RMT Enforcement - Something Interesting is happeneing

[Welsper59]

Short of masking their names on tell, say or shout, I'm not sure what they can do to circumvent the quick reporting of the RMT spam accounts. They might further distance the spam accounts from the rest of their accounts, but if this is a war of attrition SE has shown that they continue to track RMT accounts effectively. Sometimes more effectively than others. Even using a VPN to mask your IP address there are still ways to identify accounts running on the same client (for example), which I am sure can be used to effectively trace accounts. Not to mention a wealth of behavioral information SE has collected that better enable them to trace RMT activity.

If people continue to report bots as well as the spammers - even though it takes a bit more effort to report 'bots, even a small % increase in bot reports would result in far more of the farming/crafting bots and other accounts being traced and eliminated.

Sometimes, it's not even a matter of finding a complex way around. Simple brute force can be enough to get by. RMT have already been doing that approach, by increasing the amount of bots on the servers they can do that with (advertising or otherwise). That decrease in bans for the future I mentioned was mostly referring to GMs/STF just becoming either demoralized or just unable to keep up. I mean, it's usually bots we're dealing with when it comes to RMT, not real people actively at their computers remaking characters (maybe even the accounts). Machines don't get tired of doing the same thing over and over.

Again, this is just from first-hand experience with companies like Blizzard and SE (during the XI era) and their approach to, along with results of, their efforts to combat RMT.

[Kosmos992k]

That decrease in bans for the future I mentioned was mostly referring to GMs/STF just becoming either demoralized or just unable to keep up. I mean, it's usually bots we're dealing with when it comes to RMT, not real people actively at their computers remaking characters (maybe even the accounts). Machines don't get tired of doing the same thing over and over.

Again, this is just from first-hand experience with companies like Blizzard and SE (during the XI era) and their approach to, along with results of, their efforts to combat RMT.

That's what makes it important for the STF to use their databases effectively to identify likely bots and RMT accounts, in addition to reacting to player reports. Also, doesn't the new reporting system include an automated component that after a certain number of reports suspends the character for review?

I'd think that one of the bigger roles that the STF will use, is using smart technology to find suspect activity in the game logs and rate it on a scale so that they can investigate the most likely cases first.