dear people who buy gil with real money

[Xccoortri]

Originally posted by Deodorant
[B]I don't see what the big hoohahh is about buying gil.

Purely Hypothetical Situation:

- Let's say I have a job that pays $10 an hour.
- My chara in-game makes at most, 50k gil an hour.
- I can buy 10k gil for $1.

Therefore, I can either:
- Farm 1 hour, 50k gil.
- Work 1 hour, get $10, and then buy 100k gil.

Your logic is backwards. There is nothing WRONG with doing it, it gets you money faster and you get to have th ebest geat easily, but you have to ask yourself WHY you are playing the game if you are just going to buy everything that it has to offer. YOu are just cheating yourself. You pay to play a game that should be fun to PLAY, yet you just buy your stuff so you aren't actually playing it.

[Hirio]

Its all comes down is why does anyone even care about what someone else does ? If player A, and B, should choose to buy gil from some online site what does it matter to the rest of you ? The fact is that player A and B bought the gil from someone that is farming for it none the less. I think its just a point of jealousy, in that some people choose to buy there gil rather then spend the weeks and months earning it.

I bought this game just like everyone else, first getting it for the pc then the ps2 cause I didnt want to hunch over a desk anymore. So right off the top I have spent 150 dollers for the games alone, then the service itself at another 13 bucks a month. I dont know about the rest of you, but inbetween the times I go to class, work, friends, and my wife. I have maybe all of 10 hours a week for myself. In which I choose to play this game. It and kills me to have to spend all that time farming up for the next upgrade to get a extra 2 points of def, so the next party I get into, I won't be bitched at for not haveing the best. I can get at my level. So that means I have to not only spend more time farming and less time playing but it also means I have to spend even more real life money to make 'fake' money cause I dont have the time to put into the game to make the next 300k for what I need. So like it was said once before on here, time is money in here. The more time I am forced to be farming, the more money Square makes.

It isnt by chance Square made gil so hard to get. So there I was, farming my plants, crafting, selling my old eqps. all to save up what I needed. And when I checked in for what I wanted at the selling price, it still wasn't enough. Yet another greedy player wanting even more on a already over priced item. I didn't want to spend the extra time farming, or telling the rest of my LS that I can't join them yet again cause I was farming. So I went online and bought the extra 30k in gil for 7 dollers. And it was the best 7 dollers I think I ever spent. I finally got what I wanted, paid the greedy fuck, for his over priced armor. And finally got to play the game after 4 and a half weeks of farming. Now only to find I was the lowest member in my LS by 10 levels.

Leveling in this game seems like another job. Getting money seems like yet another job. Its like I have 3 jobs now, but I'm paying to work two of them. So if I need to have a quick 30k in gil, and I don't want to stop my enjoyment of the game, you can bet your ass, that I will spend the 5 or 10 dollers. Now how does that make me lazy ? The money I spend is my own, not yours. The gil I bought isnt made by illegle manners. I'm not undercutting or selling for inflated prices. How exactly am I ruining the game for anyone else ?

Instead of just not careing what the other person does, with thier time and money. You sit there and bitch cause somebody chooses to buy some gil. Last time I checked, none of the servers shut down. ....the AH prices pretty much stayed the same.. Just as many people were playing as before.. Some players still sucked, some were good. Everyone still praised the JP players as gods and pissed on the rest of the worlds players cause they wern't "l33t" enough. So in the end, it didn't hurt anything but Squares little rule they placed in the book to keep all of us playing even longer.


....hell, for all we know Square could be running some of these gil selling sites. Just to make even more money.

[Deodorant]

Originally posted by Kailea-D
1) This thread should have not made it past post 2........

2) Like some have said, if they can let them, there us nothing anyone but SE can do about it

3) Please just drop the subject once and for all

Uh ... for the most part this thread is one of the most intelligently discussed on the entire forum, I'd wager everyone else would be pissed if it were closed.

Redundant Point: Buying gil is against the rules. This cannot be debated, obviously, so in a 'legal' sense then yes, it is wrong.

In a 'moral' sense, the distinction between right and wrong isn't as clear. To me I view buying gil more like exchanging money for time, both of which are limited and essential commodities.

Originally posted by Xccoortri
YOu are just cheating yourself. You pay to play a game that should be fun to PLAY, yet you just buy your stuff so you aren't actually playing it.

You're absolutely right; I pay to have fun in this game. However therein lies the problem; how many of us have fun farming? In many other games you earn your money as you level up or do other fun stuff; in FFXI basically you either do fun stuff and make no money, or make money and have no fun.

Personally I have more fun with my job than I do gil-farming in FFXI, and if gil wasn't as "expensive" as it is, I'd gladly exchange some of that money to save me countless hours of dreary, boring gil-farming. To me, obtaining a 'leet' item gives me the same sense of achievement as brushing my teeth in the mornings.

Obviously there will be some of you who have the opposite view; you farm weeks for sniper rings or whatever and when you finally get them you feel elated, like you've just conquered the world. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is assuming that everyone else should feel the same way.

So the way I see how the debate has gone thus far boils down to an issue of differing stances on the 'morality' scale; and both camps trying to push their beliefs onto each other. Realistically speaking there is no clear right or wrong when dealing with moral/ethical issues like these; the best you can hope for is for both camps to just understand each others' views and stop trying to impose their own views.

Because, no amount of talking will convince a gil-buyer that it is morally wrong (and vice versa).

[edit] I don't like using/commenting on analogies because they very rarely perfectly fit the situation, but just on that model plane as a hobby thing:

What if a person's hobby was strictly limited to flying model planes? Wouldn't it make sense to buy an already-assembled one (thus in essence, paying somebody else to build it)?

[csBahamut]

Using StarvingArtist's link:
http://www.themis-group.com/whitepapers.phtml
I suggest reading "The Future of Online Games". Everything from "Design" on down has some very interesting information, especially uner the Case Study: Everquest and Case Study: How Ultima Online Defined Its Customers as Cheaters

The basic principle of economics is that people respond to the incentives they face. Structure a business so that people are rewarded for being “team players� instead of innovating, and you’ll get a sluggish but comfortable company. Structure a government department so people are rewarded for empire building, and you’ll get a large bureaucracy that fails to achieve its ostensible objectives.

Structure a game to reward inappropriate behavior, and that’s what you’ll get.

Structure a game to reward inappropriate behavior, and that’s what you’ll get.

Computer game designers aren’t used to thinking in these terms at all; ‘inappropriate behavior’ is meaningless in a solitaire game. It doesn’t matter how much a solo player cheats, for instance—he’s cheating himself, if anyone, and so long as he enjoys the experience, everyone’s happy.

But a multiplayer game is a social game. The game must therefore reward pro-social behavior—and penalize anti-social behavior.

For instance, in Ultima Online, it takes hours and hours to develop skills and obtain items that allow your character to become more powerful. But if you kill someone and take his possessions, you become more powerful instantly. Ultima Online rewards player-killing (PKing)—and penalizes the honest.

That was not Richard Garriott’s intention; the previous (solitaire) Ultima games all had a definite moral, pro-social slant. Garriott had apparently presumed that order would spontaneously arise, players banding together to defeat the few bad eggs (if indeed he ever thought about the issue). The problem is that the rewards for forming an online police are slight and diffuse, while the rewards for PKing are individual and intense.

Economists call that the problem of the commons.

Here’s an example. Ultima Online is designed in such a way that new characters are unskilled and weak. In order to obtain decent stats and skills, they must practice. They must perform the same task over and over and over and over. It is repetitive. It is dull. It is dumb game design. But it is what you must do.

Naturally, soon after the game launched, people programmed tools—macros—to help characters get better. Essentially, you record the task you wish to accomplish in the macro, and leave it running. Your character practices and practices and practices while you go off and sleep, or read the newspaper, or get some work done. It’s a perfectly reasonable and natural reaction to the incentives imposed by the game.

But macros presented a problem for Origin, for two reasons. First, they gave people who used macros an advantage over those who did not. By using a macro, you can acquire a decent character fairly quickly, with minimal real effort; it takes a lot of actual play time to acquire a character of comparable power through continuous play, as Origin had originally planned. This skewed the playing field; it was unfair.

What did they do instead? They defined the use of macros as cheating. They said anyone caught cheating would be punished, possibly by having his or her account deleted. They set the gamemasters to prowling the game, looking for cheaters to punish.

People respond to incentives. If Origin didn’t want players automating repetitive tasks, they shouldn’t have created a system that rewarded them for doing so. Having designed such a system, they were stuck with the consequences—but the last thing they should have done is chosen a response that defined many of their own customers as cheaters, required them to punish their own customers, set up a situation of antipathy between the sysop staff and the customer base.

They didn’t solve the problem; the rewards for “cheating� are too high, there is nothing that feels wrong or unfair or unethical or immoral about running a simple macro, and there’s a smarmy pleasure to be had in outwitting the gamemasters. Plenty of UO players continue to use macros—and others resent them, because the playing field now genuinely is unfair. You must violate the terms of service to use macros, and so ‘responsible citizens’ are at a disadvantage.

Should give a good taste of it.

[Deodorant]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not encouraging or sanctioning gil purchasing in any way.

A month or two ago a lvl 75 whom I knew sold his account. When I found out, my initial reaction was something along the lines of 'What the fuck? Some noob with no idea how to play the game has a lvl 75 chara now?' It annoyed me immensely that although the both of us have the same "lvl 75-ness," I had spent hundreds of hours more than he did slaving away to get there.

On the other hand, a particular person I know recently purchased a pair of cursed gloves with gil (bought with money). This didn't affect me at all, because I have no real desire to obtain super leet equipment.

So I suppose you could accuse me of being hypocritical, seeing as both the above situations are basically the same, and yeah you would be right.

I fully agree that buying gil/items affects everybody else more than they'd initially imagine. I also understand the frustration that people feel when they see others achieve more than they do with a fraction of the effort.

Having said that, it is also rather silly to go off and label gil-purchasers as stupid (as some of you have done), because on an individual level it is possibly an extremely logical choice. Does it affect the rest of us? Yes - to varying degrees. Do these people give a damn? Not likely; Nothing any of us say is going to change their views on the matter.

[Kirara]

EULA

tell me that all of you use legit softwares

[csBahamut]

EULA

tell me that all of you use legit softwares

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts make a right. That's why I don't download any illegal software.

Instead of attacking the person, a logical falicy, defend your idea.

Having said that, it is also rather silly to go off and label gil-purchasers as stupid (as some of you have done), because on an individual level it is possibly an extremely logical choice. Does it affect the rest of us? Yes - to varying degrees. Do these people give a damn? Not likely; Nothing any of us say is going to change their views on the matter.

To them it may *seem* logical, but by false logic (using a logical falicy). Opinion and desires can influence human decisions and make something look logical.

[uhsieh]

Buying Gil from a RL friend

Well, I would consider buying Gil from an online store illegal and immoral, but consider the below situation:

Two real life friends play FFXI at the same time on the same server, so they like to level their main jobs on the weekends. Unfortunately, Player A has little to no time outside the weekend playtime, but Player B levels his subjobs and farms during the time when Player A is not around.

Now, if Player B "donates" Gil to Player A for RL compensations, would it qualify as buying Gil?

By definition it would be buying Gil, but it's just a trade between the two friends, right?

[dworkin]

lol isnt that what we all said for napster, an kazaa??

[dworkin]

is it right or is it wrong is not for me to decide. but you must take into account everyone elses status in RL is. how can someone camp an overcamped nm, when his kid has a baseball game, or needs to be fed. how can someone lvl when there at work for 10 hours a day. an there are plenty of other reasons why such things might be.


truth is. you cant keep up with your ls, your online friends or your rl friends. the fact is alot of the people who play the game are high school, or college. while others have 40+ hour work week, plus have families to take care of. how are they to lvl let alone pay 2.3mil for haubergeon ??? should we just quit because we are not able to spend 24 hrs a day on it like someone wrote eariler? how can you compete against them? devorce your wife, quit your job, an move back home???


so how is buying gil directly effect you all? there is someone still farming for it, there is someone still selling items for it. there is still someone camping an nm for it. an whatever else they do to make the money. you cant sit there an say its cause you will have better gear then the next player. cause i seen some shit gear on lvl 59 lvling next to my static. a drk at 59 with 2 balance rings an a spike necklace?? and only rank 2? what the fuck is that. if i didnt have a static pt. id be struggling getting pts while this guys is almost 60 ><. or the drk i saw with lvl 49 mythril armor on, an they were 57. lvling in the same area as me. so someone buying gear, or gil. really does not effect you there.


before you guys judge me, i do not buy gil. kinda like what was said earlier. i take pride running around jeuno with my 2 snipers ring, an valks mask. that i did indeed bust my ass to buy. i do take that pride in knowing that i did all this shit ingame on my own, (lol minus the millions of shouts for af help,)


is it fair someone can buy gil, no it isnt fair. nor is it right, but the same can be said for another player who can be ingame 24 hours a day. while another cant. is that fair to that other player? NO. the only diff is the fact that 1 is allowed while the other one isnt... but as long as this game will last. so will the veiws. both sides will never die...:dead:

[Abadd]

i don't see what the big deal is....yeah it takes a while to get gil if you do it the "legit" way.... but to me that is enjoyable, be it farming, fishing, crafting, etc... if people want to deny themselves that part of the game, good for them. more fish for me

[Chanse]

Nicely written dworkin.

[Kneebiter]

Buying Gil online:
$260 usd for 1 million gil, $500 for 2 million gil

Fishing up rusty cap (bot or no bot)
100k+ a night (5 hours session, I have 2 accounts, play on one, fish on the other at the same time)
And don't forget all the botters and how much they can make fishing up moat carps, gold carps, bastore beams and rusty caps 24/7.

Gardening
You can't tell me this is fair when anyone can grow platinum nuggets and elemental ores without doing any real work. Sure you need an initial investment but overall, all you need is a bit of luck. When you have 50 pots growing on 5 characters and its a constant stream of platinum nuggets and a few elemental ores, just one mule will grow enough to cover the cost of buy cuttings and saplings. The rest are profit and with so many you can afford to undercut the hell out of everyone and still make money.

Those two ways of making money cost me very little time or very little effort. But just because they're in the game, that is fair? I really can't see anyone dropping more than 500 dollars once in a long while and do you really think theres hundreds of players buying gil on each server? You probably get less than 100 buying less than a million each time. So what you have is a few million gils entering the server per month at most.

But what you do have is a few hundred people fishing + gardening every single day making millions without really doing anything. You might want to argue that not everyone have 2 accounts and 5 characters but I can assure you that most of those people fishing have more than 1 accounts. As for gardening, how many people have at least 1 mule, one in each nation? Now does that put gil buying in to perspective? Is it really that big of a deal now?

[Kurgan]

My only problem with the people who are buying the gil is that it encourages the people to sell the gil. These people selling the gil have people operating players in every server who constantly camp NMs, HNMs, and farm out areas until there's nothing left or no chance for any of us to get NMs. I have witnessed several groups of DRGs that appear to be operated by either bots or a group of people (or a few people on many machines) that will camp certain areas 24/7 for several weeks at a time. They're barely level 50, poorly equipped, and are selling high-value items in mass quantities.

I saw one such party on Ramuh that camped Mee Deggi and Quu Domi in Castle Oz for over a week straight. The player delegated to sell the items was selling around 5-7 Ochiudo's Kotes per day. He was a level 50ish RDM. He was wearing a Carapace Harness, a Brass Subligar, and had a Yew Wand+1 and a Promise Badge equipped, and that was all. The DRGs were wearing either Carapace Harness or Brigandine and little else. They were using level 20ish spears. There was no doubt in my mind that they were gil sellers. They were making millions a day.

The number of groups I'm seeing like this seems to be growing. I've been very disturbed by it. I hope SquareEnix can do something about it.

[Onte]

It looks like some people have moral issues.

And once again, my morals and the morals of everyone else who doesn't agree with this poster are scandalous and wrong. Thanks a ton, man!

Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they have moral *issues* or a lack of morals or bad morals. It means you're a judgemental f*ck for assuming your own morals are superior.