New RMT conspiracy

[bulk]

Ok so while camping KA i keep my new account at zoneline for vbelt since none of our guys need it usually. Anyway I see alot of anon tarus zone in to jugner and instantly disappear, cant target or anything. So i started /sea for them once i caught a name i could spell fast enough.

They seem to be POSing in a loop from Selbina>Valkurm>La Thiene>Jugner > davoi. nothin special right? but they make the entire trip and are back in selbina in under 3 minutes everytime. Im not trying to start a crusade or anything just genuinely curious what they could gain by doing that? They hit no delivery boxes or mog houses or AH zones. just constantly running this loop over and over. Im sure theres more loops they run in other zones maybe they just do these to get GM attention away from ones makin money? Any of you guys noticed something similar? I can try and get some SS of /sea all with timestamp on if you guys want.

[Callisto]

Spamming the Power Sandals quest maybe?

[Jeny]

They've been doing this for a while now. The RMT just don't give a crap anymore and are going as far as POS hacking out in the open.

All you can do is try reporting them before they drop off the goods and delete the character.

[Gwynplaine]

They were doing it for the monument quests though. This is the first I've heard them doing this quest, which makes sense as the next logical target I guess. If the STF catches on, there should probably be another restriction placed on repeating it. I'm surprised they haven't adjusted the avatar quests yet too, I see handfuls of RMT all the time repeating avatars for 10k non stop.

[CGB]

Hmm, I saw them speeding/POSing around Southern San d'Oria_S the other day, then zoning into East Ronfaure_S, and then Jugner_S. All /anon, all naked, they were going so fast from zone to zone I couldn't even get their names.

[Spekkio]

Hmm, I saw them speeding/POSing around Southern San d'Oria_S the other day, then zoning into East Ronfaure_S, and then Jugner_S. All /anon, all naked, they were going so fast from zone to zone I couldn't even get their names.

angel/death stones. they've been at that since WoTG release.

[Sonomaa]

Hmm, I saw them speeding/POSing around Southern San d'Oria_S the other day, then zoning into East Ronfaure_S, and then Jugner_S. All /anon, all naked, they were going so fast from zone to zone I couldn't even get their names.

considering there is like a 5k repeatable quest with ladybug wings, Im not surprised they decided to go to wotg

[Edrick]

This business concept just doesn't make sense at all to me. It takes about $40+ to get a new copy of the game + WotG expansion... Then you have to multiply that by about 100 (estimating way too low, probably) per server with each new RMT account that gets introduced... So, that's a good $4000 PER SERVER that they need to invest in almost continuously due to the bannings... Not to mention the monthly fees...

Now, take the time to level those character if they're going to be hunting mobs for quests like the ladybug wings... They could maybe make 100k an hour off those? And that's after spending gil in game to get them to the point of being able to kill the stuff... And then getting lucky enough to actually get said drops and whatnot.

Letting that alone, the angle/deathstone quests... That's still a huge investment per server just to get enough gil to keep up with demand... So, let's go with $4000/server... about 30(?) servers, that's $120,000 (holy shit) to just make accounts that get banned after they're done PoSing the crap out of the game... How the hell do they make up that much money off of gil buyers?!?

Monthly bannings on those accounts probably means $120k+ per month in sales just to BREAK EVEN...

And then paying their employees to get the gil... and the cost of computers... and electricity... and internet... All I have to wonder, then, is... how the hell do they make that much business? Tons of people must buy gil like water, then... It's just unfathomable... I seriously can't wrap my head around that volume of business when it costs a crap ton just to buy gil in the first place... Especially with this economy. >.> (both IRL and in game...) The RMT machine just makes me... want to kill people... :/

:rip:

[Aihree]

Unfortunately they dont' care anymore. These mules you see blatantly POSing around are most likely to be additional accounts created off of hacked/stolen accounts. Steal the account, sell all the gear, and if they don't need its job/level milk it with POSing as much as they can until it gets banned and they move on to the next.

[Quizno]

Well the business model is obviously working so either the RMT aren't getting banned as much as you would think or the amout of gil being bought and sold is far greater than you would think.

A quick check shows that a million gil costs about $50. I don't know what they buy the gil for, but I'm going to assume they make 50% margins.

At that rate they would need to sell 4,800 units per month to cover $120,000 worth of character losses.

That is only 160 million sold on each of 30 servers per month.

Just assume that the average gil buyer buys 3 million a month (not much of a stretch for the imagination).

That is only 53 people buying gil per server per month to hit $120,000.

It isn't that hard to imagine.

I'd say the problem is far larger than 53 people per server which would be what? 1%?

Even if you figure that 80% of the servers population is RMT that only increases the number to 5% of the population buying gil. I'd be shocked if "only" 5% of the population buys gil. Maybe I'm just jaded.

Edit: There are 32 servers.

[ronin sparthos]

Hence thats why the RMT are stealing accounts to cover the overhead of the operation as a whole. It must be frustrating as hell seeing your tools to make money with deleted time and time again as the entire process to collect gil ingame becomes harder and harder.

RMT have tried so many routes to try to support the gilbuying junkies that its come down to not being subtle at all anymore raiding, snatching, grabbing and overall trying to get as much as they can before they get banhammered by the STF.

I cant speak for all the gilbuyers as a whole, but on 2 occasions i have heard of gilbuyers spending over $25,000 on characters and gil to support their endgame means and once of a person spending over $50,000 on services relating to FFXI. The market is there so long as people with no real care for money exist.

Back when inflation was high they could make money in the blink of an eye, entire zones were at the whims of RMT operations and accounts were cheaper by the dozen but now the economy has cratered out everything is worth so much more and in this game of high-stakes poker no one wants to fold. I can only speak based on what ive seen in this game since the NA launch but the RMT are only gonna keep pushing because to them the game doesnt have to survive or not when in the end all they have to do is liquidate out.

Id imagine most people that buy gil arent big buyers, probably once or twice but their exists some really elite gilbuyers that shell out cash that would make your head spin.

[Koga]

I want to know if its just a lack of staffing to support the numerous requests the receive or just a lack of effort on Square-Enix's part that is causing them to seem like they just don't care about the player-base anymore when it comes to compromised accounts.
I quit WoW over a year ago when I was hacked. I contacted a GM and within 4 hours they retored my character; albeit I had no gold or armor but that was still ok because I was able to receive most of it back with time and farming.

[Sykes]

Nah, I don't think that RMT are really desperate at all. If they were, they would abandon FFXI and move on to another game. Instead, they just found a new, easy, and effective way of making gil (stealing accounts), and are refining their existing methods to adapt to the actions of the STF. The people that run these companies aren't dumb.

I think that the hard costs are actually a bit lower than you estimate. I don't think that they are doing quests that require killing at all anymore because they can't waste time on it. The Angelstone/Deathstone thing is popular, and there are a shit-ton of fishbots still out there (although they have changed the fish that they target because they can't afford to get banned with Lu Shang's anymore).

A new account without any expansions costs them less than $2 (Final Fantasy XI Starter Pack) and includes a month of playtime. WotG is selling retail as cheaply as $24, and I'm sure you can do even better than that if you buy in bulk (I'd be surprised if they are paying more than $20 for the original game + WotG). Add to that the fact that the Special Task Force only bans once per week, and they can calculate exactly how much return they will make on each account's investment. Plus, they know that regardless of how much botting or POSing they do, they'll still have their accounts until the end of that week.

While RMT will probably never really go away, SE needs to attack suppliers more frequently than once per week, and they need to start going after the buyers as well. For it to truly die down, people need to be afraid to buy gil.

[ronin sparthos]

SE has never dealt with something on this volume, thanks to procrastination. (due to lack of preparation for this situation)

Blizzard has contingency plans for events like this so they are seasoned in it, SE is just beginning to get their feet wet when RMT go on the offensive.

They are probably understaffed as well, but who isnt these days.

[Croaker]

Your cost analysis assumes that the RMT are paying US prices for software/internet/computers/monthly fees.

Assuming the RMT are asian, their cost for all these things is going to be much much cheaper.

When I was recently in Thailand I paid a cab driver $10 US to be my personal driver for a whole week. That was an amazing deal for him. One sale of 1 M gil for $50 US will keep a few families of RMT eating rice for a whole month.

[Ansems]

<_<

[Fhqwghads]

Once SE gets the new policy in place to prevent people from randomly getting their accounts hacked, SE needs to move on to banning players who are found to buy gil. Post the names and servers publicly to put the fear of god into gil buyers. That, combined with continuous evolution of RMT farmer detection and removal, will both lower the demand for gil and increase the expense of RMT operations for the game. Eventually the RMT machine will have to move on to a more viable target, and we can finally get our game back. Not saying that things are horrible these days, because it was waaaaay worse in the past. SE has come a *long* way, and the desperation that RMT exhibit at this point is a clear indication of just how much it sucks to be them.

Sykes, I don't think that RMT can be on the offensive for too long. They have to know that SE will change policy, otherwise the game's player base will evaporate, which is stupid on the part of RMT, since they're basically shooting themselves in the foot by making the game unappealing. The hacking of accounts will stop, and their only alternative will be to exploit as many pathetic low level quests as they can, and deal with the repeated ban-hammer they'll get when their accounts are flagged for pos-hacking, etc. They can't afford to waste time leveling characters anymore in my opinion, because that's too much vested in a toon that will wind up disappearing.

[ronin sparthos]

RMT will never abandon FFXI until they have sucked the life out the game to the complete and utter bones. So long as those people willing to drop thousands on gil are still alive and kicking they will do whatever it takes to meet the demand. I think RMT have learned the words 'Blitzkrieg' and 'Scorched Earth' now in regards to making gil.

Lineage II (so ive been told) and FFXI are the games where currency is worth the most (since its hard to make) and the RMT have no problem throwing sand to meet the demands. Even if the STF could do weekly bannings im sure they would run into issues (nuking LS bank mules) or wrongly banning people overall.

The only way to scare people outta buying gil is to make examples and that is to nuke hardcore gilbuyers and string them out for the public to see, but that would never happen would it...

That or daily bannings.

Ninja Edit:

Sykes, I don't think that RMT can be on the offensive for too long. They have to know that SE will change policy, otherwise the game's player base will evaporate, which is stupid on the part of RMT, since they're basically shooting themselves in the foot by making the game unappealing

RMT wouldnt care. They would just liquidate out and move on to whereever seems viable. They run on a scorched earth policy.

[loial]

This business concept just doesn't make sense at all to me. It takes about $40+ to get a new copy of the game + WotG expansion...

While I can't speak for how they might get the WotG expansion cheap, but I was in a gamestop the other day and they had some FFXI promo that had the original game plus zilart for $1. I think the catch is that if you play the game on that account for more than 30 days, you need to get a "real copy" of the game and activate those keys.

So, while this wouldn't explain RMT doing WotG stuff, it can somewhat explain RMT spending $1 per account to zerg RMT activities for a month.

[Spekkio]

good place to start would be to better track poshacking. one easy way to do it would be to build a table of how fast you can reasonably get from 1 zoneline in a zone to another. say it takes 3 minutes on a choco to get from jugner/LTP zone to jugner/davoi zone as the crow flies. it's physically impossible to reach the zone any faster. if the timestamp between entry and exit from the zone is less than the time in the table, send the char to jail. easy and fast to implement, likely would have very low server overhead, and would be highly effective in combating poshacking to get quests done quickly. then again, so too would be making a 24 hr cooldown on more quests and a lvl cap requirement on high ticket return quests like the angel/death stones.

another effective tactic is that many CGF schemes use lvl 1 mules with an average lifespan in the minutes. how often does a player create a new char on the same account? how about a CGF? add a 24 hr cooldown on content IDs. after you delete a char and rebuild it on the same account, that ID requires 24 hrs before you can use it again to make a new char.

analyze heuristics of the lvls and numbers of players in a zone. how often do you see a lvl 1 job run into davoi for legitimate reasons? if there's a sudden spike in traffic, there's something funny going on there. there are an awful lot of trends that can be tracked and when something drastically out of the norm happens, it's time to send the STF in for a look.