Make a Profit in Vana'diel

Final Fantasy XI Online (FFXI) is the most heavily subscribed Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game as of early 2004. It is a great game, carrying on the traditions of the single-player Final Fantasy franchise and fantasy online games such as EverQuest.

There's an old adage that money makes the world go 'round. It applies just as much in the world of Vana'diel as it does in real life. The unit of currency in FFXI is the gil, and to succeed as an adventurer you'll need a lot of it. At higher levels, monsters drop gil on a regular basis, but to begin with you'll make most of your money through questing, selling to NPC vendors, and one of the best features of FFXI: the Auction Houses.

Questing for Profits

Questing in Final Fantasy XI is a lucrative and entertaining way to add meaning to the everyday grind. Each starting city has a variety of simple quests that can net you a decent amount of gil for a minimum of fuss. To start you on your way, shows a few quests for each of the three starting cities.

Table 0. FFXI city quests

City	Zone	Grid/location	Quest description
San d'Oria	North San d'Oria	F-6, looking out over the deck	Speak with Secodiand. He is looking for bat wings. Every 2 bat wings you bring him nets you 200 gil. Repeatable.
San d'Oria	San d'Oria Port	G-7, in the pub	Speak with Nogelle. She wants Lake Lufet Salt, which drops from River crabs. Every 3 units of salt nets you 600 gil. Repeatable.
San d'Oria	San d'Oria South	K-6, in the pub	Speak with Legata. He seeks flint, which drops from worms. Every 4 flints nets you 100 gil. Repeatable.
Bastok	Bastok Markets	L-8, in the Trader's Home	Salimah is looking for ingredients for a dish she's working on. She takes Treat Bulbs, Wild Onions, and Sleepshrooms. You'll earn a 100-gil reward, unless you time it right. Repeatable. From 6:00 to 11:59, Treant Bulbs are worth 200 gil. From 18:00 to 5:59, Sleepshrooms are worth 200 gil. From 12:00 to 17:59, Wild Onions are worth 350 gil.
Bastok	Bastok Mines	F-8	Gerbaum is looking to have Zeruhn Mines creatures slain. Bring him 3 Zeruhn Soots and he'll reward you with 150 gil. Repeatable.
Bastok	Bastok Markets	K-9	Aquilina is looking for flint to light her oven. They drop from worms. 4 flints will net you 100 gil. Repeatable.
Windhurst	Windhurst Port	G-5, behind the warehouses	One of the best early-level quest stories around. Speak to Kohlo-Lakolo to start the Star Onion Brigade quests. You'll need to turn in a rarab tail, dropped by a bumblebee.
Windhurst	Windhurst Woods	H-6	Illu wants someone to clear crawlers out of the area. Bring her 3 silk thread or 3 crawler calculi to net 600 gil. Repeatable.
Windhurst	Windhurst Waters	L-6, in the Aurastery	Moreno-Toeno is looking for a Two-Leaf Mandragora Bud and a Bird's Feather. The turn-in nets you 250 gil. Repeatable.

Dealing with Vendors

The first and easiest means of selling goods you'll discover is using NPC vendors. Every NPC vendor in FFXI will purchase any item you have in your inventory, and all vendors purchase items for the same prices. A weapons vendor will purchase weapons at the same rate that an armor vendor will purchase weapons.

At low levels, you'll likely find better prices from randomly dropped loot than you'll see at the Auction House. Don't ever sell equipment to a vendor, however. Almost every piece of equipment will sell for much more on auction than it will to a vendor. Vendors are useful only for serious moneymaking when you can set up a sweet deal between vendor prices and Auction House prices.

Merchants at the various crafting guilds sell materials for their crafts. Sometimes you can purchase these items, such as lumber or cotton, via the guild halls for relatively little and resell them at the Auction House for a high profit. Otherwise, avoid selling to NPC vendors. The Auction Houses are almost always the way to maximize the profits of your labors.

Player trading is the mainstay of most MMOG economies. If you're selling small, common, and inexpensive items, you're best off trading with NCP vendors. Larger, more powerful, and rare items usually earn more profit when sold to other players.

Auction Houses

Every major city has a few Auction Houses where players can buy and sell goods. The AHs within a city tie into one another, so a sword up for sale in Windhurst Waters will also appear in Windhurst Walls.

There are different categories of items available for you to peruse. When putting an item up for sale, look under the category of the item you want to sell. If you're selling a Bronze sword, bring up the Weapons screen. On the screen you can choose the type of item you wish to sell. Select Bronze Sword to place a bid if there are any up for sale, sell an item, or review the item's sales history.

Before selling an item, always check the price history. The AH is a powerful tool for valuing equipment and goods. A sale occurs when a player places a bid on an item at or exceeding the amount of money the selling player asks for the item. If there are many items with the same price that meet those criteria, the buyer buys the oldest item up for sale. If Bronze Swords are selling for 150 gil, you might place it up for auction for 170 gil, hoping to make a better deal. If your item is the only Bronze Sword up for auction, the first bid at or more than 170 gil will win your item. Your house Moogle will hold onto the gil you gain from an auction until you retrieve it from him.

That's how to buy and sell. How do you profit? Two of the best ways to work the Auction House are farming and timing.

Farming items

Farming items from locations and monsters, if done in the right places, can lead to a lot of money. The most lucrative item to farm is probably ore from the Bastokian mines. Iron ore from the mines sells for around 700 gil, and the much rarer Darksteel ore can net over 6,000 gil per piece. Fire crystals, dropped from monsters, are also valuable on almost every server. A stack of 12 could fetch as much as 3,000 gil. Both methods work for low-level characters to raise a stake in Vana'diel.

Timing the system

Timing is much trickier. Japanese players are much more advanced in the game and generally have more gil than their American counterparts. While prices for a particular item during American gameplay times can be too low to consider selling, placing items in the Auction House for sale during Japanese play times can rake in higher profits.

Muling

If you want to combine all these methods to maximum effect, consider using mule characters. Final Fantasy XI accounts allow one character by default. Buying additional character slots will cost an extra dollar per month. If you're willing to deal with the additional cost, three additional slots will make for a very wealthy primary character. Remember to create these additional slots on the same server as your primary character. Use a Worldpass or trial and error to ensure this.

Create three characters and station one at each of the cities. Every Auction House has slightly different rates for equipment and loot. Pass gil and equipment back and forth between characters via Moogle mail. Send the appropriate piece of loot to the mule character who can sell it for the maximum amount of gil, then pass the gil to the primary character.

If you don't mind a little more work, you can also use these mules to complete lucrative one-off quests. Equipment from low-level quests often sells for a good deal at the Auction House, such as the Justice Badge in Windhurst.

With only a few guidelines in mind, you should have no trouble keeping your primary character properly armed and armored. The art of making gil requires knowing how to use what you have to greatest effect. Once you have some experience in the art of the Auction House, making gil hand over fist becomes almost second nature. Keep your eyes out for bargains and good luck!