Gil Spammers and sellers - a petition for a solution.

[TunaSalad]

Do you all really think SE isn't going to fix this? Of course they are. And they've said it in dev posts. People get a life and learn to overcome little annoyances that will be fixed. It's as freakin easy as creating a new chat tab for cities that you switch to that filters out shout. Takes 20 seconds to setup and 2 seconds to switch to once you step into city. You people are such babies.

[Hamingju]

Do you all really think SE isn't going to fix this? Of course they are. And they've said it in dev posts. People get a life and learn to overcome little annoyances that will be fixed. It's as freakin easy as creating a new chat tab for cities that you switch to that filters out shout. Takes 20 seconds to setup and 2 seconds to switch to once you step into city. You people are such babies.

i think your missing the point. yes, you can do exactly what you said. but then, what is the purpose of shout and yell in a city? also, they are not just doing this in shout and yell. i get direct tells all the time. i don't spend a lot of time in the citys so its really not an issue for me. banning these people runs into an issue where there appears to be a 200 person limit. also, if your going to say the devs said something point us to that, with a link.

[DannyB]

The reason I posted this petition is because they posted on the 6th about taking action and 1 week later I now have 8x the spam I had 1 week ago. This clearly shows me that their methods are currently not working effectively. It's nice that they banned 518 accounts, but there is a growing problem rather than a problem that simply needs policing. It is my belief that they can optimize their work by empowering players and this is what I hope comes to their attention. I think the suggestions for such a system here are fantastic and I hope they are all considered. Ideally, we want to treat the problem and not the symptom. I think many of the suggestions here would help alleviate the issue.

speaking of suggestions, I would like to see the following:

If a high number of people blacklist a name (say over 100?), That individual would be flagged and would be locked from /shout /tell /yell / say until their profile was reviewed for consideration (something that would have to be requested from that player). I believe something like this would easily empower users. If the account was hacked, most likely the hacker would also abandon the account (as opposed to requesting to be unflagged again) in which case the real player might get a chance to reset their standing as opposed to being permanently banned. a moderator could easily determine if the flagging was legitimate upon review and take any necessary action.

[KisaiTenshi]

If a high number of people blacklist a name (say over 100?),

Doesn't even need to be 100, only needs to be like 4. What I don't understand is why SE doesn't just utilize the blacklist data check the last 10 sent messages sent by that character for duplicate strings and then nuke the character. Every single one of the blacklisted bots I've run across so far (as in I found where they are standing in Gridania and Ul'dah ) are just standing there talking to themselves, which means the server is telling my client that they are still talking.

BTW, this is the tip of the iceburg. One of the most visible sites that carries hacks/bots for all mmo games has several for FFXIV already. I wish these people would get banned in a hurry (and this is likely a source of hacked accounts as well.)

[DannyB]

Doesn't even need to be 100, only needs to be like 4.

4 is too low unfortunately and way too easy to abuse.
"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone's_formulation

What I don't understand is why SE doesn't just utilize the blacklist data check the last 10 sent messages sent by that character for duplicate strings and then nuke the character.

2 reasons, first is that some players legitimately repeat themselves. EX: lvl 50 goldsmith looking for work! please send tell bla bla bla... and unfortunately, if they start to only use text pattern checks, the hackers will start to randomize their writing to bypass the system (ex: .c0m instead of .com). if its based on how often they spam, they will limit themselves or alternate the spam with multiple bots... As a programmer myself I can tell you that it will only escalate into an algorithm battle and SE will ultimately lose because there are WAY more spammers and hackers than there are developers and staff. Ultimately, SE developers may be tempted to restrict the game to keep things under control and the players are going to be the ones to suffer. Staff is expensive, especially for an operation like this that runs almost 24/7. I'm positive that customer support has their hands full just with the account hacking alone.

That's another reason why I am petitioning for them to empower the players. Not only are we all more than happy to provide the service of whistle blowing these asshats off the server, we are also willing to do it for free! SE just has to do a little filtering to make sure the whistle blowers are credible. This can be done with a simple point system. Ex: if 100 people expose a bot through our imaginative blacklist/report system, those people get a "whistle blower" credit. if it turns out it was just a bunch of jerks trying to bully someone into being silent, they get a negative point (in addition to losing their points). anyone with a negative point has little weight in future whistle blowing. Thus you have a method in place where players votes can be rated as trustworthy or not. over time, you might even be able to accurately pin point bots with much less votes if the players doing the reporting all have great whistle blower status. just my 2 cents anyway (ex: maybe only 10 people with over 10 points required). I'm glad you quoted me or I might not have thought to share that KisaiTenshi! [edit] Heck, SE can even reward players who successfully whistle blow bots out of the game with in game items like .. a whistle! or a stun gun! LOL. [\edit] This thread is gonna need a lot more attention for something like this to get implemented though.