RIP SPARKS!!!

no

Arbitrary numbers:
He makes $20/hr at his job (after taxes)
He can farm 100kgil/hr (a decade ago)
Gil costs $30/mil (idk what it costed, these are arbitrary numbers)

In 10 hours of farming, he makes 1 million gil
in 8 hours of work, he makes $160
For 30$, the equivalent of 1.5 hours of work, he can get the equivalent in gil of what it would take him 10 hours to farm.

No, he told me what he does for a living and it's a job that pays a very high salary.


Pretty much exactly his points. And the fact that he used to tell everybody he did it and didn't care... and never got banned (a decade ago) shows how little SE cares.

I really think this is a valuable point that needs to be looked at:

-SE only attacks the major RMT "tools" that are flooding server economies once they become public and are being used by the masses. Now, a large reason for this could be that until that large of a percentage of players are doing it, the problems are manageable and aren't truly affecting things like server inflation,etc. Or it could be that SE is fully aware of what would happen to XI if they fully eliminated the RMT presence, and the result is no more XI.

i have bills to pay so i dont have extra money to buy gil now i could work more hours but then its work or play ff xi. i think id rather be home playing ff xi lol.

This,

Which is exactly why I don't complain. I may have my personal thoughts but I hold no ill feelings to people who do things that were not intended to be done, such as bots, buying gil or using addons.

So many people do it (which doesn't automatically make it "right"... if everyone jumped off a bridge, yadda yadda) and if these things were stopped, most of the playerbase would go *poof!*.

let's play the fake numbers game.

Let's pretend that 20% of all FFXI accounts are connected to RMT in one way, shape, or form. Not just the Chinese gilfarmers, I'm talking all forms of RMT from merc services that then sell the gil they make from kills/clears to sparks bots to craft bots. If the end result of their game time is gil or game items/services placed on a website to allow purchases via real-world money, that account is essentially considered a RMT account.

Now, if SE did was their players said they wanted, and they could permanently remove those RMT accounts from the game and also ensure they're not replaced by new ones, that means SE is losing 20% of their income via subscriptions. Does anyone truly think that the game in its current state will continue to be active with a 20% loss of income? Or does anyone think that by permanently banning those 20% they could recoup those accounts in new "legit" players? Ain't no way, sister.

And this guy preferred to actually play XI, not spend 10 hours farming for his haub.

In their mind, accolade is suposed to just make teleports and pop UNMs, considering how shitty is its item being sold (even UNM mats are overly priced just to make sure thats a bad item to resort this).

So, the idea should be "here now you can pop twice UNMs"

Im not sure what was the point to make prize powder sellable with a rate of 1acc/10g, then making them stackable to 99 because none in their right mind buys one prize powder to use, nvm buying a stack of 12, even more a stack of 99, so then few months later decide to put a cap on everything.

Well its a little bit different now cause you can farm for gil/cp/exp in one go.

I'll wager a shiny penny more people are/were farming sparks on mastered jobs vs exping something to get sparks. I know I've been using mastered jobs for sparks/accos for 2+ years vs actually taking something for multiple benefit. I'd rather max the gil benefit.

I'm glad we need some deflation around here. Makes no sense how there are 30+ of an item on the AH and the price just steadily climbs.

Good.

I would certainly agree at 20%, but the big "if" is the number we don't know; how much of ffxi gross revenue is RMT?

In line with this just how many % would have a major effect on their decision-making?

Some side-effects of aggressive/continuous RMT removal could also have a positive impact on subscriptions; ie. people who rejoin tell their friends about the "clean" environment, etc.

RE: OP, it was stated by someone reading through that if gil devalues, we have another problem where many people/groups/rmt-groups have already amassed large amounts of gil/sellables which will keep them going for a long period. It would be really interesting to see inflation bumps (like when someone buys a ton of gil to make a few REMA) but overall I don't think anyone in the thread is arguing that if less gil is created from sparks/accolades, that the total amount of gil in the economy will go up.

How are you all positioning yourselves for this? selloffs, nothing, buying gil?

Just wondering our loud.

This has got to be more for slowing the gil coming in to the game out of thin air than to get rid of rmt. The rmt's will just find the next thing to farm, craft, sell, or dupe once this nerf happens. It's the same thing every few years, except this sparks thing lasted pretty freaking long before they finally nerfed it.

I do get it for sure. The economy is suffering from some crazy inflation atm. Just a few months ago Alex was going for 4,200k/1x on Odin, now it's up to 8,400/1x.

Don't know you personally and not trying to take a jab directly at you, but, this statement is kind of at odds with itself.

Seems as though time allocation needs less consideration of XI overall.

its a short term present for RMT as they got a reason to increase gil prices but once their storage is used up they'll have higher costs to farm gil and ppl will buy less gil when it gets more pricy.

pretending RMT do own a system relevant % of accounts for a moment. that would mean RMT got SE by the balls and when ever SE does something that goes against the interests of RMT all they had to do is collectively put most of their subscriptions on hold. kind of like a strike/demonstration without regulations, well maybe more like blackmailing. if RMT have high gil stocks, which i assume is the case at least twice a year by no later than after the free campaigns, and SE isn't smart enough to ban their banks then RMT could even hold out for a while without losing their stream of income.

if SE really is relying that much on RMT as some here like to pretend then, my kudos, they maneuvered themself in a great position.

Wow not that high on Bismarck. Around 6k each tho here. I just came back after about a 2 year break and was shocked to see the prices of some stuff. In both directions tho. For instance, when I left, jinxed jacket was 200 mil and it's nowhere near that now. I understand new gear replacing it etc, but a lot of crafting mats have either stayed the same or jumped in price a bit. Depending on how much they need this, it's more gonna hurt the casual player than the endgame gotta have the best stuff player. RMT's tho, the ones SE said they are targeting, will still be there.

Not saying SE relies on RMT, but I'm sure there quite a bit of people, even in the games 18th year, still buy gil. Without that outlet, I'm sure quite a few people would quit and it'd be significant enough for SE to not want to get rid of rmts, just throw something out there that seems like they're addressing the issue. I mean, I've played this game since 2007 and there's been rmt the whole time. If SE really wanted to get rid of them, they could've figured something out in that time. At the end of the day, it's a business and it's all about the bottom line.

I'd gladly take that 8.4k lol. Its 9-12k on asura atm

Thats a weird reaction/overreaction to sparks...

or even knowing the upcoming ambuscade is a VERY easy one.

Can't even pretend to rationalize why alex would double, I haven't been watching it though.

No bandwagon update, no change to mythics, no job adjustment, no new content to spur creation, and 300 stacks on sale.

Prices on Bahamut have been increasing, beitetsu and boulders have doubled in price (and then some) steadily over months, alex finally has gone up to 6k+ after being 4-5 for literal years.

Can't really complain too much as I've been earning gil hand over fist for months, and it's barely slowed me down on my to-do list, but still a bit bothersome to pay that much for some items, but it is what it is.

So farm it instead of buying it.

Yeah, I was just thinking... man... jeans are expensive.

Then I realized I could just go farm some cotton, learn how to weave, learn how to sew, etc.

And then I thought... yeah, sometimes that just just stupid.

I did that crap with Carn... it kind of made me hate FFXI for a bit.