[sharlngan]

Hey all,

Recently I've been hearing more talks about gil selling/buying and IGE.com. Seriously I believe many people have an incorrect view on what is going on. You believe that IGE.com and others are the reason why the economy on your server is f***ed up but in truth it isn't.

If IGE.com or whoever were not gilfarming/farming, there will ALWAYS be another person doing the exact same thing. The fact is, they get their gil from YOU because you buy what they farm and put on the AH. It's a means to an end: IE - Way for people to get their own gil or make their own income. The economy will not get screwed up if people are buying/selling gil in real life. Either way there is always an inflow and outflow of gil.

It's simple economics, supply and demand, high supply high demand = okay price, low supply high demand = high price, high supply low demand = low price. This is the truth in the world. Sure there are some factors that mess up our economy, people who accumulate so much gil that they can monopolize the market. They can buy all of the low supply/high demand items and hike up the price exponentially.

You can continue to whine, and put useless attempts saying what is wrong. But shut up and think about it for one second. One way or another, there will always be farmers.


On another note, I have come to a conclusion that if possible, Square Enix should have one whole server for AH, connected to all the different world servers. The supply would be huge, and the demand will also be huge, but atleast the economy will stabilize amongst all the worlds.

-MidgardSORMR, Desolation
Uchiha 68RNG/33WAR/33NIN

[UltimaXtreme]

there should e a rule not to post threads whining about gil selling, because its the same outcome.


good post agree 100%

[Tidane]

So you whine about others whining? Hm...


I agree there are too many posts complaining about IGE and gilsellers. You must not have read any of them though, if you believe that they have no effect on the game's economy. Let me give an example.

Haubergeon is selling for 2million gil. A crafter wants more money so he puts it up for 3million gil. Players that have to work for their money would not pay the 3million gil to buy the item, so normally, the item wouldn't sell, and the crafter would end up dropping the price back to the normal. However, that is no longer the case. PlayerXXX buys his gil. He doesn't have to take the time to farm/craft for the gil. He bids 3million for it. So the next crafter puts one up for 3million. Another person buys it for that. Now, the player who gets his/her gil legit has to get even more.

Another example, back in November, when I started, Sniper Rings where around 125k on Fairy, with Archer's being around 50k. After the NumberXXXXs showed up, Archer's rings increased to 100k, 200k, up to 450k. So, ofcourse, Sniper Rings price had to increase. Since these people control the spawn, they can charge what they want. If they didn't exist, then the price would be less, due to everyone having an equal chance to get the drop.

[manjoechan]

Why anyone would pay so much money for some ingame gil is totally beyond me. Maybe they shud donate to charity if they have so much spare cash...

[Tidane]

Originally posted by manjoechan
Why anyone would pay so much money for some ingame gil is totally beyond me. Maybe they shud donate to charity if they have so much spare cash...

Because they're stupid? People who buy gil are the people who use cheats on games. They are either unwilling or unable to complete the game without cheating. So what do they do? Cheat.

[Pounce]

Its because they have more money than time.

Seriously:

Let's say you have a great, but busy job earning a 6-figure salary. You only can play FFXI for say, 5 hours a week. Wouldn't you be tempted to buy gil too?

My friend explained the whole concept to me. While I don't remember the details, basically if he works X hours (at a real life job) and uses the money earned during those X hours to buy gil from IGE, he would be making a more economical use of his time than if he were to spend those same X hours trying to make gil legitimately in-game.

Yes, it's technically cheating, and no, I in no way support gilsellers and think they should be dumped in a vat of hot oil. But you have to realize how some people view things, and I don't truly blame gil-buyers.

There's also the issue of "casual" gilsellers and "career" gilsellers. As far as I know, "casual" gilsellers have existed for a looooong time. People quit, liquidiate their gil and sell it. Some hardcore veterans overflowing with gil might liquidate some of it for cash. I don't think these kind of gil-sales are significantly detrimental. "Casual" gilsellers are normal players for the most part, and their presence is virtually unnoticeable in-game.

But "career" gilsellers are a recent phenomenon. At least on my server, they started appearing about 6 months ago. Unlike casual gilsellers, career gilsellers ARE noticeable (i.e. X zone is completely and perpetually devoid of any mobs because the career gilseller is farming 24/7/365 nonstop). THIS is the type of gilseller everyone is complaining about these days.

[sharlngan]

Originally posted by Tidane
So you whine about others whining? Hm...


I agree there are too many posts complaining about IGE and gilsellers. You must not have read any of them though, if you believe that they have no effect on the game's economy. Let me give an example.

Haubergeon is selling for 2million gil. A crafter wants more money so he puts it up for 3million gil. Players that have to work for their money would not pay the 3million gil to buy the item, so normally, the item wouldn't sell, and the crafter would end up dropping the price back to the normal. However, that is no longer the case. PlayerXXX buys his gil. He doesn't have to take the time to farm/craft for the gil. He bids 3million for it. So the next crafter puts one up for 3million. Another person buys it for that. Now, the player who gets his/her gil legit has to get even more.

Another example, back in November, when I started, Sniper Rings where around 125k on Fairy, with Archer's being around 50k. After the NumberXXXXs showed up, Archer's rings increased to 100k, 200k, up to 450k. So, ofcourse, Sniper Rings price had to increase. Since these people control the spawn, they can charge what they want. If they didn't exist, then the price would be less, due to everyone having an equal chance to get the drop.

Once again, it all dwells down onto supply and demand, if there is limited supply IE that one haubergeon up and its set at 3 million, either 1 a person will get impatient and will buy it with either hard earned gil or bought gil its simple as that. Either way it will happen and theres nothing you can do to stop it. Now if there happens to have about 20 Haubergeons up, then the price will drop due to more supply!

On the Archer Ring/Sniper Ring issue, SE has lowered Archer Ring drops. Lower Archer Ring drops = Higher prices due to the demand for :

1 Archer Ring for the ACC at 30
2 Crafting Sniper Rings/Sniper Rings+1

These people spend their time camping and camping to get a low rate of drop on these items, they hold the monopoly.

I agree with Pounce, Time = Money, some people simply do not have the time to do what they want.

And also think of the cycle of gil...

1st - People go farm for items such as tree cuttings etc.
2nd - People put it up on AH and it is bought by other people with gil.
3rd - The person who put it up on AH accumulates X gil and decides he wants to sell it. (That is his/her own choice, you cannot infringe on what people decide to do, they can do whatever the hell they want as long as it doesn't do anything to you.
4th - The Gil is bought by another person and is used.

Ok where did the gil come from? From people who originally bought the farmed item. Bought Gil doesn't come from outta no where people, it comes from YOU already! Take some time and think.

[Pounce]

There is an incidence of almost exactly that scenario happening.

Jungle Stone (the Mithra level 50 RSE belt for mages) was going for around 500,000 gil steady on Titan.

One day, a certain person bought it for 1,000,000 gil. Starting from that point on, all Jungle Stones have sold steady for around 1M gil.

That certain person is a self-admitted gilbuyer from what I've heard.

[sharlngan]

Originally posted by Pounce
There is an incidence of almost exactly that scenario happening.

Jungle Stone (the Mithra level 50 RSE belt for mages) was going for around 500,000 gil steady on Titan.

One day, a certain person bought it for 1,000,000 gil. Starting from that point on, all Jungle Stones have sold steady for around 1M gil.

That certain person is a self-admitted gilbuyer from what I've heard.

Yes, these things do screw up the economy, I have seen other items such as this work in the opposite direction, someone mis places their item at AH for 10k or more less than the original price, and the price of a certain item continues to drop.

If people are willing to buy it at a higher price, then thats their choice is not? Certainly over time if more were to come up, prices will drop and the exact same thing will happen when supply decreases.

[Pounce]

The point Tidane was making though, is that only gilbuyers are willing to do this.

Even super-duper-rich JPs don't do it from what I've observed from AH records. Yes, they will sometimes overbid if there is only 1 item on AH and they absolutely want it. But its usually not -that- much of an overbid (i.e. 600,000 for a 500,000 item).

In this case, the person I mentioned payed a full 2x of the regular going price - and that person is a confessed gilbuyer.

[oozma]

Originally posted by sharlngan
Hey all,

Recently I've been hearing more talks about gil selling/buying and IGE.com. Seriously I believe many people have an incorrect view on what is going on. You believe that IGE.com and others are the reason why the economy on your server is f***ed up but in truth it isn't.

eh, arnt you adding to the whineing?

[Scatman]

For the love of god...

Just because someone buys haubergeon for 3M, doesn't mean it's always going to stick. Go buy a stack of water crystals for 5k and see if anyone else follows suit.

There are distortions, and there is equilibrium. Ultimately every price will attempt to settle itself on equilibrium, and even if one gil-buyer manages to disturb the price temporarily, it will always settle back down to what the majority are willing to pay for it.

The only reason a price will stick, is if there was enough demand to begin with to support it, but if that were the case, the price eventually would have risen naturally even without the gil-buyer. Why? If the price was too low, and there are too many people who wanted the item, it would be constantly sold out until someone brought the price up. Then if the price were too high, there would be excess stock on the AH, and the sellers would naturally lower the price to move inventory (and the AH selling the lowest priced item happens to accelerate this process).

As for your example of archer's rings Tidane, gee back in November, how many NA players did you know of past 40 at that time? That's right, we were all still goofing off in valkurm training each other (hell, I don't even think many knew how to zone at that time) and starting 5 warrior parties. If no one is going to buy it, obviously the price will remain low. The rising prices are a result of more NA players needing sniper's not because of the farmers.

EDIT: Come to think of it, at that time, everyone still thought dex was sufficient for accuracy.

[poweryoga]

i believe there's more than just IGE selling the gil anyways.

IGE is just the biggest one.

I've lost count of the number of chinese gil sellers over the past few months.

SE doesn't feel the same way.

[Tidane]

Originally posted by Scatman
As for your example of archer's rings Tidane, gee back in November, how many NA players did you know of past 40 at that time? That's right, we were all still goofing off in valkurm training each other (hell, I don't even think many knew how to zone at that time) and starting 5 warrior parties. If no one is going to buy it, obviously the price will remain low. The rising prices are a result of more NA players needing sniper's not because of the farmers.

I would accept that, except for the fact that the price stayed right around 150k for Snipers until the Numbers gang began to claim all the Chymes. Guess what happened when they got hang of Mee Deggi? Kotes price tag jumped.

[Buuyon]

Originally posted by Pounce
Its because they have more money than time.

Seriously:

Let's say you have a great, but busy job earning a 6-figure salary. You only can play FFXI for say, 5 hours a week. Wouldn't you be tempted to buy gil too?

My friend explained the whole concept to me. While I don't remember the details, basically if he works X hours (at a real life job) and uses the money earned during those X hours to buy gil from IGE, he would be making a more economical use of his time than if he were to spend those same X hours trying to make gil legitimately in-game.

Yes, it's technically cheating, and no, I in no way support gilsellers and think they should be dumped in a vat of hot oil. But you have to realize how some people view things, and I don't truly blame gil-buyers.

There's also the issue of "casual" gilsellers and "career" gilsellers. As far as I know, "casual" gilsellers have existed for a looooong time. People quit, liquidiate their gil and sell it. Some hardcore veterans overflowing with gil might liquidate some of it for cash. I don't think these kind of gil-sales are significantly detrimental. "Casual" gilsellers are normal players for the most part, and their presence is virtually unnoticeable in-game.

But "career" gilsellers are a recent phenomenon. At least on my server, they started appearing about 6 months ago. Unlike casual gilsellers, career gilsellers ARE noticeable (i.e. X zone is completely and perpetually devoid of any mobs because the career gilseller is farming 24/7/365 nonstop). THIS is the type of gilseller everyone is complaining about these days.

thats hardly a good reason to buy gil...if you dont have time to do it right dont do it at all...