whats up with the rmt all the sudden?

[Chiramu]

One thing to think about, RMT won't exist if people never use the service. There is no RMT spam on Tonberry and I assume the other JP servers are similar. Is NA servers getting so much RMT spam because NA players buy so much gil?

[joshsecret]

You mean like this?

exactly.
i cannot see why it is so hard for SE to spot these guys.
Protip Devs.. do a player search.
search 50, BLM ONLY.
and look! its not difficult to spot them!
and thats only the ones that have gotten to 50 and use this BLM RMT thingy program.

if you see a bunch of BLMs in a party together, queuing up together over and over, normally with ridiculous names, all wearing the same equipment....
i have noticed them getting clever and getting up a rank in crafting to throw people off.

[joshsecret]

One thing to think about, RMT won't exist if people never use the service.

this^

people complain so much about /tells but they are superficial.
SE has done a great job at curbing /tells but its the bots that matter and the people who buy the gil.
RMT adverts arent going to sway someone to buy gil unless they are already inclined to.
im not going to see the 10000th tell and say, "hey, you know what, you win. ill buy your gil".
no, all they are doing is competing with one another in the hopes of contacting unscrupulous customers and securing business.
if reporting bots was more streamlined and we had confidence something would be done, more people would put in the time to
report. but sadly, when it takes forever to fill out that form and you still see the same ones for days, weeks, months, it makes you just want to give up on the whole thing.

[Bixby]

One thing to think about, RMT won't exist if people never use the service. There is no RMT spam on Tonberry and I assume the other JP servers are similar. Is NA servers getting so much RMT spam because NA players buy so much gil?

Most of the RMT companies are NA or EU, and they operate on multiple games, most of which are English language games. Which means the people writing the scripts and the spam mostly speak English, maybe a European language or two. Japanese servers don't get spam because it doesn't make financial sense to hire someone who can write spam in Japanese and keep up with filters for the tiny bit of the market it would impact.

That and the amount/kind of advertisement doesn't say all that much about the size of a market. Plenty of businesses you'll never hear advertised on the radio, but that doesn't mean they're not doing well.

[Asphe]

I don't know if player reports are useful.

<wall of text>

Just for fun, I logged on to Sargatanas (NA) around noon PST. I received about two RMT /tells in a 30 minute period more or less.

Anyway folks, next time you get a RMT /tell, do a Lodestone search. You might notice two things.

i) search will show multiple characters (all level 1s) on multiple servers with identical names
Example: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...acter/8715174/ (This doesn't mean all characters with the same name are RMTs just because one of them sends RMT /tells)

ii) oftentimes, all characters on the same server will belong to the same FC
Example tied to i) http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...9236109533823/

Note the date of creation, 'average' level of FC members... and so on. At first I thought the level 35's name was picked by a RMT scamming company to duplicate but just do more searches (I was waiting for FATEs to pop) on the FC members...

[Asphe]

Best way to rid oneself of RMT spam. Move to a JP datacenter server. I get more RMT spam on Sargatanas/Balmung in a 5 minute period than I do on Aegis/Masamune... in a YEAR. What's going on? Did SE hire Yakuza hackers to patrol the JP servers? Fighting Firaga with Firaga?

Meanwhile.... scores of level 1 players running around... for months. Apparent RMT FCs created a year ago... Just look at the gear... Legacy accounts, 72 in that example I found today (want to see an almost full FC of RMT on Levi? )... let's not forget that there are level 50 (hacked? sold? bored RMT?) RMTs... and the best NM hunters in FFXI were/are RMTs too.

And.. oh, FATE popped, cya meows.

[Tupsi]

exactly.
i cannot see why it is so hard for SE to spot these guys..

Because you can have a group of people do the same thing that aren't RMT or Bots. What then? Start banning people at random because they "look" like RMT/Bots? It's not that simple because you're thinking on the "this affects my game play" whereas SE has to think of "how will this look if we start banning people at random and it hits the media?"

[LavenderMilk]

Cactuar was particularly bad last night. They were all coming from Ul'dah. They were spamming me with friend requests so fast I couldn't blacklist them. I would deny their request, and whilst clicking the button to blist, the same request would pop up again. Everyone in my FC had the same problem. And the names weren't random letters either... They've started using actual names with one or two letters attached at the end.

Has anyone else seen RMT /shouting as well? There was one in Limsa two nights ago.

[Kiara1]

Whats the point of adding a friend request?
Its not like im gonna buy gil cause you make me a friend

[Bixby]

They were spamming me with friend requests so fast I couldn't blacklist them.

As long as they send a tell and a friend request at the same time, it's time to go back to the old ways:

/flist deny <r>
/blist add <r>

Whats the point of adding a friend request?
Its not like im gonna buy gil cause you make me a friend

The game doesn't let you blacklist them until you deal with the friend list request.