Fucking RMT... ChatMon update REQUIRED soon

[Demosthenes11]

That would just cause the FFXI community to complain that they'd have to add more people to their friendlist and yes people would complain about it. Also it would just make the RMT work harder to get around that or go towards what they do in almost every other MMO:

Set up characters in certain hot spots and shout over and over and over and over and over with their ad, and for those who don't/won't filter shouts (some people still like to see events and etc being shouted so they can join) it will get very annoying very quickly.

Also I think the blacklist is fairly limited so that would get filled up quickly..really just gonna have to deal with there being RMT and they'll always get around whatever option is set up.

because there are ways around things nothing should be implemented? if it just came down to not being able to stop RMT from shouting, that's a win because you can filter that with 100% accuracy. People can drop the filter if they want to hear about random shit but 90% of the playerbase doesnt give a fuck and you should quit ffxi if you have to wait for shout groups to do something.

[Narol]

I still don't see what's so hard about limiting trial accounts to X messages per time period, e.g. no more than 1 shout every 5 minutes, 1 tell per minute, that kind of thing.

That said, RMT shouts would be about on par with the usefulness of the hundredth Nyzul 40 shout of the day. You know the one. The one where the guy's been shouting at 2/6 for over three hours, and decides his problem is he's not getting his message out, so he starts shouting twice a minute.

[Aselin]

Relevant reading, pretty interesting: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment...in_china_as_a/

A bunch of people asking questions of a guy working in China as a consultant at gold-farming companies.

That guy has balls to work there given what he's describing:
- working in rural and semi-rural areas
- power outages-- both on purpose and not
- risks at encountering rival RMT employees from another company off-work

Kind of reminds me of the RMT wars back in Kuftal Tunnel. Those were the days, and it was fun to watch two competing groups go at each other trying to MPK each other.

So, it isn't that much surprising to hire an out-of-country IT consultant to handle networking, server, and "other" related technical consulting to get their jobs done; even if it means hiring an outside programmer to help circumvent anti-botting techniques or create bots or even just get past spam filters.

This is the equivalent of a war that will never be won.

[Kitrane]

I vote that we brute-force petition SE to stop giving out free accounts without a CC in good standing. Further, players should be able to configure the chat filter to block tells from trial accounts, or accounts for which 45 days have not passed since first content ID creation.

^ This

[Despain]

Isn't it scary that the RMT spammers know how to do this?

A lot of us have seen the news specials and articles about gold farmers in China, and the images about them show them to be poorly educated, living in cramped and poor conditions. They give the appearance they have enough computer knowledge to operate a computer and an MMO, but that's it.

It is highly possible these RMT companies have hired hackers or someone with that level of knowledge to embed exploits in Javascript and Flash, and now to get past the spam filters and Chatmon itself. Then, whatever they find, they pass it along to the ones spamming us.

Haven't you heard? SE's one of the biggest gilsellers of all time.

[Pikarya]

^ This

Too intelligent for SE to implement.

[Shamaya]

How much can we pay them to not send us tells anymore?

[fishstix]

Some of the crap they're sending doesnt even make sense anymore
wvvv.ooSÁ L.com

[Unspeakable]

SE hasn't even penalized the most egregious buyers; what kind of TOS enforcement is that?

What alot of people fail to realize is its not players funding these company's (Not saying some people still don't use these company's) but this is an act of Desperation.

No Most major gil buyers/anyone who has half a brain to compare prices when buying gil will know is buying from site like Egamingsupply and MMORPG Marketplace is the smartest way for buying gil... Why?

1) Safe and secure: Your buying the gil from players them selves, This means its not some level one bastok noob carrying around a hundred million gil. its coming from people who actually play the game and probably farm it up them selves...

2) Prices are cheaper (I remember back in high school spending my pay checks from my retarded job on gil for $25-$35 per million from JP sellers, When i can turn around and buy for $17-$19 per million) the shit adds up #_#

[Sevilla]

Some of the crap they're sending doesnt even make sense anymore
wvvv.ooSÁ L.com

They are evading the filters in somewhat of an ingenious way, but it takes some effort for the intended target audience to read it. They do something like www.bro99le.com {99 = sa}.

[Wrish]

What alot of people fail to realize is its not players funding these company's

Slip of the tongue? If it's not players, then who ultimately pays to run those computers that spam 24/7? Take out all the buyers and no one will continue to invest in /tell bots.

Oh, so you meant it's not big-time buyers funding these sites? That is speculative, and it's also highly presumptuous that only "big-time" buyers would come up on SE's radar that they haven't even turned on. After all, you just called these "big-time" sites a secure way to RMT. There are plenty of reasons someone would not want to buy from players directly, foremost of which is they're not paying for anonymity or security. In any case, what is wrong with sending a loud message that buying gil is not tolerated? Won't this especially resonate with those who worry about the repercussions of their illicit purchases and have thus far turned to these more expensive RMT sites?

petitions always work! this guy is wise!

Or we could read between the lines. It's not so much a passive petition as it is the application of brute force that grabs attention at SE headquarters. You know how one could go about that?

If you're that annoyed by /tells, you might be incented to make multiple free accounts (off a separate IP) and (programmatically) bombard strangers all day with meaningless, harmless tells. SE would notice an even stronger trend of mischief from trial accounts rendering their current spam filters ineffectual, and without other legal recourse they'd be pushed to fix the trial program itself or beef up their filters in a way that would knock out RMT trial-account spammers simultaneously.

[Kimiko]

Yeah, and if SE limits /tells to friends list, do you know just how many friend list spams the rmt will run? all of which clogs up your POL email I may add. SE needs to cripple trial accounts first, then clean up the cancer that remains within the game.

[Unspeakable]

Slip of the tongue? If it's not players, then who ultimately pays to run those computers that spam 24/7? Take out all the buyers and no one will continue to invest in /tell bots.

Oh, so you meant it's not big-time buyers funding these sites? That is speculative, and it's also highly presumptuous that only "big-time" buyers would come up on SE's radar that they haven't even turned on. After all, you just called these "big-time" sites a secure way to RMT. There are plenty of reasons someone would not want to buy from players directly, foremost of which is they're not paying for anonymity or security. In any case, what is wrong with sending a loud message that buying gil is not tolerated? Won't this especially resonate with those who worry about the repercussions of their illicit purchases and have thus far turned to these more expensive RMT sites?

Sorry but thats false, The JP RMT sites and gil buyers are targeted 10x more then people buying for players... In the last month alone Onerike (An egs "Big time" gil buyer has purchased over 500 Million gil and arround 30 billion+ a month circulates through EGS be it middle man serveries or buyers and sellers... Not one person has been banned from buying off other players (To my knowledge) But you hear every day how SE strips JP RMT mules of 100-200 Mil

Then you have to take into the account of demand, RMT sites no longer carry large amounts of gil on hand for fear of being banned... Therefore Players who purchase from these sites (With orders above lol5M) have to wait numerous hours even days to collect there gil. So that's another turn off for these RMT sites people want to be able to send payment and collect min. after not wait for it to be farmed up...

[Dominionix]

The system that has been implemented by Blizzard Entertainment, whilst seemingly effective, is a very long solution to what is (from a technical standing, not 'actual impact') a very short problem.

It would be very simple (programming wise) to implement a spam filter to the game that limited people to "X number of /tells to X number of different people per X amount of time". RMT /tell's focus on mass-marketing via broadcasting their website information / offer codes / company names etc. As soon as they are prevented from reaching a mass audience their advertising strategy is no longer a viable one, and will simply not be worth their time to try and implement. It would certainly be less work to implement than the flawed filter system they have just added.

Combine the two, and you should pretty much eradicate RMT /tells.

[Hanyoko]

As I said 6+ months or so ago, much like many others; Two viable modes:
1) Player option to block all tells from trial accounts on/off setting
2) Trial accounts cannot send tells to full accounts unless said trial is on full account's friendlist : Trial accounts cannot request friend invites : additionally trial accounts are limited to /s /p /l /t chat modes

[Tagus]

Dear Sir,

Good day and compliments. This letter will definitely come to you as a huge surprise, but I implore you to take the time to go through it carefully as the decision you make will go off a long way to determine the future and continued existence of the entire members of my family.

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dr. (Mrs.) Mariam Abacha, the wife of the late head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces of the federal republic of Nigeria who died on the 8th of June 1998.

My ordeal started immediately after my husband's death on the morning of 8th June 1998, and the subsequent take over of government by the last administration. The present democratic government is determined to portray all the good work of my late husband in a bad light and have gone as far as confiscating all my late husband's assets, properties, freezing our accounts both within and outside Nigeria. As I am writing this letter to you, my son Mohammed Abacha is undergoing questioning with the government. All these measures taken by past/present government is just to gain international recognition.

I and the entire members of my family have been held incommunicado since the death of my husband, hence I seek your indulgence to assist us in securing these funds. We are not allowed to see or discuss with anybody. Few occasions I have tired traveling abroad through alternative means all failed.

It is in view of this I have mandated DR GALADIMA HASSAN, who has been assisting the family to run around on so many issues to act on behalf of the family concerning the substance of this letter. He has the full power of attorney to execute this transaction with you.

My late husband had/has Eighty Million USD ($80,000,000.00) specially preserved and well packed in trunk boxes of which only my husband and I knew about. It is packed in such a way to forestall just anybody having access to it. It is this sum that I seek your assistance to get out of Nigeria as soon as possible before the present civilian government finds out about it and confiscate it just like they have done to all our assets.

I implore you to please give consideration to my predicament and help a widow in need.

May Allah show you mercy as you do so?

Your faithfully,

Dr (Mrs.) Mariam Abacha (M.O.N)

N/B: Please contact Dr Galadima Hassan on this e-mail address for further briefing and modalities

lol

I made one of these people cry irl once by giving them hope and then abruptly taking it away. It was glorious.

Pertaining to this thread though, the easiest way to deal with RMT tells is to just accept them as inevitable and either blacklist the names if they send repeat tells, or just ignore them entirely. They're not going to stop trying, so just decide to not let them troll you anymore. It's mind over matter, folks.

[Phlow]

There's some kind of business model that basically says "annoy them until they give in." AOL was famous for this.

It's not that, it's brand awareness. If you layer the market enough with your name, you might get the one guy that wants to buy gil and doesn't know where to go.

Accounts will no longer be able to whisper other players unless they have been added to those players' friends lists or have received a whisper from them first.

Wouldn't be effective for player invites.

---

Couple of ideas Aikar.

1) Set chatmon to read surrounding characters. If there is a number/symbol next to a letter, block. I'm noticing they are using "leetspeak" to list websites (www.br0s***.com, replace the 0 with a o).

2) How plausible would it be to read sender status? I'm a coder, but haven't broken down the limitations of FFXI. If teller.status == anon or level 1, then block.

3) A combo of rules could be used. If your.status == /inv, let tells through (so you don't miss one). If you /tell someone, write name to a txt file of approved names.

Dunno, just spitballing.

[Despain]

Or SE could do what WoW does. Trial accounts can't send people tells. I don't know if this has already been suggested.

[Hanyoko]

2) How plausible would it be to read sender status? I'm a coder, but haven't broken down the limitations of FFXI. If teller.status == anon or level 1, then block.

3) A combo of rules could be used. If your.status == /inv, let tells through (so you don't miss one). If you /tell someone, write name to a txt file of approved names.

I dont believe he would have access to that information. However SE's server and message system should.

[xopher]

by using a crypto system, it forces them to either search for the words or stumble across it accidentally rather than monitoring the update file and immediately changing their tells. there's no bulletproof solution, merely an arms escalation to increase the effort they need to invest to continue spamming tells.

Disable tells on trial accounts.

pretty bulletproof.