IGE's strategy of artificial price inflation has two fatal weaknesses that SOE can exploit to stop this problem:
1. It requires IGE to sink a lot of plat into the economy to buy up all the reasonably priced high end items - this cost them money because there are definitely costs associated with generating all this plat (game licenses, harware, labor, etc.).
2. They need to sell and deliver plat to people in game in order to recoup their costs and make a profit.
The solution is for SOE to wage a War of Attrition against IGE that IGE can't win.
Here is how:
1. Have an SOE employee place an order for the minimum amount of plat you can buy (like 10k for about $15). When the IGE guy shows up to deliver it, SOE "busts" him and bans the account.
To replace this account, IGE has to buy another copy of the game software to get a new CD key and pay at least one month's worth of user fees.
Since IGE will have to pay more money to SOE than SOE paid to IGE each time this happens, SOE can keep doing this over and over again eventually making it unprofitable for IGE to operate this way.
2. SOE can take advantage of the fact that as the developer of the game, they can "generate" items at no cost.
Simply have a database track the purchases of high end items. They can then analyze this data to make a list of likely "suspects" by looking at who is consistently buying these items and who (if IGE uses different accounts to sell these items at high prices) is selling the items bought by these suspects.
Over time they will also be able to determine at what "price point" these IGE bots (or employees) will automatically buy up these items.
Now SOE will have a pretty good idea of who IGE's buyers and sellers are and at what price they buy items at. All SOE has to do now is generate these items and offer them for sale in the bazaar at a price just under the IGE price point. SOE won't need to worry about ******** legitimate buyers and sellers, since they are selling at or near the existing IGE inflated prices.
This will force IGE to expend plat buying these items up to artifically inflate the prices. This costs IGE money but costs SOE nothing. It also removes plat from the economy.
And when SOE has enough data logged on a particular buyer/seller to be sure that they are IGE "agents" they can then just ban that account costing IGE even more money.
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#228
Feb 01 2004 at 11:31 PM
Quote:
Limit # of accounts from a single IP# say limit to 5, will stops the massive character sales i think.
This would put a few legit people out of the game... Me and my family for instance. 4 of us have 9 accounts coming in through one IP address, and have played this game since it went live.
However as you also mentioned, If SOE would take a little interest and ban the IP's of people that transfer this high amount of plat, That would work. I don't know how many times i've seen regular flasks of water for sale for 200k in the bazaar. (Which i've read is the normal route for the transfer) And then check a little later and have one or both of them gone.
#229
Feb 01 2004 at 11:42 PM
Quote:
To replace this account, IGE has to buy another copy of the game software to get a new CD key and pay at least one month's worth of user fees.
I read somewhere that Ubisoft or whoever it was that bought a couple of Sony's servers, are/were giving away test drives of the game. Registration number if you will. If they are like the regular game, it comes with 1 free month. Now if you activate that account with a credit card, and then cancel it at the same time. It will give you the free month first and not charge your credit card. I found this out when I activated an account for a friend of mine. I activated it hoping that along with the free month he would have 2 months of playtime. I figured that by that time he would have the money to play, Or decide that he didn't really want to play the game. The game cancelled after the first month ended and I never got charged on my CC.
#230
Feb 02 2004 at 1:04 AM
Scholar
24 posts
<Devils advocate mode>
Highend bazaar items on MT was controlled by an individual for a long time. This would not have been possible for this guy if he had been compeeting with scripted bots as original poster claims.
He started his business with 10k, studied the market closely and over a limited amount of time was able to turn that investment into millions of pp. He has since given up his business as trader extraordinaire, he has never sold pp for dollars so all in all a stand up guy with keen business talent.
Now the trend we are seeing across servers are not a result of evil exploiters but more likely a result of:
1) Level average across servers rising and thereby pp earning potential.
2) Money from people who know the game well enough to earn pp fast pouring into pockets of lower level characters who can suddenly make a NICE profit on tradeskilling due to Signet of Might Quest
Prices on 50-60 Kunark spells soared and dropped.
Prices on velious armour MQ's soared and dropped.
Prices on lvl 60 luclin spells soared and dropped.
Prices on Ornate molds/patterns soared and WILL drop.
Now to all of you working yourself into a frenzy over this ask yourself this:
How many pp pour into your server every day?
How many pp pour out of your server every day? (food, water, tradeskill components, spell components horses)
If pp-pouring-in > pp-pouring-out prices WILL increase.
The enourmous amounts of pp pouring in will get consolidated by the people who can take advantage of the situation.
The world of Norrath IS changing, where people used to farm items for pp and the average joe had the choice of either paying up or go kill the damn thing himself, he now has the choice of supplying tradeskill components that sells for a profit without risk, sell them and buy gear. That means that there is a risk that the people that level up now never saw the inside of a dungeon other than LDoN(yes it is my opinoin that you could put a group of blind monkeys to do ldon adventures and they'd still succeed) that provides no real challenge or skill to conquer contrary to what sebelis and chardok did in the past where people went for loot.
/em puts on asbestos suit.
/say Now people put on your favorite tinfoil hats and let the flames soar, there is no conspiracy and you are stupid for getting so worked up over someones paranoid imagination.
Regards
Aknok
</devils advocate mode>
Highend bazaar items on MT was controlled by an individual for a long time. This would not have been possible for this guy if he had been compeeting with scripted bots as original poster claims.
He started his business with 10k, studied the market closely and over a limited amount of time was able to turn that investment into millions of pp. He has since given up his business as trader extraordinaire, he has never sold pp for dollars so all in all a stand up guy with keen business talent.
Now the trend we are seeing across servers are not a result of evil exploiters but more likely a result of:
1) Level average across servers rising and thereby pp earning potential.
2) Money from people who know the game well enough to earn pp fast pouring into pockets of lower level characters who can suddenly make a NICE profit on tradeskilling due to Signet of Might Quest
Prices on 50-60 Kunark spells soared and dropped.
Prices on velious armour MQ's soared and dropped.
Prices on lvl 60 luclin spells soared and dropped.
Prices on Ornate molds/patterns soared and WILL drop.
Now to all of you working yourself into a frenzy over this ask yourself this:
How many pp pour into your server every day?
How many pp pour out of your server every day? (food, water, tradeskill components, spell components horses)
If pp-pouring-in > pp-pouring-out prices WILL increase.
The enourmous amounts of pp pouring in will get consolidated by the people who can take advantage of the situation.
The world of Norrath IS changing, where people used to farm items for pp and the average joe had the choice of either paying up or go kill the damn thing himself, he now has the choice of supplying tradeskill components that sells for a profit without risk, sell them and buy gear. That means that there is a risk that the people that level up now never saw the inside of a dungeon other than LDoN(yes it is my opinoin that you could put a group of blind monkeys to do ldon adventures and they'd still succeed) that provides no real challenge or skill to conquer contrary to what sebelis and chardok did in the past where people went for loot.
/em puts on asbestos suit.
/say Now people put on your favorite tinfoil hats and let the flames soar, there is no conspiracy and you are stupid for getting so worked up over someones paranoid imagination.
Regards
Aknok
</devils advocate mode>
#231
Feb 02 2004 at 1:13 AM
Scholar
24 posts
Quote:
2) Money from people who know the game well enough to earn pp fast pouring into pockets of lower level characters who can suddenly make a NICE profit on tradeskilling supplies due to Signet of Might Quest
oops forgot a word
#232
Feb 02 2004 at 3:36 AM
12 posts
Ok I don't feel like reading though 5 pages of comments so I appologise if this has been said already.
It would be easy to stab IGE in the foot and slow them down if SOE was willing to invest a little time and money in it.
1. Setup a bunch of fake accounts with mid to high level char on it. You are SOE you can do it.
2. Contact IGE through your dumy account and buy 100k for $50. They set up the time to meet you to hand you the money.
3. You then set EQ to log ALL transactions in bazaar from PC to PC from the moment you order the plat till the time they deliver it.
4. You show up, get money, have a nice day.
5. Search the log to see who gave the toon the 100k to give to you. BINGO you found the money mule. I'm assuming they would have a mule to hold the plat and use a worthless toon to actual hand money out. Not the actual 15 billion plat mule handing the plat straight to you.
6. DELETE MONEY MULE!!!!!!
Do this a couple times on each server and you will clean out the PP from IGE quickly. So it might cost some money but it will get stuff back under control. And possible save mass amounts of people from quiting the game cause they fed up by the BS.
It would be easy to stab IGE in the foot and slow them down if SOE was willing to invest a little time and money in it.
1. Setup a bunch of fake accounts with mid to high level char on it. You are SOE you can do it.
2. Contact IGE through your dumy account and buy 100k for $50. They set up the time to meet you to hand you the money.
3. You then set EQ to log ALL transactions in bazaar from PC to PC from the moment you order the plat till the time they deliver it.
4. You show up, get money, have a nice day.
5. Search the log to see who gave the toon the 100k to give to you. BINGO you found the money mule. I'm assuming they would have a mule to hold the plat and use a worthless toon to actual hand money out. Not the actual 15 billion plat mule handing the plat straight to you.
6. DELETE MONEY MULE!!!!!!
Do this a couple times on each server and you will clean out the PP from IGE quickly. So it might cost some money but it will get stuff back under control. And possible save mass amounts of people from quiting the game cause they fed up by the BS.
#233
Feb 02 2004 at 3:43 AM
2 posts
One simple solution the SOE could do is to place a limit on the prices in the bazaar (for example 100k). That would force people who want to sell items that they think exceed 100k the old fashion way (tells and auctions). Furthermore, such a cap would either force such high priced items down in price or prevent the companies from capitalizing off incredible markups. Since tells and auctions are not as efficient as a computer program that instantly buys and then reprices items, this would definitely be a blow to such economic manipulators. A 100k cap in the bazaar will keep down inflation as it will force companies to capitalize off of items that are more player attainable, which will ultimately drive down prices because the market will be flooded with such items and, eventually, the platinum buying and selling business will be far less lucrative.
#234
Feb 02 2004 at 3:48 AM
Aknok wrote:
That means that there is a risk that the people that level up now never saw the inside of a dungeon other than LDoN
I only ask myself what for one should avoid 90% of the game *lol*
#235
Feb 02 2004 at 5:33 AM
ok force peeps back to ec, where only peeps selling either had macro for auctioning, most players wouldn't invest the time to sell there, so alot of non highend items got vendored. the reason the bazaar when it came on line lowered prices, was the market flooded by peeps selling junk they'd been vendoring or had in the bank to sell when they got around too it. even a poor ranger like me, i tradered gems that droped after giving my group the split that they would've vendored for figured in. priced 10pp above what i could get from vendor, and 10pp cheaper than they sale from vendor. so i make 10pp the buyer saves 10pp. were as before they'd been vendored. this is just an example.
#236
Feb 02 2004 at 7:02 AM
rashelf wrote:
....tradered gems that droped after giving my group the split that they would've vendored for figured in. so i make 10pp.....
Edited, Mon Feb 2 12:03:27 2004 by Leiany
#237
Feb 02 2004 at 7:45 AM
I had written a much more elaborate post, but it was erased somehow (i have no idea) but the conclusion of it was, good ideas everyone, but which ones can we put into action? I saw only two, email SOE, good idea, we all should. Directly attack the companies responsible, Also a good idea, but do so at your own risk.
A few tips:
In war, organization can win or lose a battle, that is why Rome was so successful. The same is true in this situation, organize yourselves. '
In football teams select "plays" to carry out. These are nothing more than battle plans, the second step to victory. Make a plan.
A good plan is just that, a plan. Only when acted upon is it useful. Act upon your plans, and when you do, carry them out with so much fury that even if you fail, the opponent notices you. act, if nothing else, ACT.
If these companies want to mess up EQ, can we let them do it without a fight? If they want to play, I say we play.
A few tips:
In war, organization can win or lose a battle, that is why Rome was so successful. The same is true in this situation, organize yourselves. '
In football teams select "plays" to carry out. These are nothing more than battle plans, the second step to victory. Make a plan.
A good plan is just that, a plan. Only when acted upon is it useful. Act upon your plans, and when you do, carry them out with so much fury that even if you fail, the opponent notices you. act, if nothing else, ACT.
If these companies want to mess up EQ, can we let them do it without a fight? If they want to play, I say we play.
#238
Feb 02 2004 at 8:29 AM
Scholar
26 posts
You are talking about "pure moneymakers" that cost a couple plat. no bot program is going to go after items that drop so commonly that I can start a level one alt today and have 4 stacks of tomorrow. The bot would have all bag space filled in no time and more items coming in. He is speaking of 100kpp items and above, not items that most of us vendor to save bank space. Nobody is going to go buy 500kpp to purchase spider silks for thier tailoring or even for items that a poorly equipped dual boxer could get on thier own.
#239
Feb 02 2004 at 8:34 AM
Here's my 2cp for this mess...
Set a cap value of what a particular character can have in the way of pp, say at 1kpp*level, with the shared bank slot counting in the total. The most expensive in game item that I know of is the 100kpp+- drog or horse. Restructure the bridles and drums to require turnin of the lower level one in order to obtain.
I cannot for the life of me figure out why a level 1 toon would need more than 1kpp or where they would spend it other than for twinking, and what is the purpose of having 1000kpp if the most expensive vendor in game item is around 100kpp even for level 65's? No more level 1 platinum mules for the dishonest ones out there.
The premise of 'you can't have what you can't kill' doesn't seem far fetched, and would solve the rest of the twink issues, and would get lower level toons back out in the world going after the lower level mobs again. Wouldn't it be cool to see a full raid of people in their 20's raiding the estate of unrest? =)
EQ already has a mob journal of sorts, and this could be extended to support some sort of mob based flag system to determine whether or not loot could be traded or purchased from one PC to another. This would solve the problem with item mules in the bazaar.
Finally, set a timer on the bazaar, both for traders and buyers... When was the last time a PC as a buyer spent more than an hour in there on legitimate shopping excursions? Real World flea markets close at night and charge their traders a fee per day to set up shop.
In essence, these three things would remove the desire of people to have more platinum than what is needed/appropriate based on the level they have reached, require that toons with access to good/better/best weapons have killed the mob that drops the good/better/best weapons, and clears up the glut of illigetimacy that exists with bots in the bazaar.
All in all, it's a few people hoarding content, the items that result, and the pp that results from it. Legitimate players with legitimate characters would have experienced the content needed for these changes to have minimal impact, and would get everyone out playing the game again instead of talking about virtual economics and the cheaters that are mucking up the works.
Thenoid - Torvo
Set a cap value of what a particular character can have in the way of pp, say at 1kpp*level, with the shared bank slot counting in the total. The most expensive in game item that I know of is the 100kpp+- drog or horse. Restructure the bridles and drums to require turnin of the lower level one in order to obtain.
I cannot for the life of me figure out why a level 1 toon would need more than 1kpp or where they would spend it other than for twinking, and what is the purpose of having 1000kpp if the most expensive vendor in game item is around 100kpp even for level 65's? No more level 1 platinum mules for the dishonest ones out there.
The premise of 'you can't have what you can't kill' doesn't seem far fetched, and would solve the rest of the twink issues, and would get lower level toons back out in the world going after the lower level mobs again. Wouldn't it be cool to see a full raid of people in their 20's raiding the estate of unrest? =)
EQ already has a mob journal of sorts, and this could be extended to support some sort of mob based flag system to determine whether or not loot could be traded or purchased from one PC to another. This would solve the problem with item mules in the bazaar.
Finally, set a timer on the bazaar, both for traders and buyers... When was the last time a PC as a buyer spent more than an hour in there on legitimate shopping excursions? Real World flea markets close at night and charge their traders a fee per day to set up shop.
In essence, these three things would remove the desire of people to have more platinum than what is needed/appropriate based on the level they have reached, require that toons with access to good/better/best weapons have killed the mob that drops the good/better/best weapons, and clears up the glut of illigetimacy that exists with bots in the bazaar.
All in all, it's a few people hoarding content, the items that result, and the pp that results from it. Legitimate players with legitimate characters would have experienced the content needed for these changes to have minimal impact, and would get everyone out playing the game again instead of talking about virtual economics and the cheaters that are mucking up the works.
Thenoid - Torvo
#240
Feb 02 2004 at 9:05 AM
19 posts
well after reading this and a few replys not all here is my 2 cents worth every thing should become no drop for a while but soe should set up vendors to buy back at a fair market value not like some items if u can not sell it it can not be bought for a inflated price then maybe in time thes hacks could go out of business we roll on no drop items any way so what would be the diffenerce maybe it would work maybe but when high end items go for 150k count me out ill never be able to afford such things and will not buy plat
#241
Feb 02 2004 at 10:03 AM
Hey @JMAYERS - thats a clever idea! Why not make everything non-mundane NO DROP and set up special vendors (in adv. camps for example) who take these items back without reselling them? You really got a point here.
And why not making it possible to turn in NO DROP items to guildmasters as a donation to get money, faction or quests?
Edited, Mon Feb 2 10:06:36 2004 by Leiany
And why not making it possible to turn in NO DROP items to guildmasters as a donation to get money, faction or quests?
Edited, Mon Feb 2 10:06:36 2004 by Leiany
#242
Feb 02 2004 at 10:26 AM
You do know that nothing is going to happen. No matter how much everyone argues about it, until Sony wants to do something, nothing will be done.
It's like downloading music...Sure you can sue some people that you HAPPEN to catch doing it but the problem still exists and will not stop because more and more programs will be made available to allow for it.
Same thing with this: Banning accounts was nice but that didn't fix the issue nor have we heard of more bannings since.
We can voice opinion but that’s all it will amount to in the end.
I like the idea of no-drop equipment. But, they (Sony) should allow for selling of the no-drop stuff to vendors only. Yes, you eliminate the bazaar but there would be no reason to buy plat or items any more.
But the bottom line still remains: whether or not you believe it to be wrong - whether or not you do it - the fix must come from Sony and us arguing about it becomes pointless.
It's like downloading music...Sure you can sue some people that you HAPPEN to catch doing it but the problem still exists and will not stop because more and more programs will be made available to allow for it.
Same thing with this: Banning accounts was nice but that didn't fix the issue nor have we heard of more bannings since.
We can voice opinion but that’s all it will amount to in the end.
I like the idea of no-drop equipment. But, they (Sony) should allow for selling of the no-drop stuff to vendors only. Yes, you eliminate the bazaar but there would be no reason to buy plat or items any more.
But the bottom line still remains: whether or not you believe it to be wrong - whether or not you do it - the fix must come from Sony and us arguing about it becomes pointless.
#244
Feb 02 2004 at 11:50 AM
I continue to read posts stating that these larger online plat/account/item selling companies are ruining the game for us players as a whole. I am a casual player I guess (I play almost every day for more than 6hrs, weekends 8+hrs and I have more than 4 50+ characters). I don't feel that this whole ordeal is ruining the game from my point of view.
I sign on, get a group going, adventure, quest, trade skill a bit, and then sign off. Occassionally I will sell my meager 2-5k valued items in the bazaar for a few days till they sell. I simply do not see any effects from this current major concern. No amount of plat duping, bug exploitation, black market plat/account/item selling sites can change my typical game play.
Sure there are some really high end items out there that require large capable raiding guilds or a great deal of coins to purchase. I again am considered a casual player and the guilds I am a member of are small, wholesome guilds which are far far away from being considered, a capable raiding guild. I have never even seen more than 25k in my bank at once and don't quite see how I will ever in the near future.
A high end item at the normal price of 75K marked up to an astronomical price of 150k might aswell be priced at 1 million pp as far as I'm concerned since I'll never beable to aquire one in the first place.
So once again I continue to see replies to the post urging EQ to take action and implement some seriously crazy ideas such as closing down the bazaar. I do not see how my everyday normal gameplay is being threatened by the exploits, black marketed EQ pp/accounts/item sales but I will sure see an everyday normal gameplay threat if SOE was to take action and drastically change the game inorder to cease these issues.
So in short, what I want to say is...The majority of players in EQ can live our day to day lives oblivious to plat selling, exploiting, and bazaar market mongers. We play our hours and hours of EQ in bliss. We simply do not see any reprocussions from these concerns expressed on this thread therefore if SOE was to drastically change the way EQ is being played now just to rustle out the offenders, why must the average player have to suffer? We'd surely have our gaming experience devistated then.
It's true, closing the Bazaar down might dampen the amount of market monopolies out there but it will certainly hinder the everyday, ordinary player who would much rather go on living in bliss without stress.
So SOE, if you are listening to this...
If you are concerned with these issues posted on this thread and plan to take action, please consider the majority, the ordinary oblivious players who are happily paying and playing and how your crime busting implementations might affect us.
I appreciate all your time and efforts,
Azeccia Battlebow
Edited, Mon Feb 2 13:24:06 2004 by Azeccia
I sign on, get a group going, adventure, quest, trade skill a bit, and then sign off. Occassionally I will sell my meager 2-5k valued items in the bazaar for a few days till they sell. I simply do not see any effects from this current major concern. No amount of plat duping, bug exploitation, black market plat/account/item selling sites can change my typical game play.
Sure there are some really high end items out there that require large capable raiding guilds or a great deal of coins to purchase. I again am considered a casual player and the guilds I am a member of are small, wholesome guilds which are far far away from being considered, a capable raiding guild. I have never even seen more than 25k in my bank at once and don't quite see how I will ever in the near future.
A high end item at the normal price of 75K marked up to an astronomical price of 150k might aswell be priced at 1 million pp as far as I'm concerned since I'll never beable to aquire one in the first place.
So once again I continue to see replies to the post urging EQ to take action and implement some seriously crazy ideas such as closing down the bazaar. I do not see how my everyday normal gameplay is being threatened by the exploits, black marketed EQ pp/accounts/item sales but I will sure see an everyday normal gameplay threat if SOE was to take action and drastically change the game inorder to cease these issues.
So in short, what I want to say is...The majority of players in EQ can live our day to day lives oblivious to plat selling, exploiting, and bazaar market mongers. We play our hours and hours of EQ in bliss. We simply do not see any reprocussions from these concerns expressed on this thread therefore if SOE was to drastically change the way EQ is being played now just to rustle out the offenders, why must the average player have to suffer? We'd surely have our gaming experience devistated then.
It's true, closing the Bazaar down might dampen the amount of market monopolies out there but it will certainly hinder the everyday, ordinary player who would much rather go on living in bliss without stress.
So SOE, if you are listening to this...
If you are concerned with these issues posted on this thread and plan to take action, please consider the majority, the ordinary oblivious players who are happily paying and playing and how your crime busting implementations might affect us.
I appreciate all your time and efforts,
Azeccia Battlebow
Edited, Mon Feb 2 13:24:06 2004 by Azeccia
#245
Feb 02 2004 at 11:51 AM
Edited, Mon Feb 2 12:35:01 2004 by Azeccia
#246
Feb 02 2004 at 11:53 AM
Edited, Mon Feb 2 12:33:53 2004 by Azeccia
#247
Feb 02 2004 at 2:15 PM
GreyWolfPack wrote:
Nobody has mentioned these ideas - and they are real, I've been KS'd by a group of 6 characters three times in Tactics on the Oversear. I'm 3 boxing, and have tried him a multitude of times charming boars and such. In busts a single group of elementally equipped chars - attack the oversear - while my pet is sitting right if front of it and the enchanter is getting a pet from the hall - wham, bam - he's dead, they gate out, Ornate armor for sale that night in the bazar.
The real problem as I see it - and I will express my opinion here, is that the gap between the average player, and the elementally equipped player is masive. There is no way to get there. You must join an uber guild and spend the next year getting drops in order to compete or to be equal with half of the characters on a server such as Bertox (an old server).
The game has gotten old, and those that have been playing for four or five years are gods to those that have been playing for 6 months or a year. And there is no opportunity to get your character on an even keel with them. There are no tradeskill items that you can make to gear your character beyond ornate. There is nothing else you can do, but join an uber guild.
All of the new tradeskill items are crap - geared for level 30 characters - given the current nature of the mobs you need to kill in order to gain experience or decent loot.
You can join pick-up raids - 30-70 people all rolling on the drops, but it will take you a year to equip your character decently compared to those elementally equipped characters.
And then there are those old players who have tired of the game - and sold their characters, often on mysupersales, and those characters are elementally equipped and have 300+ aa's. What if - Mysupersales and IGE said, "Hey, look at this demand!", "We could make a lot of money if we bought those accounts ourselves and then went and farmed ornate, and sold it in the bazaar!"
I know all about the macro programs out there, and the exploits - I submit to you the idea that there are much easier ways to get platinum.
Grey
The real problem as I see it - and I will express my opinion here, is that the gap between the average player, and the elementally equipped player is masive. There is no way to get there. You must join an uber guild and spend the next year getting drops in order to compete or to be equal with half of the characters on a server such as Bertox (an old server).
The game has gotten old, and those that have been playing for four or five years are gods to those that have been playing for 6 months or a year. And there is no opportunity to get your character on an even keel with them. There are no tradeskill items that you can make to gear your character beyond ornate. There is nothing else you can do, but join an uber guild.
All of the new tradeskill items are crap - geared for level 30 characters - given the current nature of the mobs you need to kill in order to gain experience or decent loot.
You can join pick-up raids - 30-70 people all rolling on the drops, but it will take you a year to equip your character decently compared to those elementally equipped characters.
And then there are those old players who have tired of the game - and sold their characters, often on mysupersales, and those characters are elementally equipped and have 300+ aa's. What if - Mysupersales and IGE said, "Hey, look at this demand!", "We could make a lot of money if we bought those accounts ourselves and then went and farmed ornate, and sold it in the bazaar!"
I know all about the macro programs out there, and the exploits - I submit to you the idea that there are much easier ways to get platinum.
Grey
Two things I care about that this effects:
1. VERY hard to sell mid range gear, the kind of stuff a good group or raid can get, because people are only looking for high-end stuff they can buy with their IGE plat, whether they got that plat by selling a high-end item to somebody with IGE plat for too much plat or by buying it from them directly.
2. When I started playing EQ in 2000, play nice meant respecting people's camps and treating them the way you wanted to be treated. Now this newbie, $*#(*#($ first agro has crept into the game. I'm sorry, if somebody is already there, the mob is theirs. Go find something else to do or wait your turn. HOwever, WHEN YOU WORK FOR IGE OR ANY OTHER SITE, YOUR REAL LIFE SURVIVAL IS BASED ON GETTING THE DROPS AND YOU CAN'T CARE ABOUT 'PLAY NICE' RULES. These people who work for these sites don't give a rip about who they steal from, gank or *****. They have to pay the electric bill, so they need that drop they can sell for 150K to somebody who bought the last 100K they earned.
To the conspiracy people:
SoE may be involved, but I doubt it. And they would love EQ people to go to EQ2, but I'd wager 10K plat that we'll see both games at 400,000 subscribers a year after EQ2 comes out. There are enough new people getting into MMORPGS to support new games without taking people from the others. Even SoE says this repeatedly. They'll get plenty of people to play both. Personally, I hope it drives the idiots to EQ2 - you know, the Rangers that don't know they can snare and the Enchanters that can't crowd control worth jack.
#248
Feb 02 2004 at 2:27 PM
25 posts
I agree with Azeccia...
I can't recall having a problem grouping because I didn't own some 100K plat item.
Edited, Mon Feb 2 14:28:31 2004 by Deanoo
Edited, Mon Feb 2 14:29:07 2004 by Deanoo
I can't recall having a problem grouping because I didn't own some 100K plat item.
Edited, Mon Feb 2 14:28:31 2004 by Deanoo
Edited, Mon Feb 2 14:29:07 2004 by Deanoo
#250
Feb 02 2004 at 2:33 PM
Loreli wrote:
There are no real life economy parallels to eq's economy. If I want to own a $200K car in the real world, I have to: A) Have the cash on hand to pay for. B) Qualify and afford a loan to pay for it. C) Steal it. There is no place I can take some magic beans and trade them in for cash to buy the car. In eq, I can take magic beans (real world $$) and trade them in for cash (in game pp).
If I want to buy a used car, I can pay a lower price for the car buying it from a person instead of a dealer. Eq is the oppisite: I will pay less pp buying from a dealer (eq merchant\vendor) than I would from a person (trader in the bazaar)
For those of you calling for price caps, they already exist. Most people chose to ignore them. The price cap is the price that you would pay a vendor for that item. I can buy a Forest Loop off vendors for 3Kpp. Under 300pp is the current bazaar price. Centi Longswords, 62pp from a vendor. Over 2Kpp in bazaar. SoV armour quest gems are readily available on a multitude of vendors. Anyone willing to pay a player a higher price than the vendor is a fool.
You can not claim that an item's in-game value is related to its rarity. I bought my first Stein of Moggok several years ago for 200pp. I can still sell in them bazaar for 200pp. There has to thousands of those damn steins in game on every server.
I don't need any fancy programs to search all the vendors. I know which vendors are players favorites to sell their itmes. 2-3 times a week, I make a loop of these vendors, buy the items, and resell them in the bazaar for a hefty profit. Why? People are stupid. I just bought 2 dozen Unfired Opal Encrusted Steins off one merchant at under 1sp each. A couple of sp each, for the firing sheet, turned each one into the real thing, which I'm resold for 30pp each. As long as the players are willing to pay these high prices, I can continue to make hefty profits.
Please, put me out of business. Pay attention to the price caps
If I want to buy a used car, I can pay a lower price for the car buying it from a person instead of a dealer. Eq is the oppisite: I will pay less pp buying from a dealer (eq merchant\vendor) than I would from a person (trader in the bazaar)
For those of you calling for price caps, they already exist. Most people chose to ignore them. The price cap is the price that you would pay a vendor for that item. I can buy a Forest Loop off vendors for 3Kpp. Under 300pp is the current bazaar price. Centi Longswords, 62pp from a vendor. Over 2Kpp in bazaar. SoV armour quest gems are readily available on a multitude of vendors. Anyone willing to pay a player a higher price than the vendor is a fool.
You can not claim that an item's in-game value is related to its rarity. I bought my first Stein of Moggok several years ago for 200pp. I can still sell in them bazaar for 200pp. There has to thousands of those damn steins in game on every server.
I don't need any fancy programs to search all the vendors. I know which vendors are players favorites to sell their itmes. 2-3 times a week, I make a loop of these vendors, buy the items, and resell them in the bazaar for a hefty profit. Why? People are stupid. I just bought 2 dozen Unfired Opal Encrusted Steins off one merchant at under 1sp each. A couple of sp each, for the firing sheet, turned each one into the real thing, which I'm resold for 30pp each. As long as the players are willing to pay these high prices, I can continue to make hefty profits.
Please, put me out of business. Pay attention to the price caps
Please, tell all of us 'fools' what vendors you are finding Centi Longswords on? What vendors are selling this stuff or do you just spend your time vendor farming hoping to get this stuff, because in my two hours, if I'm lucky, a night, I just can't waste time going from vendor to vendor finding things people sold like idiots. I have to farm pelts or gems or mid-range items and sell them on my mule to get my plat to buy better then I have, so I'd love to know where I could buy this great stuff off vendors. Alla's certainly doesn't list it.
Edited, Mon Feb 2 14:35:48 2004 by Aquendar
#251
Feb 02 2004 at 2:54 PM
1 post
Well this post is quite full of opinions, but the fact of the matter is nothing will happen until the people stop paying SoE for their service and cancel their accounts which is never going to happen because allot of people in the game could care less about what's happening. I for one have cancelled my account as of January because I have to agree with the post earlier by RomeoA this is the end of EQ and SoE is just cashing out on everyone. SoE could care less if their is dupping of plat or hackers or glitches. What they care about is about their new expansion GoD and their new game EQ2.
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