How to eliminate Real money gil sale spammers

[Eekiki]

We are not saying instant account ban but just ban them from using /tell, /whisper, /shout, /say until you investigate.

Right, because there's no way that would be abused by griefers.

[therpgfanatic]

In a general sense, we would like to avoid restricting the ability for new players to communicate with others, so we don't currently have any plans to make changes along the suggested lines. However, we will continue to evolve as we take measures against RMT and in-game spam, and likewise continue to ask for your help in reporting these violations.

Let's look at this realistically to see why your solution is no solution at all.

Problem: Players are being harassed by spam bots. The bot will spam the player with messages every 30 seconds unless the player black lists the bot. Player must drop whatever they are doing, even fighting, to report the bot.


I have been spammed even inside dungeons like Coil. It's everywhere, not just towns.

Even as I type this message, I've seen THREE bot spam messages.

And after black listing, a new bot springs up within 5 minutes, who must also be black listed.

Every single one of them has nonsense names; gibberish made by a bot.

The most effective way to report characters is to look them up on lodestone and use the website report.

If I was to report every account that spammed me, I would have no time to actually play the game.

The whole problem is the bots interrupt gameplay. I can't see what is happening in chat with them spamming me.

Your solution interrupts gameplay even more. I have to actually go to the Lodestone and type up a report


You need to decide what is more important; new players needing to add people to a friend list before they can PM other players, or the paying players to be constantly harassed in-game by bots enticing them with offers to steal their accounts.

In my opinion....

New player needing to add someone to a friend list before they can send a PM: Irritation level 3.

Every player getting spammed by bots constantly: Irritation level 100.

No matter how many reports we file, the hackings and in-game spam will continue until YOU stop it by closing their #1 advertisement channel; PMs.

The problem is there is too much freedom to message other players. You will HAVE to reduce some of that freedom in order to address the problem. There is no way around it. And the only way you can prove to me you care about the ingame spamming and hacking of accounts is by doing something to stop it in the first place.

Besides. There is no way a manual process like players reporting the bots can compete with the automatic process the spammers use to make new characters and send out the spam messages. You need to change the scenario so the bots don't have the advantages anymore.

If you are seriously at war with the RMT sites, you need to understand you cannot win a war by making no sacrifices.

Honestly, what does new players need to PM random people for anyone? Party Finder might be the only thing, and even that is a stretch given new players have no need for PF groups.

[Arkista]

I bet when Yoshi P gets a RMT tell they get the Ban Hammer ASAP.


The other day I played most of the day (1st time in forever) I only had two RMTs sending me tells. I didn't delete them.... I spammed them. Hopefully I wont get reported lol. I don't know if its my server or the times I play or the order of how they pick players names to send tells to, but I get 2-4 RMT tells a week.

One thing they could do is ban the accounts faster. I still have like 5 Goldceo dijgf or w/e on blacklist along with about 50 others and they have been on there for months.

snip.

When people stop buying Gil, That's when you will stop getting tells inside dungeons. ^^

[ReplicaX]

I have been spammed even inside dungeons like Coil. It's everywhere, not just towns.

Can you please explain this further?

The system is designed to not allow /tells inside instances.

[therpgfanatic]

Can you please explain this further?

The system is designed to not allow /tells inside instances.

I don't know. It happened last night while I was in the loading area for T4. I don't think it is instanced.

[Lithera]

He probably got a spam tell while in the "between Turns" lobby area which is technically part of La Noscea NOT part of the dungeon. As far as I know they moved the filter system they were using on FFXI to FFXIV so Im not sure why these tells are happening so much. As soon as they implemented the filter system in FFXI the RMT tell spam slowed down IMMENSELY. Perhaps the FFXIV filters aren't as tight right now I don't know. I wouldn't mind if the RMT Team did another post for FFXIV like they did for FFXI where they explained all the tools they use. If you can find that article on POL it's actually pretty interesting and one of the tool is more or less what a previous poster described about flagging large gil transactions.

[Karnyboy]

Here's how you get rid of it (or at least limit it)

1. Allow whispers (/tells) only from players in a "whisper distance" (limited to a zone size like a town or so)
2. Have an option to only receive /tells (whispers) from people in your friends list additionally.


Basically put, I don't want you to whisper me something you can't ask me out loud, it makes no sense, if I don't want to talk to you THEN I have the option to tell you politely or if you persist in an unfriendly manner to blacklist you on a list made up of people I actually don't want to talk to rather than a list of 250 people who have tried to sell me Gil.

[TyloRime]

However, we will continue to evolve as we take measures against RMT and in-game spam, and likewise continue to ask for your help in reporting these violations.

I, like others in this thread, have simply given up on reporting these violations. I know that I *should* but in all actuality, it takes far too much time away from my playing, if I were to report each and every one of these violations I experience. The fact remains that SE has not done enough/all they can, to alleviate the burden from the players - and that, quite frankly, is both discouraging and frustrating. I shouldn't have to keep spending my time writing reports, deleting ppl from my blacklist, only to free up room to blacklist other people. It may only be a mild annoyance at times, but the fact that the issue persists, so rampantly, this far from launch, speaks volumes.

[Jeraldi]

well there are 2 problems 1) ffxi is a much older game with an outdated chat system, what you can do in chat there is more limited 2) they explained the tools they used. so with the new chat system and information on the tools it is easy to find what will and will not be filtered. Would I like a little more information as to what they are doing about the rmt spam yes, however the more info they release the less effective those methods become. I read the special task force reports on ffxi while I was still playing (before the level cap increase to 99) and they were very detailed, enough so that someone with enough knowledge could find ways to bypass most of their filters, have the farmers avoid bans long enough to gather gill etc.

[Gesser]

Restrict duplicate posting(s)

Spam filter (temp. chat-suspension for gross misuse)

Automate the suspension/ban system for repeat offenders