The Sad State Of The El Economy

[Metraxis]

I speak with little fear of contradiction when I say that the economy is utterly borked. With that in mind, I have in mind the following proposals to mitigate the situation a bit.

 

Guiding Principle #1: Based on some unified price list, every productive activity should be profitable, without exception.

 

Guiding Principle #2: In the absence of scarce resources, prices for player-created items will tend to cluster near the sell-to-NPC price. In a situation of scarce resources, they will tend to cluster near the buy-from-NPC price.

 

Guiding Principle #3: Prices for raw materials and finished goods should reflect the difficulty or estimated difficulty of acquiring the item in game, regardless of the difficulty in obtaining the real-life counterpart.

 

Guiding Principle #4: Higher-level activities should have higher standard profit margins.

 

To take an example from the game as it stands, no player should ever make an Iron Sword in the game as it stands, because Iron Swords violate principle #1. The manufacture costs 10 Iron Bars, 1 Steel Bar, and 2 Fire Essence. However, Karn, in White Stone, will buy the Iron Bars for 25 each, giving you the 250 needed to buy the sword itself from the Blacksmith in Portland, never mind that better prices can be had on both the bars and the sword in the market channel.

 

And so I propose the following changes:

 

#1.All productive activities need an experience cap per hour, and this cap should be the same across all the major activities of the game. Specifically:

• 150 Harvests
  
• 150 Potions
  
• 150 Alchemize
  
• 150 Manufacture
  
• 150 Craft
  
• 150 Kill
  

Note that Magic and Summoning have no economic benefit on a per-use basis, with single exceptions (Bones to Gold)

 

#2: the slack needs to come out of the economic system. Introduce copper or silver coins to handle .01 or .1 gc increments, but the slack just 'cheats' players and annoys them without actually draining any real money out of the economy.

 

#3:The new price list should be based on the following assumption: Players will perform the activity at peak level enough times to hit the cap, and then will tend to stop. Under this assumption, one may set a formula for gc per hour based on the difficulty level of an activity, and the raw material costs and finished goods prices will follow naturally. Example: If the Level 0 gc/hour is 150, the Level 6 gc/hour is 450, and the Level 14 gc/hour is 854, then we have: Red Snapdragon: 1gc. Red Rose 3gc, Sulfur 5.79gc, and Fire Essence 10.79gc

 

Before I actually propose a complete pricelist, I am interested in feedback on the following:

• What is a good formula for 'optimal' gc/hour/activity level?
  
• Should fighting things have less economic benefit per unit and a higher or no cap?
  
• Should the NPC buy to NPC sell ratio be adjusted to something kinder than 10:1?
  
• It is extremely likely that the vast majority of the prices generated under this method will be much, *much* higher than under the current system. Is this mass inflation enough of a correction on its own, or is this kind of far-reaching change going to need a server wipe no matter what?
  

If the above seems 'cold' or 'level-grindy', that's because it is. Things can be relaxed a bit successfully when player-skill rather than character-skill is used to moderate item production, but that is not the case in EL, as in Y!PP or ATITD2.

Edited December 1, 2004 by Metraxis

[Aitrus]

im sorry....but... no...

[Metraxis]

I'ver had some nice feedback from people about the proposal, but clarity seems to be people's biggest issue, and so I will provide an example 4 times.

 

An Iron Sword takes 10 Iron Bars, 1 Steel Bar, and two Fire Essences to make (Lvl 20)

An Iron Bar takes 7 Iron Ore, 3 Coal, and 2 Fire Essences to make. (Lvl 22)

A Steel Bar takes 8 Iron Ore, 5 Coal, and 3 Fire Essence to make. (Lvl 24)

A Fire Essence takes 1 Red Snapdragon, 1 Red Rose, and 1 Sulphur to make (Lvl 0)

Iron Ore is a Lvl 23 item.

Coal is a Lvl 21 Item.

Sulphur is a Lvl 14 Item.

Red Rose is a Lvl 6 Item.

Red Snapdragon is a Lvl 0 Item.

Total Raw Materials: 25 Red Snapdragon, 25 Red Rose, 25 Sulphur, 35 Coal, 78 Iron Ore

 

For the first part, I will use current EL NPC sales prices. For the next 3, I will use one or another unified price formula and my proposed system. For the last three trials, the stated function is normalized to set the value of level 0 activity at 1zorkmid per event. Zorkmids are used as a convenient fictional currency to stress that comparisions between trials based strictly on out of context prices is inadvisable. Profit per hour numbers are based on 150 events pre hour.

 

Trial 1 : EL Today

Harry the Harvester collects the Raw materials show above to make the sword. His profit is:

25 RS @.25 + 25 RR @.25 + 25 Sulphur @ .6 + 35 Coal @ 1 + 78 IO @ 2.0 = 218.5 gc

174.34 gc/hour profit in 188 events

 

Alice the Alchemist buys all this stuff for 218.5 and sets to work. Her profit is:

2 FE @ 3 + 10 Iron @ 25 + 1 Steel @ 35 - 218.5 = 72.5 gc

302.08 gc/hour profit in 36 events

 

Finally, Mandy the Manufacturer buys the processed goods for 291 and makes the sword. Her profit is:

1 Iron Sword @ 250gc (Blacksmith price) - 360 = 41 gc loss. This is why manufacturing is 'hard'

6,150.00 gc/hour loss in 1 event

 

Trial 2 : Linear Increase

Under this formula, the z per event is a linear function of difficulty level.

Harry:

25 RS @ 1 + 25 RR @ 7 + 25 Sulphur @ 15 + 35 Coal @ 22 + 78 IO @ 24 = 3217 z

2566.76 z/h in 188 events

Alice:

2 FE @ 24 + 10 Iron @ 305 + 1 Steel @ 399 - 3217 = 280 zorkmids

1166.67 z/h in 36 events

Mandy:

1 Iron Sword @ 3518 - 3497 = 21 zorkmids.

3150.00 z/h in 1 event

 

Trial 3: Logarithmic Increase

Under this formula, the z per event is a logarithmic function of difficultylevel

Harry:

25 RS @ 1 + 25 RR @ 2.95 + 25 Sulphur @ 3.71 + 35 Coal @ 4.09 + 78 IO @ 4.18 = 660.69 z

527.15 z/h in 188 events

Alice:

2 FE @ 8.65 + 10 Iron @ 62.96 + 1 Steel @ 84.06 - 660.69 = 70.27 z

292.79 z/h in 36 events

Mandy:

1 Iron Sword @ 735.04 - 731.00 = 4.04 z

606 z/h in 1 event

 

Trial 4: Parabolic Increase

Under this formula, the z per event is a direct function of the squre root of the difficulty.

Harry:

25 RS @ 1 + 25 RR @ 2.65 + 25 Sulphur @ 3.87 + 35 Coal @ 4.69 + 78 IO @ 4.90 = 734.35 z

585.92 z/h in 188 events

Alice:

2 FE @ 8.52 + 10 Iron @ 70.20 + 1 Steel @ 93.20 - 734.35 = 77.89

324.54 z/h in 36 events

Mandy:

1 Iron Sword @ 816.79 - 812.21 = 4.58

687 z/h in 1 event

[Derin]

and this should somehow prove that the economy is 'broken' ?

[Kami]

Forgive him, Ol' Devs of Antiquity, for he knows not what he suggests!

[TheNewestNewbie]

I personally enjoy being filthy rich ingame.

 

What's your problem?

[Daxon]

I don't. After you've read the most expensive book ingame, along with the strongest axe book ingame, then money kind of loses value (nice to have, but you don't need thousands of it anymore).

[Metraxis]

The point is to try to come up with a system that is bereft of the price crossings which make manufacturing and crafting into money sinks, and also to create a system where new content can be added at the top end without requiring that everything be rethought. This is why all the functions I selected for my examples have strictly positive first derivatives and strictly non-positive second derivatives, to ensure that there are diminishing but not asymptotic returns.

 

If you don't think the economy is seriously hosed, to the point that some items only exist because of irrational behavior on the part of PCs with more gc than sense, then that is a whole other discussion.

[TheNewestNewbie]

Is the game going to turn into electronic Godzilla and eat everybody because the economy is "bad"?

 

If not, let the developers finish adding new things and *then* start being picky assholes.

 

Sincerely,

Lady Kala.

[behindthemask08]

DAMN COMMUNIST

 

you are destroying the free trade and the free market.

 

Thats just stupid if you can only make so much in an hour, what would be the point of doing it??

 

Thats the worst i dea yet on how to fix the EL economy

[Hammen]

Your "Guiding Principles" are good, but I personally don't like your solutions. No slack needs to come out of the economy, except for the fact that when you sell 50 of an item that sells for 0.42, you get 20 coins, instead of 21. And adding more exp limits will just annoy people, and will make specializtion less benifitial. I agree that no item should be able to be bought for less than the price to make it, Leather Gloves come close at only a 6 gc difference, and your example of the Iron Sword was good. This means that a good solution is to raise the cost of buying some items from an NPC.

Edited December 3, 2004 by Hammen

[Metraxis]

OK, Unified reply time:

 

Kala, the short answer to your question is yes. A healthy and expandable economy is neccessary to retain players. There comes a point when you have the best equpment, you have read all the books, and you've killed every monster. What then? New stuff needs to be added, and the time to lay the groundwork for that is the beginning. Questions like: "How tough should this new item be to make, and what Raw materials should we require?" are impossible to answer in a rational manner the way things are now.

 

btm08, you misunderstand the point of my post. I posit a world with experience caps on every activity for the same reason that a physicist creates models of behavior based on the assumption that all the objects involved are spheres moving through a vaccum. The unified pricelist is a method for setting NPC buy and sell prices (NPC will buy for less than the unified rice, and sell for more than the unified price) while acklowledging that these NPC prices will tend to act as attractors for the prices PCs charge each other. I'm not proposing any kind of mandatory pricing for PC trades so lay off the ad hominem.

 

Hammen, when I talk about taking the slack out of the economy, I mean precisely this: If you sell goods for 4.87 gc, you should get 4.87 gc. Of course the solution is to raise prices on some items. The whole point of my proposal is to come up with a method for deciding what to raise them to.

 

In short, if the idea of experience caps annoys you, the models work the same without them. You are just looking at profit per event rather than profit per hour. For the record, I am a Libertarian with strong Objectivist leanings. No price I am proposing is intended to be binding on the players. The sole focus of the inquiry is this: How do we determine the prices at which NPCs buy and sell items, in such a way as to conform to the four Guiding Principles, and thus ensure that no productive action is irrational? To suggest that I am proposing a shift toward a command or socialist economy is completely wrong, demonstrates a lack of understanding, and is a dire insult.

[Derin]

A few comments on your post Meteraxis:

 

There comes a point when you have the best equpment, you have read all the books, and you've killed every monster. What then? New stuff needs to be added, and the time to lay the groundwork for that is the beginning. Questions like: "How tough should this new item be to make, and what Raw materials should we require?" are impossible to answer in a rational manner the way things are now.

 

 

Items degrade, items gets lost, so there is actually a constant need for things.

When adding new things you don't have to have it fit into a formula, this is a game. A game is bound to have richer citizens than in RL, as you do not have the same kind of expenses as in RL. So given all that, you could just add things (cp. the fur boots).

This is probably the only thing I agree with you upon - we need a wider selection of goods (as in more of everything).

 

I post a world with experience caps on every activity for the same reason that a physicist creates models of behavior based on the assumption that all the objects involved are spheres moving through a vaccum. The unified pricelist is a method for setting NPC buy and sell prices (NPC will buy for less than the unified rice, and sell for more than the unified price) while acklowledging that these NPC prices will tend to act as attractors for the prices PCs charge each other. I'm not proposing any kind of mandatory pricing for PC trades so lay off the ad hominem.

 

Don't mix experience with pricing. If this is intended to act as an NPC guide for pricing keep it that way then. Do not mix it with players (their xp and their trade prices). No player would probably like the idea of having regulations on their way to conduct business.

 

when I talk about taking the slack out of the economy, I mean precisely this: If you sell goods for 4.87 gc, you should get 4.87 gc. Of course the solution is to raise prices on some items. The whole point of my proposal is to come up with a method for deciding what to raise them to.

 

There is little or no need to correct this 'slack' as you put it, almost all economies have this to a greater or smaller extent. Having more types of money in a game is actually more of a hazzle than a benefit.

 

 

How do we determine the prices at which NPCs buy and sell items, in such a way as to conform to the four Guiding Principles, and thus ensure that no productive action is irrational? To suggest that I am proposing a shift toward a command or socialist economy is completely wrong, demonstrates a lack of understanding, and is a dire insult.

 

It is ok if some kind of production is irrational, it doesn't have to be the most efficient production at all times. People do this for fun too you know.

 

And in your previous calculation, there are other things to consider too: fail rate in production, fail rate in harvesting and the actual time to harvest/make items, in any given case of your calculations, the profit per hour is lower. In most cases the 'profit' is negative even at earlier stages.

 

As a final comment I have not seen any suggestions to the price set by NPCs. The 'zorkmids' have little or no value when it comes to evaluate what you are doing/suggesting.

What do you suggest (according to your formula) that a iron sword should cost?

 

 

 

Study hard, work hard, then we are triumphant agains darkness.

(Book of Bane, verse 61)

[ChowRiit]

I speak with little fear of contradiction when I say that the economy is utterly borked.

 

The economy is fine, I've played games with far worse. It's hard to make money, but not impossible, and some skills are profitable imediately (eg alchemy) while some only make money (but lots of money) at high levels (such as crafting and manufacturing). This is the way it SHOULD be. Ergo, the economy is absolutely fine.

 

Guiding Principle #1: Based on some unified price list, every productive activity should be profitable, without exception.

 

Er, no. Skills like manufacturing in mmorpgs ALWAYS lose money if you buy the basic resources. This is because, to train them, you make large numbers of crappy items. However, if you become one of the few really high leveled players in it, you make money by the bucketload. There's no challenge to a game if you can make money whatever you do, some skills, even some trading skills, SHOULD take money to level and only be profitable at high levels.

 

Guiding Principle #2: In the absence of scarce resources, prices for player-created items will tend to cluster near the sell-to-NPC price.  In a situation of scarce resources, they will tend to cluster near the buy-from-NPC price.

 

Of course, thats what the prices on NPCs are for - to limit to a degree the prices of lower level items. For the same reason, higher level items aren't sellable to or buyable from npcs, to allow the economy to be totally freeform and player run.

 

Guiding Principle #3: Prices for raw materials and finished goods should reflect the difficulty or estimated difficulty of acquiring the item in game, regardless of the difficulty in obtaining the real-life counterpart.

 

Well, they should have nothing to do with the real-life counterpart, I'll give you that. However, while you agree that the price should be governed by supply (ie the difficulty in obtaining the resource), you missed out the flip-side of that coin - DEMAND. Supply and demand. Prices will, yes, be AFFECTED by difficulty in obtaining the resource, but if the resource is only moderately hard to obtain but, say, vital for manufacturing, it will obviously sell for more due to the increased demand. This is something the gamemasters can't accurately predict, and thus is why the prices need, for the most part, to be driven by a player economy.

 

Guiding Principle #4: Higher-level activities should have higher standard profit margins.

 

Due to supply and demand, generally very high level activities will. However, you can't change the fact that medium and low level activities used by a lot of players to level will be churning out vast quantities of those items, increasing the supply of the item thus reducing the price as players lower their prices to try and outsell their competetors. This is, again, something a player economy needs to achieve ALONE with no help from the gamemasters.

 

To take an example from the game as it stands, no player should ever make an Iron Sword in the game as it stands, because Iron Swords violate principle #1.  The manufacture costs 10 Iron Bars, 1 Steel Bar, and 2 Fire Essence.  However, Karn, in White Stone, will buy the Iron Bars for 25 each, giving you the 250 needed to buy the sword itself from the Blacksmith in Portland, never mind that better prices can be had on both the bars and the sword in the market channel.

 

So? If you can't afford the bars, mine the ores yourself, it takes longer but it's 100% profit. Or, instead, why not make them anyway and accept the loss - yes, you lose money, but in exchange you gain a lot faster experience. In all economies the more expensive items to make always yield better experience, and only the very, very, VERY best people in any discipline will be able to make both a profit AND good experience from what they are making. This is an avoidable side effect of a player run economy, and helps giving people a choice - either level for free at one speed, or level faster by pouring in money. It's the same in all mmorpgs, and isn't something I'd change.

 

#1.All productive activities need an experience cap per hour, and this cap should be the same across all the major activities of the game.  Specifically:

• 150 Harvests
   
  
• 150 Potions
   
  
• 150 Alchemize
   
  
• 150 Manufacture
   
  
• 150 Craft
   
  
• 150 Kill
  

Note that Magic and Summoning have no economic benefit on a per-use basis, with single exceptions (Bones to Gold)

 

The harvesting limit is only in there to prevent afk macroing. This idea is stupid. I don't want to have to sit around for 45mins every hour because I've made my 150 fire essences for the hour, I'd never get any experience. When I get down to proper leveling I can make a few thousand FE or around 400-500 HE an hour. Your suggestion would KILL the game. People aren't gonna want to play when they have to spend most of their time waiting for their timer to reset. And no, we DON'T want to spend 10 minutes doing one skill, then 10 minutes doing another, etc, etc. The economy and the rate of experience training is nicely balanced now thanks, we don't need this to come and ruin everything.

 

#2: the slack needs to come out of the economic system.  Introduce copper or silver coins to handle .01 or .1 gc increments, but the slack just 'cheats' players and annoys them without actually draining any real money out of the economy.

 

Why bother? The 0.5 gc doesn't mean anything to most players, it actually is quite a good way of pulling small ammounts of money out of the system, always a good thing. It doesn't cheat anyone. If people want to keep their 0.5gc they can always harvest another flower or whatever. This isn't an annoyance to anyone, the MOST you can lose in 0.9gc, which is still absolutely NOTHING if you've been playing for more than 20minutes, literally.

 

#3:The new price list should be based on the following assumption: Players will perform the activity at peak level enough times to hit the cap, and then will tend to stop. Under this assumption, one may set a formula for gc per hour based on the difficulty level of an activity, and the raw material costs and finished goods prices will follow naturally. Example: If the Level 0 gc/hour is 150, the Level 6 gc/hour is 450, and the Level 14 gc/hour is 854, then we have: Red Snapdragon: 1gc. Red Rose 3gc, Sulfur 5.79gc, and Fire Essence 10.79gc

 

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. You are totally missing the point. Some skills/items make more money and less experience, and some make less money or even lose money, but makes loads of experience. Trying to make them all make exactly as much money per unit time is silly, it completely ruins the point. Plus, prices of any player bought item can't be changed without basically removing player to player trade and getting them all to buy and sell to NPCs for everything, which is just stupid. Just let the economy sort itself out. If it makes no money and no experience, noone makes it. If people then need it, the price will rise, as demand will excede supply. Then it will reach the point where both demand and supply have evened out, and a stable price will develop. Don't try to change player run economies, they work best on their own, and are one of the most integral parts of any mmorpg.

 

As for you're feedback:

 

What is a good formula for 'optimal' gc/hour/activity level?

 

No formula is optimal. Let it sort itself out, don't intere at all. THAT is optimal.

 

Should fighting things have less economic benefit per unit and a higher or no cap?

 

If you allow a player run economy, things like that tend to sort themselves out. As for cap, NO skill should have a cap (possibly with the exception of harvesting, but only till a better way can be found to curb afk macroing that will have less effect on genuine players.)

 

Should the NPC buy to NPC sell ratio be adjusted to something kinder than 10:1?

 

Again, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The current system allows players to make money, but not LOADS of money. Leave it as it is, it's absolutely fine.

 

It is extremely likely that the vast majority of the prices generated under this method will be much, *much* higher than under the current system.  Is this mass inflation enough of a correction on its own, or is this kind of far-reaching change going to need a server wipe no matter what?

 

Or, how about not doing it at all, and not screwing everything up?

 

If the above seems 'cold' or 'level-grindy', that's because it is.  Things can be relaxed a bit successfully when player-skill rather than character-skill is used to moderate item production, but that is not the case in EL, as in Y!PP or ATITD2.

 

If you want to play "A Tale in the Desert 2", go play it. This is a game based on character skill not player skill (with the exception of pvp of course). You can't take a totally different game, and try change a game into it. I quite like cs, on occasion, but that doesn't mean I think the game needs first person view, hostages, and more sniper rifles.

 

Above all my point is this. You're entire post addresses problems that don't really exist. As with most whines about an mmorpg, you seem to fall into the catagory of "I cant be arsed to put in the effort required, so it should be made easier to accomodate me." Sorry but, if you find it too hard or can't put in the time, an mmorpg is not the game for you. (However, I'm not sure, you make a lot of serious arguments and compare with other mmorpgs, so you may just be misunderstanding the type of player driven economy that thrives in mmorpgs such as this.)

 

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[behindthemask08]

I would like to apoligize for what i said Metraxis. what i was really trying to say is that if you control everything too much (eg. caps, unified price list, trade restrictions, etc.) the game will become just like every other single player game where you can only buy and sell for a specific price.

 

The thing that makes this a unique game is the ability to do what you want and do it for whatever price you deem nesscesary, but you have to deal with the consequences. there is no need to have all NPCs buy/sell for the same price, they already do.

 

I agree with Chowrit in his opinion of Guiding Principle #1. If you make everything profitable, there would be no challenge.

 

There's no challenge to a game if you can make money whatever you do, some skills, even some trading skills, SHOULD take money to level and only be profitable at high levels.

 

GP #1 is rather communistic in the way that if you make everything profitable, you would totally control the trade.

 

I personally do not think these principles should be implemented as the would limit the game too much and no longer make it fun, though it is an interesting idea.

[Mithrandir]

Id like to add a related suggestion.

Maybe leather gloves/boots/pants/helm should be profitable to make. If not, they can sell for exactly what the price of ingredients were. It just doesnt make any sense to manufacture items and lose money. If this were actually to happen, all manufacturers would be bankrupt. Image coca-cola making sodas for 50cents a can and selling them for 40cents a can. About 10percent of the time, those soda cans break and the money is ruined even more.

 

Basically, what im trying to say is that leather is the most common way to manufacture, but it actually gives you negative profit. I suggest that Trik buy leather pants for 70/77gc. That way, you would never get a profit, but you have a much better chance of breaking even

 

I couldnt find any better way of explaining this. I hope my suggestion is accepted.

[ChowRiit]

Mithrandir - the entire point with manufacturing (or blacksmithing as its called in most games) is it hardly EVER profitable to train, but if you become one of the top few, you will be probably the most sort after player in the game, and will becoming incredible, stinking rich.

[born2boot]

I'm quite new here so forgive me if I'm rehashing old territory. EL is really promising and I think with some minor improvements it really is a Kick-A$$ game.

 

IDEA 1: full market economy

 

Having fixed prices for items for NPC's seems very odd to me. Wouldn't the economy be much better if the 'free market' aspects extended to the NPCs?

 

A good example is tin Mynadar... there are vegetable gardens and flowers right next to shops that purchase them. People can hang-out all day and harvest for both training and profit. But, isn't it strange that every shop in the entire world will pay the same price? It would make more sense if the price was based on scarcity. Then, flowers wouldn't be purchased for much by the flower shop near plentiful fields of flowers. That is, until the supply goes down again.

 

The smart player would have to learn to find the shops with the best prices! The smart player would learn how to harvest, and then export to another location where they could get top dollars because of the scarcity of the item.

 

This market economy would also be affected when people dump loads of items. Sure, they might get the current price for the first few items... but as the inventory of the shop becomes glutted with tons of the same item the purchase price begins to drop. If you sell 200 flowers, don't expect to get N*price for them!

 

The market economy would also balance between the free market between players and the shops. If players find they can buy cheaper from other players they won't visit the shops. Meanwhile the shops prices will drop due to lowered demand.

 

IDEA 2: limited resources

 

It is strange that I can harvest forever and the resource never runs out. This has to have a negative impact on the economy as a whole. It also makes training to easy. It would be nice if the resources were consumed and then after a particular time period regenerated. In some sense there is already limited resources with animals/monsters, why not for natural resources too!

 

IDEA 2: get rid of hourly caps on exp.

 

I certainly don't get this one at all. Maybe I should read the forums to understand it better. It is strange because there could be other more natural limitations on experience growth. The hourly cap seems Machiavellian. Why not let someone train forever on one thing if they so want, they just will develop an imbalanced character.

 

There are more natural caps to keep experience from growing too fast. The first I already mentioned, limited resources... that seems a lot more natural then hourly-caps. A second is speed of harvesting, if harvest speed is slower at lower levels it also limits how fast experience can grow. At higher levels the necessary interval will naturally direct the player to richer resources. Although they could then mine simple resources fast, the richer resources will be slow again and it should all balance out.

[Alsrir]

IDEA 2: limited resources

 

It is strange that I can harvest forever and the resource never runs out. This has to have a negative impact on the economy as a whole. It also makes training to easy. It would be nice if the resources were consumed and then after a particular time period regenerated. In some sense there is already limited resources with animals/monsters, why not for natural resources too!

 

This is a good idea..i've posted something like it two times o.O but if you mean limited resources for one plant for everybody (I mean like first come first serve shit..) then no horrible idea and it needs to be buried..but limited resources for individuals then yes good idea..

[ChowRiit]

1. Would just be annoying, you'd have people running all over trying to sell stuff and getting annoyed, and it would just generally aggravate the playerbase.

 

2.(a). No, no, no, no, NO! No limited resources! You can't even BEGIN to imagine how very, very lame it will be if you have to camp the damn flower spawns, and get up at 5am just to get the red roses for your fire essences, or whatever... Limited spawns are always a really, really bad move.

 

2. (. The hourly cap on harvesting is in place both as a limiter, as it is the easiest skill to train, and to prevent afk macroing of harvest.

Edited December 10, 2004 by ChowRiit

[born2boot]

2.(a). No, no, no, no, NO! No limited resources! You can't even BEGIN to imagine how very, very lame it will be if you have to camp the damn flower spawns, and get up at 5am just to get the red roses for your fire essences, or whatever... Limited spawns are always a really, really bad move.

I don't get why limited spaws are a bad move. It is the way things are for creatures, it seems natural to train against limited animal/monster resoruces. Why wouldn't it make sense for other resources?

[Placid]

Err...monsters/animals are not limited, they just respawn.

 

I personally think that limited resources will help the economy hugely. But im not going to re-hash an old idea, nor am i going to start another discussion about it - its already been discussed, and it will turn out ugly (again).

[born2boot]

Err...monsters/animals are not limited, they just respawn.

 

I personally think that limited resources will help the economy hugely. But im not going to re-hash an old idea, nor am i going to start another discussion about it - its already been discussed, and it will turn out ugly (again).

 

 

Yes, and other resources could do the same... but there seemed to be an objection to that. Thanks for warning me about this old topic, I'll drop it!

Edited December 10, 2004 by born2boot

[ChowRiit]

The problem with limiting resources is it just causes fights between players. There are always a LOT more people trying to mine, say, in the goblin caves than trying to fight goblins...

 

Limited resources hasn't worked in any mmorpg I've played. It's just not a good move...

 

Do you want to have to fight with 3 other people just to pick flowers?

[ecraven]

i'd say it just means that you have to walk farther.. there's enough flowers all over the place, just not in the most convenient locations.. and if every blob of metal gave off 100 ore, it shouldn't be too tight (though i don't know any exact stats of distribution of raws..)

i think it's a good idea to make it somewhat harder than harvesting lilacs right beside the votd store.. also i'd *really* like my dwarf to do some mining to get money, but right now flowers pay about 10-20 times as much