Go to Redside.

Redside Market seems as fine as Blueside Market in my experience. Redside, I noticed, even manages to be slightly cheaper than Blueside.

The red market isn't broken. It simply isn't casual friendly. Not everyone plans their build out 15 levels in advance so they can place bids far enough in advance to actually get the sets they need at the point when they are level appropriate.

It isn't broken. It is just very poorly supplied. It is also so low traffic it is exceedingly easy to manipulate. I know, I've done it just so I can understand it. You seem to just want to fixate on the idea that I fail at playing the market, when you really have no way of knowing one way or the other. I understand how to do it, I just don't enjoy it. My 10 year old also doesn't enjoy it, and he also doesn't enjoy waiting 3+ days for a fun little shiny thing to slot in his powers. Personally... I usually have at least a rough plan in mids so I could place bids 15 levels in advance so I have some chance of filling them... and there are times I have done exactly that.

Bottom line is, it's just not casual friendly. That pretty much describes redside. That right there is your population problem. Less casual high end content, less casual access to the market, less players... coincidence? I think not. WoW is the most casual friendly MMO ever created, and has the highest playerbase by a ridiculous margin.

Succeeding at the market redside is not tough, it simply is not enjoyable, or possible on a time window comparable to blue.

We're just going to have to accept that we want different things from the game.

EDIT: Just wanted to add, my villains are comfortable as long as I'm not trying to buy purple sets or anything, and that is resting on the inf I made previously. I hadn't played since back around the time issue 12 was announced. So issue 11 was what... 2 years ago? There's been considerable inflation since then and I'm still comfortable for casual play without having to really think about inf. Like I said, it's not tough to make inf on the market, just boring.

After thinking about what doesn't work with the redside plot, it occurred to me what I'd like to see to fix it.

Instead of doing your contacts to gain Arachnos's favor or get an unspecified payoff, you're doing it to get their loyalty - you are planning from day one to take over, and you are bribing, beating or blackmailing people into backing you instead of Lord Recluse when it happens through the story arcs leading up to it. The patron arc has you getting into Lord Recluse's confidence through one of his lieutenants, and the final arcs would have you defeating the lieutenants and Lord Recluse himself, leaving you soundly in charge of Arachnos. There would still need to be an excuse for leaving Lord Recluse alive as a figurehead (maybe so that nobody notices the upheaval and you're free to work on your schemes while Lord Recluse catches assassins' bullets) but I would find that far more villainous and satisfying than kissing Recluse's backside from 1 to 50.

The sad part about villains in this game is that in an MMOs, they can only ever be lackeys. Heroes work perfectly in the context of an MMO because heroes are reactionary by nature. If a villain attacks, you stop them, and by stopping them you maintain the MMO Status Quo. In fact, your victory is predetermined because the Status Quo must remain unchanged. And as far as motivation is concerned? You're a hero, you just do it because it's right.

But the very same Status Quo that is a hero's greatest boon is a villain's greatest curse. Whereas a hero's victories are great because things must remain the same for the world, a villain's victories are either fleeting because Blue Steel just fixes everything ASAP, or you don't win at all. You can never take over or destroy Paragon City because Paragon City must be there for hero players. You can never take over or take down Arachnos because Arachnos must remain there for the villain players (and really, who would want to sit around in Grandville all day, handing out $name Strike Forces?).

City of Villains is a great idea, but it's constrained by the limits that MMOs impose. As a single player game, or a game with a multi-player function like Demons Soul's, it might just be the perfect game, but as the MMO game that it is, City of Villains will sadly have to remain City of Lackeys.

All that said, I still vastly prefer red-side. I don't mind the reddish-brown of the Rogue Isles because I feel it's thematically appropriate, and blue-side has its blueish-grey and I don't feel that's too varied, either. I love the red-side ATs because of the self-sufficiency many have mentioned, simply because it allows me to switch from soloing to teaming to soloing on a whim. I prefer red-side arcs, all lackeyism aside, since you can tell the writers have become more experienced, the arcs (especially end-game) aren't made up of 90% filler missons, and on a personal note I love the EBs or Heroes/AVs at the end because they tend to give a nice climax to these arcs.

As far as the lackeyism is concerned, I admittedly jump through some mental loops. To justify it to myself, I just tell myself I'm not really working for them, I'm just using them as informants. They got info on a good gig going on, and because they're too pathetic to do it themselves, they relay the information to you. They might benefit from your actions, but ultimately most of the infamy goes to you, not the guy who tells you there's stuff.

All that said, though, it's a good thing that blue-side and red-side feel so differently. If blue-side isn't your thing, you can go red-side, and if red-side annoys you, there's always blue-side. Why try to make both sides more similar if they appeal to different people as they are?

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