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

I have a few questions regarding all this and am hoping the discussion remains constructive enough to allow for some answers. First I will state I am not for or against the cash shop. I just take things as SE rolls them out and enjoy what I can when I can.

But here are my questions which I will present in the form of a scenario:

Let us take the current situation of selling the eternal bands for gil.

A potential buyer will need "gil" to make that purchase from another player. One problem I have seen hinted at in the various topics is that this will encourage RMT. People will use RMT to get that gil to buy the band. Thus increasing demand for gil as it is purchased and used for this one thing. But RMT is out to make a profit in real money. As the sellers of bands tests the markets to see what the price in gil for their 20 bucks is would not this cause a direct negative impact on RMT? Because they will have to charge much less for gil than the actual cost of the band is in real money in order to get people to not go to the Item Shop to buy the band directly from SE? Would this not devalue then the thing they are trying to make a profit from?

Which leads to another question, what is the price of the band going to have to be or would need to be in order to totally drown out the ability of gil sellers to be able to sell gil for profit?

Which leads to my next and probably most serious question, what is to stop gil sellers from controlling both markets? Buying up bands and selling gil to make up the cost but still be able to eek out a profit from it?

Which leads to my next question, which is the path of least resistance for these gil sellers and which outcome is more likely?

I am sure there is a clearer way of asking these and I am sure I am missing a few details here and there but taking a measured response to this situation rather than an emotional one seemed best to keep the discussion productive. Regardless, I would like to hear what people think given these choices. Are there other outcomes possible? Again since the trade is in real money here and not in virtual currency we can assume one of the two is finite and one of the two more desirable.

Gil Sellers won't buy bands because they must be manually sold. Since the process can't be automated it is less efficient than sending dozens of bots out to mine or bot WP for bloodied blades et al. It would also increase their social footprint on the game since you need to use PF to advertise them, thus making it easier to call attention to them on the Party Finder board.

With other items, RMT companies can easily and automatically list them on the market, which performs all the labor of finding a buyer to get them the gil they need for them.

I suspected something like that for that outcome. How about the others though?

Realizing fully that people buy gil for other reasons but from my present point of view selling this band for gil seems to be a negative thing for RMT in the game as their prices are now forced to be below a certain range in order to make buying from them more appealing than buying the band directly from SE.

I am not sure of their pricing models so I can't say what they can survive with but so far as I can tell in order to even operate you need to drop real cash for the game itself plus whatever other overhead you need to function in it (electricity, internet, some store front of some kind online or phone, etc.) Can they be really hurt by placing these exclusives in a shop that they cannot get and players can sell?

If so then I don't have a problem with this if it diminishes their presence. And as it can be traded doesn't that also mean anyone who doesn't want to buy a real item with real cash can just legit farm or sell in game things for gil and get the wedding they want?

The negative effect of RMTs is caused by their generating lots of in game items or currency and using none or as little of it as possible. For any economy to be stable, you need a balance of things that are being created and destroyed or consumed. A regular player who spends $10 to buy a promise wristlet, and then sells it for in game currency, isn't disrupting that balance. The buyer of the wristlet uses it, and the seller of the wristlet spends that gil. RMTs spend days and days botting for shards they sell for money they will never spend in exchange for real money. Your $10 finances people who spam your chat log to go out and glut the economy with an excess of goods while not wanting or buying anything from you. That's why RMTs and people who want to sell you wristlets are totally different.

It's just a legalized RMT. RMT is only illegal because you're making money from someone else's business (SE's product). But you're paying SE with this kind of RMT. The only difference RMT organizations are they're not even playing the game, just using bots. But yes as I posted some weeks ago in a thread about allowing a gift option on cash shop, this is destroying in-game economy. Those 20$ is paid with 2 hours of work (or even 1) on the average job. Barely no effort, and you get instantly rich in game by doing nothing. Buying overpriced items and rising the prices, changing the economy. But hey, "they're just vanity items and they're optinal! they don't interfere in the game's progression!" ^___^

I wasn't necessarily asking about the negative effect of RMTs, but rather the negative effects TO RMTs from all of this. I guess my post was TL;DR to get that point out of it clearly. Regardless, I do think that RMTs themselves are a negative, that is a given. But you did raise a concern I had not considered, that this band selling actually won't affect them either way (things will remain status quo). Which makes me sad ><

I am afraid to address the economics of the trade in too much detail because it's hard to tell at what point discussion about RMTs crosses the line of an overzealous ban-hammer, but, on my server, it is far more cost effective to trade wristlets to real players to generate gil than to buy it from a shady RMT, or to buy your wristlets from SE directly if you're the sort who's willing to part with real money in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Valarian

I am afraid to address the economics of the trade in too much detail because it's hard to tell at what point discussion about RMTs crosses the line of an overzealous ban-hammer, but, on my server, it is far more cost effective to trade wristlets to real players to generate gil than to buy it from a shady RMT, or to buy your wristlets from SE directly if you're the sort who's willing to part with real money in the first place.

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Depending on server prices for those, and calculating with the RMT tells, yes.
Buying bracelets gives you more gil for less money. The only difference now will be people won't get banned, nor fear that the items they sell for expensive amounts on the MB will be caught in a rmt transaction money. The only difference between both RMTs atm are the bots spamming tells. But there's no other way to fix this. If you make them untradeable, real couples won't be able to give it to each other. If you limit the purchase to only 2 per character, people won't be able to re-marry. If you make them untradeable, it means you can't marry friends that aren't willing to pay irl money, but you are willing to (however you wouldn't be able to) for both.

The funny thing is how quick RMT are going to make this unfeasible to even attempt.

1. You can only trade 1m at a time. RMT will be the first to either exploit people and just make off with the gil or possibly be reported.

2. It's a win win for them. They either get to exploit players or they discourage band sales by sabotaging the market.

You are a fool if you think this will even dent the RMT. If anything they are jumping for joy. If your looking at a player base who demands cash shop content you better believe RMT are there because people want to buy more than just vanity and the cash shop is nothing but a gateway drug to letting you know you can just throw money at things instead of earning them.

I will laugh pretty hard if they turn around and hotfix to make it untradeable.

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Originally Posted by 314159265358979323846264338327

It's not against the ToS because you aren't buying in game gil for real world money. You are buying an item from the mog station with real world money (not ToS breaking). You are then selling an in game item for in game money (also not ToS breaking). How people can think you can be banned for trading in game items for in game gil is truly mind boggling.

I don't know why everyone is so worked up about it anyways. There are any number of items that I can make and sell for far more than a platinum bracelet, and it doesn't cost me a single real life cent.

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But that’s just the point. In this example you are selling an in-game item which you’ve created with in-game features (like crafting, gathering and purchasing ingredients from the market boards). No external incentive like Real Money has come into play here when it comes to acquiring the item you wish to sell or it’s ingredients.

When it comes to the Wedding and Dye items you can only get by purchasing them with real money, that’s a whole different story.

You purchase an item from the Mog station through the use of real money, then use that same item to sell it to another player for an in-game currency.

You might think it’s mind boggling how people think you can should be banned by selling an in-game item for an in-game currency, but it’s not about selling an item for an in-game currency. It’s about how you got the in-game item which you are trying to sell for an in-game currency.

You didn’t craft it yourself or used in-game features to gather the ingredients for it. No effort was made into creating this item, next to going to the Mog Station and purchase it with real money.

So, yes. You are indirectly buying buying gil through the use of an in-game item you’ve purchased with real money through the use of the Mog Station.

Unless we get an official statement from Yoshi-P, the above can be considered a bannable offense due to a violation of the ToS.

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Originally Posted by Aldora

But that’s just the point. In this example you are selling an in-game item which you’ve created with in-game features (like crafting, gathering and purchasing ingredients from the market boards). No external incentive like Real Money has come into play here when it comes to acquiring the item you wish to sell or it’s ingredients.

When it comes to the Wedding and Dye items you can only get by purchasing them with real money, that’s a whole different story.

You purchase an item from the Mog station through the use of real money, then use that same item to sell it to another player for an in-game currency.

You might think it’s mind boggling how people think you can should be banned by selling an in-game item for an in-game currency, but it’s not about selling an item for an in-game currency. It’s about how you got the in-game item which you are trying to sell for an in-game currency.

You didn’t craft it yourself or used in-game features to gather the ingredients for it. No effort was made into creating this item, next to going to the Mog Station and purchase it with real money.

So, yes. You are indirectly buying buying gil through the use of an in-game item you’ve purchased with real money through the use of the Mog Station.

Unless we get an official statement from Yoshi-P, the above can be considered a bannable offense due to a violation of the ToS.

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Like I said in my previous post,as much as I don't support it, buying gil with real money isn't against their ToS per say. It's legal as long as you're paying SE. You paid for their item, they don't care what you do with it in game. It's illegal when someone makes real money profit from someone else's business product. You play that virtual product and make profit off someone else's work. That's the only reason RMT is pursued.

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Originally Posted by ZarethTolabain

This is fundamentally wrong.

RMT, by traditional definition, is a transaction where one sells in-game currency, items, and/or powerleveling services for IRL money to make IRL profit.

IE: Seller has 10 million gil. X character purchases that gil from seller for $5 US currency. Seller profits.

In the case of selling an item purchased off of a web site/game cash shop for in-game currency, there is no IRL profit for any individual involved (aside from the game company).

IE: Seller purchases bracelet from cash shop. Sells it in-game for X amount of gil. Seller makes no IRL profit.

NOW! If someone tried to purchase said cash shop item then turn around and attempt to sell it in-game for IRL money...THEN that would be RMT as traditionally defined.

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Just to be clear, both are RMT as traditionally and officially defined (Officially here being the term used in economics studies of game economies). The first (Buying from the developer or an 'official' source is called Primary Market Real Money Trading. Buying from an illicit source is called Secondary Market Real Money Trading. [1]

Edit: I just thought. Remember after the release of V2, they reduced a bunch of people's gil to 1/10th of its previous total because they had traded with people who bought gil? It would be amusing if people buying these bands were getting their gil from RMT and the same thing happened again.

Rember, people: Store that gil on retainers, stat!

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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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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Can't there be a way to gift the items from one account to another?

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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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Might as well get to work on changing the system because it's very unlikely people will stop trying to sell them for gil.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

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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1.0 Garuda Exploit Statement all over again. They are still going to sell them.

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

Can't there be a way to gift the items from one account to another?

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I agree... There should be a way to send gifts to people through the Mog Station. Starlight Celebration is coming!

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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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Thanks for giving us a fast and positive reply. I'll try my best for give you the unique way I thought to deal with this trouble, hope it will be helpy:

- As it is right now, one player can reveive, via mogstation that item... 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". (If one character is able to receive items through website, why wouldn't any other be able to if we manually add it with a writing field?)

This way, item can not be tradeable in game, but can be sent via mogstation to anyone for receive it... In other words, you can decide to gift anyone with it by putting that character's name on mogstation, it is a presents system...

"But, hey, will that really stop people from selling it?"

Yes, while not entirely, it will stop 90% of they doing it. Why? A reason of trust. People won't rarely pay for it without seeing the item first in their inventory, and of course people wanting to sell it for gil would rarely buy it with real money before receiving the gil... So who will give the first part of the trade first? Mostly noone, because lack of trust... How it is right now you can simple offer it in a trade in-game, player puts gil, you put item, both accept, and it is 100% guaranteed both will receive the items... While the way I mentioned via mogstation... You can't really be sure that the person in game would give you the gil after receiving the item, or, you can't be really sure that after giving your gil that person will send you the item, only by that, people would stop doing it, people does not tend to risk with those things.

I hope it is a fair and easy solution to deal with it and end with this little chaos originated in 2.45

--- About the metallic dyes ---

The another problem of the 2.45 patch and the EASIER to solve in my opinion, just make it so after you dye any of your gear with it it binds to your character, similar to when you glamour a piece of something. Let's say, you buy a spring skirt, you glamour some gear with it, then for prevent to resell and exploit it, that item is now bound to you. Same should go with the dyes (Or aditionally, and better fix, remove them from cash shop.)

--- More solutions to eternal bond trouble ---

Just came with this one, as it is right now, it is needed that two persons have the wristlet, but one person can buy two of those so then give one to another person... Why not... Instead.,... Allow the ceremony to be done if one person have the two wristlet and thus giving it later via quest to the other one?. This totally kills 100% the RMT with this and could be more easy to programate perhaps that dealing with the php queries and databases + website.


This deserves an emergency maintenance.

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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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Everyone would like people to stop selling them.. but lets be real.. that is not going to happen... The design is flawed. Easy fix: one person can still buy the package but it comes with 2 bracelets.. upon check out player provides the name of other and SE delivers the braclets to both people.

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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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You pretty much confirmed that they can't get banned for selling them since they are not against the ToS.

Now people are going to sell them even more, and faster to try and get every bit of gil they can until the design of the system is fixed.

Humanity itself is the reason we can't have nice things... lol

Are these BiS items >.> to sell for so much lol

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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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If you are agreeing that this would be a problem were it allowed to continue, why would you allow it such a chance to continue in the first place?! If you have it in your power to change the system for the better, please do so before further damage is done to the game. We are already seeing plots snatched up, high ticket items flying off the market board, crafters suddenly with every Supra, the list goes on. These distinct in-game advantages are being afforded to those willing to spend real money to get gil instead of being earned the intended way in game.

Please, put a stop to this sooner rather than later.

You've already ruined the game's economy again & benefited people who feel okay to act unethically with regard to this behavior.

This requires IMMEDIATE ATTENTION.

Emergency Maintenance.

How many millions of gil are you going to let be traded for irl cash before you stop this? It's already really messed up... this should've been halted immediately.

This' so wrong that you let this continue, players aren't going to stop this until you put a stop to it.

What're you biding your time for? See if people will change their behavior on good faith? C'mon.

This' social irresponsibility.

THANK YOU FOR THE EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE TONIGHT!!!

Umm Make them Key Items, Then when you complete the quest give each person a bracelet. Or make a key item Eternal Bond license and after wards give the bracelets out.

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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 was personally holding out on making too many comments about this until an official dev response hit the table. Originally I thought this might've been a cute experiment to see how well microtransactions for Gil would work in XIV and waited to see the response.

Now that it's clear the trading of these bracelets for Gil is frowned upon, I would recommend you turn off the sales of the bracelets immediately and wait until you have a system that actually WORKS AS INTENDED before re-opening the eternal bond ceremonies. If anything, keep the free option open until you rectify the premium options.

The longer you let the bracelets go on sale, the worse the situation will become.

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Originally Posted by BigPapaSmurf

You've already ruined the game's economy again & benefited people who feel okay to act unethically with regard to this behavior.

This requires IMMEDIATE ATTENTION.

Emergency Maintenance.

How many millions of gil are you going to let slip into the economy before you stop this? It's already really messed up... this should've been halted immediately.

This' so wrong that you let this continue, players aren't going to stop this until you put a stop to it.

What're you biding your time for? See if people will change their behavior on good faith? C'mon.

This' social irresponsibility.

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SE is waiting until every1 buys one on the Cash shop , to use or sell....

FINAL GREED XIV : Cash shop reborn

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Originally Posted by BigPapaSmurf

How many millions of gil are you going to let slip into the economy before you stop this? It's already really messed up... this should've been halted immediately.

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I wouldn't say that this requires immediate action and an emergency maintenance to follow it up since they are still looking into the situation. However, just to point this out; no amount of Gil is going into the economy. It's just flying around from place to place. With a lot of Gil being thrown away through the market taxes and housing, a lot of the Gil is actually going out of the economy. This can be a good thing because of the current market inflation. There's not a lot of Gil sinks in the game to stop the inflation, sadly. :/

^yeah I realized I mistyped that & changed the wording just now before reading this. Good call! Truly looking into it however they would've shut it down fast as its already to epidemic proportion; they're just biding their time.

The simple fix to this problem is to have 2 different bands available. Single and Double. Single band costs Y and requires the partner to have one as well. These are unsellable and untradable. The Double band costs 2xY and is unsellable and untradable but does not require the partner to have a band of their own, essentially only one person needs the band to perform the ceremony.

Edit: Well nevermind then, the person I quoted corrected themselves.

--- More solutions to eternal bond trouble ---

Just came with this one, as it is right now, it is needed that two persons have the wristlet, but one person can buy two of those so then give one to another person... Why not... Instead.,... Allow the ceremony to be done if one person have the two wristlet and thus giving it later via quest to the other one?. This totally kills 100% the RMT with this and could be more easy to programate perhaps that dealing with the php queries and databases + website.

(Also added to the thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...45-Feedback%29)

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

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It's posts like this that seriously make me shake my head. What kind of development process are you guys using over there where not ONE person says "Hey, the way we're implementing this could create some serious issues." Perhaps someone did, and was ignored for whatever ridiculous reason. You cannot seriously believe that asking players politely not to do something will have the desired effect.

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Originally Posted by BigPapaSmurf

^yeah I realized I mistyped that & changed the wording just now before reading this. Good call! Truly looking into it however would've meant that they caught this early & shut it down fast; they're just biding their time.

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Much better! They are most likely alerted and are now probably looking into the situation since we got an official response. However, shutting down the whole thing could lead to a potential.. Rollback. I know everyone would rather not have that, so, take this as a grain of salt. I've experienced a lot of MMOs that take their time to resolve issues like this and usually have a solution up once they are ready. MMOs that react quickly though, usually end up with rollbacks to the servers and this throws people for a loop. So I say, "take your time SE."

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Originally Posted by chrillix

It's posts like this that seriously make me shake my head. What kind of development process are you guys using over there where not ONE person says "Hey, the way we're implementing this could create some serious issues." Perhaps someone did, and was ignored for whatever ridiculous reason. You cannot seriously believe that asking players politely not to do something will have the desired effect.

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It's more or less probably caused by the way the Mog Station may have been coded. They probably couldn't see how to allow two people to receive the bands unless they both bought it. So, they went ahead and decided to allow your partner to gift you the item by making it tradeable if you could not afford it. Again, most likely because of the way the Mog Station handles individual accounts. If otherwise, they could have delayed the Eternal Bond system so they could figure out a better solution.

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

So I say, "take your time SE."

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As long as they disable the ability to purchase the gold and platinum during this time, I'm all for them taking their time.

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

...shutting down the whole thing could lead to a potential.. Rollback...

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Nah, they just take have to down the items for purchase from the Cash Shop while they figure out how they want to change things.

They can't do anything about what's already been sold (doesn't violent ToS), a rollback won't happen.

Ahahaha. The official dev response is "We won't punish you, but please don't so we don't have to write more code to prevent this?"

This really highlights the naivety of the design team.

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Originally Posted by Krr

Ahahaha. The official dev response is "We won't punish you, but please don't so we don't have to write more code to prevent this?"

This really highlights the naivety of the design team.

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Pretty much, Please stop so we don't have to spend time on a fix.

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Originally Posted by Alatarian

...
Which leads to my next and probably most serious question, what is to stop gil sellers from controlling both markets? Buying up bands and selling gil to make up the cost but still be able to eek out a profit from it?
...

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The number of bands that can be bought off the mogstation is infinite. RMT cannot imagine to about of RL money they need to do this. And furthermore what is a RMT seller going to do with all the bands anyways? Are they going to be able to sell them for more that the Mogstation? Who are the consumers clueless enough to consistently and repeatedly overpay for the stuff that is easy to get from the mogstation. So failing that, are they going to sell them at a loss over and over? RMT gil seller are not insane like players can potentially be, because they are in it for the RL money. So what this means is the RMT gil sellars can not and will not try to mess these wedding bands.

Does it mean some of the RMT with money and guts won't risk a few bucks to play the markets while the pricing discrepancy are working in their favor? Obviously the chance exist that some them might have made a windfall of gil that they now have to figure out how to unload, but it may more may not work out in their favor because they will have to deal with compete non RMT players sellling band and getting gil and reduced demand for the gil seller gil. Remember RMT wants dollars not gil, having more gil means more work to sell that gil, more risk, and if they put in dollars to get gil, that also increases their risk. And holding on to hundreds of dollars worth of wedding bands when the wedding rush is over, is having lots of loss making inventory.