Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

[Ophie-Mio]

What is to say that they have to delay/stop the expansion to deal with this RMT issue? Hell, they've been releasing all these content patches in between, I can't imagine adding a few QoL features like a right click report button would be that difficult would it?

All these content patches? You mean...the one? 2.5 was announced long before this thread ever came about. 2.5 was in testing and finished on the NA side when this thread was doing its thing. All its major work had been done though. There hasn't been anything else aside from that. Nothing else. Just a few story missions and one fight. 2.56 is what? One tweak to a fight, a line of code that they've already used elsewhere and a few bug fixes that they probably fixed a month ago. And you're ignoring how people said that there hasn't been any content updates besides the main story?

The "small" QoL fix is an entire filtering system or new way to report people that somehow can't be abused...
It's not as small as you think.

Are you also saying that the fact people have to remain on busy status all the time or they get spammed every single minute nonstop is not extreme?

Maybe it is the way it is on Cactuar but I get spammed with messages and see a lot more people without the /busy than I see the ones with it on. Everyone has different tolerance levels. It's extreme in its own way but it doesn't affect the economy and the fact that that remains intact.

As I stated in my original post, SE has never made a statement regarding RMT and its procedures or any changes since XI's economy was destroyed. Hell, even the reddit thread that asked Yoshida yesterday/this evening only managed to get him to respond with, "We have the STF working on it."

You realize that if nothing happens - if this doesn't change at all, and Heavensward comes out...Do you understand how many new players are going to be driven away?

It won't drive enough away to squash profits, that's for sure. And that's what will make the SE developers act even more quickly than the in-game economy crashing. Also, because you're still subscribed, it obviously isn't enough to drive you away either. "May not subscribed" isn't a loss of profits.

It IS going to be too late by then, that's the problem.

It won't be. People will say, "Finally!" and be happy as they have done before in the past. Once HW is finished, they may or may not implement a filtering system. If they do, awesome. Everyone wins. If not, *shrugs* a majority of the people on your list will be set to /busy and still subscribe.

Exactly. if something isn't done about the RMT spam by heavensward, when all the game reviewers see it, we are likely going to be looking at another 1.0 situation.

What? You mean the 1.0 situation where like, 90% of its fanbase didn't actually like it? That the subscription numbers were barely enough to make due? Free to play for a while because SE admitted that they released the game too early and that it wasn't finished? Really? You think that RMT spam and what the debacle that 1.0 was is anything alike?
Really.

A Heavensward release with RMT issues, I can honestly see being the death knell of the game itself. This isn't 2001.

I assure you, it's not. XI kept going with a lower population than this game will ever know. At no point did XI ever get 1 mil subscriptions... That game never died. It's still not dead even though its content has ceased. RMT will not kill this game just as it never killed XI. A large amount of MMOs or not, people will either stay because they like the game/want to play or they don't.

With that, I'm honestly done. I will sit back and see what they do after HW is out, while you two go back and forth with your ideals of a better world one MMO at a time.

Edit: Also, please, don't feel that you have to respond. I honestly won't re-enter this thread to see whatever you said. I'm happy imagining a /busy with this thread.

[Zabuza]

All these content patches? You mean...the one? 2.5 was announced long before this thread ever came about. 2.5 was in testing and finished on the NA side when this thread was doing its thing. All its major work had been done though. There hasn't been anything else aside from that. Nothing else. Just a few story missions and one fight. 2.56 is what? One tweak to a fight, a line of code that they've already used elsewhere and a few bug fixes that they probably fixed a month ago. And you're ignoring how people said that there hasn't been any content updates besides the main story?

2.5 was quite a sizable chunk of content added. As well as a bunch of minor patches in between.

The "small" QoL fix is an entire filtering system or new way to report people that somehow can't be abused...
It's not as small as you think.

This very same report system I spoke of is used in WoW and is not abused that much.

Maybe it is the way it is on Cactuar but I get spammed with messages and see a lot more people without the /busy than I see the ones with it on. Everyone has different tolerance levels. It's extreme in its own way but it doesn't affect the economy and the fact that that remains intact.

As I stated in my original post, SE has never made a statement regarding RMT and its procedures or any changes since XI's economy was destroyed. Hell, even the reddit thread that asked Yoshida yesterday/this evening only managed to get him to respond with, "We have the STF working on it."

They probably have a separate /tell tab like I do. Also, not every server is as bad as the other. Some servers have it way worse than others.

It won't drive enough away to squash profits, that's for sure. And that's what will make the SE developers act even more quickly than the in-game economy crashing. Also, because you're still subscribed, it obviously isn't enough to drive you away either. "May not subscribed" isn't a loss of profits.

It won't put them in the negative profit because a lot of veteran players will stay through this bs. Their profit loss will be in terms of their potential profit. All of the new players who have no attachment - no reason to stay through this.

It won't be. People will say, "Finally!" and be happy as they have done before in the past. Once HW is finished, they may or may not implement a filtering system. If they do, awesome. Everyone wins. If not, *shrugs* a majority of the people on your list will be set to /busy and still subscribe.

Veteran players who stayed will say that. New players will just leave in droves. This is one of the premises of my thread. Not only would them fixing this ensure the subs of new players, it would also vastly improve the QoL for those of us still here. Does our sub mean nothing in terms of having quality service provided? Yes, the rate they release content is indeed impressive. It makes me realize even further that it would not be a monumental task for them to implement a satisfactory measure that deters RMT operations.

Edit: Also, please, don't feel that you have to respond. I honestly won't re-enter this thread to see whatever you said. I'm happy imagining a /busy with this thread.

Well, incase you're still seeing this message, sorry to see you go. I was simply debating points, not attempting personal attacks in any way.

[Niwashi]

I feel that everyone on the JP side knows that the NA/EU servers have it rough on the RMT side. They have had it rough since the time of XI... Even as Tiggy and few others have said, they know.

Well, there are only a few possibilities, and none of them come out sounding very complimentary. Assuming they're oblivious is less accusatory than assuming they're either complicit or just so apathetic they don't care whether it destroys their game or not. Since in more than a year and a half of being asked to, they've still done nothing about the problem, it pretty much has to be one of those three.

There probably will never be a visible change in how they do their proceedings. There weren't any changes made to XI and the RMT situation until the RMT destroyed the economy in that game...and I mean, inflation the way this game will never know.
...
Yoshi is not blowing off the NA/EU playerbase. He's busy being held tight to a rigorous schedule.
He also isn't blowing us off because once again, they have never made any announcements about anything RMT wise since XI. Ever. He's just going according to what they've always done.

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. You say they're just doing as they've always done, and that what they've previously done is to just blow off the issue doing nothing until it completely destroyed their prior game's economy. Yet you also claim he's not blowing us off.

I didn't play XI, so don't have first-hand experience there, but taking your word for how it was in that game, it seems that, yes, Yoshi and the rest of SE's team are just acting as they always have, and that's the problem, because the way they've always "handled" it (i.e. by not handling it) is wrong.

These disgusting threats of emailing CEOs and the board of directors is so over the top that it's crazy.

No, it's a pretty standard way for customers to express concerns with a product they've purchased. That's why contact information is always provided for the CEO and BoD of any reputable company. Part of being a corporate executive is getting contacted by your customers.

All these content patches? You mean...the one? 2.5 was announced long before this thread ever came about.

When this particular thread started would only have been relevant if it were the first thread on the topic. We've been arguing about this since launch. Lots of patches, both major and minor, have come out since then, and although there aren't going to be any more content-focused patches between now and Heavensward, there's still time enough for another QoL features one. Plus the expansion itself will come with a huge number of patch features that span the entire game (ARR and HW alike) and some of the RMT fixes could be done there as well.

[BobbinT]

I didn't play XI, so don't have first-hand experience there, but taking your word for how it was in that game, it seems that, yes, Yoshi and the rest of SE's team are just acting as they always have, and that's the problem, because the way they've always "handled" it (i.e. by not handling it) is wrong.

Well... I did play XI for quite fair amount of time, and I would probably continue again given the chances since it's quite tough playing 2 MMO @ once. Anyways, I felt RMT situation over there are quite limited, and that's because power of messaging tools over there are quite limited than XIV. For example, you can't spam /shout or /yell continuously since the game added restriction of around 10-20 seconds before you can do that again. Even with that, RMT didn't dare to do that because from what I heard, they were dealt quick enough.

I do get /tell from them, only around like 1 per day, and not quite often. Usually there's no more of that for long time, assuming SE taken care of that real quick too.

I admit that I don't feel the similar treatment I had over XI on this game though.

[LandricFrey]

Come on SE!

[Velhart]

snip

FFXI is a lot more tame than it was years ago. Back then gil sellers were botting and stealing HNM's and NM's from Sky and other areas, while at the same time, destroying the economy by drastically raising the value of items and taking inflation to a point that 90% of players could not afford anything. Thankfully, SE -eventually- did something about it.

I hate the FFXIV gil seller spam as much as the next person, but I always tell myself it could be worse and think of FFXI's situation back then.

[Niwashi]

FFXI is a lot more tame than it was years ago. Back then gil sellers were botting and stealing HNM's and NM's from Sky and other areas, while at the same time, destroying the economy by drastically raising the value of items and taking inflation to a point that 90% of players could not afford anything. Thankfully, SE -eventually- did something about it.

I wonder if this is why what little effort SE is putting towards combating RMT is so single-mindedly focused on the economic effects of it. They're ignoring the far more direct and pervasive harassment almost entirely.

Somehow we need to convince them that the first priority has to be stopping the spam. That's the easy part that they should have already taken care of and haven't. Just getting that part of the problem taken care of would remove the harassment that's driving players away from the game. It would also have a secondary benefit in reducing the economic impact of the RMT itself, because without in-game ads there would be fewer RMT buyers, but the harassment relief would be immediate.

[Velhart]

I wonder if this is why what little effort SE is putting towards combating RMT is so single-mindedly focused on the economic effects of it. They're ignoring the far more direct and pervasive harassment almost entirely.

I don't remember SE taking any drastic action towards RMT in FFXI besides making desirable items no long available to sell. A lot of items becoming Rare/Ex. RMT was still around, but it died down due to the game's dying popularity and not much to benefit money wise from it anymore. A lot of times when a game is not profitable, you will rarely see RMT or they work purely in the background. So I have never seen SE take any actual dramatic steps on fixing the RMT situation.

These three people who are the Special Task Force may be really good at their job, but I can't imagine only three people being able to control the worst RMT I have seen since WoW, and WoW's team against RMT spam is pretty big. Won't pretend to understand what is going on in the background, but they should really start taking more I would say -preventative- measures as opposed to cleaning house whenever too much get in there.