Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

[Murphie]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

I object!

Seriously though, I'm going to send a message with similar wording.

[Feba]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

I'm sending in the /rmt thing.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

I actually stopped getting the tells from RMT, (for the most part, a few still slip in) thanks to ChatMon and the spam filter Aikar created. It's so stupid that SE won't fix so much of their game that the Windower devs will.

I've reported them before, but as an A name, it gets tiresome to stop what I'm doing after EVERY tell and report it. Especially when I'm actually busy trying to heal people in Dynamis or lowman a Tiamat.

[Taskmage]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

It's so stupid that SE won't fix so much of their game that the Windower devs will.

Seriously. And ironic that the people who insist on playing the game "clean" are the ones must subjected to RMT crap.

[Feba]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

I've reported them before, but as an A name, it gets tiresome to stop what I'm doing after EVERY tell and report it.

yep, this was exactly what my idea was designed to fix. Would be a lot easier for you AND the GMs if you just had to type /rmt <name>, instead of the full GM form.

[Rostum]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Filter, if not that, why not limit /tell's for trial accounts. Perhaps you have to be level 10+ to be able to send /tell's for a trial account? I don't know. I may have to try out that filter.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Hell, it works for WoW. Trial accounts can't send whispers unless someone sends them one first.

[Karinya]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Given that these tells generally have the URL of the RMT site in them (otherwise they'd be useless), and there are only a few sites doing them... how hard can it be to grep all the tell traffic for "www.brogame.com" and track repeat senders? As new spambots are reported by players, their site urls could be added to the grep filter so people sending those tells would attract GM attention.

Heck, even without the url, anyone sending tells to (say) 50 *different* people inside an hour should be examined by a GM.


As far as *preventative* (i.e. automatically effective even before a GM shows up) restrictions on trial accounts and tells go, maybe trial accounts shouldn't be able to send tells to more than 10 different people until a certain period of time passes? You might need to talk to a few people to get into a party, but more than that is probably a spambot. (Real accounts shouldn't have that restriction - someone leading a large event, for example, might need to exchange tells with 20 or 30 people. But trial accounts don't last long enough for you to become an officer in a Dynamis shell.)

[Feba]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

yeah, but then you start seeing "www.Bro game.com", "br0g@me", "bro\game", etc. The spam filters would quickly spiral out of control once you start trying to deal with it on such a simple basis. It's a short term solution.

[Ziero]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

The easiest fix is flood control for new accounts as suggested. Combine that with a chat filter on trial accounts that prevents URLs from being sent out and you pretty much kill the spammers.

They also need to limit the amount of flowerpots a trial account can have. The newest RMT scheme seems to be to grow lots of stuff in a MH then NPC everything that comes out. While it would be too slow for most normal players to do, it's apparently the only way RMT can effectively make money nowadays.

[Vasevka]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

My name starts with a V and I maybe get a tell about once a week. *thumbs up* but I still think they should do something to stop it =) I like the limiting tells from WoW idea... only being able to reply, not send first.

[Taskmage]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Point of minor interest. Until a couple days ago reporting an RMT tell got one of two standard form letter type messages, a generic GM one with "Due to the volume of calls regarding this matter, a GM will not be able to help you directly," and a GM supervisor team message that said basically the same thing only more politely and giving more lip service to the validity of your claim. Yesterday I got an entirely new form letter message that said this:



So for one reason or another they're starting to take notice of the problem and are committed to doing something about it.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Awesome! I, too, have been noticing an increase in the variety and the directness of GM responses, but none have been so to the point as that one. Sign of good things to come!

[Takelli]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Hmmm... FFXI should get a direct feed back ingame "Suggetions" box, and only the player that suggest one, gets a responce. That would help with the FFXI team finding solutions, but to prevent spam from RMTs, as I know they will spam it, and make it impossible for the FFXI team to get to the ones that really matter, make it so you can only use the form once...

command...

/suggetion Prevent the use of www., .com, or any other variation of being used in the /tell messages, while allowing it to be used in /shout, /l, /p, and so on, just not used in /tells.

And a GM would contact you via messenger (Friend's list messenger, as it may take some time to get back to you.), if the FFXI team likes the idea...

[Elwynn]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

/suggetion Prevent the use of www., .com, or any other variation of being used in the /tell messages, while allowing it to be used in /shout, /l, /p, and so on, just not used in /tells.

That sounds like exactly the sort of wrong solution SE would come up with.

The problem is not the content, the problem is the rate at which they are sending them, and from trial accounts, no less. Or do you not notice how e-mail v-1*4#g+r=A spammers can easily find their way around such stupid rules?