RMT Advertisers are ruining the game for me and many others.

[Ashkendor]

3 - I have had so many RMT Advertisers that I have had to clear my Blacklist once a week.

That seems odd, since Jenova isn't a very high population world. Maybe it's just easier for them to make characters there since character creation is never restricted. I only have to take names off mine every 3-4 weeks or so.

I'd like an easier way to report RMT, but the flip side is it also makes it easier for people to make frivolous reports against people that they don't like (or just want to mess with for one reason or another), leading to more crap for the GM's to sort through. Honestly, we're lucky we even have an in-game support desk - many games require you to send tickets through their website instead. Getting rid of free trials would basically be shooting themselves in the foot as far as getting new players into the game. Not to mention that it doesn't really seem like trial accounts are a huge culprit; I frequently see people with bot names at level 50. There are mass bannings from time to time, but it unfortunately only does so much. Gil sellers are pretty tenacious when there's profit to be had. No matter what they do to combat RMT, ultimately the only way to get rid of it entirely is for people to stop buying gil.

Do I like RMT? No. Do I let it ruin the game for me? No. I blacklist and move on with my day.

[Thyranne]

Yeah, I already stopped blacklisting them. Not worth the effort. I receive like 20-30 whispers per day.

[Rizon]

There was a major spike in RMT Spam when the Gold Saucer went live. Hate to see what it is going to be like when the expansion launches. While SE touts the amount of accounts that have been banned I think it is more of a case of a lull in RMT activity then anything SE is currently doing. The only way they can slow the spam down is to have a GM on each server 24/7 whose sole purpose is to watch for spam and immediately ban the sender. (And don't tell me they cannot read your whispers.) May be cost prohibitive in their eyes.

[Quesse]

I receive tell after tell with the same spam content. I wonder: how hard would it be for SE to filter/ban these people?

Too hard, apparently.

[Aerowaffle]

That seems odd, since Jenova isn't a very high population world. Maybe it's just easier for them to make characters there since character creation is never restricted. I only have to take names off mine every 3-4 weeks or so.

I'd like an easier way to report RMT, but the flip side is it also makes it easier for people to make frivolous reports against people that they don't like (or just want to mess with for one reason or another), leading to more crap for the GM's to sort through. Honestly, we're lucky we even have an in-game support desk - many games require you to send tickets through their website instead. Getting rid of free trials would basically be shooting themselves in the foot as far as getting new players into the game. Not to mention that it doesn't really seem like trial accounts are a huge culprit; I frequently see people with bot names at level 50. There are mass bannings from time to time, but it unfortunately only does so much. Gil sellers are pretty tenacious when there's profit to be had. No matter what they do to combat RMT, ultimately the only way to get rid of it entirely is for people to stop buying gil.

Do I like RMT? No. Do I let it ruin the game for me? No. I blacklist and move on with my day.

I can also attest that Jenova has a lot of Gil tells sent. And trial accounts cannot send tells nor can they send friend invites, so that's definitely not the problem.

It's gotten to the point that I don't bother to blacklist them, I just have my tells go to a separate tab and turned off the tell notification sound. I used to report them, but it was taking far too much of my time for something that was essentially community service.

SE needs to make sure that they hit the gil buyers and the gil generators fast. If less people are buying, and/or less bots are gathering gil, there would be less to advertise.

[Ashkendor]

I receive tell after tell with the same spam content. I wonder: how hard would it be for SE to filter/ban these people?

Too hard, apparently.

Every time they add things to the filter, the people running the bots just change the messages. There's a reason they have a bunch of random-ass characters in them, numbers replacing parts of the url, etc.

I can also attest that Jenova has a lot of Gil tells sent. And trail accounts cannot send tells nor can they send friend invites, so that's definitely not the problem.

Interesting. Again, I wonder if it's because the lower population makes it easier to make characters.

I'd forgotten trial accounts can't send tells, actually.

[mdha02]

Here is my solution. Why not make it so we have the ability to turn on a filter that lets us only receive /tells from people on our friend list.

[Amenian]

That seems odd, since Jenova isn't a very high population world. Maybe it's just easier for them to make characters there since character creation is never restricted. I only have to take names off mine every 3-4 weeks or so.

That is exactly why they get more tells. Faerie has the same problem. Creation locks prevent them from rolling on places like Balmung, so they get far less spam than the rest of us.

[Interstella]

1 - We need The Ability to remove /Tells from the Chat log. Not all of them mind you, just the ones that are from bad people. (IE RMT Advertisers, etc.). I would Highly Recommend this feature automatically happening with People who you blacklist, for ease of user use. (Probably the Best Short Term Idea)

I agree with much of what you have suggested:

- The chat log of the blacklisted player should be completely cleared, not from records, but from your screen.

In an ideal world, I'd want the entire account blacklisted.

- Blacklisting should be made easier. However, if the above was implemented, it should require some sort of reporting system.

- I do not understand why these lists have to have a limit...

I don't know if RMT is mainly in NA/EU, but I have been very lucky here on Gungnir and have not experienced any RMT, we do get bots though.

[Bishop81]

Every time they add things to the filter, the people running the bots just change the messages. There's a reason they have a bunch of random-ass characters in them, numbers replacing parts of the url, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naive_Bayes_spam_filtering

Works for services like Gmail.