RMT is now using party invites with their url as a char name

[UnstablePersonality]

I got 3 in a period of 30 minutes yesterday.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

They're pretty rampant on Lich as well. I'm starting to wonder if there is no legal action SE could begin to take against these people, because they're really starting to be invasive in my (and I guess our?) playing experience. Also, could they PLEASE make a character be auto-blocked for me when I report their RMT spam from chat? Heck, you can even make it a temporary client sided list that deletes upon log-out? It's incredibly annoying having to report AND blacklist.

Considering RMT operators can be in many different countries, it'd be a bit difficult to do so.

[Alleo]

I am from Moogle and I got two of them this week..was outside the game looking something up and heard the sound of the invite..I was like "wait why?", got back into the game.."-.- seriously?". At least I can click on the name after that and blacklist them..but thats truly even more annoying than chat spam..since the other you can just ignore, here you have to do something..(not much but still)

[Gemina]

I got 3 in a period of 30 minutes yesterday.

Yup, same here. And I've been getting them pretty steadily throughout the holiday weekend.

I just don't get it. Why are they so persistent? Are they just a band of trolls at this point, only serving to annoy and harass the community? This can't be a very lucrative business for them.

I got so sad last night when I finally accepted defeat and put my busy status back up when not running with my bird

[MilesSaintboroguh]

snip

They are bots. Keyword being "bots". There isn't an actual person behind them. People just run a script and let the rest handle itself. They'll only intervene if someone screws with the bots or Square bans the characters. Since the direct RMT report has worked very well, the people creating the bots simply changed how they get the advertising across. It costs little to nothing for RMT to have a bot spew the ad over and over again and since most RMT are using stolen information, thus they aren't losing money if something happens.

This is no different from online multiplayer cheating where the devs do their best to mitigate it while the makers of the cheat keep making new ways to get around the restriction. Cheaters (and in our case, the RMT/bots) have infinite time whereas the people in charge to stop such behavior operate on a schedule and paycheck.


Heck, the only and drastic way of curbing RMT is to make gil completely worthless and make materials easier to obtain. But that's just going too far.

[Emerald_Swords]

Haven't seen much on Coeurl, but I've found Rmt's to be more persistent in the chat logs as of late.

[Gemina]

Snip..

Thanks for enlightening me. I'm still at a loss at how they continue to get away with it. Isn't every bit as illegal as an advertiser using a radio station or TV broadcast to try and sell their product without their permission? I guess I'm just confused as to how it is even worth it. Are there really enough gil buyers out there that it is worth the legal ramifications - if any should they get caught, and also ruining the in-game experiences of those who pay good money to play the game?

I was just telling a friend of mine that shards/crystals/clusters are more valuable to me than gil, and while that is not a suggestion, I do wonder if the game can implement a new kind of currency that RMT won't have access to without actually putting effort into playing the game.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Thanks for enlightening me. I'm still at a loss at how they continue to get away with it. Isn't every bit as illegal as an advertiser using a radio station or TV broadcast to try and sell their product without their permission? I guess I'm just confused as to how it is even worth it. Are there really enough gil buyers out there that it is worth the legal ramifications - if any should they get caught, and also ruining the in-game experiences of those who pay good money to play the game?

I was just telling a friend of mine that shards/crystals/clusters are more valuable to me than gil, and while that is not a suggestion, I do wonder if the game can implement a new kind of currency that RMT won't have access to without actually putting effort into playing the game.

The difference here is advertisers on radio and TV have to be approved by the people hosting the medium before they're even allowed to have their ads posted to the public. There's a lot of rules and regulation when it comes to those types of media. This game isn't quite the same in that regard and RMT does not care what the rules are. They are performing illegal activity because there's money to be made. They know there will be people dumb enough to do business with them and that's how we have accounts that are hijacked and are used as a puppet to make dummy characters for botting and RMT advertising. The people behind RMT give no clucks about ruining the game experience for everyone because they're a mob aiming to make money and will be aggressive in doing so. By being aggressive in their advertising, they guarantee at least 1% of players will take interest, even if the rest of the 99% won't go for it.

Remember, it costs little to nothing to keep bots running 24/7 and the return investment is potentially huge. And because RMT can operate anywhere in the world, good luck trying to persecute them if you aren't willing to fork over the time and money to do so. For each RMT that does go down, another will take their place. This doesn't mean Square should just quit combatting them, but it's not as easy as people make it sound when it comes to fighting RMT directly. We need more options to filter them out and while the RMT direct report feature is great, we need more options.

[Chocolys]

I "finally" got one last day from some "RMT URL like name" at Camp Dragonhead (Moogle Server) while I was crafting. I did not bother refusing the Party Invite, and after few seconds the invitation was cancelled by the sender.

[Gemina]

The difference here is advertisers on radio and TV have to be approved by the people hosting the medium before they're even allowed to have their ads posted to the public. There's a lot of rules and regulation when it comes to those types of media. This game isn't quite the same in that regard and RMT does not care what the rules are. They are performing illegal activity because there's money to be made. They know there will be people dumb enough to do business with them and that's how we have accounts that are hijacked and are used as a puppet to make dummy characters for botting and RMT advertising. The people behind RMT give no clucks about ruining the game experience for everyone because they're a mob aiming to make money and will be aggressive in doing so. By being aggressive in their advertising, they guarantee at least 1% of players will take interest, even if the rest of the 99% won't go for it.

Remember, it costs little to nothing to keep bots running 24/7 and the return investment is potentially huge. And because RMT can operate anywhere in the world, good luck trying to persecute them if you aren't willing to fork over the time and money to do so. For each RMT that does go down, another will take their place. This doesn't mean Square should just quit combatting them, but it's not as easy as people make it sound when it comes to fighting RMT directly. We need more options to filter them out and while the RMT direct report feature is great, we need more options.

A "mob" is exactly the precise terminology for these jerks. I hope they all burn.

I wonder if SE has anyone employed that is RMT minded to combat them. Someone who basically always finds ways around their attempts to weed these guys out so they can stay a step ahead of them. Just a random thought.