A discussion on unborking the in-game economy

AmberWitch · February 2023

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.

Grimbeard · February 2023

The uo store could easily put RMT sites out of business

Gwen · February 2023

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.

Gwen · February 2023

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.

Arnold7 · February 2023

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.

AmberWitch · February 2023

Imagine a shard where people value their play time with the people on the shard more than they value gold. Someone needs a scroll, resources, what ever, they put it out there and someone gives them what they need. Back and forth, trading, fulfilling needs, everyone in the micro economic community contributes and knows they're helping fulfill the needs of their community.

That, my friend, is the good as well as the point in it.

drcossack · February 2023

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.

JenniferMarie · February 2023

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.

popps · February 2023

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.

popps · February 2023

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.

popps · February 2023

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.

Grimbeard · March 2023

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?

username · March 2023

Here you go.

To fix the economy we need to:

Fix duping (permanently)
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.

popps · March 2023

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...

Luc_of_Legends · March 2023

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.

Rocko · March 2023

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?

Arnold7 · March 2023

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.

Grimbeard · March 2023

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

Merus · March 2023

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.

popps · March 2023

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 ?

Merus · March 2023

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?

Grimbeard · March 2023

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?

keven2002 · March 2023

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.

JohnKnighthawke · March 2023

As I have explained before, the in-game economy is not an economy, it is a game mechanic. The question isn't does it fit whatever criteria economists use to study real life economies (and there's way less certainty in that field than they like to admit), but rather does it help or hinder or remain neutral to in-game things, such as character progression and the ability to obtain in-game resources..

I submit that there are enough ways to become viable and obtain resources in-game, and enough ways to get gold relatively quickly, to render discussions about the health of the economy irrelevant. Certain necessary items, like power scrolls, being beyond the reach of most has nothing to do with the economy, it has to do with the lack of willingness to put those items where the vast majority of players play.

Yoshi · March 2023

“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)”

Rocko · March 2023

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.

Merus · March 2023

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.

Grimbeard · March 2023

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..

Oreogl · March 2023

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.

popps · March 2023

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.

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A discussion on unborking the in-game economy

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