http://pub147.ezboard.com/fmonklybusiness43508frm1.showMessage?topicID=42694 .topic

whoa

thoughts? discuss

Well, I saw that and a couple other posts on various boards about this, and they all basically said that the price of plat on the auction sites had plummeted. I went to check out the sites, and saw plat still going for $1 per 1kpp, which is about where it's been for quite some time now. The posts I was reading were saying 100kpp was selling for $20. So I don't know if it's simple exageration, or if there's some other motive at work.

All I know is, I can never afford any high-end stuff in the Bazaar, so if it all doubles or quadruples in price, it won't have any effect on me ;P

But if there is a dupe bug, they should fix it fast.

Tat

That's self preservation at its best. Personally, I kinda admire those people that can turn a game they play into a RL profit making machine but his post rubs me the wrong way. If he was making money instead of losing on the dupe, he never would have made that post and called all that attention to this so called bug.

/shrug I guess it would need fixed if it's true

I have definitely noticed significant bazaar price inflation since the start of LDoN, but it's not necessarily a result of a dupe bug. LDoN dumped a whole lot of money into the economy with the outrageous amount of vendor-sellable loot. <i>Any</i> group of 4-5 doing 6 adventures a day (4 and a half hours) can get 10K in vendor loot plus other sellable trinkets, and that's just a side benefit of getting adventure points and AAs. Before LDoN, most groups couldn't get such great cash, loot, and AAs all in the same camp.

Want a level 65 character and 300 AA in a single day? Well, one seller promises that, and has accomplished it. Now, simple math tells you if that was only the AA, that would be 1 AA every 3.8 minutes. Impossible, by even the best powerleveling team. A person would be extremely hard pressed to reliably get level 65 in 24 hours, let alone 65 and 300 AA points.

The character comes with no skills at all. IT IS LEVELED USING DUPLICATION BUGS AND EXPLOITS THROUGH HIGH EXP QUESTS.


I wondered about this myself. I saw an ad for this on "that guy's" site after someone linked it on the Cazic boards. The speculation in that thread was that a GM was involved somehow, but now I wonder.

The posts I was reading were saying 100kpp was selling for $20. So I don't know if it's simple exageration, or if there's some other motive at work

Yeah looks like their selling price is the same, but the buying price is much lower than it used to be.

I wonder if people are still buying plat from those places at such rediculously inflated prices. They're making like 300% profit.

He complains about the exploit, and claims he knows what it is, but doesn't post it.

The quickest way to get an exploit fixed/nerfed/plugged is to post it on one of these boards.

IMHO, he's making it up.

Originally posted by Kerech
I wondered about this myself. I saw an ad for this on "that guy's" site after someone linked it on the Cazic boards. The speculation in that thread was that a GM was involved somehow, but now I wonder.

I believe that claim has been changed so that it is an additional 24 hours for every 30 AA Pts , so it is not totally impossible for someone to be doing it without GM help.

He complains about the exploit, and claims he knows what it is, but doesn't post it.

The quickest way to get an exploit fixed/nerfed/plugged is to post it on one of these boards.

IMHO, he's making it up.

I didn't see him state anywhere that he knew how people are duping plat. He just said he knew it was happening due to the immense buy-out of high priced items, the drop in how much plat sells for, etc. I'm sure if he knew how the exploiting was done he would have either posted it to get it fixed, or not made a post at all if he wanted to use it for his own purposes.

OK, I'll re-phrase that.....

He's Guessing/Assuming/etc. He has no proof.

LOL, the 1-day level 65 with 30 AA's isn't there any more. From "that guy's" web site:

We are sorry to have to do this, but as we have just learned that the company we had hired to do our Powerleveling may be using exploits or cheats, because of this we are no longer using them and refunding our customers that wanted Powerleveling.

We are not wanting to risk our name and our customers accounts just for money. We still offer powerleveling the old fashion way where we have a team of expert players level up your characters but that requires a lot more time and a move to the Stormhammer server. If you are interested please let us know.


"may be using exploits" MAY BE? LOL!

This is a horrbile, horrible thing.

hmmm.... And now the servers are down for a patch on a Friday?

Was this 'scheduled' ?

almost every server is down (not Test, Rallos)....must be a scheduled patch. Or just another chapter in a messed up economy.

I can't wait to use a wheel barrel of plat to buy a sow potient.

It was scheduled (http://eqlive.station.sony.com/support/scheduled_downtime.jsp) (bookmark the page) but they must've posted it yesterday. No date on it though so can't confirm.

A lot of players on other boards say it's actually possible to level up a character from 1 to 65 with 30aa's in 24 hours legitimately. Has anyone tried this to see if it's really doable? Perhaps grouping with a swarm kiting bard in high ZEM zones played by multiple people over the course of a day?

I'm still skeptical it can be done without some sort of bug or exploit although I don't buy the GM involved conspiracy theories that always pop up when something like this happens.

As far as the huge amounts of platinum flooding the server goes, it probably has to do with macroing certain obscure tradeskill recipes that give a higher return selling back to vendors than the cost of materials. There are a few out there that haven't been spoiled yet.

Lemme start up a new char and we can try it out! :D

Originally posted by Diggins
A lot of players on other boards say it's actually possible to level up a character from 1 to 65 with 30aa's in 24 hours legitimately. Has anyone tried this to see if it's really doable? Perhaps grouping with a swarm kiting bard in high ZEM zones played by multiple people over the course of a day?


I don't see any possible way.

Let's say you had a bard PL'ing you and you could get an AA every 20 minutes (much faster than you'd think, but assume it's possible)

Ok, that gets you 3 AA's per hour... 30 AA's = 10 hours.

Now that leaves 14 hours to level from 1-65.

No friggin' way without somehow exploiting a quest or something. If it can be done "legally" then please tell me how. I've never had a character above 58 and would love to do it :)

I got the urge to write a SpawnWeek article about this whole Platinum for sale business.

http://www.spawnweek.com

I found some of the posts from "legit" platinum sellers to be particularly funny.

I'm not a power trader like some, but I do look for items for my main and my alts from time to time in the Bazaar - spells, gear, tradeskill stuff, etc.

I've noticed some inflated pricing on Sol Ro recently, especially in regard to 63-65 spells and had hoped it was just because folks were doing LDoN and not farming PoP zones for Specs and Runes. That would be expected.

Yet, if there is a plat duping bug out there I truly hope it is fixed. Dupe bugs hurt everyone in the longrun.

i've known people to be over 50 in less than a day played... 65 might be possible with the crazy PoP zems.

and as for the economy issue, i have no sympathy for the people who make a living off of eq. you try selling me a fungi for 150k so you can put dinner on your table, and i'll tell you to get bent.

/cackle!

Oh! The pl'ing offer was taken off the yantis web site.

I found irony in this (http://www.mysupersales.com/powerleveling.html) statement:

We are sorry to have to do this, but as we have just learned that the company we had hired to do our Powerleveling may be using exploits or cheats, because of this we are no longer using them and refunding our customers that wanted Powerleveling.

We are not wanting to risk our name and our customers accounts just for money. We still offer powerleveling the old fashion way where we have a team of expert players level up your characters but that requires a lot more time and a move to the Stormhammer server. If you are interested please let us know.


/snort

Yeah... right

I can't see why anyone would want to plunk money down for that so-called powerleveling offer anyhow. It was around $1000 on Yantis site to buy one of these pre-made characters. LOL that's more money than I spent on four years of EQ subscriptions and expansion packs combined!

One interesting thing that could happen if all the dupped/macroed platinum isn't removed from the servers is a movement towards a barter economy where players trade good items directly with each other instead of using worthless platinum. EQ money would be relegated to buying horses, tradeskill items or low level junk. Look for the now dead trade forums on your local server board to come back to life soon.

From what I've heard, The plat Duping bug was involving a mysterious banker spawning in Befallen in the late night hours(Befallen is a dead zone anyways so during the late night it's probably never going to be found except by an explorer). According to what I read, the banker was not linked to your global bank account for some reason and if you converted your plat to gold and back to plat something weird would happen where you'd get more plat back than you turned into gold. This link is posted at Monkly-Business on the messageboards explaining it better than I can. http://www.mobhunter.com/message.jsp?articleid=-1389668485&msgid=-2111257869#message I dunno if this is actually true but if it is I have to wonder how many people found it and how long it's been there without anyone saying anything. :\

So I wonder if since they now know what caused the bug to run checks on folks character files to ban anyone that used this bug.

I certainly hope so.

Ok, been reading more and wrote an update. Someone said a patch was done last night and about 35 million plat on MySuperSales has gone from their auction database and the prices of their plat has gone way back up. So perhaps we're back to the normal level of sleaze.

http://www.rpgexpert.com/607.html

This lists another money making macro that macroers were using. I honestly wish they would fix these. I have been through the pain of the Aid Grimel quest and my heart goes out to honest tradeskillers but the macroers are ruining the game by dumping tons of plat on the economy.

Panamah

I just looked on supersales after I read your post.

Yantis still has in excess of over 40 MILLION plat (on my server alone) and it doesnt look the prices for my server has dropped any. I didnt check other servers out though.

Now wait a minute... a banker shows up in Befallen, with a name that is an anagram for Hoarder... and he is causing new plat to enter the world... that cannot be an accident. There has never been a banker in Befallen, ever. Someone had to put him there intentionally. This thing stinks...

Absor flat out denies that the banker ever existed. That is if I read his post on the SOE boards correctly.

Of course, that is what I would expect him to say if the NPC has been removed from the game and noone can provide proof it ever existed.

40 Million? Good grief...

You really have to laugh at SOE for ever asking for "plat sink" ideas to help the EQ economy. All they have to do is put one guy out of business and it would take care of ALL the servers at one time.

Not really. Where there's a market, there will be someone to fill it. At least with Yantis, he was a public figure and easily watched. The devil you know, and all that.

As for the banker in befallen... lets be serious (I've heard this rumour before, as early as pre-kunark.) Of course Absor is going to ask for proof. So am I! These zone files are watched and watched by a number of third party people for changes... spawn points are monitored, and records kept. Brand new npc's cant just appear. Any created NPC leaves a record. There is no evidence besides unsubstantiated rumours, exacerbated by the frenzy surrounding these "Plat dupe exploits", which also may or may not have actually happened.

Not saying there isnt cause for concern. There are corrupt gm's, I know first hand and have had to deal with them. But the sorts of things people are claiming are beginning to get rediculous.

People really need to just settle down and realize that despite everything else, there are some SOE programmers who do indeed Kick Ass and are also honest and hard working. If there is a problem, they'll find it. In the mean time, buying into this frenzy only serves those who are out to exploit it and us.