easy solution for the gold spammers, ban the use of /yell and /shout, and restrict their /say chat to X amount of characters per minute unless they are subbed, yes its harsh, but in a game like this its the only thing they can do. since the way the economies are designed in a game like this (as opposed to something like EVE), it is virtually impossible for the owning company to make buying gold less appealing except for the threat of banning anyone who DOES buy. the problem with that ebcomes, your not actually punishing the people who need to be when you ban the buyers, since the people who are selling are still in full swing, making more trials, farming with more bots, raking in more suckers to fuel their business.

though if the only way to have a successful gold sale bot is to pay monthly for it, then that'll raise the rpices for gold and make it less appealing to buy, though i guess that assumes they are obtaining the gold without paying for accounts, and if they ARE paying for the accounts they bot, i doubt Square Enix would care as long as they were making their money at the end of the day (ya know, unless they actually LIKE their NA/EU playerbase, though most companies seem to care more about the income than the actual player-experience)

and i think i went off on a rant at some point there