The market sucks

[Lazortag]

Originally Posted by ryuut1 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

inflation, people!

a pgt used to cost 75pp now it's like 200pp.

No, it still doesn't cost 200pp. Don't buy it for 200pp unless you're an idiot.

[bullet]

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

No, it still doesn't cost 200pp. Don't buy it for 200pp unless you're an idiot.

Yea man just spend a few weeks trying to find someone selling it cheaper, when you no longer need it.

Everquest is the rulest!

[Lazortag]

It doesn't take a long time at all to find someone selling a PGT for a reasonable price, or to find someone willing to bargain, etc. Nor does it take a long time to just get it yourself. You're probably illiterate and so you just don't notice the legions of people willing to sell them for 100 plat every day.

[Reiker]

Inflation should have an exponentially greater impact on the high end than the low end, but for some reason P99 inflation is about equal for all levels. This is the biggest problem.

If we go back in the first week or two of the server, the first "valuable" drops were being traded for pocket change for the simple fact that there was only a few thousand plat on the server, total.

Now that the server's been out for almost three quarters of a year, those who have been at the high end for a majority of the time "literally own entire castles filled with gold and treasures" (amusing quote from an article I read recently about EQ Economics).

Those players have high buying power. They have tens of thousands of platinum, so dropping 11,000 on an FBSS for a twink is fine for them. Larger amounts of platinum are moving around the economy, hence inflation.

However, a new player who starts today is going to have the same bankroll as they did a week or two after the server released. The majority of their income is coming from within the game ie. coin and vendor loot dropped from mobs. This obviously doesn't increase as more players enter the game. So while a PGT may be worth 4x more now than it did then, your average level 15 melee who would probably want one won't come close to being able to afford one. No sane level 50 on the server is going to twink a new character with a PGT or an Advisor Robe or any of these items that have been made an example of. And this is where the problem lies, the buying power of a percentage of the playerbase is increasing the price for the entire playerbase, essentially making the poor even less incapable of equipping themselves than months ago. Essentially the large influx of new players is straight up hindering those new players to progress themselves, interestingly enough. It's a double-edged sword that is harming the newer playerbase instead of nurturing it.

The detrimental effects don't end here. The majority of new players need groups to level. 95% of groups in EQ follow the lines of the traditional D&D trinity: tank, healer, dps. If anyone has been leveling here recently, here is what you'll see.

The majority of the time you will be looking for a tank. You'll have bards and rangers tanking more often than warriors or knights. If you do find a tank, it's only because a level 50 is bored and decided to twink one out. You'll easily group with more twinked tanks than "normally geared" tanks, probably at about 4:1. If the tank leaves, your group dies. This is the largest issue with the lower end leveling scene at this moment.

Your healers are druids. Druids are the least gear dependant healer right now, so by virtue of the above, there's a large influx of druids.

Your DPS are casters. You may very rarely find a monk, as they do well without gear, but you'll almost never find an untwinked rogue. Most full groups will consist of 3-4 robed casters, as those four classes are the best in the game without good gear.

[astarothel]

Not exactly a surprise seeing as how the exact same thing happened on live...

[fastboy21]

in my opinion, the biggest issue with the market isn't greed (sure, folks are greedy...but the market has nothing to do with greed. items only sell for what someone will pay. supply and demand meet somewhere, and thats the price. if someone can sell an fbss for 11k they aren't being greedy, they are being smart business people.)

the biggest issue is that we are essentially like the old live "split" servers.

i can't prove this other then my own intuition (maybe the devs can) but if you were to graph the amount of players who joined and when they joined the game here it would be very much lop-sided towards the second half of time the server has been up. in other words there are a (relative) small number of folks that have been here almost since the beginning, and a much (relatively) larger number that are newer.

this has created an economy dominated by players that were farming FBSS's when most of the community hadn't even gotten out of their newbie zones. that is the first problem.

when you combine this with a server that has TONS of alts being rolled currently...and only more as we approach kunark era (when ppl will go back to their mains for a while) there is a very very lopsided super high demand for droppable "high lvl to obtain low lvl usable gear." Enter the 12k FBSS, etc.

I believe this will fix itself during kunark for a number of reasons, but until then the market is going to be a very unfriendly new player place if you want to obtain the best buyable gear in the game. Don't get me wrong the problems will still remain in kunark (I believe we will see SUPER ridiculous prices on fungis the first week), but it will slowly correct during kunark.

One caviat, if there is another "boom" in server population during kunark of new (not returning) players we may have the same problem all over again. I'm not sure how this will play out.

Another upcoming issue that will decimate the economy here (potentially) is the release of a new progression server from EQ...I believe they will announce it at fanfaire the first week of july.

[astarothel]

Originally Posted by fastboy21 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Another upcoming issue that will decimate the economy here (potentially) is the release of a new progression server from EQ...I believe they will announce it at fanfaire the first week of july.

Personally I have lost all hope for Sony managing a prog server right.
Then again maybe that's just me -- I am such a wonderfully optimistic individual.

[Combo]

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

Personally I have lost all hope for Sony managing a prog server right.
Then again maybe that's just me -- I am such a wonderfully optimistic individual.

The bad (good?) thing about P99 is that they've drawn Sony's eye. Sony reads about the reported 10,000 accounts, the 850 peak players, the thriving community and thinks "Gee, maybe if we actually did REAL CLASSIC TIMELOCKED PROGRESSION we could get a bunch of new/returning accounts."

And the godforsaken truth is, they absolutely would.

I remember some other classic EQ emulator... thing getting shut down. Maybe because it didn't operate under the EQ Emu umbrella or something? Anyway, Sony gazed at them and they quickly shut up and shut down.

Why hasn't this happened here? My conspiracy theory is, we're just being watched to gauge whether Sony should pull the trigger on an official server in this vein or not. Open up a new one, get 80% of the active population to transfer, then wait two months to flex their muscle here and shut this down, getting the other 20% to avoid looking like an outright shakedown that would make players quit both in disgust.

I really wish I could give you guys $15 a month for the promise of my character not getting deleted in the night by a legal ambush, accelerated coding/debugging/whatevering, better/more Guides/GMs, more hardware, advertising, etc... but I can't.

I've been playing here a week now and loving it, but damn if it doesn't feel like I'm playing on tissue-thin ice. I found out about this place at Ten Ton Hammer after all, which shocked me -- this place was really advertised? Smed was interviewed? And you're still standing? Wow. I jumped aboard immediately... but like I said -- thin ice.

[Combo]

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

The bad (good?) thing about P99 is that they've drawn Sony's eye. Sony reads about the reported 10,000 accounts, the 850 peak players, the thriving community and thinks "Gee, maybe if we actually did REAL CLASSIC TIMELOCKED PROGRESSION we could get a bunch of new/returning accounts."

And the godforsaken truth is, they absolutely would.

I remember some other classic EQ emulator thing getting shut down. Maybe because it didn't operate under the EQ Emu umbrella or something? Anyway, Sony gazed at them and they quickly shut up and shut down.

Why hasn't this happened here? My conspiracy theory is, we're just being watched to gauge whether Sony should pull the trigger on an official server in this vein or not. Open up a new one, get 80% of the active population to transfer, then wait two months to flex their muscle here and shut this down, getting the other 20% to avoid looking like an outright shakedown that would make players quit both in disgust.

I really wish I could give you guys $15 a month for the promise of my character not getting deleted in the night by a legal ambush, accelerated coding/debugging/whatevering, better/more Guides/GMs, more hardware, advertising, etc... but I can't.

I've been playing here a week now and loving it, but damn if it doesn't feel like I'm playing on tissue-thin ice. I found out about this place at Ten Ton Hammer after all, which shocked me -- this place was really advertised? Smed was interviewed? And you're still standing? Wow. I jumped aboard immediately... but like I said -- thin ice.

[Combo]

Sorry, double post. Fucking Droid...