The most important factor is how smart you are.

In a player run economy, off course.

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by DoomsDay01

 

Why so sad Veritas? Are you crying because you couldn't come up with a logical and well thought out response so you decided to see if you could just insult me into submission? I have stated that I am in the minority on how I feel about crafting. I am also pretty sure that nobody yet has actually come up with a valid reason as to why having devs control the economy is a bad thing. The best I have gotten from anyone is that its bad. The verdict is still out on if its only bad because those that are disagreeing are the same ones that take advantage of the current player run economy problems. I have listed out several problems that I personally have ran across in different mmos and even proposed a solution. What have you offered? You got any ideas how to fix gold sellers and "evil crafters controlling the market" or do you want to just troll those that are at least offering up ideas on how to fix problems in todays mmo's?

 

 

I'll take the bait. It's not even that it's a bad thing, it's a stupid thing.

 

Risk is a part of every facet of a game. Fight this mob, you could die. Do this wrong, you could have to do it over. Whatever. Should a game developer be responsible for holding your hand through every experience so that nothing untoward could happen to you? As someone else said, let's restrict how many hp someone can take from you in pvp, while we're at it.

 

Also, it's a pointless thing. Why should a seller be limited, if people are willing to pay? How is that fair to the seller? In an open market both sides have an equal chance to make a profit. You yourself could find something being undersold, by it, and sell it back for higher. Or just use it, happy in the knowledge you got a good deal. So, it's OK for you to get a good deal because someone didn't know what to charge? Rather hypocritical isn't that? Wait, i have an idea. Let's have the dev's set an automatic min...no WAIT! Let's have devs just set a fixed price for everything, and remove the market concept entirely. Good idea. 

If you had read my posts describing said suggestion you would have saw that there is no player trading. That means that gold sellers can not sell gold because they can not transfer it between people. That eliminates gold sellers 100%. The side benefits or down sides, depending on how you look at it is that you can no longer twink your characters (as I said before, I do like doing that but willing to give it up for the greater good). The other is that now money flow is controlled by the devs. 1st off this allows the devs to do the pricing. Which means they are going to control the flow of money in the game so that money is not obsolete. This isnt holding your hand like teaching you how to go through quests by putting arrows over peoples heads. This would allow the devs to control the health of the economy. Anyone who can step back and look at most of the mmo's today know that the economy is not healthy with the influx of gold from sellers and inflation caused by gold sellers or racketeers.

Risk is no longer a facet of almost all mmo's with a few exceptions. Most mmo's that have pvp already do what you said. they already do cut down how much you can hit for against other players. Most have removed death penalties or lowered them to joking factors. This now causes people to be fearless when rushing in to fight stuff. Oh, I died, oh well, lets regroup and do it again. sicne we spawned with all our armor and weapons we dont have to worry about losing anything. No, risk is not a factor anymore.

In an open market you are correct, however we are not talking about an open market if devs used this type of system. You are still going to make a profit on whatever you sell, you simply dont get the choice of how much profit your going to get. Whats wrong with that? Say you crafted a boat. It cost you 5 gold to make and took you 30 minutes to build. An average adventurer may make say 5 gold an hour for the given range that they are in. Now, instead of that crafter trying to make 25 gold or a 500% profit, they can only sell it for say 10 gold which if they make 2 an hour is still double than what an adventurer makes in an hour. So they are still more than profitable, they simply can not be greedy about it. And since the devs control the market, if they see that people are making much more money than expected, they an always raise the cap and you are making even more profit. So when looking at this example, do you think its right that crafters can make 1000% more per hour than an adventurer playing the same game? Something is out of whack here and it is the player run economy causing this problem. This is not healthy for any game, IMHO.

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by DoomsDay01

 

A) wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html seriously what? Almost every shield in the game up to the time I quit was usable by both shaman and warrior. So obviously you dont know much about shaman. As for B) your right, it was our fault for not setting a master looter. We were going on the honor system. Some of us still believe there is hope for mankind yet.

Again with the real world economics. I know all about supply and demand. again we are talking about a video game where real world politics and economy doesn't belong.

So you say by no means should a dev set price caps. Elaborate further please. Why would this be a bad thing? The only thing this does is keep people from being greedy AND stops gold selling in its place.

You say that we control the sellers. No we dont. We never have. When you have a group of folks that can corner the market and keep everybodys stuff bought up and resold at their prices, there is not much you can do. You say buy from a cheaper source, well that sure sounds easy doesnt it. But its not. you can spam for hours trying to find someone that you can get to craft for you at a resonable price and never get a response. Auction houses have, in many ways, taken away the ability to find good reasonable crafters. I can honestly say this, the last game that had crafting in it (and it wasn't much) that you were able to find quality people to do the work for you was in EQ1. Crafters there wasn't nearly as bad as todays mmo players. Of course, back then, the only need for crafted stuff was jewlery and for certain people armor or weapon crafting for their quests. Now a days there are lots more stuff that are needed because they wanted to give crafters a bigger part in the game, but it didnt quite work out that way. Kinda like how Verant envisioned EQ as a dungeon crawl, instead, it turned out to be  camp every mob 24/7.

 

OK, correction, both classes can wear shields, but would be unlikely to wear the same one, as the stats beneficial to one would not be to another. Since you were tenmanning something that dropped skullflame...you were in UBRS or old, old school Strat. That means a LONG time ago, pre-BC. Can't remember if enhancement shammies had dual wield yet. If they didn't, then that's as good as anything else for them I guess. Otherwise, that's a warrior/pally shield all the way.

Real world economics DO apply in a game, simply because we as players create a simulated real world economy. As for price caps limiting gold sellers...are you serious? You are, aren't you? No. Not gonna help. As long as there is anything in the game that people want, but don't feel like investing the time to get themelves, and they have a credit card, they WILL buy gold. At most you'd just make the sellers ell LESS gold per dollar of transaction, thus driving the gold sellers' prices up. But much like in the game, stupid people will still buy.

And OK, the power sellers buy everything off the market? No one will craft for you? Fine. Go learn that skill and craft yourself. Roll an alt for it. Form a guild and craft for each other. Or. JUST. DON'T. BUY. There is nothing in any game that you need to buy from a player auction that you CANNOT live without. I'd have to argue about the lack of quality crafters in games really. in WoW, I've never been in a guild where we didn't work with each other and help everyone get their stuff for reasonable prices. And I've played EVE...was in a pretty large corp for a while. We did the same.

 

This was pre BC and was before shammies got dual wield. Stats didnt really matter much on the shield, it was all about the defense the shield gave. a single shield could easily double or tripple or more,  a shammies defense so it was good for them regardless of what stat bonuses was on them.

As has been mentioned before, I love that people come out and just say, well craft it yourself. Most of the mmo's do not let you craft everything. You are only limited to usually 1 or 2 paths and there is usually something in all paths that people would want/need. So that arguement doesnt fit when the game wont allow you to craft what you want. if it did, it would make the game much more interesting for the crafters. You are right about guilds helping each other out but if you look at the casual players which are people that usually dont even go to the forums of their own game, chances are, they probably are not in a guild either. The bad side to guilds is having to deal with politics which can be quite ugly and a huge turnoff to many people. And I already covered the gold sellers in the other post that I replied to you so no need to repeat it.

Originally posted by DoomsDay01

 

If you had read my posts describing said suggestion you would have saw that there is no player trading. That means that gold sellers can not sell gold because they can not transfer it between people. That eliminates gold sellers 100%. The side benefits or down sides, depending on how you look at it is that you can no longer twink your characters (as I said before, I do like doing that but willing to give it up for the greater good). The other is that now money flow is controlled by the devs. 1st off this allows the devs to do the pricing. Which means they are going to control the flow of money in the game so that money is not obsolete. This isnt holding your hand like teaching you how to go through quests by putting arrows over peoples heads. This would allow the devs to control the health of the economy. Anyone who can step back and look at most of the mmo's today know that the economy is not healthy with the influx of gold from sellers and inflation caused by gold sellers or racketeers.

 

Risk is no longer a facet of almost all mmo's with a few exceptions. Most mmo's that have pvp already do what you said. they already do cut down how much you can hit for against other players. Most have removed death penalties or lowered them to joking factors. This now causes people to be fearless when rushing in to fight stuff. Oh, I died, oh well, lets regroup and do it again. sicne we spawned with all our armor and weapons we dont have to worry about losing anything. No, risk is not a factor anymore.

 

In an open market you are correct, however we are not talking about an open market if devs used this type of system. You are still going to make a profit on whatever you sell, you simply dont get the choice of how much profit your going to get. Whats wrong with that? Say you crafted a boat. It cost you 5 gold to make and took you 30 minutes to build. An average adventurer may make say 5 gold an hour for the given range that they are in. Now, instead of that crafter trying to make 25 gold or a 500% profit, they can only sell it for say 10 gold which if they make 2 an hour is still double than what an adventurer makes in an hour. So they are still more than profitable, they simply can not be greedy about it. And since the devs control the market, if they see that people are making much more money than expected, they an always raise the cap and you are making even more profit. So when looking at this example, do you think its right that crafters can make 1000% more per hour than an adventurer playing the same game? Something is out of whack here and it is the player run economy causing this problem. This is not healthy for any game, IMHO.

 

No player trading. Next no player talking, then each player gets their own server. Let's just remove yet one more layer of social interaction in social games. Great idea.

As for is it fair for a crafter to make 1k times more than an adventurer? That crafter set aside his gaming time to farm materials (or, bought them for a hefty price of his own on the market) Then, he spent more time crafting them. Especially in games where there are hefty cooldowns on crafting (wow tiansteel, anyone?), there's a substantial amount of time to make certian items. Perhaps days. Shouldn't that player be conpensated for their time and effort?

And more importantly. Again. If you're stupid enough to pay it,...you're darn right he's gonna charge that. Again. Don't wanna pay it? DON'T. BUY. It's really as simple as that.

No point in trying to reason with somebody who is trying to push thier brand of MMO socialism. They will never be swayed with logic or facts. Best bet is to ignore thier drivel and post all your crafted items at inflated proces.

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by DoomsDay01

 

If you had read my posts describing said suggestion you would have saw that there is no player trading. That means that gold sellers can not sell gold because they can not transfer it between people. That eliminates gold sellers 100%. The side benefits or down sides, depending on how you look at it is that you can no longer twink your characters (as I said before, I do like doing that but willing to give it up for the greater good). The other is that now money flow is controlled by the devs. 1st off this allows the devs to do the pricing. Which means they are going to control the flow of money in the game so that money is not obsolete. This isnt holding your hand like teaching you how to go through quests by putting arrows over peoples heads. This would allow the devs to control the health of the economy. Anyone who can step back and look at most of the mmo's today know that the economy is not healthy with the influx of gold from sellers and inflation caused by gold sellers or racketeers.

 

Risk is no longer a facet of almost all mmo's with a few exceptions. Most mmo's that have pvp already do what you said. they already do cut down how much you can hit for against other players. Most have removed death penalties or lowered them to joking factors. This now causes people to be fearless when rushing in to fight stuff. Oh, I died, oh well, lets regroup and do it again. sicne we spawned with all our armor and weapons we dont have to worry about losing anything. No, risk is not a factor anymore.

 

In an open market you are correct, however we are not talking about an open market if devs used this type of system. You are still going to make a profit on whatever you sell, you simply dont get the choice of how much profit your going to get. Whats wrong with that? Say you crafted a boat. It cost you 5 gold to make and took you 30 minutes to build. An average adventurer may make say 5 gold an hour for the given range that they are in. Now, instead of that crafter trying to make 25 gold or a 500% profit, they can only sell it for say 10 gold which if they make 2 an hour is still double than what an adventurer makes in an hour. So they are still more than profitable, they simply can not be greedy about it. And since the devs control the market, if they see that people are making much more money than expected, they an always raise the cap and you are making even more profit. So when looking at this example, do you think its right that crafters can make 1000% more per hour than an adventurer playing the same game? Something is out of whack here and it is the player run economy causing this problem. This is not healthy for any game, IMHO.

 

 

No player trading. Next no player talking, then each player gets their own server. Let's just remove yet one more layer of social interaction in social games. Great idea.

As for is it fair for a crafter to make 1k times more than an adventurer? That crafter set aside his gaming time to farm materials (or, bought them for a hefty price of his own on the market) Then, he spent more time crafting them. Especially in games where there are hefty cooldowns on crafting (wow tiansteel, anyone?), there's a substantial amount of time to make certian items. Perhaps days. Shouldn't that player be conpensated for their time and effort?

 

And more importantly. Again. If you're stupid enough to pay it,...you're darn right he's gonna charge that. Again. Don't wanna pay it? DON'T. BUY. It's really as simple as that.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, so far all attempts at keeping gold sellers out of games have failed. So you wouldnt be able to trade with each other directly, To me, its a small price to pay for freedom of gold sellers, how about you? Do you have a better idea to get rid of them?

As for crafters, hey, I am all for a crafter to make a profit. However, I do not feel their time is any more valuable than anyone elses. I am more than willing to pay crafters for their items and time at a reasonable rate. 1000% mark up is crazy in a video game. And again, its not so much that people are stupid enough to pay what they are offering, its more reasonable that they probably bought gold from a seller in order to do it which again inflates the economy. hey, if they did it by legit means, then more power to the ones who were able to afford it without cheating or breaking the EULA. And you are right, in lots of cases people go without because they simply can not afford it.

A player run economy is not that hard to master, find something that other people needs and that is not that common and then trade it (straight or sell it and then buy what you want for gold) to what you need.

Or you can get the stuff you need yourself. This might be hard in Eve, never played it myself.

The problem is of course that in almost all MMOs you can't make all the stuff you will need but it is like in real life, find stuff other people want to get the stuff you want.

I rarely farm the same junk in any MMO but usually got more stuff than I need.

Of course are ther alternatives to make a player run economy, like making all stuff bind on pickup (which is really unrealistic) or making everyone able to create all items in the game. But they kinda suck, the only good alternative I can think of is to make gear a lot less important and move the advancement more to the character instead.

In real life is a good sword a big difference, you don't want a piece of junk but the difference is not anyway near how they are in a MMO. But in a sci-fi game like Eve are the gear probably making a bigger difference, like having a Spitfire dogfight a F-22 today.

Originally posted by lugal

No point in trying to reason with somebody who is trying to push thier brand of MMO socialism. They will never be swayed with logic or facts. Best bet is to ignore thier drivel and post all your crafted items at inflated proces.

And no point in trolling unless you in fact just like being a troll. I have yet to see any facts or logic on how this could be bad. All I hear is, this would be bad or we can add stupid now. Where are the facts? Please, show me how this system would harm the community in general. I am fully ready to listen and debate about it. But you have got to come up with something better than "its bad".

Originally posted by Loke666

A player run economy is not that hard to master, find something that other people needs and that is not that common and then trade it (straight or sell it and then buy what you want for gold) to what you need.

Or you can get the stuff you need yourself. This might be hard in Eve, never played it myself.

The problem is of course that in almost all MMOs you can't make all the stuff you will need but it is like in real life, find stuff other people want to get the stuff you want.

I rarely farm the same junk in any MMO but usually got more stuff than I need.

Of course are ther alternatives to make a player run economy, like making all stuff bind on pickup (which is really unrealistic) or making everyone able to create all items in the game. But they kinda suck, the only good alternative I can think of is to make gear a lot less important and move the advancement more to the character instead.

In real life is a good sword a big difference, you don't want a piece of junk but the difference is not anyway near how they are in a MMO. But in a sci-fi game like Eve are the gear probably making a bigger difference, like having a Spitfire dogfight a F-22 today.

Now see, that is a decent reply. He gives an alternitive to move the importance onto advancement than the items. The only problem with that is now the crafters will whine because the stuff they make is less important.Kind of a catch 22 aint it. I to thought about BOP equipment and came to the same conclusion. That limits player interaction even more than my current idea.

Originally posted by DoomsDay01

Originally posted by lugal

No point in trying to reason with somebody who is trying to push thier brand of MMO socialism. They will never be swayed with logic or facts. Best bet is to ignore thier drivel and post all your crafted items at inflated proces.

 

And no point in trolling unless you in fact just like being a troll. I have yet to see any facts or logic on how this could be bad. All I hear is, this would be bad or we can add stupid now. Where are the facts? Please, show me how this system would harm the community in general. I am fully ready to listen and debate about it. But you have got to come up with something better than "its bad".

Your idea of putting in price caps will hurt the free market. Look at the world market as proof. See how the DOW is falling with each retarded idea to limit free market capitalism.

You are arguing from a point of view that its not fair to you to have to pay X amount of Y for item Z when to you it should only be valued at X. That is an emotion. Free markets dont work on emotion.

The thing is in a player run economy, the players that are running it are playing a game, and they're playing to win. The way to win the economy game is to get as much money from the other player as possible while giving up as little as possible.

Unfortunately, the gold (isk, money, whatever) buyers throw it all off course.  If I have something to sell, should I price it at its actual worth, that someone who's worked for their money knows the value of? NO! I'm gonna set a ridiculous price cause I know some asshat who bought their money doesn't know the value, and doesn't care.

Originally posted by lugal

Originally posted by DoomsDay01

Originally posted by lugal

No point in trying to reason with somebody who is trying to push thier brand of MMO socialism. They will never be swayed with logic or facts. Best bet is to ignore thier drivel and post all your crafted items at inflated proces.

 

And no point in trolling unless you in fact just like being a troll. I have yet to see any facts or logic on how this could be bad. All I hear is, this would be bad or we can add stupid now. Where are the facts? Please, show me how this system would harm the community in general. I am fully ready to listen and debate about it. But you have got to come up with something better than "its bad".

 

Your idea of putting in price caps will hurt the free market. Look at the world market as proof. See how the DOW is falling with each retarded idea to limit free market capitalism.

You are arguing from a point of view that its not fair to you to have to pay X amount of Y for item Z when to you it should only be valued at X. That is an emotion. Free markets dont work on emotion.

Yes it would hurt a free market, it might even kill it. But we are talking about a video game that is designed from the ground up on a non free market system. You know, making it more like a video game instead of trying to imitate real life. This is not something that you could just throw into an already existing game and expect it to work, it wouldnt happen.

Why do people get so focused on having everything in the game be as true to real life as possible? Since when can we throw fireballs and shoot lightening from our fingertips or transport from one area of the world to another instantly. Why cant we let the fantasy computer game be fantasy and have absolutely nothing to do with real world things.

Originally posted by dhayes68

The thing is in a player run economy, the players that are running it are playing a game, and they're playing to win. The way to win the economy game is to get as much money from the other player as possible while giving up as little as possible.

Unfortunately, the gold (isk, money, whatever) buyers throw it all off course.  If I have something to sell, should I price it at its actual worth, that someone who's worked for their money knows the value of? NO! I'm gonna set a ridiculous price cause I know some asshat who bought their money doesn't know the value, and doesn't care.

 

EXACTLY!

Originally posted by lugal

No point in trying to reason with somebody who is trying to push thier brand of MMO socialism. They will never be swayed with logic or facts. Best bet is to ignore thier drivel and post all your crafted items at inflated proces.

I told him the same thing....he claims he wants to be one of the best....yet he loathes his trade skills......can't somehow feel like he is cheating himself

Originally posted by Interesting

Everything that is player run tends to become very unbalanced/unfair for the majority of casuals.

 

If they want to make games for this crowd they have to rethink player freedom.

Comunist design decisions is the only way to please casual players these days.

If you allow Capitalism they get slaughtered!

Regardless of hacks and cheats, it takes one smart guy or a group of smart people to destroy the economy for everyone else.

 

hrm that's odd because in SWG everyone, including the casuals were decked out in comp armor and had buffs.

The really rich players had slightly better equipment, but nothing so great they could just close their eyes and win a fight against a casual.

I think the people that complain about player economies don't know the best gear come from playing the game.  EQ, WoW, AO all the same y ou play the game and do the "end game" raids and you will get WAAAAAAAAAAY better gear than some shitty crafted item ......

Originally posted by PatchDay

What are people thought's on player run economy?

Let's take a look at EVE Online which has one of the most advanced economies.

 

And like a real economy, over the years I have seen prices rise higher and higher for ships. I am now paying bout 55% more for tech 2 ships that I did previously. And recall- if you get this ship blown up you gotta go buy another. Ouch! Yea tech 2 ships and items are getting harder to amss produse due to a POS bug that was fixed months ago reducing the output of certain tech 2 components.

 

Where are people getting all this ingame money to buy this stuff????

 

IT's gotta be due to all these macros and cheats. I know in EVE, there is now a macro so advanced, it will farm everything for you and even hide your ship if another player might possibly attack. Proof please? [not that you can provide as while there are macros in EvE they are not lke you describe].

 

I'm starting to think player run economy = GET SCREWED BY OTHER PLAYERS 24/7!

 

I guess for you WoW players the equivalent would be Auction House for rares. I dont know bout now but I remember pre-Battlegrounds we saw insane prices for tradeable rare Epics.

Really sucks that players can accumulate all this ingame money from hacks, cheats, farmers, etc. Ruins the game for other players indirectly and we dont even realize how bad we're all getting screwed over by cheaters

It seems we have another EvE player here who because he or she is not doing well at EvE is blaming everyone else for his or hers mistakes.

Fact of the matter is that earning lots of Isk is not too hard for example level 4 missions can earn you around 20 million in 1.5 -2 hours with an average skilled Avatar. Or why not join a manufacturing corp amd work together to supply a amrket and share the profit and friendships that you gain in good player run corps. Or why not learn how to trade items and become a part time PvP hunter in your spare time.

One mistake the OP seems to be making in EvE is that he is PvP'ing 24\7 so no wonder he is losing a lot of gear and not making enough cash, personally id advise him to make PvP a aprt time venture for example 5 days a week do missions or trade or manufacture, then PvP with some of the profits over the weekend.

Thats just one way you could go there are however many options in EvE if you just let yourself see them

Originally posted by ericbelser

Originally posted by Josher

I think we can tell who here makes some cash on the side playing videogames here.  A few might be some full blown farmers.  Why else would a person so vehemently defend a full player run economy with no limitations?  

 

Just amazing, what is it that prevents you from seeing that the "limits" you are talking about = telling other players what they can charge for their time? What gives you, or any other player for that matter, the "right" to set a market price for an item that NO ONE is forcing you to buy?

Everything you are talking about buying is a luxury item to make your gameplay more rewarding, faster or more efficient; not something you must have to play the game. Take EVE for example, someone who is making those T2 modules is spending significant amounts of their time buying, moving and combining materials - often with significant risk of loss. They spent months of training time to get the skills to optimize that production and probably invested hundreds of millions of ISK in start up costs. So whay is all that worth nothing to you, just because you want to buy it cheap? Because *you* are being greedy and totally self-absorbed. Their time and effort is worth nothing, they should just be glad you even let them play your game, right?

 

 

Yeah, God forbid we adventurers want things that make the game fun or even more fun.  As adventurers, we want rewards for our play style, not yours.  Crafting is a niche play style,  Economics is something that is primarily enjoyed by crafters.  As an adventurer, your play style competes with mine and I'd rather not even have you or yours in game.
 

Macros ruin everything not only te economy. Devs should start creating ways to avoid macroing. But of course they want macroing in their games to attract more gamers. Like fishing in WOW, is a good anti macro system but.. oh wonders, they put a bright red feather on the float so the macro program can find it against the blue water.

Err WoW doesnt try to avoid macros.

Vanguard does, for example... it has macros, but only ver y limited ones. No conditions, and only a single command. You can basically only give out messages ("Healer rezzing player, please nobody else rezz him as well, keep up the healing") or do things like "Equip weapon x before using skill y" or "try to use skill x, y, z if any of them is useable" - where the first one that is up is actually executed and the rest gets ignored.

And of course Guild Wars where you only have 8 skills total and no macros whatsoever (unless I missed something there, very new to that game).