Motivate Square Enix to deal with bots & spammers ?

[normalforce]

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.

[Geldt]

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.

[Xceriis]

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)

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?

[Bruiser_Cruiser]

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.

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

[Rizon]

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?

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?

[DeceptionsWrath]

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.

[Tahldon]

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.

[Phogg]

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.

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.

[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?

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...

[Twoswords]

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.

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.