Muling: Let us mail to alts without having them on friend list

[Shakespeare]

RMT using mail to advertise hasn't been an issue in a single game that I've ever played, so why suddenly use that as an excuse for this now?

Do you know what you get when you add an abundance of pointless RMT countermeasures that harm the player base but barely slow down RMT? FFXIV 1.0

Yeah, except this game works. Also, RMT isn't mailing you in this game because of the countermeasures. I have seen RMT mail at some point in every MMO I have played, particularly MMOs developed in Asia.

If people are so alt happy, maybe they should level them so they can use the shared retainer. The entire game was developed so you can just play with one character. I use one retainer for gear and one for crafting mats. The only alt I have is the one I passed lead of my FC to since we merged with a different group and wanted to be able to keep the FC in case things didn't work out.

[frostmagemari]

Yeah, except this game works. Also, RMT isn't mailing you in this game because of the countermeasures. I have seen RMT mail at some point in every MMO I have played, particularly MMOs developed in Asia.

There are ways to reduce, sometimes to the point where you wouldn't believe it exists at all, the amount of mail spam in games. It would require square adopting a system that isn't cost free and a better spam filter, however.

World of Warcraft - I have not seen a single piece of mail spam in at least six years on any of my four characters, and before that I saw perhaps two. WoW has a system in where you need to pay 30 copper to send a mail to anyone. It is not hard to get coin in the game, but you would be hard pressed to make even a gold through quests and/or farming by the time you get out of Elwynn as quests give only a few silver and some copper; This makes creating characters for the purpose of spamming mailboxes with adverts a time/cost inefficient activity. Combine this with a fluid report system, and a full staff of GM (who are both in and outside the game), Blizzard was able to keep many advertisements to a minimum.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - In the brief year i spent playing this game, i had gotten a spam email once every few weeks (but perhaps more during the first three months of the game where launch population was highest). This game also had a cost to mail, i forget the amount but it was comparable to WoW's in cost; However, the game also inflated it's own currency, making it far easier to get credits from the quests and/or loot in the starting areas that it was somewhat efficient to mail spam, though the quests became much more time-intensive as you neared the end of the starter planet which made it's efficiency drop. From what i knew of the game, Bioware did have a sizable GM staff, but they were not as active as the Blizzard staff; Bioware also had a report system, but it was more similar to XIV than to Warcraft.

Both of those games had what i would consider effective spam filters, which would have reduced the amount of mail that went through at best, or simply increasing the time interval between mail at worst; Both of which would deter a spammer who had limited resources, especially if the act was time intensive. Once this option has been taken off the table for the adverts, the RMT employees will fall-back on whispering and/or shouts; This is where an active and appropriately staffed GM community, a well-designed spam filter and an will come into play.