It has become obvious that some people don't understand $@%t about gold farming. As a public service to the community (I'm a selfless guy, what can I say), let me explain to you some of the issues.

For the purposes of this post, the word gil may be interchanged with gold or in game money.

The controversies regarding the problem with gil farming and character selling stem from two points, within and outside of the gaming community. First is the problem with gil buying from the gaming community's perspective. The MMORPGs that are currently available are intricate games that often times carry with it, their own economies within the realm of the game. With the recent introduction of players that have been utilizing gil buying services, there has been a recent decline within in game economies. This is because rather than take the time to farm or quest, players simply purchase gil to buy all the things they want/need in the game while paying any price for it. This in turn leads to an increase in the cost of items within the game making it difficult to impossible for non gil buyers to purchase.

The argument against this is that it would be good because then if players would be able to sell their goods at a higher price, they would receive more gil and thus benefit. This however is not the case because many of these gil sellers not only control a vast amount of gil but have many different accounts to sell items at a certain inflated cost. They also monitor the in game market carefully looking for booms and busts within the economy, all the while stockpiling valuable items either by camping them with many of their created accounts, or buy purchasing them for less when the item's price is at its lowest.

Another product of this is the concept of the "Purchasable character." Many sites now offer the ability for players looking to break into the game to purchase an already high level character. These characters are created in one of two ways. The first way is by selling off an old account they have used so much for gil farming that they have raised it to a high enough level to warrant being placed on the GMs (Game monitors) observation list. Since this character is no longer of use to them because it is to high to obtain low level items, and because it now has a greater chance of being recognized by the GM's as a gilfarming character, it is sold. The second method is when a player who is looking to retire from the game wishes to make a profit, they have a checklist ready in order to evaluate this players skills and from there they determine the price they are willing to pay for that account. They in turn sell it to another player for often double the price.

From a gamers perspective gilfarmers and gilbuyers and purchased players are simple to find if you know the signs. For example, what separates a gilfarmer from a regular player farming is his/her equipment. Gilfarmers often travel in packs and are equipped with only the most minimum equipment necessary at the lowest levels even if they are high levels themselves. Gilbuyers are often spotted very easily because of the excessive amount of +1 armor they have for their levels. You will often see gilbuyers at very low levels have very very expensive equipment that no low level character could possibly afford. A purchased players is a bit more difficult to notice but should you party with such a person, you will notice that they are very shaky on game dynamics. If this is noticed in a high level player they are often ridiculed for this, provoking statements such as "are you an idiot, or did you just buy your character?" This because the higher the player is, the stronger grasp they are expected to have on game dynamics.

The problem with gilbuyers and sellers is one that all the major MMORPG companies are effectively weeding out, creating specialized task forces to track down and eliminate those individuals caught within the game. In regards to the sweatshop conditions such sites may contribute to, that is actually kept very secretive unless someone actually researches it. Many players are unaware of such conditions, but to be fair the games are often so consuming they do not leave much free time to the average player.

Some of the places where gil and characters are sold include:

http://ffxi.igxe.com/

http://www.gamepal.com/content.php

Anyhoo, I hope this help. In a future post, I will defend my business practices at IC.

Over and out.

-RF