RMT Advertising on Leviathan Server is Off the Charts!

In the last week, there has been a massive increase in the number of tells (and now shouts) advertising RMT through various websites. The amount is now many times that of normal, and this has been mentioned by dozens of players in the last few days. Many players are now setting themselves to a status of "Busy" to avoid this spam, which in turn makes the game less social. I greatly appreciate Square Enix's dedication to dealing with RMT violations of ToS. I hope that an increase in vigilence to stop this behavior will allow RMT to return to minimal levels.

P.S. All our blacklists are full! This Lala is begging! Give us larger blacklists and hunt down these gil spammers!

Many thanks!

Sweet Popoto

It's been bad on Diabolos too the last few weeks. I can't even begin to justify all the time it would take to write reports for every single one.

I still advocate bulk editing of our blacklists and perhaps give us little markers in our blacklists which indicate when a character has been permanently banned (it's easier to prune the lists, and the space is wasted if we're not sure which ones are banned and which aren't).

It's been so bad on Behemoth I opened up PF an hour ago and someone had a death threat message saying he's going to find these RMTers and kill them... >_> He removed his message pretty quickly though... plus the level of people going /busy is OFF THE CHARTS.

But SE has yet to comment on this at all. We can't even get a forum admin to say anything. Loving it!

It is bad on Coeurl too and now they are shouting as well

Ultros has had an apparent upswing on these guys too. I feel like there has to be a better way to handle them than blacklisting them (and eventually having to clean that out since 200 isn't even close to enough) and filling out lengthy reports for literally hundreds of RMT bots.

Yes, Leviathan is awful. Constant tells and the other day I was in Limsa and they were literally shouting the same gil spam message like 8 times in a row, every 5-10 minutes.

I've noticed an increase of rmt spam on Hyperion as well.

SE should design a feature where you can just click on the tell and select "report for violation of ToS". One touch. This would send a copy of the tell and the name to a GM. This will only work if the GMs take IMMEDIATE action (minutes) to perma-ban that account and all other accounts from that IP address.

There's a certain 3rd party tool that allows for user managed chat filters. Can obliterate RMT spam with a good filter. This should honestly be something included officially, just let us create some custom word filters. Would be better than having a 200 player blacklist that doesn't actually help.

I hope you realize that the majority of those on your blacklist... are likely never going to bother you again? (Deleted) only applies to deleted/server moves. It doesn't apply to banned accounts.
Also I just ignore them, as in, the tell is in, see it, "another one", ignore it and keep playing.

Actually a few weeks ago I cleared out my blacklist completely which had been growing since July. Before that day I'd only deleted the last few as I'd been told numerous times that RMT scum only last a few minutes.

Well, what a surprise I got when some of the names that had been near the top of the blacklist started to spam again. It seems like they're either reusing dormant accounts or they're recycling the list of names for characters.

As per the OP, it's getting terrible on Leviathan. I'm even getting the tell sound as I'm first logging in. They're spamming sometimes every 30 seconds then reducing to every few minutes.

Its bad on Lamia also, i got tells from Four different websites as soon as i logged in.
its picked up and going to get worst as we get closer to the expansion

SE can fix this problem in three steps:

1) Automatically remove permanently banned characters from our blacklists.

2) Create a "Report as spam" option that's selectable by clicking on tells (just as "add to blacklist" is), with two confirmation boxes to safeguard against accidental reports.

3) Instantly ban accounts that have been reported as spam by more than 100 players (and only count player accounts that haven't been flagged for spam; this would defend against retaliation/trolling by RMT accounts). EDIT: Also, only make this option available when someone has sent YOU a tell. On the backend, SE could have another automated script to disregard spam reports sent more than 5 minutes after the original /tell. This would safeguard against harassment and completely, 100 percent prevent RMT from abusing this.


Boom, done. No more RMT tells, and our black lists won't be packed full.


In addition, RMT characters send far more tells than the average player does. SE could implement some kind of back-end script that calls attention to accounts with disproportionate /tell activities or unusual /tell patterns such as sending just one /tell to one person, another to another person, another to another person, etc., in tight sequence and without any follow-up conversation.

Seriously, it's embarrassing that SE hasn't nipped this in the bud already. This isn't rocket science. They could end RMT /tells today if they wanted to.

EDIT: EVEN BETTER!!!

Rather than ban flagged RMT accounts, SE could basically mute them so they can't interact with other players. However, do this so that RMT don't know whether they've been muted... like don't have their /tells appear to be rejected by them. This way, at least SE can continue collecting their monthly fees while making their efforts less financially productive.

I know it's really bad on some servers so could be PLEASE get some kind of answer to this why nothing is being done?

And I'm saying nothing cause it seems like nothing is being done.

It's been terrible on Goblin for about the same amount of time mentioned in the OP.

The "Hi Indaki Sativa, are you a good player?" tells have been largely replaced with about 30 hearts to begin the tell, and several more to end it. I usually won't blacklist them until I see either the exact same messgae over and over, or the same character name send me a tell more than once.

I've had to blacklist a lot of people in the last week based on my criteria...

It would be greatly helpful if there was a separate blacklist for spam. It's luckily very rare that I feel the need to blacklist an actual player, but the select few I did were long ago lost amongst the sea of RMT names. I run the risk of whitelisting them again while purging the list to add more RMT to it.

I really wish we could get an official response to this. I'm starting to feel a bad relationship with the company for ignoring such vocalized issues just because the issue in question is a problem primarily within only one population.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SweetP

In the last week, there has been a massive increase in the number of tells (and now shouts) advertising RMT through various websites. The amount is now many times that of normal, and this has been mentioned by dozens of players in the last few days. Many players are now setting themselves to a status of "Busy" to avoid this spam, which in turn makes the game less social. I greatly appreciate Square Enix's dedication to dealing with RMT violations of ToS. I hope that an increase in vigilence to stop this behavior will allow RMT to return to minimal levels.

P.S. All our blacklists are full! This Lala is begging! Give us larger blacklists and hunt down these gil spammers!

Many thanks!

Sweet Popoto

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Totally agree RMT spam is worse.

I logged on tonight at 19:50 UST, did some housekeeping and ported to Gridania, then travelled to Hawthorn Hut via Sweetbloom Pier. Noticed most people had busy status around the Hut. I thought to myself, that's unusual, can't be that bad. At 20:00 the tells started and I got one every TWO minutes until I just said screw it, ported home and logged off.

It's now getting so annoying having to switch off tells (a useful tool if not misused), casino crap, auto shouts spewing from a certain Hunt Tool, yells (which are now being used because people are ignoring tells & shouts), that I just can't be bothered being in open world any more.

If I was a new player I'd not be willing to pay for this. It's like a cross between Facebook and a F2P.

Excalibur has been getting a bit worse now also. I think there used to be two different websites that the RMT were spamming for now there is a third in the mix. I can get one tell every 5-10 minutes sometimes or sometimes like 3-5 tells in the span of 3 minutes. There are like tons of people with /busy on almost constantly now, and I also put it up sometimes.

I also used to have the /tell noise setup so I could hear if a friend sent me one but I've had to turn it off since it just ends up annoying me cause of the RMT spam.

All I have to say is the same bot farming wind shards in bent branch since last summer. I see a lot of bots all over the place on the server. We are never going to get rid of RMT tells as long as the bots are running and making gil 24/7. What SE needs to do is permanently ban anyone buying or selling gil and people will think twice about buying gill if they know they are going to lose their account.

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Originally Posted by Blissa

What SE needs to do is permanently ban anyone buying or selling gil and people will think twice about buying gill if they know they are going to lose their account.

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They do though. If you're caught doing any sort of RMT, your account is banned. And believe me, people know the consequences...do they care that much? Not enough.

The busy feature works to stop tells, but It also hinders the ready check in dungeons. A good fix would be to allow us to apply a tell filter in the user settings menu.

You could set it to allow tells from FC, friends list, Linkshells, and then a field for all others. By not checking that last field, those rmt's will not be able to bombard you.

Its pretty bad on every server I feel like. I pretty much only log on to do my daily stuff (maps, cactpots, etc.) and coil. Other then that I log out cause I get 4-6 tells in a matter of minutes. Its VERY annoying, so I just log out and play other stuff.

Really wish SE would get the hint already with all these RMT complaint threads and, you know, ACTUALLY do something about the issue! >_<

Its pretty bad on Sargatanas you get around 20 an hour now.

First thing I do when I log on is click on my /busy macro. Yes, I've made one just for that >.>

Something I haven't seen in ages has begun to increase on Balmung.... RMT /tells.
Like I haven't seen an RMT /tell in a year on Balmung, now I'm getting them everyday.

Players should not have to resort to slapping on the busy signal to avoid RMT day in and out. This needs to be fixed, NOW instead of as soon as possible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blissa

All I have to say is the same bot farming wind shards in bent branch since last summer. I see a lot of bots all over the place on the server. We are never going to get rid of RMT tells as long as the bots are running and making gil 24/7. What SE needs to do is permanently ban anyone buying or selling gil and people will think twice about buying gill if they know they are going to lose their account.

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Yep, I know of whom you speak. He's also using speed hacks given how damn fast he gets between those nodes! I've also never seen him repair gear, even when one day I was farming alongside for long enough for me to need to repair. Even if they can't get him as a bot they should be able to get him for the speed hack.

I never have to deal with RMT on leviathan, but that's only because I have a separate tab for tells and the tell sound is off. My chat log has been peaceful for months.

It's pretty depressing that I have to be /busy all the time. I like chatting with friends in tells, and I can't do that because I'm busy and they're busy and everyone is busy.

There is a hint of desperation to the RMT activity too. On Leviathan I usually got hit once every hour tops, if even then. Now its every 2 to 3 minutes and when it happens I get hit 2 to 3 times in that time frame. Shouting in every city 4 to 5 times in 3 seconds and they repeat every 2 to 3 minutes with different characters.

Whatever is the cause, its horrible and intervention needs to take place as soon as possible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grimmel

Something I haven't seen in ages has begun to increase on Balmung.... RMT /tells.
Like I haven't seen an RMT /tell in a year on Balmung, now I'm getting them everyday.

Players should not have to resort to slapping on the busy signal to avoid RMT day in and out. This needs to be fixed, NOW instead of as soon as possible.

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Off-topic: Wasn't your name something else before Mikail? I remember you from that one topic, but don't remember your name being Mikail...Nice name. :P
You're my brother from another server now lol.
The problem is people keep buying from Gil Sellers and they are still here...I wish we could find out the players who are doing this.

I just turn my /tell off save me on the headache mostly chat in FC or party anyways if i need to /t someone ill turn it on then for that purpose only no need for /busy for me.

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Originally Posted by odintius

I just turn my /tell off save me on the headache mostly chat in FC or party anyways if i need to /t someone ill turn it on then for that purpose only no need for /busy for me.

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That's great - for you. It doesn't solve the problem though, it just ignores it. Not only that but having seen the RMT migration to shout and yell you're going to have to block those too.

Therefore, you're effectively destroying the social aspect of the game in favour of only communicating with a narrow group of friends via FC or LS. Such a shame given how the game was designed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Culfinrandir

That's great - for you. It doesn't solve the problem though, it just ignores it. Not only that but having seen the RMT migration to shout and yell you're going to have to block those too.

Therefore, you're effectively destroying the social aspect of the game in favour of only communicating with a narrow group of friends via FC or LS. Such a shame given how the game was designed.

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You forget the most part the chat that goes on is /shout /say /ls /fc also if friends listed the mail message and the /tell is only one out of the many ways to communicate in this game. Only turning off one aspect of does not destroy social aspect of the game it only isolate that one aspect the /tell option again doesn't destroy social aspect only isolates it. Have you ever wonder why the RMT's find ways to break spam filter in the first place think on how much filtering it would require to block pretty much any random sentence structure or phrase.

When the game first came out for v.20 indeed the shouts in cities etc. was their at launch for weeks and somehow magically it disappear and just went to /tell in a business motive it more proficient to have one character bot /tell everyone in the entire game/zones, then it is to have 3 character only shout in the city when most are in a different zone logic goes to using the /tell function of the game to reach the most people with less resources to obtain max distribution of their message. I chose as a person to maximize the function to effectively ignore rmt completely by simply and logically turning off one function to this game the /tell system and still able to communicate to people successfully until a solution can be found ill stick to this logic until unneeded.

I swear if I see another tell from them calling me "friend" followed by strings of hearts, I'm gonna go nuts.