So, I really want to know... I really *need* to know...

[Alisi]

SNIP

You are so very, very wrong. I hate to break this to you, but this is not an issue in any other MMO on the market. Even WoW. You'll see maybe a shout or two every five or ten minutes and that's literally all. No tells. No friend requests. No person in a major city advertising their stuff. Nothing. When problems do come up, they are dealt with quickly. It's only FFXIV that's this special little snowflake that can't do anything.

I shouldn't have to put my status on busy because I want to avoid the same GS spam telling me. I shouldn't have a completely full BL in under a month. I shouldn't see bots out in the open like that. It's just BS and it's so laughable to hear people defend this. Go play WoW for a year and come back to FFXIV, then tell me if this game has a problem. GS will never be stopped. That is true. But you can prevent them from harassing your player base.

[Kaiser-Ace]

You are so very, very wrong. I hate to break this to you, but this is not an issue in any other MMO on the market. Even WoW. You'll see maybe a shout or two every five or ten minutes and that's literally all. No tells. No friend requests. No person in a major city advertising their stuff. Nothing. When problems do come up, they are dealt with quickly. It's only FFXIV that's this special little snowflake that can't do anything.

I shouldn't have to put my status on busy because I want to avoid the same GS spam telling me. I shouldn't have a completely full BL in under a month. I shouldn't see bots out in the open like that. It's just BS and it's so laughable to hear people defend this. Go play WoW for a year and come back to FFXIV, then tell me if this game has a problem. GS will never be stopped. That is true. But you can prevent them from harassing your player base.

I am correct on the way they operate. If they are advertising a web site they work for some one and if they are this wide spread they are making money. This is also one of the Largest MMO populations since the fall of the WoW Golden Age so of course they're here en mass. They wouldn't be here at all if they weren't making money some how.

The actual underlying problem is how they are being disciplined or lack there of. if your account is banned you can quite easily make a new for for 60 USD. The way WoW and other MMOs handled it was by banning IP Addresses which are not so easily changed.

Banning accounts 4000 per week doesn't even cull their numbers. To ban them effectively once an RMT account was verified, banning their IP Address would near permanently dispose of them. THAT is the difference here.

I hate them as much as anyone else, but since Balmung was put on Quarantine for the Sake of Aether Data Center's Stability, I've not seen a single RMTer on Balmung since the end of 2.55.

[Alisi]

If they are advertising a web site they work for some one and if they are this wide spread they are making money.

I never said GS will go away. I said they would always be out there. The difference is how SE deals with this problem. IE: practically nothing. If you're not getting them then it's obvious that they can deal with it but they aren't. Every other MMO deals with this. SE needs to step up to the plate and deal with this.

This is also one of the Largest MMO populations since the fall of the WoW Golden Age so of course they're here en mass.

WoW still has a larger player base (and it's increased after the announcement of the new expac) and I started in the 'golden age' of WoW. Never had a problem with gold spammers.