free trial limitations

[Calfredd]

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I can't tell who is being more obnoxious; rogoth for quoting your entire wall of text and images just to poke at a single sentence or you for posting the wall of text against a post from 2 months ago for no discernible reason.

[rogoth]

Trade 3,000,000 face to face....buy off 10 things for 300,000 (the cap on gil for a free to play player) the market board....same damn thing. I really don't think you understand ANYTHING about why there are restrictions in place to stop unpaid accounts from being able to negatively impact the economy. Do you really NOT understand it or are you just arguing hyperbole? I don't think its that you don't understand. I think its that you just don't want to buy the game or get a subscription because you're too cheap to actually pay for a product that you're enjoying AND playing currently. I'd suggest maybe finding a private server if you're unwilling to pay money to play a game you obviously enjoy and support the company providing you FREE entertainment currently. And I literally broke down to you line by line exactly how your statements about acquiring gil and how much gil is possible for the current level cap of free-to-play players can be but you don't want to acknowledge that your statements and beliefs are 100% factually incorrect. I showed you undeniable proof of my account being well within the current free-to-play limits and surpassing your feelings that a current level 60 could not possibly have more than 300k gil. Literal proof that counters your belief and you completely dismiss it. What more can people do to get across to you how bad lifting these restrictions can be and how much it would negatively impact the economy? Seriously I want to know so I can provide you with this evidence since the concrete proof I've already provided to you apparently was not enough.

1) i don't have a fucking clue what this 'face to face' thing you keep saying means, on a free trial account you cannot trade either to or from that account, so again i don't get what your point is with that.

2) i am literally living on £40 a week for food, ~£50 a week for utilities and ~£25 a week for 'rent', whatever other money i have spare is used to save for emergencies (of which i have had a few lately), and my medicine costs, that leaves me with LITERALLY FUCKING NOTHING to spend on 'luxuries', so no, it has nothing to do with 'being cheap' or being 'hyperbolic' as you seem to think, it's that i literally can't afford it and as such am reliant currently on the free trial account i have, someone did offer to buy the game for me but i turned them down because for the simple reason if i accepted i would be locked out of my account once i hit the 'cap' and wouldn't be able to keep exploring or having fun in the game since the free trial is not time gated (not to mention my own sense of pride wouldn't allow me).

3) i have got no idea what you telling me about 'how to make gil' has to do with the point i was making in previous posts about the free trial restriction of not having access to the market board ERGO if there's a quest that requires specific items i CANNOT acquire said items unless i level up the crafting job to craft the items myself, and because of how the crafting system seems to function, you need to do this in a simultaneous way as certain recipes requires items from different trade skills, the point i made previously was maybe allowing free trial character to purchase items off the market board while keeping all other restrictions in place to avoid market manipulation/other unintended things, as i was later told the vast majority of the items i would use are considered 'trash' and not worth the time/money to make/sell.

4) the whole reason i brought up making gil on a free trial account and the gil cap, was that if it was possible to buy items of the market board, not only would a free trial player not be able to buy much, but the amount of gil available to a free trial player is extremely limited as once you complete all main story quests and get to your cap off point prior to accessing paid content your gil is a trickle feed system either from doing dungeons or daily roulette things from what i can tell, which is what i was discussing with someone previously that was worried about a botting infestation should free trials be allowed to use the market board in any capacity, which i explained shouldn't be an issue at all but they had other opinions.

5) when i made the free account i use, there was NOTHING stating what was restricted and what was not, it wasn't until i made this thread that i looked that information up, because prior to that i assumed it worked much like the WoW 'free trial' in that everything was essentially functional to a character except with FF14 it was more expansive than just a really low level cap like WoW had/has, that was my assumption going into it and clearly i was wrong about that upon further reading, hence the whole entire reason this thread exists, if you look up a few posts you will see the list i copy/pasted from the SE official site on the matter.

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I can't tell who is being more obnoxious; rogoth for quoting your entire wall of text and images just to poke at a single sentence or you for posting the wall of text against a post from 2 months ago for no discernible reason.

that's mostly due to the fact that even though i have used this site for almost the entire time it has existed, i have never found out how to do mini quotes like i have seen some people do and most of the time i never have to quote much anyway so it was never really an issue, although in this case it was kinda fortuitous to use it as a vehicle to make a point.

[Calfredd]

that's mostly due to the fact that even though i have used this site for almost the entire time it has existed, i have never found out how to do mini quotes like i have seen some people do and most of the time i never have to quote much anyway so it was never really an issue, although in this case it was kinda fortuitous to use it as a vehicle to make a point.

Not sure there is a proper way to do so but I just delete everything around the relevant portion.

[gaymer77]

1) i don't have a fucking clue what this 'face to face' thing you keep saying means, on a free trial account you cannot trade either to or from that account, so again i don't get what your point is with that.

Face-to-face trade is when you are literally face to face with another character and opening trade to receive/give them currency or items. "Trade". The other "trade" is putting something up on the auction house (called the market board in FFXIV) and the other person BUYING your item so you get the currency without the game catching on that you bought gold/gil/whatever. Seriously not a difficult concept to grasp so I don't know why you're struggling to get it.

2) i am literally living on £40 a week for food.....

I don't mean to sound like a heartless asshole but you're playing a game you can afford based on your current living expenses which are not the problems of Square-Enix or anyone other than yourself. You should appreciate the game that you ARE given as a free to play player. FFXIV used to stop your free trial at lvl 30 in addition to the other limitations that are currently in place for trial accounts which meant all you could do was get their new job but not be able to gain any levels on it. Under the current model of the game, you get an entire base game AND the first expansion with no cost and its a forever free game. Yes there are restrictions in place that are there to make you want to buy the game and pay a monthly subscription but you are not forced to do it unless you want to. I could point you to other free-to-play games that give the full access to their game but sadly none of them have the amount of players that FFXIV currently has.

3) i have got no idea what you telling me about 'how to make gil' has to do with the point i was making in previous posts about the free trial restriction of not having access to the market board ERGO if there's a quest that requires specific items i CANNOT acquire said items unless i level up the crafting job to craft the items myself, and because of how the crafting system seems to function, you need to do this in a simultaneous way as certain recipes requires items from different trade skills, the point i made previously was maybe allowing free trial character to purchase items off the market board while keeping all other restrictions in place to avoid market manipulation/other unintended things, as i was later told the vast majority of the items i would use are considered 'trash' and not worth the time/money to make/sell.

You actually did bring up how the gil cap should be raised (or maybe you said removed entirely but I can't remember or care to go back to find your exact words on it) in addition to bringing up how a lvl 60 character wouldn't even have the 300k from "normal gameplay". I pointed out to you how very easy it is for ANY player of ANY level to earn tons of gil quickly. That one little fact is something you completely ignore.

4) the whole reason i brought up making gil on a free trial account and the gil cap, was that if it was possible to buy items of the market board, not only would a free trial player not be able to buy much, but the amount of gil available to a free trial player is extremely limited as once you complete all main story quests and get to your cap off point prior to accessing paid content your gil is a trickle feed system either from doing dungeons or daily roulette things from what i can tell, which is what i was discussing with someone previously that was worried about a botting infestation should free trials be allowed to use the market board in any capacity, which i explained shouldn't be an issue at all but they had other opinions.

Again ignoring the flip side of that use of the market board coin. Gold sellers could easily make trial accounts, farm the gil (as I explained earlier the very simple ways of earning high amounts of gil quickly at ANY level since POTD can be accessed at level 1 on any alt job or lvl 16/18 through the MSQ), and simply buy the item of a gold buyer in 300k increments. Do you not get that or are you just choosing to ignore what other people could do if the market board was opened up to trial accounts? Again 3 million bought from someone online could be paid out to the buyer with 10 trial accounts buying 10 items off the market board for 300k each.

5) when i made the free account i use, there was NOTHING stating what was restricted and what was not, it wasn't until i made this thread that i looked that information up, because prior to that i assumed it worked much like the WoW 'free trial' in that everything was essentially functional to a character except with FF14 it was more expansive than just a really low level cap like WoW had/has, that was my assumption going into it and clearly i was wrong about that upon further reading, hence the whole entire reason this thread exists, if you look up a few posts you will see the list i copy/pasted from the SE official site on the matter.

Not sure why you are saying FFXIV trial accounts are different than WoW accounts. Trial accounts in WoW can not buy or sell on the auction house. Trial accounts in WoW can not invite nor whisper other players unless that whisper is through their battlenet account not in-game whispers. Trial accounts in WoW can only access getting to level 20 (vastly low compared to the current level cap in WoW right now). Trial accounts in WoW do not have access to ANY expansion that you have to pay for. Trial accounts in WoW can not buy anything from the Blizzard Store. Trial accounts in WoW can not send nor receive mail. The similarities to WoW trial accounts and FFXIV trial accounts are pretty much the same except with a FFXIV trial account you get a vastly larger amount of content you can see.

[Indigenously Abled]

i am literally living on £40 a week for food, ~£50 a week for utilities and ~£25 a week for 'rent'

Not trying to condescend or offend, but is gaming the right thing to do when you're on this kind of shoestring budget? Especially since it seems to be frustrating you as wildly as it is.

[zealo]

Can't say I have much sympathy for limited access to market boards on trial accounts.

FF14 is a subscription based game, the trial to it you're on being as expansive as it is, is already far more generous than they could've been by orders of magnitude.

[Katchii]

Face-to-face trade is when you are literally face to face with another character and opening trade to receive/give them currency or items. "Trade". The other "trade" is putting something up on the auction house (called the market board in FFXIV) and the other person BUYING your item so you get the currency without the game catching on that you bought gold/gil/whatever. Seriously not a difficult concept to grasp so I don't know why you're struggling to get it.

You seem to be the only one struggling here.

It was stated up front that Free Trial accounts have limitations. A couple of those limitations are that they are literally unable to access the Market Board in any way and are not allowed to Trade to anyone, period, which includes face-to-face and through mail. A Free Trial player is unable to exchange goods or money of any kind with any player.

https://attackofthefanboy.com/guides...-subscription/

I'd quote the official site, but the firewall at work is preventing me from accessing it for some reason.

[rogoth]

Not trying to condescend or offend, but is gaming the right thing to do when you're on this kind of shoestring budget? Especially since it seems to be frustrating you as wildly as it is.

prior to the pandemic and certain medical reasons back in 2019 my disposable income was significantly higher than it is currently, and 'gaming' as a whole is one of the 'luxuries' i have been forced to cut out to save money, i can understand your point, however we all need a way to avoid reality somehow, and to me that's gaming.

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Can't say I have much sympathy for limited access to market boards on trial accounts.

FF14 is a subscription based game, the trial to it you're on being as expansive as it is, is already far more generous than they could've been by orders of magnitude.

as i have said in previous posts, i went into this with no idea what to expect, i had no clue how the game played out, i had no clue as to what each 'class' did what the games mechanics were, the last time i played a FF game was back at the original release of FF1/FF2, and nowhere in any of the promotional material are the somewhat severe restrictions of the free trial account listed anywhere in plain sight, you have to manually go digging around several web pages to find that info, and the only suggestion i made in my initial post and subsequent posts was to maybe allow free trial players to BUY some items off the market board, while still keeping all other restrictions in place to avoid abuse, they could even code it so that you must be on the specific quest in order to buy the items you would need which would add another layer of protection, but again that was just my SUGGESTION, after getting to a quest that i couldn't actually complete without crafting everything it required myself which based on the time investment needed for that would mean it would take me ~2 months to get this quest finished, hence my suggestion.

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I don't mean to sound like a heartless asshole but you're playing a game you can afford based on your current living expenses which are not the problems of Square-Enix or anyone other than yourself.

i just wanna do so some basic maths for you, because i don't think you quite have a handle on things:

i explained my 'cost of living' above, the VERY LITTLE i have left over from that is used to pay for the medicine i need, and the tiny bit left after that is used to save in case i have something i need to buy to cover something out of those cost of living expense such as a price hike on energy bills or the usual food stuffs i buy going up in price again etc, clearly you have never had to struggle for things because you lack the capacity to understand this concept, the cost of the game and a subscription is for me: ~£45, that's more than i spend on food per week, and is significantly more than the 'savings money' i have left over once all my bills are paid and my budget is worked out, so no, i cannot 'afford based on current living expenses' as you seem to think, again because you seem to lack the capacity to understand not all of us are living in your USA bubble where you're given huge payouts from the government.

as to some of your other statements, i never once talked about the gil cap being increased or removed, so i dunno where you got that idea from, you keep talking about 'face to face trade' which a trial account can't do, you keep talking about getting gil from the market boards which a free trial cannot do, so again i can see the potential if it was a free trial account but as a free trial all of this info you keep going on about is irrelevant to the original point of this thread on general conversation, as to the WoW free trial, the last time i made a low lvl character when my sub was expired i was able to freely use the AH under 'free trial' conditions, so i'm guessing the limitation of not being able to do so is for someone without any of the game content, again i was using this as my yardstick i fail to see why my own experience of things should have been 'wrong' in this case to use as a way to gauge the level of content i would be able to enjoy in FF14.

[BiggestNoob]

Just level crafters/gatherers. You can do everything yourself, it's not hard. It's more gameplay.

[gaymer77]

This is a lengthy post so I can spell things out very clearly to you given each of your comments in this thread.....

as to some of your other statements, i never once talked about the gil cap being increased or removed, so i dunno where you got that idea from, you keep talking about 'face to face trade' which a trial account can't do, you keep talking about getting gil from the market boards which a free trial cannot do, so again i can see the potential if it was a free trial account but as a free trial all of this info you keep going on about is irrelevant to the original point of this thread on general conversation, as to the WoW free trial, the last time i made a low lvl character when my sub was expired i was able to freely use the AH under 'free trial' conditions, so i'm guessing the limitation of not being able to do so is for someone without any of the game content, again i was using this as my yardstick i fail to see why my own experience of things should have been 'wrong' in this case to use as a way to gauge the level of content i would be able to enjoy in FF14.

OK since you are still showing a failure to understand why trial accounts can not purchase off the market board I'll explain things to you step by step PLUS I'll go over every single one of your posts here in this one to explain things on the simplest of terms for you.

I am fully aware that trial accounts can not do trades. I have stated as face-to-face trades but for some reason F2F makes you not understand the difference between a F2F trade and trading items/gil via the market place is so I'll explain it better. Face-to-face trading is when you are standing next to a person and directly trade items or currency between those characters. Yes, this is not allowed in FFXIV and yes I do understand you understand this is not allowed in the game. Your understanding of a F2F trade has never been in question. The concept of a F2F trade has never been unclear. There are OTHER ways to trade a person that are not a face-to-face trade. This would be used by indirect trading via the market board (or auction houses in other games). The concept is the buyer (we'll use you as an example here) puts a low price item on the market board (like any of the low level crafting material or any of the low level vendor armor/weapons that sell for under 100 gil) for a very high amount (could be for the amount of currency you purchased for a gold seller site or could be how much your friend wanted to give you but is not allowed to due to the no trade restrictions for trial accounts). The other player goes to the market board and BUYS that item and suddenly you have a high amount of currency from selling something that normally would sell on the market board for 1 gil. Still on the other side of trading a person directly is a person with a paid account purchasing gil from a gold selling website. Example I've used is a paid account purchasing 3 million gil from one of those sites. Those gold farmers then use 10 trial accounts to farm gil (or more than likely in the case with these farmers is they already have many accounts already with tons of gil on them so they can pay a person almost immediately after they buy it). Those 10 free trial accounts buy 1 item each from the market board for the 300,000 cap and suddenly the buyer has the 3 million gil they purchased from the website. This exact situation & transaction is what YOU would like to be able to do as a free trial player....have the ability to purchase items off the market board. In your case you wouldn't be buying 300,000 worth of useless items so another player can receive a lot of gil but the concept is literally the same....a trial account buying something from the market board for any amount up to their 300,000 gil limit. Congrats! You have just circumvented the ability to not be able to trade face-to-face in game by trading indirectly through the market board (hence the distinction between a F2F trade and a market board transaction in matters of terminology). Can you explain what is the difference between you wanting to buy some item off the market place for innocent reasons and the ability of a gold seller account buying items from their buyers to give them high amounts of gil by using multiple trial accounts? How does Square-Enix distinguish between your innocent reason for buying an item and their gold selling reason? How does Square-Enix determine the underlying INTENT of the purchase on the market board???

in order to progress past this stage i need to stop playing my main job (summoner) and level 3 different crafting/gathering jobs simultaneously in order to obtain the item this second step of the quest is asking me to, all because the free trial has no access to any market boards and is unable to trade with any other player in the game

So you see a solution to your problem but don't want to take said solution that you've acknowledged to bypass the inability to purchase items off the market board. That's really what this issue boils down to. You don't want to waste your time leveling any crafter or gatherer job so you can make an item you need for a glamour item you want just because you would rather buy it off the market board. That is literally what this boils down to in the end.

i do feel like banning trading is fine, but not having access to the market is a little bit much, i know the reason behind it is to likely stop people from abusing the economy etc, but that said if trading is left as a banned action then why (outside of a coding problem) is the market restriction in place?

See my first reply in this comment for your answer....

sigh i'm just pissed that in order to finish this quest i need to spend 4x as much time leveling 'alt jobs' in order to craft the stuff i need due to an inability to fast track through it with money.

See my second reply in this comment for the answer to this....

also i signed up and started the free trial with absolutely no knowledge of anything in game

So your ignorance of the game which is clearly shown and now you're shocked or upset about something you failed to read on their site I'd suggest you look at the link on the download page where it says "Please click here for Free Trial terms". I suggest you looking at what exactly is shows when you create your trial account BEFORE you can even download & install the game

how any systems worked

Plenty of guides online that could have explained that to you prior to creating your account including many many many "in basic terms" new player guides. I could link you to several if you need that information still because there are literally hundreds if not thousands available on places like YouTube

how the game actually played

See above for answer

or what restrictions were in place

Clearly stated on their site at the link on the download page where it says "Please click here for Free Trial terms"

having known about the wow 'free trial' i assumed it would be almost the same with some minor changes here/there to accommodate how this game works

It actually is but FFXIV allows free players MORE than what WoW allows free players to do so you're wrong but right at the same time (in the sense you get more than you would in WoW).

and i was very wrong about that

See my comment above for a reply

as i have mentioned above i'm not against having to go through the trouble of levelling up 3 different jobs just to be able to craft a single item i need for a quest as there is literally no other way for me to acquire that item otherwise, plus it will allow me to be able to do the same quest again for other combat style jobs in the future if i plan to play something else and need stuff down the line etc.

Copy & pasted here what I said early so you can read it again for your answer. Also once you level up a crafter/gatherer job, you do not lose that level for future uses. You can gather & craft items for other job quests later on if you so choose to do it. "So you see a solution to your problem but don't want to take said solution that you've acknowledged to bypass the inability to purchase items off the market board. That's really what this issue boils down to. You don't want to waste your time leveling any crafter or gatherer job so you can make an item you need for a glamour item you want just because you would rather buy it off the market board. That is literally what this boils down to in the end."

outside of a coding issue that can't be fixed, what possible reason could they have to prevent people from buying items from the open market while still keeping the trade ban in place?

See my first reply for your answer to this

unless i'm missing something even as a bot it would need to do a whole bunch of quest content in the game to get any kind of money stockpile in order to mass buy items that would potentially have some kind of affect on that market functioning

I refer you back to my MANY MANY replies in this thread showing you how freakin easy it is for a character, even a free trial member, can make tons of gil even before they hit level 60 but you fail to see that.

as i say unless it's a technical limitation that's unreasonable to spend time on, i don't really see the harm in letting people buy items from the market system

Once again I refer you back to my first comment in this reply

it would also allow people to become accustomed to the mail system

Free trial accounts do not have access to the mail system in game and I don't know of ANY free-to-play games with some type of pay structure (monthly subscription/buy the game/etc) that allow free players to have access to a mail system because doing so would allow for abuse like gold sellers sending players currency through the mail instead of being able to trade them directly (didn't use that "face-to-face" term you soooo don't grasp to understand)

because there's literally nothing the mail system is used for as a free trial user, you want players to have as much experience with all your systems

The mail system in FFXIV is almost exclusively for retrieving items bought from the Mog Station (the FFXIV store like the Blizzard Store in WoW). Mailing items to other players requires both players to have each other on their friend list in order to mail anything to each other (prevents gold sellers from spamming people's mail with spam like all other games have). This clause is why people are so frustrated in the inability to mail their alt characters anything since you can not have both characters online to give/receive friend requests therefor preventing them friend listing each other to mail stuff to them. When people want to give someone else an item or gil they just teleport to an agreed upon aether crystal (usually capital cities like Ul'dah) and trade directly (again not using the term face-to-face since that concept eludes you) because it is fast and teleportation fees are next to nothing. and while the main aim is obviously the gameplay/story side of things, there's smaller sides of the game that have been pushed to the side i feel.

how would these bots get that money when there's a trading ban in place?

Indirect trading is explained in my first reply so I'll refer you back there for your answer.

so you would need to have the bot play a huge chunk of the game in order to get a decent amount of money saved up to begin with

I have literally explained to you the many many ways a player at any level of play/character level can make a ton of gil so I'll refer you back to the many many replies I've made about those that you keep saying you don't understand why I bring up those things (maybe reread it and try using thinking outside of your own personal reasons for wanting to do what you want and your own limitations on gil making) while doing so.

and if in my proposition there's a ban on listing items, they can't just have someone buy a worthless junk item for an extortionate amount of money giving the free trial account a stockpile to work with

Again refer you back to my first comment in this reply where I explain how 10 trial accounts buying 1 item each for 300,000 from a player would yield that player 3,000,000

i highly doubt bot makers would be interested in having to make them go do quests for 100's of hours for so litter benefit/reward.

I have literally explained to you the many many ways a player at any level of play/character level can make a ton of gil so I'll refer you back to the many many replies I've made about those that you keep saying you don't understand why I bring up those things (maybe reread it and try using thinking outside of your own personal reasons for wanting to do what you want and your own limitations on gil making) while doing so.

i highly doubt bot makers would be interested in having to make them go do quests for 100's of hours for so litter benefit/reward.

You'd be surprised what they'd be willing to do, but you're assuming they'd HAVE to spend 100's of hours to get to the point where they could get money, they would not. Just mass kill enemies in the ARR zones, sell the drops to NPCs....you ARE able to sell your items to NPC's right? Doing that for enough hours with enough people will get them plenty enough gil to disrupt the economy.[/QUOTE]

i'll list you the full set of free trial limitations just to see what you can and cannot do:

***SNIP LIST YOU COPY & PASTED SHOWING ALL THE LIMITATIONS***

So you can read, copy, and paste all of the limitations that are in place for free trial accounts but you don't understand what they are? Am I missing something or is reading comprehension not your strong point?

i highly doubt allowing people to just simply purchase items from the lower level stockpile market economy would actually harm the 'real' economy of the game in any meaningful way

Yet again I've explained to you how multiple trial accounts buying multiple listings can circumvent the ban on trading directly (yet again not using the term face-to-face since you don't understand that term) a player gil that they have purchased or how easy it is for even trial accounts to make tons of gil with little to no effort

because using WoW as the best comparison, you are allowed to list and buy from the AH as a 'free trial' player

You obviously do not know what the limitations are in WoW in terms of the auction house access for free accounts there. Unlike FFXIV which puts purchased items from the market board straight to your inventory, WoW auction house purchases are received via mail and free accounts can NOT access the mailbox. Not to mention free WoW accounts can not buy nor list items on the auction house. The ONLY thing they can do is look at what is on the auction house while not buying nor selling on it.

while obviously my suggested change came from my perspective that it's gonna take me months now to finish this quest off

No it actually won't because leveling gatherer & crafter jobs are relatively fast

because of the limited inventory space

An issue that even paid players run into....

so based on my 'basic' understanding and experience of the in game economy so far, i would say that my suggestion isn't without some merit regardless of whether it is self serving or not.

Yet you fail to understand why your suggestion would greatly negatively impact the economy even after its been spelled out to you in great detail how it would....

could you tell me then, based on your best guess, what the avg player is running around with money-wise at the end game level, what's a 'normal' amount of gil someone would be expected to have as a 'normal' player?

I answered that already in other posts and even showed you screenshots of what me, a player who doesn't even have a lvl 80 yet, has on me and what I've spent so far in game, and how much I earn on a daily basis.

but that would exhaust my source of funds pretty quickly

No your source of funds would not be exhausted even if you've completed the full MSQ

a trial account can only hold a maximum of 300k currency

Correct. Glad to see you are grasping THIS concept.

assuming a similar level of economic maturation as seen in the newer realms in WoW (around the time FF14 came out etc)

WoW has not added new realms in several years now because the population of current realms have dropped significantly from several expansions ago so you are wrong in the "newer realms in WoW" statement.

and the money sinks in place now to drain the multiple millions of gold in circulation

And yet in WoW there are hundreds of people who even after buying things like the auction house dino mount, spiders that cost millions, and other very high cost items STILL have millions or tens/hundreds of millions gold in WoW. Your point is invalidated by this fact.

there's not much you can do to get that kind of income level quickly

Other things besides dungeons and quests provide gil in FFXIV. Maybe you just haven't found those things which is why you're not aware of them.

so if anybody was really REALLY desperate to upset an economy that badly they would need to make thousands of 'trial' accounts and run them in sync and pray not to get IP banned to make it worth the time/effort, and since square enix seems at least somewhat competent in terms of moderation and cyber security unlike some more well known companies *cough blizzard cough*, i find it difficult to believe they wouldn't have safeguards in place to help with this sort of issue in the first place.

Care to explain how what you just described here is any different than someone getting their friend to run them through stuff? How can Square-Enix differenciate between bots/gold sellers and your "normal" player running friends through stuff? If you know how they can, you should notify Square-Enix so they can fix this problem since they can't do that

i appreciate you answering my question regarding what someone might have as a gold stockpile at end game, however i highlighted a word in your post that i don't think you realise is impossible to do on a trial account: TRADE, that functionality is blocked, the only change i was suggesting in my earlier posts was allowing the ability for trial players to buy items off the market boards, because i found out the hard way that if i wanted to complete the quest for getting the relic weapons for a realm reborn content i would need to level up 4 different jobs simultaneously in order to craft every single item required myself and while as i stated in my posts that i wasn't too concerned with doing that, the fact that these things aren't made clear is annoying.

Yet again I refer you back to the first comment in this post where I go into great detail how to get around doing a direct trade (since again I'll point out you don't grasp the concept of face-to-face terminology or indirect trading).

[Jtbrig7390]

As others have said the restrictions are in place due to bots. If the game was advertised as a f2p game with a option sub then I would agree with you. But it is first and foremost a p2p game and the trial is to give you a taste of it.

One way to look at it is if you grind all the stuff yourself then that just means you are getting more playtime as a trial player.

[Katchii]

This is a lengthy post so I can spell things out very clearly to you given each of your comments in this thread.....

OK since you are still showing a failure to understand why trial accounts can not purchase off the market board I'll explain things to you step by step PLUS I'll go over every single one of your posts here in this one to explain things on the simplest of terms for you.

I am fully aware that trial accounts can not do trades. I have stated as face-to-face trades but for some reason F2F makes you not understand the difference between a F2F trade and trading items/gil via the market place is so I'll explain it better. Face-to-face trading is when you are standing next to a person and directly trade items or currency between those characters. Yes, this is not allowed in FFXIV and yes I do understand you understand this is not allowed in the game. Your understanding of a F2F trade has never been in question. The concept of a F2F trade has never been unclear. There are OTHER ways to trade a person that are not a face-to-face trade. This would be used by indirect trading via the market board (or auction houses in other games). The concept is the buyer (we'll use you as an example here) puts a low price item on the market board (like any of the low level crafting material or any of the low level vendor armor/weapons that sell for under 100 gil) for a very high amount (could be for the amount of currency you purchased for a gold seller site or could be how much your friend wanted to give you but is not allowed to due to the no trade restrictions for trial accounts). The other player goes to the market board and BUYS that item and suddenly you have a high amount of currency from selling something that normally would sell on the market board for 1 gil. Still on the other side of trading a person directly is a person with a paid account purchasing gil from a gold selling website. Example I've used is a paid account purchasing 3 million gil from one of those sites. Those gold farmers then use 10 trial accounts to farm gil (or more than likely in the case with these farmers is they already have many accounts already with tons of gil on them so they can pay a person almost immediately after they buy it). Those 10 free trial accounts buy 1 item each from the market board for the 300,000 cap and suddenly the buyer has the 3 million gil they purchased from the website. This exact situation & transaction is what YOU would like to be able to do as a free trial player....have the ability to purchase items off the market board. In your case you wouldn't be buying 300,000 worth of useless items so another player can receive a lot of gil but the concept is literally the same....a trial account buying something from the market board for any amount up to their 300,000 gil limit. Congrats! You have just circumvented the ability to not be able to trade face-to-face in game by trading indirectly through the market board (hence the distinction between a F2F trade and a market board transaction in matters of terminology). Can you explain what is the difference between you wanting to buy some item off the market place for innocent reasons and the ability of a gold seller account buying items from their buyers to give them high amounts of gil by using multiple trial accounts? How does Square-Enix distinguish between your innocent reason for buying an item and their gold selling reason? How does Square-Enix determine the underlying INTENT of the purchase on the market board???

What part of "Trial accounts cannot access the market board" do you not understand?

Free Trial players do not have access to buy or sell on the market board.

"Free Trial Players cannot access the market board. This prevents players from buying or selling goods with other players using the in-game market board. IE, you can’t buy the super cool glamour without a restriction. In addition, you can’t hire retainers so it is completely prevented all around."

[Albertacanady]

They make the trial very limited but I don't blame them.

[gaymer77]

What part of "Trial accounts cannot access the market board" do you not understand?

Free Trial players do not have access to buy or sell on the market board.

"Free Trial Players cannot access the market board. This prevents players from buying or selling goods with other players using the in-game market board. IE, you can’t buy the super cool glamour without a restriction. In addition, you can’t hire retainers so it is completely prevented all around."

I am fully aware of this. The OP is WANTING access to it and this whole post is him explaining why trial accounts SHOULD have access to buying from it.

[Katchii]

I am fully aware of this. The OP is WANTING access to it and this whole post is him explaining why trial accounts SHOULD have access to buying from it.

Fair enough, I missed that part, my bad.

[gaymer77]

You know, you keep being so condescending and abrasive about this, but it seems like they've been talking about wanting to buy items from the market board, not sell them.

So one of you is "struggling to get it" but it might not be who you think.

Anyway, I'm not sure I'd see the harm in letting trials buy at least a limited amount of items. It's not a gamebreaker for the trial by any means, of course, but I can see the annoyance trying to do certain quests could present to a legitimate player who can't buy anything.

I'm not the one who is "struggling to get it" because he doesn't understand what a face-to-face trade is. Very simple concept to grasp. Yes I understand that HE wants access to BUY items off the market board. As I've explained multiple times, that would allow these gold sellers to simply BUY (like this guy who's also on a trial account) multiple items a buyer places on the market board and indirectly sell the gil to the buyer via the market board that the gold seller just bought from. Is that really a difficult concept for you too to understand? If it is too difficult I can direct you to one of the many explanations I've given on how a gold seller can sell gold to a buyer simply by using a trial account to buy items off the market board (just like how the OP wants access to buy items it would also give the gold sellers access to buy items from their buyers for the gil they bought online somewhere). I mean how would Square-Enix determine that the trial account in quest is a legit account wanting to buy off the market board like the OP or if its a gold seller account buying items from a gold buyer while ALSO using a trial account? I would love to know how SE could tell the difference.

[Itori]

easiest solution to "trial limitations" ....buy the game and sub, if you complain about features missing in an mmo trial that gives you the first expansion free, and most jobs up until lvl 60, then players just see you as one of those "gimmie more" people and tell you to get fucked.

[scubi666stacy]

The problem is not the trial restrictions, it's your attitude.

I ran into the same problem myself - was just leveling my character, then there was this glamouring quest and then I ran out of prisms. I did not want to buy them from the board (yes, I got myself the full game and subscription, but this is irrelevant for this case if you follow my argumentation), so I leveled a gatherer and a crafter profession to craft prisms myself. I could have bought these things, even though I did not have much gil because I started trading only recently, after I thoroughly ran out of space on my character and my 2 retainers.

Yes, I had to invest time which I could have saved if I would have been buying the prisms. But I don't feel that the time was wasted because I had FUN leveling these professions. It's so relaxing in comparison to leveling crafting or gathering in WoW, and so much more meaningful and more useful. Also, the profession quests are great. I had much fun with the tailor storyline.

Why do you see the additional content in such a negative way? For what reason do you have to save time by bying the item you could craft yourself?
Is it just because the game "forces you" to do this? Don't you want to play?

Honestly, this is not a good reason to be wanting to lift the trading restrictions from trial accounts (especially since the trial is really generous with content compared to WoW for example.)

[scubi666stacy]

I mean, it could simply be that they don't enjoy gathering or crafting all that much.

The idea that just anything and everything that the game throws at you must necessarily be great and fun for 100% of people is silly.

That's fine. But it was not really hard getting one crafter and one gatherer to get the required recipe for the prism and to get to the materials required. It has been a couple of hours at most. Try the same thing in WoW and you will need much more time.

After you get there, you will only need to go farm a bit now and then. Farming plants is incredibly easy and fast, and farming drops from mobs is not that bad either, even if there is no drop guarantee.

In WoW, I first liked crafting and gathering, but now I avoid it as much as I can, doing the bare minimum so I get my skill to max and can learn all recipes. In FFXIV I actually have FUN with the system.

[Katchii]

That's fine. But it was not really hard getting one crafter and one gatherer to get the required recipe for the prism and to get to the materials required. It has been a couple of hours at most. Try the same thing in WoW and you will need much more time.

After you get there, you will only need to go farm a bit now and then. Farming plants is incredibly easy and fast, and farming drops from mobs is not that bad either, even if there is no drop guarantee.

In WoW, I first liked crafting and gathering, but now I avoid it as much as I can, doing the bare minimum so I get my skill to max and can learn all recipes. In FFXIV I actually have FUN with the system.

Heaven forbid someone not want to spend that many hours doing something they don't really want to do, for a side quest they just wanted to check out.

And they weren't talking about glamour prisms, they were talking about crafting a level 50 weapon for the level 50 Relic weapon quest, which requires different materials from several different professions AND materia, which if he can't buy it, would need to be created by spirtbonding high level equipment over and over until he got the two specific kinds the quest asked for and melding them to the weapon.

So while I agree that leveling 1 or 2 crafters or gatherers isn't THAT much of a big deal, it's still a huge number of hours they don't particularly want to spend.

For example: The Paladin quest requires an Aeolian Scimitar. The materials for that are:
1) Blunt Aeolian Scimitar - Acquired through a chest in Wanderer's Palace, which may or may not have that specific ingredient so could require multiple (several) runs.
2) Darksteel Nugget - Level 50* ARM or BSM recipe requiring 3 Darksteel Ore which is a level 50* Mining material
3) Basilisk Whetstone - Level 40 GSM recipe or 47 CRP recipe requiring a Basilisk Egg which can be gotten through battle or mined by a level 46 miner with appropriate gear
4) Battledance III Materia - random chance to acquire through getting materia from level 50 spirit bonded equipment.

That's:
Minimum Level 50 ARM or BSM with at least single star level gear and recipes
Minimum Level 50 MIN with at least single star level gear
Minimum Level 40 GSM or level 47 CRP with the recipe
Assuming they have all the materials, which can easily be another few hours just gathering the stuff ON TOP of the hours it took to get the crafters and gatherers leveled.

All for a side quest, all of which could be easily bypassed in 2 minutes if he had access to the MB. So while I can understand you saying, just play the game and enjoy it, I also completely understand how aggravating it would be to look at that quest and know it would take a subscriber 2 minutes to get through that part of the quest yet they're potentially required to spend SIGNIFICANTLY longer than that.

I completely understand the need for the limitations, I'm not at all arguing they should be changed or lifted, just clarifying why I understand why a free trial player would get frustrated with them in this particular case.