"When Stores Attack" or "No Ore For You"Follow

So maybe someone has had this problem, or knows what's going on, but I found it pretty strange.

I was in Bastok at the Goldsmith's guild, and I was too lazy to go out and kill Tunnel Worms for Copper Ore chunks. So I went to the guild store, selected "Buy," and then tried to buy Copper Ore only to find that I couldn't.

I had space in my inventory, I had more than enough gil, and yet the "Copper Ore -- 18 gil" line was grey, indicating that I couldn't buy any. I could by Zinc Ore and Silver Ore, but not Copper Ore.

Is it possible for stores to run out of a certain item? Has this happened to anyone else?

It's sad, but people will clean out the Goldsmithing Guild just to sell copper ore at 2-3 times the guild price. On Siren server, it's usually 10-20 gil per copper ore at the guild, 50 gil at the AH.

I'm not getting into a big argument about it, but here's why it's sad: people do this as a cheap way to make money. Granted, it's fair, but it's a pretty sad way to make money quick. I compare it to selling a "Make Gil Quick" guide on the web and telling people to farm Vultures for Fire Crystals.

They're trying to take advantage of the market. Simple as that.

It's 11 PM, so I'm not going any further with this surprisingly civil conversation with you.

I mean combo to use for this is to fish for moat carp to pass the hour and then raid the shop as soon as it opens to get your Ore for crafting cheap. Buy alot of it. The key to not wasting your time in MMORPG's is having something to do all the time. Fishing, Crafting, Grouping, Questing. I see people just lounging about in town looking for groups, if you are gonna just sit there, do something!

Yeah...umm, that's pretty much how the economy works. People that have sell to people that want. First person to an untapped oil field or vein of gold gets to sell the product. It's as valid as any other way of making money in this game.

People who buy the materials from the guild and resell at the auction house also cause the guild price to go up.

It's a form of natural price adjustment that was introduced into the game a long time ago, so the developers had already thought about people making easy money this way. Eventually, the guild prices will balance themselves out within the local economies.

The only problem I have with it is that people jam-pack the stores beforehand in order to grab the ore/ingots/what-have-you and you have to race everyone else to be the first person to buy the limited-supply goods. Forget selling them for money, I need them to craft things =(

-F

The guild price is based on demand (and possibly fame?) so the more often people buy out the guild to sell items on the AH, it drives the price up a bit. I've seen it happen with copper ore, started at 12 gil, spiked up to 19, topped out at 23, then came back down to 15. When it was high, there were about eight people at the guild waiting for it to open.

My problem with this tactic isn't so much that I disagree with the freeform economy that FFXI represents, but rather the fact that a few privledged people can short circuit this economy by taking advantage of an artificial shortage in certain supplies to boost their profits with little to no recourse by your average player.

2 examples:
Silk Thread - Sold for 14k/stack at AH, people saw this, harvested up tons of silk, with 100+ stacks on auction the price went down to 9k/stack. The economy works!

Mhuara Gharlic - Sold for 150 in shop, 600 in AH. Only place I've ever heard of to get it is in the shop (if Kolshushu is under beastman control)...however some jerk buys the shop out in less than 3 seconds every time the shop opens. Despite attempting to purchase _1_ bulb of garlic I am utterly unable to get a single one after 6 tries. Is the economy working here? NO! One person who is gifted with either a very fast connection or is possibly cheating is cornering the market on garlic using a method that requires no real skill or commitment.

However, there is a simple solution! Rather than limiting the guild to, for example, 8 bulbs of garlic per day (or whatever rediculously low number there is), why not limit the shop to 1 or 2 per customer per day (for rare items, more for common stuff). Players who want to resell their supply can do so without harming other player's abilities to get at least a little bit of the item each day and players who just need the items for actual crafting don't need to pay unfairly high AH prices because their connection isn't fast enough to out-buy whomever is hogging the supply.

Frankly, I would not be surprised to see some form of modifier in the future to prevent the "buy it all and sell if for profit" tactic players. Not that I think this tactic is in any way cheating or 'taking advantage of the system', but I think a balance should be considered.

They may end up installing a conditional modifier feature that says 'you can only buy from the guild if you are a member of the guild, and your maximum daily purchases are based on your craft skill level'. Either that or a simple 'maximum daily purchase' thing, like supermarkets have nowadays on their sale specials.

Of course, if it all was working like it was supposed to, guild shops would attempt to meet supply and demand better, and increase their prices - not on an hourly basis - but on a conditional modifier every day. Measuring what day is the most frequent shopping day, increasing prices, and getting enough supply shipped in to meet demand. If all that were reached, the old "buy and auction" tactic would become mute.

If ya wanna craft so bad, why not make it more like the RPG it is, and go gather stuff urself? Gardening, Harvesting, Mining, Logging... all that good stuff. Main complaint is probably from people that are either too lazy to do so, or don't have much time to play each day. If you don't have much time, don't worry about crafting anything, otherwise you'll end up old n shriveled before you actually get anywhere. :)

Here's a revolutionary idea. Get rid of NPC vendors altogether. Is there anything in the game that cannot be crafted, mined, harvested, fished, grown, looted or quested for? If so, make it not so and get rid of the vendors. That way you'll have an economy that accuratly reflects the value of its commodities.