Originally Posted by
JustinSane4
Please be very careful on how far you stretch this "selling time" principle. I fear you may be surprised at how many subscribers you'll lose if you start putting things in the item shop that players have historically had to work hard to get (for instance, tier as a leveling armor or HHAB as an item needed to participate in endgame content). And a lot of the sales might just displace current sales of token packs, which have much the same function, but support the in-game economy, and, because they have been around for a while, don't upset as many as adding new stuff would.
When someone buys a token pack to re-sell, then uses the credits to buy gear from some other player, 3 players have benefited (the player who originally bought the token pack now has needed equipment, the player who uses credits to buy the token pack has tokens, and the player who sold his stuff to the first player has credits). It increases the velocity of in game currency. But if you just put whatever equipment the first player wanted in the item shop, only he benefits, and you potentially anger a lot of customers.
Personally I wouldn't care about other players having the option of buying power (so long as there was nothing not achievable in-game for sale), except that AO isn't much fun with no one else in it, and this looks like it could hurt the in-game population.