How to eliminate Real money gil sale spammers

[therpgfanatic]

1. Adding someone to your friend list doesn't let you talk to them automatically. Guess how you still have to communicate? In /tell. Unless you have a linkshell, but of course, WHO at low level will have a linkpearl?

Re-read what I originally posted. I specifically said that if a pre-lv15 character on new account was friends with another character, the new player would be able to PM that friend.

The restriction is specifically to stop bots, not legit players. Legit players can add others to friend lists in order to PM.

2. You cannot be in party to advance certain parts of the storyline. Great idea.

Dude. There are no story battles that allow you to be in a party. You have to do them solo.

[whoopeeragon]

Dude. There are no story battles that allow you to be in a party. You have to do them solo.

Exactly why your idea of 'just form a party!' fails on that account? o.O Are you for or against, I don't know anymore. Maybe you should take your own advice and reread.

[DMooseJ]

Exactly why your idea of 'just form a party!' fails on that account? o.O Are you for or against, I don't know anymore. Maybe you should take your own advice and reread.

Well that's why he had two ideas, so if one didn't work you could use the other one.

I think it's a reasonable idea but won't stop all the spamming, I think restrictions on tells (consider RMT sends them out in mass it should be pretty easy to limit someone's tells per minute or somesuch to the point where it never will effect a legitimate player) is necessary in addition.

I also agree somewhat with our xenophobic anti-Western buddy up there just a tiny bit in that some people don't just race to 15, so I think the level limit should be 10 as that's when you can switch classes and that's where most people will start getting distracted. If you're not level 10 and not working or trying to be level ten I don't know what else you could be doing in this game.

[therpgfanatic]

Exactly why your idea of 'just form a party!' fails on that account? o.O Are you for or against, I don't know anymore. Maybe you should take your own advice and reread.

Actually I don't need to re-read anything. I'm not the one arguing it would inconvenience new players; I'm very sure my suggestions would have little to no impact on legit players, but do a lot to diminish the bot spamming everyone is subjected to.

You're the one that has to prove it would somehow hurt the pre-lv 15 gameplay experience, not me.

2) Keep your own play style to yourself. Some people actually try to make friends from low level and would actually want to know the person a bit more before adding them to flist.

First off, don't quote Wikipedia in a debate, it's not a reliable source. "Westerners" is nothing but a derogatory term used by people ignorant about geography and other cultures.

Secondly, my suggestion doesn't have any impact on people able to use the local chat to talk to someone in their immediate area. It doesn't stop them from using party chat either.

There is absolutely, positively no legit reason for a pre level 15 character to need to send a PM to anyone not willing to first add them to a friend list.

None, zilch, notta.

The early quests tell the new player everything they need. There's nothing a pre-lv 15 character needs from another player, at all.

And you're not a new player, so this change would have no impact on you anyway. Maybe you're a gold farming spammer and that is the real reason you're so adamantly opposed?

There's already bots out there that runs FATES, you can even try to youtube some of these.

Unless you spend all day monitoring the bots, you have no idea how long the botted accounts last until they are banned.

From what I have seen in-game and read on various forums, a lot of these accounts are low lv and try to harvest low lv items to sell before the whole account is banned. Gil is so hard to make in this game that a lot of the RMT gil comes from people who got scammed in power leveling services. All their items get materia converted and the rest sold as vendor trash for whatever tiny bit of gil its worth.

In the quantities the RMT merchants sell gil for and the cheap, cheap price they do it as, hacking other legit players is the only efficient way to do it.

The point isn't to stop RMT sales. It's to dramatically reduce the constant spam legit players receive from lv1 bots trying to sell us gil we don't want, or offering to hack our accounts for $15. The only accounts they'd be able to efficiently use are the accounts they got by scamming power leveling services, but when they can't make an army of lv1 characters the number of people getting scammed will be reduced, too.

[Arkista]

You're the one that has to prove it would somehow hurt the pre-lv 15 gameplay experience, not me.

Yes level 15 shouldn't be to big of a deal to get to But.....

Let's say I go to GameStop, Pickup a copy of FFXIV. I get on, I don't know anyone who plays. With your restrictions in place. If I got lost, Died, or couldn't find out how to progress I wouldn't be able to get help. Unless someone ran over my dead body, Or I would have to run around a zone trying to find people just so I could talk to them in /s.

I have had a few people in my FC who played around on different classes just to see which they liked. So what if I started off as a LNC and I don't like it, I want to play a MRD or GLD. So I have to ask which town to unlock them and how to get there. What if I get lost on the way to Limsa or Ul'Dah. I have to hope someone is near me just so I can seek assistance, What if I'm one zone away from Limsa entrance and I die, I can't /shout to get a raise. So then I will have to run all the way back from my Home Point (unless they know how to set a new one).


In short what the OP suggest will never happen. Could you imagine if what he suggested was in place, How many new players would get upset because they would be unable to chat outside of /s. Pretty sure a lot of them would just quit.

RMT's will find a way. They'll just work harder at hacking players.

[Hanabira]

Yes level 15 shouldn't be to big of a deal to get to But.....

Let's say I go to GameStop, Pickup a copy of FFXIV. I get on, I don't know anyone who plays. With your restrictions in place. If I got lost, Died, or couldn't find out how to progress I wouldn't be able to get help. Unless someone ran over my dead body, Or I would have to run around a zone trying to find people just so I could talk to them in /s

If this happens to someone in this game with the giant maps with the markers and the giant arrows that point you in the direction of everything you need to do. If this situation EVER happens to someone (especially before 15) they have bigger issues they need to tend to.

[Arkista]

If this happens to someone in this game with the giant maps with the markers and the giant arrows that point you in the direction of everything you need to do. If this situation EVER happens to someone (especially before 15) they have bigger issues they need to tend to.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't each zones map darkened out until you explore? Pretty sure it is cause you get EXP for mapping zones. So yes a new player could get lost and further down in that post I gave an example.

[Hanabira]

sure, but the directions given to you in quest clearly state which area you need to go to, plus what direction you need to travel, PLUS the minimap icon still points in the direction you need to go. ive never once seen anyone shout for help on a quest. The only thing people would need help for is finding their hunting log marks.

[Hanabira]

hopefully soon everyone without a one time password gets their account stolen so the rest of us wont have to deal with them having their accounts turned into spam bots. Seriously people, its free on your cell phone.