So hey. How about this inflation, huh?Follow

In regards to economics, there are many items that still defy this. Emperor's Hairpin broke 1,000,000 gil the other day... but this doesn't seem to simply be a matter of inflation or supply and demand. I'm in no way an expert in the field of economics, but something still just doesn't seem right.

I see the same people camping the hairpin each day, some of their names appearing in the AH history several times in a row. I'm sure this is happening with other items as well. In a period of ~6 month, the hairpin has jumped in price by about 250%. Many consumables and other items have only risen in very small amounts, and in fact, some items have dropped a great deal lately. Usually anywhere from 4-8 emperor hairpins will sell each day, and yet there are many items that sell much less frequently that are a fraction of the price. Is this still indicative of a supply/demand problem?

I'll never fully understand this stuff... not to mention that I don't really care much for economics. I just wish I didn't have to spend 50% of my playing time trying to raise money for equipment, spells, food and other supplies. 50% of this game is fun, while the other 50% feels like a job.

Chowdah - Whitemage
Bismarck

Sh[b][/b]!t, I am the cheapest high lvl that there is, I have never crafted, I farm scorpions and sell their shells for pennies. I also sell crystals, and I am the worst undercutter that there is. I sell my items 10% less than what they are in order to sell fast. I have had all the equipment I ever wanted, never the Uber stuff, always NQ, save Espadon+1. I had leapings once when Lizzy popped in front of me and I got the drop, which I gave to a friend once when I thought I was done with FFXI.

I am cheap and I made it to 54 DRG, and 71 PLD. It can be done, you dont need the best equipment, is all about skills. But if you dont the same people that rant about the economy being messed up are the ones that wont invite you into a party because you dont have THE BEST EQUIP, thus making you a n00bz.

Edited, Fri Mar 11 19:17:53 2005 by JoLOveS

Okay, motherfu[/b]ckers tankng my karma: Show yourselves. I knew it was going to happen, I just expected the people doing it wouldn't be chickensh[b]it and might actually have the balls to say something to me about what they're doing. Come on, what are you waiting for?

To the rest of you: Thank you for the discussion. I, too, do not believe that this is as simple as "supply and demand" and economics, and I don't appreciate being talked down to like I'm too stupid to understand any of it. Neither, I'm sure, do the rest of us. Velfire, I understand that you and everyone else who understands economics are tired of explaining it, but I don't think it's fair that you automatically got on your high horse here. My father is an accountant, understands economics better than anyone I know, explains things to me all the time, and he still sits there and says that our (national) economy is a mess, even if he can understand it. It's not a lack of understanding, it's frustration, pure and simple, and we are all, every one of us, with whatever understanding we have of the situation, entitled to it. And we are entitled to better treatment than the superiority complex of those who throw Wikipedia articles at us and dismiss us as uneducated.

I don't want a lecture, I want it acknowledged how completely and irrevocably screwed up what is going on is. It's GREED, not supply and demand or any of your other convenient economics buzzwords - which you, Velfire, acknowledged yourself as "vague but useful" - unless that fits into some convenient economic model somewhere. And I'm getting more than a little tired of everyone who's taken one college course shrugging it off and telling the rest of us to "suck it up" because they think they're smarter than us. Normal price fluctuations, okay. But Saiyuri is absolutely right. This is PEOPLE, not economy. And it's not "normal" in any way and you cannot possibly expect me to read a few articles and be completely okay with it. And you know what? How do you know I haven't taken a class? I could have a degree in this and still be completely pissed off that all of the things I wanted to buy have doubled in price over the course of ONE WEEK. I'm pissed off, not uneducated, not stupid. That isn't fair. Don't talk down to me. Don't talk down to any of us. I acknowledge your frustration, the LEAST you can do is acknowledge mine.

gah okay one more thing about economics: In a real economy doesn't somebody usually DO something about the problem of monopolies controlling and overpricing things? Antitrust suits, anyone? You know... the government? Boy SquareEnix sure has been doing a great job of that! This may be an economy but it is far from a perfect one that functions the way all your precious economic models should describe. When you have people injecting money into the system artificially all the time, that throws half your theories out the window. There is no provision for gilsellers and what they do in any economic model I've seen or had thrust down my throat. I HAVE been reading this sh[/b]it in a desperate effort towards understanding so maybe I won't be so furious when this crap happens anymore, and it has yet to work. Okay, it's an economy. It's all economics. Are you happy now? Here's the problem: IT'S A COMPLETELY CORRUPT ECONOMY. If you try to tell me that I cannot be frustrated and angry with that, well... I don't even know what to say to you.

As to those of you suggesting that I quit, I have. Many times. It's the people, the GOOD people, who keep bringing me back. Also, something you should know about me: I like to talk about the negative s[b]hit no matter how happy I am. :) And third, I never post on these boards anymore because of what a mess they've become - but remember what I've tried to do in the time I have been posting? Secret Santa? Valentine's Day? The convention? It's not ALL bad, is it? If I'm fed up it's because people have been constantly disappointing me. This is no different. But the GOOD people still make it worthwhile.

ps shackleton we really miss you :(

Edited, Fri Mar 11 19:59:30 2005 by Byaina

I thought about it.. I want to help also.
SMOKE A DOOBIE



Edited, Sat Mar 12 01:49:46 2005 by Hiptaruu

Well look at the bright side... paying 2.5k for a chocobo is technically cheap now *^.^*

I think it's amazing that Byaina got Karma-bombed for something that is actually happening. No, it's not all supply and demand, it's an economy of greed. Leaping boots and Hairpins for a million gil? Seriously, that's gilsellers, look at the logs. Supply and demand's standard rules fly out the window when a product is monopolized, that's why monopolies are illegal in free market based economies. Don't talk S+D if you're not going to take all the factors into consideration. Rate up.

Edited, Fri Mar 11 20:17:51 2005 by galkaBST

All I have to add here Byaina is I totally understand your frustration.

Be on the lookout for sporadic and very dramatic price
decreases in (GOLDSMITHING)

For those of you getting ready to level that craft.

Camp the AH is all I am going to say
Gold, Mythril and Silver ingots will become
"Gil Friendly" for those needing to buy them.

oh no, Zander ><

I sell silver ingots :(

I always undercut! :( But not by too much, or I don't profit at all...

you know what.. i just read thru some of the responses on here..

I want to actually lower it back too.. I will help with Goldsmithing prices. If we get together, and find a group that will buy it low, and sell it for cheaper than the going price..

We could make crafting a bit easier again.. 20k for a gold ore.. omg.. cmon.. anyways..

I would like to withdrawl my last statement, because i took my own advice, and would like to join in the helping restore the economy..

Why not?

You can argue economics with everyone all day if you want to, it doesn't answer this situation. I'm sorry, someone paid 1.5 MILLION (1,500,000) gil for an emp hairpin in the history recently. That is not supply and demand. There is no shortage of emperor hairpins to cause that great an increase. There is no rush on them to cause the shortage, people buy and sell them everyday, they are not uncommon. That is merely a player who, for whatever reason, had enough gil and didn't care about spending it enough to pay 1.5 million for an item some of us can remember going for 300-400k. Economics does fit into this game, this is a player based economy and we do control it... to an extent.

There is no way this is just simple economic growth on our servers... if it was natural, then we would all have enough money to be paying for these items and not ******** about it. But... we don't. There is no way you can keep up, you farm 500k for an item, and by the time you get it, it's 600k. You get another 100k, and lo' and behold, it is now 800k. You struggle, you are growing impatient, you preservere. 1 million gil. People are not going to be able to keep up with this inflation forever and will either quit or these uber items will become what they supposedly are, uber. Not everyone will have them anymore, and we will have to quit shunning melees from our parties because they do not have a haubergeon, or a ninja because he does not have a hairpin at lvl 24. Anyway, thats a jumbled mess of my thoughts at 1:30 in the morning... and my first post ever. I hope everyone makes fun of me and calls me a sock puppet like they did to shackleton! yay!

OK.

I have been reading this thread and I have a few points that I would like to make. There are some very positive concepts presented here and I would hate to see my fellow players band together to try and make a change in vein, so here it goes.

Firstly do not think that by undercutting at the AH you are going to change the price of the items there. Most of the people who dominate those items will use the same strategy as you. They will buy your items for the lower price that you have listed them at and relist them at the high price (thusly you would be making you enemy more money).

The only true way to defeat the system is to avoid the AH. Not as easy as it sounds. You should all have bazzaar type threads within your LS forums and offer the items to each other at what they are worth instead of what gilsellers think that they are worth. Community and resistance is the only way to defeat forced inflation.

Also all of you will have to be more tolerent of players with bad gear. Maybe if you pt with one of them you could sell them your good gear at a fair price. But the AH is controlled by those who would like to see you pay 1mil for everything. So avoid it if you can.

The game has good people in it. Just the other day some guy gave me a telport Altep scroll for a d2 (Duerga..thank you very much. The whm that I gave it to idolizes you now). I informed him that it was worth 200k on the AH and he said he would not participate in that. So I took it and gave it to my LS.

Community is the way to defeat this. You canot change the sytem, but you can make your own. Leave the AH to the gil sellers/buyers on the high priced items and let them buy and sell to each other perpetually. I know you cannot possibly avoid the AH in all cases, maybe not even in most cases, but you can at least try. You would be surprised at the returns of a grateful player when you need help with something.

One final note. IF Squeeniz really wanted to fix the economy issue, they could do it with about 2 hours of research. All that would need to be done is to make all those way overpriced NM drops RARE/EX. Then who ever wanted the item could go camp it, but no one could sell it. At least then you would know that you were competing with other player who needed the item as opposed to someone camping it for their 9-5. Im sure that this would have an impact as gillsellers would look other avenues to get money. But they would have to go farm like every one else. And while they may be able to jack the prices on some items it wont be as bad...because all those items have multiple drop points as opossed to say one drop point.... every 24 hours. But it would efect the gillsell economy too. I bet if they couldnt perpetually bot NM's that they would have to actually employ more gillsellers because actuall human interaction would be needed to make money. Then you would see a raise in the price of gil and less buyers. Squeeniz could jack the price of the GILSELL AH if they wanted to, but they havent. So its up to you. If you know who the gillsellers are and what they are selling share that info with your community so we can avoid their wares (or the wares of your greedy fellow players if thats the case). They will not have gill to sell if you dont buy from them. Make the economy wreckers work for it. Dont just give it to them.

PS. Real economic models hold no relevance to FFXI economy. In the real world one simply cannot go out and buy some money. Also real economic models are based on the availabilty of the resource. Real trees dont respawn(well they do but the repawn rate is around 50 years). Live stock doesnt just pop. There are no quests other than your 9-5.

Real econimcs are based heavily upon the education of your workforce, the availability of natural resources, your geographical location, taxation rates, and your trade partners (and their needs). FFXI AH is poor exscuse for an econonimic model(I am of the opinion that you should be able to do REAL auctions). There are some basic econimic concepts that are shared, but thats about as far as it goes. But dont get mad about it. Its human nature to be greedy. Do something about it if it bothers you. You have a multitude of options for trying to combat the solution. Apathy solves 0% of any problem.

Thanks.

(sorry i write long posts with poor grammar. I blame Coca-cola corp.)

I can certainly understand your anger about the most recent set of price hikes, but you have to look at the facts. Yes, these are legitimate players doing this to one another, but you can't challenge someone to provide you with a good reason and exclude any mention of gilsellers, because like it or not, while they aren't the only cause they ARE one of several. The economy is fairly well tied to the prices of certain items accessible through NMs or BCNMs, and while it's true that people CAN make a difference in the prices of most items, I don't think I heard anyone touch on what could be done that might have the most dramatic impact(if someone did, I apologize...this was a lot of anger to read through :P) on these rapidly destabilizing prices: camp your own items.

Before anyone flames me, I realize that it isn't always an option to camp an item you need at the level you need it, but a lot of the time, you really can camp an item you want(you honestly can't make an argument for NEEDING any of it, my PLD doesn't NEED both kidneys to tank.) at roughly the same level that it's useful to you. You can't camp a hairpin at 24, but you can camp it past 30 and still get quite a bit of use out of it. You can't camp a kote at 34, but you can by 50, and it's still a viable item for later game, where it would be far more useful to you than earlier. I realize a lot of people don't play this game often enough to spend days camping items, but I also realize that a lot of you do. I know I play often enough to camp my own items, which I do, usually. If people camped their own items in any applicable case, then they could sell them to people who don't have the time for such things at a moderate price, and we could all move on with our lives. Most people don't want to, gilsellers are willing to, and the dance goes on and on. I apologize for the length of my post, and my nonsensical analogies, but I just thought my perspective could be put to some use.