Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

[Caspian]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

RMT may not be the sole contributor for the out of ratio price hike in several endgame equips, but it is most certainly a major contributing factor. If I want a SH which costs roughly 10 million on Fairy right now, then I would have to farm/mine/garden 10 million gil for it. This is an undertaking that will last atleast a month, probably more, and thats assuming I'm playing 4 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now, I'm not sure of the going rate for gil, but lets say I could work 4hours at work today and use that money to buy the 10 million gil outright. I've just made the same amount of ingame money in 1/28th the time. Now, just to be safe I went ahead and bought 15 million, you never know when an extra 5 million would come in handy. I go to my deliv. box, get the money out and hit the AH. There's only one SH for sale so, being a frugal player I bid 8 or 9 million...No luck. 10 million, nothing. But hey, what the hell, its not like I actually had to spend any real time earning this money. I would have been at work those 4 hours anyway. The seller is being an a-hole and jacking up the price. I dont care, this money took virtually no effort to make and I want my SH so I can start xp'ing again. So I bid 11, 12, even 13 million gil to buy the damn thing. In one transaction I've helped to jack the price of SH's up 3 million gil.
2 things:
1. It takes two to tango. If the seller hadnt put the price higher this would have never happened. This is true, but asking people to no be greedy is like asking the sun not to shine. Its just not gonna happen.
2. If I had earned my money, legally, legitimately, and through personaly effort in the game, then I would have been more frugal about it and not dropped that extra money and screwed over countless other people who had their eye on one. My laziness has now added to other people's greed, as well as make it more difficult for everyone else on my server to get that one rare item.
Now, I agree that other things are involved in the unproportional inflation of some items. But, you cant disagree that RMT doesnt play a major role in making it happen.

NOTE: This was purely hypothetical, I have never, and will never buy gil or items. Its just wrong.

[kuu]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

I've believed we had this discussion before caspian, but it's still hard to swallow that a person would "lose" money just because it wasn't earned without sweat and blood(something that again, can't be defined anyway)...which actually has references to intrinsic value I just disputed...

Example:
I just found $500, I pat myself for my good luck
I goto a store and decide to buy a TV
The salesman goes to me:
"This TV is $250, and this one is $500, they are the exact same TV down to the smallest part."

Which one do I buy?

I may decide to buy 2 for 250 each, even tip the salesman a few bucks, but I wouldn't buy 1 for $500.

[Caspian]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

I've believed we had this discussion before caspian, but it's still hard to swallow that a person would "lose" money just because it wasn't earned without sweat and blood(something that again, can't be defined anyway)...which actually has references to intrinsic value I just disputed...

Example:
I just found $500, I pat myself for my good luck
I goto a store and decide to buy a TV
The salesman goes to me:
"This TV is $250, and this one is $500, they are the exact same TV down to the smallest part."

Which one do I buy?

I may decide to buy 2 for 250 each, even tip the salesman a few bucks, but I wouldn't buy 1 for $500.

Yeah, I think it has been discussed before, just thought I'd bring it up again on this thread, since it's being disputed again.
Only problem with the TV analogy is that you have the option when you're there. If there's only one SH up for sale then there is no $250 option. In my opinion, the biggest thing RMT breeds is laziness and a lack of patience. Yeah, you could get that SH for 10 million, or even less, if you wait even a few days for another to go on sale, but a lot of people just dont want to wait. I agree, you'd have to talk to willing gilbuyers to know the mentality for sure. I just know the way my friends and I think. If you truly have to work hard for something, then it means more and you're less likely to throw it away than if it essentially just falls in your lap. I know I'm a lot more careful about buying something with the 1.5 million I currently have on my char than the 20 or 30 dollars in RL that would easily buy that 1.5million on IGE.

[Tsikuro]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

you say individual greed, but this game is basically based on trying to get the best gear you can. its wrong, but some people choose to take the easy shortcut to getting that gear, rather than do it the hard way.

RMT = real money trade. meaning, buying/selling real money for virtual money

Yeah... and thus, individual greed.

[Mog]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

Gil-buying is not only illegal, but it destroys the fun of the game. I want to work hard to earn all of my stuff, not fork out 20 bucks to buy the latest gear.

[Pounce]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

Gil-buying is not only illegal, but it destroys the fun of the game. I want to work hard to earn all of my stuff, not fork out 20 bucks to buy the latest gear.

Do realize that the definition of 'fun' is completely subjective.

Some people do enjoy forking over $20 and buy that Uber Item(tm) Right This Second(tm) instead of working a (virtual) second job to do it.

I've played a fair number of MMORPGs (though not the big granddaddy EQ). The fact that FFXI's community seems to be the most elitist doesn't help things at all.

[Aeni]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

Kuu,

The intrinsic value that I meant referred to "time." Time is intrinsic. Farmer Brown may believe that 10 hours spent in the fields was all "in an honest days worth." Jan Takeda, playing FFXI on Asura server, just found farming for 10 hours "a bit of BS."

Again ... a person's value of time is different in every aspect and in every corner of this world. Again, if you tried to fit this into the whole scheme of things, then yes, real world economics is a lot more complex and involving than what goes on in FFXI. In FFXI, because everything is rigid and could change over night just because SE decided it should not exist anymore (Hypothetically speaking, they could just remove gil from the game) you'd have totally changed how the "game" is played. Not so in the real world. Hence, I don't believe economy exists per se in this MMO world. Everything is so artificial at this point, that if someone could dupe items in game and a GM can just destroy your account at whim and maybe for sh*ts and giggles, then seriously, why would you want to use the game as your Holy Bible for learning economics and how it applies to the real world?

Aegina,

The fact is, it is still, in the end, individual greed. The fact that in our society today, your looks and career position as a modern day woman will define who you are in the eyes of the average Joe 90% of the time should already clue you in on how people play this game. Status symbol - and clearly, nothing else - ends up being the desire or motivation for most gil buyers. You can call it what you want, but as you can dress the wolf in sheep skin, he is still a wolf. If you look at the example I gave, that if Player X was in an HNMLS where he works his butt off and earns brownie points, he is able to obtain the niceties that would require the average Player N to either spend countless hours of repetitive tasks to acquire or turn to RMT to satisfy those needs.

Like I said, psychology and sociology is what drives the MMO world. It has nothing to do with the system at large.

[aegina]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

The fact is, it is still, in the end, individual greed.

and impatience. And until you fix these two problems within people, there will always be gilbuying/selling.

making it easier to make gil would stop a lot-and i do mean a lot- of this game's gilbuying problems. Remember, the problems with this game's economy are flaws in the design before they are faults of the players.

taking away some of the challenge, though, will take away some of the fun. if everyone has gear X, it becomes meaningless...

Aegina,
The fact that in our society today, your looks and career position as a modern day woman...

P.S... im a guy
http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51233

[Aeni]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

Guy or girl, I'm just making an illusionary example of how people with pre-fixed notions of what something is suppose to be exists in the world. We have people out there who still believe the earth is flat. When you have that kind of biasness, where people think that the way they think is right and that everyone else is wrong, this is where there will be problems. This is all part of human psychology/sociology.

So, given that, you need to just try and work around it or conform to that thinking. Majority of the players in this game seek the latter, because it simply requires less thinking on their part (or less work on being original and not just a cop out original, but I mean a good, honest and respected original)

In other words, say you want to play this game. Then it's either (a) conform or (b) work your ass off to work around this. There's some players that like to create an option (c) or RMT. What you choose is your choice, but believe you and me, as long as an option (c), which should be nonexistent, continues to persist as an option for players, then we'll always have this controversial discussion on what is right and what is wrong.

As for preventing people from making gil, you'll need to make all items rare/ex upon equipping it. It'll be a draconian economy like in WOW. Your choice. If you haven't played WOW yet, there's a free trial promotion going around and you can go see for yourself.

[Deathguise]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

If there were no gilbuyers there would be no RMT.
I hate RMT. :<

[Jei]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

S-E needs to introduce cheap items available from NPC for low to mid level players to use :x
As it is right now, let alone the uber gear like SH or hauby, even the most common food people like to use cost a ton. Sole sushi 40k per stack, Tavnazian Taco also 38-40k a stackon Titan. These are whole hour worth of farming if you're below 30. They are NOT the best food for low levels but you'll be surprised how many people use them, and how many people think they are the best of the best for all level range. And when a new players try to break into the game, they're hit with this huge wall very early....

What S-E should do is emphasis more how cheap supplies work better for lower levels. And make them cheaply available. At least this way, low level players will have less need to buy expensive stuff :x It's a pain when you have to farm for days just so you can level up 1 or 2 levels.

Prices are less of an issue for older players. But, well, even 75s there are still people buying gil out there... But anyway, I'm worry more about new players.

[Aeni]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

What S-E should do is emphasis more how cheap supplies work better for lower levels. And make them cheaply available. At least this way, low level players will have less need to buy expensive stuff :x It's a pain when you have to farm for days just so you can level up 1 or 2 levels.

If SE properly implemented stat capping for each level (Only through leveling up or meriting can you raise this ceiling) then I can see a system in which you can control "greed" mentality.

For example, many foods do have stat "capping," but it is a negative, not positive, capping. A meat dish that reads attack (66 @ 350) means that you can have at most, a bonus of 66 attack points on a maximum base of 450 attack. In other words, if you're a DRK at level 75, you're more than likely to exceed the base, therefore your bonus is little, if any, from this certain meat dish. In other words, you're forced to purchase the more expensive dishes in order to see a significant gain. I have no qualms about this, but it does create an interesting dilemna, because n00b players or RMT players will automatically think the "best" food will give them that huge bonus and of course this drives the price up.

Now, if the stat modification of the food were to have a "minimum" level requirement, like the food items in WOW, then this should remedy the situation. For example, minimum level to use Tier 1 sushi will be at level 20, Tier 2 sushi at level 40 and Tier 3 (Squid, Sole, etc.) at level 60. Same with the pies (Apple, Melon, Pumpkin, Rolanberry) and other foods.

This will prevent level 10 players from buying Bison Steak since they can't use it and will keep the price in check.

Also, in the case of sushi and some foods, ingredients should all be available in other manners and should not just be from a limited stock NPC vendor. I could see where they can introduce new kinds of seeds for the "Far East" food and people should be able to grow and harvest their own wasabi, among other things.

I could go on and on with how these slight changes can control and combat inflation and the persistence of RMT, but SE probably doesn't care and they're going to cite play balancing issue as their main reason for not giving much thought to this subject (as if they'd ever consider play balancing issues ... case in point, about time they did make positive changes for the Dragoon Class after, what, 2 years? orz)

[Jei]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

The level cap for food sounds interesting. WoW does it, and FFXI already have caps for gears. Doesn't sound too out of the way. While sounding a bit restrictive, it will also revive the lower level cooking synth back to life. More market for people starting out their craft too.

Tarutaru Rice and Onions from regional vendor {yes, please}

[Jarre]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

Gil buying in my opinion is just a cheat, its for people who can't be bothered to play the game properly and just want the best of everything without having to do all the hard work the real players do. whats the point of playing a game you are going to cheat on and the effects spread to other people. soem fo the prices people put up for Bazaa are damn right stupid. A red rose that cost 500 gil from an NPC in windhurst was being sold by a character for 99,999,999 gil I mean WTF? and lots of low level bits and pieces. I saw one character (obviously a mule) selling very low level stuff for this price with about 20 items all @ 99,999,999 gil and I'm talking lauren shields, onion daggers etc. Its because of this buying gil that some people just thiunk they can make a mint by selling to these people. I know that SE are taking a satnce on it because people are making money for themselves out of the game and getting a fair amount of profit from it. Its sad really, but in some peoples eyes money means everthing in teh game as well as in real life.

I just hope SE toughen up their act and ban all people who buy gil as its unfair on people. there are many posts about high prices in the AH etc. I tend to be quite fair and sell my items under the average, I have never had an item returned to my MH and people always pay more than I put them on sale for. this also keeps the price down and stops it from growing like it does on occasion.

right thats my moan, . I'll just enjoy the game and ignore these inconsiderate people.

[ClydeArrowny]

Re: Buying gil 'correct' in FFXI player's mind? WTH?!

usually when someone puts something for 99,999,999 gil in a bazaar, it's because they dont want it to be bought by anyone. Some people use it to show off, while others do it because things in bazaars cant be dropped, so if someone logs on the game a bit drunk, they dont throw out any god triggers(had this happen once from a blm in the ls, luckily it was only a genbu seal) or expensive items theyre close to lving into. Also people use it for ballista, so that their equip changes in their macros dont go off(equip change = penalty of 10 second bind i think.)