Well, two looming problems have started casting a shadow on my game play.

1. My nest egg is starting to run out.
2. I don’t have the level, time, or skill to really farm effectively.

I’ve camped the AH a couple of times to no avail.  Usually this grants me some pocket cash, but it seems my secret strategy of buying things for 1g to 50% of market price has been discoverd by wiley sellers.

To boot buying Ninja tools, and food, and equipment is starting to be a serious drain.  Even doing quests for “free” stuff often requires that I buy something to get to the goal.

It seems time for me to figure out a new way to come up with funds.  My first thought was to start crafting.

It takes money to make money.

Crafting consumables is a decent way to make scratch, and at first blush it seems like I’m killing two birds with one stone by making stuff to sell to raise funds, and saving gil by making stuff I often buy. The flaw in this ointment is that crafting usually takes some gil to get it to the point where it can save/make you gil

The crafting system in FFXI is brilliant. Low level synths aren’t useless like in other MMO’s.  Often these low level synthesis recipes are making materials one would use for higher level synths.  Sound great, right?

The problem making money in early crafting is low level synths are usually covered by the higher level crafter in volume.  That is FFXI’s High-Quality system in crafting allows high level crafters to synthesize 2-6 times as many widgets as your low level attempts can yield.

Not only do you have to compete with higher level crafters, but you also have to farm up material (time == money) or buy them (money == money).  Since I’ve alread admitted to not having much time, and a dwindling supply of money — this particular hurdle is a bit high…

Damn the materials! Full synthesis ahead!

So whatever, I could make a million excuses why not to start.  Instead, I made the decision to just dive in with what funds I have available.  I like having plans to I decided to figure out what levels take each craft so I could start making/saving money on consumables.

Cooking to 85… Ugh.  That’ll be a lot of craft grinding, but it’s do-able, and I can procrastinate…err…this isn’t a priority craft right now.

Woodworking, Alchemy, and Clothcraft to 60.  Yikes!  All three of those are hard to break even on, but whatever.

Smithing to 40.  Well, at least the start up costs aren’t bad if I spend the rest of my time farming up materials…

There must be an easier way.

Now that I’ve spent some time thinking this through.  I think I’ve got a better solution.  SE needs to create an 18 years or older server so my Mithra can sell herself.

Until that happens, I’ll be creating about a bazillion (give or take 3) Echo Drop potions.