The account suspensions and gil reset leave a black mark on this game.

[OldGeezer]

You’re presuming here that the majority of the gil supply were illicit, do you have anything to back up that assertion? Wild speculation is literally part of every new MMO/server launch, is every one of those inflated by RMT?

All the stories are "I was the first crafter/gatherer on a new server and made millions", not I'm a a level 35 crafter with 400k, got suspended, and relogged with only 4k to my name. Where are these victims of this atrocity? Considering most new people who make 50 only have around 250k to their name, they can't buy the items that went for 100k-1mill+. Only the gill buyers could.

[Lisotte]

All the stories are "I was the first crafter/gatherer on a new server and made millions", not I'm a a level 35 crafter with 400k, got suspended, and relogged with only 4k to my name. Where are these victims of this atrocity? Considering most new people who make 50 only have around 250k to their name, they can't buy the items that went for 100k-1mill+. Only the gill buyers could.

Or the people selling the mats to make those expensive items. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to craft those expensive items? Crafters are making a small percentage of actual profit on those items.

[OldGeezer]

Or the people selling the mats to make those expensive items. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to craft those expensive items? Crafters are making a small percentage of actual profit on those items.

You mean the fella who spent 300k on mats and sold the +2 star item on the marker for 1.25 million? Yeah, 400% markup is peanuts. The real question is does it cost them that much for the same materials now that markets have stabilized? I'm betting their costs have gone down significantly.

I only have a level 30 Botanist and made all my money, from day one early release onward, selling mats and I woke up this a.m. to a third of my gil gone.....Not Millions or anything mind you, not even close but they still took a third of my gil. I find it VERY hard to believe this was anything other than a base number they picked, otherwise the ammount taken back would reflect (and this possible but very unlikely since other people need mats as well) that the largest percentage of sales I made were to RMT....

Quite frankly, if they want to go so far as to push an honest player away from the game, I suggest instead they hire more people to deal with RMT or this will be an ongoing likelyhood of continued gill reduction and that's why I have no interest in playing. I don't want to work against RMT/Bots AND SE!

Now this is a development. Not everyone was hit with the 90% brush. Vetting was done to accounts. Not to the extent that innocent players would want, but I doubt SE assigned enough resources to properly comb though the tens of millions of AH transaction that occured. The plot thickens.

[Nica]

All the stories are "I was the first crafter/gatherer on a new server and made millions", not I'm a a level 35 crafter with 400k, got suspended, and relogged with only 4k to my name. Where are these victims of this atrocity?

It’s generally not a good idea to use anecdotal evidence, much less assumptions drawn from said anecdotal evidence, as the basis of one’s argument, especially when you’re making statements that presumes knowledge of hard data.

The commonly accepted norm for forum participation is what, around/less than 10% of the total playerbase? Forming a sweeping conclusion based on a few forum posts is like interviewing 2 guys from France and decide what all Europeans are like. While you can certainly do so, your conclusion is not very likely to be accurate.

Considering most new people who make 50 only have around 250k to their name, they can't buy the items that went for 100k-1mill+. Only the gill buyers could.

You’re presuming that the vast majority of the player base did not engage in any activity other than the main story quests. Now think about that for a second.

Are you really going to claim that the vast majority of new players did not do the following:

Guildhests; Guild/GC leves; gathering; crafting

You mean the fella who spent 300k on mats and sold the +2 star item on the marker for 1.25 million? Yeah, 400% markup is peanuts. The real question is does it cost them that much for the same materials now that markets have stabilized? I'm betting their costs have gone down significantly.

I don’t know about your server, but for your number to work out, tomestones item on your server would have to cost less than 33k each, which would make people who spend 1.25mil for them quite, well, not particularly smart. This is assuming you are talking about the 9 item recipes, as the 18 item recipes naturally costs twice as much in materials. Still not a smart buy at 1.25mil, but less offensively so.

That being said, I assume those 1.25mil are for HQ version, which then also warrants extra premium, especially on new servers where crafters that are skilled across multiple disciplines would be less common than on legacy servers.

FYI, tomestone items on my server is around 60-70k these days, and HQ 9 item recipe items are selling for around 1mil or so.

Now this is a development. Not everyone was hit with the 90% brush. Vetting was done to accounts. Not to the extent that innocent players would want, but I doubt SE assigned enough resources to properly comb though the tens of millions of AH transaction that occured. The plot thickens.

Wait, you have no faith in all the other posters who claims they were wrongfully hit by SE, but you have no problem buying into this one?

[OldGeezer]

Snip

Data? What data. All we have are people's testamonials on how they're victims.

snip

Once again since SE hasn't opened up it books all we have is the statements of 2 French guys,.

Snip

You gotta draw the line somwhere. Storyline money for those who powergrinded to 50 in 3 days is about as accurate as you're gonna gert for the average player. Still short of 1 million.

Wait, you have no faith in all the other posters who claims they were wrongfully hit by SE, but you have no problem buying into this one?

I hold all testamonials at face value. But people made wild claims that SE didn't vet accounts to separate innocent transactions from Gil buyers. That everyone was hit with the 90% gil wipe brush. This latest testamonial (if true) says that's not the case. That vetting was done to individual accounts. It's worth taking notice before people goto Japan with their fires and pitchforks

[Nica]

Data? What data. All we have are people's testamonials on how they're victims.

Once again since SE hasn't opened up it books all we have is the statements of 2 French guys.

That’s exactly my point, but what some people doesn’t seem to realize is that it goes both ways.

I hold all testamonials at face value.

That’s certainly not the impression I’m getting, for example, the rest of your post that follows:

But people made wild claims that SE didn't vet accounts to separate innocent transactions from Gil buyers. That everyone was hit with the 90% gil wipe brush. This latest testamonial (if true) says that's not the case. That vetting was done to individual accounts. It's worth taking notice before people goto Japan with their fires and pitchforks

Why are the multiple claims that vetting wasn’t done wild, but a single claim that may suggest otherwise not? Why is applying the former to all suspended accounts worded negatively, yet applying the latter to all suspended accounts something you have no issue with?

You may hold all testimonials at face value, but it sure seems like you think some are of the $1 variety and others $100.

Regardless, I don’t really care much about who is and isn’t actually guilty. Generally speaking many will turn out to be guilty, while a few will be vindicated. My issue is primarily with the way SE has handled this, especially given their less-than-sterling record in the past.

You gotta draw the line somwhere. Storyline money for those who powergrinded to 50 in 3 days is about as accurate as you're gonna gert for the average player. Still short of 1 million.

Do not confuse the arbitrary line that you’re drawing based on your rather limited view/criteria as an actual accurate representative value.

Why are you using the income from questing from 1-50 as the only source of income? Taking only one while ignoring everything else is about as far as you can get from getting an accurate picture. It’s like trying to determine how good a quarterback is by looking only at how many yards he threw, or a baseball player by how many RBI he has.

[KevinC]

snip

I sold mining mats at no higher than 13k each (or like 6 HQ ds ores for 20k for HQ). I presume someone spending 36k for his relic mats is encouraging RMT?

Please tell me more about your limitless logic. I really think your high intellect would benefit this whole community.

[YuriRamona]

You mean the fella who spent 300k on mats and sold the +2 star item on the marker for 1.25 million? Yeah, 400% markup is peanuts. The real question is does it cost them that much for the same materials now that markets have stabilized? I'm betting their costs have gone down significantly.

Oh, then maybe the crafter should sell the equipment for only a 20% markup then. Wait, what's that? The item sells faster when you price it lower? You don't say! Well, maybe the crafter will just put up another... oh wow! It sold already! It's almost as if there's some kind of economic principle that suggests lower price results in an increased volume of sale... Of course, there are exceptions, such as when the economy is receding or currency is deflating (not too sure if that's the case in Eorzea, can you help me out here?)

Oh, and now that all those ingredients for the materials are being gobbled up at such a fast pace, there's an incentive for gatherers and suppliers to put more goods on the market... Wow, it's almost as if it's impossible to avoid incredible profits when there's inflated gil flowing through the economy and no mechanism whatsoever for crafters/suppliers to be able to collectively re-set prices and mark down items besides exiting the market and waiting out... (I mean, it's not like RMT won't get the message and also back out of the market, and wait for prices to settle to a reasonable level. If nothing else, RMT abhor abusing the system for short-term gain.)

/sarcasm

[scarebearz]

You mean the fella who spent 300k on mats and sold the +2 star item on the marker for 1.25 million? Yeah, 400% markup is peanuts. The real question is does it cost them that much for the same materials now that markets have stabilized? I'm betting their costs have gone down significantly.

It was me, but it was not 300k, it was 400k in tomb mats if i remember and the other mats I provided, so you can call it 450k back then.

I had put this on the market for 999k, but a friend who is lvl 50 said that is too cheap (I was only a lvl 39 BLM, due to crafting), so it went up for 1.25mil, as I could always come down if it does not sell and as a BLM I'd have used it at lvl 50 if I could not sell it.

This was back when it was a lot harder for people to HQ a 2-star, so they demanded a bigger premium. If you fail to HQ the craft you lose gil on the item.

Prices are set via supply and demand, it was the only HQ 2-star robe on the market.

Heck, if I were in the RMT business, I would do whatever I could to make SE look like the bad guy so I could keep making real world $$$ off of an in-game virtual currency.

That is a load of rubbish, RMT lose money not gain if SE lose customers.

RMT is such a big issue here Because There Are Lots Of Players.

A player with 8mil from crafting would be banned only to return to 100k.
A player with 7mil from crafting would be left to play and after the week have well over 7mil.

Both will have had gil somehow touched by RMT gil, yet because one was not hit by the blanket ban is not doing 100x better than the player who did.

If this issue is not sorted now, it will likely happen again.

[Pinworms]

It was me, but it was not 300k, it was 400k in tomb mats if i remember and the other mats I provided, so you can call it 450k back then.

I had put this on the market for 999k, but a friend who is lvl 50 said that is too cheap (I was only a lvl 39 BLM, due to crafting), so it went up for 1.25mil, as I could always come down if it does not sell and as a BLM I'd have used it at lvl 50 if I could not sell it.

You sir are part of the RMT problem and deserve everything got got...all 100k of it seriously. The game has been out a month. There is a HUGE out cry that the community and game is Gil starved, and you sir mark up a price like this to sell specifcly to RMT Gil buyers.
Seriously the oly people that could afford it are the Gil buyers. Go cry your river else where. You Gil should have been removed as it was and no you did not make your money legit (as you claim) because the people that bought your items at those prices were not legit. It's common sense.

Problem solved.