 2/10 votes on the next report) a player is maxed out a 10 votes each, meaning that it would take 200 Reputable Players (10/10 votes) to create an Auto-Temp Ban. After the Auto-Temp Ban has been declared against the player, Square has 1 day to review the account, to see if it is in the wrong. If it is, the account gets the corresponding punishments for RMT advertising, if it's not, The players that voted get their Votes Reset to 1/10.

Y - Remove The Free Trial. (Again, this is an idea, and I don't mean to delete the free trial entirely, let me explain) One thing I noticed was that there are two different types of free Trials. The Free Trial which you can sign up for, freely, and the Recruit a friend Trial. I would recommend keeping the Recruit a friend Trial, and removing the free Open Access trial. That way, it keeps out the RMT Rabble. Sadly this causes a problem for users without access to friends who play the game, and may not be the best practice for Square to do. (Perhaps a Trial Integration with Facebook? just a sub thought)
And of course, there is the fact that the Recruit a friend trial could be abused, I'm sure this happens, but I have an idea to prevent this as well. If a friend you have recruited gets reported for RMT Advertising, you are no longer able to recruit a friend, Preventing RMT Bots/ advertisers, from abusing that system.

Idea X - Y might not be the most Ideal for FFXIV, but I leave this here Regardless. Do what you will with it.


I Absolutely Love this game, I want everyone to know that, and I want the game to be the best it can be. The amount of these RMT Advertisers is comparable to that of SWTOR, and many other games that suffer from them. And that's sad, because many of those games are Free to Play, while this one is not.

I am Heart Broken to even consider Canceling my subscription, But What am I paying for if I'm being Bombarded with Illegal Ingame advertisements, that Square seems to be doing nothing about?

I'm Conflicted with this, and Hope to see some change to reassure me.

If any of you know of any ways to help this issue, please inform me, I want to know. And Hopefully Square takes this to heart.

*Note, I Realize these Issues are Server Specific, that being said, I believe having Features 1 & 2 Mentioned above would be helpful, even without needing them specifically for RMT Advertisers / Bots.

I hope this is the right Place to Post this, Still A Newb When it comes to the Forums. XD

you can bypass the character limit by editing your post. And ya it is getting to be quite the pain dealing with the RMT I used to go busy now I just muted tells though I still get the random RMT friend request -.-

Yeah, That's Another thing Altogether.... I hate Getting Friend Requests, and Mail from RMT People......... Sigh......

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Originally Posted by ElenaLeffel

3 - I have had so many RMT Advertisers that I have had to clear my Blacklist once a week.

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That seems odd, since Jenova isn't a very high population world. Maybe it's just easier for them to make characters there since character creation is never restricted. I only have to take names off mine every 3-4 weeks or so.

I'd like an easier way to report RMT, but the flip side is it also makes it easier for people to make frivolous reports against people that they don't like (or just want to mess with for one reason or another), leading to more crap for the GM's to sort through. Honestly, we're lucky we even have an in-game support desk - many games require you to send tickets through their website instead. Getting rid of free trials would basically be shooting themselves in the foot as far as getting new players into the game. Not to mention that it doesn't really seem like trial accounts are a huge culprit; I frequently see people with bot names at level 50. There are mass bannings from time to time, but it unfortunately only does so much. Gil sellers are pretty tenacious when there's profit to be had. No matter what they do to combat RMT, ultimately the only way to get rid of it entirely is for people to stop buying gil.

Do I like RMT? No. Do I let it ruin the game for me? No. I blacklist and move on with my day.

Yeah, I already stopped blacklisting them. Not worth the effort. I receive like 20-30 whispers per day.

There was a major spike in RMT Spam when the Gold Saucer went live. Hate to see what it is going to be like when the expansion launches. While SE touts the amount of accounts that have been banned I think it is more of a case of a lull in RMT activity then anything SE is currently doing. The only way they can slow the spam down is to have a GM on each server 24/7 whose sole purpose is to watch for spam and immediately ban the sender. (And don't tell me they cannot read your whispers.) May be cost prohibitive in their eyes.

I receive tell after tell with the same spam content. I wonder: how hard would it be for SE to filter/ban these people?

Too hard, apparently.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

That seems odd, since Jenova isn't a very high population world. Maybe it's just easier for them to make characters there since character creation is never restricted. I only have to take names off mine every 3-4 weeks or so.

I'd like an easier way to report RMT, but the flip side is it also makes it easier for people to make frivolous reports against people that they don't like (or just want to mess with for one reason or another), leading to more crap for the GM's to sort through. Honestly, we're lucky we even have an in-game support desk - many games require you to send tickets through their website instead. Getting rid of free trials would basically be shooting themselves in the foot as far as getting new players into the game. Not to mention that it doesn't really seem like trial accounts are a huge culprit; I frequently see people with bot names at level 50. There are mass bannings from time to time, but it unfortunately only does so much. Gil sellers are pretty tenacious when there's profit to be had. No matter what they do to combat RMT, ultimately the only way to get rid of it entirely is for people to stop buying gil.

Do I like RMT? No. Do I let it ruin the game for me? No. I blacklist and move on with my day.

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I can also attest that Jenova has a lot of Gil tells sent. And trial accounts cannot send tells nor can they send friend invites, so that's definitely not the problem.

It's gotten to the point that I don't bother to blacklist them, I just have my tells go to a separate tab and turned off the tell notification sound. I used to report them, but it was taking far too much of my time for something that was essentially community service.

SE needs to make sure that they hit the gil buyers and the gil generators fast. If less people are buying, and/or less bots are gathering gil, there would be less to advertise.

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Originally Posted by Quesse

I receive tell after tell with the same spam content. I wonder: how hard would it be for SE to filter/ban these people?

Too hard, apparently.

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Every time they add things to the filter, the people running the bots just change the messages. There's a reason they have a bunch of random-ass characters in them, numbers replacing parts of the url, etc.

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Originally Posted by Aerowaffle

I can also attest that Jenova has a lot of Gil tells sent. And trail accounts cannot send tells nor can they send friend invites, so that's definitely not the problem.

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Interesting. Again, I wonder if it's because the lower population makes it easier to make characters.

I'd forgotten trial accounts can't send tells, actually.

Here is my solution. Why not make it so we have the ability to turn on a filter that lets us only receive /tells from people on our friend list.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

That seems odd, since Jenova isn't a very high population world. Maybe it's just easier for them to make characters there since character creation is never restricted. I only have to take names off mine every 3-4 weeks or so.

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That is exactly why they get more tells. Faerie has the same problem. Creation locks prevent them from rolling on places like Balmung, so they get far less spam than the rest of us.

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Originally Posted by ElenaLeffel

1 - We need The Ability to remove /Tells from the Chat log. Not all of them mind you, just the ones that are from bad people. (IE RMT Advertisers, etc.). I would Highly Recommend this feature automatically happening with People who you blacklist, for ease of user use. (Probably the Best Short Term Idea)

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I agree with much of what you have suggested:

- The chat log of the blacklisted player should be completely cleared, not from records, but from your screen.

In an ideal world, I'd want the entire account blacklisted.

- Blacklisting should be made easier. However, if the above was implemented, it should require some sort of reporting system.

- I do not understand why these lists have to have a limit...

I don't know if RMT is mainly in NA/EU, but I have been very lucky here on Gungnir and have not experienced any RMT, we do get bots though.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

Every time they add things to the filter, the people running the bots just change the messages. There's a reason they have a bunch of random-ass characters in them, numbers replacing parts of the url, etc.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naive_Bayes_spam_filtering

Works for services like Gmail.

The best idea is this.

More GMs ingame to punish gold sellers bots.

Is there a way to disable all tells? I barely ever get a tell except from a RMT person.

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Originally Posted by Ryuukishi

Is there a way to disable all tells? I barely ever get a tell except from a RMT person.

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You can turn the sound off, go /busy (but it can cause other problems), and you can also move them to a different chat tab.

I understand that RMT is annoying and I don't really like getting their /tells either, but in all reality it has absolutely zero impact on me unless I allow it to. By getting upset when I see an RMT tell I am giving them power over me which I refuse to do. I let it slide off like the water on a duck's back.

Ignore them. That is the only real solution you are ever going to find.

If people didn't buy gil in the first place....

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Originally Posted by Ryuukishi

Is there a way to disable all tells? I barely ever get a tell except from a RMT person.

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Ya, you can. IIRC it's in chat settings, you get to pick what is displayed in a tab.

Edit: To be exact,

Click on the gear button near the chat box.
Look at Log Filters and click the one you want.
Enable/Disable channels as you like.

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Originally Posted by ElenaLeffel

Y - Remove The Free Trial.

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no thank you. no need for something that can't be abused to be removed.

[Chat Restrictions]

- The chat options /shout, /yell, and /tell cannot be used by Free Trial characters

the restrictions to free trial.

http://support.na.square-enix.com/fa...70929&ret=main

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Originally Posted by Cadmar

I understand that RMT is annoying and I don't really like getting their /tells either, but in all reality it has absolutely zero impact on me unless I allow it to. By getting upset when I see an RMT tell I am giving them power over me which I refuse to do. I let it slide off like the water on a duck's back.

Ignore them. That is the only real solution you are ever going to find.

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Well, other than having more methods to filter them out. That would be a solution as well.

RMT advertisers are the game world's telemarketer. For a vast majority of the people they contact, they are a hassle, interrupt whatever you're doing (you get up to get the phone for a telemarketer. In the game, you hear the sound and look down at your chat log to see who messaged you), and the people have zero intention of ever buying from them.

However, you can't tell RMT advertisers to put you on their "do-not-call list". They don't care that they annoy thousands of people, and they're already going against the rules of the game, so they don't care if more people tell them to stop. So long as they believe they might convince a fraction of a fraction of people to buy gil from them, they continue their shotgun-spread approach to advertising.

I ignore them best I can (as I said, placed in a different tab and turned off the tell sound). But the point is: I shouldn't have to go through such measures to ignore hordes of bots that should, by all rights, be banned.

Many people have suggested communication preferences including a whitelist. You would specify the

type of person (friend, ls, fc, party, explicit whitelist, people in zone, anyone in world...)
who is allowed to send you each
type of communication (tell, friend request, pt invite, ls invite, fc invite...)

Filtering /tell means that random people would need to use other means (/say, /yell, /shout) to talk to you if they are not in any of your pre-approved categories, so this could make it harder to reply to someone who has just teleported away, for example.

I don't receive any RMT spam via moogle mail because no spambots are on my friend list (in spite of their best efforts to the contrary!)

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Originally Posted by Aerowaffle

I ignore them best I can (as I said, placed in a different tab and turned off the tell sound). But the point is: I shouldn't have to go through such measures to ignore hordes of bots that should, by all rights, be banned.

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In the best of all possible worlds, spambots would be banned proactively and automatically across all servers without players needing to report them. If any legitimate player were erroneously banned due to a false positive, there could be a simple appeals mechanism.

Being able to play awhile during this free login period(by the way, surprised i can sign in and use the forums while not a paying sub.)I have to say I am utterly disappointed with the infestation of RMT and botters.
How do you justify paying money to play a game where there is so much blatant cheating and RMT activities going on? SE literally does not care enough to do anything as long as you paying players keep giving them money mindlessly. Why should they really? I have nothing left to say on the matter since I have nothing invested in FFXIV at the moment. But the ever popular and slightly over used saying "Vote with your wallet." springs to mind.

Maybe also monitor areas where they show up a lot.

http://i.imgur.com/eqdqewD.png?1

They have been there all day. And it's not the first time I've seen RMT/bots hanging out there.

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Originally Posted by Shyluv

Maybe also monitor areas where they show up a lot.

http://i.imgur.com/eqdqewD.png?1

They have been there all day. And it's not the first time I've seen RMT/bots hanging out there.

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More than ever that track needs a train.

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Originally Posted by ElenaLeffel

We used to get them, don't get me wrong, but there were far less back before the free trial.

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So uninformed. So sad. Trial users can't send tells. The trial literally has nothing to do with it.

Don't get me wrong, I dislike the RMT but does it REALLY get to some of you to the point of wanting to unsub? I find it really easy to block and ignore. Maybe I'm lucky for being able to ignore the RMT and continue enjoying the game. I would just like to say to look at the positive things in the game and I hope that they are more of a pro vs the cons of RMT interrupting your game play.

The RMT advertisers have gotten increasingly obnoxious lately, what with the fact that they now send Friend Requests alongside spamming you with Tells, but I really don't think it's an issue so severe that it warrants unsubscribing. Learn to ignore that stuff, or set yourself on Busy so you won't get pestered.

That being said, I think the institution of a larger blacklist would be helpful along with a function where it automatically removes characters who have been deleted from the server. Saves me the trouble of having to occasionally comb through the list just to manually remove deleted characters whenever my list's hitting its limit.

/busy

/10char

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Originally Posted by Shyluv

They have been there all day. And it's not the first time I've seen RMT/bots hanging out there.

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Even though this is presumably on a different server, it's eerily familiar, right down to the character names. Though presumably those would be farmbots rather than spambots.

I'd hate to say it, but roulette is ruining the game far worse than any RMT could ever hope to. When your runs consist of nothing but daily AK, you kinda get fed up and demotivated to do anything else.

...sigh.... this thread again.

I can understand your pain, especially being from jenova. It is pretty well known that Jenova has more spam bots than almost every other server in the game, mainly because we have one of the highest ratios of console players to PC players in the game, and RMT generally targets console gamers, who are, on average, poorer in-game than pc gamers.

That said, all of these suggestions have been suggested literally hundreds of times, and have all been beaten with a dead horse until they are no more than a pile of horse-hair covered slime.

1. removing previous messages from the logs? why? I only would care about preventing future ones.

2. This is the only point you have that I can agree on.

3. why are you even blacklisting them. new rmt spam bots get created on average every 4 seconds. only 1/40 of them ever get around to sending someone a second tell in their lifetimes. all you are doing by blacklisting is creating work for yourself, and not hindering the bots in the least.

X. unless you make heavy, heavy punishments for abusing the system, this system is extremely exploitable. and if the punishment is too heavy, people wont hit the trigger, for fear of a misunderstanding.

Y. just... what? free trials have nothing to do with rmt, especially since free trial accounts cant really do anything.