Non-classic changes proposal to get rid of RMT

[DoucLangur]

Over the past year or two, I have observed an increase in spell and MQ prices for which I am sure other explanations may be possible, but for which real money traders seem to be quite a good explanation.

And here is why (all IMnsHO):
RMT of accounts is way too easy to track, and with a bought account you can never be safe from a retroactive ban
Therefore, RMT of platinum is *much* more attractive to potential buyers

In order to make it interesting *at all* to pay real money for platinum, there must be "goods" that you can buy for this platinum, that can not be bought for pp that you can farm in a reasonable amount of time. Therefore, *high prices* in platinum create a market for RMT sellers.

It is at least implausible that as many players can accumulate 100s of kpp to buy as many of those items/spells, as there are dropping in the game. Especially considering how fast nameds on this server are taken down.

If the platinum for those items is not mass-accumulating on the banks of a few sellers, then it must be somehow going back into the server market.

There are three possibilities:
1) Money is not going back, people paying huge sums for spells/items are collecting pp farmed by the server community off (vendor-sold) mob drops (only way to create pp)
2) Money is going back to the people with less riches because the vendors of high-priced items spend it all. If you observe inflation in the real world, this would create higher item prices in general. However, this is not the case on p1999. The lesser items do not go up in price.
3) Money is going back. Via RMT. This cycle would actually work without affecting the prices of lower items: It allows vendors of high-priced items to "buy" something for their accumulated platinum. The people who buy platinum then return the same platinum to the vendors of such high-priced items.


Whether or not my assessment of what is going on behind the price scenario is correct, I do not see the super-inflated prices serving any purpose other than to frustrate players that do not have access to large amounts of platinum.

I am aware that it would create an outrage among some people, and it would also create frustration for others, who might genuinely try to help friends with a MQ, but I consider it the lesser evil. I propose to disable the multiquests for certain items, and to make certain spells no trade. This list could be proposed by the community (looking at EC / forum prices), and reviewed / revisited every few patches by the server staff.

For example, to be unbiased, level 55 and level 60 spells in general could be made no trade.

I am aware that there are flaws in this proposal, but I think the negative effects are shared by all and the benefits (in playing fun and group spirit with less greed going on) far outweigh those.

/Slozem

[zanderklocke]

This was a little hard to follow

I'm sure that some high end players cash out at some point, but I think you'd be surprised how much new currency is created and floating around because of solely this below being farmed for 6 years. Classic EverQuest has no platinum sink beyond recharges and port stones for raid guilds, and I would guess that Seafury Island is generating platinum at a faster rate than recharges are sucking up platinum. I don't think there's any other place in the game generating nearly as much platinum per day unless it's a complete secret or an exploit.

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[Tann]

Originally Posted by DoucLangur [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

For example, to be unbiased, level 55 and level 60 spells in general could be made no trade.

Ahah! This whole post was a long winded way of saying Torpor is too expensive! /s

How about this for an unclassic fix: Instead of making said spells no trade just add the PoK library spell merchants to the Erudin library or some place. But only include said 55 - 60 spells in their inventory

[Jimjam]

It's not like plat is destroyed when players trade.

Perhaps the big plat numbers are just going in circles, with a few rich players making frequent high value sales to each other?

[Troxx]

Seafury island alone adds close to 2k an hour to the total platinum circulating on the server. Even at my odd euro playtime hours (i.e. 6-10am on a Wednesday) there are enough people on the island that competition for spawns is fierce. It's farmed 24/7.

I've been camped out there for 2 weeks and have added another 40k to the total platinum on this server with fairly casual play.

Then factor in places like KC where kunark armor drops and can be vendored quickly for 300-450p along with gem drops from KC, Seb, and HS ...

There's an awful lot of plat flowing INTO the economy every day.

What you therefore see in an absence of a steady influx of true p99 noobs (most low levels are alts) is that cheap low/medium tier gear gets cheaper and more rare high end gear might get more expensive. People who have been on the server and want to fund an alt will have the bankrolls to skip low end gear (demand for these goes down) and the price on high dollar stuff stays steady or goes up.

[jpetrick]

You never even factored in the rarity of the item which makes the cost so high. Torpor only drops off a small handful of mobs and most get immediately used on a character and never hit the market. The spells that do hit the market are obviously expensive because there are so few available.

This server has also been around for 6 fucking years. How much plat do you think has been created over 6 years?

[Tann]

Instead of no trade make em no rent, prices would go down in theory as whomever looted it would have to sell it that day unless they corpsed it. But knowing this server.

The problem with no trade is people would setup CoTH camps in Seb and once one of those spells dropped they'd advertise in EC for probably the current market prices. Maybe even higher as the people had X amount of time to decide.

[thufir]

Originally Posted by zanderklocke [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This was a little hard to follow

I'm sure that some high end players cash out at some point, but I think you'd be surprised how much new currency is created and floating around because of solely this below being farmed for 6 years. Classic EverQuest has no platinum sink beyond recharges and port stones for raid guilds, and I would guess that Seafury Island is generating platinum at a faster rate than recharges are sucking up platinum. I don't think there's any other place in the game generating nearly as much platinum per day unless it's a complete secret or an exploit.

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100% true. Spend some time on this island and you'll understand why some items go for as much as they do.

[Troxx]

2k an hour farmed more or less 24/7 comes out to 17.5 million platinum flooding the economy per year from seafuries alone. Now factor in gems, vendor armor, raw plat etc from all other zones and you quickly see how there's a lot of new currency added to the game every year.

Cheap items get cheaper because nobody wants them. Rare items/spells get more expensive as demand > supply.

[Dolalin]

I'd rather see forced deflation introduced into the economy via changing how large sums of plat themselves are treated. The larger your deposits of plat in the bank or on an account, the more negative interest per day they attract. This is similar to NIRP (negative interest rate policy) being enacted by central banks, and punishes wealth hoarders and encourages spending.

Implementing this would not affect your everyday joe XPing, because we could set the limit at 5 or 10k, but would hit large stores of wealth pretty hard. It's also very easy to code and doesn't require changing any game mechanics. To be honest it can be as simple as one SQL update that's run in a batch every night or week.

To address hoarding gems and such to get around this, sales to vendors above a certain plat amount per day can have diminishing returns.