Today's report will outline our actions conducted from October 23, 2008 to November 20, 2008 in dealing with players violating the user agreement, as well as details on the activities, results, and goals of the Special Task Force.

Click here for details on the Special Task Force's activities in dealing with players violating the FINAL FANTASY XI user agreement.

Special Task Force Activities and Future Plans

As demonstrated in the above graph, the number of accounts banned gradually decreased from June to September, but drastically increased in October.
There are two reasons for the increase in bannings. The first reason is that the Special Task Force strengthened its activities against accounts involved in selling gil starting last month. The second reason is that we've obtained new methods for dealing with RMT through our investigations and, as a result, have been able to investigate more accounts than ever before, effectively increasing the number of accounts banned.
Using these new methods, we not only are capable of verifying accounts directly involved in RMT but also accounts that are being used to accumulate the gil sold through RMT. These new methods have proven especially effective against violators of the user agreement involved in RMT such as hunters and illegal fishers.

Another factor in the increase in bannings is that we strengthened our activities against illegal fishing last month. Through these strengthened activities, we have been able to deal with violators of the user agreement who had escaped from the bannings up until now. Consequently, the number of violators has decreased and the number of reports in October has decreased by about 500 in comparison to September.

Since we have confirmed that the strengthening of our activities starting last month has been successful, we will continue to utilize these same activities in the future.
Additionally, the Special Task Force is cooperating with the development team in creating some systematic countermeasures that would further decrease the number of violators involved in illegal fishing.

Matters of Concern Within the Community

In the following section, we will be explaining the Special Task Force's direction and plans in dealing with matters of concern within the community.

- I've received advertisement messages for RMT sites from characters I don't know. Multiple characters are sending them to me, so even if I set them to "ignore," I continue to receive the messages.
We have received a large number of reports about violators of the user agreement involved in RMT sending messages that advertise for RMT sites. The sites that are introduced through these messages are oftentimes embedded with programs that steal users' PlayOnline IDs and passwords, and carry the risk of unauthorized access. Please do not view the sites mentioned in messages received from characters you do not know, even out of interest.
We are planning to introduce systematic countermeasures to PlayOnline to deal with this issue.

- It seems that there are more violators of the user agreement illegally fishing on the ferry between Selbina and Mhaura than before.
Among the reports regarding illegal fishing, reports about the Selbina/Mhaura ferry have been on the rise. One reason we can think of for the increase in reports is that some of the players on the 14-day free trial are using the ferry for RMT activities. Since users on the 14-day free trial cannot play in areas requiring expansion pack data, they have been mostly using the Selbina/Mhaura ferry to illegally accumulate gil for RMT.
The Special Task Force has expanded its activities to deal not only with the violators involved in illegal fishing but also with any accounts associated with these violators. We believe that the strengthening of our activities will be able to decrease the number of violators involved in illegal fishing.

Reporting to the Special Task Force

The Special Task Force relies on everyone's information regarding violations of the user agreement to help keep FINAL FANTASY XI an enjoyable environment, and we appreciate your continuing support and cooperation.

Report to Special Task Force

*Please contact the Square Enix Information Center by telephone or through the "Contact Us" e-mail support under Service & Support in regards to unauthorized access or other concerns regarding your account.
If you become aware of unauthorized access outside of the Information Center's hours of operation and possess multiple PlayOnline IDs, log in from another PlayOnline ID and contact a Game Master (GM). The GM will make the accessed account temporarily unavailable.
However, please note that a GM cannot perform account related actions such as changing one's password, so it will be necessary to contact the Information Center at another time.