Mudflation was also present in the expansions and the various patches. With or without expansions you will have mudflation, basically. However, with expansison you do have additional content. And that can help to keep your veteran players playing. Lets face it, expansions are an attention-getter too.
Here's somethign I wrote nealry two years ago:
Quote:
... Underlying cause is that there're increasing numbers of levels and things to achieve with each new expansion and addition. Old players continually want new things to earn and to do. As a result, new players have increasing numbers of things they must do in order to max level and skill. Over time, max level and skill becomes unreachable to most new players - this is particularly true for old games. It also bottlenecks the lower levels by restricting them from participating in the top heavy population - the top heavy population is composed of high level players. (This is the case because most games have large populations at first and then, slowly afterwards, the rate of incoming players declines, until it's a trickle. The population becomes top heavy.) The numbers of things to do keeps progressing players busy and unable to reach the concentration of players at the higher end of the level range. So if a new player wants to participate with the top heavy population, they must invest large amounts of time. As time goes by, each new player will have to invest even more time if they hope to participate with the more concentrated high(er) level players.
The answer: mudlfation.
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Mudflation is the shoddy answer to a riddle that has plagued mmo's from the beginning. Essentially, you have to keep old players playing, so you add new things to the game. This usually makes players stronger. The problem is this increases the amount of things a new player has to do to reach maximum output. It grows and grows with each addition to the game. To compensate for the huge mountain that erupted and acted as an obstacle to the youngling player, the answer has usually been to speed up progression and hand out candy. You give them what they need to overcome the additions to the game so they can have a hope of reaching the top.
You must keep in mind that with a game like P1999 that has stretched its content (stagnated even), many of the veterans are not even playing. So those items are not mudflating the economy right now. They -will- mudflate it when those players come back, possibly as the result of the Velious release. Despite this, some portion of the player-base will remain (getting max of max) and resources will move around. One of hte biggest reasons players are so efficient is because this game is so perfeclty understood. Players know where everything is and they know what to do. So new items enter the economy with relative ease.
Now, that's the developer side of it. I've tried to explain why developers will mudflate things to keep players from being overwhelmed by a mountain of progression to the top. Hope I did that.
What about players? What do they do to contribute to it?
Mudflation means that the value of things in the game goes down. It means that the 5dmg/19delay weapon you fought so hard to get when hte game launched is now worth almost nothing. The reverse side of it is that now you can get that 5dmg/19delay weapon or something even better for cheap. For a new player this means gaining access to items that would have been greatly powerful when the game was young. For an old player, the story is much the same. However, things are not all rosy...
AS others have mentioned, players that play EC or RMTing can drive costs up. Buying low and selling high is a way to inflate prices just as RMTing will give a motive to sellers to make their prices high. Another consideration is all the plantinum entering the economy. The old(er) players will accumulate thousands and hundreds of thousands of platinum. They will use this platinum to make purchases (like for their alts to twink them) and so drive prices up. This will mean that for new players prices may seem outrageously high. So very good low level gear will be out of reach. However, they should still be able to find more common items for prices that're greatly lower than they would have been when they were initially released into the game.
Don't be surprised when a veteran drops a bag of decent low level gear on you. The thing with a heavily mudflated ecnomy in EQ is that they can drop a load of gear on you and not sweat about it. It's mainly the really good low level stuff that everybody will go after and thus drive hte price up. A veteran will have thousands of plat so spending a few hundred to buy a low level player some gear is nothing. Any rotting gear that's not marketable they'll jsut give away. For a new player, it's great gear.
In conclusion,...
The mudflation will be bad no matter what happens. What I"m worried about is stretching the content (and interest levels) too thin. Velious offers more content and can regain some interest.