Players of FFXI:
Paragraphs of Summary to those who hate alot of Text:
For quite sometime now we have seen SE drag it's feet on important topics in game play and development of FFXI, it's time us NA and/or JP players take a step to enact real change. There are many issues in the game that could use more attention, but none more than the issue of current and growing gilseller monopoly. SE no doubt is aware of the epidemic of gilseller account growing on each server, yet continues to habitually poke a stick in the eye of North American, JP, and EU's that play the game the way it was supposed to be played.
Betting on the fact that revenue from those extra gilselling accounts will be greater than the loss of people that are generally tired from having to compete against large amounts of accounts to obtain basic sky items or when they can't win claim on monsters resort to buying gil to buy pop items. This problem is known, and yet SE gives us token gestures of banning few (Mostly NA accounts) across servers for actions that have been taken by many to combat the fact that gilsellers overwhelm any size party that can realistically make money from NM's on the server.
The last time SE actually banned accounts for just being connected to gilselling it was somewhere around 250 accounts. There are over 200 gilseller accounts on my server alone, and when looking at how many gilsellers where banned per server 250/33= under 8 (not enough)
What we should do:
Square would be happy to let the rest of us still playing continue to play like this until there are not enough players on the servers for gilsellers to have anyone to sell there gil to and the game dies, I say we let Square pick it's poison. Either the gilsellers go or we do. Maybe I am irrational in my hope to finish the rest of my time in FFXI not being treated like garbage by a company I pay $15 a month too, but I still have dream of an FFXI where players actually have fun and are not deprived of the items due to sleazy gilsellers.
In being what I hope is rational I propose players give SE till Jan. 1 2007 to make real strides in combating RMT in FFXI, no more token gimmicks just effective action. If SE does chooses to poke a stick in the eye of its actual player base I will be cancelling my content ID, and i'd urge all that if they keep ignoring actually players to do the same with their content ID.
I understand alot of people are too attachted to this game to ever quit, but at the very least write letters to SE through the Service & Support menu in the PoL menu. From there choose "Support" -> "E-mail Support" and take the time to write out a thought-out letter telling SE it can't keep ignoring it's actual players.
What SE should do:
It's easy, basically stop dodging the issue on gilselling. It's blanket excuse has always been "It's hard to identify which accounts are actual gilsellers." While I don't buy this excuse, since if we can players can pretty easily point out which accounts are gilsellers and paid GM's can't something doesn't add up. But I also understand that it would be very unfair if someone had there account banned that was an actual player. But really SE doesn't even need to ban accounts en-mass to take care of gilsellers, to stop gilselling you need to make it economically unviable for the companies that sell it. Obvious solution I know, but the course of action is even more obvious in my opinion. Why doesn't SE make characters and contact the companies selling gil, when the gilselling mule logs on BAN it. Hire people that do this all day, or check E-bay, or wherever else gil is sold until the companies that sell gil are not longer able to sell it safely to anyone.
It's real hard to sell gil when you are constantly having to make new gil mules and resupply your banned gil. Eventually gil prices will rise so high that people will stop buying it and those companies can't make money to pay the people that are farming the gil. No confusion about who needs to be banned, no accounts deleted by mistake.
Basically all I'm trying to say is we don't have to put up with FFXI as it currently sits, and nothing will ever change if we allow SE to keep acting the way it has been. Unless you write letters and let SE know that dragging its feet will not be tolerated, things will remain the same..
Thanks,
Jimm