[Poll] What do you think about dynamis ?

[Izzy]

I can't believe this guy really doesn't understand the definition of a scam.

Sponsoring a Dynamis run is a legitimate business action. You're providing capital to a group of people (company) as an investment for a return on how well they do in the zone (profit). This happens every day down on Wall St. All stock trading is a scam?

[Eldelphia]

There are situations where currency sponsoring could be fair (e.g. a pre-determined sponsor rotation among all members) but they are needlessly complex. There is no reasonable argument against simply splitting up the costs of the glass and dividing currency among members (I won't pretend that autodrop is the best solution, but it's decent).

Rubbish! Have you ever lead a Limbus capable shell? Every week someone will not have the gil for one or two runs a week. Yes, it's gotten easier but if you think making 18-40 people split a glass once or twice a weekfor dynamis is easier than one person buying it and getting the currency then you're insane.

1) You can never be sure of your numbers
2) The runs people are broke for, they won't show up
3) The amount of time it takes to trade say 24 amounts of gil every week from everyone, making sure you have and no one skips would be a royal pain in the arse
4) Autodrop isn't particularly fair and dividing the currency fairly would be another timesink.
5) Far easier to bundle up gil rather than 24+ peeps bazaaring it.
6) even if you sell off the currency as a shell and split the gil, people will bitch and moan or distrust.

I'm not saying someone doesn't do well out of it, but the accepted upside of this is a dynamis shell member gets to turn up, hit things and go home with no outlay and eventually some unusual armour.

Let alone right now the only way to make decent gil is hundred drops or spamming sandy and bastok.

[layoneil]

Spider-Dan sounds like a Communist.

[terranova]

Dynamis is very fun to me.

And I don't know how to say this without sounding like a selfish prick, but the shell I'm in funds the fee, so we don't have to pay anything. That's good enough for me. Some might not show up, but shouldnt take entering dynamis "for free" for granted. Never doing Limbus, I'd make like 1 run every 3-4 weeks. That's no help at all and I suck at making money lol.

[Yutuyu]

I can't believe this guy really doesn't understand the definition of a scam.

Sponsoring a Dynamis run is a legitimate business action. You're providing capital to a group of people (company) as an investment for a return on how well they do in the zone (profit). This happens every day down on Wall St. All stock trading is a scam?

It's not a scam but it is grossly unfair. In the wall street scenario the turnover isn't almost guaranteed and it takes much longer than 3 hours to see it occur.

Say your LS enters Bastok with 30 people and gets 2.5 million currency. That's 1.5 mil profit, or about ~83.33k per person. The person sponsoring is basically taking 50k from each and every member of that shell in order to lend them the 33.33k to enter instead of them paying it themself.

Spider dan's problem is probably the fact that just about any decent Dynamis LS has a sponsorship system where 50k+ of his gil is taken every run by a single member. I don't see what's wrong about complaining about an unfair system of rules which is considered not only acceptable, but the norm.

[Cadsuane]

There's nothing unfair about it. The people who join the shell, do so of their own free will, in full knowledge of what's going to be happening with the drops. Where's the unfairness?

The unfairness as he's arguing comes from the scarcity of productive dynamis shells who also happen to be recruiting members off the street. If they're offering a scarce commodity, (reliable clears, plentiful AF drops) then they have leverage to find more people willing to be strong-armed into an unfavourable arrangement.

But I don't have any problems with someone fronting money for a glass and profiting off of it. That's the investees earned interest for advancing a loan and assuming the risk of a failed run or poor currency drops. Everybody gets something valuable out of the deal usually.

[layoneil]

Spider dan's problem is probably the fact that just about any decent Dynamis LS has a sponsorship system where 50k+ of his gil is taken every run by a single member. I don't see what's wrong about complaining about an unfair system of rules which is considered not only acceptable, but the norm.

that's the price you pay for being part of an organized group, for not having to find other people to fill the roster, for not having to decide how the AF drops are distributed, for not having to find or figure out the strategies needed to kill the most mobs in the least amount of time.

it's like cooks who don't own their own restaurant, they might make a meal that cost $100 but they're not going to see all of that $100. the profit goes to the owner first because the owner was the one that created all the necessary conditions for that $100 to be made in the first place.

if you're not willing to pay that price, you can do it yourself, it's a free system.

[Spider-Dan]

There's nothing unfair about it. The people who join the shell, do so of their own free will, in full knowledge of what's going to be happening with the drops. Where's the unfairness?

So any rule that is clearly stated must be fair, right? Because there's no such thing as unjust laws.

For people with different priorities free dynamis runs and a fair chance at AF where they have to do absolutely zero prepwork is a pretty decent opportunity.

Are you seriously trying to explain away currency-sponsorship as the cost for prepwork? Please.

I'll tell you what; I'll do the "prepwork" of buying a glass and bringing it (and organizing the run, although many of the hundreds of non-leader sponsors don't even do that). And in exchange, the LS farms currency for me for the next three hours, which I will sell. That's completely legitimate, right?

Corrupt scheme is closer, sure, but now you have to tell me why it's corrupt.

Because it's OK for some members to co-opt the LS for their personal profit, but not others.

Wait, relic upgraders are in it for money? Because I ended up spending oh, about 400 MILLION in addition to funding & doing the leadership thing. Not sure where the "in it for money" is coming from, lol.

I'm not sure if you're trying to say that you spent FOUR HUNDRED MILLIONZ on your relic, but the plain and simple fact is that you would have spent a HELL of a lot more for your relic if you had to pay market prices for currency, instead of getting it through sponsorship.

Now maybe you also spent millions of your own money charitably funding Tav runs, and you contribute your time organizing, and you feed the homeless on the weekends after you finish tutoring crippled orphans. Good for you. But that doesn't make sponsorship fair.

Except in a pyramid scheme you're typically deceiving people into believing that there is the system as a whole has a positive income, which is not true--the system as a whole has a neutral or even negative income. When you pitch to saps, you deliberately conceal the fact that the system is based on rearranging money rather than earning it.

"Rearranging money" makes it a scam? Sorry, you'll have to try harder than that. Short of counterfeiting, the entire idea of commerce is about "rearranging" money from one set of hands into another. And I'd defy you to explain how walking around and convincing people to buy into a pyramid scheme is not "earning" money, but buying a stock is.

Every business is about rearranging money.

Where did "justice" come from? Oh right, you're dragging irrelevant terms into the argument so that you have something to say, because otherwise you'd have to admit that you were dead wrong. Hello mr straw man, taking abuse again I see.

Because it's a straw man when I make an initial statement about sponsorship being an unfair scam (or corrupt scheme, if you prefer) and then later refer to it being unjust, amirite?

If you want to play in the laissez-faire "if they signed on the dotted line, every line of of the contract is automatically ethical" sandbox, then fine. But don't try to pretend that it's anything other than the privileged few using the LS to fatten their wallet.

Fact of the matter is, anyone can buy an hourglass and enter dynamis. Don't like your options with current shells? Start your own. You'll soon find out just how much work it is.

AMAZING DISCOVERY

[Alistaire]

So basically you're saying if you are interested in dynamis, you can...
1) participate under someone else's terms using their resources
2) participate under your own terms using your resources
3) not participate.

AMAZING DISCOVERY

Why are there posts after that? That statement is clearly /endthread. and stop debating this.

[Spider-Dan]

Rubbish! Have you ever lead a Limbus capable shell? Every week someone will not have the gil for one or two runs a week.

All I can say is, my shell has yet to have that problem.

(insert snarky comment about our members having extra money because we don't sponsor dynamis)

Yes, it's gotten easier but if you think making 18-40 people split a glass once or twice a weekfor dynamis is easier than one person buying it and getting the currency then you're insane.

1) You can never be sure of your numbers
2) The runs people are broke for, they won't show up
3) The amount of time it takes to trade say 24 amounts of gil every week from everyone, making sure you have and no one skips would be a royal pain in the arse
4) Autodrop isn't particularly fair and dividing the currency fairly would be another timesink.
5) Far easier to bundle up gil rather than 24+ peeps bazaaring it.
6) even if you sell off the currency as a shell and split the gil, people will bitch and moan or distrust.

1) calc.exe exists
2) they also will not receive currency when they don't show up
3) oh noes, our 4-hour event has become 4 hours and 10 minutes! (seriously, how hard is it for party leaders to collect from their group)
4) autodrop kicks the sh*t out of sponsorship when it comes to fairness, but even if you divide for maximum fairness, calc.exe still isn't that hard
5) it would also be a lot easier just to give all the gil to me
6) waste of time; see above

I find it rather interesting that you brought up Limbus, since that in itself is a pretty good example of exactly why sponsoring is NOT necessary.

[Spider-Dan]

Spider-Dan sounds like a Communist.

Far from it.

If we are going to have organized runs to subsidize the cost of gear acquisition, why are only relic weapon upgraders allowed to benefit? Why can't non-relic-upgrader members sponsor? It's like it's presumed that one member is somehow more deserving of gil subsidies if they are throwing that money at a relic weapon.

[aurik]

There's nothing unfair about it. The people who join the shell, do so of their own free will, in full knowledge of what's going to be happening with the drops. Where's the unfairness?

So any rule that is clearly stated must be fair, right? Because there's no such thing as unjust laws.

Your analogy is awesome, because we all can personally pick and choose which laws apply to us and which ones don't.

[quote:2p9cqzy6]For people with different priorities free dynamis runs and a fair chance at AF where they have to do absolutely zero prepwork is a pretty decent opportunity.

Are you seriously trying to explain away currency-sponsorship as the cost for prepwork? Please.

I'll tell you what; I'll do the "prepwork" of buying a glass and bringing it (and organizing the run, although many of the hundreds of non-leader sponsors don't even do that). And in exchange, the LS farms currency for me for the next three hours, which I will sell. That's completely legitimate, right?[/quote:2p9cqzy6]

Once again Spider-Dan misses the point that some people have vastly different priorities than him and don't feel that passing up 50k profit is not that bad of a cost in return for having someone else plan, organize, and execute a raid with possibly up to 60 people.

[quote:2p9cqzy6]Corrupt scheme is closer, sure, but now you have to tell me why it's corrupt.

Because it's OK for some members to co-opt the LS for their personal profit, but not others.[/quote:2p9cqzy6]
Co-opt? How is creating a shell from nothing for a particular purpose co-opting anything?

[quote:2p9cqzy6]Wait, relic upgraders are in it for money? Because I ended up spending oh, about 400 MILLION in addition to funding & doing the leadership thing. Not sure where the "in it for money" is coming from, lol.

I'm not sure if you're trying to say that you spent FOUR HUNDRED MILLIONZ on your relic, but the plain and simple fact is that you would have spent a HELL of a lot more for your relic if you had to pay market prices for currency, instead of getting it through sponsorship.

Now maybe you also spent millions of your own money charitably funding Tav runs, and you contribute your time organizing, and you feed the homeless on the weekends after you finish tutoring crippled orphans. Good for you. But that doesn't make sponsorship fair.[/quote:2p9cqzy6]

You still haven't explained how ending up 400 million in the red is being "in it for the money".

[quote:2p9cqzy6]Except in a pyramid scheme you're typically deceiving people into believing that there is the system as a whole has a positive income, which is not true--the system as a whole has a neutral or even negative income. When you pitch to saps, you deliberately conceal the fact that the system is based on rearranging money rather than earning it.

"Rearranging money" makes it a scam? Sorry, you'll have to try harder than that. [/quote:2p9cqzy6]

No, deceit is what makes it a scam. Reading r hard?

[quote:2p9cqzy6]Where did "justice" come from? Oh right, you're dragging irrelevant terms into the argument so that you have something to say, because otherwise you'd have to admit that you were dead wrong. Hello mr straw man, taking abuse again I see.

Because it's a straw man when I make an initial statement about sponsorship being an unfair scam (or corrupt scheme, if you prefer) and then later refer to it being unjust, amirite?[/quote:2p9cqzy6]

It's a straw man because we're discussing whether it's a scam, not whether you think the terms are fair.

But don't try to pretend that it's anything other than the privileged few using the LS to fatten their wallet.

Using the linkshell that they built out of nothing for the express purpose that they built it for, which happens to actually cost them way more money than it makes. Got it!

[quote:2p9cqzy6]Fact of the matter is, anyone can buy an hourglass and enter dynamis. Don't like your options with current shells? Start your own. You'll soon find out just how much work it is.

AMAZING DISCOVERY[/quote:2p9cqzy6]
AMAZING DISCOVERY

[byte]

SE should make it 1 hr and x3 the drop rates. 3 Hours is too fucking long.

Limbus = far superior. Here's why:

*Limbus is shorter
*People can actually find a use for the currency without doing relic
*Can be entered with less people or you can still go with full alliance if you want
*Materials actually have a pretty decent drop rate or one 100% per floor
*Much variation in gameplay: ie. different "tricks" for each floor
*Not an abundance of MNK mobs with Hundred Fists to hand your ass to you
*The fee is per person and therefore you can go in with few without increasing the cost
*AF+1 in some cases are better than relic
*Homam and Nashira are better than most relic pieces
*Not a Sleepga / BLM mana whorefest

[Spider-Dan]

Your analogy is awesome, because we all can personally pick and choose which laws apply to us and which ones don't.

So I guess your "if you don't like it, GTFO" advice doesn't sound so useful in real life?

Once again Spider-Dan misses the point that some people have vastly different priorities than him and don't feel that passing up 50k profit is not that bad of a cost in return for having someone else plan, organize, and execute a raid with possibly up to 60 people.

...which is why only LS leaders/organizers sponsor runs, right? Oh, wait.

Your intellectually dishonest rebuttal implies that if a non-relic-upgrading member were willing to plan/organize/execute a sponsored run, they'd be allowed to sell the currency for profit. Everyone knows that's a crock.

Co-opt? How is creating a shell from nothing for a particular purpose co-opting anything?

So the shell was created (at least in part) for purposes of subsidizing their gear expenses? Certainly, you must have made this clear to every joining member, right? I mean, based on your treatise against "deliberately concealing the rearranging of money," it'd have to be deceitful if you didn't clearly spell that out.

You still haven't explained how ending up 400 million in the red is being "in it for the money".

Do you need a diagram to understand how winding up with a relic weapon (that costs, say, 600 million in open-market currency) while only actually spending 400 million of your own money is a net profit?

[quote:vhdg8m63][quote:vhdg8m63]Except in a pyramid scheme you're typically deceiving people into believing that there is the system as a whole has a positive income, which is not true--the system as a whole has a neutral or even negative income. When you pitch to saps, you deliberately conceal the fact that the system is based on rearranging money rather than earning it.

"Rearranging money" makes it a scam? Sorry, you'll have to try harder than that. [/quote:vhdg8m63]

No, deceit is what makes it a scam. Reading r hard?[/quote:vhdg8m63]
Did you completely ignore what I just wrote? Business is rearranging money, and nothing but. How can someone "deliberately conceal" something that is fundamental to commerce itself?

In any case, your objection is as hollow as it is irrelevant; pyramid schemes would be legitimized by simply stating that you are "rearranging" money from the new participants to the old, and that everyone in the world can't possibly turn a profit, so you'd better get in as soon as you can! (Which is exactly what they DO say; shock and awe!)

[quote:vhdg8m63]Because it's a straw man when I make an initial statement about sponsorship being an unfair scam (or corrupt scheme, if you prefer) and then later refer to it being unjust, amirite?

It's a straw man because we're discussing whether it's a scam, not whether you think the terms are fair.[/quote:vhdg8m63]
Again with the dueling dictionaries?

Are you seriously content to ignore the inequity in sponsorship just as long as we don't call it a Scam™?

Using the linkshell that they built out of nothing for the express purpose that they built it for, which happens to actually cost them way more money than it makes. Got it!

Again, just because nearly every Dynamis LS agrees to participate in this hustle, it doesn't make it right.

P.S. I don't think you really want to run the numbers on how many free runs could have taken place with the money that you saved on your own personal relic, much less every sponsor in your LS combined. 2005-06 currency prices make that proposition pretty dicey.

[Spider-Dan]

The unfairness as he's arguing comes from the scarcity of productive dynamis shells who also happen to be recruiting members off the street. If they're offering a scarce commodity, (reliable clears, plentiful AF drops) then they have leverage to find more people willing to be strong-armed into an unfavourable arrangement.

But I don't have any problems with someone fronting money for a glass and profiting off of it. That's the investees earned interest for advancing a loan and assuming the risk of a failed run or poor currency drops. Everybody gets something valuable out of the deal usually.

So why is it that only relic upgraders get to participate in this lucrative opportunity?

[layoneil]

So why is it that only relic upgraders get to participate in this lucrative opportunity?

the same reason a national government will sponsor an Olympic Stadium, why certain pro-sports stadiums are funded in part or in whole by tax dollars and why you won't get any subsidies for putting a bowling alley in your basement.

certain endeavors are seen as so large that in order to accomplish it in a reasonable amount of time, people are willing to sacrifice a little bit of what they normally wouldn't.

some people's e-peen grows by saying "i'm in an LS that has 10 relics", even if they don't own one of the 10 relics.

[Spider-Dan]

Spider dan's problem is probably the fact that just about any decent Dynamis LS has a sponsorship system where 50k+ of his gil is taken every run by a single member. I don't see what's wrong about complaining about an unfair system of rules which is considered not only acceptable, but the norm.

that's the price you pay for being part of an organized group, for not having to find other people to fill the roster, for not having to decide how the AF drops are distributed, for not having to find or figure out the strategies needed to kill the most mobs in the least amount of time.

And yet, strangely enough, Limbus/Salvage/Einherjar runs still take place without the need of such payoffs. (unless you also do "sponsored" Limbus runs?)

If I'm the leader of a sky LS, and I put in the work of organizing the troops, managing the pop items, determining who gets what, blahblah, does that mean I get all cloths/logs/claws/ingots/osodes as payment for services rendered? Only in the most corrupt of LSes. Yet in Dynamis, it's par for the course.

[Cadsuane]

The unfairness as he's arguing comes from the scarcity of productive dynamis shells who also happen to be recruiting members off the street. If they're offering a scarce commodity, (reliable clears, plentiful AF drops) then they have leverage to find more people willing to be strong-armed into an unfavourable arrangement.

But I don't have any problems with someone fronting money for a glass and profiting off of it. That's the investees earned interest for advancing a loan and assuming the risk of a failed run or poor currency drops. Everybody gets something valuable out of the deal usually.

So why is it that only relic upgraders get to participate in this lucrative opportunity?

I must admit, I don't understand the significance of your response, unless it lacks any.

What you're calling a lucrative opportunity is really an enormously lavish and sometimes unwarranted expense on only marginally superior items where the investors do nothing but accrue debt and misery.
The vast majority of dynamis goers count it an excellent deal to waive the small 1/30 of the total currency drop profit (or whatever the number of people you have) in exchange for their AF and not being concerned with 7 digit entry fees and the bazaaring of bills.
Furthermore auto-dropping currency has to be just about the most moronic arrangement I can think of. Any shell which adds insult to injury by making me pay for 3 or 4 hours of drudgery and the opportunity to maybe kinda get some currency if the randomizer likes me is one that can suck on my balls.

[aurik]

Your analogy is awesome, because we all can personally pick and choose which laws apply to us and which ones don't.

So I guess your "if you don't like it, GTFO" advice doesn't sound so useful in real life?

Because "GTFOing" in real life is as easy as dropping a linkpearl and stopping showing up, yea! Way to try to make real-life analogies which time and again fail!

[quote:19hcmfi1]Once again Spider-Dan misses the point that some people have vastly different priorities than him and don't feel that passing up 50k profit is not that bad of a cost in return for having someone else plan, organize, and execute a raid with possibly up to 60 people.

...which is why only LS leaders/organizers sponsor runs, right? Oh, wait.

Your intellectually dishonest rebuttal implies that if a non-relic-upgrading member were willing to plan/organize/execute a sponsored run, they'd be allowed to sell the currency for profit. Everyone knows that's a crock.[/quote:19hcmfi1]

If you plan/organize/recruit/execute a run and everyone who shows up knows you're selling the currency for profit, then there's nothing wrong with that. Thanks for providing a service that people want, and congratulations for making it worth your while!

BTW, Manaburn was sponsored by a non-leader non-organizer for a long while.

[quote:19hcmfi1]Co-opt? How is creating a shell from nothing for a particular purpose co-opting anything?

So the shell was created (at least in part) for purposes of subsidizing their gear expenses? Certainly, you must have made this clear to every joining member, right? I mean, based on your treatise against "deliberately concealing the rearranging of money," it'd have to be deceitful if you didn't clearly spell that out.
[/quote:19hcmfi1]

Dynamis shells usually state explicitly what happens with currency as a pre-condition for joining. What kind of bizarro world do you live in where this is not the case?

[quote:19hcmfi1]You still haven't explained how ending up 400 million in the red is being "in it for the money".

Do you need a diagram to understand how winding up with a relic weapon (that costs, say, 600 million in open-market currency) while only actually spending 400 million of your own money is a net profit?[/quote:19hcmfi1]

Yes, actually, show me how obtaining an item which cannot be resold that cost me 400 million and is probably worth no more than 50 were it to be outright-purchasable is a "net profit".

[quote:19hcmfi1][quote:19hcmfi1][quote:19hcmfi1]Except in a pyramid scheme you're typically deceiving people into believing that there is the system as a whole has a positive income, which is not true--the system as a whole has a neutral or even negative income. When you pitch to saps, you DELIBERATELY CONCEAL the fact that the system is based on rearranging money rather than earning it.

"Rearranging money" makes it a scam? Sorry, you'll have to try harder than that. [/quote:19hcmfi1]

No, deceit is what makes it a scam. Reading r hard?[/quote:19hcmfi1]
Did you completely ignore what I just wrote? Business is rearranging money, and nothing but. How can someone "deliberately conceal" something that is fundamental to commerce itself?

In any case, your objection is as hollow as it is irrelevant; pyramid schemes would be legitimized by simply stating that you are "rearranging" money from the new participants to the old, and that everyone in the world can't possibly turn a profit, so you'd better get in as soon as you can! (Which is exactly what they DO say; shock and awe!)
[/quote:19hcmfi1]

Since you apparently can't read, I've emphasized the important words that make a ponzi scheme a scam. Come back to me once you've looked up those words and understand how they relate to the concept of "deceit", and then continue to argue how your real-life analogy fits in any way.

[quote:19hcmfi1][quote:19hcmfi1]Because it's a straw man when I make an initial statement about sponsorship being an unfair scam (or corrupt scheme, if you prefer) and then later refer to it being unjust, amirite?

It's a straw man because we're discussing whether it's a scam, not whether you think the terms are fair.[/quote:19hcmfi1]
Again with the dueling dictionaries?

Are you seriously content to ignore the inequity in sponsorship just as long as we don't call it a Scam™?[/quote:19hcmfi1]

Yes, because inequity is a judgment relative to your personal values whereas scam is an objective term.

[quote:19hcmfi1]Using the linkshell that they built out of nothing for the express purpose that they built it for, which happens to actually cost them way more money than it makes. Got it!

Again, just because nearly every Dynamis LS agrees to participate in this hustle, it doesn't make it right.[/quote:19hcmfi1]

"right", "just", "fair"... from whose perspective? A lot of people enjoy free and hassle-free dynamis and think that the 50k~ they pass up in potential profit is well worth it.

P.S. I don't think you really want to run the numbers on how many free runs could have taken place with the money that you saved on your own personal relic, much less every sponsor in your LS combined. 2005-06 currency prices make that proposition pretty dicey.

Money is not the only resource that dynamis consumes.

[layoneil]

And yet, strangely enough, Limbus/Salvage/Einherjar runs still take place without the need of such payoffs. (unless you also do "sponsored" Limbus runs?)

we do sponsored Limbus and Einherjar too, but that's not relevant to the discussion.

If I'm the leader of a sky LS, and I put in the work of organizing the troops, managing the pop items, determining who gets what, blahblah, does that mean I get all cloths/logs/claws/ingots/osodes as payment for services rendered? Only in the most corrupt of LSes. Yet in Dynamis, it's par for the course.

you don't get all of it, just like not one person gets lot on all AF2 in Dynamis. and i think in most Sky groups, the Leader(s) will end up with the first Haidate, Wyrmal Legs, Noble's Tunic, depending on what items are applicable to their jobs. and i think most of those happened that way without corruption.

also you're beginning to get into how/why LS Funds are established and how they are used.