Quote Originally Posted by hallena View Post
The most time efficient for anything tradeable in any game that ever existed has always been to buy whatever is the currency with real money. If you want to risk losing your account then go ahead and "save time"
The thing is though that it isn't just the gil buyers involved in this.

It's the level 30 crafter who just wants to do their crafting leves.

It's the level 3 Botanist who is getting undercut to hell when they're just starting out.

It's the people who can't put the majority of their play time into gathering shards 1-3 at a time when they are trying to craft their house furniture and run dungeons and still sleep, eat, study/work and actually have friends outside of the game.

It's the level 50 combatant (who has never even unlocked a gathering class nor knows how to gather anything and is not inclined to learn because they're happy playing the combatant) who buys 3000 shards to give 3 to a friend to make something for him (and then resell the shards at a guaranteed loss of 5% if said crafter friend can't take them off his hands).

The shard botting has ripples throughout the entire length, breadth and depth of the game.

And every one of those innocent people who do not gather their own shards but instead buys them from an RMT'er (note though that not all shard sellers are RMT, I frequently sell water shards for example because I get them while map hunting) feeds that RMT'er gil that they can sell, bolstering their business.