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Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?
Honestly, I think everything's going to work itself out. Maybe I'm just being naively optimistic, but while prices fluctuated madly after the RMT bannings, things have started to stabalize again (granted, at a much lower price) on Fairy server. I can't comment on the high level "uber" gear (cause I have nowhere near the bankroll to even be looking at that stuff yet), but I haven't heard too much complaining from the 75's in my ls about gear prices. Prices on gear have dropped a lot recently, obviously, but they aren't too concerned about it. I work with a few peeps in my linkshell irl, and after the bannings and the bottoming out of the economy, we talked about it at length a few times. They agree it sucks that gear they spent millions on before is worth half what it was before, but to quote a friend "It's not like I'd sell it anyway, I worked to damn hard to get it in the first place". If anything, they're excited, because now they're picking up even more uber gear for much less then they would have paid before. So from the big ballers persepective, they don't care much. If anything, it's made them not sit on their money like they used to before and dump it back into the economy.
I can see from a crafter/farmer's perspective how the current down-turn in the economy would be pretty disheartening. I mine a lot, and ore prices have dropped a ton, Darksteel's used to net me 20k in profit and now I'm lucky if I get 13k. Of course I'm irritated by that; I'm not building a bankroll like I was before. On the flipside, though, there isn't nearly as much competition in Yughott as there was when I first started going down there, so the drop in price for ores is balanced out for me somewhat by the fact that I'm spending much less time running around looking for mining points that aren't already claimed. I don't have any hard figures (never really attempted to quantify it before) but I would bet that if I broke it down to gil/hour I'm making close to what I was making pre-banning. Of course, it's hard to compare, as some days I get 3-4 darksteels or golds down there and some days I get crap, but all in all it's not really something I stress about. If anything it's made mining less of a chore then before.
One thing S-E needs to focus on is getting new players into the game (there are so many peeps that I work with that ditched ffxi for WoW it's ridiculous), and I think that the drop in the economy actually helps keep new players playing, which is definitely a good thing with how bad it's getting trying to find mid-level players to party with nowadays. When I started playing stuff was ridiculously inflated, and if it wouldn't have been for the money I made bazaaring eggs during the Egg-stravaganza I probably would have gotten frustrated and quit. Someone that's just started playing probably isn't going to be enthused by the fact that they have to farm crystals for weeks to buy their level 7 gear, and I bet ffxi lost a lot of new players due to that seemingly endless grind for gil. With an influx of new legitamate players comes an influx of people selling those low-level items on ah, so the people that don't want to spend the time farming sheepskins will still have plenty of lowbies supplying them.
Right now, while the economy is still somewhat in a state of disarray, the general trade of goods is going to screwed up. But I'm confident it will work itself out eventually. Crafting will still be a pain with return on investment dropping, but from what the high level crafters in my ls have told me, crafting was always an expensive hobby.
Despite what happened to the economy in the short term, I'm still confident that removing the rmt's was a good thing in terms of game balance and playability, and those are the things S-E needs to focus on the most if they're going to attract new players.
Honestly, I think everything's going to work itself out. Maybe I'm just being naively optimistic, but while prices fluctuated madly after the RMT bannings, things have started to stabalize again (granted, at a much lower price) on Fairy server. I can't comment on the high level "uber" gear (cause I have nowhere near the bankroll to even be looking at that stuff yet), but I haven't heard too much complaining from the 75's in my ls about gear prices. Prices on gear have dropped a lot recently, obviously, but they aren't too concerned about it. I work with a few peeps in my linkshell irl, and after the bannings and the bottoming out of the economy, we talked about it at length a few times. They agree it sucks that gear they spent millions on before is worth half what it was before, but to quote a friend "It's not like I'd sell it anyway, I worked to damn hard to get it in the first place". If anything, they're excited, because now they're picking up even more uber gear for much less then they would have paid before. So from the big ballers persepective, they don't care much. If anything, it's made them not sit on their money like they used to before and dump it back into the economy.
I can see from a crafter/farmer's perspective how the current down-turn in the economy would be pretty disheartening. I mine a lot, and ore prices have dropped a ton, Darksteel's used to net me 20k in profit and now I'm lucky if I get 13k. Of course I'm irritated by that; I'm not building a bankroll like I was before. On the flipside, though, there isn't nearly as much competition in Yughott as there was when I first started going down there, so the drop in price for ores is balanced out for me somewhat by the fact that I'm spending much less time running around looking for mining points that aren't already claimed. I don't have any hard figures (never really attempted to quantify it before) but I would bet that if I broke it down to gil/hour I'm making close to what I was making pre-banning. Of course, it's hard to compare, as some days I get 3-4 darksteels or golds down there and some days I get crap, but all in all it's not really something I stress about. If anything it's made mining less of a chore then before.
One thing S-E needs to focus on is getting new players into the game (there are so many peeps that I work with that ditched ffxi for WoW it's ridiculous), and I think that the drop in the economy actually helps keep new players playing, which is definitely a good thing with how bad it's getting trying to find mid-level players to party with nowadays. When I started playing stuff was ridiculously inflated, and if it wouldn't have been for the money I made bazaaring eggs during the Egg-stravaganza I probably would have gotten frustrated and quit. Someone that's just started playing probably isn't going to be enthused by the fact that they have to farm crystals for weeks to buy their level 7 gear, and I bet ffxi lost a lot of new players due to that seemingly endless grind for gil. With an influx of new legitamate players comes an influx of people selling those low-level items on ah, so the people that don't want to spend the time farming sheepskins will still have plenty of lowbies supplying them.
Right now, while the economy is still somewhat in a state of disarray, the general trade of goods is going to screwed up. But I'm confident it will work itself out eventually. Crafting will still be a pain with return on investment dropping, but from what the high level crafters in my ls have told me, crafting was always an expensive hobby.
Despite what happened to the economy in the short term, I'm still confident that removing the rmt's was a good thing in terms of game balance and playability, and those are the things S-E needs to focus on the most if they're going to attract new players.
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