I've been thinking about the complaints on energy costs and what not, and I think I've hit on something here. It's going to be a bit long, but bear with me.

The problem with the economy is more than rising costs of energy or supply and demand. There is an economic principle known as "Liquidity", and it lies at the heart of many problems people discuss.

Liquidity is the ability for money to move around the economy. From those to acquire it via credit card or dungeon diving to those who sell mats to crafting to purchasing energy and so on. The problem is there simply isn't enough liquidity in the game.

Think about it! Look through your inventory, and how many unused mats, equipment and recipes you have! There are other people who can use that but can't because they didn't see you spamming the general chat channel in Haven 18, so now you have dead weight and no extra crowns to buy what you really want. Yes, an auction house will solve this problem, but it goes much farther than that!

Great, you sell unused mats and you get extra crowns, and the price stabilizes at some point. But now because there is a reliable source of mats, folks who want to make money crafting can now do so! Some will specialize in certain low level items, others will level up higher level equipment. Now that there are folks making equipment, others will sell recipes to those who want to craft. Suddenly everyone has better equipment for their work because money can easily move through the economy!

Look, a few of you guys got to nail someone for insane prices of a rare recipe. Great, that's always fun. You'd make more money being able to sell everything you don't want off than a one off sale. And yes, the token trader has improved things. The game could be a whole lot better if we spent less time spamming /1 and more time diving into the depths.

Remember, this is a casual game. Killing things in the deep depths and improving your character are fun. Waiting around for a buyer for your 83 Blue Shards is not fun. More fun, and less not fun.