A Free Company and House being sold for In-Game Currency Shouldn't Be OK

[BayaniTenzen]

Our Free Company and Medium House with everything inside including Airship and all Free Company Credits has been traded/sold between the 02/03/2016 and 03/03/2016. This has been done by our Current FC Master and he has told other people via in-game text that he received gil for this. How is this a Condoned action by Square Enix, when I spoke to a GM they told me that this is a "Free Company Dispute". But over 50 members have contributed to that house, we all chipped together, we farmed instances for furniture back when they were launched. It was the effort of a group and now it's sold for the Profit of one Player? How is that a condonable action? I baffles me that support can just say "because he is the leader he can transfer ownership to whoever he wants" but ignore the fact that this was done as a SALE; a SALE of property owned in truth by more than one person. Other members would have wanted to keep that house going but now it's held by some Level 16 Character. How is this Legal?

[Bacent]

I couldn't agree more. A lot of people are really letting greed get to them with the very limited housing. I've been seeing people on Cerberus charging 2x or 3x the price they spent on the house, if not more.

[Mjollnir]

My friends and I bought our Free Company w/Large House last year. The FC we bought it from had ceased and remained inactive on another player's alt, unused. Yes, he could have destroyed the land and made the plot available (it would have been the only one on the server at the time), but considering the work that was put into it, that would have been a big waste - and it would have gone to the first person to spot it (who likely would have bought the plot and resold higher to someone who actually wanted it).

So I think that it's absolutely fine to sell an FC - we all walked away from that transaction happy.

I can see an issue with abuse like you have described though. I don't think adding in preventative measures to stop it from being possible is a good idea though (and I'm not convinced it *is* possible). The real issue is that your FC leader should be trusted. However, everyone has bad days, disagreements arise, people join and leave, and a vindictive sale to an unknown because of these kinds of reasons is unjust.

A solution; change the way FCs are owned. Currently we have this totalitarian regime, but what if the FC was owned by shares?

Shares:
would be distributed at point of creation as agreed by the parties involved.
could be split to increase quantity, but proportionally increased across the board for that FC when that occurs (to aid future distribution).
could be freely traded or sold between players.
could be used call for a leadership vote and would have proportional weight on that vote (and would be the only way of transferring leadership).
would be automatically made available to the highest bidder if a member's subscription ran out.

The information on Share quantity owned and share transactions would be stored as per Currencies, though under the FC page on it's own tab:
---
You own 25/500 shares in this Free Company (5%)
Player McPlayerson has offered to buy 10 shares for 5,000 gil each (50,000 gil) [Accept / Reject / Block Player]
Cloud Sephirot has 14 shares for this Free Company on sale. [Make Offer]
---

And instead of just assigning leadership, you could use shareholder voting to assign permissions and player ranks. It'd be fab.

Of course, an FC could be founded on one share owned by one person and we'd have exactly the system we have at the moment.

Call me Yoshi-P, I'll totes flesh out the system for you fully^^

[Dante_V]

I agree that what he did was messed up but square views these things as personal disputes and will not get involved unless you had some explicit agreement with the owner otherwise.

[Culfinrandir]

It's interesting that the sale of personal houses attracts the wrath of GMs, with bans being handed out, but the sale of a FC with house & assets is fine. Imagine how attractive it must be to RMT if they can sell a FC with a chest full of gil... I'm not implying at all that it has happened here, but it's definitely a concern.

[Nyghtmarerobu]

It's interesting that the sale of personal houses attracts the wrath of GMs, with bans being handed out, but the sale of a FC with house & assets is fine. Imagine how attractive it must be to RMT if they can sell a FC with a chest full of gil... I'm not implying at all that it has happened here, but it's definitely a concern.

I'd like to see an RMT get a house on a server where there is actually a ton of players, like Balmung or Excalibur. Hell I haven't seen a tell or a shout from an RMT on balmung in almost 6-8 months, or longer.

[Culfinrandir]

I'd like to see an RMT get a house on a server where there is actually a ton of players, like Balmung or Excalibur. Hell I haven't seen a tell or a shout from an RMT on balmung in almost 6-8 months, or longer.

Yeah, but those servers are the exception to the norm. On Leviathan you can get several RMT tells a minute at all hours, sometimes more, sometimes far less.