Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

[Morbid]

My main gripe with the RMT is the constant spam of /tell and friend invites. It borders on harassment having the same "person" messaging you multiple times within an hour with blahh blahh gil for sale bs.

I won't deny the fact that botting itself keeps some staple items like Shards at lower cost, but you could also consider prices adjusting across the board if all were provided by actual players. Botting exist in plenty of MMO's. What doesn't relate to all of them is the /tell nonsense. Seeing some dead 'toons' forming a URL for a website is off putting but far more acceptable than random PM/invite from some fuck that's not even at the keyboard. That is super annoying and disheartening since you personally cannot stop the constant onslaught outside of going /busy24sev.

[Zabuza]

(issue resolved, deleted)

Back on topic, however, I think we need to actually send this petition to yoshida himself. I don't think he is actually seeing the effect this issue is having on people.

How would I get this petition to Yoshida himself though? Perhaps if someone was able to translate it into Japanese and post it on the JP forums or something? I really have no idea how lol.

P.S. Will have 200 signatures pretty soon, I wonder how much of a portion of the general discussion forums that is.

[tocsin]

The best idea I have come up with was to contact the CEO of SE, perhaps as a group, and give him this petition. we have an email address for him, from less than a year ago. it isn't recent, but perhaps, if we can get 50-100 messages to him, with this exact petition enclosed, he may listen enough to get the message to yoshida.

http://eu.square-enix.com/en/blog/note-phil-rogers-ceo

His email is at the bottom, behind a hyperlink.

[Zabuza]

The best idea I have come up with was to contact the CEO of SE, perhaps as a group, and give him this petition. we have an email address for him, from less than a year ago. it isn't recent, but perhaps, if we can get 50-100 messages to him, with this exact petition enclosed, he may listen enough to get the message to yoshida.

http://eu.square-enix.com/en/blog/note-phil-rogers-ceo

His email is at the bottom, behind a hyperlink.

Hmm, it's certainly worth a shot.

[Chubi]

Forgot to add that I'd like to add my name, too. Will make sure to get some more names in there soon~

[tocsin]

additionally, http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/company/officer.html gives a list of all current board members. Based on the fact that the EU and Americas CEO, Phillip Rogers, uses an email that merely shortens his first name, as a nickname, it may be prudent that the other board members may do the same. blanket emailing said directors, to figure out which are real emails and which are not, may also be prudent.

We may need to be persistent. more persistent than the RMT spammers themselves, in order to get a response. but if we are, it may make this better.

Additionally, http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/company/group.html Gives addresses to each of the corporate headquarters. lets start mailing the people, too.

[Zabuza]

additionally, http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/company/officer.html gives a list of all current board members. Based on the fact that the EU and Americas CEO, Phillip Rogers, uses an email that merely shortens his first name, as a nickname, it may be prudent that the other board members may do the same. blanket emailing said directors, to figure out which are real emails and which are not, may also be prudent.

We may need to be persistent. more persistent than the RMT spammers themselves, in order to get a response. but if we are, it may make this better.

Hello, I write this letter and petition in hopes that it will get to Yoshida himself. I feel SE currently does not realize just how bad the RMT situation is on the NA/EU servers, being that the JP servers have been relatively spam free in comparison. On my server, Zalera, I often get a /tell from an RMT roughly once per minute, as well as friends requests from gilsellers and shouts in the cities. The imgur hyperlinks below will prove what I am saying is true.

http://imgur.com/qkNTxWQ
http://imgur.com/PuCI6oz
http://imgur.com/rb45o8h

I would not have sent this email were the situation on the NA servers not desperate. Players on many servers have resorted to shutting off their private communications channels so that RMTs cannot spam them. In an MMO, the most social genre of game there is, this is a very bad sign. I am concerned about the new players who will join. In an oversaturated market, new players will not put up with such spam the moment they begin to play this game. You as a company could be missing out on possibly millions of dollars from these new players who will likely not sub because of this very problem.

I do not expect SE to reveal the strategy they are going to use to deal with the RMTs, that would be tipping your hand. I do however, expect some sort of reassurance and acknowledgement of the problem, and that SE's current solutions to combating this problem are not enough. I realize it might be bad publicity or what not to admit your current measures have not been enough, but consider this; Had it not been for SE accepting they had made a mistake, we would not have this beautiful game called FF14: A Realm Reborn in the first place. The game itself was an amazing comeback from what was previously a massive failure. Back then, you all came out and admitted fault, and you strived to better the situation. You succeeded spectacularly. Please, follow this example once more, and make things bearable for your players once again. We are so very tired of being harassed every minute of our gametime by RMTs. Below are the signatures of all the players on the forums who feel the same as I do(approximately 200 gathered), and those are only the extreme minority of people who have visited the forums in this month's time.

(Obviously the signatures are down here.)

This is the email I will be sending.

[Kassiekane]

If they don't say or do something by Heavensward, I'm gonna be severely upset, and may have to consider unsubscribing.

[tocsin]

I would also print out like 50 copies of the petition itself, stick it in an envelope, and mail one a day to each of the SE corporate headquarters, addressed to the CEO of the respective division.

[Ophie-Mio]

Emailing the board of directors...borderline creepy AND insane. >_>
Like the board has anything at all to do with this game other than looking at expense reports.