Brown Belt MysteryFollow

Background Info: Molborger NM in Ordelles is a popular 24 hour NM that pops right near the stroper chymes. After he pops he is there for maybe 5 seconds unclaimed, and he has a 100% rare/ex drop (Malborger vine). This vine is the hard to get component of the brown belt quest, but nevertheless someone gets it each and every day.

Brown Belt: Currently 900k belt that monks go silly for when they hit L40 (they usually buy it later since there are other nasty L40 costs totalling 4 mil + for this poor job). After you get molborger there are 2 other easy to get items fron NM.

The Mystery: Unless people simply toss their molbolger vines (insane??) there should be one entering the game every day, and shortly thereafter a brownbelt should enter the economy. On our server, have you ever counted the number of monks past 40? Past 60? It's not a popular job. (Also consider most monks get the brown belt in their 50s-60s).

So even with every monk 50+ having a belt (not true... not by a longshot), that doesnt account for the 400 or so brown belts that (should) have been produced since the NA release. I know some people get the vine then forget about getting the other 2 easy drops.

Add to that the people who quit the monk profession sell their belts so there is some resale to factor in, but this is very minor since this item lasts from lvl 40-75 (a black belt replaces it later, but its impossible to get. 2-3 on our server that I know of).

Anyhow, long story short, where are these brown belts going? More monks then ever are passing them up since they went to 800-900k for an L40 item. I would have suspected such a limited market would have been saturated by now. Their NPC sale isnt worthwhile, and they arnt a crafting item so they will never leave the economy (Actually the black belt quest uses up a brown belt, but again, this is a very rare event!)

(I have always heard rumors that SE has a pool of NPCs that buy gear off the AH and remove it from the game, but keep the prices steady. Artificial stimulation of the economy.)

PS. I just got my brown belt quest wrapped up today, so thats why I was pondering this. Got molborger on Sunday, and quickly did the ram quest to lead into the brown belt quest. Took a few hours off and on over two nights for the other two NMs (very easy, no competition) and finally earned my belt.


Edited, Thu Feb 24 02:41:33 2005 by Thornn

The answer might be the Black belt. You need to trade in a Brown belt to complete that quest. Thus there is no BB entering the supply anymore.

And Blackbelt isnt impossible to get. Just camp KB, Aspi and Nidhogg ^^;

But the prize, i checked last week and it was 400k :/

Who was there when you got it Thornn? If memory serves it was just you and another mnk wasn't it?

Jackybob: there was a monk I spoke with while we camped the Molborger (the one I gave 50k to after I got my vine) but there were also 3-4 other people camping it. The stroper chyme hunters would come in the room and camp it for a few minutes in between chymes. (The same little Taru would run up and stand beside me for 3 minutes out of every 10... lol) The other people camping it were WHM, RDM, and a mix of other jobs.

When I killed it I got flooded with a ton of /tells indicating that everyone in that cave knew what molbolger is and wanted to know if the vine dropped.

I stand by the belief that molbolgers lifespan is under a minute, day in, day out... Maybe it wasnt like that over a year ago when NA players were in their infancy, but from the first time I went deep into Ordelle in April of last year I have always seen that upper floor crowded. They're there for the chyme, obviously, and who knows... maybe they do kill the molbolger out of spite and toss the vine if they've already done the quest. He has no other drops.

But I really doubt anyone has ever killed this or any NM and tossed away a "worthles rare/ex item" that dropped from it, simply because they didnt know what it was for. You ask your LS or check the net first, I would hope.

Thanks for the 50k Thornn. ^^