Over the last few years, Final Fantasy XIV has suffered from a public spam problem. In every major zone, bots would flood general chat with “MONEY FOR GIL” ads, prompting players to switch their statuses to “busy.” FFXIV’s Tuesday patch made some necessary changes that allows players to more easily report real money transfer (“RMT”) spam.
In the past, there were two ways to handle the constant inundation of spam bots: Players could block bots shouting about online money-for-gil exchanges–but it was like playing whack-a-mole, if only the moles were infinitely-spawning fly larvae. To actually report the larvae, FFXIV players were directed to an online “bug report” form, or the FFXIV forums.
It was clunky as hell. With the latest patch, players can report RMT bots in FFXIV’s chat log box, but do still have to block their messages on a case-by-case basis.
“Any reports sent using this function will be processed automatically. When it is confirmed the reported player is sending RMT messages, their ability to speak with other players will be restricted,” Square Enix writes in their Patch 3.4 notes.
So, less of the bot-block burden (say that five times fast) will be on players’ backs. This is one of the patch’s greatest assets.
FFXIV players are celebrating, but with great reporting potential comes great harassment potential. With over a million subscribers, FFXIV is bound to be home for a few trolls.
A player who doesn’t like someone can report them quite easily. Real people, however, will be going through the complaints. So, if you’re a jerk about it, perhaps you’ll get sent to /”GM jail.” Square Enix declined to comment for this article.
In the next patch, let’s hope that Square Enix will make it easier to report “JOIN MY FREE COMPANY” spam.
Comments
8 responses to “Final Fantasy XXIV Might Finally Solve Its Spam Bot Problem”
So they will finally fix it in Final Fantasy 24?
OK.
we’ve got a long time to wait by the sounds of it 😛
Actually they were going to call it Final Fantasy XIII-4 All The Versus Dream Drop 365/4 Coded Chain… but then they thought, bugger it, just go with FF-XXIV.
Well, FF XXVII comes out in 2027 according to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, so not that long a wait.
I gind it wierd that any MMO hasnt gotten to the point of having chat bots using pattern recognition and keywords to tell ads… still comes doen to players flagging them.
Only to have them repop 2 minutes later on a new account saying the near exact same copy and paste.
That’s a really great point. With the sheer amount of chat data they have, they should easily be able to make a program that can learn and accurately identify spammers based on past bans
I’ve been pushing for a system like this for years. MMO’s become plagued by these bots and they tarnish what could otherwise be useful functionality.
Must admit, I’m a bit disappointed that the graphics in FF24 aren’t more advanced…