Pirates of the Burning Sea

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2008/05/the-cookie-mons.html

So PvP, PvE, *and* the economy are broken. What's left?

Selling out to SOE would be my guess.

Very interesting article indeed.  It is correct from start to finish.  But you know, amidst all this, I am forced to ask myself one important question:

If the economy is broken, why is it that I am still making money on the market?

I'm not a financial genius.  I don't even track down all products on the auctionhouse, maybe 5 of them, tops.  So I must be rightly doing something wrong, but I don't know what.  Oh, I have no doubt that the economic situation will eventually catch up with me; if the in-game dynamics don't do it, then the player exodus to Conan will.  I'm expecting to have to shut down all my production by the end of the month (except for whatever resources my society might need) because it will no longer be profitable.

Maybe my profits can easily be explained: The trader/crafter is a dying breed in PotBS.  Look at the French market on Blackbeard these days.  Certainly the French faction has been decimated by the move to Rackham, but I would have assumed that the British and the few remaining French would have picked up the slack.  But no, they did not.  So my guess is that they have gradually withdrawn from the game, in larger proportions than PvPers or PvEers have.

I have never been under the impression that there was any depth to the PotBS economy, and one of the key phrases here is "some production chains seem to misconceptualize a high value of the ultimate product in relationship to its specified uses."  Though no specific examples are given, my guess is that some high-price, low-usage products such as zinc, gold, and silver would fall under this.   It might even mean ships of the line, although in that case the value is not as much a matter of economics as of military tactics: An Invincible is the best ship in the game; hence even a 40-million price tag would still make it competitive if it meant a difference between victory and defeat.  In that specific case, there are too many intangibles.

But honestly, look at gold ingots.  If you take into account the loot drops, how many full-time producers could sell out all their stock of gold ingots?  I'm guessing one per nation at Very Heavy levels, so maybe one per server in the current setup.  And even then, profit margins would be so thin that it would only be worthwhile in the "turtling" scenario.  Otherwise, just buy it off the market; it's much less hassle.

Then consider the completely useless "by-product" trades.  Meat comes to mind; anyone doing leather will have tons of leftovers

Then there is this segment: "In most other virtual world economies, including EVE, the production of items begins with the labor of players and is pegged to the time they spend extracting resources in some form or another.  In Pirates, all players who want to engage in economic forms of play must rely on other players to generate currency value. Money can flow from the “worker” players to the trader players, but then money flows from the trader players back into the rent-sink."

The rent-sink isn't the problem, really.  In fact the rent is probably not high enough in some cases.  The major problem -- and one that Isildur hinted at in his post last month about his changes to PvP rewards -- is precisely that wealth creation is only achieved through grinding, but that even heavy grinders can also attempt to play the market because their structures accumulate labour regardless of how the players spend their time.  Meaning I could -- assuming I played 3 hours per day -- spend my time grinding for 3 hours yet have the same labour at the end of the day as if I had spent 3 hours standing idly in the Grenville auctionhouse.  Now imagine everyone doing the same.  It doesn't matter what we do, or how often we log on -- we can all compete equally at the economic game.

In other games, you would either grind killing enemies or you would craft.  You could not do both at the same time.  So the economic player would work for his money just as much as the grinder would; the grind would just be different. You'd just spend hours hammering that pick against the rock instead of sending your swords through innards of living creatures.  You could not do both at once.

I'm amazed neither Isildur nor anyone else saw this one coming.

Originally posted by Vetarnias

Very interesting article indeed.  It is correct from start to finish.  But you know, amidst all this, I am forced to ask myself one important question:

If the economy is broken, why is it that I am still making money on the market?

I'm not a financial genius.  I don't even track down all products on the auctionhouse, maybe 5 of them, tops.  So I must be rightly doing something wrong, but I don't know what.  Oh, I have no doubt that the economic situation will eventually catch up with me; if the in-game dynamics don't do it, then the player exodus to Conan will.  I'm expecting to have to shut down all my production by the end of the month (except for whatever resources my society might need) because it will no longer be profitable.

Maybe my profits can easily be explained: The trader/crafter is a dying breed in PotBS.  Look at the French market on Blackbeard these days.  Certainly the French faction has been decimated by the move to Rackham, but I would have assumed that the British and the few remaining French would have picked up the slack.  But no, they did not.  So my guess is that they have gradually withdrawn from the game, in larger proportions than PvPers or PvEers have.

I have never been under the impression that there was any depth to the PotBS economy, and one of the key phrases here is "some production chains seem to misconceptualize a high value of the ultimate product in relationship to its specified uses."  Though no specific examples are given, my guess is that some high-price, low-usage products such as zinc, gold, and silver would fall under this.   It might even mean ships of the line, although in that case the value is not as much a matter of economics as of military tactics: An Invincible is the best ship in the game; hence even a 40-million price tag would still make it competitive if it meant a difference between victory and defeat.  In that specific case, there are too many intangibles.

But honestly, look at gold ingots.  If you take into account the loot drops, how many full-time producers could sell out all their stock of gold ingots?  I'm guessing one per nation at Very Heavy levels, so maybe one per server in the current setup.  And even then, profit margins would be so thin that it would only be worthwhile in the "turtling" scenario.  Otherwise, just buy it off the market; it's much less hassle.

Then consider the completely useless "by-product" trades.  Meat comes to mind; anyone doing leather will have tons of leftovers

Then there is this segment: "In most other virtual world economies, including EVE, the production of items begins with the labor of players and is pegged to the time they spend extracting resources in some form or another.  In Pirates, all players who want to engage in economic forms of play must rely on other players to generate currency value. Money can flow from the “worker” players to the trader players, but then money flows from the trader players back into the rent-sink."

The rent-sink isn't the problem, really.  In fact the rent is probably not high enough in some cases.  The major problem -- and one that Isildur hinted at in his post last month about his changes to PvP rewards -- is precisely that wealth creation is only achieved through grinding, but that even heavy grinders can also attempt to play the market because their structures accumulate labour regardless of how the players spend their time.  Meaning I could -- assuming I played 3 hours per day -- spend my time grinding for 3 hours yet have the same labour at the end of the day as if I had spent 3 hours standing idly in the Grenville auctionhouse.  Now imagine everyone doing the same.  It doesn't matter what we do, or how often we log on -- we can all compete equally at the economic game.

In other games, you would either grind killing enemies or you would craft.  You could not do both at the same time.  So the economic player would work for his money just as much as the grinder would; the grind would just be different. You'd just spend hours hammering that pick against the rock instead of sending your swords through innards of living creatures.  You could not do both at once.

I'm amazed neither Isildur nor anyone else saw this one coming.

I wish I had the finances, I want folks like yourself to help me design the economy for my game.

In a player driven economy such as Potbs it relies heavily on PvP or ship loss as its only sink.

PvE had little risk & as most players tend to avoid red circles due to high risk the economy sinks are not working.

Two legs of the economic tripod are not implemented  & it remains to be seen if they will work as ship loss will still probably be the primary sink. It's not the economy that is broken it is the sinks associated with it.

To give people an idea of the inflation in the game, a starter ship of around level 12, the Mediator Cutter, was going for about 6,000 dblns when the game statrted. I bought a Mastercraft Mediator Cutter (level 21) for 8,000 dblns just after launch. Keep in mind, at launch these were "free" ships for commendation turn ins.

At the begining of April I started a new character on the Blackbeard server. When he got to level 12 I went to upgrade to a Mediator Cutter. They were selling for 18,000 dblns. A Mastercraft was selling for 24,000 dblns. That is pretty much the total sum of cash that a noob player would accumulate if he ran all the missions. In other words, if I bought the Mediator Cutter I would be broke, and have nothing saved toward the Mediator Mastercraft. Keep in mind, these were still "free" ships for commendation turn ins.

This pricing is definately not noob friendly, it rakes the noob over the coals to the benefit of the veteran player. However, don't blame the veteran player, for they now have a level 50 ship, complete with fittings, that they have to pay for when a PvP loss occurs. Broken risk vrs reward has to be made up somehow.

Now, these Mediator Cutters are no longer "free" ships. I am interested in what happens to the pricing when ship yards have to turn these out, rather than turn out level 50 ships. Interested in whether they get scarcer, and prices go up even more, or become more common, as Nationals realize the noobs need these to advance in levels.

Originally posted by vet-in-exile

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2008/05/the-cookie-mons.html

 

So PvP, PvE, *and* the economy are broken. What's left?

 

Selling out to SOE would be my guess.

The economy is not only broken, it was a horrible design idea to begin with. Based on the poor FLS thought process that went into designing this MMO, the economy had ZERO chance to succeed.

Originally posted by vet-in-exile

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2008/05/the-cookie-mons.html

 

So PvP, PvE, *and* the economy are broken. What's left?

 

Selling out to SOE would be my guess.

Im wondering if its worth making a "prediction" based on it just out of curiosity so I will make one and keep this link filed somewhere and the prediction is this

IF FLS is unable to make this game survive (and i'm not convinced that they can't quite yet.. but its not in good shape by any stretch of the imagination) so IF they unable to keep it running I say that sony will NOT buy this one

cuts and pastes the link for future reference just cause i'm in a strange mood today :)

Actually, ideas from Vanguard started showing up in EQ 2 after SOE sent some of their people over to help out Sigil. I wouldn't at all be surprised if SOE makes an offer to help out FLS.

The ship combat is pretty good, and could be a huge bonus to SOEs EQ 2 as an expansion, if they can retro fit it to fantasy. It would give SOE something that WOW doesn't have, ship to ship combat. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if SOE wasn't already reverse engineering it.

Buying up FLS/POTBS for a song, just like buying up Sigil/Vanguard on the downslide, would protect them from any lawsuits for stealing any proprietary information, and give then a temporary competitive advantage over WOW.

So, it is a possibility.