RMT, I'm seriously pissed! >:<

[Starcade]

OK, I have tried to stay out of this, but you are coming across as borderline xenophobic with your obstinate suspicion that SE somehow favors JP customers and deliberately neglects others. Frankly, your posts in this topic have sounded like the "ugly American", almost as if you just have to show that the Japanese are as bad or worse than American/European gamers. Say what you like, but Japanese society is very different from what you have experience of, and citing coworkers going to Japan does not help your case at all. So, please just stop.

I'd agree, except Square-Enix has a long history of doing just that in their previous MMORPG. You can say what you want in that regard, but the fact is that the company has a large track record of doing exactly what you believe Teryaani has said.

[Rendecrow]

If you want to combat the problem you have to go after the gil buyers. Going after the sellers does nothing as they just jump from one compromised account to the next. Go after the buyers and people will stop buying gil and then the issue will go away or at least reduce in frequency.

Also, making it so you can only send like 5 tells to 5 unique players every 20 seconds would significantly cut down on the tell spam. I bet the gil sellers auto-tell hundreds of players at once. simply reducing the speed at which they could send a tell would reduce their spam and would not affect many players negativily as there are not many legitimate reasons to send that many tells that quickly in the first place.

[Nyalia]

I imagine it's already mentioned, but...

This post that you made can (and likely will if a GM stumbles across it) result in you being banned from the game, at least temporarily. I strongly recommend you delete your post.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do whatever you feel like, that's your choice. Just, please, don't say things like this on the OF or in public chat channels... It's just a really bad idea =\

[Kosmos992k]

I'd agree, except Square-Enix has a long history of doing just that in their previous MMORPG. You can say what you want in that regard, but the fact is that the company has a large track record of doing exactly what you believe Teryaani has said.

First of all, you'll need to post proof or retract. Second of all, you definitely need to post proof of deliberate neglect because cultural and language differences can create an impression among those outside Japan that Japanese companies will give preferential treatment to their home market, just as the same perspective can be felt in reverse. However in neither case is preferential treatment or deliberate neglect the issue.

The issue is cultural and linguistic. Western gamers can hardly understand precisely how well, or not, Japanese gamers are dealt with since they do not see what happens from the same perspective as the Japanese customers. Japanese customers on the other hand cannot see the difficulties that we face with SE, and I would be unsurprised if they feel that SE somehow favors western gamers with many of the changes that have been made to the game. It cuts both ways.

So, as I say, if you have proof, not anecdotal evidence with posts by FFXI forum denizens; but actual proof of a substantive policy that treats western customers in a significantly poorer way than Japanese customers, post it. Otherwise, you're just pushing another opinion.

[TThibi]

Blizzard did not, it was an open source program that is the biggest weapon against rmt spam. There are a few in use my favorite was a program called "Bad Boy", it works by screening all incoming chat for key words, symbols, and general quality. It then automatically blocks the message, and reports the sender preventing you from ever knowing you got the message. There are also in game things like the ability to restrict messages from persons below a certain level, chat frequency limiters, and the in ability to share web addresses.

[Teryaani]

I can post? I CAN POST! That character/post limit is aggravating.

OK, I have tried to stay out of this, but you are coming across as borderline xenophobic with your obstinate suspicion that SE somehow favors JP customers and deliberately neglects others.

I don't think it's deliberate. Some of the things I've seen here have led me to shift my theory as to why we're seeing this. Back in 2.0, the JP servers had the same exact problem that the NA and EU servers did. SE implemented countermeasures across the board which helped briefly in NA/EU servers but worked swimmingly on the JP servers. Possibly thanks to differences in banking and the presence of pre-existing markets, there wasn't enough of an incentive for the gil sellers to work around the countermeasures there.

Why does that matter? Because the developers don't experience the spam. It's not in their face and therefore seems like less of an issue.

Frankly, your posts in this topic have sounded like the "ugly American", almost as if you just have to show that the Japanese are as bad or worse than American/European gamers. Say what you like, but Japanese society is very different from what you have experience of, and citing coworkers going to Japan does not help your case at all. So, please just stop.

I have no intention of stopping also, I never said they were worse - just the same. Does that bother you? The JP server players are people, humans. Human beings respond to incentives. Where there is an incentive to cheat, some number of people will cheat. No national or cultural identity is going to change that.

And xenophobe? Really? I suppose it's easier to paint someone that disagrees with you that way. That way you aren't disagreeing with a person, you're disagreeing with a caricature. I'm not familiar with the "ugly american" you cite, wikipedia says that it's demeaning and thoughtless toward others. Interesting. Interesting because what I've been saying over and over is that the people on the JP servers are like people on the NA and EU servers. So that's demeaning?

If you want to combat the problem you have to go after the gil buyers. Going after the sellers does nothing as they just jump from one compromised account to the next. Go after the buyers and people will stop buying gil and then the issue will go away or at least reduce in frequency.

Also, making it so you can only send like 5 tells to 5 unique players every 20 seconds would significantly cut down on the tell spam. I bet the gil sellers auto-tell hundreds of players at once. simply reducing the speed at which they could send a tell would reduce their spam and would not affect many players negativily as there are not many legitimate reasons to send that many tells that quickly in the first place.

Certainly some fear of punishment would probably help some. I'd like a right-click report spam linked to a temp account ban when the reports against a certain account (not just a single player) reaches a threshold.

I would be unsurprised if they feel that SE somehow favors western gamers with many of the changes that have been made to the game. It cuts both ways.

I have no doubt that you are correct.

So, as I say, if you have proof, not anecdotal evidence with posts by FFXI forum denizens; but actual proof of a substantive policy that treats western customers in a significantly poorer way than Japanese customers, post it. Otherwise, you're just pushing another opinion.

Even if he's just citing the general perception by the player base, it matters. Over time it creates a narrative that the company will find it really hard to separate itself from.

I can only speak for me and in my opinion, SE has largely been receptive to it's ARR fans. This spam nonsense is the second bit of tone-deafness that I've seen from them (the first was housing). If they can find a way to curtail the spam by 3.0 (I get that development takes time), I'd see that a positive. If they let it go though, it will speak to the narrative that Starcade is talking about. It will be damaging to their brand.

Blizzard did not, it was an open source program that is the biggest weapon against rmt spam. There are a few in use my favorite was a program called "Bad Boy", it works by screening all incoming chat for key words, symbols, and general quality. It then automatically blocks the message, and reports the sender preventing you from ever knowing you got the message. There are also in game things like the ability to restrict messages from persons below a certain level, chat frequency limiters, and the in ability to share web addresses.

That may be. I started playing during cataclysm so the problem was gone when I started playing.