Grand Company Gear

Are there any plans to allow us access to the gear offered by other Grand Companies?

The way the storyline is progressing it would make sense to allow it from this perspective, and I see no harm in doing so from a game-play perspective either. To keep things balanced, you just need to only allow one Grand Company's sanction to be active at any given time (They need to be separate buffs), and no cross-company gear bonuses. Also, buying gear from other GCs should have like a 10% markup or something.

Currently I don't believe there is outside of things from the black market NPCs found in each city. I somewhat doubt they will allow it just because the fact that wearing that Grand Company's gear means you're representing them. It may seem odd if you're a Storm member decked head-to-toe in Flame gear for example. Personally I'd rather if they added in additional pieces that were just as good if not slightly weaker than the other company's. Like a pair of earrings for the Serpents that had similar stats like the Flame earrings, just less potent. Currently equipment choices actually tend to cater to certain classes/jobs. Good for some, bad for others if your favorite class/job doesn't benefit from that equipment. We wouldn't actually need to buy gear from a different company in that case.

But on subject again, in 2.0 you'll be allowed to join a different Grand Company so you could always decide to buy everything you want from one then join a different one. Providing you can keep all your purchased equipment you'll still be able to strut around in gear from a different company.

In XI you could get a gear from different nation, However they were at an increased cost compared to the normal. Wouldn't be suprised if they did that here too.