“Lore Drop”
In light of all the debate and alarm on the boards re IGE
I believe there may be a happy compromise between the “make everything no drop” camp and the “leave it as is camp." For SPECIFIC high-end items introduce the following:
New item tag: Lore Drop – This item is tradable but only can be LOOTED ONCE PER CHARACTER (i.e. trade it all you want after the fact, but the original “farm” of it can only be performed once per character).
Basically a combo of No Drop/Lore and plain ole' Lore.
The effect of this as far as I can see, addresses two issues.
1. Farming as we know it would be greatly thwarted on high-end items. The Bastion of Thunder nightmares, etc. would disappear quickly. Most issues with IGE would be substantially reduced as the manpower required to level up a new character for the various drops would most likely no longer prove economical to them.
2. The tradeskillers, traders, casual players, etc. would still be able to purchase items in question by maintaining the “droppable” status…. Albeit not as plentiful without the full-time farmers, but still available and tradeable nonetheless.
Now this may prove rather discouraging for some "legitimate players." However, considering the current sentiment where many are calling for "no-drop on everything decent" this is at least a a bit more palatable.
I think it serves both sides to a degree.
Comments Please.
Edit: Bracers, etc. would have the usual loophole through this, but it would still cover 95% of the items in question.
Addition Edit: While this does not address the Bazaar cornering issues really, a solution can be put in place for that as well. Simply require all items over 20-40k (or whatever price considered reasonable) require Auction and not Bazaar. I.e. have a maximum price on Bazaar content. Hell, we used to do it in Gfay on my server all the time, why not go back to the auctioning when it comes to high-end items. It would certainly address the Safehouse thread re the bot programs out there.
PS: Sorry for so many edits.
Edited, Fri Jan 30 21:44:15 2004 by nopsting
Edited, Fri Jan 30 21:48:16 2004 by nopsting
Edited, Fri Jan 30 21:49:50 2004 by nopsting
Edited, Fri Jan 30 21:51:05 2004 by nopsting
Edited, Fri Jan 30 21:52:38 2004 by nopsting
Edited, Fri Jan 30 22:03:35 2004 by nopsting
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- Economy/IGE possible solution - Lore Drop?
Economy/IGE possible solution - Lore Drop?Follow
Scholar
22 posts
One problem i can see with this is the extra player info that would be needed to distinguish what items said player can and cannot loot. This also brings up 'once and done' problems, if indeed the player could only have this item once in their 'life'. If these items are to be used for quests, a player could easily ***** themselves out of said quest (many times i loot quest items with no idea of what quest they may actually pertain to, if i lose this item and then decide i want to do this quest, im s.o.l.)
Ive also payed for looting rights to specific quest items, with a 'lore drop' these items could become astronomical in price, thereby giving IGE even more business.
One suggestion would be to tag more high end items as no-drop (though a great majority already are), and make them easier to obtain, thereby lowering their net value and decreasing the need for plat purchasing.
Ive also payed for looting rights to specific quest items, with a 'lore drop' these items could become astronomical in price, thereby giving IGE even more business.
One suggestion would be to tag more high end items as no-drop (though a great majority already are), and make them easier to obtain, thereby lowering their net value and decreasing the need for plat purchasing.
Scholar
22 posts
sorry, internal-something-or-other-error
Edited, Fri Jan 30 21:58:09 2004 by Bacaba
Edited, Fri Jan 30 21:58:09 2004 by Bacaba
While it's an interesting idea, I really think any idea that involves changing tags on items would require too much work on the part of SOE, and would ultimately hurt the honest gamer more then the dishonest one. If they can mark up the item to 500k and their intention for doing this is purely so they can sell that 500k to someone in the first place, then even the extreme case of buying a new account to hold and sell each "lore drop" item would still net them a profit.
In reality, there's a ton of items that they could use on each account. If there are 100 high end lore drop items, then each account they purchase can make 100 items worth of profit for them. In this case, the more widespread the lore drop idea becomes, the less it affects them. Also, each account can have up to 8 characters on most servers (all but like 2 IIRC), so that restriction is pretty much meaningless for an organization like IGE. They don't care about which server they're "playing" on, since they aren't playing the game. So that's 8 time the number of server's times the number of lore drop items worth of value they'll get out of each account they possess. Still a ton of profit potential for them.
However, it really affects the honest player. If I have just a few characters, but I want to play a merchant in the bazaar, suddenly I can't buy and sell certain items more then once. The more items that are tagged lore drop, the more restricted my ability to make money using the bazaar in a legitimate way becomes. It's a nice idea on paper, but really fails in the long run.
No amount of changing tags will fix this problem. The way to stop an organization like IGE is to make their business unprofitable. The best way to do that is to conduct sting operations and ban accounts used to sell plat (and all accounts owned by the same person). Make the penalites ultra harsh. Right now, IGE is making a killing because any Joe playing EQ can simply go to their web site, fill out a form, make a cash payment, and then sit back and wait for their plat to be delivered to them ingame. As long as it's that simple to do, lots of players will do it. All SOE has to do is start banning accounts (and seizing/deleting all the stuff they've got), and IGE stops making money that way. They have to go underground. There's no way for SOE to prevent that, but it will dramatically reduce the number of players who'll buy plat from them. As long as it's easy for players to buy plat, it's easy for SOE to catch and ban them. If IGE makes it harder for SOE to catch them, they also make it harder for their customers to reach them (which cuts their profits). Drive them far enough underground, and they cease to be able to make a profit with their business and they'll go away.
That is the only logical course to take. It's the only one that has the ability to actually stop IGE. Re-tagging items really only hurts the legitimate economy in EQ and would be a bad idea in the long run.
Edited, Fri Jan 30 22:05:50 2004 by gbaji
In reality, there's a ton of items that they could use on each account. If there are 100 high end lore drop items, then each account they purchase can make 100 items worth of profit for them. In this case, the more widespread the lore drop idea becomes, the less it affects them. Also, each account can have up to 8 characters on most servers (all but like 2 IIRC), so that restriction is pretty much meaningless for an organization like IGE. They don't care about which server they're "playing" on, since they aren't playing the game. So that's 8 time the number of server's times the number of lore drop items worth of value they'll get out of each account they possess. Still a ton of profit potential for them.
However, it really affects the honest player. If I have just a few characters, but I want to play a merchant in the bazaar, suddenly I can't buy and sell certain items more then once. The more items that are tagged lore drop, the more restricted my ability to make money using the bazaar in a legitimate way becomes. It's a nice idea on paper, but really fails in the long run.
No amount of changing tags will fix this problem. The way to stop an organization like IGE is to make their business unprofitable. The best way to do that is to conduct sting operations and ban accounts used to sell plat (and all accounts owned by the same person). Make the penalites ultra harsh. Right now, IGE is making a killing because any Joe playing EQ can simply go to their web site, fill out a form, make a cash payment, and then sit back and wait for their plat to be delivered to them ingame. As long as it's that simple to do, lots of players will do it. All SOE has to do is start banning accounts (and seizing/deleting all the stuff they've got), and IGE stops making money that way. They have to go underground. There's no way for SOE to prevent that, but it will dramatically reduce the number of players who'll buy plat from them. As long as it's easy for players to buy plat, it's easy for SOE to catch and ban them. If IGE makes it harder for SOE to catch them, they also make it harder for their customers to reach them (which cuts their profits). Drive them far enough underground, and they cease to be able to make a profit with their business and they'll go away.
That is the only logical course to take. It's the only one that has the ability to actually stop IGE. Re-tagging items really only hurts the legitimate economy in EQ and would be a bad idea in the long run.
Edited, Fri Jan 30 22:05:50 2004 by gbaji
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
4 posts
Bacaba thanks for input:
Agreed, but my reference to “specific” more or less was attempting to indicate the “problem farming items”
I did not mean to suggest this tag on your basic quest items whatsoever. There needs to be an economy including tradeable items in EQ (imho). I am referring to those items that the no-drop proponents on other threads have suggested. This would lessen the blow of an all no-drop policy.
Gbaji:
First off respect for the poster and thanks for the response in that this is the only thing that has got me going enough to post – thus me=novice.
Agreed with much that you say Gabji, however, the intent was trying to throw a compromise idea out there. I am most likely in the same camp as you. Realistically that may or may not be an easy solution to implement. So while I consider your critiques valid, I feel that if SOE wants to keep the game viable for many of us something needs to be done at minimum so as to isolate those who use PP as a RL currency.
Let me clarify this:
You wrote:
“However, it really affects the honest player. If I have just a few characters, but I want to play a merchant in the bazaar, suddenly I can't buy and sell certain items more then once. The more items that are tagged lore drop, the more restricted my ability to make money using the bazaar in a legitimate way becomes. It's a nice idea on paper, but really fails in the long run.”
In my post I stated that:
“trade it all you want after the fact, but the original “farm” of it can only be performed once per character”
The “trade it all you want” idea was meant to address this. If you want to play merchant, go ahead. It’s just that the character sources on SPECIFIC items need be unique from here on in. That is all -- just the initial action of looting.
Further, you wrote:
"Also, each account can have up to 8 characters on most servers (all but like 2 IIRC), so that restriction is pretty much meaningless for an organization like IGE. They don't care about which server they're "playing" on, since they aren't playing the game. So that's 8 time the number of server's times the number of lore drop items worth of value they'll get out of each account they possess. Still a ton of profit potential for them."
This is a very good point.
Let me amend: Minimum level for looting would have to also be imposed. One could be charitable and make it 20 or so levels below that necessary to farming the item. This would I feel discourage IGE and at the same time still permit one to go ahead and get that item for that level 40 something 2bot Cleric, etc.
Example: IGE purchases an account proceeds to level Necro to 65 for farming purposes, if they want the other 7 characters on the account in server to loot that Necro’s spoils they must at least level them to 40, 45 or so. The idea being -- lootable once only by an established minimum level (again thanks for pointing that out). Those items currently with no level restriction could stay that way, but only lootable once by a character 20 levels below appropriate level. Maybe I’m asking for too much, but the state of the game now in regard to the Bazaar and farmed camps warrants drastic but compromised measures.
In regard to he coding and time involved for SOE, I have no idea, perhaps this is a pipe dream. However, if they indeed care about the franchise something needs to be done.
Again, thanks for responses.
Edited, Fri Jan 30 23:12:54 2004 by nopsting
Agreed, but my reference to “specific” more or less was attempting to indicate the “problem farming items”
I did not mean to suggest this tag on your basic quest items whatsoever. There needs to be an economy including tradeable items in EQ (imho). I am referring to those items that the no-drop proponents on other threads have suggested. This would lessen the blow of an all no-drop policy.
Gbaji:
First off respect for the poster and thanks for the response in that this is the only thing that has got me going enough to post – thus me=novice.
Agreed with much that you say Gabji, however, the intent was trying to throw a compromise idea out there. I am most likely in the same camp as you. Realistically that may or may not be an easy solution to implement. So while I consider your critiques valid, I feel that if SOE wants to keep the game viable for many of us something needs to be done at minimum so as to isolate those who use PP as a RL currency.
Let me clarify this:
You wrote:
“However, it really affects the honest player. If I have just a few characters, but I want to play a merchant in the bazaar, suddenly I can't buy and sell certain items more then once. The more items that are tagged lore drop, the more restricted my ability to make money using the bazaar in a legitimate way becomes. It's a nice idea on paper, but really fails in the long run.”
In my post I stated that:
“trade it all you want after the fact, but the original “farm” of it can only be performed once per character”
The “trade it all you want” idea was meant to address this. If you want to play merchant, go ahead. It’s just that the character sources on SPECIFIC items need be unique from here on in. That is all -- just the initial action of looting.
Further, you wrote:
"Also, each account can have up to 8 characters on most servers (all but like 2 IIRC), so that restriction is pretty much meaningless for an organization like IGE. They don't care about which server they're "playing" on, since they aren't playing the game. So that's 8 time the number of server's times the number of lore drop items worth of value they'll get out of each account they possess. Still a ton of profit potential for them."
This is a very good point.
Let me amend: Minimum level for looting would have to also be imposed. One could be charitable and make it 20 or so levels below that necessary to farming the item. This would I feel discourage IGE and at the same time still permit one to go ahead and get that item for that level 40 something 2bot Cleric, etc.
Example: IGE purchases an account proceeds to level Necro to 65 for farming purposes, if they want the other 7 characters on the account in server to loot that Necro’s spoils they must at least level them to 40, 45 or so. The idea being -- lootable once only by an established minimum level (again thanks for pointing that out). Those items currently with no level restriction could stay that way, but only lootable once by a character 20 levels below appropriate level. Maybe I’m asking for too much, but the state of the game now in regard to the Bazaar and farmed camps warrants drastic but compromised measures.
In regard to he coding and time involved for SOE, I have no idea, perhaps this is a pipe dream. However, if they indeed care about the franchise something needs to be done.
Again, thanks for responses.
Edited, Fri Jan 30 23:12:54 2004 by nopsting
Ah. Ok. I did miss the point that you could only collect the item as a drop once. I thought it meant you could only physically have one of that item in your inventory ever (whether you bought it, or looted it).
Ok. So that reduces the effectiveness of this change purely to farming for items. Honestly though, that's only a small part of what IGE does. They don't need to farm, they have the start up cash to buy stuff from players, even at the inflated prices.
Think it through. It doesn't matter if that ornate mold costs 50kpp or 500kpp. If they buy it for 500k, they *know* they can sell it right back for 500k. They know that the buyer is someone who can't get the item from a drop, and is very likely to be someone who bought that 500k from them for real money.
It's completely circular. Their costs buying items, even with a no profit sale in the bazaar, still nets them real money in the long run. All they care about it keeping the costs in the bazaar high. As long as that's the case, they make money selling plat online. Every time someone puts an item up for sale for less then what they're selling it for, they make money by buying it up first and reselling it for the higher price. Even if someone else buys it up and sells it for a higher price, they still make money. They make that money because odds are the person buying that item at the higher price purchased their plat from them. That's all they care about.
The key dynamic here is to realize that there are ultimately going to be two different types of players out there:
1. Those who are capable of getting top (but still droppable) items themselves. These guys aren't going to be buying ornate molds in the bazaar, whether they are priced at 50k or 500k. They're going to be the ones selling them though. Whether it's an IGE guy selling or anyone else is irrelevant. All that matters to IGE is that the price is high.
2. Those who aren't capable of getting top items themselves. These guys either do without, or must buy plat in order to obtain those items. Certainly, some will work the market to make money, but for every one of those, there's a hundred more who will take the easy way out and just buy plat to make their in game purchases.
The first does not interfere with IGEs business at all. Ultimately, it doesn't matter who gets the drop and who sells it, as long as the price is high. Certainly, IGE might want to maintain some higher level characters to farm for them, but that's not at all required for their business to flourish. Once they get that critical mass of money in the economy (which they have), they don't need to farm in order to control the final price. They just need enough people working the market for them to keep the price high.
Targeting the "farming" of goods is still going to hurt the honest guys more then IGE. Most of us only have maybe one or two characters high enough level and geared up sufficiently to manage tier3+ content. Actually, most dont have that, but those who do tend to focus on just a few characters and typically on a single server. So, if I loot an ornate mold and use it for myself, I can never ever loot that mold again? What about raids? We can't have our kitty officer loot and hold common-drop items for sale (where do you think guild funds come from?), or for distribution to other members? Again. This puts a cramp on honest players and really doesn't do much at all to address the real problem.
It's the second type of transaction that needs to be focused on. The problem isn't where the items are coming from, or who's selling them, or at what price. The problem ultimately is the sale of platinum for real money. That is why the economy is screwed up. That's what IGE is doing. That is what SOE needs to focus on. Nothing else will fix the problem. If you eliminate the sale of platinum for real world cash, then you eliminate the desire to inflate ingame prices on a massive scale. You also eliminate the huge volume of platinum being controlled by a relatively small group. Without real world money involved, no one's going to spend the amount of time and money to do what IGE is doing. The only way to get them to stop is to go after their source of income. No other method will work.
I'll say it again. IGE doesn't manipulate the EQ economy so they can get better gear for their characters. They don't do it so they can twink. They don't do it so they can handle higher end content. They don't do it for bragging rights. They do it for one reason and one reason only: So they can make money selling platinum to people. Eliminate that part of the equation, and everything else goes away.
EDIT: I'd like to add that for the same amount of time, effort, and cost that it would take to retag a couple hundred higher end items in the game, they could easily run a few hundred sting operations and ban potentially thousands of accounts being used by IGE. This would be a vastly better use of SOEs resources IMO. It also wouldn't break the game and would require no testing and no introduction of new things. All they need to do is actually follow up on their own rules...
Edited, Sat Jan 31 04:40:32 2004 by gbaji
Ok. So that reduces the effectiveness of this change purely to farming for items. Honestly though, that's only a small part of what IGE does. They don't need to farm, they have the start up cash to buy stuff from players, even at the inflated prices.
Think it through. It doesn't matter if that ornate mold costs 50kpp or 500kpp. If they buy it for 500k, they *know* they can sell it right back for 500k. They know that the buyer is someone who can't get the item from a drop, and is very likely to be someone who bought that 500k from them for real money.
It's completely circular. Their costs buying items, even with a no profit sale in the bazaar, still nets them real money in the long run. All they care about it keeping the costs in the bazaar high. As long as that's the case, they make money selling plat online. Every time someone puts an item up for sale for less then what they're selling it for, they make money by buying it up first and reselling it for the higher price. Even if someone else buys it up and sells it for a higher price, they still make money. They make that money because odds are the person buying that item at the higher price purchased their plat from them. That's all they care about.
The key dynamic here is to realize that there are ultimately going to be two different types of players out there:
1. Those who are capable of getting top (but still droppable) items themselves. These guys aren't going to be buying ornate molds in the bazaar, whether they are priced at 50k or 500k. They're going to be the ones selling them though. Whether it's an IGE guy selling or anyone else is irrelevant. All that matters to IGE is that the price is high.
2. Those who aren't capable of getting top items themselves. These guys either do without, or must buy plat in order to obtain those items. Certainly, some will work the market to make money, but for every one of those, there's a hundred more who will take the easy way out and just buy plat to make their in game purchases.
The first does not interfere with IGEs business at all. Ultimately, it doesn't matter who gets the drop and who sells it, as long as the price is high. Certainly, IGE might want to maintain some higher level characters to farm for them, but that's not at all required for their business to flourish. Once they get that critical mass of money in the economy (which they have), they don't need to farm in order to control the final price. They just need enough people working the market for them to keep the price high.
Targeting the "farming" of goods is still going to hurt the honest guys more then IGE. Most of us only have maybe one or two characters high enough level and geared up sufficiently to manage tier3+ content. Actually, most dont have that, but those who do tend to focus on just a few characters and typically on a single server. So, if I loot an ornate mold and use it for myself, I can never ever loot that mold again? What about raids? We can't have our kitty officer loot and hold common-drop items for sale (where do you think guild funds come from?), or for distribution to other members? Again. This puts a cramp on honest players and really doesn't do much at all to address the real problem.
It's the second type of transaction that needs to be focused on. The problem isn't where the items are coming from, or who's selling them, or at what price. The problem ultimately is the sale of platinum for real money. That is why the economy is screwed up. That's what IGE is doing. That is what SOE needs to focus on. Nothing else will fix the problem. If you eliminate the sale of platinum for real world cash, then you eliminate the desire to inflate ingame prices on a massive scale. You also eliminate the huge volume of platinum being controlled by a relatively small group. Without real world money involved, no one's going to spend the amount of time and money to do what IGE is doing. The only way to get them to stop is to go after their source of income. No other method will work.
I'll say it again. IGE doesn't manipulate the EQ economy so they can get better gear for their characters. They don't do it so they can twink. They don't do it so they can handle higher end content. They don't do it for bragging rights. They do it for one reason and one reason only: So they can make money selling platinum to people. Eliminate that part of the equation, and everything else goes away.
EDIT: I'd like to add that for the same amount of time, effort, and cost that it would take to retag a couple hundred higher end items in the game, they could easily run a few hundred sting operations and ban potentially thousands of accounts being used by IGE. This would be a vastly better use of SOEs resources IMO. It also wouldn't break the game and would require no testing and no introduction of new things. All they need to do is actually follow up on their own rules...
Edited, Sat Jan 31 04:40:32 2004 by gbaji
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
4 posts
Agreed that a sting operation would be most likely yield better results per time invested. But will they ever do it? It is partially due to the frustration re SOE’s history in not taking such action in this matter that these threads have started to heat up again.
And yes this Lore/Drop idea does not prevent the buying up/driving up prices, that is another part of the issue addressed with a post on the “Post about IGE you should read” thread (from which I started this thread). To sum it up, some others had posted suggestions for a Bazaar Price Cap. I.e. everything over 20k must go back to Auction. If IGE needs to actually have someone online selling (and more importantly looking to buy) such items in auction then that is one more thing they need to worry about. It is really a combination of measures that might ultimately make a difference. On the other thread drop rates were discussed as well.
How about the following steps used together:
1. Use a Lore/Drop Tag (only on specific high-end items that are droppable now – as opposed to making everything no-drop as some suggest)
2. Cap out Bazaar pricing at 20k If you want to sell an item for over that you need to do it while online in the auction channel. Sure this is an inconvenience to some legit traders but hey, in the old days everything went to auction -- this would force a small percentage of items to auction. Everthing else could still be sold in bazaar. The 20k ceiling is up for debate – 50? 100?
3. Increase the Drop Rate on those items tagged Lore/Drop. This would have to be played around with. May or may not be necessary. But let’s say the Lore/Drop tag squeezes the supply of Ornate, why not then increase it so that your Random Character exping in BOT has an increased chance of coming up lucky and getting one to put into circulation. I’d rather see the rate increased so that 5 different exping players end up with a pattern, then I would one Farm Bot get all 5 the way it is now. The goal being not increase the number in circulation, but rather make adjustments to keep that number in the same general range.
None of this is perfect I know and yes it will hurt the “honest” player to a degree. People have been accustomed to and gotten used to the dynamics of the Bazaar and farming, etc. But the honest playerbase can adapt I believe, whereas the economies of scale for IGE would have a more difficult time adapting.
Edited, Sat Jan 31 09:36:37 2004 by nopsting
And yes this Lore/Drop idea does not prevent the buying up/driving up prices, that is another part of the issue addressed with a post on the “Post about IGE you should read” thread (from which I started this thread). To sum it up, some others had posted suggestions for a Bazaar Price Cap. I.e. everything over 20k must go back to Auction. If IGE needs to actually have someone online selling (and more importantly looking to buy) such items in auction then that is one more thing they need to worry about. It is really a combination of measures that might ultimately make a difference. On the other thread drop rates were discussed as well.
How about the following steps used together:
1. Use a Lore/Drop Tag (only on specific high-end items that are droppable now – as opposed to making everything no-drop as some suggest)
2. Cap out Bazaar pricing at 20k If you want to sell an item for over that you need to do it while online in the auction channel. Sure this is an inconvenience to some legit traders but hey, in the old days everything went to auction -- this would force a small percentage of items to auction. Everthing else could still be sold in bazaar. The 20k ceiling is up for debate – 50? 100?
3. Increase the Drop Rate on those items tagged Lore/Drop. This would have to be played around with. May or may not be necessary. But let’s say the Lore/Drop tag squeezes the supply of Ornate, why not then increase it so that your Random Character exping in BOT has an increased chance of coming up lucky and getting one to put into circulation. I’d rather see the rate increased so that 5 different exping players end up with a pattern, then I would one Farm Bot get all 5 the way it is now. The goal being not increase the number in circulation, but rather make adjustments to keep that number in the same general range.
None of this is perfect I know and yes it will hurt the “honest” player to a degree. People have been accustomed to and gotten used to the dynamics of the Bazaar and farming, etc. But the honest playerbase can adapt I believe, whereas the economies of scale for IGE would have a more difficult time adapting.
Edited, Sat Jan 31 09:36:37 2004 by nopsting
I'll give you one fix really fast-
Make EVERYTHING droppable except for a few key parts that could be exploited. I swear to god, if on the older servers this was done, Yantis and IGE would be out of business in days. The amount of elemental/Time loot that would flood the market would be insane, and ornate prices and stuff his gimps can actually farm would drop to a tenth of their cost, if not lower. The only reason Yantis and his crew can exist at all is because the stuff they are farming is pretty much all one or 2 grouppable tops. These are not large groups. Meanwhile, real uber guilds are having elemental and Time items rot on a mass scale. I've personally had to loot no less than 20 some items this month and delete them that are far, far, far better than any tradeable item out there.
Would it cause mudflation? Yes, it would, Firiona Vie server is more mudflated than other servers- but not as extreme as you'd think. I think nodrop is hurting the game right now a lot more than it's helping- it's letting predators dominate the one group economy, while sectioning off the top raid players except for minor items (high difficulty LDoN adventure named drops, spells). I also think if uber guilds were able to interact more with the economy, price fixing would be basically impossible. The only items uber guilds ever were able to sell -all- dropped like a rock on my server, due to cross server competition. Level 65 spells are basically the only item that's -decreased- in price, not increased, since all this inflation happened. That's only happened because IGE/Yantis simply cannot compete whatsoever with the supply that high end guilds have at all.
Make EVERYTHING droppable except for a few key parts that could be exploited. I swear to god, if on the older servers this was done, Yantis and IGE would be out of business in days. The amount of elemental/Time loot that would flood the market would be insane, and ornate prices and stuff his gimps can actually farm would drop to a tenth of their cost, if not lower. The only reason Yantis and his crew can exist at all is because the stuff they are farming is pretty much all one or 2 grouppable tops. These are not large groups. Meanwhile, real uber guilds are having elemental and Time items rot on a mass scale. I've personally had to loot no less than 20 some items this month and delete them that are far, far, far better than any tradeable item out there.
Would it cause mudflation? Yes, it would, Firiona Vie server is more mudflated than other servers- but not as extreme as you'd think. I think nodrop is hurting the game right now a lot more than it's helping- it's letting predators dominate the one group economy, while sectioning off the top raid players except for minor items (high difficulty LDoN adventure named drops, spells). I also think if uber guilds were able to interact more with the economy, price fixing would be basically impossible. The only items uber guilds ever were able to sell -all- dropped like a rock on my server, due to cross server competition. Level 65 spells are basically the only item that's -decreased- in price, not increased, since all this inflation happened. That's only happened because IGE/Yantis simply cannot compete whatsoever with the supply that high end guilds have at all.
Scholar
22 posts
Id just like to say i like the idea of a Minimum Looting Level, it may not help with the IGE problem a great deal, but you wouldnt see peeps in PC with an Eyepatch of Plunder or such. And while i hate items with Required Level on them, i feel there should be more, just spread across the levels a bit more (most req.lvl. items are usually 51 and up).
The sad part is there is no clean cut way to deal with this problem, theres no way for SOE to stop me from selling the 50k i earned fair and square through a PayPal account.
The sad part is there is no clean cut way to deal with this problem, theres no way for SOE to stop me from selling the 50k i earned fair and square through a PayPal account.
I totally agree with Cal - if you want to fix the economy for casual players, remove NO DROP from everything. The inflation is due to increased money entering the economy with a small selection of tradeable items on which IGE has a stranglehold. If the high-end items that are currently NO DROP would be made tradeable, that would end overnight. Pretty hard to charge 200k for an ornate mold when someone is willing to sell a one of the phase 1 rot-items for less than that. And christ, don't even get me started on LDoN raid augments. Uberguilds would dump something like 80 percent of the items they get from LDoN raids on the market. Heh, and being able to sell them would simultaneously solve the problem of there being little incentive to do the raids. Helloooo, beastlord-gloves from Synarcana!
Hell, even assuming that IGE has tremendous stockpiles of platinum sitting around, they'd still regulate out as prices become fixed from an influx of items they can't generate themselves. And as to people speculating about them having some sort of infinite money bug - if that were so, they would have already bought all the existing tradeables in the economy in order to control 'em.
Hell, even assuming that IGE has tremendous stockpiles of platinum sitting around, they'd still regulate out as prices become fixed from an influx of items they can't generate themselves. And as to people speculating about them having some sort of infinite money bug - if that were so, they would have already bought all the existing tradeables in the economy in order to control 'em.
I totally agree with Cal - if you want to fix the economy for casual players, remove NO DROP from everything. The inflation is due to increased money entering the economy with a small selection of tradeable items on which IGE has a stranglehold. If the high-end items that are currently NO DROP would be made tradeable, that would end overnight. Pretty hard to charge 200k for an ornate mold when someone is willing to sell a one of the phase 1 rot-items for less than that. And christ, don't even get me started on LDoN raid augments. Uberguilds would dump something like 80 percent of the items they get from LDoN raids on the market. Heh, and being able to sell them would simultaneously solve the problem of there being little incentive to do the raids. Helloooo, beastlord-gloves from Synarcana!
Hell, even assuming that IGE has tremendous stockpiles of platinum sitting around, they'd still regulate out as prices become fixed from an influx of items they can't generate themselves. And as to people speculating about them having some sort of infinite money bug - if that were so, they would have already bought all the existing tradeables in the economy in order to control 'em.
Hell, even assuming that IGE has tremendous stockpiles of platinum sitting around, they'd still regulate out as prices become fixed from an influx of items they can't generate themselves. And as to people speculating about them having some sort of infinite money bug - if that were so, they would have already bought all the existing tradeables in the economy in order to control 'em.
One claim the other thread is making is the re-selling of bazaar items to raise prices. Perhaps the tag could be a "trade once" tag? This way, when looted an item has a tag, lets call it "Trade Once". Then, when traded to another person, it changes to "No Drop". This would totally defeat any warping around the bazaar to buy up low cost gear, because that gear could not be resold. Sure IGE could outfit their people with Uber-no drop gear, and diminish the competition somewhat, but they could not resell or trade the gear.
Thus IGE could still hire people to farm, not to say they do not do so already, so this is not really a cure-all, but I think it could put a dent in their action.
(Further, the main items discussed are ornate patterns, and they are LORE so I think they could be caught if the program they are using is not smart enough to realize that they already own a certain LORE item and keep trying to buy more.)
In the end, I don't see a solution for the plat selling aside from sting operations.
Thus IGE could still hire people to farm, not to say they do not do so already, so this is not really a cure-all, but I think it could put a dent in their action.
(Further, the main items discussed are ornate patterns, and they are LORE so I think they could be caught if the program they are using is not smart enough to realize that they already own a certain LORE item and keep trying to buy more.)
In the end, I don't see a solution for the plat selling aside from sting operations.
"Cures" for the IGE plat problem? Only one: SOE can and SHOULD fix it. It's not fair to mess up the game for people playing correcly, to stop the cheaters and the exploiters. All the ideas require SOE to do something anyway, so let them do the right something.
SOE owes it to their customers to fix the problem. SOE has the database that can track all trades. They control the world and collect RL money every month from every one of us. For this money we are entitled to a working program.
SOE owes it to their customers to fix the problem. SOE has the database that can track all trades. They control the world and collect RL money every month from every one of us. For this money we are entitled to a working program.
Scholar
24 posts
I am against exploits and ebaying pp, but i think you overestimate the extent this happens. Maybe considder the possibility that the gear you can afford is what your ingame effort entitles you to.
Aknok wrote:
I am against exploits and ebaying pp, but i think you overestimate the extent this happens. Maybe considder the possibility that the gear you can afford is what your ingame effort entitles you to.
That's a really nice idea, but when it becomes abundantly clear that many players aren't following that same set of rules, the whole thing kinda falls apart. It would be nice to think that everyone starts at the beginning and gradually builds up their characters and their gear. Heck. I'm sure most players actually do. However, it only takes a small percentage of the player base to buy plat online to ***** everything up for everyone. That's exactly the problem. Many players aren't thinking of gear as a reward for in game work. They think of it as a means to "catching up" with everyone else who started playing earlier then themselves. They buy plat to make up for their own lack of playing the game. This has two effects:
1. It cheapens the efforts by the "honest" players. Those of us who have worked our way up and have fought hard for every piece of gear we have kinda get annoyed when someone who's been playing for a couple months is running around in gear that is better/equivalent to any pre-time gear. While the major satisfaction still comes from doing rather then just having, it's still frustrating to see the same rewards we're working hard for being purchased by someone else.
2. It makes our own advancement more expensive. I'll use myself as an example. I'm about at the stage where ornate level gear is still an upgrade for many slots. While I prefer to raid for my stuff, it would be nice to have the ability to fill in some slots with purchased gear when needed (you can't always get all the upgrades you need before your guild moves on to something new, so gaps always seem to occur). As the level of stuff you raid increases it gets progressively more expensive to fill in those slots. Ornate would be nice filler at my level, but I simply can't afford it at the current prices. When it was in the 20k range, sure. At 200k+? I just don't spend that much time playing the bazaar to make that much cash. It's too much of a time expense to buy that stuff now, so I'm forced to do without. There aren't a whole lot of buyable gear that's an actual upgrade for me right now. Ornate and some of the really top level tradeskill stuff is about it.
That's how this affects us honest players. This is even more annoying in the case of Ornate since that's something my guild would like to do more of, but due to the prices in the bazaar, everyone and their mother is camping that stuff 24/7. Thus, those of us who'd like to get ornate for our own uses simply can't (Ok, we can, but it's a hell of a lot more organizational work). Guess what? Most of us play this game for fun. Fighting over spawns isn't usually fun. So we go somewhere else instead and the gear gaps stay gaps for longer.
There really is a problem and it really does need to be fixed.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
Just an idea...what do you think?
How about a limit cap on how much plat can be given from one character to another, outside of the bazaar function?
Allow, say, 1k Plat given directly from one character to another per, say, hour. This would still allow people to buy smaller items (bags and such) from other players, make donations for buffs or other services rendered, allow splits for in-group loot, and even still allow a person to give or loan a friend money towards gear. BUT it would make it impossible for someone to buy plat without waiting around to get their vast quantities.
Yes, this would increase demand for bazaar space. Yes, I realize the bazaar is already overcrowded at times. Upping the limit on the number of traders (again) is really not viable due to lag. But perhaps an additional bazaar zone could be opened up?
Anyway, just a few ideas..feel free to cut them to shreds now =)
How about a limit cap on how much plat can be given from one character to another, outside of the bazaar function?
Allow, say, 1k Plat given directly from one character to another per, say, hour. This would still allow people to buy smaller items (bags and such) from other players, make donations for buffs or other services rendered, allow splits for in-group loot, and even still allow a person to give or loan a friend money towards gear. BUT it would make it impossible for someone to buy plat without waiting around to get their vast quantities.
Yes, this would increase demand for bazaar space. Yes, I realize the bazaar is already overcrowded at times. Upping the limit on the number of traders (again) is really not viable due to lag. But perhaps an additional bazaar zone could be opened up?
Anyway, just a few ideas..feel free to cut them to shreds now =)
That idea wouldn't work either. It's too easy to get around:
PlayerA logs onto IGE site, sends a paypal payment for 100kpp. He gets an email instructing him to leave his character in the bazaar in trader mode between the hours of X and Y and to put up a rusty dagger for sale at 100kpp. He follows those instructions and when he comes home from work finds that his rusty dagger (or anything else super cheap you want to deal with) has been purchased for 100kpp.
Simple. Easy. No chance for foulups. The only possible way for anyone to interfere with this transaction is if they buy the dagger instead of the IGE character. Um... If that happens, you just made an extra 100k from a very stupid person.
If they put caps on item costs, then you just do it in installments (ok, put up 5 daggers at 20k each...). There is no way to prevent this process with caps and such that wont cause problems for the common players long before it impacts the guys selling plat.
What that will do is totally ***** up guild treasurers and kitty officers and other people who legitimately handle large amounts of cash and gear transfers from one character to another.
I'm still confused as to why folks think that SOE wont spend the relatively small amount of effort conducting stings, but would spend the huge amount of work and effort and game tweaking putting in new tags on items or creating item/money transfer caps. If you don't think the'll do stings, then they sure as hell wont do any of that other stuff. Ultimately, SOE is the only entity that can do anything about IGE. Therefore, if we're going to discuss what they should do, then we kinda have to assume that they're actually going to take steps to stop what IGE is doing and think along those lines. If you're assuming that SOE doesn't care enough about the plat selling to do anything about it, then why bother making other suggestions? It's not like we the players can put caps on transactions or new tags on items, right? SOE has to do that.
The absolute best (and only) way to target IGE without negatively impacting any other players is to target them at their own business. Go to the IGE site. Order plat. When it arrives, ban the account that delivers the money. Then trace the transactions that account has made. Ban any with suspicious transactions directly to the account that had the cash.
Buying cash isn't technically against the EULA, so don't target that. However, anyone who's selling plat is in violation. They are free to ban those accounts at will. Using that approach limits the scope of the banning very specifically to IGE controlled accounts. Any account used as part of an IGE plat sale becomes a target for banning. No one else is. Even folks who do smaller scale sales (like account sales) don't get targeted at all. SOE really doesn't care about those since they keep subscribership up. They do (or should) care about the plat sales though since it does ***** up their game badly. That's what they should be targeting, and that sort of sting is the only effective way to do it. It would also require the least amount of effort on their part, and would require absolutely zero legal action (so no chance of potentially weakening their EULA).
It would be stupid for SOE to use any other approach to fixing this problem. If they're going to do anything, that's what they're going to do.
PlayerA logs onto IGE site, sends a paypal payment for 100kpp. He gets an email instructing him to leave his character in the bazaar in trader mode between the hours of X and Y and to put up a rusty dagger for sale at 100kpp. He follows those instructions and when he comes home from work finds that his rusty dagger (or anything else super cheap you want to deal with) has been purchased for 100kpp.
Simple. Easy. No chance for foulups. The only possible way for anyone to interfere with this transaction is if they buy the dagger instead of the IGE character. Um... If that happens, you just made an extra 100k from a very stupid person.
If they put caps on item costs, then you just do it in installments (ok, put up 5 daggers at 20k each...). There is no way to prevent this process with caps and such that wont cause problems for the common players long before it impacts the guys selling plat.
What that will do is totally ***** up guild treasurers and kitty officers and other people who legitimately handle large amounts of cash and gear transfers from one character to another.
I'm still confused as to why folks think that SOE wont spend the relatively small amount of effort conducting stings, but would spend the huge amount of work and effort and game tweaking putting in new tags on items or creating item/money transfer caps. If you don't think the'll do stings, then they sure as hell wont do any of that other stuff. Ultimately, SOE is the only entity that can do anything about IGE. Therefore, if we're going to discuss what they should do, then we kinda have to assume that they're actually going to take steps to stop what IGE is doing and think along those lines. If you're assuming that SOE doesn't care enough about the plat selling to do anything about it, then why bother making other suggestions? It's not like we the players can put caps on transactions or new tags on items, right? SOE has to do that.
The absolute best (and only) way to target IGE without negatively impacting any other players is to target them at their own business. Go to the IGE site. Order plat. When it arrives, ban the account that delivers the money. Then trace the transactions that account has made. Ban any with suspicious transactions directly to the account that had the cash.
Buying cash isn't technically against the EULA, so don't target that. However, anyone who's selling plat is in violation. They are free to ban those accounts at will. Using that approach limits the scope of the banning very specifically to IGE controlled accounts. Any account used as part of an IGE plat sale becomes a target for banning. No one else is. Even folks who do smaller scale sales (like account sales) don't get targeted at all. SOE really doesn't care about those since they keep subscribership up. They do (or should) care about the plat sales though since it does ***** up their game badly. That's what they should be targeting, and that sort of sting is the only effective way to do it. It would also require the least amount of effort on their part, and would require absolutely zero legal action (so no chance of potentially weakening their EULA).
It would be stupid for SOE to use any other approach to fixing this problem. If they're going to do anything, that's what they're going to do.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
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