Ebil Marketeers

There are dings, and then there are DINGs!  While my primary focus is always on achieving the next level for a character, there is still a sense of accomplishment with getting a level of renown, getting a new influence reward or even getting that last crafting point that tips you into the next band.
 
My first real long-term MMO was City of Heroes which, at launch, did not have a crafting system.  This was actually by design, they were trying to make a loot-less MMO.  That failed, of course, and they have since retro-fitted in a crafting system.  But before WAR, I never really payed attention to crafting in any games I played, preferring just to buy what I needed and keep on leveling.

So I decided to give crafting a try, and it turns out that I enjoy advancing my characters through the various crafting levels as well.  With my main alt, Johcasta (21/16 WP) I decided to try cultivating and apothecary, reasoning that the herbs I produced with cultivating I would use in apothecary.  Clever, huh?  Well, there are two problems with that plan: One, cultivating won’t produce the water I need for apothecary, and you can only have one gathering skill, and two, I never have enough seeds in a band to get me to the next band.

Now, I understand what the design intent was here.  If there is no one gathering skill that will produce all the mats needed for any of the crafting skills (still only two?  C’mon, Mythic!) then that encourages you to trade with guildmates or teammates, or increases traffic at the auction house, all of which are good things.  But in practice what it leads to is me hoarding my meager supply of seeds, and having all my alts send me all their seeds (and water).  I then sit on them until I have enough to grind up to the next band.  Based on the prices of some of this stuff at the auction house, I don’t think I’m in the minority on this.  Mid-level waters go for a gold apiece, and seeds in the 25-50 range often cost that much (if you can even find any!).

However it’s happening, demand is far outstripping supply for these items.  Unless there are a bunch of “Ebil Marketeers” who are manipulating all the data, the vast majority of us could open our vaults and get buried by the deluge of mats raining down on us.  So, what to do?

Well, I’m only one player, but I’m gonna step up.  I’ll be putting my mats on the auction house (for REASONABLE prices, vendor price + posting price) in an attempt to get this under control, or at least a little less ridiculous.  If enough of us do this, maybe we can actually have common mats at reasonable prices.