Report an RMT directly from Chat Log

[ArtemisMobiusetti]

Last night upon logging in, I was bombarded with RMTs. Five tells in under two minutes according to the timestamps, all from different player accounts. My blacklist stays pretty full.
This wouldn't be a problem, but I want to spend a lot of my time on FFXIV actually playing instead of filling out reports.

The Suggestion!

or even a "Blacklist & Report" option. This would quickly send a report to a GM reporting the players name for RMT action, along with the time so that GMs could easily track down and review the chat for that time.

False reports are a concern.

Which in turn leads to the suggestion: If multiple reports are filed against the same player name, those reports merge into one. More reports of that individual would move them higher on the list of reports; an increase in priority.

4 Hours of tells:

[ArtemisMobiusetti]

(2/2)
So I messaged a GM, and they apologized understanding how annoying it can be, and informed me the best course of action is to simply blacklist them and then file a report. I was unsure if old names in my BL were banned or not, since not many of them became (Deleted) names, but the kind GM told me that only occurs when a person deletes their account, not as a result of a ban.
Pros:

• Report RMTs with one two clicks.
• Keep playing with minimal time reporting players

Cons:

• False RMT reports
• Reporting players who aren't RMTs solely to save time on a full report.

Reddit user /u/ShuttleXpC added:

I could see the potential for abuse, but here is the caveat, much like dungeons you cannot commend people you know. Free companies attempting to spam vote someone from chat features would have their total report number reduced to 1.

[Niwashi]

... send a report to a GM reporting the players name for RMT action, along with the time so that GMs could easily track down and review the chat for that time.

Since the feature is instigated from the chat log, it should add the chat message you clicked on into the report as well, in addition to the time and sender's name. That should make the review pretty simple for the GM, who could tell at a glance whether the report is justified about the RMT spam claim. Ideally, he'd be able to ban the spammer's account (or at the very least, block all chat system access account-wide) immediately just by clicking a "Yes, this is RMT" button as soon as he sees the report.

Cons:

• False RMT reports
• Reporting players who aren't RMTs solely to save time on a full report.

If reporting harassment was added this way as well, this could be an issue. Those sort of reports would require a bit more scrutiny from the GMs, since it's a bit more subjective regarding what is or isn't harassment. But RMT ads are pretty straightforward. Either a message is RMT spam or it's not. (And actually, false reports are a bigger issue now than they would be with this system. Currently, the GM has to research each report to see what really happened. If it can be automated to the point where he sees directly what happened from within the report itself in a consistent manner, then it's far quicker/simpler for him to deal with. Just as the GM could tell at a glance whether a message is RMT, he could also tell at a glance when it's not and someone's just making a false report.)

I picture it working something like this:
When you select that "Report RMT" option, the GM in charge of dealing with them gets a message telling him that (on this server, at this time, through this chat channel, etc) Player A sent a message which player B reports to be spam, and the message itself follows. Next to that message would be both a "Yes this is RMT" button and a "No this is not RMT" button. If the GM clicks Yes, then player A's account (or at least his chat access) is immediately blocked. If he presses No, then the system just records the fact that player B sent a false report.

Now, an occasional false report or two wouldn't amount to anything (they only took up a second or two of the GM's time, and maybe you just accidentally clicked the wrong name when two messages came in right next to each other). But there would be some threshold at which the system would recognize that a given player is sending far too many false reports, and the system would notify the GM that that player is abusing the reporting feature, and the GMs would then have to deal with that violation (with probably a warning initially, followed by harsher punishments if it continues).

[Kyouki]

I would like to have an option where i can blacklist ppl via the player search window... Once or twice an hour i search the whole world for lvl 1 characters and its easy to say who's an RMT and who's not. But i cant blacklist them there... I have to click "send tell", then change the /tell to /blacklist add "name" ... cause without the " " this results into an error.

I am so, so, SO sick of the RMT's... Its not my job to play police for SE... And if i do and report them (especially farming bots) i do run into them again and again for weeks... So reporting is supposed to help? Sorry, lost trust into this feature :/

[Laraul]

Most RMT spammers disappear pretty rapidly... either they've been forcibly removed or simply logged out themselves to avoid detection, moving on to a new character.

Here are all the SPAM tells I've received over a 12 hour period while I was AFK. There was only one that got it's SPAM to me twice. None of these we're blacklisted by me (I was AFK).

[18:31]Anselmet Ackezkjx >> [100000K Only need 317$]【ＷＷＷ P?????.COM ♥= BA 】 Real 5mins Delivery Guaranteed. Real cheaper than Market. yj_G
[18:47]X'apa Tiafghff >> [100000K Only need 317$]【ＷＷＷ P?????.COM ♥= BA 】 Real 5mins Delivery Guaranteed. Real cheaper than Market. E8Vs
[19:06]Ytre Ytrytrrr >> ＷＷＷ．Ｗ ????．ＣＯＭ 10000K=50$ Promotion: Up To 50% Bonus, You'll get whisper after buying,Delivery in 10minutes--------------------------S> Crystal Items----------------ＷＷＷ．Ｗ ????．ＣＯＭ
[20:13]Iuyt Iuyttttt >> ＷＷＷ．Ｗ ????．ＣＯＭ 10000K=50$ Promotion: Up To 50% Bonus, You'll get whisper after buying,Delivery in 10minutes--------------------------S> Crystal Items----------------ＷＷＷ．Ｗ ????．ＣＯＭ
[20:17]Mordyn Pojsln >> WWW.P????.C0M 20000K GIL+5%Free = 70.69$. Real 5mins Delivery Guaranteed. Real cheaper than Market. Happy Valentine's Day. 9SwH
[23:23]Kennard Claywevpz >> WWW.P????.C0M 20000K GIL+5%Free = 70.69$. Real 5mins Delivery Guaranteed. Real cheaper than Market. Happy Valentine's Day. ieAk
[0:28]Ahrah Reahdd >> ＷＷＷ．Ｗ ????．ＣＯＭ 10000K=50$ Promotion: Up To 50% Bonus, You'll get whisper after buying,Delivery in 10minutes--------------------------S> Crystal Items----------------ＷＷＷ．Ｗ ????．ＣＯＭ
[0:32]Ahrah Reahdd >> ＷＷＷ．Ｗ ????．ＣＯＭ 10000K=50$ Promotion: Up To 50% Bonus, You'll get whisper after buying,Delivery in 10minutes--------------------------S> Crystal Items----------------ＷＷＷ．Ｗ ????．ＣＯＭ
[2:14]Robyner Fulke >> WwW.g???????.Com Today's price:3$/1000k,best price,UP to 10% bonus.fast delivery sn
[5:36]Gfdser Trewee >>ＷＷＷ．Ｗ ????．ＣＯＭ 10000K=50$ Promotion: Up To 50% Bonus, You'll get whisper after buying,Delivery in 10minutes--------------------------S> Crystal Items----------------ＷＷＷ．Ｗ ????．ＣＯＭ
[6:00]Hewrey Auuoh >> [100000K Only need 317$]【ＷＷＷ P?????.COM ♥= BA 】 Real 5mins Delivery Guaranteed. Real cheaper than Market. Gnb4

I think the only way to stop these is to restrict /tell to players above a certain level. Or those who have amassed a certain amount of play time.

[Kyouki]

I don't think reporting them isn't going to help. Most RMT spammers disappear pretty rapidly... either they've been forcibly removed or simply logged out themselves to avoid detection, moving on to a new character.

If thats for 12 hours you're lucky. That is what i get in ~1 hour. Yes, some of the spammers log out pretty fast... But just to be back with a similar name 1 minute later. Thats how life on Goblin is. They are extremely agressive spamming there.

[Niwashi]

Here are all the SPAM tells I've received over a 12 hour period while I was AFK.

Didn't there used to be a rule that you couldn't get tells while AFK? I wonder what ever happened to that.

I think the only way to stop these is to restrict /tell to players above a certain level. Or those who have amassed a certain amount of play time.

Neither of those would have any effect on it. The spam bots will be whatever level they need to be to send their spam. It doesn't matter to them in the slightest what level that is. Currently, that level happens to be 1, so currently the spam bots are level 1. If the level to unlock full chat access were 10 or 15 or even 50 for that matter, then the spam bots would all go to that level. It wouldn't make there be any less of them. The same goes for play time. If they need to be online for a certain amount of time before they can start their spam, then they'd simply log in that much in advance. Again, that wouldn't have any affect on their numbers.

I've seen this and numerous similar ideas suggested often. People need to give up on the notion that making the game harder for newcomers would help stop spam. It wouldn't. All making it harder for newcomers does is make it harder for genuine newcomers, with characters being directly controlled by real players who are trying to learn the game. Bots don't care what it is they have to do, as it'll all be just part of their script.


The only thing that will stop the RMT spam is making it unprofitable. There are costs in setting up new accounts. (Even if they're stealing accounts, it costs them the effort of stealing them, as they can only manage that for so many.) They're only going to continue doing it as long as those accounts are making them more money than they cost. Given that only a very tiny fraction of players getting these annoying tells will respond by going to their website and buying gil from them (and that in most cases they only make a small amount of money from each of the ones who do), an account has to be able to send out lots and lots of advertising spam messages before it gets banned — enough for even that tiny fraction resulting in sales to bring in more money than the account cost.

The only reason RMT spam is so bad in this game is because SE isn't doing anything to stop it. Sure, they do a sweep once a month or so and ban a bunch of accounts, but a month is plenty of time for the RMT companies to make money from them, so these occasional sweeps are nearly meaningless. The bans have to come immediately in order to have any real effect. If we got that "Report RMT" option and, most importantly, SE had GMs monitoring them real-time to ban them real-time, then the spam bots wouldn't be able to get more than a handful of messages out before their whole account is blocked. With their low sale to ad message ratio, most spam accounts wouldn't bring even a single customer to their site. As soon as that happens, all the RMT companies would quit trying to advertise in-game and move their whole advertising budget into ads on third-party sites, simply because the in-game spam would be losing them money. Now, by itself, that wouldn't stop the actual RMT, but it would immediately and completely eliminate RMT spam.

(Stopping the RMT itself is a different issue because the farming bots are far harder to identify than the spam bots. Real players farm stuff in pretty much the same ways that bots farm stuff, and SE has to do a thorough enough check of a character's background to determine which it is before banning them. The one second glance to say "yes, that's RMT" only works for the spam messages.)

Of course, implementing a "Report RMT spam" option and needing to respond immediately to all the reports that come in from it would create a flood of work for the GMs the first few days after it comes out. Even if the reports only take them a second or two to process, there would initially be a lot of them. But as soon as the RMT companies figure out that this is no longer profitable and they quit trying to send in-game spam, the corresponding reports would dry up as well, letting the GMs get back to all the rest of the stuff they need to be doing. So if that initial rush is too much for their regular GM staff to handle, SE could just hire a few temps or temporarily reassign a few people from other areas to providing the GMs with some backup during maybe that first week or two. It's not like it would continue to be a ton of work on an ongoing basis.

[Kyouki]

I dont agree that its hard to say who's a real farmer and who's a bot...

If i find a group of warping ppl underground (only names showing up above the earth) with names like Aiaoa Aiaoa, Aiaob Aiaob, Aiaoc Aiaoc etc its pretty sure they are bots... If you examine them they all wear the same equip (mostly low lvl), none of them is in a FC...

Unfortenately it is not allowed to post videos of them doing this on the forums, neither is real namecalling (the names above are not the ones i found, they are just similar).

I really wish there would be an option to call a GM to these places to let them check that out while they do that. I know, its not possible but i still wish i could... Cause i am spending way too much time to blacklist and report these days. It really starts to steal my actual playtime <.<

[Shadow_life]

if we give them the website names that are on there cant they have them shut down? cause i started to write some down incase this will actually help because the spamming on my server is so terrible i get at least 10-20 spams in the time span of an hour. maybe put an option in the settings that you can have only friends send you tells or players within a certain distance? i mean i love this game but the spamming is just as bad as diablo 2. what they are doing is considered soliciting money right? if that is the case i will gladly write down every website address and give them to square enix.

[Shadow_life]

just a thought but what if square enix paired up with the makers of sword art online and make a mmorpg? im not gonna lie i think that would be thee most epic game of all time besides this game of course. just my opinion.