Crafting profit was a bug

I talked just yesterday about how nicely the EQ2 economy was humming. Some crafters made goods that sold well to other people. Other crafters were at least able to sell to NPC vendors at a small profit, thus financing their crafting progress. Turns out that SOE considers that as a bug. A serious bug. So serious that in a hotfix they turned off all selling of crafted items to NPC vendors. They were so eager that they even accidentally turned off selling most loot items to NPC, and then had to issue a second hotfix to turn it back on.

The reason given is that if people are able to sell to NPC, they won't sell to other players, thus NPC hurt the player economy. A typical case of the devs getting things backwards: In reality players would much prefer to sell to other players at a good profit, than to NPC at a tiny profit. Only if they are producing items that no player wants to buy, like food, potions, or furniture, they are obliged to sell to NPC to cover their cost. They can't do that any more. A lot of provisioners (the crafters making food) are heading for the exits, cancelling their accounts.

The correct response to a lack of player market for food would have been to make food more attractive, so adventurers would want to buy food from provisioners. The NPC vendors just provide a bottom to the market, and SOE just pulled that bottom out under the crafters feet. They promised to "review" the prices and then turn vendor selling back on, but that can take a while, and if they lower the prices much more, they don't cover the production cost.

Seems SOE hasn't lost its uncanny ability to shoot themselves in the foot. Whether making large groups of your player base unhappy at a time where there are sufficient good alternatives to playing EQ2 is a good idea is doubtful.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:05 AM Permanent Link