GM response needed. Conflicting info regarding the selling of plots.

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Originally Posted by DarkSeifer

I can link you several GM tickets that were replied to stating clearly that it is not against the ToS as well. I'll do so when I get home if needed. But all it takes is 5 minutes of research to see many tickets answered this way. There IS still confusion and conflicting information. And there will continue to be until we hear an official response here.

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Except date of inquiries is an important factor. What was once reported as being allowed can change to something that is suddenly against policy.

Also, region is a factor. EU servers apparently have a different policy (i.e. it's frowned upon but allowed) than NA servers (where it's no longer allowed).

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

I don't get what the problem is with flipping FCs/houses. If it's buying a plot to sit on and force people to pay you to get off (then they need to pay money to get the plot themselves...) yeah, I see that. But its a valid tactic to earn money, in my opinion, to flip fcs/houses and make gil like that; some people I know are really good at making a house look spiffy and put a lot of work into getting all sorts of rare and high quality furniture to put in to make the house look better to sell.

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Banning sellers is much simpler on customer support than dealing with situations where people freely hand over money to someone that intends to scam them. When you realize that, it's easy to understand their new stance on this.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Or... they can keep it. And people who actually want a house can suffer for it. Thanks SE.

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At least by allowing the land to be reclaimed they receive most of their initial investment back. The problem is greed - not just wanting the cost of the land back, but to make a pretty penny on top of that.

Regardless of how property sales work in real-life, in FFXIV the player is paying the Grand Companies for the right to *use* the land, not to take unrestricted ownership of, flip it, and make a profit off of it. The individual plots in these wards is not our land to sell - we never truly own it on that level. That we can now receive even some of the money back when abandoning the land is way better a deal than we initially had.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

Banning sellers is much simpler on customer support than dealing with situations where people freely hand over money to someone that intends to scam them. When you realize that, it's easy to understand their new stance on this.

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There are precautions one can take against things like that happening; things like screenshots, a neutral third party, etc can be present, and if you're moving this much money for any reason these precautions should be taken into account. I've seen people sell things far more valuable than a house over the party finder because they were going to sell it for less than the Marketboard and ditch the undercutters entirely; is that against terms of service as well, since that could also be a scam?

I realize that this may not be *your* position, but the position SE has taken regarding this is rather dumb.

Thinking about it, if we have the option to relinquish land we would need to be restricted to one house per account because it would only give the "business" people all the more reason to hoard houses to sell. People will always have/find ways to sell property regardless of rules and this will never change. If someone can buy houses for each of their alts to sell AND they get their selling price+80% of their initial investment on the property they will do so without question. I thank people who justify selling land, if it wasn't for people like you I wouldn't get 10 messages a minute from bots selling gil to line your pockets.

That or simply make the use of housing a social thing and give all FCs/players the ability to do actions otherwise requiring housing.

Buying plots from the server is a major gil sink. And frankly the game could use a lot more gil sinks considering the number of gil fountains there are. I hope SE never changes it so you get your plot money back.

You're always going to see conflicting information when the ones in charge don't want to take a stand about something. In context, the GM responses you do see clarify that they do not condone such behavior, but it is within the realm of acceptable practice. Like win trading (man I bring that up a lot when it comes to SE's wishy washy behavior), it isn't something they promote but they refuse to punish players under the pretense of poor conduct that isn't an IRL violation (those violations being harassment, threats, etc).

The posts and screenshots you see that say it's okay that people do it are within the context that the game is being played within the system itself, as in no 3rd party programs or other unfair means to cheat someone out of it that they themselves couldn't do within the game that was not agreed upon prior (for example, a violation of an agreement would be ninja looting something from someone that you had accepted the terms of prior). The GMs you see that mention it being a violation are within the context of them having malicious intent or seeking payment through real money for the transaction. Monopolizing or making some gil in general is NOT considered malicious intent unless otherwise stated by any official release, and it is not, in any way, stated. So until Yoshi-P or whoever has the final say on the matter puts their foot down about bad behavior within the game, you will always see people taking advantage of such weakness.

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

You're always going to see conflicting information when the ones in charge don't want to take a stand about something.

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Is that something you want in a pay to play game? When it can lead to being banned?

I have received clarification from the GM support team in a ticket.

The act of selling the information of when a plot becomes available, or "first dibs" is not against the ToS. The only way this action is against the ToS is if you state that you are selling a plot. That could be taken to mean that the gil you receive will also pay for the plot. This would fall under "Scam" which in their ToS is: "In-game scams are defined as any inappropriate actions meant to defraud a fellow player with the intent to take in-game items or other possessions from them."

Here is a picture of one of the email replies from them. (I received more after asking for clarification on what this meant, once again.)
http://i65.tinypic.com/2w5plw8.png

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Originally Posted by Gyson

At least by allowing the land to be reclaimed they receive most of their initial investment back. The problem is greed - not just wanting the cost of the land back, but to make a pretty penny on top of that.

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Well, I have the option to wait 45 days to relinquish the plot and get less than I paid for it, or I can use it for gardening and keep making millions of gil from it. Greed? Sure, okay, I'll give you that. Yes, I want to make gil. Which is why I will simply sit on my land and use it for gardening, despite wanting to sell it to someone who would be happy to own it, because having to let my property sit there for 45 days for a return that I could make by just keeping it a little longer than that would be, in my opinion, a pretty terrible choice.

So, no, I will not be relinquishing it. It doesn't give me what my property is worth to me.

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Originally Posted by DarkSeifer

I have received clarification from the GM support team in a ticket.

The act of selling the information of when a plot becomes available, or "first dibs" is not against the ToS. The only way this action is against the ToS is if you state that you are selling a plot. That could be taken to mean that the gil you receive will also pay for the plot. This would fall under "Scam" which in their ToS is: "In-game scams are defined as any inappropriate actions meant to defraud a fellow player with the intent to take in-game items or other possessions from them."

Here is a picture of one of the email replies from them. (I received more after asking for clarification on what this meant, once again.)

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This is exactly the type of clarification I hoped for, and honestly would want, but for the sake of future referencing and proof, mind posting the email or bit with that actual clarification in it? That email is extremely generalized and has nothing relating to that point.

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Originally Posted by DarkSeifer

Here is a picture of one of the email replies from them

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From that email (yes I had to type it back out):

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We understand that you wish to inquire about potential penalties for buying and/or selling housing plots. This activity is considered inappropriate behavior, since this type of transaction is not arranged by the system. Because of this, it is possible that troubles may arise. These potential troubles could result in inappropriate behaviour towards other players, which is punishable. Please make your judgment based on this.

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So basically, how I read it, what they're saying is if they get a complaint/report, they'll more that likely take action. Otherwise they'll let it go, but even that's not a guarantee. If you're selling the rights to a plot you have to accept there might be consequences.

Although I am just speculating, because they haven't flat out said you'll always get punishment it might be reasonable to suggest that if you were only selling the plot for what you paid for it/close to it, that might be acceptable (as in don't make a profit), but if you try and make money out of it, they'll come down on you like a ton of bricks if they find out (via reports or it being public in party finder etc).

But that's just how I read it.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Well, I have the option to wait 45 days to relinquish the plot and get less than I paid for it, or I can use it for gardening and keep making millions of gil from it. Greed? Sure, okay, I'll give you that. Yes, I want to make gil. Which is why I will simply sit on my land and use it for gardening, despite wanting to sell it to someone who would be happy to own it, because having to let my property sit there for 45 days for a return that I could make by just keeping it a little longer than that would be, in my opinion, a pretty terrible choice.

So, no, I will not be relinquishing it. It doesn't give me what my property is worth to me.

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Er.. there's nothing greedy about wanting to continue to use a plot to perform housing functions (e.g. gardening). That's kind of the whole point of housing.

I clearly defined what I meant by greed when I said: "The problem is greed - not just wanting the cost of the land back, but to make a pretty penny on top of that." - an activity SE defines as "inappropriate behavior" because "this type of transaction is not arranged by the system".

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Originally Posted by Gyson

Er.. there's nothing greedy about wanting to continue to use a plot to perform housing functions (e.g. gardening). That's kind of the whole point of housing.

I clearly defined what I meant by greed when I said: "The problem is greed - not just wanting the cost of the land back, but to make a pretty penny on top of that." - an activity SE defines as "inappropriate behavior" because "this type of transaction is not arranged by the system".

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My point being that I'd rather sell it to someone else for what I consider it to be worth, but I can't. So I'll just continue to use it for gardening, while some FC could be enjoying the house instead. I don't see how this is a good thing for the community in general.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

At least by allowing the land to be reclaimed they receive most of their initial investment back. The problem is greed - not just wanting the cost of the land back, but to make a pretty penny on top of that.

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Your blaming Greed, the driving force behind the economies around the world. Why do you think people put there wares up on the game's market boards? Just to recoup the cost of materials? Don't be silly. Everyone is out to make a pretty penny who participates in this game. It's called an incentive. People are more likely to put things up for sale if they can turn a profit.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

My point being that I'd rather sell it to someone else for what I consider it to be worth, but I can't. So I'll just continue to use it for gardening, while some FC could be enjoying the house instead. I don't see how this is a good thing for the community in general.

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If you truly have this sincere, burning desire to make your home available to some random individual or group on your server.. make some millions with your gardening (which, honestly, requires minimal effort) and put it aside as a "goodbye-housing" fund. You don't even have to enter your home in the meanwhile, meaning in 45 days you get 80% of the money you paid for the house returned to you PLUS whatever you generate from the garden in that time.

Either way you're getting a load of gil in the end. Otherwise it really doesn't sound like your complaint is at all about "not being able to help someone who really wants a house", and instead more about not being able to make a load of money quickly.

/shrug

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Originally Posted by Gyson

If you truly have this sincere, burning desire to make your home available to some random individual or group on your server.. make some millions with your gardening (which, honestly, requires minimal effort) and put it aside as a "goodbye-housing" fund. You don't even have to enter your home in the meanwhile, meaning in 45 days you get 80% of the money you paid for the house returned to you PLUS whatever you generate from the garden in that time.

Either way you're getting a load of gil in the end. Otherwise it really doesn't sound like your complaint is at all about "not being able to help someone who really wants a house", and instead more about not being able to make a load of money quickly.

/shrug

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I don't have a burning desire to make my house available to a random individual or group on my server though. I have a desire to get what I feel my plot is worth. Someone else getting the house is a result of this; a result that will not be happening. Not being able to sell it isn't a loss for me. It's a loss for those who want housing.

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Originally Posted by Andrea

Is that something you want in a pay to play game? When it can lead to being banned?

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We pay for it anyway. I've been calling them spineless since The Wolves Den win trading happened, followed by every occasion where they continue to half ass policies and fail to correct or ignore unacceptable behavior. Heck, even botting in this game goes nearly unpunished if there's no RMT type of gil-related activity (easily trackable) or the user isn't stupid enough to announce they do it in the game and they actually do. I would assume that my comment had already stated as much... I mean, it even said it at the end and implied it throughout.

It's just obvious that no one here cares about such matters where SE cowers to be enough reason to quit. It's also obvious that I'm one of the few who call them out on it, instead of merely questioning conflicting/half-assed responses. They'll never take a stand on such a thing while Yoshi-P is in charge or until his perspective of the player base changes. Leadership needs review if these sorts of issues ever become a big deal but, for now, they're not.

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Originally Posted by Laraul

Your blaming Greed, the driving force behind the economies around the world. Why do you think people put there wares up on the game's market boards? Just to recoup the cost of materials? Don't be silly. Everyone is out to make a pretty penny who participates in this game. It's called an incentive. People are more likely to put things up for sale if they can turn a profit.

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I state the problem is people being greedy, you tell me I'm being silly and then go on to confirm that people are being greedy. Ok. I'm glad we agree? Thanks for being silly right along side me, I guess.

Also, there's a pretty obvious difference between the act of placing items up for sale on the marketboard which is specifically in place to support the activity of selling items to other players, and the player-created expectation of selling houses for profit when the game intentionally provides no mechanic to perform this action, was never intended to be done, and is described as "inappropriate behavior" by SE. The former is playing the game as expected, the latter is trying to abuse the system as a means of earning large amounts gil through an illegal activity.

I disagree that the problem is greed. The problem is the price of the houses. It's abysmally low. They are worth more than the game is selling them for.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

I disagree that the problem is greed. The problem is the price of the houses. It's abysmally low. They are worth more than the game is selling them for.

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Well, now you're getting into a discussion about why there is so much money floating around, and a lot of that has to do with RMT. And every player who has ever sold anything to another player has their finger in that pot. And the prices players are trying to charge one another for housing is only encouraging more RMT use. Housing is supposed to be a gil sink by removing money from the economy, not driving players to encourage RMT use.

For players who have obtained money directly from the game (rather than other players), the current cost of housing is by no means "abysmally low". It's discouragingly high. Add the concept of paying other players several times that amount just to get them to move off the land and we're entering the realm of utterly ridiculous.

And to clarify what I said above regarding RMT, I mentioned this elsewhere but I'll repeat it here again: anyone who has sold anything to another player, whether directly or through the marketplace, has had gil pass through their hands at some point that was originally purchased from RMT sources.

With all the ridiculous prices players charge one another.. where does everyone think all that money comes from? You don't set prices at several hundred thousand to millions (especially when selling homes) while targeting currency that was earned 100% legitimately. There's huge swaths of RMT currency floating out there in our economy, and (whether they realize it or not) every single seller is trying to get a hold of some without buying it directly from the very source they condemn.

Players are kidding themselves if they think all the money they've made is 100% RMT-free -- the only people who can honestly make that claim are the players who have earned their fortunes without ever selling anything to another player. Not many people have unlocked the "Honest Gillionaire" title several times over, I suspect.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

RMT discussion related snip

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Right, I know this is gonna drag the conversation off-topic, but I feel it relevant given what you've spoken about. Are you suggesting that every player who has made money from RMT-sources because of selling things to other players should be banned from the game for it? Since after all, RMT is bad and all that (I do agree it's bad, but then how far do we go with the punishments?)

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Originally Posted by Gyson

For players who have obtained money directly from the game (rather than other players), the current cost of housing is by no means "abysmally low". It's discouragingly high. Add the concept of paying other players several times that amount just to get them to move off the land and we're entering the realm of utterly ridiculous.

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Hmm... have to disagree here as well. It would only take approximately two weeks* for a player to earn enough gil from the game for a small house simply by doing daily/weekly activities. Add in the fact that housing is limited, and I'd still call it way too cheap. Then when you consider that FCs can combine their gil together... yeah. Too cheap.

*At the lowest price on a rich server, or the highest price on a poor server.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Hmm... have to disagree here as well. It would only take approximately two weeks for a player to earn enough gil from the game for a small house simply by doing daily/weekly activities. Add in the fact that housing is limited, and I'd still call it way too cheap. Then when you consider that FCs can combine their gil together... yeah. Too cheap.

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Well then, let's make it so a small plot is five hundred octillion (500000000000000000000000000000) gil, a medium plot is five hundred decillion (500000000000000000000000000000000000) gil, and a large plot is five hundred duodecillion (500000000000000000000000000000000000000000) gil. Also, let's clear everyone out of their houses (giving them full return on investment though) and start over with those new prices. Would they be high enough for you? And yes, I'm being serious.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

Well then, let's make it so a small plot is five hundred octillion (500000000000000000000000000000) gil, a medium plot is five hundred decillion (500000000000000000000000000000000000) gil, and a large plot is five hundred duodecillion (500000000000000000000000000000000000000000) gil. Also, let's clear everyone out of their houses (giving them full return on investment though) and start over with those new prices. Would they be high enough for you? And yes, I'm being serious.

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Sure, why not?

But about 50-200 million starting price would be fine for a small house probably. Note that I said starting price. They should decrease in price drastically over time. They could even eventually drop down to the current price, sure. This would make it so that people would be buying a house for what they actually think it's worth, or risk missing out. And they could still even stick with the current system of refunding 80% on losing it (which should also include manually relinquishing the plot).

Or do you think that someone would be willing to pay a 50 million relinquishing fee + 50-200 million gil on top of that for the small house? I honestly think this would almost completely solve the problem of selling houses.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

snip

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I'm talking kicking everyone (personal and FC) out of their current plots, fully refunding them since this was an SE patch change, not them being kicked due to inactivity, setting the prices to the numbers I set, and then once you can afford the house, go for it. Where we disagree is about prices dropping. I'd say keep the prices at the ones I set at period. And to me, 50-200m for a small house is still too small.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

I'm talking kicking everyone (personal and FC) out of their current plots, fully refunding them since this was an SE patch change, not them being kicked due to inactivity, setting the prices to the numbers I set, and then once you can afford the house, go for it. Where we disagree is about prices dropping. I'd say keep the prices at the ones I set at period. And to me, 50-200m for a small house is still too small.

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Yes, I'd also like ghost towns.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Yes, I'd also like ghost towns.

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I wouldn't say they'd be ghost towns. They'd just be a hell of a gil sink ya know, and they'll really take time to fill up all the plots. It'd be extortionately high price of entry, but dang when you finally earned that amount of cash you'd feel so satisfied.

Also, a clarification, they don't have to be at the exact numbers I set, but at least a billion gil I feel is needed.

7

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Hmm... have to disagree here as well. It would only take approximately two weeks* for a player to earn enough gil from the game for a small house simply by doing daily/weekly activities. Add in the fact that housing is limited, and I'd still call it way too cheap. Then when you consider that FCs can combine their gil together... yeah. Too cheap.

*At the lowest price on a rich server, or the highest price on a poor server.

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I'd all love to hear which activities you can reasonably perform in two weeks time that generates 2.5 - 4 million gil and doesn't involve any direct or indirect transactions with other players (especially once you've already exhausted the supply of one-time quests).

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

Right, I know this is gonna drag the conversation off-topic, but I feel it relevant given what you've spoken about. Are you suggesting that every player who has made money from RMT-sources because of selling things to other players should be banned from the game for it?

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No, my point was:

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Originally Posted by Gyson

Well, now you're getting into a discussion about why there is so much money floating around, and a lot of that has to do with RMT. And every player who has ever sold anything to another player has their finger in that pot. And the prices players are trying to charge one another for housing is only encouraging more RMT use.

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Part of the point I'm trying to make here is that, yes, there is a ton of gil available through the markets that might seem to make housing undervalued as MomomiMomi suggests, but for new (or old) players who don't use the marketplace the cost of housing is quite daunting.

For the record, I have a friend who doesn't use the marketboard (and so their income is solely from game-generated activities that doesn't involve financial transactions with other players) and I think they're just nearing the 5 million mark now - and that's after years of playing and involves quest rewards that are now exhausted.

Maybe MomomiMomi can fit several years of gameplay into two weeks. Who knows.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

I'd all love to hear which activities you can reasonably perform in two weeks time that generates 2.5 - 4 million gil and doesn't involve any direct or indirect transactions with other players (especially once you've already exhausted the supply of one-time quests

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4m in 2 weeks is just under 300k a day.

I can think of daily bonuses for each roulette and daily beast tribe and hunts and thats about it.

I feel its pretty fair to say that 99% of people who own houses have used some volume of rmt sold money.

Before people take that wrong im saying you've been traded money someone else bought, not actually you yourself bought.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

I'd all love to hear which activities you can reasonably perform in two weeks time that generates 2.5 - 4 million gil and doesn't involve any direct or indirect transactions with other players (especially once you've already exhausted the supply of one-time quests).

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I could tell you... but then I'd have to kill you.




Just kidding.

First, I'd like to clarify that the amount I was talking about is 2 million gil. That can buy a small house at the points I mentioned:

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At the lowest price on a rich server, or the highest price on a poor server.

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These are the cheapest houses available. Fifth-class small plot at the lowest price on a rich server (4 million full price, drops down to 2 million), and highest price on poor server (2 million, drops down to 1 million).

Second, I hope you will agree that it's fair to assume that this person who wants to buy a house will have 2 gatherers and 2 crafters at least at level 50, as well as a level 60 job, or maybe two.

I am currently in the process of getting an accurate amount of time this takes per day, so please allow me a little while before I get that. However, I will not fully detail the process. I hope you understand.

Now then, back to work. Be back later.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

I'm talking kicking everyone (personal and FC) out of their current plots, fully refunding them since this was an SE patch change, not them being kicked due to inactivity, setting the prices to the numbers I set, and then once you can afford the house, go for it. Where we disagree is about prices dropping. I'd say keep the prices at the ones I set at period. And to me, 50-200m for a small house is still too small.

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That would be horrible i currently like my medium house and i dont want to have to pay again for what i have. Also setting prices at 50-200m will lock the vast majority of the people out of housing permanently on my server.

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Originally Posted by Andrea

4m in 2 weeks is just under 300k a day.

I can think of daily bonuses for each roulette and daily beast tribe and hunts and thats about it.

I feel its pretty fair to say that 99% of people who own houses have used some volume of rmt sold money.

Before people take that wrong im saying you've been traded money someone else bought, not actually you yourself bought.

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Agreed you'll never make that kind of money just from doing daily stuff. But stating that house owners have used any form of RMT is not only insulting but vastly incorrect.
1. You have the coil/alex/primal sellers they rake in the cash

2. A good moneymaker used to be going into diadem and started fishing up pterodactyls. A 90 minute run will get you around 40 of them which sell for 15-25k gil netting 600k-1000k.

3. Do some research into what materials are used by crafters a lot and go harvest them. This also works for mob drops

4. Lowish level crafting from level 25-35 can bring in 10-20k an item. It adds up after a while

5. High level crafting sky pirate gear used to bring 300k-800k before 3.2

6. lvl 60 ilvl 150 crafting and gathering gear also brings in a pretty penny

7. Though boring spamming leves can earn you quite a bit

8. While doing everything else make shure you complete the challenge logs

I hope that gives enough possibilities to earn gil without resorting to RMT.

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Originally Posted by Caitlinzulu

Agreed you'll never make that kind of money just from doing daily stuff. But stating that house owners have used any form of RMT is not only insulting but vastly incorrect.
1. You have the coil/alex/primal sellers they rake in the cash

2. A good moneymaker used to be going into diadem and started fishing up pterodactyls. A 90 minute run will get you around 40 of them which sell for 15-25k gil netting 600k-1000k.

3. Do some research into what materials are used by crafters a lot and go harvest them. This also works for mob drops

4. Lowish level crafting from level 25-35 can bring in 10-20k an item. It adds up after a while

5. High level crafting sky pirate gear used to bring 300k-800k before 3.2

6. lvl 60 ilvl 150 crafting and gathering gear also brings in a pretty penny

7. Though boring spamming leves can earn you quite a bit

8. While doing everything else make shure you complete the challenge logs

I hope that gives enough possibilities to earn gil without resorting to RMT.

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Literally every example you have listed involves selling to other people. How can you say 100% that the money you get isnt money people bought through RMTs? That was my point. If you have sold anything on the market board at all the chances of you obtaining rmt money is incredibly high.

I do not see how it is insulting to say that someone could of bought something of you using RMT bought money but ok...

BTW i own a house, did I buy money to buy it? No of course not. Can I say that I sold something that someone bought of the market board after buying gil? Yet again No of course I can't.

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Originally Posted by Caitlinzulu

That would be horrible i currently like my medium house and i dont want to have to pay again for what i have. Also setting prices at 50-200m will lock the vast majority of the people out of housing permanently on my server.

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If your server is considered a poor/medium server I could see that being an issue. But Odin is considered a rich server. The current prices are way too cheap and I would wager there's a huge number of players on Odin that have trillions of gil earned without buying gil from sellers. Honestly, even setting the plot prices are 50 billion on Odin would only knock back say 10% of the population. It's insane.

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Originally Posted by Andrea

Literally every example you have listed involves selling to other people. How can you say 100% that the money you get isnt money people bought through RMTs? That was my point. If you have sold anything on the market board at all the chances of you obtaining rmt money is incredibly high.

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Realistically, once the gil has changed hands once or twice, one gil is as clean as the next. I hate to call it laundered, but it is,realistically speaking. Ideally, gil sold through RMT could be tracked and siphoned from the accounts of those possessing it. But then you get into the downstream use of gil. Because the MB is effectively blind, you have no control over who you sell to, and so all transactions have to be considered made in good faith.

If someone sells something in good faith through the MB and unwittingly receives tainted gil, is it right to take that gil away from them? They had no idea that someone with bad gil was buying their product, and in fact they have no choice with respect to who buys what. If anything it could be argued that SE bears some responsibility since their system hosts and facilitates the transaction (please note I am NOT blaming SE). Now, if that player in turn then buys something from another, how can the third player in the chain be held accountable? They have no way whatsoever to know that someone with tainted gil unwittingly used it to buy their product.

That's the problem, you can't really claim tainted gil unless you are dealing with the player who actually bought the gil through RMT. So it's really not fair to keep pushing this line that people selling stuff on the MB to other players and then buying a house did so using bad gil.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

That's the problem, you can't really claim tainted gil unless you are dealing with the player who actually bought the gil through RMT. So it's really not fair to keep pushing this line that people selling stuff on the MB to other players and then buying a house did so using bad gil.

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Im not saying there is anything wrong with it, but to claim every bit of your money has never touched RMTs hands is a bit of a stretch.

I don't know how people find it insulting, i have sold a lot of stuff on the MB. I can say with almost 100% certainty that I have touched RMT money unwittingly in the past. Should I be judged for it? of course not.

All im saying is realistically everyone has touched RMT money lol

Also Im not saying its bad gil, gil is gil and no one should geel bad for it.

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Originally Posted by Andrea

Im not saying there is anything wrong with it, but to claim every bit of your money has never touched RMTs hands is a bit of a stretch.

I don't know how people find it insulting, i have sold a lot of stuff on the MB. I can say with almost 100% certainty that I have touched RMT money unwittingly in the past. Should I be judged for it? of course not.

All im saying is realistically everyone has touched RMT money lol

Also Im not saying its bad gil, gil is gil and no one should geel bad for it.

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I know I have tainted gil and items. Pretty sure a good number of my shards are still from when I bought a ton while they were being botted by RMT shortly after 2.0 released, so prices were extremely low, like 10 gil each. Likewise, I used to make numerous sales of crafted i55 or lower gear to RMT and general botters. Income or items are what they are. Unlike IRL though, there's no actual blood spilled to be traced back to the paper/coin, so whatever on that lol.

Ok this Thread has A LOT of Flawed Logic.

1) Having High priced houses encourages RMT use. FALSE
----Having Prices be High does not encourage RMT use in itself. Using this Logic, you could say, selling anything at a high price is encouraging RMT use.
----RMT use in this patch is heightened a lot because of all the new craftables, and the materia needed/prices.
----SE should have planned this out better. It's obvious to everyone, that for some people Buying RMT Gil is the fastest way to get your gear so you can raid.
----Also, for crafters who fell behind on gear and wish to catch up and make all the new items, RMT is the fast lane.

2)People camping and selling houses is bad for economy, and ruins peoples experience. FALSE
----I know some will disagree, vehemently, but it shouldn't be against TOS.
----For some wild, illogical reason, people assume if the people who camped houses didn't do so they would magically able to buy a house.
----As if they all the houses would remain open until you decided to purchase a house.
----The problem is like real life you can't always get what you want. OBVIOUS RESPONSE it's a game and I want it (stomps feet, cries)
----For some people selling houses is part of the fun of the game, so why is your fun more important than theirs.
----THERE ARE OTHER OPTIONS I know you want to own your own house, but you can also share a house with a friend if you want the house experience
----You can also rent out your house (now that you can share it with people) that would give other the chance to have the house experience
----I know you want your name on the deed, because that is the only way it will be fun, even though you can have all the same privileges and be able to do anything you want

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

If your server is considered a poor/medium server I could see that being an issue. But Odin is considered a rich server. The current prices are way too cheap and I would wager there's a huge number of players on Odin that have trillions of gil earned without buying gil from sellers. Honestly, even setting the plot prices are 50 billion on Odin would only knock back say 10% of the population. It's insane.

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People with "trillions of gil" are not necessarily buying from RMT sellers, but they are pricing their items in a way that guarantees currency generated through RMT is making its way to their hands.

Come on, guys, let's be realistic about this. Everyone knows what it takes to earn even a million gil through just server generated events (i.e. money not trading hands between players). Selling something for millions of gil (e.g. a house for 40 million gil).. you may not be consciously thinking about it, but you are in no way targeting your average player with pricing like that. You're targeting people with a lot of money - people who have either bought money from RMT or people who have sold something (or a lot of somethings) to people that have (somewhere down the line) used RMT. With ridiculous-enough pricing, you may even be encouraging other desperate players to turn to RMT (sadly).

It's a way of getting your hands on a piece of that wealth without directly dealing with RMT yourself. If SE could magically remove all the gil ever generated through RMT, I guarantee you even the wealthiest of servers would be a crap-ton poorer.

Edit: I want to stress that I'm not trying to paint myself all innocent here. I price my items on the marketplace at what I know they can sell at, just like everyone else. But I'm fully aware of how much money people can realistically generate *outside* of the marketplace (or other form of player-to-player transactions), and I know the prices I see and charge on the auction house can only truly be sustained because somewhere down the line someone is participating in RMT. In other words, I'm not feigning ignorance about any of this.

Someone earlier brought up the term "laundered".. but mainly the reason I brought this up was because of the notion that SE prices housing far cheaper than they should - which raises the question of whether developers should plan an economy around the idea of RMT one day being stamped out of their game, or pricing under the (depressing) thought that RMT practices will always be around and thriving. Like I said, remove the RMT generated gil from the game and I think you'll find the current price SE chose for housing is scarily high.

There is at least one green gil guide around(gil that is generated by the game from player activity - just search for it) - it's possible to generate at least 1 mil/week by doing roulettes, challenge log, hunts, collectibles(this technically is limited only by amount of mats you can gather and craft), beast tribes. Things add up in the end.

Well, I put my plot up in PF to relinquish, maybe for 2 hours. Found a buyer who was happy - I sold it for less than I paid because I want to buy a plot somewhere else in the future. I got a violation on my account for doing so the same day of billing. Really nice.

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Originally Posted by MrCide

Well, I put my plot up in PF to relinquish, maybe for 2 hours. Found a buyer who was happy - I sold it for less than I paid because I want to buy a plot somewhere else in the future. I got a violation on my account for doing so the same day of billing. Really nice.

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"Sold it for less than I paid" - Are you talking about less than you paid the game to claim the land, or less than you paid another player to first relinquish the land (back in the day)? Perhaps both combined?

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Originally Posted by Alysanne

All gil is generated from in game activity. RMT doesn't introduced a bunch of money that would otherwise not be there. A lot of the gil is stolen from hacked accounts, bought from one player and sold to another, or they bot mining shards and such and sell those to others. People talk like they just magically summon up gil to sell and without them there would be so much less currency. Where the hell do people think this money comes from? I guarantee they aren't propping up the economy by botting fates and 4 man dungeons.

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Of course all gil is generated from game activity - I don't think anyone suggested otherwise. But surely you understand the difference between someone collecting gil from game activity and using it to buy your 5 million gil item off the marketboard versus someone using real-life money to purchase 5 million gil from RMT sources (and then using it to buy your item)?

Either way you're ending up with 5 million gil, so what do you care, right? But I think we can safely say in the latter example your pricing encouraged someone to support RMT practices, and realizing how difficult it is to earn 5 million gil without player transactions being involved (e.g. relying instead on leves, quests, dungeons, FATEs, etc) I would hope you're at least aware on some level what your inflated pricing is doing.

Rarely is it that cut and dry.. in truth your 5 million gil item was purchased by someone who made that 5 million gil selling items to other players, who in turn each made their gil selling items to other players, etc, etc. However, somewhere down the line in that chain the chances are pretty good that RMT was involved. If RMT currency never existed (in other words, if there weren't a bunch of RMT employees dedicating time towards farming up all that gil in the first place) there would be a whole lot less gil floating around in our economy right now, and the prices we charge other players would be a whole lot lower.

But it does exist, and we price accordingly because we all want a piece of that pie, which in turn forces more people to turn to RMT sources, and the problem just gets worse and worse. That's what we mean by that.