This is a quickly made guide aimed at new players to explain what the Auction House (AH for short) is and how it functions in FFXI.
The Auction House is one of the central trading hubs in Vana'diel. It's where adventurers such as yourself come to buy and sell the many items found throughout the world. You will find yourself using the Auction House a lot so it makes sense to learn how to use it. Each of the main cities and minor towns have one and they are all linked together. Upon selecting one, you will be presented with 3 options:
- Buy
- Sell
- Sales Status
Buy
As the name suggests, this is where you buy items from the Auction House. All items are all catergorized e.g. a Fire Crystal can be found on the AH under 'Crystals'. Find the item you wish to purchase. If there is a number to the right of it's name, this means that the item is in stock.
Some items are sold by themselves. Others are sold in stacks of either 12 or 99. Select the item and then the bid option. To make life easier, you will now find that a price history pops up with the last 10 sales of the item. Use this as a general guide to an items worth.
If your bid was successful, you will receive a message in your chat log which reads:
- You buy "the item" for XXX amount of gil.
If your bid was unsuccessful, you will receive the following message and you will need to try raising yor bid:
- You failed to buy "the item" for XXX amount of gil.
The item can now be found in your inventory, found via the menu.
Sell
Upon selecting the sell option, you'll be taken to your inventory. Select the item you wish to sell. Items can be sold individually or in stacks of 12 or 99. If you attempt to sell a group of items less than the stack amount (for example you only have 11 crystals instead of 12), you will recieve a warning and have the option to sell them all individually.
Once you have selected your price, you then are able to decide on the price. Again, use the price history to decide upon your price. Hit enter and confirm the sale. The item will then be removed from your inventory. There is now a limit of 21 items that players can list on the Auction House, per charater (you have 3 charater slots, so 63 items total)
There is a tax applied for listing items for sale on HorizonXI. Single items are a 1% of the asking price +1 gil and stacks are 0.5% of the asking price +4 gil. For example, if i was to put a Wax Sword up for sale at 1000g, the tax will be 10g. This tax is applied immediately, NOT when the item sells.
Finally, you will find a message in your chat window explaining how long the item will be listed for. The current list time is in need of verification on HorizonXI but I believe it is around 1 real life week. If the item doesn't sell, it will be returned to your delivery box which is found in your Mog House.
Sales Status
This is where you will find all of the items you have listed for sale. Each item and the price you listed them at can be found within this option.
If you have listed more than 7 items, don't panic that you can't see them all. Unfortunately there is a Client Limitation which causes an issue here. To see the 8th item that you listed, hit the sales status button again to see items 8-14. On HorizonXI players may list a total of 21 items per character.
Getting the Most Out of the Auction House
- Stack your loot:- Selling stacks of 12 or 99 can be worth more than selling individually. The reverse is sometimes true as well.
- Lowest price wins:- If 10 of the same item are listed, the lowest listed prices sells first.
- Selling high:- If there's none of a particular item listed on the AH, you can try selling at a higher price and make more than the going rate.
- An astute player can sometimes find items sold on the AH that can be resold to NPC Merchants for a profit. These are often items people don't "farm" but that are dropped during exp parties. For example. Crab meat sells to an npc for 275 gil, exp parteis often target crab mobs. When you get 1 "land crab meat" you might just check the AH price history, see all 10 are listed at 200, and sell the meat at that price. You are happy when it sells and the person who hit the AH up and bought 20-30 of them at 200 (making 75 gil x 20-30) is happy as well. this can happen with spells that drop from mobs as well as items from quests, etc.
- Likewise, some items can be purchased from NPC Merchants and resold on the AH for a profit.
Did You Know?
The Auction Houses of HorizonXI are not strictly 'Era Accurate'. In era, they were not all linked together and instead seperate into 4 seperate hubs:
- Bastok/Rabao
- San d'Oria/Tavnazia?
- Windurst/Kazham
- Jeuno
