What is stopping a person from having 40 odd alts patch camping the start location, running a simple bot progam/mirror to unlock it while running a multi boxing with all the accounts and buying an entire ward, and flipping them for 999 mil a pop.
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What is stopping a person from having 40 odd alts patch camping the start location, running a simple bot progam/mirror to unlock it while running a multi boxing with all the accounts and buying an entire ward, and flipping them for 999 mil a pop.
Because who would pay another player 999 mil to abandon a plot and then *still* have to sit there themselves click-camping the sign post for hours because of the random timer, with a chance to lose it to someone else?
Hello?
Sanity, maybe? When Shirogane dropped it was not swarmed with bots afaik, and the last time they added wards it was limited to relocations and free companies to start. Someone running 40 bots to buy an entire ward should be miles off anyone’s radar.
I reckon it'd be similar to how they did Shirogane, honestly. And if it's tied to the Restoration, which in turn is tied to the SERVER progress and isn't flipped on all at once, there's not a definite 'hey it's camping time' moment.
1) Multiboxing 40 alts would require 40 systems the game could run on.
2) To buy a house you still need to have certain requirements to fullfill, like reaching level 50 and being a second lieutenant in one of the GCs. They would need to level 40 alts to 50 AND do all that GC-stuff (I doubt that buying jump potions would be worth the investment)
3) Other people - no matter how good that persons scrpits are, I'd imagine they'd end up in a queue just like everyone else so its not a given that all 40 alts will get logged in in time.
4) The question: Can 40 alts even be created on the server in question? Some servers are after all simply completly locked for character creation or only have some tiny windows to allow for a few characters being created. Lots of the bots we're seeing atm on the EU-servers are being created on the new ones and use the world travel to come over, because they just cant create characters on the popular servers.
5) To make 40 alts on one servers you need to buy the game 5 times and pay 5 subscriptions... not impossible, obviously, and I suppose we all know of someone doing that to game the housing market, but still not a very likely scenario.
I'll give you the benefit to assume your post was a bit hyperbolic, so to answer the underlying question: Will the housing market be gamed? - Sure, to a degree, probably. Globaly speaking the odd plot will go to someone who technically shouldnt have that plot - like a shell-FC. But log in queues, restrictions on character creation and who can even buy land are making a scenario you described pretty unlikely...
new housing? did I miss anything?
There are people in some less reputable countries who do this kind of stuff for a living. Having 40 systems to run copies of the game on is something many of them already have at their disposal. As far as copies of the game go, many of these guys rely on using compromised accounts - they're not the ones paying for them.
However...
Every time I've heard stories about somebody buying up an entire ward, it's about somebody who's just way too good at making gil in this game, using FCs or what-not with his own alts to do it. They often go to "FFXIV real estate" sites and offer to sell their stuff for ridiculously high prices. These aren't some sweatshop bots - these are guys with way too much free time on their hands, who may or may not be participating in small-time RMT.
My guess is the real big-time botters simply have no interest in the FFXIV housing market.
I don't quite understand why players buy houses off other players for hundreds of millions. Since it isn't covered by the ToS, isn't it perfectly legal for the seller to just take your money and run? Or am I missing something?
1: I run up to 6 clients on a single computer without even using virtualization. Sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about.
2: Leveling up an FC to rank 6 is a question of minutes if you know what you are doing. Things aren't improving for you.
3: The only accurate thing you've said.
4: There's 7 congested servers out of 68. Balmung, Gilgamesh, Mateus... all open...
5: You think it isn't likely for someone to spend less than 100$ per month for a hobby? lmfao
Here's a chance to redeem yourself. Easy question. What are the current restriction regarding FC housing on a server basis?
Scamming is against the ToS.
And only 1 character can be log in at a time. So in this scenario it will require the person to log in, buy a house, log out, get back into the queue (because you can bet there will be queue when housing drop), log in again, rinse and repeat 7 times. If you think that would somehow favor the players in question, think again.
The problem with hyperbolic arguments is it treats every variables as independence all push to the extreme, but in reality it doesn't happen. So I believe this is the best answer so far in this thread:
Not that I'm saying it will happen but just wanted to say people shouldn't think it's that weird to spend LOADs of money on a game, we hear about this all the time for mobile games- thousands of dollars in a month. I personally know people who almost regularly spend around a hundred every month in this game's cash shop (they buy all the things lol).
Would it really be that weird that of all the players in a data center to have at least one person with multiple accounts (and multibox)? Now getting them all herded into the housing ahead of all the other players trying to get in would be quite the challenge lol.. but I think it's a bit unrealistic to think there is not multiple people in this game who own and operate multiple accounts. And of those few, some who are able to muster means to manage them at least half decently as a unit (clearly we've bots that can do that on a very large scale).
I mean we've basically got someone coming out and saying as much (wealthy in game, willing to spend real cash, many accounts, multi-house owner). Certainly some challenges in racing people with 40 characters under your belt but where there is a will there may be a way (bots, getting friends to help out, throwing 40 characters at the queue wall and at least getting 3 through lol, etc).
Maybe the whole 999 mil thing is a bit of a steep price lol but some people play this game so much, pay for things with their own money so much, that they've nothing to do but own houses like some king of monopoly slapping hotels down just because they can. Also while selling a house to someone who doesn't own a house wont work very well you can sell a house to a person who owns a shell house (which is what a lot of people do and recommend anyways even if you're not buying from a player, I see shell house frequently recommended as a way to move around the placard system). Shell housing = buying a house for the purpose of using it to relocate and not because you actually want that particular plot, this goes around the placard. Also you can use FC to sort of pass them around. (IIRC depending on how you do the above you can get in trouble in game, but I'm fairly certain the people who do the above probably are going to use discord or something).
So I guess I think it's not as dark as some people fear but not nearly as bright as some people are suggesting- at least I think that lol.
Thank you guys for the input, I was just curious as the difficulty. I really see no end game to it unless you charged that 999mil for the housing then flipped it to a RMT place for 50 cents a mil. I am not promoting this in any way shape or form I'm just thinking about how less savory people may game the system, how you can protect yourself from this and maybe raise awareness.