Accounts banned July 24th

[Khelek]

I wonder how much longer it'll be until a handful of players have all the gil left in the game, and then get banned for having gil.

Those characters who have pools of byne bills and coats made from khimaira manes?

No. Slone! D:

Operation "HaySlonewantmetoholdsumofdatgil?", COMMENCE!

[ringthree]

If this keeps up do you think people like IGE will eventually stop all together (in FFXI at least)?

A few months back RMTs stopped using bank mules since they were leading to horrific losses. Now when they get an order they log in with their craft/fish/dig/whatever bots and then undercut like mad to try to get gil quickly.

It makes them harder to spot since the craft/fish/whatever bots aren't logged in 24/7 anymore, but is really destroying the prices of whatever they try to undercut on to make quick gil.

I don't know how you know this is true, but if it is then its pretty much their death knell, because this isn't sustainable at all, will further crash the economy and further crush their ability to generate gil. If this is the case, we may be at the end of this RMT cycle.

[Septimus]

I wonder how much longer it'll be until a handful of players have all the gil left in the game, and then get banned for having gil.

Those characters who have pools of byne bills and coats made from khimaira manes?

No. Slone! D:

Operation "HaySlonewantmetoholdsumofdatgil?", COMMENCE!

No, he is referring to the LS mule that has a vault filled with Byne Bills and swims in them like Scrooge McDuck.

[aurik]

I wonder how much longer it'll be until a handful of players have all the gil left in the game, and then get banned for having gil.

Bye Aurik!

Not banned yet

They've been doing a fairly good job weeding out RMT on Asura lately. I'm especially pleased that they are taking out the area/NM monopolizers:

- Instances of areas or monster monopolization.
July 3, Approx. 450 cases
July 10, Approx. 1060 cases
July 12, Approx. 740 cases
July 19, Approx. 600 cases

(approximately 95 accounts per server throughout the month)

This will really hurt the RMT, as it takes about 3-4 weeks to build a character from lv1 to where it's capable of earning gil by area/NM monopolization. That's a lot of time invested; if they're quick about weeding them out, the startup-cost overhead will make this activity a net loss and RMT will stop.

[Rocl]

I wonder how much longer it'll be until a handful of players have all the gil left in the game, and then get banned for having gil.

Those characters who have pools of byne bills and coats made from khimaira manes?

No. Slone! D:

Operation "HaySlonewantmetoholdsumofdatgil?", COMMENCE!

No, he is referring to the LS mule that has a vault filled with Byne Bills and swims in them like Scrooge McDuck.

He never invites me over to swim in them

[Ashky]

Sky has actually been a fairly timid place lately. All legit LS's up there from what I have seen on Midgard.

[ringthree]

Sky has actually been a fairly timid place lately. All legit LS's up there from what I have seen on Midgard.

Tell me about it, there are the occasionally RMT's there (they got a Despot last week) but Faust, MG and Zip are all up for a while if no one is doing Sky.

[Sho]

Time to go farm some Tiger Fangs again......

You know... long long time ago in a Galaxy far far away... that was a very good way to make gil...

You werent a DRK if you didnt earn your hauby this way.

He speaks words of truth and honor. Though I did this for SAM.

[Gwynplaine]

Out of curiosity, I wonder how many people have actually used the STF freature to report RMT. Every time that train of blue named taru BLM walks by me, I have conflicting feelings of if I should bother. Part of me wants to simply leave it to the STF since it's their job and all. On the other hand if there's anything I can do to make their ban come faster it's tempting. So far I've only reported a few handfuls of new chars who were obvious RMT making their round of RoZ missions.

[Sidanoir]

Tiger fangs might be a good way to make gil again not for nothing...

Charm is down to the level it was when a lot of people farmed fangs on my server

[FinalJustice]

Wasn't sure if this needed a seperate thread, so I put it here in case some missed it.

Special Task Force Report (07/24/2007)

In today's report, we will be giving information on our actions conducted from June 26, 2006 to July 24, 2007 in dealing with players violating the user agreement, as well as details on the activities, results, and goals of the Special Task Force.

Click here for a report on the Special Task Force's activities in dealing with players violating the FINAL FANTASY XI user agreement.

Special Task Force activities and future plans

Many of the problems occurring within the community are caused by Hunters*.
We are currently actively engaged in dealing with Hunters and in maintaining the community's health and well-being. As a result of these activities, the number of Hunters in the game has drastically dropped since the formation of the Special Task Force and it has been confirmed that a great deal of the community's problems have been eliminated.

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...107/2107_2.jpg

However, at the same time, it was also confirmed that the issues with banned players creating new accounts, players announcing the sale of valuable items at Aht Urhgan Whitegate, illegal fishing, and synthesis using illegal tools still remain. From here on, we will be focusing on activities to eliminate these issues.

We have also received a lot of helpful information from players who submitted reports to the "Report to Special Task Force" mail form that was introduced last month. The information provided by everyone was essential in hastily solving many of the problems. We appreciate everyone's help and cooperation.
Report to Special Task Force

*Hunters: Characters who kill NMs, clear quests, and obtain items over and over again with the sole purpose of gathering gil, which is then handed off to RMT groups.

Matters of concern within the community

-Players are still announcing the sales of valuable items at Aht Urhgan Whitegate.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with shouts themselves. However, regarding characters repeatedly shouting who were suspected of having RMT connections, a total of 892 accounts have been banned due to these connections. Also, due to the primary focus on banning Hunters in Tu'Lia, these shouts have momentarily died down, and we can confirm that we are getting results. Because these actions can be performed by even lower-level characters, as a drastic solution, we will be working very hard at bringing about the complete removal of all Hunters.
In the future, we will be focusing on finding direct connections to RMT through our investigations and in banning Hunters. We will continue to work on making Vana'diel a more pleasurable environment to play in.

-Does the Special Task Force really verify all reports sent through the "Report to Special Task Force" mail form?
The Special Task Force reads through all reports sent and then inspects their accuracy. As a result of these inspections, if any violations of the user agreement are found, the corresponding player will be banned. The resulting statistics are analyzed, and they are used to help further resolve current problems in FINAL FANTASY XI.
Information received through these reports helps alert us of points that we may not have realized and is essential in dealing with many different problems.
The more detailed the information, the more smoothly the investigation can proceed. Because we can solve a problem swifter with detailed information, we ask for everyone's cooperation in providing as detailed a report as possible.

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...107/2107_5.jpg

-Do players who are falsely accused get punished anyway?
All inspections are performed manually by the Special Task Force staff and start out by looking over and judging each account. If, at this point, there seems to be a problem with the account, another more intensive check will be conducted by an account administrator. We run these two levels of checks to ensure safety. There is no need to worry.

-The large number of items produced by characters involved in RMT is destroying the economy.
We will be strengthening our activities in response to this problem. However, in the same way as the shout problem, we cannot determine whether economic problems such as drastic price dropping are illegal or not. We will be mainly taking measures in severing any organization's involvement in the issue.

-Won't the Special Task Force be unable to perform inspections due to sellers involved in RMT using the World Transfer service to travel between multiple Worlds?
Players involved in RMT will, of course, be able to utilize the same benefits and convenience of the World Transfer service as regular players. However, even if players involved in RMT spread over different Worlds and start illegally selling there, we can trace our way back to each character through dealing with all of the Hunters that are required to obtain the seller's funds. Although the World Transfer service has just started, because players cannot transfer to another World until 90 days after starting a new account or using the service, we have not seen any major signs of the World Transfer service being used to benefit players involved in RMT.
Also, in regards to illegal activity, even if a player changes his World and character name and plots on "running away," we can still easily find out which World he has gone to and what he has changed his character name to. The Special Task Force will be fully capable of performing inspections.

-The Goblin Bounty Hunter has been introduced into the game, but I still see characters with machine-like movements fishing.
In the next version update, we are planning on expanding the Goblin Bounty Hunter's presence into new areas in places such as Sauromogue Champaign and Korroloka Tunnel, and extending the Goblin Bounty Hunter's movement range and route to get rid of safe areas in locations that the Bounty Hunter has already been introduced. As for the measures inside of towns and in areas besides the ones mentioned above, we are currently considering the effect they would have on all players and discussing all possibilities with the development team.

-Hunters that have been taken care of keep coming back soon after being banned. Hasn't the issue with Hunters in places such as Tu'Lia been dealt with yet?
Since the activities of Hunters in areas such as Tu'Lia have been especially vigorous, there are still quite a few Hunters left, but we have managed to greatly decrease the number of Hunters through our efforts. As for the Hunters returning to the game, not all of the players banned have been coming back. As you can see in the above graph, the total number is in a steady decline.
With the help of the reports provided by FINAL FANTASY XI players, we will be able to expand the range of our activities in dealing with these problems.

No wonder I don't hear sky Abj sales in Whitegate anymore

[Izzy]

God I'm so happy with SE. They like, seriously started listening to all the complaints. I personally think they're doing a pretty god damn good job considering the cockroach like RMT they're up against. They're so persistent.

[Tajin]

Man, GBH inside towns would be Golden.

[BRP]

All SE needs to do is add a way to get rid of items for gil, probably for crafters, and the economy will be very stable. Sure RMT will use it, but they 80% gil they make gets banned out of existence before it can trade hands.

[aurik]

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...0px-Malfud.jpg
You already can.

[BRP]

I'm sure many are thrilled with everything but used Reraise Hairpins and Raxa selling for 1/10th the AH price. I NPC everything I get that isn't worth 5k or higher, but I get this wild suspicion it isn't doing much at all for the market.

[Humblejoe]

Does anyone know of them ever mistakenly banning an account? And if so, by calling, can it be worked out?

[Seditedi]

Did you get banned Humble?

[Humblejoe]

No, but my friend's account did i think, and im the only one with info. And ive only sold things on AH that he didnt need.

[Seditedi]

Ah, I don't know, from what I heard SE is very tight lipped on bannings. They don't give info as to why it was banned etc.