Square Enix Ships Off Final Fantasy XI Gold Sellers

[Crossblades]

http://www.rpgamer.com/news/Q1-2006/021106a.html

Recently a large number of accounts in Final Fantasy XI have been suspended and terminated, Square Enix announced. The terminations were the end result of an investigation into what Square Enix termed as "Real Money Trading," or RMT, and the discovery of "a group using illicit methods to produce large amounts of gil that [were] later sold in the real world."

"[I]tem values have risen astronomically on all Worlds due to the manipulation of prices by a small percentage of the player base," Square Enix said. Over 700 separate accounts were terminated as a result of the investigation into the RMT transactions, and over 300 billion gil was removed from circulation as a result. Already the over-inflated prices of certain items have begun to fall, as well.

"[A]cts of RMT will not be tolerated in Final Fantasy XI, and any violations of the user agreement will be dealt with severely," Square Enix warned. Emergency maintenance to counteract the RMT had taken place over two separate periods from January 17 onward, and further efforts in the same vein can be expected if more violations are found in the future.

[chronic_Maniac]

/clap and /hurray this has to be good news to others as well

[Ouch!]

Prices are dropping like mad. It is indeed good news.

[Miriel]

Yes, but how long will they stay down? This was a good quick fix sorta purge, but give it a month and the prices will be back up again, gilsellers will create new accounts, and we're in the same mess as before.

Squeenix either needs to do a purge like this every few months, or revamp the economic system altogether.

But as for right now, I'm gonna take advantage of the low prices while they last.

[chronic_Maniac]

I wish I could take advanage. I have like 73K and can't sell anything worth the time. hmm maybe some people can pm me on ways to make money.

[Lionx]

To make money all you have to do is find out what sells for how much, how often can you find the item and how to acquire it as well as the demand for it. Just look at the AH and eventually you can find your niche.

[Gwelenguchenkus]

.

[Munition]

I think they should just continuously ban people instead of just waiting around and then doing it every once in a while.

Yeah The prices have droped a little on my serv but There bound to go back up. ;\

[Yeargdribble]

It's funny because when gil prices on IGE went up and there was almost no gil to buy my products stopped selling. It's pretty obvious that what I sell (secret) panders to gilbuyers. I went from making 1M+/hr to less than 500k/hr.

To me what happened made my frighteningly aware of the amount of gilbuyers playing the game. I mean once the all of this hit my sales ground to a halt. There were unprecedented numbers of my stuff on the AH with shockingly no buyers.

[lordblazer]

To make money all you have to do is find out what sells for how much, how often can you find the item and how to acquire it as well as the demand for it. Just look at the AH and eventually you can find your niche.

There are tons of loop holes when it comes to making gil such as over-farming it. Such as organizing with a group of players and basicly making a monopoly over certain items. thus controling the price. Thus they would sell the gil. A small percentage was able to organize itself into basicly grabbing the market place of the FF11 world and keeping items at a inflamed price. Then selling the gil to users who will then give it back to those gil sellers.

Gil selling is selling a currency and its a dishonest business. Expecially video game currency that you will get back because oyu basicly control the certain items players need.. Its nice to see SE doing something about it now. Anyway now players have more of a say so in how the market works.