Square, if youre going to ban Gil buyers, give them a PERMANENT ban

[Fawkes]

When a player receives a large amount of gil from a known gilseller (who collects gil from multiple bots), he will be given a warning not to do so again. If he yet again receives a large amount of gil from a known gilseller and not report it, then he will have a hard time convincing a judge or jury that he is innocent. Despite popular belief, a judge or the jury do have some level of common sense!

You're making assumptions about things SE knows, like who is and who is not a gilseller. They have already stated they don't even know for sure who is a bot and can't ban them until they are sure. (And gilsellers don't just get their money from bots, some get it the same way legit players do, like playing the AH). Also I would think if they were positive someone is a gilseller they would ban them immediately rather than let them run around transferring gil to other players.

And it's ridiculous to think SE would spend money to have this "judge and jury" you're talking about. Since it's not an actual crime, SE would have to hire people and pay them to spend all their time reviewing everyone's gil history and all the people they've had gil transferred to or from, in a game with 4 million active accounts.

[Radkat]

Snip.

Heh, one thing I'll agree with you that this judge and jury thing is all hogwash. but people here seem to like to believe that SE needs to 'prove' that someone did buy gil before taking action or they will get litigation etc, I'm just going with their flow.

Now you have been misinformed. SE certainly knows who's a bot, and has been banning them. Go to the lodestone and read the ban reports. Gilsellers sell their bot farmed stuff on the AH like shards and crystals, sure. THey have activity logs on all characters, otherwise how would they investigate? Even when you make reports ingame, they want you to state where and when the offense you are reporting took place, so they can go back to chack their logs.

[MirielleLavandre]

I actually don't think SE has to prove anything - I think it is the ToS that they can ban whoever they want, for no reason whatsoever, if they choose. But, they would be immensely stupid from a public relations and business side of it to do so. This thread is, I think, about banning people for buying gil, with the OP wanting a permanent ban. My only point is, SE can never, ever prove that someone bought gil and use that as a reason for banning them. Can SE ban whoever they want? Yes. Would they commit the time and resources into doing so, at the added cost of lower customer satisfaction and the bad way it would look for even the very few innocents caught up with this type of thing? Nope, I highly doubt it ^^

[Radkat]

Would they commit the time and resources into doing so, at the added cost of lower customer satisfaction and the bad way it would look for even the very few innocents caught up with this type of thing?

When gilbuyers are banned, potential gilbuyers afraid to buy, gilsellsers will leave, and all the ad spam will disappear like in the JP servers. Customer satisfaction will in fact improve. That's the whole point!

[MirielleLavandre]

I actually agree with you, Sylphia, but I just don't think SE would do it. They seem to take a back seat to such things and only ban stuff that they can get solid metrics on from their own servers. That's one reason I'm looking forward to Heavensward - I doubt, and hope, RMT can't get into those zones // I'd be shocked, and saddened, if they took the time to beat the main story just to go to Ishgard and spam...

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I actually agree with you, Sylphia, but I just don't think SE would do it. They seem to take a back seat to such things and only ban stuff that they can get solid metrics on from their own servers. That's one reason I'm looking forward to Heavensward - I doubt, and hope, RMT can't get into those zones // I'd be shocked, and saddened, if they took the time to beat the main story just to go to Ishgard and spam...

It seems unlikely that they will go that far. Bots can easily level up by farming mobs in the overworld or having the bots do duties together. I REALLY don't think they could have bots be good enough to do the Steps of Faith.

[Riepah]

It seems unlikely that they will go that far. Bots can easily level up by farming mobs in the overworld or having the bots do duties together. I REALLY don't think they could have bots be good enough to do the Steps of Faith.

Bots can teleport in the air and attack a boss from afar, leaving the monster no way to retaliate. 8 BLMs can probably just DPS it down.

[ElHeggunte]

When gilbuyers are banned, potential gilbuyers afraid to buy, gilsellsers will leave, and all the ad spam will disappear like in the JP servers. Customer satisfaction will in fact improve. That's the whole point!

Not unless SE proves they have a surefire way to catch the buyers. Harsh laws and rules rarely work as a true deterrent for crimes because people either commit them in the heat of the moment or they're confident that they won't get caught in the first place. The punishment is irrelevant to them. The risk of a permanent ban might cause some people to shy away from buying, but I'm willing to bet that most people that are buying gil right now would continue to buy it even if the punishment was as severe as the police coming to their house and physically arresting them.

[Canadane]

What makes you so sure they even hand out temp bans to buyers? I don't think you'll ever see them ban buyers no matter how much you complain on the forums.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...4cf9d31e16ce16
82 buyers got a temp ban. And that's just a 2-week period.
They've done this for a while.

Additionally, if somebody really doesn't like another player in game all they have to do is buy that character some gil and they'll be permanently banned. $50 to see somebody you hate disappear isn't a lot of money to some people.

Hmm, see if someone did that to me, the RMT themselves would still either need to come up to me and trade, or add me as a friend to mail.
I already deny random friend requests. I'm smart enough to not take a random bajillion gil thrown at me out of the blue. If anything, the buyer would be out their $50 and I continue along my day unaffected.

[OMEGA_HACK]

I find it funny that people think that because there are more RMT advertisements in the game that means that lots of people are buying gil when in fact its quite the opposite. When sales are up up up companies tend to avoid big marketing ploys as they don't really need to market their product.

Tell me did you see a bunch of iWatch commercials lately? Probably not, save for prime-time advertisement slots (shows with large amounts of viewers), because they made profit for the item for the whole year in just a matter of a day or two. We are seeing more RMT advertisements in the game because less people are buying it, and when a company is down in sales the first thing they ask is "Do people know about us? Is our lack of an imprint in the community the reason why sales are down?" So they advertise.

Further noting the idea of perma-banning gil BUYERS is bad is because you perma-ban someone who plays the game with other friends (maybe some in real life friends...maybe friends who migrated from another MMO or online based game) if one of them get the perma-ban then guess what will probably happen? The other friends who play the game for the sake of playing together as friends have a high chance of leaving because they cannot play with their friend anymore. However if it was a temp-ban what happens is that player might be upset and a bit shaken about being caught, he will no doubt tell his close in game friends about it and it spreads the idea that gil buying will get you in trouble.

So one scenario has 7 people quitting (static-sized group of friends) and one being perma-banned for a total of 8 people not giving SE money.
The other scenario has 1 person temp-banned and 7 other people not willing to risk buying gil, for a total of 8 people not buying gil but still giving SE money.