August 23rd Interview

[Norelco]

They just don't know what they're seeing. Believe it or not, its only obvious to us because of the perspective we have had from playing this game so damn much. The GMs are just people they hired who likely didnt have much if any game experience. They don't get to camp NMs for 5 hours against gilsellers then do periodic searches for the gilsellers. We do. They go where they are called. They don't have spare time. Ever made a GM call and had no calls ahead of yours? Me neither. The problem is that they hired GMs early on and never started hiring players. IMO they need to give all GMs windowers to troll forums to get the juice and understanding a normal player has and/or hire real players. But the GMs themselves just don't see FFXI as we do.

That could backfire against non-RMT players. You'd have people on BG making a concerted effort to get your ass kicked out of the game by claiming you are an RMT.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

They just don't know what they're seeing. Believe it or not, its only obvious to us because of the perspective we have had from playing this game so damn much. The GMs are just people they hired who likely didnt have much if any game experience. They don't get to camp NMs for 5 hours against gilsellers then do periodic searches for the gilsellers. We do. They go where they are called. They don't have spare time. Ever made a GM call and had no calls ahead of yours? Me neither. The problem is that they hired GMs early on and never started hiring players. IMO they need to give all GMs windowers to troll forums to get the juice and understanding a normal player has and/or hire real players. But the GMs themselves just don't see FFXI as we do.

That could backfire against non-RMT players. You'd have people on BG making a concerted effort to get your ass kicked out of the game by claiming you are an RMT.

Its not to get a list of RMTs, its to get a better understanding of the game.

[Norelco]

They just don't know what they're seeing. Believe it or not, its only obvious to us because of the perspective we have had from playing this game so damn much. The GMs are just people they hired who likely didnt have much if any game experience. They don't get to camp NMs for 5 hours against gilsellers then do periodic searches for the gilsellers. We do. They go where they are called. They don't have spare time. Ever made a GM call and had no calls ahead of yours? Me neither. The problem is that they hired GMs early on and never started hiring players. IMO they need to give all GMs windowers to troll forums to get the juice and understanding a normal player has and/or hire real players. But the GMs themselves just don't see FFXI as we do.

That could backfire against non-RMT players. You'd have people on BG making a concerted effort to get your ass kicked out of the game by claiming you are an RMT.

Its not to get a list of RMTs, its to get a better understanding of the game.

You can't get a full understanding of the game just by reading the forums, alternately, you can't get a full understanding of the game just by playing it.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

They just don't know what they're seeing. Believe it or not, its only obvious to us because of the perspective we have had from playing this game so damn much. The GMs are just people they hired who likely didnt have much if any game experience. They don't get to camp NMs for 5 hours against gilsellers then do periodic searches for the gilsellers. We do. They go where they are called. They don't have spare time. Ever made a GM call and had no calls ahead of yours? Me neither. The problem is that they hired GMs early on and never started hiring players. IMO they need to give all GMs windowers to troll forums to get the juice and understanding a normal player has and/or hire real players. But the GMs themselves just don't see FFXI as we do.

That could backfire against non-RMT players. You'd have people on BG making a concerted effort to get your ass kicked out of the game by claiming you are an RMT.

Its not to get a list of RMTs, its to get a better understanding of the game.

You can't get a full understanding of the game just by reading the forums, alternately, you can't get a full understanding of the game just by playing it.

And you can get almost no understanding of the game from just GMing it. You can't expect the GMs who are currently there to start playing, that is a rediculous time commitment. Reading forums is one thing that wouldnt be a huge time commitment but would improve the GMs.

[Jawas]

Gillfarming is not against the TOS, selling/buying it is.

Think of IGE as being involved in a share cropping system. They arent directly connected to the Gillfarmers, who run their own crews and do whatever it takes to make money. Making Money isnt against the rules. Buying and Selling the money is. The gillfarmers arent connected to the RMT system, and the RMT system isnt connected to the Gillfarming system.

SE can track the transactions, but it is hard in a free economy to prove every RMT case, all they can do is ban level 1/0 mules with 100 billion gill that sends or trades players in ways that seem like RMT.


Yeah, spread out the old King drops, move D.Ring to Vrtra, and give us a reason to kill Hydra and Cerberus

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

Yeah, spread out the old King drops, move D.Ring to Vrtra, and give us a reason to kill Hydra and Cerberus

People kill cerberus regularly, hes fine. Hydra needs as much fixin as possible though.

[Ksandra]

SE could get rid of a lot of rmt by using the "bot/hack" card versus selling gil though.

[Septimus]

Here's a zany idea. GMs could randomly show up in zones before important monsters pop (Ulli, Zilart Kings, Alkyoneus) to watch for people falling from the sky to claim them.

Wait, they would have to have knowledge about the game to know that people don't magically fall from the sky or zip across a zone like the Flash...

[Sixtail]

I still think Wafik's question should be asked

"How is it that a normal everyday player can recognize an RMT however a trained GM cannot?" it's burried somewhere in the other thread maybe it was worded differently too but he'll get the idea. Make that your last question, you wouldn't want them to walk away from you before asking about other broken things Sea, Zilart Kings, PUP, Hydra, Goblin Wolfman, Absolute Virtue etc..

Because hersay doesn't work. I'm my server's mega anti-RMT nut and yeah, you can pick out a RMT easy, within 4 hours of first spotting it, following it and then keeping a eye on it each day. The RMT -know- they can be spotted and some have made efforts to hide themselfs, not from the GM's, but from the NA's and JPN players who will not only deny them help, but will also make efforts to kill them, rip them off, steal their NM's and basicly cost them money. It works to a point..on every server there's RMT's in lower tier shells and some in power HNM shells while the 'legit' players claim "Fuk u racist, he not RMT just don't speak good" when you point it out while others just shrug, laugh and say "Soooooo?" because they can't get into the good HNMls anyway or are out of make that beer money because they can't stand working at McD's.

SE however can not just go by what we, the players go by. I really hate to say it, but they can't. Even if you get the RMT to freely say "I sell gil." that's not enough. What players want SE to do is ban based on behavior and that's a damned hard slope to climb up once you start going down. You know what will happen? SE will get maybe..70% of the RMT sqauds on each server if that much. But they also will get a few legit players. RMT's will learn from this and they will teach their workers english..hell there's enough RMT's now who can speak broken english, the secound the major RMT farming ops start suffering, you can damn well bet they will have english classes in some dirty warehouse in Hong Kong. Even if you get every single Chinese RMT, then you got the hoards of english RMTs who will fill the gap faster then you can -spit-. We have former fucking BG members hoot for joy and run to IGE to sell off everything so they could do whatever with the money last year when all the major RMT bank mules died in fire.

Then what? You've got GM's banning JPN and NA players based on "It acted like a RMT" and their will not be many of those because while i'm sure some RMT's study fourms, 'legit' players live by them. They can change and adapt quicker then the GM's can deal. And sooner or later your going to get 'legit' players caught in the net. You already have..didn't we have not three weeks ago, endless people going "OMG I GOT BANNED, FUCK YOU SE, I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING." when some of them damn well did. I'd even say most of them did, but won't let it be known lest they lose face for being caught for being a dirty fucking cheat, botter, FFXIapper or shit. Sooner or later you run the risk of some punk taking this to court. There's lawyers who would do it and make it into a class-action lawsuit to boot.

The way FFXI is made, it is perfect for RMT's. It's on PS2, allowing a cheap way to play it. Banning accounts means shit, because SE sold it for years in Japan. It's very easy to play, and due to flaws in game design, any job can be powerleveled to 75 in two weeks. So what if it's combat skills suck? It's a 24/7 toon and sooner or late will cap everything, faster then some legit players.

If SE wants to deal with RMT's, they will make larger and larger efforts to rare/ex everything. More craftmats should drop from shit that can't be controled by RMT's, such a ENM's, BCNM's etc. Better HNM behavior and measures taken to deal with RMT's who hunt everything the legit players do. We've seen that in small parts, with wyrms being lolsmnfests, stun resisting dogs and other shit. Pretty much they need to study how people kill shit and if someone uses 8+ blm's to burn something down, then the mob needs to be ajusted to deal with that. That is arms race btw and you will have rmt's who will ajust, others won't. It will largely piss off a lot of players too.

They also badly need to deal with the haxs, but that is a coding issue and I believe would need a massive overhall of the way the game works that's just not viable. And worst yet, it would need it every 3-4 months because as soon as you break them bots, cheaters would get to work to fix em.

Just keep this in mind, Blizzard hates the RMT's like a old style fire and brimstone preacher hates sin. They have taken high measures, from massive bans to IP bans..shit L2 banned most of Greater East Asia's IPs at one time because if you think we got RMT's bad..yow.

If they can't stop them, what can SE do? Remember, players themsevles also are to blame. EQ players saw the RMT's coming back when they fucking never left Defalks's Tower. 70% of the player base just shrugged and said "What harm could they do?"

But you don't want GM's on the scale of Star Wars Galaxys in the mix.

[aurik]

If you force RMT to be more sophisticated, it is more expensive. If it is more expensive, gil costs more to buy. If gil costs more to buy, players will buy less. Win.

Of the people who are giving suggestions on how to catch and punish RMT, I don't think anyone is truly under the illusion that it is possible to completely eradicate RMT. But it is possible to marginalize it, and SE easy has that power within their grasp, yet they choose not to use it because it costs them money and doesn't help their bottom line.

[Raineer]

Here's a zany idea. GMs could randomly show up in zones before important monsters pop (Ulli, Zilart Kings, Alkyoneus) to watch for people falling from the sky to claim them.

Wait, they would have to have knowledge about the game to know that people don't magically fall from the sky or zip across a zone like the Flash...

What you saw was lag, ALL LAG.

Oh yeah, and now you're in jail for trying to overclock your computer to corect for said lag.

Of the people who are giving suggestions on how to catch and punish RMT, I don't think anyone is truly under the illusion that it is possible to completely eradicate RMT. But it is possible to marginalize it, and SE easy has that power within their grasp, yet they choose not to use it because it costs them money and doesn't help their bottom line.

Regardless of the insistance to the contrary, if you just camp ulli sky-fliers and just start DELETING accounts on the spot, RMT will suffer harshly and eventually or dramatically slow down. Sure people can keep claiming "oh they'll just level 20 more accounts the next day", well eventually that will stop. Also brings up the idea for the 500th time about just buying 10 gil from IGE and deleting who sent it, ad nausem.

I don't think most of FFXI would care about the gilsellers if they didn't camp 24/7 and bot everything that moved.

[Khalil]

With the recent lag-claim on HNMs and NMs, you're much better off to manually claim then bot claim. So, the legit players actually have a very good chance of claiming, better than before.

It sounds like you live in some magical fantasy land. NMs have been popping purple still.

I don't know where you live or if your connection is just as bad, but I actually see Fafnir unclaimed for a good 1-2 seconds before it goes claimed. I have the lag-claim to thank for that. For those of you saying it popped purple, either you're lying out of your ass or Fafhogg must have popped earlier and didn't show up on your screen until it went purple. The whole popping-purple is pretty much impossibly unless someone created a bot that bypasses the lag-claim.

[DeadLegend]

The whole popping-purple is pretty much impossibly unless someone created a bot that bypasses the lag-claim.

Translation:
I, khalil, live in happy land.

[Khalil]

The whole popping-purple is pretty much impossibly unless someone created a bot that bypasses the lag-claim.

Translation:
I, khalil, live in happy land.

Please tell me you've seen Fafnir or Nidhogg pop purple? I mean the moment he pops, not the moment he decides to show up on your screen. Even in the most laggiest camp, I've seen Fafnir pop yellow and become claimed in a matter of seconds.

[Lordender]

only way to weed out gilsellers without banning them for actually being gilsellers is to watch the lesser NM camps like roc, KA, serket, Lord of Onzozo, Ulli etc then ban them for 3rd party usage. Gilsellers all warp, they don't even invis up to do it.

[Sixtail]

That is reasonable. Thing is, the banning and whatnot for 3rd party hacks and shit seems based on what GM you get. That is maybe the worst thing about GM's, they range from Gludd who was effective, clearly a player of the game, understood issues to He-who-must-not-be-named. The GM's largely seem to act based on what they know and see and it ranges so widely that most of the time you end up with a ineffective GM. That leads to players not bothering and so if a 'good' GM is currently on clock, well he won't catch those POS hacking RMT's because no one calls.

Banning hacks or at least making more of a effort to nail people who do instead of twice a year would cut down on RMT effectiveness a lot and force smaller RMT farms out of the biz.

[Ksandra]

only way to weed out gilsellers without banning them for actually being gilsellers is to watch the lesser NM camps like roc, KA, serket, Lord of Onzozo, Ulli etc then ban them for 3rd party usage. Gilsellers all warp, they don't even invis up to do it.

this is exactly what I think. and I'm waiting to hear someone give a reason why you can't ban gil sellers for hacking but you can ban legit players for it...

[edit] by legit players I mean non-rmt, just to clarify. I don't consider them really legit players if they hack.

[Ayaz]

The bottom line as far as the RMT issue is we just don't know why SE deals with them (or doesn't) the way they do. The only thing that will shed some light on this is if someone has enough balls to risk offending the interviewee and just saying:

"stop dodging the fucking questions. 90% of the end-game playerbase can spot RMT on sight. Why can't you? This issue has caused you to lose many subscriptions and will cause you to lose A LOT more if some kind of decent explanation isn't given in this interview."

if i were conducting the interview i would not hesitate to say that (maybe minus the profanity and certainly not as buzzed as i am now lol). I personally believe SE just doesn't understand the magnitude of the problem. Since we the players interact with RMT on a daily basis, we're the only ones who truly see the damage they're causing.

I've been saying it for a while to my LS mates and I don't mind saying it here. If something isn't done about RMT in the next month or so I'm quitting this bullshit and taking up WoW (which is a far inferior game but at least the RMT aren't fucking you every day) full time with my wife. I'm almost positive other players are as fed up as I am. Maybe this being mentioned will make SE take the issue a little more seriously.

[Elanassa]

"stop dodging the questions. 90% of the end-game playerbase can spot RMT on sight. Why can't you? This issue has caused you to lose many subscriptions and will cause you to lose A LOT more if some kind of decent explanation isn't given in this interview."

Profanity removed... This really should get asked one of these days.

[Khalil]

The only reason why these SE repsentatives decide to have an interview with us is because they want to not seem like they don't give a flying fuck. Because, let's face it; every time we ask a question, the answer is hardly related to the question asked. In fact, it's never related.

I would like to see BG to ask that question, minus the profanity. And make sure to ask for a direct answer, not some beat-around-the-bush answer like "We are currently looking this issue and we do like the players' feedback".