Will Bot's ever be punished?

[Fear]

You can't ban someone without solid proof that they're an RMT, even if there hording gil and doing leves 24/7 theres nothing in the rules against this...you have to wait untill they break a rule (Sell Gil etc.) I'm sure SE has a list it keeps an eye on.

SE will clamp down on this in 2.0 i'm sure, in FFXI they came down heavy on RMT and bots in 2006-08

[Valmonte]

RMT in XIV hahah, who would buy money in a game that is so plentiful? XI you were hard pressed to make money. here its thrown at you. the devs know this so they are keeping the subscription money while these RMT make no return

it was easy to make money in XI too....that was until the bots cornered the market on pretty much anything that was worth a shit, SE with there incredible brain power thought it would be the greatest idea to make matters worse with there war on drop prices.

that led to the Market Crash in 07-08 at least for Alexander it was earlier on those drama Servers(yes Odin, Ifrit I'm talking about you.)

the same risk is very real again the one thing keeping RMTs from cornering the market was a lack of pricelisting, they now posses all the tools to do it all over again. the worst part is SE's apparent lack of foresight, once they get around to banning the bots that gathered billions and billions of gil it will have done changed hands to a more legitimate looking player that runs no risk of getting banned.

[bobbygunz]

a serious question
Is there any reason not to bot at present?

Several Players are notorious for botting accross several servers yet regardless of the number of gm calls made to report them none are ever punished.

an example on my server is a blm whos goes afk and like clockwork casts resonance flare every 5 mins to farm items. i know many people who have reported him but everyday he's back in the same place with no fear of ever being punished. the same goes with the crafting bots, fishing bots and so many others.

it's in such a ridiculous state that people do it so blatently and never get any kind of punishment. so i ask. is there any reason not to?

i'd love to see gm's clamp down on this heavily. just one fell swoop of blanket bans even for 48 hours on a first offence i think would be enough to stop alot of botters and send a clear message that it won't be tollerated rather than the current message of we couldn't care less.

Demonik Thedestroyer?

Many people have reported him to GMs already, so if he doesn't get punished for it, then we know S.E. isn't doing anything. There are also bots farming hog hides in The Black Shroud too. It's almost a Laissez Faire type of situation at the moment, SE doesnt seem to care, and players learn to live with the "cheating".

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

SE would rather not shoot themselves in the foot when they are already so deep in the hole on this game as it is.

Why is everybody assuming that S-E is profiting off of every subscription? Have you forgotten that you're already getting a 30% discount as it is?

[Fear]

Why is everybody assuming that S-E is profiting off of every subscription? Have you forgotten that you're already getting a 30% discount as it is?

Every sub is helping them to cover costs and at the moment there is more important things they're focused on. All botters and RMTs will probably be banned during 2.0 once the GM and STF teams are built up properly.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Every sub is helping them to cover costs and at the moment

My point is that it's more likely that every sub is about break-even, and that the only "profit" they get is from user feedback and stress testing.

I agree they probably have other things to worry about first, but this ain't it.

[Eliseus]

You can't ban someone without solid proof that they're an RMT, even if there hording gil and doing leves 24/7 theres nothing in the rules against this...you have to wait untill they break a rule (Sell Gil etc.) I'm sure SE has a list it keeps an eye on.

SE will clamp down on this in 2.0 i'm sure, in FFXI they came down heavy on RMT and bots in 2006-08

Actually, SE can ban you for whatever reason they want. They can ban you for breathing for all they care.

[Fear]

My point is that it's more likely that every sub is about break-even, and that the only "profit" they get is from user feedback and stress testing.

I agree they probably have other things to worry about first, but this ain't it.

They pay the staff & server upkeep regardless so every sub is helping them, there is no break-even atm there running at a loss and every sub lowers that.

Actually, SE can ban you for whatever reason they want. They can ban you for breathing for all they care.

Yes thats true but it isn't a good way to do business is it? Right now they need as much money as possible to cover their losses and banning people right now is just not worth it.

[Bluebun]

Hopefully they get temp banned the day 2.0 comes out ;; and they miss out on all the excitement / make space for new players. Or just excluded from Legacy program.

[Hyrist]

FFXI's economy around 2006 would like to have a word with you.

This needs to be corrected: FFXIV's economy is nothing like FFXI's. For the most part, RMT can be bypassed completely in this game.

Need Gil? Do Leves for a steady and sure income that Gilsellers cannot monopolize.

Need items? It's easy to buy needed equipment and items for leveling up until about 40 just off NPCs for all jobs. Endgame equipment can be gained by doing instances leveling a craft, or directly contacting a crafter (And note, crafters are far, far more frequent in FFXIV than in FFXI.)

Need Levels? If not doing Leves, all it takes is one Black Mage to power-level a character through. Leveling is easy as is power leveling, so there is no need to pay for such service.

Literally, aside from being an eye sore and being bothersome on the auction (by trying to buy and regulate prices) RMT have no foothold here. World Bosses are ineffectual on the market due to Rare/Ex and the fact that crafted gear with Meteria will more often than not be superior - so long as Yoshi and crew keep to their policies.

They effectively designed this game to neuter RMT efforts. It should be noted that not having an auction was part of this anti-RMT design. But it was a mistake to bereft the players of the convenience.

This said, the Auction House will be the only thing that suffers from RMT intrusion - and that we can bypass by keeping our markets inter-linkshell or inter-company.

That's not to say they don't need to be dealt with. But they won't be nearly as troublesome here as they were in FFXI, where money was scares and the market was easier to corner.