Any ideas? I heard someone say remove transfer tokens, others talk about making useless skills more relevant, and making crafting more relevant compared to pvm loot.

I feel like if only some tweaks could be made, perhaps it would make inflation less of an issue, and the gameplay would be more player interdependent, and fun.

Also, what are the odds the devs will even listen? Seems like a lot of people have some great concerns and ideas that never get as much as a notice by the devs.

crunchnasty said:

Also, what are the odds the devs will even listen? Seems like a lot of people have some great concerns and ideas that never get as much as a notice by the devs.

I talked about the process of digesting all the feedback/request etc we get over in this thread.  Just know that we read pretty much all of it.  Also remember we have a much wider view of the impact of any given idea/suggestion.  So while it may look great on paper, remember there may be other factors at play that we consider.

well I definitely appreciate the feedback, have a great day and happy Easter.

I warned everyone when they announced shard shields back in 2011 that people would use them to farm powerscrolls on dead shards and transfer to normal competitive shards.
https://stratics.com/threads/shard-shields-end-of-pvp.254886/
Nobody cared, on stratics the thread got moved to "spiels and rants" by the then (thankfully now gone) moderators.

A simple way to improve the economy on small shards would be to change the vendor system from the daily fee to a one time fee when the item is sold. Put the fee to about 5% of the price of the item and most vendor keeper at least on the small shards would be happy. Then they could feed their vendors with items that may not be sold for alot of time, but wont make a loss. 

I would also like to see some improvement to the refinement system. Let us be able to get at least 6-7 mods with high resists on armor parts to make armor crafting and runic kits valuable again. 

These 2 things alone would make me and probably alot of others happy.

@Drowy, I like both your ideas.

crunchnasty said:

others talk about making useless skills more relevant, 

I don't see how this would fix the economy.

Drowy said:

A simple way to improve the economy on small shards would be to change the vendor system from the daily fee to a one time fee when the item is sold. Put the fee to about 5% of the price of the item and most vendor keeper at least on the small shards would be happy. 

This would be a good start.

1.  Allow cross shard vendor search and buying.  Just add a "buy item" button and forget the teleport to location stuff.  Even if each account was only allowed 1 cross shard vendor and the fee was higher.  Then in vendor search you can check the "search cross shard vendors" box and maybe pay 10% tariff as a gold sink.  Don't show what server you are buying from.  This will spread gold around and remove some of the focus on Atlantic.

2. Second the idea of a fee per item sold rather than the current vendor cost.

3.  Disallow transfer of cursed items - Cry me a river about the price of scrolls skyrocketing on Atlantic - At least you people can buy them.  I don't care about the most advantaged players in the game missing out on having access to the best variety of items and getting the best prices.  If the game as a whole is going to get better, then yeah Atlantic will probably have to deal with it.

4.  Create a merchant skill that rewards players for running vendors - give them item appraisal that allows them to lore an item and receives an average value aggregated from other vendors on the server.  Reward players for selling items - merchant artifacts - or something:  When I collect gold off one of my vendors give a chance for it to be like "I traded for this mysterious item."  As the skill of the merchant players skill increases vendor fees go down and the chance of items goes up. Make item ID worth something again.

crunchnasty said:

Any ideas on how to fix the dead economy?

In your view, what makes our virtual economy dead? What does a vibrant virtual economy look like? The reason I ask is because I think the first step to answering this type of broad question is first to define the problem, and then to envision what the solution ought to look like, so I am curious to know what you think.

Shard bound almost everything. Simple answer to this.  This would ruin RMT sites, it would ruin shard shields farming and botting.  Thus bringing the game back to the players and not the scripters.  Only thing that should be allowed to transfer is gold and character with what hes allowed to wear.  That's it.

dont see how it is "dead", i sell good amount of items everday off my 12 vendors.  Powerscrolls were given a much needed boost.  Theres a new market for house deco since the addition of the stone tiles.  Pet-training services really took off again since the pet-revamp.

The only problems i could see right now is that global loot market is flooded, but that was because of 2 years of botting by a few individuals.  Really has nothing to do with the health of the overall market.

Deraj said:

crunchnasty said:

Any ideas on how to fix the dead economy?

In your view, what makes our virtual economy dead? What does a vibrant virtual economy look like? The reason I ask is because I think the first step to answering this type of broad question is first to define the problem, and then to envision what the solution ought to look like, so I am curious to know what you think.

On some shards a single wealthy player can vaccum buy every item on vendor search for a year flat out.

On a healthy shard like Atlantic it is not possible to control the market in that way.

some things that are developed destroy other areas of the economy. when the devs develop something and if they give out like candy, it become worthless in a month or 2. too many people complain/cry that drop rate is too low. gimmie gimmie gimmie, i want i want I want. it is best to make things rare/low drop rate. this will keep things going and worth something. it will also give more time for devs to fix things and improve game. seems like a lot don't want to earn anything. .  

Pinkerton said:

1.  Allow cross shard vendor search and buying.  Just add a "buy item" button and forget the teleport to location stuff.  Even if each account was only allowed 1 cross shard vendor and the fee was higher.  Then in vendor search you can check the "search cross shard vendors" box and maybe pay 10% tariff as a gold sink.  Don't show what server you are buying from.  This will spread gold around and remove some of the focus on Atlantic.
(...)

When you are vehemently demand the removal of shard shields and shard transfers do you give any consideration to the people who DON'T use them to take everything to Atlantic? who DON'T do RMT trading? 
Folk who offer a service taking items from shard to shard for other people? Who actually TAKE items to the smaller shards rather than remove them? Who ferry stuff from place to place for friends?

Petra_Fyde said:

When you are vehemently demand the removal of shard shields and shard transfers do you give any consideration to the people who DON'T use them to take everything to Atlantic? who DON'T do RMT trading? 
Folk who offer a service taking items from shard to shard for other people? Who actually TAKE items to the smaller shards rather than remove them? Who ferry stuff from place to place for friends?

If you are replying to me, I don't want (and even less DAMAND) the removal of STS at all! On the contrary: I SUGGESTED many times that the STS, or some form of "Inter-shard Mobility Means for the Masses", WAY cheaper than the today "20-bucks-a-single-ride" tokens, will be made available...
I.

JollyJade said:

Deraj said:

crunchnasty said:

Any ideas on how to fix the dead economy?

In your view, what makes our virtual economy dead? What does a vibrant virtual economy look like? The reason I ask is because I think the first step to answering this type of broad question is first to define the problem, and then to envision what the solution ought to look like, so I am curious to know what you think.

On some shards a single wealthy player can vaccum buy every item on vendor search for a year flat out.

On a healthy shard like Atlantic it is not possible to control the market in that way.

WATDR, this is an illusion, because:
1) the supposedly "healthy" market on ATL is ALREADY controlled by the oligopoly of the Inter-Shards Cabala;
2) "whealty" is a very relative term: until RMT will exist, with a couple thousands RL buck you can buy enough gold to vacuum clean even ATL, if not for a year at last for many weeks or months.

@Ivenor no, I wasn't replying to you, that's why I didn't quote you. I was replying to the thread as a  whole, and those folk who are demanding that on this, and other threads. 

I have no knowledge or experience of any 'oligopoly of inter shards cabala' What is it exactly? or is it just a figment of some cynical players' imagination?  I don't play Atlantic, nor have any desire to. On the shards I do play I have no problem finding power scrolls when I need them. From my perspective this is all a storm in a teacup. Am I alone in that view?

Petra_Fyde said:

...Am I alone in that view?...

No.

Petra_Fyde said:

@ Ivenor no, I wasn't replying to you, that's why I didn't quote you. I was replying to the thread as a  whole, and those folk who are demanding that on this, and other threads. 

I have no knowledge or experience of any 'oligopoly of inter shards cabala' What is it exactly? or is it just a figment of some cynical players' imagination?  I don't play Atlantic, nor have any desire to. On the shards I do play I have no problem finding power scrolls when I need them. From my perspective this is all a storm in a teacup. Am I alone in that view?

@Petra_Fyde My apologies: not everyone quote in reply so I supposed your post right after mine was a reply to it. I was Wrong, and now I will go to Shame to Atone, with a snack of Humble Pies...

The "oligopoly of inter shards cabala" is, IMO, the group of "players" (let still call them this to be kind) that, in the years, bought off a lot of the "discontinued" Veteran accounts of (real) players quitting UO, and that so now own a (too much) large share of the accounts with "free" STS inter-shards transfer means. You say that you don't play ATL (kudos to you! 🙂 ) but if you were, you could easily see around the Houses of this lot (naming in this Forum is frowned upon, so I will not make them), i.e. the ones with the "The Wet Sand of the Litter of the Calico Kitty of Blackthorn" kind of named-Rares museums, the jucier Auction Safes, the most numerous PS, SoT & SoA put for sale, etc..

They are, IMO, even the ones that multibox (and maybe script-cheat) at Events & IDOCs to get the bigger chunck of the stuff. The relations of this people with the RMT can, IMO, easily be inferred too.

You can call it conspiracy theory if you wish: I call it the reality that distorted ATL (and, by reflex, all the other Shards too) to the point to generate the hyper-inflactionary, "2-PP-for-a-Rare-armor" kind of mess that today pass for "economy" in UO.

I.

Ivenor said:

with a couple thousands RL buck you can buy enough gold to vacuum clean even ATL, if not for a year at last for many weeks or months.

That lacks any proof and I doubt it is any realistic. Sure some millionaire could, but well.. not realistic.

On the other hand, people vacuum cleaning small shards for long periods of time did actually happen.

JollyJade said:

Ivenor said:

with a couple thousands RL buck you can buy enough gold to vacuum clean even ATL, if not for a year at last for many weeks or months.

That lacks any proof and I doubt it is any realistic. Sure some millionaire could, but well.. not realistic.

On the other hand, people vacuum cleaning small shards for long periods of time did actually happen.

OK, give me 2K bucks and I will prove it to you! 😂

Seriously: 2K bucks are, at nowdays RMT prices, about 10 BILLIONS GPs.

Surely not enough to even scratch the ATL market of useless "The Wet Sand of the Litter of the Calico Kitty of Blackthorn" kind of named-Rare items, but enough to vacuum from Shard Vendors all the really useful stuff, as the PS, SoT & SoA for the "good" skills, for weeks.

I.

Just go on with more hypothetical scenarios. On some shards it actually happened. And nobody had to give anyone 2k for it to happen.

Try buying up all SoT on Atlantic for example. Let's see how far that 10 plat will get you. I guess you couldn't even recall around all vendors quick enough to vacuum Atlantic.

JollyJade said:

Just go on with more hypothetical scenarios. On some shards it actually happened. And nobody had to give anyone 2k for it to happen.

Try buying up all SoT on Atlantic for example. Let's see how far that 10 plat will get you. I guess you couldn't even recall around all vendors quick enough to vacuum Atlantic.

If/when I will have 2K bucks of spare pocket change to "invest" in the experiment I'll let you know. Unfortunately for now I don't have them...  😂

Ivenor said:

If/when I will have 2K bucks of spare pocket change to "invest" in the experiment I'll let you know. Unfortunately for now I don't have them...  😂

Ok, looking forward to it. In the meanwhile you can still do it on other shards without the 2k

.. which - to come back to the original topic - is a pretty good indicator for a economy in bad shape there.

Tax the the Hell outa them all 

wait

read my lips no new sink holes 

JollyJade said:

Ivenor said:

If/when I will have 2K bucks of spare pocket change to "invest" in the experiment I'll let you know. Unfortunately for now I don't have them...  😂

Ok, looking forward to it. In the meanwhile you can still do it on other shards without the 2k

.. which - to come back to the original topic - is a pretty good indicator for a economy in bad shape there.

That would be because most if not all PSs are sold in Gen Chat so Atl can take them all.

Skett said:

(...)

read my lips no new sink holes 

"We will only enlarge the existing ones." 😂  

Bilbo said:

That would be because most if not all PSs are sold in Gen Chat so Atl can take them all.

We talk about the whole economy, not only that little part of it revolving around powerscrolls..

Do you feel personally attacked by the fact that some shards are in bad shape? I don't get why some try to downplay that fact so hard...