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RMT's
ziggydawitch
Member Posts: 69
Seems to me that SE went to great lengths to prevent RMT's in ffxiv, and at the cost of a playable game.
Did they not make us an AH to prevent RMT's...or to save server space?
Did they make it so hard to setup and pay for this game to prevent hacking?
If so...does this make the game better for us or them? I always thought that GMs could take care of bots and spammers. Well, if they actually log on and pay attention.
I have no idea how big of a problem RMT's are for mmo's...I do know in some games the bots are a real pain in the arse, but does that really ruin a game to the point of taking such drastic actions?
I guess I just don't get it...
~Ziggy~
If a man speaks in the woods and there's no woman there to hear him...is he still lying?
Comments
The OP is right about FFXIV. SE took every measure possible to ensure the game was the most anti-RMT on the market, but at the expense of it actually being any fun.
You can see it in almost every aspect of the game. SE went out of their way to make this game as hard as possible on people engaging in any form of exploitation. I suppose they became paranoid after what happened in XI, but at some point they have to focus more on the players overall experience and less on the problem itself. RMT's will still be in XIV, but it is set up in such a way to make it very difficult. That said, SE has imposed harsh restrictions that damage the quality of gameplay. At what point is it too much?
I'm not a game designer, but it seems to me that SE has their priorities backwards. Make a game that's fun, engaging, intuitive, rewarding etc. and then find solutions to RMT. Better yet, do both at the same time. They are a multi-billion dollar company after all. In my opinion, it seems the whole game can be adequetly described by the phrase, misplaced priorities and obscure design. They set up one part of the game to work a certain way, and at the same time have systems in place to completely contradict an earlier design. It just feels like a big fuzzy mess to me.
I'm also with the OP. I only played a week or two, but the anti-botting/RMT measures in this game are heavy. So heavy that it makes it obnoxious to lift them and have fun doing things.
The strange thing about it is that, if there are a lot of players, there will be a lot of RMT anyway. Maybe there won't be RMT bots everywhere, but there is still going to be RMT. Ah well, just another example of poor design from the guys at Square/Enix.
RMT has nothing to do with AHs. They stated the AH would not be put in until sometime after release. The market setup is poorly designed and implemented, but they seem to think that it is possible to make it work. I guess only time will tell.
SE may not be worried about that at all...well if you go here:
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/topics/detail?id=f2cf790e548828eb22d3c4dff5f04bf0793632b5
Search feature to allow item searches by individual wards
Obvious there will be a search function similar to that.
Maybe an auction house too. but if they added this then you will pretty much see an AH anyhow :P. So much speculation on this topic lol. Only time will seem to tell. Not sure exactly why.
Shoulda been around in XI round december '06...they had such a stranglehold on that game it was virtualy impossible to play it on any level at all without buying gil. So many people did it that it lead to a hyper-inflated economic state it was rediculous. Also had my account hacked by them through an adobe flash vulnerability, what finally got me out of that game.
They are the swine and gutter crawling cur of the internet. Anything to hinder or stop them is fair game imho.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I played today for my usual 45 minutes...I can't wait for Nov. 22nd so I can just give it up. The game is like a solo game with guild chat...pfft.
If GM's are only there to get us "unstuck" then they should have their job description changed....In ffxi they turned me around while I was afk fishing with a bot I was talked into using. Then the next day tossed me in jail and warned me to stop...I was like, oh..it was you guys that turned me around...*slaps forehead*. I coulda killed my bf, it was all his idea. So I know first hand that the GM's in ffxi were on bot patrol....sort of.
In ffxi we all knew who the bot gil farmers were. They knew too....and did nothing about it.
They've already been seen in IV, reported, and are still there....there's no excuse for that in any game.
I hate what SE did to this game. If they don't hurry up and fix it bunches of us may leave after the free period. I think they were just too cheap to buy enough servers to support an AH and figured the retainer system would save em a ton of cash. I think they didn't design the game around what we needed to have a fun, but what would make the game easier for them to manage. *rolls eyes*
Click and pay is a mess. Many ppl have reported problems with them. I used the crysta system when I started because I didn't wanna deal with it at that time. I figured I'd take care of it toward the end of the free trial. Guess I don't have to worry about that now...lol.
And I thought playonline was a mess...dunno how they ddi it...but they managed to make it worse....so sad.
~Ziggy~
If a man speaks in the woods and there's no woman there to hear him...is he still lying?
Not point forcing yourself to enjoy the game. Nobody wants to be repeatedly kick in the ballsack, even if its on the house!
The way I see it, the more I play the game in its current incarnation (free month or not), the less likely I'll ever want to return in the future.
Seriously, FFXIV single-handedly, has made more jaded than every other MMO launch / experience combined. I still can't believe how they managed to screw this game up so bad, after 5+ years working on it.
OP is stop on and it's painfully obvious.
RMT in FFXI hits it's climax during Christmas of '05 and inflation soared to astrinomical proportions. This also ruined crafting because everyone power leveled their crafts and making a profit on anything was almost impossible. Unfortunately for me this was the time i began leveling Smithing.
SE's response to all of that was to make it as difficult as possible to make any sort of gil, unless you were in a top LS that monopolized HNM's. They eliminated certain items from being npc'd for decent gil and really hurt the average players ability to afford anything. The ones that saved up all their bought gil during inflation were rich beyond belief.
SE went to the extreme again with the server checks required to do anything in game and thus we get the terrible lag everyone is aware of.
need a linkshell :P?
SE's way to combat the RMT was to attack the money source instead of the problem. I remember fishing being good money, Zi Tah blood, Bugard farming was all very profitable in a short amount of time. So instead of SE focusing where the problem was they just drastically reduced the sale price of those items. There were other areas effected like SKY pop items placeholders were extended, they randomized NM pop times and locations which drove legits away. Also RMT had a huge hold on resources and crafting so even to get a decent return in those two areas became harder and harder. The only thing that really saved me was the fact I was a Beastmaster and could go places and farm things nobody else could.
I see the same ideas in place in FFXIV as well only this time poor controls ans huge menus with a huge lag issues,
Please tell me, which MMO has ever been perfect from day one? Name one.
Please tell me, which MMO has ever been [given a 30% from PCGamer] from day one? Name one.
Putting such harsh preventative RMT measures in place in an MMO is like putting "the club" on your family car when you intend to drive it to the store. If it makes it unplayable who are you really hurting?
It's an interesting hypothesis that they wanted to avoid the manpower/cost of policing the problem. This would seem to be backed up by them creating a player based policing force that doesn't have to be paid.
"I'm not cheap I'm incredibly subconsciously financially optimized"
"The worst part of censorship is ------------------"
Or how about the part where Click and Pay simply doesn't work. Right now it is blocked by most US credit card servicers. And this is the ONLY option for setting up a recurring payment. I ended up having to use the even more convoluted playspan which only allows you to one time charge crysta which, convieniently is not sold in any denominated amount that matches the monthly fee or a multiple of it. Which means I would have always had a surplus of crysta that I couldn't use for anything and no way to get a refund on it. That is straight up shady business.
And this doesn't even cover the difficulty with which it takes to navigate the payment website and even figure these things out in the first play. So cut the crap of caricaturing people for pointing out that their website and payment system is poorly designed, aggravating and barely functional.
I can understand people arguing that the game is good or not based on personal preferences but you completely kill your crediblity by sticking up for their crap account management system.
All die, so die well.
Could someone mention please Dark and Light aöone as one example for choujiofkono since he does ignore me?
Thank you.
This doesn't work for the same reason that copy protection doesn't work. RMTers will work around anything as long as there's profit even if it means playing with 5 accounts on the same computer. Real players are the ones who get stuck with bad design choices to hinder RMT. FFXI had more problems with RMT than just about any other game ever made, the solutions implemented in FFXIV aren't adequate to prevent it and are to detrimental to the day-to-day player to be considered useful.
Shadus
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?pager.offset=2&cId=3181961&p=
Think this was the best review written for FFIV. Just to quote a paragraph for those too lazy to click the link ...
No auto-attack, server-authenticated UI, decentralized market, random skill point gain? there is a common thread uniting all of these: Each and every one of these systems seems to be designed around foiling the exploits used by FFXI's real money traders. While these systems will likely yield some dividends in the future, right now it feels a bit like they're slowly killing the entire player population with compulsory chemo therapy to prevent a few cases of cancer from taking root. Essentially, rather than focusing on making the game more enjoyable, Square Enix has chosen to make the game easier for them to manage.
Actually admire the efforts made to prevent RMT before releasing the game. However, Square's balance between anti-RMT & fun just doesn't match what most of the potential playerbase thinks is acceptable. Considering how adamant the fanbois are to tell everyone to shut up & go away & this game isn't for you ..... it's likely proper feedback was crushed during the Beta. Lots to learn here. Never thought I'd say it, but Vanguard had a better release ( and I thought nothing could ever be worst).
Actualy it was pretty clear throughout beta that our feedback was not really needed, they listened a little bit, but most of the purpose of their beta seemed to be testing crystal tools with network communications. Lately these games seem to be getting hung up on the same thing, especially graphically intesive ones, Mortal Online for one had a similar launch...but they didn't really fix their servers for a while.
Funny that an indy game and a triple-A had similar problems, I wonder if this is the onset of a new trend as graphics in MMOs advance, it gets harder and harder to efficiently transfer the infromation. Especialy in large 'seamless' environments.
We'll see how the next few releases fare for sure.
But as far as FFXIV goes, SE definantly got one thing right. I have never seen a launch where the servers were so rock solid stable. Even if some find the content somewhat lacking, at least the basic infrastructure is already in place to drive such a graphically stunning game.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I boted for about an entire year in FFXI (exclusively at night). It was that little oasis-like city in the higher level sand zones where you could get the fishes you needed to get the 20,000 to get the badass fishrod.
Well let's just say that my LS found out I botted. Threatened to kick me out. I didn't care and continued (I only had to remove my LS to appease everyone else and I didn'get kicked). Never got bothered, never got caught, never been spoken to by a GM. Other players had figured me out, but eh, what could they do.
That was the state of FFXI about 6 years ago and not much has changed from what I heard. People who are expecting changes from the FFXIV devs are just fooling themselves.