Easy Exploiting in P99 - The Story of Our Game Economy

[Devil]

I thought the title might draw better attention to the post, but it is actually about exploiting and the state of the games economy and how it got to where it is today.

I'm sure there are many players out there who are curious as to how this server got to where it is today. If you never have been curious, then great, this should be even more of a surprise to you. There are a few power traders out there who have made a boatload of money in game and quite possibly in USD as well from selling items, trading accounts, etc. But the money that was pumped into the economy in the first place to get many of these power sellers started didn't come from a legitimate means.

Now yes, we came to this server knowing everything that Live players did not know when EQ was released in 99. So Manastones were farmed aplenty, kept in guild banks, sold to players for cash or platinum. This is one big part of how the economy was jumpstarted in P99. When Kunark dropped in Live, I don't remember the kind of economy or massive trading going on that is going on here, do you? I can tell you that the amount of platinum and items in our servers economy are probably tenfold of that which was on a live server around the beginning of the Kunark era.

Secondly, we know that gold drops in this game are not on par with Live EQ. There are way too many low level mobs dropping a platinum per kill, didn't happen in Live, and you know it.

This is only HALF of the explanation, here comes the part you probably DON'T know about

In the early months of this servers life, there were plenty of exploits that were found by myself and other players. Most, if not *all* (I THINK), were eventually corrected, and a small number of players (some, not all) were banned for their participation. I've never seen a thread on it that is still alive, I just wanted to bring it back to light if it's been said before. I knew about this, as did a couple of other people I played with originally.

Before Sol Ro, the Jewelcraft NPCs were...a little effed up to say the least. There was this little jewel called a Fire Opal that wasn't supposed to be sold by NPCs, it was either droppable, or purchasable in SolRo for more than what it was worth. However, at the time, a player geared in CHA gear with a decent JC skill and a little start up money could make a shit-ass-ton of money overnight. This exploit basically involved purchasing stacks of fire opals and silver bars, creating a statless ring, and selling them back to the merchant for more than what you paid for the combines. Before you post anything about how time consuming this could be for a meager amount of extra coin, I'd like to introduce something called a "Recordable Macro" program, which can easily be installed, for free, and then create a drag and click macro to basically purchase 1 stack of fire opals, 1 stack of silver bars, combine them 1 at a time, then sell them back to the Jewelcraft NPC.

Now, how much money could one make doing this, you ask? Between 5-10k per hour or so, depending upon the reliability of the server. It wasn't always stable, and we had a fit with DDOS'ing asshats for a good while, I'm sure everyone remembers. So basically, you could go to sleep at night, wake up the next morning with a smooth 50k. I knew of a few players who did this, names excluded and they no longer player, who pumped so much money into the fledging servers economy it was ridiculous. For a time, I thought it would be figured out and all those involved banned, but no. It was too far into the game for a server restart, so it went on. I can safely say I know of at least 1 million plat made this way pumped into the economy purchasing bags full of GEBs, Manastones, and the like, as well as using for the purchase of level 50 accounts once people started selling them on the forums.

This post isn't aimed toward ruining the game for anyone, or pissing any individuals involved off, none were named. I simply wanted to try to give an explanation as to why things are the way they are today. I also know that there are probably more people who knew about this who also used similar tactics to replicate the exact same thing. I feel that while shedding light on this situation now, after all this time has elapsed, isn't exactly necessary, but I figured it would be a good story to tell some of the newer players, or those of you who didn't know what was going on, so things make a little more sense when you see certain guys running around with hundreds of thousands if not millions of plat. I can promise you it wasn't all earned legitimately. It is now, but it stems from dirty money.

P.S. - Don't ban me. :D

[Devil]

I thought the title might draw better attention to the post, but it is actually about exploiting and the state of the games economy and how it got to where it is today.

I'm sure there are many players out there who are curious as to how this server got to where it is today. If you never have been curious, then great, this should be even more of a surprise to you. There are a few power traders out there who have made a boatload of money in game and quite possibly in USD as well from selling items, trading accounts, etc. But the money that was pumped into the economy in the first place to get many of these power sellers started didn't come from a legitimate means.

Now yes, we came to this server knowing everything that Live players did not know when EQ was released in 99. So Manastones were farmed aplenty, kept in guild banks, sold to players for cash or platinum. This is one big part of how the economy was jumpstarted in P99. When Kunark dropped in Live, I don't remember the kind of economy or massive trading going on that is going on here, do you? I can tell you that the amount of platinum and items in our servers economy are probably tenfold of that which was on a live server around the beginning of the Kunark era.

Secondly, we know that gold drops in this game are not on par with Live EQ. There are way too many low level mobs dropping a platinum per kill, didn't happen in Live, and you know it.

This is only HALF of the explanation, here comes the part you probably DON'T know about

In the early months of this servers life, there were plenty of exploits that were found by myself and other players. Most, if not *all* (I THINK), were eventually corrected, and a small number of players (some, not all) were banned for their participation. I've never seen a thread on it that is still alive, I just wanted to bring it back to light if it's been said before. I knew about this, as did a couple of other people I played with originally.

Before Sol Ro, the Jewelcraft NPCs were...a little effed up to say the least. There was this little jewel called a Fire Opal that wasn't supposed to be sold by NPCs, it was either droppable, or purchasable in SolRo for more than what it was worth. However, at the time, a player geared in CHA gear with a decent JC skill and a little start up money could make a shit-ass-ton of money overnight. This exploit basically involved purchasing stacks of fire opals and silver bars, creating a statless ring, and selling them back to the merchant for more than what you paid for the combines. Before you post anything about how time consuming this could be for a meager amount of extra coin, I'd like to introduce something called a "Recordable Macro" program, which can easily be installed, for free, and then create a drag and click macro to basically purchase 1 stack of fire opals, 1 stack of silver bars, combine them 1 at a time, then sell them back to the Jewelcraft NPC.

Now, how much money could one make doing this, you ask? Between 5-10k per hour or so, depending upon the reliability of the server. It wasn't always stable, and we had a fit with DDOS'ing asshats for a good while, I'm sure everyone remembers. So basically, you could go to sleep at night, wake up the next morning with a smooth 50k. I knew of a few players who did this, names excluded and they no longer play, who pumped so much money into the fledging servers economy it was ridiculous. For a time, I thought it would be figured out and all those involved banned, but no. It was too far into the game for a server restart, so it went on. I can safely say I know of at least 1 million plat made this way pumped into the economy purchasing bags full of GEBs, Manastones, and the like, as well as using for the purchase of level 50 accounts once people started selling them on the forums.

This post isn't aimed toward ruining the game for anyone, or pissing any individuals involved off, none were named. I simply wanted to try to give an explanation as to why things are the way they are today. I also know that there are probably more people who knew about this who also used similar tactics to replicate the exact same thing. I feel that while shedding light on this situation now, after all this time has elapsed, isn't exactly necessary, but I figured it would be a good story to tell some of the newer players, or those of you who didn't know what was going on, so things make a little more sense when you see certain guys running around with hundreds of thousands if not millions of plat. I can promise you it wasn't all earned legitimately. It is now, but it stems from dirty money.

P.S. - Don't ban me. :D

[Devil]

Didn't mean to quote myself, meant to correct something, sorry.

[naez]

GMs ban this asshole please


(not for exploiting but triple post)

[Devil]

Lol. I clicked the quote button thinking it was "Edit post". To my surprise, it wasn't.

[Pico]

uhh the economy seems pretty okay to me. if you don't think there were exploits that generated a bunch of plat back on live too you're fooling yourself.

[Salty]

Surprised there isn't a plat graph yet.

[Devil]

I didn't say there weren't. I was much less knowledgeable concerning Live exploits because they were likely contained better or I just had no idea what was going on.

I'm also not stating the economy of the game is ruined, I'm simply stating it came to fruition much quicker than it most likely would have otherwise.

[naez]

<insert 1 guy 1 jar here>

[naez]

you have to view source for the surprise

[Ihealyou]

Some young quantitative easing stimulating the economy up in here

[Devil]

Surprised there isn't a plat graph yet.

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/9793/graphnn.jpg

[Salty]

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/attachments/screenshots/167655d1301582174-funny-strange-random-pics-1253333135537.jpg

[Bruno]

Don't ask me why I have this.

http://i51.tinypic.com/xbadxl.jpg

[Devil]

Don't ask me why I have this.

http://i51.tinypic.com/xbadxl.jpg

lol YES

[Smedy]

Bluebies will always hack to get ahead, this is what i knew

REDP99 Where shit stays LEGIT bros

[guineapig]

you have to view source for the surprise

No I don't ;)

insert 1 guy 1 jar here

[Salty]

No I don't ;)

Big guinea using the quote button

[Salty]

edit that post to freedom big guinea. Blues gonna ack even on the forum

[dredge]

I vote for a server re-start.

just kidding,

but how lame,

this is a video game, make a toon, do quests "everquest", make friends, group, raid, have fun.

Assholes racing to the end, cheating, overcharging, never helping, really start to ruin the fun, and I still don't understand how accumulating millions in plat is more enjoyable to them then the above mentioned.

At lv 35 my Shaman never has any plat, I have all quested gear for the most part, when I hit splitpaw I make sure to go to town and pass out gear to newbies. The other day I got a port and gave the guy a 15pp tip and felt like an ass, but I only had 30pp, I see now how some people seem to have a neverending amount of plat to throw around :(

Now I have started over again as an Iksar in Kunark and people are trying to sell the same splitpaw gloves that I used to pass out for free but charge 150pp for them.
I'm not bitching, I'm just pointing out what I have noticed.

I guess I could be called an hypocrite because my main is for sale and I figured it might be fun to sort of twink a Shadow Knight for once, but obviously a stupid rare dagger with mediocre stats from opening day is worth 10 times my Shaman that took me months and months to level, but what ever, I'll keep playing with what ever gear I find because that is still fun.

[Devil]

I vote for a server re-start.

just kidding,

but how lame,

this is a video game, make a toon, do quests "everquest", make friends, group, raid, have fun.

Assholes racing to the end, cheating, overcharging, never helping, really start to ruin the fun, and I still don't understand how accumulating millions in plat is more enjoyable to them then the above mentioned.

At lv 35 my Shaman never has any plat, I have all quested gear for the most part, when I hit splitpaw I make sure to go to town and pass out gear to newbies. The other day I got a port and gave the guy a 15pp tip and felt like an ass, but I only had 30pp, I see now how some people seem to have a neverending amount of plat to throw around :(

Now I have started over again as an Iksar in Kunark and people are trying to sell the same splitpaw gloves that I used to pass out for free but charge 150pp for them.
I'm not bitching, I'm just pointing out what I have noticed.

I guess I could be called an hypocrite because my main is for sale and I figured it might be fun to sort of twink a Shadow Knight for once, but obviously a stupid rare dagger with mediocre stats from opening day is worth 10 times my Shaman that took me months and months to level, but what ever, I'll keep playing with what ever gear I find because that is still fun.

It's still a fun game, regardless.

To some though, on a "legitmate" server it's more fun to use illegitimate means to get ahead.

Yeah it's fun to level a character from the start, naked, we all did.

But it's more fun to level a char with capped stats and dragon loots. Or am I wrong?

[guineapig]

edit that post to freedom big guinea. Blues gonna ack even on the forum

I have no idea what this means... :confused:

[Psionide]

Assholes racing to the end.....At lv 35 my Shaman that took me months and months to level....

[Uthgaard]

This and similar exploits (silver ruby veil) weren't even that bad, compared to some of the others I've seen. Silver ruby veil added about 1 million plat to the economy in the 6 months or so it was botted. The really bad ones were several million/billion plat+ in minutes.

After you've dealt with this stuff for a while, you see the same things, over and over, there are patterns in the people and circles you deal with. One truism I've found is that if someone disrespects the server in one way, they're not going to respect it in another.

What I mean by that, is the people you see raging out on the devs, are usually running mq2, 2boxing, scamming, RMTing and all that. Someone doing one is inevitably doing another. You all might think I out people posting from troll accounts for the lulz, and while that's partially correct, it's also because I'm probably going to bust up some shady shit in the process.

But yeah, the majority of all of the excess plat floating around (or the expensive items they purchased to hide it) are sitting on accounts that were banned for one reason or another. Not perfect, but it all averages out fairly well.

[Devil]

This and similar exploits (silver ruby veil) weren't even that bad, compared to some of the others I've seen. Silver ruby veil added about 1 million plat to the economy in the 6 months or so it was botted. The really bad ones were several million/billion plat+ in minutes.

After you've dealt with this stuff for a while, you see the same things, over and over, there are patterns in the people and circles you deal with. One truism I've found is that if someone disrespects the server in one way, they're not going to respect it in another.

What I mean by that, is the people you see raging out on the devs, are usually running mq2, 2boxing, scamming, RMTing and all that. Someone doing one is inevitably doing another. You all might think I out people posting from troll accounts for the lulz, and while that's partially correct, it's also because I'm probably going to bust up some shady shit in the process.

But yeah, the majority of all of the excess plat floating around (or the expensive items they purchased to hide it) are sitting on accounts that were banned for one reason or another. Not perfect, but it all averages out fairly well.

Well I'm glad you weighed in. I knew there were a few out there, and the more obvious ones got banned. Especially when you look at a guy whos got a million + plat banked it's pretty obvious especially back then when the server was only up for 6 months that he didn't make it from selling sets of Bronze armor.

It is funny however to see that even though it made an impact on the way things are today, it's really not a huge gamebreaking deal.

[saucer]

I was always pretty suspicious of you, Jeb, because of the types of items you bought, how quickly you resold them, how it seemed that you often took a significant loss on the sale and perhaps most of all, because you didn't have a higher level main who could've pulled it off.
As a GC member back in the day, I always liked you, but it makes me sad to hear of how rampant this shit was.

[Devil]

I was always pretty suspicious of you, Jeb, because of the types of items you bought, how quickly you resold them, how it seemed that you often took a significant loss on the sale and perhaps most of all, because you didn't have a higher level main who could've pulled it off.
As a GC member back in the day, I always liked you, but it makes me sad to hear of how rampant this shit was.

I gave so many things away to lower level players, guild mates, and friends, that it's not funny. And yes I agree I was, and still am, very negotiable on prices. I've never been stingy with players.

[dredge]

what does this even mean?
Are you trying to say something?

[DoucLangur]

Thanks for the heads-up. I have been wondering why many prices are so way out of line, had the impression there was way more cash in the economy than there should be.

It's kind of reassuring to know that the f*cktards hacked it into the game - doesn't make me feel so left out on being poor as fuck. :)

Slozem

[Alawen Everywhere]

I like to farm stuff in the 300-800pp range because I can always find demand for something that few if any are bringing to market. One example of this is the Incandescent Mask--I'm probably responsible for most of them on the server.

As a result, I spend some time in the tunnel. I noticed a definite drop in the availability of platinum a few months back when Uthgaard started chasing this stuff down. I definitely believe that the availability of excess platinum has been at least reduced.

[shuklak]

I don't know... I have a piece of crap 24 shaman and a 34 mage that's 4 pieces of armor away from full cloth and I've enjoyed the game. Never been to EC yet but the prices I see on random auctions never red flagged me.

This post, however, is revealing and interesting to read.

[Akim]

At lv 35 my Shaman never has any plat, I have all quested gear for the most part, when I hit splitpaw I make sure to go to town and pass out gear to newbies. The other day I got a port and gave the guy a 15pp tip and felt like an ass, but I only had 30pp, I see now how some people seem to have a neverending amount of plat to throw around :(

Now I have started over again as an Iksar in Kunark and people are trying to sell the same splitpaw gloves that I used to pass out for free but charge 150pp for them.
I'm not bitching, I'm just pointing out what I have noticed.

I guess I could be called an hypocrite because my main is for sale and I figured it might be fun to sort of twink a Shadow Knight for once, but obviously a stupid rare dagger with mediocre stats from opening day is worth 10 times my Shaman that took me months and months to level, but what ever, I'll keep playing with what ever gear I find because that is still fun.


word.

[Pudge]

looks like some of you bros might be ready for red99. clean server, no hax, no duped plat. time to bust your nuts on a virgin box

[dredge]

"time to bust your nuts on a virgin box"

lol
my weird roommate back in the day played on pvp servers and got his kicks tricking dude's into having cyber sex in game with his sexy female dark elf.

Then he would tell them he was actually a guy and tease them for being gay.

[saucer]

I like to farm stuff in the 300-800pp range because I can always find demand for something that few if any are bringing to market. One example of this is the Incandescent Mask--I'm probably responsible for most of them on the server.

As a result, I spend some time in the tunnel. I noticed a definite drop in the availability of platinum a few months back when Uthgaard started chasing this stuff down. I definitely believe that the availability of excess platinum has been at least reduced.

While you could be right, I think its more likely that the prices of items like this dropped because 1) the population dropped significantly 2 months before Kunark until its release; 2) the players with most of the money weren't playing (they were waiting for Kunark because they had experienced all of the game); and 3) the people who were still playing during this time were newer and did not have that type of plat, but I think now that Kunark has come back, it can be seen that the type of spending going on goes against your argument.

[Sorrow*qc]

and your not talking about the Duping items exploit :P

[Abysis]

This post is about how all your plats are meaningless. Grats.

[Ssleeve]

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp2hpcyZpL1qfch6mo1_500.gif