Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

[massaranger]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

i love the killing of gil sellers but if you can predict when is the best time to sell ur stuff u can wait a month and buy ur stuff back and have a ton of money to spair i know this year will not be close to the 34 mil i made last year i spent it all giving it away to people who needed it like noobs and so on my friends list is just HUUGE because of it. never agian will the vcloak or the scorp harned be 20 mil yay

[Jkid]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

You know what will be real awsome, if PlayOnline made a badge of the STF.

PlayOnline GameMasters-Special Task Force.

[pearlsea]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

Hey where is pearlsea and the rest complaining about lame events distracting SE from fixing the real problems with FFXI? Wow they are so quiet all of a sudden...

>.> they just releaced this this morning, you want me to scan ffxi website everyday just to make a coment. I guess i spoke too soon, its just that the lilly story wasent what i wanted to see compared to this. Good to know SE is putting more effort into this now.

[Ziero]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

Not for nothing, but even without this announcment I doubt this christmas will be even half as bad as last year. This time last year prices wer two to three times higher then they are now. With all that SE has done already, be it removing RMT banks and thus their gil supplies or adding easy to obtain, competetively good gear, I can't see prices getting too out of hand. In fact I only see things getting lower in the long run with a slight price hike during the holidays while people take vacations.

Regardless, cool news. Do we get to see them do stuff ingame? Or is that all GM territory still?

[Sabaron]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

This is a very good thing SE is doing, but I only have an issue with one thing:


This would be the whole "warning" or "penalizing" deal.

As long as "Warning" means "Three Day Suspention" and "Penalizing" means "Taking all your stuff", I'm cool....

[Karinya]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

This is a very good thing SE is doing, but I only have an issue with one thing:
This would be the whole "warning" or "penalizing" deal. I think SE should take a harsher method of dealing with buyers, because the sellers will never go away, no matter how many times SE bans accounts, as long as there are people ready to buy gil.
SE should make a policy that if you are caught buying gil, just once, no matter how small the amount, you get perm banned. This would be a more worth while way to deal with buyers, since after they see a couple bans get tossed around, it would make them think twice before pulling out Mom's Mastercard.
Of course, there's going to be some dummy who buys gil anyway and gets their account banned, but it would be a good message for SE to send that they have a zero tolerance policy towards actions that break the ToS.

I don't know, I think there are some people who could be convinced to play by the rules once they know the GMs are watching. Something like

1st offense: Suspend the account for 3 days, remove the bought gil from the character or other characters on the same account (if it's already spent, remove items of equivalent value). Losing your dollars/euros/yen with nothing to show for it is the kind of thing that might convince some people that gil buying isn't worth it.

2nd offense: As above, but suspension is 2 weeks and the amount of gil/items removed from the account is double the amount of the purchase. Just to prove that the first time wasn't a fluke.

3rd offense: Ban account and delete all characters on it. By this time it's obvious they have no intention of ever playing by the rules, so they shouldn't be allowed to play at all.

along with explicit warnings of what the next stage is, placing the account under tighter scrutiny by the STF and letting the player *know* that their account is being watched extra closely would probably work on some people. SE doesn't want to remove players from the game if they can turn them honest instead, and I think this might actually have a non-zero success rate.

They do need to start with *some* significant penalties from the first offense, though. Everyone already agreed to the ToS or they wouldn't be playing; a warning that isn't accompanied by some real action will just convince people that you're not serious about enforcing it.

Sellers, <i>and anyone funneling significant amounts of gil/items/etc. to sellers,</i> should be banned on the first offense. Being able to trace the characters that contribute the gil to the actual banks is important, because it is (usually) those characters who most directly disrupt the play experience of legitimate players by monopolizing NMs, manipulating the market, fish botting etc.

[Jei]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

I don't understand what this means.. can anyone explain?

When canceling accounts, we have seen a trend towards account holders possessing multiple accounts. During the measures taken in July 2006 this trend was prevalent when banned accounts were held by over 2000 users. However, in October 2006 when 1,400 accounts were banned, the number of account holders had decreased to the 300 mark.

[Rai]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

So, I wonder how this is going to work out. Like say price fixing, where a person sells an item to a mule at an inflated price to drive the price up on an item.

Example Fudo, one player sold 10 to the same buyer at 60k over last price in AH in order to clear the lower price from the price history.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=16904&stack=0&sid=11

Nanamomi sold these to Levbeibei who is either a 2nd account of a mule. I wonder if this is some thing that can be reported.

[Kaickul]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

I don't understand what this means.. can anyone explain?

I think they mean 1 credit card is paying for 2000 accounts. Which is the only way I can make sense of it. An RMT business sets up all the accounts on a credit card to be paid for.

[Rai]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

I don't understand what this means.. can anyone explain?

I think it is a bad translation. I think they meant that in July 2006 2000 account holders had multiple accounts. In Oct 300 account holders had multiple accounts.

[Jaxom]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

I think they mean 1 credit card is paying for 2000 accounts. Which is the only way I can make sense of it. An RMT business sets up all the accounts on a credit card to be paid for.

My understanding is that the first time they banned accounts (no number of accounts was given, but it was probably only slightly over 2000) there was over 2000 account holders banned. The second time they banned 1400 accounts, but only 300 actual account holders (credit cards behind the account basically) were banned. This means that the second time they banned accounts, nearly 5x as many accounts were banned as account holders. My guess is that it is something similar as to what was stated above, except that rather than one person or card holding all 2000 (or 1400) accounts, each person or card would more likely hold ~5-20 accounts, with some of those banned having only a single account.

Anyways, I'm really happy to hear about this. I hate the GS as much as the rest of you, for all the same reasons, and knowing that SE is taking a firmer stance on this issue is, I must admit, uplifting.

[Kaickul]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

My understanding is that the first time they banned accounts (no number of accounts was given, but it was probably only slightly over 2000) there was over 2000 account holders banned. The second time they banned 1400 accounts, but only 300 actual account holders (credit cards behind the account basically) were banned. This means that the second time they banned accounts, nearly 5x as many accounts were banned as account holders. My guess is that it is something similar as to what was stated above, except that rather than one person or card holding all 2000 (or 1400) accounts, each person or card would more likely hold ~5-20 accounts, with some of those banned having only a single account.

Anyways, I'm really happy to hear about this. I hate the GS as much as the rest of you, for all the same reasons, and knowing that SE is taking a firmer stance on this issue is, I must admit, uplifting.

Thats probably right. I couldnt imagine 2000 accounts on only a few credit cards anyway.

[MisterCookie]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

W00t! I've been waiting forever for the FFXI version of the NKVD to deal with the gilbuying whores. I'm happy that gilbuyers will actually face consequences for their n00bism.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

Probably one of the most useless graphs ever.

Nice to see they're at least making a show of trying to clean up their game, shame it's over two year's late.

[little ninja]

Re: Special Task Force (11/06/2006)

Hey where is pearlsea and the rest complaining about lame events distracting SE from fixing the real problems with FFXI? Wow they are so quiet all of a sudden...

Naa i had work today out of the office so i couldnt make a post until now. Actually What happened to all those players who told me over the years that S.E couldnt pin point the RMT. That S.E couldnt pin point the players who bought gil. IT seems that S.E can pin point them all out. As the post states. They just choose to wait over 2 years to actually make dealing with this matter high on their list.

It is great that S.E has finally decided to start targeting RMT, an botters. Its still sad that they waited over 2 years to actually deal with this matter. To some its just a little to late, including myself..