Sad State of Siege Economy

[TheScoundrelRico]

It's pretty sad to see that inflation has really hit this shard hard. It used to be the one shard that had it's economy in control.

The last time I played (6 years ago) big ticket items were 1 million (and even at that price alot of people balked). So what happened?

How did the economy inflate so much? Is there a way to transfer gold and character to Siege now and cash from the prodo shards has made it's way here? I know there are brokers (they seem to always be around) have they figured out a way to get gold here?

Just wondering since I saw a 1 year reward sell for 5 million? LOL...la

 

[ApollyonSP]

I'm now working only 66 hours per week, down from 100 hours per week in Summer. So now I will have some free time to work on building the SP economy and creating a new foundation. I've been planning to do this for a couple years now, but haven't had the time. Now I will have a few spare hours each week.

So this matter will be resolved eventually, if SP is patient.

 

[ApollyonSP]

By the way, to answer your question, the Veteran players are to blame here. The veteran guilds and players, like Gilfane, have hoarded billions of gold and rares over the years. The economy is stagnant. New players have access to nothing, and generally "get help" like 1 million gold donation from vet players.

This is wrong, and cause for the inflation. Blame the Veterans (like Tina_Tink).

 

[FrejaSP]

It's pretty sad to see that inflation has really hit this shard hard. It used to be the one shard that had it's economy in control.

The last time I played (6 years ago) big ticket items were 1 million (and even at that price alot of people balked). So what happened?

How did the economy inflate so much? Is there a way to transfer gold and character to Siege now and cash from the prodo shards has made it's way here? I know there are brokers (they seem to always be around) have they figured out a way to get gold here?

Just wondering since I saw a 1 year reward sell for 5 million? LOL...la

It have to do with some 1 years rewards being very valuable on Siege,

Red Soulstone, any new Siege player need them for him self
Commodity Deed Box, Very useful to move heavy stuff from bank, ship, vendor
Crystal Portal, with no free recall, this are very bice to have
Corrupted Crystal Portal, with no free recall, this are very bice to have

 

[FrejaSP]

By the way, to answer your question, the Veteran players are to blame here. The veteran guilds and players, like Gilfane, have hoarded billions of gold and rares over the years. The economy is stagnant. New players have access to nothing, and generally "get help" like 1 million gold donation from vet players.

This is wrong, and cause for the inflation. Blame the Veterans (like Tina_Tink).

Do you know, the only one you hurt with remarks like this is yourself

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Crystal Portal, with no free recall, this are very nice to have
Corrupted Crystal Portal, with no free recall, this are very nice to have

To prevent me from having to dig around for the information, can you explain what these two items do, and what is the difference between the standard portal and the corrupted one?...la

 

[FrejaSP]

Commodity Deed Box - Allows players to fill and redeem Commodity Deeds in their homes.

• Crystal Portal - Allows players to teleport directly to a bank or moongate by speaking a vocal command. Must be locked down to work

• Corrupted Crystal Portal - Allows players to teleport directly to a dungeon by speaking a vocal command. Must be locked down to work

 

[Revvo]

I paid 50 million for my first hat of the magi and that was about 10 years ago and 1/3's regularly sold for 1-2 million with no other mods, now the biggest items i see are around 15-20 million on vendor search.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

By the way, to answer your question, the Veteran players are to blame here.

I guess that makes sense. I have been digging around on MyUo to see what various guilds are up to. It appears most guilds these days are filled with stealth tamers. I would imagine most of their in-game time is spent farming. With farming comes lots of gold and with all of that gold they are able to out bid regular players.

Not sure how anyone can counter act that, but thanks for giving it a try...the bids on items I have seen the last few weeks are
ridiculous to say the least...la

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

1/3's regularly sold for 1-2 million with no other mods

Hmmm, I guess I don't recall prices that much, or that I was charging far under market value for those items. I regularly sold those for much cheaper...back in the days when it was easy to steal one or two of those a night...la

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Commodity Deed Box - Allows players to fill and redeem Commodity Deeds in their homes.

• Crystal Portal - Allows players to teleport directly to a bank or moongate by speaking a vocal command. Must be locked down to work

• Corrupted Crystal Portal - Allows players to teleport directly to a dungeon by speaking a vocal command. Must be locked down to work

I knew about the CDB, actually had two of them which ended up going IDOC with my old house.

The other two items have no place on Siege, imo. Sad that the developers keep making items that make the game easier to play without having to interact with others. LOL, can you imagine if the Orcs had access to those?...la

 

[Revvo]

This was probably before that, not long after publish 16? With trammel and doom.

Another reason some 1st year rewards are 5 million is they were introduced after soulstones became 1st year rewards so they became pricey based partially on the value of the stone.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

This was probably before that, not long after publish 16? With trammel and doom.

Another reason some 1st year rewards are 5 million is they were introduced after soulstones became 1st year rewards so they became pricey based partially on the value of the stone.

Oh, I remember when soulstones were introduced. I have about 15 of them but back when I last played they ran about 1 million per. Jumping from 1 to 5 million in about 6 years just seems odd here on Siege. *shrugs*

Seeing CN's post asking for 13 (corrected for accuracy) million for a months game time is crazy too. But, I'm sure there are plenty of people who can afford it with their tamers and all of the IDOCs that have dropped over the years...la

 

[ApollyonSP]

Straight up buying, selling, trading, auctions will break up the stagnant economy and allow it to flow. This would create more reasonable prices around the board. But it takes about a year investment into the SP economy to really see any gold out of it.

It's good and bad. It basically causes new players to have to devote a year worth of time before they can really begin "playing" the game.

Otherwise new pvp players, for example, are only going to fight other stacked geared vets. It's no fun. But that comes with the territory of having 10 year veterans. I mean, shouldn't there be rewards and advantages to such a devoted player base?

So there are two sides here. But overall just trading goods will help the shard immensely.

 

[SpyderBite]

I'm not sure how much of an impact this has had on the economy, but the Commodity Brokers in New Magincia are new since I last played. They buy resources from players without any interaction between the buyer and seller. Very few Brokers actually sell anything. Again, I don't know if this has had any kind of impact on the economy. But it seems like an awfully one sided system.

 

[FrejaSP]

I knew about the CDB, actually had two of them which ended up going IDOC with my old house.

The other two items have no place on Siege, imo. Sad that the developers keep making items that make the game easier to play without having to interact with others. LOL, can you imagine if the Orcs had access to those?...la

As you only can use them from a house, they do help Sieges non mages getting around. A lot houses offer public access to them, so players can get around without a lot running.
The no recall was added to Siege so people could not use it to get away if attacked or if attacking

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

As you only can use them from a house, they do help Sieges non mages getting around.

Yep, and this is why they shouldn't be on Siege...then again, neither should soul stones (but since they are, I use them). All this does is give people a way to travel without having to interact with others, not quite what Siege needs. Half the fun of the game was the interaction had while traveling from town to town...la

 

[TheDrAJ]

If he was asking 31 mil for 1 month game time code id be quite shocked. Maybe he meant 3 months or you misread it. Gold on Siege is about a dollar a million and about .15 to .20 cents on standard servers (based on Soul Stone selling).

A hugh amount of gold was taken out of the economy to support trade deals and I would have thought that that would drive prices down (and certain items have decreased in price).

But as Baby Doll has pointed out more than once - it is supply and demand that sets the prices.

 

[FrejaSP]

Yep, and this is why they shouldn't be on Siege...then again, neither should soul stones (but since they are, I use them). All this does is give people a way to travel without having to interact with others, not quite what Siege needs. Half the fun of the game was the interaction had while traveling from town to town...la

I rather saw Stealth removed from Siege or nerfed so it only was useful for moving very slow and careful when hidden

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

But as Baby Doll has pointed out more than once - it is supply and demand that sets the prices.

Nah, I disagree. If players weren't so hell bent on having every item in the game, they wouldn't be so quick to purchase something at the outrageous prices being asked. But since it's only online gold they have piles of, what's it matter to them if they over pay for pixels...la

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

I rather saw Stealth removed from Siege or nerfed so it only was useful for moving very slow and careful when hidden

Stealth is only part of the issue...and probably not the biggest part.

Sure people stealth around (which has become much easier) but there really aren't that many new players on Siege any more. I remember the days when few players had enough magery to gate around. Some because they couldn't afford the regs (thanks for reg free suits) others because they didn't have room in their templates to gate around (thanks to soul stones).

Again, I'm not sure the problem can be corrected...I just wanted to share what I've seen over the last week of my return to the game...la

 

[FrejaSP]

I do miss, when miners was busy at the mining caves, where we had lumbers cutting trees, where young players was killing the mobs in the forest.
The new loot should bring back some actions at overland but as very few use metal armor and not many need wood for anything, we do not see a lot miners and lumbers around.
The traders quests should help too but this stupid orange flagging just for being in a town to long seem to stop players from doing this quests, same with fishing quests.
It's like the shard are waiting for something to get solved

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

I do find it funny that anyone on Siege would have issue with turning orange. The only people I've bumped into in towns are those looking for a fight, or checking out the RtB.

Everyone else is hidden. So what if you turn orange? It's not like anyone will see you...la

 

[FrejaSP]

I do find it funny that anyone on Siege would have issue with turning orange. The only people I've bumped into in towns are those looking for a fight, or checking out the RtB.

Everyone else is hidden. So what if you turn orange? It's not like anyone will see you...la

Siege do have a large non PvP community, they accept the risk for dying outside town but they like being safe in town. the 8 hours timer will help, much better than being perm orange or having to ask a VvV to kill them. I still believe 20 min orange should be enough for being to long in a town with a battle going on. 8 hours for interacting is fine.

Yes sadly a lot are using stealth, I find that very sad

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Yes sadly a lot are using stealth, I find that very sad

But if we didn't use stealth, I wouldn't have been able to snag your jack-o-lantern the other night. ...la

 

[Fogsbane]

From my limited perspective ~

The ability to use Advanced Character/Mythic Character tokens, Secondary Housing allowance, and Vendor Search have all greatly contributed.

All of these things have also been cause for more people on Siege in general. (last two years mainly)
More demand seems to me to be one cause of the recent inflation.

I'm not convinced of ApollyonSp's Veteran argument cause, but understand the comment of million giveaway causing devalue of gold.

 

[FrejaSP]

But if we didn't use stealth, I wouldn't have been able to snag your jack-o-lantern the other night. ...la

I don't mind thieves using stealth, I mind everyone using stealth when traveling

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

The ability to use Advanced Character/Mythic Character tokens, Secondary Housing allowance, and Vendor Search have all greatly contributed.

Yeah, I heard that they are allowing the advanced characters onto Siege in general chat the other day. I was shocked...and appalled...la

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

I don't mind thieves using stealth, I mind everyone using stealth when traveling

Yeah, I think that started back before I quit. The Luna PvPers were complaining about the stealthing tamers. I remember back in the day, it was very common for people to have hiding on their templates, but stealth?

Maybe if they made detect and tracking work better more people would have them in their templates...just to find the stealthers...la

 

[FrejaSP]

Yeah, I think that started back before I quit. The Luna PvPers were complaining about the stealthing tamers. I remember back in the day, it was very common for people to have hiding on their templates, but stealth?

Maybe if they made detect and tracking work better more people would have them in their templates...just to find the stealthers...la

I do miss only needing a little tracking skills to track players

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Oh, don't get me wrong...I do think a player should have GM tracking to track a GM hider. I would love to see some type of Detective improvements made to give people a little more reason to play that side of the game.

One of the shards I used to play had an awesome system in place. Dagashi (name from the past) and I had hours of fun on that shard (he was a detective)...la

 

[ApollyonSP]

Two points to address:

1. The bazaar merchants don't sell items, because there is no demand for resources. Why would there be? Which leads to point two...

2. Crafters are practically useless and need a huge overall. There's no reason to have more than 2 or 3 crafters on the entire shard. And the longtime crafters stopped crafting a long time ago. Nobody needs crafters. They're practically useless, especially with the game putting more focus on drop mob NPC weapons, gear, and armor. I disagree with this. Crafters should make the best gear in the game. And it should be difficult. But crafting is too easy and outdated.

So this creates a huge problem in the economy too. The main economic flow comes from rare trading, weapon and armor trading, and miscellaneous goods.

Crafting and resource gathering is useless as a whole, and quadruple worthless on siege perilous. It's a real shame.


Ultima Online really needs somebody like me in charge to make the appropriate changes. The first thing I would do is overall the resource and crafting aspect of the game, make it demanding, challenging, and always relevant, whether low population or high population shard, whether newbie or veteran player.

But these types of big changes won't happen. So I'd bet on spurring the economy with rares, weapon and armor drops. Other than that, forget about it.

 

[ApollyonSP]

One more quick point....

You can see how badly the NPC loot and crafting system was designed, with one simple observation.

Cursed and decaying items. A Legendary crafter should create weapons and armor 4x better than any drop that an NPC can give. And THOSE 4x better weapons and armor, should be cursed and decaying. They should have a short lifespan. That way this would create a repeat demand for legendary crafters. And increase the resource requirements by a lot. This would revitalize crafting and resource gathering.

You see how cursed/decay items are only dropped by NPCs? Bad design. Obvious.


This is one of many reasons why I should be in charge and leading such changes.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

This is one of many reasons why I should be in charge and leading such changes.

Not to mention how humble you are...la

 

[Tjalle]

Cyber's post says 13M, not 31.

As for the economy (from my eyes), something happened a couple of years ago around the same time Rumpy was active. This is not me blaming him for anything, just using his name as a reference in time.
What happened then felt like someone opened a gold faucet. Everybody and their mother, including and especially new players to the shard, seemed to have 50M+ to spend on items so when an item was for sale they wouldn´t mind to overpay just to get a quick buy. And then that price would be the new market price.
And then the next time a similar item was for sale someone overpayed to secure his buy and thus creating a new and even higher starting price. And it continued like that for a while and the prices pretty much stayed up there.

Right now, the trade deals are the Siege economy's best friend and hopefully prices will lower themselves over time...

 

[GarthGrey]

Oh, I remember when soulstones were introduced. I have about 15 of them but back when I last played they ran about 1 million per. Jumping from 1 to 5 million in about 6 years just seems odd here on Siege. *shrugs*

Seeing CN's post asking for 31 million for a months game time is crazy too. But, I'm sure there are plenty of people who can afford it with their tamers and all of the IDOCs that have dropped over the years...la

I"M fairly certain that gametime code is priced that way for one particular customer with a pretty huge checkbook.

 

[GarthGrey]

Prices are high because of greed, plain and simple. If I had 600 mil sitting on my vendors covering fees, then I too would put a whetstone on my vendor for 8 mil and simply wait until it sells, or do a search, find all of the other ones for sale lower, go out and buy them till they're all gone. Then put one on my vendor holding tons of mils , price it high and wait. There are several vendors that do this very thing, not calling any name out in particular, but the truth is the truth. Our economy is out of whack because of greed, period.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

The only way to correct that is to refuse to pay what they are asking and wait for prices to drop. Unless that happens, the prices will continue to rise...la

 

[GarthGrey]

Cyber's post says 13M, not 31.

As for the economy (from my eyes), something happened a couple of years ago around the same time Rumpy was active. This is not me blaming him for anything, just using his name as a reference in time.
What happened then felt like someone opened a gold faucet. Everybody and their mother, including and especially new players to the shard, seemed to have 50M+ to spend on items so when an item was for sale they wouldn´t mind to overpay just to get a quick buy. And then that price would be the new market price.
And then the next time a similar item was for sale someone overpayed to secure his buy and thus creating a new and even higher starting price. And it continued like that for a while and the prices pretty much stayed up there.

Right now, the trade deals are the Siege economy's best friend and hopefully prices will lower themselves over time...

I"ll tell you what happened, we got an influx of Atl players with billions there who came here, and then Sieges richest folks took their 8-1 ration gold trade and made them all instant Siege Rich. Hell we had an auction recently where someone I've never even heard of won an item for around 30 mil because no one else could afford that for 1 item. All of which was handed over to them on their first day for 8-1 atl gold. And that's still happening because we don't really have a truly committed Siege population. We still have a ton of vets that log in here once in a while and pretend they're Siege Community leaders, when in fact they spend more time on their prodo shard farming so they can continue they're 8-1 gold swap. I"m not hoarding gold on vendors and chests and in the corners of my house. I'm hoarding resources from sinking ships and stuff. Mainly because it doesn't sell worth a damn. And somewhere along the way I've forgotten what I'm ranting about

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

I never did understand the desire to have as much in game gold as possible. For the longest time, I never had a house because I never sold anything I stole (I would turn the weapons into ingots and leave them on the steps of the mark).

I don't even know how I ended up with the gold I have in my bank now...must have been from IDOCs or stealing checks (I loved finding people who would put checks in pouches)...la

 

[Victim of Siege]

I"ll tell you what happened, we got an influx of Atl players with billions there who came here, and then Sieges richest folks took their 8-1 ration gold trade and made them all instant Siege Rich. Hell we had an auction recently where someone I've never even heard of won an item for around 30 mil because no one else could afford that for 1 item. All of which was handed over to them on their first day for 8-1 atl gold. And that's still happening because we don't really have a truly committed Siege population. We still have a ton of vets that log in here once in a while and pretend they're Siege Community leaders, when in fact they spend more time on their prodo shard farming so they can continue they're 8-1 gold swap. I"m not hoarding gold on vendors and chests and in the corners of my house. I'm hoarding resources from sinking ships and stuff. Mainly because it doesn't sell worth a damn. And somewhere along the way I've forgotten what I'm ranting about

I think you were Ranting about distinct lack of cookies on Siege

 

[GarthGrey]

If cookies would save the shard, I would pull the skill off the stone and start baking. In all seriousness though, we do need something here to change, I don't know what the change(s) should be, but they're definitely needed.

 

[Tjalle]

As stated, the trade deals is a good gold sink for us.
X active governors times 2 Mil is taken out of the economy each week. Not much in the larger picture at the moment but a step in the right direction...

 

[Victim of Siege]

If cookies would save the shard, I would pull the skill off the stone and start baking. In all seriousness though, we do need something here to change, I don't know what the change(s) should be, but they're definitely needed.

I have noticed a change in how often people play, of course I have no room to talk as I don't play as often as I us

As stated, the trade deals is a good gold sink for us.
X active governors times 2 Mil is taken out of the economy each week. Not much in the larger picture at the moment but a step in the right direction...

Well, except that now that we have the trade deals, I have Bargained for a Trade deal a few times in Vesper, and there is still more gold in the Coffers than when the trade deals started. I noticed that the average i get is ~45k and theres been 189 trade runs, so using even as low as 30k that's 5.5 mil. I could probably keep it going by myself no problem.

 

[kelmo]

Some few idiots came to Siege and decided they could set prices.

 

[GarthGrey]

Yeah I've slowed down on the trade deals too. I kinda wish they could only be originated in the city you're a citizen of, and that the rewards were wayy greater . That way we could truly judge the best city by the depth of their coffers, and the dedication of their citizens.

 

[GarthGrey]

Some few idiots came to Siege and decided they could set prices.

Sorry but there are still some old timers here, (at least they've been here longer than me, ) that still have pretty damn high prices.

 

[Donal Mor]

The best gold sink this server has ever had are 3x reagent prices.

Faction pricing caused inflation but faction pricing is gone now.

The LRC property has made reagent use for spells a thing of the past. As a cause of inflation this is huge. The LRC property needs to go away.

It is interesting to see that prices on vendors for reagents and potions have not yet adjusted to the absence of faction pricing. I suspect some people are sitting on an enormous stockpile of reagents. This prevents a simple means for a newer player to make money, i.e. reselling reagents.

 

[Donal Mor]

Rico,

I agree there has been a significant increase in inflation. Here is how I see it... a year or two ago I wandered back in here and at the time there was a huge reductions in standing houses. IDOCs everyday, everyweek. There were three or four guilds who dominated at the time and still largely do. You could count on them to be there vacuuming the stuff up. I couldn't get my hand on anything nor could any other newcomer unless they bandwagoned into one of those guilds. So a bunch of people who really didn't need anything were getting more of it. The things of value, for resale, they hoarded, the rest got binned for 'Clean Up Brittannia' points. So you can see castles plastered with CUB decor. All that new loot didn't drop prices at all but rather got hoarded into the hands of a few. Gold likewise became concentrated. There are a few people sitting on huge amounts of gold and they, by accident or design, control prices. When two bazillionaires negotiate an inflated price, it is chump change to them but to the outsider it is a big barrier to entry.

But the new guy... can he rely on gathering raw materials? Not really. These wealthy people and guilds are sitting on stock piles of materials looted from the mass idocs. Plus... because they are long time vets, they benefit strongly from those resource vet rewards; sheep, stump, mining cart, etc... There is somebody with a dozen or more mining carts in their house, a year 10 vet reward. Does that guy ever have to mine again? Sure you could buy one but at what ridiculous price? The game isn't in these raw materials anymore but rather in Imbuing components which in many cases still have to be gathered the old fashioned way. Unlike ingots or logs, these components are more difficult to acquire. It requires you to be geared for your protection (all 70s resist, LRC..?). And perhaps most importantly they are vastly more limited in location for gathering. The ranges for Bouras is comparatively small. The same can be said for the sources for Fairy Dust. So your vulnerability to banditry is commensurately higher.

The opportunities for redistribution are very limited anymore. A well geared player has a significantly greater advantage than they might have in the past.

One item I had tried to sell a couple years ago was heavy powder charges without much luck, not enough boaters and cannons are expensive to operate. Now with the King's Collection you can get a painting that makes them for you. It was a gold sink, shopping for saltpeter.

Soulstones.... everyone can have a crafter. There are fewer opportunities for redistribution.

 

[IanJames]

I understand what you are saying about the idocs and what not. We, Gilfane, have an organized system for finding and tracking them. We've put a lot of time and effort into that. That being said, we are happy to share the wealth, particularly if you are new to the shard and looking for resources. All you have to do is speak up and ask. If we know you are training carpentry and need a ton of lumber, we can make sure you get it.

As for scrolls, we sell anything we don't need on a vendor in New Magincia. Contrary to popular belief, we don't have a stash of 120 myst or 120 Magery scrolls. They are hard to come by. There is always someone in Gilfane who is training one or the other.

Crafting: Yes, it's too easy to make a suit, but if you are new and need an LRC suit, you should just ask. Someone will be happy to make one for you.

We give away a lot of stuff so please don't make us out to be the bad guys. We enjoy farming and idocing because it gives us something social to do as a group. We have specific rules to make sure all who participate share in the wealth at the end. Most of us don't need the gold or the loot. We've been running auctions to help pay for every governors trade deals. Many of the items for auction come from our own guild members who are happy to see these items out of their houses and into the hands of someone else who wants or needs them.

And yes, I agree the economy is inflated but if someone puts an item on a vendor below market rate it will just be bought by someone else who will place it on their vendor for a higher amount. I'd rather sell stuff to someone who needs it in a private sale.