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Lotharion

EL: An economy of Inflation

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I’ve been briefly listening to the rather weird discussion about the economy on channel 500. My humble conclusions are as follows:

 

First the discussion appears to be a fighters versus non-fighters deabate. That is essentially absurd as the very cause and nature of this discussion is exactly what’s wrong with the game economy. I’ll explain what I mean.

 

Given is a closed monetary system with total amount of money in circulation of X gc (lets call the monetary unit “gold coins†for this example). A certain artefact costs 1/10.000 of X

(so if there’s 10K gc, the item costs 1 gc). The item will have a fixed value and so will the value of the money be constant. Now, imagine that due to some reason suddenly the total amount of money increases to 2X, than the item costing 1 gc will suddenly be worth only 1/20.000 of total cash-circulation, this will lead to inflation, items will loose value etc. This is what happens in EL on a large scale. This is what went horribly wrong in the beginning with Trik buying tit swords , leading to absurd situations like going to buy 150 million gc worth of silver… NPC’s MAKE money, as they ALWAYS buy and ALWAYS have money, regardless of the total in circulation. Fighting Makes money as monsters drop cash too. This means that after a period of play the amount of coins in game increases terribly, and so will inflation rise. This also kills player market, as supply and demand is thwarted by money-creating NPC’s. Rare drops have rapid inflation response and will always be somewhat on top of the pricelist, but even here time will kill the market.

 

Making items breakable helped somewhat, but more as a slowing down. NPC’s also remove cash from the game by selling things, but the rate is not balanced as more is sold than bought.

 

The solution: In stead of having an economic system rapidly creating inflation, limit the total amount of gc in the game to a certain amount. Let NPC’s have a certain amount of cash in store, depending on how much they sold/Bought, or how much timed out in bags or such.

 

Money that is lost from the game by time poof-bags or such can be redistributed to monsters and such. Basicly this means that NPC’s that don’t sell things, won’t normally hae money to BUY things. Now, it could be so that for example trick gets money which is mathematically the sum of the cash gained by other npc’s that don’t buy things but only sell + a fixed amount per new player ( to keep ratio players/ cash stable). What is important is that the amount of cash in circulation is kept under control. This will make money more exclusive and actually keep its worth. If this doesn’t happen we’ll be facing the same inflation we had before, only slower.

 

Stop inflation and you'll create a more healthy and stable economy. Maybe i'm just mad. I want nen Duvel now :) .

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If the big problem is inflation, then we need something to control the inflation. In the real world institutions like the Federal Reserve System work to keep the economy in check, so maybe something like this could be made. I don't know how it would be done, but a connected banking system would be cool.

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In response to the previous post- the way they "control the economy" in washington is by limiting how much money exists. You are agreeing with the original post.

 

I, however, do not entirely agree. The very significant factor that was not accounted for was economic growth. As more and more players join our community, and as existing players get more powerful and "rich" from a resource standpoint, the further you would stretch a fixed number of gc. Interestingly, you would find an economy of rapid deflation- players wouldn't have much gc to spend, so sellers would have to drop their cost.

 

If you want to put some sort of cap on inflation, then you could limit the number of available gc that exist as a function of the number of players- that is- the total gc available is #_of_players * X, where X is a reasonable quantity of gc per citizen. I don't agree with this approach, but it would be an improvement over simply fixing available gc to a static number.

 

Franky, I don't think that you can address this problem, or even be sure if a problem exists, without looking at data- graphs of number of players vs. existing gc vs. time vc whatever. I wonder if that historical data is available?

 

scafativ

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Scafativ there is one flaw in your plan. You can't use the total number of players in anything since it is so easy to make new characters. If people knew that they could get richer if there were more players then people would just create a lot of new characters and never play them again. Even if this did not happen there would still be the vast amount of characters that have been created by someone who did not enjoy the game for whatever reason and left. To limit the economy like you want you would have to count only established players by say, counting only the people with a level over 20 or something like that.

 

As for my opinion on how to fix the economy... I think that NPCs should sell more unmakable things such as leather or thread. If players were required to buy more things then more money would go out of the economy and prices would increase.

 

BTW...as for those graphs..I severly doubt that you will find any of them.

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As Entropy and others have said earlier, we can't limit the monetary supply to any practical extent, because of the fluctuations in players. What we CAN do, however, is to increase the demand for money to match it, so that the influx of money/goods into the economy is balanced by the outflow of money/goods from the economy.

 

The only fairly practical solution I can see would be to keep the monetary increase in check by having large money drains from the economy, adjustable when needed. Currently, the problem is that the money drains we have are affecting manufacturers more than fighters (ie. buyable leather versus breaking items and Tankel). Fighters do not HAVE to use equipment in order to progress in fighting - it is completely optional. Manufacturers HAVE to buy leather in order to level up significantly. And there is a secondary problem with that as well - leather can be turned into goods for sale, so the drain on the economy is not absolute.

 

What is needed is either more balance in the monetary drains (but that would be "fair" in a negative sense - in that "all players suffer" instead of "all players benefit"), OR non-economic benefits being paid for through economic goods. A good example of this is the 30k to create a guild. It is a large drain on the amount of money in the game, yet adds absolutely nothing back to the economy. And the greatest thing about it all is that it is viewed as a privilege/benefit, not a punishment. To form a guild gives one a certain sense of achievement/reputation. It's psychologically desired by the players.

 

So, in essence, we need more of those sort of things. Non-monetary rewards paid for by economic goods, that players are psychologically motivated to get. The God quests are another example (although it could be argued that they are limited because blessings lead to better exp, higher levels, and hence lesser failure rates - keeping goods in the economy). Other examples could be things like in-game payment for services (not goods) provided by NPCs (eg. guild maintanence, storage capacity, etc.), valuble (and temporary) items that give non-economic benefits, but degrade with time, and hence are renewable. (eg. "Curse Charm" makes you non-PKable on any PK map, for 10 minutes... sold only by NPCs for high prices, at a very limited amount of items - about 5 or so per week.)

 

That sort of thing.

 

-Lyn-

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For the manufacturer i think the best problème is the nomber of steel long and steel 2 edge droped by monster, we can't sell them when we make them because all people have them and we can't sell them to trick.

 

Players sell iron and steel bars like at lesst 40 each, if you make a :

 

iron sword:

--> 10 iron bars + 1 steel bars = 440gc trick buy it at 125

 

iron broad sword:

--> 12 iron bars + 2 steel bars = 560 trick buy it at 250

 

of course if you make the fes yourself....

 

Then nobody make them that s why nobody have seen a modable weapon or it s not implemented?

 

 

Then manuers need make all and can't play with an alchemist because he can't afford this without lose at lesst 2-3 x the price sold...

 

Then manu can't just do manu and they need fight or make a lot of he for win money or make warm furs all the times ;)

 

It will better if we can play together without loose money, some want become an alchemist but near nobody buy bars now (linux bot wich can buy them a good price cause he sells item so expensive that players can't do), some want be crafter and/or manu but they can't do just this because too expensive and fighter don't care...

 

So for manuer,

1 the quest with leather cost decrease, that i ve done, need to be implemented

2 trick need buy all sword (exept all tit sword)

3 monster need stop drop swords (fighter win a lot of money with monster drop (tit long sold 1k and need an efe to make))

 

 

for fighters,

1 capes need break more then they will able sell cape in a good price, some times i saw bp cape sold only 4k because new players have already, and less droped because some have more 20 of each...

2 less books droped because all have 30 of each

3 more potions droped

4 need a lvl requirement in def for wear armour (10 leather armour, 20 ironchain, 30 steel chain, 40 tit chain, 50 plate mail... for exemple) some nee players wear iron full set...

5 need lvl requirement att or matter for swords...

 

for crafter,

1 stop monster drop all crafting items, how can they sell them?

2 disable command #beam me up in all pk map, for able sell ip rings

3 vodt ring and naralik ring is too expensive to make 3 sand papers, damage ring only one...

4 a potion of crafting if possible...

 

for alchemist,

1 just the fe and he take not a lot of time to make then alchemist don't make other essence that s why ewe is too expensive..., we need decrease the time when level grow up

2 for make bars they need a lot of stuff and need carry a lot, why not make a bar with 5 iron or silver or tit..., the cost will decrease and manu wil buy more...

3 more items need enrichied essences

4 potion witch decrease time to make

5 more spell need all essences...

 

for potion skills

1 implement potion that people want to buy, this time only brs, srs, and manu pot

2 more extra type of potions...

 

for harvest

1 can't harvest an ressources if you haven't the lvl and the book! (some lvl 20 harvest iron!)

2 we can find serp stone, why not queen of natures heal, or find a potion for restore heal?

3 at lvl 50 can harvest some mercure with a very very rare books...

 

for magic

1 just more sort of spell

2 if possible a better windows for the spell more easy

3 do something for the price cost of death essence wich are made with mercure

 

for summonning

i don't know...

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i am aware of the factor of demographic expansion and economic growth, but since new characters are often made without due reason, it would not be prudent to link it to this directly. Better would be linking it to the average amount of players online over a fixed period or something.

 

As for the 'richest player holding 50% of the money, it is also how it works in real life, where a small elite holds a large majority of the wealth, however, since money will have a reliable purchasing power they will be be forced to use it more often, furthermore they are bound to spend it and as a player reaches a higher percentage of the total cash, each further increase will be considerably more difficult due to increased scarcity of cash.

 

Furthermore, this will give economic guilds a serious purpose, controlling the commodity market and the moneymarket, fighters will in part be more dependent on economic backing, which is a realistic way of working. On top of that people will have to barter and trade more, and more exchange trades will probably occur between players.

 

Finally realise this just an idea and an analysis of the situation as I perceive it personally. Something to think about perhaps. The biggest objection I think could be made is practical implentation of the interconnected closed monetary system, which could lead to trouble. Having a different currency on the second continent would also give cause to interesting exchange rates and would make moneyspeculation possible. Fighters would still have the means to find and sell/trade rare drops, but people in a more pacefist occupation could play on the market using common sense, and indeed a rich player could cause a serious upheave by hoarding money, but thats part of the game. Afteral, fighters can also pk non-fighters on pk maps. (yes i know the moneyhoarding is general and not restricted to pk maps) the point is, eventually he will want to but stuf from npc's and when that happens money will flow again. Usually strategies like that (hoardign money) are intended to sink the market, than buy all while prices are low (which spreads the money) Furthermore, the total amount of cash would be high enough to make a person owning 50% of total cash really quite unlikely (due to spreading etc)

 

cash reserves controlled by the isntitutions are a way to buffer too. There's a bank building in Portland, use it, and let a considerable amount of money be stashed there to buffer in case of need.

 

just my 5 cents :ph34r:

Edited by Lotharion

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The only problem is, theres too much money in game and ppl are not forced to use money if they dont want.

 

So look for ways to loot the purses of the players.

 

Why is the service of the storages free? Unrealistic. Lets charge 1-2 gc for every click on a storage NPC.

 

Why are the trips with a boat free? Unrealistic. Lets charge 5-10 gc for every boat trip.

 

That will be a constant drain of money.

 

And the other thing: Stop monster drops of items, manufacturers or crafters can make. That is the ruin of economy too.

 

Piper

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The only problem is, theres too much money in game and ppl are not forced to use money if they dont want.

 

So look for ways to loot the purses of the players.

 

Why is the service of the storages free? Unrealistic. Lets charge 1-2 gc for every click on a storage NPC.

 

Why are the trips with a boat free? Unrealistic. Lets charge 5-10 gc for every boat trip.

 

That will be a constant drain of money.

 

And the other thing: Stop monster drops of items, manufacturers or crafters can make. That is the ruin of economy too.

 

Piper

The storage suggestion is right, i've said it before: Charge the players for use, say 2gc per slot (that's a max of 200gc per full storage), per hour/day?

 

Boat trip charges should be free from IP, otherwise newbies would be broke. And im not too sure it would work for boat trips everywhere else.

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Boat trip charges should be free from IP, otherwise newbies would be broke. And im not too sure it would work for boat trips everywhere else.

Even a complete noob can kick some rabbits and sell the meat/fur to store to pay 1 gold coin for the boat trip.

 

If s/he is not able to kill at least 1 rabbit to get 1 gold coin, s/he better should not leave IP. :ph34r:

 

 

 

Piper

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How about charging a fee to go up a skill level?

 

Let's say you finally have enough xp to go to level 21 alc (or whatever). Now you have to go to new NPC and pay a certain amount of cash to actually attain that level (be certified). The amount would be based on the level, low amount for low level, high amount for high level.

 

This would get some cash out of the system very quickly.

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Even a complete noob can kick some rabbits and sell the meat/fur to store to pay 1 gold coin for the boat trip.

 

If s/he is not able to kill at least 1 rabbit to get 1 gold coin, s/he better should not leave IP. :ph34r:

Thats not the point. If they cant explore the game first, their not gonna stay. Plus, if they dont know they could kill rabbits and sell them, how are they gonna start making the money in the first place?

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Even a complete noob can kick some rabbits and sell the meat/fur to store to pay 1 gold coin for the boat trip.

 

If s/he is not able to kill at least 1 rabbit to get 1 gold coin, s/he better should not leave IP.  :ph34r:

Thats not the point. If they cant explore the game first, their not gonna stay. Plus, if they dont know they could kill rabbits and sell them, how are they gonna start making the money in the first place?

For my personal taste there is enough on IP to explore. There are houses, a cave, a secret place. And theres no need that a noob must go to SKF within 5 minutes after creating his char, for example.

 

And they can still ask how to make money.

 

Maybe this is an advantage that they are FORCED to ask how to make money, instead of running across all maps with no ideas about the game and then quit frustrated, because a garg ate them.

 

Just my 2 cents,

 

Piper

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I think the largest contributing factor to the inflation in EL economy is the price of the gc, or the effective "value of a dollar". A gc is worth the amount of time it takes a player to harvest two lilacs. There is no limit to the amount of money that pours into the economy, and indeed many people don't rely on the economy to get money. They rely on harvesting the gc from a lilac bush. Much like counterfeit money irl, this hurts that economy, and moreso when everyone can 'make' their own gc.

 

The first priority should be to make it less desirable to 'create' money, or at least to slow down its creation. Limiting the amount of resources mined simply to sell to npc's, or limiting the amount of resources the npc's will buy, would do very well to this end. I have submitted suggestions for limiting the amount of resources that exist, so players can only harvest what is there. Another option is to make lilacs useful for something that everyone needs. Why do players sell lilacs to npcs, but sell rabbit fur to players? Because players need furs. No one really uses lilacs for much more than instant gc.

 

Second priority should be to gauge prices better. Some prices, like steel shield, are self sufficient, and conducive to the player economy. Some, like leather gloves, are not. You can sell steel shields for 500-600gc, after making them from 8 steel bars, (320gc), 2 iron bars, (70gc), and 5 FE (20gc). 410gc item cost to sell for 90-190gc profit. Thus you make it worth the manu's while to make these items. But if you make leather gloves, you take 4 leather (40gc), and 4 threads (4gc) and craft an item worth 44gc. Players can buy them from the npc for 50gc, so there isn't much of a profit margin on these. You end up forced to sell them for 25gc to npc, almost half the cost of making them, or selling for almost nothing. And since they're a quest item, players need them in bulk, so they'd be a great commodity otherwise. But more often than not they sell for 35gc to players, at a loss, just to get rid of surplus created gaining manu skill.

 

EDIT: Third priority should be to take craftable items mostly off of monsters. I'm thinking especially of tit longs here. There's no longer any point to making a tit long, as they require an EFE and people will still sell them cheap because they got em off a monster. Give monster drops different weapons and armor, maybe "used" weapons that can be repaired. Monsters should trend toward dropping resources, potions, gold, gems, etc. Maybe cheap or nearly used up weapons and armor.

 

Money sinks are a final effort, when all else cannot be balanced on its own. You can add millions of expensive items to pull the gc out of the game, but it's just gonna come back. Kindof like using bandages to fix a dam. It might help if you've only got little holes, but the big issues need to be fixed.

Edited by The_Pale_Elf

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@ Scafativ: I'm totally against the idea of charging for transportation and storage. These are basic necessities in a game like this, and while taxation is fine irl, it doesn't work well in a game.

 

@ Lotharion: As a UO player who made out well in the gold coins market on eBay, I will say that it's a bad idea to enable a system where a person or group of people could hoarde large amounts of gc while the general public can't get any more gold. This raises the value of a gc in terms of rl money, and they'll jack up the value of a gc before selling it for rl money. And there will always be people willing to pay for gc if the game allows it to 'dry up'.

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This thread is an interesting concept.

 

The idea of regulating a fantasy-world economy is a strange concept indeed, especially in a game. The point one easily misses is that a game differs a lot from the RL world.

In a game you simply lack the obligations you have in real life, so it's only a matter of time spent in the game that will determine you base wealth, or net worth (if you are economically inclined).

Thus, a player spending 5 hours/day playing EL will be richer thatn a player spending less time in the game. And by limiting resources and thing, you will, in the end, also limit actual play time.

 

Putting limitations on resources, is not a good thing either.

This beacuse when I have filled my alotted share of items X,Y,Z etc and gotten my experience in X,Y z skills. What is there left to do? Social interaction you say, o yes, but how good is social interaction if it is forced upon you? And some ppl don't want to sit and chat, so they will be left with nothing to do.

 

So what you want to look at is if this really is a problem.

So what if i have 100 000 gold coins, I can choose to spend them or to keep them. That would be up to me. As most items can be bought from stores, there is no risk of me ruining anything in the economy. The only thing that could happen is that I can outbid a poorer character in the player trading place (market channel). Is that a real problem? I think not.

 

Try to remember that this is a game, you are here to have fun.

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Most people have this limited view of economics when it pertains to a game. Well, I've got gold, so it must be working for me. Who cares if resources sell for less? I'll just make my own and not sell, or I'll buy em at a cheaper price. What's the harm in that?

 

On the surface it sounds great, you push down the prices until you can buy everything for nothing, and have abankful of gold. But there are other issues that pop up, such as, if the value drops too low, then supply also drops. How many of us have tried buying furs, only to find that no one is selling them? The problem is, it's not worth saving rabbit furs for 2gc each, unless you're a newbie or making your own manu resources. The walk to storage is simply not worth the time it takes. So suppliers who would sell furs for 5gc each happily, look at the 2gc price and say forget it, I'm not walking to storage for nothing.

 

Economics in a game are rarely given little thought. Yes, people say 'it's just a game', and like to remain ignorant of what makes a game fun. If the numbers don't match up, and you just lose gc trying to gain skill, then it's not as much fun. Less fun is not the goal of a game. What's the point in having a skill that's useless? If it takes all sorts of time and gc to gain manu skill, only to be able to make weapons and armors that you could buy for less than you put into building the skill, why not just be a fighter and buy your weapons and armor? If it's unbalanced, then few people will play the varying aspects of the game, because some will not be fun.

 

My last thought is, this is not a topic for people who just want to play a game. Every game has to be designed, worked on, thought out in every careful detail to make it as much fun as possible. If you just want to play a game, and not think about the economics behind it, then you're probably not going to get a lot that's discussed in a topic like this. We don't forget it's just a game. We realize that it needs to remain balanced to remain a *fun* game.

 

EDIT: Most MMORPGs have an entire economic system regulated for the players, by the players. For instance, the player economy on UO not only includes gold coins market, but an entire real money market, not only in USD, but in currencies around the world, traded in a market so large that eBay has a category defined for Ultima Online good specifically. It's a market that is at base just a game, and at the other end a means by which people have legitimately made 6 figure incomes in the course of a year. Game economics aren't new, and there isn't always a border between what is a game and what is real economy.

Edited by The_Pale_Elf

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im all for the removal of ready weapons and armor from monster, in fact i have been calling for it for some time now.

 

and yes, the items that can be made should have a sell price in stores that represent the cost to make it...

 

allso, vegetables and fruits should be changed so that they only give 6-9 points of food, and the inns/taverns should start to sell items thats compareable to what fruits and vegetables are today. this to increase the money sink effect of needing food when doing diffrent tasks. im not so sure i like the idea of being able to make ones own cooked meat from campfires, but then you need to light said fire (getting hold of wood and fe) and then use one and one meat on the fire. and there is a limited number of fires out there that can be lit right now.

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allso, vegetables and fruits should be changed so that they only give 6-9 points of food, and the inns/taverns should start to sell items thats compareable to what fruits and vegetables are today. this to increase the money sink effect of needing food when doing diffrent tasks.

100HE = ~50 fruits, you want to make it 100 or 150 ? It's stupid idea and yes, I can buy cooked meat... so cost to make 1 HE will be like 2.5gc, income 1.5-2.5 ? right... :blink: just more clicking, more walking, more harvesting.. more boring. Also I'm against that form of 'drainage' money from economy, like with leather, it's mainly effect low lvl players, which usually dont have any money.

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