Economy - Plat
 

I have come back after about a 2 1/2 year break and the pricing on items increased, but not only that, the availability of items is much higher. Now this is expected, but I see a ton of items 30k - 1mil. When in the past it was much more common to see 20k - 200k at much less frequency. Where is the plat coming from? Are people killing enough guards to inject this much plat into the economy? I am just curious, pretty impressive how the economy has grown.

People are buying it.

A lot of items are from people who sit in tunnel all day and only do tunnelquesting, they will buy and monopolize a semi-rare piece, then boost the price up on multiple alts/names on both forums and wiki. This is usually the mid-range items like 10-50k. Most of those have been boosted up by at least 10-30k lol, like Lute of the Howler.

The big name items are because there are a lot more guilds getting to some of these items. They are monopolizing them (because raid guilds turn people into scum, I know: i've been in 3 of them) then reselling at like 100k+ the price. Like Cowl of Mortality has went up from 140 last year to like 200-300+ now. It's hilarious.

Now items like Drums of the Beast it's because no one wants to farm the zone it's in. Sirens Grotto is probably the most difficult non-raid zone in game, and the camp is awful (I've done it) They are definitely not worth more than 150k, but since no one is farming it you can't really say shit.

Also, you will probably be blasted for this post by annoying, bored manchildren who sit on the forum all day but it is a legit question imo. Hope it doesn't run you off the server because it's run a ton of folks off, but gear isn't THAT important and it will come without having to pay for it if you hit 60.

-A guy who used to tunnelquest & has been in multiple raid guilds

This all makes a lot of sense of course. The only thing is the platinum on the server. From 2009-2018 it grew, but from 2018-2021 the plat amounts have skyrocketed at a much faster pace. Green came out and split server pops which would make plat growth slow also, but it hasn’t. How is there so much more platinum on the server? Other than guards, are there more sources to really get it? Or have people just really clamped down more and farmed the hell out of it even with half the pop?. Maybe it is because you have a smaller pop and the plat is passed through the population easier and not spread out. It’s just really interesting to me, idk lol =)

I think its not that there's exponentially more plat, but the fact that there are less people and they are just farming less overall. Part of this was the population split, and another aspect is the Hole ZEM which caused everyone to abandon Seb or anywhere else for 50+ XP. The hole issue is mostly concerning Seb drops but also bleeds into a few other drops and zones as well.

Another possibility is that the total amount of the plat didn't change that much over the years. But the number of people holding them increased, and more plat is in circulation vs locked inside the bank of very few people.

Looking back the high level tradable raid loots are up for sale much more often, and their prices have dropped, things like white dragon helm, boots of the storm aow helm/leg/mask... which puts plat in the hands of raiders who cash in one item to twink many alts which drive up the demand and possible prices of mid range items (50 to 200k).

Less plat going out of circulation (whether spent on consumables or rotting in the banks of characters unused).

Top guilds are spending far less on recharges due to item nerfs which was the biggest plat dump for years. Instead of platinum going back to merchants it sits without any way to remove it from the economy.

we only need to look to the famous quote "every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction” ~ Sir Isaac Newton (Newton’s Third Law)

With half of the server population moving to green, supply has went down, therefore prices went up