Will the IGE holiday sale happen again (dec)

[Kanodin]

Play FF12 no rmts around : )

Or people for that matter.

w

On another note regarding the technical language we're using to describe the ffxi economy. When we refer to the scenario of RMT releasing gil from its control, we do not experience artificial inflation. We experience the end of an artificial deflation--the economy would encounter a proper money supply (or one closer to normal), although the gil ownership would be skewed.

Also, consider the "RMT good" argument: If we look beyond the flood of saved coffers that may possibly happen, realize that RMT is a real deflationary force. Banning RMT mules would not happen without RMT, so RMT causes SE to destroy gil.

And no, they are not duping gil. SE continuously prods RMT vendors with sting buys and researches their sources. SE only reports on landmark accomplishments, like "we deleted x billion gil since y date."

Finally, the concept of GM corruption is a real worry, since SE has no transparency to assure its customers that SE is being responsible. They are so damned secretive about the whole topic that everyone else understands why people distrust GMs. The whole notion of "privacy" that ensures that SE keeps bannings secret is an excuse to hide something. SE can change its privacy policy concerning banned accounts. As far as I am concerned, a banned account is entitled to zero privacy rights, since the account holder violated the agreement.

If SE published a running list of banned accounts and the justifications, I bet people would give SE what it deserves: praise, if the bannings cover RMT violations, or blame, if SE has been doing nothing but banning fleetool/pos violations.

[Jahuran]

I'm interested in what level of technical expertise the RMT hitsquad has and what oversight mechanisms are in place to maintain the honesty of the gm staff as well as the dev team.

I think the stakes are high enough financially for someone like IGE to pay an admin/dev team member thousands of dollars to protect certain accounts or do 'favors' to facilitate RMT activity or create short term gil exploits (hi2u a database mistake in the buy/sell prices).

I doubt the power to add gildupes or other potentially rmt supporting options into the game is anywhere near what GMs can do. I think they'd have to pay game-server admins or application/devs or bugfixers to add intentional dupes or edit database values.

Even if it were, wasn't there some hacker who explained how every item on the server has its own UniqueID so any attempts to dupe again would be found out quickly. I think SE probably has more of these safety nets in place.

Alot of people talk the talk about quitting because of RMT and blablabla this and that but few walk the walk and say fuck it I don't care for this shit any more. Nobody is willing to be a martyr because it won't do much in the end. RMT pay for this game just as much as we do. Perhaps even more.

GMs are there to enforce the rules of this game that we all agree to before logging in. RMT and HNMshell members break these rules constantly and get away with it.
Conclusion:GMs at least don't do a part of their job right. Sure they'll drag person XYZ out of a spot where they got stuck but when it comes to recognizing and handling RMT they simply fail.

[HAcoreRD]

Well, if everything isn't going to rise, what do you think will rise/drop?

Dropping price (due to mass flood like Smning torques saw):
Scorpion Harness, Vermy cloak, Haubergon,, Chiv Torque (probably, theyre sought after) Potent Belts, Sniper Rings)

Price raise:

Probably the unlikely stuff, I can imagine Dusk going up, maybe gil seller controlled items like o.kote, and bomblet

http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=18707&sid=29 [/url]

[Sho]

Personally, I wouldn't be supprised If this happened, and I might have evidence to prove It.

GM Gludd, was by far one of the best GMs period. For anyone who has instances with him, you would know this guy actually spotted RMT If you got him to answer your call. Don't know where He is now though... point is that, If he could spot RMT easily and ban/suspened/jail them, why can't the other GMs...

He quit (No don't ask me how I know, I just do )

He answered a call of mine 3 days ago, LS mate was stuck in SAM Quest CS for some odd reason, he came fast and fixed the problem quick. Nice guy, to boot.

[LD]

I suppose every police force needs a Serpico.

[Kyreth]

On another note regarding the technical language we're using to describe the ffxi economy. When we refer to the scenario of RMT releasing gil from its control, we do not experience artificial inflation. We experience the end of an artificial deflation--the economy would encounter a proper money supply (or one closer to normal), although the gil ownership would be skewed.

On the other hand, RMT's also create Gil at an uneven rate compared to the normal player- whether that's botfishing/farming or synthwork 24/7. Further, RMT characters sink Gil at far lower rates than regular players do. Between those two behaviours, I would call RMT's an inflationary influence- that is, they actually tend to put more Gil into the system than would normally be withdrawn via regular player activity.

Releasing this influx of funds into the economy strikes me as RMT's being an inflationary force rather than a deflationary one, since it is in the RMT's interest to do so.

Also, consider the "RMT good" argument: If we look beyond the flood of saved coffers that may possibly happen, realize that RMT is a real deflationary force. Banning RMT mules would not happen without RMT, so RMT causes SE to destroy gil.

And no, they are not duping gil. SE continuously prods RMT vendors with sting buys and researches their sources. SE only reports on landmark accomplishments, like "we deleted x billion gil since y date."

RMT's given a chance to exploit, will exploit. That they are not at this time is a good thing, but it's a given that if another CoP-like loophole is found, it will be used to the utmost. That's been standard operating procedure on every game RMT's exist on.

And as far as RMT's being a deflationary force, I disagree. Countermeasures against RMT's are a deflationary force, the massive and continual inflationary direction server economies were taking pre-intervention point to RMT's being a source of inflation instead. If the RMT's did not exist, Gil sinks would be more than sufficent to keep the economy stable- if the past few months of relatively RMT-free economic data is to be believed. See FFXIAH.

Finally, the concept of GM corruption is a real worry, since SE has no transparency to assure its customers that SE is being responsible. They are so damned secretive about the whole topic that everyone else understands why people distrust GMs. The whole notion of "privacy" that ensures that SE keeps bannings secret is an excuse to hide something. SE can change its privacy policy concerning banned accounts. As far as I am concerned, a banned account is entitled to zero privacy rights, since the account holder violated the agreement.

If SE published a running list of banned accounts and the justifications, I bet people would give SE what it deserves: praise, if the bannings cover RMT violations, or blame, if SE has been doing nothing but banning fleetool/pos violations.

IMHO, it's S-E practicing the time-honored tradition of CYA. It's easier to reverse a privately made error than a public one.

[Sonomaa]

renamed topic

[Navia]

Even if it were, wasn't there some hacker who explained how every item on the server has its own UniqueID so any attempts to dupe again would be found out quickly. I think SE probably has more of these safety nets in place.

Item ID mechanisms usually fail because items/currency that are stackable/splittable don't work with such a system and tend to be the duping weakspot.

[Khamsin]

Even if it were, wasn't there some hacker who explained how every item on the server has its own UniqueID so any attempts to dupe again would be found out quickly. I think SE probably has more of these safety nets in place.

Item ID mechanisms usually fail because items/currency that are stackable/splittable don't work with such a system and tend to be the duping weakspot.

Unless they reserved item IDs for the items that would be split from another item, then stored the set of IDs that go within a stack.

e.g. some random Ginger Cookie = ID: 3491284
some other Ginger Cookie = ID: 8201485
yet another random Ginger Cookie = ID: 5001542

One day, all 3 come together into the same inventory and get stacked. The stack is represented by {3491284, 8201485, 5001542}. Or better yet, generate a new ID for it, say, 9435781. In the database tables that contain the individual ginger cookies, perhaps add a column to refer to the stack ID they belong to, if any. The entry for item ID 3491284 would say under the stack column 9435781, meaning its a part of that stack. If it is broken off from that stack, that column's data becomes null. No change would need to be made to 9435781's entry. If the game wants to find out just how big of a stack 9435781 really is, it just counts the results from select * from item_table where stack_id = 9435781.

[aurik]

lol, you assume they use a database backend. While it would be a good idea, I've seen worse design come out of "professional" game companies.

[Navia]

Its been tried in the past by some and the DB bloats big enough that the game client looks laggy+unresponsive because the game server is not letting the game clients do anything till the database check says its ok. SE at least purges 3+ month old cancelled accounts from its active DB to improve search speed.

Most amusing thing I ever saw was someone manipulating a stack of items on the ground in a certain MMO that would lag an entire region server and all the game clients. Several of the game clients were trying to grab+split the stack at the same time which caused all sorts of hilarity with their so called DB backend that was trying to prevent dupes.

Like aurik said you don't get much quality engineering out of game companies - its all about cutting corners due to being given shitty hardware to work with, short schedules and not enough staffing. At the same time, a lot of innovation is born out of having less to work with.

[Kanodin]

On the other hand, RMT's also create Gil at an uneven rate compared to the normal player- whether that's botfishing/farming or synthwork 24/7.

I think you overestimate fishbotting. I also do not remember what synthing does to create gil.

[shinobi_tabi]

On the other hand, RMT's also create Gil at an uneven rate compared to the normal player- whether that's botfishing/farming or synthwork 24/7.

I think you overestimate fishbotting. I also do not remember what synthing does to create gil.

you undersetimate
they could technically pull up 100 coral frags per char. per acct. per day
they can be npc'd for 2k~gil each coral frag, although it would net them more gil to auction it, but if they didn't...they could npc and create that much gil.

[Kyreth]

On the other hand, RMT's also create Gil at an uneven rate compared to the normal player- whether that's botfishing/farming or synthwork 24/7.

I think you overestimate fishbotting. I also do not remember what synthing does to create gil.

Easy example is Yughott grotto fishbotting/synthbotting. It's legit to do what they're doing, just not the way they're doing it- they had everything botted and were warphacking across Ronfaure to get stuff to the smithbot faster...I did the same thing (without the hacks or bots) leveling up smithing in the early 30's.

Yughott fishbot yanks up rusty picks/caps and silver rings, tosses everything else. 0 risk area.

Craftbot next to it desynths silver rings into ingots. Those end up AH'ed.

Rusties end up getting synthed with a light crystal with a highlevel smith. HQ'd caps and NQ or HQ picks sell nicely to NPC for Gil. NQ caps sell for about enough to cover the crystal cost.

Rinse, recycle, repeat. We had the smithingbot /anon near the South Sandy AH doing stuff pretty much 24/7 and selling to a vendor. I figured it out, called a GM, they watched for a few minutes, and within a week the whole lot of them got sent to deletesville.

IIRC, there also may be a few of the sliced baits that would do the trick as well as cooking synths.

[Plow]

On the other hand, RMT's also create Gil at an uneven rate compared to the normal player- whether that's botfishing/farming or synthwork 24/7.

I think you overestimate fishbotting. I also do not remember what synthing does to create gil.

you baaaadly underestimate fishbotting, I'd say without a doubt it's created more gil than anything outside duping by a loooong, loooong, loooooooooooong ways.

also synthing doesn't directly make gil but npc'ing crap you synth does

[HAcoreRD]

On the other hand, RMT's also create Gil at an uneven rate compared to the normal player- whether that's botfishing/farming or synthwork 24/7.

I think you overestimate fishbotting. I also do not remember what synthing does to create gil.

you undersetimate
they could technically pull up 100 coral frags per char. per acct. per day
they can be npc'd for 2k~gil each coral frag, although it would net them more gil to auction it, but if they didn't...they could npc and create that much gil.

That, or if you don't have fishers, let Jelly botters cut loose in Korrokola. Figure a thf main can get say 1-2 a kill, excluding morion, 24k a stack on my server, yes, couple million a day, depends on competition

[Jahuran]

Even if it were, wasn't there some hacker who explained how every item on the server has its own UniqueID so any attempts to dupe again would be found out quickly. I think SE probably has more of these safety nets in place.

Item ID mechanisms usually fail because items/currency that are stackable/splittable don't work with such a system and tend to be the duping weakspot.

Theres what Khamsin added, and they might even work with an dimensional array type setup where player_items(is your entire inventory) and within that inventory you can have another array for each item in it.

gingercookies=array('gingercookie_dbID') etc
echodrops=array('echodrops_dbID')
player_items=array('echodrops','gingercookies') etc

etc etc.
Wouldn't be terribly hard to store above array in a database value and keep track of all individual IDs since the item IDs would be foreign keys from perhaps the "items created on the server" table.

If a ginger cookie gets removed from player_items('gingercookies') it would send a delete from the player_items table to the "items created on the server" table removing its entry on both sides. NOW if the duping trick that worked years ago would still work then person A and B would both have the same item with the same ID thus same foreignb key from the "items created on the server" table. So I think the table "items created on server" now just denies the action of creating an item with the same uniqueID even if it were a stackable item.

This is all hypothetical of course.

How much would an average fishbotting team make a day camping yughott grotto?
500k-1000k or somewhere close or more?

[xingoo]

with any luck it will i made huge gil last year cuase of it buaght 15 or 20mil worth of smn gear in nov resold it after cristmas for over 150+mil =)lol

3rd grade english, please learn it.

rofl

[Kyreth]

That, or if you don't have fishers, let Jelly botters cut loose in Korrokola. Figure a thf main can get say 1-2 a kill, excluding morion, 24k a stack on my server, yes, couple million a day, depends on competition

This, however doesn't create Gil, only collect it.

Increasing the total amount of Gil in circulation = inflation. RMT's doing a "holiday sale" can and do create a temporary inflation effect by dumping more Gil into circulation than the game can sink away. But that's not the long-term inflation that's caused by actually generating Gil, as opposed to farming something and AH'ing it (which actually deflates the system a bit via AH fees).

And to keep up with folks, I'd say there's a hella good reason we see so many fishbotters. It's a near-zero effort way for an RMT to generate Gil. All you have to do is make sure you're chucking what's junk and drop off your fish-loot from time to time as the bot gets loaded up. Check Marissa's fishing board, it's certainly happening.

http://www.lisaarndt.com/phpBB2/view...r=asc&start=45

[Kyreth]

How much would an average fishbotting team make a day camping yughott grotto?
500k-1000k or somewhere close or more?

Well, let's see. Every time you're pulling up and synthing a war pick, that's about 2.5K profit after the crystal (more if you HQ). HQ Cap is a another 600 or so. NQ cap is about break-even. Silver ingots are approx 16k/stack profit.

Figure you've got your average gobbiebagged smither getting around 50 or so items per run, split evenly between picks and caps. So around 60-70K per run, plus however much you got off the desynthed rings.

Ten runs a day? Easy. So certainly in that range. How to tell crap like this is happening? Watch the light and lightning crystal prices. Light prices spiking is someone doing rusties and a LOT of them. Lightning means people are desynthing like mad. You're only limited by the number of fishers and the speed you can get the rusties to town.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=4102&stack=1&sid=20