A Realm Reborn Column: Crafting and the Economy @MMORPG.com

[indira]

I think in FFXI's lifecycle there was a period where they were completely unprepared for it. I imagine the best wY to combat RMT is to have tracking tools implemented into the game itself so that data can be compiled on suspicious activity easier.

tracking the bots is pertty much the only thing you can do, or other programs 3rd party programs . you can snitch on your friends too.

other stuff such as trading gil or items is impossible for a computer program it has no judgement it would cause more pain to legit player who have more then one account and trade stuff between the two. checking countrys IP's can hurt you also if you travel around the world like my self.

i do not trust tracking tools, they may just screw you over trade a buddy alot of gil then boom banned.

[Ferth]

tracking the bots is pertty much the only thing you can do, or other programs 3rd party programs . you can snitch on your friends too.

other stuff such as trading gil or items is impossible for a computer program it has no judgement it would cause more pain to legit player who have more then one account and trade stuff between the two. checking countrys IP's can hurt you also if you travel around the world like my self.

i do not trust tracking tools, they may just screw you over trade a buddy alot of gil then boom banned.

It really depends on what info you look at and how you process it. You have multiple accounts, but a trend showing that you only trade small sums between yourself over and over again shouldn't send up a red flag, nor should the occasional loan to a friend. Unless by multiple accounts you mean you have like 10 of them... you might be flagged for interest but further study should show that you probably aren't RMT.

Because in a game like this data is stored on practically everything. It's about knowing what data to look at and how to look at it. Don't get me wrong, it takes a long time to compile accurate data, which is why in FFXI when they realized that RMT was actually a huge problem they really couldn't do much about it for months after they started implementing counter-measures.

Computer programs may not have judgement, but they are pretty good at processing data, and if there is anything that shows up as anomalous a real person could step in and start investigating. The notion that it can't be done is absurd.