The problem with the economy is goods and money flood into the market, but very little is ever removed. Goods never decay - items efectively last forever. Money also flows pretty heavily into the economy, and only money spent on NPC merchants ever really leaves. Money echanged between players stays in the economy.
THe tribute system appears to be designed to try and remove some items and money from the economy, and the casino system is also apparently designed to remove money. My prediction is that both systems will prove to be rather ineffective in accompishing these goals.
[Dark Age of Camelot uses a system where items degrade over time and must be repaired or they become useless. Eventually items are no longer repairable. This has the effect of taking items out of the system eventually.]
The net effect of the closed EQ economy is that items that used to be worth thousands of platinum are now worth tens or hundreds or platinum because there are so many of those low level items. With the vast amounts of money in the game items at the high end command vastly inflated prices.
Another more serious issue is there have been, and probably still are, some people who find ways to expoit the game and duplicate items or create vast amounts of platinum. A lot of this platinum is sold for real money outside the game. This contributes to the inflation of high end items.
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