Why no Plex system?

[Aylis]

I don't have a problem with it personally. Though I can see it causing SE to have an exchange rate melt down while they try and figure out the value of gil to the plex with all the currant gil saturating the servers. The other thing is a general lack of items that would make players want to use it. There is no BoE tradable entry level raid gear, attunment keys, difficult to get sockets/augments, no spiffy items with special effects, no skill advancement after the level up. Unless you really need that hot new glamor or furnashing day one or really want to buy a run carry, or lightning strikes and a house plot opens up, the game has little to offer for a mass amount of gil.

What I could really get on board with though is a form of alternate rare drop currency in game, say Mog Chips or something that can be used instead of real money on the cash shop.

[RichardButte]

Though I can see it causing SE to have an exchange rate melt down while they try and figure out the value of gil to the plex with all the currant gil saturating the servers.

SE doesn't set the gil price, though. That's entirely up to the players and the market.

There is no BoE tradable entry level raid gear, attunment keys, difficult to get sockets/augments, no spiffy items with special effects, no skill advancement after the level up.

But there's crafted raid gear which is either entry level or possibly above, and socketing materia makes a HUGE difference in your character's potency.

[Vexander]

Okay so let's start with: In your opinion, what makes RMT bad?

I think for most people, RMT is bad because it is a disruption to their immersion and gameplay. To have your chat log spammed with long messages about discounts gets annoying quick, and putting the character doing the spamming on your ignore list is not a proper solution as these bots are deleted and made again once they're shut down. From there another concern is cyber safety and security as these sites can be hosting malicious programs meant to steal financial information. Beyond that, paranoid players will have the very real concern of being falsely accused of RMT transactions if they move large sums of in-game currency, even if it was obtained legitimately. I don't think SE has ever done false accusations and banning, but its always a real concern.

After that, I imagine most players find the idea of buying currency to be akin to cheating, which is a fair complaint to have. However, you'll always find players who enjoy cheating in a game for one reason or another, and an MMO may not let you type in a code for god mode, but RMT allows for economic cheats.

I will say the first time I experienced Plex was with World of Warcraft and at the time it came off to me as Blizzard trying to make money. I'm sure they are, but it certainly did a number on the RMT trading as well. Since players buying currency in MMOs seems like it'll be an inevitability, I have to admit, I would rather the game's developers gain the profit.

[loreleidiangelo]

I don't really have an issue with the concept, but unlike other games where this system works I see absolutely zero incentive to actually SELL a sub token, given what little meaningful gil sinks we have in the game already. If players see nothing of substantial worth to buy with in-game currency, they won't sell tokens.

Admittedly, this is just my personal viewpoint - I wouldn't object a token implementation on principle.

[Vexander]

I don't really have an issue with the concept, but unlike other games where this system works I see absolutely zero incentive to actually SELL a sub token, given what little meaningful gil sinks we have in the game already. If players see nothing of substantial worth to buy with in-game currency, they won't sell tokens.

Admittedly, this is just my personal viewpoint - I wouldn't object a token implementation on principle.

Its not as though SE couldn't create in-game gil sinks either. New in-game content not directly related to the Mogstation is always in fairly high demand. Imagine if items from the Gold Saucer could be purchased with Gil instead of MGP? Or that Gil to MGP conversions were no longer limited? Well, someone with 10,000,000 Gil might really want that Fenrir Mount, having nothing better to do with their gil, and decide to convert it to MGP to get the mount. Those without the gil could continue to play the MGP games and challenge logs to slowly earn it.

[Culfinrandir]

This would be a terrible move & open up so many legal problems. If real money could be traded to gil then anything in the Gold Saucer would become gambling under the laws of most countries. As a result it would either be restricted to over 18/21/25 or banned altogether. How would the game check the age of the user? Would everyone be required to pay subscriptions with credit cards or provide certified copies of passports? What about selling crafted items - they'd be able to be purchased with cash therefore would fall under Consumer Regulations.

A can of worms.

[Dualgunner]

This would be a terrible move & open up so many legal problems. If real money could be traded to gil then anything in the Gold Saucer would become gambling under the laws of most countries. As a result it would either be restricted to over 18/21/25 or banned altogether. How would the game check the age of the user? Would everyone be required to pay subscriptions with credit cards or provide certified copies of passports? What about selling crafted items - they'd be able to be purchased with cash therefore would fall under Consumer Regulations.

A can of worms.

But...Gold Saucer doesn't use gil as currency. Therefore, this wouldn't affect GS at all.

Has WoW had any of these legal problems you say XIV would? Because I don't see the can of worms you do.

[Vexander]

But...Gold Saucer doesn't use gil as currency. Therefore, this wouldn't affect GS at all.

Has WoW had any of these legal problems you say XIV would? Because I don't see the can of worms you do.

WoW hasn't had any of those legal problems because there is no way to convert gold into money. The, 'Legal,' issues he pointed out may as well apply to a game of monopoly. You bought the, 'Fake Currency,' and are, 'Gambling,' since you're rolling dice to determine what you gain and lose and all. If there was a way to convert Gil into money, yeah, there would be an issue. But Plex systems don't do that. The idea that using money to buy game time and selling game time to another player would cause issues with consumer laws is laughable since in most MMOs if you buy something off of a Cash Shop you can vendor sell it for money which is just one additional step in this logic of violating consumer laws.

[Vaer]

The only thing I really see this affecting might be the housing situation. Suddenly more people can get the gil easily (whether to upgrade to a medium or a large) by just dropping some cash on tokens (let's be honest, there have been multiple threads about people wanting to use the cash shop to buy houses outright). Yeah, affording a small is chump change to some, but I've actually known some players that are not that great at making money.

People already kinda did this with the marriage bracelets, they would sell them for gil since they can be traded. All they said is "Plz don't do it." Doubt anyone got banned.

I don't mind either way I suppose but I guess some might see it as a gray area P2W.

On the topic of WoW, most of the inflation is/was caused by garrison/OH gold missions (especially with alts) IMO not really the token.

I would not be surprised if they are already thinking about it since they already put in a jump potion.

[Snow_Princess]

Seriously, this system works wonders in so many other MMOs that I'm actually very surprised SE doesn't have it already...
They're not "free". It's just that someone else is paying for their sub. SE still gets the same amount of money either way (possibly more).



When?

WoW tokens hover at around 50,000g as of ~6 months ago. You sure you're thinking of WoW and not some other MMO...?



It's far less of a middle finger when the person who invested the time is being given a month subscription in exchange for this money, instead of it going to an RMT company.



It hasn't "screwed the market" in EVE, WoW, or Wildstar. It wouldn't do so to XIV, either.



-People will get banned/suspended.
-People will stop buying from RMT.
-We won't have to deal with annoying RMT spam every single time we teleport into a major city where they replace the barking bot every 30 minutes with yet another character that we need to report and blacklist.

Do other MNO's have a poor/ low activity econ? RIGHT NOW! with how our game encon works, having these tokens will not work. All it would do is make the hosing situation WORSE! because that be the only reason to sell them.

For the idea someone else is basically paying for the sub, point taken but I do not see good coming out of it. I think people will whine about some people having perma free subs or something because gil is hard for them.

WoW hasn't had any of those legal problems because there is no way to convert gold into money. The, 'Legal,' issues he pointed out may as well apply to a game of monopoly. You bought the, 'Fake Currency,' and are, 'Gambling,' since you're rolling dice to determine what you gain and lose and all. If there was a way to convert Gil into money, yeah, there would be an issue. But Plex systems don't do that. The idea that using money to buy game time and selling game time to another player would cause issues with consumer laws is laughable since in most MMOs if you buy something off of a Cash Shop you can vendor sell it for money which is just one additional step in this logic of violating consumer laws.

The person you are quoting is correct to an extent, SE did say it is why they had trouble coming out with the GS to begin with. However the GS has a low limit of converting, to have GS money be it's own thing basically so it does not step on any laws. Remember each country has different laws when comes to those things.