Post about IGE you should readFollow

Maybe the best way around this is to go back to auctioning in EC. That way the program wouldnt be as effective. Plus, you could see who was selling items for very high prices and just simply refuse to sell to them or to any low lvl alts.

yeah there are flaws here just a thought

Ok here is how I see it SOE will not really do anything about this at all, I have played eq for 4 years loved them all. But when it came to costomer satisfaction on SOE's part the game is great the service has always been poor and degrading more and more.
I have been told from a few people now that the GM's roles have been changed to where they cannot fix technicle problems anymore they can only run quests. SOE has fired 70% of their staff, that should be working on fixing problems that I have seen in this game for the 4 years I have played it they wanted to do all this in silence so no one in the EQ community would know.

With EQ2 comming out this is how they probably see what is going to happen.

1) People sick of the problems with EQ will be going over to EQ2 to start again, result EQ loses people. Why fix this problem with the economy when they want to get everyone in the new game.

2) People will see EQ2 on the shelves and see EQ Hmm new game vs. old game more new players will buy a new upgraded video game over the old one, result fewer new players in EQ. After awile it will become harder to find EQ on store shelves, where now it has the NEW EQ2 game.

3) As time goes on old players will start leaving EQ for RL, new games, ETC., result Less people playing EQ the Death of EQ when SOE starts seeing it is not gaining profit anymore.

SOE's thoughts are probably like this

Why fix problems where the newer and better game is comming out which will cause the death of the old one, the faster we can kill the old game the more we can build the new. But lets try to make as much money on expansions and other things as we go to drain the life out of the old one, plus lets cut the staff and energy to keep this game afloat so it will go out faster.

For the record for all of those that hate gramatical errors in posts forgive all of them I made in here. Just because I have a hard time with grammer does not mean I am stupid.

having read this thread from the start I just re-checked all the posts and came to these solutions based on the posts

1. non twinked/non-plat bought toons up to lvl 30 seem not to encounter any problems of unavailability or overpriced gear because their quests are managable and the mob drops are not overcontested. they just gain from the Bazaar a lot and would only loose both their main source of income and trading place if the Bazaar was closed.

2.Toons lvl 55+ encounter massive problems because the're are'nt much mobs left who drop anything that's an upgrade in gear. Competition is high and soloers obviously don't stand any chance of aquiring these, neither by getting the "kill rights" nor by buying at the Bazaar.

3.The gap between best and second-best gear at lvls above is so wide that with only second-best chances of getting into a group, raid or even guild also get slim which makes one even more unable to upgrade a char above 55.

So my final opinion to this is:
a) SOE doesn't need to close the Bazaar because 90% of the players (single players meant, not all of their toons added together) seem to profit in a legal way from it.
b)SOE has to cap the prices massivley to a lvl where selling HE gear doesn't make much sense anymore. That will NOT force people to sell their hard fought over HE gear underpriced it will just make them stop killing HE mobs for profit. So this would not only affect the Bazaar but also playing in high level zones could become more pleasurable again.

Have a nice weekend.

* Double Post, sorry *

Edited, Sat Jan 31 05:34:04 2004 by MNParadox

RANT
Stopping IGE is silly and a waste of time. It is a controlled environment, track plat growth and address the leaks. Fix the so called economy, when a merchant markup is somthing around 4000% how can you fault a player for trying to make a buck, set merchant purchase levels nearer to reality, say only a 150% markup. The Nexus and bazaar is an embarassment, wonder who they credit with that Roger Korman ? Honestly, set up consignment vendors in towns around norrath, charge a fee, allow /bazaar access from any zone and make a run to Kelethin worth a few pp, or save the effort and buy in Shar Vahl. Why pursue jewelcrafting, can't make anything close to drops, waste of time and effort, why can't a wizard and an armor smith enchant a star ruby with a fire buff, clicky th at needs to be recharged ? or simple spell imbuement into a disposable item for use later, creates work, cash movement and player interest...sigh but SoE is not interested in that....instead we get a Zerker, the uber DPS ? what is a warrior I ask, beside sadly neglected, but the solutions for that are even easier and more obvious...gnight all

/RANT

there is only one true way to fix this. It will cost a lot of RL money.

1) Have a bunch of people my plat from IGE/Mysupersell.
2) Wait a few weeks to a month and complain to PayPal that you didnt recieve your goods and you want your money back.
3) After a short fight with PaypalYou will get a statment, form Paypal and IGE that you got you plat, so go away.
4) This statement is now public record.
5) With said public record, start a class action lawsuit agaisnt Sony stating- This company is holding me to rules in the ELUA, that everyone is supost to abibe to, but is not holding everyne to the rules. You are now sueing for a full refund of all money spent on your EQ account for false advertisment.
6) Post your law suit on many sites, and have as many people join as possible.

And yes I did do a little research, and if everything gose right, they problem will be fixed. Though all EQ and EQ2 may be gone forever, but it will fix the problem for the next wave of games.

Sorry more than one post,

Edited, Sat Jan 31 09:28:27 2004 by Phygon

This isn't a problem and here is why:

Inflation is a natural cause of the new, improved way Sony is handling gear upgrades (most likely to make plat selling pointless). With LDON you no longer have to buy the armor you need, you can earn it. So now you have around 10K sitting in the bank which you would have otherwise spent on minor equipment upgrades. So now a lot of people have more plat just due to the revised gear upgrading scheme. The result of this? People are willing to spend more plat on ornate and such since plat is no longer as valuable to them. LDON is the first expansion to cause inflation of prices rather than deflation. People are just shocked to see prices go up rather than down as they have with previous expansions.

Some people whine that ornate is too expensive. These are the people that have never seen a piece of ornate drop in thier life. To think that you should be able to wear items that you could never obtain for yourself is stupid. The inflation of ornate prices is a good thing. The bazaar is best used to swap around ornate pieces that you don't need for ones you do need. Once you get an ornate drop, it doesn't matter if ornate goes for 2K or 200K to you... you get the better price when selling, and pay it back when buying. This is the way this game is supposed to work. It shuts out those that could never get an ornate drop on thier own from buying it in the bazaar.

You think Sony is doing nothing to address this problem? Some technical solution such as tracking IPs is a waste of effort, and will likely result in Sony getting sued at some point. The hackers will always find new and improved ways to work around whatever Sony uses to detect them. Sony isn't going to waste its effort on a plat selling goose hunt like the music industry has done with mp3 trading, to little effect. Instead they will take the smart route, which is to make the game less intensive on farming plat and more intensive on earning your own gear. Hence we have LDON where you don't need plat to get your items. I'll bet the new expansion releases gear under a similar system that is better than ornate. Now a whole bunch of plat sellers are going to be stuck with rapidly devaluing gear.

I've never bought or sold plat in my time with EQ. I know others that do, but it doesn't affect me. I am clever enough to camp my own uber gear so I'm not forced to pay the outrageous prices in the bazaar. If anything price inflation causes me to rely on my own self to get the gear I need, which is the point of playing a game. I've noticed that people on my server are trying to corner the market on VRoG. That doesn't bother me either... now I insta sell metallic liquids for 5K when they went for 2K before. The ring value has only gone up to 7.5K from 6K due to the millions of VRoGs that are out there. And besides, when I have mine made rather than paying to buy one, the inflated price has no effect on me.

It's just not a huge issue, and something that will go away as Sony introduces more armor systems that don't depend upon plat.

This is exactly the problem. We are spoiled people who expect immediate gratification, and are willing to pay to achieve it. The people who played EQ in 1999 were thrilled with the "crappy" gear that you can get in zones like Lower Guk, but if you talk to most new players with less than a year in the game they will do nothing but complain about how they absolutely must get ornate armor or the game is not worth playing. It is *this* attitude that offers IGE the opportunity to thrive, as these impatient players decide that they are willing to trade $150 for 150k to buy ornate rather than invest hundreds of hours earning 5pp per frog in Guk.

IGE exists because people buy platinum.
People buy platinum because they are impatient.
People are impatient because our society raises them that way.
Want IGE gone? Revamp the modern American value system.

Good luck. =)

Edited, Sat Jan 31 12:36:17 2004 by Haggr

I have re-read this entire thread, and as I said in my previous post the Bazaar is a perfect Free trade consumer based economy and the solotuion to the high prices is not "SOE Net Police" or Tom Ridge and the Department of Homeland security (it IS just a game after all) the solution is like the Bazaar economy in OUR the players hands. If you do not want to pay 500,000 plat for an item if you feel its not worth the price Dont pay it simple as that... Do you Like when the Government tells you you can not buy a game or book or movie? of course not! and if you had that rare piece of Ornate that you did not need you would not like being told you can not sell it for over say 5K. Realize this we are in control here, If the players stop buying PP they will stop selling it, if we start using a barter system to get uber gear, or camp it ourselves or just flat refuse to pay the overpriced prices then prices will drop...
As for SOE and them not caring about EQ Players...Well Duh, show me ONE mega corporation that actually CARES about their end line consumers... They dont they just pay people to find out the cheapest and most efficient way to seperate you from your cash that is how business works....All you have to do to realize this is /petition or /report one time some one kill stealing or intentionally training and see if you ever get a reply or just do a /who gm all and realize that a gm is the rarest spawn in the game.

As for IGE using seaerch bots... Does it make any sense that a NORMAL player can not use third party software and get away with it but IGE can have third party software on multiple accounts on EVERY server including Ledgends? only 2 possible explinations either the Bot dont exist or SOE and IGE are working togather or are one in the same.
Now SOE and IGE working togather or one in the same is just plain silly that would open them up to WAY too many law suits and high profit loss risk. So you figure it out its not that hard.

You want things to change in the way SOE does business be come a major stock holder and tell them that is the ONLY way they will actually listen to you as long as they are making money doing things the way they are.

SO what is the source of this Problem
IGE : no they are just a company that found a service that people were willing to pay for and are using that idea to make a fortune
SOE : No see IGE above
The Bazaar structure : No its a tried and tested free market consumer driven economy
The Players : BINGO.... We players being willing to Pay high PP for items, being willing to go online and Buy plat and accounts are the source of the inflation... how do we fix it Again I say just stop paying those prices...its called a boycott

Just my opnion I may be wrong

Silvertear

I know this goes on on TP. I have always tried to keep my vender prices lower so that real players could afford my stuff. I mean it didnt cost me anything in the first place i killed something to get it and hopefully got xp doing it. In recent months i had noticed that as soon as i sign my trader on the same guy would show up in a second and clean my inventory of certain items. it saddens me to think that i have been supplying these folks with the means to rip off others :( I have adopted the policy of watching my trader the first 10 mins hes up if anyone just appears(doesnt walk upto me)i shut him down.

To me it would seem ther are a few things that could be tried.

First a couple dozen ogres standing in the bazaar entrences would shut off access and probaly cause a riot and get SOE attention focused on the issue.

Second if all items where assigned a vender value. A max price as to what it could be sold for. (ie a BD sells for 198 and can be bought back from vender for 246 the max price a player can sell one for is 246) This would be painful to alot of folks but would end the ability of these companys to set prices. if SOE does it they can not. Yes it would be a big to patch to add this to every game item but it would be an end of issue patch and a solid blow to IGE.