Current State of End-Game Contents - A Blog Post from A Japanese Player

[Docj]

I completely disagree with several of your observations. Being able to level all crafts is awesome. Because making my own stuff is a hell of a lot more fun than buying it from the AH. Also, I'd rather have a "pointless" economy and have fun, than have the kind of economy you want. Because I've come to find that the definition of a "good economy" for the people that complain about the current one is an economy where only a select few players are making gil with crafting while the rest of us are farming trash mobs all day to make gil.

I doubt that not being able to craft the highest iLvl has much to do with RMT. I think it has a lot more to do with Yoshi-P thinking that the best raid gear should be obtained through raiding. I don't think he likes crafting, so he doesn't want raid gear to require it. Because the whole RMT thing can be easily avoided just by implementing an abjuration system like the one in FFXI, where the best gear required a crafted piece and a non-tradable endgame mob drop.

My point is there is nothing worth buying in this game. Therefore there is no point in getting gil. Therefore a lot of time that could have been spend crafting (or gathering) for gil in order to buy stuff you want is non-existent. You know.. an economy: An economy or economic system consists of the production, distribution or trade, and consumption of limited goods and services.

I'm not saying there isn't an upside to making everything ourself. Simply put, the lack of a meaningful economy means we have less to do.