Thoughts While Crafting Best In Slot Gear

I spent the weekend working on crafting the Indagator's crafting set in Final Fantasy XIV. I did not finish although I got really far. I finished up the five accessory (aka right side) items, gathered most of the remaining materials I needed to make the tools and spent 14,000 gil to purchase the rest, and created 123 out of the 128 component materials needed to create the 16 tools.

One of the interesting aspects of crafting in FFXIV is that the maker of items is stamped on gear and even items (although I didn't check on stackable items made by more than one player). When other players inspect my gear, I want them to see I made everything myself. Is that name really worth the 10+ hours I'll spend gathering and crafting to create both the Indagator's crafting and gathering sets? Couldn't I just purchase the gear for a few million gil?

Yes I could. In some ways, the gathering and crafting gear in FFXIV reminds me of those sketchy games that include so much grind that players give up and pull out their credit cards to purchase items or progress. I see two big differences between those games and a game like FFXIV. First, players cannot just go the cash shop and purchase the gear. Square Enix does not just spawn the item out of thin air to sell. Some player needs to create the item for another player to purchase. 

The second is that, as long as players follow the terms of service, no real world currencies are involved in any transactions surrounding the creation and ownership of the gear. If the process of creating the gear is too burdensome, players exchange gil with each other. Square Enix never becomes involved. 

I did have one additional thought pop up during my long crafting sessions. These long grinds are why player-run economies can work. If players are willing to pay large amounts of in-game currencies to avoid rather complex activities, then those that like crafting will have activities to do when they run out of making items for themselves. The cycle works better in games with a lot of gear destruction like EVE Online, but the principle remains the same.

Sometime during the week I'll finish up making the actual items and then turn to melding materia to the 26 items to make the most effective gear possible. After that I get to start crafting iLevel 630 white mage gear with requires the Indagator's crafting set to create. Sure, I could spend a couple million gil to buy the items off the market board, but then the gear wouldn't have my name stamped on it.