The state of Hacking and RMT trading.

[Alixe]

both markets are generating $$$, in the billions,

nothing to see here, move along,

the company/markets will NOT do anything major to change this delicate balance,

but they WILL flash lights in your face every now and then, flashing lights yes,

both need each other to survive,

i see no solution in sight, because nothing can change 2 mammoth industries sleeping with each other,

again everything working according to plan, nothing to see here, move along,

please dont hold your breath, you, I, he, are all cows to them, being milked $$$ k ?

[Eztam]

You can't even read messages from other players if you are in a main city. It's just absurd. Is it hard to program anti-spam?? Like every other MMO has measures, why not FF14?

It is actually quite hard to make proper spam filters, not only that but they need to be changed very often. Pay attention to the shouts, youll notice the words or characters change slightly. These slight changes are enough to throw off spam filters

[Soukyuu]

The whole notion of paying for a premium service is a huge slap in the face for paying subs.

While I don't think the current situation is ok, I have to point out that the subs have only started for the legacy population. The rest is still on trial, so it's still essentially f2p for them (except for the game they bought).

Also, I wouldn't say it's worse than a F2P game. I looked at some recently and I see the same spam in almost any of them.

[Saryx]

both markets are generating $$$, in the billions,

nothing to see here, move along,

the company/markets will NOT do anything major to change this delicate balance,

MMO companies have come up with many ways to fight the RMT, including the use of real $ in game controlled by the company (RIFT REX, EQ2 krono). SE bans hundreds of accounts every month in FFXI, so no, there is no "delicate balance" http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/rule/specialtask.html

[Rumpelstiltzkin]

Aren't you happy they decided to make fishing useless to prevent botting?! I am so happy, it really made a difference when it comes to overall cheating and the game is so much better now that they destroyed a gathering profession that was actually fun, right?

Good luck in your endeavour to make SE actually do something that works without ruining the gameplay experience OP, I truly hope you can do it.

[amnie]

I met my first 'playing' bot in Sastasha yesterday. a tank that always ran to the mob spots, waited a few seconds (I guess a programmed time to make sure the players are 'ready') and he ran after all the mobs. whenever he died he did the same. he was the tank, mind you. he always only attacked one mob at a time and you noticed how he turned around every once in a while and tagged us actual players (to check if they are there?)
a few times he did that randomly in fight too and ran to the player who won loot every time. (that one was a little odd)

during the last boss he used the limit break every time it was up. this included using the limit break at the START of the fight. (once I was able to get my THM lb in before he did. no clue how I managed that. lol)

said 'tank' ran around in random level DoW gear and at the end of the dungeon he wrote randomly '???' a few times and used a couple of random emotes on the other players (/wave /bow /grin and so on)

[Alixe]

MMO companies have come up with many ways to fight the RMT, including the use of real $ in game controlled by the company (RIFT REX, EQ2 krono). SE bans hundreds of accounts every month in FFXI, so no, there is no "delicate balance" http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/rule/specialtask.html

deception at its finest...flashing lights......see we ARE doing something ! plz remain calm nothing to see here ... keep subscribing,

-----

the delicate balance will NEVER be broken, we are talking about what leads the world here, cash/$$$ and both industries are enjoying their mutual beneficial relationship,

you think the execs care about you or your quality of gaming ? or the "state" of the server economy ? NO THEY CARE ABOUT $$$,

15+ years and no company has put their pants yet, RMT are here to stay,

[Sylvanoshei]

I lost faith in SE. They have proven themselves to be a dishonorable company. My Char on the JP server (Fenrir) since launch has only had 6 /tells from RMT. No spamming of the chat channels. On the NA/EU server (Balmung), constant flooding of /shout, /tell, /say, and /yell, so bad had to turn them all off. Which really defeats the purpose of an MMO, which is interacting with other players.
Paying for a service and then being harassed constantly, proves SE cares nothing for its customers. Many of my friends and I cancelled our subs and won't be back. So good luck to those of you who choose to stay, I hope SE can turn things around for you.

[Sixmp]

We have passed the threshold of allowable behavior. If you step outside any major city low level gathering is more bot's and hackers then regular players trying to level. Speed hacking lalafel's, and the ever infamous stealthed teleport hackers. They're everywhere now, and in numbers way beyond our own calculations.

You can't enter a city without every allowable chat channel being bombarded with gold spam. You get tells from the same people day after day. You see the same spammers in the city day after day.
The economy is getting worse and worse because of botters and hackers corning the market on all gatherable and farmable items, and undercutting each other it's not profitable for anybody.

I'm losing faith in this game, and losing faith in you as developers. It's getting sickening to me to see more and more hackers and spammers and cheaters day after day not getting taken care of. It's getting pathetic that the only people getting banned are honest crafters trying to make money.
It's time to start putting a handle on this, you're reputation is diminishing more and more each passing day that you allow this to happen. I'm tired of being in the dark on this, it's not helping.

Well look another thread about this. Nice opening MR Churchill, i almost expected you to start with "We shall fight on the beaches." lets take another look at it.

Your opening statement "We have passed the threshold of allowable behavior." Who is this we? i hope i am not included in this we? I am happy with in the knowledge that SE do not need constant badgering by people.
Let us continue.. "If you step outside any major city low level gathering is more bot's and hackers than regular players trying to level".... Have you been on every single server to check this personally? I bet you haven't.
Hmm what's next.. "and in numbers beyond our own calculations" So you could at anytime work out how many RMT there were?
"You get tells from the same people day after day." I haven't seen the same ones day after day.
"It's getting pathetic that the only people getting banned are honest crafters trying to make money." Do you have proof of this? I would like to see sources that prove anybody that was innocent has been banned.

I will agree a little more info would be good BUT telling us anything is telling Them something so um yeah.

SE are working on it. They have much to work on. Funny how people think a company has a never ended supply of people and money to throw at every single complaint all at once.
SE have made efforts to improve the RMT situation, a ma sure you aware that it is probably impossible to get rid of it totally?

Call this whatever you want. I look at these forums day after day and i see the same typed out rubbish lots of guessing and sudden professionals giving their expert opinion about everything under the sun.

InB4 Whiteknight. Which seems to be the latest in ways to follow anything when someone doesn't disagree with someone who expects everything NOW.

[Vagrant-0]

I lost faith in SE. They have proven themselves to be a dishonorable company. My Char on the JP server (Fenrir) since launch has only had 6 /tells from RMT. No spamming of the chat channels. On the NA/EU server (Balmung), constant flooding of /shout, /tell, /say, and /yell, so bad had to turn them all off. Which really defeats the purpose of an MMO, which is interacting with other players.
Paying for a service and then being harassed constantly, proves SE cares nothing for its customers. Many of my friends and I cancelled our subs and won't be back. So good luck to those of you who choose to stay, I hope SE can turn things around for you.

This, among other things are one of the reasons why I decided not to renew my membership at this time.

There are many instances of cheating, botting, or RMT behavior which are plainly visible and could be resolved almost instantly by having a member of staff visit a handful of these areas which have been reported, record names, look at account activity, and kill these behaviors at the source. But... they don't, and probably won't just because they don't seem to care about the actual damage these things are doing to to ruin player experiences or render the accomplishments of players moot. You know that whole part about being able to buy houses and such... Yeah, the RMT people will probably have the money to buy most of those limited lots and hold them ransom to the highest bidder.