How to deal with this kind of friend?

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

no it won't XD seriously.

nearly all items are easily gotten, there is already way to much of everything, no matter if it is gotten illegally or not.

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This economy is already after taking hits from RMT and botting.

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Originally Posted by Gamer3427

Anyone who doesn't care about letting their friends cheat and contribute to an aspect of the game that ruins everyone else's fun, would be just as bad as the person cheating. It does make me wonder why you're the only person in support of letting someone participating in RMT go free though......

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I agree...I wonder if somehow those are some of those people who undercut prices drastically on marketboard. (Along the lines of this post it's loyalty v morality...in this case I'd go with morals more than loyalty)

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Originally Posted by Solaria_Luna

I agree...I wonder if somehow those are some of those people who undercut prices drastically on marketboard. (Along the lines of this post it's loyalty v morality...in this case I'd go with morals more than loyalty)

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lol are you implying that undercutters are morally depraved?

You may be right, seeing posts like yours just make me wanna undercut more :D

Some of the people on here are really blowing this out of proportion, comparing buying gil to robbing a bank? Like really? You are insane if you think that is even remotely close.

You are in a tough spot, but losing a real life friend over a video game economy is just silly. If he get's caught, that's on him.

I'd report them, hell I HAVE reported friends for it. Rules are rules, being a friend of someone doesn't give a person a free pass to be a dick. RMT needs to be controlled one way or another, and I, as a player won't sit by and ignore when it's happening right in front of my face. Will you?

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Originally Posted by Ilitsa

I'd report them, hell I HAVE reported friends for it. Rules are rules, being a friend of someone doesn't give a person a free pass to be a dick. RMT needs to be controlled one way or another, and I, as a player won't sit by and ignore when it's happening right in front of my face. Will you?

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Mmmmhm, if it's a friend sure... I think I've already expressed that clearly :)
Especially a friend irl, come on.. Be cool, don't be a square :p

In all my times as an MMO player (~13 years) I've never seen such a group of tight wads.. Maybe it's the FF lore that draws all the lawful good alignment to the game.

I mean.. I've seen tight wads before, but they're far and few between, they usually stand out. It's not the entire community that acts like that :)

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Originally Posted by Ilitsa

and I, as a player won't sit by and ignore when it's happening right in front of my face. Will you?

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So you've made a report on every single rmt tell you've gotten? Hardcore man.

The economy is already destroyed by the gil buyers and it's too late to even worry about fixing it from what I've seen. Have too many people gobbling up all material possible to craft their weapon, have too many people holding onto housing land plots and not letting go so the prices sky rocket, etc

Meanwhile I am sitting here sitting on 100k and I just have come to accept I have absolutely no effing chance whatsoever of buying a house in this game. Sad, honestly it was something I wanted. But I legitimately only have 100k after months of playing and meanwhile someone just buys 100 million or w/e and buys out material on the broker and buys all land plots to slowly sell these things at a higher rate for higher turnover or their own use. Some even are just sadistic and just taking it all because they can

It sucks but that is the state of this game at present for a lot of us players like me. We just can't compete and so we gave up on purchasing a house in game and many other things

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Originally Posted by SovereignAegis

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It's not the RMT that makes it hard to make gil, it's how the crafting is designed in this game. If you haven't noticed, not many of the 4 star crafters participate in very much pve content, being a master crafter already fill their plates quite full..

You want to make money? pick up crafting, but be prepared to give up on a lot of the other things in the game unless you play a LOT.

Look around you, gil buyers? they may have tens of millions and go through the MB buying off a specific materia for a few days, but that's it.. It's a passing effect.. Sure, the gil buyers as a group does impact the economy, but if you really want to know who holds all the gil in the game, ask your local crafters :)

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Originally Posted by SovereignAegis

But I legitimately only have 100k after months of playing and meanwhile someone just buys 100 million or w/e and buys out material on the broker and buys all land plots to slowly sell these things at a higher rate for higher turnover or their own use.

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If you only have 100k after months of playing, you're doing something terribly wrong.. I could go out and spiritbond for 20 minutes and make double that, or quadruple that amount if lucky with IVs..
As for gil buyers buying up extra plots... Why would they do that? to make a 5million profit? You honestly think a gil buyer would level up an alt, get it all the way to second lieutenant, just to buy up an extra plot to make a measly 5 million gil when they've bought hundreds? There are people that do that, but they're not gil buyers, they're most likely people who play the MB.

The saltiness is strong on this one

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Originally Posted by Psychosamm

Some of the people on here are really blowing this out of proportion, comparing buying gil to robbing a bank? Like really? You are insane if you think that is even remotely close.

You are in a tough spot, but losing a real life friend over a video game economy is just silly. If he get's caught, that's on him.

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Honestly, its a touch situation, but the reverse can be the same.

Is his friend the one that's going to break up their friendship because OP reported him for doing something that's bannable/illegit (especially when the former knows this to the case)

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Originally Posted by SovereignAegis

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From Lodestone I see your character is totally new, you cant get a Gil worth a mil just like that.
I suggest you lvl all your DOH & DOL to max lvl and find one of that class that suit your taste.
Believe me after you know the way, 1m is fairly easy.

Honestly I got most of my Gil from materia and daily roulette... :)

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Originally Posted by Kassiekane

Edited original post, I've decided not to report him. Thanks everyone for your opinions.

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Don't worry, Even if you dont report him, someone will notice eventually that a level 5 is buying stuff like mad and they'll eventually report it. Or he'll slip up on his own and tell the wrong person. Still think you should report him though. A friend who comes here and ruins the economy for everyone including yourself is no friend. Just saying. Though its also just my own opinion. BUt go with what your morals tell you.

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Originally Posted by Psychosamm

Some of the people on here are really blowing this out of proportion, comparing buying gil to robbing a bank? Like really? You are insane if you think that is even remotely close.

You are in a tough spot, but losing a real life friend over a video game economy is just silly. If he get's caught, that's on him.

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There is no blowing it out of proportion when we say that this behavior is PRECISELY why we have a problem with RMT in the first place.
Because people think they can get away with it and cheat at the game, it keeps happening.
The friend request spam? His fault.
The constant tells that have a 100+ page thread begging SE to do SOMETHING about? His fault.
The magical teleporting bots running around and the cabal of creepy black mages hanging around Ul'Dah? His fault.

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Originally Posted by kyuven

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yes cause he is using bots and selling gil /sarcasm

guess it's my fault cancers not cured because i didn't donate my 5$.

Hate to say it, but you're not a very good friend. Your friend is making risky decisions that could result in you not playing together.

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Originally Posted by kyuven

There is no blowing it out of proportion when we say that this behavior is PRECISELY why we have a problem with RMT in the first place.
Because people think they can get away with it and cheat at the game, it keeps happening.
The friend request spam? His fault.
The constant tells that have a 100+ page thread begging SE to do SOMETHING about? His fault.
The magical teleporting bots running around and the cabal of creepy black mages hanging around Ul'Dah? His fault.

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He was also responsible for Holocaust last I heard.
He was behind 9/11.
He also let Futurama get cancelled, TWICE!

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Originally Posted by kyuven

There is no blowing it out of proportion when we say that this behavior is PRECISELY why we have a problem with RMT in the first place.
Because people think they can get away with it and cheat at the game, it keeps happening.
The friend request spam? His fault.
The constant tells that have a 100+ page thread begging SE to do SOMETHING about? His fault.
The magical teleporting bots running around and the cabal of creepy black mages hanging around Ul'Dah? His fault.

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It really is being blown out of proportion. While I agree that all the RMT messages/ friend requests etc. are annoying, the reality is that it is a part of ALL mmos, not just ffxiv. We could crackdown all we wanted and it would still be out there, available somewhere, and someone willing to buy it.

There are people in this thread that believe this is equivalent to real life thievery, THAT is absurd. Sure it's annoying, even frustrating, but se la vie, just /blacklist and move on with your life. We can complain all we want, but only SE has the real power to do anything, and in reality, they don't have that much power to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

yes cause he is using bots and selling gil /sarcasm

guess it's my fault cancers not cured because i didn't donate my 5$.

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Purchasing a RMT service is as good botting and selling itself. You're encouraging RMT, it gives them more reason to advertise if people are actually using the service.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Purchasing a RMT service is as good botting and selling itself. You're encouraging RMT, it gives them more reason to advertise if people are actually using the service.

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the person the person i qouted qouted. wow that was hard to say! XD

was talking about the op who didn't report their friend. not the friend who bought gil.

(the blow out of proportion part was to the ops friend)

While I don't approve of him buying gil in the slightest, he's not gonna ruin anything by buying gil cuz gil don't mean much of anything in this game. Its part of SE's "anti-gilseller" and "pro-casual" model. Usually people who buy gil have fairly high paying jobs, don't have too much time to play, and figured since time means money, might as well buy gil.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Purchasing a RMT service is as good botting and selling itself. You're encouraging RMT, it gives them more reason to advertise if people are actually using the service.

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Yes, just like pot smokers in the US are funding the cartels in Mexico that kill people, doesn't mean we're gonna charge them with murder for smoking a joint.

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

Yes, just like pot smokers in the US are funding the cartels in Mexico that kill people, doesn't mean we're gonna charge them with murder for smoking a joint.

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I can see you trying SO HARD to be clever and it's a little pathetic how hard you fail at it, and how badly you misunderstand metaphor.

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Originally Posted by RyuRoots

I can see you trying SO HARD to be clever and it's a little pathetic how hard you fail at it, and how badly you misunderstand metaphor.

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I'm not even gonna waste my time typing out my response to you. Here's a copy paste.

I feel neither pathetic nor embarrassed. But then again, I hold no special regard for titles related to pixels and my e-peen requires no stroking.

How conveniently located that was :)

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Originally Posted by Totobi

As someone who has never bought gil, I think you're a terrible friend. Snitching on a real life friend, making him lose real life money... over a video game? I really hope he sees this thread lol.

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And when a RL friend goes against advice, crashes and burns, you let them do it.

Not easy to do but necessary.

My opinion may not be popular on this forum but here it is. This is a real life friend. FF14 is just a game. However you feel about rmt ect. is irrelevant. I would NEVER sell out a real life friend over a frikin game and possibly ruining a friendship. Does that seem worth it to you? He's not selling drugs on a corner or "robbing banks" as someone else posted, that is a slippery slope argument. Friendship is more important than a stupid game. There will always be other games. There will never be another friend. Don't play with him if it bothers you that much. But to report him? No. That's basically saying you care more about a game than your friend and if that's the case you aren't friends.

http://cdn.meme.am/instances2/500x/200032.jpg

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

lol are you implying that undercutters are morally depraved?

You may be right, seeing posts like yours just make me wanna undercut more :D

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Not all...it's more the ones that lower the price 40 gil or more...when others are lowering it a gil or 10 at a time. (...and I'm curious if there are some miner bots that do mine things other than shards, speaking of them I see less of them in the Drybone reigon of them on my server - lol...when I was still a THM I saw so many people there mining/quarrying)[that 10 gil is my threshold for lowering price per a piece] I'm sorry if I accuse normal miners of something they don't do. (though I wonder if somehow those bot miners [the ones that work for the RMTs] glitch out of AFK and abuse it)

I occasionally send my retainer out to mine for shards. (somehow I wonder if some of the spammers [if it's a fresh character not one that appears like it's been commandeered] start up a character get it to level 10, then get the miner class and start mining [therefore I don't think the friend request spammers, the disguised website ones do that as I think all they do is stay at lvl1...or I have to check my extensive blacklist again])

I think my post earlier was misconstrued. (I would report a friend like that choosing the morally responsible route over being loyal, if they did indeed buy gil from a seller)

I'd report even my friend in a heartbeat if they bought gil. Two reasons.

Firstly, knowing about it and not reporting it is as good as doing the cheating myself. People may not agree with my opinions or playstyle, but I've always prided myself on being honest at the very least.

Secondly, the people who sell the gil are without a doubt some of the lowest form of life on the internet. Many employ all kinds of tricks, scams and otherwise dirty tactics to get people visiting their website. Spamming the game with advertisements and otherwise ruining the fun for the players through inflated prices. Buying gil is basically telling these people that it works, which only encourages them to do it more.

Anyone who says you're not a true friend unless you say nothing and do nothing has no idea what the word means. Being a friend means being able to tell someone they're in the wrong, not blindly agreeing to everything they do.

You know, this got me thinking. Buying gold from RMT is listed as a violation of terms of use in the document we all immediately clicked "agree" to, but where in the game does it say "don't buy gold". Most mmos that punish players for buying gold have a tooltip during loading screens, or friendly reminders to look out for "suspicious activity" when you log in.

FFXIV has no such in-game notifications, and other than the message on the lodestone detailing the recent punishments (only 28 temp bans to buyers this week, despite bans of over 5000 RMT seller accounts. Yeah, I'm sure there were only 28 people buying from 5000 accounts, pphh), there is little to no public show of disapproval for gold buying from SE.

When you log in as a new player, you see dozens of advertisements within the first hour, all of them saying "legal, safe, satisfaction guaranteed". If the devs aren't actively telling you not to buy, and they aren't stopping the "this is totally safe" spam, how would a new player KNOW that this is 100% unacceptable to most serious players?

I'm sure I'm not alone in having spoken with totally new players who didn't GET that gold buying isn't permitted. I mean, in what sensible society could any service that has this many pushers operating openly possibly be violating the rules?

If it were a best friend, someone I interact with outside the game, then I'd warn them not to do that again or else I wouldn't play with them and report them. I'd give them a warning first though. (Not that me or anyone I know can even afford it...have you SEEN some of those prices they advertise? "cheap" my ass.)

If it were an in-game acquaintance only and I found out they were buying gil, I'd report them right away.

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Originally Posted by XxSliphxX

My opinion may not be popular on this forum but here it is. This is a real life friend. FF14 is just a game. However you feel about rmt ect. is irrelevant. I would NEVER sell out a real life friend over a frikin game and possibly ruining a friendship. Does that seem worth it to you?

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You say this to him:
"Hey man, can you stop buying gil? When you do, you're encouraging all those messages you keep getting every 5 minutes. Plus we could like go out drinkin with that money or something."
And then make a judgment call based on his reaction.
That said, it is because of this attitude, this tolerance and turning a blind eye to RMT that is contributing to the problem we have. Yes, your friend who buys gil is RMTing. That's what the acronym means. They are literally part of the same process that includes the botters and the gil spammers. In fact, they are the REASON those two factions show up at all.
Gil/gold sellers don't do business where there are no people buying. This is why the JP servers are basically spam-free and the NA servers are not. This is why games with PLEX-like systems are basically bereft of goldspam.
Thus, the only reason we are getting these spammers and botters is because of people like the OP's friend.
While you may not want to report your friend, it is your responsibility to tell him that he's contributing to one of FFXIV's biggest problems, to warn him that he's not only jeopardizing his account via SE, but also his credit card info and every other player in the game.
This is not like saying a pot smoker is contributing to violence in Mexico, this is like saying a pot smoker is contributing to the presence of drug dealers in his neighborhood. You can't deal drugs if there's no one to deal to, and you can't sell gil if no one's buying.
THIS is the problem we should be trying to fix, because it's something we can avoid BECAUSE you're friends. Talk to your friend. You don't have to report it but it's very important they understand the problem they're causing.

If you found out a friend is buying illegal drugs, would you report him to the police or talk him out of it or just leave him alone?

These aren't our opinions, OP. It's your choice.

Good luck to you but if I ever found out who your friend is, I'll report him. He's violating terms and conditions as well as rules.

You're all doing it wrong! You have to fight RMT with RMT (figuratively).

If I knew an IRL friend that was buying gil, I'd direct him here to see all the complaints of RMT harassment and how badly it is affecting the economy and community and that he's a part of the issue.

If that's not enough to get my friend to stop buying gil, I'd send him a Tell every 15 minutes, linking a RMT complaint thread (because there's no lack of them) until he gets an understanding of what RMT harassment is like.

In all seriousness, this entire thread was an interesting read and passed time at work. I'd give my opinion on it but I'd like to remain a power neutral. :)

TC, if it bothers you so much, talk to him. All these people saying "just report him" have a strange understanding of the word friendship. Someone even comparing buying gil to robbing banks (lol). I have never used an illegal program or bought any sort of currency in any online game ever in my life, and I don't like others doing it, but if someone's my friend and I value their friendship because I think they are nice folks, I wouldn't put it to risk for something like "buying gil on an online game". Some people in this forum are as trustworthy as this:

http://i.imgur.com/WxhtO1A.jpg

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Originally Posted by Gallus

Some people in this forum are as trustworthy as this

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Real friends share their opinions and thoughts. If one person is morally against something the other is doing, they're going to call them out on it. If your friendship can't survive it then you were never really friends to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Gallus

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The one who help us when we are in troubles is RL friends, not a strangers from forums.
If your friend need some Gil, just give him some and ask him to treat you some drinks in return.
I think that's legal.

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Originally Posted by Psychosamm

So you've made a report on every single rmt tell you've gotten? Hardcore man.

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Actually, yes I have haha, it really only takes a couple seconds to copy/paste the message into the report box and type the name/server info in.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

Real friends share their opinions and thoughts. If one person is morally against something the other is doing, they're going to call them out on it. If your friendship can't survive it then you were never really friends to begin with.

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Except you are being a bit too radical aren't you. Let me put you this example, imagine you are in a static, all 7 people are extremely nice to you, very nice group, impressive raid environment. Occasionally, you have a massive chain of wipes on a certain turn but somehow, they still joke about it and you end up even having fun wiping. They are not hardcore but they aren't terribly casual either as they strife their best to down each turn. Now, one day, on TS, the NIN confesses to you that he uses bots occasionally, you tell him you've never used one because somehow you think you'd see your fun ruined if you did, he thinks however, certain aspects of this game like gathering are overly tedious. I do not agree with him and I let him know. But he's still cool. That's the thing about friends, sometimes they are different to you, and sometimes you do not agree with them on certain things, but that doesn't give you the right to backstab them every time you have a different opinion about something. You can't just say "X person did X thing I didn't like", that means we weren't friends in the first place, because if you go around with this mentality you'll end up not making a lot of friends, or very poor ones.
Of course there's a limit to this, I'm not going to defend a friend from murdering someone in real life Lol, but I consider "buying gil on an online game" something pretty light honestly. Have you ever had a friend who offered you drugs in a disco? What did you do when that happened? Rush to the closest police station and report them? xD.

I would have a serious talk with him about what he's doing and how it affects everyone else on the server. Depending on his attitude I'd then report it or leave it to SE's log scavenging to find out.

The thing is, even if he's an IRL friend, people really shouldn't see this as "just a game" because there's real, actual people behind all these characters that drive the economy and social wellbeing of the game together with you. Take raiding for instance - if you go "mehh not gonna raid today 'cause I don't feel like it", that's not okay because you're letting down seven actual humans to whom you've made a promise. This is more or less the same deal but on a much larger scale, albeit with a tiny effect on each individual. It's a matter of principals.

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Originally Posted by nuyu11

The one who help us when we are in troubles is RL friends, not a strangers from forums.
If your friend need some Gil, just give him some and ask him to treat you some drinks in return.
I think that's legal.

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Except people do mistakes, and regret about things, or even have certain aspects you do not like about them much. But they can still be very good friends, and they can still be there in your bad moments supporting you and helping you like real friends do. Going around with a havel is not gonna help you in finding these "perfect friends" you guys are looking for. There are no perfect people, there's always something about somebody you are not going to like, but that person could still prove to be trustworthy, friendly and extremely helpful when you need it.

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Originally Posted by Gallus

Except you are being a bit too radical aren't you. Let me put you this example, imagine you are in a static, all 7 people are extremely nice to you, very nice group, impressive raid environment. Occasionally, you have a massive chain of wipes on a certain turn but somehow, they still joke about it and you end up even having fun wiping. They are not hardcore but they aren't terribly casual either as they strife their best to down each turn. Now, one day, on TS, the NIN confesses to you that he uses bots occasionally, you tell him you've never used one because somehow you think you'd see your fun ruined if you did, he thinks however, certain aspects of this game like gathering are overly tedious. I do not agree with him and I let him know. But he's still cool. That's the thing about friends, sometimes they are different to you, and sometimes you do not agree with them on certain things, but that doesn't give you the right to backstab them every time you have a different opinion about something. You can't just say "X person did X thing I didn't like", that means we weren't friends in the first place, because if you go around with this mentality you'll end up not making a lot of friends, or very poor ones.
Of course there's a limit to this, I'm not going to defend a friend from murdering someone in real life Lol, but I consider "buying gil on an online game" something pretty light honestly. Have you ever had a friend who offered you drugs in a disco? What did you do when that happened? Rush to the closest police station and report them? xD.

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But then you realize that his actions are ruining the game for others, simply because he's lazy. :l Thanks to him there're RMT spammers and the economy is ruined. Also if it's just a game to you, then it shouldn't matter if he's banned. I mean it's just a game, right? Also if he's botting the gathering class, then he's making the economy unfair for those actually putting the time into the game. In no way does he have to play the gathering class, and it''s certainly not simply another playing style when it's negatively affecting the experience of others. Other people play the game too, and pay real money monthly to play it. Not to mention the free time involved on a daily basis to play a MMO. It's not fair that their experience is ruined and time wasted because he's feeling lazy.

As for your last sentence, police =/= GMs. He's not getting into any real legal trouble and like I said, it affects the gameplay experience for players who play legitimately in a very negative way simply because they're lazy. So it's not the same thing. Also I would never hang with that type of person anyway. :l