I don't get it.

Rappa said:
They are the people who made the sniper's rings go from a steady 2mil to about 2.5-3mil in a few days.
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I guess my point is that prices can't possibly be steady for long. ;)
They do tend to stay steady for a while, and then there is an "inflation adjustment" where the price for any one item is raised to a point where people do not buy the item anymore, then it is lowered a bit, and then it is steady at that level till the next inflation adjustment.
 
Shit, I'm going to buy all my non Rare/Ex end game crap for my RDM right now... (thank God I'm a BLM and have the jewelry already).
 
Mirewen said:
Shit, I'm going to buy all my non Rare/Ex end game crap for my RDM right now... (thank God I'm a BLM and have the jewelry already).
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I thought Exclusive meant you couldn't trade, buy, or sell it.
 
Well I've been thinking on this topic a while and read this whole thread. It's a pretty good discussion going on here, not really much flaming anymore.

But for all the arguments people have presented the RMT is really the only explanation.

I'm going to use the Hauby as my example. I started 16 months ago and Hauby was 2.1M. I finally farmed up the gil and got mine two days before Thanksgiving this year for 4.1M. When I left for home last week it was 5M. Today I come back and the average price is 11M with the last sale being 14M. That's 6-9M more in one week versus a measly 3M in the previous 16 months.

For the crafter explanation where they need to cover losses When you fail two times and then finally make the item you can't expect to post it for three times the cost to cover your expenses, it just won't move off the shelf. You can sometimes post for maybe 1k, 10k, 100k more depending on the item, but you just can't post for 7M more because you are a bad crafter.

For the end-game rich player explanation. Even someone with 100M in his kitty not doing anything, I highly doubt he'd go off and randomly decide to buy a Hauby at 11M and support the new rediculous pricing. They may have lots of disposable income that when an item goes up 1%, 5%, 10%, they may just go "eh *shrug*" and buy it at the new price. But I'm sure even they are taken aback by an item at 2x, 3x the cost last week.

The best explanation is RMT. IGE and other companies like them make their living getting in game money and selling it to players. They have large reserves to satisfy demand for their product. Their in game characters avoid putting money back into the economy. They don't get the best equipment, they probably don't have lots of ninja tanks, etc. These companies then decided to have a sale. I'm sure this attracted more than a few players and essentially released into the economy large sums of cash that normally aren't there. Players then go out and with their new found riches buy all the items they couldn't afford before. Hauby at 11M? That would be $55 dollars, or about the cost of a new computer game, which I'm sure they got one or two of for Christmas.

Meanwhile those of us that use the in-game economy to make game money are hard hit. Now are all items this way? No, but all the coveted ones are (SH, Hauby, Sniper's, etc.) becasue that is where the buyers will want to spend there gil. You don't go out getting 10M in gil to buy a lizard set.

What would truly be scary (and might be happening) is if IGE and the other companies actually crafted the items you buy. Then when you spend 11M on a Hauby with money you bought, you put that money back into the gilseller coffers so they can sell it to you again. That would truly be a visious death spiral on the economy.
 
<3 Gregedor lol. He just basically said what I've been trying to say to you guys this whole time. And chances are, Gregedor, that IGE guys -do- craft stuff. It'd be even worse if they jack prices up by like 5% every single time they did it. By the end of the month, you're looking at like 400% increase in price, which just helps them monopolize that much more.
 
Thnikkaman said:
I thought Exclusive meant you couldn't trade, buy, or sell it.
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She said NON rare/ex
 
Except that an endless radical price increase is not sustainable, whether the buyer of an item is a gil buyer or not doesn't really matter, everyone will have a price at which they simply say: Fuck it, I am not buying that!
 
Sculli said:
Except that an endless radical price increase is not sustainable, whether the buyer of an item is a gil buyer or not doesn't really matter, everyone will have a price at which they simply say: Fuck it, I am not buying that!
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Well let's take a trip down history lane then. Post WW1 Germany suffered much the same thing we witness now. In their case they were in severe debt following the war and still had to pay reparations to the victors. The solution for at least their local citizenry was for the governement to flood the market with more printed money.

Obviously the money became worthless and so more was printed so that the common man could eat. Eventually people would make runs on stores in the morning because by the afternoon they couldn't afford it. There are pictures of people with wheelbarrows full of paper money going in to get a loaf of bread. The individual mark was worthless.

For us, IGE has released a lot of money into the economy. When the price on goods doubles, essentially it'd be the same as having your dollar worth 50 cents now. So, I need a full dollar and an easy way to get one is buy it with my real cash and gilsellers will be there to supply it. And they'll let me just keep trading real dollars for game money. I can put into the economy as much as IGE has. At what point that is, I have no clue. But if they keep taking that money back each time I buy a Hauby then it might well be a long time. At that point I'll need a wheelbarrow full of silk threads to do what one stack did a month ago.

Now you are right in that SH are not bread. You don't need one to survive. At some point it would seem reasonable to have the price cap out, but where is that level? I don't know, obviously it's more than 3x the normal market rate was a week ago. If it's anything like real life (which is a HUGE stretch on my part) it'll top out and then retreat to some support level based upon the market forces at work. I don't think that prices will ever make it back to pre-xmas levels though.
 
Greg's right. Prices will drop a little. But not substantially. This is going to kill WHM's unfortunately, because it's going to take a while for Teleports to be worth more gil. I realize it's gone from like 500 to 2000g per teleport, but if everything is sextupling in price every day, we're gonna get screwed. Same with people who rely on quests and missions. I'm sure when SE made the airship prices to be 200g apiece, and quests that give like 6000g were supposed to be outstandingly expensive. Now people throw 1,000,000g in like it was nothing.
 
I just don't understand what the problem with that is.
In WoW the level 40 mount is essentially 100gold, which a year ago was a lot of cash. Today my level 19 twink is running around with 600 gold worth of rare items and the 100 gold I will have to spend to get a mount is a joke.

People throw 1M gil around because it is nothing to them, they have been playing forever and a day, have several hundreds of millions accumulated, and absolutely nothing to spend it on.
 
I believe the main problem with inflation is that there are very few similar products to purchase. There's only one Haubergeon and not some knock-off product. Fake Rolex's, for example, work nearly the same, are almost as functional, and are much cheaper. Haubergeon, in this example, would be the real Rolex.
 
Sculli said:
I just don't understand what the problem with that is.
In WoW the level 40 mount is essentially 100gold, which a year ago was a lot of cash. Today my level 19 twink is running around with 600 gold worth of rare items and the 100 gold I will have to spend to get a mount is a joke.

People throw 1M gil around because it is nothing to them, they have been playing forever and a day, have several hundreds of millions accumulated, and absolutely nothing to spend it on.
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1. If you have time for WoW and upholding a giant forum that like 300 people talk on all the time, how com you quit FFXI and put "reality is such a harsh mistress"?
2. I JUST said that! (What you have in bold) And people buy gil a lot now. If not, then explain to me how lots of people went from rags to riches in like a day? Obviously not farming to go from Lv1 RSE to +1 everything and Leaping Boots and stuff. People didn't just accumulate over this time. Lots did, but lots just bought gil.
 
Antor said:
I believe the main problem with inflation is that there are very few similar products to purchase. There's only one Haubergeon and not some knock-off product. Fake Rolex's, for example, work nearly the same, are almost as functional, and are much cheaper. Haubergeon, in this example, would be the real Rolex.
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They DID make Leaping Boots seperate from Bounding Boots. But all that did was make Leaping Boots more expensive and more people camp Lizzy now. I agree with Antor when he says they should make more things to choose from.
 
Thnikkaman said:
1. If you have time for WoW and upholding a giant forum that like 300 people talk on all the time, how com you quit FFXI and put "reality is such a harsh mistress"?
2. I JUST said that! (What you have in bold) And people buy gil a lot now. If not, then explain to me how lots of people went from rags to riches in like a day? Obviously not farming to go from Lv1 RSE to +1 everything and Leaping Boots and stuff. People didn't just accumulate over this time. Lots did, but lots just bought gil.
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1. The reality quote has nothing to do with quitting FFXI, I didn't realize someone would see the two connected.
2. My point is that prices would be where they are at now whether people buy gil or not. Maybe not exactly where they are at now, give a million or two here or there, but they would be high by your standards, regardless of RMT. The recent jump in price of items is the natural adjustment of the price to closer reflect current market value. Yes, xmas gil sale may have had their part, but it would have happened regardless.
 
sculli, i have to disagree. a jump over the course of the christmas season starting when the christmas gil sales did and prices suddenly jumping can not be overlooked as unrelated and in-evitable market increases. the difference is between gilbuyers having the money and people who farm and camp and work hard for their gil is gilsellers are more inclined to pay the extra bit NOW instead of waiting for one to get put into the AH at the current price. the monk who farmed for hours and camped NM's for weeks on end to get the 4mil for a SH is less likely to pay 5 when it comes up than the guy who just bought 20 million gil.

Crafters who have too much money already (earned though it may be) are also inclined more to pay now and raise the price because their source of gil is definately more stable, this is for crafter's who've already got their 90+ levels, they'll just raise the price of the result to compensate.

I can't blame them or disagree, i've done it when i know i have gil coming or just got lots but never on this scale.

this is all just my opinion, take it as that. likely biased, probably uninformed and uneducated on the topic, i'm just putting out what i see.
 
heh, inflation is heavier here than it is on most servers. I can't even blame gilsellers. I blame the ppl who were too lazy to fight them off before this huge mess even began. Ppl easily got disheartened seeing these ppl with their shady tactics always up like be insomniacs always there watching and waiting. Early campers got sick of it and moved on to somethings else. And when the gilsellers followed they moved again. Ppl gave up too quick and the gilsellers here were able to generate a lot of gilflow because of it. And today all these newcomers and poor players resort to buying gil because they feel like they could never accomplish camping a monster for its loot, and they're too lazy or could care less to try.
 
Sculli said:
I agree.
Consider this:
Sniper Rings have been rising from a few hundred thousands to 2M over the course of what? Two years?
How much gil has been introduced by the players to the economy during that time? How much of that gil has been destoyed (i.e.: choboo rides and anything that actually removes gil from the game), and how much of it has simply been redistributed?
Now consider someone having sniper rings for sale, and thinking to himself, I wonder what I can sell these for...
Honestly, if you could sell something for 4M, would you sell it for 2M just to be a nice guy to some dude you don't even know? Or would you say: Well, if someone is willing to pay 4M for them, I will let them?

My point is that insane amounts of gil have been accumulated by some players over the years. Just because you (as in the reader, not you personally Mattaru) have never seen any large amount of gil doesn't mean every other player is like that.

I restarted Sculli recently, and with an initial 50k Lecan loaned me I increased my available gil (available, as in not tied up in items), to over 500k in less than 10 days. The original Sculli never got higher than level 12 it was I think, but I had one craft to 65 and a couple others around 40+, and even though it may seem hard to believe, I never bought gil. Not that I have a moral problem with it, I just didn't have a need to buy any because I found it easy to "make" gil in game.

A lot of people bitch about rich JP players all the time. I don't really know much about the JP players, but I can imagine that those of honor do not by gil either, yet have millions and millions and millions of gil to not do anything with.

I know it sounds like I am defending RMT, but I am really not, I am saying that the RMT impact on the game is smaller than people make it out to be. If you, the reader, is able to take a step back, and apply rational thought to how much gil is generated every second by normal players in the game, and then calculate how much RMTers could possibly generate in the same time, then you will realize that RMTers are just a fraction of a games economy.

Some just give RMTers too much credit, and don't think about the normal guy who wants to make some cash for himself trying to sell something at a higher price than it had been sold for before.
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On the sniper ring issue: The rise in price of Sniper Rings is reasonable since the decreased availability of Archers Rings, ive said that, my point is that how is the rapid increase in price being so easily SUPPORTED BY CONSUMERS. Your theory is that people always had that money just lying around and are now using it. I go to college, I play a good deal less there, but I in no way just saved money waiting for christmas, if i had the money at the time for an item i used it. Its true that to be most efficient you should sell at people highest willingness to buy, my point is that peoples willingness to buy is very easily increased if they have an easy option for income. Some people get this through NM luck but as we all know for the average level character income isnt always an easy option, we all complain time to time about how SE likes to make things needlessly difficult. During christmas an easy option for income became even more easy and people were getting some more expendable income irl. It seems simple to me.

Yes you may have found it easy to make gil on your character, but easy is very comparative. How great were your necessary expenditures? Did you need to make 30M to buy your gear? Did you even need 2M? Items that I can best farm have maybe quadrupled since the ps2 release, my gear now has had a much greater percentage increase, so please dont make the argument once again without backing it up with some real evidence that lets say 8M then is 30M now, because it isnt, its been shown time and time again. Id also like to know what craft, some crafts are very easy to break even on, so all it takes is either time, a crafting guide or alot of money to start with and a crafting guide. Im not saying that you arent a skilled crafter or anything, but even i'll admit WW 1-69 for me has been about as hard as BC 1-30 or less than 10 lvls a time past 50. And to be honest BC is not a very good profit maker till about 70, with LC up to 30 at least when you can hq lowbie armor, and woodworking is overcrowded (i even tried to do scarlet sap which i pulled out of my ass and its just slow as hell).

About your second paragraph. Lets take Dowzer for example, he has a lot of gil and experience, now I bet Dowzer has had his Hauby, Hauberk, Snipers etc etc for a while. Why would he (or in the larger sense people with a lot of gil capable of supporting this inflation) be buying these items again? People who buy these items most likely arnet the people with massive amounts of gil that they have had just by playing a long time and accumulating, because along with that gil, they probably have plenty of armor accumulated such as snipers, SHs, Hauby etc. The most gil Ive ever had was about a month and a half ago, 4M, thats liquid assets mind you. I have BC at 66 and WW at 69. I have not seen a lot of gil, but I work hard for it.

On your last sentence, people raising prices isnt wrong, but there is no check on it when you can just go to IGE and buy gil. That was my point about gas earlier, peoples income doesnt magically increase when ever someone demands more gil/money for a product, thus you can reach an equilibrium between price and quantity.
 
Dowzer said:
And a Vclaw in Batallia for 19mil isn't as simple as that?

I posted that shot of gil, because I can name over 10 people who probably have a lot more than that.
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There are at least 2000 people on the server, people with that amount of gil probably arent interested in buying Snipers Rings or SH, because they have it already, probably hq'd.

Has someone bought that V Claw? Until someone buys something at a price it doesnt matter. My point was that over the past week SH price overtook V Claw price by a M at least so it isnt just materials are tripling in price in over a week=inflation.

I dont see the worlds wealthiest 10 or even 20% saying "I have a lot of money I dont get the whole poverty thing" irl.
 
Thnikkaman said:
I thought Exclusive meant you couldn't trade, buy, or sell it.
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... read my post again. I'm going to buy all my non rare/ex stuff... I.E. things on the AH...
 
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