Selling housing now illegal?

[Aoi Fukiku]

[Warren Castille]

That's ridiculous.

[Lucius Ignatius]

Er... wow. That is kinda... crazy. I dont even have a house yet and thats very... I dont get why. Its a very stupid violation imo...

[Blue]

Maybe he simply means that making someone pay to relinquish a plot is a violation (and honestly, that's how it always felt like to me. It's just unfair to make someone pay more than what the game already forces them to). If you leave your plot without making anyone pay for you to leave, it should be fine.

[Warren Castille]

Maybe he simply means that making someone pay to relinquish a plot is a violation (and honestly, that's how it always felt like to me. It's just unfair to make someone pay more than what the game already forces them to). If you leave your plot without making anyone pay for you to leave, it should be fine.

 

He explicitly says there's no money being exchanged, and the players are only paying for the plot from the plot itself. The GM is saying that agreeing to swap plots is somehow illegal.

[X'raemha]

I'm so confused. 

 

If there's no gil exchanged how is that buying, selling, or trading? Where in the rules is it stated that this is a problem? 

 

And even if there -was- gil paid to relinquish the plot, it's in-game currency for an in-game service / feature / item. That'd be like saying you can't pay someone to craft something for you. 

 

How are they going to have something as limited / exclusive as housing and then say 'lol btw you can't buy, sell, or trade plots GOOD LUCK'?

 

This makes no sense to me. 

 

-flips a table and walks off-

 

EDIT - Yeah looking at the official forums I see literally nothing indicating that this is a violation, no forum CM has stepped into ANY of the threads of 'WTB House' and said 'btw this is a violation'. I'm gonna find the EULA and read it very carefully. 

 

Because this is what I do on my days off.

[Ardent Dawn]

Either the GM is new, doesn't understand the situation, or isn't fully aware of the ToS, because trading gil for housing is in no way a violation of the ToS. There isn't any actual RMT going on here -- just players exchanging gil for a service (the right to relinquishment).

 

I understand that gil isn't even being exchanged in this scenario, but the above still rests. The only thing that might flag your account is exchanging large quantities of gil, which might place you under review.

 

However, what is debatable is if they will investigate and do something in case there is a scam or the transaction goes awry.

 

If you want clarification, I'd not only e-mail support but also put this up on the official forums. They might take it down due to the GM's name being visible, so that should be blurred. Hopefully that will give a better response as to whether this GM's opinion overrides the actual Terms of Service.

[Larson]

It seems like the GM wasn't totally understanding, and may have been pasting macros. Perhaps English isn't the first language...though he/she did correct a typo.

I just feel like Enix handles tech support like most companies.

[X'raemha]

So yeah I just looked through the EULA. 

 

There's nothing - literally nothing - that says you can't exchange in-game currency for in-game stuff. Trying to restrict that would be insane. 

 

The only thing I can think is that the GM just seriously misunderstood you and thought you were buying / selling / trading for real-world currency? idk.  

 

Even the very explicit list of Prohibited Activities says nothing about selling / trading houses for gil.

[Spethah]

I can see why the GM don't want people to sell houses, because it can lead to scams plus you're forcing people to pay a much higher price to get a house than if it was just relinquished for nothing and then someone paid for it after.

[BumblingSeaBiscuit]

I believe at one point it was stated by devs that action would not be taken against the selling/trade/purchase of player-to-player housing. I'd have to see if I can find the quote because that information is second hand. Reviewing the logs, it does look like English was not their first language (or they're grandly misunderstanding the situation), and reviewing the ToS (mind, I haven't made my way fully through it) I haven't seen anything that would label it against their policies (as it isn't RMT). 

 

Edited to add: It is possible the dev thought that there was real cash being exchanged instead of gil. It was clarified that gil wasn't being traded but the report he received may of claimed real cash.

 

Update (9/22/15 | 6:03AM PST): I remain unable to find the official dev statement (should it actually exist). However, my read through of the ToS remains unable to find where this particular trade (read: gil that hasn't been purchased with real cash, housing that isn't bought with real cash, gil exchange only) is illegal / against policies.

[Nebbs]

Why would you even raise a ticket? I mean all you are doing is purchasing a plot that just came empty. It just seems off. Spoof?

[Aoi Fukiku]

Just for clarification I didn't put in the ticket. This was yoinked from someone. I just thought it was odd.

[Gegenji]

Why would you even raise a ticket? I mean all you are doing is purchasing a plot that just came empty. It just seems off. Spoof?

 

Yeah, the GM's name kinda looks off to me. Are the GMs in the game just CALLED Gm? I would figure they'd have a tag or something.

 

Derp, I can read. Completely missed the [GM] tag that is so obviously there. That's what I get for looking at the post on my phone so I could see the image.

[BumblingSeaBiscuit]

Why would you even raise a ticket? I mean all you are doing is purchasing a plot that just came empty. It just seems off. Spoof?

 

Yeah, the GM's name kinda looks off to me. Are the GMs in the game just CALLED Gm? I would figure they'd have a tag or something.

 

From what I understand, [] cannot be used in naming conventions. Thus, [GM] Gm is official (I also searched other logs and this is the method of naming they use in ffxiv). This suggests it isn't a spoof. People will report others for various reasons.

 

I do agree that it feels off. It's too vague, the language isn't explanatory, he doesn't answer the questions properly, etc. This heightens suspicion that the GM is new or doesn't understand English quite as well. 

[Kage]

From the reddit consensus, this GM is new or is ESL. Another person or so mentioned on reddit talking to GMs who said that Player to Player housing is actionable outside of scamming.

 

From everyone else who has interacted, this seems odd/strange because others were told that the trade needs to be completely within the game, clear and defined terms, no RMT.

 

When I was selling one of my plots on the forums months ago, it did get removed by the forum moderators "under their discretion".

[FreelanceWizard]

It's happened before that GMs have made policy statements that didn't match the actual policy. One way to get clarification from the community team or a lead GM is to post about it on the official forums. Alternatively, I'm told you can open a ticket in the web interface and ask for a supervisor, though I'm not sure how effective that will be.

[Dravus]

It seems like the GM is simply mistaken. The cynical part of me believes it may be due to inexperience or because a lot of companies hire GM's who are not native English speakers and therefore have difficulty working out what, exactly, is being asked.

 

The housing system is in a rather dubious position with quite a lot of potential for scamming players, however, so I do think there's quite a bit of concern on Square Enix's part regarding this sort of thing. I do not think it is illegal though - unless a recent change has been made to the terms of service.

[Kage]

Same as with the whole player casinos topic, I've made a thread in the forums asking for clarification.

 

The entire "violation on both sides" thing makes me think the GM is ESL and didn't understand the question because the two players weren't exchanging any in-game currency and assumed they made outside-of-game arrangements.

[Arrelaine]

I could see them not wanting it to be done because it would be so, so easy to scam someone out of millions of gil. WoW won't even investigate scamming if you're doing something you know is super easy to get scammed out of, like buying runs/loot. That's extra work for the GMs to do. I haven't heard of many people scamming each other, though.

[Virella]

I could see them not wanting it to be done because it would be so, so easy to scam someone out of millions of gil. WoW won't even investigate scamming if you're doing something you know is super easy to get scammed out of, like buying runs/loot. That's extra work for the GMs to do. I haven't heard of many people scamming each other, though.

Sadly enough I've seen it happen though; just a few months back my neighbours FC got scammed on a LARGE house. They couldn't even get their gil back. Not sure how they solved it in the end, but it was a massive drama, and lots of gil got stolen.

 

Fix housing issues already, and we wouldn't have this in the first place :<

[Ignacius]

Maybe I'm just being a doofus here, but... why was a GM involved at all?  Isn't giving money to people and FCs for houses actually how people get houses?  If that's illegal, doesn't that mean that if you don't have a house, you can't get a house?

 

WTF is going on?

[Kage]

Maybe I'm just being a doofus here, but... why was a GM involved at all?  Isn't giving money to people and FCs for houses actually how people get houses?  If that's illegal, doesn't that mean that if you don't have a house, you can't get a house?

 

WTF is going on?

 

The current redditor probably got antsy because a thread last week about housing mentioned SOME OTHER person contacting the GMs about it.

 

Scams in FFXIV are handled by the GMs. Essentially, if you have the agreement clearly defined and worded in-game chat you are protected by that. The GMs can go through logs and verify that type of information with your World, time zone, time etc. What they won't do, and what I believe this GM is trying to say is a violation, is allow for people to work out outside-of-game things like art for the house.

[Tonberry Prince]

Here's something to keep in mind.

 

I used to be a GM. Not for SquareEnix/Final Fantasy XIV, but an online MMORPG.  You may think a GM is a pretty cool character, knowing everything...but in reality, we are just your low level customer service representative.  And just like most CSR's your results will vary.  Also, this is NA SquareEnix customer support you're interacting with.  SE NA Support is probably the worst customer service experience I've ever had to deal with.

[CalebAgron]

I'm gonna agree with others on here and side with the gm. I can't say for certain if its against tos but can see why it would be. If people were allowed to buy and sell houses it would have an incredibly negative impact for housing. 

 

As it stands housing in this game is utter shit with only a tiny percent of players being able to enjoy the content. And now you want to let the rich players fuck everyone else by turning this into a capitalist paradise where players buy housing then sell it to others for a profit. Fuck to the no.

 

I hope they do crack down on house sellers.