Can we please ban advertisements for selling clears from PF?

[Vnolan]

There is a reason why SE is so tight on their evidence policy, and it is because

they like money.

The Ungarmax Exploit and Our Response

A Reminder about the Prohibition of Real Money Trading (RMT) (made after a FC was named)

BLU EXP exploit

Regarding the Fraudulent Purchase of Optional Items

Do you know how many players were permanently banned from all of those combined? Just one.

Account Penalty Policy

'■Types of penalty
There are six levels of penalty in ascending order of severity: "Caution", "Warning", "Temporary Service Account Suspension (3 Days)", "Temporary Service Account Suspension (10 Days)", "Temporary Service Account Suspension (20 Days)", "Service Account Termination".'

tl;dr SE will only ban its customers as an absolute last resort even if they have all the proof in the world.

and it is because they only accept evidence that they themselves can verify as truthful within the resources that they have.

Had that with Feast chat and they decided to remove it.

No one is suggesting they issue account action off third-party evidence, but if they get enough reports, you'd think they'd at least start an investigation.

[Enjuden]

A ToS change would be horrible because it would allow people to fake evidence and get innocent people banned. There is a reason why SE is so tight on their evidence policy, and it is because they only accept evidence that they themselves can verify as truthful within the resources that they have. I would much rather a ToS that allows people to post RMT in PF than one that allows malicious people to get whoever they want banned with fake evidence.

Yes, because changing ToS is equal to people being able to have malicious players banned due to fake evidence. Kind of like how the offensive language ToS got changed and suddenly we lost a ton of players due to 'fake evidence'.

Oh wait. That didn't happen. How do you prove something that cannot be proven without saying 'You said XYZ, therefore you are breaking such and such rule'? Because that is our current rule set right now, where GMs must use circumstantial evidence as proof since absolutely nothing can be done otherwise. Again, they are not allowed to be able to do their own job with what we got. So how do you think anyone can get punished for RMT when it comes to selling content right now?

[Lunavi]

How many “innocent accounts” are on PF selling clears saying they need to discuss payment terms on discord?

And I’m glad you are against the PF mislistings but can you please tone it down a little and not take what I’m saying to some extreme conclusion?

I am not saying that it is what you suggest, but I am saying that it is very hard to make a rule that would not target people who links to other things other than run-selling as well while still having an effective rule that is not walked around like the current rules are (which are very clear on this topic that RMT is forbidden no matter what). The reason why they discuss prices on discord is in the first place because these people are getting around the rules in place, they will get around most rules you could possibly put up in place to avoid this without disrupting normal players' activities, which is wherein my primary concern about this rests as SE is very consistent in how they treat their rules, which is a good thing, but it also means that if they would put in something like this it would be bothersome.

The only hard rule I can think about that would not be TOO disruptive is if they straight out banned links to external websites or such and any kind of way to mask links to external websites, then again, this rule would also hit hard on any and all FCs who have a discord server for their FC or any outside way to communicate at all as all of those would as well technically break the rules.

Also, you talk about me taking what you say to some extreme conclusion when you assume I defend RMT because I do not want rules that could harm people for doing legit activities. I am not really worried about what you think they should do as I agree with you in spirit to what they should do, ban people who sell runs for RMT, but I am very vary of how these sorts of rules would probably have to be shaped to have any real effect, and knowing from parsers rules and profanity rules I am almost 100% certain that SE would uphold these rules even when they clash against the spirit of the rule to be consistent, which is no fault, but still something to take into account on this topic.

[SerLuke]

I am not saying that it is what you suggest, but I am saying that it is very hard to make a rule that would not target people who links to other things other than run-selling as well while still having an effective rule that is not walked around like the current rules are (which are very clear on this topic that RMT is forbidden no matter what). The reason why they discuss prices on discord is in the first place because these people are getting around the rules in place, they will get around most rules you could possibly put up in place to avoid this without disrupting normal players' activities, which is wherein my primary concern about this rests as SE is very consistent in how they treat their rules, which is a good thing, but it also means that if they would put in something like this it would be bothersome.

The only hard rule I can think about that would not be TOO disruptive is if they straight out banned links to external websites or such and any kind of way to mask links to external websites, then again, this rule would also hit hard on any and all FCs who have a discord server for their FC or any outside way to communicate at all as all of those would as well technically break the rules.

Also, you talk about me taking what you say to some extreme conclusion when you assume I defend RMT because I do not want rules that could harm people for doing legit activities. I am not really worried about what you think they should do as I agree with you in spirit to what they should do, ban people who sell runs for RMT, but I am very vary of how these sorts of rules would probably have to be shaped to have any real effect, and knowing from parsers rules and profanity rules I am almost 100% certain that SE would uphold these rules even when they clash against the spirit of the rule to be consistent, which is no fault, but still something to take into account on this topic.

Forgive me then for misrepresenting you, I feel like we’re getting off on the wrong foot, I’m proposing specifically wording in the TOS related to advertising clear selling that forced the buyer to conduct business with them outside of the game, the wording could be specific enough so it’s clearly only targeting that and not static/FC/etc discords.

In any event I just wish they would do some policing of PF I would love to be able to open PF and see people actually look for the content they are listing under instead of seeing a bunch of ex roulletes at the top because people think they are more important than everyone else in advertising their static/clear sells/etc and not have to change my filters every time I log back in.

[pclarkson85]

Too be honest I wish I would see more of this. Of course not with real money, but I miss the days when MMOs had player based business. I had a great time selling teleports in Jueno. Ultima Online had player vendors, people would open up their own shops, just feels more like a world and less like a hub based gear treadmill.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

What Kaeden said is absolutely correct.

The ingame economy supports players exchanging goods and services. Buying a clear from a player is no different than buying an item from them, or paying them to overmeld your gear. It's how the gil is obtained that is the biggest point of contention, and the RMT argument is completely separate from the "buying clears" argument.

Whether that makes it fair or right that players should be allowed to be carried through content is a reasonable debate, but as far as terms of service goes, its perfectly valid, and will never be banned.

They should be banned for miss-labeling. I don't actually care if someone wants to spend a ridiculous amount of money on content that will obsolete in a month or two. Or even gil. What I DO care about is people mislabeling their posts in PF so they appear at the top. It makes it a mess so when someone wants to make an actual PF for Expert (like we used to back in the day) it gets lost or looked over in all the static requests and content selling. This should be a bannable offense. From using PF certainly and possibly even a soft ban from the game. I know its harsh but I am so sick and tired of it. I miss using Party Finder to find an actual party to run Expert with instead of bare DF. So I don't always have freaking heal when I don't feel like waiting 10-15 minutes.

An easy fix would be to ad a Static tab for those who want to advertise for that. Content sellers well, I dont care where they go so long as its not at the top of the list under the Expert label. It has made PF garbage for standand duties. Please fix, SE or give us an abuse of in-game apps report options right in PF like you do in the chat log for RMT. Or just that option in the report settings, period. I can copy and paste the offenders myself.

[Barraind]

It's honestly pathetic that people are willing to shell out that much money just for one clear of content.

People pay a lot of money for stuff that doesnt make sense.

In games where leveling is difficult, you can sell powerleveling services for FAR more than makes any reasonable sense. You can make thousands a month botting 1 or 2 specific spawns on EQ's TLP servers now, and I assume if wow vanilla has any amount of traction and stability after a few months, you can do the same there.

Its actually healthy for the playerbase, especially in games where you trade currency for game time tokens for $. Players who farm / sell content can pay nothing to very little, people who want to just dump money can, and those who want to go hardcore and sell discounted game time can, and the company still gets 100% of their cut because every one of those in the world was sold at full price.

[SamSmoot]

At least it's hidden away in PF. In WoW, city chat is 90% run sellers (for gold). I suspect the gold sellers have found this a faster way to get gold to sell for cash than just gathering stuff.

[Lunavi]

Forgive me then for misrepresenting you, I feel like we’re getting off on the wrong foot, I’m proposing specifically wording in the TOS related to advertising clear selling that forced the buyer to conduct business with them outside of the game, the wording could be specific enough so it’s clearly only targeting that and not static/FC/etc discords.

In any event I just wish they would do some policing of PF I would love to be able to open PF and see people actually look for the content they are listing under instead of seeing a bunch of ex roulletes at the top because people think they are more important than everyone else in advertising their static/clear sells/etc and not have to change my filters every time I log back in.

Yes, they need to change it so that if you do things like this you either have to do it in the relevant content OR (better yet) in "Other". PF needs policing 100% and to post things with iLvl requirement 999 in PF for Titania EX to avoid people actually joining your party should be seen as disruptive behavior as you are not having any intentions at all to run that content with the people who contact you, which could be seen as spam. These things I definitely agree on as this is easy to fix and could not in any plausible way affect anyone "innocent".

[BloodRubyXII]

I was under the impression it's always been banned, just badly enforced.