Quote Originally Posted by Xeo View Post
Hey All, so the maximum post on the auction house has always been 7, and it doesnt stay up for very long. With the dwindling numbers I think it would be a nice boost for the auction house if people could post much much more than just 7 items. Perhaps unlimited? and with an unlimited end time on them too? It's a shame seeing a mostly dead AH. Anyone agree?
The amount has not always been 7. For the first month after the original JP launch of the AH, the max was 8 items, and the AH server kept crashing, so they lowered it to 7. AH wasn't even opened until a month after release. Granted, the population now is less than when the game launched (or at least is reasonably so given the current search numbers and the reduced number of servers), and the servers should have higher specifications after 13 years to be able to handle the traffic and CPU and memory load (even with the increased number of items listable on the AH).

Source:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Category:News/FFXI

May 16 2002 Game launched
11 June 2002 AH Opened
9 July 2002 Number of items on AH reduced from 8 to 7

So yeah, given how fast computer capability doubles, I think the reason they gave for how much load it would put on the servers is rubbish, considering we aren't stressing the servers as much as they were at launch.