Gold spammers - IT'S TIME TO FIX THEM

[Jamyl_Sarum]

only the players care about gil sellers and the harassment they bring. there has been spam all day in /shout and nobody cares except the players. if it really bothers you, unsub. that's what i did and when i told them why i got the exact same form letter i have always received. they really don't care.

but in the spirit of this thread, my suggestion for a solution is to ban anyone advertising rmt or rmt websites. start with a 1 week ban, then a month, then buy the game again because your account is done. even if they don't have logs it isn't hard to collect the info and they really should have logs. even though it should be doable, i wouldn't automate the process because banning is serious and it should always have live eyes on the individual situation. basically it would be something like a handful of people and a supervisor. after the first couple of months the wages should be cost neutral or even generate a little revenue in the form of new account sales.

doing this would stop what is happening at the present. the sellers will then change tactics and then the whole change/adapt cycle will begin. employ more people, make a little more revenue, keep the playerbase happy, and make the sellers actually work for their money. it's a good thing.

if they cared, they would do something. but they don't, so they won't.

another thing that bugs me. gil sellers aren't stupid. they are in business and make pretty serious money and have real expenses. when i am averaging a tell every 2-3 minutes they must know how annoying that is. so annoying that even if i was a buyer, i wouldn't use any of the annoying guys just out of spite. so they have buyers who will buy even if there wasn't spam and they have the rest of the playerbase that are getting annoyed, some to the point of unsubbing. i think the sellers are doing it in the most intrusive, harassing, and annoying way on purpose and it has nothing to do with sales. which should concern se but for some reason they just don't care.

oh, and don't get me wrong here. i'm not talking about the devs not giving a hoot. i love the devs. they do a great job. they've put out a world class mmo worthy of the ff name. aar anyways, the first one was... lets not talk about the first iteration.

[Dyandi]

Question about coding, since I'm not a programmer--I have seen on other threads a demand that the blacklist be a one-click report that would also 'ban' the spammers entire account as far as the player is concerned, making it impossible for that account to ever spam that player again no matter how many 'new' character are made on it.

Is this possible? If so, is it difficult? Because it seems like that would go a long way towards solving the issue, as whole accounts--not just characters--would be rendered useless by a single click.

[Clicee]

I believe that its easier to be a RMT seller these days, because the RMT report system is broken, becasue the Support icon keep flashing, its so annoying that I feel tempted not to report any RMT..

[KisaiTenshi]

Question about coding, since I'm not a programmer--I have seen on other threads a demand that the blacklist be a one-click report that would also 'ban' the spammers entire account as far as the player is concerned, making it impossible for that account to ever spam that player again no matter how many 'new' character are made on it.

Is this possible? If so, is it difficult? Because it seems like that would go a long way towards solving the issue, as whole accounts--not just characters--would be rendered useless by a single click.

There's no technical reason for it to not be possible. Other games have the mechanic.

There are resource requirements that might make it impractical. Remember that any weapon can be used on good guys and bad guys. If players start reporting everyone that they disagree with, or if there are rewards for reporting, people start intentionally making abusive accounts. Look no further than Twitter to see how effective reporting is when you can make hundreds of new accounts per day.

However even in those other games, when GM's are able to get on top of spam, the problem still goes back to security. Those characters you see spamming? Those are almost always stolen accounts. So they can't just delete every account that sends spam.

[Kyouki]

I cant tell you how p**sed and frustrated i am because of the damn RMT's... On Goblin they spam extremely aggressive. I block 20-50 RMT's a day... I have to unblock them after a few days have passed just to make room for the next names.

I played through a lot of MMO's and i never had this experience before. Almost all MMO's give permission to send /tell's at lvl 10. Or the MMO's allows addons that simply let you check every incoming chat and let you set filter words. Hell even in FFXI we got rid of the tells at one point... Why not here in FFXIV?

For the past week i have been /busy all day long and i wasnt able to talk to my friends... You say i should make LS's? I already did that but do i want everyone on my friendlist to read what i have to say to a special person? No i dont. I want privacy and i wanna be able to talk to my friends. And i wanna be able to see the ready check and get invited to a party without having to change my status to online.

You say new players wouldnt get any help if SE would set the /tell function to lvl 10? Do you think they will get help if we are all on /busy?

[elisis]

Going the wrong way. Remember, there's only spambots because there's demand for buying gil.
Start banning buyers, let the word spread, and people should think twice before attempting it. Who would want to lose their characters (along with their money) ?
That, and also dealing with sellers. I too have the impression that nothing is being done at all. I posted some more ideas in another thread, you might want to have a look:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...RMT-Some-Ideas

[Mjollnir]

Right-click 'Block and Report' option on the name. These reports are tallied on the servers over all characters on the account. Once an account 50 (or whatever) reports, the account is muted - unable to shout, yell, say, tell or send friend requests. A muted player can raise a ticket to a GM who can then refer the character for investigation to the STFU. It doesn't prevent them from playing.

Requires very little infrastructure and most if not all RMT wouldn't bother raising a ticket. Can also be used to penalise abusive players.

The warning must exist that any players found abusing the system would face penalty, so if players unjustly reported other players, after the investigation they would face suspension.

[Kyouki]

Right now there are ~34 lvl1 RMT online on Goblin and i just catched 14 tells in less than 20 minutes, forcing me to go /busy again... Being /busy makes this game a single player game cause i cant stay in contact with my friends and i cant stay in contact with ppl i could make money with for offering my crafts...

Yes i preordered Heavensward but i gotta say that i already thought of quitting the game cause i wanna communicate with ppl in an MMO. I have payed SE for 11 years and 2 accounts and it looks like they dont really care about their costumers.

[MiniTofu]

Regex chat filtering, period.

[Wulfyn]

How about players report those they may know or know of buying gil? If no one bought gil then there wouldn't be a reason for RMT to be here. While we are at it report players that are supposedly selling gil or accounts. Don't pay for carries or ponies. Don't support FC's that prey upon other players. We all are frustrated and can get mad at SE for it, but in the end it is the players buying or selling gil that are the root of it all.