Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

[Takelli]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

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?

It would be a temparary sulotion until they find a better one that is more useful.

Limiting trial accounts to send tells, or shout, like what WoW did, that would frusterate a lot of (New) players. I played WoW for a month or so, and the damn not being able to send tells, or shouts, stressed me out to the point of getting rid of the game. I was un able to ask for help in tells, unable to shout for help, and such. (And teh game play sucked as well after about a month).

[Aksannyi]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

It wasn't that bad. I had a trial on WoW and it wasn't that big of a deal to me. What do you really need help with in the first ten levels anyway? Go out, kill stuff. Isn't a lot else you can really do. And not being able to do these things is an incentive to buy the full version of the game (come on, it's $20) and really get into it.

You act like it's going to cause people to quit before they even hit Dunes levels. I can't remember talking to a single person until the first party I joined, as a 15RDM. If it really bothers them, they can buy the full version before their trial is up. I really don't think it's that big of a deal, no one asks for help in the first few levels of the game anyway.

[Takelli]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

It wasn't that bad. I had a trial on WoW and it wasn't that big of a deal to me. What do you really need help with in the first ten levels anyway? Go out, kill stuff. Isn't a lot else you can really do. And not being able to do these things is an incentive to buy the full version of the game (come on, it's $20) and really get into it.

You act like it's going to cause people to quit before they even hit Dunes levels. I can't remember talking to a single person until the first party I joined, as a 15RDM. If it really bothers them, they can buy the full version before their trial is up. I really don't think it's that big of a deal, no one asks for help in the first few levels of the game anyway.

I like talking to people in the game when I first begnthitong. So I doubt that people will really want to be stuck on level 20, and not being able to send a shout to ask for help on their SJ quest.

I've actually quit games because of the /tell things on trials. If you limit some one from talking to stop rmt tells, then its just stupid.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Personally I don't want to send tells asking random people for help anyway. Unless you have RL friends or something that you want to talk to, which I guess is different.

Or they can leave it the way it is and have their older players (the ones who give them more money, from more mules and possibly multiple accounts) quit the game out of frustration because they did nothing.

I'm going out on a limb when I say you're in the minority. No one else I've talked to would think it's so terrible if the trial accounts got limited somewhat. In the space of 14 days you won't get high enough to get a subjob, or run to Jeuno. You might barely get high enough to start leveling in the Dunes. You're not gonna need the tell feature that much. Want? Probably, but that's when you say to yourself (if you don't like it), "Well, I should go buy the full version."

[Takelli]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Actually. With in 14 days, I can have 2 jobs leveld up to level 20, and be in jeuno by then. Limiting /tells isnt so bad, but don't limit the shouts. But if two people start up an account together, and want to test out all teh feture, with out buying the game, its a lot better to send tells to each other rather than call up each other, especially if they started in different nations.

But they should limit trial accounts to putting website names or any other variation in /tells, causing the RMTs to actually have to buy the account giving SE more money.

Not completly get rid of the /tells for trial accounts.

[Durahansolo]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Actually. With in 14 days, I can have 2 jobs leveld up to level 20, and be in jeuno by then.

We're not talking about you though, we're talking about the average newbie.

On a sidenote, I got the most polite RMT tell ever the other day. They listed the usual information and then added "Thank you and have a nice day." to the end of the message. Pretty soon the RMT customer service is gonna be better than Playonline's.

[Takelli]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

We're not talking about you though, we're talking about the average newbie.

On a sidenote, I got the most polite RMT tell ever the other day. They listed the usual information and then added "Thank you and have a nice day." to the end of the message. Pretty soon the RMT customer service is gonna be better than Playonline's.

When I first started (And my brothers) we all got our first jobs to lvl 20, and that was waith all three of us playing at different time for about 3 hours a day.

It takes on average 5 days to reach level 20 if you play 3 hours a day, if you party the entire time.

[Elwynn]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

It would be a temparary sulotion until they find a better one that is more useful.

Limiting trial accounts to send tells, or shout, like what WoW did, that would frusterate a lot of (New) players. I played WoW for a month or so, and the damn not being able to send tells, or shouts, stressed me out to the point of getting rid of the game. I was un able to ask for help in tells, unable to shout for help, and such. (And teh game play sucked as well after about a month).

Wow, way to completely miss my point. The point isn't that they're tells, or even that they're from trial accounts, it's the rate at which they are sending them, and that they are sending each one to a different person. They must be spamming at least 20-30 a minute.

Please tell me how it would "frusterate" new players to not be able to send a tell continuously every two or three seconds, or to be able to repeatedly send one message each to everyone in the game, while they're sitting in Bastok Markets without even having gear equipped.

Again, there is no need to look at what they're sending in tells, merely how they're sending it. To be worth the effort of starting a trial account, the spammers need to send them (with bot scripts) much faster than any genuine trial account player would ever be able to, much less want to.

[Mithrankittycat]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

The RMT advertisements make FFXI look desirable. It's kinda like beanie babies.

"Oh yeah, my mythic weapon account is worth $50,000 USD"

[aegina]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

We're not talking about you though, we're talking about the average newbie.

On a sidenote, I got the most polite RMT tell ever the other day. They listed the usual information and then added "Thank you and have a nice day." to the end of the message. Pretty soon the RMT customer service is gonna be better than Playonline's.

That's not too hard to do. The DMV has better customer service than Playonline does

Limiting the number of tells a free account can send wont stop them. The RMT will just log in 20~30 free accounts, spam their tells, and not be stopped.

Restricting a trial account's ability to send tells would slow them down more, but this isn't WoW-you really do NEED to be able to talk to the other players to realy get anywhere in this game. Especially if you're a newbie who doesn't know his way around.

blocking www. and other tags won't even slow them down for more than a day at most, but it might annoy legitimate players (unless the block is restricted only to free accounts, which still won't stop them.)

When coming up with ideas, remember the accounts they're using are free, and they can log in an unlimited number of them in at once.

Truly a difficult problem to solve. Personally, I vote for trial accounts not being able to send tells until level 10, but thats just my preference.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Actually, why attack RMT after they create an account? Or implement chat monitoring systems which can potentially bog down the servers even more?

SE should require a working credit card number before issuing code for a trial account. Then, work out a deal with its merchant processing banks to track and blacklist all CC accounts known to have been used by RMT (and banned players). The precessing bank should also be able to trace one-time numbers to the original accounts, and keep them blacklisted.

RMT right now use trial accounts (I assume) because the barrier to entry is low. SE should work with its CC processing provider to make it harder for an RMT operator to keep coming back.

People who don't even have a credit card aren't likely to keep playing FFXI anyway, so the valid CC requirement shouldn't be a major impediment to getting new customers.

[Kimani]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

I've actually quit games because of the /tell things on trials. If you limit some one from talking to stop rmt tells, then its just stupid.

Honestly, i think if people are willing to quit FFXI because for 14 days they can send alot of /tells then they obviously wouldn't make it through the dunes anyway. So it weeds out those players as well. I honestly think your onto something taskmage.

---------- Post added at 08:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:42 PM ----------

SE should require a working credit card number before issuing code for a trial account. Then, work out a deal with its merchant processing banks to track and blacklist all CC accounts known to have been used by RMT (and banned players).

I think this is a really good idea.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

I honestly think S-E need to look at crafting. Were they to make a few changes I feel it would have a significant impact on reducing the need for RMT.

Namely, dramatically increase the drop rates of non-NM mobs with the intended result of making all but the rarest of crafting drops far easier to obtain and significantly increase the skill-up rate on crafting.

Honestly, if crafting were easier to level I'd actually buy additional mules to enable me to produce different items. Other than farming up the items, which would be easier with increased drop rates, I'd pretty much be able to make my own food, craft my own ninja tools, make key pieces of armour for different jobs, and actually carry different medications around and use them without caring about the wasted gil.

[Durahansolo]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Namely, dramatically increase the drop rates of non-NM mobs with the intended result of making all but the rarest of crafting drops far easier to obtain and significantly increase the skill-up rate on crafting.

Unless I'm misreading you, this would also most likely scale down all profits on the same items.

For example I make Bloody Bolt Heads. It costs 30k for Beastman Blood, and 20k for revival tree roots. If the droprate was doubled (Just saying double because the droprate on either isn't that good ^_^) there would be over twice as many in the AH which would also cut the price of bolt heads in half. This would also cut bloody bolts in half down to like 17k/stack and depreciation of a few thousand.

I make echo drops and the most expensive item in that recipe is honey. Honey and beehive chips already have a pretty high droprate in some zones, if they were made any higher there'd be 2-3x as many on the AH. This would drop the price of honey to around 1k via the amount of undercutting because of idiots and RMT. Echo drops would drop to around 3k a stack or less.

I would be disgusted and would probably quit crafting. RMT win market...Game Over.

So basically all this would do is help the high level crafters in the long run since the rare items wouldn't be effected. This would encourage low level crafters to get higher in level, but they wouldn't be able to reap the benefits until higher levels. So basically the rich get richer and the poor get poorer... The lower levels wouldn't be able to make back much of their money since the droprates would be increased, so they might be able to buy cheaper but selling back crafted items would probably suck. RMT Win Market...Game Over.

EDIT>>I mean seriously as of right now I'd even have to change my prediction of what the final price of bloody bolts would be. Because they sell for about 40k starting price, the market had been steady for weeks at 37k, and now between the undercutting idiots and RMTs the price dropped to 30k. If they increase the droprate on the items for bolt heads that would drop them to around 13k and probably lower after the undercutters get a hold of it.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Thing is, other than gear you can BCNM/KSNM for, or use the drops to raise gil to buy the premium gear options that aren't Rare/Ex, what would you need money for if you could readily craft the consumables you need?