Need a GM Event (Economic Stimulus Package)
 

Eventually the woes of a time locked server are going to have disadvantages. As more and more items enter the market place they get devalued as the items that are tradeable just keep trading hands. You see this a lot with crafted gear… a tradeskiller works their skill, makes say some black panther and sells it. Well one day his buyer upgrades to SS or Thurg armor, now the black panther is back on the market competing with the original crafter (driving down the price).

Such is the case with other droppables such as weapons, armor, clickies, etc. Furthermore, the only thing draining actual platinum from the economy are re-charging items, a few handful of quests, and port stones.

I say make a GM event to stimulate the economy! I’m picturing a quest giver and a merchant together, in various zones across Norrath. You can buy various gems at different costs from the merchant, in exchange you can give the gems to the quest giver.

For example, say you want a Crown of King Tranix. Maybe there is a gem that can be bought (‘Gem of Tranix’ let’s say). You buy the gem for 2,000 plat and you hand to the quest giver for a tome for a combine. In the tome maybe you need to gather a few quest items to do leg work, but let’s say there are also some commonly purchased tradeskill items (Maybe a BD Bracelet, +14 MR Rings, etc). You organize the combines so you basically are able to obtain the item for cheaper than the current market price.

Granted this adds more crowns to the market (so maybe a bad example), it actually removes 2,000pp from the server and it removes crafted tradeables (which will increase the demand). You can also pyramid scheme it so you maybe can buy a more expensive tome for 10k that later requires a Crown of King Tranix along with some other items which may result in some more powerful items.

This would be great to remove some cultural smithing, resist gear, and velious tailoring from the market to make those tradeskills more valuable for players. Maybe some of the other items required for the combine may be some odd-ball tradeskill recipes from brewing / baking / pottery / fletching / tinkering to help get some money in the hands of those artisans. Maybe even create some quest lines for ‘rarely crafted’ items such as Holgresh Fur pieces.

The event doesn’t need to be one day, can last for a week or two at a time. Maybe some of the items required for combine will be no-drop unfinished quest line pieces from zones that are more rarely used. Based on how the gem price scales up, can be done by noobs and fat cats alike. Would think it best not to include any NToV / Sleeper / VP loot to keep those end game zones special, although maybe combine 3 NToV items for a better NToV item? Stimulate the DKP economy too!

What do you all think? I’m betting some economists out there would have an opinion

Not really feeling the item alchemy idea, but I absolutely think you're right to brainstorm ideas about curbing inflation. IMO: Put Sleeper's gear / other legacy items as prizes in a Highkeep casino.

Not to be mean but ... why? Unless OP plans to start his own server, there is a 0% chance of those ideas being implemented, because they aren't classic.

I would agree except there are probably...50x(?) as many Fungi Tunics and CoFs on the server than there are players and these items go for 45k and 80k? That's probably a low estimate as well.

Players invest hundreds of thousands of plat into gear and then quit P99 literally all the time. Player attrition is real and takes a lot out of the economy. Even if they don't 'quit' there are a lot of people with massive wealth who rarely play

Exactly. I would like very much to see my 500k increase in value over time.

In no way was he describing inflation. Inflation is a general increase in prices. He was talking about combating DEFLATION which is a general DECREASE in prices. The reason he doesn't want deflation is to (1) encourage the player crafters to continue to supply the market because they will actually see reasonable profits if prices stop being depressed and (2) maintain a higher level of prices in general so that the items they are farming/hording continue to have value in the market.

In general items are becoming LESS expensive over time because there are more of them in the market. The pace at which these items become less expensive is only being slowed by the rate at which new platinum is created in the game world. To be honest with how many fungi tunics exist in the game they should cost no more than 15k, but because plat keeps being generated the price doesn't fall very fast and is still around 40-45k as people have greater wealth now than they had 3 years ago.

That's actually pretty genius... Though I wonder if it will just feed the RMT/Plat farming trade? Good luck getting Sea Furies or other high plat / vendorable camp spots.

I demand pre-nerf items! :P

From a macroeconomics standpoint, I'd say leave the economy alone and let supply/demand determine the price for all goods/services in the tunnel.

The Classhole in me says 'not classic' to the tranix crown idea. There are other very large problems to adding additional plat-sink-for-phat-lewts mechanisms like this into the game. Also recharges are currently a decent plat sink for the Norrath Economy, you'd be surprised. My buddy quit with >3M pp, so thats another avenue of plat 'leaving' the server in terms of circulation

I think most people can agree here though, most interest for items will be targeted at the same few categories of items. That is to say, you will have items most people want and items most people wont look twice at.
The items people want can be further categoriezed:
The top 3 or so items for each slot, NO-DROP Best In Slot gear (though this is more pertinent to DKP economies)
The top 3 or so items for each slot, TRADABLE This follows the trend for obvious reasons
Clicky items - Shiny brass idol is a great example has been steadily increasing in value forever and the price history probably most accurately represents the Real inflation rate of platinum on this server.
Utility items- Pre-nerf Circlet of Shadows, Fungi, Haste, Amulet of Necropotence, Bladestopper, Puppet Strings.

The effect I think you are seeing is that most players have access to the top 3 tier TRADABLE items now because of the availability of platinum. The number of items people really 'dont want' is really growing though, but with multiple expansions out, this is expected to be the case as well. So the result is we see a bunch of <100pp items in the tunnel and a bunch of stuff upwards of 20k.

Not gonna summarize all that, but I still cant really understand why you think that the p99 economy needs a 'stimulus package' or why any GM would stimulate an economy in a MMO

Doesn't have to be plat. Assign an item value (like that lame buff thing when I quit) to droppable stuff and give tokens for trading items to an NPC.