[FFXI] Price-fixing in action!

[UWCrash]

Thought this would be interesting to see for anyone who plays FFXI. If you don't know what www.ffxiah.com is, it aggregates all of the activity from the Jeuno AH (which is linked with Whitegate and Tavnazian Safehold). As usual, after the last batch of account bannings (around Feb 20) the general prices across the AH dropped pretty significantly. It looks like they're back in action though. Just a small sample...

http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=13406&sid=5
http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=14675&sid=5

You'll have to expand the Price History panel to show more than the last 5 results to see what's really going on. At least for the first link, each of the buyers or sellers of the last 10 transactions is clearly a bot (or whatever you want to call it in this case). Whitegate was filled with shouts by people looking for 100k Woodsman Rings, but obviously they're out of luck at this point.

I actually have the second to last purchase of a Merman's Earring (my character's name is Ternaldo) before the price more than tripled. I'm somewhat tempted to resell at the high price, but then I'd just be fueling the fire. Hopefully the gear I need for my next few levels don't see the same treatment, or I'll be waiting for the next "special task force" report to make any significant purchases.

[Gorvi]

I was trying to get a Merman's Earring myself a few months back for my BST, and that's how I found out about this too. I really hope they do something about it, but it's going to be tough.

[Apushmataha]

That's one thing that always drove me nuts about FFXI. Saving for so long to afford something, then buying it and watching the price bottom out, or worse, skyrocket. Buying erase on Valefore at 700k, then watching it drop to 300k 2 weeks later really annoyed me.

[Cyndair]

Ugh.. that's highly irritating. I played WoW for awhile and I always thought that it was stupid that they didn't show history at the AH like FFXI. Now I understand why. :(

[Wraith]

Heh, Ternaldo. :D

But yeah, good that SE keeps chipping away at botters & gold farmers, bad that they still keep coming back to screw things up for everyone else.

[Gorvi]

Yeah, they've done an amazing job getting rid of the gilsellers, and the economy is much better for it. I'm not sure how they'd be able to completely get rid of this until they completely exhaust the gil reserves of the various gilsellers.

[UWCrash]

The thing that really kills me is that I bought my Scorpion Harness about 2 years ago at the height of the gilseller regime...and paid 8 million for it. Thinking what 8 million could buy these days...damn.

[Gorvi]

The thing that really kills me is that I bought my Scorpion Harness about 2 years ago at the height of the gilseller regime...and paid 8 million for it. Thinking what 8 million could buy these days...damn.
I bought an Iqira (or however you spell it) Weskit for my BLM for 10 million. A week later (since they made the dragon's claw an easy drop) it was 100k. That was rough.

[Panthera]

I still can't get over you guys talking about tens of thousands, let alone millions. I've barely been able to afford my spells and basic equipment. :eek:

[Gorvi]

I still can't get over you guys talking about tens of thousands, let alone millions. I've barely been able to afford my spells and basic equipment. :eek:
Inflation was bad back then. As in people quit the game over it. That Scorpion Harness that UW was talking about at 8 million is now ~350k (at least, when I bought mine a few months back). A stack of fire crystals was up to 12k on average, I once saw them reach 20k, though it didn't last. They've done so much to curb inflation it's nuts, and it's been great.

[Cyndair]

Yeah, I remember dropping 8 million on a hauby. That was insane. I think all of us long time players have some horror story about how we used to have millions of gil and blew it all on some expensive item only to have to plummet in value a couple weeks later. They've done a lot to get the prices down and keep them that way. I still can't help but feel like they are a lot higher than the game makers originally intended. (NPC selling prices being only a fraction of what the item is worth on the AH)

[Gorvi]

I still can't help but feel like they are a lot higher than the game makers originally intended. (NPC selling prices being only a fraction of what the item is worth on the AH)
I think it's that way on purpose, though. I can remember back during the inflation (sounds like The Great Depression :p) that there were a lot of talks on how to solve the problem. I guess selling items to NPCs was one of the issues, as it introduces gil to the economy, thus over time devaluing it. The prices for selling items to NPCs are so low (in theory) to discourage selling items to NPCs and encourage selling them to other players.

To me, it looks like this is supported a bit by some of the new items. Scholar spells don't drop from mobs, you buy them from NPCs (thus taking gil out of circulation).

[Cyndair]

I think it's that way on purpose, though. I can remember back during the inflation (sounds like The Great Depression :p) that there were a lot of talks on how to solve the problem. I guess selling items to NPCs was one of the issues, as it introduces gil to the economy, thus over time devaluing it. The prices for selling items to NPCs are so low (in theory) to discourage selling items to NPCs and encourage selling them to other players.

To me, it looks like this is supported a bit by some of the new items. Scholar spells don't drop from mobs, you buy them from NPCs (thus taking gil out of circulation).

lol, I think we should start calling it something dramatic like "The Great Inflation of 05."

What you say makes sense. Never really thought about it that way. I guess I always felt like it was a challenge to make money in that game, even with a level 75 job. Maybe I just have ridiculously bad luck with drops. I've killed many NMs and never hit paydirt, so to speak. I could always level THF to 75 for farming but I never was too keen on the idea of being forced to level a certain job just to make some money.

[Holiday]

That's one thing that always drove me nuts about FFXI. Saving for so long to afford something, then buying it and watching the price bottom out, or worse, skyrocket. Buying erase on Valefore at 700k, then watching it drop to 300k 2 weeks later really annoyed me.

I remember paying 2 million for Raise III for a good friend. She promised that should I ever take WHM to 75 she would return the favor. Two years later she lived up to that, paying 5k. :D