Petition for a Realistic Solution to RMT's

[NimlothUndomiel]

Now gil sellers want to become friends. =)
I've noticed a pattern in their names, they try to use their addresses using " 'com " on their names. http://i.imgur.com/UGvePik.jpg
I wouldn't mind blocking them manually if it wasn't so hard to do with friends request. There should be an option to decline and block right away, as well as the already suggested "report seller" option.

I think SQEX should track down these sellers and get some of the $$ they make by lawsuits.

[NimlothUndomiel]

No, because the RMT sites are a business with employees that can't be touched in the courts on that level. Even if they could, how can you say that a site can't provide service for a game? That's the broad stroke of it. It's a website that provides a service.

I don't know about FF, but i have played other MMOs which companies made contracts that stated that everything, including your charachter and it's "posessions", is game content and belongs to the developer. Based on that they made illegal the selling of itens and even accounts for real money.

Also SQEX could prove that the operations of the "gil selling service" companies causes loss of profit to them. I'm no specialist but i'm quite sure that one cannot build a "parasitic business" that rely on the existence of another business while it's activities are cutting down the original company's profits. SQUEX could also say they don't authorize this business to run since it runs inside their own.

[RaineMagus]

::A very easy solution to the spam problem would be private-message graylisting, or the option thereof to enable such a system. In alot of mail servers, proof that you're not a spammer is done on various heuristics (not just graylisting), yet the concept overall of graylisting is extremely effective (alone). It's essentially to delay messages and refuse their delivery until some proof has been provided that the sender is not a mass-mailer / spammer.



With emails, that's usually done via a backoff / delay where the receiving SMTP server instructs the sender to simply re-transmit the message after a certain delay.. Most mass mailers do not 'keep' messages in order to handle the randomized backoff / re-send, which is what makes this effective. Obviously in XIV that's not really viable implemented in that way, yet the concept could be done with something like Captcha.

**Graylisting is a double edged sword as it delays messages in any means it's done (it's annoying) .... on the flip-side, being bombed by dozens of spam messages per hour is EQUALLY if not more annoying. I would suggest that given such a feature, many would prefer it 'active'.. [it should still be optional though]


In jist:

-You message someone that you've not messaged before and you have a low 'credibility' score. (you haven't proven that you're not a bot in answering Captchas to other players that have this feature enabled recently [within xxx prior PM targets] )

-Then you're now required to prove that you're a human before you can message said player.. By solving the captcha successfully, you gain credibility. If you fail to solve a certain number of captchas in a row, you're private message muted for some minutes. After a period of time your assumed credibility with this player will timeout / be revoked, and proof of being a human again would be needed.

-A player's friendslist would be considered a "whitelist" for such a system.

-As RMT spammers have already resorted to sending friend requests, it would also be wise to apply the same system for sending requests. (eg, solve a captcha in order to friend a player)

-If RMT spammers cannot private message, they will probably step up zone-shouting their ads. Perhaps a captcha to unlock a certain number of shouts is appropriate to combat such abuse, in addition to an account wide message limit. (Alot of games permit say, 5 shouts every 10 minutes for the entire account)



Of course, this won't stop a spammer that's dedicated enough to seat a human at the screen to solve Captchas.... Yet it'd drastically reduce the number of spam messages for sure.



To comment on the main thread's premise and the discussion:
--Yes, something needs to be done. The situation is getting progressively worse by the day in terms of sheer spam volume.

In my mind, I am all for a system that takes more time from RMT advertisers or at least is as annoying to them as their messages are to me. I'm against systems that make it easy to report players, as any system that makes it easy to report people tends to be abused historically in other MMORPG's (such as guilds coordinately reporting players that they dislike).

[Fortified]

Square could implement a WOW Token style system. It would take away the gil sellers' business and give an option for people who don't want to pay for a subscription.