The RMT of selling content using cross server party finder

[Vnolan]

It's RMT. You only have to spend about 60 seconds to contact them and see for yourself. People saying otherwise are arguing just to increase post count or are trying to mislead for some odd reason.

As for the OP: It is against the ToS, but the GMs won't do anything unless the ads say 'we sell for monies' and the STF doesn't use discord info, so until SE changes their stance, it's allowed.

[Dustytome]

It's RMT. You only have to spend about 60 seconds to contact them and see for yourself. People saying otherwise are arguing just to increase post count or are trying to mislead for some odd reason.

As for the OP: It is against the ToS, but the GMs won't do anything unless the ads say 'we sell for monies' and the STF doesn't use discord info, so until SE changes their stance, it's allowed.

Anyone not bound by the rules of the GMs can spend 5 seconds to see it's RMT. The GMs however have to go by proof visible within SE's system. I would love to see them set up some sting operations though.

[Final-Fantasy]

Real Money Trading will be involved in this shady setup of third-party services.

It is pointless having an economy without any regulation of any kind, just imagine if you could use a third-party program in the real world to make unlimited money, yeah...

[Hasrat]

Pro tip: For the sellers that forget to set an item level, just get a few friends together to all join up. Soon as the party is full, the listing gets pulled from PF.

[Laerad3993]

Oh it’s absolutely RMT. Happened in November with a mutual friend of my static members. He went through this exact thing, even admitting it in game. Purchased something like $200 USD in gil, used it to furnish their FC, and pay for his O4 clear. Was reported by 5 of us, and the guy was never banned. Neither were the people who set up that PF. What’s hilarious is the people who convinced him to do this EXACT thing in your image parses his paid run, so it’s forever uploaded to fflogs with his 28 dps kill as DRG on Neo. Even having proof, he still plays. He transferred to another data center once word spread.

[Risvertasashi]

Oh it’s absolutely RMT. Happened in November with a mutual friend of my static members. He went through this exact thing, even admitting it in game. Purchased something like $200 USD in gil, used it to furnish their FC, and pay for his O4 clear.

There's a difference here. If someone's selling a clear for gil... they have no realistic means to know if that gil was ill gotten or not. It's SE's responsibility to fight RMT, not for every merchant to go "did you buy your gil?" and hire private investigators to verify the truth.

When people sell runs for dollars or euros... which as others mentioned, takes all of a few seconds to find out... then they are clearly engaging in RMT. Sadly, while companies like Blizzard or ANet have no qualms about having employees check these things out and banning the RMTers, Square Enix does. Unless they mention specifically in game that they're selling for money, SE won't touch them.

because they won’t accept screenshots from third-party chat clients as evidence. Since they can be “altered”, is the excuse.

There's an easy enough way to keep this policy while getting the evidence. Have Square's very own GMs join those discords and ask for the price sheet.

But of course, they won't.

[Tridus]

There's an easy enough way to keep this policy while getting the evidence. Have Square's very own GMs join those discords and ask for the price sheet.

But of course, they won't.

Yup. A few sting operations would clean up PF real fast. But that's not good for the bottom line. At the end of the day, this doesn't actually impede other players from playing the game, so SE has no real incentive to act.

[Linx0r]

Sadly this exists but why should anyone care? If people want to spend their own real money on something let them. If they get caught they get caught. If they don’t, why do others care? The world isn’t fair from incompetent people getting high paying positions from a relative even though someone who spent years of studies should be the candidate. Just work hard and play how you want and if it doesn’t concern you just ignore it

[Vhailor]

Sadly this exists but why should anyone care? If people want to spend their own real money on something let them. If they get caught they get caught. If they don’t, why do others care? The world isn’t fair from incompetent people getting high paying positions from a relative even though someone who spent years of studies should be the candidate. Just work hard and play how you want and if it doesn’t concern you just ignore it

One of the primary reasons I enjoy playing long-term MMOs like FFXI or FFXIV is that they offer, at their best, an escape from the real world, and all the disparity within it. Out in the real world, I have to accept that some of the worst people imaginable have the nicest things, and that some of the nicest people in the world suffer at their hands. It sucks. Games, like many other forms of entertainment, offer an escape - one that is severely limited when reminders of real-world wealth intrude upon the virtual world.

Moreover, these people actively disrupt the balance of the in-game economy. Their purchasing of Gil funds RMT, who make their money through the in-game economy, limiting economic options for legitimate players. Their purchasing of runs funds a narrow group of players, thereby again manipulating the economy around the purchasing interests of a few. Just as in real life, the actions of the corrupt, the actions of cheaters, impacts everyone else, too.

So, no, I won't ignore it - because it concerns me and my enjoyment of the game. It's against the rules, and I will continue to advocate for a scorched-earth policy until these pathetic cheaters with more money than common sense or integrity abandon FFXIV in favour of some other game to screw up.

The current system is probably the most reliable, quick, and trustworthy method for the support team to investigate any reports made by any players, but it's not that great in situations such as this. Honestly, there's really not much they can do about it unless the person involved accidentally lets it slip out in the in-game chat.

I'm not sure I agree, here. In the case of the PF options, the reason nothing is done is because technically selling runs for Gil is permitted. This is a bad loophole, and one that should be closed - which would immediately allow GMs to take action on any sort of PF advertising a run sale of any kind. They wouldn't need to distinguish between whether there's some workaround involving in-game currency; they could simply look, see that it's a sale, and boom - problem solved.

I have a difficult time seeing the downside to this solution. While I guess there's nothing overtly 'wrong' with purchasing a run using in-game Gil, I do think it violates the spirit of fair play, if nothing else. Why protect it?

[Vnolan]

There's an easy enough way to keep this policy while getting the evidence. Have Square's very own GMs join those discords and ask for the price sheet.

Yup. A few sting operations would clean up PF real fast.

There a few problems with that. If a GM investigated one and found it wasn't RMT, how would it prevent additional reports of the same listing while at the same time respecting the seller's privacy? If it was RMT, but the GM was fooled, that would allow the sellers to continue as they did before. If a seller was found guilty of RMT, they wouldn't be permabanned if it was their first offense, so the same seller could use the same contact info and claim they've shunned the ways of RMT. If they were permabanned, they could just use a new dummy account and different contact info.

It's a thing that been going on since couple months.
We have multiple threads on this here and on reddit.

We can hope someone asked a question about this for the upcoming LL this weekend.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post4632827

You can like that post and hope it gets asked, but your post already answers it. There have been numerous threads about an issue which could be answered in all of one short post by a GM, but there has been no response. If SE were to say they won't or can't do anything about it, that would open the floodgates for RMT. If by some crazy chance the question or some variation is not only asked, but gets an answer saying they will be updating their policy on the issue, it would be another blemish on the system between the GMs and devs.

Sadly this exists but why should anyone care? If people want to spend their own real money on something let them. If they get caught they get caught. If they don’t, why do others care? The world isn’t fair from incompetent people getting high paying positions from a relative even though someone who spent years of studies should be the candidate. Just work hard and play how you want and if it doesn’t concern you just ignore it

Do you make the same post in threads about RMT bots spamming chat or sending invites? I'm sure many people would like to know if they could make money on the side by following the same rules that apply to parsing.

There are a few instances where I can see that the current system is trying to avoid.

Bans. That's what it's trying to avoid. You don't have to ban people if you ignore the reports.