RMT + Cash Shop = Not as bad as one might believe?

Honestly, I'm not really sure why people are flipping out about people being able to sell promise wristlets for gil. If anything, the people who didn't want to pay actual money should be excited by the opportunity to just pay for it with gil, right?

Personally, I don't think $40 or whatever is even close to worth it, but a few million gil? You might have something there.

Would the world really be so awful if EVERYTHING in the cash shop was able to be sold for gil? I mean, the reality is that RMT already exists. People are already out there buying gil. I think that's stupid, but that doesn't mean people aren't going for it. Is the game hideously broken now? Because the same people who buy gil now would be the same people subsidizing all your cash shop purchases. Probably more people would do it, but uh, so?

Unless you're looking for world firsts, you don't have any strong NEED for much of anything you buy with gil (and if you're elite enough for that and doing stuff like getting full materia'd i110 crafted as soon as it comes out, and actually going for it, you're such a ridiculously small percentage as to not even be worth discussing in terms of broad demographics), so the economy isn't really a deal breaker. If it was, this game would be pretty awful already, RMT or not. Because the way the economy is set up is pretty awful.

Making all cash shop purchases sellable would be pretty much an unadulterated win for SE, as cash shop purchases would undoubtedly increase.

If you've got some compelling arguments on why RMT would actually be really bad in this case, and I mean beyond "omg it's bad", that'd certainly be pretty interesting. Certainly, if you're anti-Cash Shop RMT but pro-Cash Shop, I'd be really perplexed.

If anything, everything being sellable for gil would make me hate the Cash Shop less because then anything I did want, I could just pay some gil for. As opposed to them someday putting an outfit or hairstyle on there I really want and me quitting because I'm not giving them real money for it. We're already skating super close to that with putting dyes up there for a hilarious $1 apiece. Thanks, SE! You found a way to annoy me even more than with the other dyes you can only get via TOTALLY RANDOM retainer ventures and that CAN'T BE TRADED WOOO!

Thank you for posting this.

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Originally Posted by Hiruke

Honestly, I'm not really sure why people are flipping out about people being able to sell promise wristlets for gil. If anything, the people who didn't want to pay actual money should be excited by the opportunity to just pay for it with gil, right?

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I was, and did. I'd really rather we not have a cash shop, but since we do, and it's not going anywhere, I'd much prefer that all items in it can be sold to other players.

When you got someone that's in your coil group who shouldn't be there because he sold all those items for gil and bought all his wins... then ends up in your group and holds you back.. lets see what you have to think after that.

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Originally Posted by ShinigamiZero

When you got someone that's in your coil group who shouldn't be there because he sold all those items for gil and bought all his wins... then ends up in your group and holds you back.. lets see what you have to think after that.

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Make a static if you're serious about progression.

You know, they could always sell Allagan Gold Pieces in the cash shop :P After all, GTAV Allows you to purchase money directly via real money. GW2 does it indirectly with gem marketplace.

Or you know, they could do what EVE does with PLEX, as well as WildStar with C.R.E.D.D. (FFXIV is still better quality, and since it's a PVE Game, these things would make the game have more community.) if they need a name for an item, they can call it an Astral Aetheryte with the description "Blessed by the divines in the first astral era... this wondrous and proud aetheryte once stood tall, directing souls of all kind from the beyond into the world as new life. No one knows where it came from, it pre-dates all manufactured and allagan aetherytes, and is textured like the sea of stars. Some say, Hydaelyn herself came from this divine object." You could have a quest that unlocks the ability to use this system though (IE: Level 30) to make sure people who actually will want to play the game can use it and so that free trial people cannot use it among other things. Can also be used as a housing item.

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Originally Posted by Verlyn

Make a static if you're serious about progression.

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Not everyone has that option. Not as easy as you describe it to get 8 people together at a specific time in the day. Even if you make a static you can still end up with someone who doesn't have a base in skills because he/she bought all their wins. So you get them and have to replace them..you get another and same thing happens again. Unlikely you say but still possible.

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Originally Posted by ShinigamiZero

Not everyone has that option. Not as easy as you describe it to get 8 people together at a specific time in the day. Even if you make a static you can still end up with someone who doesn't have a base in skills because he/she bought all their wins. So you get them and have to replace them..you get another and same thing happens again. Unlikely you say but still possible.

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These are just excuses. If you're serious about progression, you'll make the time. Otherwise, your choice in who you run with is going to be limited. You'll have to deal with people who bought their wins with or without the advent of this wristlet.

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

You know, they could always sell Allagan Gold Pieces in the cash shop :P After all, GTAV Allows you to purchase money directly via real money. GW2 does it indirectly with gem marketplace.

Or you know, they could do what EVE does with PLEX, as well as WildStar with C.R.E.D.D. (FFXIV is still better quality, and since it's a PVE Game, these things would make the game have more community.)

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After what happened when one item was salable in game, a change to this sort of dynamic would have to be slow.
Needless to say, I'd probably avoid the forum for a few months because I'm not interested in reading all the whining anymore.

Boils down to some people wanting a value so they dislike the cash shop, and then when a way to make in game progress from out of game finances happens and say "I don't want my out of game circumstances* to dictate the speed at which I can make in game progress" other people respond with "lol don't care, invalid wrong opinion, cause I don't care". *Whether that be willingness and values, or ability.

Tell me why this bothers you so I can tell you I didn't really want to know about it. Also for a reason why being able to directly play the in game economy outside of game with money can be awful, just check out D3's AH before they closed it. D3 was obviously farther down the rabbit hole but it really affected players perspective on achievement, and its purpose ended up being its own point of death.

I suppose it is like cheat codes in a multiplayer game, and that you won't be able to always clearly know if they're using them or not - so screw it everyone cheats that is winning. "But buying gil with real money is not cheating when SE allows it" - like the p2w discussion that depends on perspective, I don't think being able to buy your power in a game is ok. Even if it allows players who want to buy the item with gil that is normally on a cash shop.

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Originally Posted by Hiruke

If you've got some compelling arguments on why RMT would actually be really bad in this case,

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One argument is that there is now a $/gil exchange rate.

Say a pair of wedding bands costs $40 or 20 mill gil (for argument's sake). If RMT can offer 20 mill gil for less than $40, it makes more sense to buy the gil from RMT directly (fears of account compromise/banning etc notwithstanding) than to buy the bands from SE. There's no real moral argument against it as SE are ok with you effectively buying gil as long as it is from them.

Thriving illicit RMT causes economy hyperinflation. Anyone who played XI circa 2005-2008/9 knows all about this. Scorpion Harnesses went from 1 mill to 25 mill+ in the space of months. At that point you had to grind for months to get that much gil or, (as many people did) bot your own gil or buy from RMT otherwise you would be left behind.

Now there are some big differences that could mitigate this: There are no 'must have' pieces in XIV that are available through gil only. Sure, the min-maxers use penta-melded crafted i110s, but they are optimal, not necessary.

One thing this game does have though, that XI didn't is a housing crisis. On Balmung I believe (someone can correct me if I am wrong) there are no medium houses available, only large. There are no plans to introduce new housing wards or plots until after 3.0. Right now it's a race to get the gil for a large house before they are all gone too. Now someone can get that gil indirectly through the cash shop. A regular player has little to now chance to get a house now on Balmung for at least 6 mo+. That's an impact.

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Originally Posted by Verlyn

You'll have to deal with people who bought their wins with or without the advent of this wristlet.

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So it is OK for the issue to be exacerbated? Pretty pathetic logic there...

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Originally Posted by Verlyn

These are just excuses. If you're serious about progression, you'll make the time. Otherwise, your choice in who you run with is going to be limited. You'll have to deal with people who bought their wins with or without the advent of this wristlet.

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Wrong they are not excuses. Not everyone has all the free time in the world like you seem to have. I've had my own static before, and clearly you seem to not have run your own. Replacing people is harder than you imply mainly because of time differences. Just because you seem to have no life doesn't mean everyone else doesn't.

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Originally Posted by ShinigamiZero

When you got someone that's in your coil group who shouldn't be there because he sold all those items for gil and bought all his wins... then ends up in your group and holds you back.. lets see what you have to think after that.

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You could say the same thing about people that farm for poetics for the poetic gear. People have been able to purchase gil from RMT's for a good while now and it really hasn't hurt the game that much, but the second that SE come up with a way to do the same thing everyone seems up in arms about it. Honestly I would rather support SE than some random RMT website that does who knows what with my money.

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Originally Posted by Kuolema

You could say the same thing about people that farm for poetic gear. People have been able to purchase gil from RMT's for a good while now and it really hasn't hurt the game that much, but the second that SE come up with a way to do the same thing everyone seems up in arms about it. Honestly I would rather support SE than some random RMT website that does who knows what with my money.

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1) How do you know RMT hasn't hurt the game? Do you know what the game would be like without RMT? Are you unaware of the mass Gil removal a lot of legitimate players faced due to RMT? Do you know how much they'd have charged for housing if RMT Gil wasn't in circulation?

2) SE didn't come up with this way to do the same. They've even outright told people not to do this. This is a case of SE making a mistake and letting players abuse it, just like the old Black Mage exploit for Garuda in 1.0. I'd expect something similar to the Salvage bans from duplicating gear in XI back in the day, but I really doubt SE will take such a hard stance on this.

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Originally Posted by Kuolema

You could say the same thing about people that farm for poetics for the poetic gear. People have been able to purchase gil from RMT's for a good while now and it really hasn't hurt the game that much, but the second that SE come up with a way to do the same thing everyone seems up in arms about it. Honestly I would rather support SE than some random RMT website that does who knows what with my money.

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You could cap your poetics without even trying by just doing expert roulette once a day. Not very time consuming. I rather not support the 'lesser of two evils' but an honorable company. FF11 did fine without that crap and is still going.

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Originally Posted by Verlyn

After what happened when one item was salable in game, a change to this sort of dynamic would have to be slow.
Needless to say, I'd probably avoid the forum for a few months because I'm not interested in reading all the whining anymore.

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Indeed. Happily playing Final Fantasy XIII-2 on PC. (And it's like, 80% Less "Hallway" than the first.)

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Originally Posted by Nalien

So it is OK for the issue to be exacerbated? Pretty pathetic logic there...

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The issue will not be exacerbated. I'd argue instead that it's not going to change anything at all. Bad players will be bad and no wristlet in this world will make them better or worse. Using them as a causation when there is only a correlation is terrible logic, if you want to go that route.

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Originally Posted by ShinigamiZero

Wrong they are not excuses. Not everyone has all the free time in the world like you seem to have. I've had my own static before, and clearly you seem to not have run your own. Replacing people is harder than you imply mainly because of time differences. Just because you seem to have no life doesn't mean everyone else doesn't.

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Incredible. I'm not even going to justify that mess with a response.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

1) How do you know RMT hasn't hurt the game? Do you know what the game would be like without RMT? Are you unaware of the mass Gil removal a lot of legitimate players faced due to RMT? Do you know how much they'd have charged for housing if RMT Gil wasn't in circulation?

2) SE didn't come up with this way to do the same. They've even outright told people not to do this. This is a case of SE making a mistake and letting players abuse it, just like the old Black Mage exploit for Garuda in 1.0. I'd expect something similar to the Salvage bans from duplicating gear in XI back in the day, but I really doubt SE will take such a hard stance on this.

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I could say how do you know that RMT has ruined the game? People will always find a way to exploit games and look for the easy way. It is just the fact of life.

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Originally Posted by Hiruke

Honestly, I'm not really sure why people are flipping out about people being able to sell promise wristlets for gil.

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I'm honestly curious as to why this whole thing is being blown out of proportion too. It's a fight of who has the loudest opinion and who can throw the most number of insults cramped into a single post at this point and it pretty much prevents actual discussion from taking place. Either people care too much, or care too little, or maybe just don't care. At this point, I can't be bothered anymore. I find it pretty interesting that the players are selling the Bracelets well below what the actual RMT are offering for the same amount. lol

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

I'm honestly curious as to why this whole thing is being blown out of proportion. It's a fight of who has the loudest opinion and who can throw the most number of insults cramped into a single post at this point and it pretty much prevents actual discussion from taking place. Either people care too much, or care too little, or maybe just don't care. At this point, I can't be bothered anymore. I find it pretty interesting that the players are selling the Bracelets well below what the actual RMT are offering for the same amount. lol

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Probably to sell them as fast as possible before Devs add "Untradable" flag to it.

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Originally Posted by ShinigamiZero

You could cap your poetics without even trying by just doing expert roulette once a day. Not very time consuming. I rather not support the 'lesser of two evils' but an honorable company. FF11 did fine without that crap and is still going.

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The premise is still the same. You can cap poetics buy the gear and upgrade it but just because you can do that doesn't mean you are really any good at the game or at coil so you will run into the same issue with someone "buying" gear from dungeon runs.

I never played 11 so i'm not going to comment on how good or bad it was but if the idea of the cash shop is so offensive to you why are you still playing 14 then?

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Originally Posted by Nalien

They've even outright told people not to do this.

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Oh please, they only did that so people would stop harassing them. You all literally had the first page of the general discussion covered with this nonsense.

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

Probably to sell them as fast as possible before Devs add "Untradable" flag to it.

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Nah, it isn't that. Players have been selling them below RMT prices for a while now, even before we got an official response on the matter.

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Originally Posted by Verlyn

The issue will not be exacerbated.

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Whether you want to admit it or not, having a "legitimate" source of exchanging real money for Gil is going to exacerbate all Gil Buying related issues. Win buying is one of those issues.

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Originally Posted by Kuolema

I could say how do you know that RMT has ruined the game?

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Ruined for you or me? No. Ruined for the people who quit because Gil Buyers bought their goods with RMTs Gil and SE had to remove that Gil from circulation? Certainly.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

Whether you want to admit it or not, having a "legitimate" source of exchanging real money for Gil is going to exacerbate all Gil Buying related issues. Win buying is one of those issues.



Ruined for you or me? No. Ruined for the people who quit because Gil Buyers bought their goods with RMTs Gil and SE had to remove that Gil from circulation? Certainly.

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Then SE should have been cracking down on the RMT sellers and the bots so it was their fault. SE should have offered some sort of compensation to the players that lost out. Whether or not they did I don't know because that happened before I started playing.

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

Nah, it isn't that. Players have been selling them below RMT prices for a while now, even before we got an official response on the matter.*depending on your server

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Fixed that for ya.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

Whether you want to admit it or not, having a "legitimate" source of exchanging real money for Gil is going to exacerbate all Gil Buying related issues. Win buying is one of those issues.

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Win buying has little to do with Gil buying. Again, correlation != causation. You could argue this 'bad must= bought wins' thing is also a case of this same poor logic.

You are perfectly capable of booting people out of your static if they're not performing. Don't have a static? Then your choice is limited to whatever is available at the time. That is reality. Anything else pushing the wristlets as the Cause of All That Is Doom and Gloom for FFXIV, is ridiculous fear-mongering as I doubt you've done the research as to exactly how this is affecting the game (It'd be kind of hard to: You don't have any data!).

The OP's point hits it right on the nail, beautifully written. My only question now is if I were to go sell the eternal bond item would I then get banned later by them just cause they asked we not do this?

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

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

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

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I'm mostly baffled by the hypocrisy in this whole debacle if anything.

RMTs sell gil illegitimately? "It's expected", "you see it in every game, just ignore it", "evil, but not the end of the world".

SE has one tiny cash shop item that can legitimately be traded for gil? An item they anticipated would end up getting sold by people? "Outrageous", "P2W", "Coil is ruined FOREVER", "the economy is done for", "DOWN WITH THE CASH SHOP".

(And yes, I'm aware that there's plenty of people equally sickened by both.)

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Originally Posted by dice137

I'm mostly baffled by the hypocrisy in this whole debacle if anything.

RMTs sell gil illegitimately? "It's expected", "you see it in every game, just ignore it", "evil, but not the end of the world".

SE has one tiny cash shop item that can legitimately be traded for gil? An item they anticipated would end up getting sold by people? "Outrageous", "P2W", "Coil is ruined FOREVER", "the economy is done for", "DOWN WITH THE CASH SHOP".

(And yes, I'm aware that there's plenty of people equally sickened by both.)

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SE has complete control over one, and very limited control over the other. RMT is a fact of life you simply have to deal with, no matter how hard SE tries.

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Originally Posted by Fuma

The OP's point hits it right on the nail, beautifully written. My only question now is if I were to go sell the eternal bond item would I then get banned later by them just cause they asked we not do this?

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A better question would be; why you would entertain the idea of doing so after being explicitly asked not to...? To answer though, probably best not to just in case. You never know...

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Originally Posted by dice137

snippity snipple snips

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1 bad thing + 1 bad thing = 2 bad things. Not still 1 bad thing.

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Originally Posted by Aegis

One thing this game does have though, that XI didn't is a housing crisis. ...

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This right here was my main issue, because it is related directly to how quickly you can obtain enough gil and is a one time purchase that locks others out.

OP brings up a rather fascinating point. I didn't actually think of that. I mean, the items on the cash shop should all absolutely still be 100% cosmetic options of course, but transforming the cash shop into a marketplace so that wealthy in-game players can buy cash shop items without paying a cent and giving that gil to people who can afford cash shop items IRL, but are short on cash? I mean, it sounds worth experimentation. Not direct money-to-gil-to-money or anything like that, this isn't EVE Online. But... it's something to ponder.

To OP

People who hates the idea of having cash shop item can be sold to another player, are afraid of that real-life economy will end up dictating the game's economy in different ways. And in a lot of other games with this kind of economy system, are usually inflated to no ends, because honestly speaking if you got a well paying job, you can earn way much more real life money to buy gil compared to you trying to earn gil all day long. So if you actually think about it, that can actually get worrisome for some people. I had the same thought as you do in the past, long before ffxiv released, but when I realize how much of an impact that can potentially make, the economy already went to hell. We will see eventually, but there shouldn't be any immediate effects yet, we will all realize it when it's too late.

Greetings!

As has been stated in a prior post (link), we do not wish for these items to be exchanged in-game for gil and, as such, we will be closing this thread.

LGM Enkrateia