What became of the Special Task Force?

[Rinsui]

I know this may not be the main focus of development at the moment, but sometimes I wonder what became of the "Fabulous and all-encompassing RMT/Botting Super Mega Special Task Force".

Back in 2010, the comments made by Sundi concerning SE's "all-new and powerful" strategy against illegal programs really got my expectations up to see some big "banned XXX thousand accounts for illegal activity" announcement every month. (Even if the numbers were possibly completely made up, they never failed to cast a smile on my face in FFXI).

I understand it is technically impossible to ban "XXX thousand" accounts at the moment (laugh), but it would be very reassuring to hear at least some sort of "we are aware of the problem, and don't worry, we'll cut the culprits' cables soon enough" once in a while.

Maybe it's not their focus or main concern right now; but ignoring the problem now will cause major problems (and drama) later... right now it basically seems o.k. and pretty much save to use crafting bots - unless you are doing it in front of the repair NPC in Ul'dah, chances for getting caught are low, and profit (e.g. for crystal synths) are about 300%, so...

[Zeigrin]

As we all know the game is F2P right now so I imagine paying people to keep it clean isn't something they are going to pour money into at the moment. I think once everything is on the up and up, they will start working away on that though.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

STF is the same as FFXI's and they handle both games, but for FFXIV it looks like they only pop over to remove farm/leveling bots. I've also noticed the more reports submitted by players through the website, the faster they are banned.

[SnowTiger]

Hopefully they just fill up one of those infamous 'lists', and then ban everyone who used a bot and all associated accounts all at once.

Would suit those people just fine too. They run bots to get all their jobs to 50 and then sit back and make fortunes waiting for the big relaunch of the game... So the day that happens, ban them all lol.

[Rinsui]

Hopefully they just fill up one of those infamous 'lists', and then ban everyone who used a bot and all associated accounts all at once.

Would suit those people just fine too. They run bots to get all their jobs to 50 and then sit back and make fortunes waiting for the big relaunch of the game... So the day that happens, ban them all lol.

I would be more confident if they at least claimed to do so once in a while. >.>
Right now it looks like they are doing nothing at all; though bots were (one of many)
main reasons why people quit games like Aion or Lineage 2 in the past.