Basic Economics

[Souljacker]

I believe that if they implemented Nation specialization it would fix the XI Jeuno problem (if it is a problem). If each nation had specific abundant resources, and development skills, then each nation would be able to produce larger amounts of those goods for a cheaper price than the other nations. As for a Jeuno type city being a center of trade, well it should be, that's why they put it there.

If the nation specialization was in place, Jeuno wouldn't have any resources for production. Jeuno would simply be a trade center, but it should have much higher taxes (as a crossroads city would tax in real life). Those high taxes would drive people to sell their goods in the other cities.

If we want to motivate players to visit the different cities, there is no better way than nation specialization. If there is an instant global auction, there is no motivation to visit different areas.

As for availability of items, currently I agree that it would be difficult; however, in the future (with a large population) I don't believe it will be an issue. Players will move the goods over into the different cities, and create a living international trade market. At that point the market will become a very complex, and detailed portion of the game.

In the end these basic economic principles will make FFXIV a much better game for everyone.

And again, I respectfully disagree and ask if you have played XI. If you had, you would know that this is exactly what they did there. Jeuno had higher taxes on selling goods at the AH but it didn't drive people to rush back to the starter cities to sell things. They just stopped selling lower level things because it didn't turn any profit for them. As a result, the starter city AH's emptied, and new players couldn't get things. It didn't matter that Gustaberg was "the" place to go for Goldsmithing, everyone still sold the goods in Jeuno if they sold them at all. You might get lucky and see some beastcoins or someone grinding out low level bars and offloading them right there, but for the most part the money was in Jeuno and it didn't matter that the guild was in basty.

Besides that, we have to think beyond trade goods and have a care for new players looking for equipment. Crafters generally NPC the low level things that don't turn a profit because there isn't a market for it in the big city and those selling slots are precious (if we can assume that SE will continue to limit us by certain amounts of slots). If the AH's are linked, they can reach a wider audience for their wares and not be limited by only those people who happened to start in the "correct" city.

Some of you preach to know economics but the truth is that in the real world, profit is made by reaching as large an audience as possible, not by cutting trade off and only being specific to one region. There's a reason we have a global economy now.

The same thing will happen here as happened in XI if they choose to go this route.