Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

[Jamein]

Honestly, I do feel for everyone who has this, I get like 2 maybe 3 a week on Pheonix.

However the threads on the forums are becoming just as frequent, and whats strange it's like you all think SE is completely oblivious to the RMT problems. I get it, they are keeping silent and it's annoying as hell, but they won't make any announcements on it until they actually have a workable solution.

I'm also against the whole no /tells from people unless they are on your friends list. As I said, the RMT isnt an issue on my server so it's not something I would want to use, or for other people on the server to use if i wanted to contact them. I realise that sounds selfish but I would prefer an alternative solution.

Not that I have a better one :P

[Elusana_Celah]

:P

Them choosing to keep silent about it is more frustrating to us than the gil seller tells. It tells us that SE likely doesn't consider this a big deal... probably because the JA servers don't have gil seller issues. It's just these NA gamers and their desire for instant gratification buying all the gil and pulling in gil sellers. So now SE is faced with a decision of whether or not to care about a NA-specific problem.

[MrPliskin0]

I'm from Zalera, and we're getting hammered; quite badly by RMT.

Either we live with it, or we deal with it; though the latter part would require something on SE's side. The idea I have is to give players a better way to report RMT spam, within the log window, select their name, highlight RMT > then select what it is, this little report would auto send the world, area, time, date, user names, and even the text to a GM or a system which tracks ALL RMT activities.

I've been speaking with a lot of people, and SE REALLY needs to listen on this part, because they are thinking about quitting the game outright due to this rubbish.

The other solution is to allow our block lists to grow to whatever size is needed, and as users block more and more, auto add RMT to EVERYONES listings.

Nate.

[Zabuza]

I'm from Zalera, and we're getting hammered; quite badly by RMT.

Either we live with it, or we deal with it; though the latter part would require something on SE's side. The idea I have is to give players a better way to report RMT spam, within the log window, select their name, highlight RMT > then select what it is, this little report would auto send the world, area, time, date, user names, and even the text to a GM or a system which tracks ALL RMT activities.

I've been speaking with a lot of people, and SE REALLY needs to listen on this part, because they are thinking about quitting the game outright due to this rubbish.

The other solution is to allow our block lists to grow to whatever size is needed, and as users block more and more, auto add RMT to EVERYONES listings.

Nate.

The bolded is exactly what I am afraid of. This is why I beg SE to do something before it's too late. And yeah, you're a fellow Zalerian so you know all too well this 1 tell a minute thing I speak of is no lie. It's absolutely intolerable here to the point of where, as you said, people are thinking of quitting completely.

I know right, if there is no demand maybe they wont advertise so much. I know SE have to do something but most suggestion just make more restrictions to actual players so is not an easy fight. But I think that at the end of the day is player fault for buying gil that the RMT are so aggresive.

These measures are called for because banning the RMTs accounts is not working at all. Even if you were to IP ban them, it's so easy to change your IP, I can do it in less than 5 minutes. And as they have proven, account bans don't hinder them in the least either. Certainly, the players are partly to blame for creating this problem, as the RMTs wouldn't be advertising with such ferocity if they didn't have good business. However, SE also shares the blame for taking lackluster measures against this plague of RMTs. I do believe they should start banning gilbuyers in order to discourage buying gil as well. Fact is, the QoL for the players on my server has already been reduced. We've been cornered behind our /busy wall to avoid the bombardment of /tells from RMTs. We cannot send or receive /tells. If we should so choose to not put /busy on, we can look forward to 1 /tell every minute on top of friends requests. Our /tell system has already been pretty much shut down.

[Maxipep]

The silence from any SE representative is deafening.

[MagicalPony]

Its completely ridiculous that SE thinks they can get new players to start with this ridiculous amount of spam being subjected to all its players. You cant even make it through the opening cutscene without a barrage of tells.

[Zabuza]

Its completely ridiculous that SE thinks they can get new players to start with this ridiculous amount of spam being subjected to all its players. You cant even make it through the opening cutscene without a barrage of tells.

Agreed, I wish they would at least say hey, we're going to do something about this. But the way they are handling this is just...poor is being modest. I wonder if they realize how many new players they'll lose if they don't fix this by Heavensward. Especially when the market is saturated with other MMOs and other games for that matter, it really doesn't take much to turn off a new player to the game.

[LandricFrey]

Agreed, I wish they would at least say hey, we're going to do something about this. But the way they are handling this is just...poor is being modest. I wonder if they realize how many new players they'll lose if they don't fix this by Heavensward. Especially when the market is saturated with other MMOs and other games for that matter, it really doesn't take much to turn off a new player to the game.

Exactly. What is the all important first impression new players get when they see all of that spam? "Wow, there are lots of cheaters in this game. I'm going to try another MMO."

[Marisela]

After you get a good amount of Signature, I suggest you print this out and send it to Yoshida himself. I remember one time he actually read the letter and even write back.

I agree that RMT is getting out of hand, some server have it worst then other. Now they even doing friend request too beside spamming and whisper every minutes. RMT seam to be on the rise, not lessen.

[Saseal]

/signed - Saseal Korei (Couerl)


At the risk of babbling... some of my thoughts.

I've already supported the idea of being able to filter out tells from unknowns. I don't get enough legit Tells from strangers for it to be concern of mine. If SE is having some kind of difficulty hard filtering RMT (or just getting rid of it in general) for us as paying customers, they might as well just put in the option to allow us to do it ourselves. I'd hope it to be a more temporary, large fix for the situation until they're ready and able to actually yank the problem out of the game.
Going 'Busy' is just a tiny patch that is not a fix. It's desperation of the players taking matters into their own hands =p

We can see that they're making efforts through their announcements of banned or temp banned, etc on accounts. However, it's painfully obvious that it's just not enough. They make these reports and only once have I ever felt any relief.... for a total of two days. THen it was back in full force - and as of late, WORSE. You can not slap a small bandaid on a stab wound - and the sheer amount of tells is a deep, gushing gash. It will not heal itself and it will only keep overflowing. The huge gaps allowing the RMTs to remain or continue to return needs to be sewn closed.
If something is not working, try the next method of fix - not just keep replacing dainty bandaids (banned accounts, going busy).

SE will only shoot themselves in the foot by not trying to stop the bleeding. Slapping some bans is a temporary after temporary fix - it's not a discouragement for the offenders - only a minor setback.
At this point, when Heavensward comes out, it will have the hype to draw new players who either bought the game or using the Free Trial. The Free Trial itself should be a money maker source. Impress the new players so they will not let go. But with the RMT, that's not going to be the case. New players won't have anything holding them there and no reason to be loyal. They'll play for a few days, get tired of the RMT spam and not return to actually pay a subscription to continue. Nothing is holding them there. Many of us are still there because of friends, FC, time and money put into the game, or just in general had time to experience the game in it's ups and downs. New players have none of that to keep them there. SE should be making them hooked, as a company making money off this.
We have a few new peeps that are friends of friends - that recommended the game - in the FC, and thats one of my concerns ---- they'll disappear and stop logging in one day out of frustration of the spam. Probably after the free trial ends.

Even taking the 'New Player' piece out of this, FFXIV can only gain bad reputation for the RMT tells/shouts. People will hear down the grapevine and avoid the game.

I really want this game to succeed and to surpass the current expectations, but we as players can only do so much by ourselves.

We've taken the initiative to set 'Busy' (I see the busy symbol fairly often these days) - and as a result, some places in game are inundated with Shouts of the exact same RMT messages. Why they haven't been banned instantly from the blatant obviousness is beyond me. Soooo, if SE won't do anything to the UI to include filtering, or throw in some other method of catching the tells... if players are forcing the RMT bots to become more obvious in their activities and SE just outright banhammers them quickly, it might make both options (tells and shouts in last resort to reach players) discouraging to attempt.

Maybe a GM (or somesuch) or two should pose as a player on each server.. They'll get all the information they need without players needing to report them. The RMTs will easily flock to the GMs like lemmings. Just let the bots throw themselves onto the spikes.


-----
Also, I've become victim of the Pavlovian conditioning (I kid, but sometimes I wonder). Anything that sounds like or is the Tell chime makes me start swearing.
(I've left it on because Busy absolves me of this problem, but when I know certain people are on that need to send tells, I want to be able to look at the chat box to try to see if they did or not (which circles back to the problem of spam). It would otherwise just get lost in a sea of pink with no separation indication whatsoever.