Saw this idea the other day. A paid buff-bot NPC that would raid-buff your toon for a "good fee". (like in the lobby - only faster) Total plat sink and not over-powering either. Make him placable in Guild Halls and even Housing..... -R
I have thought of something like this but not near as powerful. I thought of having a single slot that you buy the gear for and it degrades over time. sort of like the power source thing. but i dont think that would work out all that well either. I dont think you can buy the augs and power sources from a vendor so.. IDK i havent use power sources in years. this could be sort of like the buff potion option i mentioned.
I mentioned that one before. but for some reason people balk at that one too. IDK gota be able to buff for PP. its only ok if you afk in the lobby for free buffs but not ok to pay a vendor for them. i think any idea presented people will have a problem with. btw why did changing augs become so cheep? that was a plat sink though a very annoyingly bad one.
The title of this thread is begging to be changed to, "SOE, want to make less revenue? Ask me how !". Plat sinks are one thing but making available items and services for essentially free that currently cost real $ is not something any company in their right mind would do. The only suggestions from the OP that would even have a chance of coming into fruition would be: T1 group gear and other lower level gear. buff potions All classes = both takes plat from game and afk junk in lobby. also add some unique buff potions that will benefit while playing. Various DPS, Tankin, Healing buffs. Gate potions same things in guild hall but more pricey. Meaningful stat food and drink that gives a buff when consumed rather than simply eating junk and taking advantage of the stat food Trade-skill stuff Taxing bazaar and barter transactions New gold ticket game (but no on raid item rewards; there's enough of them available). Casino The rest you can throw out the window as they would ultimately be a detriment to the life and health of the game.
not so sure this would work. current merc is 400p hour or so. and you really dont need anything else. now if a master merc could attend raids i could see the benefit. you do however have a idea about mixing the two MP and Game. Lets say you have to buy something from MP i think you could be able to upgrade it to something else using PP? and or making it a two step process buy this MP item and combine it with this vendor item to get item "X" Or simply buying something on MP unlocks different things on a vendor for you to buy. So SoE gets theirs while taking plat out of the game.
Or they come up with better ideas for the MP. or they use MP in conjunction with in game plat purchases. kill 2 birds with one stone.
Anything that's for more than vanity just creates another barrier for returning players. Most of us returning players (it's been a year for me, but I'm still digging out of the hole) are not sitting on heaps of plat. We already need to catch up on levels, AA, buy spells, camp useful clickies and augs. Now you want us to have to have enough plat to get stat foods, special buffs, better mercs, taxes on transactions, etc? Looks like there are two types advocating this: 1) People too cheap to pay for their subscriptions that also do not like the current cost of krono 2) People with so much plat that they want something cool to spend it on. The first group just needs to suck it up. For the second group, I think the SC store pretty much took away that option
Lets just run this combo by.. trying to be proactive and come up with ideas rather than being negative about everything. the game needs plat sinks. I buy Item "X" from MP for $30 or 3000. This item then unlocks my ability to buy krono or item for EQ only sub from a vendor for 500kpp. for say 1 year. 500 SC i buy something to unlock buff potions 500 SC i buy something to unlock 1 bag purchase all sorts of different things could be used in conjunction.
you need none of this stuff to catch up on levels, AA, buy spells, camp clickies and augs. it is stuff that people can spend plat on if they have it to spend. its not much different than spending money in the bazaar but this takes plat out of the game and eventually with lower all the prices on things in the bazaar because you will have less plat floating around the game. it is also options for those who play the game and dont have a bunch of real money to throw around..
Another approach would be limiting avenues of plat coming into the game, next expansion's NPC's dropping less coin and high-value vendor salable items (diamonds, etc) and removing platinum from quest rewards.
$9.99-$14.99/ month is "a bunch of real money"? EQ only monthly subs AA cap increase for FTP Spell Unlocks for FTP Prestige gear unlocks for FTP Merc Unlocks for FTP Merc Slots Merc contracts Heroic Chars T1 group gear and other lower level gear. buff potions All classes = both takes plat from game and afk junk in lobby. also add some unique buff potions that will benefit while playing. Various DPS, Tankin, Healing buffs. Gate potions same things in guild hall but more pricey. Meaningful stat food and drink that gives a buff when consumed rather than simply eating junk and taking advantage of the stat food exp potions Bags Mounts (limited charges/casts) Trade-skill stuff Name changes les Heroes forge gear and unlocks Taxing bazaar and barter transactions New gold ticket game. T1 raid items. or something that is a very big carrot but cost a good amount of plat. Casino? House always wins in the long run =) Everything in RED can be obtained in game with plat... (sans some new "stat food" that does the same thing as existing stat food, but is added in extra?) Everything in BLUE comes with All-Access. Everything in GREEN has some version obtainable in game of limited quantity or availability. Now ORANGE..... That has been the cause of many a revolution. Casino? Fine. For Raid loot? Nooooo Especially not T1 (assuming the most current x-pac). Now, top tier of whatever x-pac AA's are granted to? -Maybe- Name changes? No. Why? Abuse/harassment issues. Teleport potions for same locations as Guild Hall? You'll $^&$*@ every wizard more than PoK & the GH already have..
The problem is from a financial standpoint it seems sony would have little incentive to remove plat from the game. I do agree that something should be done though. It seems every tom and Harry is a millionaire. IMO Mercs should charge exponentially more as you level. As it stands now the plat Mercs charge for me is a non issue, considering the value they provide.
Even with plat sinks, inflation of plat will still be astronomical because it is a fictitious currency, that is created by killing mobs. There is no end to the ability to kill mobs (and therefore create currency) because they respawn every 20 mins or less. Kronos are the reason inflation has skyrocketed. Once players have something worthwhile (a months subscription) then everyone is willing to go and farm the unlimited resource of plat to purchase the only item worth spending plat on. Anything that is added to the game to remove plat out (i.e. a new casino) will just cause one of two things to happen. Those of us that want the new items will go farm our own plat, like we have always done, or players will purchase plat from farmers, making them rich. it will not really remove plat from the game, it just might stabilize inflation until everyone has everything they want from the new casino. If you are against the outrageous bazaar/krono inflation rate, there is an easy solution. Do not participate. Pay for your own subscription (or go F2P), delete your bazaar trader (I still do not have a barter or trader after 10+yrs of playing), farm plat to purchase only the expendable items you need (food, drinlk, potions, CF regents, etc..) that are sold for a fixed price from vendors (they never inflate their prices) and go out in Norrath to earn any rewards that you want/feel you have the right to wear/use. There is nothing that can be done to "remove plat from the game" without causing plat farmers to get rich or causing much grief (why is X item cost so much plat?)because mobs will continue to die and we will continue to loot their corpses of anything valuable.
Most of the ideas OP suggested would cause SOE to loose $$, especially when they can implement those ideas for marketplace. The best way to remove plat from the game is to effect were most of player to player transactions take place - the bazaar. The best way to do that is to TAX players for buying items, buyers should be charged a tax, and you should be charged some sorta tax for buying of traders or direct player to player trades via trade window, as well as upkeep to keep your buyer/trader up. 15-20% tax would work. Parcel delivery is already at 10%, and people use it quite often, no reason to not bump that up to 25% for the extra luxury, and bring in a tax for buying items to say 15%. Along with that, reduce the drop rate of plat/vendor loot from mobs going forward. Revert back tradeskill items to not having any vendor value, still not sure why this had to be changed 3 years ago. People just sell tradeskill items to a merchant rather then an actual player, so this was probably one of the worst changes ever implemented. This would actually fuel Krono sales for SOE, so its a win for them. But getting the player base to accept a tax in game after no tax for the last 15 years, is a hard sell.
OK I am going to play devil's advocate here... Why is having so much platinum in Everquest such a bad thing? Why does the economy *need* to get rid of platinum?
Its not if the cap wasn't at 1 mill pp (the UI display limit, not the 2.1 mil pp ini changing limit) in bazaar Cicelee. Then I see no issue with it. But since most player trades occur in bazaar this is a very major issue now. If the cap is going to remain the same, then there has to be some way to get plat out of the game, or people like me will continue to inflate the value of the items we sell till we reach that cap. Do we really want to go back to the spam days of EC tunnel /auc, once we reach general items selling for ~ 1mill pp, wasn't that whole point of having a bazaar when they implemented in Luclin.
If there aren't good ways for currency to leave the player economy faster than platinum enters the economy, it causes the prices of items that players trade to rise. This can probably be seen most clearly through things like the price of Krono in platinum. This is a bad thing, because for the average player that spends only some of their time engaging in activities that generate platinum, it means that their time is worth less because the platinum price of sought after items increases. It also makes it harder for returning players because their platinum is also effectively worth less when they check the bazaar for items they need to get caught up with their friends.
This issue is going to get worse very soon, with the addition of new looting features announced last SOE live, it will be easier than ever before to loot vendor fodder. I suspect players will do zone pulls of completely trivial mobs that still drop diamonds in instances, insta loot, then flip another one.
We need some desirable items on vendors in the 50-500k range. Illusions, Hero's Forge sets, older alt-currencies, nimbuses. Things similar to the loyalty vendor. They need to be things players want to own, at prices that make sense. Could also do player vs player coin flip plat betting with the house taking a cut of the winnings.
