Unceasing, relentless daily harassment [RMT]

[Tidbits]

Have sent multiple petitions on the issue, *still* not resolved... (in fact dare say is worse!) all I get are hollow boilerplate copy/paste replies from staff.

Game nearly unplayable being constantly harassed like this...

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Everyday, from the moment I log on, I average 2 tells a minute, a minute, and oh so long! not one 'lil niblet of a line, but pages of Engrish and emotes!

Have chat windows set up best I can so the constant automated harassment only clutters a small part of an MMO; trying to talk to other people...

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• Turning off tells is silly, then ppl ask why don't talk to them...
• Blacklist (like GM's say!) was full in less than a week!
• Beating dead horse prolly
• Just go to one of the sites, buy all my gil/items, wont need to talk to other ppl! yeah, that's the ticket!...

This is dumb folks, this is harassment, we should not accept this.

[Igziabeher]

agreed. if a real person did even half the spamming these bots do, they'd be banned, probably permanently. not sure how these companies are making hundreds of accounts that don't get banned every single day...i smell fish.

[Gilraen]

If you mean the RMT spam... yes, it is excessive but Square is doing the best they can given how fast these RMT keep making new account after new account. You said it yourself, you filled your blacklist in less than a week yet still it's an incessant issue. The problem isn't that Square isn't doing anything, they have a team dedicated to just RMT, the problem is that the RMT even has a customer base to make all the efforts they're going to worth it. It's these gil buyers that are to blame. My solution to the RMT spam was to devote my fourth chat tab to only /tell. I can still see if I've received any /tells but it's not clogging any of my more active tabs.

[Tidbits]

If you mean the RMT spam... yes, it is excessive but Square is doing the best they can given how fast these RMT keep making new account after new account. You said it yourself, you filled your blacklist in less than a week yet still it's an incessant issue. The problem isn't that Square isn't doing anything, they have a team dedicated to just RMT, the problem is that the RMT even has a customer base to make all the efforts they're going to worth it.

Then get a new team, simple; The current ones are woefully unfit for the job by any measure of performance, they have utterly failed daily to even stem tide.

We should not accept this as "Oh just how it is"

[Yurimi]

If you mean the RMT spam... yes, it is excessive but Square is doing the best they can given how fast these RMT keep making new account after new account. You said it yourself, you filled your blacklist in less than a week yet still it's an incessant issue. The problem isn't that Square isn't doing anything, they have a team dedicated to just RMT, the problem is that the RMT even has a customer base to make all the efforts they're going to worth it. It's these gil buyers that are to blame. My solution to the RMT spam was to devote my fourth chat tab to only /tell. I can still see if I've received any /tells but it's not clogging any of my more active tabs.

No offence but if you looked at the credits for Heavensward the "team" is approximately 2 whole people and they are not just RMT they are also for any cheating among other things. They could deal with the bot tells easily by making a bot that ban's upon receipt of said tells and set them up in a dummy FC in an inn room so noone has any reason to send them a tell but they havent.... how odd

[kingatlas]

Some people are saying SE is making so much off their subscriptions they don't do anything.
That is only reasonable if they have a large amount of subscriptions.
Ill Do two examples to show what I mean

EX1) <100 being the amount of subscriptions> <15 being the subscription fee> <the assumed price is 2 dollars per million gil>

100*15=1500 (1500 is the amount they would pay per month)
1500/2 *1 000 000= 750 million

To cover the cost of the 100 subscriptions they would have to sell 750 million in gil per month per server.
1500 a month is a lot, and if they are paying that then I can see how SE might be looking at the bottom line when it comes to this.
But that means that at least 750 million Gil is being sold in each server with 100 subscriptions, which isn't impossible but also it has to be higher to cover other overhead and make a profit.


EX2) <10 being the amount of subscriptions> <15 being the subscription fee> <the assumed price is 2 dollars per million gil>

10*15=150 (150 is the amount they would pay per month)
150/2 *1 000 000= 75 000 000

In this model they are only paying 150 per month per server. And is also assuming that they are using each subscription, and making as many characters as possible with each.
At 150 dollars per server, SE can easily write this off and dismiss the small loss for the support of the community.
With this model you can see how profitable they could actually be. If you only have to sell 150 dollars worth of gold per month, then once overhead is covered. they could be clearing quite a bit.
The second model is also a lot scarier, because when you think of the potential profits could be in the tens to hundreds of thousands per month.

*At that rate not only could they afford to keep getting more subscriptions, but they could also theoretically Pay SE a fee to remain in the game. Even say tell them which bots to kick.
If that were brought before SE corp and shown to be a potential new revenue source, idk what they would do. But that is theoretical.

[Igziabeher]

if paid 15 bucks a month to join a gym, but there were people there who catcalled you, shoved advertisements in your face, and generally made your experience unpleasant, wouldn't you expect management to do something about the people harassing you in THEIR establishment? mean they're the ones who let them in...


and no, kingatlas, gil isn't really required for any gear in this game, its all pretty much handed to you or earned via untradeable raid tokens. sure some people dont have much time to play, but if you don't have much time to practice guitar, you aren't going to be on Jimi Hendrix's level.

[Caitlinzulu]

if paid 15 bucks a month to join a gym, but there were people there who catcalled you, shoved advertisements in your face, and generally made your experience unpleasant, wouldn't you expect management to do something about the people harassing you in THEIR establishment? mean they're the ones who let them in...

The comparison is somewhat flawed.
Shure the management could show the advertisers the door and they would be right in doing so; But to make an accurate comparison you'd have to imagine the advertiser to have an infinite number of "brothers" who would come in as soon as the old one is shown the door to continue the advertisement.

And replacing the team that handles the bans wont help. RMT have to advertise to be able to catch them so you will always get at least one tell/shout from them anyway before they can even be targeted for a ban.

What would make it easier to deal with is a simple right click report/temp blacklist option. That way rmt tell bots could be targeted a lot quicker.
Second it could help to have user configurable tell filters, filtering server side isnt quick enough unless SE can make alterations to the filter without general updates.
What would certainly help is an option to limit tells to only people on your friend list.

[Igziabeher]

valid enough, caitlin, but you cant really flood a membership-only organization with unwanted people, there's some flaw in the system that is allowing them to even enter in the first place, and thats my point. I think that is also OP's point, it isn't a matter of what *WE* can do to deal with it, its not our problem. We pay to be here. If the gym analogy doesn't work out, how about a grocery store where there is a drug dealer on every aisle trying to sell you something? You'd probably expect management to hire some effective security, or you'd just shop elsewhere.

[MaeIsMean]

What would make it easier to deal with is a simple right click report/temp blacklist option. That way rmt tell bots could be targeted a lot quicker.
Second it could help to have user configurable tell filters, filtering server side isnt quick enough unless SE can make alterations to the filter without general updates.
What would certainly help is an option to limit tells to only people on your friend list.

Yes, to all of this. But also include tells from LS and FC, so I don't have to friendslist all of them too. (and while you're at it, allow a unique nameplate color for FC, pretty please!)