A discussion on unborking the in-game economy

Merus

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.

Yoshi

“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…”

Merus

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.

Arnold7

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.

popps

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.

Yoshi

“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. 

I was suggesting auto reduction only for the stagnant pieces”

Smoot

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.

also means that 5 percent savings by using 60 min auctions to encourage a bid instead of a buyout with seller fee is greatly reduced.  most with high amounts of auction safes have to use 3 or 7 day timers now and raising prices to account for the 5 percent fee.

Helper

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.

Helper

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.

Helper

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.]

Helper

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.

Helper

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).

AmberWitch

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.

popps

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.

popps

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.

Merus

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.

Grimbeard

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...

Yoshi

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

Seth

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? 

Yoshi

“Lol why they would sell gtc for gold? 

They gonna pay their energy bills with gp?

(On player market you can buy 3 month for less than a plat in GP, I think something like 600mill, but of course that GP does not leave the game)”

Yoshi

“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”

Merus

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.

Grimbeard

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? 

Merus

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.

Grimbeard

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

popps

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.

popps

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.

popps

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.

Merus

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.

popps

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.