GM response needed. Conflicting info regarding the selling of plots.

[HakaseNyan]

I believe the "against the ToS" only works when you cannot guarantee the deal. If you say you're selling just the house, then the details are vague. You cannot guarantee (100%) the trade of your home to another person. If you put up something like "Pay me ten million for me to relinquish my land" it would be something you could guarantee.

However, what about selling a free company? If you sold a Free Company, with housing, that IS a deal you could guarantee.

Purely conjecture, but it should make sense to some.

[DarkSeifer]

Purely conjecture, but it should make sense to some.

The thought crossed my mind about this as well. That it could be considered fraud if you just outright said you were selling someone a plot, rather than just relinquishing the land and giving them first dibs. Fraud IS against the ToS so this would make sense. But again, no one has clearly said if this is the case one way or the other.

[WinterLuna]

My FC bought a plot this way from another player. We gave him 20 mil beforehand, he relinquished his plot, and then we have him another 10 mil. He was genuine and wasn't one of the people who bought out a bunch of plots. If I recall it was a FC house. He gave me a hell of a lot of airship materials too what he no longer needed and I was really thankful. I had no idea it could be against the ToS though!

[DarkSeifer]

Most people selling plots are just trying to get back something for what they paid for it. I really feel that if SE isn't going to give them a way to do so without waiting 45 days, then there should be no action taken against anyone for doing this.

[WinterLuna]

Most people selling plots are just trying to get back something for what they paid for it. I really feel that if SE isn't going to give them a way to do so without waiting 45 days, then there should be no action taken against anyone for doing this.

I completely agree with this. I can't blame them for selling them based on the price of mansions on large servers.

[Belhi]

I think it works like Parsers. As long as its not obvious they will look the other way. The issue is that when they freed up plots you had wealthy players buy up all the plots on multiple alt and then sell them back for 3 to 4 times the price. On top of that, its not even selling the plot. All its doing is giving up the plot. The purchasing player still needs to buy the plot from the game on top of that.

Because this denied so much of the player base access to the housing system GMs started to make a point of enforcing ToS to stop that behaviour. Really its only likely to cause you an issue selling your plot if your reported for doing so. If forced to make a choice on one side or the other expect them to side on making selling plots against the ToS because if it was intended for plots to be sold, players would be actually able to sell the deed directly to other players.

[Ryel]

I think it works like Parsers. As long as its not obvious they will look the other way. The issue is that when they freed up plots you had wealthy players buy up all the plots on multiple alt and then sell them back for 3 to 4 times the price. On top of that, its not even selling the plot. All its doing is giving up the plot. The purchasing player still needs to buy the plot from the game on top of that.

Because this denied so much of the player base access to the housing system GMs started to make a point of enforcing ToS to stop that behaviour. Really its only likely to cause you an issue selling your plot if your reported for doing so. If forced to make a choice on one side or the other expect them to side on making selling plots against the ToS because if it was intended for plots to be sold, players would be actually able to sell the deed directly to other players.

I personally think its just greedy pricks that buy several plots just to hold people randsom for an additional major cost....


if its not against ToS then it deffiantly needs to be!

Comments like these don't really make any sense...

You guys might want to have a read over these concepts:

Free market

Supply and demand

Real estate economics

Unfortunately the housing system is the direct cause of this issue with a lack of it's of supply for the entire playerbase, which leads to many players treating plots as a commodity much like anything else on the market-board or non marketable goods like clear sales, mounts, etc.

If the issue GMs are taking is strictly with players listing houses on the Party Finder then there needs to be a clear distinction made as to what is and isn't allowed to be put in the PF list as we've seen everything from virtual hookup adverts to memes to popular song references, yet housing adverts are suddenly singled out as a reportable offense?

The fact that this issue has been sitting in a sort of "gray area" means that enforcement is left entirely up to the whims of whichever GM happens to take the report at the time and as others have provided evidence for in the past It is far from equal across the board, especially when trades for in-game currency are not against the ToS as long as they don't involve Real World currency.

I get that players are upset that others are selling plots but this is exactly what happens when you make a virtual (or any) commodity limited in accessibility, It creates a new market with opportunity for profit. The idea that a housing plot is any more sacred than any item on the market-board is by fault of SE's design and not player mentality. This is made even more of an issue when players are not only unable to willingly relinquish a plot with partial refund (without waiting 45 days) but are also forced to lose the entirety of their investment should they wish to transfer servers (which costs real money by the way) as well as supplement the in-game investment of gil (which for some was upwards of 100mil initially) with their subscription fee (real money again) in order to not lose their land.

It's little wonder that there are plenty of players who want to either transfer servers or upgrade to larger plots that have to pick between a risk of getting reported for advertising the sale of their virtual property or finding avenues of communication outside of the game to avoid GM action.

I really hope an official response is given to this thread or one of the others like it as this really should not be something that just gets brushed under the rug in silence for an issue that many have been calling attention to for well over a year and a half.

[worldofneil]

I need a GM to clarify this here please. Thank you.

GMs don't reply here. The forums aren't even run by Square Enix. Occasionally a community moderator will reply, but never on policy issues like this.

If you want an official response, you need to send a ticket in game asking if you are allowed to relinquish your plot for money. The reply you get will be your official response (and you can then quote that ticket if you get any problems later if they change their mind).

They're not going to officially post to confirm it is/isn't allowed because that means there's no chance of housing sellers who want to just move server/get their money back being able to do that and to the best of my knowledge they're only focusing on people who list publicly (party finder/shouts) and/or are reported by people for it.

[SwdVengeance]

The whole housing issue is a clear grey area SE can't get their communication straight on. I would postulate that it probably hinges on a grey zone of, if there's no game system to allow it someone can't be held liable for it. For example if someone cuts and runs with money from a house sale without relinquishing, can they be held liable for selling something they have no actual means to sell? This is just purely my speculation as to what convoluted rational they would have on it that's kept them from ever taking a clear stance on it. I of course would counter my own speculation with, if a crafter ever cut and run with stuff from a commissioned craft, SE will act on it, even though there's no clear way to commission anymore than sell a house, purely verbal and via a trade.

The thought crossed my mind about this as well. That it could be considered fraud if you just outright said you were selling someone a plot, rather than just relinquishing the land and giving them first dibs. Fraud IS against the ToS so this would make sense. But again, no one has clearly said if this is the case one way or the other.

This is generally how I always thought of it. You're selling information, the information that you're going to be relinquishing, thusly giving them first dibs. Nothing in the ToS strictly prohibits this aside from the impersonation and scamming bits. As long as the information is accurate, aka you actually do relinquish when you say you do, there shouldn't be anything wrong. If the hang up with SE is that there isn't an actual mechanic to sell the goods (the house), then take the house out of the picture and make it purely information based. Chat logs can be checked, and if the information proved false, it would clearly fall into the scam category in the ToS. Shouldn't cause any hang ups then.

[ruskie]

GMs don't reply here. The forums aren't even run by Square Enix. Occasionally a community moderator will reply, but never on policy issues like this.

They do and they are run by SE. Specifically the community team.

GMs have responded to posts before as has the head GM. It's not hard to find.

It's just that often they don't for most things.