Please, do something about all these bots in your game SE.

[Vagrant-0]

It's nice that you're getting all this money from accounts made for illegal activities, but for everyone else it is just infuriating. Constant spam tells, clogged shout/yell channels in towns. Covering it up with turning off these channels and a blacklist is only ignoring the problem.

It's not even the part of how all these bots are screwing up the economy, flooding it with materials, and preventing normal players from getting these materials without inadvertently funding RMT.

It's the fact that despite all these supposed account freezes, day after day I report the same bots, and nothing is done. There already bots which automate almost every aspect of your game. Why should I mindlessly grind through the same instances 30+ times a week for 5 months straight when there are bots that can do this and sell them. Why should I have to fight with 2-3 bots for one of 6 spawns in the whole game that drop a necessary crafting component. The limited spawn points and weekly caps for these things only hurt honest players and help make them more profitable for funding RMT.

I want to like your game, I want to throw money at it and continue playing. But I want to feel like the company I am paying actually cares about the product that they put forward. A reported instance of a stolen account or botting player should not take several weeks to be handled. With server transfers on the horizon and a limited number of housing plots in the future, things will only get worse.

Please, from a fan of the series and someone who wants to support your game... Make this right. As things stand, you are only sending the message that you do not care.

[Xayoc]

RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE

SE is already working this (hence the 7k accounts banned/suspended for it). It takes time to prove beyond a reasonable doubt these accounts aren't legit. Take it from a FFXI vet, SE takes RMT bots/spam seriously.

[SirSchmoopyofAwesometon]

Yeah.

That stuff you said.

I read it.

SE, bots please.

You know.. When you have time.

[CatholicFan]

Personally, I do not understand how this game has such issues, but other titles I've played do not. I was on SWTOR for six months, and I can't think of a single instance of RMT botting or shouting in general chat. I may have gotten a single instance of being sent a tell to buy currency, but that's about all the more I recall. How is it that a game like SWTOR that had millions of accounts at launch avoids problems, but a smaller game like XIV does not?

[SirSchmoopyofAwesometon]

I think it's because XIV reaches out more. EU, NA and JP can all kinda mix servers.

Just my guess.

[Vagrant-0]

It takes time to prove beyond a reasonable doubt these accounts aren't legit.

Takes about 5 seconds to notice the spam or the fact that that stealthed person gathering materials is just teleporting between nodes. Takes almost as long to see that character teleporting between spawn points. It takes no time at all. Hell, I would happily just run around the world recording all of it to provide such proof... But vigilantism probably wouldn't be appreciated and would only shame those people who have had their accounts stolen.

Why should it take over a week to see any action on even a single bot... Nevermind the few dozen I've seen and reported that are still continuing day after day.

Why should I have to choose between risking my account because of buying materials over marketplace that were obtained from a bot and funding RMT, or have to spend hours of my day trying to compete with them for the same drops? Atleast another player occasionally logs off or loses interest.

[Xayoc]

Takes about 5 seconds to notice the spam or the fact that that stealthed person gathering materials is just teleporting between nodes. Takes almost as long to see that character teleporting between spawn points. It takes no time at all. Hell, I would happily just run around the world recording all of it to provide such proof... But vigilantism probably wouldn't be appreciated and would only shame those people who have had their accounts stolen.

Why should it take over a week to see any action on even a single bot... Nevermind the few dozen I've seen and reported that are still continuing day after day.

Why should I have to choose between risking my account because of buying materials over marketplace that were obtained from a bot and funding RMT, or have to spend hours of my day trying to compete with them for the same drops? Atleast another player occasionally logs off or loses interest.

This one works with a former Blizzard GM and has bounced this issue off of him multiple times. SE's problem is that it doesn't have the GM staff that other MMOs do which allows this issue to propagate. Blizzard has 20+ GMs for every world, SWTOR had even more, so until SE increases the size of it's GM staff (Yoshi did admit to underestimating the demand for this game), gets them trained and monitoring for RMT/Bots, the issue is going to take some time.

[Minigae]

Are you serious? FFXI and 1.0 were some of the most heavily botted/rmt spamming P2P MMOs ever made. Yeah FFXI did eventually do something with the rmt they put out abyssea and killed the game and hence the rmt left for greener pastures. 1.0 was botted from day one till close it never ended or was taken care of. FFXI in the early NA release days was so horrible getting certain nm loots were almost impossible because of the 15 max level JP bots standing around in a circle where the nm spawns(and back then it wasn't random it ALWAYS spawned in the exact same spot). Endgame raiding in ffxi was a bunch of players waiting around watching tv or something while their tag bot got the HNM I mean really SE is about the worst at taking care of RMT.