Specialist System in 3.0

[Thrustie]

Those generalists aren't too bad to deal with, you just have to specialize in one market and push them out.. Give them enough trouble (i.e. undercut them every chance you get so THEY have to keep an eye on your market even closer on top of what they ALREADY do... They'll eventually back off after finding it to be not worth their trouble.. It's the 2 specialists competing in same market scenario that gives the worst price wars, often going below the raw material costs.. because there's no quick alternative.

I did that for weeks against one of them and it honestly started making me a bit mental. We were undercutting each other relentlessly multiple times an hour. And I couldnt make him give in. I thought, like you said, that eventually he'd decide I wasn't worth pulling his retainers off the market for but I was wrong. Eventually I gave up and priced mine 1k above him and just settled for sloppy seconds. Wasn't worth losing my sanity over. I can still make 5m in profit a week without the headache. The other specialists like me seem more reasonable. Yeah they undercut me but it's daily instead of 3 times an hour. Some are even content price matching with me.

[Gillionaire]

snip

Well, you just have to think that he has more on his plate since he has more items to make/sell/watch etc.. So you technically have an advantage in that regards.. Of course, you can only capitalize on that if you also happen to be a full time crafter like he is.. If you have any interest in raids or dungeons, you'd have trouble keeping up.

But with specialists, it gets even worse.. Let me just make it clear when I mean specialist, I don't mean 4 star capable in 1 craft. Although that's possible.
I think the specialists you refer to are probably not full time crafters, so there's some breathing room between the two of you as you both have other things to do.

I am a specialist, but I am 4 stars in everything except CUL. So I technically have the means to compete over multiple markets, I simply choose not to because I can only craft so much stuff and I learned that I can meet my entire server's demand with my crafting just barely. So I don't have enough time to diversify. (admittedly, I compete in a market that's very time intensive) But that's what makes me the money. I do plan on diversifying later when it becomes less profitable, but I've been in the same market for the past 2 months and I'm still raking in quite a bit.. That's the kind of market control a full time crafter can have when he is led to specialize (either by in-game mechanics, or by one's choosing). The only issue I foresee with the forced specialization would be exactly that, it would create pockets of really volatile market conditions with unpredictable, often gouging prices.. I'd much rather have a market with a bunch of generalists who create little bits of everything and the over all price becomes steady and predictable.

But considering the interview, it looks like that's not their goal, but I don't know.. I've just been burned way too many times in the past by MMO devs' preliminary ideas and where it ends being when finalized.. I'd really like to see more information released regarding the system.