They just need to implement what most other MMO's have implemented -- a currency conversion system that allows players to dictate the price of gold by allowing players to sell Sovereigns to other players for in-game gold.
I've played many games that have this type of system: Guild Wars 2, Rift, and Wildstar for example, and I'm sure others out there do it. I think even WoW has a system that allows players to sell game-time tokens for in-game currency. It is essentially this:
- Player Buys Sovereigns
- Player goes to "Currency Broker" in game
- Player looks at current gold offers per sovereign that are out there
- If player likes the current offers, they can immediately "sell" the Sovereign for gold
- The seller(s) will then get the sovereign added to their account
- The buyer will get the gold added to their account
- If the player does not like the current gold offers per sovereign, they can instead list them for a different amount and wait for a buyer
This model works extremely well in other games, as it allows players to control the economy. If the players want 5000 Sovereigns to be worth 500 million gold, then they can set that price. If they want 5000 Sovereigns to be worth 2 plat, they can do that too. This would force gold seller sites to lower their prices to remain competitive, or drive them out of business by taking their power away.
If the above Broker system is too difficult to implement or too confusing, there are much simpler ways to do it that other games have done as well:
- You buy Sovereigns
- You then "Deed" the Sovereigns you want to sell
- You can now sell the Sovereigns Deed on Vendors, Auction Safes, or in General chat to others.
Not quite as seamless and efficient as the Currency Broker, and if there are still duping methods out there, you run the risk of the deeds being duped, but still allows players to control the price of gold and not 3rd party sites/sellers.
The question becomes though -- is it too late for UO to implement this system? Is the economy so over-saturated with gold that those with deep pockets would buy up all the sovereigns they could and drive the prices down? Maybe. That is why they need some kind of gold-sink to remove gold from the economy. Shiny one-of-a-kind deco rares that the certain personality type would spend 10p+ on just to say they are the only one in the game with this item.
If we could eliminate the 3rd party sites by not making it worth their time and put the power back into the players hands via a currency broker, it would drive a lot more sales of sovereigns to the Origin store. Maybe, just maybe, if enough people were buying more from the Origin store for UO, EA would see the potential UO has still and maybe Broadsword could get a bigger budget to expand the team (wishful thinking, but you never know).