How to deal with this kind of friend?

[GenJoe]

Purchasing a RMT service is as good botting and selling itself. You're encouraging RMT, it gives them more reason to advertise if people are actually using the service.

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.

[RyuRoots]

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.

I can see you trying SO HARD to be clever and it's a little pathetic how hard you fail at it, and how badly you misunderstand metaphor.

[GenJoe]

I can see you trying SO HARD to be clever and it's a little pathetic how hard you fail at it, and how badly you misunderstand metaphor.

I'm not even gonna waste my time typing out my response to you. Here's a copy paste.

I feel neither pathetic nor embarrassed. But then again, I hold no special regard for titles related to pixels and my e-peen requires no stroking.

How conveniently located that was

[Nadirah]

As someone who has never bought gil, I think you're a terrible friend. Snitching on a real life friend, making him lose real life money... over a video game? I really hope he sees this thread lol.

And when a RL friend goes against advice, crashes and burns, you let them do it.

Not easy to do but necessary.

[XxSliphxX]

My opinion may not be popular on this forum but here it is. This is a real life friend. FF14 is just a game. However you feel about rmt ect. is irrelevant. I would NEVER sell out a real life friend over a frikin game and possibly ruining a friendship. Does that seem worth it to you? He's not selling drugs on a corner or "robbing banks" as someone else posted, that is a slippery slope argument. Friendship is more important than a stupid game. There will always be other games. There will never be another friend. Don't play with him if it bothers you that much. But to report him? No. That's basically saying you care more about a game than your friend and if that's the case you aren't friends.

[Solaria_Luna]

lol are you implying that undercutters are morally depraved?

You may be right, seeing posts like yours just make me wanna undercut more

Not all...it's more the ones that lower the price 40 gil or more...when others are lowering it a gil or 10 at a time. (...and I'm curious if there are some miner bots that do mine things other than shards, speaking of them I see less of them in the Drybone reigon of them on my server - lol...when I was still a THM I saw so many people there mining/quarrying)[that 10 gil is my threshold for lowering price per a piece] I'm sorry if I accuse normal miners of something they don't do. (though I wonder if somehow those bot miners [the ones that work for the RMTs] glitch out of AFK and abuse it)

I occasionally send my retainer out to mine for shards. (somehow I wonder if some of the spammers [if it's a fresh character not one that appears like it's been commandeered] start up a character get it to level 10, then get the miner class and start mining [therefore I don't think the friend request spammers, the disguised website ones do that as I think all they do is stay at lvl1...or I have to check my extensive blacklist again])

I think my post earlier was misconstrued. (I would report a friend like that choosing the morally responsible route over being loyal, if they did indeed buy gil from a seller)

[Lemuria]

I'd report even my friend in a heartbeat if they bought gil. Two reasons.

Firstly, knowing about it and not reporting it is as good as doing the cheating myself. People may not agree with my opinions or playstyle, but I've always prided myself on being honest at the very least.

Secondly, the people who sell the gil are without a doubt some of the lowest form of life on the internet. Many employ all kinds of tricks, scams and otherwise dirty tactics to get people visiting their website. Spamming the game with advertisements and otherwise ruining the fun for the players through inflated prices. Buying gil is basically telling these people that it works, which only encourages them to do it more.

Anyone who says you're not a true friend unless you say nothing and do nothing has no idea what the word means. Being a friend means being able to tell someone they're in the wrong, not blindly agreeing to everything they do.

[Gunspec]

You know, this got me thinking. Buying gold from RMT is listed as a violation of terms of use in the document we all immediately clicked "agree" to, but where in the game does it say "don't buy gold". Most mmos that punish players for buying gold have a tooltip during loading screens, or friendly reminders to look out for "suspicious activity" when you log in.

FFXIV has no such in-game notifications, and other than the message on the lodestone detailing the recent punishments (only 28 temp bans to buyers this week, despite bans of over 5000 RMT seller accounts. Yeah, I'm sure there were only 28 people buying from 5000 accounts, pphh), there is little to no public show of disapproval for gold buying from SE.

When you log in as a new player, you see dozens of advertisements within the first hour, all of them saying "legal, safe, satisfaction guaranteed". If the devs aren't actively telling you not to buy, and they aren't stopping the "this is totally safe" spam, how would a new player KNOW that this is 100% unacceptable to most serious players?

I'm sure I'm not alone in having spoken with totally new players who didn't GET that gold buying isn't permitted. I mean, in what sensible society could any service that has this many pushers operating openly possibly be violating the rules?

[AskaRay]

If it were a best friend, someone I interact with outside the game, then I'd warn them not to do that again or else I wouldn't play with them and report them. I'd give them a warning first though. (Not that me or anyone I know can even afford it...have you SEEN some of those prices they advertise? "cheap" my ass.)

If it were an in-game acquaintance only and I found out they were buying gil, I'd report them right away.

[kyuven]

My opinion may not be popular on this forum but here it is. This is a real life friend. FF14 is just a game. However you feel about rmt ect. is irrelevant. I would NEVER sell out a real life friend over a frikin game and possibly ruining a friendship. Does that seem worth it to you?

You say this to him:
"Hey man, can you stop buying gil? When you do, you're encouraging all those messages you keep getting every 5 minutes. Plus we could like go out drinkin with that money or something."
And then make a judgment call based on his reaction.
That said, it is because of this attitude, this tolerance and turning a blind eye to RMT that is contributing to the problem we have. Yes, your friend who buys gil is RMTing. That's what the acronym means. They are literally part of the same process that includes the botters and the gil spammers. In fact, they are the REASON those two factions show up at all.
Gil/gold sellers don't do business where there are no people buying. This is why the JP servers are basically spam-free and the NA servers are not. This is why games with PLEX-like systems are basically bereft of goldspam.
Thus, the only reason we are getting these spammers and botters is because of people like the OP's friend.
While you may not want to report your friend, it is your responsibility to tell him that he's contributing to one of FFXIV's biggest problems, to warn him that he's not only jeopardizing his account via SE, but also his credit card info and every other player in the game.
This is not like saying a pot smoker is contributing to violence in Mexico, this is like saying a pot smoker is contributing to the presence of drug dealers in his neighborhood. You can't deal drugs if there's no one to deal to, and you can't sell gil if no one's buying.
THIS is the problem we should be trying to fix, because it's something we can avoid BECAUSE you're friends. Talk to your friend. You don't have to report it but it's very important they understand the problem they're causing.