Vendor fee, please devs, it is way to high

[FrejaSP]

I'm trying to run vendors selling imbued suits, shard is Siege Perilous.
@Mesanna @Kyronix
My Warrior Suit vendor do have 3 suit of 240k and 3 of 260k, together it is a value of 1.5 mill.
Vendor fee is 9,060 gp a day. If I sell fast, it is not a big problem, but sometimes suits may hang there 1-2 weeks.
If they hang there 10 days, it is a fee of 90,600 gp, that mean less profit for me.

Now I know what sell and I have loyal customers but for a new crafter, who try to sell suits, e easy stock for a mill or two, even when lesser suits of 100-200k, a few mage suit, a few luck suits, maybe warrior and warrior luck too, for male, female and garg. Just one of each = 12 suits.

It take time for a new crafter to get loyal customers so most give up as that little profit they get is not worth it.

Siege need well stocked vendors, not only with suits, but anything, combat stuff as well as deco stuff.

Why do we need so high vendor fee. could we at least make it a week or make it 0.1% instead of 0.6%

It's not like people use vendors for storage on Siege.

Please changes it

 

[Capt. Lucky]

Been complaining about vendors fees on the lower population shards forever (any shard but Atlantic that is)

 

[Drowy]

I would prefer a one time vendor when you put the item in the vendor. I would be fine with 1%-5% of the value of the item, as long as I dont have to pay for items not selling again and again.
I play on a small shard, so things may not sell for month. So if you want to make good profit, you can only put items in vendors that sell fast. I would like to put more high priced items and more items at all in vendors, but i just isnt woth the effort. I already have vendors I know i will make loss, just so the people can buy them once in a while when needed.
So if a player returns or a new player arrives, he complains why there arent many items for sale in vendors. Making it a one time fee would be a win win situation (more profit for the few merchants on small shards and more items to buy for players on the shard).

 

[kelmo]

I hope they listen, Freja. This is one we happen to agree on.

 

[FrejaSP]

I hope too Kelmo

 

[ShriNayne]

Would be nice to have a one-off fee that is applied when the items sells, but I guess then people would just use vendors for storing things. It is the main reason I don't bother having a vendor, for relatively new players it would be too expensive.

 

[Archnight]

for low populated shards

 

[Lord Nabin]

Fixing this everywhere would be nice.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Only pay fees on items 500k and over

 

[Lord Nabin]

No clue what the answer for this is and we have been through a few threads on this over the years.

Personally I am fine with some sort of fee. Setting it to a sliding scale would be fine. Especially if we could price items much higher.

We have a new currency in the market and you can't even price an item close to that on a vendor. An Auction safe there isn't a limit or a fee correct?

I don't know.

I like providing the basic every day living needs at my vendor house and it does keep bringing people back for the higher end items. It is a lot of work to keep making those items and the profit margin is very low if it exists at all. It would be nice to make a bit of gold for that effort and to be able to load up a vendor with those items for a week or two supply instead of having to do it daily do to the vendor fees.

 

[SugarMMM]

I'll put another vote in for changing the high vendor fees!

I pulled all of my vendors and stopped selling back when they changed the fees and gave crafters the pooh end of the stick. I'd really like it to go back to the way it was so I can clean out my houses, banks and character inventories!

 

[OREOGL]

Leave vendor fees alone on production shards.

3 gold per 500 is not outrageous by any standard.

 

[MalagAste]

I've always been torn when it comes to vendor fees... IMO many people charge way too (*&(*& much and well quite frankly I hope the item rots on there until it costs them 10x more to keep it there than if they had sold it for something reasonable someone might have bought it for... Just my opinion....


At the same time "some" people work very hard to maintain good decent vendors and to keep them stocked with needed items that people can and do use... and they could use the break... but sadly... those few folk are few and far between and more often than not it's just the guys out to make a RL profit from this game that have a ton of vendors and run multi-boxers to get everything including nice weapons and armor and Legendaries and such... and I honestly... would rather they never made a dime. So... I would rather keep the system we have than give them more of a break than they deserve.

Although these are the same folk that got all these crazy fees put in in the first place because they were the ones putting stuff on and off their vendors to "cheat" the system and not pay fees for their overpriced (*&U(*#...

 

[skett]

I'll put another vote in for changing the high vendor fees!

I pulled all of my vendors and stopped selling back when they changed the fees and gave crafters the pooh end of the stick. I'd really like it to go back to the way it was so I can clean out my houses, banks and character inventories!

Same here I have a lot of items I would like to sell but the fees aren't worth it more than likely I would take a lost on the items.

Over the last month I have been just trashing items at least I get a points I can use if they add something to the turn-in I want

It's a total waste

Like said above those that cheat hurts those that don't seems like the devs are trying to stop them in many ways but it always comes at the cost of the majority that don't cheat. Maybe instead of punishing the masses ban the bots and scripter. Less work less honest players quitting ? Nvm just keep adding new systems changing systems more bugs pissing off the masses.. how's this logic working for you? Looks to me like the shards are less and less populated....

 

[Scribbles]

If it were up to me i would:

1. Get rid of the cap of 175m
2. Make Items under 5m free of charge
3. Keep anything above 5m the same

 

[Akiho]

Leave vendor fees alone on production shards.

3 gold per 500 is not outrageous by any standard.

I agree that the vendor fee is not outrageous however, it does become outrageous when you want to sell key items and more so for newer players who dont have millions at the bank.

The players and greed are definately responsible in this respect. Even something as simple as a +20 Magery scroll still sells for 20-30 million on many shards. Straight away thats 180,000 a day just to keep one item on there. Yes you could undercut the competition but even at half price thats still 90,000 a day. And that is just one item as an example.

I'd be pretty happy with 1 gold per 500 and anything below 500 costs nothing.

Now I don't run a vendor 24/7 but when I get items of value that I already have or don't need, I like to pop them on a vendor. I use vendor search for the basis of a price and go from there. Sometimes the vendor fee just is'nt agreeable due to players over inflating prices. Unfortunately, over inflated prices won't end overnight.

 

[Lord Gandalf]

Introducing 50% vendor charge discount earrings on uostore, or as a vet reward would be a good idea imop

 

[OREOGL]

I agree that the vendor fee is not outrageous however, it does become outrageous when you want to sell key items and more so for newer players who dont have millions at the bank.

The players and greed are definately responsible in this respect. Even something as simple as a +20 Magery scroll still sells for 20-30 million on many shards. Straight away thats 180,000 a day just to keep one item on there. Yes you could undercut the competition but even at half price thats still 90,000 a day. And that is just one item as an example.

I'd be pretty happy with 1 gold per 500 and anything below 500 costs nothing.

Now I don't run a vendor 24/7 but when I get items of value that I already have or don't need, I like to pop them on a vendor. I use vendor search for the basis of a price and go from there. Sometimes the vendor fee just is'nt agreeable due to players over inflating prices. Unfortunately, over inflated prices won't end overnight.

Your argument for vendor fees is inflation? Wouldn't that mean fees should actually go up?

Regardless, if you elimate vendor fees or reduce them on production shards, inflation will kick in. Price of gold will drop and items will go up since gold is more abundant.

For example, if I took the 250m I made a week ago, and removed fees as I would have kept the 1.5m a day. Even reducing it to 1 is 500k.

And that's just me with about 3 vendors.

Sorry man, vendor fees are a necessary evil.

 

[FrejaSP]

3 gold per 500 is not outrageous by any standard.

It may not be for you, but lets say, I want to stock crafted funitures of 500 gp a piece. There are a lot of different kind of tables, chairs, boxes and for chairs and boxes, I will stock 4-6 of each.

I stock 100 items of 500 gp = 50,000 go
Vendor fee for a week = 100 x 3 x 7 = 2,100 gp

I sell 4 items this week = 2,000 gp

Lets say, I do the lumbering and mining myself for the resources and tools used to make the items so my cost is 0

Profit this week = sale price - vendor fee, so 2000 gp - 2100 gp = -100 gp

If I sell 5 items, my profit will be 400 gp, not really worth it.

No wonder I do stock a lot of crafted house deco.

Now back to my suits. When my vendors are stocked, there are:

3 Mage suit, 2 male and one female
3 Mage luck
3 Warrior
3 Warrior luck

That's 12 suit of 250k = 3 mill

Vendor fee for a week will be 3k for each 500k x 7 days = 126k

Now I do have to buy the resources to make the suits so including POF to get durability to 70-80.
So lets say my cost is 200k a suit

I sell 4 suit this week = 1 mill
Cost = 800k
Vendor fee = 126k
My profit =1m - 800k -126k = 74k, the vendor fee are higher than my profit. with 0.1 % vendor fee, the vendor fee would be 21k and my profit 179k

If a bad week, I may only sell 2 suit, it will cost me money

Sure if I sell all, my profit will be 474k but some weeks are very dead on Siege.

Vendor fee is one of the reason Siege and other shards have hard getting more players.

 

[petemage]

I read all those threads, but I don't think a lower vendor fee will help anyone in the end. It's not the fee that's the issue, it's just that the market on those low pop shards are pretty dead.

You only sell 5 out of 100 furniture within a week and loosing money over it? Well, maybe those are not in demand at all.
You complain vendor fee is eating your profit? Price it accordingly, let the customer pay it. It's 6% within 10 days, something 60% after 100(!) days. If you cant move the item within 100 days, well, maybe there is no demand for it.

Vendor fees have never been an issue even when I was a very new player with hardly 2 mil in the bank. The only problem is that there is just no customer base for a lot of stuff.

 

[Picus at the office]

It's Seige, go hard or go home.

 

[FrejaSP]

Vendor fees have never been an issue even when I was a very new player with hardly 2 mil in the bank. The only problem is that there is just no customer base for a lot of stuff.

It's more, that we do have a lot of different kind of stuff. Someone selling furnitures want to stock different kinds of tables, different kind of chairs, he want his customers to have some choices.

It's Seige, go hard or go home.

Who said Siege should be hard? It should be wild, but not hard.

 

[petemage]

It's more, that we do have a lot of different kind of stuff. Someone selling furnitures want to stock different kinds of tables, different kind of chairs, he want his customers to have some choices.

I get that, you want to RP some merchant and sell furniture. That's fine.

But reality in UO is: There is no one playing your RP customer. I never had to shop for some simple furniture, I just crafted them whenever I needed one. I presume many players are self-sufficient as well for those low-end stuff.

You want to move something that makes you a profit and moves fast? Well, then you have to cater to the market and stop selling furniture.
You want to keep up an furniture vendor for those 1 or 2 people a week? Fine. But don't complain it's not making you a fortune.

In the end it's your choice. But lower vendor fees won't change a bit on "demand" part the market situation. It's just so you can leave the stuff no one buys on your vendor even longer.

 

[Merion]

I would prefer a one time vendor when you put the item in the vendor. I would be fine with 1%-5% of the value of the item, as long as I dont have to pay for items not selling again and again.
I play on a small shard, so things may not sell for month. So if you want to make good profit, you can only put items in vendors that sell fast. I would like to put more high priced items and more items at all in vendors, but i just isnt woth the effort. I already have vendors I know i will make loss, just so the people can buy them once in a while when needed.
So if a player returns or a new player arrives, he complains why there arent many items for sale in vendors. Making it a one time fee would be a win win situation (more profit for the few merchants on small shards and more items to buy for players on the shard).

This!

 

[OREOGL]

It may not be for you, but lets say, I want to stock crafted funitures of 500 gp a piece. There are a lot of different kind of tables, chairs, boxes and for chairs and boxes, I will stock 4-6 of each.

I stock 100 items of 500 gp = 50,000 go
Vendor fee for a week = 100 x 3 x 7 = 2,100 gp

I sell 4 items this week = 2,000 gp

Lets say, I do the lumbering and mining myself for the resources and tools used to make the items so my cost is 0

Profit this week = sale price - vendor fee, so 2000 gp - 2100 gp = -100 gp

If I sell 5 items, my profit will be 400 gp, not really worth it.

No wonder I do stock a lot of crafted house deco.

Now back to my suits. When my vendors are stocked, there are:

3 Mage suit, 2 male and one female
3 Mage luck
3 Warrior
3 Warrior luck

That's 12 suit of 250k = 3 mill

Vendor fee for a week will be 3k for each 500k x 7 days = 126k

Now I do have to buy the resources to make the suits so including POF to get durability to 70-80.
So lets say my cost is 200k a suit

I sell 4 suit this week = 1 mill
Cost = 800k
Vendor fee = 126k
My profit =1m - 800k -126k = 74k, the vendor fee are higher than my profit. with 0.1 % vendor fee, the vendor fee would be 21k and my profit 179k

If a bad week, I may only sell 2 suit, it will cost me money

Sure if I sell all, my profit will be 474k but some weeks are very dead on Siege.

Vendor fee is one of the reason Siege and other shards have hard getting more players.

First, assigning theoretical values and numbers is not a sound base for reasoning.

Second why are you stocking 100 items if you're only selling 4 a week?

Third, Siege would arguably be about the only exception because they're applying the same vendor fee baseline to two different rule sets. You'd be better off arguing the inflation difference instead of how much it eats into your profits (in my mind).


Fourth, to be clear about the vendor fees, 100 items at 500gp would be 63 gp each or 6300 a day. I didn't mention the base 60 gp fee because I found it to be insignificant. Even with the added fee of the 3 gold is an excess of 2100 a week, which is insignificant for that week. If you're worried about the 3 gold, just mark prices at 499 because the fee rounds down so you do not accrue the extra 3 gold fee.

But if you sold all 100 items that week you just made 43,700 after a week, 37,400 next week, 31,100 the following week, 24800 the week after that. Which isnt 100% accurate math because your fees will actually go down as you sell things.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Vendors are just like your corner mom and pop store on any shard but Atl, Atl has all the big box stores. If you are paying to much fees then you are over stocking your shelves/selling the wrong items/over pricing your items. Shout out in Gen Chat and let people know what you are selling/drop ruins in Luna/hang out local on your shard.
You can not do away with vendor fees or everyone will just use vendors as storage lockers.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Why would other people using vendors to store stuff be a problem for me? Why should I care?

 

[OREOGL]

Why would other people using vendors to store stuff be a problem for me? Why should I care?

Primarily inflation and lag

 

[Uriah Heep]

Why would other people using vendors to store stuff be a problem for me? Why should I care?

+1 to this. Won't effect my gameplay at all.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Primarily inflation and lag

Maybe lag?? I can't believe in this day and time we even have to talk about lag. If I store all my Christmas deco on a vendor, and all my halloween on another vendor, and all my Easter on another...How the heck does that effect the value of a gp???

 

[OREOGL]

Maybe lag?? I can't believe in this day and time we even have to talk about lag. If I store all my Christmas deco on a vendor, and all my halloween on another vendor, and all my Easter on another...How the heck does that effect the value of a gp???

They're clearly separate issues.

What you stock does no affect inflation, if that's what you're asking.

 

[OREOGL]

+1 to this. Won't effect my gameplay at all.

Having no vendor fees would result the loss of the biggest gold sink in game.

Basic economics will tell you that will result in inflation.

 

[Drowy]

Make it a one time 5% or 10% fee then. Still a gold sink, but you never make a loss if you sell the item some time.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

Brought to you by The Rent is Too Damn High Party.

 

[Lady CaT]

I'm trying to run vendors selling imbued suits, shard is Siege Perilous.
@Mesanna @Kyronix
My Warrior Suit vendor do have 3 suit of 240k and 3 of 260k, together it is a value of 1.5 mill.
Vendor fee is 9,060 gp a day. If I sell fast, it is not a big problem, but sometimes suits may hang there 1-2 weeks.
If they hang there 10 days, it is a fee of 90,600 gp, that mean less profit for me.

Now I know what sell and I have loyal customers but for a new crafter, who try to sell suits, e easy stock for a mill or two, even when lesser suits of 100-200k, a few mage suit, a few luck suits, maybe warrior and warrior luck too, for male, female and garg. Just one of each = 12 suits.

It take time for a new crafter to get loyal customers so most give up as that little profit they get is not worth it.

Siege need well stocked vendors, not only with suits, but anything, combat stuff as well as deco stuff.

Why do we need so high vendor fee. could we at least make it a week or make it 0.1% instead of 0.6%

It's not like people use vendors for storage on Siege.

Please changes it

I'm all in favor of lower vendor fees! That way more people will place lots of items on vendors again and help drive down inflated prices with lots of competition!

 

[Tanivar]

Drop vendor fees for anything priced one million or less and raise double it for everything priced above one million to maintain the gold sink benefit and also restrain the ludicrous prices many charge in their greed to have megatons of platinum in their bankboxes that they will never use.

This will let us crafters stock a variety of goods to keep supplies for players available no matter how slow they sell, and keep the greedy from jacking their prices so high most things would sell for platinums instead of gold. If vendor fees dropped to nothing on high priced items, prices on vendors would skyrocket. You want that crimmy? It's been on my vendor for months now sucker, just cough up the 100,000 platinum price and it's yours.

 

[MalagAste]

Drop vendor fees for anything priced one million or less and raise double it for everything priced above one million to maintain the gold sink benefit and also restrain the ludicrous prices many charge in their greed to have megatons of platinum in their bankboxes that they will never use.

This will let us crafters stock a variety of goods to keep supplies for players available no matter how slow they sell, and keep the greedy from jacking their prices so high most things would sell for platinums instead of gold. If vendor fees dropped to nothing on high priced items, prices on vendors would skyrocket. You want that crimmy? It's been on my vendor for months now sucker, just cough up the 100,000 platinum price and it's yours.

Drop it on items under 1 mill... and don't double it over a mill but start at 10% and raise it another 5% per 10 Mill... If people want to make exuberant prices it'll cost them.

 

[OREOGL]

I'm all in favor of lower vendor fees! That way more people will place lots of items on vendors again and help drive down inflated prices with lots of competition!

Sorry that's not how it works

 

[Lady CaT]

Sorry that's not how it works

Drop vendor fees and I'll place maximum vendors at my house each filled with items for sale!

It's exactly how it works.

 

[OREOGL]

Drop vendor fees and I'll place maximum vendors at my house each filled with items for sale!

It's exactly how it works.

Sure, you can do this now.

But that isn't how inflation works.

It doesn't matter what items you stock, it matters because of the amount of currency in circulation.

 

[MissEcho]

Easiest way would be:

# charge a ONE TIME 10% fee on any item sold based on the SALE price. (so on a 1 million item: 900k goes to seller, 100k to vendor fee) Makes it simple to calculate what it is going to cost you irrespective of how long the item sits.

# to avoid item storage place a 5% fee on any item removed from a vendor (allow 1hr before this removal fee takes place to allow removal for mistakes etc) don't forget that people are hardly gonna store items they want to keep at low prices as others will buy them, so technically anyone trying to use vendors to gain storage is gonna price stuff high or risk actually selling it. Don't really think storage is an issue when any 'fee' is involved, but you can't have 0 fee or item storage is what happens.

# add a right click 'reprice' option so merchants can lower/increase prices without incurring a fee until the item is sold (item has to be on vendor for 24hrs at repriced amount before it can be 'removed' to stop people dropping prices to incur a lower removal fee)

The problem is not really the current 'amount' , it is that on small shards and on a lot of lower end items the profit margin is eaten up by the curent fee system as it is a 'compounding fee' and it increases depending on how long it takes to sell. There is no point dropping your prices to sell stuff really quickly if you make no profit, and also no point in selling stuff that is needed but due to low population takes ages to sell hence the compounding fee takes any profit you may make.

A flat 10% means the seller knows exactly what the 'cost' is and it doesn't matter how long it sits.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

Since gold rates vary shard to shard, just dump the vendor fees and charge a flat rate of x% at time of sale for items. X would equal a fair number determined by data mining, and a one time fee would still allow for gold sink but wouldn't break the bank for higher cost harder to sell items.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

Sure, you can do this now.

But that isn't how inflation works.

It doesn't matter what items you stock, it matters because of the amount of currency in circulation.

It is the value of the currency that affects inflation, not the amount of it. As gold gets cheaper to buy, the inflation rate adjusts accordingly.

 

[FrejaSP]

A flat 10% means the seller knows exactly what the 'cost' is and it doesn't matter how long it sits.

I believe they tried something like that once, not sure what went wrong. I remember it items was marked, when you removed them from the vendor.

I do like the fee to be a day but the current 0.6 % is to high. Making it one time would allow people to stock high price items, pay the one times fee and then they can sit there for months for free, I don't like that.

A suit of 250,000 gp with current fee:
Fee a day = 1,500 gp
Fee a week = 10.500 gp
Fee a month = 45,000 gp

Now lets see if we lower it to 0.1 a day.
Fee a day = 250 gp
Fee a week = 1,750 gp
Fee a month = 7,500 gp

My 12 stocked suits will still cost me 90,000 gp in a bad month with no sale, but it's still way better than 540,000 gp in fee for my 12 suits a bad month. That's more than the value of 2 suits.

For PvP players it mean a lot, that they know where to buy a new suit, when they die and get looted. They do not mind paying a fair price for the suit, but if no suit on vendor search, that fit their template, they will logout, play on prodo or try a different game.

Other shards do not have this issue but I can see of this thread, that vendor fee is a problem on other small shards too. Not being able to find the stuff you need to deco your house can be very annoying too.

Also the stall vendors in New Mag have an insane fee for selling stuff and most of them only buy as trying to sell stuff via them is not worth it.

 

[OREOGL]

It is the value of the currency that affects inflation, not the amount of it. As gold gets cheaper to buy, the inflation rate adjusts accordingly.

Yes, and what do you suppose happens to the value of currency as you pump more of it into an economy?

 

[PaulCH]

I believe they tried something like that once, not sure what went wrong. I remember it items was marked, when you removed them from the vendor.

I do like the fee to be a day but the current 0.6 % is to high. Making it one time would allow people to stock high price items, pay the one times fee and then they can sit there for months for free, I don't like that.

A suit of 250,000 gp with current fee:
Fee a day = 1,500 gp
Fee a week = 10.500 gp
Fee a month = 45,000 gp

Now lets see if we lower it to 0.1 a day.
Fee a day = 250 gp
Fee a week = 1,750 gp
Fee a month = 7,500 gp

My 12 stocked suits will still cost me 90,000 gp in a bad month with no sale, but it's still way better than 540,000 gp in fee for my 12 suits a bad month. That's more than the value of 2 suits.

For PvP players it mean a lot, that they know where to buy a new suit, when they die and get looted. They do not mind paying a fair price for the suit, but if no suit on vendor search, that fit their template, they will logout, play on prodo or try a different game.

Other shards do not have this issue but I can see of this thread, that vendor fee is a problem on other small shards too. Not being able to find the stuff you need to deco your house can be very annoying too.

Also the stall vendors in New Mag have an insane fee for selling stuff and most of them only buy as trying to sell stuff via them is not worth it.

Hmm...isn't the answer to be out there PKing more toons? Create more demand for your suits that way

But, seriously, it seems like you have a problem with either supply vs demand and / or advertising. For furniture, it appears as if demand is low so my suggestion would be to stock less but add a note on the vendor (maybe on a rune surrounded by gold coins to draw attention). Please place a book with custom orders in mailbox with an ICQ # (or another way of contacting buyer). Overall, I'm not sure if you can make a significant amount of GPs on furniture.

For the suits, it may be a question of advertising. I'd suggest a post once/day (or maybe once every couple of days) noting that the vendor has been re-stocked (@Idahoan, @Tiberius and a couple of others do this already). You may also need to drop runes (or books) in banks. I've also been offering a free gift on my vendor every time I stock it to either thank existing customers or draw new customers. For example, you may want to put a free piece of furniture on the suit vendor to advertise the furniture vendor and at the same time thank people for shopping at Tina's It may work to have the furniture vendor as a "loss leader" for the suit vendor which has much more potential to earn GPs, IMO. Sell the furniture at a very low cost or even zero to draw people to the suit vendor. It may also develop a customer base for furniture if you find it "flying off the shelf".

Ultimately, the question is: Is it game mechanics or game economics or both? Game mechanics would be if the vendor fee isn't realistic (if the vendor fee is higher on Siege than prodo then maybe it should be the same) or game economics would be that the products are not in demand and not profitable or simply require more advertising.

FYI, I'm pretty sure that I'll be a customer for your suits in the near future...still training up / developing my char on Siege and will soon require a better one than the one someone simply threw away near the Luna moongate.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

Yes, and what do you suppose happens to the value of currency as you pump more of it into an economy?

Not much. As I mentioned before, the economy is item based first, gold second. The real money in this game has always been tied to rares, there is more money in them than gold in the game. In fact, items are UO's *gold standard*. When they lose value, gold prices go up, and everything gets more expensive.

Pumping currency into the game just helps to disperse gold around a bit more, but at this point has minimal effect on the economy. Since the economy is item based, it would be better to focus one's energy on normalizing item values than trying to stop the flow of gold.

My solution? Ban the multiboxers from events. This will help boost participation from shard locals and help to normalize rares pricing (multiboxers have a history of lowering the value of rares to wholesale rates for quick sale, which in turn devalues the gold and items both). This should stop the growth of inflation, and perhaps even help to reverse it to an extent.

Of course this would require people to come back, and that will only happen if Broadsword takes a stand against the cheaters in the first place.

 

[PaulCH]

Not much. As I mentioned before, the economy is item based first, gold second. The real money in this game has always been tied to rares, there is more money in them than gold in the game. In fact, items are UO's *gold standard*. When they lose value, gold prices go up, and everything gets more expensive.

Pumping currency into the game just helps to disperse gold around a bit more, but at this point has minimal effect on the economy. Since the economy is item based, it would be better to focus one's energy on normalizing item values than trying to stop the flow of gold.

My solution? Ban the multiboxers from events. This will help boost participation from shard locals and help to normalize rares pricing (multiboxers have a history of lowering the value of rares to wholesale rates for quick sale, which in turn devalues the gold and items both). This should stop the growth of inflation, and perhaps even help to reverse it to an extent.

Of course this would require people to come back, and that will only happen if Broadsword takes a stand against the cheaters in the first place.

Did you ever notice that the first question about an event is "what was the drop?". This feels so wrong as I think that it should be about the event itself and not the drop.

I would love it if they started selling the event items on the UO store and made events about the events (content). UO gets the money for the sale of the rares and we get the fun of the event. Seems win / win. There could still be normal loot based on the current loot system but it would be more about the event / adventure than the loot.

**Edit** Since this is probably completely unrealistic then how about at least making the EM drops shard bound so they become a unique part of the shard's history?

 

[OREOGL]

Not much. As I mentioned before, the economy is item based first, gold second. The real money in this game has always been tied to rares, there is more money in them than gold in the game. In fact, items are UO's *gold standard*. When they lose value, gold prices go up, and everything gets more expensive.

Pumping currency into the game just helps to disperse gold around a bit more, but at this point has minimal effect on the economy. Since the economy is item based, it would be better to focus one's energy on normalizing item values than trying to stop the flow of gold.

My solution? Ban the multiboxers from events. This will help boost participation from shard locals and help to normalize rares pricing (multiboxers have a history of lowering the value of rares to wholesale rates for quick sale, which in turn devalues the gold and items both). This should stop the growth of inflation, and perhaps even help to reverse it to an extent.

Of course this would require people to come back, and that will only happen if Broadsword takes a stand against the cheaters in the first place.

Sorry this is wrong.

Items have nothing to do with inflation.

By any standard pumping more money into an already inflated economy will drive values down and prices up.

This is proven out by historical gold values.

This is also proven out by instore bought items. You do not lose value because you bought more of them.

They're priced because at current value of 10 cents a mil a $10 item is going to be worth 100m.

Historically, when gold was worth say $1, a mil, that same item would have been worth 10m.


Edited to add, you cannot compare inflation to event items because the values are not tangible.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

I get the notion I am debating with someone who thinks multiboxing is AOK. Subterfuge is obviously your best option. Toss the proverbial stick so to say, fetch? I got an idea for you, ask the rares collectors about your assessment and then ask them why inflation hasn't also affected the pricing on rares. If what you were saying held water, the items that sold for 1 billion 5 years ago should be selling for 3 billion now. Yet, strangely, this isn't the case.