How to deal with this kind of friend?

[GenJoe]

You weren't very good friends if that ruins your friendship. I don't get the part where you talk about not telling them though. They wouldn't even know at that point. SE sure isn't going to out you. Me? I'd tell my friend and then make fun of him for getting in trouble. He'd insult me, call me a dick, and we would laugh about it. That goes for all of my friends. I guess I just don't make friends with sensetive people though.

No, like I said I haven't lost any friendship over it, just was unable to enjoy the game together because they've lost interest as a consequence of my playing style.
But read the OP, read what other people have posted in favor of reporting a friend, you think they care enough about the friendship to keep it going once they find out their friend is an RMT gil buyer? I don't think they are, at least a good majority of them would probably shun you out of their lives over a game!!

So many people on a high horse over their internet conduct, life is not all black and white, I know it sounds cliche but it's true.
When talking about ethics and morality, I really have a hard time accepting such rigid points of view. Unless you've done some serious soul searching and come to grips with the reality enough to know what school of ethics you believe in, don't be surprised if I don't take your view seriously.

It's easy to see the World as black and white when you have a very narrow spectrum, but once you widen that with experience, you'll see how little you really know, that's true of just about everything.

A high school student of Physics may believe that objects fall at 9.81m/s^2.
A college freshman may learn to believe that the acceleration due to gravity shifts depending on elevation and use a more complex equation.
A college senior may once again adapt even more variables to the equation because gravity exists between all objects and may explore situations where it's not always on Earth.
Then a Grad student may skip the Newtonian interpretation altogether.

Remember when you were little and you thought Algebra was the highest form of Mathematics there was? Then as you took more advanced courses, how trivial it really was and how little you actually knew about Math?
Not everything can be solved with X, Y, and Z and most of these people seem to be prescribing a simple treatment to a much more complex problem.


I do sincerely hope all the people holding their black and white views on this come from an educated perspective and that it doesn't stem from one's own naivety and simplifying a much more complex problem.

I've lost a friendship over something, although not in the same circumstances of RMT. In a nutshell, he made the game unenjoyable for me to the point I would've stopped playing. He knows I have a problem with it and still presses onto it anyway even if I were to make a point that I didn't want to play with him.

I have done that before, so I've learned from it. Although I did not lose a friendship over it, I found it less enjoyable to be playing the game alone.. If I found my friend was doing something immoral, yes I would in fact, confront him about it and try to make him see why he is wrong. But I will definitely pick my battles carefully, and this is simply not one of them. I'll still mention it that he stands to get banned from the game etc. etc. But really, I'm not going to have an intervention over this. I've bigger things to worry about.

[RiceisNice]

...

Any "Real friend" would not let something like this get in the way of their friendship one way or another.


If you wanted him to keep playing with you, would it not be beneficial to talk to him and maybe convince him to stop? The very act of him RMTing is enough will get him banned eventually, and you did nothing to try to stop it. Or it can get to the point where it gets in the way of your own enjoyment of the game. It can bread-crumb trail to you because you're knowingly letting a RMT slide (bonus points that you're friend with him and whenever he feeds you gil, a connection can be made whether or not its your intention)

Ask yourself these questions:
>Can you sleep at night knowing that your friend is RMTing?
>Can you comfortably play knowing the above, and the possible risk that it puts yourself in for withholding it?
>Are you fine the state of RMTs in this game and how it affects other people?

To add onto the last point, yes it can get that bad on some servers. I've gotten as many as fifteen friend requests from an RMT on my server in the span of 3 hours or so. Someone even has a screenshot of them getting at least one RMT tell every minute (and that's not including shouts or friend invites).

No one can tell OP what to do, but I still stand by this; No "real friend" would ever let something like this get inbetween them (esp if its a long relationship), one way (finding out your friend is doing something wrong and you break it) or the other (the friend breaks it because he was snitched on something he did, knowing that it is wrong).

I've lost a friendship over something, although not in the same circumstances of RMT. In a nutshell, he made the game unenjoyable for me to the point I would've stopped playing. He knows I have a problem with it and still presses onto it anyway even if I were to make a point that I didn't want to play with him.

[Cakekizy]

I wonder if reporting your thread would be enough info for SE to track your RMT buying "friend" and deal with it.

[Gallus]

Ask yourself these questions:
>Can you sleep at night knowing that your friend is RMTing?
>Can you comfortably play knowing the above, and the possible risk that it puts yourself in for withholding it?
>Are you fine the state of RMTs in this game and how it affects other people?

Really...lol...

No "real friend" would ever let something like this get inbetween them (esp if its a long relationship), one way (finding out your friend is doing something wrong and you break it) or the other (the friend breaks it because he was snitched on something he did, knowing that it is wrong)

No of course, real friends are just perfect people. Anything you could potentially consider an attack to yourself (even killing a bug) is enough reason to ditch them, because they wouldn't be real friends on the first place if they did things you do not like!

I'm just going to move on...but before I do. This forum has some serious lack of empathy. You really should begin to consider what's going on around you, what other people think and what brought them to do whatever they are doing (whether you think it's good, bad or terrible). That might give you a bit of a wider perspective of things.

[GenJoe]

I'm just going to move on...but before I do. This forum has some serious lack of empathy. You really should begin to consider what's going on around you, what other people think and what brought them to do whatever they are doing (whether you think it's good, bad or terrible). That might give you a bit of a wider perspective of things.

I honestly believe it's the social awkwardness showing in droves (no offense, really, I'm not trying to start a flame war).

But you know that one kid in school who would always be so square and never had any friends? I do, I was one of those kids but living through life has taught me how to better interact with people. The World is just not that simple. You may think you have it all figured out, but that's because you live in a very small World, expand your views and you'll realize how insignificant and profoundly ignorant we all are.

[m3eansean]

Yes, just like pot smokers in the US are funding the cartels in Mexico that kill people, doesn't mean we're gonna charge them with murder for smoking a joint.

Unless you live in WA or CO, in which case you can just walk into the retail store and get higher quality product that wasn't transported here in the back of some guy's trunk.

[RiceisNice]

..

Yes really. In the end, it's something you'll need to play on with that you're keeping at the back of your head; you know someone is doing something that is objectively wrong ingame, and you can very well be associated with it.

I think you have the wrong context of what I'm trying to say. No one is perfect, but if they're really "good friends" as people say, they should be accepting of who they are or what they do. Should I get peeved at my friend who is doing something that is objective wrong? Should I get peeved at my friend for reporting/turning me when I've done something objectively wrong? Are they both something big enough to ruin a friendship over?

There needs to be empathy and understanding on both sides. That I much I can agree. Which is why this shouldn't just be only OP's perspective, but his friend's as well on how he feel RMTing is, and if he's the one that;s willing to cut ties with OP over it (versus the former reporting him for RMTing rather than breaking his friendship with him, the two are not mutual)

[Caraway]

"It's ruining the economy!" Oh that's so cute... The economy was already the way it was because of the way asset accrual is handled. The devs have constantly pushed new ways to generate wealth (this is not the market board, that does not create wealth, it just redistributes it and removes some from the system in the form of tax) and this is the primary driver for inflation.

Look at how you got money generated back during 2.0: killing mobs, selling crap items, and opening chests in dungeons. These were the main drivers for generating wealth.

Now? Now you have the Challenge log giving large amounts of currency, roulettes that are an endless supply of currency and an increase in per-mob currency drops.

I'm not doubting that RMT does some to inflate the currency as well, but not nearly as much as the structures put into place by the development team.

Anecdotal evidence, but SOE (the people who did EverQuest) had an authorized RMT service on their Vanguard, EQ, and EQ2 services for a while. This wasn't like PLEX but an actual place where users could sell gold, items, and even characters, for actual real-world cash with SOE as the middle-man taking a small cut. The impact of these purchases were minimal to inflation. Vanguard, for example, didn't see a surge in inflation until a duping/currency glitch was discovered that allowed people to make massive amounts of wealth shortly (and this was after the RMT system was removed).

The real problem with ARR's economy is that we, as a whole, are a group of hoarders. The systems put in place have encouraged it (housing for example) so there's way more money in circulation. Add on to that a lack of reasonable currency sinks (teleportation, repairs, and MB tax isn't enough!) and you'll see player wealth naturally increase. Add to this the fact that the things people want most cost the most then you'll have an increase in that urge to hold on to wealth so you can save up for the things you want.

Unless you live in WA or CO, in which case you can just walk into the retail store and get higher quality product that wasn't transported here in the back of some guy's trunk.

This is a real thing here, and what most companies are realizing. You cannot beat RMT. It's just not possible and to even make an attempt takes way too many resources (as people have noted, we have ~3 people on the special task force assigned to RMT). What other games have found to work best is offering something like PLEX. An item that translates into game-time that can be traded in-game and the economy can decide what it's value is.

When EQ2 introduced their Krono (in-game item worth 30 days subscription and tradeable) RMT went down dramatically. You don't get bombarded with tells or friend requests.

We already have a cash shop here; adding a tradeable subscription item would be an easy win for everyone involved.

[Cedane]

Doesn't even accepting gil thats bought land you in trouble too? Or else I'm confusing something since I do remember that being a thing.

If your friend is RMT, confront them on it. Report them, or not, thats your call. I hate to be "that guy" but I'd report them in a heartbeat. It isn't fair that someone who has crafted, or ran dungeons, or sold things and earned their fair share of gil to buy a house or other things while someone buys it from a bot gil farmer and gets it instantly.

That, and people who go the RMT route are why we have so many bots flooding the servers farming gil and why some find it hard to get into servers like Balmung to begin with. If you buy from them, you lose the right to complain about it in my opinion.

I would've reported him anyway but you did the right thing, OP. You don't want to get in trouble yourself or lose your own hard work if your friend didn't tell you about RMT and gave you gil or something, etc. Its a good thing you found out. Sorry about your friendship but, you know, it does happen. If a friend is going to ditch you over something like this and difference of opinions? Not worth the friendship!

[dank1]

Wow glad I'm not friends with you. And you're completely wrong. A REAL friend will help out their friend in trouble, not ignore it. Lmao...

I guess I should've specified, wasn't aware some wouldn't comprehend the context of what I meant, when I said I wouldnt care I was speaking about the actual gil buying thing, why should I care about what my friend chooses to do on a game?