Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

[MageBlack]

What would you have them say? Do you want them to give detailed explanations on how they are combating RMT or future plans, so that the RMT can get a leg up and counter them right away? Would you prefer they just say "Yes, we know this is an issue"... again.... I really don't understand what people are expecting from this thread. I'm pretty sure however that SE might by chance know there is an RMT issue at this point. considering they are getting harassing comments from both Players and the RMT.

[Shori]

What people are expecting is more measures to combat it. More tools for the player to ignore or report RMt/spammers, and more restrictions in place to prevent it in the first place.

[Magusrex]

What would you have them say? Do you want them to give detailed explanations on how they are combating RMT or future plans, so that the RMT can get a leg up and counter them right away? Would you prefer they just say "Yes, we know this is an issue"... again.... I really don't understand what people are expecting from this thread. I'm pretty sure however that SE might by chance know there is an RMT issue at this point. considering they are getting harassing comments from both Players and the RMT.

I would like them to say something...anything, not just a canned we banned some people. I want them to acknowledge that we are being heard and I want this issue to stay on the main page of the forums until something new happens that shows they care a tiny bit that we are being harassed every single time we log in before we can even go busy. The silence feels like a virtual middle finger and anyone researching playing this game by looking at these forums should know about it before they try the game, it is fair.

[MageBlack]

I would like them to say something...anything, not just a canned we banned some people. I want them to acknowledge that we are being heard and I want this issue to stay on the main page of the forums until something new happens that shows they care a tiny bit that we are being harassed every single time we log in before we can even go busy. The silence feels like a virtual middle finger and anyone researching playing this game by looking at these forums should know about it before they try the game, it is fair.

I know this is an old quote but what more do you want them to say? Do we need constant updates every month with the same response?

Greetings,

We would like to apologize for the inconveniences that RMT spam has been causing. We are diligently investigating any incoming reports or sightings of RMT shouts and banning them as soon as possible. In addition, we are working on speeding up the investigation flow.

We understand that the current RMT shout/spam reporting procedure can be improved so we are working our hardest to implement a system that is faster and easier to report/block violators. With that said, we sincerely appreciate the assistance from those of you who have been submitting reports as we work towards improving the system.

We are also adding more complex chat filters to the already large list we have arranged in order to further prevent RMT spam. We will continue to do so in a manner that will not affect your normal conversations.

You can check out our progress on combating the RMT issue on the official Lodestone here and here, so please take a look if you have not already.

We appreciate your support and we will continue to put forth our best effort to alleviate RMT spam and maintain an enjoyable gameplay experience.

Source

As for combating, what seems to work quite well is character creation restrictions. I'm on balmung (ever locked down) and Have next to no issues with RMT. Maybe we should lock down all the servers?

[Zabuza]

And that dev reply is from like two years ago, so we can see how much they have improved their anti-RMT measures since then. (Hint: not much.) But hey, on the JP servers they can play without worrying about being harassed!

[MageBlack]

And that dev reply is from like two years ago, so we can see how much they have improved their anti-RMT measures since then. (Hint: not much.) But hey, on the JP servers they can play without worrying about being harassed!

so, my question again is, what would you have them say that they have not already said? Yes its two years ago but the information is still valid. I don't think stances have changed since then and they have done updates to the things they mentioned, have they not? Its a constant battle and it baffels me the amount of victim blaming players have. SE is just as much of the victim as the players. Why not take your fight to the RMT themselves instead of telling SE their skirt is too short and they were asking for it, they better dress better to prevent the abuse.

[Zabuza]

Why not take your fight to the RMT themselves instead of telling SE their skirt is too short and they were asking for it, they better dress better to prevent the abuse.

This sentence baffles me. How would you have us take the fight to the RMT? Reporting? Many people already do that, and often end up spending more time reporting than actually playing the game. We ask SE to do something because they're the only ones who can. Us players can't do anything to stop the RMT, we don't have those types of resources. SE could get the resources to at least slow down the threat of RMT if they wished, and so we turn to them to do something, yet they haven't. Reporting is all we can do, and they haven't even implemented a right-click report function in two years of players clamoring for it(which btw would not have been that difficult to implement in comparison to other things.) A few of these QoL functions would've been simple to implement and NOT intrusive to a player's experience, yet none were implemented. On an off note, I won't be able respond to you again for 4-5 hours, gotta go to work.

[Niwashi]

I know this is an old quote but what more do you want them to say?

Saying that but actually being truthful about it this time would suffice.

He claims there they were working on giving us a proper reporting system, for instance, but if that were true we wouldn't still be without one 21 months later. Right-click report (along with the back-end software for their GMs to process those reports) is NOT beyond the technical capabilities of a company of SE's size and experience.

He also claims they were working on adding to their chat filters, yet most of the RMT companies don't even bother obfuscating their websites in their spam. They don't need to. The fact that they can spell everything out in full plain text and we still get their messages means there is no filtering going on at all.

He says they're banning spammers "as soon as possible" yet even during a long gaming session, it's the same bots that spam me as I log in that are still there spamming 6 or 8 hours later if I don't blacklist them. (Probably days later as well, but I haven't saved the logs to verify that.) They should have been banned within seconds ideally, or at least within minutes, not left around for hours to weeks until SE bothers with another big wave of bans just so they can pretend to be doing something.

So the only time they appear to address or at least acknowledge the problems, every single thing they said about it was an outright lie. (There have been a few other such mentions besides this post, but it's always been just more of the same bullshit and equally false.)

[Blood-Aki]

And that dev reply is from like two years ago, so we can see how much they have improved their anti-RMT measures since then. (Hint: not much.) But hey, on the JP servers they can play without worrying about being harassed!

I'm actually beginning to think this why so little is being done, Surely they know there current method of bannings is greatly ineffective yet they continue to do it this way. All RMT companies do is expect the bans, and have a new line of bots lined up and ready to take the place, and this cycle continues. But since Jp servers do not get harassed with tells they do not spam complaints, so they do not take it THAT seriously.

It baffles me as to why most other MMos have squashed out or fixed their problem entirely or to great effect, yet Square has issues even tho they have 2 games under there belt that have lasted a while (well one, FFXI, FFXIV is next to try) even tho FFXI has been up since 2002 they STILL have RMT problems. So it shows the hope this game has that has only been out 2 years. so far.

[MageBlack]

This sentence baffles me. How would you have us take the fight to the RMT? Reporting? Many people already do that, and often end up spending more time reporting than actually playing the game. We ask SE to do something because they're the only ones who can. Us players can't do anything to stop the RMT, we don't have those types of resources. SE could get the resources to at least slow down the threat of RMT if they wished, and so we turn to them to do something, yet they haven't. Reporting is all we can do, and they haven't even implemented a right-click report function in two years of players clamoring for it(which btw would not have been that difficult to implement in comparison to other things.) A few of these QoL functions would've been simple to implement and NOT intrusive to a player's experience, yet none were implemented. On an off note, I won't be able respond to you again for 4-5 hours, gotta go to work.

First off, I want to make sure you are clear that I am also not a fan of RMT, I do think more needs to be done and I too think the issue is worse (on some servers) than other games. I just don't think berating SE over it and leveling such harsh criticism does anything to help the situation.

Anyway, what i meant by taking the fight to RMT is doing a DDOS attack on their websites, spam them with emails, do unto them as they do unto games. Report the websites, or something actually proactive against them. What we can actually do, I dont exactly know but I see no one attack the RMT's or even consider it. Look at that thread that appeared today about "How should i deal with this kind of friend" where he talkes about a friend of his that buys gil. This is part of the problem. This person needs to be named, shamed, and banned. The RMT and the Buyers are the problem, if there wasnt a market for it, they wouldnt be here.

As for the right click report function, it was actually addressed at one point. they were worried if they implemented that and the right click block that people might accidentally use this. That was before the right click block was implemented so now that they have it, I too think adding the report to that mini menu would be a good idea. Something mentioned a long time ago. I know a lot of these "simple" fixes people casually throw out there sound easy to implement and an easy solution but we don't know their server structure, their coding, what other countermeasures they have in place, how the fix might inadvertently cause problems, etc.

Also, just like others have said, most of the fixes will fall under the "fixing the symptom but not the cause" Rather than more band aids on the RTM scaring, I would like to see more permanent solutions to stop them, I'm sure SE feels the same way. Even banning an account is just a band aid solution, its nothing for them to scam another account, hack someones account, just go and buy another copy, etc. SE puts up an IP blocker, they use VPN. SE blocks them from spamming chat, they make 6 new characters and cycle through them to spam. This is the biggest reason I think SE isnt going to tell us what they are doing, why would they tell us on a public forum how they plan to stop RMT? That's like the US government announcing on Public TV their secret plans to invade ISIS.

I think my problem is I have more empathy for the people at SE than i do for the rudeness I see in some posts here about this. I'm not a programmer, I'm not a tech expert, and I'm not a PR whiz but I do not envy the job SE has in trying to combat it.

I find it incredibly insulting and condescending when people say things like "SE is lazy". Really? They took a failed game, rebuilt it into something that is now gaining traction. All while still upgrading and supporting the current failure they knew they would be scrapping when they were done. They did it through the Tsunami and earthquake and nuclear disaster that wreaked havoc on Japan. They put up with barrage after barrage of players giving them grief. And they did it all in about 2 years time. Not sure what the average time a company has to produce a AAA MMO before release but I think its more than 2 years and did it with a skeleton crew (i think under 20 employees actively working on the game)

"SE is just profiting from the RMT/in bed with the/benefit from the numbers they provide" Somehow I don't think SE is altogether enjoying the RMT screwing with their balanced economy, Pissing off legit players, creating tons of more work for them to play damage control between players and media, More working trying to ban accounts, research accounts to make sure they are legit RMT, find out if it is a stolen account and try to recover it for the player, and then get constantly badmouthed for it.

Sorry for the rant, I could go on ad-nauseum but I'm sure i'm just wasting my time and breath as well as the time of people reading/skimming over this. People arent in this thread to come to any understanding, they are just here to vent their frustrations.

Just my 2 gil.