Accounts banned (Jan. 25)

[Scythiroth]

FF Tactics was one of the few FF games I never played. Friend made the sig.

[Jeryhn]

FF Tactics was one of the few FF games I never played. Friend made the sig.

You poor, poor child.

I doubt it. I highly doubt they have an automated system that detects irregular movement. If they did, they wouldn't need a "taskforce" to monitor the situation. People pos hack for extended periods before someone reports them, then they get watched because they get flagged from being reported. I doubt one instance would be enough to call for a bansticking. Not with the way SE has shown that they do business. I'm not saying he was right to use the tool, I'm just saying I doubt something he did months ago is just now being punished.

Whatever automated system they have probably detects the irregular movement. I doubt it auto-bans the offender. It's probably up to the discretion of a human looking at a generated list of offenders that the automated program spits out.

As for the waiting period before his ban, even if he was red-flagged that day for hacking, SE probably did have bigger, more immediate fish to fry.

[Eticket]

I doubt it. I highly doubt they have an automated system that detects irregular movement. If they did, they wouldn't need a "taskforce" to monitor the situation. People pos hack for extended periods before someone reports them, then they get watched because they get flagged from being reported. I doubt one instance would be enough to call for a bansticking. Not with the way SE has shown that they do business. I'm not saying he was right to use the tool, I'm just saying I doubt something he did months ago is just now being punished.

My comment was more about him saying earlier that he didn't use third party tools, then later stating he in fact did... but just once. Whether or not it was what he got banned for, that kind of clouded the rest of the story a bit.

[further]

I doubt it. I highly doubt they have an automated system that detects irregular movement. If they did, they wouldn't need a "taskforce" to monitor the situation. People pos hack for extended periods before someone reports them, then they get watched because they get flagged from being reported. I doubt one instance would be enough to call for a bansticking. Not with the way SE has shown that they do business. I'm not saying he was right to use the tool, I'm just saying I doubt something he did months ago is just now being punished.

Whatever automated system they have probably detects the irregular movement. I doubt it auto-bans the offender. It's probably up to the discretion of a human looking at a generated list of offenders that the automated program spits out.

As for the waiting period before his ban, even if he was red-flagged that day for hacking, SE probably did have bigger, more immediate fish to fry.

Exactly. Nobody builds an automated system that bans people without any human discretion. Just because it doesn't auto-ban them doesn't mean there isnt an automated system flagging people to be banned/looked at by a GM.

[Melchiah]

Ok. I can accept that. However I find it odd that they would detect his movement, and then let it go for two mass bannings, get him on the third, without ever having a GM confront him about it. Especially if he is being truthful about having not used the tool since then.

[Jeryhn]

He lied to us (initially) about the 3rd party tool usage.

It's hard to be sympathetic when their credibility takes a nosedive.

[Devek]

Ok. I can accept that. However I find it odd that they would detect his movement, and then let it go for two mass bannings, get him on the third, without ever having a GM confront him about it. Especially if he is being truthful about having not used the tool since then.

It is called fear.

If you ever used a flee tool or POS hack you might be suspended or banned any day now.

[Raineer]

lolispendallmytimereadingaforumforagameidon'tplaya nymore

Glass houses my friend.

It's not my fault that BG WOW forums have like 9 posters!

[Khamsin]

Ok. I can accept that. However I find it odd that they would detect his movement, and then let it go for two mass bannings, get him on the third, without ever having a GM confront him about it. Especially if he is being truthful about having not used the tool since then.

It depends on how much of a lead time they have, from detection to banning.

For all we know, everyone that got banned this month is a result of an investigation that began two months ago. Two months from now, the fishbots in Batallia today might be banned.

[Ryko]

FF Tactics was one of the few FF games I never played. Friend made the sig.

You poor, poor child.

People always looked at me funny when I mentioned that XI was my first (and likely my last) FF played >_>

[Khalil]

Ok. I can accept that. However I find it odd that they would detect his movement, and then let it go for two mass bannings, get him on the third, without ever having a GM confront him about it. Especially if he is being truthful about having not used the tool since then.

It depends on how much of a lead time they have, from detection to banning.

For all we know, everyone that got banned this month is a result of an investigation that began two months ago. Two months from now, the fishbots in Batallia today might be banned.

I've been wondering what the STFU is up to. Clearly this mass banning can't be the work of the STFU or they would be equal to GMs, who we all know know less about the game than Chiz.

[Tordall]

They're hitting the 'low hanging fruit' first. As they have more time, and hit the more obvious botters/hackers they'll slowly work their way up the food chain.

For example, they hit the poshackers first, and have continued to hit them each month. Not because it's such a huge problem, but because it's the easiest thing to catch. As many people have indicated, there's a good chance there's some sort of automated flagging going on. The people that are dumb enough to get caught poshacking they should also just bust and save themselves the time of having to bust them for something else.

About 2 months ago they added, repeat offenders. They got the people that were foolish enough to reregister with either the same credit card or the same billing address after they were banned the first time.

This month, they seem to have added people that were doing something with packets.

As time progresses they'll get better and better at spotting illegal activity (we hope) and busting people for it.

[Greyraven]

Oh, I think the fish bot thing has them a bit more worried than they're letting on. An LS mate of mine reported the fish bots to a GM the day they popped up on Fairy server. GM popped up in Batallia Downs, made himself visible for about 5 seconds, saluted us, and disappeared. RMT's continued about their business. LS mate gives all relavent info to the GM, and the GM leaves. Maybe half an hour later, we're talking shit in /say with other players about the inactivity of the GM and his inability to stop the fish bots. Turns out the GM was still there, invisible. He tells us in /say to be patient, and that they're looking into the issue at hand.

That day, there were about 80 fish bots on the north eastern cliff in Batallia Downs. When I checked last night, there were about 20 remaining. The player that was rumored to be their LS bank and was confirmed as being their main crafter was gone last night. Lead many to believe that their bank had been nabbed by SE. We'll see if the fishbot operation is up and running when I log back in later today.

But for all of those saying that fishbotting isn't too much of a problem, think about how much gil 80 fish bots can generate for you. Let's say that each bot fishes up about 20 items to NPC, and each item NPCs for 1k gil. So 20k gil per bot multiplied by 80 bots on Fairy. 1.6M per hour if my math's correct. Multiply that by 24, and you'll see that injecting that kind of gil into our server does nothing to benefit legitimate players.

[Khalil]

They're hitting the 'low hanging fruit' first. As they have more time, and hit the more obvious botters/hackers they'll slowly work their way up the food chain.

For example, they hit the poshackers first, and have continued to hit them each month. Not because it's such a huge problem, but because it's the easiest thing to catch. As many people have indicated, there's a good chance there's some sort of automated flagging going on. The people that are dumb enough to get caught poshacking they should also just bust and save themselves the time of having to bust them for something else.

About 2 months ago they added, repeat offenders. They got the people that were foolish enough to reregister with either the same credit card or the same billing address after they were banned the first time.

This month, they seem to have added people that were doing something with packets.

As time progresses they'll get better and better at spotting illegal activity (we hope) and busting people for it.

It really isn't that hard to spot offenders in an environment you control. I'm sure their ways of spotting speed hackers are up to date, I think, but they need to step up on spotting RMT activities. Anyone with half a clue can point an RMT from a mile away. Heck, I could find about 50 CGFs in Kujata alone by the top of my head, and that's not including the fish botters, Ullik's Aery or Kuftal Tunnel.

[Tordall]

Remember they have to bust people for what they do in-game.

That means that they can't bust someone for being logged in, camping the same mob 24/7. They have to bust them for doing something that actually violates the terms of service.

They also don't seem to go far enough up RMT tree to bust the accounts actually doing the farming.

Honestly, after the 'iron arrows in bazaar for 20,010' thing from the selbina clay hacking, I wonder if some of the bazaars around aren't serving to transfer funds from RMT farmers to RMT banks. Or from RMT banks to their customers.

Like the people you occasionally see with shihei in their bazaar for 10k per, or low level gear for very specific amounts (courage ring for 2,013,000). Such bazaar purchases could serve to insulate the RMT customers from the RMT bank-bans, and the RMT farmers from the RMT banks.

[Dementia]

On Ramuh, none of the known gil sellers in sky were removed. What I did notice was missing though were majority of the Batallia gil seller mules. That would help account for the large amount of gil, and I'm sure its easier to track where the gil goes from the mules than who supplies the mules. Fact is thought its a pretty weak solution and amounts to nothing, at least on my server. All of the RMT are still alive and monopolizing, so it won't take long for that gil to be replaced.

[Lordender]

i'm just starting to lol @ these bans, sure they take out gil and illegally made gil and all that jazz but frankly it doesn't do shit for me when they don't take out the mother fucker RMT that cockblock sky. I'm not waiting much longer for SE it seems thats all we do is wait, wait, wait, wait and nothing ever ends up happening in the end. I mean its like they skip carbuncles and alot of other servers RMT every banning.

[BRP]

WHAT THE FUCK, WHERE ARE MY BLM CHANGES?! SE FAILS. THIS SUCKS. THIS SUCKS. WTF.

[SwiftKick]

Anyone on asura can confirm if Rosemadam or Yona are still online?

I don't know what time they started banning(behind a firewall atm), but they were there this morning at 06:00AM CST. Heres to hoping they got the boot. Daddy needs to make some gils.

[hopefulki]

only saw 2 RMT gone from Carby >_>

and they were promptly replaced by 6