11/06 - SE's anti-RMT 'Special Task Force'

[Avinor]

From http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...13/detail.html

Special Task Force (11/06/2006)We are pleased to announce the official formation of a special task force as of October 2006 that will operate within the greater management team.

Formation of the Special Task Force
The management and development teams have been continuously working to combat the proliferation of RMT and the use of third-party tools within FINAL FANTASY XI. However, it was decided that the formation of a special task force was necessary to specifically address the various occurrences of misconduct that adversely affect game balance.

Focus of the Special Task Force
This special task force aims to reduce or eliminate altogether any elements that adversely influence the world of FINAL FANTASY XI, and to encourage a fun and fair playing environment. The main targets of the task force are as follows:

- RMT (Real Money Trading)
- Third-party Tools

With regards to RMT, we have begun investigation of around 100 web sites in Japan and 50 in North America, and are planning to focus our efforts on the largest and most active sites (30 or so sites in Japan, and 10-15 sites in North America).

We also plan to continue combating the use of third party tools by introducing measures against a wider range of tools (not just those that increase movement speed), and focusing on particularly notorious individuals and organizations.

Specific Duties
The special task force will continue measures currently being taken against tools that increase movement speed, and also expand investigations to include other types of third-party tools. We plan to focus specifically on those tools that allow automated farming, obstruct gameplay for other players, or are related to RMT activities.

We will address the RMT issue mainly through eliminating the presence of gil sellers, but also by warning or penalizing specific players who buy gil regularly and/or in large amounts.

The task force intends to conduct investigations into gil sellers. These investigations seek to eliminate the channels for RMT transactions, as well as sources of gil, and curtail the activities of those who farm gil for the purposes of RMT.

Results of Current Measures
Pursuant to the announcements on the official FINAL FANTASY XI homepage, we have banned multiple accounts in four separate instances and continue to do so. In comparison to the rising and falling numbers of banned accounts, the number of account holders has seen a steady decline.

When canceling accounts, we have seen a trend towards account holders possessing multiple accounts. During the measures taken in July 2006 this trend was prevalent when banned accounts were held by over 2000 users. However, in October 2006 when 1,400 accounts were banned, the number of account holders had decreased to the 300 mark.

Accordingly, the number of accounts being banned per account holder is increasing, and we are progressing in our efforts to remove organized groups of account holders from the game.

As was previously stated, we have adopted a new method of investigation that reaches beyond the in-game limitations, and targets the actual RMT sites.

Within a month, these investigations into RMT sites have resulted in the termination of around 100 accounts, and the removal of several billion gil from the game. At the same time, we have confirmed that several of these sites have shut down or ceased RMT activities related to FINAL FANTASY XI.

To build on this success, we intend to continue refining our measures against third-party tools and RMT, and further expand our field of investigation. We are working on ways to track repeat offenders, and will continue to bring you announcements concerning all account terminations.




Your Understanding
The special task force will be making all possible progress towards the goals stated above.

However, even with the new methods we have adopted, there still remain some areas that are difficult to cover. Analyzing the game log is a massive undertaking that takes time to produce results and so we ask for your patience in this matter.

To avoid falsely accusing account holders, all investigations will be conducted with equal thoroughness and care. RMT investigations in particular often include organizations formed through multiple accounts, and time must be spent confirming each case.

While it may be initially difficult to see any progress, rest assured that we are building a fair playing environment one dungeon and one notorious monster at a time. While the special task force will be independently gathering information, we also hope to enlist the cooperation of the community in our investigations.

We hope that our players enjoy the game as it was intended and avoid involvement in activities that violate the user agreement.


Special Task Force

So its nice to see them talking about it, particularly about going after the gilfarmer accounts in addition to the RMT banks. Also interesting to see them talking about going after heavy gil buyers. Considering the hundreds of accounts I've seen leveling up over the past months on Titan alone though, they have their work cut out for them.

[Epincus]

Personally I wonder why they need a task force to realize that 30-40 rank one non-subjobbed taru black mages in the exact same place named 'asljfhwegf' or some variant is not likely consisting of legitimate players.

At any rate, did I see them discussing buying from RMT sites and banning the corresponding mules?

[Not Kuno]

Cue the 20 thousand images of "Im from the Internet, Ma'am" and other swat team images.

Anyway, the way I see it there has to be a guy whos job it is to just lurk here for info. My advice to you; if someone claims all HNM every day they bot. Go look at the "Do you bot?" thread for more details.


I for one welcome our task force overlords.

[layte]

Name and shame gil buyers. I would of thought that would be enough to discourage people from getting their IGE fix. Plus give us plenty of fuel for loldrama threads.

[BerenTebogo]

Cue the 20 thousand images of "Im from the Internet, Ma'am" and other swat team images.

Anyway, the way I see it there has to be a guy whos job it is to just lurk here for info. My advice to you; if someone claims all HNM every day they bot. Go look at the "Do you bot?" thread for more details.


I for one welcome our task force overlords.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...orry_447-1.jpg

[Lordwafik]

So does this mean they're able to track down gil/delivery box/trades/purchases from sender>buyer after all?

[genome]

I for one welcome our task force overlords.

Indeed hehe.

Well that definitely sounds like a big step forward.

I don't think they are catching the armies of /anon blm level 40->70 with no subjobs yet, but then again those are still RMT-to-be, and if they in fact follow the trace of gil back to any RMT site, perhaps those guys will either be caught once they start trying to sell gil, or get discouraged from continuing or restarting anew with little prospect of selling gil.
It certainly would be nice to go back to a time where you could xp without those RMTs underhunting in every xp camp for example. This might even fix sky too.

The third-party tools thing is also long-overdue, although it's not clear exactly what they are doing new about that, and nowadays it sounds like they let it get so bad that a lot of people in hNMLS and endgame went over to the dark side, so there's a potential for a LOT of new accounts banned just judging from what people admit to in this forum... By the way let's not turn this into a windower topic again, that was always kinda of a lame derail.

[Lockecole]

People who use windower are just as bad as botters and RMTers.





































Now that thats out of the way....continue with the original discussion.

[Cjskater]

Don't worry guys, as you can tell from this graph one of the students at Millidgeville Elementary School made... SE has the RMT under control.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...firstgraph.jpg

Unfortunately she got a C- for not including what the Y axis is, shitty crooked letters, and for being visually unappealing.

[Lithiani]

We plan to focus specifically on those tools that allow automated farming, obstruct gameplay for other players, or are related to RMT activities.

Does this read to anyone else as "the task force isn't investigating windower use, so as long as you STFU in game chat, plain windower won't worry us"?

[Bwelch]

So does this mean they're able to track down gil/delivery box/trades/purchases from sender>buyer after all?

Or can this Special Task Force buy gil from IGE/ect and delete the character and it's connecting accounts (Credit Card, ISP) upon delivery?

[Isiolia]

We plan to focus specifically on those tools that allow automated farming, obstruct gameplay for other players, or are related to RMT activities.

Does this read to anyone else as "the task force isn't investigating windower use, so as long as you STFU in game chat, plain windower won't worry us"?

Just means they'll be scanning PCs for any and all scripting languages I guess.

Wonder when SE is gonna realize they could save a lot of time and energy by just, you know, fixing their damn game. But I guess that doesn't look as good on the ol' press report.

[Daemonxel]

With regards to RMT, we have begun investigation of around 100 web sites in Japan and 50 in North America, and are planning to focus our efforts on the sites that we are not affilated with (30 or so sites in Japan, and 10-15 sites in North America).

Fixed for accuracy

[khain]

To avoid falsely accusing account holders, all investigations will be conducted with equal thoroughness and care. RMT investigations in particular often include organizations formed through multiple accounts, and time must be spent confirming each case.


lol, no.

Square-Enix and Playonline gain level 75, Square-Enix uses a scroll of computer scanning.

[Karinastar]

We plan to focus specifically on those tools that allow automated farming, obstruct gameplay for other players, or are related to RMT activities.

Does this read to anyone else as "the task force isn't investigating windower use, so as long as you STFU in game chat, plain windower won't worry us"?

That's kinda what I read but I suppose it remains to be seen.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this team does. Would be nice to be able to farm sky and camp things like King Arthro and baby HNM without having to compete against 50+ gilsellers. Hopefully they deal with the RMT who are starting to camp kings on some servers too. The economy is starting to stabilize too, if they get rid of progressively more RMT, that trend should continue across the board I'd imagine.

In any event, long overdue and in my opinion very much welcome.

[Aodh]

Don't worry guys, as you can tell from this graph one of the students at Millidgeville Elementary School made... SE has the RMT under control.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...firstgraph.jpg

Unfortunately she got a C- for not including what the Y axis is, shitty crooked letters, and for being visually unappealing.

They include pretty pictures for the slow people on the interweb. That and the actual numbers weren't important. That spike in accounts banned vs. account holders means that when they eliminated violators accounts, those accounts were being held by fewer people. That's your gilfarmers/rmt teams.

Basically that means that the changes to the ToS along with the billing update will allow them to flag and kill more accounts. This is actually looking promising. What I don't get is this tho...

We will address the RMT issue mainly through eliminating the presence of gil sellers, but also by warning or penalizing specific players who buy gil regularly and/or in large amounts.

So what, the person who occationally buys a little gil is alright? It just seems funny that they made that exception considering the tough stance on the rest of the issues.

[Appie]

I'll believe this stuff when I actually see it happen in game.
Could end up as another GM crew lol...

[Dustybrown]

What I don't get is this tho...

We will address the RMT issue mainly through eliminating the presence of gil sellers, but also by warning or penalizing specific players who buy gil regularly and/or in large amounts.

So what, the person who occationally buys a little gil is alright? It just seems funny that they made that exception considering the tough stance on the rest of the issues.

That is exactly what I thought reading it at the time. If you buy 50m gil constantly you're gonna get busted, but if you but 1m here and there then that's ok? Seems a bit crappy seen as they have a specific "task force" looking into this, but I'm guessing what they are doing is trying for the big guns first... plus they're easier to catch. Johnny RMT buying a couple of million gil every week or few weeks is going to be far easier to catch than some guy who buys 10m every 6 months or so. They can't just track delivery boxes because RMT don't send gil through the delivery box anymore. If they could I would imagine it would be easier to catch more people RMTing. Hell, if they catch one RMTer, it's one RMT less on the server and that's good news to me.

This is a good move on SE's side though. A little (ok a lot) overdue but at least they're doing something. I also like that they're looking into more 3rd party tools besides Flee Tool. If they could ban botters as well, that's definitely a step in the right direction.

[yayaok]

I'll believe this stuff when I actually see it happen in game.
Could end up as another GM crew lol...

QFT

[toonces]

all i have to say is TOO LATE S-E TOO LATE!!!!