Final Fantasy XI Then...

[Adam]

My bro got his gluttony sword for 300k on Odin, the prices on Seraph are pretty damn steep

[Daragon]

Bah, humbug!

SE have destroyed Jeuno with its festive cheer

Poor Bastok too You didn't deserve this ; ;

[NoelEdwards]

My bro got his gluttony sword for 300k on Odin, the prices on Seraph are pretty damn steep

Very true about being steep, glad I'm on ragnarok

[Marvelon]

True, Seraph is pretty mental, pricewise... It's gone down slightly as well, since I bought mine ; ; Always the way I suppose. Mahl and me willbe on slightly later than originally advertised, more likely to be 19:30-20:00 (shopping to do)

[Darwock]

Think the new auction fees method will put a stop to folk pushing prices up? It ought to... although you may just find all the expensive items getting sold by bazaar from now on.

[C']

Seraph prices are pretty crazy right now (and have been for as long as I can remember).

But whilst some argue that sellers are to blame, it is buyers who continue to pay increasing prices. If prices continue to go up in 50k increments, that is only down to the buyers who are willing hand over that amount of cash.

Take, for example, my next big purchase ? Winged Boots. When I started saving a couple of weeks back the price history read 550k-600k. Now 8 of the history list them at 650k. As of this morning 3 were on sale (none had sold since Wednesday) yet 600k was not enough and I refused to go any higher. Now 2 things can possibly happen.

1. The price has reached a peak. Like I said this morning 3 were listed but it had gone 2 days without a sale, should all 3 get returned (or more get listed) then the sellers may have to reduce their asking price.

2. The remaining 3 get bought at at the 650k asking price (or maybe even higher?). If this happens, it is because customers have decided to pay the higher asking price. If people don?t buy (dare I say it, show restraint) the price can?t keep going up.

Now, we have these new Auction House taxes where the jury is still out on what the results will be but both sides make strong arguments, and so soon after the update, no one can be certain what the effect will be.

Looking at it, it does seem like it?s S/E attempt to, in the long term, decrease prices. Firstly, the taxes are a clever way of getting gil out of the game completely. As it stands, there is very little way for gil to leave the game once it is in. Very few people make purchases from NPC vendors, and all that happens when you buy from AH is you pass the gil on to someone else. With the old AH system you would be charged (at most) about 600-700 gil to list items which was wholly inefficient of draining gil out of the game in comparison to it coming in.

Also, the new system makes it incredibly risky to try and get higher prices for items, especially in a market with competition, as the listing prices are no longer insignificant for ?high ticket? items.

Let?s take Winged Boots again as an example. These are not a common item by any means being that they are a high level synth involving a rare NM drop. Also, the market for this item is not massive with 1, maybe 2 selling per day at best and often much less. Now, let?s say that by some miracle, 7 people decide to list there Winged Boots at the 650k price history all at the same time. Even under best circumstances, over the course of the 3 day sales period 1 seller is going to miss out. So what I think S/E is hoping will happen is that, in order to avoid being the seller who loses out on his listing fee and have to pay it again, that sellers underlist there item in the hope to be first in the sales queue (the AH system works in that the person with the lowest asking price sells there first).

This is the optimists view of the changes and pretty soon we will all be living in a world of 30k Emporer Hairpins and 50k Sniper Rings.

The other side argues that sellers will simply tack the increased AH fee onto their asking price so that the profit they pull in works out as the same as they would have prior to the update. As I highlighted right at the start, one thing that has been proven time and time again in game (as shown in the increasing prices of items in general) is that players, when faced with a ?pay higher or go without? scenario will invariably pay higher. Because of this, there is a good chance that this scenario is just as likely as the ?happy? one.

The only real stumbling block is what happens if an item fails to sell first time. Say an item was worth 600k prior to update, and the listing price is now 12k so the seller lists at 612k. If that doesn?t sell does he then attempt to sell at 624k in order to still make the 600k profit? If people didn?t buy at 612k, why would they pay 624k? Before the update you could afford to relist and try to push the price higher as you were losing out on 200g per time. The new AH taxes, mean that each failed sale is a not insignificant dent in your wallet.

Anyway, like I said it is fair too soon to know what will happen.

[Darwock]

..or you get more people spamming Jeuno with shouts like "Winged Boots - Do you need it? 650K /check greedymofo"

[C']

Maybe but if people aren't willing to pay 650k for Winged Boots on AH, then they aren't going to pay it to a a random PC shouting in Jeuno.

[Marvelon]

My thoughs, just after the update, on the AH listing tax. At the current time people aren't buying because they want to see what this change will do to the prices. Therefor less gil is changing hands therefor there is less spending power. High ticket items especially aren't selling as people will want to see where the prices end up on 1 hand and on the other some might decide to go for the "Replacements".

Things don't sell, they get listed for less (at least that's the idea). Perhaps in a few weeks we'll see the prices stabilise but lower then they are now...








Unlikely, unfortunately.

[C']

There is no doubt a wisdom to your words. I'm sure it's not simple coincidence that the last sale of Winged Boots occured on Wednesday 8th December.

Certain supposed 'necessary' items (Emporer Hairpin, Sniper etc) are still selling clearly as people feel (wrongly) that they cannot do their job without them). However with something like Winged Boots they are viewed as much more of a luxury item and I bet other similar items may also have a lowed sales history since Wednesday.

[Bayan]

Talking Of Emp Pins, I Claimed Him Again Today Which Makes 3 Claims Out Of
5 Pops. With My Thought On It Being My Last Pop Before I Logged Off I Was
Pleasantly Suprised When I Recieved A Pin For My Hard Work

Now To Camp The Rest Of My THF And NIN Equip

[?pint]

This'll please you no end Rare - Venemous Claw has apparently been made a kindred seal 30 drop now, which has resulted in Scorpion Harness's price plummeting. Currently at around 2 mil on remora (from about 4 or 5) and still going down. Guess it won't be so difficult to afford one after all .

[Bayan]

Camped Lizzy Last Night With Apathye, And Had Awful Luck.
Just AS I Went To Kill Some Placeholders, Whilst Checking Scan I
Realised That I Was In A Different Location And Wasnt Actually Scanning
Whole Area. I Moved Into Range, Scanned And Saw Him. Used Flee Macro
... Nothing, Again... Nothing Realised I Was In Menu And Exited To
Finally Fire Flee Off Only To Reach Lizzy As A Whm Casts Dia

He Got The Drop Too

[C']

A great, fun weekend all round.

Logged in on Friday night in Norg (was camping guild shop for Ninja Tools) and decided to stick up my flag and go hunting for the treasure chest in Sea Serpent Grotto whilst my LFG flag was up. Found the chest within minutes, popped it open and received the map to the Grotto. At the exact moment the chest opened, I got a tell inviting me to an EXP party which I gladly accepted.

I joined the party (where the WHM was Toxicforce's friend Kalliope) and we headed out to Gustav Tunnel. The EXP wasn't the best ever but in the few hours we were together I went from 18000 tnl to just under 11000 and logged for the night, happy.

Came back on Saturday morning and checked the Jeuno AH for Winged Boots. The last 7 or 8 price history read 650k but I said to myself the limit to my spending was 600k which I set myself the weeks prior. There were 3 in stock at the time and never expected my bid to be accepted but it went through and I got my pair of Winged Boots I was so happy you'd have thought I got Leaping Lizzy to drop herself rather than I just spent 600k.



Unfortunately, the spending bankrupted me and I was down to my last 20k so headed for Pashow. however not long in, Kalliope sent me a tell asking if I wanted to join her EXP party. I checked my Ninja Tool situation and evaluated that I had enough tools to level for a few hours if I bought another stack of Shihei (which I could stretch to) so i joined up. This time we headed to Valley of Sarrows and it was a new experience for sure. Never tanked raptors or Perytons (giant birds) before so it took a short while to get accustomed (Perytons have an attack callled Triple Attack which is nasty if you've just recast Utsusemi). Went down to the wire a couple of times but some excellent healing work by Kalliope kept me alive. EXP was great and in a short time I picked up another 8000 exp leaving me 1000 tnl. Sadly my Ninja Tools never held out and I had to leave, agonisingly close to my lvl60.

Ended the night with a late night farming session which netted me 80k in about 3 hours.

Sunday morning I was somewhat at a loss. I tried farming but really couldn't be bothered. When I came on early evening though Bayan was on and I decided to help in his accrual of the last few maps he needed. We started in Oldton Movalpolos and it felt like it took forever. We killed moblin after moblin with no drop although he was able to find the Hotrock he needed for another quest and I was able to complete a quest inside Movalpolos which provided a key item for a quest in Bastok. We then spied a party of moblins (literally a PT, they had a leader who they all followed). We watched them and decided we could take them out. We did, but barely survived (both down to around 200HP). Luckily our bravery (stupidity?) paid off and a key dropped. I left Bayan looking for his chest and returned to San d'Oria.

I noticed that a pair of Garrison hose (another piece of gear I wanted for my WAR) was on sale and checked price history which was 50k. Although I wasn't planning on buying them so soon, with the price in Jeuno at 80k I tried to buy and got no luck. I tried again at 55k and it worked. I couldn't believe my luck and get 2 pieces of equipment at a good price below the history.



Only the Kampfbrust is needed now then I have all the expensive items for my WAR. Everything else can be picked up for the price of a couple of farming sessions).

Our next stop was Sea Serpent Grotto, for another chest key. Sahagins proved many times softer than moblins so the battles were easier (we even had a little SC and MB) and got the key after about 45 mins of killing.

We went behind the silver beastcoin door to look for chests and I spotted Qull the Shellbuster, a sahagin NM. I've been looking into Rare/EX equipment as of late so I knew exactly who he was and what he dropped and knew I wanted to kill him, so I hit Provoke without any warning to Bayan (sorry man ). Erm, it was a good job I had a level 64 RNG with me otherwise I was a dead man. The NM had a crapload of HP and another Sahagin had linked with it. However Bayan dealt with the link and after a long fight the NM was defeated and dropped these bad boys:



Bayan was kind enough to let me have the them (despite throwing him into a NM fight without any warning ) and I will definately be holding onto them for when I level my MNK.

We continued on a found a treasure chest easily scoring Bayan's map and on the way back we found another NM, Seww the Squidlimbed. Another easy kill for the Ranger and ninja, and it dropped the Mermaid Tail which Bayan needed for the quest to obtain a Mermaid Ring.

I was really buzzing after our journey and getting a pair of Exocets was awesome.

I guess now my plan is to just farm, farm, farm (at around 85k atm). I really want to level my WAR subjob with the rest of the LS again so I will keep farming until you guys are ready to do that.

however, there are a couple of things I need help with. Once again I really would like to try for the katana again. We have 2 more rattles and getting the Exocets reminded me how of my Rare/EX obsession.

Also, I'm 1k tnl to 60 and I still don't have my Af gloves. If we could arrange a coffer key hunting party for Ifrit's Cauldron one night it would be great.

[Tobal]

Quite boring weekend for ffxi stuff anyway, i now taken to leveling smithing to 66(currently lvl3) so i can make my only dammed Haubie, i reckon i got enough gil to make it lvl20, then it be a case of farming then crafting to 60