Will we ever be able to 'legally' sell plots?

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Originally Posted by Lexia

SE can pretty much do what ever they want it their game, for example they could shut down the game tomorrow if they wanted it even in the ToS.

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Well; then it wouldn't be a very popular game. I think SE likes "money", after all I don't see a point in redoing the game if they are just gonna throw it away, yeah?

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

They can ban you for any or no reason.

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Yeah; sure. However that would get them a lot of negative press if they went around doing that.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Well; then it wouldn't be a very popular game. I think SE likes "money", after all I don't see a point in redoing the game if they are just gonna throw it away, yeah?
Yeah; sure. However that would get them a lot of negative press if they went around doing that.

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This is true, but they put it in there giving them the right to do it if they choose to and all players agree to it by playing the game.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

This is true, but they put it in there giving them the right to do it if they choose to and all players agree to it by playing the game.

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By that logic. They can also ban you though. They can ban anyone in this thread. I am sure that would go really well for them.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

By that logic. They can also ban you though. They can ban anyone in this thread. I am sure that would go really well for them.

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This is also true but we just going in circles now as pretty much just reworded your other post.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

By that logic. They can also ban you though. They can ban anyone in this thread. I am sure that would go really well for them.

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Indeed they can. Do you have a point? Back on track.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

but can a GM ban someone for those things?

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The answer was yes, yes they can.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Indeed they can. Do you have a point? Back on track.



The answer was yes, yes they can.

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The GM can also ban you for saying "Yes they can". However; if that is the reason for it; i'd probably not be playing and a lot of people wouldn't be playing very often or much anymore lol!

Well, back to something more interesting, like bashing my pickaxe against stuff. Hope I don't get banned for that.

I just hope they actually do some proper changes so that selling plots won't even be an issue anymore, and let us sell our houses instead of having to wait 45 days.

It is worth noting that circumventing the limitation in any way is a bannable offense. Like many games, the GM's don't take kindly to being undermined. I would tread lightly on these convoluted schemes and interpretations of the rules. I'm not saying this to be redundant, just that a couple players already tried that here on the forums, and then posted about their bans elsewhere.

Honestly this wouldn't be an issue if they just made instanced player housing. There are too many features that are locked behind that massive gil sink of housing. Stables, gardening, etc. Sure FC's are where you do it but still. It's things unnecessarily locked out. Not to mention they still haven't included new areas.

I don't like the implementation of housing really at all.

Im fine with not being able to sell houses.

What im not fine with is how they went about changing the rule on it.

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Originally Posted by Andrea

Im fine with not being able to sell houses.

What im not fine with is how they went about changing the rule on it.

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It was more of adding a rule, rather than changing.
Which is their right to do. Just be happy others took the hit to let us know and not us. :\

That being said, this "rule" isn't very well known, I still see PF's for plot selling all the time.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

It was more of adding a rule, rather than changing.
Which is their right to do. Just be happy others took the hit to let us know and not us. :\

That being said, this "rule" isn't very well known, I still see PF's for plot selling all the time.

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Is that something to actually be happy about? other people got warnings due to rules they didnt even know were changed/added? In a P2P game too?

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Originally Posted by Andrea

Is that something to actually be happy about? other people got warnings due to rules they didnt even know were changed/added? In a P2P game too?

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I mean, the government adds laws all the time and doesn't necessarily send you a letter to warn you about it. You don't get an email every time you cross state lines telling you which laws are new/different from the last state you were in.

Sure they could have notified everyone, but since you were never really able to sell the house itself before, there wasn't really anything that changed.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I mean, the government adds laws all the time and doesn't necessarily send you a letter to warn you about it. You don't get an email every time you cross state lines telling you which laws are new/different from the last state you were in.

Sure they could have notified everyone, but since you were never really able to sell the house itself before, there wasn't really anything that changed.

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I must miss the times my government changes laws that could say end up with me in jail that doesn't somehow make its way to the public before being in place.

Is a window on login really too much to ask for a game some people have put a lot of money into?

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Originally Posted by Andrea

Is a window on login really too much to ask for a game some people have put a lot of money into?

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Launcher -> Support button

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Originally Posted by Cherie

One thing I disagree, housing *is* a gil sink and I believe it was always supposed to be. The refund on auto demolished housing was some kind of compromise they came up with, but initially there were supposed to be gil sinks in the game. If there weren't, where do you all think the gil goes? It just keeps accumulating constantly.

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Housing cost so much for one reason, availability. And since people haven't been able to purchase plots and housing for months and months now, there has been no gil sink from housing all that time. Gil is removed from the game when a player quits. Also teleportats, failed synths, discarded items, relic and anima quests, melds, etc. I suspect most people w/ enormous amounts of gil just don't spend it. In the real world, 20% of the populations holds 80% of the wealth. It's probably the same within the game too.

I don't understand why you can't sell plots. How is this bad? How would it be abused? And why do people think a massive gil sync would be good?

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Originally Posted by Kerii

It is worth noting that circumventing the limitation in any way is a bannable offense. Like many games, the GM's don't take kindly to being undermined. I would tread lightly on these convoluted schemes and interpretations of the rules. I'm not saying this to be redundant, just that a couple players already tried that here on the forums, and then posted about their bans elsewhere.

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Indeed.

Anytime you circumvent the rules of an existing system, whether or not what you do is covered by a specific rule, you already broke a more general rule, or principle, about not circumventing the systems of the game. It doesn't matter if it's incredibly blatant and plain as day, or subtle and in the shadows. Circumventing game systems created within FFXIV by SE is, and always will be a ban-able offense.

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Originally Posted by Laraul

I don't understand why you can't sell plots. How is this bad? How would it be abused? And why do people think a massive gil sync would be good?

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A massive gil sync is good because it helps control money supply. That's one of the reasons why you can't sell plots to other players, when a plot is relinquished it goes back into the housing system to be relisted at full price - a gil sync...

You honestly can't see how selling plots from player to player would be abused? RMT have a pretty good supply of free gil, they can buy up plots of land and resell them at large gil profit to increase their own stock of gil via legitimate transactions. Of course the large amounts of gil they sell property for have to come from somewhere, they may in effect be selling gil to the buyers of the plots of land they already hold, actually circulating the gil back to the RMT. After all a player can't be expected to know if a seemingly legitimate player selling a plot is actually an RMT front, can they?

I can also envisage "I Buy Homes" ads in-game from Gil Sellers promising the sale of huge amounts of gil via a housing transaction. Given that the housing transaction is legitimate, it would be hard to pin down RMT transactions vs normal transactions because they are masked by the legitimate property sale. I mean, 100 million gil for a large plot is pretty legit, but 100 million for a basic item? Not so much.

Also with sufficient gil, and the current lack of restriction in terms of house/plot ownership, RMT would potentially be able to 'corner' the market, just as hyper rich players would be able to.

1. Only one plot per person/fc.
2. 80% money back when relinquished (possible whenever ppl want or auto-relinquish), every item moved to a temporary 'chest' to get it back
3. If plot gets relinquished it opens up again in 12-24h (random)

So people can't sell houses and can't hold many of them.

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

1. Only one plot per person/fc.

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This should be one plot per account with all characters on an account sharing the plot/house - this applies to personal plots only, Free Company houses should not be included in this.

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

2. 80% money back when relinquished (possible whenever ppl want or auto-relinquish),

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I disagree, when the system was first announced, plots would go back into circulation after 35 days with no refund, and there was always no refund for relinquishing land by design. At most this should be a 60% refund of the minimum price for that plot. Purchasing a plot should not be taken lightly, nor should people think that they can purchase something so limited and then hold it in perpetuity. I'd actually like to see the auto-relinquish changed to 45 days of continuous time unsubbed from the game, not simply 45 days of inactivity. If a player is still paying for their game time, their home should not be under threat.

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

every item moved to a temporary 'chest' to get it back

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This I disagree with as well, this is part of the design to make Housing a gil sync, and also encourage purchasers not to take it lightly. Sure it can bite when you move or have to take something up, but you can always go back and re-do the content required to get the item needed to craft whatever it was.

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

3. If plot gets relinquished it opens up again in 12-24h (random)

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I agree with this because it prevents the PF based property transfers because people do not know when a plot will become available, I'd suggest a longer cooling off period and range to prevent camping the plot. Say a random time 72-144 hours (3-6 days) from the moment it was relinquished. This should be true whether property is relinquished voluntarily or automatically.

It'd be nice if there was a way of listing all properties currently available for sale within a given residential district (all wards/ subdivisions). People could check that property listing to see if a plot they want becomes available, it's more a quality of life thing though.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

You honestly can't see how selling plots from player to player would be abused? RMT have a pretty good supply of free gil, they can buy up plots of land and resell them at large gil profit to increase their own stock of gil via legitimate transactions. ... Given that the housing transaction is legitimate, it would be hard to pin down RMT transactions vs normal transactions because they are masked by the legitimate property sale. I mean, 100 million gil for a large plot is pretty legit, but 100 million for a basic item? Not so much.

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RMT operate "in the shadows" so to speak. An exchange is arranged thru a website or some other means of external communication and then the executed in the game thru a player to player trade. Not allowing plots to be sold within the game just fuels the existence of a black market. Availability is nil and whom ever can ask whatever they wish and people will pay. So as it now is the worst it could possibly be. IMO.

The harder something is to obtain, the more a person will be willing to sacrifice to obtain it. The ease at which gil can be earned decreases the likely hood that people will turn too RMT. But housing is literally impossible to obtain. And placing obstacles in the way it just gives RMT more power.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I mean, the government adds laws all the time and doesn't necessarily send you a letter to warn you about it. You don't get an email every time you cross state lines telling you which laws are new/different from the last state you were in.

Sure they could have notified everyone, but since you were never really able to sell the house itself before, there wasn't really anything that changed.

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It wasn't even a rule added, it was a change in interpretation and enforcement claiming different existing rules.

It's like the police handing out tickets for buying grapes on a Sunday, and citing Sunday alcohol sale laws. And at the same time, other police handing out tickets for the same thing, but citing public decency statutes.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Sure they could have notified everyone, but since you were never really able to sell the house itself before, there wasn't really anything that changed.

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I'm pretty certain that the ToS and other conditions you accept include a general statement against circumventing game software and mechanics. It's the kind of catch all that lets SE respond flexibly to different situations that do not match a specific rule. So, the question comes down to this, does the game support sale of property from one player to another? The answer is clearly no, since there is no support on the MB for such transactions, and no support in the housing menus for such transactions. So to accomplish these transactions players have to mis-use the intended mechanic of relinquishing a property to work around the lack of direct sales. You are, by definition, circumventing the game software and in-game mechanics of property purchase and ownership. There need be no new rule, it's covered by the catch all.

There are two things that I would be interested to know. 1) Why is it that you can retain 80% of the gil you invested if you wait for the system to reclaim your house, but not if you choose to give up it up? and 2) What can SE do to dissuade players from simply selling their house on the black market for huge profit margins?

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

-ToS catch all snip-

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In that is why I try to mention it for arguments like this and parsers. There is no aruging intrupretation on these things. It's as black and white as SE says it is.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

I'm pretty certain that the ToS and other conditions you accept include a general statement against circumventing game software and mechanics.

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The closest it has is "you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay."

House selling has been around for a while, and I have yet to see it listed as a known issue on patch notes.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

The closest it has is "you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay."

House selling has been around for a while, and I have yet to see it listed as a known issue on patch notes.

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SE's new policy dictates that selling a housing plot amounts to extortion or scamming. While I think that is a bit of an extreme determination, I can't say I disagree with it.

Plots were originally intended to be able to be sold player to player in the form of a land deed (not to be confused with the estate deed) but with many many many things they spoke about when it came to housing it was never implemented. What we have now is almost a shell of the housing features we were told about before housing, or even ARR, was even released.

That being said, if they did implement this as a feature it would have to be price capped at the top price for that parcel so the feature is not abused. It really wouldn't be that difficult to add I am sure but SE is too busy coming up with new tomes for us to collect each and every patch to do anything important or that is extremely requested by the player base.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

The closest it has is "you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay."

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Even then, that's totally up for interpretation by SE, not us. It's like the Doom mechanic in Qarn, you could stand on a ledge to dodge Doom and the entire ledge was removed from the arena. It wasn't any weird glitch or anything, you just jumped up onto a ledge that was in plain site. Conversely, people were unhappy that in T2, you could skip Allagan Rot by forcing enrage mode and making the fight way easier, and yet SE said "The system is working as intended and it is not an exploit."

So, really, what it boils down to is, whether we think it fair or not, we have to play by the rules that SE chooses as they go.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

Plots were originally intended to be able to be sold player to player in the form of a land deed (not to be confused with the estate deed)

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I'm not sure that actually was the case though. As far back as 2013 when housing first came out they said only about trading the deed for the actual house and even back then they said specifically about wouldn't be able to sell it:

From: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...810-30-2013%29

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Originally Posted by Gildrein

Q: Will we be able to sell our houses (including the furniture)?

A: This will not be possible. You can only trade the deed, so you would have to revert your house back to a deed to do this.

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I know there was a later post (in a Live Letter?) that was probably around the time personal housing was released that said about gifting deeds to friends etc, but I am still sure from the context it was only referring to the house deed, not the plot itself.

I think you can legally sell plot in colorado

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Originally Posted by worldofneil

I'm not sure that actually was the case though.

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He said the land deeds so we were able to give houses to friends, use them as prizes and add wards as needed so housing was available. It was stated in other interviews too that you could actually buy/sell housing plots. But like with a lot of things they promised or said it was not implemented nor was it ever really talked about again.

I wish they would talk to us. I mean if they cannot do something they should say "Hey, we were originally going to do this but we couldn't get it to work/didn't look right/etc" instead of just staying quiet. Especially when it's on topics that are overly discussed within the player community. The silence really makes them seem very inadequate, especially compared to the open dialog other gaming companies have with their players. I would rather them tell us something couldn't be done then have no information at all. Not to mention have them make up their minds and make a definitive statement about player to player sales.

Letter from the Producer LIVE Part VI Q&A Summary (04/17/2013)

[0:10:11]
Q: Will it be possible to sell land deeds in the market ward or other places?

A: Yes, it will be possible. They can also be traded. Just as an example, you could give a house to that special someone in your free company as a present.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

The closest it has is "you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay."

House selling has been around for a while, and I have yet to see it listed as a known issue on patch notes.

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It would most likely be listed under

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3.6 Any Illegal Activities. You may not conduct any illegal activities whatsoever in connection with the Game. This includes every illegal activity not specifically highlighted above, including without limitation gambling, defamation, harassment, and fraud

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Person says they selling a house, so player trade money to the person and then goes well where my house the person says you don't get a house that money just for be giving up the plot you still have to buy the plot from the system.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

Person says they selling a house, so player trade money to the person and then goes well where my house the person says you don't get a house that money just for be giving up the plot you still have to buy the plot from the system.

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Then that wouldn't apply to selling a FC with a house, or accepting money to relinquish the plot at the time of the buyer's choosing. However, both have been dumped into the same group as "selling a house."

"Selling a house" isn't gambling, defamation, or harassment, and fraud can be dealt with the same way other game frauds are dealt with. GMs will step in for fraud in cases where an agreement was reached by 2 people in game, and one person reneged.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Then that wouldn't apply to selling a FC with a house, or accepting money to relinquish the plot at the time of the buyer's choosing. However, both have been dumped into the same group as "selling a house."

"Selling a house" isn't gambling, defamation, or harassment, and fraud can be dealt with the same way other game frauds are dealt with. GMs will step in for fraud in cases where an agreement was reached by 2 people in game, and one person reneged.

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It's been over 2 months and they haven't even graced us with their formal stance on the issue :(

Conflicting punishments/ stances were obviously seen in the EU vs NA data centers.

As is their game, their rules but of course it's extremely annoying to the players who need to follow the rules which aren't clear.

A friend reported someone who was trying to sell a small plot for 22m, he reported the person and a GM replied back like 5 mins later, the GM seemed more interested in fact-checking how much the person was asking for the plot than the act of the sale itself, perhaps they changed their policy again to only go after those who try to sell a plot for more than they paid for.

I mean, it would be hard to argue it's an extortion if someone is selling a plot for 3-5m, there's no profit being made, but someone selling for 22m there's an obvious profit.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

A friend reported someone who was trying to sell a small plot for 22m, he reported the person and a GM replied back like 5 mins later, the GM seemed more interested in fact-checking how much the person was asking for the plot than the act of the sale itself, perhaps they changed their policy again to only go after those who try to sell a plot for more than they paid for.

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Which if the case they should actually announce what their stance is on it.

We've seen people get warnings for it and others who have been told that they can't do anything as they aren't breaking any rules for selling.

Imo there shouldn't be any grey area surrounding something that could potentially get your account banned. But here we are. Maybe im crazy.

The only way it wouldn't be abused is if there's no way to speculate and overcharge the buyer. This could work if the game set boundaries on the price, and you couldn't sell a plot for any more than the original max price of that plot, but would yourself only get 80% of the sale, with the other 20% absorbed by the game. (You would have the option for selling for less the max if you want. People might want to if they're giving it to a friend or their FC, or if they're having trouble finding a buyer at max price. The 80%/20% or whatever actual percentages SE chooses would be based on the actual sale price, not the max price.)

As for the current version of "selling", SE should set a rule that when a plot is released, it will go back on the market at some random point in the near future, but not immediately. That should reduce the demand for information on when a plot is released.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

He said the land deeds so we were able to give houses to friends

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That was the quote I was trying to find, thanks.

Yes it looks like you were right, originally in April 2013 they did intend for housing to be sellable (I didn't realise it was so long ago!), but sometimes in the 8 months following that and when housing was actually released (patch 2.1 - December 2013) it seems they changed their mind for reasons we don't know (wasn't enough of a gil sink, didn't want to deal with problems with ownership queries, realising technical issues that still currently plague housing/limit the amount, we can only guess...)

Sounds like the original plan was for the estate and the house to be a single entity which was split before it went live.

It's silly. I paid someone 12m to relinquish their plot, then paid 4.25m to buy the plot. I sold it for 9m then got a warning placed on my account for doing so, despite the buyer being happy about it.

I sold it because I wanted a plot in another area. Am I supposed to sit on my hands for 45 days? The GM referenced the same spot about fraud. Not sure how it's fraud since I didn't rip anyone off.

Oh well.