Put an end to online gil-sellers! Sign the petition!

[bonovoxpsu]

/wave Panzerfaust

[Faust]

Originally posted by Arkadya

Because I don't care about gil sellers. I do care, though, about you lunkheads possibly maybe denying me $1k+ should you actually be successful.

But more to the point, I can't stand the pure stupid that keeps coming out of this thread.

All anyone ever does is point to the ToS. The ToS is a meaningless docuement. I 'm fairly certain the current thinking is that if it doesn't actually have your handwritten signature on it, it isn't legally binding.

Everyone blames gil selling for rising prices. Nobody seems to realize that the U.S release just about doubled the subscriber base of FF11, and that, if I recall, they've only added 3 servers since then (please correct me if I'm wrong here).

Chart

Are you honestly trying to tell me that the 20 or so gil farmers on any given server are actually the cause of the rise of prices and not the doubling of demand without an increase in supply?

Hell, you want something real to complain about, complain about the people that fishbot. At least gil sellers aren't actually adding new gil into the economy (they almost always camp items that you sell to the AH and not vendor). All the people who have taken up fishing as their primary source of income, bot or not, gil seller or not, are causing massive inflation thanks to them vendoring everything they catch, thus introducing tons and tons of new income into circulation causing the giant inflation problem we have right now.

And lastly, online petitions are inherently retarded. Nobody ever listens to them. Some script kiddie, if he were so inclined, could probably write a script to fill out that petition for him about 7 billion times. And who really takes a petition seriously where some of the signers are l337d00d and princesskitty69?

To be completely honest, I probably never would have even clicked this thread and joined in the fun if there hadn't been an online petition involved. I just can't ignore that level if dumb. Like a moth to the flame...

Edit: Damn BBcode!

So... we wait till it becomes a bigger problem? It may not be the biggest thing in the world, but at least the petition's a start. Unfortunately there's always gonna be some adolescent that's gonna slip goofy names in there and unfortunately it can't be helped. It's something though, better than nothing. At least someone started the ball rolling.

[Xyphere]

Wow...like no one is signing this petition...only 377...(Congratulations!)

[Arkadya]

Originally posted by Faust
So... we wait till it becomes a bigger problem? It may not be the biggest thing in the world, but at least the petition's a start. Unfortunately there's always gonna be some adolescent that's gonna slip goofy names in there and unfortunately it can't be helped. It's something though, better than nothing. At least someone started the ball rolling.

No, what I'm saying is, it isn't a problem in the first place. You can make all sorts of anecdotal evidence about how some dick gil farmer trained you or how the price of x item has gone up over the past month, and none of it means anything.

What your side has failed to do, repeatedly, is show cause and effect relations between gil selling and price rising, and how stopping gil selling will stop prices from rising. Your examples given are not concrete, and for that matter they tend to ignore the real reasons for the problem, all of which are just basic economic theory taught in pretty much every high school.

In short, you're placing the blame on a boogeyman that doesn't actually exist. Gil sellers are not the cause of your troubles. They never will be. There is virtually no way for people to control the economy like you seem to think they do. There is only one exception, and it has nothing to do with gil sellers. On my server, there is only 1 high level goldsmither. Virtually everything sold on the AH that is a high level gold synth is done by him. Now he has control of the market. Just because you stick a couple of sweat shop payed workers in front of a computer at mee deggi's spawn point does not mean they all of a sudden become an economic power house.

If you want real answers to the problem, lower vendor payback for popular fishing items and add in more and more money sinks. Double, hell triple chocobo prices, jack up airship fare to 1k a trip. This game needs more money sinks, and it needs them now before the economy goes belly up like Everquest's did (who;s only money sinks were tradeskills nobody ever did because they were worthless unti you hit max level, and horses). Quadruple the AH fee. That is how you counter inflation, you make sure enough money is removed from the system to maintain the value of it. Hell, over a long enough time frame, the value of gil might rise high enough so that people aren't so ready to buy it. Back when it was 80 bucks for 200k, very few people bought gil. Now that's 160 bucks for a million, everyone and their mom is doing it.

If your new age feel good sissy bullshit petition of absolute powerlessness makes you feel better, why don't you make one that petitions SE to raise the prices on all things bought from a vendor, and lower vendor payback on all things you can sell? Oh right, because that actually DOES affect you. So instead you opt to blame gil sellers, a group that pretty much nobody cares about, so you can feel good and have your little crusade and feel like you're making a difference.

Edit: Here's the example you (or someone else who is also an elvaan) keeps throwing around. Gil farmer X camps a million gil item, gets it, and puts it up for sale for a million gil. Gil buyer Y, wanting said item, goes on IGE and buys a million gil, logs in and buys the item for a million gil. The gil goes back to the gil farmer who just puts it up for sale again.

The flaw with this arguement is that, nothing bad actually happened here. No new money was added into the economy, and money wasn't taken out of the economy. Just transferring money around doesn't change anything. What will happen though, is that at some point that dude is going to want to sell that million gil item. And chances are, he will undercut like a mofo to do it. I have. I'm doing it right now, I have a masters gi up for 175k when the last one sold for 210. What do I care, I payed 140 for it originally? Eventually, the market will become flooded anyway. There's only so much demand for an item, and with no way to remove the items (barring random tradeskill recipes that people sometimes fail) from the economy, the price is bound to drop.

The problem, and it's one that SE keeps perpetuating, is that there are various pieces of gear that you will probably never replace. Furthermore, they made these buyablle. Big mistake. This, combined with the required levels on equipment, is causing issues with item value. A level 7 pair of boots should not be 300k, and for that matter, a level 7 pair boots shouldn't be a viable piece of equipment 1-75 for some classes.

[Onte]

/em Gets out of her chair at work and cheers at the top of her lungs for Arkadya!

**Edit - that was so good, I gotta' read it a few more times!

[Faust]

I HAVE been affected by gil sellers on more than one occasion (namely getting MPK'd). ADMITTED gil sellers. People I know have been affected by them in the same fashion. It's happening on different servers not just mine. And these are people that ADMIT to selling gil. A lot of them don't mind admitting to it when you simply ask. And they have no respect whatsoever for the game nor do they care about MPKing someone who happens to be too close (regardless if you're on the opposite side of a large zone from where they are).

You ask for concrete evidence in rising prices due to gilselling; let's see some concrete evidence that it isn't. Prices go up and down via basic economics. True. But gil sellers can, and eventually will, if unchecked, throw it for a big loop (and that's disregarding botting which combined, will make the situation even worse). It's completely in their interests to do so. They have no regard for the rest of the game as long as they can get big returns on gil so they can sell it. Then those buyers have no regard for the items they buy, frivilously spending the gil.

The thing with the example that you placed in your edit, is it shows how easily gil sellers, once established, can take control of a market. They put an item up for a ridiculous amount of money because then they can bait people to buy gil to afford it, then sell the gil right back to the populace, changing the price as they see fit. If the person decides they don't need the item any longer, most people will opt to put it in for the amount they paid for it. To a lot of people, that's just common sense unless the price had previously dropped. (What's being elvaan got to do with it?)

I do agree with you on some of the items available for higher lvls.

The problem, and it's one that SE keeps perpetuating, is that there are various pieces of gear that you will probably never replace. Furthermore, they made these buyablle. Big mistake. This, combined with the required levels on equipment, is causing issues with item value. A level 7 pair of boots should not be 300k, and for that matter, a level 7 pair boots shouldn't be a viable piece of equipment 1-75 for some classes.

You're right. Lvl 7 boots for 300k? It's insane and there should be a better piece of equipment for someone higher lvl.

[LawDawg]

I should start off by saying everyone should read Arkadya post. It is basically what I've been trying to say all along, but for some reason his/her post is much more detailed.

As for saying MPKing is the "affected" thing that happened to you by gil-sellers is just "racism". It's like saying "some black dude stole my car, so all black people are evil car stealers!!!!". There is no correlation between gil-sellers and MPKers. Sure, maybe YOU have been MPKed, but I haven't, and I constantly farm/hunt NMs in places with gil sellers (i know them). Just because a group of people (albiet, a loud group of people) have been MPKed, doesn't mean that everyone has, and it doesn't mean all gil-sellers MPK. In reality, I bet only a few, stupid ones, do. If you get MPKed, call a GM and get them banned. If the GMs don't ban them, then you should make a petition saying GMs should ban people for MPKing ...

[Omniblast]

Originally posted by Arkadya

Leaping boots up to 400k, down to 300k. Hairpin up to 470k, now 400k. Sniper rings up to 600k, now down to 500k. Ochiudo's kote up to 550k, now 500k.

Wow what shitty server is this? I want in! ROFL

[Legionnaire]

Originally posted by LawDawg
I should start off by saying everyone should read Arkadya post. It is basically what I've been trying to say all along, but for some reason his/her post is much more detailed.

As for saying MPKing is the "affected" thing that happened to you by gil-sellers is just "racism". It's like saying "some black dude stole my car, so all black people are evil car stealers!!!!". There is no correlation between gil-sellers and MPKers. Sure, maybe YOU have been MPKed, but I haven't, and I constantly farm/hunt NMs in places with gil sellers (i know them). Just because a group of people (albiet, a loud group of people) have been MPKed, doesn't mean that everyone has, and it doesn't mean all gil-sellers MPK. In reality, I bet only a few, stupid ones, do. If you get MPKed, call a GM and get them banned. If the GMs don't ban them, then you should make a petition saying GMs should ban people for MPKing ...

Exactly. In the Tower I got the Mimas spawn before the whm gil-seller did. Did they mpk me? No. In fact they cured me and helped me kill it. Then later that same day while helping someone do Rank 4, I died due to a link in the big elevator room. Guess what that little taru whm did? Gave me a Raise 2. Quite the opposite of an MPK, wouldn't ya say?

[Arkadya]

Originally posted by Faust
[B]I HAVE been affected by gil sellers on more than one occasion (namely getting MPK'd). ADMITTED gil sellers. People I know have been affected by them in the same fashion. It's happening on different servers not just mine. And these are people that ADMIT to selling gil. A lot of them don't mind admitting to it when you simply ask. And they have no respect whatsoever for the game nor do they care about MPKing someone who happens to be too close (regardless if you're on the opposite side of a large zone from where they are).

But see, that's because they're dicks, not because they sell gil. The company they work for pays them to do that. This, in and of itself, is not a good reason to stop the sale of gil. It does show, however, the general failure of SE's customer service department. Why not petition for that?

You ask for concrete evidence in rising prices due to gilselling; let's see some concrete evidence that it isn't. Prices go up and down via basic economics. True. But gil sellers can, and eventually will, if unchecked, throw it for a big loop (and that's disregarding botting which combined, will make the situation even worse). It's completely in their interests to do so. They have no regard for the rest of the game as long as they can get big returns on gil so they can sell it. Then those buyers have no regard for the items they buy, frivilously spending the gil.

No they won't. The items they are capable of camping and maybe possibly actually controlling the market on or so few and far between it's ludicrous to think that. The value of my ochiudo's kote is not going to affect the value of my leaping boots, or my emps hairpin (both of which are plague to gil farmers).

Furthermore, any sort of grip they get on the item can not possibly last. Again, using the kote as an example. There are only so many monks and sams (and the occasional ninja) who will buy that piece of gear. And all of these classes will (or at least should) replace them with pallas's bracelets at 61. As people level up, they sell their kotes, almost always crashing any sort of price hike the gil farmers try to accomplish. Not to mention the fact that eventually, thanks to the gil farmers, the market will have so many of these items in circulation that the price completely drops (see elemental ores and staves).

The thing with the example that you placed in your edit, is it shows how easily gil sellers, once established, can take control of a market. They put an item up for a ridiculous amount of money because then they can bait people to buy gil to afford it, then sell the gil right back to the populace, changing the price as they see fit. If the person decides they don't need the item any longer, most people will opt to put it in for the amount they paid for it. To a lot of people, that's just common sense unless the price had previously dropped. (What's being elvaan got to do with it?)

Nothing, just there was another person in here with an elvaan sig or avatar that may have made that example and not you.

Anyway, as I said above, they can not maintain a strangle hold on anything. It will eventially fail. There is nothing they can possibly do to perpetuate controlling the price of any item once it becomes saturated enough. The end result being, ochiudo's kotes going for like, 200k and everyone having them. This, to me, is a good thing. People being better equipped > high priced prestige items.

Lastly, what are the known gil farming locations? Zi'tah, delfkuts, mee deggi, and stroper chymes. I have no idea what they farm in zi tah to be honest, and delfkuts never seemed all that profitable to me (maybe if I had a whm to heal me without taking a share of the loot...). But the last 2, archer's rings and kote.

Now, explain to me why prices on everything have gone up because of these 4 camp spots?

They havn't. It's not possible. Look at the drop rates of this shit. Even if you had someone in delf's 24/7, you would be hard pressed to make more than 20k an hour. The drop rate on stroper chyme and mee deggi is terrible. It would be a miracle if you manage to average 1 ring and 1 kote a day, and this is assuming that nobody at all competes with you. Thats only 1.5 million gil a day.(and that's if you're lucky). How is just 1.5 million gil a day ruining the economy, when (and I don't really know a thing about dynamis here so I might be wrong) every day some dynamis ls is taking a million out of the economy?

Keep in mind that the gil farmers aren't actually bringing in more than 120k or so of raw gil on any given day, thus creating almost no inflation. Hell, I vendor all the shit I farm and I bring in more raw gil than that if I spend the whole day farming.

Edit: That damn BBcode strikes again!

[little ninja]

it seems all the people who support it, or dont have a problem with it want proof. an for every peice of proof you give them. they turn around an dismiss it. yes some servers are differnt then others. some gil farmers will be nice to you. others laugh at you after they sent a train to link to you, as they d/c. this is proof of how it has not only effected me. but a few others. yet it is dismissed.


so then tos rules an conduct was then mentoned. an pro gil people said. tos means shit, an s.e wont inforce it. so i told you to go to jeuno an preach a religon. an see if you are talked to by a g.m. see if you spend an hour or 2 in a jail. because they will enforce some an not others. an my beef is. if your not going to inforce the whole thing. then why bother enforcing it at all..


really no side can prove that it does, or doesnt. you can easily dimiss mpking, as a typical asshole. you can easily dismiss auction houses rises an declines on the ingames economy. just as those who work say they can find the time to lvl their job, an farm for the best gear. while other people who work say they cant. you can use the poor gil farmers family. but shit not everyone in china is a gil farmer..

[csBahamut]

I should start off by saying everyone should read Arkadya post. It is basically what I've been trying to say all along, but for some reason his/her post is much more detailed.

She makes good points, but fails to look into some things with enough detail.

See the massive difference? The bazar in Everquest, since it came out, has only ever really had 3 purposes. To supply the shmucks like me that refused to join raiding guilds with stuff, for tradeskillers to get goods, and to twink the shit out of the next flavor of the month class you might take up levelling. It was never a means for players to aquire powerful equipment. That wasn't the nature of the game.

Unfortunately, I never played EQ, so the stats make little sense to me, but I see the large difference in quality that you are refering to. EQ was out for a long time, so that's what it evolved to over it's life span. I'm guessing that it wasn't like that in the first 1-2 years that EQ was out. FFXI is only on its second expansion. EQ is probably filled mostly with players that have been playing for a long enough time to be able to accumulate enough wealth to play 'flavors of the month'. Forcing FFXI's economy to reach such a stage too soon could ruin the game and cause it to end prematurely.

No, what I'm saying is, it isn't a problem in the first place. You can make all sorts of anecdotal evidence about how some dick gil farmer trained you or how the price of x item has gone up over the past month, and none of it means anything.

And how is it not a problem at all? Just because it doesn't affect a majority of the players, nor you directly or even indirectly, doesn't mean it's not a problem. The effects to the economy as a whole right now are probably very small. But it is affecting the economy. Every spot a gil seller is farming, that's one less spot a regular player can farm. Every additional bot camping an NM for a drop makes it that much harder for another player to get it. I have not been MPK'ed by a gil seller yet, but I have been drivin from my favorite gil farming locations because of gil sellers are farming the places so much. Every possible decent or better farming location on Phoenix has at least 2-3 gil sellers farming the region/zone. That's that many less players that can farm these locations, and I would consider that a negative effect. I would then define a problem as any negative effect on something else. I could provide other examples, but any intelligent person should be able to use their imagination, or understand complex interactions.

In short, you're placing the blame on a boogeyman that doesn't actually exist. Gil sellers are not the cause of your troubles. They never will be. There is virtually no way for people to control the economy like you seem to think they do.

The problem exists, you just don't want to see it. People do this all the time in real life. They ignore a problem, saying it doesn't exist, until it's too late and they have to deal with the concequences of their 'blindness'. Just look at what happened Sept. 11th. People didn't think terrorism was a big problem, or even a problem at all. Look what it took to make the US realize that we had a problem. Two frickin' airplanes had to be rammed into the Twin Towers and kill thousands of people. Dispite bombings at the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City bombing, nothing much was done to combat terrorism. It wasn't thought to have been a problem/big enough problem. You can't tell me that pre 9-11, terrorism wasn't a problem. It was how many years that those terrorists were in the US planning the Sept. 11th events?

I can agree that it's not a major problem now. The effects are small now, but don't wait for it to get so bad that only quiting the game or shutting down FFXI will solve the problem. I've seen too many good multiplayer games go from good to bad because of greedy/selfish players doing things they're not supposed to be doing. As time goes on, more and more players will jump on the gil buying bandwagon. Now if say, all the players on that bandwagon would quit when a method is found to prevent gil buying, SE would have a lot of money to lose. So from a logical and strategical standpoint, it would be best to solve the problem before the bandwagon get's too full.

If your new age feel good sissy bullshit petition of absolute powerlessness makes you feel better, why don't you make one that petitions SE to raise the prices on all things bought from a vendor, and lower vendor payback on all things you can sell? Oh right, because that actually DOES affect you. So instead you opt to blame gil sellers, a group that pretty much nobody cares about, so you can feel good and have your little crusade and feel like you're making a difference.

Raising prices won't solve the problem. Providing money sinks for endgame activities would help control natural inflation, but it still wouldn't stop players from purchasing more gil to cover the increase in expenses. If you have a leaky pipe, you can't just put a bucket there to catch the dripping water and call it fixed. You have to goto the source of the problem and fix the pipe.

Here's the example you (or someone else who is also an elvaan) keeps throwing around. Gil farmer X camps a million gil item, gets it, and puts it up for sale for a million gil. Gil buyer Y, wanting said item, goes on IGE and buys a million gil, logs in and buys the item for a million gil. The gil goes back to the gil farmer who just puts it up for sale again.

It's an ok example, but with a flaw. You forget the effects on player Z, the one who can't afford to pay for 1 million gil. Is this fair? You'll most likely counter with, "Life isn't fair." That there is the problem. Life is fair, people just don't like the outcome. Also look at one of the reasons why people play games. It's because it evens the playing field. It's like when playing poker with friends, and one of your friends pays one of the other guys real money for cards in his hand. Now, if there was no real gambling going on, you probably wouldn't care. But what if you guys were avid poker players, and had poker nights once or twice a week. At first, your buddy didn't pay to get cards so he could win, but he has now taken up the habit and does it in every hand for the rest of the time you guys hold poker nights. He may not win every hand, but he would now be able to win more often that the rest of you. How much fun would poker nights be if this went on indefinitely? How much fun is poker if someone else is always cheating or winning? How much fun is any game if some cheats in it? If nobody follows the rules, the what is the use of having rules in the first place?

SE might as well add a 'cheating' menu so players can give themselves all the best equipment, whatever level they want in a job, ability to solo HNMs, etc. How much fun would a game like that be? If you ask anybody that does something for fun, they'll almost always include 'challenging' as one of the reasons why they do it. No some of you will say that gil farming isn't a challenge, but rather, it's just boring an monotonous. Wouldn't dealing with boredom be considered a 'challenge'? A challenge is anything physically or mentally difficult to overcome. Only the degree of challenge varies.

Exactly. In the Tower I got the Mimas spawn before the whm gil-seller did. Did they mpk me? No. In fact they cured me and helped me kill it. Then later that same day while helping someone do Rank 4, I died due to a link in the big elevator room. Guess what that little taru whm did? Gave me a Raise 2. Quite the opposite of an MPK, wouldn't ya say?

I don't know if you noticed, but it's not always the same person playing some of these gil sellers. I've run into a gil seller in Batallia Downs numerous times. Usually, this person would use a ranged attack or flee to try and steal tigers before me. Then on another day, the guy was unable to steal tigers from me. He didn't even know how to use ranged attack and was trying to convince me to not take the tigers. Similar thing in Delkfutt's Tower. Sometimes the WHM-DRG pair can speak almost perfect english and are helpful. Other days, they can't understand a bit of english and MPK people.

[Machiko]

No offense to you guys but I just came around to read the stuff on the board. Might I ask you how the hell you come up with the time to write up a few hundred, sometimes thousands, of words just to disagree with someone. Get a flaming life please, reading this stuff makes me wonder if technology was a good thing or not. At least in life if you disagree and you get really pissed off you can kick the crap out of them (or attempt to). Online you just keep arguing thinking you can change the other person's perspective which is impossible most of the time. Don't know how you come up with the time to write 5 pages worth of crap.

[Arkadya]

When EQ first started there wasn't a whole lot of no drop equipment. If you were in full bronze (equipment that nowadays is complete trash and you would be a laughingstock for wearing it, even on the newest of servers) you were considered a god. The making of everything high end no drop is something they didn't really start doing until velious, but it's one of the best moves they ever made and one I wish SE would follow with as well. Maybe people wouldn't be so inclined to buy a million gil item when, if they level up and have some skilled friends, they can camp a better item.

And how is it not a problem at all? Just because it doesn't affect a majority of the players, nor you directly or even indirectly, doesn't mean it's not a problem. The effects to the economy as a whole right now are probably very small. But it is affecting the economy. Every spot a gil seller is farming, that's one less spot a regular player can farm. Every additional bot camping an NM for a drop makes it that much harder for another player to get it. I have not been MPK'ed by a gil seller yet, but I have been drivin from my favorite gil farming locations because of gil sellers are farming the places so much. Every possible decent or better farming location on Phoenix has at least 2-3 gil sellers farming the region/zone. That's that many less players that can farm these locations, and I would consider that a negative effect. I would then define a problem as any negative effect on something else. I could provide other examples, but any intelligent person should be able to use their imagination, or understand complex interactions.

And I disagree. These gil sellers pay the same amount of money a month that you do and have equal right to camp there as anyone. We can go back on fourth on this into infinity, but it still doesn't change the fact that gil sellers (at least in their current form) can have no long term impact on the economy. Afterall, if the gil sellers weren't there, someone else would be, still bringing the items and money into the economy regardless.

The problem exists, you just don't want to see it. People do this all the time in real life. They ignore a problem, saying it doesn't exist, until it's too late and they have to deal with the concequences of their 'blindness'. Just look at what happened Sept. 11th. People didn't think terrorism was a big problem, or even a problem at all. Look what it took to make the US realize that we had a problem. Two frickin' airplanes had to be rammed into the Twin Towers and kill thousands of people. Dispite bombings at the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City bombing, nothing much was done to combat terrorism. It wasn't thought to have been a problem/big enough problem. You can't tell me that pre 9-11, terrorism wasn't a problem. It was how many years that those terrorists were in the US planning the Sept. 11th events?

Terrorism has existed for hundreds of years and will continue for hundreds of years. A war on an ideal can never be won. September 11 occurred because the agencies we put into place were effectively blocked from communicating with each other. Well no, that's not true. 9/11 occurred because there are crazy fucking cowardly assholes out there, but that is neither here nor there.

I can agree that it's not a major problem now. The effects are small now, but don't wait for it to get so bad that only quiting the game or shutting down FFXI will solve the problem. I've seen too many good multiplayer games go from good to bad because of greedy/selfish players doing things they're not supposed to be doing. As time goes on, more and more players will jump on the gil buying bandwagon. Now if say, all the players on that bandwagon would quit when a method is found to prevent gil buying, SE would have a lot of money to lose. So from a logical and strategical standpoint, it would be best to solve the problem before the bandwagon get's too full.

It's human nature to be a greedy prick, especially when you have the magical anonymity of the net. Of all the things that jackasses do in this game, gil selling and buying is completely tame by comparisson.

As for how they can solve the problem, I've already layed out how in my previous post. The value of gil is reaching near Lira proportions here. Raise the value of gil and fewer people will buy it. There is a limit to the amount of money people will spend on a hobby. $160 for a million gil, considering just how far a million gil can take you, is an amazing bargain. $80 for 200k is not. At that price, people might still buy it to supplement their income, but they would still have to farm.

Raising prices won't solve the problem. Providing money sinks for endgame activities would help control natural inflation, but it still wouldn't stop players from purchasing more gil to cover the increase in expenses. If you have a leaky pipe, you can't just put a bucket there to catch the dripping water and call it fixed. You have to goto the source of the problem and fix the pipe.

Ahhh but it would. Right now there is a larg supply of gil and high demand because of the low prices. You cut the supply and the prices go up. Prices go up and fewer people are willing to buy the gil in the first place (because really, a lot of people DO feel weird about spending real life money on a game). And I still think there needs to be a drastic reduction in vendor payout, and this is coming from a guy who doesn't farm anything he can't vendor.

It's an ok example, but with a flaw. You forget the effects on player Z, the one who can't afford to pay for 1 million gil. Is this fair? You'll most likely counter with, "Life isn't fair." That there is the problem. Life is fair, people just don't like the outcome. Also look at one of the reasons why people play games. It's because it evens the playing field. It's like when playing poker with friends, and one of your friends pays one of the other guys real money for cards in his hand. Now, if there was no real gambling going on, you probably wouldn't care. But what if you guys were avid poker players, and had poker nights once or twice a week. At first, your buddy didn't pay to get cards so he could win, but he has now taken up the habit and does it in every hand for the rest of the time you guys hold poker nights. He may not win every hand, but he would now be able to win more often that the rest of you. How much fun would poker nights be if this went on indefinitely? How much fun is poker if someone else is always cheating or winning? How much fun is any game if some cheats in it? If nobody follows the rules, the what is the use of having rules in the first place?

No, life is fair. I can't afford to buy gil, I've spent months farming gil. People can do the same. People with the time can farm it, people who don't have the time can buy it, seems like a fair enough trade off to me. People that lack either time or money really shouldn't be playing mmorpgs in their current state as they are all designed to suck as much time out of you as possible.

As to your poker analogy, it's a good one but it fails when applied to mmorpgs. There is no prize at stake in an mmorpg. If Bob cheats at poker, he is costing me money. If Bob buys gil in the game and has some decent equipment, well, I really don't care what Bob has. I'm starting to think that all you anti gil sellers just suffer from the American notion that you just HAVE to have a bigger t.v./car/house/dick than the next guy.

As to the last part. Again, SE has shown consistant bias against the NA players as far as their rules go. If SE can't follow their own rules, then why should we care about them?

SE might as well add a 'cheating' menu so players can give themselves all the best equipment, whatever level they want in a job, ability to solo HNMs, etc. How much fun would a game like that be? If you ask anybody that does something for fun, they'll almost always include 'challenging' as one of the reasons why they do it. No some of you will say that gil farming isn't a challenge, but rather, it's just boring an monotonous. Wouldn't dealing with boredom be considered a 'challenge'? A challenge is anything physically or mentally difficult to overcome. Only the degree of challenge varies.

No, dealing with boredom is not a challenge. It's piss poor game design at it's finest. Or maybe I should say brilliant as it's all part of the psychological bullshit that went into both EQ's and this game's development. Do you ever play a console game and let some boring part of the game slide? Especially if that part comprises nearly a third of the experience? Hell no.

Gil farming is not fun, or a challenge. It is the proverbial "carrot on a stick" that SE dangles in front of us to keep us playing. Just one of many. MMORPG'S are not games in the standard sense of the word. They aren't designed to be fun. They aren't designed to be challenging. They are designed from day one to keep you paying a subscription fee. "Fun" and "challenge" are simply not factors in this end goal. Which isn't to say that fun or challenge can't be found in mmorpg's, but that game design itself is not the focal point on which this genre currently hinges itself.

[Arkadya]

No offense to you guys but I just came around to read the stuff on the board. Might I ask you how the hell you come up with the time to write up a few hundred, sometimes thousands, of words just to disagree with someone. Get a flaming life please, reading this stuff makes me wonder if technology was a good thing or not. At least in life if you disagree and you get really pissed off you can kick the crap out of them (or attempt to). Online you just keep arguing thinking you can change the other person's perspective which is impossible most of the time. Don't know how you come up with the time to write 5 pages worth of crap.

Whoo, because violence is ALWAYS better than spirited debate.

Yes, I am fully aware that I will not change the minds of the people who are actually bothering to respond. Are you aware that there actually are people undecided on this particular issue who read this thread and might be swayed to one side or the other by reading what is posted here? Not everyone is a close-minded jackaninny. I have had my opinion swayed on several things after reading some excellent arguements. Just because you're opinions are set in stone and will never be swayed unless they are beaten into a new position does not mean everyone is like that.

So hard to remember that personal attacks only ever actually make the attacker look like an ass.