Motivate Square Enix to deal with bots & spammers ?

Is there anything we can do to motivate Square Enix to deal with spammers and bots ?

Not a curative approach, but a preventive method. Actually blocking spam and detecting teleport hacks.

Right now they're telling us everything will be ok, but that isn't happening.

So is there anything we can do as customer that enjoys FFXIV but is tired of the rampant spamming and botting ?

I just feel completely at the mercy of bots and spammers in this war against them, and it also feels like Square Enix isn't even fighting back.

SUGGESTIONS IN THE NEXT POST (1000charlimit)

Spams

• Block shouts that repeat the same sequence 7+ of characters more than twice.
• Block shouts that match previous shouts by at least 33%.
• Block shouts from widely blacklisted people. (if those 2 systems can communicate)
• Block shouts by players with shit names (Lots of F,d,s,t,r, no vowels, etc)
• Block all this with increasing returns.
• Sentences with "cheap" "usd" "fast" "safe" "sell" "gil" ? Probably RMT.
• Ban the whole <insert problematic region> IP block or whatever, ask for legitimate users to contact support. (ideally avoid this)

Hacks

• Detect teleports. 100 yalms in less than 1sec? Hacker.
• Maybe automate the report system for hackers/etc?
• Add in temporary case-per-case teleport detection algorithms for people reported for hacking by 3+ people if detecting and crosschecking movements is resource intensive?
• Make the gathering node clusters "high priority" for the anti-hack measures ?

Seriously they have the STF (Special Task Force) on the job. They've already banned some people. You are asking for them to do something that they are already doing.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Seriously they have the STF (Special Task Force) on the job. They've already banned some people. You are asking for them to do something that they are already doing.

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there not fixing the problem there dealing with them as they show up.. They need to fix the source like Tase offered great ideas.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Seriously they have the STF (Special Task Force) on the job. They've already banned some people. You are asking for them to do something that they are already doing.

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Since every single hour of every single day in the cities there is a wall of text in the chatbox advertising gill spammer sites, I'd say that the STF isn't really doing much. I've basically had to turn off shouts because of it. I'm nearing 100 people on my blacklist and every single one is a gill spammer. How many of those have been banned? Three or four. The STF isn't doing their job or they aren't given the tools they need to do their job. It's just rediculous how the gil spammers run free, unchecked. Whatever the STF is doing it's ridiculously ineffective.

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Originally Posted by silverhope

there not fixing the problem there dealing with them as they show up.. They need to fix the source like Tase offered great ideas.

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Most of those solutions wouldn't work for various reasons. They would mostly have unintended side effects that would effect valid players or are overbroad in their assumptions. Square did an amazing job cracking down on RMT in FFXI. Let them do what they have already prooved in the past that they can do.

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Originally Posted by Beezilbub

Since every single hour of every single day in the cities there is a wall of text in the chatbox advertising gill spammer sites, I'd say that the STF isn't really doing much. I've basically had to turn off shouts because of it. I'm nearing 100 people on my blacklist and every single one is a gill spammer. How many of those have been banned? Three or four. The STF isn't doing their job or they aren't given the tools they need to do their job. It's just rediculous how the gil spammers run free, unchecked. Whatever the STF is doing it's ridiculously ineffective.

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How many of those people on your blacklist are players that had their accounts hacked and have since had their account restored? You could have legit players on your blacklist now.

What...? Motivate a company to do it's job? I don't even... what???

I'm sure some of them are, but I have no way to tell if that's the case or not.

In the last week to ten days the number of /shout have decreased dramatically when compared to this time 1 month ago. In this area SE has had an effect. As a result the RMTs have moved to /tells that contact players in a certain area with automatic tells. Enforcement here is more problematic for SE as they want to try to maintain the privacy of /tells while still combating RMTs. It may take them a while to come up with an acceptable compromise.

As for Bots and teleport hacks it will be a constant war of point/counterpoint as SE will find ways to combat the current programs in use and the hackers develop new programs. That neverending cycle plagues most MMOs.

The only true way to combat RMTs is to eliminate the demand for their product. SE must aggressively pursue the people who utilize these services and come down hard on them with temp/perma bans and they must publicize these actions in the loudest voice available. Only then will you see a noticeable decrease in RMT activity.

Simplest stopgap measure: limit players to 1 shout or yell a minute until they come up with something better.

Tells will increase as a result, unfortunately.

I agree that the problem is still out of control. It is getting slightly better.

To those who don't know already, in FFXI the bots were handled relatively well (a 90% decrease). However, relatively nothing was ever done about people buying gil. I couldn't count the number of people who openly admitted to buying tens of millions of gil and I don't think (in 5 years of playing FFXI) I ever once heard of a single one of those buyers suffering the slightest consequence for their part in the cycle.

Square Enix always said that they could track the gil from the farmers to the distributors, but they seemed to stop there. Small wonder that they didn't want to ban paying subscribers who bought the gil. But for a STF who could track and ban so "well" they sure left a glaring flaw open in their system, the BUYERS. Same was true for FFXIV 1.0 and anecdotal experiences I read/heard say not much has changed in this regard.

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Originally Posted by Tase

Is there anything we can do to motivate Square Enix to deal with spammers and bots ?

Not a curative approach, but a preventive method. Actually blocking spam and detecting teleport hacks.

Right now they're telling us everything will be ok, but that isn't happening.

So is there anything we can do as customer that enjoys FFXIV but is tired of the rampant spamming and botting ?

I just feel completely at the mercy of bots and spammers in this war against them, and it also feels like Square Enix isn't even fighting back.

SUGGESTIONS IN THE NEXT POST (1000charlimit)

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You kidding? This is a huge market for SE, they're making a killing off unknowing players. How else was SE going to make their ROI?

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Seriously they have the STF (Special Task Force) on the job. They've already banned some people. You are asking for them to do something that they are already doing.

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Devs already told us that due to the special task force dealing with RMT spammers that they are low on resources to work on the botting issue. THIS MAKES NO SENSE. I mean HELLO SE, the bots are the ones making the gold to sell RMT. Along with them hacking other peoples account. I just wish SE would stop acting like these are 2 separate issues when obviously they are tired together pretty closely. +1 to OP

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Originally Posted by Xceriis

You kidding? This is a huge market for SE, they're making a killing off unknowing players. How else was SE going to make their ROI?

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Tell me,what will have a greater impact on ROI. Eliminating RMTs and their clients or honest players leaving in droves and telling their friends not to play the game?

While i disagree with some people that the spamming has decreased, i do agree with a few others that the buyers are the real problem. Ban the buyers and the RMT threat will deminish. If there was no market for people to sell gil then they certainly wouldn't be selling it. Buyers should be a main focus this time around. When i played FFXI like 4 years ago, the RMT issue was still bad. And i knew of alot of buyers that never once got even a temp. ban for such an act. Most will not want to start over if they're banned, and if they do, they'll be less likely to buy gil again in the future. :rolleyes:

So many suggestions of limits and things.

Just assist as best you can by reporting them. And it may not happen as fast as we like, but the STF will take care of them.

No one likes bots and spammers on either side, but I'd imagine that they don't have as many people as there are bots and RMTs. Yoshi-P has admitted that the RMTs and Bots have gotten aggressive and that they're trying to eliminate them as fast as possible, so yeah.

I don't think we should go on a "Block-everything-so-no-one-can-do-anything" spree.

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Originally Posted by Rizon

In the last week to ten days the number of /shout have decreased dramatically when compared to this time 1 month ago. In this area SE has had an effect.

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Not on Cactuar, I set a personal record of 19 RMT blist additions just yesterday alone and only three of them were from /tells, the rest shout spam. I just posted a picture of what it looks like when I log in and exit the Inn every single day here:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...72#post1332572

Whatever SE is supposedly doing is not working in the slightest. I also reported a teleport hack last night and have yet to get a response from the help desk. They are clearly understaffed on the GM side at an embarrassing level.

Also "Special Task Force" has been known for years as STFU to XI players so don't hang your hopes on that rack.

My question is: If RMT is illegal in every game environment they do this in, then why are they not taken down at their source?

Why do developers have to continue to fight them on the Devs turf? Take the fight to their door sand start filing lawsuits and take down the websites. It frustrates me to see people attack the developers of a game for "not doing their job" when its the asshole spammers that really should be getting the stink eye. Its not the devs fault that other people decide to do illegal, annoying underhanded things with it. At least that's how I see it...

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Seriously they have the STF (Special Task Force) on the job. They've already banned some people. You are asking for them to do something that they are already doing.

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Then either they aren't doing a good job or their resources are severly limited, Ninja ***** along with several others on my server have been spamming Ul'dah for the past week without any action being taken.

I'm very close to simply removing the channel from my chat bar, which I really don't want to do, but having to constantly add the same people on two different characters is annoying, not sure why the blacklist isn't account wide.

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Originally Posted by ZakarnRosewood

My question is: If RMT is illegal in every game environment they do this in, then why are they not taken down at their source?t...

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Just about all of these websites/companies are hosted in places where pursuing legal action against them is nearly impossible. If it were as simple as threatening legal action, the problem would have been solved years ago. Thus we hang our hat on the developers to find creative solutions to stop what the lawyers can't. The other option not being talked about here is to allow purchase of gil directly from the game with real money. When that is done, the RMT can't win because they can't produce at a lower rate than the company can and they eventually will give up. This, however, has the negative effect of inflation that must, some how, be countered via the ingame economy.

You know I like what they did in FFXI where they put IT Goblin by the lake once in awhile they spawn and patrol the area. If you Bot they will kill you. It screw over the legit player a bit but all you have to do is move out to another spot every 30 minutes or 1 hours or so.

What they could do is send Ultimate Weapon and one shot this Bot that constantly farming the same area over and over again.

There i$ only one thing that motivate$ $quare Enix to do anything.

It'$ the $ame with all companie$.

Like it or not, they earn a lot of money from RMT.

I'm something of a programmer. I realize that "regular expressions" (programming tool) are used to parse out the spam and that's why the RMT messages went from clear as day to "myg11u r1.com, replace the first 1 with i and the second, third 1s with l" (made up example).

However, it would not be very difficult at all to limit how much characters under certain level points can shout, like not being able to shout more than once per minute below level 10, twice per minute below level 30, and 3 times per minute below level 50.

They could even, so as not to harm the leading single shout made, add a command for /shoutraise that didn't go against this count and shout for "{Raise} {Can I have it?} <pos>"

The clear and rampant use of third-party tools in XI for years and the limited action they took against them was proof enough.

As matter of fact, the only major ban that occurred in XI's history was Salvage bans with basically amounted to players were duping which caused them to complete a content arc much faster than the grueling pace that was intended.

Sometimes I wonder why a GM doesn't take a casual stroll down the Ruby Exchange or some other city area just for 10 minutes and insta-ban or teleport the quite obvious rmt spammers to gm jail and then deal with the cases one by one while they are still shouting out their scripted messages in gm jail. Seriously, that should be fairly easy to do being a GM. Ten to Fifteen minutes in each city zone at most will quickly catch and remove the spammers who are going unmanned 24/7 shouting. This would make things so much easier on players and less irritating AND give us a better sense that SE does care about it's paying subscribers and helping to keep a peaceful rmt-free game. I don't think this is unrealistic.

k I am going to explain to you what is going on,

Square Enix is sleeping with the RMT companies,

Think of it like brown envelopes, in the real world, like construction work, politics, or well pretty much any field,

Nothing is getting fixed because one or the other needs one or the other to exist,

It's sad, but nothing gets done because both company profit from this system,

Again SE sleeps with RMT companies, but they don't publicize that shit.... they publicize task force ninjas that claim they will fix it all... right...

Sorry that your bubble was just burst... but that's how it is, RMT is a billion dollar NEW industry / market sleeping with the other billion dollar industry of gaming,

k thx bai~

They are researching and working on a better word flitering system so it will get better than what it's like right now but I agree, there should be something to deal with these RMT's faster.

Just have it where it where after 5-10 RMT/Harrasment reports or something to insta warp that player to mordion goal, if the idiot is still shouting gil selling stuff, insta ban, if they are trying to warp, insta ban. Either way once they are sent to jail, it won't sohw up on players screen so it should be better than now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kx5H9ziXiI

Probably wont work for a sub based game like ARR but we can see the frustration and almost futile efforts to ban RMT's throughout the whole gaming industry

The solution certainly is not for the company themselves to start selling currency, which is exactly what that is.

I can't imagine RMT can be controlled in F2P/B2P games, but in P2Ps like this, it's a bit easier.

It's so vitally important that companies attack RMT, from the beginning, as vigorously as RMT attack back, because their continued existence only exacerbates inflation and causes some players to feel like they need to buy gold.

Alternatively, there's the odd thing that happened with XI. During Blinker years, gil became a byproduct of endgame and it didn't destroy the economy, but it did inflate it. Still, any buyable piece was obtainable to any person no matter if your best geared main job was worse than my casual friend's worst geared alt. Gil became easy enough to acquire that people stopped caring about gil.

While RMT did exist, they were farming pop items and selling to players, and powerleveling players, and you know what... it worked. Noone would have ever thought it would have, but it did. You stopped competing with rmt ls's of hacked accounts for claim to world bosses "hnm's".

i wonder if it would work to get rid of gil entirely. just simply trade items that have a "value" to them for equal value. Might be a pipe dream though.

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Originally Posted by Tase

Spams

• Block shouts by players with shit names (Lots of F,d,s,t,r, no vowels, etc)

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I'd feel bad for Sea Wolf characters that follow naming conventions. Poor Ahldskyf Klynsyn, unable to form a Hydra group because of his lore friendly name.

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Originally Posted by ZakarnRosewood

i wonder if it would work to get rid of gil entirely. just simply trade items that have a "value" to them for equal value. Might be a pipe dream though.

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That's similar to a token system, which is great in a vacuum. Problem is then you completely remove the concept of a player economy which a lot of MMO players enjoy participating in, myself included. Whether its gil or gold or some item, if its tradeable, its an economy RMT can exploit.

The saddest thing is they did some things that stand out if you played XI, like making it impossible to sit at one mining point and wait for it to repop spamming a macro. Problem is, the mining points are not truly dynamic, they are different each rotation, but the potential spots are still finite. So, while its a nod to trying to prevent scripted RMT bots, its just not enough.

It really begs the question if gaming companies need to start hiring RMT consultants like internet security companies do with hackers. Sometimes you need to admit defeat and look for help from those that defeat your best intentions.

People don't seem to realize that they are actually doing stuff in the background, constantly adjusting filters etc and such to minimize the spam as much as realistically possible. It is completely impossible to eliminate it entirely, and people keep demanding some kind of quick fix when one does not exist (meaning, there is no quick fix, so quit asking for one).

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

People don't seem to realize that they are actually doing stuff in the background, constantly adjusting filters etc and such to minimize the spam

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Could have fooled me.

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Originally Posted by PerrythePlatypus

Could have fooled me.

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I've seen a drastic difference between a few weeks ago and now. I was getting tells all the time and there was a bot in almost every zone flooding the chat with like a million messages per second. Now it is much reduced from that. It's still there, yes. It's impossible to eliminate it completely, especially without impacting on our ability to communicate with each other. I still see some tells and spammers, but not nearly as much as before.

So yeah, I guess they did fool you.

I blisted 19 RMT yesterday, a personal record, so you are wrong bub.

Edit: Literally in the time it took me to make this post and go back to the game another spammer had to be added to my blist. Doing great SE!

Just my two cents :

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ey-Gil-sellers

MoogZ

people not listening to my previous post,

EVERYTHING IS WORKING ACCORDING TO PLAN,

the plan is to generate wealth,

RMT and the company are both sticking to the plan,

Nothing will ever change, everyone is making money,

RMT are here to stay, the company is sleeping with them, they will put flashing lights in front of you so you think otherwise,

its been a plague for 15 years, its a market that's is in the billions of $

nothing to see here, move along,

sheeps

As annoying as hackers, botters and gil spammers are, dealing with them is a reactionary job. Every time the team assigned in dealing with these hackers, botters and spammers comes up with a solution to deal with them, the hackers, botters and spammers work to find a way around the team's efforts. The team, in turn, then observes these new methods and a new means is implemented. Truly the best way to deal with the hackers, botters and spammers is to make it extremely unappealing for everyone to use their services. Sadly, so long as there are those who don't care, and are too lazy to do things legitimately, they will always employ the services of hackers, botters and spammers. Those who make use of their services, those who don't care if someone uses their services, they are just as bad as those offering those services.

Right now I really wish there was a quicker, more efficient means of reporting these types.

I think there's some sort of bug in the blacklist system because I've had to blacklist the same damn *head hit keyboard* name three times already.