Sorry its a little long, but i feel the needs to talk about this matter a bit i know its beating a very dead horse, but its the first time I've felt the need to talk about it.
The only thing that money seller affect are cornering the market on highly camped item like the Kote, archer ring and such.
People kept saying that just because someone buys gil that prices went up? Cause the "theory" is that if someone don't farm for their money they are less attached and willing to pay more. I think that if I pay a few hundred in real money that I'm gonna make it last as long as if I was gonna farm it. Yes buying gil caused sellers to exist, but which one came first? chicken or the egg.
If there weren't a demand for gil in the first place they wouldn't be here. Economic is about making use of limited available resource. Key word is limited: Gil seller compete with you in the name of their customer, it is as if you are competing with the buyer himself for that gil. Since this is a game and it can crank out resources infinitely, the limitation are the farming areas and the time to farm. Might not be fair that he can use a credit card and go watch **** and get the same amount of gil you are earning by farming.
But its can also be said, its not fair you have all that time to farm while they don't. "well if you can't farm the normal way, don't play" That statement is one of the more ingnorant statement out there directed at gil buyers. They pay the same amount to play as you, both have arguments and the reasonings to back it up. What give you the higher moral grounds? Its only a game afterall, some people call gil buyer losers: its like buying monopoly money. Some people looked at a person who farmed for 5 hours straigt and call him a loser, and need to go out in to the sun and get some responsibility. Which one is right?
The argument against gil buyers is
1. Injected money in to economy that aren't supposed to be there causing inflation
2. Took over resources that can be used by players for themselves instead of gil sellers profitting.
So campers are taken up farming spaces in zitah, hey if they weren't there, other players woudld've been there, the money already exist. These people farm 24/7 yet. But its also a fact that they DO NOT sell all the gil they made. Gil Buyers aren't all around you. Take the number of gil buyer you know and put it in a ratio with the numbers of player you now. What percentage is that? How much new money do you think they are injecting?
As for fish botter, they won't be driving up prices on AH anytime soon since they sell to NPC if its anything other than moats, and also the moat carp price have been the same for a year regardless of botters. So the argument about that is also moot.
All that's left is ofcourse the campers that corner the market on the highly valuable drops that is needed by someone like Ochiudo Kote. Money seller does not play a big part in this economy at all. When my bud bought his first sniper ring he paid 200k in Decemeber. Now sometimes it reached 500k. But did you noticed the number of players that have reached the level of sniper rings and are competing to buy the limited amount of snipers on sale? Sniper Rings aren't like your scale mail when you sell it back after you pass a certain level. Most people that buy Snipers intends on keeping it. Supply and Demand. Its still fluctuating up and down since I play NA PC released. If you look at it in the long run, the major fluct are when New players joined IE. PS2 or European, take a few months before it died down. Regardless of what some people think, Ochiudo and archer ring does not make the whole AH. Hence gil seller do affect the market, but its not as if they own the whole Fire crystal market. The items that they monopolized went up not cause some foolish gill buyers willing to pay more for them, its cause no one take the time to go outcamped them.
About the ores situation, have no one to blame but the Faqs on the internet that wrote Mining is good money. You noticed that as more and more players reach the stage where they won't get aggro anymore by Gusgen mob that they mine, in addition to the 6 gil campers that are there, the new miners and the old miners, alot of supply are gonna exist which drives down the price.
This AH works in patterns, up and downs and if you pay attention you will notice. Its only a game afterall, I'm not gonna wait until my astral ring price went up to 250k and sell it, if I need money i'll sell it at current price. It always seem like the stuff you just bought is more expensive than the list price and the sell back price is less. That is because of the leveling batch phenomenon I've mentioned above. People tends to buy items in batch and sells in batch, if you kept your old gears for at least a month after you finished with them , you will see that in that given months the price will fluctuate back and forth.