See a trend there? Now what is fascinating in this is the upward curve you can see there. The graphs are taken from one year. When you put the graph lines overlapping each other you'll see the trend more clearer.
Around the 24th of August the prices start to climb steadily and quite rapidly when you look at the older prices. Now what could be the cause of this? Well those who remember the new marketplace was introduced around 25th of August. The new marketplace had been in the testing for some time now and before the 24th there had been massive talks about the new taxation system.
Now, we'll have to keep in mind that it's possible that not all the market data have been moved from the old system to the new, but mostly the prices looks to be correct.
So when seeing these pictures one might think, have the 2% tax really tamed the inflation or has it actually escalated it? Now I know that inflation on older MC's is common, but is it really this unified through all the items? Even on the cheapest ones?
I'm not saying that I'm against or for the 2% tax, I just think that Gaia should perhaps look at the figures more carefully and calculate if it's really doing good or bad to the site. Inflation is of course normal, but where goes the border when it's artificial and not benefiting the community. We all know what are the down sides of massive inflation. More and more people will be tempted on going to the dark side because the amount of items that are on the edge of unreachable to normal user is increasing daily.
Though the inflation seems to be getting out of hand I wouldn't recommend any set prices for items. That would really kill the rest of the community. The taxation system is a good idea, but the problem is that when in the real world taxes are used to benefit the community. In Gaia the gold doesn't go anywhere since the admins don't need the gold to keep up the site. When the people don't get anything in return for the tax they jack up the prices to cover the taxes.
Now what would help with the inflation? In Gaias situation I really don't have that many ideas. Making gold harder to get would be one idea, but it would increase the botting in it's own behalf. Rising taxes would only cause people to bring the prices up more to cover the taxes. A tax that would be bound to the value of the item might be something to think of, but it might be too difficult to do. Maybe there isn't any good solution to the massive inflation and we, users, just have to keep up with it the best we can.
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