If you buy a gallon of milk, and then realize you need to buy another, that second gallon isn't already going to be more expensive. So one of the problems is prices update far too quickly. They shouldn't update more frequently than once per tick, and even longer periods of time would probably be better. There's nothing wrong with prices rising in accordance with heavy demand. The prolem is that the increase price gets other people to start producing since they can make better profits. This increases supply which brings prices back down. This would be a great reason to get some merchant and industrious classes going, so that the IMM staff need not make new shops and what not, but let the playerblase actually help in the stabilization of prices.
Not knowing how the code works, I would say that eliminating the intrinsic values one sees when casting identify would help. Items do not have a value inherent in them, but only have value that people place upon them. Items can be more useful and more easily reworked, that in general people will place enough value on them and even potentially use them as a medium of trade like money. So maybe if you say try to sell some obscure sword in Teron, versus say a sword made by some famous smith, the guy doesn't pay you based on an arbitrary amount set in code, but rather on say the amount and type of material you sell. You sell a medium iron sword that weighs 5 pounds, he figures if he can't sell it, well at least he has that much iron that can be reworked into something else. You try to sell a wooden or stone piece, and he's not so interested since he can't readily rework them. This could bring up the possibility of secondary and tertiary materials, such as a steel sword inlaid with gold and silver. Of course this might be way to huge of a code update.
Banking fees, while sucking would be a great place to start too. Having someone else hold your wealth and making it accesible to you in a variety of places is a service, and one you would normally be paying for. The only reason we get free checking accounts in real life is because of fractional reserve banking, which often leads to bank runs, which often leads to governments taking over and creating central banks (Of course that could be cool too. If the Empire was worth its salt, they'd be filing down coins to incrementally steal from the citizenry to help finance all their wars).
This brings up a completely unimportant tidbit and thats obsidian coins. Theres a reason the only obsidian coins I've ever heard of come from a makebelieve universe. Obsidian has a quite high melting point and fractures readily, meaning its really hard to work. Assuming addamantite is considered a metal, this would be a much better choice, and it would more reasonably reflect the high value people place on adamantite armor.
Wow, sorry that this got as long as it did.
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