Thank you Ashlynn.
The biggest problem with the game is player interaction & the economy.
Player interaction was reduced when repair deeds were added and armor and weapons became far too expensive to trust to your local smith/tailor.
The economy was also diminished at the same time when player shops all over the "world" were shut down due to some of these changes, many players were unable to keep up with the changes to the game or did not like the changes that were introduced... Basically, there used to be a time (as many 10+ year vets know) that you could walk a few screens and find a shop in Felucca that sold reagents, moonstones, scrolls, weapons, armor... these shops for the most part stopped existing in 2001.
Ever since, we have had all sorts of things introduced that have hurt the community and the economy of the game. Expansions brought new lands with new housing space and new dungeons which caused players to slowly become more and more spread out. Right now, there are places in the game that are very rarely visited. Of course the reduction in the player base can be partially blamed on this, but that is also due to many of the changes that can also be blamed on this. There was once a time that I could walk a couple screens from where my house is now in Felucca and find a couple shops, I used to see people run by my old house in the area multiple times per day, now I am lucky if I see more than 1 random person running by once a month.
People have been drawn to only certain areas on the game, it is completely imbalanced. I know the Dev team is working on rebalancing at least part of the game but there are other parts that need to be addressed as well.
The economy I believe could be partially fixed by reducing the amount of gold on any creature that has over 1500 gold, too good of a drop rate on paragon chests, and can be killed very quickly *cough*miasma*cough*.
The economy has also been hurt incredibly by the Cleanup system that is currently in place - this thing seriously needs to go - which has for the most part caused all old holiday items to be removed from vendors either due to the items being trashed for cleanup or the fear of these items being trashed for cleanup. The same can easily be said for many other things like Treasure Maps and any shipwrecked items. I know of at least 3 shops on my server that used to sell very cheap shipwrecked items and they pulled their entire stock. The cleanup system gives many of these items unrealistic values. (Seriously a Snow Globe or a Statue/Bust the dev team thinks is worth 1,250,000+ gold? I don't think so, and many other rare collectors don't think so either)
Gaining skills through throwing away gold is not an answer to fixing the economy, it can only hurt the economy and the community even more. If you want the economy and the community to be fixed, there is only one way it can be done and that is through the things I discussed above. If you want it fixed, petition the Devs to make changes to the areas I have mentioned.
So lets say they add something like power hour in shame to gain wep skill and maybe parry.
