Eq1 - Devs on Top of Zone-Based Economies : EQ1 EverQuest 1 News

A player posted on EQPlayers that the drop rate for gems had been significantly reduced as a result of the new hot-zone status for Crystal Caverns. Rashere responded to his allegations:

"I routinely run zone-based economy reports.

I just queried the data for the zones you mentioned, and neither the coin-drops nor the cash-loot have been changed enough to make any significantly measurable impact on money entering the world.

When it comes to money entering the world, we have a very strict guideline for all level ranges of mobs, a guideline which we follow to the letter with very few deviations (hill giants, for instance, are one of the anomalies).

Specific to your inquiry on Crystal Caverns, its conversion to a hot-zone, and that being the cause of coin drops being significantly reduced, I'll check with Nodyin to see if he may have done anything to cause that particular issue. ....Nope! None of the NPCs were modified in any of these zones. The new drops are additional but didn't remove any current items from the zones."

The thread quickly morfed into a "yeah, how come we can't make more plat of the mobs in all the zones," to which Dev Prathun replied:

"In original EQ, when we were walking uphill both ways in the snow, we managed to buy our spells without level 4 mobs dropping 4-12 platinum worth of items. It was rough, but somehow we got by."

A few more players chimed in, a bit less sarcastically, that yes, indeed it was hard to make platinum in the days when you had to fish or sell hides in East Commonlands in the open trading mart.

So, all's right with the world, and we had a thread where three developers chimed in to talk about an issue.