Gold Sellers

[Zedd702]

I got a forum ban too. All you gotta do is go to a certain video playing website, and you can literally look up all the mass hacks, spambots, minerbots, and the rest. They don't even bother hiding it. So I got a temp ban...because I dared point out that SE is failing COMPLETELY on EVERY level to stop the bots. I've never seen a pay to play MMO fail so hard when dealing with bots, hacks, and third party programs like this game does.

If there is one thing that would scream SE IS permitting RMT on the secret end, this quote would be it.

I seriously and strongly believe now that there are some sites that they ban because they are not making revenue from them, but the ones they do allow are ones they are actually getting something from... There is no reason for them to do anything about RMT as there are a select group that does on behalf of SE... Like I said before many many many many times over is this is a simple situation to fix, but they've not lifted a single friggin finger to do anything about it. It's literally infuriating. I reiterate my stance before. I couldn't give a flying fuck if anyone else buys gil from these pricks, I just don't want to be incon-fucking-venienced by these assholes. Please give players a friggin option to silence these bastards!

ie: an option to BLACKLIST THE ACCOUNT CONNECTED TO THE CHARACTER....

Sincerely,

A pissed off PAYING customer.

[OlyverW]

The gil sellers even breached into the gold saucer which was supposed to be a place of fun :/

[Dererk]

But the ones at most fault are the people who are buying gil they making it so the rmts have a reason to keep doing it and they make a lot of money doing it.

It doesn't matter if it's just data I say SE just sue the biggest rmt site that's selling gil make an example of them its their product they broke the TOS and I'm sure there's a law some where that can justify this because I see rmts as nothing but hackers.

[Zedd702]

But the ones at most fault are the people who are buying gil they making it so the rmts have a reason to keep doing it and they make a lot of money doing it.

It doesn't matter if it's just data I say SE just sue the biggest rmt site that's selling gil make an example of them its their product they broke the TOS and I'm sure there's a law some where that can justify this because I see rmts as nothing but hackers.

Incorrect. The ones at-fault are the ones responsible for enforcing the ToS regarding RMT...

I'm sorry but with as high as a volume this game has with gil spammers, I seriously feel, outside of their neglect to do anything about them, that SE is allowing a select few sites to do this for them, as if SE sold the gil on Mogstation directly it would immediately break the game and many players would leave...

[Faelandaea]

You guys keep mentioning "law" You DO realize that laws are different in other countries, right? You can;t sue RMT unless they are in a jurisdiction that would actually recognize it. And this has to be done on multiple levels:

- Easiest if the Plaintiff and Defendant are in the SAME country AND that country enforces TOS recognition
- Harder if the suit is international, even if both countries recognize TOS as something that can be sued over
- Bloody impossible if international and the country has no laws regarding intellectual property rights or TOS.

Gil sellers and spammers are ALWAYS in countries where they can't be touched. The MOST that can POSSIBLY happen is they get banned from the game, to which they will just start a new account and keep on botting. And going after buyers? Same result - most you can do is ban them, but these are people with money, and money is power. They'll just turn around, and do the same thing as the botters - make a new account and buy their way to the top. Most people that buy gil also live in places where they cant be touched - just banned from the game.

The one solution I have not seen in this thread which might hit the sellers and buyers - ban entire country IP ranges. Do not let IP addresses from countries that do not cooperate with certain laws play. No one that is legitimate lives in those countries anyway so it would be no loss to the game. Oh wait . . . enter another technicality - proxy programs which would allow them to log on anyway masking themselves as residents of legitimate countries. Ah well, but I'd ban all those IP ranges anyway - just to make the botters work a little harder for their connections. and the buyers work harder for those same connections.

Long story short - those of you saying "sue the gil companies" obviously grew up and only have lived in places like the United States or UK where people actually sue each other over everything. Most other areas of the world have bigger problems to deal with than some game company issues.

[moudoka]

Well, judging by the tells I've gotten from the hundreds upon hundreds of bots, there is a prime location for their operation: China. Some of the bot creators are European, which if I'm not mistaken, do honor these sort of laws. Of those from Europe, most of them are Eastern European, like Romania and the like. Broad, blanket bans are like taking a hammer to a sewing needle.
As I've suggested, and oft demanded, have in-game GMs. People paid by SE, to literally roam the game worlds. They get spammed, bam, instant ban. As such, while typing this short response, I've gotten four tells, all spamming for the SAME website. Honestly, if these mass tells are going out, identify key phrases, words, and ban. I would put up the words, but I'd get banned, because banning a paying customer is far preferable to these people than dealing with the greater problem with any sense.

[Faelandaea]

Well, judging by the tells I've gotten from the hundreds upon hundreds of bots, there is a prime location for their operation: China. Some of the bot creators are European, which if I'm not mistaken, do honor these sort of laws. Of those from Europe, most of them are Eastern European, like Romania and the like. Broad, blanket bans are like taking a hammer to a sewing needle.
As I've suggested, and oft demanded, have in-game GMs. People paid by SE, to literally roam the game worlds. They get spammed, bam, instant ban. As such, while typing this short response, I've gotten four tells, all spamming for the SAME website. Honestly, if these mass tells are going out, identify key phrases, words, and ban. I would put up the words, but I'd get banned, because banning a paying customer is far preferable to these people than dealing with the greater problem with any sense.

You wouldn't even need to pay the GM's probably.

back in the glorious days of the old classic Everquest, I was a GM. I played on Vazaelle and was a GM on Mith Marr. I volunteered to do this job and my only payment was no subscription fee, so basically I did customer service for $14.99/month . . . out of everything that has changed economically isn't it amazing that MMO game subs are still basically the same? Anyway I digress. So my job was: help players out of stuck situations (not an issue for FFXIV since players don't get stuck) and assist the company with investigations of harassment or illegal activity. We were not visible to players, most of the time. Most of the time we stayed invisible . . . we could be standing literally on top of you and you'd never know we were there. As such we could spawn into anywhere in the world, monitor chats of people around us, and watch for malicious activity being done. If we caught a player red handed, one of most common procedures was to "pull" them into a special zone we had, which was basically just a blank cube that had no distractions, and discuss the issue with them. More often then not we'd give the player a chance to plead their case, and depending on the results, they could end up banned or maybe the case dropped altogether.

The catch was as GMs we were customer service agents, and customer service was our foremost priority. We had powers to pull players to talk, and we could make ourselves visible to the public just for kicks or PR. We'd even sometimes hold events where we transformed into "NPC's" that players had to interact with, kill, do a quest for, etc. to change things up a bit sometimes. However we could NOT ban players. We also could not discipline players beyond what a mall security guard could do in real life - basically we intervene and stop harassment, but it was up to the actual game devs if a player got banned or not, and based on our reports they would usually listen to our recommendations on disciplinary action against the suspected player.

I would not expect pay if SE were to make such a program - I'd HAPPILY volunteer just for free game time again. But it would take lots of work - systems would have to be introduced that monitored us VERY closely and made sure we did not abuse our powers or misrepresent the company, because the primary goal of a GM is always customer service - to represent the company. An in-game Gm is an ambassador between the player base and the development team.

Yes . . . i think this is an outstanding idea - if SE would consider it. Live GM's roaming the world could certainly pick up and catch bot activity more efficiently than random algorithm reports.

[censingice]

They need to put a button in so we can just report them like how u click their name to send tell there should b a report option there too

[aresgodofwar30]

Is Square Enix doing anything to prevent these third party botting programs? I haven't found anything other than "we will look into the matter" cookie cutter responses. I want to know specifically what is being done.

[moudoka]

They'll periodically announce "We have banned X amount of accounts for RMT" which really means little to nothing. At least with in-game GMs, there is an opportunity to show the community as a whole that SE is trying to do something. As it sits now, it really does appear they get kickbacks from the RMT guys, to ply their trade at our expense. Their system in place for both reporting, and the methods the bots use to find people is very poorly designed. I won't stop my disdain for this behavior. Especially when SE gives us zero response to the issue. But, given their utter LOVE for RNG in EVERYTHING in this game, they could care less about what the community thinks, as long as those dollar signs keep racking up.