Gil Spammers and sellers - a petition for a solution.

[Makior72]

Maybe what I'm thinking of currently is something the special task force already does. Or maybe it isn't and they should definately impliment it.

Perhaps the STF could purchase a small amount of Gil from these sites on various servers (I would start with legacy servers to hit rmt hardest) and receive the product on a GM toon. Once product is received that rmt is banned and the transaction reversed so they don't actually get squares money. After that the GM runs a search of every character who has ever traded or sent Gil to the rmt that was just banned. This will lead to the discovery of several auction house bots as well I suspect. The GM them bans all accounts proven to be giving the rmt selling account any Gil for little or nothing in return. Wide spread rmt genocide commences. Just a thought, and maybe they already do it, but something to think about.

[Misledz]

I like how there was a maintenance, and they didn't prioritize this as an "important" issue to respond to.

[pjcnet]

I am sick of taking ages reporting the gold spammers manually and from what I've seen SE aren't even banning them while they still haven't added a quick option to report and block them despite asking them to add this feature with every report while also seeing numerous forum posts also asking for this feature. COME ON SE SORT THIS OUT! As quick as I block one spammer, another appears. Some are even sending tells, while many others are repeatedly spamming the chat channels often so quick that the window scrolls up almost constantly making it very difficult to copy the usually randomly generated name along with the evidence. If only SE would simply put a member of staff online travelling between cities who could ban people instantly they caught it would soon put a stop to it, if these spammers get banned quickly enough before they get a chance to sell much or anything they'd lose money as each account costs. SE should also ban anyone who gets caught buying gold from these people too and make an announcement stating that there will be a zero tolerance on this issue beforehand, if no-one ever bought gold off these spammers there wouldn't be any point in spamming FF XIV ARR any more, so in many ways the buyers are just as bad and they're also cheating which is unbalancing the game economy while giving them an unfair advantage over honest players. Obviously people who are banned should be-able to appeal and report cases where they've been hacked. SE should investigate and reinstate any innocent victims quickly after their account has been secured properly. I'm sure SE have methods to distinguish between hacked accounts and the actual gold seller accounts themselves. To ensure you don't become a gold seller hacked victim ensure you use a very secure password that you don't use for any other online service that is preferably a random combination of letters, numbers and special characters, plus ensure you keep your antivirus software up to date along with anti-keylogger software if possible (some good anti-virus software has this included).

The bottom line is SE need to act now, yet they haven't even made any announcements what-so-ever about the terrible gold spammer problem which is worrying as they seem to have their heads buried in sand at the moment and it's just not good enough. Also I've never ever seen an SE member of staff ever reply to any player started forum post, let alone regarding gold spamming, WHERE ARE THEY? WOULD A SE MEMBER OF STAFF LIKE TO REPLY TO THIS POST OR A MODERATOR? Do any staff ever read any of these forums, if so then please REPLY TO THIS to prove it? (this is a good test - if staff never read the forums then we're simply wasting our time trying to petition them here about anything!)

[Matrinka]

What annoys me is that on the PS3, it takes forever just to load the "report cheating" message window. By the time I can get it loaded, the message is gone. I actually have to write down names and messages on a separate sheet of paper (or on my laptop) because it takes a good 3-4 minutes to get the report window working. /blist "Name" or /blist <name> doesn't actually blacklist the spammers. It loads a separate blacklist window, that can also be slow to respond. Its to the point where I dread having to go into the cities.

[meatwagon199]

/signed

Why even talk in zone chat?

[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.

[JPPILIP]

Here is my best solution I can think of maybe if they would just hire people to play the game. In game GMs have worked wonders in the past by banning griefers and finding buggs. This would be the best possible solution maybe get some ppl who play the game to do it and you can compensate them with free playtime. I know I would volunteer in a quick second.

[Bloodwillow]

Wanna get rid of gil sellers?

Add an in-game item that grants the redeemer a month of paid subscription that can be purchased directly from Square-Enix with real money and either used to pay for a month's subscription or sold to other players for gil. Square-Enix still gets paid their monthly fees and players with disposable in-game incomes get to save a little extra money each month, meanwhile the players who would be interested in spending real money for gil end up sending their money to the creators of the game instead of shady characters who'd just as soon turn around and rob you blind.

This in-game item should only be allowed to be sold to other players via the market. No direct trades. This should prevent scamming.

This is what EverQuest did, and I am not joking when I say there are ZERO PLAT SELLERS. Why should there be when you can use loyalty token to get 16k plat with one item? Even EverQuest2 has things called Krono usable not only for game time, but you can put them up on the Auction House for other players to buy with their Plat. More coin in the market without flooding it.

Great idea.

[Bloodwillow]

What annoys me is that on the PS3, it takes forever just to load the "report cheating" message window. By the time I can get it loaded, the message is gone. I actually have to write down names and messages on a separate sheet of paper (or on my laptop) because it takes a good 3-4 minutes to get the report window working. /blist "Name" or /blist <name> doesn't actually blacklist the spammers. It loads a separate blacklist window, that can also be slow to respond. Its to the point where I dread having to go into the cities.

This. Even on the pc and what a dev/mod said, the /blist <name> does NOT automatically blacklist the person. It brings up the window but that's it. Still have to manually put them in. So unless I am totally missing something, it's kinda fail.