EZ Server

I would like to open a discussion on the value of goods in the market because population density is too sporadic these days and there are lots of things in flux that have drastically changed the efficacy of currency.

We need to know basic exchange rates for things, and I think the standard should be server credits which serve as the backbone for all exchanges here.

So, we need to know the prices of all the things in relation to server credits.
PLat
GSoA
GSS
Essences each tier
EoN
SLS
Rainbows per 1k xp

In this manner we can encourage polite, guilt free trading on a more consistant basis. Let me know what you think, perhaps we  can put polls up or something?

I'll take a stab. I should preface this by saying I think this will be very different based on where you are in the game and this is coming from someone who is farming VP and trying to "finish up" to a silly level. I will also mention that I do not trade or accept things from anyone else so I have no dog in this fight, this is just a list of how I value things; someone who does interact with the economy may have a different opinion on the value of items that were (for instance) farmed more easily in the past or just over the history of the server (Gold, AA, SLS for instance). My value is based on how easy they are to farm now, the overall need of them across my raid etc. Also I'll normalize it to the GSS, I don't like using credit since those are directly tied to cash but you can easily just swap in however you value the credit to renormalize.

1 GSS = 0.5 GSOA = 10,000,000 pp = 25 EON = 20 SLS = 100k AA = 100 Qvic = 50 CT = 20 D minor = 30 D major = 30 G minor = 20 G major = 50 abyss = 100 Anguish

The rest of the essences are damn near valueless.

Every ones value of an item will be different, if credits were more easily accessible then you might see a common value arise for certain things.

Tank

Wolf, the value of items on EZ varies from person to person and I believe that will always be the case. One of the main reasons are that people farm stuff at different pace and capacity.

Box sizes, a players current gear/tier, available resources like 2x/3x/ZP/plat and farming experience/strategies are just some of the things that may separate player A from player B when they individually decide value on the items they have available for trade or want to trade for. Finding a common ground for everyone is not easy. I think Spudsy's list is pretty decent though overall.

I'd say, try to not feel guilty when you set your own prices. Like I said, items are worth different from player to player, just got to find a middle ground that both can agree with.

I have not been on in awhile, but looking at that list, I have very different ideas for values. It is sickening to see GSS so low in the list when literally only top tier people can farm it, but it is what it is.

There has only been one response here so I suppose this is completely irrelevant anyways.

I suppose the real answer is that we don't have a measurable economy anymore.
 

It's not all doom and gloom though, I suppose this presents an opportunity to kind of start over/refresh with new mats going forward. old mats will always be tradable.

On a second note, I really would love to see a second version of this server that starts everyone over from scratch with all this content. We could truly rebuild the economy from the ground up...this gives the game viability and makes it really feel like you are accomplishing something, moving forward, building wealth.  I would say take out eofs from Sleepers, fix drop rate of mats in VP are the most glaring things that devalue items.

The underlying economy was the backbone to this entire server. Without a healthy economy, nothing feels real, the reward system is hollow. 

This server could literally be a study in economics. Our plat at one time held more value than many third world country's currency. You may think well the audience in shrinking and getting older... this does not mean they aren't still around ready to hop in... along with their kids...on a game like this. In fact, most have more time to spend than before.

It varies a lot based on who you are talking to but there's a few things to keep in mind.

First, people get to "top tier" pretty fast these days and players don't sit on those tiers farming, they progress. I took it relatively slow through the tiers, didn't know about GC until it was too late etc and I had a total of ~50ish GSOA drop through my entire time through T10. A low level that spends their time farming SLS in jagged or whatever is entirely wasting their time, you can get 100s a day in HoS (when active) along with really good AA and important essences and halloween drops, double, triples ZPs which are legitimately game changing. Time spent farming a handful of SLS is time not spent getting to the point where you can take advantage of high end zone drops. I can farm more of almost any resources in a single triple hour with ZPs then a new player will get in their entire natural progression through the zone. Basically, just because a resource is farmable at low levels doesn't mean anyone should do it.

Second, materials like GSS which drop a lot in higher tiers are only needed in relatively low quantity (8 per character at most, 7 if you farm a kote instead, 6 if you don't make a BP anymore for various reasons, 5 for rogues etc etc). Compare to something like GSOA where 50 are required per character, or a low tier essence where 105 are needed, AAs where 15.7 million are needed (although a tunare drop will knock ~7.3 million off this total which is huge).  

Lastly, at least in the case of GSS, yes they only come from high end zones but anyone that trades a valuable resource to get them "now" (by the way they can't even use them till after they are essentially done with T10) is just mortgaging away their future. UA doesn't really matter except for a small handful of pieces, yes you'll need 3 each to get into Sleepers eventually. My value is based primarily around the idea that you should be trying to acquire resources that allow you to collect resources faster. Don't spend things you'll need in the future for things you will finish the moment you get there.

There are two big players here, the first is the power of GC, the fastest progress takes a GC and a UW on the tank (a EOBA would be cool too but it's negotiable) and the rest of your crew is primarily there to loot and speed up dps a little. The second culprit is the power of halloween drops. The best bet for a new player is to get to the point of farming that content asap.

My thoughts on this matter is that there are mainly two reasons why the going rate has changed the last five to six years. The first reason is the addition of the Halloween zone and many of that events powerful items. The double/triple instances and Zone Pull spears are total game changers along with UA and GC.. The Halloween zone also seems to have started a trend that high tier zones should give end game players some interesting loot, which at the time was among other things various essences. Most people was excited by this. This trend continued in Sleepers. Do we need 400 EoFS in bank? Of course not. Their dropping rate is just stupid and not even needed. When no new content is out with items better than the previous, the day to day player that keeps on playing will grow their stacks of items past what they need themselves and the value of those items decreases. The real remedy to this is to release new content. The addition of the Halloween zone and all it's new items is in my opinion the biggest step away from the original EZ vein as there has been. But it is what it is. The cat was out of the bag and obviously people , including me, really enjoyed these new and powerful items. Farming would never be the same again. Hills of Shade has been super popular, mostly, I guess, because of the items, but also because the zone is well made and is something fresh on a server that for years had seen little development.

The second reason has to do with this being a free sandbox. This is a server that started in 2008 and by 2012-2013 we were already seeing tier 7 and 8. Tier progress hasn't been the same ever since for natural reasons. Even back then the server was already on overtime. Seven to eight tiers took a lot of time to complete back then. Todays perspective for someone that has been around to collect ZP and triples is like this: I went through LP the other day from start to finish with 4 characters. It only took me 30 minutes to complete LP from start to finish. That is the power of ZP and triples.

My point is the content has pretty much been on a stand still for a long time, so the golden standard items have been the same for a long time. I am glad to see the trend shifting though. That means new stuff is coming. In T11 we might have one or even several new golden standards. For a while after VP was released, Platinum was suddenly worth something(LRoAs). However the small difference between rank 1 and rank 10 meant many players settled with just getting rank 1. That's beside the point though. I am looking forward to new items being released. For all we know, we'll see new ranks of Earrings, SoAs, UW's that require new items, not GSoAs, but possibly just as rare as they used to be pre-triples/pre-VP.

Trading has always been a big part of the original Everquest and also on EZ. The last few years were a bit different though. Not that many players on EZ anymore, so less trades, and while I know some people don't like to hand hold new people through content, having the other players best interest in mind, there sure has been easier for new players in general to gain good trades. The reason is back in my second point. The surplus the top players have of many items, along with wanting to help a new fellow out leaves the list low for trades and just friendly giveaways. People are just nice and want to help out. This effect I am sure can deminish the adventure for new players.

After people broke into VP and started farming it, GSS's and GSoAs flowed the market more than before, just like Halloween and Sleepers flowed the market with essences, effectively diminishing their value before it. The way I look at it at this point though, is GSS's are a means to end one tier and start on another, just like farming mats in OC is part of making an armor and faction to move on, so are GSS's at this point. They are not even going to be a requirement to enter T11. They had their use for good and worse and soon we'll have new items which makes GSS's and much else not very interesting anymore except for those leveling up. And those leveling up will have an easier time than those who lead the way originally due to the item surplus again, at least if they choose to initiate trades and not do everything themselves.

Let's hope a new tier opens up the market again like it has been before it.

Also regarding a copy server with new "rules:
While I would never want to start over myself, I get that you find that an interesting proposition. Just keep in mind that we only have one GM and he spends a lot of his spare time already on dealing with one server, which probably already is more work than for one person alone. Having another copy will need a lot of work and attention as well. It will definitely not run by itself. I'd definitely like Draca's focus on the original server, helping players with issues, correcting bugs, updating files and above all, making sure new content is coming for all of us that has been waiting for a new tier for so long. Many of having already quit, gone MIA for many years because of lack of stuff to do.

Personally I really like the direction the server is taking and I am sure this thread will be useful for Draca with your thoughts as well as everyone else when he is working on new stuff.