I think the big problem was in the development of the game. I come from real roleplaying and I learned quickly that giving merchants unlimited amount of money to buy things off players made them very rich, very fast. Just because you have something worth 10K doesn't mean a merchant is gonna have 10K laying around to take it off your hands.

a really good way to fix all of these problems is to create a gil cap. I'm not even sure how much gil is on each server, in the billions, or trillions. if there's a cap on the amount of gil in each server, then merchants will tell players "I'm sorry, but I don't have the money to buy that from you". money gets put back to merchants when people pay the usual AH fees, Chocobo fees, or pay for items from merchants, ect.

I've read over everyone's suggestions of making gil easier to obtain, ect, but the truth is that SE is still pumping out money, making gil worth less and less. it's not until people start putting money back into the economy, instead of SE pumping money into it will this problem be fixed.

**** if i can earn a living in RL by someone buying FFXI currency. Then let us do it. Why punish them if they are the ones camping a NM for weeks on end.

The amount of time spent on camping is well deserved. especially when dealing with the benjamins!!! "Next"

I know prices are jumping sky high. look people, It will hurt you and benefit you at the same time.

For example: Fresh Mugwort use to sell at an avg of 5k. It would take me a few hours to get 1 or 2. but now they're selling for 17k on the carbuncle server all I need to do is land a few of those and boom. I got the funds to craft other skills.

There are many ways to make gil.

Increase NM drop rates to 50%, then have them spawn 4 times every Vana'diel day. You want a specific item !? Bring your /Thief sub - Camp for it - get it - simple!

HNM, and BCNM ~ are a different story!

Gill sellers, and Gill buyers make me sick...

My 2 gil.

Edited, Wed Feb 16 12:24:05 2005

I'd like to point out a problem with some of the ideas that have been put forward as ways to make items affordable.

Increase the amount of gil dropped/make gil easier to get. If gil is easier to get people will be willing to pay more for items. As the people selling realize this the price of the items would rise. In other words, Leaping Boots would eventually triple in price if gil was three times easier to get.

Make NM drops Rare/Ex or otherwise limit the number of such drops a player can get. If it can be sold this would send the price of good drops skyrocketing without stopping gilsellers from making new characters to get the drops again. If the items were Rare/Ex anyone that wanted them would have to compete with everyone else that wanted the item, remember there are ~3000 people on each server, this would make items from long respawn time NMs particularly hard to get, quite aside from the question of killing the NM.

As far as money making problems, sure the only way to make 100k or 1mil quickly is with a lucky drop, but it is possible to make 10k an hour off of normal drops from normal enemies while giving the items to NPCs. It isn't nearly as fast, but it will get you money. There are other ways to make even more than 10k an hour off of normal enemies (I've personally cleared 20k an hour). Aside from that there are still BCNMs to do that can make lots of money with a little bit of luck.

Getting drops from NMs is the easyest way for a player to make lots of money with little help, but its not the only way to make money.

Oh, one more point, in Vana'Diel prices will always rise. This is caused by the fact that NPCs, and beastmen, create money. Think Germany between WW1 and WW2.

Edited, Wed Feb 16 08:30:02 2005

I just have to say this. Anyone to complain about gil farmers or bots needs to STFU. I know at least a hundred people in game that jack the prices of items. And they sure as hell don't do it because a group of **** wants to hunt a bat the entire time they play. Nor is it because they are looking to buy a stack of meat to craft with. Everyone wants to be paid for their time. If I take the time to camp an NM or raise a crafting skill you better believe I am going to get paid for it. That's how Kraken club goes from 6 mil to 27 mil the very next transaction. Or why a gobbie bag quest will set you back up to 500k. They have something you want. You need to decide how bad you want it. And all of you who say "Oh I am not high enough in level to farm" or "I don't have money to craft" FISH!!!! I know that each and everyone of us has had a night where we wait for at least 6 hours to get parties. As MNK I have waited close to 2 months. I have made over 5 mil in gil just fishing while waiting for parties. Do quests go on rank missions. Remember that almost everything sells to NPCs. It is not the huge number you want to see but it is gil and it adds up. Don't blame anyone but yourselves for being broke. And certainly don't blame your party for striving to be the best or want you to have the best gear. The best gear means you die less. The less you die the less they die. The less people die the mopre exp you get. More exp leads to higher levels which in turn leads to more fun. Therefor the best gear in parties = fun for everyone. As a side note to everyone who understands this concept of game play thank you for not being one of these guys.

my suggestions for fixing the problem, make it easier to farm materials for crafting so you can farm your own materials and ACTUALLY make a profit from the finished item. the problem is there is no way to make money BUT NM drops. where does that leave struggling noobs with no money, or power to fend for themselves finacially. i have lvl40 cooking and unless i spend hours upon hours of farming (which i cant do effectively at my lvl) the finished product is worth LESS than the sum of its ingredients, and economist or not......that just dont make sense. lets make the game PLAYABLE for everyone by increasing gil and making the NM drops less important to progressing in the game, and maybe making them harder for the diehard players who feel they have to prove something. lets make thes NM drops TROPHIES and not key pieces to game progress, and by god ppl, stop bein **** retentive perfectionist and stop requiring your party members to have perfect gear. what drives the prices up? People demanding someone in freakin yuhtunga jungle have a freakin emp hairpin and freakin leapin boots. lets all just remember bein noobs and help each other. this is our game and our world. we dont like gil sellers? lets top promoting them by remembering this games for fun and not a damn pissing contest. i think the real key in fixing the prob is turning the source of income to crafting rather than hours of NM hunting. this helps stop gil sellers in that no matter how much camping, farming, or harassing they do...they can only drop the price by flooding the market with over synthed items.

Rate up to Connery!!!! I was about to type that, u beat me to it. Cuz i could care less if they sell gil, people jacking prices arent gilsellers. more than 75% if the people iknow ingame camp AH and see what they can buy and sell for more. Its like RL, People want to make profit, even if its off something theyd never use, making an investment. but i still think its evil >_> [Thats too bad.]

you people are still the problem as well, cuz you are all inherantly greedy. the gilsellers raised teh prices on the items they dominated and then everyone else upped the prices on the items they dominated, wether or not they sold their gil. now that the bulk of the sellers are gone, i ask you all this...will prices fall?...heck no, why?...cuz you are all greedy basterds.

booya!

Hello there, I'm pretty new to the game but I am happy to see that SquareEnix has taken steps to improve the quality of our gaming expirance. Now being a "noob", I must ask what MPK stands for. Thank you in advance for any help.

finally SE took the problem we had for a while in there hands and banned the Gil sellers. thinking about it now, i have not seen any of the "cats" on Phoenix server today. (the "cats" are gil sellers on my server that have the word cat infront of there name) thank you SE outstanding work

I've said it before in posts elsewhere , and it's been mentioned in this post: make NM drops rare/ex. Some are already that way (i.e. Hornetneedle, Minstrel's Coat).
Why should some drops be rare/ex and others aren't? How did they determine which are?
Rare/ex = end of gil farming campers.

Damn! now my hump macro is completely useless! My ls friends are gonna be pissed when they see this.

Well the servers still haven't banned some of the envoys, and the zoojlkbllwla-j's and the Kof crew so not much has been done on Lakshmi.

Though I agree make the NM drops Rare/EX, saves from gil selling, saves the players to get the items they NEED and saves all the drama.

well only time will tell how this works out, i for one will sit back and watch what happens for the better or for worse.