Is Goldsmithing Worth It

What have I done since the last two dramatic updates to this site? Really this whole month so far has been pretty anti-climatic. I've participated in two Dynamis runs this month so far (Jeuno and Windurst), we won them both no problem and I got Warriors Mufflers from Jeuno for 200k.

I have been trying to level my WAR as much as possible but something always comes up or I'm feeling too tired to do it, only managing about 40k EXP last week. I find that now my WAR is Lv71 that I am getting picky again on how much EXP/hr that I can tolerate. My LS is currently trying to figure out a better way to manage the members weekly activities and may begin to limit how many activities a week that each member will be allowed to use as an excuse to miss scheduled LS events. You have to understand how crazy it is to try and run an end-game shell when most of your members are running with different Limbus, Dynamis, Salvage and Assault groups on a weekly basis.

Sorry I have no screenshots for today's update, I only started taking them for this blog and normally I'm not much of a screenshot saving person so most of the best screenshot opportunities I end up not thinking to take.

I guess now is a good time to address the question I said I would answer last month. That of course being the famous "is goldsmithing worth it?" that I have been getting from quite a few people. I'm assuming the main reason people ask this question is because they are aspiring goldsmithers themselves or leveling another craft that they think may have similar results.

The answer is easy and very simple... no! Yes thats a no with an exclamation mark. The ONLY way that any craft is worth it these days and for the last year for that matter is for personal use, for saving little bits of money here and there. Why do you think that almost every NA/EU player to hit Lv100 goldsmithing has dramatically seen a drop off in their interest in FFXI and playing in general? It's because they thought goldsmithing would make them billionaires and then reality comes around and smacks them upside the head. This is exactly why I took goldsmithing extremely slow and made sure to lose as little money as possible in the skillup process because I knew through extensive market research that goldsmithing would not make me enough money to make it my only cash cow, no craft can be a singular cash cow anymore and that's just the sad reality of supply and demand. The richest players on the server are only rich because they either spend all their time NM hunting and farming or put a huge investment into leveling several... yes several crafts to Lv100.

Last year at this time it was demand and gilbuying that made having a Lv100 craft be crazy valuable, but as of right now the exact opposite has been occurring and with every wave of bans that SE makes it is extracting more and more billions of gil from the economy and there is less and less demand and buying power from the players of this game. For example at how horrific demand is these days, three weeks ago or so I made a large batch of sell ables, 6 Diamond Shields, 6 Wing Sword, 12 Lv36 HQ rings, and 5 Lv36 HQ+1 rings. When I made them the Diamond Shields and Wing Swords were 450k each and the Lv36 HQ+1 rings were 120-150k. As of this moment I have sold all the Diamond Shields, each for less then 400k due to deflation, I have sold only 1 Wing Sword which sold at 350k and I still have all 5 HQ+1 rings which I have been listing for prices as low as 90k with no takers.

If this is the type of market you would like to deal with when you hit Lv100 then by all means, spend the 30-40M in losses from Lv70-80 and the 20-30M in losses from 90-100, but my advice is to save that money and spend it elsewhere on something that will help you now, on something you will have FUN with now! Crafts are things that will NOT help you now and will take probably almost a year to make back the losses suffered while skilling up, on top of this you have to deal with the frustration of trying to sell rare items in a market that no longer cares about having the "best of the best". Personally I feel like the community that isn't already uber is just a bunch of lazy slackers that want everything handed to them and aren't willing to grind out the gil to buy something they can be proud of.

I like to make big numbers in merit parties and show off what I can do. Now you know why I leveled goldsmithing, I never saw it as a money maker, and hell I make free Kaiser equipment PLD's I feel are helping me or my LS. The simple reason I leveled it was because goldsmithing for me has always been a trophy, a goal that I wanted to see completed and absolutely nothing more.

PS: I made Jamal a forum signature over a month ago, and yesterday he supplied a large donation of byne bills for my effort which I just wanted to say a big thank-you for. I have made a lot of forum sigs and this is the first time someone has shown such a significant appreciation for my work.

I also finished Grodo and Tryxie's sigs.