"1 million <pick currency> for a simple +1 Sword!" The Player-based economy thread

[RobinStarwing]

So, I've played Ragnarok Online...

I've played Dungeons and Dragons Online...

Now I also have Star Trek Online...


Is it just me or are the player-based economies in these games f-ed in the head with inflation? Could someone work up what an EC or Zeny is equal to in Euros or US Dollars?

EDIT: Forgot to tag it with a icon.

[Geminex]

I know that one tf2 refined metal is worth something in the area of 20-30 cents. That means every time a weapon drops for you, you're finding a bit more than a penny.

[Aldurin]

I haven't followed Runescape for over 4 years now, but I'm guessing that there's some pretty crazy profit to be had in peddling items for real money. Back when it was in-game gold people would still be throwing around close a billion gold to get the newest top-tier item.

[Toast]

In Guild Wars 2 someone listed on the tradepost recently one of the legendary greatswords for around 9k gold. The current exchange rate for gems is 100 gems=~1.5g. 800 gems is $10, so the legendary is worth about $750, if I did the math right (and I make no promises that I did).

A lot of high level crafting materials are also super expensive. Charged lodestones are going for ~5g each, and some recipes need as many as 250 of them.

Just recently I read about an exploit using crafting and salvaging. One of the new holiday recipes that required a brillaint snowflake, a glob of ectoplasm, and some mithril ingots could be salvaged for 2-3 globs of ectoplasm and the snowflake, so that you could basically make it over and over again if you had some mithril and the top tier salvage kits. The recipe has since been disabled, but prices for the materials used were still out of whack the last time I looked.