Special Task Force Report (12/04/2007)

[Khamsin]

Lets say I am some guy that SE pulled off the street and is paying $5 and hour to scan through billions of lines of transactions.

What if they've hired a prominent datamining and analysis consulting firm, instead? Someone who would take into account various trends, cycles and patterns, do some sophisticated analysis methods, and make an experienced professional judgement?

[Croaker]

Lets say I am some guy that SE pulled off the street and is paying $5 and hour to scan through billions of lines of transactions.

What if they've hired a prominent datamining and analysis consulting firm, instead? Someone who would take into account various trends, cycles and patterns, do some sophisticated analysis methods, and make an experienced professional judgement?

Wut?

We are talking about SE right?

[vagus]

Great report, but SE still need to work on people stealing accounts. A friend of mine got her account hacked and SE could do nothing. The entire LS watched as the person was jumping onto mules. SE needs to come up with a new way to reset passwords for users.

V, no offense, but isn't said person the FFXIAPP list as well?

She was, but many other friends have had there accounts stolen.

[zerohero]

Great report, but SE still need to work on people stealing accounts. A friend of mine got her account hacked and SE could do nothing. The entire LS watched as the person was jumping onto mules. SE needs to come up with a new way to reset passwords for users.

V, no offense, but isn't said person the FFXIAPP list as well?

who cares if they were on app list, the ease of stealing an account and se doing nothing about it is stupid. nothing worse then seeing a stolen friends account bazaaring all his loot then char moved to another server the next day. especially when friend knew had been stolen instantly and yet was helpless to do anything. changing cc info shouldnt be the end all of info needed to keep a char since that is first thing done when account stolen.

[Izzy]

Great report, but SE still need to work on people stealing accounts. A friend of mine got her account hacked and SE could do nothing. The entire LS watched as the person was jumping onto mules. SE needs to come up with a new way to reset passwords for users.

V, no offense, but isn't said person the FFXIAPP list as well?

who cares if they were on app list, the ease of stealing an account and se doing nothing about it is stupid. nothing worse then seeing a stolen friends account bazaaring all his loot then char moved to another server the next day. especially when friend knew had been stolen instantly and yet was helpless to do anything. changing cc info shouldnt be the end all of info needed to keep a char since that is first thing done when account stolen.

Being on app list proves that they were willing to download at least one shady program. Who's to say they didn't try some other, not so legit ones out?

[Keria]

not so legit

like what?

[fantasticdan]

Still seeing RMT mining from inside the walls/ground at zhaloam, surprised this hasn't been cracked down on yet..

[Bakthi]

Plus it would utterly destroy the reason most people are still doing Kirin, make all the work put into getting Gaiters/W.Legs/Skadi/Trotter's totally wasted, etc.

lol?

Sorry, what's your LS's primary reason for Kirin? More Osodes for all your RNGs? Maybe we have some strange drop patterns or something, but our W.legs list is like twice what our D.body and N.body lists are...combined.

[Lyramion]

FFXI Movement is client side so its ratehr easy to manipulate it. I bet they tried to say they could change something there and make it harder to manipulate the movement with 3rd party tools

[Skeetaru]

There are at least 3 groups or rmt and small 2-3 people rmt groups leveling up at the moment on alexander, would be nice if they would cut them off earlier.

I really dont have a HUGE issue with them collecting monthly fees while the lvl, then chopping them at 75

[Rammses]

They have generally done a very good job. But this is pathetic:

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/1530/lolgmoq9.jpg

It's been going on for, what, 2 months now?

[Max™]

Plus it would utterly destroy the reason most people are still doing Kirin, make all the work put into getting Gaiters/W.Legs/Skadi/Trotter's totally wasted, etc.

lol?

Well, as was said, Nbody, Osode, Dbody, lolpole aren't that rare drops. The Money is cool and all, but Wlegs are rare as hell, highly desired, and generally what the biggest line for any shell is.

I know the shell I'm in now has Nbody going to whoever really wants to spend points, a little line for Osode, Dbody is a "awww, rats" and Wlegs are the big line.

[Spekkio]

i think it's important to note the distinction between the STF and GMs. the STF has been largely successful in their attempts to rout cheaters and have produced noticeable results. in contrast, GMs are rarely able to solve the issues and are generally little more than smoke and mirrors.

SE's moving in the right direction with their work on the STF, but they need to refocus their attention on what still needs fixing. GM results are wildly different depending on whom responds to the call. actions taken by different GMs in similar situations tend to be wildly different. this causes a great deal of frustration among the playerbase by causing players to feel cheated when they find themselves on the short end of the stick. GM policy needs to be far better defined and more importantly far better enforced unilaterally. calls of holding on tiamat are more than common. define holding specifically. make a checklist. this removes the GM needing to rely on their own opinion of the situation which is rarely consistent, and ensures the rules will be unilaterally enforced the same. audit GMs more commonly. poshacking is easy to see, easy to detect, and easy to jail for. what was the GM's reason for not reacting to this problem?

the decrease in revenue from farming gil has caused them to try to attack from another angle, namely account stealing. granted, this will tend to happen to people dumb enough to download cheat programs, but it's very possible that a friend, family member, roommate, etc. used the computer for other uses and they end up with a keylogger. once an account is stolen, generally, there's no recovery from it. even if you can get the account back, it's usually stripped, renamed, and on another server. this is no longer the once a month post that it used to be when some idiot downloaded a program someone sent a random tell to download, but a nearly daily happening. the pattern is always the same. login from another location suddenly, then password change, then CC change. server transfer, strip items to mules all of which are immediately sold. it's a well defined pattern so blatant, it could easily be tracked mechanically. even beyond that, SE is so far in the dark ages, they refuse to help players recover their accounts in any way without massive (and time consuming/possibly expensive) legal action. this level of draconian support is leaving many players to fear for their accounts, always worried that tomorrow, they may lose their work of 4 years. this is not a healthy environment for a game or for any company in general. a major policy shift needs to happen and happen quickly. the enemy is fast and adaptive and will win in the long run if SE fails to keep up with the shifting environment.

the STF is a good start and a welcome addition to SE's tools to combat RMT and general misbehavior in FFXI, but it's not a stand alone solution. it must work in concert with the other aspects of their disciplinary group and they need a great deal of work before they can claim to be done fixing the problem.

[Builttolast]

the STF is a good start and a welcome addition to SE's tools to combat RMT and general misbehavior in FFXI, but it's not a stand alone solution. it must work in concert with the other aspects of their disciplinary group and they need a great deal of work before they can claim to be done fixing the problem.

+1

I really do hope they haven't put all their eggs in the STF basket, but GMs seem hesitant to answer calls that are RMT related. Though hacking/botting they (at least for me) do offer to pass it on and investigate (lol I'll believe that when I see them gone)

[ronin sparthos]

the pattern is always the same. login from another location suddenly, then password change, then CC change. server transfer, strip items to mules all of which are immediately sold. it's a well defined pattern so blatant, it could easily be tracked mechanically. even beyond that, SE is so far in the dark ages, they refuse to help players recover their accounts in any way without massive (and time consuming/possibly expensive) legal action. this level of draconian support is leaving many players to fear for their accounts, always worried that tomorrow, they may lose their work of 4 years. this is not a healthy environment for a game or for any company in general. a major policy shift needs to happen and happen quickly. the enemy is fast and adaptive and will win in the long run if SE fails to keep up with the shifting environment.

HEY! Exactly what happened to me in a nutshell... except you dont need to download or get any keyloggers, when the RMT are rapidly adapting to getting information right from POL.

Everyone thinks there safe until it happens to you and SE basically tells you 'tough luck' and kicks you in the ass. Hey, those RMT are paying for the stolen accounts - so whats SE care if legit players get gunned down?