RMT countermeasures

[Tymon]

Since the middle of May, 2006, the development team and the GMs carried out a detailed investigation of this problem, and discovered the existence of a group using illicit methods to produce large amounts of gil that are later sold in the real world (Real Money Trading).

I had never known such people existed before this enlightening report

[Russta]

I know it seldom works but we should try to get everyone here to send a POL mail to the developers to make Tu'lia triggers EX. It's in-line with their past changes, will cut down RMT and get gilsellers out of sky - "win" across the board.

[aurik]

I don't see how making tulia triggers ex will take the RMT out of sky. Here on Asura they farm AND USE all the triggers themselves.

[Russta]

I don't see how making tulia triggers ex will take the RMT out of sky. Here on Asura they farm AND USE all the triggers themselves.

Oh... On Ragnarok, they just get the triggers and sell them in Rolanberry (though they have evidently fought them a few times in the past).

[FFXIFlux]

Is this the same Flux from your own LS Nynja? or the one from Osiris? I get them confused :/

Follows some boring and pointless Gilgamesh history:

There is Flux and Phlux on Gilgamesh, and a couple other varients too. I'm in BG/Emerald now, Phlux is in Osiris I think. I was in Osiris at it's start. Osiris was formed from Bastok Gaurdians and a primarly french linkshell to be the HNM linkshell for the two social linkshells. At that time that pretty much meant Sky, and stuff like Serket, Roc etc. as this was pre-claim patch and kings were impossible to claim if you didn't live in Japan (but that didn't stop Osiris from trying and getting lucky like 1 or 2 times a month anyway.)

Some people didn't like the loot system of Osiris and so some of the Bastok Gaurdian people formed Emerald as an HNM (primarly sky) linkshell. After a while Osiris evolved into it's own linkshell instead of just being an HNM linkshell and I ended up switching to Emerald for various reasons, although chief among then was that it was better play time for me and it was more organized so I didn't have to wait 6+ months for gil splits.

I don't know what linkshell Nynja was in before Spoon Daggers (formed by a long time Bastok Gaurdian, partly because BG/Emerald wasn't going after Kings etc. enough) but he ditched SD because someone with more points than him got AF2 before him in Dynamis and somehow got into BG/Emerald as well as Interlopers which is the Bastok Gaurdians' Dynamis shell.

There was another linkshell which is dead now, Nightbane, that was formed by BG and SD to do wyrms. I just mention to show how inter-related these 3 linkshells are.

I'm not sure why he's still pissed at Sirlancelot since Nynja pretty much doesn't show for king camps anyway, but his constant bagging on members of another linkshell has just done wonders for relations with them.

[nivlakian]

I know it seldom works but we should try to get everyone here to send a POL mail to the developers to make Tu'lia triggers EX. It's in-line with their past changes, will cut down RMT and get gilsellers out of sky - "win" across the board.

Making sky triggers EX would make it so one person has to be there to collect the pairs and if that person can't attend when you're popping the God for some reason they couldn't give the triggers to another LS member.

However, since people have to deal with that for Proto-Omega/Ultima already, I suppose it could work.

[Don Katsu]

Prices for items on Alexander... RMT Bazaar
Autumnstone 11mil
Summerstone 6mil
Springstone 6mil
Gem of the west 3mil
Seiryu Seal 300k
Suzaku Seal 300k
Byakko Seal 8mil
Genbu Seal 10k

Bazaars in Batalia downs. that over 30mil they make on pop items which you can get all of in 1 sky run.

Other drops
Kraken Club 120mil in Bazaar comment
Speedbelt 100mil in Bazaar comment
^
These items should be rare/ex but I can kinda see where it would be a problem i.e being able to loan it to a DRK for Souleater+Bloodweapon spam.

[Khamsin]

Why bother banning gilsellers? It's like trying to kill a Hydra by cutting off its heads -- two more will just pop up to take its place. They need to ban the gilbuyers. Gilsellers can't exist if nobody is buying from IGE.

And people can't buy gil if nobody is selling from IGE. That, and there's a lot less adverse impact to banning gilseller mules with tons of gil on them that nobody knows, than banning people who have ridills and e.bodies on them, with close ties to many people in-game. Doing the latter is a surefire way to dramatically decrease your subscriber base, and they will not be coming back.

If there is no supply, the demand does not matter. There's also a lot fewer accounts on the supply end than the demand end. Plus, its where all the gil is stored. So cut off the supply, the demand is made moot, and the problem is solved.

[Kuponut]

If they Ban both Gilsellers and Gilbuyers, then all servers will become underpopulated.

[Grad]

Is this the same Flux from your own LS Nynja? or the one from Osiris? I get them confused :/

Follows some boring and pointless Gilgamesh history:

There is Flux and Phlux on Gilgamesh, and a couple other varients too. I'm in BG/Emerald now, Phlux is in Osiris I think. I was in Osiris at it's start. Osiris was formed from Bastok Gaurdians and a primarly french linkshell to be the HNM linkshell for the two social linkshells. At that time that pretty much meant Sky, and stuff like Serket, Roc etc. as this was pre-claim patch and kings were impossible to claim if you didn't live in Japan (but that didn't stop Osiris from trying and getting lucky like 1 or 2 times a month anyway.)

Some people didn't like the loot system of Osiris and so some of the Bastok Gaurdian people formed Emerald as an HNM (primarly sky) linkshell. After a while Osiris evolved into it's own linkshell instead of just being an HNM linkshell and I ended up switching to Emerald for various reasons, although chief among then was that it was better play time for me and it was more organized so I didn't have to wait 6+ months for gil splits.

I don't know what linkshell Nynja was in before Spoon Daggers (formed by a long time Bastok Gaurdian, partly because BG/Emerald wasn't going after Kings etc. enough) but he ditched SD because someone with more points than him got AF2 before him in Dynamis and somehow got into BG/Emerald as well as Interlopers which is the Bastok Gaurdians' Dynamis shell.

There was another linkshell which is dead now, Nightbane, that was formed by BG and SD to do wyrms. I just mention to show how inter-related these 3 linkshells are.

I'm not sure why he's still pissed at Sirlancelot since Nynja pretty much doesn't show for king camps anyway, but his constant bagging on members of another linkshell has just done wonders for relations with them.

Hi. I'm Gradius. I've been playing forever and i'm aware of Gilgamesh's history. Thx tho. I just didnt know if it was Osiris Phlux attacking Nyn or his own LS mates. Thx for clearing it up tho.

[Raineer]

Prices for items on Alexander... RMT Bazaar
Autumnstone 11mil
Summerstone 6mil
Springstone 6mil
Gem of the west 3mil
Seiryu Seal 300k
Suzaku Seal 300k
Byakko Seal 8mil
Genbu Seal 10k

Bazaars in Batalia downs. that over 30mil they make on pop items which you can get all of in 1 sky run.

Other drops
Kraken Club 120mil in Bazaar comment
Speedbelt 100mil in Bazaar comment
^
These items should be rare/ex but I can kinda see where it would be a problem i.e being able to loan it to a DRK for Souleater+Bloodweapon spam.

Similar prices to siren, but I am curious about something... Do ulli stones actually sell for 10m or whatever? I always thought it was just some bullshit "dream" bazaar price.

[Jeryhn]

Based on the results of this investigation, more than 250 accounts among those found to be involved in large-scale RMT operations have been terminated. We will continue to monitor accounts suspected of dealing in gil created or obtained in an unfair manner. Thanks to these measures, more than 250 billion gil has been removed from circulation.

I read this and thought... "250 accounts... 250 billion gil".

That's 1 billion per character on average. I don't care who you are, that's a fuckton of money to have on one character, and still no where near the max. Its very possible some random character with 20 billion has been removed from a very, very lucky server.

Might be a drop in the ocean, but no one drop feels its responsible for the flood.

[Raineer]

That's 1 billion per character on average. I don't care who you are, that's a fuckton of money to have on one character, and still no where near the max. Its very possible some random character with 20 billion has been removed from a very, very lucky server.

Might be a drop in the ocean, but no one drop feels its responsible for the flood.

it's actually exactly the max... 999,999,999 = just about 1 billion

[Jeryhn]

That's 1 billion per character on average. I don't care who you are, that's a fuckton of money to have on one character, and still no where near the max. Its very possible some random character with 20 billion has been removed from a very, very lucky server.

Might be a drop in the ocean, but no one drop feels its responsible for the flood.

it's actually exactly the max... 999,999,999 = just about 1 billion

It is? I always thought the max was like 99 billion or something.

Chalk it up to being poor I guess.

[Moochi]

1 account = 12 or 16 characters.

[Don Katsu]

Similar prices to siren, but I am curious about something... Do ulli stones actually sell for 10m or whatever? I always thought it was just some bullshit "dream" bazaar price.

Not sure I don't know anyone or any LS that has actually bought one but maybe.

[rahskala]

Why bother banning gilsellers? It's like trying to kill a Hydra by cutting off its heads -- two more will just pop up to take its place. They need to ban the gilbuyers. Gilsellers can't exist if nobody is buying from IGE.

And people can't buy gil if nobody is selling from IGE. That, and there's a lot less adverse impact to banning gilseller mules with tons of gil on them that nobody knows, than banning people who have ridills and e.bodies on them, with close ties to many people in-game. Doing the latter is a surefire way to dramatically decrease your subscriber base, and they will not be coming back.

If there is no supply, the demand does not matter. There's also a lot fewer accounts on the supply end than the demand end. Plus, its where all the gil is stored. So cut off the supply, the demand is made moot, and the problem is solved.

Yes, neutralizing the supply will have the same effect, but my opinion is that reducing the demand would be much easier. Everybody has seen the future-gilseller parties manaburning their way to 75 on their servers, and everyone has seen the minor effect that previous mass-bans have had on the presence of gilsellers at NM camps/sky/etc. I'm sure Square is trying, but there are a lot more people monopolizing camps and fucking up the game than there are people working for Square trying to stop them.

I'm not saying that all accounts that have ever purchased gil should be nuked. That's unreasonable and would probably wipe out like 1/8 of the playerbase. All I'm saying is that Square should give everyone a final warning, saying "We are going to start enforcing the TOS heavily, starting now" and then follow through and start banning people who continue to purchase gil. They can err heavily on the side of caution to reduce the number of false positives and still have the desired effect, because as soon as people start posting "OMG I GOT BANNED BECAUSE I BOUGHT GIL =(" on Allakhazam, everyone will freak out and the will to buy gil will evaporate.

Even if there are a few false positives, the game will be better in the long run.

[aurik]

Similar prices to siren, but I am curious about something... Do ulli stones actually sell for 10m or whatever? I always thought it was just some bullshit "dream" bazaar price.

Not sure I don't know anyone or any LS that has actually bought one but maybe.

On Asura, the thinking goes "why buy the stone when you can just buy the haidate off them".

[FFXIFlux]

I haven't heard of anyone buying one either. I thought Autumn Stones were nuts at 3M, but 11? LOL

[TwinkysSister]

1 account = 12 or 16 characters.

I didn't even think about that.