Have I Become Part Of The Problem?

[GrimwoodCT]

2692/2700.

Sigh. I have been sitting on this Sisyphus-like roller coaster since 1999. Crap!

So I go my ducks in a row, knocked them all down except for fletching. Got all the trophies, most of them even maxxed. Freaking fletching.

So off to Water I went. Do NOT get me started on the disparity of staffs to other parts... But I digress. I go to water 10-12 hours/week when my regular partner is off raiding. I get enough for 40 (maybe 50 if lucky) bows per week and I am sitting on 292/300. The regrua stuff does not hurt either.

To wit, I have 3-4 regular customers constantly in need of the primordial bows for tribute. I am all to happy to oblige to their "Please let me know first!" requests. They rarely make it to /bazaar and so it goes.

Today I had 10 Primordial bows ready for sale and I braced a regular buyer in need of immense tribute. His response, "Sure I need to buy some plat, let me check my credit card."

Suddenly I felt like a drug dealer forcing someone to sell his car or steal.

In the end I felt empty and guilty.

Grim/Squeaky

[edsarto]

Drug zar

"Suddenly I felt like a drug dealer forcing someone to sell his car or steal."You cultivated the product in a far away hidden place. You refined it and modified it to the liking of the consumer. You secretly contacted the buyer and informed them the product was ready for their personal use. You explained they had first CRACK at it. The buyer was happy to oblige you and purchase the goods. Sounds like a typical drug deal to me

[Beriberi]

Schmolies....

Those bows tribute for fifty grand each, and he blows through ten in a week? That's one serious drug habit.

To answer your original question; who knows. You play the game like I do very likely, to experience content. You take pride in your tradeskill accomplishments, as do I. Another player likes to see numbers flashing on the screen and values that more than real life money. East and West. Maybe this trend will change the game for the worst; maybe it already has. Maybe sooner or later it will really get to annoy me and I'll move on. Until then I'll continue to make bows or whatever to tribute.

Beriberi
Prexus

[Zaltak]

You can never be sure what uses your customers have for your products.
I made pure orbs for my guildies and I reciently had an order for 20 !
That seems to be alot for one person but as long as your not gougeing em for what you make and your getting skill ups .I don't see a problem:-)

[KyrosKrane]

I think Grimwood was more commenting that he felt bad for taking part in deals that require the buyers to buy plat to fund their purchases.

For a couple of years now, I've been thinking that plat in EQ needs to be devalued by a factor of 1000 or so. Simply knock off the last three digits of everyone's plat hoard. BUT, leave plat drops and prices on vendor items the same. That would cause all player-to-player prices to drop by a similar factor, but player-to-environment prices would stay the same.

As a result, the value of the plat you loot from mobs goes way up, making it more worthwhile for people to raise cash by farming it, which means more people would do it. In turn, that would put a serious crimp in the ability of plat sellers to make a profit, since an hour of farming plat today might get you 1% of an item's purchase price, but after the drop, it would be enough for 10 of that item. With that kind of return, people are much more likely to farm cash than try to buy it.

Yes, over time, the supply of plat in the world would go back up, causing another inflationary increase. However, it took us ten years now to get to this point. I think we can hold out for at least another five before another plat adjustment would be required.

Frankly, when the price of quality items in the bazaar is always in multiples of 1000, that's a sign that inflation has run amuck. I say just knock the zeros off and reset the counter.

[AbyssalMage]

I think Grimwood was more commenting that he felt bad for taking part in deals that require the buyers to buy plat to fund their purchases.

For a couple of years now, I've been thinking that plat in EQ needs to be devalued by a factor of 1000 or so. Simply knock off the last three digits of everyone's plat hoard. BUT, leave plat drops and prices on vendor items the same. That would cause all player-to-player prices to drop by a similar factor, but player-to-environment prices would stay the same.

As a result, the value of the plat you loot from mobs goes way up, making it more worthwhile for people to raise cash by farming it, which means more people would do it. In turn, that would put a serious crimp in the ability of plat sellers to make a profit, since an hour of farming plat today might get you 1% of an item's purchase price, but after the drop, it would be enough for 10 of that item. With that kind of return, people are much more likely to farm cash than try to buy it.

Yes, over time, the supply of plat in the world would go back up, causing another inflationary increase. However, it took us ten years now to get to this point. I think we can hold out for at least another five before another plat adjustment would be required.

Frankly, when the price of quality items in the bazaar is always in multiples of 1000, that's a sign that inflation has run amuck. I say just knock the zeros off and reset the counter.

Yeah, but Sony would have to do re-programming of the mob loot tables. My level 85 Friend (SK Tier 4 SoD armour w/25% SoD raid Armour) can make 30k a nite on selling to vendors. "A Nite" usually is about 4-5 hours for reference in time. Even if you reduced everyone's plat that extremely, you wouldn't put a dent into the Plat websites. They would be up and running in less than a week. Probally sooner as their are many people like my friend who don't need the cash anymore.

As for the posters original delema, if you feel that bad, /report and let Sony take care of the problem or refuse to sell to him in the future by not sending him the /tell or E-mail.

[Jinaabu3169]

You are assuming that the plat sellers won't adjust either. Dividing the entire wealth of the servers by 1000 simply gets rid of a bunch of zeroes. The plat sellers will value plat based on demand. If Item A goes from 250k to 250pp, then they will sell 250pp for the price that they used to sell 250k. Or, they continue to sell 250k for the same price, and the plat buyers basically clean out the bazaar.

Basically, although not quite as complex, the Everquest economy is a living, breathing animal. And, monkeying with it will only serve to totally and completely bork it up.

The only way to eliminate plat sellers is to make everything no-drop. This, of course, would effectively kill the animal completely.

[Letrii]

Eek, looks at 500pp in wallet. Prices on FV are not in the 1000's, they are in the 1,000,000's.