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Confessions of Gil-sellerFollow

#52 Dec 28 2004 at 3:37 PM Rating: Decent
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220 posts
Very good read, but do you ever question their motives? Perhaps that is just a script they worked on to draw sympathy from others incase they are caught. I'm not saying it is but there is always two sides to every coin.
#53 Dec 28 2004 at 4:14 PM Rating: Decent
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92 posts
CadenceNine wrote:

I can see a future where game makers give the game away for free and sell the items for money. Think of the "Magic the Gathering" model. You have to buy the cards from them, many of them in fact to be able to play effectively, and then you can go and sell the cards yourself on ebay.


The future you see is already here--You can play Project Entropia for free. If you want good items in that game, though, you need to be extremely rich!
#54 Dec 28 2004 at 4:16 PM Rating: Decent
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149 posts
IMO :

I think he's holding back information as well, here's why :

1. He doesn't have any money? Then how did he buy his computer? How does he afford the playonline fees? How did he get a credit card? Personally, I'd like to see gilsellers answer that. He also has to set up his computer in an apartment...with electricity. Last time I checked you had to pay for all these things.

2. Why be so open with an american? Why brag (or complain..take it as you will) about being poor? Why threaten your 'job' by releasing information that could easier cost you it. Why????

3. How does he sell gil? Through a phoneline as he said? Over the internet through a website? Again, these all cost money, how'd he set them up? Where'd he get capital? Where'd he LEARN TO DO THIS?????


too many questions.....


also :

Quote:
Smzhhh>> Are you in the USA?
Kiyokatsu>> Yes
Smzhhh>> There are a ton of people who buy gil there



That sums it up right there. Americans that buy gil are the problem. Without them there would BE NO problem. If the Chinese are so poor they can barely afford to pay their bills, which seems to be brought up all the time, then they are obviously too poor to buy gil from their neighbour who sits at his computer all day selling it. So who does that leave??? The NA players....who else? I'd like to see a nice pie chart of which countries buy gil.

just my 2 gp...take it for what it's worth.


- degens
#55 Dec 28 2004 at 4:51 PM Rating: Excellent
22 posts
Kiyokatsu wrote:

Your rate ups are appreciated and appropriate. And you can productively rate up a post that is already at 5.00 ^^


no big offense, but i feel there is a lot of two-faced actions in this post.. this ex. feels as one of them
#56 Dec 28 2004 at 5:31 PM Rating: Decent
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666 posts
Basically from your post, you conned them into believing they were in fact helping you learn the Chinese Language. In the process, you also got them to confess they were in fact gilsellers. So the trust was broken right there. Although they won't know who reported them, it's still a trust issue. You also never asked them if they thought or knew it was illegal in game to sell the gil.

Not only this, but assuming this is their current job, they will technically be fired. This in itself isn't a bad thing, I'm sure there's plenty of work over there, and they can find more jobs. But that's like walking into a Grocery Store, and telling the manager the cashier dude was a complete jerk, because he plays better at Pac-Man then you do. So he gets fired, over something so little. But I'm sure you wouldn't lose sleep over knowing you had just terminated the only income these people had over a simple game.

I don't hold everyone's agreement that gilsellers are bad. Personally I don't care. I don't buy gil, nor do I sell it. I don't feel that I should pay more money for extra pixels. It's a game, I treat it as such, and have fun with it. With any online game, you will always find some one that isn't doing something you feel is appropriate. For some people they believe gilselling is wrong, and it ruins the economy of the game, or people can't get gil from the mobs, or tasks they used to do, or for whatever reason.

Some people believe bots are the same way, they take away the "fun" of the game. Well if your idea of fun is to camp a NM with 50 other people, only to have a 1% chance of ever catching it, not even thinking about the fact it could never drop the item you want, then by all means have at it. If you don't like it, you can always leave the game, *gasp* what a concept.

Last time I looked, there are over 100 different ways to obtain gil in this game. Look at all the posts on these boards, from tradeskilling, to NM farming, to just plain ol walking around and killing a mob or two.

You also give a statement about rating you up past 5.00. Basically what it seems to me from your post is your looking for people to praise you for your "good deeds." So let me get this straight, you want a bunch of kids and adults to recognize your effort in making sure 4 or more people lose their job over a game, so you can have more "fun" in this game. Is that right? In another couple of years, FFXI will be forgotten, and everything you ever did will be forgotten in the game. So basically you've accomplished nothing. Bravo.

And yes I know I'll get replies to myself saying the same thing. I already know that what I'm saying has no relevance in today's world, nor will it ever, I'm just trying to get people to realize this. By all means have your "Fun."

Edited, Tue Dec 28 17:36:34 2004 by Joobishwun
#57 Dec 28 2004 at 5:56 PM Rating: Decent
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421 posts
complicated issue. my opinion is that you have to look at the source of the NEED for GIL. Gil seels because most people dont have the time, or want to invest the time to really make money on their own. snyth is hard, and time consuming. i have two kids, a wife and a full time job. i get to play 1-2 hrs a nite, max. in that time, i want to hunt, gain exp and level. i dont sell gil, and i dont buy it, but i understand why people do. its easier, less time consuming, and for them, it keeps them intrested in th game. i got luck starting out, becasue my father-in-law who write this kind of fantasy stories bought a character, sold his equippment and distributed the gil between me and his son and two other friends. so we each had a little to start. if i couldnt play this game but 1 hour a day, and playing BLM, where spells are super expensive sometimes,(drain,Aspir) upper level II`s and III`s, i would buy it.

the answer is, ther is no fix for the problem. it will always exist in one way or another. what is really bad, is when groups of players block out a notorious MOb, because they THINK sombody selling gil is gonna jack it for its drop, and all they do is block us other players from it.
#58 Dec 28 2004 at 7:21 PM Rating: Decent
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149 posts
Quote:
Gil seels because most people dont have the time, or want to invest the time to really make money on their own



/rant on

then why the hell are you playing the game at all???

a dramatization if I may :

Player1 : Guess what player 2! I just EARNED a new uber_item_01
Player2 : Pfft...no biggie i already have 2..i bought them with gil i bought online.

now who do you suppose is actually playing the game out of the two? Who has more honor? Who would you rather party with? Who would you trust more?

Honestly people...how can you possibly feel that your character EARNED your gear and feel like you've accomplished anything if you bought your gil online???

/rant off

- Degens


P.S. I earned 40k in a week and i'm lvl 20. It's not hard to go out and farm for an hour every few nights and dust spiny spipi or some such (i have yet to camp him..i run by every time i'm on and i've caught him a few times) get gil. In fact, it's really, really easy. Which is why I really wonder why people bother buying gil in the first place.
#59 Dec 28 2004 at 7:59 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
This is the only gil-selling thread that I have ever enjoyed reading. Its nice to see that some people still understand that there are real lives behind the characters, no matter how much they may **** you off.


I also read the whole page. Great job translating that stuff. I now have a new perspective on this issue. No all you dont have to reply to this I read the replys to the OP as well. I agree with the person that talked about drug sellers and what not. Made my mind up that its not a good thing to do. Even if they do need money to live. But then how are they paying for the account? Bewilders me but theres probably some stupid answer. Oh well. I think everyone should read this.

Rate up to multiple people
#60 Dec 28 2004 at 8:29 PM Rating: Decent
43 posts
This is brilliant... I applaud your efforts. I tried to engage them in conversation a few times myself, but their English has always cut out at some point.

To those who say "They are nice people, why did you do this. They're just trying to make a living." I say Thier living is being made illegally. I don't really care how "nice" someone is if their job is to do something illegal.

Some burglers may be nice guys, but you'ld still want them to stop robbing people.

Edited, Tue Dec 28 22:40:35 2004 by Nithiliak
#61 Dec 28 2004 at 8:49 PM Rating: Good
43 posts
Quote:
Not only this, but assuming this is their current job, they will technically be fired. This in itself isn't a bad thing, I'm sure there's plenty of work over there, and they can find more jobs. But that's like walking into a Grocery Store, and telling the manager the cashier dude was a complete jerk, because he plays better at Pac-Man then you do. So he gets fired, over something so little. But I'm sure you wouldn't lose sleep over knowing you had just terminated the only income these people had over a simple game.


Playing Pac-Man better than someone is not illegal. They will be banned for doing an illegal act. This comparison doesn't work.

Quote:
Some people believe bots are the same way, they take away the "fun" of the game. Well if your idea of fun is to camp a NM with 50 other people, only to have a 1% chance of ever catching it, not even thinking about the fact it could never drop the item you want, then by all means have at it. If you don't like it, you can always leave the game, *gasp* what a concept.


The fun of the game was when items cost an amount that people could buy them at. Want to know why the sellers camp NMs? It's because if you monopolize it like they do, you can push the price to whatever you want. The reason this doesn't happen when normal people kill the NMs?

1. Normal people don't play 24 hours a day doing one thing. It doesn't happen. When you aren't payed, you lose interest in something like that.

2. Undercutting. With a monopoly, there is no undercutting. With no undercutting, the monopolizers can push it as high as they feel they need to before people stop buying it. This was shown when Sniper/Archer Rings blew up to 800k - over on million depending on your server. Then, the numbers were suspended 3 days. What happened? Later that day prices more than halved to 300-400k.

You point of leaving the game really makes no sense... why should I be forced out of a game that is otherwise incredibly fun by someone breaking the law. *gasp* What a concept.

Quote:
So let me get this straight, you want a bunch of kids and adults to recognize your effort in making sure 4 or more people lose their job over a game, so you can have more "fun" in this game. Is that right? In another couple of years, FFXI will be forgotten, and everything you ever did will be forgotten in the game. So basically you've accomplished nothing. Bravo.


This one made me laugh...

Why does anyone play any game? Why does anyone strive to improve any game? Apparently it doesn't mean anything because it will be "fogotten", why even bother.

The answer is because I want to have fun now, in the moment. Almost everything I do that doesn't make me money that I put away or invest, feed me, or give me excersise, or build long relationships will be forgotten and won't matter. So that means having fun at something like a computer game isn't anything. Why are you playing then if many years later, something being forgotten detracts from the value now.

Rate up for the thread starter... love this post ;)
#62 Dec 28 2004 at 11:08 PM Rating: Default
ÎÒ¾õµÃÄãÕâÑù×öºÜ¿É±¯.ÄãÆÈË˵ҪÁ·ÖÐÎĵ«È´ÅÜÈ¥ÕÒGM.È˼ÒÊÇӦΪÐÅÈÎÄã²Å¸úÄã˵ÁËÄÇô¶à,ÄãÈ´±³ÅÑÁËËûÃÇ.Äã¾õµÃºÜ¹âÈÙÂï?ÂôÇ®ÊDz»¶ÔµÄµ«ÆÈ˾ÍÊǶԵÄÂð?ÒýÄãÃÇÓ¢ÎÄÒ»¾ä³ÉÓï:two wrongs does not make a right. ÄãÒÔΪ»áË£Á½¾äÖÐÎľÍÁ˲»ÆðÁËÂð?ËÍÄãÁù¸ö×Ö ÃÀ¹úÈË Ã»ÈËÆ·
#63 Dec 29 2004 at 12:22 AM Rating: Default
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403 posts
Fast fact #1: Singaporeans, in general, are all literate and speak/understand English well. In fact, if you were to ever visit Singapore, you'd notice that everything from signs to streets are in English. A very large number are also literate in Chinese, and are brought up on both the hierglyphics and the romanised version.

Fast fact 2#: If 'Numberthree' was in fact a Singaporean, and a gil-seller, there probably isn't very much that can be done to stop him/her. Real-money trades are recognised by the courts here as legal transactions, and there have been quite a few publicised cases where the seller has won.


p.s. Betrayal of trust despite the intentions, is largely inappropriate behavior, no matter what you think these people are doing. There are times that the ends do not justify the means. No matter how you look at it, these acts were dishonorable. 'Genuine' friends do not intentionally befriend with the intention of selling out.
#64 Dec 29 2004 at 12:28 PM Rating: Decent
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149 posts
Quote:
p.s. Betrayal of trust despite the intentions, is largely inappropriate behavior, no matter what you think these people are doing. There are times that the ends do not justify the means. No matter how you look at it, these acts were dishonorable. 'Genuine' friends do not intentionally befriend with the intention of selling out.


But, on the other hand, is selling gil an honorable act in itself? Two men rob a bank. One posts a security snapshot of the other on the web to let people know all about the 'real facts of robbery'. Who is less honorable?


And as for 'genuine' friends not selling out. What did he sell out? If the gil seller has done nothing 'wrong' in your eyes then how has the poster really betrayed him? Will the gilseller lose his account? His Job? His trust? If so, is what he doing wrong, by definition, then?

And if your friend robbed a bank...would you turn him in?

Hard moral questions, with no 'correct' answer. But, on the whole, do you think the gilseller deserved this?

- degens
#65 Dec 29 2004 at 12:57 PM Rating: Good
personally I could careless what happens to gil sellers. I'd rather have them banned for breaking the tos, since it inconviences me, by making it alot harder to camp certain mobs. If they don't want to starve why don't they just get a job working at one of the many sweatshops which I am almost certain alot of american companies use to build their products.
#66 Dec 29 2004 at 1:09 PM Rating: Good
Excellent post rated up. However a con man is only a con man because he is good at what he does. The obvious Gil sellers know that everyone else knows they do it so why not make you feel sorry for them? Think about it, why would they put their "Job" at risk to a complete stranger? Most of the new guys you talked to admitted to selling gil in the first two or three sentences. Maybe some of them are telling the truth but hey think about this some people sell crack to support their starving families and others commit various crimes, point beng you do the crime you pay the time.
#67 Dec 29 2004 at 1:51 PM Rating: Default
IMO, the entire Gil-selling/buying issue is totally mislead by SE.

Yea, everyone blamed Gil-seller and despited Gil-buyer for ruining the price and fun. As a crafter[Alchemy Veteran], I can feel the pain even more, because high-end materials are almost impossible to get enough for skill-up. However, if it were not the buy-back price of the NPC store so low, there wont be much chance for gil-trading to survive. Try to consider it this way, we play this game by spending long time to "eran" gil, and waste them on NPC(yea, waste... at the about 100% selling vs 30% buy-back price, that is definitely "waste") again and again. Sometimes, we even toss the items which are not stackable or hard to sell in AH. If you skill-up crafting, you will lose gils even more than non-craft players.

Smart SE knows this, and they just "SATA" the HATE of us to those poor "TANK" people doing RMT. I say, to solve this problem is not to forbid anything by saying some nonsense at weekly news, is to change the NPC price, materials price and rare drop rate maybe... Also, STOP CREATING NEW SUPER EQUITMENTs, which unbalanced the market the most!!

Glad to know the different life-style of other people. Well, I have heard, in Asia, some MMORPG DO SELL their virtual $$ to people officially so that even you dont have much time farming, you can still participate the game as others. Hence, it is understandable the gil-seller above not knowing this transaction is illegal here. BTW, according to legal issues, they should follow the policy they agreed when they sign-up their account in stead of weekly changed ones. So,do SE really have right to ban their accounts? I doubt it.

SE, Please make more ways for hard-working people to make thier gil in game so that less people would buy gil online....problem solved.


Edited, Wed Dec 29 13:53:49 2004 by capuccino

Edited, Wed Dec 29 13:59:37 2004 by capuccino
#68 Dec 29 2004 at 2:13 PM Rating: Good
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439 posts
Very well done Kiyo. My Husband and I long thought similar to how these people responded to you. I can tell you what If I lived in China and didn't have a pot to **** in I too might resort to selling gil.. Things are so very different over there then they are here. It does not mean that I agree with the selling of gil. If the characters have bosses they are not being paid all that much, they are probably getting the standard wage in china, the boss on the other hand is making a bit more, but heck it still isn't much...

I do feel bad for them and I can understand where everyone is coming from, everyone, gilsellers and and us regular players have a person sitting behind that charachter, and none of us know their true stories... I don't condone gilsellers but nor do I actively hunt them down..

For the most part I leave them alone and they leave me be. It is the ones who cause trouble for others that I have issues with and those are the ones that I will actively go after.

I don't think SE will ever do anything about this issue, maybe they sympathise with the sellers? Who knows what their reasoning is... If they truly wanted them gone, they would be. All of their excuses are moot, they are just unwilling to do anything about it for whatever their reason is... The only time they do things is if they find them harming other players and that is it

Thanks for the interesting reading
#69 Dec 29 2004 at 2:47 PM Rating: Decent
43 posts
Just to clarify, SE has the "right" to ban any one of us at any time. They could even shut everything down tommorrow if they felt like it.

Back-up for this? WoW. Hundreds of accounts were banned right after it came out for selling currency. SE is simply holding off for some reason. I think personally it is money. The gil sellers have hundreds of accounts, which total thousands of dollars of revenue every month.
#70 Dec 29 2004 at 4:52 PM Rating: Good
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666 posts
Nithiliak I also agree that people play these games for fun, and I was expecting some kind of response on that thread I made =P My point isn't that you should quit something that is fun, by all means that's what life is about. If we can't have fun, what else is there. I'm only trying to show a different side to you. You obviously won't stop your task of getting rid of the gilsellers you find online, I don't have a problem with that, personally it's none of my business, but let's take a step into the other person's shoes for a second.

In the perspective of the gilseller:
I know we're all trying to have fun, and getting rid of a few gilsellers might seem like it's helping, but in all honesty it really isn't. Think about it, the game has gone down in price since it came out, just to buy it I mean. As soon as your account is banned, your subscription ends, so your not paying anymore. A normal person could just as easily go to a store, and buy another copy, or if they don't feel like buying a copy, open up the package, take the book with the CD-key, and leave. Obviously the latter is a little extreme, but you see my point? If people want to make money off this game they will. Yes it might raise prices at the AH, yes it might ruin the economy of the game, but there really isn't much we can do about it.

From the conversations you had with your Chinese buddies, they said they had a website for this stuff, but they wouldn't give it to you. If one person gets banned, I'm sure the group of friends would pitch in to buy the person who got banned another game, if in fact they still needed that person to make money. Even if it was for nothing more then to hold the items they get while farming NM's or whatever it is most Gilsellers do.

Let me give you another scenario. If you had to support yourself, or you had to support yourself and your family, and the only way you could gain money had just been taken from you, wouldn't you do everything in your power to try to gain that back? Yea it sounds a little eccentric, but you get the point.

To me, it just seems pointless to even try to get rid of them. The ones you encountered were mainly from China I presume, but think of the ones from other countries, including the US. I have no doubt in my mind that there are over thousands of people who use this game for a little extra income. Stopping them isn't the problem, it's getting people to not buy the product. If people are willing to pay for Gil, there will always be a market for it. This is why drugs will never go away, there will always be people who want them.

Anyway I'm pretty much done, lemme know what ya think~
#71 Dec 31 2004 at 1:20 AM Rating: Decent
Touching.....they can't make money where they live so they ruin a game to feed their families instead. In many ways I pity them, but still what they are doing is a breach of SE's terms of agreement and the way they compete for mobs is unfair and also a breach of SE's terms of agreement when they MPK other players. There is now so many of them it's unbareable. I need the monster signa for my brd, but I cannot get it because it's constantly camped by 2-3 gilsellers who always get it. I try instead to make gil some other way, but I can't because there's an alliance of gilsellers at every other mob, some of them using the train tactics to either MPK or lag out the area so they get the mob first.
#72 Jan 03 2005 at 12:38 AM Rating: Decent
34 posts
Because this subject is very controversial. I'd like to use my opinion (plus some facts) to try to clarify a few things and defend some points.

1. The market can be conceptually divided into 2 parts, the supply part and the demand part. Most of you have decided to target the supply part which is the gil sellers. The straight forward way to look at it would be that if the source/supply doesn't exist, neither will the transaction. But it's also true that if there is no demand, the transaction will also not exist. At the same time we're all flaming gil-sellers, maybe we should look at the gil buyers and tell them that they break the ToS as much as the gil sellers do. I personally am more disgusted by gil buyers.

2. Some feel that Kiyokatsu did something very horrible and make people lose their jobs. But you don't feel that way about undercover cops gathering evidence about drug sellers. Kiyokatsu is just trying to defend what we all agreed to obey when we made our accounts. In addition, I personally doubt they lost their jobs. The company can easily create new accounts for them. In case of the Smz group, they'll have to think of another name and buy more copies of FFXI. Bottom line is, there is a demand for gils. What I would recommend is to put in some effort in finding the gil buyers. They're just as guilty.

3. Will everyone please lighten up about Chinese people. Just because tiny groups of them decided to break the ToS, it doesn't mean that they're all gil sellers. If you really want to make this very racial and ugly, non-Americans can say that Americans are all gil buyers and look at us that way. How would you feel about that?

4. In my humble opinion. Blaming the gil sellers for disrupting the balance of this game is a naive and childish call. Even with the absence of gil sellers, the supply of rare items will still be controlled by elite Link Shells.
#73 Jan 03 2005 at 1:16 AM Rating: Decent
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82 posts
Quote:
ÎÒ¾õµÃÄãÕâÑù×öºÜ¿É±¯.ÄãÆÈË˵ҪÁ·ÖÐÎĵ«È´ÅÜÈ¥ÕÒGM.È˼ÒÊÇӦΪÐÅÈÎÄã²Å¸úÄã˵ÁËÄÇô¶EÄãÈ´±³ÅÑÁËËûÃÇ.Äã¾õµÃºÜ¹âÈفEÂôÇ®ÊDz»¶ÔµÄµ«ÆÈ˾ÍÊǶԵāEÒýÄãÃÇÓ¢ÎÄÒ»¾ä³ÉӁEtwo wrongs does not make a right. ÄãÒÔΪ»áË£Á½¾äÖÐÎľÍÁ˲»ÆðÁˁEËÍÄãÁù¸ö×Ö ÃÀ¹úÈË Ã»ÈËÆ·



If only I knew what this said....
#74 Jan 03 2005 at 3:04 AM Rating: Good
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3,883 posts
Well... that makes things a lot more morally conflicted for me.

I want a gil selling free game but... if that is their job I'm not going to let my enjoyment of a game ruin someones job.
#75 Jan 03 2005 at 5:12 AM Rating: Decent
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96 posts
Quote:
If only I knew what this said....


Here's what it means. The message was in GB code, standard code for Simplified Chinese.

I think your post is very sad, you lie to them about wanting to practise Chinese but instead go call a GM. Those people told you so much because they trusted you, yet you betray them. You think what you did was something you can be proud of? Selling gil is wrong, but does that make it right to lie to them? Here's a phrase from your English language: "two wrongs does not make a right". You think being able to speak a bit of Chinese makes you better than others? I'll give you 6 words: Americans have no integrity (in the original post, first 3 characters mean "Americans", second 3 characters mean "have no integrity")

Yes, I am Chinese, but no, I won't take any stand in this agrument.
#76 Jan 03 2005 at 5:49 AM Rating: Decent
42 posts
deleted

Edited, Mon Jan 3 05:50:13 2005 by evanescence
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