The RMT of selling content using cross server party finder

https://i.imgur.com/ZpqqjOF.jpg

I wanted to ask how a cross server party finder advertisement for RMT content sellers are not banned for their advertisements?

Two obvious issues I see in regards to breaking the ToS are as followed:

• The restriction of being unable to trade any in game currency or goods with people of other servers heavily implies that this advertisement is meant to break ToS for RMT.
• Using third party software to negotiate RMT pricing and exchange.

Is this not reportable and is there enough evidence to ban this user for RMT selling of content?

Yells "Its BAAAAAAAAAACK"

There's a half a dozen threads about this.

TLDR Version - its a thing....and SE isn't doing much about it.....but its just a bit obvious to me they have something to hide.

It's possible that it's RMT...even likely. But unless they provide some sort of proof in game there's nothing anyone can do. Can't even use video or screens of the discord channel to provide any sort of proof, which is where the "effort" to combat RMT and bots falls flat on its face. They tied their own hands.

Yeah the thing is "selling" content for gil is completely legal in game. Unless you can prove that irl money is being exchanged there's nothing you can do

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Originally Posted by Lorgana

Yeah the thing is "selling" content for gil is completely legal in game. Unless you can prove that irl money is being exchanged there's nothing you can do

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Exactly why I stated that in my first bullet point. If they are cross server, how does one sell for gil and in game goods from a different server?

The argument could be made that party finders these days are set up by default to recruit cross world, you actually have to select an option to restrict it to your server.

I'm not saying this isn't RMT, just that there's enough wiggle room to avoid any trouble

It's RMT. You only have to spend about 60 seconds to contact them and see for yourself. People saying otherwise are arguing just to increase post count or are trying to mislead for some odd reason.

As for the OP: It is against the ToS, but the GMs won't do anything unless the ads say 'we sell for monies' and the STF doesn't use discord info, so until SE changes their stance, it's allowed.

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Originally Posted by Vnolan

It's RMT. You only have to spend about 60 seconds to contact them and see for yourself. People saying otherwise are arguing just to increase post count or are trying to mislead for some odd reason.

As for the OP: It is against the ToS, but the GMs won't do anything unless the ads say 'we sell for monies' and the STF doesn't use discord info, so until SE changes their stance, it's allowed.

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Anyone not bound by the rules of the GMs can spend 5 seconds to see it's RMT. The GMs however have to go by proof visible within SE's system. I would love to see them set up some sting operations though.

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Originally Posted by Lorgana

Yeah the thing is "selling" content for gil is completely legal in game. Unless you can prove that irl money is being exchanged there's nothing you can do

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Except you have a fatal flaw in that reasoning.

Cross world...strict limit on gil transfers....and they demand communication outside of game..where its not logged..or tracked.

If it looks like a duck...quacks like a duck...its a duck. Proof or not....the smell is awfully rotten to the core.

Can it be proven? No..not emphatically.... but that doens't mean its right either.

Real Money Trading will be involved in this shady setup of third-party services.

It is pointless having an economy without any regulation of any kind, just imagine if you could use a third-party program in the real world to make unlimited money, yeah...

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Originally Posted by Dustytome

The GMs however have to go by proof visible within SE's system.

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They had just that with Feast chat and look what happened.

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Originally Posted by NephthysVasudan

Can it be proven? No..not emphatically....

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Yes it can. Contacting them or even googling the discord info in some cases gets you all the proof you need in seconds.

Don't use words such as 'looks like', 'probably' or similar terms and don't suggest something is going on, because you'll start the unending argument over whether it's actually RMT when that's already known to be the case.

Pro tip: For the sellers that forget to set an item level, just get a few friends together to all join up. Soon as the party is full, the listing gets pulled from PF.

Oh it’s absolutely RMT. Happened in November with a mutual friend of my static members. He went through this exact thing, even admitting it in game. Purchased something like $200 USD in gil, used it to furnish their FC, and pay for his O4 clear. Was reported by 5 of us, and the guy was never banned. Neither were the people who set up that PF. What’s hilarious is the people who convinced him to do this EXACT thing in your image parses his paid run, so it’s forever uploaded to fflogs with his 28 dps kill as DRG on Neo. Even having proof, he still plays. He transferred to another data center once word spread.

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Originally Posted by Vnolan

Yes it can. Contacting them or even googling the discord info in some cases gets you all the proof you need in seconds.

Don't use words such as 'looks like', 'probably' or similar terms and don't suggest something is going on, because you'll start the unending argument over whether it's actually RMT when that's already known to be the case.

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Again, though, until SE relaxes or changes its policy on accepting third-party chat logs or screenshots/video recordings, all that evidence through Google searching and Discord messaging is worthless. It’s only worth any solid proof if the RMTs say something in-game, which, sadly, they’re too smart to do. Hence why they ask for everything to be handled through Discord—because they know that, even if reported, SE won’t do anything to them because they won’t accept screenshots from third-party chat clients as evidence. Since they can be “altered”, is the excuse.

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Originally Posted by Laerad3993

Oh it’s absolutely RMT. Happened in November with a mutual friend of my static members. He went through this exact thing, even admitting it in game. Purchased something like $200 USD in gil, used it to furnish their FC, and pay for his O4 clear.

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There's a difference here. If someone's selling a clear for gil... they have no realistic means to know if that gil was ill gotten or not. It's SE's responsibility to fight RMT, not for every merchant to go "did you buy your gil?" and hire private investigators to verify the truth.

When people sell runs for dollars or euros... which as others mentioned, takes all of a few seconds to find out... then they are clearly engaging in RMT. Sadly, while companies like Blizzard or ANet have no qualms about having employees check these things out and banning the RMTers, Square Enix does. Unless they mention specifically in game that they're selling for money, SE won't touch them.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

because they won’t accept screenshots from third-party chat clients as evidence. Since they can be “altered”, is the excuse.

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There's an easy enough way to keep this policy while getting the evidence. Have Square's very own GMs join those discords and ask for the price sheet.

But of course, they won't.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

There's a difference here. If someone's selling a clear for gil... they have no realistic means to know if that gil was ill gotten or not. It's SE's responsibility to fight RMT, not for every merchant to go "did you buy your gil?" and hire private investigators to verify the truth.

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Did you just completely ignore the fact I said he ADMITTED IT in game? Or were you trying to just prove a point? He admitted it. Step by step, in game. On how they told him which server to create the alt on, the website to use for gil, all of it.

The fact that you have to block out a rmt bots name so u don't get banned shows how backwards SE has set this whole thing up.

Any bets if we see an official reaction to this? lol

But so true... it sounds shady as hell >_>

SE needs to drop their ridiculously high standard of evidence. They're as feckless as the US is in punishing wealthy white-collar criminals.

Stop insisting on explicit in-game evidence that any halfwit can avoid providing. Start issuing punishments once it is overwhelmingly likely a rule has been broken, as opposed to when it is absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt certain. And for pete's sake, adjust the ToS so that it's against the rules to sell content runs via any mechanism, including in-game means; there's absolutely no good reason to permit this crap.

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Originally Posted by Vnolan

They had just that with Feast chat and look what happened.


Yes it can. Contacting them or even googling the discord info in some cases gets you all the proof you need in seconds.

Don't use words such as 'looks like', 'probably' or similar terms and don't suggest something is going on, because you'll start the unending argument over whether it's actually RMT when that's already known to be the case.

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I suggest you take a step back and check your facts.
The context here is SE's policies.

But since your so eager to make a point of arguing over something as obvious as that...go try for yourself....let us know how that works out for you with your chat with a GM.
Then just maybe you'll get the picture.

PS: For those who don't know - SE won't take any evidence outside the game..including screenshots...videos...live streaming..etc....stupid..I know..but its how it is.

It's a thing that been going on since couple months.
We have multiple threads on this here and on reddit.

We can hope someone asked a question about this for the upcoming LL this weekend.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

There's an easy enough way to keep this policy while getting the evidence. Have Square's very own GMs join those discords and ask for the price sheet.

But of course, they won't.

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Yup. A few sting operations would clean up PF real fast. But that's not good for the bottom line. At the end of the day, this doesn't actually impede other players from playing the game, so SE has no real incentive to act.

Sadly this exists but why should anyone care? If people want to spend their own real money on something let them. If they get caught they get caught. If they don’t, why do others care? The world isn’t fair from incompetent people getting high paying positions from a relative even though someone who spent years of studies should be the candidate. Just work hard and play how you want and if it doesn’t concern you just ignore it

There are a few instances where I can see that the current system is trying to avoid. In-game screenshots can be forged by changing the text colour of the Echo command and following the format of the chat you want to forge. However, this method is highly unlikely to even work because the special task force can just pull the server logs to verify if this is true. Third-party screenshots from Discord chats are generally difficult to verify anyway because not everyone has a Discord account, so it would be realitively simple for someone to pretend to be someone they're not.

The current system is probably the most reliable, quick, and trustworthy method for the support team to investigate any reports made by any players, but it's not that great in situations such as this. Honestly, there's really not much they can do about it unless the person involved accidentally lets it slip out in the in-game chat.

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Originally Posted by Linx0r

Sadly this exists but why should anyone care? If people want to spend their own real money on something let them. If they get caught they get caught. If they don’t, why do others care? The world isn’t fair from incompetent people getting high paying positions from a relative even though someone who spent years of studies should be the candidate. Just work hard and play how you want and if it doesn’t concern you just ignore it

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One of the primary reasons I enjoy playing long-term MMOs like FFXI or FFXIV is that they offer, at their best, an escape from the real world, and all the disparity within it. Out in the real world, I have to accept that some of the worst people imaginable have the nicest things, and that some of the nicest people in the world suffer at their hands. It sucks. Games, like many other forms of entertainment, offer an escape - one that is severely limited when reminders of real-world wealth intrude upon the virtual world.

Moreover, these people actively disrupt the balance of the in-game economy. Their purchasing of Gil funds RMT, who make their money through the in-game economy, limiting economic options for legitimate players. Their purchasing of runs funds a narrow group of players, thereby again manipulating the economy around the purchasing interests of a few. Just as in real life, the actions of the corrupt, the actions of cheaters, impacts everyone else, too.

So, no, I won't ignore it - because it concerns me and my enjoyment of the game. It's against the rules, and I will continue to advocate for a scorched-earth policy until these pathetic cheaters with more money than common sense or integrity abandon FFXIV in favour of some other game to screw up.

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

The current system is probably the most reliable, quick, and trustworthy method for the support team to investigate any reports made by any players, but it's not that great in situations such as this. Honestly, there's really not much they can do about it unless the person involved accidentally lets it slip out in the in-game chat.

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I'm not sure I agree, here. In the case of the PF options, the reason nothing is done is because technically selling runs for Gil is permitted. This is a bad loophole, and one that should be closed - which would immediately allow GMs to take action on any sort of PF advertising a run sale of any kind. They wouldn't need to distinguish between whether there's some workaround involving in-game currency; they could simply look, see that it's a sale, and boom - problem solved.

I have a difficult time seeing the downside to this solution. While I guess there's nothing overtly 'wrong' with purchasing a run using in-game Gil, I do think it violates the spirit of fair play, if nothing else. Why protect it?

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

There's an easy enough way to keep this policy while getting the evidence. Have Square's very own GMs join those discords and ask for the price sheet.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Yup. A few sting operations would clean up PF real fast.

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There a few problems with that. If a GM investigated one and found it wasn't RMT, how would it prevent additional reports of the same listing while at the same time respecting the seller's privacy? If it was RMT, but the GM was fooled, that would allow the sellers to continue as they did before. If a seller was found guilty of RMT, they wouldn't be permabanned if it was their first offense, so the same seller could use the same contact info and claim they've shunned the ways of RMT. If they were permabanned, they could just use a new dummy account and different contact info.

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Originally Posted by Rinuko

It's a thing that been going on since couple months.
We have multiple threads on this here and on reddit.

We can hope someone asked a question about this for the upcoming LL this weekend.

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http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post4632827

You can like that post and hope it gets asked, but your post already answers it. There have been numerous threads about an issue which could be answered in all of one short post by a GM, but there has been no response. If SE were to say they won't or can't do anything about it, that would open the floodgates for RMT. If by some crazy chance the question or some variation is not only asked, but gets an answer saying they will be updating their policy on the issue, it would be another blemish on the system between the GMs and devs.

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Originally Posted by Linx0r

Sadly this exists but why should anyone care? If people want to spend their own real money on something let them. If they get caught they get caught. If they don’t, why do others care? The world isn’t fair from incompetent people getting high paying positions from a relative even though someone who spent years of studies should be the candidate. Just work hard and play how you want and if it doesn’t concern you just ignore it

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Do you make the same post in threads about RMT bots spamming chat or sending invites? I'm sure many people would like to know if they could make money on the side by following the same rules that apply to parsing.

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

There are a few instances where I can see that the current system is trying to avoid.

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Bans. That's what it's trying to avoid. You don't have to ban people if you ignore the reports.

I recall reading at one point that support tickets for cheating/rmt on the web site go direcctly to the stf...


At one point I saw one of these and reported it on the web site to get it directly into the hands of those responsible for investigating RMT.




I wonder how things would go if people reported these obvious rmt listings through that...

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Originally Posted by AmurT

But then when would it stop? As mentioned previously, they sell housing items and what's to stop them from selling other things if everyone just ignored them? The market board would collapse in days and the economy would be in shambles, I've seen it happen in other game where people buy in game currency and control the market, preventing anyone else from progressing.

And then if this kind of activity is done repeatedly with no action from SE, then what is even the point of playing the game when everyone just pays to have it be played for them? That's something I never understood.

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I mostly agree with Linx0r. Your logic is the sort of twisted logic that we must stop all bad things from happening before they actually happen, which is simply impossible to say the least. If it truly becomes a rampant problem then it's on SE to fix it right then and there or lose players/revenue as a result. Right now it could hardly be considered a rampant problem (selling end game content clears for real money, that is)

RMT for gil I would consider in a different category, as gil in circulation can effect everyone on a particular server without their choice or knowledge. But I can't feel the same for services like this; it's a voluntary transaction on both sides - and it doesn't effect anyone outside of the transacting parties. Is it ethical? That's debatable I suppose. But in general I think there are a lot more people out there willing to "lend a hand" without asking for compensation, and as long as this is true it shouldn't really develop into a larger problem.

As for it being against ToS. That's on SE. If they are only going to use certain things for evidence and perpetrators know this they will obviously use it to their advantage to try to escape punishment.

Certainly others are entitled to their own opinion and that's fine. I just think on the long list of things to have a problem with this day & age, it's pretty far down there.

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Originally Posted by Vnolan

There a few problems with that. If a GM investigated one and found it wasn't RMT, how would it prevent additional reports of the same listing while at the same time respecting the seller's privacy? If it was RMT, but the GM was fooled, that would allow the sellers to continue as they did before. If a seller was found guilty of RMT, they wouldn't be permabanned if it was their first offense, so the same seller could use the same contact info and claim they've shunned the ways of RMT. If they were permabanned, they could just use a new dummy account and different contact info.

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All the GMs need do is "accept" the sell, then flag all seven people who party with them. Even a temp ban would scare virtually every sale group into immediately stopping. The trick to dealing with botters, RMTs and etc isn't to ban the dummy accounts but actively scare people away from doing it to begin with. SE is so hands off, no one's remotely concerned, thus you see an increasing amount of exploits.

Doubt anything will happen, from a business point of view they aren't really gaining anything from spending resources on busting those groups, and despite all the shouting over it this doesn't really impact the game at all. Unlike people who buy gil from bots (which involve bot-generated money and can affect a server economy) the money is being handed from player A to player B, it doesn't even touch the FFXIV economy.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Right now it could hardly be considered a rampant problem (selling end game content clears for real money, that is)

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I don't know how it is on Primal, but it can get pretty bad on Aether. There are times where the same group has three different listings up - One under a roulette, one under an EX trial and one under the 'other' tab - and that's one group. It's not uncommon to see 5+ listings at once.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

All the GMs need do is "accept" the sell, then flag all seven people who party with them.

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What if the seller was legit? "Sorry for wasting your time"?

For something like Ultimate it would be obvious all are in on it, but for easier duties, the sellers could be recruiting PUGs and keeping the info about it being a sale to themselves (less mercs = larger share).

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Even a temp ban would scare virtually every sale group into immediately stopping.

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I agree, but SE isn't going to temp ban that many players that have cleared Ultimate.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

Doubt anything will happen, from a business point of view they aren't really gaining anything from spending resources on busting those groups, and despite all the shouting over it this doesn't really impact the game at all. Unlike people who buy gil from bots (which involve bot-generated money and can affect a server economy) the money is being handed from player A to player B, it doesn't even touch the FFXIV economy.

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The same groups sell gil and use bots. Who would have guessed?