This is a market?

[Guest DravianBOP]

I hope you will all forgive me for jumping in here late. I have only been playing for about a month. I wasn't here for any price model but the current one.

 

I see several problems with the current economic model, some are directly tied to functionality, some are very important to RP. Some are root causes, some seem to have come up as a result of the growth of the game population.

 

The first is that there seems to be no rational basis to the relative value of different items. All harvestable items need to have some intrinsic value of both the item itself and the time spent in aqcuisition. Since we currently have a harvest-based (and irrationally tilted) economy, the basis of all value should be level 0 harvestables (blue star, impatiens, lilacs, red snapdragons, tiger lillies, branches, logs). Theoretically, these items should all have the same failure rate, giving them the exact same base value (time*quantity). They simply need to be gathered by unskilled labor (low time value).

 

They currently do not have equivalent market values, and those differences do not match the built-in need/demand for the items. Branches and logs are only good for fires, impatiens have multiple uses, and lilacs are over-valued given their demand as an ingredient. The future addition of wood-based manu skills would be a great opportunity to rebalance these base raw materials.

 

The base price of a harvestable item (when sold to an npc) should be something like (((time*quantity)/skill lvl)+charm lvl). Then npc's would pay you less for an item that is "beneath" your level. Adding the bonus for charm would not only be a great RP addition, but give some use to the attribute. Charm would work on npc prices just like rationality works now with exp. Then some formula is needed to ensure that finished products will sell for more than the cost of their parts. Having Magic Essence selling for the same price as the emerald that is needed to go in it makes no sense at all. Everything manufacturable (alc, manu, craft) needs to have a base cost greater than the cost of its parts, and allow value for the time spent making the items.

 

This also brings up the fact that level 0 harvestables should be the ingredients for level 0 manufacturables. Why is level 0 Fire Essence made from level two level 0 flowers, and level 14 sulfur? This doesn't happen in manufacturing, but there you can make neither needle nor thread. Doesn't this artificially motivate the players to become better harvesters before any other skill? The economy should promote a choice of which skill a player wants to level up, and be neutral as to which skills are rewarded. Demand will set prices for necessary ingredients for any particular skill.

 

This brings up the next point - npc prices. As many people have pointed out before, npc's should be used to set a base level for all items. The problem with them now is that they also set an artificial and unnecessary maximum price point unrelated to supply and demand. This is both a programming problem, and a role playing problem. High level players are able to make mass quantities of the very same items that lower level players can make, and get the exact same price every time they sell those mass quantities to the npc's (leather helms are a great example of how this model fails). The npc prices need to be given a minimum level (here comes the first programming problem that I have no idea how to do) and have their buying/selling prices change according to the number of items on-hand. They should also have some kind of limit on how many they will buy in a given period of time, and in order to prevent stagnation, a "cooldown time" where items simply disappear from npc inventory and demand rises again. Multiple npc's should have independant inventories, thus forcing mass-quantity manufacturers to either wait out the cooldown, or travel to different areas to sell their wares at the best avaiable price.

 

Again, the formula (((time*quantity)/skill lvl)+charm lvl) would make it less valuable for for high level players to make mass quantities of low level items. They should be spending their highly valuable time making highly valuable high level items. I don't believe that exp alone is sufficient motivation unless the other rewards are equally valuable. At least in that I see advancement in levels as simply a means to get to the greater ability/opportunity it affords. Plus, the newbies need to be left to their own things to do so that the game continues to be fun and challenging for them. Leave the entry-level work to the entry-level people. This adds to the proposals to require component parts for higher level items. Let me decide if my time is more valuable than making the components, and I will just buy them from lower level players. I can use my time to assemble the finished product. There will always be those who do not value their time, and won't care about harvesting lilacs at level 150. If that's the way they want to spend their time, good for them.

 

This economy also has the "mercury" problem - npc's shouldn't sell anything they don't have to buy. But this is not the biggest problem in the npc side of the economy. That has to do with the unlimited supply of items that the npc's have to sell. If we have an unlimited supply of harvestable items, and unlimited time for players to manufacture items, then the npc supply should be limited to those items sold to them by the players.

 

Finally, there is the "drop" concern. If the drop rate is kept proportional to the manufacturing difficulty, market balance would be maintained. It also needs to be based upon the level of both the creature defeated, and the player who wins. The level 100 fighter should have to spend the same amount of time fighting that the level 100 manufacturer spends to create the item, or the level 100 harvester invests in gathering and selling ingredients to buy the item, etc. Then the investment equals the reward.

 

As a matter of gameplay (keeping it fun) this puts the onus on the developers (all wonderful and underthanked people!!) to continue to make new higher level items, and monsters to go after them with, as the experience pool of players continues to rise. Not an easy task.

 

Wow, that got longer than I thought it would. If you've read, thanks. Big thanks also to everyone who makes the game possible. Apparently you have given me something to do with what should be my otherwise valuable time, and I do enjoy it!

Edited February 23, 2006 by DravianBOP

[duran]

well i have barely read it, much less digested it, but it sounds good so far...

[Pyewacket]

I am on Learners side in this matter now. The market is player led and as such its the players responsibility to fix it, not the devs.

 

You dont like the price of efe? dont sell it for a low price then. If someone else is offering it at a low price, buy it.

 

When i had a bit of cash i kept the price of efe up for a couple of days simply by stating I am buying efe for 3kgc and reselling them for 5kgc,

and instantly the price went up over those few days....

 

Those of you that DO have cash to spend need to keep the prices up using a similar method, then players will no longer be selling quite as cheap if they think you will resell the stuff you buy from them at the profit THEY should be making....

 

Your market, do something about it....

 

- PYE

[DemonCowboy]

I am on Learners side in this matter now. The market is player led and as such its the players responsibility to fix it, not the devs.

 

You dont like the price of efe? dont sell it for a low price then. If someone else is offering it at a low price, buy it.

 

When i had a bit of cash i kept the price of efe up for a couple of days simply by stating I am buying efe for 3kgc and reselling them for 5kgc,

and instantly the price went up over those few days....

 

Those of you that DO have cash to spend need to keep the prices up using a similar method, then players will no longer be selling quite as cheap if they think you will resell the stuff you buy from them at the profit THEY should be making....

 

Your market, do something about it....

 

- PYE

 

 

i juat have to ask this and what r u going to do when uve spent 2 weeks trying to sell that EFE and have bought 20 of those EFE and still arent selling any? - most players arent interested in wasting that kind of time they want their stuff sold so the NPC economy needs to be balanced so those players can dump the things they dont want to waste all that time on - and if they want a completely player based economy they should get rid of the NPCs buying and selling items that players can make for sale plain and simple, i say take them out or fix them

Edited February 26, 2006 by DemonCowboy

[Aislinn]

If the NPC's buy above (even just barely) the cost to make an item, it becomes a place to dump goods and flood the game with gold. Then you will have massive inflation as people mass produce and sell goods to NPC's.

Anybody who doesn't believe this wasn't here when players made leather pants at the general store, then ran them to trik...bags and bags of thousands of pants were just left on the floor and millions of gc were made on them...even runners were paid exhorbitant amounts to just run...

 

Can you say total game reset?

[Arnieman]

The problem is that while inflation is a problem, so is deflation.

 

A general decline in prices, often caused by a reduction in the supply of money or credit. Deflation can be caused also by a decrease in government, personal or investment spending. The opposite of inflation, deflation has the side effect of increased unemployment since there is a lower level of demand in the economy, which can lead to an economic depression.

 

Thing is, certain people of the game remember when beaver fur went for 1Kgc - while I wasn't here for that, I can agree that isn't good. So, we combat inflation by pulling money out of the game when we can - which is leading to deflation, because not only is gold falling, goods are increasing.

 

The economy is collapsing, not because there are still too many people with too much money, but because there are people with too many goods to sell versus the amount of money to be made. I used to argue against the price-cutters, always reducing for a quick sale - I see now they are not the problem, only a symptom. As they slash their prices for a quick sale, people buy for less, people see this, the prices become standard - with the increasing scarcity of ingame gold, prices are only on one natural trend - down.

 

If this trend is not corrected, is it unreasonable to say 1K beaver fur for a gold coin?

 

EDIT (Off-topic) Yay, 2000 posts! I'm a chimmie!

Edited February 26, 2006 by Arnieman

[DemonCowboy]

the problem w/ the origional prices wasn't that the NPCs bought over cost it was that the NPCs never stopped buying and kept buying at the same price - an instock supply and demand system should have been added rather that cutting the economy's throat by messing up the prices to b unrealistic - we see this model fail everywhere in the real world where ever there's rent control u create artificial prices it can ONLY cause problems somehow there needs to b added that the NPCs only carry so much in stock and/or based on how many items are in stock affect the prices if the NPCs have hardly any of an item they should buy for more and sell for MUCH more if they have bunches of an item in stock (which they should stop buyint at a certain point) then they should pay next to nothing for it and sell it cheap that in itself would control the flow of money into the game the NPC prices being they way they are players have no way to dump what they're selling so they can go about their business so instead they cut prices to get the sale done so they can go about their business if the NPCs had an in-stock system like mentioned above (even if it just bought and cut of at a certain limit and slowly items left that inventory say like 5/hr (RP NPCs r selling to other NPCs) and/or tracked what was bought worse case scenario is some1 would have to wait to dump to the NPC when they could get SOMETHING for themit would stop ppl from making thousands of any 1 item because they wouldnt b able to get them sold right away easily so they would make to sell or use/ what they could and go do something else and would do sooo many things to benefit the economy that the difference would be like night and day - the only other option is to take the NPCs out completely that sold anything that players can make then the economy would get worse for awhile but after awhile even the very young players would learn that that didn't work very well and prices would rise back to something negotiable but if u did that that'd mean flower shops (a main source of gold for ALOT of players old and new alike ive seen ppl w/ almost 200 material points harvesting blue lupines) would have to b gotten rid of and any1 that bought any harvestables and they'd have to b put on the player market and subject to supply and demand as well - either option would work but the latter would take alot of ppls interest in the game away because itd become even more difficult to make a buck for awhile the first option of having the prices make sense again and adding an in-stock option i think would be the best solution and would fix this collapsing economy - untill then i for 1 will continue to sell at whatever price i have to that i can make anything off of and exploit the current price system's flaws in order to make my way financially

[Tordek]

If the NPC's buy above (even just barely) the cost to make an item, it becomes a place to dump goods and flood the game with gold. Then you will have massive inflation as people mass produce and sell goods to NPC's.

 

Sorry Learner, but i just cannot agree with you. NPC's already buy some items OVER their production cost. Namely flowers and most harvestables. If these items can be sold over production cost i don't see why other items cannot. If you don't exagerate that profit i see no obstacle in it.

 

Anybody who doesn't believe this wasn't here when players made leather pants at the general store, then ran them to trik...bags and bags of thousands of pants were just left on the floor and millions of gc were made on them...even runners were paid exhorbitant amounts to just run...

 

In my eyes this simply means that leather pants were just overvalued. I haven't played at that time but i guess thay could have been sold for much more than 40gc. How many leather pants can one make a day? 5000? Rewarding him for his whole-day with 5000gc profit is very reasonable in my eyes. This is simply because 5000gc in very easy to get by selling flowers.

 

Basically what i lack to see is coherence in the economy. I would say nothing if we were not able to sell flower for such high prices, and neither if we would have profit (any tiny profit) on all items.

 

Tordek