Thursday, March 15, 2018

The Root of all Evil

Money was a main concern in FFXI. How else would Galka feed their illegitimate, smelly little children?

You could spend hours scraping the corpses of fallen lizards and selling their innards for a measly 10k a day.

If you recall, my main profession was mining, which is no way to raise a child, no matter how smelly or Galka they may be.

On a bad day, I probably sold enough tin and copper to cry myself to sleep. On a good day, I struck Darksteel and my character got to eat a lunch that didn't consist of pretzels and sadness.

I farmed Delkfutt's tower chests for my Corsair armor when he hit 30. It cost me the best years of my life, but I could honestly say I earned the right to wear that beret and fancy shirt for two levels before it became obsolete.

But there came a time, as times want to do, where an honest day's work just didn't cut it.

And thus, Asrail turned to a life of crime.

What I am about to tell you may shock you to the very core, leaving you speechless and unable to compliment my new haircut (Sport Clips, $14.99, ladies)

I bought gil.

*DRAMATIC MUSIC*

Yes, on several occasions, even I bought gil when the going was too tough.

My first purchase was 100,000 for $20. Back then, prices were high because gil was super hard to obtain. I got a full set of Hume RSE, and never felt happier.

When my brother asked where I got the money, I made up some story about a high level friend taking me to mine Ifrit's Cauldron and I struck adaman or something.

Do you hear that, Kisho? Yes, I lied to you about buying gil. Are you happy now?

When people started getting banned for gil buying, I was scared. Super scared. The police were going to break down the door any minute and find me cutting gil on a mirror. I awaited the banning like I await someone at work asking me to do something go do it yourself Paul ugggggghhhhhhhhhh

But the ban never came. They did wave after wave of account bans, but Asrail was never on that list. He had fought the law and the law didn't win this time, bitch.

So after that scare, I didn't buy gil until I hooked my cousin Kurl on FFXI. He was on Xbox, and I was on PS2 playing right next to each other. We came up with a system that possibly benefited him more than I.

Now this might be something the higher-ups in an organized crime ring would have done. I might have even called myself Don Asrail for a while.

A little known fact was back in 2009ish, GameStop had free demo discs for FFXI, complete with a PlayOnline ID and a serial number. I grabbed several of them and we set out doing dirty work.

Every week I got paid, and every week I would deposit a specific amount into a prepaid Visa card, create a new account with the demo information, and buy gil with that character, usually 5 or 6 million at a time.

Kurl would meet me in one of the major cities, and we would do a quick driveby trade of the gil I had just bought. We would split the money 70-30 and buy what we wanted to our heart's content. Then the character would be deleted. I would cancel the card, and there would be no way to trace it back to me. My character was safe, and no one knows about it except all of you.

...Wait...

Good thing I don't play any more, or else my character would probably be toast maybe? I'm not sure how strict they are on gil buying these days.

My girlfriend got a couple million on FFXIV just like, out in the open and shit, and hasn't been banned yet. So I'm guessing a 15 year old game wouldn't give a hoot any more.

But speaking of banning because of gil buying, here's a funny story that happened back in the days when I was an honest, non-gil-buying choir angel.

A person had been shouting gil prices in Bastok markets for the longest time. People were shouting back obscenities, I might have uttered something about his mother, but nothing was being done about this ruffian.

I wanted to do something about it, so I asked my friend Meimin if he could /tell the guy and ask to buy some gil, just to hold the guy in place until a GM came. In hindsight, I'm not sure why I roped Meimin into this and didn't just /tell the guy myself, but then I wouldn't have this funny little story, would I?

So, Meimin /tells the guy he wants to buy some gil. I send a ticket to a GM, and we wait. After a while, Meimin disappears, and I'm like "Well ain't that the darndest thing, he must have disconnected."

Then I do a search, and he is in Mordion Gaol.

For those of you who do not know, Mordion Gaol is FFXI jail.

I start freaking out and trying to send him tells, but nothing is going through. I get in contact with Alana, who just happened to have logged in a minute before, and tell her to call Meimin and see what is going on.

She's telling me the GM is talking to Meimin about suspending his account for attempting to buy gil, and I feel like complete crap. I'm yelling at her to tell Meimin to get the GM to talk to me and I could explain everything.

After a few minutes, Alana disappears and I'm like "Oh fuck, I got two of my friends banned, oh shit shit shit."

Then they both appear in front of me with a GM and he's waving at me. He lets me know that it was a misunderstanding and Meimin is free to go. I felt so bad after that. It was crazy, really.

But we still laugh about it today.

Ha ha ha *sweats nervously*

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