RMT Out of hand

[Kosmos992k]

**snip**I'm sure every one of us has ill-gotten gil from RMT activities and not even know it. And if they were to resort to the mass RMT gil confiscation that they did early on I would initially be shocked and disappointed but, ultimately, understanding. I'd rather have RMT gil* taken from me than have my account banned.

*RMT gil - my definition is gil that have been acquired via someone whom had purchased gil via RMT and used said gil to purchase services (such as Primal/Coil clears/crafting/melding) and goods off of the market boards.

Like in real life, I am sure that there is gil in circulation that someone originally bought from a gil seller and then spent. I don't think there is any merit in trying to somehow trace that gil and pull it back from every account it has somehow tainted. To me, it is the player who buys the gil who is the problem, not the player/ crafters who through selling something on the market board have received some of that ill-gotten gil. I'm talking about taking action against gil buyers, not people who receive some gil in payment for a legitimately sold item on the MB. once the gil leaves the hands of the buyer, I would consider it 'clean' since to do otherwise negatively affects innocent players.

I'll say it again, not to be a pain, and not in reply to you, but just as a general point in this topic... I don't think this can be stressed enough. Without buyers, gil sellers would have no reason to spam anyone. Therefore the most effective way to combat gil sellers is to stop people buying gil.

[Noshpan]

I'll say it again, not to be a pain, and not in reply to you, but just as a general point in this topic... I don't think this can be stressed enough. Without buyers, gil sellers would have no reason to spam anyone. Therefore the most effective way to combat gil sellers is to stop people buying gil.

Oh, I quite agree. If there were not enough people buying gil to make it profitable for these RMT service providers, there would be far less RMT spam. And I find gil buyers to be just as bad as the RMT service providers, if not worse. I also dislike those people who, while they may not purchase gil, don't care if people do it and use the excuse of "It's not hurting anybody".

[SCUBA_Instr]

Greetings, Wobble,

SE already knows it's any issue and just because a moderator or DEV doesn't answer doesn't mean they have not seen the millions already posted....

Ok, i'll quote myself

take the issue to the Square Enix Holdings board of directors.

Wobble, are these distinguished supervisory board members aware
of the RMT threat and the RMT affect on paying gamers?
Mr. Yosuke Matsuda, Mr. Philip Rogers, Mr. Keiji Honda, Mr. Yukinobu Chida, Mr. Yukihiro Yamamura, Mr. Yuji Nishiura

Are gamemasters or moderators informing them?

[SCUBA_Instr]

Meanwhile,

The spamming situation on Adamantoise is becoming progressively worse
daily. More players have written off the benefits of the /tell chat and
gaming with /busy.

One of the notorious sicko spam software developers,
[found this while lurking on a bad-guy website] brags
about spam software that will send over 2000 spams/second.

Using server side code injection, they're hitting players before their
characters even appear upon login. A friend got hit by 5 different
spammers immediately when character appeared.

Another went afk for a few minutes and couldn't even count the
spams waiting for him in his chat box.

Spam software developers are advancing their capabilities. Square Enix
security staff (if there is one) shows no indication of mitigating
the problem.

[Blissa]

FYI I would be careful about complaining about RMT. I got banned for 9 days complaining about RMT!

[MilesSaintboroguh]

FYI I would be careful about complaining about RMT. I got banned for 9 days complaining about RMT!

Or did you post their names publicly that probably lead to a ban?

[Amenian]

FYI I would be careful about complaining about RMT. I got banned for 9 days complaining about RMT!

If you got banned it was probably due to one of the following:
1) Posting the name, either in screenshot or text, of an RMT spammer/bot/buyer.
2) Posting the website, either in screenshot or text of an RMT company
3) Offensive behavior towards others in the thread

You don't get banned for making valid complaints. You do get banned if you break the forum rules in the process of said complaints.

[Ashkendor]

Greetings, Wobble,

Ok, i'll quote myself

Wobble, are these distinguished supervisory board members aware
of the RMT threat and the RMT affect on paying gamers?
Mr. Yosuke Matsuda, Mr. Philip Rogers, Mr. Keiji Honda, Mr. Yukinobu Chida, Mr. Yukihiro Yamamura, Mr. Yuji Nishiura

Are gamemasters or moderators informing them?

If you think that the board of directors of a gaming company aren't acutely aware of the existence of RMT, I'm not sure what to tell you. RMT is prevalent in pretty much every MMO out there. If it's got a currency, it can be farmed by bots and sold for real world cash. RMT is nothing new - it's been around for decades now. The board of directors would have to be terribly ignorant about the world of MMO gaming in general to not know about its existence and know that their game would be infested with it just like every game out there.

The thing I dislike the most about these threads is that they imply that SE does nothing about it. They do mass bannings of characters associated with RMT every few weeks. Even making it easier to report (i.e.the "click to report" button) wouldn't make the tells go away. Most of them use a character to send a bunch of tellbombs, delete it, then make another one. That's why they have the trash names that look like keyboard mashing. By the time a GM got to your report, the character would be gone anyway. The accounts themselves are left active so that they can track the gil from the bots to the "bank characters" where it's collected for distribution.

In the end, the best way to discourage RMT is for people to stop frickin' buying gil.

[Amenian]

The thing I dislike the most about these threads is that they imply that SE does nothing about it. They do mass bannings of characters associated with RMT every few weeks. Even making it easier to report (i.e.the "click to report" button) wouldn't make the tells go away. Most of them use a character to send a bunch of tellbombs, delete it, then make another one. That's why they have the trash names that look like keyboard mashing. By the time a GM got to your report, the character would be gone anyway. The accounts themselves are left active so that they can track the gil from the bots to the "bank characters" where it's collected for distribution.

The mass bannings have done nothing to stop the frequency of spamming. It's only gotten worse as time goes on. An account wide blacklist where you blacklist an entire account when you blacklist somebody would go miles to make this more tolerable. Nobody implies that SE is doing nothing. People imply that what SE is doing is doing nothing. There's a pretty obvious difference there.

In the end, the best way to discourage RMT is for people to stop frickin' buying gil.

This kind of shit response is infuriating. You think people don't know this? You're telling people who don't buy gil that they shouldn't be buying gil to stop the tells. As if they have any control over the people that buy gil. How about at least trying to be constructive.

[Kosmos992k]

The thing I dislike the most about these threads is that they imply that SE does nothing about it. They do mass bannings of characters associated with RMT every few weeks.
**snip**
The accounts themselves are left active so that they can track the gil from the bots to the "bank characters" where it's collected for distribution.

In the end, the best way to discourage RMT is for people to stop frickin' buying gil.

Indeed, so, since they leave the accounts active to allow tracing the gil and the "bank characters", I have to wonder why there are not harsh penalties for characters who are on the receiving end of gil for cash transactions from the "bank characters". Action against players who actually buy gil would send a message to others considering buying gil.

This kind of shit response is infuriating. You think people don't know this? You're telling people who don't buy gil that they shouldn't be buying gil to stop the tells. As if they have any control over the people that buy gil. How about at least trying to be constructive.

Actually, yes, you can do something. My FC has a rule that says that anyone found to participate in RMT will be removed and permanently banned from our FC - they'll also be reported to SE. I view buying gil as cheating, and my FC will not harbor cheats. The community itself can do something, each individual player can do something, simply by deciding that gil buying is unacceptable. For example, if one of my friends was found to have purchased gil, they'd be off my friend's list, kicked from my FC if they were a member and no longer in any LS I manage. How would you handle it if a friend was buying Gil?

If the majority of the community actively shunned players who buy gil, it would increase the negative consequences of gil buying, and deter others by making gil buying something that is obviously socially unacceptable in our community.

I'm not talking about harassing players, or insulting them, or doing anything in any way actionable, there is no place for any behavior of that sort either. I'm just saying that if someone who is found to have purchased gil was suddenly confronted with a very empty friends list and no FC or LS to work with, because no one will associate with a cheat, it will have an impact that goes beyond that individual player. For that matter, if a friend of mine was seen to be harassing other players, they would not remain on my friends list or in my FC either. In actual fact I have removed players for their disrespectful behavior towards others in Eorzea. In a previous game I have also had to remove players - including friends - from my guild(Free Company in Eorzea) because they were found to be cheating.

In as much as SE will leave many issues of player behavior to players themselves, such as when someone abuses access to the Free Company chest and 'steals' all the rare/high end items before leaving the FC, SE will not act against the theft because it is a player issue, that players need to deal with. So, in a sense, this is a situation where the community needs to start policing itself.