How can we reliably sell high value items?

It likely would solve a lot of complaints around scripted price manipulation though and the random loot TLP servers did have issues with the maximum number of traders limit being hit.

If we are throwing around the greedy label doesn't it apply to the sellers too and folks wanting high baz prices? Just saying that its a two way street and simply being on one side of the argument implies zero moral superiority.

Econ 101 - In general:
The buyer wants to buy it for the lowest price he can find.
The seller wants to sell it for the most anyone will pay.

Neither one of those is greedy. Thats the actual "two way street", and its fair. Where there is an issue is when one side wants to force prices on the other. Saying we like price caps because it may coerce sellers to sell for less is like that.

The bazaar isn't about moral superiority. It's about basic economics. And remembering that this is a game and not RL ( and I do realize you know that, but others seem to think that EQ is a sort of social justice platform) the same rules that might apply when buying necessities of life don't really apply here. None of us need anything in EQ to stay alive.

So...buy low, sell high and meet in the middle when you can.

Can we just get rid of G/S/C in the bazaar and price everything in plat-only? Thus, making the new limit 2 billion platinum instead of 2 million?

Platinum is based on the smallest unit which is called copper so even that it does show up as platinum it is copper. The factor is 1:1000. 1 pp = 10 gp = 100 sp = 1000 cp. When an inventory does show 1 pp, 1 gp, 1 sp, 1 cp it is actually 1000 cp + 100 cp + 10 cp + 1 cp = 1111 cp.

If there is a number limit (because of 32 bit) the problem would start when someone tries to exchange more than the full plat limit (2 mio) into copper. At least in theory. I never grasped why the plat limit outside of the bazaar is much bigger and why only the bazaar is so limited.

That would really hurt the TLP servers when the bazaar is still new and prices are low.

You're saying that people on TLPs are pricing things in copper still?

I am saying that items get priced lower then plat and this change would increase the price of all of those items. Not to mention that just because you remove copper, silver and gold from the bazaar doesn't mean that prices would suddenly be stored in plat instead of copper.

So get rid of it in the baz but leave it in the rest of the game for those quests that require the player to use gold, silver or copper?

I enjoy just making a reasonable profit. And morality comes into everything it is just about how you apply it.

A game like Everquest is different then playing a match in Call of Duty. This isn't a game of monopoly that is over in a couple of hours. This is a game, some folks, play several hours a day every day over holidays over everything. They have played the game for years. It ends up being an important part of their life. Because of this I don't think its a bad idea to play with some sort of moral compass even when doing /Baz stuff. But thats my own standard for myself.

For this reason I think some morality should be applied to the game. We both agree it is not the same as buying the necessities of RL but it is also not the same as plaing a CoD match or Monopoly. I think persistent worlds should be treated a bit differently.

Or perhaps I just like bringing my morality into games because I like who I am and enjoy playing that I guess. So I dislike seeing folks corner markets on items

So I dont like seeing overly greedy folks in the game. Folks who buy up items to create a stranglehold on the market then sell this for super high prices. Folks who use software to cheat their way to profit. Folks who scam others. Don't like it at all. And sure you can say it is just a game. But I know for a fact it is easy to make significant profits in the game with no change to baz pricing. I also know that changing that encourages RMT folks even more.

And the argument here is hiding behind the idea of "secure transactions" its just about folks wanting to have an easy off hands way to sell stuff for the highest price possible with no effort. I have bought and sold high value items over the years and never had a problem. There is no rash of scams that needs to be solved by creating a system.

But I also admit I am a bit of an outlier. I play every RPG, every persistent world game as a good guy I carry my morality into the game as much as possible because that is what I enjoy. It's the main reason I could never get into GTA 5. I don't look at games as a way to play outside the rules I have to live by I look at games as a way to play by the values I enjoy living by. But I also acknowledge that many will take that as overdoing it. They can live their truth and I will live mine.

This seems like an easy fix for the devs. Next patch just remove 3 zeros from every character on FV, reduce plat on the server 1000 fold, no more bloat. 2 million = 2 billion. Your Welcome!

That would only work if the platinum (=copper) output would be also reduced by factor 1,000. Cash drops and item sellback prices.

If they were to try to cut off zeros, they'd have to update every place where a money value is stored, like quest rewards, loot, bags of plat, casino, etc. I would guess those numbers are scattered in every corner of the code and database. Trying to cut off zeros from all those numbers would be very time consuming and error prone. They would miss something somewhere and you'd have exploits from people figuring out where they forgot to cut the zeros and making tons of plat.

Fixing the code to allow copper over 2M would also be problematic in the same way. There would be so many places in the code that would need to be updated that it would be time consuming and error prone. There would certainly be mistakes which would lead to lost plat or plat tsunami exploits. This is objectively the best fix for this issue, but it may be impractical to implement due to developer availability constraints.

From assumptions I'm making about the codebase, I think the most feasible solution would be to create a different bazaar where the vendors took an alternate currency. Nobles are the most obvious choice, but they'd have to fix the buy/sell issue so that they buy/sell at the same price. In this alternate bazaar, the sellers only trade in alternate currency. Since there are already vendors in game which take alternate currency, they should be able to leverage this alt-currency vendor code. I think doing it this way may be the best way to allow selling of high-priced item with the least impact and exploit exposure to the codebase.

Honestly they need to bite the bullet and update the code to allow merchants to sell items for more then the current cap. If they did this they would have more options for creating merchants like the noble vendor that sells rare high value items.

There is a business case for doing the hard thing and raising the cap. The players who would benefit would be the end-game, max-level players, and these players typically spend a lot of money on the game. Making their experience as enjoyable as possible ensures they keep playing and contributing financially to the game. Auctioning in the General channel is a hassle for everyone. I don't know that anyone would quit specifically because of the 2M cap, but I'm sure the hassle of selling stuff over that price is a straw contributes to breaking the camel's back. And it's a pretty big straw at that.

If there is a choice between fixing the plat cap or more content Id much rather have more content. 1000x more.

Famous last words ? The plat cap is a serious game problem and a part of the general number inflation like with HP and damage points.

My post was mostly tongue in cheek.

But I would suggest if the 2 million plat limit on the bazaar is causing issues for your server, you are long past the point where the vendor trash value should be taken into consideration for fixing the economy. Gods forbid farming vendor drops have any value whatsoever if done with less than 1000 bots running 24/7...

Stated another way: if the choice is between fixing the broken content already in the game or adding more half baked/broken new content, I'd like to see things get fixed every now and again.