Real Money to Get In-Game Currency: Eternal Bond Edition

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

As you know, the promise wristlets were designed to be tradable so that one person would be able to purchase a pair of wristlets and gift one to their partner.

While the trading and selling of these items for gil is not against the terms of service, in the event this type of trend continues and topics continue to arise regarding whether or not this is considered real-money trading, we will have no choice but to change the design of this system. Therefore we would like players to stop selling and trading the bracelets for gil so that they can continue to be used for their intended purpose.

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Others have already picked apart why this is a ridiculous stance to take, so instead I'm just going to offer up an equally absurd response:

I don't mind the occasional microtransaction, and I have money to burn. I also disagree with the ability to sell cash shop items in-game and disrupt the flow of gil. Since this isn't a bannable offense, and since the only way to put a stop to it is if it's being done often enough, I myself am going to start raking in gil by selling wedding bands to other players. I'll benefit both my in-game wallet and my personal values towards the cash shop, even if it means temporarily going against said values. Win-win!

(Fun fact: I am setting aside time I would have spent running clear / farming parties in order to use PF to perform these sales. So not only am I part of this problem, but I'm also detracting from the potential in-game activities on my server. Yay!)

I don't necessarily mind cash shops, however a large part of why I came to FFXIV is because it stood out as a last bastion of p2p purity in a market where more and more titles were adding microtransactions on top of subscription fees. So if I ever have a reason to weigh FF against playing another MMO, you can bet this whole thing will factor in.

That said, I can live with the mounts and minions. I'm not too thrilled about having premium services like the weddings, as it will make me question all future non-combat content (as many are right to do with Gold Saucer). The dyes are pushing my limit, but I'll live with it for now.

But interrupting the flow of gil in-game via RMT is ridiculous, and if it is not intended and is frowned upon severely enough that continued abuse will result in the system being modified, then it should not be allowed to continue in the first place.

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Originally Posted by ChibiChan_Hyperion

You can spin it however you want; the end result is still real money being used to acquire in game gil. ...

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Real money being used to acquire gil is NOT RMT no matter how you spin it. By buying the game and paying a subscription to SE, and being rewarded all the time in gil is all part of the game, and getting gil in game for you money is the default. It is using gil to acquire real money that makes it RMT. Gil sellers do this, and that is when it is RMT. Having only half of it is NOT RMT.

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Originally Posted by ChibiChan_Hyperion

I don't care how much you work in real life, it should not carry over and affect your performance in a game. Spending time in the game should be the thing that does this

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That is your stance, there is no truth or validity to this position. As much as I like to keep the two separate, to say only game time matters is unjustifiably unfair to those with limited play time, even the devs made this very clear, that players at all level and varying time investment levels should be all be able to have a good time, enjoy the game, and make progress at a reasonable rate. Additionally having real life friends join you in game is one of the obvious advantage of real life carrying over into game.

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Originally Posted by Crankysorc

stuff

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Originally Posted by MagicJohnson

stuff

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You wouldn't be able to get rid of abuse if they were bound/untrade-able either. You could give someone your user/password and have them buy the bracelet using their credit card. As long as they exist in the store, people will and can purchase them via gil using any of the methods fore-mentioned even though it would be a leap of faith to truth someone wouldn't scam. That being said, having to trust people with obscene amounts of gil would give some of these transactions disincentives and that's the only way to go about this.

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Originally Posted by Adrian74

Instead of making it tradeable, allow an input() field for the player to choose the name of the character he wants to gift these wristlets and a prompt to confirm the character name, and also the option to check the database and send an error message such as "The character name you entered doesn't exist in that world, please be sure of check world and character name again".

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Or what about the Mogstation having access to your character's friendlist? More than likely the person you'd be bonding with would already be on there and it would avoid any misspelling issues. (Because you KNOW people will and get huffy over it.) You're able to see your own friendslist on the Lodestone, so maybe this is possible.

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Originally Posted by NyarukoW

Real money being used to acquire gil is NOT RMT no matter how you spin it. By buying the game and paying a subscription to SE, and being rewarded all the time in gil is all part of the game, and getting gil in game for you money is the default. It is using gil to acquire real money that makes it RMT. Gil sellers do this, and that is when it is RMT. Having only half of it is NOT RMT.

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Let's look at Square Enix's definition (the only one that matters): "RMT is defined as the selling and buying of virtual assets for real-world money."

Now let's look at a party finder entry: "WTS Promise of Devotion (Platinum) for 3m." Now let's simplify it to make it simple: "WTS $20 for 3m." So, here we have someone exchanging 3m of in-game currency for $20. I think this is pretty clear cut. As such, the seller is spending $20 to acquire the 3m gil. Following logically when reversed, the buyer has just sold 3m gil for $20. This is how some people are seeing it (including myself).

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Originally Posted by NyarukoW

That is your stance, there is no truth or validity to this position. As much as I like to keep the two separate, to say only game time matters is unjustifiably unfair to those with limited play time, even the devs made this very clear, that players at all level and varying time investment levels should be all be able to have a good time, enjoy the game, and make progress at a reasonable rate. Additionally having real life friends join you in game is one of the obvious advantage of real life carrying over into game.

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You have mistaken my wording for a different meaning; I was saying that the time you spend working outside of the game should not somehow also progress your character in the game due to the time spent working outside of the game. I was not saying what you were implying here, the quoted user was trying to say they earned the cash outside of the game and should be able to use it as gil in the game. Which is not true, they should have to work for the gil in the game not outside of it. Edited to hopefully make more clear.

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Originally Posted by NyarukoW

Selling an item in game for in-game currency is certainly NOT RMT, it is in-game trading with in-game currency. Buying an item from the cash shop is NOT RMT.

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Duh and more duh.

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Originally Posted by NyarukoW

Buying the item from the cash shop and selling it for gil

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...IS RMT.
No matter how you babble on. Buying an item with real money for the express purpose of selling it for gil, IS RMT. It is a trade off made with real money. I don't care how you decide to twist it in your head, it is RMT.
The rest of the sentence is you literally wording it in a way that pleases your argument.

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Originally Posted by NyarukoW

What it does is distort the distribution of gil for a short time

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Also what happens to the in-game economy when RMT comes into play.

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Originally Posted by NyarukoW

Real money being used to acquire gil is NOT RMT no matter how you spin it.

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Excep that this IS the actual definition of what RMT is.

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Originally Posted by ChibiChan_Hyperion

the size of your wallet is not supposed to be able to determine your in game performance

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Originally Posted by NyarukoW

That is your stance, there is no truth or validity to this position.

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As Yoshi-P himself has stated. FFXIV is not a Pay to Win game. Given his own words, Ai Hana, your stance is the incorrect one. The size of your real life wallet and how it can profit you in this game, SHOULD NEVER come up.

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Originally Posted by Lior

Others have already picked apart why this is a ridiculous stance to take, so instead I'm just going to offer up an equally absurd response:

I don't mind the occasional microtransaction, and I have money to burn.

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Hell, ridiculous accelerationist disaster logic chains aside, this is literally my stance. If S-E isn't going to take official action against people exchanging $ for Gil using their own system, I'm going to make the game (and their jobs) that much more miserable by making my next paycheck's fun money portion go toward 3-5 million gil in my pocket. I'm not marrying anyone any time soon, and I've got a market curve to keep up with so I can afford mats/materia/etc to boost my economic standing ingame. If the first one goes over well, I might even buy a second to keep exploiting the system while it's broken! All S-E is really saying here is "Limited-time offer! $20 for 5,000,000 Gil!*"

(*Ingame market prices may vary!)

It's hunts all over again, except now with cash.

Am I the only one who think that SE knew this beforehand and already planned to have some GM make a politic correct reply so it looks like they really intend for this not to happen?

It's like how people still think it's hard for SE to track gil buyers.

I think the hype for these bracelets will go down quickly. At least people can have them w/o supporting the cash shop. Oh wait..

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

As you know, the promise wristlets were designed to be tradable so that one person would be able to purchase a pair of wristlets and gift one to their partner.

While the trading and selling of these items for gil is not against the terms of service, in the event this type of trend continues and topics continue to arise regarding whether or not this is considered real-money trading, we will have no choice but to change the design of this system. Therefore we would like players to stop selling and trading the bracelets for gil so that they can continue to be used for their intended purpose.

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I'd be interested to see what kind of change in the system you could implement that would also cover the other cash shop item that falls under this: the dyes. I had a PF selling a metallic red dye when it turned out I could get away with using 1 less than I thought, held off in case it was determined to be against ToS.

Now finding out it isn't but with this weird "please don't do it" thing attached, not sure how I feel about that. I should still sell it honestly, because as stated earlier in this thread, a polite "please don't do this thing that's not against the rules" plea doesn't hold a lot of weight.

But it's funny, because one interpretation of Bayohne's post, and one I'm inclined to believe is what's actually going on, goes something like this: "It's not against ToS. But, it's making people whine A LOT on this forum. And it's annoying to listen to, so people stop giving them stuff to whine about, or we're going to have to wreck the system to get them to stop."

Because really, that's the only way you can say it's not against the rules but we'd like you to stop.

Trading Gil for cash shop purchased items does not create the $$ incentives that drive gil farmers to flood the economy with gil that leads to hyperinflation. I don't have a problem with it. It also gives access to cash shop items to those players that do not want to spend their own RL $$ on "optional" items (whatever their reasons may be).