Quote Originally Posted by Tyreck View Post
Also, it would need to be changed so that you could not purchase the house outright
Ahh, I haven't thought about it that way. Yes, by sacrificing the option to simply buy housing with just gil, you will solve the issue with crafters/gatherers being underutilized right now, as well as make money flow again (assuming there is a critical mass of rich people/FCs who would prefer to purchase their materials rather than farming those themselves). There will probably be complaints from those who prefer the outright purchase option, but from an economical perspective, tying housing price, at least partially, to a server's commodity market makes far more sense. It will also at least allow some of those gil stockpiled by the wealthy to return to the economy instead of leaving the game permanently via the housing sink.

This is all assuming, of course, there are enough gil in the game to facilitate a healthy flow to start with. There are still indications that gil fountains (non-player based income sources) are still not quite where it needs to be and the majority of players are still quite cash strapped. But removing or at least reducing the housing sink will certainly help.

I like the maintenance idea too although Yoshida specifically said he doesn't want to do that.