I have an idea in regards to twinking, why not make the gear relevant ot the levels of the characters its being used on, for example a lvl 1-10 character or an apprentice novice character can only equip gear from the next tier 10 - 15 or begginer depending on the system for raising our skills w ego with, this would make it so u cant place a lvl 50 item on a lvl 1 character but y ou COULD save said item for when your so called twink alt reaches level 45 and they would then be able to wear the item, so it allows a player to still twink their chars but it also keeps the chars relatively within their level range.
The key to making an in game economy is very simple. Create a situation in which one person would rather spend money to avoid some obstacle or task where another player would do that task for some reward (normally money). AKA artificially create situations where people can be lazy by paying someone else to do grunt work for them.
Image two parallel universes with a crafter named Bob; in both universes Bob would like to make money from being an armor smith. In universe A Bob can find all his supply’s readily in the zone next to his starting city. He needs lots of pelts and spider silk. After an hour of killing wolfs and spiders he returns back to town and churns out lots of armor. Now in universe B Bob still needs lots of pelts and silk but the zone outside his starting city only has lots of wolfs but no spiders. Bob has two options now. First is do the hard work and travel over the mountain and find the low level spider area or the second option is to buy silk from someone that has some for sale.
Not having spider silk available near Bob’s home city might seem mean but it creates opportunities for commerce. If all starting cities have similar hurdle you create a system where everyone must choose between doing it themselves and working with others. I’m the kind of player that might not care terribly about being the crafter but I super love trying to fill the needs of others and making some coins in the process.
This brings me to the next main point
Back in universe A Bob easily find everything he needs to make armor, but unsurprisingly so does the other ten players currently in his area too. Each crafter can easily churn out goods with no real hurdles to overcome. But sadly the supply of leather armor crushes the demand. Bob keeps lowering his prices due to the fact that so many others are selling the same product he is and eventually Bob sells his goods at cost just to recoup his investment.
In universe B Bob has less competition because crafting is not so simple and only serous crafters partake. Bob is strategic and buys up all the silk available from players and is now selling Armor that not many others can produce. He sells quickly and has money to buy more silk from future players.
I know this is getting long but here is one more famous example. In EQ there is a quest in HHP which asks for an orc scalp. All the way across the world was GFay and Crushbone which had lots of orcs that could drop scalps. The scalps themselves sold very poorly (if at all) to vendors but if you brought it to HHP you could get 5 gold each. Now 5 gold is nothing to thumb your noise at in early EQ but the real secret was that you could turn in as many as you wanted. Many entrepreneurs would buy orc scalp from new players for 2 or 3 gold each and then after collecting sixty or seventy they would get a port or cross the world on foot (plus a boat ride) and double their investment. Now if this quest was local to GFay that opportunity would never exist because why sell something to others when you can just do it yourself easily.
My main point is there are ways that devs can create commerce with the content they put into the game. Being smart in little ways can create huge effects on the way money is created and its values. Coin should not be the sole result of selling goods to vendors and looting coins from mobs.
Aradune said:
Quick note: there will still be no-drop/trade items when necessary. A good example would be a quest item. It's unlikely we want you trading those around -- do the quest yourself! :)
-Aradune
Glad I found this. Thanks Brad, the write up says a lot.
This note helps with economy factors and with the "tagging mobs" post as well. Quest items need to be no-drop so that everyone has to do the quest line for whatever it is they are after. This also prevents players/groups from monopolizing a certain mob for a quest item to sell.
However, if a mob (especially a raid mob/bos) is required for a quest, it would be nice to have enough items in the loot table to satisfy the quest for those that needed it who are in attendance. Still no-drop of course.
I'm no economist so can't go into details about what makes a good economy but one thing I think is essential is that player crafters should have a pivotal role in the economy when it comes to producing high end gear and other consumables such as potions etc. That would mean more player interaction in the economy and more chance for the social aspect of the game to come into its own. The crafting community used to be pretty close and I'd love that to be the case again.
I think (hope) that crafting is going to be an essential part of this game and that it will drive a player driven economy where the players are in-charge as much as possible.
I vehemently disagree with any restriction of trade between players, many games have gone towards this, and some recent games have removed player trading altogether in an attempt to stop gold selling, and all it has done is damage the playing experience of everyone.
Xonth said: Most crafting materials should come from creatures. Pelts from animals, silk from spiders, ore from weapons... Create a system between player crafters and player adventurers not crafters and some nodes...
I think it should be a mix between the two. Getting ore and wood from nodes makes sense as that is where you get them in real life either by cutting down trees or mining it. I agree that some crafting material should come from creatures though. There should be a synergy between crafters and adventerers so that both benefit from it.
I feel about twinking the same way I feel about killstealing. I don't like either, but I think they are things to live with because the alternatives are worse. Saying you have to be x level to use y weapon doesn't fit in a virtual world, unless we get into things like stat or skill restrictions. Low level characters will still be limited by their weapon skills, for example, and if someone is super lucky/rich to throw a haste or regen item on a twink, good for them and hopefully that kind of thing is few and far between. But I'd hate to see level limits on items. If you can swing a 16/48 2h club, you can swing a 19/31 2handed club.
If you want to keep your economy healthy, literally hire an economist to watch over the various server economies. EVE Online understood very early on that a healthy economy is crucial to the game and they hired a Ph.D in Economics to do nothing but track the economy and make quarterly reports about it. CCP would make minor adjustments to across the entire spectrum when necessary.
You might think the EVE economy and the Pantheon economy are not similar, but they are. Both have money, items and raw materials entering into the economy. Money comes from NPC bounties, mission payouts, etc. NPCs drop usable items and raw materials. Players extract minerals from ever-respawning (aka infinite) sources. EVE and Pantheon both have faction standings which will affect prices paid to and earned from. EVE has items which drop in some areas (thus seeing locally low buy prices) but not in other areas so you could do the buy low here and sell high there quite effectively.
Granted economy in EVE is far more influenced by players than I suspect will be the case in Pantheon (I don't see much market speculation/manipulation going on in Pantheon as you see in EVE) but still hiring an Economist would be a very smart move.
Cromulent said:Xonth said: Most crafting materials should come from creatures. Pelts from animals, silk from spiders, ore from weapons... Create a system between player crafters and player adventurers not crafters and some nodes...I think it should be a mix between the two. Getting ore and wood from nodes makes sense as that is where you get them in real life either by cutting down trees or mining it. I agree that some crafting material should come from creatures though. There should be a synergy between crafters and adventerers so that both benefit from it.
If you are saying running around and finding iron, copper and other ore just sitting on the surfaces for you to pluck up like berries is your definition of more realistic than needing to buy your materials from adventures then we must live in different parts of the world. In my entire life I have yet to cross one of those copper mounds.
Node harvesting in games I have played is the very opposite of what I find immersive. Now if you said ore nodes are found ONLY underground in certain parts of the world then maybe we could strike a compromise but games like EQ2 and Rift had the lamest, most unimaginable harvesting system. It was like playing a child’s version of “find the Easter eggs”.
Why should the sword that the orc drops be simple vendor food? I could see people buying swords in Crushbone so they could be smelted down and then sold to crafters. The more chances players have to interact with one another the richer the economy and therefore the game will be. EQ2/Rift crafting and harvesting system were so simple it really was a solo activity, at least for leveling.
I don’t mean to be aggressive on this subject but nodes just really bother me. They basically shouts “I Could Not Think Of Anything More Creative So We Settled On Nodes!”
Xonth said:If you are saying running around and finding iron, copper and other ore just sitting on the surfaces for you to pluck up like berries is your definition of more realistic than needing to buy your materials from adventures then we must live in different parts of the world. In my entire life I have yet to cross one of those copper mounds.
It is certainly more realistic than finding mobs carrying around lumps of iron or coal. Since no MMO has implemented the ability to dig into the ground yet it will have to do. And yes I do feel it is more realistic. Oh and in some parts of the world metal can be found on the surface especially on cliff faces. It just depends where you live.
Xonth said:Node harvesting in games I have played is the very opposite of what I find immersive. Now if you said ore nodes are found ONLY underground in certain parts of the world then maybe we could strike a compromise but games like EQ2 and Rift had the lamest, most unimaginable harvesting system. It was like playing a child’s version of “find the Easter eggs”.
Why should the sword that the orc drops be simple vendor food? I could see people buying swords in Crushbone so they could be smelted down and then sold to crafters. The more chances players have to interact with one another the richer the economy and therefore the game will be. EQ2/Rift crafting and harvesting system were so simple it really was a solo activity, at least for leveling.
I don’t mean to be aggressive on this subject but nodes just really bother me. They basically shouts “I Could Not Think Of Anything More Creative So We Settled On Nodes!”
If the only place you can find metals is by smelting down swords it begs the question where does the metal come from in the first place? No. Metal needs to be harvestable by crafters in order to make new goods and materials. If the developers can think of a way to implement a system where you have to create a mine to mine metals and other rare resources I'd be happy as it would be even more realistic but I am expecting that it will be a simple node system like in Vanguard (which worked pretty well if you remember).
It always made me laugh in EQ when mobs would be carrying around large lumps of rock and metal that you had to farm. I think that is far more unrealistic that having nodes for resources and I'd hate to see Pantheon return to that system.
Edit: I do agree with you on one point though. I'd like to see the ability to smelt down weapons and armour to get more resources but that should be in addition to being able to harvest metals and other rare resources.
When it comes to in game economy most are RUINED by gold sellers not the actual in game mechanics specified by the Dev's with drop rates, crafting and VT. If an Item is needed or sought after, players will buy it, if its junk they won't and its that simple. With Gold flooding the market a player who otherwise may not have been able to afford that one nice peice of sought after armor are all of a sudden wearing the entire set sure they are happy but the other items then rot on the broker with no real purpose. So many games have ridiculous drop rates and thats where a healthy economy is either ruined or enhanced by adjusting the rates and making crafters viable at all levels. I know players love their shiny drops, the Dev's know this as well but cutting them down to more respectable levels would go a long way for both the economy and the crafters. Crafter based MMO's in hardcore PVP games work well but they do not work well in PVE theme park type situations simply because if these type players (PVE) dont get their shiny new drops the game is not fun to them letting them wait a bit for the drop makes it all that more rewarding.
Also crafters have a tendency to craft the same items over and over and over to gain levels and this progresses them WAY too fast and before youy know it you have a maxed out master crafter who made gloves for a week straight. Slowing down these progressions makes for a healthy game and economy. Slowing some off this stuff down (in creative ways) will make the journey more rewarding.... sure the power hardcore gamer is gonna ***** but to be honest they have driven a lot of the games lately and all we see across the MMO genre is pure failure. Lets hurry up to max out and then be bored out of our minds. Bad philosophy... bad design.
I know Im going in a few different directions here but all this stuff ties in together and effects each aspect of a game including the economy.
If we are going for the social group, fun progression type game, then this has to be looked at very carefully. If systems can be implemented that help keep players enjoying the content at all levels and not just at level 50+ We will have a fun game thats very rewarding and the economy will take care of itself with some very basic ideas and tweaks.
Crypton said:When it comes to in game economy most are RUINED by gold sellers not the actual in game mechanics specified by the Dev's with drop rates, crafting and VT. If an Item is needed or sought after, players will buy it, if its junk they won't and its that simple. With Gold flooding the market a player who otherwise may not have been able to afford that one nice peice of sought after armor are all of a sudden wearing the entire set sure they are happy but the other items then rot on the broker with no real purpose. So many games have ridiculous drop rates and thats where a healthy economy is either ruined or enhanced by adjusting the rates and making crafters viable at all levels. I know players love their shiny drops, the Dev's know this as well but cutting them down to more respectable levels would go a long way for both the economy and the crafters. Crafter based MMO's in hardcore PVP games work well but they do not work well in PVE theme park type situations simply because if these type players (PVE) dont get their shiny new drops the game is not fun to them letting them wait a bit for the drop makes it all that more rewarding.
Also crafters have a tendency to craft the same items over and over and over to gain levels and this progresses them WAY too fast and before youy know it you have a maxed out master crafter who made gloves for a week straight. Slowing down these progressions makes for a healthy game and economy. Slowing some off this stuff down (in creative ways) will make the journey more rewarding.... sure the power hardcore gamer is gonna ***** but to be honest they have driven a lot of the games lately and all we see across the MMO genre is pure failure. Lets hurry up to max out and then be bored out of our minds. Bad philosophy... bad design.
I know Im going in a few different directions here but all this stuff ties in together and effects each aspect of a game including the economy.
If we are going for the social group, fun progression type game, then this has to be looked at very carefully. If systems can be implemented that help keep players enjoying the content at all levels and not just at level 50+ We will have a fun game thats very rewarding and the economy will take care of itself with some very basic ideas and tweaks.
Sorry I dont buy gold sellers ruin game economys. In EQ2 I had at times 10 or 20k plat and I never once bought gold. What killed the economy was giving insane amounts of loot and gold to easy to kill mobs. in EQ you could farm hill giants and make thousands in no time. It always happens when you give trash mobs huge amounts of loot or sellable stuff that sells for an insane amount.
EVE you can legally buy EVE cash ISK. EVE has the most robust and vibrent economy of any MMO thats been out
Kalgore said:Crypton said:When it comes to in game economy most are RUINED by gold sellers not the actual in game mechanics specified by the Dev's with drop rates, crafting and VT. If an Item is needed or sought after, players will buy it, if its junk they won't and its that simple. With Gold flooding the market a player who otherwise may not have been able to afford that one nice peice of sought after armor are all of a sudden wearing the entire set sure they are happy but the other items then rot on the broker with no real purpose. So many games have ridiculous drop rates and thats where a healthy economy is either ruined or enhanced by adjusting the rates and making crafters viable at all levels. I know players love their shiny drops, the Dev's know this as well but cutting them down to more respectable levels would go a long way for both the economy and the crafters. Crafter based MMO's in hardcore PVP games work well but they do not work well in PVE theme park type situations simply because if these type players (PVE) dont get their shiny new drops the game is not fun to them letting them wait a bit for the drop makes it all that more rewarding.
Also crafters have a tendency to craft the same items over and over and over to gain levels and this progresses them WAY too fast and before youy know it you have a maxed out master crafter who made gloves for a week straight. Slowing down these progressions makes for a healthy game and economy. Slowing some off this stuff down (in creative ways) will make the journey more rewarding.... sure the power hardcore gamer is gonna ***** but to be honest they have driven a lot of the games lately and all we see across the MMO genre is pure failure. Lets hurry up to max out and then be bored out of our minds. Bad philosophy... bad design.
I know Im going in a few different directions here but all this stuff ties in together and effects each aspect of a game including the economy.
If we are going for the social group, fun progression type game, then this has to be looked at very carefully. If systems can be implemented that help keep players enjoying the content at all levels and not just at level 50+ We will have a fun game thats very rewarding and the economy will take care of itself with some very basic ideas and tweaks.
Sorry I dont buy gold sellers ruin game economys. In EQ2 I had at times 10 or 20k plat and I never once bought gold. What killed the economy was giving insane amounts of loot and gold to easy to kill mobs. in EQ you could farm hill giants and make thousands in no time. It always happens when you give trash mobs huge amounts of loot or sellable stuff that sells for an insane amount.
EVE you can legally buy EVE cash ISK. EVE has the most robust and vibrent economy of any MMO thats been out
It all contributes to it Kalgore Gold sellers are not the only reason they are part of the problem . I mentioned drop rates in my post along with other reasons .
Thanks Aradune,
I am going to back and read the posts, but I had to also mention I know Raidan said some good things on this directly controlling mudlfation in the act of selling itself. I know Calendeor also had some input ( Sorry if I mispelled names, I am going form memory...{a grand of what?}) I know Liav chimed in there at some point and brought some foundation, I know Amasai also had Ideas and I know nikademas had a good example and someone with a K-
I also think casino's are a good idea- if money or time can be spent in developing unique cultural games in each city- so be it- it might be a good way to make sublte chuckles (3-D chess, dabo girl, something from phantom toll-booth).
Bribes might be good, Guards can be bribed up to a certain faction point for instance, likewise merchants , but not too high,
Lots of great points...
I would really like to see in game merchants offer to buy your goods at fair prices, then other players can search their wares and buy those same items from the merchants you sold to But at a higher price (Merchants hold these items for a set amount of time). This keeps a dynamic approach and those that make and effort to search around can find some good deals or run across items much needed for trade skills or quests etc... Some people really get into the economics of the game and this acts like a mini game for them. I would imagine it takes a good amount of cash out of the game too, which is nice to have for balance. This was the case early on in EQ and was a nice feature.
Another option is to have multi uses for same items... Too many times an item is singular in use and is just wasted space. If items have multiple uses, it certainly ups the demand. When items are turned in to NPCs, this is another way to take potential cash out of the game. So as an example, you gather cloth patches from various mobs when leveling up. After awhile you have built up a stack of 20. Let's say one quest offers small experience to turn in 5 cloth patches (at a ratio not worth camping but good enough for the extra turn in). You take the other 15 and go see a trade vendor that gives back a cloth roll for 10 patches, this you use to work on tailoring trade skill. You take the other 5 for a quest turn in a little later in the game that offers a ?? Or just sell them to another player for $$. You get the idea.
As long as something can be regularly generated in the game, there has to be a consistent way to take them back out of the game, and by different techniques, not just selling for cash.
@Manouk
Here's a few threads for reference where we discussed mudflation, twinking, amongst other itemization related issues in the past:
1. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2359/avoiding-bis-gear-labeling/view/post_id/31865
2. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2367/twinking-how-to-implement-w-o-trivializing-challenge/view/post_id/31969
3. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1968/non-linear-gear-progression-please/view/post_id/25582
4. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1760/bound-items-not-a-good-system/view/post_id/21789
I'm sure there's some others as well - isn't easy to track down all the old threads on these forums
Aradune said:1. Situational gear should help here. There is no ONE best sword. There's one best sword for the situation and climate you are in. This means that you will be hoarding more items, and when you hoard, you're keeping the item out of the economy. You may find some bracers that aren't generally as good as you have now... but instead of dumping them on a lower level player, you keep them because they have some crazy anti-confusion attribute... and while you've never been in an area with 'confusion' and while you're not sure what it will do to you... it still doesn't sound fun, and so you hide away that bracer in case one day you really do need
-Aradune
Vandraad said:If you want to keep your economy healthy, literally hire an economist to watch over the various server economies. EVE Online understood very early on that a healthy economy is crucial to the game and they hired a Ph.D in Economics to do nothing but track the economy and make quarterly reports about it. CCP would make minor adjustments to across the entire spectrum when necessary.
You might think the EVE economy and the Pantheon economy are not similar, but they are. Both have money, items and raw materials entering into the economy. Money comes from NPC bounties, mission payouts, etc. NPCs drop usable items and raw materials. Players extract minerals from ever-respawning (aka infinite) sources. EVE and Pantheon both have faction standings which will affect prices paid to and earned from. EVE has items which drop in some areas (thus seeing locally low buy prices) but not in other areas so you could do the buy low here and sell high there quite effectively.
Granted economy in EVE is far more influenced by players than I suspect will be the case in Pantheon (I don't see much market speculation/manipulation going on in Pantheon as you see in EVE) but still hiring an Economist would be a very smart move.
It is funny that you mention this my old roommate when he got his masters in economics got a job doing the same thing. I think that is what started me thinking along these lines in the first place.
In advance: I appologize. I did not read Vandraad's post before I wrote this one . I now realise that he came to much the same conclusion I did.(only before I did) Anyway, all the more support for the conclusion.
Well, I have an MBA and I focused on ecconomics when I got it. It is my oppinion that keeping the amount of free cash in the game at a set point will not work. The cash has to be at a certain ratio to the value of all of the items that are available to be traded at anytime. If the cash is set at 3,000,000 (for sake of discussion) and the server has matured to the point that there are thousands of powerful items in the game, well then those items will be worth nearly nothing in terms of cash. However, if the level of cash is beyond the value of the items, otherwise known as MUDflation, then the items are what become overvalued. You dont want a situation where players are so starved for cash that newbies can't even buy spells, but you also dont want a situation where standard, low level equipment sells for 10,000PP.
Note that the cash needs to be at a ratio to the 'value of the items to be traded'. Not all items are for sale at any time and items will change in value, depending on server conditions, scarcity, patches (nerfing!), ect... I suspect the best way to handle this is the way we do it in the USofA. You will need someone (GM or dev) to monitor the ecconomy from time to time. Keep track of random items that sell often and see what is happening to their prices. If money needs to be removed... find a way to remove it. If it needs to be added, find a way to add it. This could be tough though if there are many servers.
EDIT: Valuing the items to be traded can be very difficult. The value of an item is dependant on so many things, not the least of which is the availablity of substitutes. Also, if items do not 'wear out', then over time, only the best items will really be worth anything because a character can only equip one breastplate! (this alone will make P:RotF different from EVE)
EDIT: It will actually be more difficult to value items in P:RotF that in EVE, in my oppinion, as each character needs only a limited number of each item and there will be a large variety of 'substitues' out there. Also, the value of an item in EVE often comes down to a numbers game (a battleship is better than a cruiser), whereas in a MMORPG the value can be influenced by the 'look' of the item, whether a particular guild thinks it is the BiC, what 'resist' or stat happens to be the flavor of the month, how many of the right 'class' there are on the server, or if someone saw Aradune running by wielding it.
GeekVerve said:@JDNight
Please send VR your resume. Like, now. :)
Thanks for the support! If VR would like to talk economics with me they can contact me anytime.
I wrote that late last night after a long day of work. I noticed today that although my statements were accurate, my logic was a bit off on the last sentence of the first paragraph in that I made it sound as though I was comparing two different situations (use of the word 'but'), however they were the same situation. Oh well, I think people got the gist of what I was trying to say.
I would recommend starting with monitoring the value that players are willing to pay one another for staple items as well as higher end items. If the prices go up (especially if the price increase is effecting many items) then likely you have too much free cash in the system. You would also want to monitor the prices that new players are paying for newbie gear though as this will greatly affect their willingness to continue playing the game. They should probaly keep an eye on how difficult it is for players to purchase standard items at various levels. If, for instance, players in their 30s are continuously complaining about not having enough money for spells or gear upgrades, then you can probably guess that either prices are too high, or that the coin drop at that level is to low. Although, there could be other things to consider such as: Are they saving up to buy something else that 'everyone' says is a must have item? In WoW it was your mount at level 40. Obviously much of this will be found out as the game plays out. In any case though, monitoring will be required as well as tweaking of the inputs afterwords.
I don't think anything should be no-trade, nothing should be no-sale.
Just make it so if you kill 50 skellys and get 30 rusty swords, you take them to a merchant and that merchant will buy 5. The other 25 he won't by, why woud he, who needs 30 rusty swords. If someone comes by and buys 2 or 3 rusty swords from him, then he'll buy a few more.
Just make the economy work in a supply & demand economy works and you have no issues. Mobs dropping gold is dumb, mobs dropping crap gear that merchants continually buy is dumb.
If players want money, have them do somehting with those rusty swords that would result in someone wanting something from them. Smelt them down to usable metal or something.
Who wants a billion rat wiskers, or kobold eyes...no one. Stop making useless stuff worth selling and stop having mobs drop gold.