Jaded GM, or end of shift?

[Aodh]

The best way would be for SE to set up a sting operation where they actually buy gil themselves.

Apparently (Don't know the level of truth here) someone on Titan was banned for attempting to buy gil from an undercover SE agent. They've been banned for sure, don't know if the latter holds true but would make it interesting.

[Laeta]

You're telling me the game prevents you from opening Help Desk and typing "My cat is on a tree. Help him down!" in the GM response line.

You can call a GM for anything you want, but only violations YOU have seen can truely be investigated, and there are even some limitations on that.

If you see someone warp, you can GM them and GMs can check recent logs for skips areas/etc (ie. jumping to KA camp, but the log shows you were never in KRT on Ronfaure).

Can you see someone RMT gil? Are you involved in the RMT process? My guess it no, but if it is, I encourage you to place a GM call stating that a person just sold you gil.

[Khamsin]

You're telling me the game prevents you from opening Help Desk and typing "My cat is on a tree. Help him down!" in the GM response line.

You can call a GM for anything you want, but only violations YOU have seen can truely be investigated, and there are even some limitations on that.

If you see someone warp, you can GM them and GMs can check recent logs for skips areas/etc (ie. jumping to KA camp, but the log shows you were never in KRT on Ronfaure).

Can you see someone RMT gil? Are you involved in the RMT process? My guess it no, but if it is, I encourage you to place a GM call stating that a person just sold you gil.

Now we're getting outside the realm of my argument and into the realm of divisortheory's. So I haven't anything to comment on that.

[OctavoGilgamesh]

Mobs normally lose claim after a short delay if the last thing that acted on them dies or otherwise disappears, right? I think I lost Xolotl at 3% like that once.

You see this on bst all the time after release. The mob often goes unclaimed after you release and before you hit it again or ws to finish.

I feel like I'm the only one in this game that has yet called a GM. I swear, if someone looks at you funny, someone will call a GM. We all know the GM's won't do shit about the RMT camping Ulli or anything else. Why even bother trying? Even if you were to succeed in getting them banned on some technicality or something, they would just create another account and alliance level there way up to 75 again to be there in a month.

[divisortheory]

Certainly you have the "right" to place a GM call for anything you want. If abusing the Call GM feature in such a way were itself a violation of the ToS, you'd be banned for asking the wrong questions when you used it. But the number of people in this thread who were "surprised" by the GM's reaction boggles my mind, because the only thing they are there to do is police people who commit visible, provable violations of the ToS and get your character unstuck. Don't be surprised that they probably get sick of people whining to them all day about issues that the person already knows they can't do anything about.

[Aodh]

Nothing is preventing me from calling 911 and complaining that I can't find my pants...again...

Abusing the GM Call feature for non-emergencies/TOS violations can get you banned, as it is a TOS violation itself.

[Sykes]

The RMT issue will never get better without a significant policy change on the part of SE. The burden of proof is set way too high ... this is not the US Government sentencing someone to life in prision ... this is a game, and SE has the right to refuse service to any person at any time for any reason (or none at all).

The solution: if it quacks like a duck, ban it. Ban first, ask questions later, then provide an appeals process that actually works for the few innocent people that actually manage to get caught up in the bans. Personally, I wouldn't mind spending a few days mistakenly banned if it means that 90% of the RMT are gone in 1 felt swoop.

That said, it'll never happen.

[Khamsin]

Nothing is preventing me from calling 911 and complaining that I can't find my pants...again...

Abusing the GM Call feature for non-emergencies/TOS violations can get you banned, as it is a TOS violation itself.

Therefore, the GM Call feature should probably be reserved for reporting RMT, fleehacking, POSing, getting unstuck, etc.

Granted, calling a GM for some of those things may be a waste of time due to lack of the kind of proof that will satisfy a GM, but nonetheless, they all fit within the "TOS violation" or "getting unstuck" guidelines.

[Ksandra]

The RMT issue will never get better without a significant policy change on the part of SE. The burden of proof is set way too high ... this is not the US Government sentencing someone to life in prision ... this is a game, and SE has the right to refuse service to any person at any time for any reason (or none at all).

The solution: if it quacks like a duck, ban it. Ban first, ask questions later, then provide an appeals process that actually works for the few innocent people that actually manage to get caught up in the bans. Personally, I wouldn't mind spending a few days mistakenly banned if it means that 90% of the RMT are gone in 1 felt swoop.

That said, it'll never happen.

<3 this idea

[Rava]

If people just stopped buying so much fucking gil, there wouldn't be gilsellers in the first place

[Sheeny]

The solution: if it quacks like a duck, ban it. Ban first, ask questions later, then provide an appeals process that actually works for the few innocent people that actually manage to get caught up in the bans. Personally, I wouldn't mind spending a few days mistakenly banned if it means that 90% of the RMT are gone in 1 felt swoop.

That said, it'll never happen.

Didn't this happen once? SE banned a bunch of accounts with massive amounts of gil stored up - suspected gilselling banks. Then an army of LS bank mules showed up red in the face bitching that they got swept up in the witch-hunt.
So yeah, *you* wouldn't mind the inconvenience of being in the necessary 10% of innocents caught up in it, but that past experience has shown that no one else would. Or did I dream that whole thing? 0-0

But let's face it, 95% of the FFXI population is pretty much selfish 12-year olds. Some literally are, some just behave like it. They want SE to magically ban 100% of RMT, with 0% of error. If I were SE I'd say screw it... can't win for losing.

[Dustybrown]

When a part of the game is not acting as intended (and you can go off the updates and material released by SE themselves to try to determine what has changed ect) then I would think you should at least notify a GM who then make an anotation during their shift as to issues that came up on X server.

This I agree with. I hate the attitude "GM's won't do anything so why bother". It's the same thing as "My vote won't count, why should I waste my time". If they get bothered enough with these calls it may just persuade them to start doing something about it. Of course, you could argue it would be more productive to contact SE themselves than bugging the GMs. However I'm going to bet at the end of the week/month/year SE are going to want to know where their GM money is going and what % of calls are dealt with and if they are not dealt with, why not. People sending messages about certain players being gilsellers will get looked at and recorded, I'm sure. Even if it's not "investigated" as they claim it is, I'm sure someone, somewhere notices RandomGillseller#1's name comes up every so often. It's fair to say nothing might be done about it, but you can bet if they get 100 calls about RandomGillseller1 they will take at least some notice.

Maybe I am giving them too much credit.

If it is something they can not handle, or do not mess with he should have at least let Sym ano vitch (sonofabitch?) know that and to place the report with the online feedback section. Sym.. should not have been such a jerk when talking to him though if he wanted 100% courtesy back.

If you read the OP then you will see the GM does actually say there is nothing that can be done. This is the exact GM quote:

"That was very back luck [that the mob went unclaimed], but if a monster goes unclaimed it can be claimed by any player. Sounds a little strange it went unclaimed, but those are the rules."

Notice that although unhelpful (as always) the GM clearly states that the rules of the game say if a mob is yellow and it is taken by another player then that is fair game. Yes it sucks that gilsellers got claim over a legit LS. Yes it sucks that SE's rules fuck over honest players. And yes it sucks GMs are useless for just about everything. However with all the red tape and what have you, the GM could do nothing and said this. And as far as I'm concerned, he said so politely.

The only time the GM starts with attitude is following the statement:

"give me back my stone"
"rules, rules bla bla bla you guys don't do anything about gilsellers"

Now, the GM came along, he probably has 50 calls to deal with (mostly about so and so being a gilseller), he might have had a long day, he might be getting shit at work, it could be anything. But I know in that situation where I had been polite to someone and they start giving me shit, I would give it right back. Perhaps if I was at work and I couldn't give it back I would act courteous despite it, but I would want to give shit back. It's not the GM's fault the player DCd nor is it his fault that he's pretty much powerless to do anything in this game.

In my opinion, he was given shit and he gave it right back. I can't fault the GM. Look at the "thnx for coming telling me I should just quit"... what is the point in guilt tripping the GM? It's just completely unneccessary. I see them more as messenger boys. If there's nothing they can do, it's the company that lays down the rules that needs to give their head a shake.

I feel sorry for the LS. I do. It sucks that the DC happened then and scumbag gilsellers got claim. However, I don't think the GM was in the wrong really. He was nice, he explained the situation. He got shit for it and it pissed him off. Should he have acted better? Probably. Do I think he was wrong though? Not a bit.

[Dezzimal]

The RMT issue will never get better without a significant policy change on the part of SE. The burden of proof is set way too high ... this is not the US Government sentencing someone to life in prision ... this is a game, and SE has the right to refuse service to any person at any time for any reason (or none at all).

The solution: if it quacks like a duck, ban it. Ban first, ask questions later, then provide an appeals process that actually works for the few innocent people that actually manage to get caught up in the bans. Personally, I wouldn't mind spending a few days mistakenly banned if it means that 90% of the RMT are gone in 1 felt swoop.

That said, it'll never happen.

I strongly disagree with this idea on the premise that it sounds exactly some of the provisions in the infamous Patriot Act. I'd prefer if they did a sting operation. Buy $10-$20 worth of gil, watch that account for a few weeks and ban everyone connected to it including connections via IP, Trade and Credit Card Number.

[Sykes]

Didn't this happen once? SE banned a bunch of accounts with massive amounts of gil stored up - suspected gilselling banks. Then an army of LS bank mules showed up red in the face bitching that they got swept up in the witch-hunt.

I only recall reading of 1 LS mule getting banned, but either way, if it did happen, the one thing that is serously lacking (besides the fact that they aren't doing it more) is a reasonable appeals process.

A legitimate player pretty much has 0 chance to defend himself if a GM decides that he violated the ToS. If players had some sort of recourse, then the margin for error when it comes to bans could go up substantially without widespread negative repercussions.

[Stellar]

We've had gilsellers POS to our Suzaku while we were fighting it, POS to ulli, speed hack while fighting, etc. None of the ragnarok RMT are ever banned, yet legit players that i've never witnissed POS or flee hack get banned often. The majority of players can spot RMT with 99% accuracy.. If SE were to higher an investigator with tools not available to normal players to ban RMT, i'm sure they could get rid of most of them within a couple weeks. Considering it's been years now, we have to accept that either SE wants RMT to stay or it's an extremely low concern for them. They seem to be more concerned about people using windower while playing.

Maybe it's just me noticing it, but especially in the past 2-3 months, it really seems like the game is dying. More and more veterans are quitting every day. Just having an NA apply for my LS is extremely rare. There are still a decent amount of JP playing the game, but from what i've heard the customer service level is completely different for the japanese. 80% of any conversations I hear are in spanish and i'm sure it's only a matter of time until the europeans get sick of being shit on as well. The combination of horrible customer service, shitty content and half of the existing content completely ruined by RMT really can take the fun away.

The GM call in the thread is dumb, yes, and the GM's horrible customer service was rather amusing, but the fact that there are still RMT monopolizing Ullikummi is sickening...

[Khamsin]

If people just stopped buying so much fucking gil, there wouldn't be gilsellers in the first place

Or better yet, if SE would just ban the gilsellers, there wouldn't be gilbuyers in the first place.

[Lordender]

Isn't it a little funny that we're only a little less than 3 months and 2.5 days away from christmas and the surge of rmt appearing over the past few weeks should seem pretty alarming about how bad its going to get?

[Sheeny]

This is not a bash on SE, as I don't fault them for having their hands tied. But here's the mystery that baffles me. Maybe an aspiring lawyer can answer this.

Why is it so difficult for MMORPG's to absolutely crush RMT companies? Napster infringing on copyrights got knocked the hell out. So I'm just absolutely floored that <insert mmorpg company> can't take IGE to the freaking cleaners. No, IGE isn't reading/accepting disclaimers like we are, but it's still not their intellectual property to profit from. I'm no lawyer, and seeing that nothing's been done I imagine there's GOT to be some weird rule that lets IGE slide by unscathed - which makes me very sad.
And no, I don't believe the whole SE+IGE=drinking buddies theory.

[divisortheory]

Isn't it a little funny that we're only a little less than 3 months and 2.5 days away from christmas and the surge of rmt appearing over the past few weeks should seem pretty alarming about how bad its going to get?

lol. This is a joke right?

[aurik]

This is not a bash on SE, as I don't fault them for having their hands tied. But here's the mystery that baffles me. Maybe an aspiring lawyer can answer this.

Why is it so difficult for MMORPG's to absolutely crush RMT companies? Napster infringing on copyrights got knocked the hell out. So I'm just absolutely floored that <insert mmorpg company> can't take IGE to the freaking cleaners. No, IGE isn't reading/accepting disclaimers like we are, but it's still not their intellectual property to profit from. I'm no lawyer, and seeing that nothing's been done I imagine there's GOT to be some weird rule that lets IGE slide by unscathed - which makes me very sad.
And no, I don't believe the whole SE+IGE=drinking buddies theory.

1) SE can't really prove any actual monetary damage IGE is doing to the game. When you go to civil court, you say what compensation you want and then justify why you deserve it.
2) It costs a lot to hire lawyers
3) The potential for recouping the costs of the lawyers is low
4) The difference, for SE, between ignoring IGE and aggressively attacking them is actually fairly minor.