Prepared to answer the call? (Long)

[Zantetsuken]

I think the end of the free trial was one of the best things that ever happened to this game.

The player-base is now largely made up of people who care about the game and want to see it and the dev-team succeed with 2.0.

This will only mean good things for the future.


On the low-level gear prices.. well, its simple supply and demand economics. As demand dropped (more ppl reaching 50 and the easy access to U/U items from NMs), the supply began to drop as well (no point in crafting or using a retainer slot for something you won't sell). The supply was further diminished as used items never saw the secondary market due to the fact that much of it was changed into materia.

So now you have virtually no supply, and very little demand. When you are the only seller of an item, you set the price. So crafters try to corner virtually dead areas of the markets with their overpriced goods in hopes that they will make some good gil. But it is done at the cost of a retainer slot that could be used to sell something more popular. If nobody buys the item at the inflated price, eventually the price will be reduced or it will be taken off the market. If enough people buy the item at the inflated price, other crafters will try to get in on the action and then the price will begin to drop.

My advice: If you really want low level gear for cheap, just craft it yourself. You can set yourself up well by leveling whatever class you need (Cloth, Leather, Armorer, Blacksmith, and Carpenter) to 12~ish in a few hours using leves, and make your own gear that should get you to the lvl 25 U/U stuff. In addition, you can then start to craft things to sell, undercut the price-gougers out there, and maybe make a pretty gil yourself~