Documentary about GS/Goldfarmers

[Kyreth]

I can't say this for sure since I don't play it, but I heard RMTs have much less of an impact there than it does here. Mainly because they can be PKed over there, and not here

Imagine if SE decided to allow known RMT players to become a PK'able target for a week or two before they get banned. Give everyone a chance to take out some angst first

Good times...

Mmm...death mark. {Yes, please.}

The sweet, sweet feeling one would get manaburning an RMT alliance at Ulli to death would be worth leveling BLM to 75. And sitting there for as long as they had viable targets to nuke. Bonus points if killing one then bansticked the account. True death.

[The Blackrose]

So when exactly was the last time MTV brought up anything that was relevant to music?

(insert lolmusicvideo comment here)

[Daahan]

So when exactly was the last time MTV brought up anything that was relevant to music?

(insert lolmusicvideo comment here)

OBVIOUSLY Real World: Timbuktu is all about music. I mean, that hot guy kyle was listening to his iPod while there was that drama about the party where heather slept with jake on the pool table in front of everyone who was there!

[Guyverarmor]

I stopped watching MTV when they stopped doing music( which was around like 89 or something)

[dietvanillapepsi]

It's DTV now. Drama Television.

As much as I miss the old skool MTV, RW/RR Challenge is one of the top 10 shows on TV today. GoGo drunken slackers back stabbing each other for cash and prizes.

[Plow]

Whew... sooo many things I want to reply to, but this bowl I'm smoking is making it hard to remember which lol. Anyway. Prepare for a longass read, if you care to read it.

First off, about WoW. In WoW, gold farmers flat out *do not matter*. That's all there is to it. They cannot block you from anything that really matters. They cannot monopolize markets. Basically, there is no way for farmers (or anyone else)to stop you from doing anything you want to do in WoW. And it's not because you can pk them, keep in mind that many WoW severs are PVE servers... that is, as the sout park episode mentioned, you have to choose to be involved in pvp combat. Of course there's farmers on pvp servers too, and they do get killed. But people hardly bother because they don't matter.

WoW keeps *anyone* from being able to cockblock others in 2 ways.
First off, money basically does not matter. There is almost nothing in the game which directly costs gold that matters. A few enchants (which are easily farmed in the places the 2nd point brings up), and some lower level "rare" or "epic" equipment that doesn't matter because you can outgrow them in literally a matter of hours... and EVERY PIECE OF LOW LEVEL EQUIPMENT IS REPLACED BY SOMETHING BETTER AT (not even that much) HIGHER LEVELS (think basically all weapons outside elemental staves in ffxi). They can't force you into doing things that make tiny amounts of gold because there are an insane amount of ways to make money...
Which brings me to my second point: the best money and items come from instanced content. Even the random world drops that carry a 1% drop rate among all monsters in the game between certain levels can drop from the mobs in instances.

And this doesn't even mention the fact that 99.9999999% of the best gear in the game, at all levels, is "bind on pickup."(bop, think r/ex) Even if it's not bop, all equipment of "green" level or higher is "bind on equip." Imagine if the first time you went to equip a haubergeon, you had to click a box that said "Equipping this item will bind it to you" and it turned EX. It's like that, if it's not ex to start with.

Now, about IGE and FFXI.
Let's see, the last estimate said they banned 65 billion gil if I remember right. (Maybe 45, I'll go with 65 just... cuz.) 65 billion gil at $15 per mil = less than $1,000,000. To the average video game player, a million bucks is a fucking ton of money. To far and away the largest, and most dominant company in a $9,000,000,000 (9 bil for the lazy ;p) industry... 1 million is probably less than the "margin of error" in estimating future yearly operating costs. I may be overestimating that (actually I doubt it, they have to figure in the possibility of those kinds of events), but regardless, a million bucks to IGE is a drop in the bucket. And as long as IGE exists, gil farming operations will not only exist, but thrive.

In my opinion, SE needs to realize that they have only one option to combat gilsellers. That sole option is to make them not matter. You will never get rid of gil sellers. You will never get rid of people that want to block others' progress, for whatever reasons. The only option is to make them not matter.

It's too far gone in FFXI. The game is not created to support extensive instanced content, the gear is not handled sufficiently, the servers are not sufficient, and the damn ps2 is not sufficient. As much as we all want to wish and hope that it will end, it won't. Abandon all hope, ye who level here.

If SE does come out with a second mmorpg, they would do well to follow the many lessons Blizzard has taught.

I tried to keep this to a length where someone might actually read it, forgive me if I didn't clarify something well enough.

[genome]

Now, about IGE and FFXI.
Let's see, the last estimate said they banned 65 billion gil if I remember right. (Maybe 45, I'll go with 65 just... cuz.) 65 billion gil at $15 per mil = less than $1,000,000. To the average video game player, a million bucks is a fucking ton of money. To far and away the largest, and most dominant company in a $9,000,000,000 (9 bil for the lazy ;p) industry... 1 million is probably less than the "margin of error" in estimating future yearly operating costs. I may be overestimating that (actually I doubt it, they have to figure in the possibility of those kinds of events), but regardless, a million bucks to IGE is a drop in the bucket. And as long as IGE exists, gil farming operations will not only exist, but thrive.

SE doesn't need to eliminate a 9 billion dollar industry that spans across all possible videogames, all it has to do in any give ffxi server is eliminating the RMT gil transactions for that server, that's all, and 65 billion gil is probably pretty close to that already.

I don't know how much gil is being RMTd each day in ffxi servers but I am pretty sure it's not even close to adding up to 9 billion dollars.
If one week SE prevented all gil sales from IGE by banning all the active transactions (hopefully both seller and buyer), it doesn't matter if the RMTs can start again, they will again make ZERO profit next week if SE banned them again and repeated the same process.

If this keeps happening eventually both RMTs and IGE will shift their focus to something that actually generates profit again, like RMT another one of the countless online games around. And the people trying to buy gil will also likely be discouraged by seeing and hearing of all the people who got banned each time trying to buy gil.

I didn't check myself but I remember people saying that after this last banning IGE was out of gil for their server, if they are out of gil because all the RMT banks that were trying to make sales that week were banned, they are not making any sales so they aren't making any profit.

In summary, I think this is going in the right direction and should eventually come pretty close to solving the problem, where IGE might eventually stop selling ffxi currency and RMTs will prefer to try and make money in some other game.

[Weeks]

Nobody gave a shit about RMTs back when they were farming Gigas in Delkfutt's tower and camping Serket, Simurgh, and Roc against starter HNMLSes. Don't ruin FFXI by totally taking away the competition between players, just undo the fucking MPK patch so we can drive their asses back to farming Gigas and Goobbues. Move King Arthro to Kuftal Tunnel or some other place with high level aggro around, and look the other way for a month as we delevel their asses to the point that it takes their full alliance to kill Serket.

[Sixtail]

Nobody gave a shit about RMTs back when they were farming Gigas in Delkfutt's tower and camping Serket, Simurgh, and Roc against starter HNMLSes. Don't ruin FFXI by totally taking away the competition between players, just undo the fucking MPK patch so we can drive their asses back to farming Gigas and Goobbues. Move King Arthro to Kuftal Tunnel or some other place with high level aggro around, and look the other way for a month as we delevel their asses to the point that it takes their full alliance to kill Serket.

The 'competition between players' is the biggest reason FFXI is in the fuckup it is now. Cockblocking fails and it's not just the RMT's. People need to understand that it's 2006 and you can't remain on the top of the peak forever. Restoring MPK at this point is pretty useless because RMT's were fantastic at mpking as it is and HNMLS's will MPK each other any chance they get. You'll add a spike of drama that will do nothing but drive more people away. You'll also give RMT's the weapon they need to make some camps a living hell again because they can and will outnumber most LS's at Faf, Turtle, Wyrms, etc.

There is no real 'competition' between LS's. There's a shitload of e-penis wagging and that doesn't count. Your LS having more Ebody and Ridlli users then any other LS is not 'competition"

You are correct that nobody cared when they never left Delfalks because most people didn't know what they were. People who had played other MMORPGS knew however and they sounded a alarm that got them blank stares and laughing. It's only after they took over Jueno HNM and expanded outwards that people woke up. Too little too late. But you can't drive em back to Delfalks because they know how to play now. Short of killing every RMT IRL who knows how to play they will fight back and most HNMLS's will pay the price.

[Plow]

In summary, I think this is going in the right direction and should eventually come pretty close to solving the problem, where IGE might eventually stop selling ffxi currency and RMTs will prefer to try and make money in some other game.

If you honestly have convinced yourself that there is even a remote possibility that this will happen, you probably need to go to rehab for ffxi.

[Gares]

I do pity those gilsellers working in the pseudo sweat shops, but other than that yeah gtfo China.

[Deftscythe]

Don't ruin FFXI by totally taking away the competition between players, just undo the fucking MPK patch so we can drive their asses back to farming Gigas and Goobbues.

When you say competition between players, you mean between claim bots, yes?

[pingpong]

Plow is exactly right. It's not about stopping money transactions, there's many ways around it. It's not about MPKing gilsellers, they can just MPK you back. The problem with SE is they are making gil matter too much, and unless you play WoW, you will have a hard time understanding the huge difference between the two games' economies.

To give an example, in WoW, you can buy many good items off the Auction House. They cost quite alot, and if you equip them, you can never sell them again. They are bound to you, and in fact many will laugh at you for buying that item, because if you were in a skilled enough Linkshell (Guild), you'd get a better item for free that is rare/ex from a dungeon boss.

WoW endgame is kinda like how dynamis works in terms of drops. The best drops come from the hardest bosses to defeat, and they cannot be sold, so you have to be there and contribute if you ever want to equip the item you want. In FFXI, the best item back in the day (Peacock Charm), could be killed by pretty much anyone. It's about claim, not skill, for pretty much anything in this game, thus you can see crappy players with good equip in good LSs. Same thing won't happen in WoW. If you have a bad player in a raid, it can make the difference between winning and losing on the newest and hardest content, so noobs will get left sitting out of raids and not getting gear until a guild feels they are good enough to bring them along or that they can have 30 people carry 90% of the weight.

The only way I can see SE alleviating gil problems is by making the King abjurations available in BCNMs or KSBC99s (this eliminate the claim factor to a degree), or provide more instanced dynamis type content but have them drop the best gear. This means a completely new item set at 75 that is better than any gear at levels below it, all rare/ex, all obtainable without the use of a single gil or ability to claim mobs over others.

Perhaps Ridills are designed for the most hardcore players, but "most hardcore" rarely equates to most skilled in FFXI. This is why people in FFXI with these top items don't get nearly the respect from their peers as those in WoW who possess top items. SE will have to change how the game works completely to fix this, and they are probably better off doing this in a sequel.

[Viktor Vaughn]

The worst part is at the end when the gil farmer says something along the lines of "regular gamers need to let us do our jobs...all we want the regular gamers to do is give us a little space and we won't bother you." So basically, he's saying we should just let all the gil farmers have the camps totally to themselves for expensive items so that the only way normal gamers can get these items is to buy them with RL money...?

Yeah, but that was refering to WoW, not FFXI. I can't say this for sure since I don't play it, but I heard RMTs have much less of an impact there than it does here. Mainly because they can be PKed over there, and not here

qft.

Before people flip out by that last guy's statement, keep in mind those are WoW goldfarmers not FFXI gil farmers.

Because of WoW's system, they just farm regular mobs over and over again. You will never have an issue getting a mob that you want because of a goldfamer.

Not saying it's right, but the situation over there is completely different than FF. There's just as many gold farmers as gil farmers, but there's very very little impact to the game on WoW than FF.

HAY SE I WONDER WHY THAT IS?


letscampsomethinglol

[rydiu]

Perhaps Ridills are designed for the most hardcore players, but "most hardcore" rarely equates to most skilled in FFXI. This is why people in FFXI with these top items don't get nearly the respect from their peers as those in WoW who possess top items.

wtf are you smoke'n... wow is just as much of a timesink as ffxi is when it comes to getting tier 2 sets, grand marshall sets... you have to do AV like 20+ times a week to ever have a hope of getting grand marshall.. and that equates into over 20 hours a week being at the computer...

not many people out there join a guild and go from level 1 noob straight into their tier 2 set without picking up some tier 0 and tier 1 first... the only way that happens is if you're a hot chick and cyber some hardcore dudes or know some hardcore ppl IRL...if you're on a new server.. not a chance in hell....................and you're still talking hours upon hours of grinding the same instances

don't forget how impersonal the wow environment is... people go afk far more often and in far worse situations than happens in ff. and they go perma-afk unannounced just as often..unless all you do is raid though.. which isn't all that much fun.. might as well rename the game "Raid-craft"

[aurik]

If I wanted a WoW-like system, I'd go play WoW.

The problem is that FFXI endgame doesn't scale. It was fine when there were 100 people total that could do kings and 200 people total that could do sky. Any given day you wouldn't see more than 2 dozen. Now there's over 1000, and there's money to be made providing "services" in camping NMs that 100 other people are ready to claim and kill at any given time.

[Vixy]

Perhaps Ridills are designed for the most hardcore players, but "most hardcore" rarely equates to most skilled in FFXI. This is why people in FFXI with these top items don't get nearly the respect from their peers as those in WoW who possess top items.

wtf are you smoke'n... wow is just as much of a timesink as ffxi is when it comes to getting tier 2 sets, grand marshall sets... you have to do AV like 100+ times a week to ever have a hope of getting grand marshall.. and that equates into over 20 hours a week being at the computer...

not many people out there join a guild and go from level 1 noob straight into their tier 2 set without picking up some tier 0 and tier 1 first... the only way that happens is if you're a hot chick and cyber some hardcore dudes or know some hardcore ppl IRL...if you're on a new server.. not a chance in hell....................and you're still talking hours upon hours of grinding the same instances

don't forget how impersonal the wow environment is... people go afk far more often and in far worse situations than happens in ff. and they go perma-afk unannounced just as often..unless all you do is raid though.. which isn't all that much fun.. might as well rename the game "Raid-craft"

sorry but... i had to. fixed

oh edit as well- Russta got tier3 for his war after just one month playing WoW in BG

[rydiu]

I'm sure he only logs on once a week to play for a couple hours, too...

[SephYuyX]

Russta's loot whore skills know no bounds.

[Pacha]

This probably won't be received very well but...I really don't think changing king abjurations to BCNM's would be the way to fix FFXI. It would probably be a positive thing in that it would possibly allow ppl without amazing bots to have a chance for king items, however, it would not fix the game, but rather just give ppl a way to get the same old items in a different way.

The king system has been a staple of FFXI for many years and honestly, it seems to function the way SE wants it to. SE made kings for only the most hardcore of gamers and those who camp those NM's endlessly. Basically, the people who alter their lives to accomodate for pop times do eventually get those items. Kings create an unbelievable time sink that frankly gets insanely boring after years of sitting in the same spot but it keeps people playing, which would be positive in SE's eyes. However, the way they have it set up, skill has absolutely nothing to do with getting the items and it's possible for someone that has no skill and has camped KB for one day to get the best item in the game (d. ring) without doing much of anything besides getting into a good LS and getting lucky on a day when no other senior members are there. However, the respect level just isn't there for items that have been obtained from kings. Rather there's often negative respect given to those who bot claim who obtain a great item despite being a complete noob.

I know this has been rehashed a million times, but adding harder HNM's to FFXI, which offer better armor would add progression to the game seems to be the only way to "fix" ffxi for endgame players. These new HNM's/instances would actually allow experienced end-gamers to move on from DA etc. and onto bigger, harder, and better things. (maybe add the rest of the elemental world wyrms, or actually have good stuff drop from instanced content besides limbus and dynamis?). By putting harder mobs into the game, even people who have king abj's would continue playing. I still have hope that there could be progression in FFXI, however, many old players got sick of waiting and moved on which makes me sad because most of the people that I started playing FFXI with have left the game.

ATM, there's a seemingly endless cycle of LS's forming --> camping HNM's for years --> getting king gear and then the people who got the items quit...then new people come into the LS, want the same items and the same process continues. Currently, the process of getting items takes even longer than before because of the insane amount of people in the king areas. This same cycle would likely occur if abj's were added to instances in which the big abj's dropped rarely.

I still have some hope that something like salvage could come along and really have a positive impact by making some of the truly best gear in the game come from something that is truly challenging (and instanced) and rewards the best players with the best gear.