Rampant botting and RMT..nothing being done

[Ashkendor]

And the OP is wrong to say it like that. Nothing effective is being done.

Yep. It's what I get tired of seeing. I'm very anti-RMT myself. It destroys game economies, and the market is where I have the most fun in any game. I wish they'd be more effective about it too, but honestly the constant parade of new threads is to the point where the forum spam is almost as bad as the tell spam, and that's saying something. xD

[Riepah]

Yesterday botting came up and dozens of people in it pretty much admitted to botting and said that everyone they know bots because they said SE doesn't care. Since I started playing again I see bots everywhere. Tons of people in the LS online 24/7 grinding fates and stuff with their bots.

Report them, every single one who admits it. If they have an actual confession to go on, they'll most likely actually do something about it. The number one excuse why botters aren't banned tends to be "No way to tell if they're really botting!", so a confession takes care of that.
For the record, none of my friends in this game use bots. Or they wouldn't be my friends anymore.

[Gemma]

Yesterday botting came up and dozens of people in it pretty much admitted to botting and said that everyone they know bots because they said SE doesn't care.

If I were you I would have taken screenshots of that LS chat and reported the people who admitted openly to botting.
That is something I've made very clear in my LS/FC, if you buy gil or cheat in any way & I find out I'm booting you and reporting you.

But yes OP I share your pain as well. I can't even enjoy killing the bots anymore cause they are now programmed to force logout if their HP gets too low >_<
While SE may be going through the motions and banning random RMT accounts its obviously not enough since as soon as I logged in today BOOM! Friend requests galore -_- Help us out SE! Heavensward is gonna be a nightmare, especially for new people trying to get into the game.

[Sebazy]

Playing devil's advocate here somewhat, but I really don't see why so many people get so massively up in arms over bots, the consumables market is practically dependant on bot to farm up mats. /tells and friend requests used to be done by farm teams sat in net cafes and you'll never eradicate that, not to mention, it's absolute bliss now compared to how it was at 2.0's launch. And frankly, whilst it's lazy, fate grinding bots don't really affect me in the slightest so eh, if someone want's to tarnish their reputation with that nonsense then so be it.

I'm more worried about the content lull and keeping motivated till 3.0 hits =(

[abzoluut]

Ok, yes, the botting is still a problem and annoying as all hell. But to say they're doing nothing about it when they banned over 9000 (insert meme here) accounts in a single week is a little disingenuous, isn't it?

You may find it disingenuous, but I find it rather odd when people credulously assume this 9000 ban information were to be true.

They need to give us something to create the illusion they try hard. Else more and more people would feel like the OP.

Why only ban bots? No one can really check that, it's just a number SE gives us. I bet none of OP's LS are banned. Why not ban 9000 gil buyers too? Now that would be a blast. It also means 9000 * $X subscription gone. No way they'll do that.

At the wnd of the day, bots stay. We need to be given the tools to cut down the spam/friend requests etc.

[Ultimatecalibur]

You may find it disingenuous, but I find it rather odd when people credulously assume this 9000 ban information were to be true.

I assume the 9k total is credible because I've done the math on the spamming.

2650 advertising accounts means means that between 2650 and 108000 advertising characters. Divided amongst 65 servers means that each server should have seen between 40 and 1661 ad bots last week. Those are rather reasonable numbers.

[Neri]

Hmm, what about checking the name of the still survived rmt shouters/tellers in your server? Are they still the same names?

[Maxipep]

One of the most frustrating issues with regards to threads similar to this is you never hear from a Dev or GM or for that matter anyone from SE. Their silence is deafening. If just once they replied to a thread, even to say "you know what guys, we are trying to sort it", but they wont, and it's that type of avoidance that leaves all of us whose game is being spoiled by RMT to question why ? Just acknowledge the situation SE, just acknowledge the situation...

[Miitan]

8/10

Yesterday botting came up and dozens of people in it pretty much admitted to botting

That line pretty much gave it away unless you're confusing parsing with botting.

[Chiramu]

Blizzard just banned 100,000 botters in WoW, big enough to make news in any respectable site. This is how things should be done to deter botters. I'm sure Blizzard had been banning RMT bots all the time like SE, but there must have been a policy change and they suddenly targeted regular player bots, which is how they suddenly have 100,000 players to kill.

Congratulations, Blizzard! Get with it, SE!

Permanent ban or temporary ban?