An idea to combat RMT...

Just a thought, and it only crossed my mind as back when I had a PC I played WOW for a little bit, but what if SE made it available to buy Gil through the moogle station? I know Blizzrd implemented a feature where you could buy a token and then sell it on the market for in game gold. Not sure if it stopped the RMT spam or not but SE’s idea of combating RMT isn’t working!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kelani

Just a thought, and it only crossed my mind as back when I had a PC I played WOW for a little bit, but what if SE made it available to buy Gil through the moogle station? I know Blizzrd implemented a feature where you could buy a token and then sell it on the market for in game gold. Not sure if it stopped the RMT spam or not but SE’s idea of combating RMT isn’t working!

---

That is ... RMT.

Real Money Trade, use your Real Money to buy Ingame Items.

Depends on what you think is a problem with RMT.

If you are against RMT because you think real money should not be exchangeable for in-game money, then selling gil on the Mog Station makes the situation worse.

If you are against RMT because of account theft, spam and bots, then Mog Station needs to sell gil at a lower price than RMT vendors, which creates inflation, and you would need gil sinks to counter-act that inflation, only to create more incentive for players to buy gil, i.e. more inflation.

It seems like you're the latter; how would you respond to the inflation that comes with official sanction on buying gil for real money?

The problem I have with that is the game's econ. The game's econ is centered around housing, minions, and glams, not combat gear. With the housing shortage, and no the new area is not enough, I feel it would cause more problems with the game's econ then it helps with fighting RMT.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zfz

Depends on what you think is a problem with RMT.
It seems like you're the latter; how would you respond to the inflation that comes with official sanction on buying gil for real money?

---

That would be a non-issue if there was no extreme housing shortage.

How about no? It's RMT no matter how you spin it, just a matter of SE controlling the market instead of these shady sellers. I don't like the idea either way. SE's already money hungry enough. And their approach has actually been working quite nicely since the right click > report RMT function was implemented. I'm wondering if you were even around when they were sending out tells to the whole server, usually at least 3-4 per minute in my chat log alone. That has stopped entirely. Only place I've seen them is around market boards, and they can be reported too.

No thanks, the last thing we need is for this game to go pay to win and selling gil would be the first step down that slippery slope. Not to mention destroying the economy.

Also RMT pay subs too. SE managed to pretty much get rid of them on FFXI with filters built into the chat, so I see no reason they can't do the same here. Obviously they have no desire to.

What really amazes me is anyone needing to buy gil when it's so ridiculously easy to make.

Well it was just an idea based on what I saw in WOW. I agree that SE like money, what company doesn’t? It’s not the thought of buying Gil I’m opposed to but the idea of people selling it illegally - if it was made legal to purchase Gil through SE directly surely that would combat some of the spam you see. I can’t rightly say that RMT traders pay for a sub, not with the way the trial accounts work now - it’s more than likely that the reason the tells have stopped is because they are using trial accounts and just spamming the say, shout and novice network. Obviously, I wouldn’t purchase Gil illegally anyway, I’m not desperate for it or anything like that, it was just something I was thinking about after reporting about 5 people on the row earlier tonight, and wondered what others thought on it :)

No game I've ever played that has an official way to purchase in-game currency for cash has seen a reduction or elimination of 3rd party rmt spamming. In-game inflation does tend to go up though.

this has been tossed around on this board before, here's the latest for you to read : http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...no-Plex-system
I'm pretty sure this will end up with the same arguments being thrown back and forth.

Easier way would be to have trial accounts unable to chat whatsoever and folks reported RMT to be teleported to a ingame jail.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zfz

If you are against RMT because of account theft, spam and bots, then Mog Station needs to sell gil at a lower price than RMT vendors, which creates inflation, and you would need gil sinks to counter-act that inflation, only to create more incentive for players to buy gil, i.e. more inflation.

---

There's no inflation in the token model. You buy a subscription token for real money, then sell that token for gil in game to someone else. That someone else gets to pay for the game with in game currency, but SE still gets the money from the original purchaser, and the original purchaser gets their gil.

This only works if the game has an infinite free trial/non-premium status though. You can't exchange tokens and activate the account without logging into a free account.

Anyway, there are enough threads of the doomsdayers saying it would destroy the game because they haven't seen how successful it is in other games without being P2W (unless you think WoW is P2W). Better not to beat this dead horse again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Clicked

There's no inflation in the token model. You buy a subscription token for real money, then sell that token for gil in game to someone else. That someone else gets to pay for the game with in game currency, but SE still gets the money from the original purchaser, and the original purchaser gets their gil.

This only works if the game has an infinite free trial/non-premium status though. You can't exchange tokens and activate the account without logging into a free account.

Anyway, there are enough threads of the doomsdayers saying it would destroy the game because they haven't seen how successful it is in other games without being P2W (unless you think WoW is P2W). Better not to beat this dead horse again.

---

Except the inflation has risen significantly in WoW as a result of their "tokens", it just took some time to worm its way into the economy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DeaconMoore

No game I've ever played that has an official way to purchase in-game currency for cash has seen a reduction or elimination of 3rd party rmt spamming. In-game inflation does tend to go up though.

---

In which game do game tokens cause inflation? They do not create in game money out of thin air.

Also, this absolutely does reduce RMT's incentive to sell currency because most people will be willing to pay more for official currency than risk getting banned for buying the fake stuff.

Apologies I’d not realised there were previous threads with regards to this and yes I did mean buying a game time token like WOW offers :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Except the inflation has risen significantly in WoW as a result of their "tokens", it just took some time to worm its way into the economy.

---

Care to explain the mechanism of inflation then? Correlation is not causation. WoW (and all health economies) have inflation over time. It encourages people to spend money rather than horde it. In WoW's case, there are very few gold sinks. It's totally unrelated and has been happening since Burning Crusade when dailies became very popular. Sound kinda familiar?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kelani

Apologies I’d not realised there were previous threads with regards to this and yes I did mean buying a game time token like WOW offers :)

---

No apologies necessary, I am merely informing. The old thread is dead and forgotten, refocusing attention on this possible solution is good =]

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Clicked

There's no inflation in the token model. You buy a subscription token for real money, then sell that token for gil in game tosomeone else. That someone else gets to pay for the game with in game currency, but SE still gets the money from the original purchaser, and the original purchaser gets their gil.

This only works if the game has an infinite free trial/non-premium status though. You can't exchange tokens and activate the account without logging into a free account.

Anyway, there are enough threads of the doomsdayers saying it would destroy the game because they haven't seen how successful it is in other games without being P2W (unless you think WoW is P2W). Better not to beat this dead horse again.

---

You are right in the idea of it does not make more gil, this is true, but that is not what leads to inflation.

What leads to inflation is the people with stockpiles of gil has a use for it suddenly, and the people with low gil would tend to actually use it. Since it is throwing more gil in circulation, that is what leads to inflation. (inflation is not necessary bad, btw, it is hyper inflation that is bad and the thing you want to avoid)

That alone is not a big issue though, the problem in making that system is throwing it in with a market with an extreme housing shortage. Most of the gil exchanged is housing, housing items, and glams. Because this game does not handle housing well, it would create more problems with housing. It has nothing to do with being a "doomdayer" DO THOSE GAMES HAVE EXTREME HOUSING ISSUES?!?!?!?! no? my point is well founded then. I can penta meld a job in full 320 gear cheaper then what I spent on 2 cherry trees, for example, with the first overmeld being a VI) Some fences costs even more then that, just a fence, and that leaves out spending 1 M+ in picture frames, 400k ish for a mailbox, and other things.

It would cause TOO MUCH of inflation in regards of 3rd party communication trade of second hand housing trading and housing items.

Basically they need to overhaul and fix the housing situation to fit this in the game, otherwise it causes too much problems, the econ of this game is not great. Because of high burn out of gear and replace, the encon is pretty dead after a few months after patch, SE needs a more substantiate model in general, and not a burst one. The reason for this is that they need to keep making new content too quickly from it, they really need some parallel progress concepts in this game. Fix that, and this idea will have room to exist in this game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Clicked

This only works if the game has an infinite free trial/non-premium status though. You can't exchange tokens and activate the account without logging into a free account.

---

This can work very well with "paid" accounts too. All it needs to do is add time to the account, and the system being set to prolong subscription when the number of days goes down to 7, let's say, instead of once every month. Voila. If you manage to buy yourself a token, you get "free" play, if not, then you still will pay to have access to the "premium" content that is not included in free trial. If you don't have recurring payment, then you would simply have to pay manually to unlock some time to try and get another token. Or an out-of-game "market board" could be made where players can exchange stuff to earn enough gil and buy a token without having access to the account. I mean, this game have a LOT of web-based databases. I can see my character, their gear and what not without ever logging into game. Such a market board would be easy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Clicked

Anyway, there are enough threads of the doomsdayers saying it would destroy the game because they haven't seen how successful it is in other games without being P2W (unless you think WoW is P2W). Better not to beat this dead horse again.

---

To be honest, it does have an inflation-increasing effect, but it's not direct. It would simply greatly incentivize gaining gil, all the while focusing loads of money in the hands of few people (the sellers). For rarer items, "few" is more than enough. The rare items prices would significantly go up into the air because there would be those rich players that have enough to pay for them, and buy all of them. The more common items would go up in price as well, but because there was more gil around since more people would farm for it specifically...and get some excess here or there.

Neither of these problems is unsolvable by suitable gold sinks though...but I don't remember a single game that would have gold sinks that are suitable...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Clicked

In which game do game tokens cause inflation? They do not create in game money out of thin air.

Also, this absolutely does reduce RMT's incentive to sell currency because most people will be willing to pay more for official currency than risk getting banned for buying the fake stuff.

---

All of them. Inflation via usage. It takes money out of the pockets of people hoarding it and puts it in the pockets of those buying it to spend. It further encourages farming for the goal of generating funds and as more people are out farming and exchanging the currency people start jacking prices up to take advantage.

It doesn't discourage RMT sellers, they still make money doing it. The only thing that stops the RMT sellers is the shutdown of the game. It does encourage people to start buying currency that wouldn't otherwise though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zarabeth

No thanks, the last thing we need is for this game to go pay to win and selling gil would be the first step down that slippery slope. Not to mention destroying the economy.

Also RMT pay subs too. SE managed to pretty much get rid of them on FFXI with filters built into the chat, so I see no reason they can't do the same here. Obviously they have no desire to.

What really amazes me is anyone needing to buy gil when it's so ridiculously easy to make.

---

rmt do not pay subs. they use stolen accounts and credit cards. SE bans rmt more then anything. ff11 saw over 3mil rmt ban with 3billion takem out of circulation, the chat filters are in place just rmt figure ways around it.

So someone can buy a big mansion, expensive glamours, expensive mounts and be rich ingame, by trading (buy token, sell it for gil) money ----> gil via SE? Isnt this a form of P2W?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Laerune

So someone can buy a big mansion, expensive glamours, expensive mounts and be rich ingame, by trading (buy token, sell it for gil) money ----> gil via SE? Isnt this a form of P2W?

---

Not really. Someone can trade a token used for buying gametime that costs a fixed price to another player for an amount of Gil. Using gil you CAN acquire a house (if there's one available), glamours, mounts and gear. None of which affect another gamers experience negatively. YOu might argue you can buy crafted gear that's better than anothers, but as high tier gear is not required for any endgame content and all can be acquired through investing in gameplay, there really is no limitation you're surpassing with money.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Laerune

So someone can buy a big mansion, expensive glamours, expensive mounts and be rich ingame, by trading (buy token, sell it for gil) money ----> gil via SE? Isnt this a form of P2W?

---

No because you can get all the same stuff if you earn the gil in game. P2W would be like if there were a cash shop selling ilvl 350 gear in it even though the best gear in game is 340. But P2W means literally anything you use your credit card for nowadays for some reason. A TON of people now believe FFXIV is P2W because it's sub based. This is NOT what P2W meant back when the acronym started being used.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Snow_Princess

What leads to inflation is the people with stockpiles of gil has a use for it suddenly, and the people with low gil would tend to actually use it. Since it is throwing more gil in circulation, that is what leads to inflation. (inflation is not necessary bad, btw, it is hyper inflation that is bad and the thing you want to avoid)

That alone is not a big issue though, the problem in making that system is throwing it in with a market with an extreme housing shortage. Most of the gil exchanged is housing, housing items, and glams. Because this game does not handle housing well, it would create more problems with housing. It has nothing to do with being a "doomdayer" DO THOSE GAMES HAVE EXTREME HOUSING ISSUES?!?!?!?! no? my point is well founded then. I can penta meld a job in full 320 gear cheaper then what I spent on 2 cherry trees, for example, with the first overmeld being a VI) Some fences costs even more then that, just a fence, and that leaves out spending 1 M+ in picture frames, 400k ish for a mailbox, and other things.

It would cause TOO MUCH of inflation in regards of 3rd party communication trade of second hand housing trading and housing items.

---

That's very true. I don't think having more money exchanging hands would be a bad thing but for the fact that we don't have enough housing for the demand (and it seems we never will). That has to be solved first.

Ideally what they'd do is after a RMT bot gets reported 3 times, it gets sent to the jail where it can talk to the wall.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BigRed5392

rmt do not pay subs. they use stolen accounts and credit cards. SE bans rmt more then anything. ff11 saw over 3mil rmt ban with 3billion takem out of circulation, the chat filters are in place just rmt figure ways around it.

---

I know I played ffxi for over 7 years. And they used the chat filters to stop rmt on ALL chat channels not just tells as they have done in ffxiv. They can stop the rmt if they wish.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Laerune

So someone can buy a big mansion, expensive glamours, expensive mounts and be rich ingame, by trading (buy token, sell it for gil) money ----> gil via SE? Isnt this a form of P2W?

---

Yes, it's the definition of pay to win!!! Right now the best gear in the game is crafted and must be bought on the marketboard for non crafters. Food is the same, as are certain potions, many gears, etc. So, being able to buy gil (or tokens to sell for gil) is most definitely pay to win. Paying for gil means pretty much anything on the marketboard is yours for real money instead of having to earn it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zarabeth

Yes, it's the definition of pay to win!!! Right now the best gear in the game is crafted and must be bought on the marketboard for non crafters. Food is the same, as are certain potions, many gears, etc. So, being able to buy gil (or tokens to sell for gil) is most definitely pay to win. Paying for gil means pretty much anything on the marketboard is yours for real money instead of having to earn it.

---

.. so where do you get real money for free?.. Cause I gotta put in hours for mine.

And no, that is NOT the definition. You get no advantage to "beat" other players. Someone with the time to put in the game can make just as much currency and purchase the same upgrades. "Pay to win" is about having an unfair advantage (usually PVP, such as having weapons you can use against people that are ONLY available for real money) or having a "paywall" that cannot be surmounted without paying real money, not about paying money INSTEAD of putting in time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Krotoan

And no, that is NOT the definition. You get no advantage to "beat" other players. Someone with the time to put in the game can make just as much currency and purchase the same upgrades. "Pay to win" is about having an unfair advantage (usually PVP, such as having weapons you can use against people that are ONLY available for real money) or having a "paywall" that cannot be surmounted without paying real money, not about paying money INSTEAD of putting in time.

---

Actually, "P2W" is as it sounds. A game where a person can literally buy their way into the top tiers. It's not like it's necessary for them to be strictly superior to the long-playing, elite gamers. That is simply an extreme version of it. It's enough that they can become elite entirely based on their real-life purchases. If the top-end gear, pots, food and what not were all sold for real life money, even though you can get them in game, it still would be technically a "pay to win" game. Cause you "bought" your superiority over majority of the population.

That being said, it would NOT be the case in Final Fantasy XIV. The effort required to get the gear that can be bought is "manageable", while it is significantly inferior to things that are gotten only in game. It's entirely possible to NEVER spend a single gil or level ANY of the crafter classes. Never to touch any gear that can be sold. And still end up with the best character in the game. On the contrary, a person could have unlimited supply of gil and still be sub-par, just because there's an unbreakable wall. The best gear cannot be bought with gil.

The best way to combat RMT would be to implement countermeasures against the gil farming bots.

The amount of gil they gain on a daily basis is absurd, as they can run through the entire MSQ in less then a day which nets them a few million per character and with 20+ bots active simultaneously per server most of the time...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kikix12

Actually, "P2W" is as it sounds. A game where a person can literally buy their way into the top tiers. It's not like it's necessary for them to be strictly superior to the long-playing, elite gamers. That is simply an extreme version of it. It's enough that they can become elite entirely based on their real-life purchases. If the top-end gear, pots, food and what not were all sold for real life money, even though you can get them in game, it still would be technically a "pay to win" game. Cause you "bought" your superiority over majority of the population.

---

did you.. just..
http://i.imgur.com/sUiarl4.jpg


arguably "P2W" be will subjective to the individual you ask. As I experienced it as it was developing it was used almost exclusively when referring to games you HAD to spend money on and slowly started to involve being "better" than others quickly. .. but as I've said it's subjective.

people will argue with you that the best gear IS the crafted stuff currently, fully overmelded (till raid release at least). BUT, as you have said, there is no wall to surmount . Gil is freely available to all players at an accessible rate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DeaconMoore

No game I've ever played that has an official way to purchase in-game currency for cash has seen a reduction or elimination of 3rd party rmt spamming. In-game inflation does tend to go up though.

---

In truth, EverQuest has at least gotten rid of plat sellers when implementing the ability to use coins gotten from subscribing and giving them to a merchant to bu a bag of plat. EverQuest2 has tokens one can buy with real money, but also can trade them on the broker for in game plat. This has helped with RMT chat though there still are bot armies.

Who knows, a token could work. /shrugs