Well.... I have been thinking this last week, while I was making a new char for myself, just for the hell of it. My thoughts have been busy mostly with the completly wrecked economy on Rubi Ka, why it is as it is, what can be done about it, and what it would result in.
Well, first of all, the economy is almost beyond repair, I think most can agree on that. Items anyone can get a hand on are sold for hundreds of thousands if not millions all the time, no matter what level the chars are, or what ql. At times, its cheaper to buy ql200 items than ql75-100, and no one finds that strange. So, Funcom should really think about WHY:
Making a new char today, and knowing how the game works, I noticed something funny. From lvl1 and up to... any level, I do not buy ANYTHING from shops, except implant parts. Nothing, nada not a single thing. The only money sink we have in game is the shops, spend our money to get equipment, but there is not reason to use the shops, because all equipment you can get from missions or as loot, and of the things you want, the really good stuff 100% is loot or reward ONLY, no chance to get it in shop! So, from lvl1 up until lvl100, I only get my implants in shop, the rest I got on mission for, solo or team depending on ql I need, or beat some boss somewhere or do a dungeoncrawl somewhere, but NOTHING is bought. After lvl 100, shops do not exist at all, 100% of what you need,every single item you might need is found outside shops. This is not only stupid, it is insane to have an economy but nowhere to spend yer money, except to other players, or find it yerself.
Now, how do we fix this? How do we get an economy going again, and people actually start spending their money? It is so easy....
First of all, raise the cap of shops, ql125 is just way too low, and people use ql125 long before lvl100. To have over 50% of a characters levels without a money sink is asking for trouble.
Second: Throw everything you have into the shops! I mean everything except Unique or NoDrop, all Nanos, all weapons, all armor, all equipment, and all tradeskill items, get them ALL into the shops as soon as possible! It will not mean more people use them than now, they will not loose their value or whatever the reason is you hold them back, people today get them all anyway, because they all run mission after mission 24/7, because that is the only way to get any equipment to use, so they or their friends or their group WILL find what they look for. But what it would do is first of all, remove an annoyance, and angry costumers, because they do not have to do boring repetitive runs time and again, just to get that item, they could check the price tag, it would be expensive and they themselves would have to decide if they want to sacrifice something else to buy that thing they want. People want to enjoy the game, not get irritated. When you tell them: "We do not want you to spend yer ingame credits on anything in here, we want you to spend your Real Life time to get it" Guess yerself if they enjoy it, or get irritated.
Second, the money sink. People would suddenly have a lot less money to play around with, money would start to mean something again. Trade channel would get a bit quieter, but not much, because suddenly it would not be used to sell ql10 items for 400-800k, but people would sell really expensive items they have found a bit cheaper than shop price instead, in other words, a more sane trade than today.
Third, people could choose themselves what items they want to use, what nanos they want to have, what tradeskills they want to work with, by how much money they have to spend. Today, you get it all, and I do mean all. My Adventurer for example have 3-4 copies of all these special Adv nanos that he can not buy in shops, up to ql180, but he have hardly any of the shop ones, because he do not spend money on those when he knows he will find them soon enough.
For gods sakes think about it. First reaction will be a lot of people that has not spend a single credit in a store for months, to go on a shopping spree, so yes, first reaction would be a lot of buying stuff they have not found before this change. But in a month that is over, and all new chars after this will come into a different game, with a much better workign economy, and most importantly, a much better game.