Square Enix Special Task Force Investigations (A Story)

[Wrish]

Some valid points here, but

1) She wasn't banned again. The latter that says she was "perma banned" on 7-30 was sent 20 days after she was unbanned. He didn't even bother to make sure she was still banned before sending it.

2) She *could* have broke ToS. Only she knows for sure. However, I would not have gone to bat for her like I did if I had *any* indication that she had violated ToS or done anything worthy of a ban. But I truly believe this is not the case.

Ho ho, whoosh went I. In my half-defense, it wasn't explicit that this was but an anecdote, not a complaint about a re-banning.

In that light, SE does have a lot of red tape. So much that their North American CSR was 3 weeks late with the wrong canned response. But I sure hope at least they didn't leave anyone banned who shouldn't be.

[blackmail]

Flame away but what a person does for the hours they're not logged in has NOTHING to do with whether or not they deserve to be banned (hi2u mother Theresa). I think it's important to remove the sympathy factor from this. Playing to an emotional component strikes me as a sure fire way to lose the objective mindset.

On a fucked up note, you sign away your character to SE everytime you sign in. If you don't like the chance that the blind bat swinger might hit you next, don't play. The general consensus is "it could happen to anyone now." If that's the case, let's move beyond the "wow this sucks/ lawl ff14" horse carcass.

[nitsuj]

Flame away but what a person does for the hours they're not logged in has NOTHING to do with whether or not they deserve to be banned (hi2u mother Theresa). I think it's important to remove the sympathy factor from this. Playing to an emotional component strikes me as a sure fire way to lose the objective mindset.

On a fucked up note, you sign away your character to SE everytime you sign in. If you don't like the chance that the blind bat swinger might hit you next, don't play. The general consensus is "it could happen to anyone now." If that's the case, let's move beyond the "wow this sucks/ lawl ff14" horse carcass.

Well the point of a "stay at home mom/medical reasons" has nothing to do with the sympathy factor of the ban, but only with the "WTF How could a GM tell her to get a life" factor.

[Theraven]

Fact is, we know as much about GM calls, policies, and GM's themselves as we do about how Treasure Hunter, or any other vague aspect of the game, works... NOTHING.

Actually we know quite a lot. Their GM handbook was leaked (and subsequently covered up a day or two later) on this site some time ago.

edit: Actually looking at the files on my drive, it was exactly 2 years ago today. What a coincidence.

[nitsuj]

Actually we know quite a lot. Their GM handbook was leaked (and subsequently covered up a day or two later) on this site some time ago.

edit: Actually looking at the files on my drive, it was exactly 2 years ago today. What a coincidence.

Do you still have that? I'd be interested in reading it.

[Liminality]

Actually we know quite a lot. Their GM handbook was leaked (and subsequently covered up a day or two later) on this site some time ago.

edit: Actually looking at the files on my drive, it was exactly 2 years ago today. What a coincidence.

Yeah, I rmember when that happened. Two years is a long tiem for SE, though. Since then they've made changes to ToS and I remember they weren't too happy about that. So, I can imagine they changed parts of the handbook dramatically since then. Also, just cause it's written in the handbook really doesn't tell us anything about GMs, just how they're supposed to handle laid out decisions. We all know these mass bannings weren't happening as often two years ago, so my hunch is they had to have changed something. Maybe made some wording vague on purpose? who knows, lol

Hell, knowing SE... it may have been leaked on purpose so we'd think we'd understand. Clever, SE... clever... ._.;

[Wutangwarrior_Hades]

Personally, I think the issue here is that the STF did a great job getting rid of RMT, but that they are now going a bit too far. They are banning more "real" people (normal and trial accounts) than their Customer Service and review folks can keep up with. My own ban complaint has been in the "queue" now for 1 month. So how do we know how big (or small) this issue is? Did they ban 50 non-RMT or 5000?

The STF does not report on how many accounts a month were unbanned, only the bannings. Also these numbers do not indicate if the accounts were all banned still at the end of the month.

All we have are logic and common sense assumptions.

One traditional approach is to consider the percentage of actual players that visit forums to post. From that, look at the percentage of players on that forum that were actually banned. While still better than just a random poll of friends, this is not the most mathematical approach. As for random polls, the guy who says "None of my friends got banned so there must not be a big problem", that is not a great statistical sampling either.

The only information we get from the STF is their (somewhat) monthly "Mission Accomplished!!!" newsletter. Everything else is speculation, including anything I might say.

First, lets assume that the only good way to measure RMT activity these days is gil. They used to do end game stuff with a few characters and make alot of gil, but these days most RMT do not even bother with endgame. They level a few characters to help with fishing or transport, but their main focus is on new accounts, hacked accounts and trial accounts. Are RMT players out there stealing your sky claims? Are they on your sever claiming Faf/Nid? Are they still shouting to sell rare/ex gear? Probably not. So let's look at gil eliminated by the STF from playonline com ff11us rule specialtask html

Data Collection Period Banned Accounts Frozen Gil
7/1/2009 - 7/31/2009 31,630 Approx. 2.7 billion
6/1/2009 - 6/30/2009 16,230 Approx. 2.1 billion
5/1/2009 - 5/31/2009 12,170 Approx. 2.7 billion
4/1/2009 - 4/30/2009 9,500 Approx. 2.3 billion
3/1/2009 - 3/31/2009 11,070 Approx. 1.5 billion
1/28/2009 - 2/28/2009 7,650 Approx. 2.1 billion
12/23/2008 - 1/27/2009 7,210 Approx. 1.5 billion

At first look, it would appear that the STF is doing their job very efficiently! They started out slow, banning accounts and gil steadily for a few months. But let's look at how much gil they have removed per account per month:

Data Collection Period Gil per account
7/1/2009 - 7/31/2009 85,362
6/1/2009 - 6/30/2009 129,390
5/1/2009 - 5/31/2009 221,857
4/1/2009 - 4/30/2009 242,105
3/1/2009 - 3/31/2009 135,501
1/28/2009 - 2/28/2009 274,510
12/23/2008 - 1/27/2009 208,044


This suggests to me that lately, and especially in July, the STF is becoming less effective. I am sure that changing RMT tactics effect these averages, but the bottom line is that the STF is banning more accounts than ever (Almost twice what they had banned at most in the past) but are removing less gil from the economy.

I would argue that by banning more accounts they are catching more "real" players in the net. Do real players hold less gil than RMT players? I cannot say, as the census does not seem to cover this.

We may not understand the logic in these bannings, or know when a person was banned if they are guilty or innocent, but we do know that the STF is getting worse at their job of removing illegal gil from our economy. You may not care now, but you might after the next round of bannings.

Note: Cross posted on Alla.

[Seraph]

Tell her to frame the letter on her wall, and then take a high res screenshot of her logged in with a /clock timestamp at the bottom, and frame that right next to it.

[McGoonagle]

i guess your business wasn't catering to addicts like SE's is? your average pimp or crack dealer's not famous for their customer service for the same reason SE's not: they know we'll keep coming back for more, and we've shown time and again we will.

i can't talk myself, i really should have quit long ago but it keeps me occupied and the boredom at bay. etc.

Deal is: you spend 10k with us, we save you 10 mil dealing with the feds.

It's pretty addictive.

[McGoonagle]

First, lets assume that the only good way to measure RMT activity these days is gil. They used to do end game stuff with a few characters and make alot of gil, but these days most RMT do not even bother with endgame. They level a few characters to help with fishing or transport, but their main focus is on new accounts, hacked accounts and trial accounts. Are RMT players out there stealing your sky claims? Are they on your sever claiming Faf/Nid? Are they still shouting to sell rare/ex gear? Probably not. So let's look at gil eliminated by the STF from playonline com ff11us rule specialtask html

Data Collection Period Banned Accounts Frozen Gil
7/1/2009 - 7/31/2009 31,630 Approx. 2.7 billion
6/1/2009 - 6/30/2009 16,230 Approx. 2.1 billion
5/1/2009 - 5/31/2009 12,170 Approx. 2.7 billion
4/1/2009 - 4/30/2009 9,500 Approx. 2.3 billion
3/1/2009 - 3/31/2009 11,070 Approx. 1.5 billion
1/28/2009 - 2/28/2009 7,650 Approx. 2.1 billion
12/23/2008 - 1/27/2009 7,210 Approx. 1.5 billion

At first look, it would appear that the STF is doing their job very efficiently! They started out slow, banning accounts and gil steadily for a few months. But let's look at how much gil they have removed per account per month:

Data Collection Period Gil per account
7/1/2009 - 7/31/2009 85,362
6/1/2009 - 6/30/2009 129,390
5/1/2009 - 5/31/2009 221,857
4/1/2009 - 4/30/2009 242,105
3/1/2009 - 3/31/2009 135,501
1/28/2009 - 2/28/2009 274,510
12/23/2008 - 1/27/2009 208,044


This suggests to me that lately, and especially in July, the STF is becoming less effective. I am sure that changing RMT tactics effect these averages, but the bottom line is that the STF is banning more accounts than ever (Almost twice what they had banned at most in the past) but are removing less gil from the economy.

I would argue that by banning more accounts they are catching more "real" players in the net. Do real players hold less gil than RMT players? I cannot say, as the census does not seem to cover this.

We may not understand the logic in these bannings, or know when a person was banned if they are guilty or innocent, but we do know that the STF is getting worse at their job of removing illegal gil from our economy. You may not care now, but you might after the next round of bannings.

Note: Cross posted on Alla.

Ummm, no. It means that the RMTs are changing tactics pretty much as you explained. More accounts doing more low level stuff for fewer gil. If they can't level jobs to go for the big fights with the high value drops, they go the low level route.

[Hoshiku]

also they're not removing less gil from the economy, they're removing more (just less gil per player). this might indicate that they're banning different types of accounts as accounts with items worth a lot and very little actual gil or RMT crafting bots would bring down the average.

[Wutangwarrior_Hades]

Ummm, no. It means that the RMTs are changing tactics pretty much as you explained. More accounts doing more low level stuff for fewer gil. If they can't level jobs to go for the big fights with the high value drops, they go the low level route.

I think that RMT have changed their tactics for low level gil grabs to make use of massive numbers of trial accounts. I also suspect that trial account bannings are not counted in the STF report of bannings per month.

[Wutangwarrior_Hades]

accounts with items worth a lot and very little actual gil

That sounds alot like a profile of a real player to me. I am not convinced that RMT have these items anymore, unless they get them from hacking accounts.

[Mojo]

The STF hasn't become less effective, there is just less protecting that they need to do. The demand for gil has steadily been dropping for some time now as has the amount of gil RMT can realistically collect.

[Hanyoko]

It begs to question what SE considers a "real player activity". They have no records of actual sales of gil for $ so what can they do to determine if its RMT? Heuristics are the most likely method they are using to determine if someone is a RMT. But SE proves time and time again that there is more information about player activities then they can process (disconnection from how players do endgame, lack of two-way communication, how long it took for salvage ban investigation, etc) so one has to wonder about what kind of "model" they are using for a RMT profile. But then again that is possibly some secret that is more convoluted then AV.

Do they ignore gil transfers between characters on the same account? (bazaar/AH mules)
Do they ignore gil transfers between characters on the same credit card? (multi accounts)
Do they red flag any high gil trade? (ls payouts)
Do they red flag any low level chars with huge gil quantities? (out-of-sight mules)
Does age of the character take any consideration?

Their "cloak and dagger" approach to this does help stop RMT from becoming aware of their methods, but its also creating a "fear" in their playerbase of "when will I be banned for no reason". I use "no reason" to mean any offense whether slight or severe, knowingly or unknowingly. Its defiantly creating negative word of mouth publicity, and that is often the worse kind esp when a new product is staged for pre-launch.

I guess in the world of SE your proven guilty until you bother and pester the customer service enough for them to believe your innocent. But then again, that is how their TOS is written and we all agreed to it! Only time will tell how the events will unfold; some will be worthy of popcorn.

[Emirii]

This is really hard to beleive that they would do something like that. I am afraid of being banned for no reason as I am a crafter and I garden a lot. I have actually deactivated my gardening mules the past few months in fear of being banned for growing platinum leaves and transferring them between my two characters.

Sure, SE has taken very good preventative measures against RMT, but any measure that catches legit players in the process is just total fail. I suggest getting rid of the 14 day trials completely, if they haven't already, and going back to picking up a 30 day trial DVD at Gamestop or other store for $5 for anyone who wants to try the game.

The new credit card verification they implemented, and discontinuing the 14 day trial w/no CC will almost eliminate mass-RMT spam completely.

Just my two cents.

[Rieken]

Yeah, I'm not really surprised at the story. I've only made a few GM calls over several years of playing and none of them ever ended with me being satisfied. SE definitely needs to train their employees to give better customer service, because the macros they have to tell us how sympathetic they are to our problems, just don't cut it.

[WyldFyre]

This isnt entirely true considering we've invested lots of time and money in our FFXI characters. FFXIV is going to be a clean slate on our end, without any bonuses based on what you've done in FFXI. To SE, our FFXIV accounts are going to be blank, they dont care who WyldFyre is, what he's done, if he's cheated, if he was responsible for putting 15$ in their pocket per month, or 60$, none of that matters. However, on our end, we know who SE is, what SE has done in regards to its playerbase, and will continue to do.

You're stupid. I wasn't talking about lolXIV. Way to take my post out of context.

I was pointing out what a hypocrite he was for continuing to pay SE when he says he isn't going to support them. Where do you think XIV funds are coming from?


Oh yeah, sorry for the late reply. I don't live on BG.

[Fornax]

I got the very same letter from "Mr. William Bisby" after I appealed my perma-ban.