Every time I see something posted by Verant about this or that item,
harvesting, twinking, or no drop, I always see them saying the same thing:
'We want this to be a viable player based economy'. Well guess what guys,
it's not working and it's failing fast.
First, let me start by saying, I'm not an economist. I've never taken a class in economy or business of any kind. What I do have is 30 years real word experience and now 12 EQ lives. I have been playing video games for approximately 20 years (their entire existence), various Role Playing games for approximately 20 years (nearly their entire existence), and been playing EverQuest since it's release to the public.
In the past few weeks I've seen a few trends that are starting to disturb me.
I was passing through Highpass Hold to give something to a friend last night. Nothing special, a Keeper Robe +2 int. Certainly nothing more or less than he should have at 16 th. However what disturbed me upon entering Highpass last night was that there were 7 people in the entire zone. There was no one camping the orcs (oddly enough I actually didn't see any). There was no one camping the gnolls (again very few for some reason). They had not zoned out to Kith due to a train, or E Karana, or Highpass Keep. They simply weren't there. The zone was empty.
Only a short 4-6 months ago when I was 17 th (to 23 rd) I was hunting heavily in Highpass. On any given night there were probably upwards to 40+ people in there. The average player count for each side was at least 6-12 players. Hunting for kills was sometimes competitive, but people usually kept calm about it. SBH and the PGT / Darkwood were highly sought after items. It was a very big deal to get one. Today there basically a very low priority item. Usually a 'first buy' for players of very low level.
More and more I'm seeing under 10 ths get things that, in those days, people who were 20-30 th were lucky to get. I've seen FBR common equipment on starting or low level characters (under 10 th). And often I see heavier armor, bronze, steel, crafted, etc, on the same low level melee classes.
One of my strongest memories of EQ was the day I went to Mills, young smithe on E'ci showing much prowess at smithing. It was in my first life, a paladin life, purchasing my first piece of real armor, a banded bracer. I paid something like 15 plat for that one banded bracer. I don't regret this purchase, in fact this one piece of banded was my highest piece of armor for many lives to come. I am very proud of this accomplishment.
Today, banded is a rare find, it's so worthless it's sold to players at less than the npc's would pay because they don't want to feel like their trashing it.
People are always buying / getting the newest shiniest thing. What Verant is forgetting, is that none of these older things are being destroyed. People have no choice but to pass them on.
Summary / Solution / Truth
Verants ideal of a player based economy doesn't really work.
Under 10 th level characters are running around, with equipment that at one time was 10+ levels better than they should have.
Supply and demand, that's what it's all about. What's going on here is an over surplus of the 'old' items. A new item comes into the world, or is acquired by a higher level person, and an older item they no longer need is passed down.
What we see happening here is the same way I used to play D&D when I was about 10. It's called 'Hack and Slash'. In the 'Hack and Slash' D&D games if you didn't get a special magic item during a game something was wrong. If you didn't have a dozen magic items on you to boost your stats, something was wrong.
In later years, mostly my mid to late teens, and after a short pause, in my early 20s, I played more Role Playing based games. The focus wasn't on the items and went more to the struggle itself. An entire game would lead to one person getting maybe one special thing.
EverQuest has both extremes happening here. In Norrath more and more items are passed down daily, making things of higher level more accessible to the lower level players, devaluing that equipment daily. In the Planes if your lucky one person may get one special thing. You suffer several deaths in search of that one rare drop (that is often no drop).
Verants idea of a player based economy is not flawed. The way they are currently executing that idea is.
The only suggestion I can currently think of to help would be to introduce a level minimum for each item. This would at least slow the over surplus down, and retain an items value.
Sure there may be an over surplus of some items, but they would still hold a value. That PGT or SBH attainable only at 15 th + level would still be of that level. That Executioners axe that requires you to be 30 th+ level to attain would still have value. Maybe not that level, maybe say the PGT should be 10 th+, and Exe 20 th+, but assign items level requirements in order to equip an item. If bronze is 10 th+, and Banded has no lv requirement, Banded would still be of high value to those under 10 th level.
I really would prefer not to see 1st level Iskar with full crafted and Exe axes, or SMRs and Orbs, but at this rate it's going to happen. (Especially since 90%+ of the Iskar will be players who are not new players to EQ.)
As I said before, I'm not an economist, but I do know what I've seen. I've seen 10 ths - 20 ths running around recently with things 20 ths and even 40 ths use.
I'm all for a player based trade economy, but with things as there going, it will just be a geometric scale with the aging of a server that's not healthy for anybody.