14th Sep 2022 (Updated: 01/19/2023)
The fall of Ultima Online gold is decided by multiple factors that have built up over the years to create abnormalities in UO's economy. UO gold has been falling since existance even with very low inflation. This means that someone has been printing more supply using a bug or dupe to disrupt what would of otherwise been a thriving economy.
The act of duping is basically like minting free gold out of thin air. This is possible from possible hacks made to the game which allow someone to change the total amount of currency they have. When things like this go unchecked by the admins of the game it can cause the economy to fall, lowering the value of gold as it begins to add to the circulating supply.
Many people use farming scripts to get their UO gold. Even though the price is falling, the scaled operation can cover the loss in gold value by acquiring more. Since there isn't much dropped by monsters in the entire game, many people farmed the items instead to sell for the duped gold. This led to the price of items being worth far more gold than the economy ever anticipated.
With how cheap the price for UO gold is now since the fall, it has only fueled buying at inflated levels. Many people now buy over a billion Ultima Online gold just to satisfy their spending needs. Places like UOKing have their UO Gold listed at some of the cheapest levels you can find. A new term has come into play which players are calling platinum. UO platinum is what you get when you convert 1 billion gold coins in exchange for 1 plat.
As the price continues to drop over the years many people refer to item inflation as the root cause. The truth is that this inflation is a product of the duped gold being circulated. With this in mind, it's important to always sell your goods at the high. And, to hold onto things that face inflation or scarcity in the future.
As suprising as it is, perhaps thanks to the use of auction safes the game is able to continue to thrive and operate in a now stable economy system. Coming back to the game over and over as the years pass still gives that same great excitement. Atlantic still remains the busiest and most populated server.