Plat duping and hyperinflation - beware

[sumamael]

I'm an economist in RL and this whole thing reminds me of stock-market speculative rumors.

Here is my theory on what is happening right now.

Let's say that there is a person (Mr SmartGuy) who earns his living by buying and selling in-game items and platinum for real life cash.

Let's say that all the people who made cash on the various bugs in the past months (silvered weapon macroing etc) sold their stock of platinum to Mr SmartGuy for RL cash.

Mr SmartGuy realizes that he has a huge stock of platinum that he can not sell. He lowers his platinum prices, no effect.

What to do now? He has to somehow create demand for his platinum.

Mr SmartGuy starts the rumors of a giant plat duping bug, uses his huge stock of macroed platinum to buy up all expensive items in the bazaar to make the whole idea believable, uses the anonimity of message boards to post under several usernames to confirm his own rumors, he even takes his time to answer the duping posts on every single server and community message board to get more free advertisement for himself.

His idea works, the whole community is in uproar, prices jump and the economy is acting funny.

Mr SmartGuy is hoping that he will gain more customers to his buying/selling for RL cash business if people think that they will never be able to pay the new inflated prices of the tradeable goods in the bazaar.

So will his plan work on the long run?

No of course not, inflation is not sustainable in the Everquest world for long, but he got lots of free publicity.

[Phabos]

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/e...ML/054191.html

Posted by Absor. More importantly, Absor also posted a lengthy reply on the first page of the thread, explaining that SOE was aware of whatever is going on and is working on sorting things out. He also said to expect an announcement from SOE about this situation.

I suppose, then, the rumors are true and we can expect something done about it.


Phabos Aphsion
Drunken Paladin of Brell
Tarew Marr

[Farnyr]

Ok, I just read what Absor said and... Absor so freakin' Smashes!

Hehe, anyway... I believe him when he says that the banker didnt exist. It would take a coding change to put the banker into the spawn table, and another coding change to give him the odd conversion rates. That would involve either taking the servers down to patch the (shallremainnamless) zone, or a patch to our sides to patch our zone files. IF by some odd coincidence the banker really did exist, then there are very few ways it could have.

1) Outside job, someone hacked into SoE and changed everything. I doubt this would happen, because there are TON of server stations...and to change it on every station, and not get your hack caught...to risky.

2) Inside job, someone in SoE snuck it in with some kind of patch, be it a recent patch, a maintenence patch or some other patch. Again risky, because this guys gotta some how sneak it in under the noses of everyone there that handles the patches AND hes risking his job to do this. Now I know people think that SoE doesnt give a flying about EQ and/or purposely screws it over, but thats just not true, so I doubt one programmer would do this.

So wheres that leave us? Thats right, simple Laize-Faire economics. Well, ok not complete Laize-Faire, because we do have some plat sinks. But its as simple as fluctuations in the market. Heres an example:
Ugly Sword starts to drop from a new expansion. Ugly sword is pretty good. The price on Ugly sword rises as the demand rises. People farm Uglysword. People move on from Ugly sword to REALLY ugly sword(RUS, im not gonna type out its full name anymore ) that took longer to get to, because people had to figure out how to get it to drop/raid it/other way. Demand for Ugly sword drops, demand for RUS rises. Prices for Ugly Sword drops, prices for RUS rises. People continue to move on, level up and upgrade gear. Ugly Swords are still pretty good, but have started to disappear because they are dumped on mules, destroyed, sold to vendors, and people just arent farming them anymore because they arent super fast cash. So a guy realizes "Hey, I could make a nice buck with Ugly Sword". He goes and farms some of them and sell sthem for 3times what they once sold for. People remember them and see that they are still good and so they buy them for their new Uber_Twink12.

This is pretty much whats happening with the EQ economies. Sure somethings are just odd people, and somethings are just misinformed people (150pp for MTP is because its for the Solstice earring and so people think it should sell for more since earring is so good). But for the most part its just cause people forgot about the other stuff while they were leveling and exping. I also believe LDoN factors into all this, but unfortunately I dont have a theory... yet.

Oh yeah, Sumamael, I like your theory as well. Its a bit on the black helicoptor side, but still a good plausible theory.

[Aethia]

This plat duping is frustrating for me. I have taken the time to make things to sell. I have raised all my tradeskills up to 200 (or fairly close). I have sold things from opal encrusted steins to ceramic shields of valor. I have priced them accordingly to market and made platinum.

I am sure that I am not the only person to validly 'earn' 1k, 10k, 100k, 500k [insert amount here] on tradeskill items/drops/spells whatever.

I am trusting that there will not be a platinum wipe, which would be unfair to the majority of people that have actually earned their plat. I took no part in the CVT bug, even though I could have used them. But it's frustrating to play a game by its rules and have to compete against those who cheat.

[Mileron]

I know this seems kind of off-topic, but this is to address something someone said near the top of the thread about Hero Bracers.

When I first joined KB about a year and a half ago, they were selling for 250-400. Not great, but not bad. Then something happened, either everyone discovered something better, better drops, or just plain upgrading, they dropped all the say down to as low as 7pp each. Yes, 7PP. Prices stayed below 20PP for over 6 months.

The Minotaur Hero, the catalyst for the Hero Bracer quest, was spawning every two minutes for several months. He used to spawn every several hours.

On Xegony there were several druids who would kill the Hero then turn in the shackle for the quest and make a decent amount of AA exp. At the time, I spoke with a gentleman who had made 27AA.

Now, I spent a few minutes getting hero bracers for several toons. Even as a Bard, it took me, with PoK, almost 8 minutes to kill, run to Qeynos, turn in, and run back. Sure, a druid could half that with gate and port... But at four minutes per gain, low low risk, for 3-4% aa... who cares about the economy for Hero Bracers?

This was fixed... Early March?

[Itzena]

Originally posted by Farnyr
So wheres that leave us? Thats right, simple Laize-Faire economics. Well, ok not complete Laize-Faire, because we do have some plat sinks. But its as simple as fluctuations in the market.

Uh-huh. (Well-known EQ auction site) having 35 million plat plus for sale on some servers before this week's patch and maybe a tenth of that or less after this week's patch is purely to do with economics.

There was at least three macroable tradeskill combines giving high profit, plus almost certainly one (or more) plat dupe bugs. Now, whether the patch fixed all of them, some of them or what is up for debate.

Edit: Heh, I should have known the auction site name would be censored here.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Originally posted by Itzena
Edit: Heh, I should have known the auction site name would be censored here.

Yup. The first time someone advertises one of those sites... we censor its name. I have even had to do some trickery on Yantis to keep it out.

[Farnyr]

Ngreth said his name!!! Ngreth said his name!! Hehe

Its really frustrated to see so many people actually start believing in this 'dupe'. Does ANYONE have any kind of actual 100% solid proof. No, I dont want to hear about how soandso on some board said something, or how you feel that the prices have gone weird, or how the sites are now selling plat at odd real money prices. I want actual proof. This is just like the "Fungi's are gonna be nerfed!" or "Centi's are gonna be LORE!" scares or whatever the scare of the month is. So guess what guys, men from Mars have landed and are going around burning innocent victims. Run and hide! Run and Hide!

[Lilosh]

Originally posted by Farnyr
Ngreth said his name!!! Ngreth said his name!! Hehe

Its really frustrated to see so many people actually start believing in this 'dupe'. Does ANYONE have any kind of actual 100% solid proof.

I want actual proof.

Like WHAT, precisely?

Faked Screenshots?
Falsified Logs?
Someone should post the exploit here?

There isn't, and can never ever be proof of this. Even if it is real.


-Lilosh

[Itzena]

On a related note, does everyone see why the changes bemoaned in this thread were necessary now?

And also, judging from the thread which is probably already deleted in the General forum, that SOE had one or two oversights in their raw material/vendor buyback changes.


In case anyone is keeping track, the current rumour about the dupe is that it involves one of the Velious or Kunark spells. Maybe.

[sumamael]

Originally posted by Itzena

And also, judging from the thread which is probably already deleted in the General forum, that SOE had one or two oversights in their raw material/vendor buyback changes.

Itzena nothing gets deleted on this board, posts about exploitable bugs are moved to the moderator forum and their content are sent to the developers by the staff.

[Itzena]

OK, remove 'deleted' and replace with 'moved to a private forum and infomation sent to SOE' then. It amounts to the same thing for most of us....

[Dunthor Warsmith]

The "banker disconnected from the banking system" (especially in Befallen) rumor is quite an old one. I remember reading about it, I think on Everlore or perhaps Allakhazams, ages ago. The way they've described it (1p=>10g, 1g=>1p) pretty much adds an extra zero per two clicks - that wouldn't be some "million plat" scheme, that would be a renewable "as much plat as you wanted" scheme. It pretty much sounds to me like it would run up the plat market even faster than what has actually been experience.

Its sad that the other probable culprit is tradeskills I've seen at least 3 distinct high profit easily macroable recipes surface in the last few days. Something like that would have a more limited (but still high) rate of plat introduction, which seems to mesh better with the bazaar reports than the banker o' infinite plat theories.

[Saleani]

There are a lot of hoaxes and superstitions in the game.

Like the time that folks claimed Jade Reavers dropped from Mayor Dubbin in Rivervale.

Or the illusion brownie quest (which is my all time favorite hoax quest).

Or the times folks claimed that funji scale tunics stopped dropping, or they were going to become no-drop in the next patch, or have required levels on them next patch.

Or that you can get mobXXX to spawn in by killing mobYYY at a certain time of day. Like Ancient Cyclops, or Raster or Quillmane, or [your favorite monster here].

Or that you had better success/skill up rates when you had the recipe book open.

Or that wis affects successes and int affects skill ups.

Or putting a plains pebble in your first slot reduces food and/or water consumption. Food duration was in the game before the items had publically visible labels.

The superstitions got started because someone interpreted what may or may not be random behavior and came up with some explanation. Humans do not like randomness and will look for patterns everywhere, even when they do not exist, like the so-called bible code, or constellations in the night sky. Knocked on wood lately?

Much of the perceived changes in the economy have to do with players deciding to play LDoN instead of Velious or PoPower content. It is much the same as how public transport was killed in the USA: not by grand conspiracy, but every single day when you got into your car and turned the key. Tiny actions by each person add up when done by thousands (which is the motivation for appeals to recycle stuff, individually, its chump change, when millions do it, its a huge difference).

Next time you look at one of these hoaxes (or any piece of propaganda or advertising), take some time to figure out a few things:
who is saying the thing?
what are they saying?
what are they leaving out?
what are they implying (with the wording chosen) ?
what benefits do they receive if you believe or act on what they are saying?
how are they saying it?
what symbols (or slogans) are they using to short circuit your thinking?
what hot-buttons of yours are being pressed to get this action? Fear? outrage? anger?
how different would your emotional state be, if the omitted material was included? If different symbols or analogies were used?
why are your emotions getting flipped out over this?
Every time you get emotional about reading something, you ought to take a moment to understand how and why folks are manipulating you.

One of the first hoaxes I got burned on was one that came around in e-mail where folks were going on about some white taurus that was carjacked by some black man and there were 2 boys in the back. Several million people (including yours truely) were fooled by Susan Smith that day, and for several weeks afterwards. Well meaning people (known in some circles as useful idiots) spammed everyone they could think of. I remember my email accounts jam packed with copies of that alert email sent out. www.snopes.com is a pretty good starting place to research any odd things that come across your inbox.

[Oakraven]

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