The Special Task Force report (06/15/2007)

[Octavious]

Yea, I know it's ridiculous >.> it' begs the "Chicken or the Egg" discussion >.> lol

[Sixtail]

Banning Craftmules is going to be hard to do because you have 'legit' people who do the same. If they are going to do it, I want them to do it now because RMTs are only going to take more measures. For one, RMTs will use 'expendable' accounts to bot and whatnot, but their big heavy geared tanks, dders and support characters will be cleaner then most legit player's accounts. I'm sure they've got NA's and JPN players coaching them on how not to get banned.

Striking now on Craftmules would be great, it would force them to spend at least a month or more leveling said new mule back up and force them to spend money in the meanwhile, as RMTs can no longer completely control craftmats like they once did and some items are damned costly.

[Spekkio]

no. don't make them stop talking. i'm bored as hell and need something to distract me.
fueling the fire:
at what point do they become a buyer or a seller? when they buy/sell or when they intend to?
/popcorn

[Octavious]

I really wish SE would focuse on the main issue of stopping the holes in the program that lead to botting, rather then those exploiting the holes. You crush the root, you fix it. Then deal with RMT, whom are still be f--ked out of a high amount of things, due to the recent fixes to sky.

[aurik]

Banning Craftmules is going to be hard to do because you have 'legit' people who do the same.

This isn't about banning craft mules, this is about banning automated crafting toons that run round-the-clock in various high-volume markets and deliver their profits to a central entity which then sells it in bulk.

As far as I know, legit players don't do that.

[Jackyl]

I keep seeing people refer to the special task force as STF, and all I can think is how great it would be if the special task force was actually called Special Task Force Undercover just for the acronym that would result. :D

[Zilong]

I keep seeing people refer to the special task force as STF, and all I can think is how great it would be if the special task force was actually called Special Task Force Undercover just for the acronym that would result. :D

Wow...welcome to last year.

And it's Unit, not undercover.

[Khamsin]

One way to look at it is like this:

Let's call the collective group of (gil)sellers "S" and the collective group of (gil)buyers "B".

S is generally much smaller than B, or else the market wouldn't be profitable in the first place. So comparatively, we have a small S and a large B representing the sellers and buyers in our market.

Before the STFU, we have an equilibrium state where the average prices from S are lower than what would otherwise be optimum, due to competition. B likes it, however, since its cheaper for them, and this is the reason B is so large (cheap prices).

Now the STFU comes in and kills off some of S. The smaller S gets, the higher their average price gets (less competition). Overall supply, however, remains unchanged. If S becomes smaller (competing RMT is eliminated), gil just becomes more plentiful for the remaining ones.

There is a point where the reduction in B due to price increases balances out with the increase in prices from S such that profit is at it's peak. Prices will rise as competition is reduced, until it reaches this point.

At this point, even without eliminating all of RMT, you've:

a) Cut down on number of RMT in the game (thereby cutting competition at camps, etc)
b) Reduced the size of B (less buyers due to higher prices)
c) Increased profitability for the RMT (less competition, and B is smaller but the ones left that are willing to pay more make up for it).

Now, we don't care much for (c), but at least we've achieved (a) and (b).

From this point on, the STFU may make S even smaller, but it won't change the size of B because S isn't going to raise their prices to a point where it becomes unprofitable. The occasional elimination of a few billion gil from the server may cause some buyers more trouble than its worth to always see the "OUT OF STOCK - PREORDER NOW!" signs and they'll probably lose some customers that way. However, after this point, the biggest reduction of B will come when S is completely eliminated.

S going from some arbitrary level "2" to "1" may reduce B a negligable percentage. But S going from "1" to "0" will reduce B by 100%, given that without sellers, it is impossible to have any buyers (though the reverse is possible).

The other way to look at it is, since S is so much smaller than B, it's easier to eliminate S than B.

A third way, is that eliminating S is healthier for the game than eliminating B. I'm sure everyone would rather have zombie RMT accounts played by one person in front of 6 monitors be eliminated, than otherwise legitimate players that make up a much larger portion of the playerbase compared to the RMT.

[Sepuku]

no. don't make them stop talking. i'm bored as hell and need something to distract me.
fueling the fire:
at what point do they become a buyer or a seller? when they buy/sell or when they intend to?
/popcorn

When they kill too slow and claim too slow and start sending you ancient chinese proverbs of appreciation, because you outdamage and outpull all their mobs.You will find out its a seller.^^

http://home.arcor.de/sepuku/chinese%20proverbs.jpg

And when GMs get into the game , they stop providing you with those proverbs immediately. ^^

[aurik]

stuff

Do some research into the economics of anti-drug initiatives and you'll see this is the same thing. The best way to reduce the consumption of RMT'd gil is to both crack down on sellers and punish buyers.

[Spekkio]

One way to look at it is like this:

Let's call the collective group of (gil)sellers "S" and the collective group of (gil)buyers "B".

S is generally much smaller than B, or else the market wouldn't be profitable in the first place. So comparatively, we have a small S and a large B representing the sellers and buyers in our market.

Before the STFU, we have an equilibrium state where the average prices from S are lower than what would otherwise be optimum, due to competition. B likes it, however, since its cheaper for them, and this is the reason B is so large (cheap prices).

Now the STFU comes in and kills off some of S. The smaller S gets, the higher their average price gets (less competition). Overall supply, however, remains unchanged. If S becomes smaller (competing RMT is eliminated), gil just becomes more plentiful for the remaining ones.

There is a point where the reduction in B due to price increases balances out with the increase in prices from S such that profit is at it's peak. Prices will rise as competition is reduced, until it reaches this point.

At this point, even without eliminating all of RMT, you've:

a) Cut down on number of RMT in the game (thereby cutting competition at camps, etc)
b) Reduced the size of B (less buyers due to higher prices)
c) Increased profitability for the RMT (less competition, and B is smaller but the ones left that are willing to pay more make up for it).

Now, we don't care much for (c), but at least we've achieved (a) and (b).

From this point on, the STFU may make S even smaller, but it won't change the size of B because S isn't going to raise their prices to a point where it becomes unprofitable. The occasional elimination of a few billion gil from the server may cause some buyers more trouble than its worth to always see the "OUT OF STOCK - PREORDER NOW!" signs and they'll probably lose some customers that way. However, after this point, the biggest reduction of B will come when S is completely eliminated.

S going from some arbitrary level "2" to "1" may reduce B a negligable percentage. But S going from "1" to "0" will reduce B by 100%, given that without sellers, it is impossible to have any buyers (though the reverse is possible).

The other way to look at it is, since S is so much smaller than B, it's easier to eliminate S than B.

A third way, is that eliminating S is healthier for the game than eliminating B. I'm sure everyone would rather have zombie RMT accounts played by one person in front of 6 monitors be eliminated, than otherwise legitimate players that make up a much larger portion of the playerbase compared to the RMT.

on the other hand, the threat is stronger than the execution. the risk of losing your valuable char because you spent money to pimp it out discourages B, thus reducing the size of the overall system. the cost to off a few example gilbuyers is minimal. finding them is easier than finding fat people in an IHOP. this will produce a large reduction in B. the goal of this is to minimize the system as a whole.

assaulting one group or the other exclusively will not produce as good a result as attacking both at once, due to diminishing returns. parading around a few of the most notorious gilbuyers (every server's got em.) could easily make people think "what if i'm next," thus reducing B. finding half a dozen per server doesn't take much effort with a large impact. meanwhile if you spent every hour hunting down gilbuyers, you wreck the playerbase, who are also the people paying the bills at SE.

the size of the system, G, with a fixed amount of manpower, with Mb being the manpower sent after the buyers and Ms the manpower sent after the sellers, and C1/C2 being constants based on the effectiveness of either tactic, the size of G is defined as something of the form G(C1*ln(Mb)*B,C2*ln(Ms)*S). as in most other areas of life, you are correct. you can't have all chickens and all roosters. need some of each.

[Shuemue]

My feeling is that the buyer would originally create the market. Think of an old school MUD, lazy guy with plenty of RL cash sees a hardcore player with nice gear and tons of currency, lazy guy says, "Hey I'll give you $10 for your sword!"

Hardcore player laughs and says "Yeah right, are you serious?"

RMT is born. Poor gamers catch on, poor countries turn it into an industry to take advantage of international economics.

[Wendell]

My feeling is that the buyer would originally create the market. Think of an old school MUD, lazy guy with plenty of RL cash sees a hardcore player with nice gear and tons of currency, lazy guy says, "Hey I'll give you $10 for your sword!"

Hardcore player laughs and says "Yeah right, are you serious?"

RMT is born. Poor gamers catch on, poor countries turn it into an industry to take advantage of international economics.

QFT. It has been on MUDs and other games forever. It probably started as a joke, but dammit, it isn't funny anymore!

[Dimitri Maximoff]

Jackyl wrote:

Assuming SE can detect bots - if they assigned a GM to every server for just 1 month and temp/perma banned every bot claim in Dragon's Aery and Behemoth's Dominion (it's fun being an optimist), the number of players "using illegal means to lay claim on monsters" sure would go down quick.

Yes i wish for this as well to happen , permanent GM stationed in all the HNM areas with bot/hack detecting abilities :D

[Zorax]

Here is a somewhat interesting article from the NY Times Magazine this week. After I read it I looked into the author. He wrote a book detailing his own life as RMT. So he thinks they are humans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/ma...ne&oref=slogin

[Xaru]

Jackyl wrote:

Assuming SE can detect bots - if they assigned a GM to every server for just 1 month and temp/perma banned every bot claim in Dragon's Aery and Behemoth's Dominion (it's fun being an optimist), the number of players "using illegal means to lay claim on monsters" sure would go down quick.

Yes i wish for this as well to happen , permanent GM stationed in all the HNM areas with bot/hack detecting abilities :D

It's pretty hard to detect bots, since all they do is something a normal player would do--except a computer has faster "reflexes" than a person

[Viena]

I can put a jar of peanut butter with piss on eBay, even if no one ever buys it.

Somebody can't buy a jar of peanut butter with piss if nobody ever sells it.

That made me smile.


On the other side, unfortunately, I don't think that legal action against ffxiapp or similar tools is possible. Yes, they are against the ToS and can ban you for it (although they can ban you without reason if they want, also stated in the ToS), but that doesn't make them illegal.

[FFXId00d]

Despite the fact that the brunt of the discussion is regarding rmt crafting and economic principles, yes your professors would all be proud, I'd like to change the discussion momentarily to RMT in sky. I have a theory that RMT will never leave sky. In fact, I believe that SE made sky FOR rmt players.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_constellations

If for some reason that doesn't work just look up 28 mansions in wikipedia.

(This, for the record, is not new information by any means. It has very likely been posted on this forum before.)

But, I do find myself thinking...... "Kirin?"..... "ah yes... how every japanese."

[TheMan551]

Funny how about 1/4 of the people posting in this thread have bought gil.

[LLK]

quote]

While not perfect, Square and the STF have made a lot of changes to the game since last year.

Actually it hasn't even been a full year yet and look at all the good that has come of this? Couldn't be a better time to start a new character(if you're a new player). Compare this to Late 2005 and early 2006 and you were practically forced to buy gil to start up a new "toon".