RMT, ICANN and XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION

[Kosmos992k]

Let's say that a country makes it illegal for men to show their bare chest, even in a virtual world. I'm assuming you'd be perfectly ok with being put into jail for wanting to be a topless Roegadyn? Just because we don't like something, doesn't mean that we should go around making things illegal. Heck, I'd make it illegal for people to play Hyur because they're so boring.

You'd be surprised what is illegal or legal in other countries, that is why we have international agreements on law enforcement to ensure that situations like you describe do not come to pass.

Ah well, I guess you'd rather nothing be done, I shall never understand people content to sit on their hands when something needs to be done.

[Gilraen]

I think you're the one missing the point here, Kosmos. We in the Western world value our freedoms, all of them. Among the most fiercely protected of which is the internet. People've gone to some incredible lengths to keep the internet free of our mundane laws. And before you start bringing up the various hinky things that people have done online that wound up getting them incarcerated, understand that those police endeavors were done as part of efforts to collect tangible evidence before the arrests were made and not by independent organizations unrelated to police in any regard. ICANN is an independent organization that, while holding the keys to the IP domains vault, doesn't have any plans to ever infringe on the freedom of the internet. That would fly counter to what the internet is all about. Governments are not the same, hence the North Korea references.

Now, Square is doing all it can to curtail the RMT problem, but they are trying to do so while not alienating their actual paying customers. They don't have very many pleasant options at their disposal, and they know full well that said options would be temporary nuisances to the RMT at best, potentially catastrophic inconveniences to their actual paying customers at worst. So the only non-damaging solution is to ban individual accounts as they are reported and remove the gil they're carrying from play. This is where we come in. Instead of knee-jerk blacklisting RMT and acting like they were never there we should instead endeavor to report them and THEN blacklist them and act like they were never there.

[Risvertasashi]

ICANN is an independent organization that, while holding the keys to the IP domains vault, doesn't have any plans to ever infringe on the freedom of the internet. That would fly counter to what the internet is all about. Governments are not the same, hence the North Korea references.

More to the point: ICANN is an administrative organization, not an enforcement organization. ICANN will follow court orders. But it's the courts that make those kind of decisions, not ICANN.

[Reokudo]

You will block legitimate players and many of these guys are not from China. Regional blocks are a dumb exercise in profiling that does nothing, some are from the united states. There was no RMT in tera because its a dead game with no money to be made.

I play with players from the PRC, they are good friends and probably a better player than you.

Wow, such a violent reaction. Yet you see other games like Vindictus which also doesn't have an overly large player base that is riddled with RMT. Don't get so mad yo.

[TrajanVerus]

It's this type of thread that revives my belief that companies like Square Enix employ fake player accounts in order to divert people from dwelling on the facts. When it comes to dealing with RMT activity, Square Enix is in the dark ages compared to other MMO's.

[KisaiTenshi]

EME, TERA's NA publisher did this back when I played. There wasn't a single RMT there. (This being before cash shop and the F2P change.) So that did work for them.

That's because their free trial accounts were blocked from sending messages of any kind. Once they went F2P, the RMT came back.

If we treated RMT like we treated Childporn, we'd see it disappear pretty darn quick. RMT might actually be more dangerous since it could be laundering funds for crime or terrorism. We, as the player of the game, don't know what RMT is doing, but the fact that they continue to operate suggests that it's organized crime in China and not just a bunch of nerds in china doing it to make a few bucks.

[nuyu11]

Supply will be there wherever demand is exist.
So some player in this game is buying Gil, even it's easy to acquire.
There is no supply if no demand, so we need to do something about that demand player.

Limit the transaction/trade/email for each player. Want to sell some cheap item with mil price (I think they do something like this to make it look legal), use MB instead.

Ban them for life huhuhuhuhu.

[polyphonica]

That's because their free trial accounts were blocked from sending messages of any kind. Once they went F2P, the RMT came back.

No there still isn't any RMT chat spam to this day, but there's no need because cash shop items can already be traded for in-game currency. There's no profit to be made by RMT companies, since players wouldn't bother to risk going to third-party sites.

Of course, I don't think this solution would be considered preferable either.

[Kosmos992k]

I think you're the one missing the point here, Kosmos. .

No, no point being missed, and I'm from the UK and live in the US I am quite well versed in the civil freedoms and responsibilities we enioy in the West and to be honest, I believe I may value them more dearly than most. Freedoms and rights come with things called responsibilities, but I'm going to guess that thought will be lost on you. I deal with enough paranoia towards reasonable regulation of things where I work, to know it when I see it.

The Internet has no laws because it was born in a lawless space, and grew faster than our collective ability to understand how to handle law enforcement online. No one had go to extereme lengths to ensure that the Internet is free from laws, mundane or otherwise. I'm beginning to suspect that some revisionist history has been applied to the Internet. Of course I've actually used the Internet since before it became the "internet", I've watchedit grow, I saw the idealism of the early days be swallowedup by ecommerce and a sesspit of filth.

In all honesty, I feel that there is no point in discussing this with you any further considering the degree of misinformation you accept and promote as fact. So, having said my piece I will leave you to your alternate reality

[Shougun]

I don't think making RMT illegal is a good idea, the repercussions are not worth it. RMT being against TOS is peachy and I love that. A lose lose situation but I prefer to be losing like this than the counter point.

To clarify on the illegal point is that ICANN, or whatever, shouldn't have to remove something because of another site, business, or person's TOS - unless it is illegal in the country the service is operating (RMT is not quite a scam, scams are illegal in most places :P).