Petition for a Realistic Solution to RMT's

[SarcasmMisser]

I think a lot of people suggesting that stopping the spam will have zero effect on the RMT are pretty short-sighted. Demand has a serious effect on sales, and if you can curb demand by limiting awareness of the product, you can indeed curb sales. Imagine if a major company with an aggressive marketing campaign was suddenly outlawed from advertising and could only advertise briefly and furtively before being caught. Would that company get as much business as it did before its advertisements were stopped?

Like cigarette companies? They are still a plague, they whine about losses but any obituary about their industry would be incredibly optimistic to say the least (or in your own words, "short sighted").

Let's use the drug dealer example--yes, major busts on large amounts of drugs are great because they take the product off the market. But imagine if no drug dealers were allowed to hang out on the street corners in the first place or could only do a single sale before being caught (this is not feasible IRL, but it is much more feasible in-game). The accessibility of drugs would dramatically decrease. Suppliers would have fewer people to peddle their supply out to because far fewer people would know where to buy in the first place.

Let's use the worse example you could possibly conjure, the war on drugs is a misguided failure. You can't artificially strangle supply from any end other than demand in a market economy.

Are players who buy gil always going to buy gil? Yes. The truly dedicated gil buyers will always be there. But with fewer advertisements, fewer (new) players will know where to go to buy gil in the first place.

This is naive to the extreme, people who want to buy will find out where to buy. I don't recommend revisiting your war on drugs analogy for this point because it is an even worst example than the last time it was tried. The advertisements are an exercise in competition; to make the choice for the buyer. The answer is not how we can roadblock them from getting what they desire because that is an arms race you can't win, but why they desire it, and if these reasons can change.

I also agree that the possibility of abuse for new reporting systems is being exaggerated. There are already plenty of ways to harass other players in this game. If Square was so frightened of adding anything that might result in possible abuse against other players, we wouldn't have the vote kick feature at all.

There are thousands of accounts banned every week what on earth makes people think that the problem is that they're not playing whack a mole fast enough? How do they reconcile the fact that an automated reporting system as suggested is a reactive system which means absolutely nothing is done to stop tells from happening in the first place? If this much banning does not stem the tide it is obvious that a ban is not an effective countermeasure, because that is a cost of business and it clearly isn't steep enough to crush the margin.

Obviously the biggest grievance isn't the existence of RMT, which exists in every online game, but the visibility of it. The easy fix is to introduce filtering options which 3rd party apps are already providing into the UI (or you know just get that addon API out as the community proves it can fix issues faster than SE). The impossible fix is to target the RMT itself, and the only way to stop them is to make sure there is no money to be made in the game. If you are to be serious about addressing RMT you have to address the factors in both ends of the transaction; why are players motivated to buy gil, why is it profitable for those who want to sell gil. It requires changing the design of the game fundamentally to reduce the avenues of making money and reduce the need to buy gil, and if this cannot be reconciled with other considerations of game design then it is not a solvable problem.

[sarehptar]

Like cigarette companies? They are still a plague, they whine about losses but any obituary about their industry would be incredibly optimistic to say the least (or in your own words, "short sighted").

Mm yes, because cigarette advertisements are completely illegal and no one is allowed to sell their products in stores at all. Please don't bring up something that doesn't fully match my example and act like it perfectly matches. Furthermore, just for giggles, google cigarette smoking rates in America over the last few decades. Oh wait. That would actually prove my point, not yours.

Let's use the worse example you could possibly conjure, the war on drugs is a misguided failure. You can't artificially strangle supply from any end other than demand in a market economy.

The "worst example" I could possibly conjure is an example someone else began earlier in this thread. I was simply refuting that. Not my problem you don't read. In fact, if you'd bother to read my whole post, including the part you'd actually quoted, you'd note that I mentioned that doing the thing I suggested is "infeasible" in real life. I completely agreed that the "war on drugs" was a failure. But a game is not real life, and the people who manage these games have the ability to control their made-up world in a way that real people, police, etc. cannot control reality. You can't stop drug dealers in reality. But you can stop a huge majority of RM tells in a game.

This is naive to the extreme, people who want to buy will find out where to buy. I don't recommend revisiting your war on drugs analogy for this point because it is an even worst example than the last time it was tried. The advertisements are an exercise in competition; to make the choice for the buyer. The answer is not how we can roadblock them from getting what they desire because that is an arms race you can't win, but why they desire it, and if these reasons can change.

And I said this, didn't I? That people who are really dedicated to buying gil will always buy gil. But your response doesn't make sense here--first all, competition in markets drives down price. Lower prices incentivize people to buy and to buy more. Lower competition by lowering the companies' ability to advertise against each other and you will raise prices, which will ultimately lower sales. This is basic stuff. Furthermore, I never said anything about not also attacking the supply and finding ways to stop buying in the first place. I readily agree that those things are equally important to stopping RMT. Just because something is not the topic of my post doesn't mean I completely disagree with doing it, sheesh.

There are thousands of accounts banned every week what on earth makes people think that the problem is that they're not playing whack a mole fast enough? How do they reconcile the fact that an automated reporting system as suggested is a reactive system which means absolutely nothing is done to stop tells from happening in the first place? If this much banning does not stem the tide it is obvious that a ban is not an effective countermeasure, because that is a cost of business and it clearly isn't steep enough to crush the margin. If you are to be serious about addressing RMT you have to address the factors in both ends of the transaction; why are players motivated to buy gil, why is it profitable for those who want to sell gil. It requires changing the design of the game fundamentally to reduce the avenues of making money and reduce the need to buy gil, and if this cannot be reconciled with other considerations of game design then it is not a solvable problem.

Because thousands of accounts is not even scratching the surface on the hundreds of thousands of accounts that are being created? You're basically saying "If putting one brick up doesn't stop the wind from getting in, we shouldn't bother to put anymore bricks up." Certainly more things on the other end should be done to stop RMT. But the ability to instantly stop the advertisers would not hurt the situation at all, and you are basically suggesting that because RMT is an "unsolveable problem" until people no longer buy gil, that no one else's additional suggestions would be helpful at all. I agree with the OP, if you have no concrete suggestions yourself and aren't here to sign the petition, what are you here for?

[SarcasmMisser]

Mm yes, because cigarette advertisements are completely illegal and no one is allowed to sell their products in stores at all. Please don't bring up something that doesn't fully match my example and act like it perfectly matches.

I know it's hard for Americans but think outside of America for once, maybe even assume that someone isn't talking about your country by default. There are places where cigarette advertising is totally illegal and it doesn't stop people.

I agree with the OP, if you have no concrete suggestions yourself and aren't here to sign the petition, what are you here for?

Because it's not up to you or the OP to limit the scope of the topic, if I believe the premise is flawed I'm going to say so and there is nothing you can do about it. If you are serious about the issue you wouldn't limit the topic to only ideas you are comfortable with.

[sarehptar]

I know it's hard for Americans but think outside of America for once, maybe even assume that someone isn't talking about your country by default. There are places where cigarette advertising is totally illegal and it doesn't stop people.

And did my post say anywhere that completely limiting advertisement would completely end RMT? No. In fact, the very end of my original post says that it won't. So I fully recognized in my original post that stopping advertisement wouldn't stop sales completely; please read the posts you are attempting to respond to. And anyway, you are still conflating the real world with the game world. In the real world, even in places where advertising might be banned, many countries still have cigarettes legally on shelves and they can still be legally sold. Gil sellers are not doing "anything" legally, and their product is not on display for passer-by to see in-game. They have to advertise their sites for a majority of people to know they even exist. Your comparison just doesn't work. (Also, oops, pardon me for preferring to use an example I know of instead of trying to speak for others' countries. I'll make sure that I start speaking for others' country from now on, as well as my own! Bah, it doesn't matter what country you use anyway, the results still hold--less advertising, less usage. The end. My point. Tada!)

Because it's not up to you or the OP to limit the scope of the topic, if I believe the premise is flawed I'm going to say so and there is nothing you can do about it. If you are serious about the issue you wouldn't limit the topic to only ideas you are comfortable with.

Dude, all I can hear is a toddler screaming "Wahhh, I can say what I want to say whenever I want and there's nothing you can do about it!" If you actually have something concrete, useful, and practical to say about solving this issue in a way that is different from anyone else has suggested, go make your own thread and magically solve the problem with your incredibly vast knowledge. Until then, all you are doing is naysaying someone else's ideas using poor logic without contributing in any meaningful way to finding solutions to stopping the problem yourself. If you don't like the OP's suggestion, you'd do yourself a lot more favors by not bumping it with your posts.

[Gramul]

I think the best long term solution would be to make it where it's no longer profitable for them to keep it up. How about a lengthy character creation cool down (24 hours per character for example).

[Avenger]

Hopefully OP can add some of the other suggestions that people have noted to the original post, if they haven't already been added:

1. Communications preferences/whitelist

Permit /tell from: √ (friend list, linkshell(s), free company, people in party) x (people in other zones, spammers)
Permit /invite from: √ (friend list, linkshell(s), free company, people in zone) x (people in other zones, spammers)
etc.

Hopefully this will help avoid:

"Friend request from Spam Bot."
"Spam Bot has invited you to a party."
"You have been invited to join the linkshell Spammers R'Us."

This would also probably end up moving all random chat (in addition to spam) into say/yell/shout, for better or for worse.

2. Anti-spam filters/add-ons

Hopefully this would make it easier to block spammy URL patterns and/or the messages that contain them.

"100% Handwork Guaranteed. You'll get whisper." :-P

[Avenger]

It's amazing that you still can't immediately blacklist spammers who sent you a friend request!
You have to decline the request first, which is a multi-button process on PS4 at least.
This mechanism has been abused by spammers for a long time and it's still an issue.
At least I have an FC so spammers can't invite me to theirs.

[Aerowaffle]

It's been suggested that RMT spam would be lessened by some sort of character creation restriction in the form of limiting how many characters you can create in X time. The disadvantage to this would be, any new character wanting to create a new character because they didn't like how their character looks after viewing it in game, wouldn't be able to.

But what about using a Captcha system? I mean, it's used to prevent automated account creation in the internet browser, why not use it to prevent automated character creation?

[Violyre]

It's been suggested that RMT spam would be lessened by some sort of character creation restriction in the form of limiting how many characters you can create in X time. The disadvantage to this would be, any new character wanting to create a new character because they didn't like how their character looks after viewing it in game, wouldn't be able to.

But what about using a Captcha system? I mean, it's used to prevent automated account creation in the internet browser, why not use it to prevent automated character creation?

CAPTCHA might stop them for a couple minutes until they figure out the system. IMO, it's the worst type of security available. I ran a personal forum for awhile, and it didn't stop any of them. I'm more of a fan of a question related to something a bot wouldn't know (That might be difficult for FFXIV, I always made it something people involved with the activity would know, and that'd hurt first-time players and people that hadn't progressed.) or a special checkbox that is invisible by normal means, but a bot may check/uncheck it as part of its program even if it's not there.

[Sapphic]

My solution:

Target the buyers and come down on those like the hand of god. Put the fear of the ban hammer into the buyers to destroy the sellers market. If the sellers arent able to sell their gil then it wont be profitable and they will move somewhere else.

What many don't realise is that the Gil/gold farmers arent an army of sweat shop farmers on computers, they are normal players who are able to make large amounts of gil, either through bots, selling clears or high level crafting and then sell the gil to websites to make an extra bit of RL money.

Clear sellers which do that can end up in a roundabout, take Gil from buyers, sell that gil to the gil seller websites, that is bought by someone who then gives that gil back for a clear ^_^

Disclaimer: Not saying all content sellers do that, but don't be surprised if some do, especially the ones that are more aggresive in advertising their services.