It's time to reevaluate the idea of adding a PLEX/Chronoscroll-like system to FFXIV

[AlexionSkylark]

Nice try attempting to appeal to my emotions with that sob story instead of making an actual point about how it won't effect the economy. I'll just leave this here. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Emotional_appeal

Actually I just used those characters in an anedoctal manner. Feel free to change them at your pleasure, it's irrelevant to the point.

Also, you just proved my point with your statement about money changing hands helping the economy. EXACTLY. That money, that was fattening a 1%er's wallet, changed hands and were consumed in favor of a commodity (real estate). Again, MMO economies function a little different that real world ones, altough some paradigms persist. In MMOs you need to flush money out of the system, and that's what gil sinks are about.

Now, if you want to build a case against gil sinks, be my guest.

[NolLacnala]

THIS is what would end up happening, could promise it.

I speak from experience, but feel free to think what you want.

[Shougun]

How are we defining combat? I always felt it was a weird word choice. Does it matter if third party RMT makes less money? I thought the issue was the ability to buy in game currency with real money, not that it was third party. If the issue is buying a currency that -can- buy you end game content (leading to p2w and possibly a localized bulge in the market creating /local/ inflation*), then PLEX promotes RMT. If the issue is third party RMT, PLEX may lower their income but it does not end them - why do we care how much they make if they are still there in the same amount of force? *It is similar to those who just play FFXIV without using the market ward to those who use it, you will find your income/pocket money will be drastically different - now imagine spheres of income and imagine a sphere for those willing to purchase with real money in large sums, people who have a lot of money are able to pay more for particular products (or make even more money at a greater ability - separating those spheres even more). It probably won't mean end of the world, but the change could be palpable.

Another way to look at it is that because (we assume) lowered the price for gil with real cash, there is higher competition in the market and a higher demand as well - a higher demand means a higher supply and that means more RMT. Now of course there is a distinction on who that money is going to, but who obtains the money doesn't change that it is RMT... I thought. Real Money Trade (RMT) I thought did not mean Real Money Trade Except When We Do It (RMTEWWDI).

Also while it is possible third party RMT will make less money it isn't automatically known, by increasing demand they could find a better pricing point (selling 100 gil for 100$ once a day vs 100 gil for $10 two hundred times a day). WoW's system does prevent some manipulation of the currency but it still doesn't stop RMT, since (imo...) the system in and of itself is RMT.

[AlexionSkylark]

Now we have Jon. Jon and his friends have been playing ffxiv semi-regularly. They decide to band together and spend there in-game time raising gil so they can buy a house for their FC. After a month of saving, they finally have enough for their house!! Oh wait, what's this? Bill used his real life money to buy up the last plot?!

Yeah, I'll pass on that kind of a situation being brought into this game. People with time to play the game shouldn't be screwed over by people who don't.

Now you're finally pointing the finger at the REAL issue: the lack of plot wards for sale. That has been noted time and time again in these forums, and that's where our attention should be focused. If anything, I'll even say this balancing of the economy (money shifting from the 1%ers pockets to a more distributed base) will reinforce the shouting for more plot wards, and that'll end up benefiting EVERYBODY in the long run. This is a much more likely scenario.

BTW, your avatar really looks like an Ul'Dahn monetarist. Heheh. (just a light-hearted funny comment, c'mon, I'm not angry at anybody here )

[Intaki]

Also while it is possible third party RMT will make less money it isn't automatically known, by increasing demand they could find a better pricing point (selling 100 gil for 100$ once a day vs 100 gil for $10 two hundred times a day).

How many people do you know that would be willing to risk losing their account forever just to get a marginally better deal than what is being legitimately offered?

[Dante_V]

I'm impartial to it. Just want to say that it's fairly obvious people do not understand economics or the dynamics between Supply and Demand or even the basic premise of the demand curve. Some of the comments in here are extremely funny with their "logic" but I digress, please continue.

[Jandor]

By all means show a different game other than Eve where such a system works. Eve's economy is very different from normal MMOs after all. So far only Tera and Wildstar have been presented as normal MMOs and quite honestly both of those games aren't doing so well and so they don't make very good examples since we can't separate out the specific effect the RMT system had on player satisfaction.

Eve's economy isn't that different to other MMOs. The in-game currency changes hands a lot more often but actually generating currency is generally achieved through missions (quests) & bounties (killing monsters for gold.) In-game currency is mostly removed from the game through tax on market transactions.

The scale is different but the basics are the same as FFXIV.

[Shougun]

How many people do you know that would be willing to risk losing their account forever just to get a marginally better deal than what is being legitimately offered?

While I don't think it is a small group of people it is also important to recognize that it is probably a lot of big whale return customers, who were already comfortable being illegitimate. Then they are given the option to pick the better return on investment with some hazy possible punishment in the future, maybe. Numbers not known, it is not known or imo important if third party RMT makes less money as the point is the RMT, the real money trade, and not the fact that it is third party.

[Dante_V]

I also want to point out that I don't think this is "Pay 2 Win". If the dynamic between real money and buying market board items is Pay 2 Win, it's already happening in large numbers. Pay 2 Win by definition is a competitive advantage over other players using real money. Paying gil to be carried thru Final Coil isn't pay to win nor is their any real competitive advantage to clearing the raid in respect to other players. Again if we are too acknowledge that this is Pay 2 Win then it is already occurring.

[Tiggy]

Also, you just proved my point with your statement about money changing hands helping the economy. EXACTLY. That money, that was fattening a 1%er's wallet, changed hands and were consumed in favor of a commodity (real estate).

No it in no way proves your point. In that scenario 1 set of money was made. Went from player A to player B for a sub price, then player B blew it on a house making the money leave the game. There is no economy there. That's just a massive gil sink being funded by real life money.

EXACTLY. That money, that was fattening a 1%er's wallet

Please keep saying this like it's accurate. Eventually it might become real that it's safe to assume most players sit around with fortunes in their wallet and that it's safe to make broad assumptions...oh yeah even you keep saying 1% so even you know it's not a lot of people. Why should sweeping changes be made to the entire game for the 1% of people hoarding money? Them holding onto the cash literally doesn't effect anything at all. The economy moves on with out them without anyone even knowing that money is locked away. I don't even know what point you think saying 1%ers over and over again is proving. I know a player with over 300m who hasn't logged in in 6 months. That fortune is literally hurting no one. Not one person.

I have no problems with gil sinks. I have problems with you trying to offload parts of the economy onto a system supported entirely by real life money. That is not an economy. It's p2w. Even in your example the person wanted a house, used the rmt money to give a friend a free account, and then bought the house using the money get got by the trade. He purchased the house with gil yes, but he got that gil solely due to the purchasing of real money in the first place which is getting him access to something he couldn't have done otherwise obtained access to. That's flat out p2w, and on the side the player getting a free month of play was being tricked into working a sweat shop just to pay for his account off the blessings of another player instead of just enjoying the game. That's a terrible situation and is another reality to your sob story.

Real life money should never be able to create any items of appreciable and transferable worth to other players. Square already messed up badly enough by making wedding bracelets trad-able. They don't need to make it worse. Balancing the gil sinks out does nothing but make playing the game by purchasing said RMT currency a requirement from time to time. Know this square. I would quit instantly. Put that in your statistics jar.