http://eqcleric.gameglow.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16967


The post "The Healing Paradigm" was quite interesting. It was linked to the Cleric Board and a Fan Faire report. Also in that thread (the link above) was much talk of the developers need for a plat sink (like horses).



Peridots. The devs acknowledged that this is an unfair cash burden on clerics, and will reexamine it. At the same time, they said that cash sinks are badly needed, and if anyone has ideas of a cash sink that would be popular (ie, people would voluntarily spend the plat) to please send them to Dev Corner.



Now why 65th level, 500 AA, 252 skilled dev's at adding time sinks to the game would need help with plat sinks...I don't know. But here are some odd ideas (that most people will laugh at) that would counterbalance the two. I don't mean to belittle time people spent gathering points in these areas, and I realize there are many EQ-powerful folks on this board. Feel free to bash these ideas, or more constructivly post your own, and or expose some details about the rather troubled EQ econ 101 and if you must how it relates to game balance.

1.
You can purchase AA's (Advanced Training)

Allow the player to purchase everyother AA or pAA point. Earn one, you can buy one. Loop.

Cost: 5 - 10k per AA. That is the cost of a solid bazaar weapon these days.

Cons: Increase in farming somewhat balanced by the fact that nobody would have money to buy the farmed items. Outcry from anyone with more than 99 AA's, somewhat balanced by the fact that these people can more easily get money and throw it into something "nice to have" like 20 resist magic, or whatever they are lacking even at their elevated level.

Pros: Allows for different path to AA's. For example someone who tradeskills alot or plays vendor can gain AA's in return for their /played.

Extra Pro: Everyone and their uncle would spend all their cash. Since game balance evens out a bit more when people have their AA's (at least they feel powerful) I guess that would help a bit as well. People would be scaping out enough to buy their next point. If planned well you could make just enough cash while EXPing a level or two to buy one. Thus a bit of time sink is gone, and money has far more value.

2.
You can purchase faction. (Bribes)

Would not matter to most people. Perhaps the faction would come with an illusion clicky item.
You run a solo quest that takes about 10 hours.
You pay the bribe.

Cost:


Cons: Can't think of any, I doubt many people even care about faction.

Pros: Everyone can get at least one illusion mask...and that is damn fun, and people would pay for it.

3.
You can purchase tradeskills (Apprentice)

Sliding scale cost, with certain ranges un-apprenticable. For example you can only do 200 - 210, and 230 - 250 in the field.

Cons: Hurts the "little" guy charging 20 plat for a silk
Pros: I could care less about trade skills, but this one remove money from the economy and save some people from carple tunnel syndrom.

4.
Turn in's for ancient relics (Museum) that pass their way around for decent play. EX. turn in your manastone for 5 AA's.




edit (fixed quote).

Any platinum sink could <b>not</b> be related to any current method of advancement like AAs without creating a huge game imbalance. I still have close to a million platinum left from my tradeskill days and could buy 100-200 AAs under your scheme; that's just wrong. Money should buy convenience, not advancement.

Advancement is covenience, of course.

If it's not convenient enough, no one will spend the plat. No plat sink.

If you want a significant plat sink, you'll have to provide a significant benefit. Like AP. You buy the AP, which in turn you can use to buy equipment.

Spell scrolls for "utility" spells would be a great plat sink. Vendor sold, not researchable, but available as easily as dots or food. I'm not thinking potions or the like which are researched by shaman, indeed, I would vote strongly against duplicating anything which players already have access to. Some ideas:

1. Scroll of summon corpse (to sell for about what a large coffin sells for now)

2. Scroll of resurrection (with % xp gain based on the "level" of the scroll. You must be a certain level to use each scroll, with the lowest level of scroll being a 0% revive, and to be the same as the level of xp gain which a cleric of the same level would be able to cast assuming no epic. Cost to be dependent on the level of the scroll, scaling from 1 pp for the 0% revive to 100pp for a 96% rez scroll)

3. KEI/VoQ (single target only, spell length lasts for it's normal unextended length, or shorter. level limit restrictions to apply. 200pp per scroll or so, "recast" time to be the same as spell duration so people can't use these in place of one clickers)

4. aego/virtue (single target only, spell length lasts for it's normal unextended length, or shorter. level limit restrictions to apply. 200pp per scroll or so, "recast" time to be the same as spell duration so people can't use these in place of one clickers)

I'm sure there are more that could be utilized, but these are my thoughts atm. In each of these cases, it seems it wouldn't really harm anyone, wouldn't unbalance anything, and would act as a pp sink (I can think of numerous times having a scroll of summon body would have been really really handy, not to mention saving necros/SKs from the "can you help me" spam)

What I"m shooting for is simply a way to make some of the game mechanics a bit easier, without really changing what's going on already. By setting the prices so high, the people who make their living buffing others shouldn't see their business drop very much. Since none of these are available as a potion, it shouldn't cut into the livelihood of those who make potions to support their characters.

It seems to me the simplest answer is to place rare spells on vendors for sale. Farmers get these spells and sell them in the bazaar but the money stays in the economy. If the vendor were to sell them for between 5k to 50k (depending on the rarity) we would see 2 things. First the farmers would reduce there prices and the vendors would begin to remove plat from the economy.

I would also like to have “mount training” as a saleable item. This would be the ability to train your mounts for quicker starting, stopping or turning. Possibly even the ability to enter a dungeon. Make the cost scaleable and make it so when you sell the mount you get no return on the training.

Lastly, and I am sure this will cause a stir, make rare drops required for access or quest available from vendors. Price them high so the effort to obtain the cash is equal to the time it would have taken to camp very_rare_mob_01. If the item would take a raid force make the prices ridiculously high but at least obtainable. Don’t include POP zone items in this scheme. This would create an alternate route for advancement through older zones.

Deller

**edited bad grammar and spelling**

The AA for PP thing could be balanced somewhat if there were a time limit on it.

So like if you could buy 1AA for a price (I think 5kpp is WAY too low btw) once a month that might not be so unbalancing.

They could even keep this sort of in theme. Have a quest you can only do once a month, something like (numbers made up, change them to suit however much it should cost or add more items or whatever):

- Create a vendor purchased item called a yellow diamond, cost around 2000pp

Combine in a Planar JC Kit:
1 blue diamond, 2 yellow diamonds, 1 bar of platinum to get a Inlaid Diamond Wedding Ring

Take 2 Inlaid Diamond Wedding Rings and go to Shadowhaven and find "A Distraught Groom"

Go through text with the groom find out he lost the set of wedding rings he needs for his wedding. Give him 2 Inlaid Diamond Wedding Rings. Receive A Note of Favor

Go to PoK to some councilman (newly created). He says he is busy trying to locate a Mistletoe Cutting Sickle for his collection, and anyways he doesn't like you. Turns out this councilman is the groom's uncle. Hand him the note of favor and a Mistletoe Cutting Sickle and receive 1AA.


- Xylem

Edit: changed other item to Mistletoe Cutting Sickle

I would HAPPILY pay upto 100k each to get twinks and apps flagged to our current level (time).

Make us need 50 people in a raid to get this done, I don't care. With that amount of folks needed, it will make it hard for people to just sell flags.

Make it scale up. Say 90k for 3 gods, 80k for 2, 70k for 1, 60k for fire, 50k for ele...

You will see ALOT of cash leaving the game if that happened and reduce the pain of reflagging for just a few people.

Plat for AP would certainly take money out of the world considering camp gear is all NO DROP. Converting droppable cash into NO DROP cash (PP to AP) is an awesome way to sink money.

When they allowed resale of horses, they pretty much ruined that money sink. Hell, if they made it possible to buy NO DROP gear (from vendors) for plat they would create a money sink. Twinking can be limited with level limits.

Addressing the outcry from the ubers about high end gear being buyable would be an issue. Why raid when you can buy an Aten Ha Ra BP for two million plat?

Well ... Beause it's worth two million plat! The time it takes to get two million platnum is prolly longer than the time it takes to loot the BP (camp shards, kill emp, clear VT, wait for your turn to loot, etc).

What about e-bay? A person can, using RL cash, buy two million platnum. Well, true. But that's still two million platnum leaving the game.

A game without item decay is suseptible to e-bay. No matter what they do, they will always have an e-bay problem. On the plus side, they are still exchanging droppable currency for NO DROP goods. That two million platnum can only be sold once. Since they control how much platum enters the world, they can control how quickly people can buy NO DROP gear after the world's supply of extra platnum is exhausted (4+ years is a LOT of unused pp).

Another idea:

A nodrop version of the tinkerer's bag that costs 2kpp

Still brainstorming...

- Xylem

If they want a plat sink, I'll pay 1million pp to get my DE mask back =P....


In other news...

Ya.. there is nothing to spend money on. I buy dots for the guild, lots of dots, and EE's, etc.. that's about it.

I'm not sure the pp issue is really fixable in this stage of EQ.

I like the rare spells on vendors idea. They have never justified it to my satisfaction, and it would be an excellent money sink. (Well, woulda been better pre-pop, nowdays people use ethereals for tissue paper... maybe put all 60+ spells on vendors, including 65, for a ton of cash.)

Include stupid spells that are stupidly rare like: Levitation (the non-reagent version), Enduring Breath (the non-reagent version), Remove curse, Remove Greater Curse, all those stupidly rare PoP spells that are irrelevant now (gj restricting them so much in the first place, sigh) like GSS, marzin's mark, mask of the stalker. Put em on npc vendors for a reasonable price (several K each, but below current market prices) and watch the plat fly from the economy.

PP to Adventure Points works well too. One way conversion.

I'd spend a bunch of plat on a horse that could duck. Oh nm I did that already......

And yes, I'd spend one million plat to get the old style DE mask I missed getting by a day.

Tia

Here's a pp sink idea!

Put PoTime loot on vendors. Say, 1 billion pp and up! =D

Ok, I'm joking and bored cause my server just went down for an emergency patch or something...

I think the idea of PP to AP wouldn't cause much problems except players will go through the expansion faster than normal.

Personally I find it hard to get money. I don't have more than a couple of K in the bank at any one time. I don't buy from the bazaar, I don't loot anything I can't use for myself or twinks. The most money I have seen recently is doing dungeons (at about 200pp each)

I think buying buffs is an ok idea but they would need to be expensive. You can't have Virtue and stuff for 200pp, becuase in the case of dungeons the Virtue lasts as long as it takes you to get the money. It would need to cost about 600-800pp, so that you cannot afford to make the money in the time the spell lasts (using dungeons as an example of money making I know you can make more elsewhere)

I also like the idea of putting rare spells on vendors, that's the best idea I've seen in this thread.

If they want more than that, then they could make it cost a 5pp reagent to use the PoK port stones. That'd drain money out of the game like mad.

- Constructing homes and upkeep is a nice Plat sink.

Let players built a house, a castle or guildhalls and let them pay for it.

- Make gambling official.

Having engine driven official Casinos is a nice plat sink as well.

- Sell tickets for ingame Events.

Let AbsorEQ fight vs. Panamah in Arena and sell audience tickets for Plats!

- Implement more Mini Games and charge each one playing it a small amount of plat.

Lemme see...

- Ditto on the rare spells on vendors idea; keep current methods of obtaining the spells in the game (drops, quests, AP) for the cash poor.

- Donating a large sum of plat to get your character's religion changed. Make it a plat sink, make it a free quest, whatever...just put a way to change religion in the game. Make it like the spec changing quest, only require a very large plat donation to the new religion of your choice. A few of my alts made BAD religion choices because I was not fortunate enough to have a clue when I first started playing, and I'd happily fork over a lot of plat to rectify those mistakes. Plus, it'd be a chance for all you Tunare worshippers to change your religion and worship a real god and not some overdone drag queen who looks like she should be dealing out iron rations and water in a newbie zone rather than ruling a deific plane. :p

- Go to a "Personal Trainer" and buy points in offense and defense with plat. One thing I always hated about grouping with my lower level acaster alts was that my defense skill would suffer unless I went out of my way to look clueless and grab aggro constantly. I would gladly pay for the privilege of being able to buy my alts better scores in these previously untrainable areas. Alternately, allow us to buy time with an NPC sparring partner that would allow us to work on all our melee skills; this wouldn't guarantee a set number of skill-ups but would instead merely offer a chance at getting skill-ups in melee skills.

- As suggested, allow us to buy AP. The gear is no-drop and already on a vendor, and plat was the original "Adventure Point" anyway, so I don't see any real harm. :)

- "Sell tickets for ingame Events." Combine this with making gambling official, and you could be onto something. Put a new zone in that contains a casino. (I know HHK already exists, but the casino zone would have to be more accessable for the average "navigationally challenged" EQ player.) First, there's an admission fee each time you enter the casino. There could be fights (like the mini-fight clubs that already exist in PoK) that you could place bets on, horse races, card games, etc. I doubt you'd see this happen as a plat sink though. They'd have the blue-nose brigade jumping up and down complaining that EQ promotes gambling (in pickup groups, it already does.../rand 5 555).

Aldane Aglond
Ayonae Ro

Meeting Halls.....

You can pay a fee for a private instanced place to hold guild events. ie meetings, graduations, weddings etc

Actually guild 'halls' could be all the empty buildings in the various cities and zones. All players in a guild could get a 30 second port to guild hall ability. Depending on the building by location, size etc it could cost so much to buy and so much to maintain. So you get a tangible benefit of easy meeting up as well as having your own guild location.

Certainly player buildings in SWG were a plat sink.

Charge a "toll" for using the POK books - 1plat a level or something like that. Also will help keep POK a bit less crowded. Ditto the Luclin portals.

Soulbinders should charge for their services.

Make a zone (Mischief?) need a blue diamond to enter it each time.

Sell levels - if an account has a 65 character (pick a number) let that person pay for levels on an alternate character - 100plat per level (so starting at level 10 would cost 6500 plat) up to say level 50.

More items like ornate which have high plat costs associated with them. Make an alternate Jboot quest with more rapid drops but much higher costs.

I liked the faction idea. Raid Growth, pay your 10k or whatever and fix your faction.

Let people buy adventure points at 1k each.

Put in player housing. Make people pay for items like personal forges, looms and brew barrels. It worked VERY well for DAOC. It's so fun to decorate your own piece of virtual real estate.

/wave TDG.... /wonders if anyone remembers her...

i realize my idea would double almost the player database.

However.. it would suck plat out as a massive volume.

allow plat to buy the removal of the "no drop" stuff only on items with recommended or required level.

((On stuff thats recommended change the recommended to required))

Cost needs to be prohibitive say 1k to 2k per recommended level.

So a level 65 item would run 65k (1k) 97500 (1500) or 130k (2k)

The big pro would be to reduce loot wastage on guilds. They could buy off no drop tags on items and pass down old gear.

Twinkage would not be a big problem because the new gear would all be required level ((recommended changed to required))

Yes I realize this would allow little bits of elemental armor and vt loot, etc to hit the market. but after paying the large cost the price is going to be prohibitive. If you pay 130k to remove no drop, you are going to want to make a big profit. However remember 130k just vanished from the game in one transaction.

1. Guild Halls: Long lost promise of early EQ. They dismissed the idea in either late 1999 or early 2000, despite their earlier literature advertsing the player guild halls. The current regime doesn't seem as stubborn as the Verant team, so maybe they won't mind eating some humble pie and recognizing that EQ should have the player guild halls afterall.

2. Player Housing: This was also dismissed when the guild halls were. I believe the reason cited was the complexity and resources would be too demanding. I can't imagine it being any more complex or demanding than any other expansion that we would pay for. Imagine a small expansion that is composed of two zones for guild halls and player housing, allowing for leased vendors, leased tradeskill items, leased vaults (32 bank slots), etc.. Attach the these two zone to each other and both to the nexus, PoK and Bazaar. My goodness, not only would they have a plat sink, but it would be a dollar sink too and it make the game more immersive and enjoyable for many players. Add feature to those with expansion that includes all 3 zones for bazaar search if feasible.

3. Scrolls: I don't think the player buffing, healing or rezzing should leave the domain of player interaction. However, adding tradeskill output that involves the appropriate classes could offer a venue as yet another plat sink while leaving the player characters as middlemen who can share in the profits. For example, add a tinkered watch, smithed totem, tailored sash, ceramic sculpture, alchemical potion, and jewel crafted ring that can be made with vendor sold components and imbued with 1 charge of any non-detrimental spell cast by the tradeskiller. Might be good idea that one component be a low cost and mass produceable enchanted gem of some sort so we don't forget enchanters are enchanters. I also wouldn't put these items in the skill up process to prevent them dropping in market price artificially below their value (maybe a trivial of 100 is low enough to prevent being used to skill up while being high enough to reward tradeskillers). Making these items No DROP, Lore or No RENT would only serve to discourage people from creating and buying them, thereby removing it as a viable venue as a plat sink.

4. Plat for AAs: I'm torn on this one. On one hand, it makes sense that you can hire a professional tutor, trainer or teacher and learn new abilities. And it is historically consistant that the wealthy could buy skills (swordsmanship and horsemanship come to mind) beyond those who used the skills regularly as a matter of profession or neccessity. Yet, I can also foresee characters in PoT gear farming more mobs than they do already to resell to those without raid guild access. Unfortunately, the gear was designed for the raid content without consideration for it's impact when those with the gear aren't raiding that content. This would only serve to widen the gap between individual characters for access that has nothing to do with the individuals' accomplishments.

5. Plat for APs: Noooo. Unless we all want to buy BoT tower drops from PoT guildies.

* I see this as a great opportunity for EQ to feed our addiction if they choose to use the carrot instead of the stick. But, there is something in my head saying they will choose a path that will end up alienating us further.

Well if they are looking for Platinum sinks, it boggles the mind that they removed the ability to recharge items through the vendors in todays patch. The cost to buy back an item was so high that only the very "wealthy" could afford it.

I would say that implementing a special NPC for recharging items might be a decent sink. Price for recharge could vary by item and they would have the ability to change the cost at will. I think some people would pay pp to recharge an item versus camping it or trading pp with another PC in the bazaar. Certainly it is less ambitious than guild halls and building houses.

I also know a lot of people who would willingly go to Erudin for a sex change operation as well. But this is probably something that would better net SOE real cash than take pp out of circulation.

Jeez it's very very simple.

You just make some god-like items sellable by vendors at god like prices.

Problemo solved.

Well, any platinum sink has to have a few basic features for it to work long term.

1. The plats have to go to a vendor or npc of some sort.

2. The item purchased has to be something that is used up and non-critical to gameplay, or a one time expensive purchase that may or may not be critical to gameplay.

The goal is to continually remove plats from the game to prevent inflation and give players something to spend their plats on. The goal is to make it fun, not tedious and an extra timesink to the casual player.

It doesn't really work to just add a few expensive one-time purchases, like horses. It will temporarily help the problem, but it doesn't solve it. The only way to really solve the problem is to add something to the game that can be purchased and is used up... so it needs to be purchased again.It also doesn't work to make the critical items that need to be purchased all the time (like peridots) insanely expensive. The goal isn't to make gameplay harder for the casual player, it isn't to force people to have to farm for cash, but to give the player who has extra cash to spend something to buy with it. Think of it as a bonus for people with cash to burn, not something critical to the game.

That doesn't mean spells or other one-time buys couldn't be vendor sold. People buy spells all the time in the bazaar, it wouldn't really change any thing about game balance to make them vendor sold, IF they were put on a vendor for something close to their actual value. You don't want to make drop spells worthless by selling them on a vendor for 100p, unless they are so common they are worth 100p.

You could sell items that are similar to potions with charges that are used up (but with different effects so as not to piss off all the Shaman). I'd make the effects slightly less that what you could get from a player because you always want the flesh and blood caster to be better. For example you could have a 5 or 10 charge stone with buffs like aegolism, protection of the cabbage, dex, etc. You could even have one with charges of 90% rez or even a self only heal. Prices should reflect how powerful the item is. You'd want them to be around 500 to 1 or 2k or so each.

You'd need to find a good balance between being expensive enough that its not too powerful and doesn't make the casters mad, and also useful and inexpensive enough so they actually get purchased. You'd want the more casual player to choose not to buy them because the aren't quite worth spending the cash, and you'd want the player with a bit of cash to burn to buy them for the convenience.

Rose

I like the no-drop removal idea. It should, however, be a one time thing. Ie: Once the item is purchased in the bazaar, or traded for the first time when droppable, it changes back to NO DROP. If it was droppable forever then the economy would suffer more from mudflation.

Thinking about it, making two copies of an item would require duplicating the entire database of NO DROP items. Exactly the way there are two 7th shawls in the database, one "approved", one not, still needs 2 database entries. So, there should rather be a 'transfer' NPC that gets paid to do the transfer, and have the item always be NO DROP, IMO.

Other Ideas:
1) Make a new zone with no mobs that everyone from any server can zone into... to chat it up and show off their stuff. Have a PvP area (or several). Charge to enter the zone, or have a 'per hour' charge (ie: level 65 = 65 pp per hour). Either way, based on level. No trading allowed in the zone (hello manastone export). Eventually SOE may want to implement cross-server player quests in such a 'shared' zone. The main problem would be players with the same name.

2) Make LORE, NO DROP, self only mana potions. 1 use, gain 400 mana, 1k per potion. Since you can't purchase them 'on the fly' you'd only get to use it once per raid.

3) Make LORE, NO DROP, self only super regen potions. 1 use, gain 10k HP's over ~3 mins, 1 k per potion. Again, can't purchase them 'on the fly', so it's 1 use per raid.

On 2 and 3: Sure, those would instantly create more power for the player, but not to an extreme. It may make the difference on a close fight, but not if you couldn't get RZtW down 20%. And, most level 65 people most likely wouldn't leave home without one. A constant flow of pp would exit the game.

Okay, if mana/HP potions are too powerful (not saying they are), how about this:
4) Make LORE, NO DROP, self only spell haste potions. 1 use, 100% spell haste (stacks with all) for 30 seconds. Again, same drawbacks of only 1 use until you can get back to the vendor.

5) Make LORE, NO DROP, self only melee haste, 1 use, 100% melee haste (stacks with all) for 30 seconds. yada yada...

Other thoughts:
The problem I see with buying AA's, AP's, etc.. is that once you have all of them, or all you want, the plat sink is gone. It would have a finite lifespan. True, more players enter the game, but the high end 'moves past' the sink.

You need something that will be a constant flow and will give the player a definite benefit (even if the benifit is only social status). The trick is to have it be something useful, but not overpowering.

Wyte

1) Make a new zone with no mobs that everyone from any server can zone into... to chat it up and show off their stuff. Have a PvP area (or several). Charge to enter the zone, or have a 'per hour' charge (ie: level 65 = 65 pp per hour). Either way, based on level. No trading allowed in the zone (hello manastone export). Eventually SOE may want to implement cross-server player quests in such a 'shared' zone. The main problem would be players with the same name.


One zone, one word: Arena...

Ideas:
Why not make group spells consume a reagent from each member once it's cast. Let's say a cleric casts HoV, only those with the peridots needed will get it. Sounds reasonable...

More vendor sold tradeskill items.

Rare spells on a vendor, I like that one

AA for plat? that's a no no... i see a lot of ebayers with lots of money. *SHIVERS*

Charging a toll on Port stones is a good idea too.

--> A bazar tax. 10% tax on each item sold. *evil grin*
Tax is substracted from the money recieved or price includes tax.

--> sell a DE mask: don't make me start playing again!

-> selling AP: This has a very big possibility of being abused but in the 2k range would probably be a good idea.

-> Make the vendor value of certain items less but the buy back the same.

--> cut in half the amount of plat dropped on gaints(AGAIN).

-> some useable skill made items should have their cost doubled such as earrings or rings. This would require purchase of 1 or 2kp components while allowing skill up to be relatively inexpensive(time sink).

-> no drop items could be made sellable with a small fee added. Small fee would be as mentioned before. This might be dangerous but if the fee was 10 or 20k for a no drop item then it would address removing a glut of plat.

The plat for AP is no doubt a decent idea in Sony's mind. It would be tough competing with the bazaar. Perhas have Augments only sold on vendors, and No Drop. This way all purchasable augments would be bought with plat and then no drop. Of course the higher level guilds with more money and power could likely just farm theirs and the smaller guy would be out all their money. Tough to say.

I don't think you can really consider EBay. I mean someone can buy an epic X class with 100 AA's on there anyway.

I dont think buying AA points for plat would ever dry up for the following reason:

1. There are so many. Have 400...well buy up +20 fire resistance. Sure it is finite, but....#2.
2. Everyone has alts, they would spend on them.
3. Players like power, this provides players with more of what they most want.
4. Guilds and raids often have to reshuffle class ratios, people re-roll. This would lead to guild funds used to enhance the skills of the player rather than the Arms Race that is EQ. This would apply to groups/individual chars as well.
5. Power via naked skills is better than power via items and can never be passed on, it is No Drop. Relates to the Arms Race.

Again the biggest Pro is that it provides the most desirable, and the most rewarding thing. People would be scapping enough plat to buy the next point at all times. Money would be ultra valuable. It would also provide a light at the end of the tunnel for more people. My main question is the impact of buying/farming gear. My hope would be that they could provide less dependence on gear, perhaps only a few main sets that are resonably attainable and a few god like sets that are ultra hard. With minimal farming middle ground stuff. This would make skill a more useful thing that equipment (in some cases it really is not. A poor skilled melee in great gear -v- a very skilled player in poo gear.... well skill only gets you so far. Perhaps you remember the skilled player for certain things, but in an average situation X more tanking/mana and Y more damage/heals is better for EXP/plat rate). Now with more access to skills EQ could really play up the skill tree angle a bit more.

As you slowly gather wealth and power you really start to heat it up and gather no moss. The plodding pace of the game makes me say....

Time is Money.

I do not believe Sony should have it both ways. Sink time, and sink money. If they make "normal" sink plat I call foul. I have no desire to pay 100 plat for a ration because the moon landed on Ak'Anon and rations are a comodity now. As it is now I would only afford a few points...but I would by them. Additionaly the pace of my EQ character would have me at 65 with a title in about 4 years, I will quit sooner than that as the fun might run out for me if I keep thinking "omg I need these skills, I can't contribute", or "I gotta get equiped for PoP or I can never fight great gods for great exp."

Still thats just my situation. Most important to an idea like this would be the many factors to make it work. I think it could be done however with minimal cost to balance. Things are really quite poor as is, reducing the volume and dependence on gear and focusing more on naked skills would seem to make balance simpler. I am 100% sure that greater than 3/4 of the plat in the game would be sinked within a month. You need to be high level to access the points so it would please Sony to migrate more characters to where they want them to be in-game as well.



So its decided... 10k for an AA
and 50K for amiable faction w/ a clicky illusion mask.

While we are at it changing religions lets change race
and gender while we are at it, we could come up w/ a
Role Play reason ;) lets stick to 50k for this as well.
Most of all it would be a real fun change and sink for plat.

Say bye to all my cash and then some.


Oh and for some people who messed up perhaps a re-allocation of their
starting points for 5k.

Time is money, gotta go.

(edit corrected mistake w. droppable and buyable.)

They should fix up that guy who does the recharge on the old najena quest cloak (mystic?) he sits in pok and is basically a waste of space, maybe he could recharge some of our favorite items... (for a fee)

Earring of Frozen Skull
Snare Glands
Res Sticks

or make new items or vendored

Summon Corpse potions (zeks had em and we had em on legends for a while)
More effecient Heal potions (preferably ones you could channel in combat)
Low level buff potions (not just shaman ones anymore!) like clarity, protection of the glades, berserk str, avatar, celerity

Spell Scrolls (basically any spell 49 or under and set the casting time at 30) and a minimum level of 59 to cast the spell, cept melee 65?

Riding Griffins? Im sure theres a lil more room for them! and just basically horses with levitation

as far as trading PLAT of AAs or APs or Levels, that smacks too much of ebay for me to think of as a good idea

I prefer tradeskills as a plat sink...
1) the item needs to be useful that you make so that others will want to buy it
2) it needs to be able to be made reguarly for a profit (ie dont make rare drop stuff as components)
3) the total cost should be low enough that a larger percent of players can afford it, while still retaining part of it as frmo a vendor

Ex.

Nanyeas Mana Drink
10 charge click adds 500 mana a tick for 2 ticks per charge (6 sec cast)

components-
Mana vial x 10 (4 rubies per) = 10k plat
add in some wart or some other cheap components
and make it a brewing combine with low trivial (200?)

Thats just an example of something that would sell well, probly retail at 12k apiece and its sucking 10k of that out of the world each one.

Its not hard, just put a lil thought into it, yer not sposed to be stealing from us, but giving us something enjoyable to spend our plat on

One thing I've wanted for quite a while would also make a good plat-sink.

I'd like a variation on the bank, which you would pay to access. The more spaces you have, the more it costs to get in. For example, a 25 slot vault might cost a plat every time you want to get in. A fifty might cost two. A two hundred slots one might cost five. You get the idea. This wouldn't replace the existing bank, of course, it would be an additional vault that you'd repeatedly pay to open.

This would be of great use to tradeskillers and packrats, and would gently suck money out of the economy with no end in sight. There could even be a 'start up fee' - you have to buy a key to your vault, and pay the access fees on top of that. Plus, people will be buying more bags to put in all those new slots.

You could limit it by making these vaults geographically accessable, if a global one is unbalancing. For example, there's a vault in PoK that is only in PoK; you must go there, to that zone in that building, to that NPC to get in. Make it difficult - one per continent, or open it up - one in every city.

A variation on this idea would be 'rental lockers' in certain zones. Everyone has seen such a thing at amusement parks. If you think there's something you might want, but don't have the space to carry it on you, or don't want to have to zone out to get it, go rent a locker at zin.

Pay a certain amount for a no-drop, no rent key that will let you into a 4-slot container for a set amount of time, or a set number of opens. It would have to be reasonable, so raids that take hours could take advantage of them as well as single groups, or soloers. I think this could be useful for any number of things, including extra stash space for the Master Looter, so s/he can carry more.

Anyone else think this sort of thing could be useful?

DOH I meant to put taxing the bazaar and now I have been beaten to it :).

I absolutely agree with this one. A 10% or whatever tax on bazaar sales would slurp cash out of the system in no time. People who wanted to avoid the tax could but they would have to resort to old fashioned auctions (as many still do).

No new taxes!

Anyhoo Ap for pp is a great idea. They can leave in the requirement to build up to the 1491 ap before you can see/purchase the best items. So no level 14 twinks running around with uber gear. Maybe even limit it to Aug's only. Augments are the perfect model for a pp sink imo.

AA for pp is great too IMO, Most people don't have 1 million plat. Most people won't be able to abuse it, and even if they spent a million plat, that's 1 million less plat in the game. Plus it would be nice to get something like run speed 3 without having to stop leveling at 51.

Regents suck forget those

Being able to buy defence and offense points is a good thing, maybe... pisses me off to have to stand there healing an alt for 2 hours with 3 mobs beating on him becase his skills won't go up fast enough. Alt = something else to do = I keep playing ; )

Ebay, well I dun care because the game ecomomy in general is still going to get healthier with more plat leaving the game. I am not willing to give Real money for Imaginary items/pp in game ... that's just stupid.

Just had a few more thoughts:

1. What if there was the equivalent of a checkbook in EQ? Example - you're in a zone with no bank, trying to buy something, and you realize you don't have quite enough money on you. You can either take the time to zone out and hit a bank, or you can use your checkbook, which will charge you a fee. What you buy ends up costing more, but the money for that fee drops out of the world. It makes things a bit easier for you, and it's voluntary.

2. Private clubs. This is sort of a variation on the guildhall thing, but could be done with currently unused portions inside city zones. I'm not certain what would go on inside (paying for a lap dance? ;) maybe access to special merchants, like with LDoN?) but it would be something folks would want to pay to get into.

3. A variation on the private club idea - places within a zone that you would pay to enter. But, none of the time spent inside gets counted against any buffs you might have on. This would be especially nice for all those times that you're waiting for the last member of your group to show up, or any time you have to spend waiting, that would otherwise waste your buffs.

4. Special tradeskill containers that you have to pay to open, but that can combine stacks. Example: rather than doing one bottle, two packets of kiola sap and a water flask to get one heady kiola, you can put in a stack of bottles, two stacks of sap and a stack of flasks to get a full stack of kiolas. Whether or not you get skillup chances on all twenty would be up to SOE.

5. It's already been mentioned, but I love it so much I'll say it again: self-only mana potions/scrolls, purchasable at outrageous prices from NPCs.

BEER AND HOOKERS




Ok, no really.

1) Casino's
2) make plat drops less.
3) make tradeskill drops MORE.
4) make all the items NO DROP. <DIE TWINKING DIE>

I'm trying for 1750 in tradeskills, so I have plenty of a cash sink. Actually, I always stay around the same amount of cash (100k-150kpp), but I recycle about 20-50kpp of that a week (buying crap for tradeskills, selling finished products in the bazaar).

I suppose when I'm done with tradeskills, I won't have it for a sink anymore, but then being unguilded, spells and gear is expensive.

Make vendor-sold stat food, make it cost a bit more and be a bit worse than player made stat food.

IE If a player made stat food is a miraculous meal and gives +5 to all saves and costs 20pp to make, make a vendor sold stat food that is +4 to all saves, a hearty meal, and sells for 50pp each.

Also the "force feed yourself to save your top level food" should be changed IMO :) Each food item should be storing exactly how much food is left on it, and the player should constantly be nibbling.... ie instead of consuming 1 food item every 10 minutes (or whatever), consume 0.01 food items every second...

"Rez Potions" - sold at each temple and buy a vendor in PoK. Cost to buy heavily influenced by religion (cheaper to buy from your home temple) as opposed to other considerations. Cost would be 5pp per 1% of rez, sold in 5% increments. Limitation: LORE and NODROP, max rez percentage 85%.

"Corpse Summon Potions" - sold in PoK (by neutral vendor) and at Necromancer guild halls. Cost 2x reagent cost for coffin. Limitations: LORE and NODROP.

Add a new zone off the back of PoK where the "Guardians of the Lethe" can allow you to be reborn as a new name, race, class, and god as desired, retaining all your existing items but being level 1. For this service, they charge some exhorbidant amount of money. Ok, wild idea I admit, but just brainstorming.

Allow money to be spent to switch your PvP flag. Donate to the Priest of Discord, and become PvP the next time you zone or die. Donate again, and go back to being blue the next time you zone or die.

Love the guild hall idea.

Add vendors in each expansion who sell keys to dungeons that are more than 2 expansions old. Make the keys expensive.

Add an NPC to PoTranquility that you can donate money to and have them tell you "In another life you have managed to defeat X" and get your alts the same flags as your main. Or, if you join a guild, have another NPC that says "Your guild has done great and marvellous things, since they accept you, the planes shall be opened to you" - and then charge 10kpp per flag that is held by the guild leader. (Downside: Guilds charging for temporary membership to get flags, although I doubt they'd want more competition, it would be a way of dealing with backflagging without having them go back and get in the way of guilds trying to progress forward on their own.)

Flying mounts...love the idea, especially if they could be used to cross ocean zonelines!

Make the boat-gnomes permanent, have them charge for the service. Have them offer additional destinations for a price.

Removing the PoK stones or charging for them isn't going to happen, at least I doubt it.

Ability to hire mercenaries - cost by mercenary level. Essentially a "pet" summoned one a one-shot, NORENT, LORE, and NODROP "summoning scroll" that will act like an ordinary warrior-pet mob equipped with armor and weapons appropriate to the level.

Race-change potions - 50kpp each. Permanently change your race. Affects race-based factions just as the illusion potions do. Personal adjustments remain intact, diety adjustments as well.

Donate to convert: For whatever absurd amount of money, donate to convert from agnostic or god_01 to god_02. Must be done at a temple of the god in question, must be at least dubious.

Raising faction via bribes? Not sure I'm crazy about that one.
Buying AA? Again, not real crazy about it.
Buying AP? Rather see them adjust AP costs of items to be a bit more reasonable than present and/or offer more points for advenures.

Recode reagent-using spells so that the subject of the spell must have the reagent for it to work. Place a confirmation box on it just like is done for rezzes and translocates. Share the burden of reagent consumption among the entire populace.

Add training halls where you can donate money to raise weapon, offense, and defense skills. Excellent idea, love it.

Add NPCs tht will cast a buff on you for a fee. Level 1-50 only, so no Aego, Virtue, C3+.

Oh well, I'm outta ideas ;)

There needs to be a portable resurection... The ability to "port" once a "class skill" for druids and wizards is now common.. We need to start making available a resurection potion. Make it Vendor Sold.. and different versions (100pp for 90%, 500pp for 96%). Make it LORE.

One Pet Peeve of Mine, dealing with corpses in LDoN:

When either you complete the adventure and the zone dissapears, or just decide it is not worth it and you click "Leave Adventure". At that point, all your corpses in that dungeon instantly reappear at the WAYFARER CAMP where they got the adventure (not outside the dungeon entrance)... Making it much easier to get a res, and not have people have to wait forever to get their corpse.

Perhaps a combination of this.. at each Wayfarer camp have a "High Priest" NPC who will give you a 96% resurection if you give him 200pp. (Which is more then most players donate for a res).

Lots of great ideas here, but the simplest one way to suck plat out of the game was missed.

Make us have to repair our gear.

If you get beat on, your armor and stuff is going to get damaged. Why shouldn't we have to repair it?

For casters who generally try not to take too many hits, have their focus items and FT items wear down over time and need recharging or whatever.

To keep players involved, let them be able to fix, but have NPC Master Smiths who can fix the stuff better and so it lasts longer between fixes.

For the casters have a Master Enchanter who fixes FT and Focus effects on those items.

The Master Enchanter can also recharge items for a fee.

Pretty sure this would suck money out of the game rather quickly, especially for those high end tanks who take beatings for extended durations.

Phaelon Stormsurge
Druzzil-Ro

Originally posted by Phaelon
Lots of great ideas here, but the simplest one way to suck plat out of the game was missed.

Make us have to repair our gear.


At the risk of turning this into an argument about item decay, I have to say ... No! Add item decay to EQ and I'm through with it, and I'm being serious. I've played several MMORPGs with item decay, and one of the things I like about EQ was that I wasn't constantly heading back to town to repair or replace my equipment. I do not want a reality simulator.

Item decay is not a plat sink to me...it's just aggravating. Plat sinks should at least add enjoyment to the game, not add drudgery like item repair.

Don't try to sell me on how good it would be for the economy either. There's enough planned obsolescence in the real world; I want nothing to do with it in a virtual setting.

Aldane Aglond
Ayonae Ro

I have 0 desire to have to maintain my gear.

Originally posted by Aldane
At the risk of turning this into an argument about item decay, I have to say ... No! Add item decay to EQ and I'm through with it, and I'm being serious. I've played several MMORPGs with item decay, and one of the things I like about EQ was that I wasn't constantly heading back to town to repair or replace my equipment. I do not want a reality simulator.

Item decay is not a plat sink to me...it's just aggravating. Plat sinks should at least add enjoyment to the game, not add drudgery like item repair.

Don't try to sell me on how good it would be for the economy either. There's enough planned obsolescence in the real world; I want nothing to do with it in a virtual setting.

Aldane Aglond
Ayonae Ro

I understand how it would be a pain. I've played DAoC and the like and it is a little boring to worry about gear. Better remove my post then so the devs don't see it. Especially when they see people saying no, thats exactly what they'll do. ;)

I understand how it would be a pain. I've played DAoC and the like and it is a little boring to worry about gear. Better remove my post then so the devs don't see it. Especially when they see people saying no, thats exactly what they'll do.
Not too likely they woudl implement this now. They've looked at it in the past and didn't want to impose that large of a change on the world this late into the life of the game. They did, however, implement it for EQ2.

Ok, fill me in. Why do we need more plat sinks?

I see some of you with One Million plats. I've been saving every copper for three and a half years and I have 40k. I have bought a few things but only about 25k worth over that time. And if I bought the rest of my spells that I don't have, I would have zero plats.

I don't know how you got a million plats but it's about as easy for me to get a million dollars.

There already is a huge plat sink in the game. It's called No Drop. Thanks to the fact that 99% of all new or high level items in the game are now no drop, I expect that it would take me ten times as long to make the 40k again.

I made most of my money from soloing in The Grey and selling the items I got off the named mobs. Now the items are worth 5% of what I got for them at the time. Because so many items are no drop now, I can't do that for items that are worth anything any more.

The only ornate item I have is my BP which I got on a guild raid. I can not afford to buy more.

I suppose that I could try to get groups in BoT and hope for some lucky random numbers that would allow me to loot some items that I could sell.

But I don't enjoy mindless farming in BoT. That's why I don't have 500 AA points.

My friend wants me to get my tailoring up. I'm 160 right now. I could see my 40k disappear in 2 seconds if I worked on that. And unlike the people who did tradeskills two years ago, I can't get rich on it. I can't even come close to breaking even.

Increasing any of my tradeskills beyond what I have would cost far more than I could ever afford.

So, despite what some people think, it is far harder to make plats than it used to be. And tradeskills cost far more to raise, since not only have trivials been changed to increase the cost of skilling up, but the items you make are not worth anything any more.

So, if some people seem to think, despite the fact that many of us don't have many of our spells or ornate armor, that we need more plat sinks....then they better be sinks for things we don't need.

Any plat sink should be ways to blow money that doesn't screw those of us that don't have a million plats.

P.S. Oh, I forgot to add that I used to make money porting people, guess what? That's gone with the port stones/books.

Originally posted by Serynn
Also the "force feed yourself to save your top level food" should be changed IMO :) Each food item should be storing exactly how much food is left on it, and the player should constantly be nibbling.... ie instead of consuming 1 food item every 10 minutes (or whatever), consume 0.01 food items every second...

Does dinner at your house consist of a plate of food being handed out around 1 or 2 p.m. with orders to "nibble constantly until 6 p.m."? :p

Aldane Aglond
Ayonae Ro

Forcing players to maintain/repair equipment would turn into a money sink, alright....the sound of dollars going down the drain as players quit EQ...:)



<i>I dont think buying AA points for plat would ever dry up for the following reason:
1. There are so many. Have 400...well buy up +20 fire resistance. Sure it is finite, but....#2.
2. Everyone has alts, they would spend on them.</i>


Actually, while many people have alts, not everyone does. I have never had an alt, and never will. Any new character I create and play will be in a new game. Just say no to MCS! (Mulitple Character Syndrome)

If we can turn plat into AA points, I want a way to turn AA points into plat. For a couple months XP has been totally meaningless (I'm at 576 AA, which is the cap, and 100% of the way into 65). Going without a res is no big deal, since at least XP is meaningful for about another 15 minutes. It's so bad that after I use pet frogs in PoS to kill giants for tradeskill stuff, I let the frogs go even thought they may be near death, since killing them is meaningless.

The Froginator is no more...:(

If you get beat on, your armor and stuff is going to get damaged. Why shouldn't we have to repair it?

For casters who generally try not to take too many hits, have their focus items and FT items wear down over time and need recharging or whatever.

Yah, I'd probably quit too. That is just a lame cash sink, imho. At this point in the game, they better not change that. I've already sunk 4 years obtaining the equipment. That should be plenty.

If you are going to add a cashsink, it should be something that is mildly useful and fun to burn cash on. I especially liked the idea above of Illusion items, because that is definately something I'd sink some cash on. I spent 5k on illusion potions last week, because they are in fact fun. And I don't even have 100k :p

I spent 5k on illusion potions last week, because they are in fact fun. And I don't even have 100k


Are those the kind of illusion potions that, ahem, enhance certain attributes? Better not let Panamah know it wasn't the real you in those pics....;)

Any cash sink at this point has to be a nice to have. It can't effect the way people do things now in a negative way. So that would eliminate any kind of item decay (A little late in the game for that :)) and charging to use PoK stones.

I think some of the others might be good. Plat for AA sure, I bet something could be made of that.

Some kind of new mount that requires you to hand in your old mount (of the same speed) and pay an enormous fee, could work too. Provided this new type of mount overcame many of the drawbacks mounts have now. Of course scrap the reseller idea for these too, that was a mistake.

Buff / Utility scrolls.. Sure provided they were pretty expensive it would be ok. There probally are people who would by a self kei for 1k a pop.

Are those the kind of illusion potions that, ahem, enhance certain attributes? Better not let Panamah know it wasn't the real you in those pics....

Ok, Scirocco, that's drawing the line.. are you peeking in my window again?

/auction WTB Restraining Order

I disagree on AA's. I think 5 - 10 k per aa is quite fair. If anything it should maybe be less than 5 k.

So what if people have aa? I'd say aa's imbalance the game more than anything else right now.

Left this idea out of my post.

One thing I think that, in light of LDoN, would sell well is a mount that's usable indoors. Of course, it would have to be a slow mount, but I'd gladly give up some plat for the sitting mana regen and lessened aggro of an indoor usable mount.

Then again, I think horses should have been outdoor only mounts and drogmors indoor only mounts in the first place. That would have been twice the plat sink. I know I'd own both, if that had been the case.

Aldane Aglond
Ayonae Ro

I don't know how you got a million plats but it's about as easy for me to get a million dollars.

Some people got very wealthy by beeing first in making profit of "not intended game circumstances". I am aware of some Rogues who made more than a million by pick pocketing Spells of Veeshans Peek Dragons.

The "Velious-Dragon-Manaburn-Wizard-Groups" also provided a hell of an income for a short time.

And some of the "First-on-EP-Guild-Members" got incredibly rich by selling Rune Spells and Tradeskill or Quest Drop Stuff (e.g. selling MQ Hope Stones for >100K) from Ele Planes.

First and fast flagged people in PoP were generally in big advantage. Remember the tiny CoD Pally only hammer? In the early days of PoP i sold almost daily one or two for up to 10K. Now it has become a pet junk weapon.

AA for PP isn't a bad idea have it cost like 3k per AA. Same time to find a group and grind an AA as it would take to Make the cash for the AA. Actually bit longer to make 3k to buy that AA then it would take to grind an AA. I like the AA idea.

Originally posted by Fanra
I don't know how you got a million plats but it's about as easy for me to get a million dollars.
Easy - tradeskills (when they're hot) or farming + Bazaar. In the PoTC days, I played for 5 hours a week but I could make 20K on a good night selling the finished items with a 24-hour trader. And while druids aren't the best dungeon farming class, there used to be a lot of money in farming the new midlevel dungeons like Droga or Veksar, to a similar tune of 10-20K per night. Ubers can also make a ton of money by farming stuff that is out of the casual player's reach, like some ornate armor that requires flags or tradeskills that require elemental components. Do any of these for a few months and bam, you've got a million platinum easily.

Illusion items would be big. They really provide no imbalance to game play. I mean what benefit would I get from being a DE druid? Would I buy the item....yep. :)

GO GO ILLUSIONS!! :)

Racmoor Kri'Shandria

I wouldn't mind item decay, it won't ever go into EQ, but I don't have problems with it in other games. The problem I had with DAoC's armor system was the con changes. That forced you to not only try and keep your armor in good enough repair to hunt, but then every couple levels you needed to get a new set of armor. Which can be painful when there are hardly any tradeskillers on and the vendor bought stuff is very subpar, and there is no bazaar =-p


Depending on how item decay is done, it's not really that bad. Heading into town to hit the bank or whatever? Stop by the vendor(s) and hit the repair button real quick too. UO had forced player interaction to get repairs, but you could also just let it wear out and go buy another suit off a player run vendor (NPC, but put up by a player). Since most people rarely used magic items. Now in UO though a smith/tailor/tinkerer can just make repair contracts which you can use on your armor at a smith/tailor shop to repair your gear, so if it's 3am and no one you know if on, you can just go get one of those, keep a few/lot in your bank/house and you're good to go.

As for plat sinks in EQ. Hrm..spell scrolls on a vendor wouldn't be a bad idea. Illusion masks usable by everyone would be nice, I could see people bitching about that though =-( I dunno, I'm hard pressed to think of things I'd like to spend my plat on, now or idea wise. I'm sure someone could come up with something I'd blow money on. Hell, PotC style quests would be nice, but that would just shift money around in the economy, unless like the final turn in required you to give a large sum of plat too or something =-p

Only thing I really (more used to) like spending my plat on is twinking out my characters. But every new item has an RL on it, and just makes it not worth bothering, and usually the RLs on the item are too high for the "level" of the item, wether where it comes from, or how good it is.

Easy - tradeskills (when they're hot) or farming + Bazaar. In the PoTC days, I played for 5 hours a week but I could make 20K on a good night selling the finished items with a 24-hour trader. And while druids aren't the best dungeon farming class, there used to be a lot of money in farming the new midlevel dungeons like Droga or Veksar, to a similar tune of 10-20K per night. Ubers can also make a ton of money by farming stuff that is out of the casual player's reach, like some ornate armor that requires flags or tradeskills that require elemental components. Do any of these for a few months and bam, you've got a million platinum easily.
You guys are making my point for me. Note the 'Used to' in most of what you are saying. Also the 'Ubers'.

So basically, if you happened to either get in on things early or are an uber, you could be rich. Otherwise you are not.

So, I sure hope that they don't think everyone is rich and they need more plat sinks so that everyone has to spend lots of money just to stay in the same place.

The game already has many plat sinks (not being able to make money is a reverse plat sink). Only thing that might be needed would be some extra fluff stuff for you rich guys to blow your money on. Please, please, please, Sony, make sure any plat sinks you make are not something we all need like spells or some such.

So basically, if you happened to either get in on things early or are an uber, you could be rich. Otherwise you are not.

Not true. A level 65 druid (or any character) can still make lots of plat making/selling tradeskill items. You just have to keep your eyes open for opportunities, see what's selling, see what has a nice profit margin, and do the work. You can buy components in the bazaar or from NPC merchants, and make stuff that sells for a very tidy profit.

Originally posted by Scirocco
I spent 5k on illusion potions last week, because they are in fact fun. And I don't even have 100k


Are those the kind of illusion potions that, ahem, enhance certain attributes? Better not let Panamah know it wasn't the real you in those pics....;)

I know you all are buying grow potions!

Still, can't complain about results now can I?

One idea I saw suggested on the cleric boards sounded like it would be a good long term money sink.

Have an ambassador of some sort for the various factions. One such NPC could handle various faction types. Players bribe the NPC to increase faction with a particular faction type.

I can make an average of 300 plat in LDON in 90 min. I would much rather do that and pay 300 plat to gain needed faction somewhere than spend 90 min mass killing green mobs trying to get faction changes that way. Paying for faction changes can be expensive but to me it is better than mind numbing faction work. After all IRL isnt is said that money can buy just about anything. Why should Norrath be any different? Besides when I kill greens I get cash from looting the mobs and it should doesnt go into a money sink for faction work (unless you count things like the muffin quest). Maybe buy rubies for the ambassador (like you buy muffins for the dwarf in freeport).
---------

Another idea would be more quests along the lines of the Aid grimel quest but only obtainable by folks who have 250 in all the tradeskills. Make it so you only get a segment of the quest after completing say 20 LDON missions in a particular zone. That combines LDON with tradeskills. That means you have to complete 100 missions minimum in LDON to continue the quest.
Time sink plus money sink for tradeskills = killing 2 birds with one stone. After completing the intial round of 20 missions the person then has to complete 10 hard LDON missions in a zone to continue.

Put things like Spider silk on vendors for like 4 plat each. It wouldnt kill the market for them and you would hear a giant sucking sound as money disappears into that giant vortex called tradeskills (I could currently use about 4000 spiders silks for tailoring. I would glad play 16k for them rather than farming them myself - folks want to get exp and have fun not farm green crap or buy overpriced items in the bazaar (one guy has 250 spider silks for sale in bazaar for 20 p each).

Put ALL SPELLS on vendors. Make the lvl 63+ ones EXPENSIVE but obtainable.

Make more tradeskill items worth the effort for folks to get into tradeskills. Dont make it so only the uber players who have access to elementals are capable of completing the items. Make the items RARE or on vendors (and extremely expensive) and make it where succesful combines are rare.

Still, can't complain about results now can I?

Actually, it was shrink potions, didn't want to scare you off!

(I crack myself up, I should crack you up too)

One other thing I should have mentioned previously.

Put things like celestrial essence on a vendor for a marked up price.

For example. For those 4000 spider silks I need, I need 4000 celestrial essences to turn them into blessed tunare silk. I have to make each of those by hand. 4000 COMBINES is TOTALLY RIDICULOUS. Put them on a vendor for 2 plat each (it costs less than 1.5 plat to make them and folks will buy them by the ton.
Short ale is something that you can make yet it is also ona vendor. I would rather pay 5 gold more for an item than have to make it by clicking my way for hours.

Either that or make it so you can combine stacks of certain building block items to get say a stack of celestrial essences. Something to make tradeskills (which IMO is the biggest money sink in the game) something that wont makes folks shy away from them due to the hour upon endless hour of clicking monotony.

I wouldn't mind seeing medium quality sheet metal (think that's it, used in fine plate?) on a vendor for a marked up cost from what it takes to make. Leather padding wouldn't be a bad thing either, but having to make all that damn sheet metal is hard on the wrist.

Originally posted by Fanra
So basically, if you happened to either get in on things early or are an uber, you could be rich. Otherwise you are not.
Opportunities are formed all the time: new dungeons, new trade skill recipes, new loot discoveries, new quests. Just as in real life, you can't just sit around hoping an opportunity will fall into your lap. You have to keep your eyes open for them, get in early, and know how to market your product. You do not <i>have</i> to be uber; I am not and still made a lot. Being uber is just a crutch if you don't have the real skills.

Why not just have another POTC type of tradeskill item? Since it produces a no drop item at the end it will be a plat sink to generate the components necessary to creat the item. Given the huge popularity of the POTC earring, I think another type of tradeskill item such as this would be a good plat sink

That really wasn't a plat sink, because the bulk of the platinum just changed hands from PC to PC. I made about 200K to 400K making components for that quest.

Don't forget that tradeskill are also a time sink. If the tradeskill become so easy that everyone can become a 250 grand master in all the tradeskill in less that 2 weeks. What we will have to do?

It like to ask to become level 65 at the caracter creation, no?

Eridalafar

On making money on trade skills. I made a bunch of money from grobb liquidized meat before others realized how easy it was and the bottom fell out of the market. Trade skill items that are considered desireable, has purchasable components and consumable can be a great money sink while rewarding a skiller.

I wouldn't mind seeing a money sink that allowed you to buy tradeskill points. or make vendor recipes like Stonewood Bows, or Steins for Tailoring/Smithing.

It would also help balance the economy a bit as the value of tradeskilling up pieces would go down. And the value of completed work up. People wouldn't flood say the Human Cultural Market with pieces as they skill up.

Granted it would clean up a bit of the time sink part but theres plenty more timesinks in the game than money sinks.

A fee for shards to travel via PoK stones *would* have been an extremely effective plat sink, but adding such a fee at this point would cause too much of an uproar. Similarly, requiring a peridot from each person in group *would* have been a good (and fair) plat sink, but can't start charging a new fee for an old reagent.

Take page from real life. While people will balk at the thought of paying for anything they've always gotten for free, they are definitely willing to pay a premium for any new and useful convenience.

1. To every zone, add an NPC banker who for around 5pp, grants remote access to your bank/inventory.

2. Every player city has a Soulbinder NPC. Convert that NPC into a merchant who also sells a "Soul Gem" (LORE/NODROP/NORENT Effect: Gate, 10 second cast) for 50pp.

3. Add a consignment service in Bazaar; for 100pp, you could buy a special satchel to place in your bank. Items in that satchel would be available for sale when you're not there, with a 10% fee decucted from the profit of each item sold.

Okay, another idea.

4. Horses and Drogmors were a good plat sink initially, but most players will only ever buy a mount for one or two of their characters. In the same places as horse/drog vendors, place an NPC who sells enhancing potions... sorta like 'stat food' for mounts. Each potion would have a duration of 30 minutes.

- Essence of Cheetah: increases runspeed +25%.
- Essence of Raven: adds levitation.
- Essence of Monkey: increase turning/start/stop speed 50%.

And why not some special, very expensive "augment" gems to combine with bridle/drum. These could reduce cast time for summoning the mount. And of course ... the nicer a bridle/drum, the more expesnive the augment. ;)

~Firemynd

2. Every player city has a Soulbinder NPC. Convert that NPC into a merchant who also sells a "Soul Gem" (LORE/NODROP/NORENT Effect: Gate, 10 second cast) for 50pp.
This is rather cheap for something this good. It might upset those of us that completed the The Binden Concerrentia as we have to pay at least twice that to gate. Keep your idea but make the cost alot higher and increase the casting time to 60 seconds or some longer than 10 length.

65 Ranger - Talamyen
56 Cleric - Zelric
Legendary
The Tribunal Server

64 Necromancer - Kanlaar
55 Shaman - Sabraaz
Xev Server

For 100kpp I'd by an aug to modify my mount so that I could duck =P

This is rather cheap for something this good. It might upset those of us that completed the The Binden Concerrentia as we have to pay at least twice that to gate. Keep your idea but make the cost alot higher and increase the casting time to 60 seconds or some longer than 10 length.

Notice the item is NORENT. It would serve the purpose of allowing the person to return to bind point during that session only. The 10 second cast time would prevent it from being abused as an escape tool like evac; beyond that is unnecessary, though a 20 or 30 second cast time would be fine.

Essentially, it would most often be used as a quick and convenient way to get to a safe spot after they're done hunting and want to log. )

~Firemynd

Let people buy adventure points.
500 pp to 1k sounds about right


One 1492 Item = 149,200 Cash gone or 74,600 Cash gone
which seems very reasonable for that item. you can either spend your time farming LDON...or go to other zones and farm cash (or drops for bazaar cash) and turn them into items.

Still a time sink to get stuff, just opens the option of sinking time into PP farming/making instead of ldoning

Notice the item is NORENT. It would serve the purpose of allowing the person to return to bind point during that session only. The 10 second cast time would prevent it from being abused as an escape tool like evac; beyond that is unnecessary, though a 20 or 30 second cast time would be fine.

Melee classes could use avoidance type discs to block/dodge/parry/riposte all attacks while they are using this item. All you have to do is stuff yourself in a corner, fire up disc, fire up potion, get out of jail free card.

4. Horses and Drogmors were a good plat sink initially, but most players will only ever buy a mount for one or two of their characters. In the same places as horse/drog vendors, place an NPC who sells enhancing potions... sorta like 'stat food' for mounts. Each potion would have a duration of 30 minutes.
Not a bad idea, but I'd rather see them just make the dam things move faster for less money. My rogue with runspeed3 has absolutely no incentive to plop 9kpp on a mount that moves as fast as I do without. ;) But for 30kpp I would. 100kpp is just too way over the top for me to ever consider it.

My druid and my cleric on the other hand BOTH have the 9k mount for medding and sit aggro ONLY.

Peridots. The devs acknowledged that this is an unfair cash burden on clerics, and will reexamine it.The following is not a proposal for a "new" cash sink, but one to make the existing peridot situation a "fair" cash sink. Instead of taking the peridot out of the caster's inventory, take the peridot out of the inventory of the person receiving the buff. If the person getting buffed has no peridot, then display a message like "This spell requires a peridot" similar to the way it is now for any reagent spell.

By automatically removing the reagent from the target of the buff instead of the caster, this particular cash sink can still exist but not be unfair to clerics. All my characters currently carry a stack of peridots so I can reimburse the cleric whenever I receive a buff that uses one.

Originally posted by Zatanna
The following is not a proposal for a "new" cash sink, but one to make the existing peridot situation a "fair" cash sink. Instead of taking the peridot out of the caster's inventory, take the peridot out of the inventory of the person receiving the buff. If the person getting buffed has no peridot, then display a message like "This spell requires a peridot" similar to the way it is now for any reagent spell. The problem with this that I see is that it they would need to do this with all the spells requiring reagents. And then EVERY character in the GAME would have to have a sack full of bat wings, fish scales, peridots and an assortment of other items taking up valuable inventory space. Classes that need reagents carry the reagents that they know they need. Often other players don't even know that the spell requires a reagent. But really... most clerics I knew "growing up" were almost without question given all the gemstones that dropped to sell for dots. Many were "paid" in gems FAR more than the dots for that outing cost. I don't remember any of them complaining of the cost of DoTs. If they were concerned, then they would either request a DoT or compensation.


**idea**
Rent-a-Drogmar! For those times you want to have the med/speed benefit, without the total cost of a drum. Or better.. rent a FROGLOK without the start-up lag of horses/drogmars but with the med effect. Or Rent-a-GRIFFON for the same but add levitate to it. I bet a lot of people who even have the bridles and drums would carry a few of those.

And again, an item recharge NPC

Originally posted by Arienne
most clerics I knew "growing up" were almost without question given all the gemstones that dropped to sell for dots. Many were "paid" in gems FAR more than the dots for that outing cost.This is actually another problem that the proposed change would solve. Personally, I would rather spend one of my own peridots for each HP buff cast on me and have loot be distributed evenly and fairly among all group members, instead of letting the cleric be given all gems without question, which is unfair to the rest of the group because many times clerics are paid far more than what they actually spent. Both extremes are bad - either the loot is split without any consideration for the cleric (unfair to cleric) or too much loot is defaulted to cleric (unfair to rest of group). The fairest way is to have people supply their own peridots for each buff they receive. It is hard to enforce this right now but if done automatically it would be easy.

I do see your point about other reagents such as bat wings, fish scales, etc. taking up inventory. However, this suggestion certainly does not have to be applied to all reagent spells. Ideally, it would be nice if each spell has its own requirement independently of other spells (reagent from target vs. reagent from caster). Then they can enforce this for peridot buffs only, for example, since those are the primary reagent cash sinks anyway.

Edit: wanted to add that there are already some "spells" in game that sort of work this way. For example, the teleport spell cast by the spires in various parts of Norrath. Anyone wishing to receive the teleport must have the Nexus port reagent (forgot what it's called), which must be obtained beforehand (by speaking to the scion) and placed in the inventory. Those without the reagent in the inventory are not ported.

400 PP CoH"s in PoA

Yeah, but walking by and being hit with MGB Clerics spells, taking a Dot and my Pot9/Symbol with it would REALLY piss me off.

Originally posted by RetlawEQ
Yeah, but walking by and being hit with MGB Clerics spells, taking a Dot and my Pot9/Symbol with it would REALLY piss me off. Ha ha ha ha ha!! Let's complicate it a little more. Toss in a confirmation box too? :)

On the other hand... it would sure make Pot9 even MORE popular.


Anyway, talking peridots or any other reagents out of the castee's inventory for a buff would probably piss off more than just a few players. I vote NO!

Yeah, how would group spells work anyway? Like a mass symbol currently costs what, two peridots...how would you figure out where the two peridots come from out of the bunch (whether 1 person or 100)?

I'll just point out that either I was one doormat of a cleric, or the stories of clerics making out like bandits on gem drops on the excuse of being compensated for peridots is more myth and hyperbole than fact. Its one of the great urban legends of EverQuest Clerics, up there with "clerics make insane plat rezzing people!"

Maybe it was just bad on Saryrn (my old server, where I played my cleric.) But I never made real headway on money until I got level 65 and happened into getting Hand of Virtue. 2 peridots for 6 people was a much easier plat sink on me than 6 for 6 for virtue since "BoA was ghetto"....

The problem I think is that some clerics abuse that priviledge, and that lower-than-uber clerics are unfairly stricken with that burden compared to clerics in high level raiding guilds who will be able to get HoV. Remove the peridot cost, or have it moved to the recipient of the buff. That way, each person (including the cleric), pays for their own buffs.

As for MGB buffs, easy, they remove 1 peridot from everyone who clicks "yes" on a confirmation box. Do this for all of them. That way druids needn't live in fear of MGB Virtue ;)

I always thought you should be able to toggle a little option on each buff with a "no do overwrite me". You'd just click on the buff and a menu would pop up with the option on it.

2. Every player city has a Soulbinder NPC. Convert that NPC into a merchant who also sells a "Soul Gem" (LORE/NODROP/NORENT Effect: Gate, 10 second cast) for 50pp.

Would we have to shove it in our foreheads to make it work?

My mount has no conjure time, nor does it have a bridle or drum. Augments of this type would do nothing for two classes in the game.

There is an all/all gate potion. Its 1500p each.

Ideas for money sinks:

-steed rentals
-tradeskill vendors who sell the more expensive components
-clickable item rechargers
-vendors selling buff and heal potions that, while being expensive, actually have useful effects, IE lower level and/or shorter duration versions of the same buffs a PC can cast
-NPC buffers, we all see c3 selling echanters, etc in PoK 24/7, why not put NPC buffers in the zones who do the same thing for a few of the most available buffs
-more quests with a plat or gold component (IE Jboots, planar armors)
-weapons and armour repair, if implementable
-pet rentals (think druid pet power and size here so as not to be unbalancing)

<i>-pet rentals (think druid pet power and size here so as not to be unbalancing)</i>


I think they'd have to pay players to accept a pet like Boo Boo. This is contrary to the concept of manasink, of course....:)

Not for nothing, but booboo the bear in the hands of a cleric would be a pretty nifty soloing tool. Think about the ability the cleric has to buff that bears hp and ac, and then heal it afterwords.

Not for nothing, but booboo the bear in the hands of a cleric would be a pretty nifty soloing tool. Think about the ability the cleric has to buff that bears hp and ac, and then heal it afterwords.
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Erm... wouldn't it actualy have to Hit something too?

Back to tradeskills, how about an NPC that give gems, poison vials and plat to to enchant mana vials?

Would probably make all the enchanters happy and actually would increase the time sink of tradeskills (needing to farm more cash).

Quite a few nice ideas here, unfortunately I doubt any of them will be implemented. Just look at the existing cash sink in game now, horses and lizards. They were intended to provide benefits (speed and mana regen) and penalties (no duck, no forage, slow startup speed, outdoors only). I guess its SOE's way of balancing things, but god forbid, they won't ever introduce any cash sink that provide purely benefits to players.

Not for nothing, but booboo the bear in the hands of a cleric would be a pretty nifty soloing tool. Think about the ability the cleric has to buff that bears hp and ac, and then heal it afterwords.


Oh my! I don't know which is funnier. The idea that Boo Boo, even with buffs, would be a "nifty soloing tool" (here's a hint...most mobs a level 65 cleric or druid would send Boo Boo after would kill it faster than we could get our 10-second heals off), or the idea that a buffed Boo Boo could solo better than a cleric.

:)

Actually, both the mana regen or the no ducking thing were unintended side effects of being on a horse.

Horses were SUPPOSED to be nothing but a luxury/showoff item... "Look at me! I got a horse, isn't it PURTY?"

:)

PP->AP would be nice. Like 50-100 pp per AP. Keep the PP low enough so that I can spend the PP I just made from an adventure on AP... I'm lvl 39 paladin, so 100 pp for 2 ap? I'd do it, I want my damn serpent sight augment!

Best idea yet:

A very expensive solvent that allows players to reclaim the augment off of whatever item that they have, instead of losing it when they remove it, like they usually do. Or, have an NPC be able to do it, but have the cost scale up with the point value of the augment... say, 25plat per AP.

50pt augment: 1250pp to reclaim the augment
1150pt augment: 28750plat to reclaim the augment

numbers are probably a little high, but it'd definitely be worth it, either you put more time in to get another augment, or you get plat out of the system by having it removed intact.

I bet the rich people would be happy to actually have something to do with their plat other than twink alts.

Originally posted by Daemonwynd
Best idea yet:

A very expensive solvent that allows players to reclaim the augment off of whatever item that they have, instead of losing it when they remove it, like they usually do. Or, have an NPC be able to do it, but have the cost scale up with the point value of the augment... say, 25plat per AP.

50pt augment: 1250pp to reclaim the augment
1150pt augment: 28750plat to reclaim the augment

numbers are probably a little high, but it'd definitely be worth it, either you put more time in to get another augment, or you get plat out of the system by having it removed intact.

I bet the rich people would be happy to actually have something to do with their plat other than twink alts.

Now THAT is a damn good idea. I wouldn't want to lose a +3 wis augment. They'd need to rate dropped augments though, but it would still take pp OUT of the system.

easy answer: SOE doesn't care about plat sinks.

If they did they'd hunt down the plat macroer and plat selling sites. That would shave away milions of plat much faster than any new plat sink or old combined.

Originally posted by Swiftfox
Not for nothing, but booboo the bear in the hands of a cleric would be a pretty nifty soloing tool. Think about the ability the cleric has to buff that bears hp and ac, and then heal it afterwords.
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Erm... wouldn't it actualy have to Hit something too?

Nope. Mark of Karn, Mark of Retribution.

Also, you'd be amazed at what even low-level pets can do when hitting at a mob from behind. Level 46 beaslord warder (the actual level of the pet, summoned from the level 58 spell) does a pretty decent job of hitting level 60 mobs all in all, as long as they are behind the mob. This is why pet-kite groups do so well.

While I'm sure it might be possible for a cleric to solo with such a weak pet, I think that at the same time it would be inefficient enough where the cleric would gain far better XP in a group.

redcloud: If you read the initial post (I'm not sure if you did or not) You will note that it was explicitly stated at a recent FF BY devs that plat sinks are needed in the game.

Hunting down and forcing sites external to SoE to shut down is a difficult proposition at best.

I can understand Redcloud's statement and have to agree with it to a degree.

They have stopped most of the combines used in tradeskills from being profitable so that does help some.

However if they would devote resources to go after folks like Yantis who sell plat they could pull millions of plat out of the economy. After all I would hazard a guess to say that most of the folks who sell plat to Yantis or online are only making the plat to sell it. SOE is getting their money (most likely from multiple accounts per seller),

But SOE would prefer an easy answer which requires a little coding VS expending time and resources to catching the plat sellers.

It is relatively easy to catch them. Buy some plat online. SMall ammounts are fine (no need to spend $300 for 100k when you can buy 10k (or a small object for much less Trace the IP, etc. (most of them are using prepaid cards) and ban that particular user and any other acocunts on that address. Ban the macroers as well who are outside the EULA. See who has traded money with that account and ban those accounts as well. The money on those accounts disappear from the economy then.

Of course if the EULA could stand up in court then SOE should be able to sue them but that will never happen.

My ideas for plat sinks:

In the Nexus:
Druid port vendor - 30pp minimum for a stone that is LORE, NO DROP, NO RENT and a single clicky of 'Ring to ..."

Wizard port vendor - Same as above. Lore, no drop, and no rent for a single version casting of the spell.

Or change that to just giving them 30pp and having them port you. That works too.

Buff vendors in PoK:
Have useful spells all the way up to level 49~50. Prices should be about 20pp per casting (50 or so for Temp). This will let lower level twinks funnel their money out for buffs. Clarity and the like should all be able to be purchased.

Buff tradeskill items:
50~60 buff spells should be tradeskill made. A ring with a single version of C3, 3 castings, for 1000pp to make (Jewelry crafting). Rez bracer for up to 90% ress for 1k (only one casting, tailoring). Summon corpse potion for 1k (three castings, brewing). A circlet of a Aego, single version, for 1k (three castings, smithing). More shaman potions that are 50 to 60 single cast versions of buffs (3 castings, alchemy).

They could create a sink for Particle Effects on certain armor slots.

For instance,
Boots for Druids, Monks
Weapons or Arms for Melee
Gloves for Int casters
etc...

Of course, people turn particle effects off, so the sink should have some type of timed benefit. Ex: Stack with everything spell haste for casters, stack with everything melee haste for melee (not excessive, just a bit).

So then, you 'activate' your shiny boots, costing like 200pp a shot, giving you an 'innate' (buffless) spell haste for x amount of time. Plus, you look kewl and l33T! A status symbol. All the newbs will come up to you and ask you for stuff. :p


Wyte

I would like to volunteer to be a platinum sink.

Would you settle for being a platinum blonde?

Originally posted by Panamah
I would like to volunteer to be a platinum sink.
/waves her magic Absor wand

POOF! You're a platinum sink!

http://www.custombrassncopper.com/AntiqueSink2.jpg

My mount has no conjure time, nor does it have a bridle or drum. Augments of this type would do nothing for two classes in the game.

That's quite a sense of self-importance to summarily dismiss an idea because it isn't applicable to one's own class.

There are lots of items in the game that "do nothing" for certain classes. Fact is, not every plat sink need be all/all to serve its purpose in sucking some money out of the economy.

There is an all/all gate potion. Its 1500p each.

Yes, and if you don't use it, the potion will still exist tomorrow when you log on. The proposed 'soulbinder' gate gems are NORENT -- good for the current session only. Perhaps I should have emphasized that more, for those who skim posts without paying much attention to the details. Sorry, I'll try harder next time :)

~Firemynd

Removing augments from items and keeping the Augment, price based on augment and gear quality peice (IE Elemental + 40 HP aug removing costs mor then removing a 12 hp from ToV armor)

Single greatest way to target a players Plat is to target the plays Vanity. Prismatic Dye has been the Single most effective Platinum sink that the developers have ever invented. How do I know this? Since LoY came out I have handled millions of plat worth of transactions most of the plat going to the server in materials used to make and sell Prismatic Dye. So any platinum sink would have to directly target this almost untapped market. What everyone here has suggested so far is something that actually performs a function in the game. Truthfully the only function that will have players jumping to dump their plat back into the server is something that gives them the ability to express themselves beyond the limited amount that is already allowed in EQ. This is why people jumped at the chance to use Prismatic Dye. Finally it was a chance for you to make you stamp of individuality on your character and, pick that perfect tint for your armor. The dye prices was right too just expensive enough to extract the maximum amount of plat from the veteran players but, inexpensive enough so that a newbie could eventually earn enough to look uber. Any new plat sink would have to take the success of Prismatic Dye into account. One might be tying the /face command to a player made "make over potion" and then broadening the available hair styles,tatoos,expressions ect. Another might be special augments that add Particle Effects to weapons and Items. Finally I understood why EQ didn't get onto the player owned house bandwagon. This would be an amazing way to suck platinum out of the server. It's not even a unquiet idea as many MMORPG and MUDs have used it to pull cash out of their economies. Houses could be the ultimate form of expression and vanity in EQ much like they are in the real world. I think the technology is available to do this. Houses could be individually instance zones accessed from a click able home in a home city. Individuality could be expressed in the type of interior and furnishings. All of wich could cost Plat. Even as far has hiring a Butler/Maid to be your own inzone banker/vendor. The possibilities are endless and after all isn't that what Everquest is about?