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

[d4rkie]

After reading the japanese forums and recent dev posts, I think they are purging RMT, botters, cheaters and related things to them atm and will post their results soon. At least on Ultros there was just 1 teleport bot left in Thanalan. The bulk of lvl 1 miner bots were trying to "blend in" and, using terrible pathfinding, look for nodes "manually".
So my wild guess would be that SE was cutting the RMT gil from the economy and some people got so much of that gil that if removed, they would go minus gil, hence the /100 that happened.

[Livilda]

So my wild guess would be that SE was cutting the RMT gil from the economy and some people got so much of that gil that if removed, they would go minus gil, hence the /100 that happened.

Best guess I've heard this week, but it implies that for those people who got their millions with small, four- and five-digit purchases, each and every one of them was one with RMT gil. Not something I'm sure I want to believe, but hey, anything is possible. I wonder what the outflow from the big rollers was, for their own purchases?

[Susanoh]

So my wild guess would be that SE was cutting the RMT gil from the economy and some people got so much of that gil that if removed, they would go minus gil, hence the /100 that happened.

A player can't possibly be holding more than 100% of illegitimate gil, or legitimate gil, or any kind of gil at one time. The amount of illegitimate gil a player holds would have to be somewhere between 0% and 100%, and I think it's extremely unlikely that so many players would be holding 99% of their wealth obtained illegitimately. Consider the crafters and gatherers who sold hundreds of items to different players. If nothing else, consider that those crafters likely did many leves/quests and obtained their gil through undoubtedly legitimate in game methods.

Also consider that if a sizable chunk of players actually were receiving 99% of their wealth from illegitimate sources, that the dozens/hundreds of transactions are all done using gil obtained illegitimately. If 99%+ of the gil being circulated on the markets is illegitimate, then every single player who has used the markets is likely holding 99% of illegitimately obtained gil, other than what they obtained from leves/quests (although many crafters/gatherers claim that a portion of their wealth did come from that, and it was still deleted, so even that would not be safe). I think that is so unlikely that we can rule it out, though. The only likely scenario I can come up with is what many others before me already have, that after sweeping up many players in the net, most of them were never looked at and had their gil reduced by 99% by an automated program.

[nekochen]

legitimate methods.

Does that include trading with RMT buyers?

I won't name names, but I know people who's sitting on 20 mil (and hasnt been suspended) and "confessed" that majority of their wealth comes from selling their 2-star items to RMT buyers. Anyone with a right mind would not easily toss in 1-2 million gil for a piece of 2-star equipment (mainly vanya robe), and yet it was being sold by the bulk. Now that SE is cracking down on RMT, their wealth transaction has been slowing down too.
Personally, I dont care how they make their gil, but some people would protest it's an unfair advantage that the wave of RMT made these people rich, and now that SE officially closed the door before the rest could share that slice of pie.

[Reiia]

Indeed. The argument that SE was punishing innocent players who were wealthy in order to 'save the economy', despite nobody suggesting that we had 99% RMT gil from our hundreds of transactions, has never been corroborated by SE.

SE CS told me SE decided to take 99% of our gil because they don't belive a typical player needs that much money and was their way to fix the economy.

Basically we innocents were "Jesus" and we got "Cruxified" and took one for the "server" while the rest of the people on the server where "pardoned" (CS never said this sentence, but pretty much agreed with my comparison without making it offical that it was SE's stance... but highly suggested it)

What the CS did say is they are collecting feedback over the phone to forward to the JPN counterparts... however how much is that is true after being screwed by SE 4 times the past week, i don't know. . .

[RaphaelDDL]

I'm so poor that this don't even vaguely affect me lol

[ArkhamNative]

Personally, I dont care how they make their gil, but some people would protest it's an unfair advantage that the wave of RMT made these people rich, and now that SE officially closed the door before the rest could share that slice of pie.

The RMT didn't make them rich. RMT caused a "rising tide" of high prices in the marketplace, and all market participants benefited. Their fortune and earnings (even the ones who didn't get suspended then mugged) came from providing products & services when the demand was very high. Without RMT perhaps the amounts would have been 50%, maybe 25%, of what they were, but it would have been higher than the average class leveler by far. (In my opinion, of course.)

Edit: Oh, I should probably clarify that I absolutely do not approve of RMT. It's cheating and a bannable offense on the part of the buyer, and with account hacking, almost certainly qualifies those gil sellers as real-world criminal enterprises.

[Susanoh]

Does that include trading with RMT buyers?

I won't name names, but I know people who's sitting on 20 mil (and hasnt been suspended) and "confessed" that majority of their wealth comes from selling their 2-star items to RMT buyers. Anyone with a right mind would not easily toss in 1-2 million gil for a piece of 2-star equipment (mainly vanya robe), and yet it was being sold by the bulk. Now that SE is cracking down on RMT, their wealth transaction has been slowing down too.
Personally, I dont care how they make their gil, but some people would protest it's an unfair advantage that the wave of RMT made these people rich, and now that SE officially closed the door before the rest could share that slice of pie.

If a person outright says they just bought a bunch of gil and they want to throw it at you for items, I would consider that a different scenario entirely. If SE wants to suspend/ban people for willfully collaborating with RMT, I wouldn't complain.

Most crafters don't have the luxury of doing background checks and investigations on their buyers, though. Usually the transaction starts and ends at the trading post, and I think that is the case for most hardcore and part time crafters and gatherers.

[Reiia]

If a person outright says they just bought a bunch of gil and they want to throw it at you for items, I would consider that a different scenario entirely. If SE wants to suspend/ban people for willfully collaborating with RMT, I wouldn't complain.

Most crafters don't have the luxury of doing background checks and investigations on their buyers, though. Usually the transaction starts and ends at the trading post, and I think that is the case for most hardcore and part time crafters and gatherers.

I never really doubt my customers because i made my gil legibility and most who did were the server firsts. Crafting relics for 4 classes before the rest of the server crafters could for a couple of days... that is when i made bank. And people who did story quest line 1-50 and picked money had the gil to afford a pre-relic.


But how can we check. we can't use a black light to the gil, we don't have way to look over the money and see if it is tainted, not like we can send a instant check through SE's fraud department to determine if the gil is legit or not. There is no built in security that any of us players can use. In RL, give me a fake bill and i can detect it and kick your ass out of my business. here it is all good faith and trust in SE. Our monthy fee is somewhat like an insurance for them to keep their A game. So far they dropped it hard.

Though complaining the rich people made it because of RMT. you are just being full of it and feeling self entitled that you should have the same sucess as we did without the same effort. We made it because we didn't level a fighting class past what was needed to get into our crafts. We focused on crafting from day one. We made bank when we were the server firsts in relics, and people paid us to make it. We did nothing but craft craft craft craft craft craft... and occasionally gathered items, but crafted.

If anything we helped stimulate a healthy economy because we kept the gil flowing. we kept moving the gil and buying stuff. A economy without money flowing between people, and where people are "running on the marketboard" and just holding their gil is a failed economy because they have no trust/scared to use their gil.

If everyone in RL had a chance of their money to be taken away by their bank at the end of the month, noone would use it. They hide it in their mattress and buy a gun. Now everyone is scared, noone wants to spend money, and the market flow is just crap.

[Pangtao]

Your taking everything out of context here Susanoh.

What does the application of the free market economy in real life have to do with how it is applied in an MMORPG? This is camparison has no merit.

You are bound by the ToS and the EULA when you signed on to play the game. You own absolutely nothing, not the characters, not the items and certainly not the gil that you earned in game. If you find that you disagree with SE and can no longer tolerate there constant mishandling of the game and content, you are at liberty to walk away.

What does SE owe you? what do you owe SE? The answer is nothing. It is logical to think that they will probably never get a handle of how RMT operate in the game, but you know this...and your still here...