Why Was the Official Statement Ignored?

[Nica]

Whatever they would have done, collateral damage was inevitable.

Says who? CCP managed to hunt down RMT buyers in Eve Online just fine, for the exact amount of RMT money the buyers bought, often times via much more complicated method of trading. All without resorting to the laughable robo-grenade method SE apparently employed, while being a much smaller company than SE.

Are you saying SE is just that inept?

Does SquareEnix deserve so much negativity because of a really restricted amount of individuals?

Absolutely. The way that a company treats its customers are not evaluated based on the number affected.

Would Chik-fil-A have garnered national outcry if the number of affected people were the standard to go by? If Walmart decided that it was going to randomly kick 500 customers out and take their money, do you think there shouldn't be any reaction because it's "so restricted"?

[BlazeChronic]

snip

This post, along with the math included, makes alot of sense in explaining the situation.

Of course it sucks for those affected, but it needed to be done.

[TrystWildkey]

A couple of things I'd like to say.

No matter how much you would like to compare this to any number of real world scenarios, your comparisons are invalid because this is not real life.

Honest question to anyone who has had their gil removed: Were you advised that the investigation was complete on your account, or just advised that your suspension was lifted?

Another honest question: Any crafters, who had their gil removed: Did you do any direct trades with people who bought high priced items from you? If so, do you know of anyone that was permanently banned who purchased these items from you?

Again, these are honest questions. I'm not trolling, jumping to conclusions or laying a trap. This is a complex issue and we all have very incomplete information upon which to base our conclusions.

Also, I think it would be really productive if we could all stop jumping to conclusions and assigning blame. This kind of situation, if we truly want to understand it (and not just to argue/rage/belittle) requires us to provide as much information as each of us can, and then a careful review of what we know.

I know this is exceedingly painful for those who were affected, but I would like to ask you to take a step back for a moment and share what you know.

For those who were not affected, I know our first instinct, after seeing so many botters and rmt activities, is to immediately assume guilt. I'm also hoping that you can step back from that finger-snap reaction and look at things more logically.

tl;dr let's discuss this and see if we can put together a big picture of what has occurred and may still be occurring instead of raging at everyone.

[ArcheustheWise]

Whatever they would have done, collateral damage was inevitable. .

No they just took the easy route out. Look i don't know how long you have been playing games bro, but this isnt the way to do it. I've played my share of mmos and seen them deal with stuff like this alot better.

Hell, i could make an easier plan that what they came up with in 5 mins. You give gms the ability to teleport around observe the botting or spamming and instantly ban them, monitor where resources from the teleporting bots and cut the head off there. Then if needs be you deal with the gil piles based upon the data gathered there.

You dont just take away the gil, the problem is still there.... you need to cut the head of how they are getting cash before you can do anything else.

[Rizon]

While I completely agree with Perma-Banning anyone who has direct dealing with RMTs I must take issue with penalizing those who inadvertently received Gil in what would otherwise be a legal transaction. These players have absolutely no control over where this Gil comes from. Please remember all Market Board sales are blind transactions conducted through an intermediary (retainers). The seller has no control over it therefore they cannot screen the buyers. Legitimate players should not be punished for a faulty game mechanic. I have not been caught up in this but as a level 50 crafter in all disciplines I can understand the outrage from my contemporaries who have been.

[funkin]

In real life ...

I don't want to go too far into this, so I'll keep it short. Real life isn't the same as this game. One key difference that makes your comparison ineffective: in the real world, businesses have the option to protect themselves with insurance. I'm not even going to get into details like choosing who they sell to, the ability to do background and credit checks, etc.. It's just not the same as real life. Similar, but different.

Edit for a quick, real-world example of how real life business is different than FF14: The company I own doesn't accept work from individuals. We only accept work from established companies, we have direct relationships and interactions with all customers, etc.. We do this because we once took work from an individual who made the job serious hell, and we lost money as a result. Now we won't ever encounter that again because we changed how we accept work. If this was possible in-game, I'd be more willing to take responsibility for who purchased some of my 100s of sales.

[snugBubz]

-snip-

As much of your post makes sense, your second sentence does not ring a complete truth.

The world inside the game is not real = true.
The player playing the game who has subbed money and is investing time is real, on the other hand. So comparisons to real life business practices are indeed valid. Though, many comparisons are far fetched. Yes, FFXIV is a game, but it is still a business and we are its customers. To strip away a player's time (a characters gil) is outrageous without any kind of statement on the matter other than they were in suspicion of having RMTed gil (which is highly unlikely the amount SE stripped from a player.) I'll reiterate: It's SE saying, "We don't care about our customers' time."

Also, the longer SE waits to make a clearer statement about the wrong-doing to legitimate players, the worse their standing with them is going to get.

[seekerofpower]

hello! Think please! Thank you!

I know this is off topic, but all I could think about when I saw this was, "Hello... hello, McFly. Think, McFly, think."

[ArcheustheWise]

I know this is off topic, but all I could think about when I saw this was, "Hello... hello, McFly. Think, McFly, think."

Totally know where your going with that, got ya covered:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh9PYtmVybU

[MStowastiqVahlshdeh]

--snip--
Gil is almost useless at end level to get the best equipment (which is currently the endgame goal). As such, these players were stacking gils in prevision of the future with absolutely no idea of what could be coming or when.

In the end, what was lost is simply the idea of the possession of a fortune, because said fortune was worthless without any way to spend it. Considering we can at best hope major update 2.1 of the game will bring something to spend gils on and we don't know when it will get released, players still have quite a bit of time to restock their fortune to a crazy amount, which is still possible players still need/want to buy stuff from the markets.
[/I]--snip--

Just pointing out that SE stated more than once : housing will be very expensive, housing is going to be added. Some players were stocking up on gil with expectations of buying housing. So there is a reason to want to have a lot of gil and something to logically plan to buy that is confirmed. As for official statements being ignored, I agree and I think they should bring more attention to their STF reports because some players are unaware of them.