No, weevils is the best source of income... Just kidding. But weevils is actually the only way I make gold, until I decide to go questing (I am not much into questing, but I know it could be a greater source of income), or bashing for gold (I've heard Astral is a very good source for xp gold?). Anyway, almost all of my gold/levels has been gained thanks to weevils. I could easily make 15k in a weeviling session (Ethereal is infested by them, and close to no people). Now those sessions are longer, thanks to the Divines getting smart and making weevils as hard as rats (weevils used to die with one hit, any weevil ). I guess us old weevilers got our small goldmine discovered! By the way, there is also gambling out there. Maybe I should try my luck...

Allow me to be a bit bold on commenting about trade subject. I do believe tradeskills have become available to everyone, which is great since there is an added diversity of tades, but I don't really think absolutely everyone decides to exercise their trade (I don't and I am Adept Herbs). Do trades provide and increased potential to make a profit? Absolutely, but not everyone does choose to actually take their trade into service. Hm, speaking of trades... I wonder how is the current market competition for every trade. Do cartels compete against cartels?

Though, yes, it does seem like it takes much less time to acquire gold in Lusternia than it takes on other places (thankfully). But I think that the main factor about credit prices will be always the seller. They will always set a high price to the credits, as long as they sell. If people entirely stopped purchasing Credit Market credits, and stuck with guild credits, city credits, buddy credits, then probably normal Credit Market sellers would probably not see themselves sell their wares and end up decreasing the price.

...Partially I am thankful for the credit market price increase. Now that I am not spending all my gold in credits, I am actually saving gold to acquire other things I actually needed. In any occasion, I am sure whenever I decide to purchase credits I know I can count with either city or guild credits.

If you only rat/weevil to make money then yes credits will look expensive. But astral mobs can drop close to 500 gold. so That means there are people out there able to make hundreds times the amount of money you make, add to that that many of those people will also sell items making more money.

And credits are as expensive as you let them become. I wouldn't mind selling my OOC bought credits for 2K but since I can sell them for 5K... why not do it?
If I was a city leader or some such 1200 seems reasonable... but then agin why shortchange your orginzation if people are willing to pay 3K thinking its cheap?
Its all perspective.

Oh, they did actually change that? I thought I was just going mad.

*note: Haven't been able to get on much since about 3 weeks ago when my soul got kidnapped from the realms, so my knowledge isn't the most up-to-date.

Speaking as someone who's tried out several of the tradeskills, I'd say that the best is herbs if you have lots of time, followed by trans alchemy (since the change to Bob). As for the rest of the trades, you'd be better off by far saving your lessons for other skills that help you bash, then pop up to astral.

There's too many who's willing to work at a trade for a very small sum, and last I heard, cartel prices didn't work for very long, what with most people (including those in said cartels) undercutting the prices set.

A short analysis of a few of the tradeskills taken without artifacts if anyone's interested:

Herbs
- Is good if you're willing to spend lots and lots of time planting and harvesting
- Not absolutely necessary to trans, though you'd certainly earn more what with all the low-level herbalists cutting prices down to an amount to a bit more than you'd get by ratting.

Alchemy
- Refills for health anyone?
- Relatively good if trans, forget it if not.
- Hard time getting empty vials.

Tailoring / Jewelry
- Think you can get a regular supply of cloth / gems at reasonable prices?
- As far as I can figure out, skill level affects the number of months on the items, which means trans / near. The difference with a ring is about 90 months at adept, vs 180 at trans.

Cooking
- Sells fairly well, but you'd need a shop to get more profit out of it.
- Ingredient costs are also pretty high compared to food prices.
- Profit is good for the time taken.
- Just on a side note, many guilds do not need to buy food. (Eg. Foraging / eating corpses)

Enchantments
- Profit is also good for the time taken, but not much demand per enchanter.
- Guardian enchantments sell better than mage
- You need to learn highmagic + 1 guildskill as well to get everything in enchantments.


Edit: Okay, so it wasn't quite that short

Tailoring isn't profitable unless you get the rare robe sale, and this is speaking from someone who tries to hold onto 200+ cloth/leather at all times (for bulk orders - down to 100 cloth at the moment). All prices are marked up 20% on top of comm prices, except robes which are steeper (due to lack of making them). And yes, many people are willing to work for free, it seems. Thankfully, they don't have the incentive to scour for comms.