Are the GM's on strike?

[Lexxuk]

Around 24 hours ago I reported a spambot in Limsa, you know the ones, trial account, spamming /say with "come to our website to buy gil"

A few hours later, the spambot was still there, so I figured I may have not sent the report into the GM's, checked my log and yeah, nothing there, oh, I thought, so I went through the process again, put in another report.

Now, almost 24 hours later.... the spam bot is STILL THERE. There is no point in reporting to SE, they do nothing, nada, zilch, no wonder RMT are rampant in this game, they know they can get away with it and SE does nothing.

How about you spend some of that $52m a month you get from our subs and hire some GM's? Only thing I can possibly say about GM's response to RMT bots is useless.

[SecretCrowds]

In MMOs, bot bans tend to go out in waves.

Why?

When you find someone that's botting, the right answer is not to ban them right away.

It's to see how they're evading the bot-detection measures that are in place so that you can update the detection mechanisms.

Then, you use that detection mechanism and run it to see if it catches them. If it does, then you also make sure that it's not picking up people that aren't botting, because you don't want to ban someone that doesn't deserve it. If it meets those criteria, then you implement it and it bans everyone using that bot. If it doesn't, then you go back to the drawing board and try again.

In other words, be patient. Banning bots one at a time is not merely inefficient, but actually counterproductive, as it can tip off botmakers that there's another ban wave coming, giving them an opportunity to unload all of the resources that they've harvested before the accounts that they're stored on are banned and locked.

[VarinaVashai]

In MMOs, bot bans tend to go out in waves.

That is not entierly accurate, for the advertisement bots after being reported they normaly get removed within a few minutes. So if the Op's case is an occurance where a specific advertisement bot has been reported, then left up and running for 24 actual hours. So i wouldnt be so quick to defend SE or the GM's, they could do a better job. SE in particular could provide gm's and players with better tools on multiple levels that would aid in dealing with a large amount of it.

And furthermore your comment on how they pracctise banning cheating in general and how it goes out in waves, thats been done for over 10 years now. It's not exactly a very effective way of doing it either.

[Selli]

RMT threads were a dime a dozen before 3.0 because the spam was so bad and these accounts/characters were around for days. Changes made in 3.0 had them gone for a few weeks, but they're slowly coming back.

[Lexxuk]

Check my join date >.> I know there have been 1,000,000 threads on RMT and SE's lack of progress in dealing with them.

This however isn't a mining bot that needs watching to see who gets the gil, to trace that all the way to the money mule.

It isn't a process which requires 1,000 hours worth of watching to check if the char is actually a bot or a real person.

It's a person, in Limsa, spamming the same line CONSTANTLY for over 24 hours. A GM could go there, have a look and instantly ban them.

Let's put it as a time perspective, RMT site sets up a bot, sends it to Limsa, 24 hours later it's still there, so they need 1 bot per day, 1 account per day, no hassle in that. Knock that down to GM's getting rid of them within an hour? That's 24 bots per day, 24 times to go through the opening CS/Quests, 24 new accounts, 24 new emails etc.. per day, the hassle starts to affect the RMT site. So which is better for them?

[Khalithar]

The RMT issue in this game is much worse than any other MMO I've played, I've never seen them this aggressive. Part of me is wondering if the issue is because of the high price of housing and players using their services as a quick way to get a house. Besides that, I don't see much purpose for them, I don't otherwise see much use in having tons of gil, the best staff has to be farmed the hard way after all.

[Imoye]

The RMT issue in this game is much worse than any other MMO I've played, I've never seen them this aggressive. Part of me is wondering if the issue is because of the high price of housing and players using their services as a quick way to get a house. Besides that, I don't see much purpose for them, I don't otherwise see much use in having tons of gil, the best staff has to be farmed the hard way after all.

Just logged into WoW as I got 7 days free and the gold spam was unbelievable. That said, I'm not even sure I've seen any gil spam after HW release so on my regard it goes unnoticed.

[KaedrianLiang]

The problem isnt the mmo, its the gil buying players that are making such a demand. Need a radar that catches both RMT and Gil buyers, with suitable punishments.

We know SE tracks the flow of gil, they know who's buying and how much they are buying. Now we just need some retribution. Their actions ultimately hurt the balance between players.

[Darkstride]

I don't think it is reasonable to expect a GM to ban an account in a matter of a couple hours or even a day, especially with the amount of these requests they probably get on a daily basis. You do have realize that GMs could be buried in a mass of requests at any given time. A bot report is probably not prioritized over someone having a legitimate personal game-breaking issue. There are also probably plenty of requests to wade through from people who have nonsense complaints.

I'm sure they'll get to it when they get to it, but I wouldn't treat it as though there is a GM sitting at a desk waiting for your complaint about a bot with nothing better to do. Just because you personally did not see a potential "bot" removed immediately does not mean that GM's are not doing their jobs and are not busy assisting other people with more immediate needs.

[Vaer]

It's also the weekend.

RMTs disappearing during 3.0 launch is due in some part due to it being tough to create new characters on full servers.