Quote Originally Posted by Eien713 View Post
Why would they care about maps more than any other item in the game, though, and give it this special treatment?
Do... you not understand how maps work or their value?
There's a reason why they're consistently worth at least 30k if not as high as 50k on most servers.
When a patch comes out that adds new craftable items and the materials to maps, they can sell for millions upon millions. Maps suddenly become a huge boon to have.
If you could hoard maps and just hit them one after the other, for no cost to yourself, you could gain a monopoly on the market, or crash it, for no cost to yourself. In addition, maps themselves would become more susceptible to market manipulation, and would likely plummet in value.
This way, people who don't run the maps can make money by selling them, and if you want the big pay offs from the new items, you have to invest your own gil back into the economy.