I am not an arch and do not speak for the admin of this mud. However, if I had
my way:

There would be no spending gold to get your name on a piece of eq, either
through a store or through a merchant. Names on eq are the heroes who spent
the time, effort, gold, and deaths to get it themselves. They get bonuses for
the eq because they earned it. You do not get your name on a loaf bread you
bought at the store, because you did not make it yourself. You do not earh the
gold metal for winning a race by borrowing it from a friend. And you do not
earn a tmaker because you chainkilled 5,000 bunnies for mithril and went to
the Batcity Luxury Weaponsmith. Even though that takes money out of the game,
it's still not nearly the level of difficulty that the tmaker deserves. And
paying a merchant doesn't even take money out of the game (unless they have to
pay to use the law skill, in which case it's just a shop).

The naming thing was done on purpose for players who make their own eq as
opposed to buying it from stores or channels. Allowing other players to get
the same bonuses by spending cash is the exact opposite of the original
intent. And I personally would be disappointed if my eq, which I had spent
hours of my time and numerous deaths/reagents/etc to get was the same as the
one Hopeless the Henchman bought at the grocery store.

Shinarae Lluminus

There are several reasons for why item prices have deflated - I'll list
a few:
- no major crashes that would take out eq from the game
- people don't lose eq (much) over reboots like they used to
- items don't break as easily
- more players that are capable of doing low/mid-end eq
- the nametune has reduced demand for items that lack the wielders
name

I agree fully with Shinarae about the matter. The "name on an item" is
not about who owns the item, it's about who did the heroic deed to get
it from a monster/quest, and meant as a reward for those players. I'll
loudly object to any effort to make this somehow purchasable.

++ Gore