Money matters

The last few days I haven't done as much in-game as I usually do. Popped a Wulgaru for Xaya which we took down much faster due to Kingcem's expert kiting and Xaya and Magireauphielle both on RNG adding a substantial amount of damage. Other than that the normal friday Limbus run and I also spent some time trying to retain my Medal of Altana while upping my buffer on RDM some. I also did something else that I normally wouldn't consider making an entry about: Reselling items for profit.

I can imagine people not approving of this, because, to be completely honest, I think there are some valid ethical objections to be made. In these times of economic uncertainty (in real life) I'm sure many people have a deep seeded hate and loathing towards the investment bankers and the greed of people in the financial sector. When I buy something without the intention of using it but solely because I consider it to be a "good deal" I'm exhibiting a certain amount of greed. When I resell it for more than the purchase price I turn a profit for "being at the right place at the right time and having access to the means to make the initial purchase". Investers justify this by arguing that they take "risks" and that the money they earn is proportional to that risk and thus justifying their high reward to effort ratio. You can debate it or choose not to. The fact remains that there is a lot more money to be gotten from investing than there is doing 'normal' work.

The same is true in FFXI's game economy. People that do the 'real' work are farmers and crafters. There are also those who try to scam you out of your money. For example the people selling single Dynamis currency for slightly less than the going rate for a 100 piece, or bazaar items at stack prices hoping buyers will make a mistake. Then in the middle of the ethics scale there are people who just work the system by buying when prices are low and selling when they are high. You could monopolize a certain item or just buy and sell based on natural variations in supply. The more capital you have to invest, the more risks you can afford and the more leverage you have.

Before FFXIAH was introduced, doing research on which items to buy could take you more than an hour of scouring the slow auction house system. Nowadays anyone can find candidate items in a minute. To show you how easy it can be done. I'll Orichalcum Ingots as an example. The price of these seems variable between 210,000 and 220,000 on Valefor at this moment. That means a possible 10k profit with a sell rate higher than FFXIAH's scanner can keep up with. Obviously you won't always get as much as that and you need to consider the 2,250 gil auction tax. Perhaps not the best profit, but considering the rate at which they sell still a pretty safe bet. I suspect sales during the weekends go up considerably and buying for low prices is best done on weekdays when there are fewer people online during peak hours.

Some of the items I bought still haven't sold and I'm sure I'll have to cut my losses on some of them. The profit margin has to be pretty wide for me to want to sacrifice the AH slots I could be filling with logs and other small ticket items I get from digging. If the next update introduces items that blow the ones I'm sitting on out of the water, I'd be extremely disappointed though unsurprised. Looking back I've bought way too many things during the height of inflation and too few when prices were finally down. My 6 million gil Blau Dolch can attest to that.