Idea on how to deal with the RMT issues

[Ithyr]

My solution is fairly simple, make a couple level 10+ quests (only on new characters, does not affect existing level 10+ characters) where you have to complete a quest to unlock the /tell, /shout, and /yell, one quest per feature, and a quest to unlock the ability to send friend requests (they can still receive and accept/decline friend requests, but can not send till quest is done). This way it doesn't impact characters that are already level 10+, and makes it a lot harder for the RMT's to conduct their business of spamming tells, shouts, yells, and friend requests to people that do not want to be bothered with them. An average player should be able to make it to level 10 within an hour with very little difficulty, but an RMT will not want to spend hours unlocking those features only to have the character deleted by the GM's for violating the terms of service agreement.

[Ithyr]

does nobody else think this is a good idea to help get rid of the annoying real money trader spam that everyone hates?

[Ithyr]

so nobody wants to be rid of the annoying RMT's? with this method you can still receive friend invites, and use the /say from level 1-10, but you have to unlock /tell, /shout, and /yell, and the ability to send friend requests, these RMT's create a character load their spam macro and send out massive tells and/or friend requests, then log out, delete that character and start over. This will eliminate the speedy method they keep using.

[Riinata]

So I had posted my own thread with a somewhat similar idea. Instead of restricting tells to be unlocked functionality, implement a whitelist so that only Friends, FC Mates, and manually specified people can send you tells or FRs. For those not added in that way, the friend request system should allow for a player to generate an authorization code for Friend Requests for a specific person. For example, a real-life friend wants to friend you and you know their name. You enter it, system generates a code, then you feed them the code to enter on their end and confirm the entire friendship for both sides once they enter it in their client.

[Riinata]

I'm all for getting rid of the RMT spam, but restricting/locking chat features is not the way to do it. The thing is level wouldn't matter with my proposed system. I have yet to hear from anyone (especially SE) regarding my proposal, however I am hopeful that eventually it gets seen enough and people start demanding that it be implemented.

Link to my thread which details most of this (not the Friend Request part as I've yet to be friended or even attempted of such from an RMT person, however I will add that as well as a link to this post for reference in an edit): http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Tell-filtering

[Lathander81]

I like the idea of people having to unlock the tells thru a quest. I would also like Square to stop giving the scripted answer when you report someone. My blacklist was full withing the first two weeks of me playing.

[Riinata]

I like the idea of people having to unlock the tells thru a quest. I would also like Square to stop giving the scripted answer when you report someone. My blacklist was full withing the first two weeks of me playing.

I don't see a point in restricting tells to be a feature that is required to be unlocked through quests. A Whitelist would be the better answer as then no matter what level they are and whether or not they've completed the "unlock" quest, they won't be able to bypass the protection system. However, I do agree that Square Enix needs to tell their GMs to quit using bs scripted answers about having to flush the blacklist and then re-add people as necessary. No. That's not how it works SE. You are supposed to prevent this on YOUR end, not leave it up to the playerbase to decide that spammers need to get blacklisted. Spammers should not be able to send me a tell unless I choose to ALLOW it, which will never be the case so it's moot.

[Riinata]

2nd post due to the stupid 1k character limit:

Fix this crap, SE. Nobody wants to be spammed nor be told that it's "our responsibility to blacklist and occasionally clear that blacklist." That's dumb. If you want to do it that way, Implement a method to mass-remove characters from it and also make it freaking bigger. But that won't solve the issue in a way that I feel the playerbase wants. We don't want this spam to even be seen by us, the players.

[Spork]

There are many MMORPG's that just blanket restrict tells/whispers below a certain level, usually 5-10. unfortunately the RMT's just bot their sock puppets up to the required level and the spam is just as bad. I don't see how a quest would stop them.

I have not used a whitelist in an MMO, but it sounds like a good idea - the current blacklist is a joke, mine remains full and has been for a long time.

That said reporting could be improved, I've just realised this morning in trying to report an RMT that SE have recently broken the default copy command (ctrl+c on a PC) which now brings up the currency window. so now as SE wants an example of the RMT spam message when you report, they just made it even harder to actually offer this proof. I hope there is a copy command I have overlooked, but I'm not going to type verbatim every single spam I want to report.

[Riinata]

Spork: mine doesn't get interfered with even though Ctrl-C is the Currency window open command.