Developers Corner

Originally posted by Adamantine

 

Originally posted by VPellen

Devil's Advocate time!

[...]

1. One major reason closed economies don't work is basically because of hording. Players will gather up everything in one place and not do anything with it. Why? Well, on one hand, they may believe this is how you "win" at the economy. On the other hand, they may just be trying to make life difficult for you. Don't underestimate the ability of players to make your life hard just because they feel like it.

The main reason for "hoarding", though, is much simpler: the desire to be prepared, and to have something archieved.

 

For in many games, you dont know what tomorrow brings. So what do you do ? You try to get a heap of resource X, Y, Z, etc. Each of these heaps have a changing value; by having as many different heaps as possible and having as many on a heap as possible you can guard yourself against most future events (even if heap X might lose its value, maybe Y keeps it),

For example, in the game I'm currently playing, Vanguard, the economy is currently screwed over big time with their "Game Update 4". This update suddenly throws crafting ingredients after us as if there's no tomorrow. Stuff that was insanely expensive is suddenly ultra cheap.

Before, there where times when money lost drastically its value.

Therefore people prepare themselves by having different resources ready. Its the same thing in the real world, except in the real world you usually only hoard money as its really seldom that money loses its value.

The only reason to hoard is simply because you can.  The moment that increasing your inventory increases your cost, your forced to make decisions and dispose of items whose cost to keep exceeds what the item is potentially worth.  However, having said that, we have to remember that costs are relative.  If it costs 100g a month to fill an inventory and you make 125g a month you net profit is 25g.   If it costs 100g to keep your inventory stocked and you make 10,000g a month then the cost to keep your inventory full is minimal and making choices on what to keep is no longer necessary.  Costs like these in game are typically fixed.  The end game player has little problem paying these kinds of fees.  Of course it's the end game player that is the problem.  Driving costs up on the end game player will make the costs for casual and new gammers impossible.  Adjusting costs could be part of the answer, but the way around that is simply to have a low level "mule" acct....

Now having said all that, before we give any thought whatsoever on what to charge for keeping an inventory, we have to consider where money gets its value.  Whatever the cost has to be relative to the amount of skill, effort and time it takes to make.

This of course leads to a bigger problem which is the fact that money is totally disconnected from the products it can buy, which of course is getting away from the issue of hoarding.  Unfortunately, until you solve the money issue, issues like hoarding will continue to be a symptom of a bigger problem.

As far as Vanguard, I have to admit I know nothing about it, but if I'm reading you right, NPC costs for crafting ingredients were really high, and now they are lower making them more affordable for everyone.

The problem here is that players aren't setting the prices.  Now game developers lower costs on raw materials.  This increases the number of better items in the game.  A surplus of better items leads to increased wealth to players (the monsters didn't get any harder, but players will have access to better weapons at lower cost).  Now players will have more cash.  In turn they will be willing to pay more for the same items (Price level rises).  This causes inflation and the rest is history.

No, this stuff was and is not sold by any NPC. With "costs" I refered to the price you had to pay if you wanted to buy them from another player, or the massive amounts of time you had to invest to get one such item dropped on yourself (and it would then be very likely not the one you wanted).

And about prices, theres simply too many people who want to sell something now, but nobody who needs it.

Originally posted by Adamantine

No, this stuff was and is not sold by any NPC. With "costs" I refered to the price you had to pay if you wanted to buy them from another player, or the massive amounts of time you had to invest to get one such item dropped on yourself (and it would then be very likely not the one you wanted).

And about prices, theres simply too many people who want to sell something now, but nobody who needs it.

Too many products chasing too little money.  This is actually the opposite of inflation.  You’re saying that the amount of raw material available to players has increased and the increases are coming from the environment?

You said “This update suddenly throws crafting ingredients after us as if there's no tomorrow. Stuff that was insanely expensive is suddenly ultra cheap.”

This scenario is a little more complicated, because it really depends on if the raw materials can be used to make highly valued items.  Assuming that players can make more powerful items with the sudden surplus of raw material, there will probably be a short period where players “gear up” and go out into the game and create more wealth.  During this period supply will be high and demand will rise.  When the buying of raw materials slows down because the majority has used the raw materials to create new more powerful items and presumably more money will have been created with the items, inflation will most likely return as players will have more money and will be willing to pay higher prices for the same items.

This of course is speculation on my part as I know little of Vanguard.  But the scenario above is pretty typical.

I have to address one other comment you made.  “It’s the same thing in the real world, except in the real world you usually only hoard money as it’s really seldom that money loses its value.”

Real money loses its value.  Right now your money is worth less than it has been in a LONG time.  It may not feel like it, but as the US economy goes in the crapper products will become more and more expensive.  This isn’t because it costs more to make, but because your dollar is buying less and less.  Producers aren’t selling as much so they must charge more and more to maintain profits.  Eventually people are laid off to help keep profits in line.  Lay off’s mean fewer people working, fewer people working means less money and the cycle continues.

Originally posted by Talinguard

Real money loses its value.

Of course it does. Thats why we hoard it on bank accounts. Still, in reallife people, at least those who arent rich, only store money as reserve, not, for example, gold.

Originally posted by Talinguard

 Right now your money is worth less than it has been in a LONG time.  It may not feel like it, but as the US economy goes in the crapper products will become more and more expensive.

Originally posted by Adamantine

Originally posted by Talinguard

Real money loses its value.

Of course it does. Thats why we hoard it on bank accounts. Still, in reallife people, at least those who arent rich, only store money as reserve, not, for example, gold.

 

 

Originally posted by Talinguard

 Right now your money is worth less than it has been in a LONG time.  It may not feel like it, but as the US economy goes in the crapper products will become more and more expensive.

Except of course that I'm from Europe and the Euro is quite stable so far, even if we suffer under certain bad effects as well.

 

Those comments were meant to be an after thought.  Did the other stuff I said make sense?

As far as the Euro, I admit I'm perplexed on how that works.  Something that I am, right now, in the middle of studying.

IronOre, very interesting post.  The game you're describing is really what I'm waiting to see, an MMO thats based around a player driven economy, rather than pointless combat and xp.  This part sums it up really well:

"First, there is only one goal supported by actual gameplay in most systems, and that is to level up.  This generally involves combat, and as such simply means dealing more damage to your enemy than can be dealt back to you (or your group).  All items, gold, ingredients, etc. ultimately go toward increasing the ability to accomplish this goal against successively stronger targets.  You kill monsters of a certain level for a while to get the skill points or experience points and money/equipment that will enable you to move on and do the exact same thing elsewhere, the only difference being that you are now rolling more dice and look cooler."

Thats the issue thats so hard to get across to people.  When you talk about wanting a sandbox MMO or a more open MMO or just an MMO with more freedom and options, someone will always bring up one of the linear, themepark MMO's (usually WOW) and try to convince you that you actually do have plenty of freedom and options in that game.  It's very hard (some times) to get the idea across that, in nearly every linear, class/level based MMO theres only ONE advancement path...combat.  

Anyway, I still need to need through the rest of this thread so... 

Yeah well but what else could be as exciting as combat ?

After all, theres the risk that your player character dies.

Hard to top that, no ? Or get the same effect through some other means.

Yea, but when it's combat, combat, combat all the time (with little risk involved) it really does take the thrill out of it.