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.

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[Lexxuk]

Can you stop defending SE on this matter, it's the weekend, they are busy, it's unreasonable to expect service. Their response is unacceptable, this isn't a F2P game, SE is pulling in roughly half a billion dollars per year in sub fees (4 million subscribers according to a newspaper). I'm pretty sure "RMT can't log in because servers are full" is not really acceptable RMT countermeasures, if they can't log onto a full server, they will just log on to a less full server, but that isn't even the point

The point is that there has been zero response to an obvious RMT spam bot, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who will have reported this bot, and it would take a GM all of 30 seconds to read the report, pop in to where the Bot is, wait for them to put their spam and then instantly ban them, 30 seconds, it's not really too much to ask for GM's to respond to reports in a timley manner, sure, 1 hour, that's okay, you're busy. 2 hours? Getting a bit long there, but okay, maybe you're on your lunch break. 8 hours? Okay, shift change, that's okay. 16 hours. Another shift change. 24 hours, wow, the GM's who were at work when I reported it are back again, and it still hasn't been sorted.

[StrejdaTom]

As other people already stated, bans tend to go out in waves. You can check that in their "ilegal activity reports."
Sorry but no one will start flipping tables because you have seen a RMT. It is not gamebreaking.
And I could name 10 MMOs that had bigger RMT and Bot problems, but I dont want to advertise other games.

[AsteriaStarfall]

The point is that there has been zero response to an obvious RMT spam bot, I\\\\'m pretty sure I\\\\'m not the only person who will have reported this bot, and it would take a GM all of 30 seconds to read the report, pop in to where the Bot is, wait for them to put their spam and then instantly ban them, 30 seconds, it\\\\'s not really too much to ask for GM\\\\'s to respond to reports in a timley manner, sure, 1 hour, that\\\\'s okay, you\\\\'re busy. 2 hours? Getting a bit long there, but okay, maybe you\\\\'re on your lunch break. 8 hours? Okay, shift change, that\\\\'s okay. 16 hours. Another shift change. 24 hours, wow, the GM\\\\'s who were at work when I reported it are back again, and it still hasn\\\\'t been sorted.

Perhaps you missed the July 9th "Actions taken against RMT" in the launcher....i think you did. You can also go back and see every week they release ban numbers.