Yeah, all that's going to do is add more gold, and the elite rich controllers will simply charge more for things, all along buying up anything players want and they find at "low" prices to resell at those higher prices. It will all be right back to the same issues we have right now, only at a greater inflation value.
Item based games have this issue. The same thing happens in WoW. If you're level 20 and you see a
blue item for sale at the Auction House for your level range, you can bet that the price will be too steep unless you mule some coin from another character. Because those items have value to the characters up the ladder of level grind and with greater funds. And they are rare.
But if those
blue items in WoW were abundant then this wouldn't be an issue. But then that would ruin the whole reason they are
blue.
UO in the old days didn't have this problem, before AoS. Things were simpler then, and everyone was able to make things and compete on the markets. These days,
it's the heavy powergamers who far surpass what others can do, leaving them out. These days UO's economy is more like WoW's, where there's a top end that's able to control markets. And because they are jacking up prices to their scale, it makes it
very difficult for others to buy their way through instead of doing the whole powergamer thing. Which is good, except for the way it affects the economy.
Now, that's not to say that there isn't a place for this sort of a system. It just needs to be kept away from the power balance issues of fighting and trade skills.
The place for this sort of system, like current, is in "the extras" that are outside of combat and skill gain, general merchandise, etc.
New abilities that aren't more powerful, just cool and/or do new things.
- Creating special lock downs for houses, animated globes and fire bound vessels and whatnot.
- New looks for gear.
- Crystal balls for scrying.
- Special pets and familiars.
- Imbued foods to change the colors of your mounts and pets.
- Etc., etc.
These are the kinds of things this current system should be for, requiring rare materials and extraordinary efforts for the rich and powerful to dally with. Placed on top of a pre-AoS system.