new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

[Ziero]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

So you want SE to give real money to the gil sellers?

Brilliant

You see in a 'sting' operations, unless something goes wrong, the police don't lose anything. The money they used as bait in the sting as well as anything they were attempting buy are all confescated and brought with them. But if SE had GMs buy gil then ban who traded them the money, SE loses RL money and gains absolutely nothing.

It's not the accounts that are out in the field camping mobs and getting claims that hold and trade the cash, it's lvl 1 mules in the major cities. Those also happen to be the accounts that get deleted by SE when they do massive bannings. SE hits gil sellers where it hurts the most, their banks. Deleting the farming account will do nothing, deleting the account that holds all the gil will remove all the gil the farming accounts made completely nullifying all the 'work' done by the farmers.

As for the elephant alliteration, assumption =/= proof. You have no idea what that person is doing with that gil they made. For all you know that 'gil seller' is someone's private bot that runs on a different com. It's not selling the gil. People had private fish bots for their own gain and not to sell their gil, why wouldn't people use farm bots? And yes, I know botting is against the ToS too and is bannable. But then that person will get banned for botting and not gil selling.

A while back someone started a topic saying that if you wanted to get a botter who you 'assume' sells gil banned, you report him as a botter and *never* mention RMT. This is because more often then not, numerous people will send GM calls saying that so and so is a RMT with no proof what so ever. Once GMs see you start calling people a RMT, they more then likely stop taking your call serious. And it's very easy for a LS or group of friends to all send a GM call about a random person so no, teh number of complaints does not prove someone is a GSer either. Unless that person specifically *offers*, of their own free will, to sell you gil, they can not be banned for being a RMT.

SE already stated that there is no rule against a person camping one mob for as long as they want. Whether it be 10 minutes or 10 years anyone is free to do that under the ToS. There is nothing you can do to change that rule. And under that rule, someone who camps things 24/7 will not get banned.

There is *no* easy solution to RMT, if there was other MMORPGs would have figured them out years ago. SE *is* doing what they can to combat it and they don't need to be talked down too by people who refuse to understand that.

Double Post Edited:

What pissed me off most was the fact that SE doesn't seem to know anything about their own game.

Q: New areas are overcrowded... Thoughts?
A: They are?

Q: There are 200 people at King camps... Thoughts?
A: There are?

Q: You can't recieve tells when you are zoning... thoughts?
A: Zoning?

A: Sanction > Signet and this helps cause crowding in new areas... thoughts?
Q: It is? It does?

Actually the answers to those questions were:

1) They want a lot of new people in the new areas. They're also not done releasing new areas. If they completely change the old areas so they're better then the new ones, then the old areas would become over crowded and the new ones would be empty, they don't want that so they have to be careful.

2) Similar to the first answer, they want the competition on these mobs for these incredible items. They also want to keep these incredible items rare. They also said they were going to change the timers on some of these mobs while considering the concept of 'orb battles' a player suggested and diagramed.

3) Technical issue, but he will discuss it with the devs.

4) See number 1

They did give a lot of info in this interview, but the interviewer asked a lot of bad questions and there were obvious translation problems.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

Finished reading it all now and can't say I'm surprised. Same old same old.

Could say so much but it'd only be repeating what has been said over the last three years by myself and many other players who have either quit in disappointment or still soldier on under the vain hope S-E might actually understand what is really going on in their own game.

[Kirsteena]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

Knowing Bercus I would just like to say a couple of things.

He is German, so some of the translation he admitted he was a bit ropy on getting right.

He has also found a way to keep in contact with them, with the potential to keep digging at the issues once a month or so (it hasn't been set up). Bercus won't let this die - he will keep plugging away, hopefully finding the right people to put the questions to.

[kuu]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

I had a friend who was accused time and time again that he's RMT/Boting/Gillbuying.

He's RL so I know his computer setup, lifestyle, etc.

And case in point, he's just a freak gamer.

He camped Feiyin to the point of brutal effiency. Farming ores, Life belts, north,east,south. he afked there, ate there, and even slept there at times.

We used to rotate joining him there. And you should see his chat line numbers on the yearly moogle Stat event.

And it was about his 18th GM call, before GM started ignoring any xxx RMT/bot to him.

Same thing when he left one LS for another. All sorts of crazy accusations gets flung around.

You really have to walk another man's shoes, and if you try to see the RMT/BOTing GM list, you would be pull a [GM]Dave too.

[Gentoo]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

I dont' know. Florida police seem to have mastered the "Sting" operation, as well as NYPD, and any number of REAL LIFE law enforcement agencies.
But I've never yet found a single MMO that could manage to organize a single sting operation.

SE wouldn't face all the difficultly that that law enforcement does. This is a private service, and SE doesn't have to worry about entrapment as it goes about enforcing it's own rules. The mechanics SE setting up sting operation are mind bogglingly simple.

Long and the short of it is, however, that it would cost them money to do that.

To catch a gilseller, go to Ebay or whatever website they sell gil, buy gil, go inside the game and see the seller hand or send you the money. Thats basically how I would catch one. Wonder why they're not doing that.

According to IGE, currently a million gil is running $24.58US. (that seems the be the minimum unit you can buy)

To suss out a mere 25 accounts would immediately cost them ~$615(1). After the next fees are collected (for content ID's), that cost increased at least by ~$325(2). Not to mention the costs for actually hiring someone to do this. Just to pull out a low-ball number from thin air, lets says that's another $300(3) for a part-time temporay employee.

So, the total cost to rid a single server of a mere 25 RMT accounts would be roughly $1,240(4), or $49.60(5) per account. To rid the 32 servers of 25 RMT accounts each (800 accounts total), this endevor runs about $40K(6).

And what's the ROI on that $40K?
Will banning 800 accounts attract scads of new players to offset the cost? Personally, I don't think so.
Will banning 800 accounts make most of the poeple who grouse about RMT be quiet? Doubtful, and it's not like they're going quit paying anyway.
Since you're not going to attract new players, will some of the existing players start paying extra cash every month to offset this cost? (hey now, stop giggling)







(1) 25 X $24.58 (the cost of 1 million gil from IGE) = $614.50 -- rounded up to $615
(2) Assuming one contend id per RMT account, 25 X $12.99 (the cost for one content ID) = $324.75 -- rounded up to $325.
(3) Like I said, pulled out of thin air -- go ahead and grouse about it. Minimum wage in CA is $6.75. $6.74 X 40hours = $270. -- rounded up to an even $300
(4) $615 + $325 + $300 = $1,240
(5) $1,240/25 accounts = $49.60/account
(6) $49.60 X 800 total accounts = $39,680 -- rounded up to $40K

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

That's all very nicely calculated but as has been stated before, S-E can pull up logs of in-game discussions and actions. They can see Mr Ni Hao give 1 mil to player A, 35 mil to player B, 15 mil to player C, etc all in the same strange secluded little area and receive nothing in return. How many legitimate players would exist solely to give out hundreds of millions of gil daily, weekly, monthly to completely unrelated accounts?

[Ziero]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

You know what, you're right.

It's why they ban the banks...

[Legal Fish]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

(I showed them the paper, with the rocks and the Entrance and the exit and explained them the way how to fight those mobs then, with getting Orbs ect, they all came really close together and they all wanted to keep the graphic already at this point: P )

Can you guess who was the mastermind behind that piece of paper?

[Murphie]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

You don't have to guess if you read things at BG on a regular basis. :p

[Gentoo]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

That's all very nicely calculated but as has been stated before, S-E can pull up logs of in-game discussions and actions. They can see Mr Ni Hao give 1 mil to player A, 35 mil to player B, 15 mil to player C, etc all in the same strange secluded little area and receive nothing in return. How many legitimate players would exist solely to give out hundreds of millions of gil daily, weekly, monthly to completely unrelated accounts?

Thank you. I was responding to raidenn, who was wondering why they don't just go and buy gil.

If I were a betting person, I'd bet they don't keep the logs for those kinds of transactions around for very long. That's a of disk space and processor time that SE probably doesn't believe is necesary. But let's say they do...

Using your log investigation method, I'm betting the process becomes even more expensive. At this point SE would be paying an IT developer to create and maintain an application that monitors transactions, looking for data that makes the exchange look suspicious, and generates reports on the data.
The process would probably continue with another employee who would then have to investigate that the accounts reported weren't coming from the same household.
Once that employee finds accounts that look suspicious, they'd need to track their behavior to verify they are indeed not something like an LS Bank, or other odd object that has a legitimate reason to be.
Finally, once you ban the account, the costs increase in customer service when SE blows it and bans some freekish, but legitimate player (and you know they will).

[kuu]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

SE wouldn't face all the difficultly that that law enforcement does. This is a private service, and SE doesn't have to worry about entrapment as it goes about enforcing it's own rules. The mechanics SE setting up sting operation are mind bogglingly simple.

Long and the short of it is, however, that it would cost them money to do that.



According to IGE, currently a million gil is running $24.58US. (that seems the be the minimum unit you can buy)

To suss out a mere 25 accounts would immediately cost them ~$615(1). After the next fees are collected (for content ID's), that cost increased at least by ~$325(2). Not to mention the costs for actually hiring someone to do this. Just to pull out a low-ball number from thin air, lets says that's another $300(3) for a part-time temporay employee.

So, the total cost to rid a single server of a mere 25 RMT accounts would be roughly $1,240(4), or $49.60(5) per account. To rid the 32 servers of 25 RMT accounts each (800 accounts total), this endevor runs about $40K(6).

And what's the ROI on that $40K?
Will banning 800 accounts attract scads of new players to offset the cost? Personally, I don't think so.
Will banning 800 accounts make most of the poeple who grouse about RMT be quiet? Doubtful, and it's not like they're going quit paying anyway.
Since you're not going to attract new players, will some of the existing players start paying extra cash every month to offset this cost? (hey now, stop giggling)







(1) 25 X $24.58 (the cost of 1 million gil from IGE) = $614.50 -- rounded up to $615
(2) Assuming one contend id per RMT account, 25 X $12.99 (the cost for one content ID) = $324.75 -- rounded up to $325.
(3) Like I said, pulled out of thin air -- go ahead and grouse about it. Minimum wage in CA is $6.75. $6.74 X 40hours = $270. -- rounded up to an even $300
(4) $615 + $325 + $300 = $1,240
(5) $1,240/25 accounts = $49.60/account
(6) $49.60 X 800 total accounts = $39,680 -- rounded up to $40K

That only works until you factor in that you can reuse discarded accounts, and or traded acounts, and or rotating acounts.

Who says you're buying all freashly retail FFxi copies? Get an old one, dispute it, and relog in.

That's all very nicely calculated but as has been stated before, S-E can pull up logs of in-game discussions and actions. They can see Mr Ni Hao give 1 mil to player A, 35 mil to player B, 15 mil to player C, etc all in the same strange secluded little area and receive nothing in return. How many legitimate players would exist solely to give out hundreds of millions of gil daily, weekly, monthly to completely unrelated accounts?

This only works if RMT play fair and doesn't launder PoL accounts and character accounts.

RMT could and do simply keep making lvl 1 characters and deleting them.

And before you say, then just track down massive character making accounts. That's not a safe bet, and would require multiple departments working together.

Two department collaborating in a investigative operation is hard enough, but many many departments on a international scale is...self defeating.

Try asking your boss to snoop around the accountant departments records. He'll laugh. Try asking the accountant department to do it, and they'll laugh. Try finding to find the right staff member alone maybe a daunting task for a lowly GM.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

So, aside from the poor translation of Sundi's replys and the editorializing of said replys, where was the actual interview here?

All this "interview" is proof of is how some people think posting on the internet makes them a journalist.

A lot of these questions were rather superfluous and short-sighted to boot. Its a online game, people are going to overcamp zones because they're just lazy jerks all crazed for the zomgEXPbonus. People are greedy, no surprise there and no update or patch can fix that.

Al Zahbi overcrowed and laggy. People are lazy, Al'Zahbi is the new cool place to go AFK for 20 hours. How is SE supposed to patch lazy, dumb players?

Outpost warps, teleport spells, rented chocobos, chocobo breeding, teleport rings, warp tarus, warp cudgels, airships, boats, warp scrolls, warp spells and Staging point warps... and people are still having a hard time getting where they need to go? Really, WTF? Are these people complaining in endgame, level 20 or just plain retarded? Getting around has only gotten easier, what else is needed here?

Gilsellers are eternal. As long as there are unskilled, lazy wannbe players who can use a credit credit card, there will be RMT in any MMORPG. SE can find ways to hinder them, players can try to hinder them, they'll come back, undaunted and their customers won't expose themselves, either.

And then WAAAAAAHHH, HNM camps are too crowded. *gasp* Competition. He actually suggested for the kings to pop more often? Hell, let's just ask them to increase the AFv2 drops in Dynamis and all NM drops to be 100 percent. Let's just install a LEVEL UP macro while we're at it.

[Legal Fish]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

So, aside from the poor translation of Sundi's replys and the editorializing of said replys, where was the actual interview here?

All this "interview" is proof of is how some people think posting on the internet makes them a journalist.

A lot of these questions were rather superfluous and short-sighted to boot. Its a online game, people are going to overcamp zones because they're just lazy jerks all crazed for the zomgEXPbonus. People are greedy, no surprise there and no update or patch can fix that.

Al Zahbi overcrowed and laggy. People are lazy, Al'Zahbi is the new cool place to go AFK for 20 hours. How is SE supposed to patch lazy, dumb players?

Outpost warps, teleport spells, rented chocobos, chocobo breeding, teleport rings, warp tarus, warp cudgels, airships, boats, warp scrolls, warp spells and Staging point warps... and people are still having a hard time getting where they need to go? Really, WTF? Are these people complaining in endgame, level 20 or just plain retarded? Getting around has only gotten easier, what else is needed here?

Gilsellers are eternal. As long as there are unskilled, lazy wannbe players who can use a credit credit card, there will be RMT in any MMORPG. SE can find ways to hinder them, players can try to hinder them, they'll come back, undaunted and their customers won't expose themselves, either.

And then WAAAAAAHHH, HNM camps are too crowded. *gasp* Competition. He actually suggested for the kings to pop more often? Hell, let's just ask them to increase the AFv2 drops in Dynamis and all NM drops to be 100. Let's just install an LEVEL UP macro while we're at it.

This post has open my eyes to the fact there are people so dumb that they can bitch about something without having a point. Good job.

Have you ever camped a HNM?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

This post has open my eyes to the fact there are people so dumb that they can bitch about something without having a point. Good job.

Have you ever camped a HNM?

Yup, many times. Competition is part of life. I can cry all I want about other people after the same job position I'm after at Company X, but guess what, they're entitled to apply just as much as I am and if they're more qualified, too bad for me.

I can cry about all the other HNMLSes camping Y HNM at Camp X, but guess what, they have just as much right to camp that HNM as I do and if they get the claim and the kill, too bad for me.

Deal with it, k?

[Legal Fish]

Re: new SE interview by Bercus over on BG

Wow, thanks, you are so dumb I think I've become educated. I now know how an extremely stupid person looks like. Have a great time having no point or direction in your arguements.