Basic Economics

First I would like to say that giving the players the power was the best decision.

Next, I just want to talk about some basic world economics that I would like to see in the game.
1- If an auction house is implemented, it should be nation specific (not an instant global store).

2- Nation specialization. For example, one nation has better resources for armor, another has tanning, a third has culinary. obviously not those exact examples, but you get the idea. I know FFXIV already has this to an extent, and I like it.

3- Trade boundaries. For example tariffs, quotas, price ceilings/floors. This will add a level to the market complexity, and make trade more fun. Plus SE can use these measures to fight inflation/deflation later in the game life.

I think this is something that should be used later in the game life (once there is a thriving market).

Many players stop playing games because the economy gets way out of control because of gill sellers, and bots.

I think these basic principals can help keep the economy, and make the market more fun, What do other players think about these ideas?

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Originally Posted by Haraldsson

First I would like to say that giving the players the power was the best decision.

Next, I just want to talk about some basic world economics that I would like to see in the game.
1- If an auction house is implemented, it should be nation specific (not an instant global store).

2- Nation specialization. For example, one nation has better resources for armor, another has tanning, a third has culinary. obviously not those exact examples, but you get the idea. I know FFXIV already has this to an extent, and I like it.

3- Trade boundaries. For example tariffs, quotas, price ceilings/floors. This will add a level to the market complexity, and make trade more fun. Plus SE can use these measures to fight inflation/deflation later in the game life.

I think this is something that should be used later in the game life (once there is a thriving market).

Many players stop playing games because the economy gets way out of control because of gill sellers, and bots.

I think these basic principals can help keep the economy, and make the market more fun, What do other players think about these ideas?

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All those exist well in FF11.

auction house tarriffs are different across nations, Craft guilds make specialized nations with their enchantment and lower material price, and regional shops appear disappear, etc,etc,etc.

And the convient blaming of RMT and bots is pointless at this point, they probably won't even be an issue since this game is turning into a ghost town.

The economy is just seriously wrong, despite the "fixes" when 90% of the goods are sold to NPC brought from NPC and market wards accounts for maybe 10-20% at most of the population.

Theoretically speaking if you really have an active population of 1000 on a server, why do you have only 20-40 retainers on the wards? Why isn't the rest of the population selling. The answer is something is broken.

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Originally Posted by kukurumei

All those exist well in FF11.

auction house tarriffs are different across nations, Craft guilds make specialized nations with their enchantment and lower material price, and regional shops appear disappear, etc,etc,etc.

And the convient blaming of RMT and bots is pointless at this point, they probably won't even be an issue since this game is turning into a ghost town.

The economy is just seriously wrong, despite the "fixes" when 90% of the goods are sold to NPC brought from NPC and market wards accounts for maybe 10-20% at most of the population.

Theoretically speaking if you really have an active population of 1000 on a server, why do you have only 20-40 retainers on the wards? Why isn't the rest of the population selling. The answer is something is broken.

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FF11: That's good to hear about the different things they implemented in FF11. They should expound on those previous experiences and bring them to FFXIV in the future.

Wards: As a crafter, I can say from my experience that the reason people don't sell is because people aren't buying. I believe this is simply because of a lack of players. 1000 players can equip themselves pretty quick. In fact 1000 is hardly a market at all. Once more people begin playing, the economy will pick up.

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Originally Posted by Haraldsson

FF11: That's good to hear about the different things they implemented in FF11. They should expound on those previous experiences and bring them to FFXIV in the future.

Wards: As a crafter, I can say from my experience that the reason people don't sell is because people aren't buying. I believe this is simply because of a lack of players. 1000 players can equip themselves pretty quick. In fact 1000 is hardly a market at all. Once more people begin playing, the economy will pick up.

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Then that's not an efficient economy. That would be a barter economy, or a welfare economy.

a active base of 1000 should theoretically have multiple trades per person. It should have more retainers, not less then the current population. Otherwise it would lead to stagnation.

Whether it be the lack of things to buy, the procedure which to buy, or the problem with the selling/buying mechanism, it's still broken.

It is somewhat confounding that you got loads and loads of item drop which are craftables, tradables, or usables, but none of that ever reaches the traders market.

If everything is going through the NPC, then for all it's "modernize" motto, it's back in the way way stone-age of MMO, when NPC was the end all to everyday life.

It could be the over abundant amounts of gil from leves, it could be the problem with lack of AH, it could be implementations of the craft system, it could be the worthlessness of equipment, it can even be that the player base are really ghosts.

It can be a combination of many things, but the cause is striking. You shouldn't have this situation.

There should always been more items for sales and by more people then the active population. Never less. Otherwise something is not working as it should for modern MMO economies. If there are 1000 people on the server, there should be 2000-3000 active accounts, if there are 20 people there should be 40 sellers, etc.

economics is simple in those respects. You want a growing economy, not the opposite.

I could easily sell more shit on my retainers if SE allowed more than 10 things to be sold at a time. Im willing to bet that almost everyone feels the same.

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Originally Posted by Cogs

I could easily sell more shit on my retainers if SE allowed more than 10 things to be sold at a time. Im willing to bet that almost everyone feels the same.

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Most AHs in MMOs allow 10 or so items at once. There's more wrong here then just a simple number of retainers.

One problem is that players can equip any item. Since it has been so difficult to find anything to buy in the past, players started buying the highest level equipment they could get; that way they wouldn't have to go through the nightmare of finding a sword for a long time.

However, like kukutumei said, there are many different issues that contribute to the current stagnant economy.

Only thing that comes to mind after reading this thread is that you must be trying to sell undesireable goods.

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Originally Posted by Fieros

Only thing that comes to mind after reading this thread is that you must be trying to sell undesireable goods.

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then there is something wrong with the craft system, drop system, or other system.

There should be no such thing as an undesirable item. There is such a thing as a unprofitable good, which would get NPCed, but that just means it's chink the system.

So much stuff NPCed and not going to wards means there's not a chink, but a bleeding black hole.

It's a very simple rational, that explanations like that do nothing to explain why it should be, but why it shouldn't be. It's simply wrong from an economic point of view, of output that doesn't perform.

Kukurumei has a valid point. There is something seriously wrong, and it needs to be fixed for this game to survive.

I propose we begin making a list of economic observations that are contributing to the problem, and hopefully we can get this problem identified so that SE can fix it.

1) Low population
2) difficult item search

What some other issues?

Everyone has made some valid comments. Here are my observations.

1. While there are lower numbers of people currently playing I see a larger percentage of people crafting than I did on FFXI. I believe this is due to the gear degradation feature and people wanting to be able to repair their own items. Therefore there should be plenty of items to buy as more are being made. But there is not.
2. I believe less people feel like dealing with the complexities of the retainer market system we currently have. Face it, on FFXI I could run to the AH and buy/sell very quickly and efficiently. Now I have to search for each item, one at a time, and then transport myself there to buy it. Takes way to long if I want to purchase several items. Less people buying = less people selling.
3. A lot of the craftables are not worth buying. Food effects are very poorly handled and therefore not really used. You cannot easily tell what food does for you, so people do not buy it, so people do not craft it.
4. There are way to few options for gear. You want to upgrade a certain piece (i.e. hands, body, legs) and there are only a total of 2-3 options available at your lvl and most of the time not in stock. The ones that are in stock are somewhat pricey and new players cannot afford them.
5. The retainers "disappear" all the time if you do not play regularly and therefore items are not available to be sold.

I do not wish to have to deal with RMTs or BOTs but I believe an AH system would work much better than what is in place now.

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Originally Posted by Haraldsson

1) Low population
2) difficult item search

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3) Retainer setup for sales is difficult

I agree with Fieros.
If tour not selling desirable goods then you won't make any gil. I farm certain areas in the game for maybe an hour and make roughly 100k + and it usually all sells over night. Also I have 2 retainers set up. One with gear I've madee ( only. Leatherworking like 10) and its low level gear and I make good profit off of it. And the other with goods that sell fast from my farming.
Also putting your retainers in cities that have highest population helps also... I find my gear sells faster there.

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Originally Posted by Haraldsson

1- If an auction house is implemented, it should be nation specific (not an instant global store).

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I couldn't disagree more, unless they make traveling between cities a whole lot easier, otherwise doing this would cause huge problems in availability.

For example almost nobody visits Limsa anymore and even less visit Gridania.

Even then I still think Global linkage would be the most efficient and easiest method.

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2- Nation specialization. For example, one nation has better resources for armor, another has tanning, a third has culinary. obviously not those exact examples, but you get the idea. I know FFXIV already has this to an extent, and I like it.

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See above.

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3- Trade boundaries. For example tariffs, quotas, price ceilings/floors. This will add a level to the market complexity, and make trade more fun. Plus SE can use these measures to fight inflation/deflation later in the game life.

I think this is something that should be used later in the game life (once there is a thriving market).

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This I agree with, having say a button which would input the current average price for an item would help stabilise the economy, as would having a ceiling/floor on items.

With something like an average button players could get an estimate of what an item is worth and then decide whether to alter the price as they see fit.

Of course before any of this SE needs to find a way to remove items (mainly armour and weapons) from the world otherwise there will be a surplus and the market will crash, which has already occurred on some stuff.

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Originally Posted by Haraldsson

1- If an auction house is implemented, it should be nation specific (not an instant global store).

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I disagree as well and the proof that this system cripples an economy is no further away than this game's predecessor, FFXI. All the three nation AH's were independent, and what happened was when everyone starting hanging out in Jeuno as the "high level" hub, the starter zones emptied and new players couldn't obtain gear. No one wanted to run back there to put it on AH and I can guarantee you no one is going to be running back to fiddle with a retainer.

It would be naive to think that SE doesn't have an expansion planned without any new Jeuno or Aht Urgan style cities, so we should assume that eventually we will move on from our starter areas into new places.

What will happen to the market wards then? Will SE forgo any trade in the new cities because they have to keep us in the old ones for the market to survive? No, the most efficient way for them to solve the problem and ensure it's future-proof is to add an AH and link it all together.

I believe that if they implemented Nation specialization it would fix the XI Jeuno problem (if it is a problem). If each nation had specific abundant resources, and development skills, then each nation would be able to produce larger amounts of those goods for a cheaper price than the other nations. As for a Jeuno type city being a center of trade, well it should be, that's why they put it there.

If the nation specialization was in place, Jeuno wouldn't have any resources for production. Jeuno would simply be a trade center, but it should have much higher taxes (as a crossroads city would tax in real life). Those high taxes would drive people to sell their goods in the other cities.

If we want to motivate players to visit the different cities, there is no better way than nation specialization. If there is an instant global auction, there is no motivation to visit different areas.

As for availability of items, currently I agree that it would be difficult; however, in the future (with a large population) I don't believe it will be an issue. Players will move the goods over into the different cities, and create a living international trade market. At that point the market will become a very complex, and detailed portion of the game.

In the end these basic economic principles will make FFXIV a much better game for everyone.

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Originally Posted by Haraldsson

I believe that if they implemented Nation specialization it would fix the XI Jeuno problem (if it is a problem). If each nation had specific abundant resources, and development skills, then each nation would be able to produce larger amounts of those goods for a cheaper price than the other nations. As for a Jeuno type city being a center of trade, well it should be, that's why they put it there.

If the nation specialization was in place, Jeuno wouldn't have any resources for production. Jeuno would simply be a trade center, but it should have much higher taxes (as a crossroads city would tax in real life). Those high taxes would drive people to sell their goods in the other cities.

If we want to motivate players to visit the different cities, there is no better way than nation specialization. If there is an instant global auction, there is no motivation to visit different areas.

As for availability of items, currently I agree that it would be difficult; however, in the future (with a large population) I don't believe it will be an issue. Players will move the goods over into the different cities, and create a living international trade market. At that point the market will become a very complex, and detailed portion of the game.

In the end these basic economic principles will make FFXIV a much better game for everyone.

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And again, I respectfully disagree and ask if you have played XI. If you had, you would know that this is exactly what they did there. Jeuno had higher taxes on selling goods at the AH but it didn't drive people to rush back to the starter cities to sell things. They just stopped selling lower level things because it didn't turn any profit for them. As a result, the starter city AH's emptied, and new players couldn't get things. It didn't matter that Gustaberg was "the" place to go for Goldsmithing, everyone still sold the goods in Jeuno if they sold them at all. You might get lucky and see some beastcoins or someone grinding out low level bars and offloading them right there, but for the most part the money was in Jeuno and it didn't matter that the guild was in basty.

Besides that, we have to think beyond trade goods and have a care for new players looking for equipment. Crafters generally NPC the low level things that don't turn a profit because there isn't a market for it in the big city and those selling slots are precious (if we can assume that SE will continue to limit us by certain amounts of slots). If the AH's are linked, they can reach a wider audience for their wares and not be limited by only those people who happened to start in the "correct" city.

Some of you preach to know economics but the truth is that in the real world, profit is made by reaching as large an audience as possible, not by cutting trade off and only being specific to one region. There's a reason we have a global economy now.

The same thing will happen here as happened in XI if they choose to go this route.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

And again, I respectfully disagree and ask if you have played XI. If you had, you would know that this is exactly what they did there. Jeuno had higher taxes on selling goods at the AH but it didn't drive people to rush back to the starter cities to sell things. They just stopped selling lower level things because it didn't turn any profit for them. As a result, the starter city AH's emptied, and new players couldn't get things. It didn't matter that Gustaberg was "the" place to go for Goldsmithing, everyone still sold the goods in Jeuno if they sold them at all. You might get lucky and see some beastcoins or someone grinding out low level bars and offloading them right there, but for the most part the money was in Jeuno and it didn't matter that the guild was in basty.

Besides that, we have to think beyond trade goods and have a care for new players looking for equipment. Crafters generally NPC the low level things that don't turn a profit because there isn't a market for it in the big city and those selling slots are precious (if we can assume that SE will continue to limit us by certain amounts of slots). If the AH's are linked, they can reach a wider audience for their wares and not be limited by only those people who happened to start in the "correct" city.

Some of you preach to know economics but the truth is that in the real world, profit is made by reaching as large an audience as possible, not by cutting trade off and only being specific to one region. There's a reason we have a global economy now.

The same thing will happen here as happened in XI if they choose to go this route.

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What is the expression people use... "Quoted for truth".

An economy should strive to be accessible, convenient and efficient. If it fails in any of those respects, the money will flow in whatever way most closely approximates those three things. In the case of FFXI that meant funneling all of it through Jeuno and ignoring the rest AND as was mentioned simply not selling items where the tax didn't allow for reasonable profit. You may as well make it properly global and accessible so that people will hang out in various cities because the path of least resistance is no longer confined to one place.

The idealists or people who like to make their lives unnecessarily complicated might go to the small cities to peddle their wears on a street corner but not all of us play on Besaid spending our days RPing a shop-keep. Some of us want smooth efficient global commerce with price histories tracking back at least a year so the economy can better establish equilibrium prices for goods that will then properly fluctuate and not erratically change every 10 minutes because you're totally blind as to what it sold for 11 minutes ago. Some of us (probably just me) also want the system to better incorporate buy orders as well as sell orders so the information as to what items should cost (vis-a-vis what people are willing to sell them for and what people are willing to pay for them and meeting somewhere in the middle) is properly coming from both ends of the marketplace instead of being solely dictated by sellers.

That's what supply and demand is at its most superficial. Two lines on a graph converging and meeting somewhere along the way telling the world "this is probably the right price", not one line traveling willy-nilly all over the damn place fumbling in the dark for the best way to rip someone off.

@Haraldsson you last post is the very reason why Ishguard should not have an AH or a market ward, this way it would force people back to the old cities, something SE made a mistake with when they made Jeuno and Whitegate.

All 3 AH's should then be globally linked.

As I said before though for people to do this they need to remove anima cost either between current cities or a players home cities.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

@Haraldsson you last post is the very reason why Ishguard should not have an AH or a market ward, this way it would force people back to the old cities, something SE made a mistake with when they made Jeuno and Whitegate.

All 3 AH's should then be globally linked.

As I said before though for people to do this they need to remove anima cost either between current cities or a players home cities.

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Then Ishguard would be deserted... That just creates a variant of the problem.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

It didn't matter that Gustaberg was "the" place to go for Goldsmithing, everyone still sold the goods in Jeuno if they sold them at all.

Besides that, we have to think beyond trade goods and have a care for new players looking for equipment. Crafters generally NPC the low level things that don't turn a profit because there isn't a market for it in the big city and those selling slots are precious. If the AH's are linked, they can reach a wider audience for their wares and not be limited by only those people who happened to start in the "correct" city.

profit is made by reaching as large an audience as possible, not by cutting trade off and only being specific to one region. There's a reason we have a global economy now.

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1st- I want to make myself clear. When I speak of specialization I am not talking about crafting guilds (anyone can craft anywhere). I am talking about resources. Such as, LL has mineral deposits that are better for goldsmithing than armouring. Therefore, if I live in blackforest I need to visit LL to get those materials. -or- players collect and import those goods to blackforest.
The taxes would be cheaper for goldsmithing goods in blackforest because that city wants to promote the import of those goods. Therefore, goldsmiths would work in LL, the lazy goldsmiths would sell in LL but not make a lot of gil. The more motivated goldsmiths would travel to blackforest, and sell their goods for a better profit.

2nd- low level items will be npc'd no matter what you do. As crafters gain rank, they craft more expensive things. There is no stopping that. NPC low level items will happen; unless a constant stream of new crafters continue to make these items. A global AH isn't going to change anything in this aspect.

3rd- I fail to see how this stops my goods from reaching a large audience. The system I propose encourages travel and trade. This system does REQUIRE a large server population. Enough players to actually move items around.
This system is real life global economics. This is what is happening everyday to all of our countries.

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Originally Posted by Haraldsson

1st- I want to make myself clear. When I speak of specialization I am not talking about crafting guilds (anyone can craft anywhere). I am talking about resources. Such as, LL has mineral deposits that are better for goldsmithing than armouring. Therefore, if I live in blackforest I need to visit LL to get those materials. -or- players collect and import those goods to blackforest.
The taxes would be cheaper for goldsmithing goods in blackforest because that city wants to promote the import of those goods. Therefore, goldsmiths would work in LL, the lazy goldsmiths would sell in LL but not make a lot of gil. The more motivated goldsmiths would travel to blackforest, and sell their goods for a better profit.

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Are you saying that the tax rates would be high enough in the other two states that they might discourage people from trading there in favour of the third city where the tax rate is more "business friendly" to that particular craft?

I ask because you say that the lazy crafters would sell in LL and not make a lot of gil while the motivated ones would go sell in the other city. If we assume that to be the case than the tax rates must be such that there is a meaningful disparity between the profit you'll make in either city.

The threshold where various people start to care obviously changes but I think at 10% tax rates or less there won't be many people biting.

You can split things up but without a central trade channel to distribute goods, it will fail every time because individuals aren't going to travel to some far away land just to be a good sport. They are going to stay where they can listen to the shouts, look through what's available, and not be inconvenienced regardless of how much extra gil it costs them. Eventually one city will be decided on by the players as the "best" despite any efforts to tax them to death, and I don't agree that heavy taxation is the way to go. Positive reinforcement works better than negative, after all.

There isn't enough player infrastructure nor interest to mirror a real world distribution network of global resources. One player (or a handful) will simply never have the amount of power to really mirror the real world trade systems where you have a country in need of a certain good that another country can provide. You are likening major corporations to individuals working individually and it simply won't work. Each player is not an Exxon unto himself. We've already seen with the market wards how willing people are to even list in the right ward much less in the right city-state.

The global marketplace works because there is a central backbone where countries can come together to get the goods to the right place for the people, not the other way around. Unless you are suggesting that SE truly build an economy MMO, then we need an AH and we need it linked from the start. There is a reason places like Amazon and Newegg and Ebay thrive - it's because craftsman of all kinds can buy and sell their goods all over the world. That is the future - not me traveling somewhere obscure to get system boards for my next build and then going to another obscure location to sell because I'll save a nickel on the tax and there *might* be enough people of the correct level to desire my goods in that particular area.

Don't lets be silly.

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Originally Posted by AngryNixon

the lazy crafters would sell in LL and not make a lot of gil while the motivated ones would go sell in the other city. If we assume that to be the case than the tax rates must be such that there is a meaningful disparity between the profit you'll make in either city.

The threshold where various people start to care obviously changes but I think at 10% tax rates or less there won't be many people biting.

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Yes. I am saying that LL would have much higher tax rates for goldsmithing because there would be a very large supply of those goods in LL due to the natural resources, but the other two cities would have a much lower tax rate for those goods. Causing more motivated goldsmiths to sell at the other 2 cities.

Souljacker
I do think that the different tax rates would motivate players to disperse items across the game. I'm not talking a nickle, I mean a significant tax rate. Just like real countries (i.e., Norway charges 213% on agricultural imports). So obviously the U.S. doesn't sell corn to Norway, the U.S. sells the corn to Mexico.

You are correct about the amount of players being a large factor. Again in order for this system to work, a high server population is a must. As well as an easier system to list goods.

Norway has those taxes because they don't want to import agricultural products for a variety of reasons, not because the global economy is "encouraging" the US to sell our exports elsewhere and spread things "across the world". The analogy doesn't fit and the whole system doesn't make sense. Why would you want to work on goldsmithing, but have to go to a different city to buy goldsmithing items as opposed to where the abundance of supplies are?

What it sounds to me like you are saying is we should tax the location that has the most abundance, and then let people overcharge for things because they had to avoid the tax in one location and instead the players have to pony up the "convenience fee" that will be tacked on to cover the "travel costs" of selling where the lower tax is.

No matter how you slice it, it will not be good for the players nor the population in general. Heavy taxation is never the way to a healthy economy.

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Originally Posted by Haraldsson

2nd- low level items will be npc'd no matter what you do. As crafters gain rank, they craft more expensive things. There is no stopping that. NPC low level items will happen; unless a constant stream of new crafters continue to make these items. A global AH isn't going to change anything in this aspect.

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False. What you consider "low level items" is a term denoted from you the seller/buyer, not the system. Meaning the values you assign to it is unprofitable. That is a problem, not an occurrence.

Secondly, the world shouldn't be producing "low level items" in excess. If it is then that's another "problem". A crafter won't craft an item that's not going to be used, and thus, it wouldn't be NPC.

That means "low level items" are being produced by the system, which is consider a "mistake" and should be fixed.

It's the chicken and the egg. You don't get a population of two headed fish, if by definition those 2headed mutated fish don't have a chance to survive. Someone has to be making them on purpose.

And yes an AH would solve this to an extent. The AH would give a value to every item through supply and demand. If an item has such worthlessness that even the minimum acceptable price won't get noticed, then it will be naturally culled from the world like survival of the fittest.

Kukurumei:
I agree with you. Your argument makes a lot of sense. A price history would fix that issue, but the AH doesn't need to be instant global in order to give a price history.

I know you didn't say that, but this thread is turning into that argument.

Souljacker:
I'm having trouble understanding you.

Of course Norway isn't putting Tariffs on agriculture to motivate the U.S.; However, whatever their motives, the effect is the same.

The effect of a tax would be that the seller moves the goods to a different city so that they are able to sell the same goods at a lower price, for a larger profit. If you sell your goods at a place with a high tax, you still have to sell at the world price. If you try to sell higher than the world price, you will have no gil.

Once more these taxes are not something that I suggest be implemented at the current economic state of the game.

Getting back to the list of Economic tools that need fixing in order to improve the current problems.

1) Low population
2) difficult item search
3) Retainer setup for sales is difficult
4) A price history is needed

Please give any more suggestions that you think may help.

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Originally Posted by Haraldsson

Getting back to the list of Economic tools that need fixing in order to improve the current problems.

1) Low population
2) difficult item search
3) Retainer setup for sales is difficult
4) A price history is needed

Please give any more suggestions that you think may help.

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I don't agree with your proposed system Haraldsson but, leaving that aside for a minute, what I do agree with entirely is that low population isn't helping the situation for any system be it yours or something totally different, and that a price history is required also.

The price history however, as has been said a rare few times, is that the history should reflect what items were bought for as well as sold for. Yes that's two sides of the same coin but it makes a difference. Remember, and I can't stress this enough, that basic economics (well micro anyhow, macro is just a bunch of random stupid letters and relations...awful) is supply and demand.

If the system of putting in buy orders that currently exists is improved to the point where it's actually functional then, in theory, a disparity will exist between the price that items have sold for to people who have buy orders up to be filled and the price that items were bought for from people who have sell orders up. The two separate price histories (that better be viewable overlaid on top of each other) will show you a more fully informed price trend and at some point the two lines should come close to meeting and travel together over the course of a few years.

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Originally Posted by AngryNixon

Then Ishguard would be deserted... That just creates a variant of the problem.

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How would it? new content, leves and quest would be issued in Ishguard making it the place to go for that stuff.

I think we can assume that airships will go from the current city states to Ishguard also, so there woudn't be a huge problem going back and fourth.

I ran across a reasonable suggestion that I like in one of the other threads.
Posted by Naylia:
I should be able to visit a desk with an NPC and inquire about goods available around the world. However I should have to pay a tax, duty, and/or delivery cost to have the goods imported to me. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...tem-idea/page2

I think this is a good idea. Couple this delivery feature and global AH, with area specific resources. The combination of my desire for a more complex working economy, and ease of access to goods.

This is a good way to give the market more depth and life, as well as giving people better access to goods around the world. Also fixes the low population issue.

In addition, if they want peeps to visit other cities, why not have city specific retainers for a market ward system or for an AH, allow you to sell say 7 items per city AH. That would encourage people to visit and sell in other cities. For buying, a fee to ship other cities' ward/AH items is a good idea.