I saw Tradeskills mentioned, but I didn't see a lot of thought on that. My suggestion is to raise the tradeskill cap. It hasn't been raised in years. There are lots of items which already have a >300 skill level, so you wouldn't necessarily need to add a boatload more TS stuff in there. But any new TS creations should have ONE of the following uses: 1) Good stuff to sell to fellow players - I'm thinking specifically food and drink, but there are lots of other possibilities. Make a food item which can be created by buying most/all components from an NPC, with the final product being sellable for a decent price. If the price of the materials is ~100-150 plat, and others will buy it for ~300 plat, you'll have a repeating plat sink. Lots of people make their EQ fortunes by selling TS items. 2) Easy skill-ups - this would be TS'ing which is done simply to increase your skill level. It shouldn't involve too many items. All of the items should be easy to get, and at least one of the items must be purchased from an NPC (there's the plat sink component). The NPC-sold item should be costly, but not prohibitively so. If the finished item can be sold back to a vendor, it should be at a very low price. TS'rs who are just working to increase their skill know that making "trash" is part of the process. Giving them a way to do it without having to run all over the game hunting/begging for stacks of rare items would be a major bonus! 3) Really cool stuff which is NOT tradable. This will encourage more people to develop their trade skills and pull more plat out of the game. I'm sure others can come up with more possibilities, but a good portion of players have dabbled in TS, if for nothing else than to be able to complete particular quests. They'll jump at the chance to increase their skill levels.
I think Marcia was a great idea, but some revisions would definitely make the implementation better. More items offered by her and pricing a bit less sky-high might make people spend more money, if she's truly meant to be a plat sink, and not just a fun, seasonal event thing. As for other ways to pull plat out of the game, I like the idea of an updated casino. People are able to sell a gold ticket for 20k, and that's for a shot at one or two OLD cool items and a bunch of so-so stuff. Players would fall over each other trying to spend plat at a casino which offered cool newer stuff (and even old stuff). And I really can appreciate the instanced zones for plat/nobles. SOE solved player issues (guilds fighting to get to mobs, training each other, and/or dominating particular raid mobs) by creating instanced zones, but at the same time, they caused a restriction which perhaps wasn't foreseen during the creation. Lots of players would love to go back and do old content raids. Some just want to kill the Boss again, while others have their hearts set on "that one item which they never got." But instanced raid zones prevent this from happening. Sure, people can ask in /general for people to join their group so they can get a raid, but think how many more people would just pay for an instanced zone from 4+ expansions ago! Let them take their mercs, even. This is OLD content - it's for fun, not for advancement. It's like the idea of the casino (that piece you want probably won't drop), but it's more like renting an amusement park for an hour!
I like this idea. It provides a service that people can choose to partake in. And it fits in the current structure of the game (outside of needing to farm components). Not too over powering, not competing with the market place, and not encroaching on rewards people have earned (antiques, raid gear, etc). I don't like this so much. I abhor doing trade skills. I remember the hours spent maxing out jewel craft and research in 1999. Ugh! I find it tedious and boring. It's mostly been a side part of the game and should remain so. Those that enjoy it can be part of a limited number of people and hawk their wares for profit. Once you have too many people doing it, there is no market to sell to. No drop items that help maximize your powers will make it a required skill. Let's not push this in to the required column. It's bad enough some quests require trade skills.
Just wanted to say just about everything on Marcia could have been simply put on MP. I am trying to understand why you would not want to cannibalize sales from MP when Marcia in a way took potential MP sales away. Like i said before though the more stuff that is sold on a vendor should drive increased sales in krono. The only thing that might need to be added for krono is a vendor that will buy them thus setting a minimum price of plat for krono sales encase in-game bazaar krono market happens to die. I am trying to think; however, if that same vendor should sell krono that has been sold to the vendor. At least that will remove more plat from the game than the vendor dishes out. This will create a vendor type trade system for krono if people are wanting to get instant plat for the krono or perhaps if they are not actually all access account and dont have access to bazaar. Though the /barter system is the current option for instant plat and FTP folks to get plat for krono.
I wish I could search /barter on Povar for general items, but several, for lack of a better word that won't get me suspended: "jerks" are buying all of the CotF chase loot for 10k. Sooooooo instead of being able to sell items to legitimate buyers, my whoooooole search window is crapped up by the worst deals in EverQuest history. Screenshot to follow: Edit: Wow, got some great deals on Povar right now. Really wish there was a way to exclude a certain "buyer" or just a better interface to search. Some people like to know what real people are buying so they can go out and farm said item(s). Call me crazy.
I wish the barter interface was as in depth as the trader interface. I especially like the idea of "buying" an instanced zone... But the price needs to be right. I've also pondered over the concept of Mercs in old raid zones. Maybe with the right requirements: Not in a raid. (Avoids having to mess with the raid interface) Up to 6 expansions behind (roughly how long it takes for the raid content to become groupable content.) Journeyman merc (or higher..if ever introduced) Double cost? Not sure if this is even viable, but worth considering. These limitations protect the integrity of the current raiders, adds value/incentive for all access accounts, and opens more content up. It can also be used as an additional plat sink (merc cost). If they add an additional upkeep... Or even add "raider" as a merc option at a very steep upkeep cost. (At 95, J5 is ~400pp/hr or 4 marks. Up that to ~4k/hr or 12 marks.. Just as a quick example)
Gotta love it when you can buy the chase items for 10k and resell it for 8 mill +. Glad there are people being dumb enough to sell at 10k, yes there are quite a few of them. As well as people who buy from the highest price trader as well. System is working as it should =P
The best plat sinks = the best consumable items to sell for SC With mercs we should have had grp versions of clarity and haste potion, but Sony went the SC route Whatever brilliant solution you come up with here, it will end up for sale for SC and I am happy with that - it pays for game development, support etc. Everyone seems to be focusing on Krono, but one of the reasons Krono are popular is that it allows you to go All Access and not give Sony a credit card. Sony need to add Paypal (for subscriptions) and a few other payment processors. It is really easy to set up Paypal with a billing agreement such that they never have to ask for confirmation of a payment again. Also with krono, people in Europe can buy them from a 3rd party and not care about sales taxes - Sony need to start eating the sales tax as a cost of doing business.
There's enough of a tradeskiller game and enough benefit from playing it. There's enough of a trader game and enough benefit from playing it (too much of a benefit actually). There doesn't need to be a "real" plat sink in the game. What plat sinks there are suffice for those players who focus on playing EQ and not becoming an EQ John D. Rockefeller (tycoon), Yves Saint Laurent (tailor), Elmer Sherwin (gambler). While tradeskills, trading, and gambling (and fishing) are subgames in EQ, they are just subgames. Most and the best rewards in EQ should come from winning confrontations with NPC's. Admittedly there would be some disagreement particularly from "players" from FV. But they have a different culture from most players on normal rules servers (else there would be more migration to FV of toons that aren't deleted after being stripped of their No Drop gear). Or perhaps players could buy Krono from Daybreak and pay sales tax if they should pay sales tax. <- Crazy Talk(tm) to some I'm sure. It's VERY weird to see people write: and Practically acknowledging RL $$$ -> Krono -> pp/items -> Krono -> RL $$$ etc. and posting that not being able to buy extra advantage with the 10m's pp they've gathered rather than rewards for beating events is the problem. "Plat Sink" replaces "Exp Mountain" as 2015's misleading catch phrase.
Soo people with 10's or 100's of millions of plat should just sell it online rather then spend it on something in game?
So, after accumulating loads and loads of plat, you feel entitled to having the developers spending time to create something special for you to buy? That amount of plat doesn't just appear in someone's bank. So, either you enjoy the process of earning plat (from farming, playing the bazaar, etc) or you can just let up and not worry about earning any more. If the big number bothers you, delete some, give some away, stock up on krono so you never have to pay a subscription fee again. Just play the game however it's fun to you without creating problems for the vast majority of the rest of the player base that doesn't want to farm plat to be able to play the game. The vocal plat sink crowd already screwed a lot of us over with the increased merc rates at 101+ (the beta forum had people supporting it for the sake of removing more plat from the game).
There are other choices and I certainly wouldn't suggest selling pp or Krono or items to a 3rd party site or offline for $$$. You could benefit some of the people you play with - assuming you don't box and exclude everyone else in this multiplayer game. If I get a great item I don't need my first instinct is give it to someone (a "main") I regularly group with or a guildmate. Afaik I haven't looted even one TDS RK II rune - I put casters first. (I've also given away items that could have been sold for millions of pp, Krono, etc. - a lot considering my 200Kpp in the bank). I'm sure you are generous too, but I'd point out that that is no shortage of people who could benefit from your generosity. Call it enlightened self-interest. What makes us stronger makes me stronger too.
Devs have said that raising the tradeskill cap over 300 is not going to happen, unless they rebuild the entire tradeskill formulas. There two reasons for this. 1) to actually get a skill up at 320 or so under the current curve will require ~ 1,000 combines 2) the items that have the 345+ trivial are meant to be introduced into the game at a staggered rate so as to not drastically effect the market,drops, etc. Look at MTPs and the liquidized meat back in the day. For tradeskilled food/drink to have any sort of impact on the economy or your looking needing to spend at least 5k plat in vendor purchases to make a dent in the bank accounts. Additionally your going to have to make them have stats similar to the merchants feast/brew if you want people to use them. Now your going to have to add in a dropped component that is uncommon so people don't flood the market with them. 5k plat in baking supplies that often cost 1 gold yields like 50,000 items to use? They have these for the majority of the tradeskills already. In all reality, the only hard tradeskills to get to 300 are fetching and pottery. Pottery because of the sheer annoyance of the encrusted steins (when was the last time you enchanted 4,000 block of clay?) Fetching because it requires dropped items from ~282 to 300 (still not that hard with COTF combines)
There isn't anything next. I spoke via PM's with a developer about this and this is their answer for the 2.1 million limit. They wouldn't have been a total fail if you could negotiate for nobles in trader mode, currently it only works in buyer moder Whats next is Krono are the new currency (although it always has been since they were introduced). Platinum is equivalent to copper pieces nowadays.
Main and alts have best in slot for everything? Accounts are all paid for for the next decade? Have every collectable artifact you'd ever want? Well done, sir. Maybe try enjoy playing the game for what it is?
My accounts are payed for for the next 5 years or so thanks to the introduction of Krono along with the fact that the bazaar is so easy to abuse
They nerfed all the easy ways to level alts. All the plat that we would have used to buy gear and spells now just sits there.
