SE Please implement a Chonoscroll/PLEX system in FFXIV: ARR

[Rylock]

The PLEX system is one of the things that interests me about EVE, and for that game I think it is a perfect fit. EVE is INCREDIBLY economy based, the entire game is based around it. Your guild is not a guild, it is a corporation. There is industrial espionage, there are guarded convoys for moving materials to market. Tieing the currency to something with a real-world equivalent goes hand in hand with the rest of it.

Does that fit with FFXIV? Not so sure. There are some pros to the system for sure, the big one is that it cuts down on the more aggressive RMT. 1.0 managed to avoid these problems because they pretty much just sat in cedarwood and killed leve karakuls all day, but I remember in XI having to fight for claim with someone who would scream at me in chinese every time I succeeded. It adds more wide-spread competition, which means their corner of the market is smaller, and less will try to occupy it. I foresee that it would increase the number of people who make the real world money > gil transfer, but cut down on the amount of RMT farmers in the community. Maybe a worthwhile change, hard to say.

For me though, the reason that would bother me to see it in this game, is that it does tie a real-world equivalent to your in game currency. For EVE this is fine because a lot of the game is about playing with market factors and having that little extra bit of risk when you take your ship out adds to that. But for FFXIV, I feel it doesn't. The best gear in XIV is all untradeable, and that pattern will likely continue in 2.0. So what it means is that the few big-ticket items are really expensive comparatively. The $-gil comparison is only visible if you go looking on RMT sites, but with the introduction of a PLEX-like item it becomes very obvious. Would you be willing to spend the equivalent of $50 on that double-meld relic weapon? Money becomes more of a concern if there are fewer steps between it and the real world, and to me that ruins some of the "fantasy" in the game.

And it doesn't help that for a lot of us coming from XI, ANY form of RMT has a horrible stigma attached to it because we did interact with the farmers. They were everywhere. We remember the christmas gil sale and how it devastated the economy, and how it took years to recover from. In any case, I doubt SE will be doing anything like this for the launch, alternate payment models seem like something to mess with after the game has been out for a bit and the community more stable.

[Aenarion]

ppl paying monthly fee with gil is as beneficial to SE as ppl paying tickets with community service is to government

fail again.

Under the PLEX system, no subscription is paid with gil, as a PLEX is created only when someone has paid the game company real world money first.

The correct ticket analogy would be that instead of cash, the ticket was paid with check instead.

[AhmeraMae]

Prove me wrong or a troll Yeah, I thought so. . . .
Btw how long did it take for you to switch accounts? Just curious Shhh, your secret is safe with me *angelface*

That's my only account. Prove ME wrong on this one.

Regarding your "request": The GTC-Item is capped in it's value by the currency you buy it with, rl money. If you raise the price above this threshold, no one will buy from you. But there are competitors who also want to get rid of their GCT-Items. They'll undercut you. Some maybe by a fair bit. Also, selling GCT-Items isn't a infinite source of wealth b/c supply of gil and ppl who want to extent their gametime is limited.

Let's assume you tinkered some deals and suddenly own a large amount of money. You spend 30M on a doublemelded weapon, required for your relic-quest. Other ppl see your purchase in the history and adjust their prices according to your wallet. Great.

Now they all offer their weapons for 29M per piece... and wait, adjust their price to be lowest offer... and wait... a competitor undercuts prices by 200k... all adjust... And so on, ans so on. Prices may go crazy for the first week but they usually adjust pretty quickly to a healthy amount.

That's how the cookie crumbles.

[indira]

the OP is tired of paying so much on RMT gil.

[GodseijuroHiko]

Agreed. RMT or no RMT, SE does not allow buying gil for RL money. For good reason. This post is like arguing since some people in the USA smoke crack, might as well make it legal so they can get less-expensive clean crack.
Being able to buy gil period hurts the game, especially for the reasons listed above. I don't want a legitimate way or an illegitimate way to buy gil. Keep it out of FFXIV altogether.

People will always buy gil. Accept it. Am I the only one that's accepted that? My biggest annoyance of RMT was never the people that buy gil to get ahead. I hated that RMT spent ALL day at NMs I was trying to get so I never even stood a chance on my ps2. It was borderline depressing. Every time Anti RMT systems are put into place, it screws us over. Can we please refrain from using sanctimony in our arguments? Buying gil is naughy, gotcha. What solutions can WE as a community come up with. Pro tip: Nothing is ever 100% fair. Since I started with my education analogy, I'll continue. In life, *FFXIV isn't RL, got it* we all have the same opportunity (In America anyway, and under decent circumstances) to realize our aspirations if we put in enough work. Even then it sometimes isn't enough. How fair is it to everyone that a person who was born with means, is able to get into Yale because his parents knows people in admissions, or made a donation, when you had to work X3 as hard or more, just to get a scholarship. Or, you got accepted with no way of paying tuition. It isn't, and complaining about it in life is a gigantic waste of emotional time (IMHO).

Yes, we want our FFXIV time to be completely separate from RL. There are just somethings that will always transfer over into MMO's since the way the game world works is still left in the hands of people. I'm truly interested in hearing a meaningful idea. All I keep seeing is "RMT is bad!" "I don't like RMT, no!" It's like we want FFXIV to be our perfect little world where SE moderates everything, even how expensive people are allowed to price things so supply and demand would vanish. If we had things our way,(assumption INC) some of you would love it if SE made multiple HNMs so we won't have to compete with one another and everyone wins.

My long winded point? Solutions people. I saw this as a great idea. I'm still waiting to see any other solutions. Any ideas on how to close some of the loop holes in the issues you see with this idea?

Oh, and people who buy crack don't do it to get ahead in life.

[Nuinn]

That's my only account. Prove ME wrong on this one.

Regarding your "request": The GTC-Item is capped in it's value by the currency you buy it with, rl money. If you raise the price above this threshold, no one will buy from you. But there are competitors who also want to get rid of their GCT-Items. They'll undercut you. Some maybe by a fair bit. Also, selling GCT-Items isn't a infinite source of wealth b/c supply of gil and ppl who want to extent their gametime is limited.

Let's assume you tinkered some deals and suddenly own a large amount of money. You spend 30M on a doublemelded weapon, required for your relic-quest. Other ppl see your purchase in the history and adjust their prices according to your wallet. Great.

Now they all offer their weapons for 29M per piece... and wait, adjust their price to be lowest offer... and wait... a competitor undercuts prices by 200k... all adjust... And so on, ans so on. Prices may go crazy for the first week but they usually adjust pretty quickly to a healthy amount.

That's how the cookie crumbles.

Except we're forgetting that RMT and botting will still exist, meaning easily obtained gil in large amounts will still exist for the ones willing to risk their accounts or the companies that deal with RMT. If they chose they could still sell gil on their site, in a model close to this:

10$ = game time item = for example, 1mil gil ( if 1mil would be the average price of such item on a server)

RMT company takes notice and adjusts their prices resulting in:

10$ = 2mil gil on a RMT site

SE can only do as much to prevent/ban/terminate RMT or botting accounts. They can't exterminate them completely, and I'm sure that the RMT companies are financially doing just fine not to be upset if they lose 10, or even 50, accounts.

I'm just not sure why people claim, or fail to see, that introducing real money 'advantages' (as in, I can earn gil without actually playing the game for more than 30 minutes) has no long term impact on the game's economy. Just makes me go Jackie Chen face. Furthermore, why they refuse to acknowledge that it is an advantage.

As it is, we're all of different economic status right now => we all play the same game, the same way (not talking about those players that opt to take the illegal route paying for RMT gil).

If game time items are introduced => our economic status allows some to bypass the gil-grind, though true enough, allows people who can't pay for the game with real life money, to still play it.

To be honest, if you can't afford to pay for subscriptions, then you can't play. If you can't afford a decent computer to run the game on, then you can't play. If your real life is crammed with changing jobs, moving to other country, loosing the roof on your house etc. then you can't play.

Tough cookie, but FF XIV will not suffer, as people are leaving and coming back to any MMO constantly.

I'd rather if SE offered deals like 3 months worth of crysta (game time) purchased = get 1 month for free, or something along those lines. Cheaper crysta prices during big holidays or whatever.

[AttacKat]

YOU: Now can afford to pay 40k gil for an item I need (like a double-melded weapon for relic quest, or whatever else I desire from the wards/AH since I'm rich now ingame just as I'm rich in real life)

• Can now buy whatever I want from wards/AH

• Do so whenever possible since I know that if I need gil, I can always sell more game time items as I'm still rich in real life

• Gil has no real value for me, I can buy whatever I want, for whatever the asking price

Other people:

• Can't. . . .

Some people:

• Still think it this has no impact on the ingame economy

Except you forgot a VERY important part in your equation, and that is, for every dollar you spent and covert into GIL, is gil that you will spend for your item purchases and in fact benefits many other players because they can convert their play time into gil-profit to also better themselves.

This by nature also sets a more true balance supply and demand cycle for the market, as people now can set a cost range for in game items against real money. IE: Back when I was playing EVE, PLEX was pigged at 300m, so players were calculating on the bases of 20m = $1.

So no, it doesn't just benefit you as you have envisioned it. It benefits all parties.

Someone just brought up that RMTs can corner the market by buying all the PLEX and resell at higher prices. Besides the fact that it takes thousands of dollars and really illogical for them, don't forgot the given condition here is that ANYONE can buy PLEX with real cash and place a sell order on the market to fuel the supply. So when the in game price goes up, more players will go buy PLEX and add it back into the market. So if anything, RMT really wants to avoid cornering the market this way, as they want your money, not spend their money.

jc

[GodseijuroHiko]

I think it would mess up the economy in the game. Stuff would get more expensive because gil would be easy to get for the people with a big wallet irl, leaving the other players behind. Remember that Atomos crystal exploit? Ward prices got crazy, only difference was that everyone in the game could do it.

I'm ok with buying stuff in the game with real money as long as those items are cosmetic only and untradeable. Anything that would give players an advantage will never get support from me, the ideas might be good but as soon as people can buy gil with real money this idea will become something else. The thing Ubisoft is doing with AC3 where you can buy yourself the best stuff in multiplayer is something that needs to die in a fire.

So, gil wasn't being bought and sold in the game right? People who have the RL money to spare weren't doing it all the while. Is that what you're saying? People keep making statements that insinuate that RMT don't exist already. You pretend they don't exist and have no real idea how the economy has been affected already. Then you come and project that great economic peril we befall us if something like is implemented.

"Anything that would give players an advantage will never get support from me, the ideas might be good but as soon as people can buy gil with real money this idea will become something else."

Gil sellers already exist. They are going to exist in 2.0. People will buy gil. People will complain about Gil sellers. Nothing can be done because we know that we've seen obvious RMT names (uyouffffffu) that have been around for long periods of time without being deleted. Gil sellers are subscriptions that provide SE money. Let's accept these facts ok?

[gahoo]

What is the objective? To increase subscribers by allowing a modified FTP model? or to combat RMT?

If the former, then yes I would agree that this could probably help, but right now whether or not the game needs the help is unknown, so seems premature to me.

If the later, "legalizing" the purchasing of gil would certainly increase the number of people to buy gil (obviously). Legalization is, at times, a response to a belief that the costs of prevention are outweighed by the problem. Here, the costs of prevention are predominantly absorbed by SE. They expend X amount to combat RMT, and while one can argue that those resources take away from development, I think that's a pretty flimsy argument. The cost to players of RMT is really if/when RMT is destroying some aspect of gameplay by monopolizing something. Again, not sure right now we are facing this issue.

So seems like adding this system would possible damage unofficial RMT, but at the expense of increasing RMT overall. I don't think we are facing a situation where unofficial gil selling is so rampant that we need to legalize in order to better control/tax the system. Looking at IGE, for example, prices for gil are such that it would seem nobody in their right mind would be buying ($13 for 1300 gil). Are we really facing some major unofficial gil selling issue that we need to legalize and increase RMT?

[Azurus]

After reading through all 16 pages I can tell that this debate is divided between the people who:

1. Have no real idea what the plex system actually is and are just scared of the acronym RMT.

2. The people that do know and are trying to explain its benefits to no avail. and

3. The people who somehow got ont he subject of a cash shop/ buying items besides plex and are arguing this even though it is not even a part of this argument lol.

I support this idea of a Plex like system, however I feel like the game systems as they were in 1.0 would support it poorly. We will need to see how 2.0 shakes up to determine whether or not it is feasible.