Real-money trade: The real problem

[Moqi]

Don't underestimate the laziness of a person when it comes to getting something shiny they want. There are many people who find a game fun and still would be real money to get something in-game that, with a little work on their part, is completely obtainable.

No one's buying gil for content below 50, and it's not their attitude that suddenly changes once they reach endgame.

[lawlHT]

No, economics work however SE want them to. If real life rules apply it's only because SE lets it happen.

This might surprise you, but SE doesn't set the prices on the market board. The prices are what they are due to the demand for that item. Generally it's some combination of difficulty acquiring the base components, difficulty succeeding at the craft, and however much the seller thinks their time and effort making the item is worth. Just like in a real market for physical items!

Your argument that there aren't enough ways to make Gil is flimsy. Gatherers make money at all stages of the leveling process and are as close to effortless to level as this game allows. There are also base materials that drop from combat content that can easily net you significant chunks of Gil. Try actually working to make some money before you complain about not having any

[Shebah]

I've played WoW since early TBC and never have I experienced spam to the degree as I've seen it in FF. Despite WoW having far more players at one point and also being subscription based, I think I've gotten mayve 3 gold spam whispers in all those years.

FF has authenticators, but I'm not sure how many people use them. WoW rewards using them and people seem to be more genuinely concerned for account security over there. Maybe offering a bonus to players using an auth would help, like a mount that's only active so long as your Auth is.

Filters would be great, but another option might be taking after Blizzard's IP limitations.

As someone who moved around a lot, every time I went to another state, I'd get locked out of my account and have to re-activate through email. Getting account info is one thing, but this would require an extra step on the hacker's part. Also, I think WoW had added security measures for IPs coming from China?

[Moqi]

Your argument that there aren't enough ways to make Gil is flimsy.

That was not my argument at all, and I never said this was my problem. Keep your condescending tips and explanations for someone who asked.

[Khalithar]

I'm all for more chat filters. Having to disable a basic chat function shouldn't be a solution. WTB an option to automatically block tells from anyone not on my friend list or an option like the SpamMeNot option from WoW that let you block whispers from anyone below a level threshold of your choice.

[Unaali]

Even if expanding the blacklist isn't a cure, I think it's better than nothing and would be a nice option. I personally would rather blacklist dozen bots a day and so would a lot of people I have discussed this with. At least it's something.

Coeurl is amazingly bad too - I have to blacklist about 20 bots a night. Some bots log out within a few seconds of spamming me (so you can't add to blacklist), log in with a different character, spam me again so you can never actually even blacklist them. I'm considering moving servers since based on forum responses it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue on higher pop NA servers.

[Austin_The_Addict]

Okay so yes, having a bigger blacklist won't solve the problem, but at least it is something. Having to scroll through pages of text to look for a non-spam tell is a pain in the ass. Yeah, they will make new accounts, but blacklisting takes 2 seconds. It isn't much to ask for and is definitely better than nothing. Many of the people I have talked to about this problem would really like a bigger blacklist. Again, it won't solve the problem but it will help a little bit and at this point I'll take all the help I can get.

[Austin_The_Addict]

Yeah some are pretty tricky with that logging out stuff. But it's still worth it to try. I've been deleting the first bots that ever spammed me and immediately start getting spam from them again. At this point I have to sit and take it or turn off tells because I wouldn't be able to find any useful tells trying to scroll through a page full of messages that are all the same color. Not all of them log out immediately so we'd still be able to stop some of them. More will come, and stop them again. Said it a bunch of times now, it is better than nothing.

[Culfinrandir]

About 30% of the spam I get in game could be blocked using 3 words as they come from the same website who wouldn't be able to contact us if those words were blocked when appearing in the same message.

I understand that people who use a third party app for hunting can also use it to filter chat messages & are able to prevent almost all, if not all, RMT getting through. I researched this app, although I don't use it, & the author is very amenable to working with SE on everything, they even state on their site that at one word from SE they'd close down (or at least they did when I was researching). If someone who doesn't work with SEs multi-million Dollar development software can program an effective filter then it suggests someone, somewhere, isn't trying.

[OvernightSiren]

Honestly there's no point blacklisting them. The account that's messaging you will be deleted in a day's time and then it'll just be taking up space on your blacklist. Just set yourself to /busy.