Anyone who plays Square-Enix's popular MMO Final Fantasy XI will know that auction house and item prices ballooned over the holiday period, thanks to massive price cuts on gil (FFXI's currency) at notorious currency reseller IGE. With RMTs and CGFs (real money traders and Chinese gil farmers) popping up everywhere (MMOs are the new Digital Sweatshop), IGE's competition has grown fierce as of late. So in a bid to trump the insurgents in the fight for Christmas dollars, the virtual currency reseller has now seemingly shot itself in the foot. When a Haubergeon, which typically sold for 3 million gil on auction, suddenly shoots up beyond 10 million, it's suddenly out of reach for most players. So what is a level 58 Warrior/Dark Knight/Samurai to do? Most likely the answer is not "farm fire crystals for three years," and instead "buy up some gil since it's so cheap." Gil buying begets inflation, and inflation begets gil buying, and so the downward spiral of escalating item prices began. But it got so out of control, that
someone is clearly taking action.
While Square-Enix recently implemented new anti-MPK measures to combat the RMTs and CGFs that would dominate an area where rare monsters would drop high-priced items, the very same gilfarmers that have threatened, plagued and chastised regular players for years now have
seemingly disappeared from most servers.
They are gone. While some gilfarmers were originally raised and leveled from scratch, currency resellers started buying up high-level accounts and putting those characters to work as well, adding "staff" to help farm in dangerous areas. On every server, gilfarmers could be found in Kuftal Tunnel camping Amemet (who drops the skins used in making the Amemet Mantle) and the Phantom Worm, or Rolanberry Fields waiting for Simurgh to pop (in the hopes of scoring the highly desired Strider Boots). They'd even begun camping "trigger mobs" in the area known as Sky (a.k.a. The Shrine of Ru'Avitau), making it hard for legitimate players to make their own runs at the Gods. In previous measures to control over-camping of specific mobs or treasure chests, Square-Enix removed certain item drops from mobs like Aquarius (who dropped the valuable Damascene Cloth) to Burning Circle fights, and Astral Rings from coffer chests in Castle Oztroja, to name a couple. But with the sudden disappearance of gilfarmers from their usual 24-7 presence, it seems something more significant is being done about gilfarming.
This actually came to light during actual gameplay, when various 1UP readers and teammates began sending me tells, saying "Hey, Milkman. Do a search of Kuftal Tunnel. All the gilfarmers are gone." It didn't take long to see that the usual suspects were indeed absent from their favorite haunt, although we thought it might be because of the Chinese New Year. Some discussion quickly debunked that theory but we kept looking day after day. Gone. Coincidence? A brief survey of IGE's FFXI currency across all servers reveals a dramatically dwindling supply, with many servers completely dry, offering up only the vague disclaimer "We currently do not have any currency for sale on this server. Please check back again later or contact customer support for any enquiries." While the sale of items, currency and accounts is actually prohibited by Square-Enix, it's very difficult to enforce. Currency resellers usually use the defense that they're not selling the gil, but the person's time used to farm it. Regardless, Article 3.1 in the FFXI user agreement, filed under Prohibited Activities and Indemnification, states: "Any activities consisting of selling, purchasing or exchanging gil any other currency that may be used in the Game from time to time, characters, and/or Game items for value (including, but not limited to, any payment in kind and any payment in any currency recognized as legal tender in any country, state, territory or other jurisdiction anywhere in the world) through any means or venue, including, without limitation, Internet auctions or other online exchanges." So it's not like Square-Enix doesn't have their bases covered. Is it difficult, time-consuming, and an absolute time and money sink to farm, camp and craft your way to profit in FFXI? Absolutely. But it's been made even harder due to the unbelievable inflation the game has suffered as of late. In reality, FFXI was in danger of becoming a gilfarmer's domain, practically owned and operated by RMTs until the recent purge, if it is indeed a purge. How else to explain the disappearance of gilfarmers across all servers in the last week? While we're still waiting to hear something official out of Square-Enix HQ, the writing is clearly on the wall for currency resellers worldwide.
