RMT Countermeasures

From Square-Enix: Since the end of last year, item values have risen astronomically on all Worlds due to the manipulation of prices by a small percentage of the player base. The development team and the GMs carried out a detailed investigation of this problem, and discovered the existence of a group using illicit methods to produce large amounts of gil that are later sold in the real world (Real Money Trading). We would like to take this opportunity to outline the measures that have been taken to correct this issue. Based on the results of this investigation, more than 700 accounts among those found to be involved in large-scale RMT operations have been terminated. We will continue to monitor accounts suspected of dealing in gil created or obtained in an unfair manner. Thanks to these measures, more than 300 billion gil has been removed from circulation, and the overly inflated prices of items have begun to fall to more realistic levels. Furthermore, emergency maintenance has already been performed on all worlds for the purpose of implementing RMT countermeasures. This maintenance took place over two stages, starting on January 17th. As has been previously stated, acts of RMT will not be tolerated in FINAL FANTASY XI, and any violations of the user agreement will be dealt with severely. We would like to assure our players that all efforts are being made to ensure a fair playing experience. We hope to have your continuing understanding and cooperation in creating a Vana'diel that everyone can enjoy.

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Awesome
# Feb 09 2006 at 3:04 PM Rating: Decent
I figured something like this had happened last week. I found it very fishy how freely I was able to camp Poisonhanded here on Alexander, and how dead it was in Zi Tah where gilsellers farmed Cuttings 24/7 usually. I havent checked the high priced items in the AH yet to check for dropping prices, but they were sliding slowly starting right after the holidays anyways. This is an excellent step in eliminating RMT. Hopefully SE paid attention though to the new account creation around the time they nixed all those accounts. It's too bad recording the credit card numbers is illegal...though I guess they could ban numbers without actually seeing them as long as they're in their computer system. They'll know exactly who to watch in the next little while as the RMT community rebuilds. 700 accounts may SEEM piddly, but the result of these main gil transferring accounts being nixed has been the gilsellers offloading a buttload of their non-banned characters. Otherwise they'd still have gil up on all the servers for sale and not a sudden massive jump in accounts for sale. Not that this upswing in account selling is unusual given the upcoming release of the X360 version of the game. Also it isn't as easy as you might think to get a bunch of new Reg. Codes for new chars. This will slow the RMT people down quite a bit unless they want to trumpet their return by starting a surge in account creation. The first run of accounts bans didn't do much, but this one has hit much harder. I applaud SE. Though I do wonder what changes they made in the last couple of weeks during those maintenance period. I suppose they aren't saying because the RMTs would just find their way around it if they knew.
its about time!!!!!!
# Feb 09 2006 at 2:48 PM Rating: Decent
i hope you BAN!!! evrylast one of them theese prices are out of this word
23 mil for noble tunic on leviathan
and even more for V cloak
thank the lord
# Feb 09 2006 at 2:44 PM Rating: Decent
19 posts
Thank you S-E! This won't fix the problems 100% but it's a step in the right direction.

I don't think gil buyers should be banned... I don't think they ment to ***** up the economy... it's just w/in american culture (especially Generaion Y and Generation O)to have instant gratification. This is just an excellent example of this character flaw.

Personally I think the buyers should have some sort of punishment. stripped of job levels to 1/2 of what their current lvls are.... stripped of rank and maybe a gil fine to pay?? I dunno...

just my thoughts....

anyways, i'm just happy SE is trying to do something.
RE: thank the lord
# Feb 09 2006 at 3:10 PM Rating: Decent
Nha...the buyers are being hurt enough lol Suddenly no gil for sale? AHHHHHH!!!!! What do I do? Where do I get my gils?!!!!! I can't buy anything! NOOOOO!!! I have to farm?!! I cant farm!! I DON'T KNOW HOW!! Camp NMs?! I DONT KNOW HOW TO CLAIM!!! THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!!!! hehehehe
RE: thank the lord
# Feb 09 2006 at 2:52 PM Rating: Decent
lol.. if they did that, anyone who bought gil would quit the game regardless, a loss for SE.
A Billion
# Feb 09 2006 at 2:40 PM Rating: Good
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162 posts
Scientific notation is a universal, the naming scheme of numbers, however isn't.

Billion is almost always used in the U.S. to represent 10^9 or "One Thousand Millions".

However, it is often used to denote a "million times a million" or 10^12 in most non-native English speaking countries (i.e. Japan perhaps?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion

Anyhow, whichever amount was removed, it is a great sign. Thanks S-E!
bout time
# Feb 09 2006 at 2:05 PM Rating: Default
lmao oops hit wrong macro ..... it is about time SE did do something about gil sellers n such but like all good things it wont last long nor will prices go back to the way they "were" like when NA released the game cheap stuff was great i was on shiva then...but through migration went to Midgarsormr lol outrageuos prices crazy prices lol then the gilsellers really kiked into gear and they went p00f 50mil for SH+1 like wtf i dont need 1 but hell that aint worth that much 10mil at most (well it was b4 the b00m) but u most said SE kik backs hmmm prolly true others say finally yay but how long will it last Noone Knows
all we can do is farm our asses off make our own money and critisise those who buy gil and hope for them all to farm with us ..wel not with us but u know wut i mean l8r pplz
14 servers
# Feb 09 2006 at 2:05 PM Rating: Decent
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74 posts
i just checked IGE and it looks like only 14 servers got to really benefit from this. There's still plenty of gil for sale in the other servers. >.< Maybe SE will do this again sometime and hit some sellers on Seraph.
wishful thinking
# Feb 09 2006 at 2:04 PM Rating: Good
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81 posts
/Cheer to SE for doing something.

Of course now I wish I had waited to buy some gear that I did, I could have saved a bundle.

But I suppose it comes out even in the end.

Still maybe I can convince SE to let me have some gil back? ;P
RE: wishful thinking
# Feb 09 2006 at 2:09 PM Rating: Decent
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67 posts
No kidding! The Dusk Gloves I bought for 25M a month ago are now 14M >_< Bah! Oh well, it's not like I'm gonna sell 'em, and I suppose I made that much on other junk I sold during the times of inflated prices.
RE: wishful thinking
# Feb 09 2006 at 2:13 PM Rating: Decent
Dusk Gloves +1 on Kujata? 150m
bout time
# Feb 09 2006 at 2:00 PM Rating: Decent
...
# Feb 09 2006 at 1:54 PM Rating: Decent
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634 posts
As was said in a previous post that I agree with, The reason you may be seeing a lot of the normal gilsellers on your servers, is because maybe they're a bit harder to pinpoint. You have to think, I highly doubt your favorite Gilsellers are actually the ones who hand out gil when someone buys it.

Odds are the accounts that were banned were those unknown few housing all the gil that your favorite gilsellers collect. Least, that's what I feel.

peace,
CR
Kujata
# Feb 09 2006 at 1:48 PM Rating: Decent
The Gilseller population on Kujata wasnt really that bad before the sting. Now we have even less.

I camped Roc a couple nights ago with some friends, only 1 Gilseller group there, the rest were real players. My party didnt get it but a lower lvl alliance of up and comers got it, Must feel real nice to be able to do that again.

Before there were maybe 10 real well-known gilselling groups on Kujata, that number is now down to about 3 or 4.
Good move, SE!
# Feb 09 2006 at 1:46 PM Rating: Good
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1,326 posts
I’m glad they’re taking it slow. I’d rather deal with RMT people then get banned for something I did that may have looked suspicious.

As for setting up a sting, on the surface it seems like a really good idea, but I think it may be a little more complex then that. Say SE buys gil from a character and tracks that gil back to one other character… well, transferring gil in itself is not a violation of the TOS. And what if many people are giving gil to the gilseller character, not just through the AH delivery, but also through bazaar and AH sales? Can you safely assume they’re all into RMT and ban them all?

The way I would do RMT if I were IGE would be to set up a few layers of obfuscation. You have a disposable account (this would be the one that actually transfers money to players, and is at the most risk). This character would always have a few million on him, in order to quickly respond to sales requests. An SE employee would have to go pretty far back to find out where that gil came from originally.

I’d have a few dozen “banker” accounts to hold gil, not too much on any one character, in order to avoid losing tons of gil if they get banned. I’d set up inflated bazaar sales and AH sales between the bankers and the transfer characters, probably using another layer or two of middleman characters, in order to transfer gil without using the delivery system or direct trading. Tracing all this back to me, not to mention all my dozens of banker accounts, would be a huge undertaking. Which leaves SE with two options… to take it slow and steady, or to wield the banhammer recklessly, catching tons of gilsellers and a fair number of legitimate players in the process.

If I can think of this, then I bet IGE has thought of it too. Actually, they probably have something even better to cover their tracks.

300 billion is a lot of gil. At a going rate of, let’s say, $10 per million (just guessing, I don’t know), then that’s $3,000,000 “street price” that the gilsellers lost. That has GOT to hurt :)
Is a Billion a Billion?
# Feb 09 2006 at 1:32 PM Rating: Good
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722 posts
To clarify the difference in the number "billion" in the US and the UK:

In the US (and most countries, actually) a "billion" is a thousand million. However, in the UK that same number is either referred to as "thousand million" or "milliard."

A UK "billion" is a million million...a thousand times as large as a US "billion." In the US this is known as a "trillion."

SE's "billion" is the "usual" US billion...a thousand million. I suspect that there is not 30 trillion gil in the system.

Edited because I am the typo king. ><

Edited, Thu Feb 9 12:37:43 2006
READ THIS
# Feb 09 2006 at 1:25 PM Rating: Default
Holy ****! I just searched IGE's site. I looked on most server's and NO GIL on manyof them..

So I then searched characters/accounts for sale, and BOOOOOOM 393 for sale at the moment. Now, I've never seen the accounts for sale, or searched for them, so is that a normal number? Or is that IGE's scape goat money maker? Did they have all those accounts for sale just waiting, but due to the gil being wiped out, this is their emergency fund?

Any ideas would be welcomed, that's insane ^-^. Any thoughts?
Finally
# Feb 09 2006 at 1:16 PM Rating: Decent
Glad to hear SE is finally doing something about inflation. For what it's worth, a lot of the more well-known "gilsellers" have disappeared.

Dragon Talon/Igqira Weskit pre-hyperinflation: 4 mil
Dragon Talon/Igqira Weskit post-hyperinflation: 12-13 mil

So yeah, it's about 9 now, and maybe it it keeps dropping, I might be able to afford one eventually.

Personal rant aside, I'd just like to say good job SE.
>.<
# Feb 09 2006 at 1:13 PM Rating: Good
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452 posts
I can't speak for other servers, as all my characters are here on Gilgamesh. But I have to say that a HUGE number of people on my server, long suspected to be gilsellers and botters, have dissapeared. Our prices are still outrageous, but they're not HIDEOUS anymore. SHs have, for the time being, dropped to 9 mil... they WERE about 30 mil.

There's still a few suspects hanging around, but around here it's been almost haunting how easy it is to suddenly get some NMs that were camped 24/7 before.

And really folks, SE is not a company of gods. They can't fix EVERYTHING at once. Like a true economy, it takes time to fix itself. I do think it's funny how a lot of known gilbuyers are currently flat broke because they blew all their gil paying huge amounts for items, half the time just to show off. The have no idea where/what to farm, what to do, what have you. Meanwhile those of us who stuck to the old tried and true methods are still sailing along.

I admit, they're not ALL gone, and there's still some people they need to slap down(I'm not paying 80k for one stack of Sole Sushi, sorry), but at least they're making SOME effort.
QUIT UR WHINING, ty ty SE
# Feb 09 2006 at 1:03 PM Rating: Default
OK, so they removed 300,000,000,000 gil. On the average sight for buying gil in these days(I only checked lol) that's like we'll see an average of 89$ U.S. Currency for 10,000,000 gil. so that's around 27,000$ in real currency that SE wiped out.

Wtf are you cockwhores crying about, this really is a wonderful step in getting the economy to a normal state that it was at before the Christmas season this year. I give my applaud to SE, 110%. They took 300 billion gil out of circulation, that is huge! It really is helping inflation and prices go down. My server is slowing going back to better days we all seen in the past.

Are there more things to be taken care of with RMT/Gilbuyers, of course, but these things take time. They aren't managed in matter of hours or days, but in weeks or months. They're working on it guys and gals. Please don't let us down SE, and thanks a mil!
#REDACTED, Posted: Feb 09 2006 at 1:00 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) WTF are they talking about? I bought okote 300k sold for 7.5mil, cross-counter 3mil sold 15mil, sniper 500k sold 3mil, hauby 2mil sold 10mil, brn belt 500k sold 7mil, foragers 2mil sold 7mil, and the list goes on. I remember NAPC day 1 wing boots 20k, Fuma 10k, etc... I see a LS of proffesional players on Odin server who have 2-3ppl playing each character around the clock and they get 80% of the ground HNMs and then sell items at AH or bizarre and then RMT the gil for NA $. I see it every day and []enix does nothing. Basically they whipe their *** with the player agreement. My thought is that gilsellers like IGE are in bed with []enix and that they get kick backs and its nice extra income. So don't be fooled by this crap about RMT countermeasures, I'll believe it when i see HNMs claimed by ppl other than the gilfarmers occasionally. Also did anyone notice that the price of RMT gil more than doubled when FFxi came out for Xbox360? from 460$ / 100,000k gil to over 1000$ / 100,000k gil. So RMT is alive and well and all i can hope is []enix gets honest and actually does something about it. "we'll look into the matter" = im not waste my time on that GL and don't give up the good fight ^^
well...
# Feb 09 2006 at 12:57 PM Rating: Decent
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81 posts
Neat articles:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3147849
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3147729

I think SE's efforts are a good FIRST step. They stated that they've implemented RMT countermeasures recently. We won't know how effective they are until some time passes and we can see the results. I'm glad SE is finally doing something, I just wish it had come sooner. Let's see what more they do.

To Vindalesin and Balagren who were responding to Darwinian's question: Read this thread http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10;mid=113950359341247203;num=25;page=1 or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion

"The word "billion" and its equivalents in other languages refer to one of two different numbers, depending on whether the writer is using the long or short scale."

I'm guessing SE meant the American version of 100,000,000,000 or 10^9. And fellas, no need to be such jerks when answering someone else's question. Go ahead and hit rate down in retaliation, doesn't bother me any.







Edited, Thu Feb 9 13:16:28 2006
meh
# Feb 09 2006 at 11:59 AM Rating: Decent
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270 posts
i haven't seen any effect in lakshmi all the prices are still about same for stuff here...
Heh...didn't we try this before?
# Feb 09 2006 at 11:57 AM Rating: Default
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366 posts
I seem to recall something of this nature happening alongside the Rarex drop patch -- 800 or so accounts were banned across all servers.
A few fishing bots were shut down but I still see quite a lot of them sitting out regretfully releasing subligars after 3 days of fishing.
A few gilsellers were banned...but new ones/the same ones on new characters popped up.
One even tried to infiltrate my linkshell...I'm not entirely sure why to this very day (did he think we wouldn't notice he camped NMs 24/7, was 75 and NEVER spoke english?) but one would assume to give him the aura of legitimacy when he could pop on a legitimate pearl instead of his CGS one whenever an actual player showed up to compete. We figured him out and kicked and reported him...and boycotted his goods.
What do you know? A whole 23 GS...maybe I'll be able to afford a phantom tathlum whenever the REST OF THE PLAYERBASE stops being greedy.

....
What do you know? Apparently none of our gilsellers were banned on my server (or at least not very many). After all, there seems to be no lack of gil on any gilselling site for my server.
Good to know that all those whiny 12 year old 1337 speakers can still get mommy to buy some for them and run around in SHs and Haubys thinking they're cool.
Oh well, it was good to think that SE might have changed something on my server while I could have that delusion.
only 2/10 sites I found on google were "currently out of stock"...both were on "preorders" yeah...clearly the problem is "solved" the same way it was last time...

Edited, Thu Feb 9 11:05:46 2006
RE: Heh...didn't we try this before?
# Feb 09 2006 at 4:21 PM Rating: Default
23 posts
Quote:
did he think we wouldn't notice he camped NMs 24/7, was 75 and NEVER spoke english?

I had someone in my Linkshell who actually camped LL for like a solid month, on everytime i was on, and go like 100 or so claims when the Rare/ex patch hit
they spoke english but i dont really think that matters anyway, they also had a decently high level job because they were camping for nobles cloak (that like 70 whm or something right?)
so dont assume just because people camp almost non-stop they are gilsellers
RE: Heh...didn't we try this before?
# Feb 09 2006 at 7:22 PM Rating: Decent
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366 posts
good for the person in your LS...grats to them on monopolizing an NM for LEGAL reasons...
The guy of which I speak sells an incredibly high volume of items which are from NMs monopolized by KNOWN GF clans on my server...we looked at where he went and who camped the NMs whose drops he'd shout selling URGENTLY. It added up. He was getting teleports to camp/pick up goods then he'd show up selling both the camped long pop NMs he specialized in and the goods from other round-the-clock gilfarmers. Why would he sell drops for known gilfarmers if he weren't one himself?
and HE'S STILL THERE (although two of his clan are MIA, it might be break time for them...their buddies certainly aren't affected)
the JL clan is also still alive and kicking...
the Xia clan might finally be dead (they started disappearing a while ago), I haven't seen any of them on, but I haven't been looking for long...they might be on a coffee/tea break (unlikely)
another clan (don't know what to call it) is still alive and in their normal camping stations...

And guess what? They're still chain selling their monopolized drops and camping 24/7
and my server has gil for sale on 8/10 sites checked currently, 2 on pre-order...
not a big difference
#Melphina, Posted: Feb 09 2006 at 11:57 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Well I for one and grateful for S-E's actions.
I raise my glass to SE.
# Feb 09 2006 at 11:52 AM Rating: Good
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423 posts
Cheers to SE for this one, they got it at least
half right. Now see to see how much of an
effect it'll have on the crap the gilsellers
pulled on everyone over the holiday season.

[prayer]
May our semi-benevolent, half-blind, legally
handcuffed masters have a clue in whatever they
do next.
[/prayer]
Thank you SE
# Feb 09 2006 at 11:44 AM Rating: Decent
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1,609 posts
I know it's not a whole lot that has been taken from FFXI economy, but it's starting to show. I'm constantly trying to craft things and sell what is popular among players so I can make gil, and I've noticed prices falling all over the place from leather to crystals. I hope S.E. continues with trying to make this game fair to play and not let it continue to be a nightmare for my husband and I due to outrageous prices.
Decent First Step...
# Feb 09 2006 at 11:42 AM Rating: Default
I think this was an excellent first step to resolving the economy issue. They should definately continue this effort. Before SE breaks their arm patting their own back, the only way to really cripple the RMT's is to approach the gilselling websites.

You type in FFXI and you'll get a long list of Gilsellers. If the Gilfarmers and buyers had nowhere to do business, only then would it make the most difference. 700 overall accounts cancelled, thats like 23-24 per server. Around 300 billion gil removed, thats approx. 10bil a server?

Like I said... excellent step in the right direction. SE continue the efforts while setting your sights a little higher on the selling sites. Don't let us down SE...
billion
# Feb 09 2006 at 11:38 AM Rating: Decent
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452 posts
>.> its 300 billion gil. not US currency, not UK currency. Vanadiel currency.

...and unless i'm missing something 300 billion is 300,000,000,000 no matter where you are

EDIT: spelling twice lol.
eye r a gude speeler O.o

Edited, Thu Feb 9 11:51:40 2006
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