Thanks for the support on that idea
Maybe one of the trolling devs will see this thread and suggest it to someone who matters in SOE.
Apologies for the long winded post, I know most people won't read this at all, but I hope some of you see what I'm getting at ..
Another idea I have regards the money. It bothers me that people just get more and more money as time goes on.
Problem: When EQ2 matures further, in about a year or so, it will be almost impossible to start a new character and take part in the player economy.
As an illustration, let me talk about Star Wars: Galaxies.
A year ago when I played SWG, you could buy a decent set of armor for around 2k credits, for all the pieces. About two weeks ago, prior to the combat upgrade, the same type of armor would have cost my new character 15k credits, which is pretty much impossible for a new character to get.
The reason this happens is because, in most MMO's, you kill something and pick up an item or get a quest item reward, and then you go sell it to make some money. If you were to sell it to a player, then you'd be exchanging your item for money that is already in the game, obviously. However, if you sell it to an NPC, the money that you get is generated by the game, and comes out of nothingness. Enough people doing this, over enough time, and the money being passed around through the world between players comes to a massive total.
For example, after a server is open for two months, let's say that the total amount of money in the game and being circulated between players is 100,000 gold. That 100k gold is being divided up in various amounts between all the players on the server, and thus dictates the prices on the market.
Now, there are 5,000 players on the server. Each one of them sells an item to the NPCs and makes 1 gold each. Now the total circulated gold is 105k. More selling, and the total is 110k. Eventually there is 200k gold being circulated, and many things on the market are potentially twice the price they were before, because everyone on the server has more money to spend.
Guy goes to the store and buys the game, starts a brand new character. Enters our server, and has 0 gold. He makes his way through the world trying to earn enough money to buy a sword, but has to earn twice the amount of money that the original players had to earn to buy the same item.
Solution: Set a limit for the server, related to how many players are active. Something along the lines of 1,000 gold for every 1 player. Once 50% of that server limit is reached, NPC vendors don't want your stuff as much, and they buy it at a reduced price. At 75% of the server gold limit, NPC vendors will buy at a much more reduced price. Eventually, if the server reached 90% economic saturation, NPCs would start closing shop and offering mere copper for items, while charging higher prices.
Of course, newbie area NPCs would still charge normal prices and pay normal amounts for items, so that new players aren't penalized.
This would help stimulate players to buy from each other, and encourage a player driven trade system, without completely locking new players out of the player trade system because they simply don't have the money to compete in an overinflated economy.