Exactly how obvious do RMT need to be SE?

[BreathlessTao]

And what exactly would you have SE do to "stop" RMT? The one thing these threads have in common is no one ever gives a realistic, tangible solution to the problem. It's always knee-jerk, stop-gap, band-aid fixes that would do more harm than good. Or worse, giving no real feedback at all and instead just screaming "fix it!" while they foam at the mouth.

Completely stopping RMT is virtually impossible just by its nature. Not without taking such aggressive measures that you hurt your players. The only thing we can ask for is an easier way to ignore and report RMT accounts.

Here, just on the previous page, an excerpt:

3) The problem is the fact that so many suggestions have been made so many times, it boggles the mind to even try to keep up with - either of the numbers of those.
- private/invisible mode to hide from /search
- limit receiving tells from LS/FC/friendlist members only
- limit sending tells either by account or character age
- word filters, word filters, word filters - the amount of times I myself have seen the same character strings over and over again, I can't believe they can't instate any sort of filter to prevent such messages (not to even mention character names!) from being sent
- actually remove the characters (heck, the accounts) from the game, I can't believe I don't see the reported names turning into "(Deleted)" on my BL - I know they block them, but they are still somehow there, and yeah I understand they want to prevent the same names to be used again, but gods, build a database for it instead of actually keeping dead characters on any server?
- automatically clear the deleted ones from our blacklists, or at least give us a batch-delete feature?
...and these are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.

[LineageRazor]

On the subject of ignore-and-report...

I strongly suspect that blacklisting DOES cause a player to be reported. Even when I don't use blacklist, I don't think I've EVER received a tell from the same gilspammer two days in a row. The average lifespan of a spammer is less than a day. Whether this is becuase that spammer is being banned, or has been removed by the gilsellers themselves to hide their efforts, I can't say, but if the former then it seems likely that SE is being informed somehow that the character has been blacklisted by a ton of people.

Here, just on the previous page, an excerpt:

The request was for anti-RMT measures that aren't band-aids, and don't harm the legit playerbase. The list you posted addresses neither of these requirements.

Band-aid:
- Word filters: These DO exist. Why do you think gilsellers are constantly spamming things like, "Visit X.Y, replace X w/ goldfountain and Y with com!!1!"? Word filters are in place, and gilsellers instantly defeat or work around any new filters that are added. notafix
- Limit tells: If tell is limited, there will be an increase in shout and say. This also does nothing to actually stop RMT, just hide them from you personally. notafix
- Hide from search: Same problem as Limit tells. RMT will simply use other channels than tell and, again, this doesn't do anything to stop their business. notafix
- Actually remove the account: Not even a band-aid, let alone a fix. As long as the player can't act, it doesn't matter if they're "immobilized" rather than outright banned. notafix
- Auto-remove from blacklist: Again, not a band-aid or a fix, just a convenience. Not one that I'll argue with, since I'd love a more convenient way to clean my blacklist, but doesn't help the problem. notafix.

Harms players:
- Limit tells: Harms newbie players who want to make new friends, or ask about the game. They can still use say, but unless they understand how friending works, they may quickly lose track of the helpful folks they find.
- Hide from search: Makes it difficult for legit players to find other legit players. Even with just the current "busy" status, I once ran into the issue where I couldn't contact a player who'd expressed interest in joining my T9 run the week before, becuase I hadn't yet friended them and they had "busy" on to avoid gilseller tell spam. While I managed to eventually get through to them with help from their FC comrades, with hide from search I wouldn't even have known they were online.

Players think they are way more clever then thay actually are when it comes to "solutions" to the RMT problem - every so-called solution that I've seen has been easy to punch countless holes through. They also are WAY too prone to wearing rose-colored nostalgia glasses when comparing the RMT problem in this game with that in other games. The grass is indeed greener on the other side of the fence.

Could SE be doing more? Sure. Their RMT task force is apparently quite small (only three people, if the game's credits list them all). Hiring more people could help, or diverting other staff to the job - but hiring means that we pay more, and diverting means that game content suffers. Is it a worthwhile price to pay? Depends on who you ask.

Personally, I'm more-or-less content with the state of things as they are. RMT tells are annoying, but I can blacklist them quickly, and if I miss one they're gone the next day anyway. Cleaning the blacklist is annoying, and could be improved, but I don't have to do it more than every couple of weeks. RMT aren't destroying the economy, like they did back in FFXI in Christmas 2008, when SE FINALLY sat up and realized RMT were an actual problem - and, since the economy in this game is mostly pointless, there's only so much harm they can do even if they do get out of hand.

I'd like things to be improved, but I put RMT on a MUCH lower priority than, say, balancing Machinist or giving us the ability to use items within macros.

[BreathlessTao]

The request was for anti-RMT measures that aren't band-aids, and don't harm the legit playerbase. The list you posted addresses neither of these requirements.

Well if you're so clever, why don't you suggest something that's not "notafix"??? I clearly said that wiping them out is an impossible goal. I clearly said I'd just be happy for some proper tools to help battle them, to make our in-game lives more bearable. And that's what I've suggested - features to make the situation less annoying. I've never for a minute believed that it's a situation that can be solved, but (and excuse me) those things go beyond being "band-aids", which is what the mass-bans are, which bleed through the moment they're applied. But go ahead, share your ideas of proper solutions then.

So bloody fed up of people complaining that nobody ever suggests anything and when someone does, it basically just gets shrugged off as stupid. At least some of us are trying here. And if you think RMTs aren't hurting the economy, you need to wake up, because gatherer bots say hello. All the checks that SE does to ascertain average wealth for prices like housing - they all include the massive amount of gil these traders deal with, since their characters are as much part of the game as anyone else's. But whatever, glad you're happy with the few thousand accounts being permanently or temporarily banned on a (bi)weekly basis.

[ElHeggunte]

I'm sorry but if you somehow consider it my job to police the gil spammers in game then square might as well start paying me per month instead of the other way around.

It is our job to help police the game. Your stance on this is ridiculous.

It's like having a guy come into your neighborhood every day to sell drugs. He doesn't look like a drug dealer, but you know he is because you've seen him at it and he always offers you some. You don't know how he got your number, but sometimes he even calls you at odd hours of the day. No one else seems to have noticed him or if they did, they're either buying his product or they just don't seem to care. However, as much as he's annoying you you decide it's "not your job" to help police your neighborhood so you don't bother reporting him. A few weeks later when you see an officer driving by you flag him down and demand to know why the drug dealer is still hanging around your street and offering you drugs every day. You want to know why the police haven't done anything. He's been there for weeks, after all! Confused, the officer asks why you didn't report the guy if you saw him weeks ago and knew what he was doing. You respond by telling him that it's his job to do the policing, not yours. The officer pepper sprays you for being an idiot and drives away rolls his eyes and finally arrests the guy that probably would have been gone weeks ago if people had simply reported him.

Asking SE or any game company to police every inch of their game 24/7 for RMT activity is absurd. A lot of the accounts that get banned are only ever brought to SE's attention in the first place because someone took the time to report it. If you aren't going to help because you don't think it's your job, you have very little room to complain.

Well if you're so clever, why don't you suggest something that's not "notafix"???

A right-click menu for reporting a player like what Blizzard has for WoW. It would automatically log and report the name, location, time, and the content of the message so you don't have to sit there and type it all out manually like a jackass (and it automatically eliminates the possibility of a typo). It'll also ask if you want to place the person on you blacklist at the end of the process to kill two birds with one stone get two birds stoned at once.

I clearly said that wiping them out is an impossible goal. I clearly said I'd just be happy for some proper tools to help battle them, to make our in-game lives more bearable. And that's what I've suggested - features to make the situation less annoying. I've never for a minute believed that it's a situation that can be solved, but (and excuse me) those things go beyond being "band-aids", which is what the mass-bans are, which bleed through the moment they're applied. But go ahead, share your ideas of proper solutions then.

So why, when I asked RyuRoots how they would stop RMT, did you respond to me with your list of non-solutions? Ryu, like most other people in these threads, is demanding for SE to "stop" RMT. I'm asking how they suggest SE should handle the impossible task of eradicating RMT, not how they would alleviate the annoyance.

So bloody fed up of people complaining that nobody ever suggests anything and when someone does, it basically just gets shrugged off as stupid. At least some of us are trying here.

Because the vast majority of proposed "fixes" in these types of threads are stupid. None of them would eliminate RMT (which you agree is impossible) while almost all of them would wind up screwing over legit players in some manner. They typically amount to trading one annoyance for another bigger one. Some people need to stop and think for a minute before they try. It would save a lot of headaches.

p.s. SE, your ridiculous character limit sucks. There's no reason to have a 1000 character limit that can be bypassed anyway or otherwise causes someone to make multiple posts. If you insist on a limit at least make it something reasonable like 5000.

[Teryaani]

I strongly suspect that blacklisting DOES cause a player to be reported. Even when I don't use blacklist, I don't think I've EVER received a tell from the same gilspammer two days in a row. The average lifespan of a spammer is less than a day. Whether this is becuase that spammer is being banned, or has been removed by the gilsellers themselves to hide their efforts, I can't say, but if the former then it seems likely that SE is being informed somehow that the character has been blacklisted by a ton of people.

I'd love for SE to clarify if that's the case. It would probably make the job of enforcement easier if they gave us a right click-report feature though as it would allow them to include extra metadata (the message, date, time, character, world) being clicked and reported on. I'd bet that would speed enforcement a bit.

On a QoL side, an auto-prune of deleted accounts and an account blacklist would also be nice.