Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

[Brightsayge]

Boy I wish I saw the world in black and white like you.


Yes players buy gil. But that's not really the only variable involved here now is it? Players need a reason to want to buy gil...

So, climb off that really tall horse you got there.

this is a 100% player problem, if players didn't buy gil then prices wouldn't be so inflated. ppl gotta have their stuff now...

[Aerowaffle]

this is a 100% player problem, if players didn't buy gil then prices wouldn't be so inflated. ppl gotta have their stuff now...

But the player-base is hardly a singular blob with a single consciousness. The people who want the RMT problem fixed would probably ban any buyer if they had the knowledge of and the power to.

So we're forced to make posts on the forum to attempt to get our voice heard by SE, who actually has the power to investigate and ban players.

[illu45]

this is a 100% player problem, if players didn't buy gil then prices wouldn't be so inflated. ppl gotta have their stuff now...

I don't disagree, but, with the exception of bugs, almost all of the problems you find in an MMO are player-created. Using cheats, griefing, harassment, doxxing, economy inflation etc. are all pretty much 'player-created'. But I don't think that means that players should expect devs to do nothing about these problems.

[Havenae]

this is a 100% player problem, if players didn't buy gil then prices wouldn't be so inflated. ppl gotta have their stuff now...

This ideology of "if no body buys they'll just go away" is so naive. They won't, not just because you will NEVER stop every player that buys currency from buying it completely. But because RMT companies KNOW there is potential profit that can be made. I don't know how many betas and launches any of you have participated in but let me assure you RMT is always there first. So it really doesn't matter if players buy or not because ultimately if you launch it, RMT will come. And they will continue to stay there until they are 100% convinced that no profit will be made. Which to be honest I doubt theres really a lot of overhead involved in setting up a bot to spam a game's chat system.

Also like it or not, economic design inside of games is partially responsible for giving rise to RMT (no it's not just this game, its various games in the past who never seem to have gotten the memo that most players no longer want to grind for hours on end to accomplish anything). Because developers have made in game currency exceptionally difficult to get in some case or require too much grind unless you just happen to get lucky with RNG. There are several factors and issues that contribute on that end, and I'm not going to waste time here listing all the ones I can think of let alone speculate on the ones I haven't. Yes players play a significant part but to sit and claim it's all 100% player created simplifies the problem far beyond ridiculous, its like saying two people have a conversation, said hello, answered each other questions, said good bye but then saying one never took any part in it to begin with. I'm not saying give players boat loads of gil/gold/isk/credits/ect and you won't have RMT, but if there is not a perceived need to consider measuring time over effort in terms of earning the currency as opposed to buying it, then RMT wouldn't occur. It is a multi-faceted dynamic that drives this particular section of the business. It is NOT as simple as "well if players would stop buying it..."

It's more along the lines of, "If players would stop buying it or if 'X' game developer would stop giving us turnips to squeeze blood out of and if players would stop buying it..."

[Kuwaitum]

This ideology of "if no body buys they'll just go away" is so naive. They won't, not just because you will NEVER stop every player that buys currency from buying it completely.

You are correct. We cannot root them all out, corruption is everywhere. Yet, least we should eliminate as much of them as possible.
The situation now is unbearable with the spams, RMTs/BOTs “thief” have no shame to go using /shout(s) and /yell(s). They know SE ”police” won’t do anything arrest/punish/penalty... This will imply:

-RMTs/BOTs keep doing the same (not being stopped/arrested by the SE “Police”)
-Players will feel free to buy stolen goods from them. (seeing the policemen doing nothing but eating doughnuts and drinking coffee while the thief is acting under their noses)
-Players will be sure that compared with the BOTs/RMTs, they will not be penalized nor punished if they also do similar acts of cheating.

In short: “if the Cat's away the Mice will play”

[Havenae]

You are correct. We cannot root them all out, corruption is everywhere. Yet, least we should eliminate as much of them as possible.

You're absolutely right, they should be rooted out as much as possible as well. In fact I'd be in favor of a more streamlined report feature for that too (because some people are just stupid and will actually brag about it) if I didn't know it would be abused to Thal's balls and back. But personally I think SE is too lax on their ban policy. I say: "1st time offense? Too bad you're gone, permanently." We know, we already know you're not supposed to do it. People do it anyway. They think they won't get caught or they'll get a slap on the wrist and be back in a few days. Sure you'd lose a few customers like that, but I think if this crap continues, they're gonna lose a lot more than those few who buy gil.

Mostly because it annoys the hell out of people. But it also degrades the social aspect of this game. You basically we now have an entire line of communication that can't be used, because if you do then you have to read all the gibberish these 'people' spam you with and chances are you're going to miss a reply from an actual person in the mess of it. So why bother? But then that takes away a method for people who aren't in the same FC or the same Linkshell to interact, essentially making this game more cliquish and socially devoid than it already was.

I couldn't tell you how many friends I've made in other games through whisper and tell features but it has certainly been much more than I have through guild/clan/alliance/<insert player ran group here> channels. Someone send a tell out of the blue, "hey I like your character." or "Hey we need another tank/healer/dps, wanna come run this with us?" or "Hey could you help me? I need to find...." You can't have any of that here. and Why? Because SE wants to pretend like they have it under control? "RMT report feature? Pfft no we;re not implementing that, we got this."

NO.YOU.DON'T