Current state of the economy

[amishriot]

I've been looking for classic EQ forever and I finally found project1999. I'm waiting to get the client. I've been reading the forums in the meantime and I am really worried about the insane prices of items. The server has been up for a year and the prices are inflated far beyond anything I remember back in the old days. What up? Where are people getting hundreds of thousands of plat? I'm almost 100% positive that was not normal in the classic era. Someone please tell me there isn't some serious deviation from classic that is causing a "Monty Haul" effect. :(

[Kelven]

The economy will never be exactly like live was. It's easier to make money this time around when most everyone has played this game before.

besides, I knew a guy on classic who sold nothing but banded and fine plate all day, and he made well over 100k in 2 months. The well known jewelers made more then double that.

[loneless999]

prices are really high from what i remember from classic
reason i think is people know where to go hat to do to make the most plat they have done it all before
i beleve you will see prices drop once kunark is out

[amishriot]

thats fine, im ok with people just being knowledgeable about how to get rich as long as it isn't like one of the EQ classics i read about that gave you 5600plat when you started. I was so disappointed when i read that, until i found P1999 :D

I just wish I would have found this place a year ago. I will be a year behind just like i was in Live...i discovered EQ just before Kunark released

[Pheer]

On my server on live when i first started (around kunark era) FBSS was still around the price it is on this server. GEBs was pretty much exactly the price it is here for a long time. I really dont get why people think everything was so super cheap in classic. Maybe on some servers items were cheaper than others but that doesn't mean the server isnt like classic just because you don't remember items being those prices.

[guineapig]

thats fine, im ok with people just being knowledgeable about how to get rich as long as it isn't like one of the EQ classics i read about that gave you 5600plat when you started. I was so disappointed when i read that, until i found P1999 :D

I just wish I would have found this place a year ago. I will be a year behind just like i was in Live...i discovered EQ just before Kunark released


As long as you get close to 50 before Kunark you will not be behind.
Don't worry about the money now. No matter how much you have others have more. There are tons of level 50's out there who only have a few k to their name.

Not all people have the farming mentality. There are those who prefer to make alts gear them up and level them. There are also many who have simply taken a break and are waiting for Kunark to come out.

I don't know this for certain but I have a feeling like you have plenty of time before we will see Kunark go live. Don't get discouraged.

[Messianic]

It's already been stated, but i'll flesh out the point a little more.

Most of the people who play this game are of the population that enjoyed the game thoroughly, and therefore eventually learned how to play the game well. They know how to make cash and they know that FBSS has kind of a corner on items of its type for the time being. Because the ins and outs of the game are so much more well known than they were in 1999/2000, the money supply has exploded and therefore prices stay high, because people don't have to wait all that long to sell items at inflated prices.

People who complain about inflated prices probably don't understand that all the items they sell are probably inflated as well, and therefore they make money faster.

I don't understand the complaint. It's like complaining when someone else has 10k plat when you only have 1k, but not complaining when they have 5k and you have 500pp. The difference between here and live isn't all that great, except for specific items for which the population knows the future...

[Alawen Everywhere]

The economy is nowhere near as messed up as people make it out to be. Some things are very valuable, like droppable dragon and god loot, and items that no longer drop including manastone and rubicite breastplate.

It's still entirely possible for a class- and level-appropriate character to get a group to camp golden efreeti boots or wait for a chance at the frenzy camp. It's also very doable to easily go camp the vast majority of the items you want for your characters.

You'll also make money while you level. I personally ran out of platinum during the poopsock days where we sat and stared at vacant boss spawn points day after day. Since the end of that, I leveled my ranger from 40 to 50 by soloing the griffins and hill giants in East and North Karana. I also got a couple groups in Nagafen's Lair and won the roll on a gold chitin bracer. As a result, he bought his own Djarn's amethyst ring and still has a few thousand platinum in the bank.

It's really nowhere near as hard as people are making it out to be. Yes, it's tough to get some of the most popular camps, but even those are possible.

Welcome to Project 1999. Look me up if you need a few buffs to get started; I frequently spend a couple hours a day sitting in the entrance of the East Commons tunnel.

[Gorgetrapper]

Or, there are people dupe hacking in off vendor areas and you guys know nothing about it. I was in South Qeynos the other day and I literally saw 1996 Platinum Ruby Veils for sale on a baker/muffin vendor. Lets just say, the GMs said the culprit was caught, but didn't say who it was.
So if you guys think that "it's because people know what they're doing now" is a good excuse, I don't believe it is. There is so much plat on this server from small-large dupe hacking, that's it has already circulated through the server and it would be catastrophic (huge rollback) that it would hurt the server more than help it.

Knowing the game does help, but with people constantly buying accounts on a daily basis over 70K+, and magical nearly 2k items on a vendor just appear, you begin to wonder if it's because of past knowledge of the game, or just simple hacking.

[Messianic]

Or, there are people dupe hacking in off vendor areas and you guys know nothing about it. I was in South Qeynos the other day and I literally saw 1996 Platinum Ruby Veils for sale on a baker/muffin vendor. Lets just say, the GMs said the culprit was caught, but didn't say who it was.
So if you guys think that "it's because people know what they're doing now" is a good excuse, I don't believe it is. There is so much plat on this server from small-large dupe hacking, that's it has already circulated through the server and it would be catastrophic (huge rollback) that it would hurt the server more than help it.

Knowing the game does help, but with people constantly buying accounts on a daily basis over 70K+, and magical nearly 2k items on a vendor just appear, you begin to wonder if it's because of past knowledge of the game, or just simple hacking.

I appreciate the skepticism, but this is mainly conjecture. I just don't think you know that much about how much dupe hacking is going on within the server to blame the economy on that. Because the admins/etc are mum on how much they track and enforce rules on that, we don't have the data at hand to know for sure.

"A general sense" really isn't sufficient for me. There are probably a very large number of people who have craptons of platinum saved up.

[Alawen Everywhere]

Or, there are people dupe hacking in off vendor areas and you guys know nothing about it. I was in South Qeynos the other day and I literally saw 1996 Platinum Ruby Veils for sale on a baker/muffin vendor. Lets just say, the GMs said the culprit was caught, but didn't say who it was.
So if you guys think that "it's because people know what they're doing now" is a good excuse, I don't believe it is. There is so much plat on this server from small-large dupe hacking, that's it has already circulated through the server and it would be catastrophic (huge rollback) that it would hurt the server more than help it.

Knowing the game does help, but with people constantly buying accounts on a daily basis over 70K+, and magical nearly 2k items on a vendor just appear, you begin to wonder if it's because of past knowledge of the game, or just simple hacking.

I commend you for bringing this to the GMs attention, sir! Hopefully whatever vulnerability was used to accomplish this has been fixed.

[citizen1080]

Dupers just hurt us all =(

Good job reporting

I've had a guy ask me to let him dupe a super high end item and he would cut me in for half the copies. I reported him =/

[oldhead]

people always say the prices are so high compared to classic here... its funny. Besides a few famed items the prices are really lower.

[oldhead]

The only way duping will INCREASE prices of all items is if the duping is of high end vendor items. e.g. more plat on the server. If the GM's kept logs of vendor transactions that should be very easy to spot and find out who is doing that rather quickly.

Any player to player items like manastones and such will only make that item hold less value.

[citizen1080]

qft

[Pheer]

I commend you for bringing this to the GMs attention, sir! Hopefully whatever vulnerability was used to accomplish this has been fixed.

People mentioned seeing hundreds of other gems and sellables on particular npcs quite awhile back when nilbog declared there was no such thing as duping. If theyre still seeing it happen chances are nothing has been done about it.

[Lazortag]

People mentioned seeing hundreds of other gems and sellables on particular npcs quite awhile back when nilbog declared there was no such thing as duping. If theyre still seeing it happen chances are nothing has been done about it.

There's also the possibility that these items are legitimately being sold by people who crafted them just to get jewelcrafting skillups or money faster than if they sold them in EC. Also, most of the time these items are on NPC's like jewelers who naturally would have had lots of jewelcrafters sell these items to them over time. Unless people have proof that some kind of duping is going on they really shouldn't stir up hysteria. There's no evidence that "nothing has been done about it" - just because they don't publish every ban doesn't mean the ban didn't happen. I assume they have ways of accounting for the excess plat that gets distributed among people to keep inflation at an acceptable level too.

[Pheer]

There's also the possibility that these items are legitimately being sold by people who crafted them just to get jewelcrafting skillups or money faster than if they sold them in EC. Also, most of the time these items are on NPC's like jewelers who naturally would have had lots of jewelcrafters sell these items to them over time. Unless people have proof that some kind of duping is going on they really shouldn't stir up hysteria. There's no evidence that "nothing has been done about it" - just because they don't publish every ban doesn't mean the ban didn't happen. I assume they have ways of accounting for the excess plat that gets distributed among people to keep inflation at an acceptable level too.

This works if it was only jewelcraft combined items being found in large quantities on merchants, but ive heard of many hundreds of gems being found on the same merchant, and not even jewelcraft related ones.

[amishriot]

actually i wasn't surprised to see FBBS going for 15k when i started in 2000 that was about normal, maybe 12kish if you were lucky. GEBS went for 9-12k. What made my jaw drop was the person who said he sold 3 AoNs for 300k+. I mean wtf...

How does anyone get their hands on 3 of something thats so rare that is worth that much That seems a bit dodgey. 3 diff people had more then 300k to pay for it, thats insane.

I am glad to hear not everyone is filthy rich though. Most importantly im thinking "Come on you damn client I wanna plaaaay!!"

[fastboy21]

It's already been stated, but i'll flesh out the point a little more.

Most of the people who play this game are of the population that enjoyed the game thoroughly, and therefore eventually learned how to play the game well. They know how to make cash and they know that FBSS has kind of a corner on items of its type for the time being. Because the ins and outs of the game are so much more well known than they were in 1999/2000, the money supply has exploded and therefore prices stay high, because people don't have to wait all that long to sell items at inflated prices.

People who complain about inflated prices probably don't understand that all the items they sell are probably inflated as well, and therefore they make money faster.

I don't understand the complaint. It's like complaining when someone else has 10k plat when you only have 1k, but not complaining when they have 5k and you have 500pp. The difference between here and live isn't all that great, except for specific items for which the population knows the future...

i agree with you on the reasoning.

the only thing i would add is that there is a valid complaint. for lower level folks the inflation only affects them on the buying side. most items that can be farmed below lvl 30 are not much pricier than they were on live. the cash loot drops don't sell for more than they did on live. the money making quests don't give more than they did on live. So for lower lvl players, the inflation can seem very difficult if they are trying to buy higher end items at low lvl. they can remember saving up and buying certain gear by certain lvl on live, and here might not be able to afford it by that lvl now.

for higher level folks the inflation really doesn't matter, like you said. when you sell you benefit from the inflation, when you buy you pay more. somewhat balances out.

the inflation, however, does increase the gap that existed in classic between certain classes money making. NECs/MAGs especially can get FAR more benefit from the inflation than a WAR can, for example. Of course, this benefit has always existed (i.e. was not created by P1999), but the relative advantage is increased on this server.

[Absentia]

Not sure if P99 has changed their coding or not on how vendors work, but on other servers of the same build you can dupe easy. You can take 1 Diamond + 300 plat and turn it into 50-100k within maybe an hour. Is it happening here? Possibly. Does it happen on other servers? Why yes, it does.

I literally saw 1996 Platinum Ruby Veils for sale on a baker/muffin vendor.

That doesn't make sense either.

[Lickum]

Not sure if P99 has changed their coding or not on how vendors work, but on other servers of the same build you can dupe easy. You can take 1 Diamond + 300 plat and turn it into 50-100k within maybe an hour. Is it happening here? Possibly. Does it happen on other servers? Why yes, it does.



That doesn't make sense either.

There was actually a pretty big sting involving this a few months back. A few high profile people got banned amongst many others. They got backtraced by the cyberpolice and done goofed.

[Absentia]

Doesn't mean shit got fixed. Things always break when something else is changed.

[Uthgaard]

If you don't think we do anything to people who exploit, I've got a petition forum full of tears and bad lies that says otherwise.

[citizen1080]

actually i wasn't surprised to see FBBS going for 15k when i started in 2000 that was about normal, maybe 12kish if you were lucky. GEBS went for 9-12k. What made my jaw drop was the person who said he sold 3 AoNs for 300k+. I mean wtf...

How does anyone get their hands on 3 of something thats so rare that is worth that much That seems a bit dodgey. 3 diff people had more then 300k to pay for it, thats insane.

I am glad to hear not everyone is filthy rich though. Most importantly im thinking "Come on you damn client I wanna plaaaay!!"

I assume you are talking about me...

I do consignment sales..none of those were mine. I did make a tidy profit off each one tho =)

[Alawen Everywhere]

If you don't think we do anything to people who exploit, I've got a petition forum full of tears and bad lies that says otherwise.

It's pretty selfish to brag about great entertainment and not share.