World Balance is doomed until ..

[Bjond]

.. the Market Board is shared across an entire data center. I had to move my character from a low-population world to a high for one reason only: market board. And, unless you want to be an omni-crafter/gatherer and solo everything yourself when you need some trivial crafted item for a quest (such as relic or anima) or you don't mind paying a week's worth of gil for raid-food, I'd strongly urge you not to move away from a high-population server.

The high-pop market boards are amazing for both buying and selling. The low are pure hell. I made ~4m gil in the first few days after moving my alt and now I never worry about gil there. The caveat, of course, is that I have less than zero desire for housing.

If you happen to have the house itch, weigh it carefully against the rest before taking the leap. There are a LOT of nice friendly people playing on all servers, but low-pop has serious economy issues.

[Theodric]

Opening up the market to every server will just crash the price of the vast majority of items. If you choose to play on a smaller server then a consequence of that is lofty prices for certain items. On the other hand, that means you can make a lot of profit if you invest.

[Zojha]

If you choose to play on a smaller server then a consequence of that is lofty prices for certain items.

Well yes - And what he's saying is that this is one strong reason to avoid smaller servers.

Which I agree with. After checking out the market board prices on other servers, Balmung feels all the more cozy and cuddly. I'm happy to be here.

[Jijifli]

Opening up the market to every server will just crash the price of the vast majority of items. If you choose to play on a smaller server then a consequence of that is lofty prices for certain items. On the other hand, that means you can make a lot of profit if you invest.

On Mateus, which was dead until Road to 60, a level 50 crafting chest piece was easilly 1m gil or higher. JUST the chest, that would get replaced after 1-3 levels. And doesn't look that amazing.

[Vespar]

I dont see a reason to link the marketboards across servers. The marketboard prices vary from server to server because that is the nature of the market boards. Everything relies on Supply and Demand and that servers' needs. Linking Market Boards could cause certain servers' economies to collapse making it harder for players to earn money or the opposite, inflate prices to the point where folks cant afford anything or feel they are forced to do the unthinkable and turn to buying gil.

There really is no need to link the servers' MBs though, most everything in the game can be farmed with just a bit of effort on the part of the player.

[Theodric]

Whilst unfortunate that the economy may lead to bloated expenses on smaller servers...we already see a plague of people undercutting each other and killing the profit on many items. It'd be even worse if items could be sold across servers - most gathering items, for instance, would plummet to vendor price. If not lower since some people are intent on putting stuff up for less than it sells to an NPC.

[Jybril]

What's your guys prices on Materia Heavens Eye VI?
Ours is 60k on Balmung. :x Savage Aim and Might are 50k now.
It's dipping pretty fast though was high 70 and 60 respectively last night.
I feel like if we had Data Center wide MB, prices will sink into oblivion.
It's already hard to make money if you aren't a crafter.

[Syfurion]

What's your guys prices on Materia Heavens Eye VI?
Ours is 60k on Balmung. :x Savage Aim and Might are 50k now.
It's dipping pretty fast though was high 70 and 60 respectively last night.
I feel like if we had Data Center wide MB, prices will sink into oblivion.
It's already hard to make money if you aren't a crafter.

I can reliably sell Heaven's Eye VI for 150k on siren.

[Zojha]

The marketboard prices vary from server to server because that is the nature of the market boards.

More precisely, it is the nature of mono- and oligopolies. Large servers like Balmung are the only ones even remotely getting close to the ideal of perfect competition where everyone is a price taker and thus the only ones where a market is even remotely allocatively efficient as per economic theory. But even there, you'll have a lot of local oligopolies because every good represents an individual market and there's just too many goods to create a full coverage with the limited retainer space. And whenever a market isn't perfectly competitive, allocation of goods will be inefficient.

And when a market is inefficient, you'd generally want the government to step in. Hence antitrust laws etc. Or in SEs case, handing out crafted glamour items via PotD hoards/retainers etc.

[Moonlite]

For the people opposed couldn't the other end of the spectrum be true. So the selling goes way down. The buying also goes way down. You still have the same ability to generate gil. Challenge logs, roulette's, mobs and maps aren't going to give you less gil Also have the ability to draw gil away from other servers.

I get would be an adjustment period. But after awhile the only people it would hurt are the super crafters/gatherers on the small servers. Unless I am missing something?