A discussion on unborking the in-game economy

The in-game economy seems to be broken to me; do other players share this sentiment?

If you do agree, please respond with your thoughts on:

1. What game mechanism contributes to this?
2. What suggestions do you have for how to change the mechanism?

Please refrain from making comments/suggestions that attack actions of players that are beyond the control of the developers (e.g. purchasing gold with RLM, price gouging, etc.). The goal is to brainstorm fixes that can be implemented to the game itself to improve the health of the economy.

While suggestions may have a negative effect on your preferred playstyle,
please limit the scope of your feedback to the effect itself without attacking a commenter.

To get the ball rolling;

Broken mechanism: vendor sell-cap of 175 million gold.

Suggested fix: vendor sell-cap of 1 platinum, as several items are now unsellable on vendors at current market prices.

Delete everything but our characters no more shard transfer 

Prices vary dramatically on some shards for certain items.  Just noticed this last week when I checked vendor search on Atlantic.  Had not thought this to be the case previously. This gives players that can travel a huge advantage when buying inventory.  Allowing all players to travel could mitigate this.  Creating two classes of players one that can travel to other shards and one that cannot was a huge mistake in my opinion and discriminates against the new players the game needs to survive

… my [[highly unpopular]] opinion is that allowing shard transfers in the first place is what screwed the UO economy as a whole …

for people who wanted to go to a more populated shard? they should have implemented a system where you can transfer all characters on an account (all slots, bank boxes, and stables) only once every 366 days … 

allowing players to transfer between all shards in less than a month’s time is what has screwed everything up … very few games allow people to switch servers … most games require you to start from scratch if you begin on a new server …

that said … changing anything about it now would be disastrous for what is left of UO currently, so nothing can really be changed from a development standpoint. 

“What exactly do you think is broken about the economy? And what do you mean by broken?
economy is a very broad word,
The OP is very vague”

Arnold7 said:

Prices vary dramatically on some shards for certain items.  Just noticed this last week when I checked vendor search on Atlantic.  Had not thought this to be the case previously. This gives players that can travel a huge advantage when buying inventory.  Allowing all players to travel could mitigate this.  Creating two classes of players one that can travel to other shards and one that cannot was a huge mistake in my opinion and discriminates against the new players the game needs to survive

Exactly.  It was contended by a few vocal posters that players go to other shards and take items back to Atlantic and sell them for more. So they made shard bound which basically guaranteed the most spare items will be on Atlantic and only a few on other shards, supply and demand.

In reality, players go buy things on Atlantic and bring them back to their home shard and sell for a profit. Which we can not do with shard bound items.

Right now a 30 charge Horned runic is 3M on LS.  90s are 7 to 8M on Atlantic. So you pay more on your home shard because there is not enough supply.

This has been going on for years, I have made lots of gold to buy deco by buying pet scrolls on Atlantic and putting them on my Vendor at home.

Shard transfers may not save the economy but saved players who like to return and not limited to one or the few over populated or laggy shard.

I don't think Shard transfer screw up the economy, but as some player said it correctly, its because it is only available to one group with 14 year account. 

Economy lesson will tell us increasing the supply will force prices to fall. Scarcity drives up the price. Open up cross shard trading for everyone and level the playing field.

I don't think stopping shard transfer can "save" economy as it reduces supply, but it will definitely increase the exodus of non-Atlantic population in the years to come.

So I vote not to stop shard transfer but make vendor buy a feature across all shards for every player regardless of age.

Did some of you ask for shard consolidation? 
No way, I want my castle in its prime location.
Buy yes, pls open up trading cross shard instead so every has access to same Supply as if we are on the "same" shard.

Or make a trading shard where all travel to that market place to buy and sell stuff with no limit of account age.

My perspective is that the economy aspect of this game is one big thing that sets it apart. The players build the economy on the non-atlantic shards by paying attention to what people are doing. It's tough on small shards but you get what you put in. We just had a bunch of new people join legends after a guy started a new guild advertising. He was trying to get a few players set up with gear for training. I could have given him everything he needed like many of us could and would but I told him to go buy up pieces in vs and then I'll fill in the gaps. Economies require buyers and sellers. Other new players are trying to make gold so push people to them instead of gifting everything. We all know that people in this game are generous and supportive of new players but healthy economies don't sprout on their own. I don't have to buy those 500 valorite ingots or those gate scrolls or other little things I will obtain just through playing but I do because sellers need buyers. You grow a shard's economy that way. Inflation is real but if you can keep new players by buying whatever they're selling they'll level up to end game and the higher end markets will get more competitive to lower prices.

I built my first two characters on Atlantic, moved to Legends and never looked back. Small shards can survive and grow to the point where the economy problems many vent about aren't that big a deal. But you have to grow them deliberately. The players do that in this game. 

Grimbeard said:

Delete everything but our characters no more shard transfer 

On this we agree. And I use my shard shields a lot but would not complain if they were decorative only or only spit out 1 token per year.

One of the reason for inflation is because some rich players would buy "up" the stocks, especially for items in high demand and low in supply.   

Transfers definitely screwed up the economy, but not by simply existing. they really should just change it to nekkid characters with nothing else. 

Yoshi said:

“What exactly do you think is broken about the economy? And what do you mean by broken?
economy is a very broad word,
The OP is very vague”

Yoshi said:

"with regards to inflation,

I think commission vendors are to blame for that, but this was predicted on their introduction, so it's what people asked for, so players asked for inflation, i would halve the price of everything on my vendors every month if i had to pay vendor rental"

So did auction safes. Now people just leave 1plat items repeating auction until someone eventually buys them whereas before people would spam and reduce the price the longer it took (ie more time wasted on spamming rather than playing)

i feel like people who think its broken just arent great at making gold, and refuse to buy UO store items to sell for gold.

id say overall UO economy is better than ever, easier to make gold.  easier to spend gold.  healthy inflation (sign of strong economic growth, strong consumer base)

you can gear a character for comparatively much cheaper than 15 years ago, with a ton more options.

Smoot said:

i feel like people who think its broken just arent great at making gold, and refuse to buy UO store items to sell for gold.

id say overall UO economy is better than ever, easier to make gold.  easier to spend gold.  healthy inflation (sign of strong economic growth, strong consumer base)

you can gear a character for comparatively much cheaper than 15 years ago, with a ton more options.

Yes, prices went up for certain things like powerscrolls, vet rewards, etc, but that isnt a bad thing.  thats a sign of a healthy economy.  if no one want them, stopped buying, we wouldnt have inflation, which is a sign of a poor / struggling economy.

commission vendors and auction safes made it easier to have higher prices, which is a good thing in my book for the average player.  much easier to make gold than before them.

idoc items being deleted also caused higher prices, but also in my mind a good thing.  avoids a saturated market, any 1 year old account can sell a reward for 175m now.  vet rewards should be valuable.

store items contribute to inflation, but also allow those who dont want to spend time in game to essentially buy gold (sell UO store item for gold)

powerscrolls and the pet revamp raised scroll prices, meaning people want those scrolls, making doing spawns worthwhile again.

Looks pretty good all around.   no, its never going to be fully in game because of UO store / rmt / game time codes.  but if you take all those into consideration seems healthier than ever to me.

All this is true for Atlantic not so much other shards ..

We have no idea how much of the Gold in UO was the result of duping.  Maybe if there was never duping, the economy would be a lot better.

So, we are down to the usual, fix something because cheaters are doing X and the fix always hurts legit players more.

Pawain said:

We have no idea how much of the Gold in UO was the result of duping.  Maybe if there was never duping, the economy would be a lot better.

So, we are down to the usual, fix something because cheaters are doing X and the fix always hurts legit players more.

Even if it's the usual we're at a burn it down and rebuild or just watch it burn time in uo history 

Prices of items in UO are a function of supply and demand… but that is still relative to the amount of gold in the market.  All other factors being equal, I believe there needs to be more means of removing gold from the system, not just moving it around.

Seth said:

One of the reason for inflation is because some rich players would buy "up" the stocks, especially for items in high demand and low in supply.   

This doesn't cause inflation. This is just literally how markets work.

Smoot said:

store items contribute to inflation, but also allow those who dont want to spend time in game to essentially buy gold (sell UO store item for gold)

This doesn't cause inflation. It just moves gold around.

“why people complain about inflation when they asked for it with commission vendors? 
it was already explained if you have them the prices of things will increase, 
and you all wanted them anyway, now complain about inflation???

And people sometimes wonder why devs don’t listen to what players ask for..”

My thoughts here...

I don’t think xsharding is an issue. Yes things move around. If you have it too low priced and ATL is more someone will buy and xshard it. - raise your price.  

Lord_Nythrax said:

Seth said:

One of the reason for inflation is because some rich players would buy "up" the stocks, especially for items in high demand and low in supply.   

This doesn't cause inflation. This is just literally how markets work.

Quote Investopia:
A surge in demand for products and services can cause inflation as consumers are willing to pay more for the product. Some companies reap the rewards of inflation if they can charge more for their products as a result of the high demand for their goods.

Whatever you call it if you don't like the term inflation, buying up all the high-demand, low-supply items to monopolise the market and push up the prices; at the end of the day, has the same effect as Inflation because consumers pay more. 

AmberWitch said:

Some of my thoughts about the game's issues in regard to the economics...

1. Websites that sell gold. I think that this should have been nipped in the bud long ago. When someone can pay with a credit card to get a plat of gold they really aren't as concerned as the average player about the over priced item. Greed sets in very quickly and prices continue to rise.

2. Scroll prices. This has steadily increased over time to the point where the average player can't afford many of the scrolls needed to maximize their characters and pets. The vendor prices are out of sight for most players. Do spawns to get scrolls? As you know, often these days if an average player tried to do a spawn they get raided and the highly outfitted and trained raiders get the scrolls.

3. Resources. See #1. Scripting is  now allowed and are on many shards, even Siege. I see very few people gathering resources themselves. The mindset is to buy some plats and shop Atlantic to get your resources. I remember the days when a guild would get together once a week, month, etc and everyone would mine to get ore for their smiths. Mining/resource gathering parties were fun and it built stronger relationships within the guild but people don't want to 'waste' their time doing what they judge as 'work'.

4. It really comes down to the players. You can create your own micro economy with your group. It works well once you weed out the users. They create and control their own economy.

People complain but they don't do something about what they're complaining about. If you want to let the scripters and the gold sellers control the economy keep buying from them. As long as the sellers have gold that players are willing to buy, as long as vendors have over priced stuff that is being bought the economy will continue to inflate. It's really up to the players to  make change happen.

I know the above is simplified and difficult but 2 + 2 always = 3. (old Baja joke)

The Developers can very well tone down the impact to Inflation and to new and returning players of Powerscroll prices, by adding 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Maps.

While it is unreasonable to gather and dig a sufficient number of Treasure Chests to put together the same skill 110s needed to bind into a 120 PS (120 x 110s which it means well a lot more then 120 Treasure Chests to have to dig up and, thus, of Treasure Maps to find....), if Treasure Maps had 115s inside, then it would still require time, both to gather the number of Treasure Maps and to dig them up but, at least, it would be more reasonable and it would help reduce the high prices that some Powerscrolls have.

JenniferMarie said:

Honestly, the bottom line about the UO economy is greed. Greed in game, greed in RL.

And it doesn't matter how many times this topic is rehashed amongst ourselves in game, here on the Forums, or on any other site/app ... even if someone has a decent, logical, realistic solution the Dev Team won't listen or implement it.

So it's all just a bunch of people getting themselves and others worked up over nothing - wasting time and energy that could be spent enjoy those aspects of UO that keep us all playing.

Personally, I blame money trades.

Until players will be able to make real money from selling in-game stuff, of course that there might be players interested in power gaming to get items and gold to then sell for real money....

The solution, to my opinion, to solve this, could be making items more readily available in the game.

If players could get items just by playing the game, without having to spend a ridicolous amount of their time in the process, why would they want then to waste their hard earned real money when they can just get those items playing the game ?

It is when items have a hard chance to be gotten in the game, and require a whole lot of their time to get them, that some players might start thinking using real money to get those items (and thus save up their real life time....), rather then have to spend ridicolous amoung of time in the game in order to get them.....

At least, that is how I see it.

Basic economics 
The more there is of an item the less value it has.
Example the more money a government prints the less value each dollar has (or yen, pound so on).

In game that means every time a player kills a rat more "gold" is produced with the direct effect of each existing "gold coin" being worth just a little bit less. Increasing the supply of the things people wish to buy with an ever expanding supply of "gold" helps but will never stop inflation.

I seem to remember a story about a economics student using UO as a basis for his/her doctorate thesis on run away inflation.

As I see it there is no quick or easy solution that does not fundamentally change the game. Gold sinks would work but they would have to closely balance the total gold introduced to the game with out destroying the in game economy.

If you can come up with a simple solution there are a couple hundred world leaders who would like to have a chat with you.

P.S. God yes to 115 PS in treasure chest!!!!!!

The UO economy is amazingly simole
compared to world economies. There is nothing but a monetary base money supply and it completely managed by the game. Imagine you could go out and get $$ off a tree. That’s killing monsters for gold.  Gold out is things that are bought that removes gold - namely vendor fees, npc vendors, and insurance.  Even money on houses can be got back when your drop it.  

Lord_Nythrax said:

Seth said:

Smoot said:

store items contribute to inflation, but also allow those who dont want to spend time in game to essentially buy gold (sell UO store item for gold)

This doesn't cause inflation. It just moves gold around.

it of course contributes to inflation.  but like i said, healthy inflation isnt a bad thing.

UO store items create free gold (in the actual game nothing was paid for the item) Its exactly comparable to a real life government giving out free money, or welfare.  So the reciever of this "free" gold now has a free supply of gold that wouldnt have been there without the outside real life cash.  Now that player can spend the gold, contributing to demand whereas without the RL cash they wouldnt be.

yes, it moves around gold, but artificially.  it creates higher demand where there wouldnt be otherwise.

So overall demand is increased.  players become active in game consumers that wouldnt have been without the RL cash paid for the UO store item.  higher demand means faster inflation.

So I guess we would have to admit that in addition to paying a monthly subscription UO has already become a pay to play/win?

Or.....remove all gold/plats from everyone and start again. 🙂

AmberWitch said:

So I guess we would have to admit that in addition to paying a monthly subscription UO has already become a pay to play/win?

This happened with EJ accounts..

For newer players that qualify to have a house and that have a character that can get drops at the special events that last for a couple of months, they can make gold by setting up one of those commission vendors that charges a commission when the drop is sold (these players won’t have enough gold to support a daily commission vendor).  These players won’t have to spend real dollars to buy stuff.  When they get enough knowledge and gold to identify items they can buy low and sell high they can start making money that way too. They will have to work at it but they will make enough gold to buy what they need if it is sold on their shard by a seller listing items in good faith.

For every other new player they are just out of luck (this statement refers to real new players that are not experienced players that know what they are doing.). You can’t make enough gold on your own from looting stuff you kill or even from treasure chests to get the millions you need to play the game.  These players will have to rely on others to give them the stuff they need.

That’s the UO economy in a nutshell for newer players.

Helper said:

To get the ball rolling;

Broken mechanism: vendor sell-cap of 175 million gold.

Suggested fix: vendor sell-cap of 1 platinum, as several items are now unsellable on vendors at current market prices.

No. Auction safes exist for a reason. Nor would that have an effect on the economy at all. 

A great start would be to REMOVE shard bound from items, either account-bound them or no restrictions.

hey, here’s a thought … maybe if the Dev Team had ever updated loot tables with viable gold on corpses, updated the amount of gold dropped at champ spawns (and likewise, Roof), updated the amount a new player starts the game with, and all quest rewards then maybe newer players (and seasoned players who enjoy busy work and spawns and stuff) wouldn’t feel the need to go “buy” gold from RMT sellers and the UO economy could be self-sustaining …

Listen, I can sell you the solution for ten plats.

gay said:

The only people who really have a problem with the game economy are the ones who still make gold killing monsters and looting said gold. Or farming treasure chests for gold.

Find better stuff to loot, PvPers are always looking for new splinter weps and +skill antique jewels. Hit a pinata at an idoc, you might get lucky and find a server birth or rare item to sell.

Nobody has farmed gold off monsters to sustain their gold income since 2008 when the Darkwood japanese gold farmers were botting ice fiends.

I enjoy the original game, such as it is.  Dungeon crawls, guild events, crafting - whatever it is, I like it.  I don't care about rubble or all that nonsense. 

username said:

Helper said:

To get the ball rolling;

Broken mechanism: vendor sell-cap of 175 million gold.

Suggested fix: vendor sell-cap of 1 platinum, as several items are now unsellable on vendors at current market prices.

No. Auction safes exist for a reason. Nor would that have an effect on the economy at all. 

A great start would be to REMOVE shard bound from items, either account-bound them or no restrictions.

This 

Smoot said:

it of course contributes to inflation.  but like i said, healthy inflation isnt a bad thing.

UO store items create free gold (in the actual game nothing was paid for the item) Its exactly comparable to a real life government giving out free money, or welfare.  So the reciever of this "free" gold now has a free supply of gold that wouldnt have been there without the outside real life cash.  Now that player can spend the gold, contributing to demand whereas without the RL cash they wouldnt be.

yes, it moves around gold, but artificially.  it creates higher demand where there wouldnt be otherwise.

So overall demand is increased.  players become active in game consumers that wouldnt have been without the RL cash paid for the UO store item.  higher demand means faster inflation.

The person buying the store item loses the gold, and the overall amount of gold in the economy is unchanged.

Thank you to everyone that has participated in this discussion thus far!

There have been some great points brought up, and I will address some of them below in separate comments to avoid wall-of-text as much as possible.

To the readers who have not voted on the poll yet, please do so. I would prefer to get the pulse of as large a percentage of the player-base as possible on this topic.
(Thank you for putting up with the forum log-in issues!)

Regarding inflation:

The presence of inflation does not necessarily mean that it is good. For instance, the U.S. fed targets a rate of a 2% annual increase in inflation and considers anything above that percentage rate to be bad inflation.

While the argument can be made that the virtual economy of UO is different than a traditional economy and should not use the same benchmarks, even if you moved that rate up to 5% you would still be well under the price increases that we have seen in-game.

Many prices seem to have shot up dramatically, much more so than any increased demand from new and returning players would necessitate. Steps need to be taken to remove some of the gold from the game, which is increasing on every shard on a daily basis far more than the amount removed by vendor fees and insurance.

The primary means of the removal of gold need to be adjusted.
[Posts on those means to follow as time permits.]

There is also a thread on the forums by Cookie to suggest new ideas to remove gold here: https://forum.uo.com/discussion/11931/gold-sink-ideas#latest

If the discussion is going to focus on “inflation”, the changes that the Dev Team has made should be at the top of the list of reasons why prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

The changes to Taming and pet training increased the price of powerscrolls exponentially. It’s been so long now that I forget what a 120 tactics used to sell for on a player vendor, but I do know it was a fraction of the 70-120m they sell for now. (Just to cite an example.)

The IDOC changes, likewise, caused Vet Reward prices to double - or almost triple - as well as prices on mats and resources.

JenniferMarie said:

If the discussion is going to focus on “inflation”, the changes that the Dev Team has made should be at the top of the list of reasons why prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

The changes to Taming and pet training increased the price of powerscrolls exponentially. It’s been so long now that I forget what a 120 tactics used to sell for on a player vendor, but I do know it was a fraction of the 70-120m they sell for now. (Just to cite an example.)

The IDOC changes, likewise, caused Vet Reward prices to double - or almost triple - as well as prices on mats and resources.

While it can be argued those changes were some weird, misguided attempt at removing gold from the game, it’s had the opposite effect.

Chiv and disco ps used to be dirt cheap 

I know, and all of these changes didn’t remove any gold from the game - it just keeps moving it around from player to player.

They should have created pet only PS available only in tram through some fishmonger type quest 

Just a couple of points

1. Way back when I started I remember the sense of pride when me and 2 friends could finally afford a house. We shared a small stone tower and it took months to get to that point. The idea that new players should be able to solo the roof or get a castle shortly after joining just cheapens all our hard work and removes a lot of the fun for new players. The new player who wants to immediately get to the "end game" content is likely to just move on to the latest and greatest "pay for play game".  Please remember to ask a new player you run across if they want help or would prefer to get there on their own.
2. I agree real world inflation has a lot of similarities to UO but there is a big difference. There is nothing in UO you need. Unlike the real world if you can't afford some thing you are not going to starve or have no place to sleep (Inns on UO don't charge for rooms). One of the things this means is there is no pressure on the seller to lower prices for the sale because he/she has their own bills to pay.

No way was all the gold currently in game earned by killing monsters we are talking years and years of duping. delete all gold.

JenniferMarie said:

If the discussion is going to focus on “inflation”, the changes that the Dev Team has made should be at the top of the list of reasons why prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

The changes to Taming and pet training increased the price of powerscrolls exponentially. It’s been so long now that I forget what a 120 tactics used to sell for on a player vendor, but I do know it was a fraction of the 70-120m they sell for now. (Just to cite an example.)

The IDOC changes, likewise, caused Vet Reward prices to double - or almost triple - as well as prices on mats and resources.

While it can be argued those changes were some weird, misguided attempt at removing gold from the game, it’s had the opposite effect.

The Developers should really have added 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Maps, to my opinion....

It would have still taken a significant amoung of time and effort to gather all of the 115s needed to bind into a 120 and, yet, it would have been at least an alternative to get 120 Powerscrolls, albeit with effort, work and time investment, to Champion Spawn AND, most importantly, it would have helped tone down and keep under more control Powerscrolls prices....

@Kyronix , how about finally adding 115s to Treasure Maps' Chests ?

I will never understand why people insist on scrolling every pet out with 120’s. 

Agree with Popps on the chests.  After all they are treasure chests.  Should be a chance of finding real treasure in them.  Since you are in Fel. risking as much as you would be at a spawn, hoard and trove chests should have a chance of spawning something of value.  As is, with treasure chests the potential reward does not justify the risk of getting player killed in Fel.  If I am bored or have nothing better to do, I will do these chests.  Other wise I just let them sit.  110 scrolls don’t sell for that much, generally about one tenth of what a 120 scroll does.  Not saying players should not do these if they want to, just saying the reward does not justify the additional risk.

popps said:

The Developers should really have added 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Maps, to my opinion....

It would have still taken a significant amoung of time and effort to gather all of the 115s needed to bind into a 120 and, yet, it would have been at least an alternative to get 120 Powerscrolls, albeit with effort, work and time investment, to Champion Spawn AND, most importantly, it would have helped tone down and keep under more control Powerscrolls prices....

@ Kyronix , how about finally adding 115s to Treasure Maps' Chests ?

No, they should NOT . 115 and 120 powerscrolls are from champ spawns , and as I see market there is no shortage of them at all. 
Treasure maps are peacefull adventure and contain lots of pretty expensive stuff. You are alowed to sell it and buy  what you want. Or go and do champ spawn. 

Gwen said:

popps said:

The Developers should really have added 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Maps, to my opinion....

It would have still taken a significant amoung of time and effort to gather all of the 115s needed to bind into a 120 and, yet, it would have been at least an alternative to get 120 Powerscrolls, albeit with effort, work and time investment, to Champion Spawn AND, most importantly, it would have helped tone down and keep under more control Powerscrolls prices....

@ Kyronix , how about finally adding 115s to Treasure Maps' Chests ?

No, they should NOT . 115 and 120 powerscrolls are from champ spawns , and as I see market there is no shortage of them at all. 
Treasure maps are peacefull adventure and contain lots of pretty expensive stuff. You are alowed to sell it and buy  what you want. Or go and do champ spawn. 

Then why @JenniferMarie in her post here https://forum.uo.com/discussion/comment/88817/#Comment_88817 said : 

The changes to Taming and pet training increased the price of powerscrolls exponentially. 

??

There either is an issue with Powerscrolls prices being out of range or there isn't...

Personally, like other UO players, I think there is and, oddily enough, those Powerscrolls having the highest prices seem to be Powerscrolls which are also used on pets, besides characters...

Of course that having to use Powerscrolls on pets, of which usually Tamers have several in their stables (some players even have multiple Tamers on their account to have more stable slots available...), causes a surge in demand for Powerscrolls and a shortage in their offer thus driving prices "exponentially"....

While a player has 6 or 7 characters in their account, and some of them not even all of their characters in the account having their skills using 120 Powerscrolls, an account with a Tamer, or even more then 1 Tamer, can have tens upon tens of pets which, in order to be more effective fighters, usually need to be applied 120 Powerscrolls.

Most Tamers, now, train their pets so focused that 1 pet can only be used for 1 or 2 hunts (moreless like dexers use their weapons for....), that means having the need for a Tamer to have a large number of pets, all trained up to 120 skills if their Intensity allows it, to make them better fighters for their intended Hunts.

So, in short, YES, absolutely I do think that the Developers should ass 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Chests in order to make them more available and in a way alternative to Champion Spawns, albeit still being time consuming and requiring work and an effort.

When doing a Champion Spawn, it is only a matter of the RNG whether to grant the players 120 PS, having 115s in Treasure Chests, would instead not just be a matter of the RNG solely but, also, take time to gather all of the necessary Treasure Maps, spend the time to fight the Guardians and dig them up and do this not just for the 10 x 115s times needed to bind them into a 120 but having to do it way more times, because not necessarily in 10 Treasure Chests one would get 10 matching 115s....

So, having 115s in Treasure Chests, it would still take time, effort and work as compared to a Champion Spawn.... only, it would help the economy to keep Powerscroll prices more under control and be more affordable from players.

Arnold7 said:

Agree with Popps on the chests.  After all they are treasure chests.  Should be a chance of finding real treasure in them.  Since you are in Fel. risking as much as you would be at a spawn, hoard and trove chests should have a chance of spawning something of value.  As is, with treasure chests the potential reward does not justify the risk of getting player killed in Fel.

There is no shortage. Some items are more valuable than other. Supply-demand thing. 
If you think something is too expensive for you - go and get it yourself. 
Think that preces are too high - go , get and sell at lower price.  Or use 110 scrolls. Difference is microscopic. 
Champ spawn gives 115 and 110 scrolls too. 120 are rare. 120 of useful skills are even more rare. 
there is huge amount of in-game activities and mobs that don't drop scrolls. 
If you want to be "more effective" with 6 tamers with 42*120 scrolled pet on each - you pay the price. 
If you want easy button - you copy set of 120 PS to Test Server and play there. With as many tamers as you want. 

 AS long as there is a infinite number of plats available from 3rd party sellers for really CHEAP there will be no fixing the economy.

The uo store could easily put RMT sites out of business 

Tyrath said:

 AS long as there is a infinite number of plats available from 3rd party sellers for really CHEAP there will be no fixing the economy.

This have nothing to do with me. I am farming items of one kind and sell them to buy different items. 
If some players agree to pay others for playing the game intead of them - it is violation of TOS, but why any player bother about them?  Inflation increases both  sale and purchase prices. You don't like gold- just trade item for an item. 

AmberWitch said:

Every time someone makes or has made the choice to purchase gold from a 3rd party seller they are the contributors to the devaluing of the gold in game, thus increasing the price of just about everything in game that is wanted.

The only people that would support this are those who sell gold and/or sell stuff at ridiculous prices. 

You don't  like price- you are free to go and farm it yourself. What micro community you are trying to build and what is good in it? 
Sure  , you can have 1 set of cameos shared among group of friends and farm different stuff instead of having them on your own toon. But what about PS for example. Sell tem cheaper to friends and they will sell something cheaper to you ? what is the point of this activity? Sell stuff for normal price on open market, buy on open market. 

Yes , some shards have not many players who put stuff on vendors at all. Expensive stuff stays, cheap one long ago bought and never refilled. 
Fix for this will be letting players sell stuff on vendor at the cost of bank slots for example. or 10-20 per account per shard.  So I'll be able to sell cheap 105-110 PS on low-pop shard I farm them instead of trashing or dropping on Luna bank floor.  Or some LRC items|jewels for noobs which I even don't loot. 

Have to agree with you Keven, treasure hunters don’t have to worry too much about getting player killed doing chests in Fel any more.  In the three years or so I have been doing chests I have only on one occasion seen another player there.  But even so, you still take an additional risk by going there for a reward not financially any greater than you would get from any other chest.  That’s the biggest reason I don’t do that many chests there anymore.

popps said:

JenniferMarie said:

If the discussion is going to focus on “inflation”, the changes that the Dev Team has made should be at the top of the list of reasons why prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

The changes to Taming and pet training increased the price of powerscrolls exponentially. It’s been so long now that I forget what a 120 tactics used to sell for on a player vendor, but I do know it was a fraction of the 70-120m they sell for now. (Just to cite an example.)

The IDOC changes, likewise, caused Vet Reward prices to double - or almost triple - as well as prices on mats and resources.

While it can be argued those changes were some weird, misguided attempt at removing gold from the game, it’s had the opposite effect.

The Developers should really have added 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Maps, to my opinion....

It would have still taken a significant amoung of time and effort to gather all of the 115s needed to bind into a 120 and, yet, it would have been at least an alternative to get 120 Powerscrolls, albeit with effort, work and time investment, to Champion Spawn AND, most importantly, it would have helped tone down and keep under more control Powerscrolls prices....

@ Kyronix , how about finally adding 115s to Treasure Maps' Chests ?

Tyrath said:

 AS long as there is a infinite number of plats available from 3rd party sellers for really CHEAP there will be no fixing the economy.

Define "cheap", because in my opinion $1 is too expensive for something I can earn for free in UO.

AmberWitch said:

Every time someone makes or has made the choice to purchase gold from a 3rd party seller they are the contributors to the devaluing of the gold in game, thus increasing the price of just about everything in game that is wanted.

The only people that would support this are those who sell gold and/or sell stuff at ridiculous prices.

If you don't want to participate in the above, build your own shard's micro economic community. Takes time, effort and trust but you eventually learn how to spot and weed out the users. A few good examples of people working locally can snowball.

The laziness and greed of those who take advantage of others won't stop as long as people don't care that they're being taken for a fool.

The problem with that is "time".....

Why do some players spend their hard earned real money to buy in-game items or gold ?

To my opinion, because it takes them much less time to earn that money in real life that buys that gold and those items, as compared to the time they would need to spend in the game to actually earn in-game, that gold or those items....

Too bad, though, that then, all of the other players who do not have same-like real life wealth, end up suffering in the game the end result of all of this.... rampant inflation.....

Those players who lack the extraordinary time needed to make that in-game gold or get those items, and do not have spare real life money to spend in a game to buy in-game gold or items which take them way too much time to get, end up getting out of luck playing a game where they are cut out from items which cost too much to buy but are necessary to enhance their gameplay....

So what do they do ? Move to play other games, I would imagine.... thus hurting Ultima Online's players base numbers.....

The issue, to my opinion, is really the unreasonable time it takes to get certain in-game items which, for one reason or the other, have become way, but way too expensive to get or take way too much of their time, RNG permitting, to obtain.

And I am not talking about deco stuff but, rather, about items which are necessary to be more effective in one's own gameplay like Powerscrolls are, as just 1 example that one could bring up (but there is also Cameos etc. etc.).

High end items should, to my opinion, be more readily available. I am not saying easy, just saying more readily possible to be gotten in the game, without having to spend too much an extraordinary time to get them. That is why I think that adding 115s to Treasure Chests would help towards helping the in game economy.... it would make powerscrolls more accessible to players and, consequentially, tone down the ridicolous high prices thatsome of them have reached.

Then, players would just play the game and not feel the need to have to purchase gold or in-game items with their real money and RMT would just go away for lack of players interested in spending their real money for in-game stuff but just playing the game to get that in-game gold or items which they might need or want to get.....

At least, that is the way I see it.

Gwen said:

AmberWitch said:

Every time someone makes or has made the choice to purchase gold from a 3rd party seller they are the contributors to the devaluing of the gold in game, thus increasing the price of just about everything in game that is wanted.

The only people that would support this are those who sell gold and/or sell stuff at ridiculous prices. 

You don't  like price- you are free to go and farm it yourself. What micro community you are trying to build and what is good in it? 
Sure  , you can have 1 set of cameos shared among group of friends and farm different stuff instead of having them on your own toon. But what about PS for example. Sell tem cheaper to friends and they will sell something cheaper to you ? what is the point of this activity? Sell stuff for normal price on open market, buy on open market. 

Yes , some shards have not many players who put stuff on vendors at all. Expensive stuff stays, cheap one long ago bought and never refilled. 
Fix for this will be letting players sell stuff on vendor at the cost of bank slots for example. or 10-20 per account per shard.  So I'll be able to sell cheap 105-110 PS on low-pop shard I farm them instead of trashing or dropping on Luna bank floor.  Or some LRC items|jewels for noobs which I even don't loot. 

You don't  like price- you are free to go and farm it yourself. 

There is players out there, who do not have the extraordinary time (to my opinion, unreasonable time for several items....) to "go and farm themselves.... " why otherwise there is players out there who script and use BOTs to farm for in-game stuff ?

Because their time is limited and the Design of the game, for certain items, demands way, but waaaaay too much time to be spent in the game to get them....

So much time, that some players simply do not have it to be spent to get some in-game pixels....

So, what can these players do if they also lack the real money to spend to buy that in-game gold or those items needed to have their gameplay enhanced (like Powerscrolls or item sch as Cameos and others can do) ?

They can either stop playing the game, or end up using scripts and BOTs to farm for those items....

Why not instead, change the Design of the game, and make those items significantly LESS time consuming to get ?

This would stop the rampant inflation because more of these items would get into the game and players would simply play, spending now a reasonable amount of their time to get these items, rather then having to buy them for either real life money or for very high in-game gold amounts.

That is at least how I see it.

drcossack said:

popps said:

JenniferMarie said:

If the discussion is going to focus on “inflation”, the changes that the Dev Team has made should be at the top of the list of reasons why prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

The changes to Taming and pet training increased the price of powerscrolls exponentially. It’s been so long now that I forget what a 120 tactics used to sell for on a player vendor, but I do know it was a fraction of the 70-120m they sell for now. (Just to cite an example.)

The IDOC changes, likewise, caused Vet Reward prices to double - or almost triple - as well as prices on mats and resources.

While it can be argued those changes were some weird, misguided attempt at removing gold from the game, it’s had the opposite effect.

The Developers should really have added 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Maps, to my opinion....

It would have still taken a significant amoung of time and effort to gather all of the 115s needed to bind into a 120 and, yet, it would have been at least an alternative to get 120 Powerscrolls, albeit with effort, work and time investment, to Champion Spawn AND, most importantly, it would have helped tone down and keep under more control Powerscrolls prices....

@ Kyronix , how about finally adding 115s to Treasure Maps' Chests ?

You want scrolls?  Go get them.  Don't want to farm them for yourself?  Go do something else that can let you earn a lot of gold, like Shadowguard or EM events.  Don't want to play the RNG lotto with drops?  That's fine too...but I don't think you have a leg to stand on if you're unwilling to do the things in-game that can make money.

For the life of me, I don't understand why people keep wanting powerscrolls removed from Fel champ spawns.  You are aware that scroll binding to upgrade them to (eventual) 120s exists, right?  Even the "junk" 110s have their uses depending on what characters you want to build.

Again, the key word here is "TIME".....

Sure, 110s can be binded into 120s..... too bad, though, that some 120 x "same-like" 110s are needed to create a 120....

And since also 110s spawned in Treasure Chests are subject to the RNG, this means that way more then 120 Treasure Chests need to be digged up, before one can bind those 110s into a 120...

And, mind you, that means not only finding the location, digging up and fighting the guardians of a lot more then 120 Treasure Chests but, also obtaining those 200+ Treasure Maps in the first place to then have 120 x 110s to be binded into a 120.

How much "TIME" and effort does all that add up, to just get a 120 ?

Way too much time, to my opinion, so much that, the way I see it, it should be considered an unreasonable amount of time.

Different it would be, if 115s were made possible to also spawn in Treasure Chests as the time necessary to finally bind into a 120 scroll would now still be considerable, but more reasonable as compared to the binding of 110s.

This is why I keep saying that 115s should be added to Treasure Chests.

The key word to always keep in mind, is "TIME" it takes, not risk involved.

The way I see it, time trumps risk, hands down.

popps said:

drcossack said:

popps said:

JenniferMarie said:

If the discussion is going to focus on “inflation”, the changes that the Dev Team has made should be at the top of the list of reasons why prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

The changes to Taming and pet training increased the price of powerscrolls exponentially. It’s been so long now that I forget what a 120 tactics used to sell for on a player vendor, but I do know it was a fraction of the 70-120m they sell for now. (Just to cite an example.)

The IDOC changes, likewise, caused Vet Reward prices to double - or almost triple - as well as prices on mats and resources.

While it can be argued those changes were some weird, misguided attempt at removing gold from the game, it’s had the opposite effect.

The Developers should really have added 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Maps, to my opinion....

It would have still taken a significant amoung of time and effort to gather all of the 115s needed to bind into a 120 and, yet, it would have been at least an alternative to get 120 Powerscrolls, albeit with effort, work and time investment, to Champion Spawn AND, most importantly, it would have helped tone down and keep under more control Powerscrolls prices....

@ Kyronix , how about finally adding 115s to Treasure Maps' Chests ?

You want scrolls?  Go get them.  Don't want to farm them for yourself?  Go do something else that can let you earn a lot of gold, like Shadowguard or EM events.  Don't want to play the RNG lotto with drops?  That's fine too...but I don't think you have a leg to stand on if you're unwilling to do the things in-game that can make money.

For the life of me, I don't understand why people keep wanting powerscrolls removed from Fel champ spawns.  You are aware that scroll binding to upgrade them to (eventual) 120s exists, right?  Even the "junk" 110s have their uses depending on what characters you want to build.

Again, the key word here is "TIME".....

Sure, 110s can be binded into 120s..... too bad, though, that some 120 x "same-like" 110s are needed to create a 120....

And since also 110s spawned in Treasure Chests are subject to the RNG, this means that way more then 120 Treasure Chests need to be digged up, before one can bind those 110s into a 120...

And, mind you, that means not only finding the location, digging up and fighting the guardians of a lot more then 120 Treasure Chests but, also obtaining those 200+ Treasure Maps in the first place to then have 120 x 110s to be binded into a 120.

How much "TIME" and effort does all that add up, to just get a 120 ?

Way too much time, to my opinion, so much that, the way I see it, it should be considered an unreasonable amount of time.

Different it would be, if 115s were made possible to also spawn in Treasure Chests as the time necessary to finally bind into a 120 scroll would now still be considerable, but more reasonable as compared to the binding of 110s.

This is why I keep saying that 115s should be added to Treasure Chests.

The key word to always keep in mind, is "TIME" it takes, not risk involved.

The way I see it, time trumps risk, hands down.

@popps you understand you can do 50 champ spawns and not get a 120 tactics right?

Here you go. 

To fix the economy we need to:

1. Fix duping (permanently)
2. Gold sink

Uo has had a long and rough history of duping, even very recently, and is likely something that will not get fixed permanently. Hopefully with the 'new' gold system it's something they've put automatic checks/red flags/alarms in to minimize it in the future. 

The other half is there's no real gold sink in the game or no real large amount of gold exiting the economy. Insurance = lol. Vendor fees and safe fees are a start but are negligible. Reagents/scrolls/arrows off vendors doesn't really dent it either. I don't have a solution, but something very expensive that is cosmetic/deco only would be a start. I always thought Auction Safes off a vendor for 100m each would have been a good idea, but, they did them as vet rewards which I found really odd.

Grimbeard said:

popps said:

drcossack said:

popps said:

JenniferMarie said:

If the discussion is going to focus on “inflation”, the changes that the Dev Team has made should be at the top of the list of reasons why prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

The changes to Taming and pet training increased the price of powerscrolls exponentially. It’s been so long now that I forget what a 120 tactics used to sell for on a player vendor, but I do know it was a fraction of the 70-120m they sell for now. (Just to cite an example.)

The IDOC changes, likewise, caused Vet Reward prices to double - or almost triple - as well as prices on mats and resources.

While it can be argued those changes were some weird, misguided attempt at removing gold from the game, it’s had the opposite effect.

The Developers should really have added 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Maps, to my opinion....

It would have still taken a significant amoung of time and effort to gather all of the 115s needed to bind into a 120 and, yet, it would have been at least an alternative to get 120 Powerscrolls, albeit with effort, work and time investment, to Champion Spawn AND, most importantly, it would have helped tone down and keep under more control Powerscrolls prices....

@ Kyronix , how about finally adding 115s to Treasure Maps' Chests ?

You want scrolls?  Go get them.  Don't want to farm them for yourself?  Go do something else that can let you earn a lot of gold, like Shadowguard or EM events.  Don't want to play the RNG lotto with drops?  That's fine too...but I don't think you have a leg to stand on if you're unwilling to do the things in-game that can make money.

For the life of me, I don't understand why people keep wanting powerscrolls removed from Fel champ spawns.  You are aware that scroll binding to upgrade them to (eventual) 120s exists, right?  Even the "junk" 110s have their uses depending on what characters you want to build.

Again, the key word here is "TIME".....

Sure, 110s can be binded into 120s..... too bad, though, that some 120 x "same-like" 110s are needed to create a 120....

And since also 110s spawned in Treasure Chests are subject to the RNG, this means that way more then 120 Treasure Chests need to be digged up, before one can bind those 110s into a 120...

And, mind you, that means not only finding the location, digging up and fighting the guardians of a lot more then 120 Treasure Chests but, also obtaining those 200+ Treasure Maps in the first place to then have 120 x 110s to be binded into a 120.

How much "TIME" and effort does all that add up, to just get a 120 ?

Way too much time, to my opinion, so much that, the way I see it, it should be considered an unreasonable amount of time.

Different it would be, if 115s were made possible to also spawn in Treasure Chests as the time necessary to finally bind into a 120 scroll would now still be considerable, but more reasonable as compared to the binding of 110s.

This is why I keep saying that 115s should be added to Treasure Chests.

The key word to always keep in mind, is "TIME" it takes, not risk involved.

The way I see it, time trumps risk, hands down.

@ popps you understand you can do 50 champ spawns and not get a 120 tactics right?

Well, I understand that the Champion Spawn in Khaldun, has 120 Powerscrolls drops as guaranteed....

And even though one could do 50 Champ Spawns and not get a 120 Tactics, they could still get "other" expensive ones like Anatomy, Magery, Focus etc. etc.

Tactics is only one among the Powerscrolls which have very high prices and, guess what, which also pets can use to be better fighters...

 

 Well, I believe the gold glut is from years and years of duping and farming.   In my 22 years of UO I have seen gold farmers come and go.  Do y'all remember the 24/7 farmers that farmed the Troglodyte cave in both tram and fel on EVERY SINGLE shard.  This is just one of many that dumped tons of gold into the UO economy.   These farmers could farm 10x the gold that the average player could. 

 

The average gold drop on a troglodyte is 447 gp.  If they are killing Trogs at rate of 1 trog every 2 seconds; that's 30 Trogs per minute. That's 13,410 gps per minute.  Which is 804,600 gps an hour. Which comes to 19,310,400 gps PER DAY!  That's only on one facet of one shard.  Now the combined Tram + Fel would be 38,620,800 gps per day. 

Multiply that by 25 shards and that comes to 965,520,000 PER DAY!   That is basically 1 Plat a day!  I left out TC1 cause obviously it is pointless to farm there. I also left Siege and Mugen off the count because I have no knowledge of the Trogs being farmed there.  If someone knows for certain let me know and I'll redo the calculations.   Now let's multiply that by 365 days and you get 352,414,800,000 gps.  This is just one notorious farmer.   At the height of the farming wave I really don't remember how many farmers were on a shard at any given time.  

 Honestly the only way I see to fix the UO economy is delete a couple TRILLION in gold.  We all know that isn't going to happen because it would anger some major players.  

 Mathematically speaking its broken and can't be fixed because of fear of angering certain players.

 

JenniferMarie said:

^^^ This ... the difference in damage between a pet with full 110's and full 120's is negligible.

You are so much better off using full 110's and sinking those points saved into the regens and mana. Having considerably more mana and maxed out mana regen will mean exponentially more damage over the life of a fight than having full 120's and having AI's that hit for 10-15 more per hit, but only getting in a handful of hits over the life of the fight because there isn't enough mana for more.

And I sell a full set of 110's for the 7 base pet skills on my vendors for 12.5m as a bundle.

Compare that to a full set of 120's.

Hi, what does the math say?  I don't know which is why I wonder if the difference from 100 to 110 is negligible or do diminishing returns come into play?

It depends on the skill and the related skills the skill is used with.  For example, if you take magery and eval intel. to 120 think it makes a fairly big difference for a mage.  But, if you just take magery to 120 and don’t have eval intel in you template can’t really see that making much of a difference. Have never done the math though so that is just my opinion.  Personally, don’t take my players having just magery alone without eval past 100.

Arnold7 said:

It depends on the skill and the related skills the skill is used with.  For example, if you take magery and eval intel. to 120 think it makes a fairly big difference for a mage.  But, if you just take magery to 120 and don’t have eval intel in you template can’t really see that making much of a difference. Have never done the math though so that is just my opinion.  Personally, don’t take my players having just magery alone without eval past 100.

Many of my hybrid mages have 120 magery with 0 eval i just hate to fizzle and my ocd won't allow less

For most mobs in UO, particularly if you run as part of a group, the difference between 110-120 for combat skills on a pet (Wrestling, Tactics, Anatomy, Parry, etc.) is pretty negligible.  Yes, you might cut 15 seconds off the time to kill something. For most pets that just isn’t necessary.  I do think some skills, like disco, should always be 120 since it’s a hard go/no go on success chance for higher level mobs.  Otherwise, I only go all 120s on the harder to obtain pets… Blaze Cu, Prepatch pets, Banes, etc.

Merus said:

For most mobs in UO, particularly if you run as part of a group, the difference between 110-120 for combat skills on a pet (Wrestling, Tactics, Anatomy, Parry, etc.) is pretty negligible.  Yes, you might cut 15 seconds off the time to kill something. For most pets that just isn’t necessary.  I do think some skills, like disco, should always be 120 since it’s a hard go/no go on success chance for higher level mobs.  Otherwise, I only go all 120s on the harder to obtain pets… Blaze Cu, Prepatch pets, Banes, etc.

Well, I was told that, for example, for a Chivalry/AI pet having 120 Chivalry is quite important...

As well as for pets needing Mana also pushing Meditation/Focus to 120 also his beneficial to pets and their ever need for mana.... 120 healing on a self healing pet does not also make a good deal of a difference?

And let us not forget 120 wrestling if a pet is needed to be used as a tanking pet.... won't it help quite some ?

popps said:

Merus said:

For most mobs in UO, particularly if you run as part of a group, the difference between 110-120 for combat skills on a pet (Wrestling, Tactics, Anatomy, Parry, etc.) is pretty negligible.  Yes, you might cut 15 seconds off the time to kill something. For most pets that just isn’t necessary.  I do think some skills, like disco, should always be 120 since it’s a hard go/no go on success chance for higher level mobs.  Otherwise, I only go all 120s on the harder to obtain pets… Blaze Cu, Prepatch pets, Banes, etc.

Well, I was told that, for example, for a Chivalry/AI pet having 120 Chivalry is quite important...

As well as for pets needing Mana also pushing Meditation/Focus to 120 also his beneficial to pets and their ever need for mana.... 120 healing on a self healing pet does not also make a good deal of a difference?

And let us not forget 120 wrestling if a pet is needed to be used as a tanking pet.... won't it help quite some ?

Go build an AI Chiv cu with 110 and one with 120… then go kill mobs.  Come back and let us know how much difference you can tell.  It’s certainly not nothing, but is it worth an extra 200 million in scrolls?

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

For most mobs in UO, particularly if you run as part of a group, the difference between 110-120 for combat skills on a pet (Wrestling, Tactics, Anatomy, Parry, etc.) is pretty negligible.  Yes, you might cut 15 seconds off the time to kill something. For most pets that just isn’t necessary.  I do think some skills, like disco, should always be 120 since it’s a hard go/no go on success chance for higher level mobs.  Otherwise, I only go all 120s on the harder to obtain pets… Blaze Cu, Prepatch pets, Banes, etc.

Well, I was told that, for example, for a Chivalry/AI pet having 120 Chivalry is quite important...

As well as for pets needing Mana also pushing Meditation/Focus to 120 also his beneficial to pets and their ever need for mana.... 120 healing on a self healing pet does not also make a good deal of a difference?

And let us not forget 120 wrestling if a pet is needed to be used as a tanking pet.... won't it help quite some ?

Go build an AI Chiv cu with 110 and one with 120… then go kill mobs.  Come back and let us know how much difference you can tell.  It’s certainly not nothing, but is it worth an extra 200 million in scrolls?

This is what i always wonder when i see pets selling for 900 million and more what's the  expected return on investment? 

Grimbeard said:

Go build an AI Chiv cu with 110 and one with 120… then go kill mobs.  Come back and let us know how much difference you can tell.  It’s certainly not nothing, but is it worth an extra 200 million in scrolls?

This is what i always wonder when i see pets selling for 900 million and more what's the  expected return on investment? 

This is also something I wonder...especially when it's a pet that can be reproduced fairly easily (ie it's not a blaze cu or Triton with 130 wrestle). Let's just say the scrolls are worth 300m on the pet... training the skills to 120 adding another 600m seems a little much for the average cu/triton.

“Going back to the only actual cause of high prices: Commission vendors.

it was suggested before that commission vendor prices get automatically reduced by a certain percentage after a certain amount of time. To offset this inflation issue.

Yoshi said:

“Going back to the only actual cause of high prices: Commission vendors.

it was suggested before that commission vendor prices get automatically reduced by a certain percentage after a certain amount of time. To offset this inflation issue.

This was poo pooed by the posters on this forum, time to reflect and revisit?

people wanting to have their cake and eat it

(please note I have no personal interest in reducing inflation as have near infinite gold/plats anyway, just thinking of others)”

I’m not sure I agree with the premise that commission vendors are responsible.  Non-commission vendors and direct player to player trades still exist for those willing to sacrifice a little gold for a speedy sale.  If there is enough supply and the option for these kinds of transactions to occur, items on commission vendors just sit there indefinitely.

Rocko said:

It's an interesting discussion and I can see why one would think the the UO economy is not an economy.  UO has an economy which is a game mechanic.  However, it is also a virtual economy that is aligned with the "real" economy.  Supply & Demand are alive and well in this virtual economy.  People want certain power scrolls and they demand a higher price. Everyone has the opportunity to "earn" those scrolls but only players with certain skill sets (specialization) earn those scrolls.  This contributes to the scarcity of the item which drives up price. 

Ponder this, how much "real-world" banking is virtual and how much is actual/real?  Are NFT's a part of the "real-world" economy or are they just a virtual mechanic?  What about Bitcoin?

What about inflation?  That is a deep rabbit hole.  Some blame duping, and there was an issue with that back in 99/2000.  I can't say much about the last two decades in terms of duping but I will say there has been 25 years of people playing the game, getting gold from various means in game and then over time spending that gold on Atlantic.

I might suggest the ps issue is more than just pvpers vs non I've done a spawn or two and you just don't get 120 tactics enough to cover the current market..

Sadly, this debate has been going on for decades.  I'm pretty sure I was a part of this conversation in the early 2000's.  

The only way to fix it now is a gold wipe.  There's a 99.99% chance that's not going to happen.  
You'd have to expect to close the doors on UO for good.  

Merus said:

Yoshi said:

“Going back to the only actual cause of high prices: Commission vendors.

it was suggested before that commission vendor prices get automatically reduced by a certain percentage after a certain amount of time. To offset this inflation issue.

This was poo pooed by the posters on this forum, time to reflect and revisit?

people wanting to have their cake and eat it

(please note I have no personal interest in reducing inflation as have near infinite gold/plats anyway, just thinking of others)”

I’m not sure I agree with the premise that commission vendors are responsible.  Non-commission vendors and direct player to player trades still exist for those willing to sacrifice a little gold for a speedy sale.  If there is enough supply and the option for these kinds of transactions to occur, items on commission vendors just sit there indefinitely.

They do... yet, players have the habit to refer to VS when looking for a price on an item.... hence, when prices on Commission Vendors are set as high because there is no daily charge, this eventually gets reflected on players when they look for a figure to price their items up for sale...

So, yes, my opinion concurs that, unfortunately, Commission Vendors as they are contribute to raising inflation in UO.

There really should be an automatic discounting of items' prices on Commission Vendors as time goes by and the items remain unsold.... yet, it is of a difficult management because what sellers would do to bypass it, would be to remove the item from the Vendor and then place it back at the higher price so to avoid any automatic discounting kicking in after X time that the item went unsold.

It would be necessary to add a "tag" to that item with that unique ID number showing that already it got X days unsold so that, even if the players removes it from the Vendor's inventory and then puts it back, that unsold timer would "stick" with that item and restart again as the item is placed back on the Vendor for automatic reduction of the selling price due to the unsold timer kicking in...

But, if technically possible to be done, one way or the other, it would surely help control inflation, to my opinion.

popps said:

Merus said:

Yoshi said:

“Going back to the only actual cause of high prices: Commission vendors.

it was suggested before that commission vendor prices get automatically reduced by a certain percentage after a certain amount of time. To offset this inflation issue.

This was poo pooed by the posters on this forum, time to reflect and revisit?

people wanting to have their cake and eat it

(please note I have no personal interest in reducing inflation as have near infinite gold/plats anyway, just thinking of others)”

I’m not sure I agree with the premise that commission vendors are responsible.  Non-commission vendors and direct player to player trades still exist for those willing to sacrifice a little gold for a speedy sale.  If there is enough supply and the option for these kinds of transactions to occur, items on commission vendors just sit there indefinitely.

They do... yet, players have the habit to refer to VS when looking for a price on an item.... hence, when prices on Commission Vendors are set as high because there is no daily charge, this eventually gets reflected on players when they look for a figure to price their items up for sale...

So, yes, my opinion concurs that, unfortunately, Commission Vendors as they are contribute to raising inflation in UO.

There really should be an automatic discounting of items' prices on Commission Vendors as time goes by and the items remain unsold.... yet, it is of a difficult management because what sellers would do to bypass it, would be to remove the item from the Vendor and then place it back at the higher price so to avoid any automatic discounting kicking in after X time that the item went unsold.

It would be necessary to add a "tag" to that item with that unique ID number showing that already it got X days unsold so that, even if the players removes it from the Vendor's inventory and then puts it back, that unsold timer would "stick" with that item and restart again as the item is placed back on the Vendor for automatic reduction of the selling price due to the unsold timer kicking in...

But, if technically possible to be done, one way or the other, it would surely help control inflation, to my opinion.

Your assertion is marginally true at best.  I can put 1 black pearl on a commission vendor for 150 million, but that will have no effect on the price players will actually pay for a black pearl.  The actual sale price for an item is 100% dependent on a buyer being willing to pay that price.  There are very, very few items in game that a single player, or even a very small group of players can manipulate the availability of an item enough to drastically alter the market.

Availabilty of gold is the single biggest factor when it comes to inflation.  EVERYTHING else is relative to that.  Secondarily it is supply and demand, subject to the buyer’s willingness to pay.

“Players: please can we have commission vendors.
observers: but this will cause inflation.
players: we don’t care give us commission vendors.

commission vendors introduced

players: please do something about the inflation, that is 100% not caused by commission vendors…”

Yoshi said:

“Players: please can we have commission vendors.
observers: but this will cause inflation.
players: we don’t care give us commission vendors.

commission vendors introduced

players: please do something about the inflation, that is 100% not caused by commission vendors…”

Inflation was an issue in UOs economy long before commission vendors were introduced.  And it will continue to get worse even if commission vendors were removed.

The simple fact is that more and more gold is concentrated on an ever shrinking player base.  Without some more drastic means of removing gold out of the system, prices will continue to increase.

Commission venders allow newer players to sell expensive items that take awhile to sell.  It’s important to note here they do not reduce a players in house inventory.  They don’t provide that advantage you get with the other kind of vendor that allows you to over price items you want keep so they don’t count against your house’s inventory.  I don’t think they contribute to much to inflation but they are one of the few elements of this game that don’t discriminate against newer players.

I have to wonder how many long time players with the kinds of characters that do the spawns and advanced crafting that the game is losing through attrition, and how that affects the economy.

Arnold7 said:

Commission venders allow newer players to sell expensive items that take awhile to sell.  It’s important to note here they do not reduce a players in house inventory.  They don’t provide that advantage you get with the other kind of vendor that allows you to over price items you want keep so they don’t count against your house’s inventory.  I don’t think they contribute to much to inflation but they are one of the few elements of this game that don’t discriminate against newer players.

I have to wonder how many long time players with the kinds of characters that do the spawns and advanced crafting that the game is losing through attrition, and how that affects the economy.

Commission Vendors are important for lowly populated Shards where items may have a slower selling pace because of less players being around to buy.

Therefore, they have their place and importance in UO, me thinks.

Otherwise, on lowly populated Shards, if there were only vendors charging daily, chances are that players playing those shards would choose not to put items on vendors due to a scarce selling probability and them ending up paying daily vendor charges all for nothing and the end result would be that on low population shards players would hardly be able to find anything for sale... and who would this hurt the most ? New and returning players trying to start or restar playing on those shards.

Instead, thanking to Commission Vendors, players can have items which could be of interest and need to new and returning players be up for sale without being concerned if and when they will beeventually bought.

So, Commission Vendors are important and good to have, to my opinion....... yet, they may have a downside aspect when players take advantage of the no daily charges feature and price items at extraordinary high prices when placed on Commission Vendors....

Perhaps, the solution could be to have, for items whose price tag set by the Commission Vendor owner exceeds a certain amount (so as not to affect reasonably priced items and items of interest to new and returning players on lowly populated shards where the times for selling them might be extraordinarily slow), then over time the price set gets an automatic reduction.

But, as I said, the issue of players removing their items from their commission vendors before the deadline for the automatic price reduction kicks in and then putting the items back for sale at the originally set price to avoid any timed automatic reduction, should be addressed otherwise, the mechanics would be useless...... players would simply remove the items before the price reduction and put them back on their commission vendors to restart the timer anew and not get hit by the automatic price reduction.

“Popps, you’re getting ahead of yourself.

I doubt they will implement auto price reduction but if they did.

I would think it perfectly okay for someone to take item off vendor and put it back on to avoid auto price reduction if they wanted. 

the new auction safe changes also contribute to inflation.

since the change, over half the items for sale are basically off the market.  which means less competition, meaning higher prices.

Great points, everyone!

While it is necessary to recognize the reasons why the current state has occurred, it is more important to provide suggestions (or a roadmap) to help the developers improve the game as it moves forward. Golf-farming (by players or bots) will continue in some form or another as long as they game continues. Hopefully the developers have locked down duping with the help of bug-reporting players and will continue to do so. What can still be done to improve things is to modify the existing mechanisms (this more desirable because it is less work for the developers) or to introduce new mechanisms (this is less desirable). Increasing the amount of gold removed from the game is a necessary step to improving play.

I would argue that commission vendors and auction safes have contributed to the increase in inflation in several important ways. As they are currently implemented, they are by far the easiest and most cost-effective way of selling items; they clearly have resulted in a reduction to the amount of gold being removed from the game. They are a strong incentive for a newer player to make Atlantic their home shard because they are designed to be used at the house that the player owns, and in the case of auction safes are the only way to sell expensive items at their market price without spamming general chat. This has increased the demand for Atlantic housing more than any other factor (which has increased the prices of homes). In the case of items with low availability, such as em event items, they allow players to greatly influence the market price.

I agree with comments above that have pointed out that commission vendors are important for the viability of lower-population shards for their ability to keep stock of basic quality-of-life items. I think a possible improvement would be to introduce graduated commission rates. For example, items priced at 1m or less could keep the current commission fee; items from 1-10m at 6%, 10-20m at 7%, and so on. This would give an incentive to keep prices lower and remove more gold from the game for higher priced items. [I believe that the developers could use some form of the coding that is currently on non-commission vendors to implement this.]

Auction safes, first and foremost, need to have a fee attached to every transaction. There should not be an option to sell an item in UO without removing some gold from the economy in the form a fee. The 1-hour timer option could be removed entirely and replaced with a 1-month timer option. Like commission vendors above, I do not believe that there should be a standard fee for all transactions, but a graduated fee based upon the price that the item sells for [such as 5% below 100m, plus 1% increase per as each 100m threshold is crossed).

Another option (or an additional increase in gold removal) would be to have a fee simply to start the auction. Every time the auction renews, it would cost an additional fee. This would encourage players to price items closer to their actual value instead of some aspirational amount that does not reflect the current value of the item.

Finally, some means for players to sell items above 175m on shards that they do not have a home should be introduced. This can either be an increase in the price cap for non-commission vendors, or to introduce a 3rd option at the New Magincia vendors to have an auctioneer (3 safes per vendor).

Helper said:

Auction safes, first and foremost, need to have a fee attached to every transaction. There should not be an option to sell an item in UO without removing some gold from the economy in the form a fee. The 1-hour timer option could be removed entirely and replaced with a 1-month timer option. Like commission vendors above, I do not believe that there should be a standard fee for all transactions, but a graduated fee based upon the price that the item sells for [such as 5% below 100m, plus 1% increase per as each 100m threshold is crossed).

Another option (or an additional increase in gold removal) would be to have a fee simply to start the auction. Every time the auction renews, it would cost an additional fee. This would encourage players to price items closer to their actual value instead of some aspirational amount that does not reflect the current value of the item.

I think that fees, if made incremental depending on the selling price, should be the exact same whether for Commission Vendors or Auction safes otherwise, if either one will have cheaper fees, then players will of course tend to use the one selling way which cost them the least.

AmberWitch said:

I'm jumping to the conclusion that auction safes appeal to those that want to get the highest price for their pretties. To the highest bidder goes the goods. Wouldn't the owners simply increase the price to cover the cost of the fees and the players who buy gold or get their gold through means that violate the TOS (which those in power have apparently turned a blind eye to) won't blink an eye at paying a higher price? Do auctions safes really get used much by the average player? How many times have you purchased an item from one in the past year? Other than a rares collector who uses them?

 We have global chat. Why not global vendor buying? What would the pros and cons of global vendor buying be? I know there's no chance of this ever being implemented but what the heck, most of the stuff posted these days are dreams.

In my opinion until the ability to buy gold and run scripts ends there's no way the economy can be stabilized in this game.

Wouldn't the owners simply increase the price to cover the cost of the fees and the players who buy gold or get their gold through means that violate the TOS (which those in power have apparently turned a blind eye to) won't blink an eye at paying a higher price?

That is a very good point.

Sellers just passing onto buyers whatever (higher) fees the Developers might want to set thus even further contributing to an ever increasing inflation....

I say make items more readily available to players..... and prices will no longer be high, because players will be able to more reasonably get the items they want through gameplay, rather then having to buy them at extremely high prices....

And that includes, among other high end items that should be made more readily available, also including 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Chests so as to make a viable, albeit still requiring work and time, alternate way to get to 120 Powerscrolls other then Champion Spawns which would help reduce the extremely high prices which some 120 Powerscrolls have.

Increased availability of items, to my opinion, is the key to reduce items' prices and, thus, inflation.

popps said:

AmberWitch said:

I'm jumping to the conclusion that auction safes appeal to those that want to get the highest price for their pretties. To the highest bidder goes the goods. Wouldn't the owners simply increase the price to cover the cost of the fees and the players who buy gold or get their gold through means that violate the TOS (which those in power have apparently turned a blind eye to) won't blink an eye at paying a higher price? Do auctions safes really get used much by the average player? How many times have you purchased an item from one in the past year? Other than a rares collector who uses them?

 We have global chat. Why not global vendor buying? What would the pros and cons of global vendor buying be? I know there's no chance of this ever being implemented but what the heck, most of the stuff posted these days are dreams.

In my opinion until the ability to buy gold and run scripts ends there's no way the economy can be stabilized in this game.

Wouldn't the owners simply increase the price to cover the cost of the fees and the players who buy gold or get their gold through means that violate the TOS (which those in power have apparently turned a blind eye to) won't blink an eye at paying a higher price?

That is a very good point.

Sellers just passing onto buyers whatever (higher) fees the Developers might want to set thus even further contributing to an ever increasing inflation....

I say make items more readily available to players..... and prices will no longer be high, because players will be able to more reasonably get the items they want through gameplay, rather then having to buy them at extremely high prices....

And that includes, among other high end items that should be made more readily available, also including 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Chests so as to make a viable, albeit still requiring work and time, alternate way to get to 120 Powerscrolls other then Champion Spawns which would help reduce the extremely high prices which some 120 Powerscrolls have.

Increased availability of items, to my opinion, is the key to reduce items' prices and, thus, inflation.

Devaluing items by making them easier to get might bring prices down, but it also devalues a large part of the reason to play… unless you’re going to PvP.

UOs input cost for goods is the time/difficulty/risk invested to get the item.  If you’re suggesting taking that away you might as well just go play on Test.

Merus said:

popps said:

AmberWitch said:

I'm jumping to the conclusion that auction safes appeal to those that want to get the highest price for their pretties. To the highest bidder goes the goods. Wouldn't the owners simply increase the price to cover the cost of the fees and the players who buy gold or get their gold through means that violate the TOS (which those in power have apparently turned a blind eye to) won't blink an eye at paying a higher price? Do auctions safes really get used much by the average player? How many times have you purchased an item from one in the past year? Other than a rares collector who uses them?

 We have global chat. Why not global vendor buying? What would the pros and cons of global vendor buying be? I know there's no chance of this ever being implemented but what the heck, most of the stuff posted these days are dreams.

In my opinion until the ability to buy gold and run scripts ends there's no way the economy can be stabilized in this game.

Wouldn't the owners simply increase the price to cover the cost of the fees and the players who buy gold or get their gold through means that violate the TOS (which those in power have apparently turned a blind eye to) won't blink an eye at paying a higher price?

That is a very good point.

Sellers just passing onto buyers whatever (higher) fees the Developers might want to set thus even further contributing to an ever increasing inflation....

I say make items more readily available to players..... and prices will no longer be high, because players will be able to more reasonably get the items they want through gameplay, rather then having to buy them at extremely high prices....

And that includes, among other high end items that should be made more readily available, also including 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Chests so as to make a viable, albeit still requiring work and time, alternate way to get to 120 Powerscrolls other then Champion Spawns which would help reduce the extremely high prices which some 120 Powerscrolls have.

Increased availability of items, to my opinion, is the key to reduce items' prices and, thus, inflation.

Devaluing items by making them easier to get might bring prices down, but it also devalues a large part of the reason to play… unless you’re going to PvP.

UOs input cost for goods is the time/difficulty/risk invested to get the item.  If you’re suggesting taking that away you might as well just go play on Test.

The problem is were old people playing an old game we have more money than time 20 years ago there was satisfaction in the grind now it's just annoying there's no reason for it...

“They could drop the amount of gold you get from loot etc, imagine killing a dragon for 5gp”

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

To understand if anything affects the price, ask if it has anything to do with limited supply. Rares are expensive because, they are, in limited supply. 

If real life gold and diamond are as plentiful as the sand on the beaches, then they are worthless.

So, shard bound is the first thing to be removed as it limits supply and thus drives the price up.

Secondly, there is too much gold in the game world as each day more and more gold gets harvested. Rich players have stock piles of gold earned over 20 years.

We need a big gold sink, which I think allowing us to pay the sub using game gold could help remove a large amount of gold, say 1 plat for 3 or 6 months? 

“Lol why they would sell gtc for gold? 

“Got me thinking though.

There was a thread before saying uogold should be a crypto currency.

What if it was then, broadsword could get lots of the gold from vendor fees or whatever then convert to real money…

We would literally be crypto farming for them”

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

A shard with no transfers strangely enough has no duping and odder still a million gold is still a million gold hummm

Merus said:

popps said:

AmberWitch said:

I'm jumping to the conclusion that auction safes appeal to those that want to get the highest price for their pretties. To the highest bidder goes the goods. Wouldn't the owners simply increase the price to cover the cost of the fees and the players who buy gold or get their gold through means that violate the TOS (which those in power have apparently turned a blind eye to) won't blink an eye at paying a higher price? Do auctions safes really get used much by the average player? How many times have you purchased an item from one in the past year? Other than a rares collector who uses them?

 We have global chat. Why not global vendor buying? What would the pros and cons of global vendor buying be? I know there's no chance of this ever being implemented but what the heck, most of the stuff posted these days are dreams.

In my opinion until the ability to buy gold and run scripts ends there's no way the economy can be stabilized in this game.

Wouldn't the owners simply increase the price to cover the cost of the fees and the players who buy gold or get their gold through means that violate the TOS (which those in power have apparently turned a blind eye to) won't blink an eye at paying a higher price?

That is a very good point.

Sellers just passing onto buyers whatever (higher) fees the Developers might want to set thus even further contributing to an ever increasing inflation....

I say make items more readily available to players..... and prices will no longer be high, because players will be able to more reasonably get the items they want through gameplay, rather then having to buy them at extremely high prices....

And that includes, among other high end items that should be made more readily available, also including 115 Powerscrolls to Treasure Chests so as to make a viable, albeit still requiring work and time, alternate way to get to 120 Powerscrolls other then Champion Spawns which would help reduce the extremely high prices which some 120 Powerscrolls have.

Increased availability of items, to my opinion, is the key to reduce items' prices and, thus, inflation.

Devaluing items by making them easier to get might bring prices down, but it also devalues a large part of the reason to play… unless you’re going to PvP.

UOs input cost for goods is the time/difficulty/risk invested to get the item.  If you’re suggesting taking that away you might as well just go play on Test.

Well, that is why it needs to be "balanced" out.

Neither too hard as it is today for certain items which drives their prices way too high or makes some layer want to script in order to get them without having to waste an extremely high amount of their time, and neither too easy which would make them be all over the place.

Balanced out.

As of now, to my opinion, for certain items there is not a good balance since some are way too time consuming to get.

Also, the balance to be reached should also take into account the demand for those items.

Items which are on higher demand, for example Powerscrolls, since characters and pets use them, should have a higher availability as compared to other items with a lower demand.

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

To understand if anything affects the price, ask if it has anything to do with limited supply. Rares are expensive because, they are, in limited supply. 

If real life gold and diamond are as plentiful as the sand on the beaches, then they are worthless.

So, shard bound is the first thing to be removed as it limits supply and thus drives the price up.

Secondly, there is too much gold in the game world as each day more and more gold gets harvested. Rich players have stock piles of gold earned over 20 years.

We need a big gold sink, which I think allowing us to pay the sub using game gold could help remove a large amount of gold, say 1 plat for 3 or 6 months? 

So, shard bound is the first thing to be removed as it limits supply and thus drives the price up.

Not really, to my viewing, if those shard bound items are limited to a Shard with fewer players on it....

It is necessary, to my opinion, to look at demand and offer for Shard Bound items on a given Shard..... if that Shard has a low population, understandably, also the demand for those shard bound items might be low so, even if on that Shard there are less Shard Bound items of that kind, their price could still be a reasonable one.... especially, since resellers would not be able to do the "buy low" on Shard X to then "sell high" on Shard Y thus further diminishing the availability of that item on that low population Shard.

Shard Bound helps securing, to my oinion, the availability of items on Low Population Shards which could risk, otherwise, to see them "migrate" to other Shards with a higher population where they might get more easily sold and at a better price given the higher demand.

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

popps said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

Absolutely not.  There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Said another way, there is nothing wrong with the current value of a 120 Tactics, a blaze cu or an Alt castle… the problem is the value of a piece of gold… there is so much gold in the system that it’s virtually worthless… thus we end up pricing things of high value in the billions of gold.

If you want to fight inflation you need to fix the value of gold.

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

Absolutely not.  There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Said another way, there is nothing wrong with the current value of a 120 Tactics, a blaze cu or an Alt castle… the problem is the value of a piece of gold… there is so much gold in the system that it’s virtually worthless… thus we end up pricing things of high value in the billions of gold.

If you want to fight inflation you need to fix the value of gold.

There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Up to a point, to my opinion.

That 120 Tactics could cost a bit more then 120 Stealing well, yes, even a few times mkay.....

But that the delta in between a 12 Stealing and a 120 Tactics Powerscroll might be like what it is now which, looking at current Atlantic prices (110M vs. 30k), is about 3,600+ times as expensive, that, at least to my opinion, is not reasonable and should be addressed.

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

Absolutely not.  There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Said another way, there is nothing wrong with the current value of a 120 Tactics, a blaze cu or an Alt castle… the problem is the value of a piece of gold… there is so much gold in the system that it’s virtually worthless… thus we end up pricing things of high value in the billions of gold.

If you want to fight inflation you need to fix the value of gold.

There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Up to a point, to my opinion.

That 120 Tactics could cost a bit more then 120 Stealing well, yes, even a few times mkay.....

But that the delta in between a 12 Stealing and a 120 Tactics Powerscroll might be like what it is now which, looking at current Atlantic prices (110M vs. 30k), is about 3,600+ times as expensive, that, at least to my opinion, is not reasonable and should be addressed.

Like I said before… if you think the most desired items should be easy pickings, you might enjoy playing test instead of production shards.

Yoshi said:

“They could drop the amount of gold you get from loot etc, imagine killing a dragon for 5gp”

I am sure Gold Sellers would just LOVE your idea, now I wonder why you would suggest that.

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

Absolutely not.  There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Said another way, there is nothing wrong with the current value of a 120 Tactics, a blaze cu or an Alt castle… the problem is the value of a piece of gold… there is so much gold in the system that it’s virtually worthless… thus we end up pricing things of high value in the billions of gold.

If you want to fight inflation you need to fix the value of gold.

There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Up to a point, to my opinion.

That 120 Tactics could cost a bit more then 120 Stealing well, yes, even a few times mkay.....

But that the delta in between a 12 Stealing and a 120 Tactics Powerscroll might be like what it is now which, looking at current Atlantic prices (110M vs. 30k), is about 3,600+ times as expensive, that, at least to my opinion, is not reasonable and should be addressed.

Like I said before… if you think the most desired items should be easy pickings, you might enjoy playing test instead of production shards.

Again, 3,600+ times as compared to a low cost 120 powerscroll (stealing) that has the exact same chance to spawn in place of a 120 Tactics, goes way beyond a reasonable higher price, to my opinion.

This has nothing to do with easy picking, it has to do with BALANCE.

But, apparently, having a game well Balanced out seems, at least to my impression, not to be something of priority to some.....

Yeah because stealing is all the rage. 

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

The price difference between steal and tactics would never be the same. Given the same supply, Tactics has higher demand which drives prices higher.

We all agree prices are driven by supply and demand is always correct. Fine that it is not the only reason if we include overall gold in the game. But it is enough to explain why shard bound items has opposite effect as the concept probably makes sense, only if they block character transfer totally, so Gold is confined as well. 

Since we are talking about gold, the gold should be shard bound instead. Which then defeat the purpose of character transfer because there are personal reasons to move between shards than to worry about game economy.

Since gold is not shard bound, overall price of goods around the world would also fluctuate according to the total gold in the game. Increases in gold take time to widen the gap between the rich and poor. 

To deal with inflation, the solution should be about Gold Sink to make the rich pay and remove their gold. Paying for sub with Gold is definitely an attractive gold sink. Or buying UO store items with gold.

@Yoshi
As one of the most filthy rich players in this forum, what are you willing to pay for your platinum?

Otherwise we may need a new currency, maybe call it palladium and worth 100 platinums.  😂

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

Absolutely not.  There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Said another way, there is nothing wrong with the current value of a 120 Tactics, a blaze cu or an Alt castle… the problem is the value of a piece of gold… there is so much gold in the system that it’s virtually worthless… thus we end up pricing things of high value in the billions of gold.

If you want to fight inflation you need to fix the value of gold.

There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Up to a point, to my opinion.

That 120 Tactics could cost a bit more then 120 Stealing well, yes, even a few times mkay.....

But that the delta in between a 12 Stealing and a 120 Tactics Powerscroll might be like what it is now which, looking at current Atlantic prices (110M vs. 30k), is about 3,600+ times as expensive, that, at least to my opinion, is not reasonable and should be addressed.

Like I said before… if you think the most desired items should be easy pickings, you might enjoy playing test instead of production shards.

Again, 3,600+ times as compared to a low cost 120 powerscroll (stealing) that has the exact same chance to spawn in place of a 120 Tactics, goes way beyond a reasonable higher price, to my opinion.

This has nothing to do with easy picking, it has to do with BALANCE.

But, apparently, having a game well Balanced out seems, at least to my impression, not to be something of priority to some.....

This has the same logic as your make crafting easier arguments.  How does the game know that the player doing a spawn wants a Tactics scroll?  Your opinion may be you want that instead of a Stealth scroll.  But when you have a game with many templates the game does not know what the player wants. Therefore all scrolls have an equal chance to appear.

Ideally you could trade scrolls with other players. But as Richard Garriott and the original developers found, you can not predict or prepare for what your players will do and desire.

So, we are greedy and want more for certain items.

Get off the easy bus and play.  I have over 100 hungry pets, and you are the one wanting an easy button, not me.  How does that reflect on your own selfishness and greed?

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

Absolutely not.  There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Said another way, there is nothing wrong with the current value of a 120 Tactics, a blaze cu or an Alt castle… the problem is the value of a piece of gold… there is so much gold in the system that it’s virtually worthless… thus we end up pricing things of high value in the billions of gold.

If you want to fight inflation you need to fix the value of gold.

There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Up to a point, to my opinion.

That 120 Tactics could cost a bit more then 120 Stealing well, yes, even a few times mkay.....

But that the delta in between a 12 Stealing and a 120 Tactics Powerscroll might be like what it is now which, looking at current Atlantic prices (110M vs. 30k), is about 3,600+ times as expensive, that, at least to my opinion, is not reasonable and should be addressed.

Like I said before… if you think the most desired items should be easy pickings, you might enjoy playing test instead of production shards.

Again, 3,600+ times as compared to a low cost 120 powerscroll (stealing) that has the exact same chance to spawn in place of a 120 Tactics, goes way beyond a reasonable higher price, to my opinion.

This has nothing to do with easy picking, it has to do with BALANCE.

But, apparently, having a game well Balanced out seems, at least to my impression, not to be something of priority to some.....

I guess you think Ferrari should just make enough vehicles so they would cost the same as a Honda. It’s just silly (and frankly a bit lazy) thinking.

PLAYERS have decided the relative worth of the items, not the game mechanics.  Now it seems you want the developers to alter the game mechanics to make it easier for you.  Never mind that entire line of thinking negates having anything to work toward and achieve in the game…

Seth said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

The price difference between steal and tactics would never be the same. Given the same supply, Tactics has higher demand which drives prices higher.

We all agree prices are driven by supply and demand is always correct. Fine that it is not the only reason if we include overall gold in the game. But it is enough to explain why shard bound items has opposite effect as the concept probably makes sense, only if they block character transfer totally, so Gold is confined as well. 

Since we are talking about gold, the gold should be shard bound instead. Which then defeat the purpose of character transfer because there are personal reasons to move between shards than to worry about game economy.

Since gold is not shard bound, overall price of goods around the world would also fluctuate according to the total gold in the game. Increases in gold take time to widen the gap between the rich and poor. 

To deal with inflation, the solution should be about Gold Sink to make the rich pay and remove their gold. Paying for sub with Gold is definitely an attractive gold sink. Or buying UO store items with gold.

The price difference between steal and tactics would never be the same. Given the same supply, Tactics has higher demand which drives prices higher.

Yet, a 120 Stealing and a 120 Tactics with a highly different "demand factor" have the exact same spawn chance (offer) for the RNG....

See where the problem is ?

To my opinion, items which are in higher demand from players should have a higher spawn chance as compared to items which are in lower demand from players.... this, would "balance out" demand and offer "per item" and thus stabilize prices because, to an increased demand, there would be an increased offer (higher spawn chances).

Otherwise, the result, as we are seeing, is in-game inflation because of scarcity of offer (insufficient spawn) in presence of a higher demand.

Pawain said:

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

Absolutely not.  There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Said another way, there is nothing wrong with the current value of a 120 Tactics, a blaze cu or an Alt castle… the problem is the value of a piece of gold… there is so much gold in the system that it’s virtually worthless… thus we end up pricing things of high value in the billions of gold.

If you want to fight inflation you need to fix the value of gold.

There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Up to a point, to my opinion.

That 120 Tactics could cost a bit more then 120 Stealing well, yes, even a few times mkay.....

But that the delta in between a 12 Stealing and a 120 Tactics Powerscroll might be like what it is now which, looking at current Atlantic prices (110M vs. 30k), is about 3,600+ times as expensive, that, at least to my opinion, is not reasonable and should be addressed.

Like I said before… if you think the most desired items should be easy pickings, you might enjoy playing test instead of production shards.

Again, 3,600+ times as compared to a low cost 120 powerscroll (stealing) that has the exact same chance to spawn in place of a 120 Tactics, goes way beyond a reasonable higher price, to my opinion.

This has nothing to do with easy picking, it has to do with BALANCE.

But, apparently, having a game well Balanced out seems, at least to my impression, not to be something of priority to some.....

This has the same logic as your make crafting easier arguments.  How does the game know that the player doing a spawn wants a Tactics scroll?  Your opinion may be you want that instead of a Stealth scroll.  But when you have a game with many templates the game does not know what the player wants. Therefore all scrolls have an equal chance to appear.

Ideally you could trade scrolls with other players. But as Richard Garriott and the original developers found, you can not predict or prepare for what your players will do and desire.

So, we are greedy and want more for certain items.

Get off the easy bus and play.  I have over 100 hungry pets, and you are the one wanting an easy button, not me.  How does that reflect on your own selfishness and greed?

But when you have a game with many templates the game does not know what the player wants. 

First, since we are using as an example 120 Stealing and 120 Tactics Powerscrolls, one obvious consideration that could be made is that Stealing can only be used by players' characters while Tactics can also be used by pets which increases, and many folds, the demand.

Then, while Stealing is restrained to only 1 skill, and a profession that many players do not use, Tactics is necessary to several skills, archery, throwing, macing, swordsmanship, fencing which further increases the demand.

I mean, it does not need a crystal ball to understand why stealing 120s might be in low demand and why tactics 120s might be in a much higher demand....

Yet, their spawn chances are set to be the exact same..... THIS, to my opinion, is what is wrong.

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

Absolutely not.  There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Said another way, there is nothing wrong with the current value of a 120 Tactics, a blaze cu or an Alt castle… the problem is the value of a piece of gold… there is so much gold in the system that it’s virtually worthless… thus we end up pricing things of high value in the billions of gold.

If you want to fight inflation you need to fix the value of gold.

There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Up to a point, to my opinion.

That 120 Tactics could cost a bit more then 120 Stealing well, yes, even a few times mkay.....

But that the delta in between a 12 Stealing and a 120 Tactics Powerscroll might be like what it is now which, looking at current Atlantic prices (110M vs. 30k), is about 3,600+ times as expensive, that, at least to my opinion, is not reasonable and should be addressed.

Like I said before… if you think the most desired items should be easy pickings, you might enjoy playing test instead of production shards.

Again, 3,600+ times as compared to a low cost 120 powerscroll (stealing) that has the exact same chance to spawn in place of a 120 Tactics, goes way beyond a reasonable higher price, to my opinion.

This has nothing to do with easy picking, it has to do with BALANCE.

But, apparently, having a game well Balanced out seems, at least to my impression, not to be something of priority to some.....

I guess you think Ferrari should just make enough vehicles so they would cost the same as a Honda. It’s just silly (and frankly a bit lazy) thinking.

PLAYERS have decided the relative worth of the items, not the game mechanics.  Now it seems you want the developers to alter the game mechanics to make it easier for you.  Never mind that entire line of thinking negates having anything to work toward and achieve in the game…

No, I am saying something different.

There is items which players NEED in the game for their better enjoyment and enhancement of the game, like Powerscrolls, Armor, Artifacts like Cameos etc. and items which are not imortant or necessary to play the game but are more of a "status symbol" thing.

Well, those items which players need to play the game and enhance their gameplay in it should be readily available, items which are only for Deco or not meaningfull to play the game but only function as a status symbol, those could be rare and expensive as we may want.

Powerscrolls, Armor, Artifacts like Cameos etc. should never be too hard to get in the game or expensive to purchase for players.

Deco rares, titles and the likes, not necessary for playing improvement and enhancement, but only working as an in-game status symbol, could be as rare and expensive as we may want them to be.

That is how I see it.

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

Absolutely not.  There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Said another way, there is nothing wrong with the current value of a 120 Tactics, a blaze cu or an Alt castle… the problem is the value of a piece of gold… there is so much gold in the system that it’s virtually worthless… thus we end up pricing things of high value in the billions of gold.

If you want to fight inflation you need to fix the value of gold.

There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Up to a point, to my opinion.

That 120 Tactics could cost a bit more then 120 Stealing well, yes, even a few times mkay.....

But that the delta in between a 12 Stealing and a 120 Tactics Powerscroll might be like what it is now which, looking at current Atlantic prices (110M vs. 30k), is about 3,600+ times as expensive, that, at least to my opinion, is not reasonable and should be addressed.

Like I said before… if you think the most desired items should be easy pickings, you might enjoy playing test instead of production shards.

Again, 3,600+ times as compared to a low cost 120 powerscroll (stealing) that has the exact same chance to spawn in place of a 120 Tactics, goes way beyond a reasonable higher price, to my opinion.

This has nothing to do with easy picking, it has to do with BALANCE.

But, apparently, having a game well Balanced out seems, at least to my impression, not to be something of priority to some.....

if you think 120 stealing and 120 tactics have the same chance to drop you should do more spawns. 

popps said:

Seth said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

The price difference between steal and tactics would never be the same. Given the same supply, Tactics has higher demand which drives prices higher.

We all agree prices are driven by supply and demand is always correct. Fine that it is not the only reason if we include overall gold in the game. But it is enough to explain why shard bound items has opposite effect as the concept probably makes sense, only if they block character transfer totally, so Gold is confined as well. 

Since we are talking about gold, the gold should be shard bound instead. Which then defeat the purpose of character transfer because there are personal reasons to move between shards than to worry about game economy.

Since gold is not shard bound, overall price of goods around the world would also fluctuate according to the total gold in the game. Increases in gold take time to widen the gap between the rich and poor. 

To deal with inflation, the solution should be about Gold Sink to make the rich pay and remove their gold. Paying for sub with Gold is definitely an attractive gold sink. Or buying UO store items with gold.

The price difference between steal and tactics would never be the same. Given the same supply, Tactics has higher demand which drives prices higher.

Yet, a 120 Stealing and a 120 Tactics with a highly different "demand factor" have the exact same spawn chance (offer) for the RNG....

See where the problem is ?

To my opinion, items which are in higher demand from players should have a higher spawn chance as compared to items which are in lower demand from players.... this, would "balance out" demand and offer "per item" and thus stabilize prices because, to an increased demand, there would be an increased offer (higher spawn chances).

Otherwise, the result, as we are seeing, is in-game inflation because of scarcity of offer (insufficient spawn) in presence of a higher demand.

I actually think the Dev reduces the spawn rate of certain desirable consumables, but I could be wrong.

E.g. I seem to get more useless refinements. 

In any case the topic is about economy and gold, and an attractive and sexy Gold Sink is the cure.

Helper said:

Finally, some means for players to sell items above 175m on shards that they do not have a home should be introduced. This can either be an increase in the price cap for non-commission vendors, or to introduce a 3rd option at the New Magincia vendors to have an auctioneer (3 safes per vendor).

you dont have to own the house to use auction safes there.  just have to place the auction safe.  so if you have a friend, or advertise that your looking for a house to place auction safes,  house owner makes you a co-owner, you place the auction safes, house owner removes co-owner.  you can use the auction safes you placed in a house you dont own.

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

popps said:

Merus said:

Grimbeard said:

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Let's look at the only closed economy is it healthy? 

I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of rice in China?

I don’t believe I commented on whether it was good or bad, only that price points move up and down based on supply/demand within the confines of the available money supply.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

To Yoshi’s point, it doesn’t make tons of sense to just reduce the amount of gold you get killing monsters, nor do I think just wiping gold from player’s accounts is reasonable.  If you want to see a economy where the price of items is more relatable to the gold from hunting, there needs to be a significant but voluntary gold sink that confers status without impacting game play.

In todays UO market a 120 tactics scroll has a higher value than say a 120 stealing scroll.  Both have roughly the same chance to spawn, but  there is a plentiful supply relative to demand for the stealing scroll.  If all gold in the game was suddenly reduced by a factor of 10,000, the price of a tactics scroll would come down and so would the stealing scroll… but I would wager the relative value of the two scrolls would remain about the same.

I agree.

Thus, the availability for items on higher demand, say the 120 Tactics Powerscroll, should be increased as compared to the availability of the 12 Stealing Powerscroll so as to bring it more in line with what its demand might be.... and thus lower its high price in doing so.

That is, the spawn of high end items should be more "dynamic" and not be the same across the board but, instead, reflect their higher need from the players' base.

This, if we want to fight inflation which hurts so much the game, and articularly new and returning players who can be intimidated by extremely high prices of items which yet they need, if they want to progress in their gameplay.

That is at least how I see it.

Absolutely not.  There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Said another way, there is nothing wrong with the current value of a 120 Tactics, a blaze cu or an Alt castle… the problem is the value of a piece of gold… there is so much gold in the system that it’s virtually worthless… thus we end up pricing things of high value in the billions of gold.

If you want to fight inflation you need to fix the value of gold.

There is nothing wrong with certain items being more expensive because they are more rare or more useful.  That pricing function is not about inflation.

Up to a point, to my opinion.

That 120 Tactics could cost a bit more then 120 Stealing well, yes, even a few times mkay.....

But that the delta in between a 12 Stealing and a 120 Tactics Powerscroll might be like what it is now which, looking at current Atlantic prices (110M vs. 30k), is about 3,600+ times as expensive, that, at least to my opinion, is not reasonable and should be addressed.

Like I said before… if you think the most desired items should be easy pickings, you might enjoy playing test instead of production shards.

Again, 3,600+ times as compared to a low cost 120 powerscroll (stealing) that has the exact same chance to spawn in place of a 120 Tactics, goes way beyond a reasonable higher price, to my opinion.

This has nothing to do with easy picking, it has to do with BALANCE.

But, apparently, having a game well Balanced out seems, at least to my impression, not to be something of priority to some.....

I guess you think Ferrari should just make enough vehicles so they would cost the same as a Honda. It’s just silly (and frankly a bit lazy) thinking.

PLAYERS have decided the relative worth of the items, not the game mechanics.  Now it seems you want the developers to alter the game mechanics to make it easier for you.  Never mind that entire line of thinking negates having anything to work toward and achieve in the game…

No, I am saying something different.

There is items which players NEED in the game for their better enjoyment and enhancement of the game, like Powerscrolls, Armor, Artifacts like Cameos etc. and items which are not imortant or necessary to play the game but are more of a "status symbol" thing.

Well, those items which players need to play the game and enhance their gameplay in it should be readily available, items which are only for Deco or not meaningfull to play the game but only function as a status symbol, those could be rare and expensive as we may want.

Powerscrolls, Armor, Artifacts like Cameos etc. should never be too hard to get in the game or expensive to purchase for players.

Deco rares, titles and the likes, not necessary for playing improvement and enhancement, but only working as an in-game status symbol, could be as rare and expensive as we may want them to be.

That is how I see it.

Basic armor and weapons should be easily available.  Every character starts with the ability to GM 7 skills with a few points to spare.

A 120 tactics is end game level skill.  Cameos are end game level loot.  End game level content should not be cheap or easily attainable just because some people feel unlucky (or more likely just lazy).

If you do enough champ spawns, eventually you’ll end up with a 120 tactics, either through binding lower scrolls or a lucky 120 drop.  If you do enough roofs, eventually you’ll get a cameo.  There are scroll and equipment options available till you reach that goal.

Prices are set by players, greedy players mostly.  Tactics 120s are no harder to get than they've always been, but the price shot up because the demand increased.
Green thorns will be needed for the event. Are they any harder to grow than they've always been? No, but the prices have become ridiculous. Vendor search on Origin had them priced at 500k each!! 
The devs can't do much against that kind of problem. 

No matter what the prices are and what the gold level is, there will always be players who would rather buy their way to what they want than make any effort to get it themselves. But doing that, you're not PLAYING the game, and what's the point of a game if you don't PLAY it!

I play to get what I want, and when I succeed, then I have a sense of achievement.  I don't play to build a bank account either. Getting rich isn't an end game for me, enjoying my play time is. I don't have, and never will have, a single plat. I sort of undermine the 'economy' by giving stuff away instead of selling it.  Most of the people I play with do likewise. 

I guess it comes down to what kind of person you are. Do you feel better when you've given someone

Yoshi said:

“Got me thinking though.

There was a thread before saying uogold should be a crypto currency.

What if it was then, broadsword could get lots of the gold from vendor fees or whatever then convert to real money…

We would literally be crypto farming for them”

Essentially those that farm gold for the gold sellers are already doing this. Those that buy gold are supporting it. lol

Why do you throw all 110’s away? Scroll Binders are amazing.

110 stealing, stealth, throwing, fencing, mace fighting? Sure. Even Necro/Spirit Speak. But everything else? Bind those suckers up!

Or, sell them. I sell sets of 110 pet scrolls easily on my vendors.

Helper said:

The in-game economy seems to be broken to me; do other players share this sentiment?

If you do agree, please respond with your thoughts on:

1. What game mechanism contributes to this?
2. What suggestions do you have for how to change the mechanism?

Please refrain from making comments/suggestions that attack actions of players that are beyond the control of the developers (e.g. purchasing gold with RLM, price gouging, etc.). The goal is to brainstorm fixes that can be implemented to the game itself to improve the health of the economy.

While suggestions may have a negative effect on your preferred playstyle,
please limit the scope of your feedback to the effect itself without attacking a commenter.

 Yes - the economy is an issue, it is mainly newer, less active or returning players who will notice this.  For those who say, it's always ok for prices to go up and up, I don't agree with this concept. Yes a small amount, but not like it has.

For me - the number 1 game mechanism that led to this - is Trammel dropping loot on monsters, this has allowed endless scripted farming in a zero risk environment. If you think about it - traders transferring and selling power-scrolls, real life traders etc etc, none of those can operate, if they were not backed up by the ability to buy and use phenomenal amounts of gold that have been generated ingame. All the other points players complain about, are the symptoms, this is the cause.

From the very beginning - Trammel monsters should never have dropped any loot of value - ie gold or armour - they should have dropped deco items only - but this ship has sailed now, you cannot block Trammel now maybe, because as people have said - if we restrict gold now - the gold sellers profit who are sitting on plats ready to sell. Trammel should have been for housing, socialising, crafting, training, and deco items, gold should only have dropped in Felucca.

In terms of the Trading economy - I still maintain the best solution would be for 1 single joint united Vendor Search, that plugged into all servers and worked across all servers, everyone could put goods into it, and everyone could buy from it. Make it commission based for sure - then there is a gold sink, based on items that sell.

What would this do - it would give maximum retail buying and selling power to everyone ingame. You would not have to transfer servers just to trade. Prices would remain the lowest and most competitive possible, Players could play from any shard they chose. Transfer Shields then, would mainly be based upon genuine player movement, and wanting to switch for a genuine reason such as friends or pvp.

Shard only items just need to have this tag removed. This creates a local isolated economy effect, that in fact drives prices up way higher than they need to be, as a. Farmers don't bother to collect items on that shard because it is not worth it for them - so there are never going to be enough items.

Onto gold selling - the most obvious item is game-time. So the loop is something like, UO gold for gametime, players get to play for free, gold seller bought the gametime for rl cash, gets lots of uo gold to sell. Now I don't really have an issue with players buying gametime for rl cash - in fact that is quite cool. So now the resellers are selling back gold and items for cash to players, making a profit - well the fact they are doing so well, points to quite a successful game - but I just think it is a shame Broadsword themselves are not making the money they could be from the game. So do we even really want to stop the gold-sellers - not in my opinion, they are not the worst thing, you can choose to use them or not. 

But what you can do, is make the UO trading market in-game, more palatable. Remove the top end price restrictions on Vendor Search, they are already out of date, they will always go out of date - 175m is not so much these days.

Find ways to take Chunks of Gold out of the game - so much of the game is about bringing gold into the game, and that's been happening for years - not a problem in itself, but find a way to take chunks out. Insurance isn't really doing it anymore, is it, we are all so rich, we've negated that one.

Edit - I've just thought about it - Game-time - If UO Store sold gametime for UO Gold... they would knock out the resellers, and bring the economy down, as huge amounts would get sucked out. If UO Store also sold other ingame items for gold...
And back to my Gold Sink ideas thread - Item Bless Deeds, Clean Item deeds please 🙂

Petra_Fyde said:

Prices are set by players, greedy players mostly.  Tactics 120s are no harder to get than they've always been, but the price shot up because the demand increased.
Green thorns will be needed for the event. Are they any harder to grow than they've always been? No, but the prices have become ridiculous. Vendor search on Origin had them priced at 500k each!! 
The devs can't do much against that kind of problem. 

No matter what the prices are and what the gold level is, there will always be players who would rather buy their way to what they want than make any effort to get it themselves. But doing that, you're not PLAYING the game, and what's the point of a game if you don't PLAY it!

I play to get what I want, and when I succeed, then I have a sense of achievement.  I don't play to build a bank account either. Getting rich isn't an end game for me, enjoying my play time is. I don't have, and never will have, a single plat. I sort of undermine the 'economy' by giving stuff away instead of selling it.  Most of the people I play with do likewise. 

I'm going to agree, and disagree here 🙂
Why your post, just because I noticed it above mine.

Yes, there is a lot of greed, the greed is really evident when the price of something goes up, but never goes down when supply is increased, and traders maintain higher prices for their own benefit.

But it's not all about greed, the Green Thorns is an example, this was just obvious, sure, nothing at all has changed about green thorns - except no-one was growing them, as they had little purpose. So there was very little supply, then we are told an event type that has recently had the best rewards is about to require these - everyone wants them, there is not enough supply to match demand. All the PvPers switch their garden beds from Orange Plants to Green Plants but there is a lead time. The fact the prices have risen to the figures they have, just shows how much gold there is ingame, and what players are willing to spend, this isn't really greed related, it is pure supply and demand, a supply funnel was created, causing a spike, which will fix when demand catches up, and the event finishes. My main point here - it's not all about Greed, it's a pure reflection of how much gold there is available.

Some good thoughts in that post... My brain is thinking there's no way UO will ever let you buy subs with game gold... That's probably 99% of their revenue. Without that EA would surely shut it down.  What if you could sink gold by spending plats to age your acct. I'm only 2 years. Can I spend say 2 plat per year and age my acct to 14? 24 plats? Grab the vet rewards but the game still has consistent uninterrupted revenue from my sub? Basically just plats for vet picks which are mostly utility and deco anyways. You could even adjust the price of acct aging upwards on a yearly basis for game inflation..  or down if that gets it under control.

How angry would you vets be about that? Hahaha... it's a massive gold sink at least and new players who played for gold efficiency could get caught up to the rest of ya. Gold leaves. Nobody is directly hurt by it. EA keeps same revenue stream.

No one has scripted plats worth of gold i think duping to blame mostly involving shard transfers 

A lot of posts here but a newer player’s bottom line is you have to have a house and vendors, or someone you can trust that will put your stuff on their vendors.  Second, you have to specialize in several areas that provide a good rate of return and learn how to price items so you know when to buy and what you can get for the item, and then each play session spend as much time on vendor search looking for items you can sell at a profit as you do playing the game.  If you do that you will eventually start to make gold and vendor search will become a part of the game as exciting as the game itself.

I got my seed money selling forged pardons from treasure chests and mysterious fragments when their price was high.  You can also sell drops from events.  But the real gold is in buying and selling.  That might not be true for experienced players that have been playing for twenty years and have a dozen or more accounts, and players good enough to get hundreds of drops at the special events, but it is for most of the rest of us.  Learning how to buy and sell is an as important part of the game as any other.  When I spend the time I make gold.

I'm still stuck on how Popps hasn't learned to play in the 4+ years he's been registered here. 

Making gold is so easy but you have to keep your eyes open for new ways. 

Urge said:

I'm still stuck on how Popps hasn't learned to play in the 4+ years he's been registered here. 

Making gold is so easy but you have to keep your eyes open for new ways. 

My best answer is that he has never taken any of the free advice given to him and done it in the game.  Do you realize how many plats worth of pets I Virtually helped him build, The amount of crafted virtual suits he would have.  The amount of virtual encounters he has done.  Plus all the other answers he has received that could be done and used to make UO gold.

Cookie said:

Petra_Fyde said:

Prices are set by players, greedy players mostly.  Tactics 120s are no harder to get than they've always been, but the price shot up because the demand increased.
Green thorns will be needed for the event. Are they any harder to grow than they've always been? No, but the prices have become ridiculous. Vendor search on Origin had them priced at 500k each!! 
The devs can't do much against that kind of problem. 

No matter what the prices are and what the gold level is, there will always be players who would rather buy their way to what they want than make any effort to get it themselves. But doing that, you're not PLAYING the game, and what's the point of a game if you don't PLAY it!

I play to get what I want, and when I succeed, then I have a sense of achievement.  I don't play to build a bank account either. Getting rich isn't an end game for me, enjoying my play time is. I don't have, and never will have, a single plat. I sort of undermine the 'economy' by giving stuff away instead of selling it.  Most of the people I play with do likewise. 

I'm going to agree, and disagree here 🙂
Why your post, just because I noticed it above mine.

Yes, there is a lot of greed, the greed is really evident when the price of something goes up, but never goes down when supply is increased, and traders maintain higher prices for their own benefit.

But it's not all about greed, the Green Thorns is an example, this was just obvious, sure, nothing at all has changed about green thorns - except no-one was growing them, as they had little purpose. So there was very little supply, then we are told an event type that has recently had the best rewards is about to require these - everyone wants them, there is not enough supply to match demand. All the PvPers switch their garden beds from Orange Plants to Green Plants but there is a lead time. The fact the prices have risen to the figures they have, just shows how much gold there is ingame, and what players are willing to spend, this isn't really greed related, it is pure supply and demand, a supply funnel was created, causing a spike, which will fix when demand catches up, and the event finishes. My main point here - it's not all about Greed, it's a pure reflection of how much gold there is available.

Green thorns are not as rare as you might think. I have 12k on Europa, I've had them for over a year 😂

Valeria said:

Some good thoughts in that post... My brain is thinking there's no way UO will ever let you buy subs with game gold... That's probably 99% of their revenue. Without that EA would surely shut it down.  What if you could sink gold by spending plats to age your acct. I'm only 2 years. Can I spend say 2 plat per year and age my acct to 14? 24 plats? Grab the vet rewards but the game still has consistent uninterrupted revenue from my sub? Basically just plats for vet picks which are mostly utility and deco anyways. You could even adjust the price of acct aging upwards on a yearly basis for game inflation..  or down if that gets it under control.

How angry would you vets be about that? Hahaha... it's a massive gold sink at least and new players who played for gold efficiency could get caught up to the rest of ya. Gold leaves. Nobody is directly hurt by it. EA keeps same revenue stream.

Yes, I think this is a great idea actually. True Vet accounts are dying off over age, new accounts do keep coming through.

Since the new IDOC system, Vet rewards are being deleted out of the system rapidly, prices of such items as Ethereals has also risen massively.
There are a lot of really nice Vet reward items, that are now out of reach, and pretty much out of use for most players - I was saying myself in another post - many of these should be taken out of Vet rewards, and distributed into normal gameplay - for example - Statues, should all appear as a very rare drop, on the mob type itself - it would make farming right across the board a lot more fun for Hunters and Collectors.

I think you are also right - game-time is probably not one they can maybe use as a tool, unless they take off so much on the other Item sales types maybe.

But I certainly think - some massive UO Store items, your Vet idea, combining the Vendor Search, and a few other things could help.

Not every new item/dye needs to be added to the UO store.  Create a vendor (like the clean-up reward one) that sells some of these vanity/deco items for serious gold.  Getting a little better economy is just as healthy for the game as micro transactions.

It's like the Blaze Cu Sidhe, so rare and highly desirable.

If there is a version of a rideable blaze dragon that can cast attack spells and fireball even when you are riding it. 

It can cost 10 or 50 plats.

Another will let you fly over water, cost 80 plats.

Its easy to remove serious amt of gold.

Then there is a Super dragon ride that can fly over mountains and sea. 250 plats.

Arnold7 said:

I got my seed money selling forged pardons from treasure chests and mysterious fragments when their price was high.  You can also sell drops from events.  But the real gold is in buying and selling.  That might not be true for experienced players that have been playing for twenty years and have a dozen or more accounts, and players good enough to get hundreds of drops at the special events, but it is for most of the rest of us.  Learning how to buy and sell is an as important part of the game as any other.  When I spend the time I make gold.

great post, i feel like most who say the economies broken just arent adjusting to it, or utilizing it efficiently.  no, its not perfect or ideal but never will be.

i was dirt poor for years in UO until i decided i was tired of that and to really try to bank on farming Conjurer's Trinket's during the halloween event i think it was 2008.  even now limited time events are a very easy way for players to make quick gold in decent amounts.  

rares, farming high end pvp gear, crafting, idocs / selling houses, taming pets, or the ever available buy/resell.  lots of different ways to make gold.  for me i got into rares mostly but have to just find something that your good at, thats also profitable.  just like in rl its not a new concept or anything.  ive never bought gold, wouldnt consider myself a "power gamer" like the guys with 20plus accounts.  I have 3.  pretty average.  making 5-10p a month is pretty easy for me now.  fun with friends a few hours a week.  you do have to start somewhere, but with all the UO economy's flaws it seems better than ever for newer / lower gold players.  masteries, global event gear, imbuing and global loot.  its easier and cheaper than ever to gear a character that can do just about everything in the game.  thats kinda what you want to see in a "good" economy.  basics being cheap, un-needed luxuries being really expensive. 

Helper said:

To get the ball rolling;

Broken mechanism: vendor sell-cap of 175 million gold.

Suggested fix: vendor sell-cap of 1 platinum, as several items are now unsellable on vendors at current market prices.

well except this is a big part of the problem, nothing in this game should be worth a plat except for maybe a castle, gold sellers and gold buyers have made this possible and this is number one reason why the economy is broken.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the discontinuing of checks. It was rather hard to buy when you were limited to what your bank could hold. 

Urge said:

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the discontinuing of checks. It was rather hard to buy when you were limited to what your bank could hold. 

Ah Ha! That is the solution!

Urge said:

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the discontinuing of checks. It was rather hard to buy when you were limited to what your bank could hold. 

I think checks being a thing in the first place might be a reason for inflation if it's true that people were duping bags filled with 124 - 1million checks.

Whitewolf said:

Helper said:

To get the ball rolling;

Broken mechanism: vendor sell-cap of 175 million gold.

Suggested fix: vendor sell-cap of 1 platinum, as several items are now unsellable on vendors at current market prices.

well except this is a big part of the problem, nothing in this game should be worth a plat except for maybe a castle, gold sellers and gold buyers have made this possible and this is number one reason why the economy is broken.

Actually, recently on Atlantic I saw in Chat someone advertising selling a Keep, not a Castle, for 25 Platinums....

Good luck finding a Castle for 1P....

keven2002 said:

Urge said:

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the discontinuing of checks. It was rather hard to buy when you were limited to what your bank could hold. 

I think checks being a thing in the first place might be a reason for inflation if it's true that people were duping bags filled with 124 - 1million checks.

Through transfers so yes shut them down and delete all gold

You can still dupe in this game?  If that is true, that should get fixed.  Other than that, remove all gold/plats.  People won't quit.

Grimbeard said:

keven2002 said:

Urge said:

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the discontinuing of checks. It was rather hard to buy when you were limited to what your bank could hold. 

I think checks being a thing in the first place might be a reason for inflation if it's true that people were duping bags filled with 124 - 1million checks.

Through transfers so yes shut them down and delete all gold

Sounds good to me. I don't hold gold - I hold items that I can flip for gold if I need it. 

Deleting gold only hurts those who hold their wealth in gold. I have bags full of ethys that I used my extra gold to buy when they were cheap.  More useful than gold and can always trade them when needed.   

Deleting gold is not the solution - creating gold sinks is the solution.  Insurance is not enough of a gold sink.

Merus said:

Seth said:

Prices are always driven by supply and demand, period.

This is only half right.  Availability of gold is #1 in the cause of inflation.  If you hold the gold supply constant, prices may change, but that is not inflation… it’s a change in relative value compared to other products in the market.

Yay! A fellow economist has entered the chat.   I was getting frustrated with people equating a change in supply and demand with inflation.   

Inflation is when all prices rise. 

Supply/Demand change is when one item's price rises due to a demand change - like focus scrolls for pets.   The supply of focus scrolls has remained constant in terms of drops per champ and number of champs run.  However, there was little demand for them until the pet changes.  So Focus scrolls going up in price is NOT an inflation issue per se but here it is a supply/demand issue.  

One way to combat these spikes would be for UO/EA/Broadsword to sell Powerscrolls for gold from vendors.   You can either do the champ spawn or buy a 120 scroll for 10m.  That would cap all 120 scroll prices at 10m because you could always just buy one from the UO store for 10m.  This would also create a gold sink here of 10m everytime a scroll is sold. 

I'd be all for this sort of price capping.  You can run all the champs you want but you can't sell any of the 120's for more than 10m.   If you wanna work for your item - have at it. If you want to earn gold other ways and then spend it - done.  You have an option.  

I don't know why we don't have some of these consumables sold with UO/EA vendors.  

Theo said:

I'd be all for this sort of price capping.  You can run all the champs you want but you can't sell any of the 120's for more than 10m.   If you wanna work for your item - have at it. If you want to earn gold other ways and then spend it - done.  You have an option.  

I don't know why we don't have some of these consumables sold with UO/EA vendors.