boycott the AH and AH prices?

It couldn't work at all. First of all, the in-game economy would continue to inflate while the second, "price-limitted" one would remain static. Anyone who limitted themselves to the fake economy (well, MORE fake) would essentially be crippling themselves as everyone else's income and average worth increased, and theirs remained the same. While a certain amount of self-discipline might allow one to go to the "other" auction house most of the time, it's kind of naive to believe for a second that you could survive entirely off of it. There are just some goods and services that would NOT work well with a player-run, external auction house...indeed, some couldn't work at all. Thus, you would still have to interact with the in-game economy somewhat, and the fact that your income isn't inflating along with the other players' will hurt you.

Second, you're not really understanding the fact that evolution of an economy is actually healthy, and it's not really a good idea to try and halt it. Sure, the inflation rate within the game is completely chaotic, and needs to be reined in somewhat ... but it would be even worse to try to set some arbitrary ceiling on everything. If, for some reason or other, certain goods became less available, then the price SHOULD go up. There shouldn't be a cap telling it how much it CAN go up. It should be adjusted by the situation, and naturally, who's willing to pay what.

If the availability of an item declines, or if there is a sudden surge in demand, the price not only should go up, but it needs to. When the value of that item increases, it encourages more people to obtain money by selling it, and thus increases the supply. Eventually, in theory, both the price and supply should stabilize somewhat. Force everything to remain unnaturally static and unchanging, and the markets for all sorts of items will eventually putter out altogether. Don't allow beehive chips to go above 10k, for example, and there'll come a time when market conditions have changed so much that it no longer becomes "worth it" to farm them. The supply will plummet, and since the price can't go up to match the lowered availability, the alchemists are screwed.

It can't work, but even if it could, it shouldn't. Incredibly obnoxious inflation is bad, very bad, but a static, unchanging economy is equally as bad...if not worse.

This is not even considering the fact that such a system would not be fast enough. Most of the time, when I make a purchase, I need that item pretty much the moment I made the purchase. If I need a stack of crystals pronto, and I only have an hour and a half to play, it won't be practical to log out and head for the poser auction house.

For things I have the luxury of waiting on, there's the Auctionhouse board.
 
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The only way for prices to decrease is for SE to do something about it. That means SE needs to take money out of the system faster than money goes into the system. There are some crafting materials that are mainly supplied by guilds, the hour glass for dynamis and some low level gear that are the main sources of gil leaving the game, but at the current rate is insufficient to make an impact. The only real way to make an impact is for Guilds to supply more high end materials(expensive) to take gil out which would also actively cap prices on certain items and add more NPC purchaseable equipment. Although there are some equipment choices provided by NPC in all cities, they are usually NQ craftable items with no added stats that lack any real demand.

I also thought of some random ideas, but I have no real idea of the impact they would have. Currently the AH sells items of lower prices first so when two of the same items are placed on AH, one for slightly less and a buyer bids a price above both sale prices, the lower sells first. What if the AH sold the items not by price but date placed on AH? This might lower price on large quantity items like crystals since the only way to sell your item first is to have someone bid less. In other words, instead of selling for 970 to get first sale when you know someone will bid 1000 gil and would normally sell before others, you now need to place it for 900 and sell if for 900(assuming people bid in 100 gil increments which on crystals is usually correct). On NM items, this might have the opposite or no effect at all.

And what if AH didn't show how many items are placed on AH or only a general idea of how many? If it had a general amount like "1-10", "11-20", etc., then maybe people would be less tempted to raise prices especially on NM drops. On a NM that has 1 item on AH, I can easily put mine up for an increased price if I know more than 1 sale occur each day, but if I have a general idea of "1-10", then there is the possibility I cannot sell mine and I would have to lower the price to make mine sell.
 
That's like saying because there's a fire you want to rip the alarm off of your ceiling to "solve the problem."

You don't understand that price raising is because there's more demand than supply.The answer is to stop SE from limiting the supply based off a NM system that was designed for a much different population.

Prices rising are unpleasant, so is sneezing. They are very similar in functionality, because they are expressions of a system that is moving in a negative direction, and a pressure valve to correct the problem. It's like saying we won't get sick if we cut off our noses to stop sneezing.
 
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How is price rising a pressure valve? When people craft, they make certain items like Capes and such that are basically too abundant and need to be removed from the system. SE introduced Guild Points to remove a large portion of the items people craft so they can be used to gain points and then trade those points in for +synthesis gear and other crafting items. This is the same thing as gil. There is too much of it. The value of a single gil is worth far less like the cape is worth significantly less because of the over abundance. You conclude it is only natural, but after a certain point it gets out of hand. A stack of my crafting materials went from 120k to 180k in the span of 2-3 months. You don't think this is a little rediculous? You must realize there is a limit to how much the system can take and it will begin to break down. At what point should we say enough is enough? When a mithkabob is 10k each? 20k? 1 mil? People are and have been quitting because things are out of control. SE is slow to realize there are problems and even when it does notice them, their "fixes" are no better than wishing real hard hoping it will go away. The AH tax was a step in the right direction, but people were so accustomed to not paying taxes that they cram into batallia downs to avoid it. To be honest, that may have even helped to increase the dispariaging difference in cost between NM drops and normal mob drops.
 
It's a very complicated system but the basics are simple.

Prices are going up? Examine the cause, don't jump on the result. Prices going up is like an alarm going off. To give a good real world example look at oil prices and their huge spike. Not as much to go around = prices go up.

If meat kabobs are going up in price, I'd say the ratio of people farming to people using has changed. If too many people want kabobs, and too few farm then the price raising is a good thing. For one it motivates people to farm the ingrediants more, for another it allows the people who want it more to buy it eliminating buyers who can't afford it.

The problem is the supply and demand, the price raise is simply the alarm going off. By controlling prices you don't fix the problem you simply make it worse. Instead farmers, with no additional incentive, don't fill the need. There are less kabobs overall, and more people than ever can't get their food.

Sure prices have gone through the roof lately, maybe, but as an economy we are living like kings lately. Sure maybe SH cost 9 mill. A year ago when they were 3 mill not too many people actually had them. Free trade economies are dynamic, you can't look at inflation as their only measure of success. Price control would only stunt growth and cast us all into the poor house.
 
Firestreak said:
Prices are going up? Examine the cause, don't jump on the result. Prices going up is like an alarm going off. To give a good real world example look at oil prices and their huge spike. Not as much to go around = prices go up.
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Sorry, but that is not quite correct.
For one, the in-game economy can simply not be compared to the real world economy, as the in-game economy is extremely simple, while the real world one is not.

Supply and demand for a particular item is not the sole cause for that items price. A major factor is the devaulation of in-game currency as more and more of it is introduced into the market every single second. The other issue is that that there is no absolute value of gil. Each player has a different value they attribute to a gil, or a million gil or whatever.

A true noob, someone who just starts playing now, can not fathom that there are people who would consider 10M for itemX as cheap. Someone who 'makes 100M a week doesn't mind at all to spend 10M on something they need, especially considering that they have nothing else to spend money on.

By all means, simplify FFXI economics, but don't just simplify it down to pure supply and demand for items.
 
Sculli said:
Sorry, but that is not quite correct.
For one, the in-game economy can simply not be compared to the real world economy, as the in-game economy is extremely simple, while the real world one is not.
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Same principles, the only difference is in the real world we have control over currency. Hence the dollar devales at a slower rate than gil. But there was a time that we bought Lousiana for 20 bucks. It just works slower because in real life the government controls its currency production and in here gil is constantly being created.

Sculli said:
Supply and demand for a particular item is not the sole cause for that items price. A major factor is the devaulation of in-game currency as more and more of it is introduced into the market every single second. The other issue is that that there is no absolute value of gil. Each player has a different value they attribute to a gil, or a million gil or whatever.
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Yes, as I answered above, inflation is more rapid in FF. Of course here it's actually capped to a point. There is effort behind creating gil here, in real life, the government could print out a trillion dollars if they were inclined in an instant. It's capped here to the point that gil will always have an effort value behind it.

Sculli said:
A true noob, someone who just starts playing now, can not fathom that there are people who would consider 10M for itemX as cheap. Someone who 'makes 100M a week doesn't mind at all to spend 10M on something they need, especially considering that they have nothing else to spend money on.
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Yeah and I'm pretty well off here, but in real life I am a college student. The idea of buying a 2006 BMW doesn't cross my mind, my head is concerned with more baser needs like ramen noodles and affording cable. Should I move to Cuba?

Sculli said:
By all means, simplify FFXI economics, but don't just simplify it down to pure supply and demand for items.
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That's all there really is to it. You could come up with a hundred examples of prices going up or down and I could come up with a hundred reasons as to why. Every time it will have something or other to do with a free market economy.

As stated the prices on every item is rising. That's because demand is rising, it's steadily been rising since the day FF was public. The more people have a scorpion harness, the more everyone feels gimp not having a scorpion harness. But... not enough supply, not fast enough production. NM system is the problem, limits us. Forces farmer's prices up as a result.
 
That's not true though. More people are quitting now than before and thus a lot less people play than before. I used to be able to do a search on any given day and find ~4k people on a year ago, now I barely see 3k. So why with less people and more items is the demand still high and supply still low?
 
Its just my own opinion but I think they should just get rid of the price history. If ppl see the price history, their going off that on how much the item is worth......they dont have time to come to their own conclusion as to what they think the worth of this item is.

If there is no price history everyone will be forced to sell/buy the item for exactly how much they think it is worth.
 
Lavi said:
That's not true though. More people are quitting now than before and thus a lot less people play than before. I used to be able to do a search on any given day and find ~4k people on a year ago, now I barely see 3k. So why with less people and more items is the demand still high and supply still low?
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because more people have multiple jobs and keep more equipment.

example - i have 4 jobs 70.


trizzip said:
Its just my own opinion but I think they should just get rid of the price history. If ppl see the price history, their going off that on how much the item is worth......they dont have time to come to their own conclusion as to what they think the worth of this item is. If there is no price history everyone will be forced to sell/buy the item for exactly how much they think it is worth.
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thats a horrible idea. do you wanna go into a department store and not see a price tag and just "pay" whatever you think its worth? lol
 
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Lavi said:
That's not true though. More people are quitting now than before and thus a lot less people play than before. I used to be able to do a search on any given day and find ~4k people on a year ago, now I barely see 3k. So why with less people and more items is the demand still high and supply still low?
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This game is not as new know. When I played Asheron's Call my server had around 3000 people on it. I came back a year and a half after quitting to check up on things and there were 800 on. People don't just quit because of economic reasons.

On a side note, the more people that quit the better for the economy. Since the biggest problem always had been limited resources from a flawed system that pumps out only so much of a specific item / server each day. Hell, we've even seen people butt heads over Wyrms in the flameboard.

Big as you all think the FF world is, compared to other games it's actually very, very TINY. We use the airship as a means of convieniance to shave 10 minutes off not two hours. I played in Asheron's Call two years and not once did I ever experience hindered progressed from competition of another player.
 
I like the idea of using this system but I just have my doubts whether it would be effective.

You would have the QCDN population shopping here and they have the AH as an alternative. So they would have the choice of the two prices. However, I could see people manipulating the system by buying the low priced goods on QCDN and going back to the AH for a quick profit. There would still be people on the server thinking the AH is the only option.

Or...maybe I'm not sure how it would avoid this problem.
 
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