Trasak said:The lowering of max durability really happens any time either players or NPC repair the active durability of an item as its used. This item repair is the money sink portion. I would tie the amount maximum durability goes down to the relative skill of the smith and the skill to make the item so that for high skill level items you will either want a NPC master smith or a near max level player smith to repair the item.Refurbishing the item back to original maximum durability is what pulls items out of the economy as you will either need to salvage other similar items or harvest raw materials. I could see some NPCs being able to do this but it would make it more cost effective to have players do it. Either way the item may not be worth the raw materials to refurbish and so you either sell it cheap to lower level characters or salvage it for materials to refurbish a different item that uses the same raw materials.
That kind of system feels like it would put too much burden on the part of the player in terms of time we'd need to spend just dealing with replacing/refurbishing our gear. Play time is precious and I'd rather not have to spend who-knows-how-long scrounging up materials or farming up another piece of armor just because the one I was wearing wore out completely. I could easily see that turning into a stressful struggle to keep up with gear.
Okay, here's a crazy idea: What if there was a finite amount of currency in the game. Or at least the amount of new currency in the game decreased exponentially, kind of like with bitcoin.
Typically, a game generates currency and loot which can be vendored for currency. Obviously you need loot drops to be standardized. But what if you couldn't vendor items for currency? So now, the only way to generate new currency is by having it drop directly. And the game will have a number of currency sinks by which currency is removed from circulation. So lets start at that point.
1) Player buys some service from an NPC. That currency goes into the game's reserve.
2) When NPC's are killed, any currency instantiated is debited from the game's reserve.
3) If the reserve is less than half of the total amount of currency in the game, the amount of currency dropped beings to be scaled down.
4) If the reserve reaches low levels, the cost of services is increased.
Services woudl include:
The finite currency idea tickles my fancy quite a lot - that's a really interesting idea. I've no idea how it would be implemented correctly, but it seems like one big advantage would be that VR could actively and somewhat easily mitigate/manipulate the economy to deal with inflation and whatnot.
Taxes and fees for things like guild halls and various services sound like a good way to take a few nickels and dimes out. Expendable/consumable items is another way - for example;
- Vendors might sell a potion, we'll say a HP one - it restores 100hp, costs 5 gold.
- Players can make a stronger version of said potion (110 - 125hp?), which would likely cost just a little more, but the increase in effectiveness would be more than worth it for the small price bump.
However, potions might not always be for sale, or the 100hp ones might be enough for the purpose someone has in mind, or it's just more convenient to grab them on the way to an adventure. So they buy a stack, and poof, 50 gold has exited the economy. Or, pricey but effective potions could be sold via a guild hall or something like that, which could see a lot of gold eaten up if a guild chooses to prep for a raid using these consumables.
Crafting tools could be similar - player made ones would be more effective or have more 'durability', while vendor ones are cheap and convenient, creating a potential to leech a little more out of the economy.
Also having crafting resources that are only purchasable from vendors (basic components) can also nickel and dime a bit out. (Of course, these ideas assume a lot about various systems in the game)
Here is another crazy idea.
How serious a problem is excess in-game currency - is it worth much effort to control?
Suppose we are a year into the game. New alts of high level characters will be able to have almost infinite resources - by starter zone standards. Money from the high level brothers and sisters will let them buy crafted gear almost as soon as they are created (assuming access to markets) or the high levels can buy and send them level 1 or level 5 or whatever gear. Or resources to craft with if they are crafters.
Inflation and excessive amounts of in-game money will let new players gain money faster than the original characters were able to. Instead of 50 copper ores coasting 10 silver maybe they will cost a gold so brand new players may be able to be "rich" from a bit of mining. Made up the details just to show what I meant, of course, so no need to debate whether starter ore should be copper or currency should be silver and gold.
In other words brand new players will, with some effort, get the benefit that brand new alts of rich level-caps will get with no effort. Is this bad?
Maybe it is but I think the question of *whether* to do something is as relevant to this thread as *what* to do.
zoltar said:Okay, here's a crazy idea: What if there was a finite amount of currency in the game. Or at least the amount of new currency in the game decreased exponentially, kind of like with bitcoin.
Typically, a game generates currency and loot which can be vendored for currency. Obviously you need loot drops to be standardized. But what if you couldn't vendor items for currency? So now, the only way to generate new currency is by having it drop directly. And the game will have a number of currency sinks by which currency is removed from circulation. So lets start at that point.
1) Player buys some service from an NPC. That currency goes into the game's reserve.
2) When NPC's are killed, any currency instantiated is debited from the game's reserve.
3) If the reserve is less than half of the total amount of currency in the game, the amount of currency dropped beings to be scaled down.
4) If the reserve reaches low levels, the cost of services is increased.
Services woudl include:
- Crafting guild fees, required for access to crafting stations.
- Stabling fees for mounts. Mounts would need to be recharged at a stable at a signfiicant cost.
- Binding to a location
- Taxes paying for citizenship in a nation (based on character level). Citizenship would provide you with essential benefits. Xp bonus, access to an additional bind points, recall ability, access to advanced mounts, premium stables, etc.
zoltar said:Okay, here's a crazy idea: What if there was a finite amount of currency in the game. Or at least the amount of new currency in the game decreased exponentially, kind of like with bitcoin.
It's an interesting idea, however...
- I could see this easily becoming a replica of real life, where a few people are exceedingly wealthy and everyone else struggles to get by. And with a limited amount of wealth, the "poor" players have no real way to earn more money unless the very wealthy players actually part with some of theirs.
- Imagine - reserves get low because a few people have accumulated a lot of wealth, so general prices start to go up. How are the poor players supposed to afford these rising prices? While a certain level of realism is nice in video games, I'd really rather not have to deal with the same financial stress I have in real life.
- For that reason, I'm not really a fan of most of the services you suggested. I don't like the idea of paying to maintain my mount or having to pay money just to access a crafting station. Not fun. Not necessary.
I think I tend to agree with Dorotea. A certain amount of inflation is natural and fine, and it tends to balance out because new low levels can pick up gathering professions and sell their gathered items for a tidy profit.
Here is idea I woke up in a cold sweat, screaming with last night.
Weapon and gear rusting!
Example; You're a gear farmer or crafter, you spend your time making or farming armor and weapons to turn a profit and you throw it all on the auction house. The theory is that the longer it sits without being sold the higher the chance it begins to rust reducing its value. You as the crafter or seller then have to repair it to increase the value, depleting your funds. Sounds like a boring mini game to me, and way too realistic for me, but whatever. There it is. Its basically repairing gear in other games without actually using it.
I would say it won't happen everywhere. Just the auction house as it could be in a more open area versus the bank which could be more climate controlled. :D
Naunet said:- For that reason, I'm not really a fan of most of the services you suggested. I don't like the idea of paying to maintain my mount or having to pay money just to access a crafting station. Not fun. Not necessary.
I think I tend to agree with Dorotea. A certain amount of inflation is natural and fine, and it tends to balance out because new low levels can pick up gathering professions and sell their gathered items for a tidy profit.
But the game has to have money sinks in order for money to be useful. After you pay the one-time fees to buy a mount and buy bank space, what use is money? If you don't have to pay for item repair, you don't have to pay to upkeep mounts, you don't have to pay for continued access to crafting, then what are you paying for?
We don't need rust monsters wandering around the auction house or bank.
Banks should charge storage fees for items (money is different). So much per week or month with payment required in advance.
Auction houses should charge a listing fee and if the auction doesn't expire within a limited time frame - requiring a new listing fee - there should also be weekly or monthly charges.
Zoltar we may have an issue of terminology here. Many of us view money sink as having nothing to do with the game having things in it that require money, but rather as costs imposed solely to reduce the overall supply of money.
Using this definition we could have no "money sinks" but many many things that require money. Housing, mounts, any gear sold by NPCs, any items for crafting or otherwise sold by NPCs, mailing fees, AH fees, storage fees, local government taxes etc etc. Not to mention needing money to buy thingsfrom other players directly when the game isn't even involved.
zoltar said:But the game has to have money sinks in order for money to be useful. After you pay the one-time fees to buy a mount and buy bank space, what use is money? If you don't have to pay for item repair, you don't have to pay to upkeep mounts, you don't have to pay for continued access to crafting, then what are you paying for?
I like spending gold on cosmetics, personally - to create outfits, to dye gear, to purchase awesome mounts or armor/weapon appearances off a rep vendor - or to buy consumables or other items from players. Having to rent bank space, or pay upkeep on a mount I already bought just to continue using it, or pay a fee every time I want to poke around at crafting - none of those are particularly fun uses of my gold. They give me the same gross feeling that fees to maintain a bank account give me (heh, one of the many reasons why I use a credit union instead).
Like I said in another post, I don't play video games to be constantly reminded of the stress of finances.
Naunet said:zoltar said:But the game has to have money sinks in order for money to be useful. After you pay the one-time fees to buy a mount and buy bank space, what use is money? If you don't have to pay for item repair, you don't have to pay to upkeep mounts, you don't have to pay for continued access to crafting, then what are you paying for?I like spending gold on cosmetics, personally - to create outfits, to dye gear, to purchase awesome mounts or armor/weapon appearances off a rep vendor - or to buy consumables or other items from players. Having to rent bank space, or pay upkeep on a mount I already bought just to continue using it, or pay a fee every time I want to poke around at crafting - none of those are particularly fun uses of my gold. They give me the same gross feeling that fees to maintain a bank account give me (heh, one of the many reasons why I use a credit union instead).
Like I said in another post, I don't play video games to be constantly reminded of the stress of finances.
Buying things from other players isn't a money sink. Money sinks are things that remove money from the economy.
The core fun of the game should come from playing it. Finding loot. Getting items. Crafting items. I think a lot of people will be disappointed if the focus of the game is taken away from earning specific individual items via these activities in favor of purchasing them from vendors. The satisfaction you get from buying things is just not the same (IMO). So, having money sinks that provide convienence to players and facilitate those core "fun" activities" makes sense to me.
zoltar said:Buying things from other players isn't a money sink. Money sinks are things that remove money from the economy.The core fun of the game should come from playing it. Finding loot. Getting items. Crafting items. I think a lot of people will be disappointed if the focus of the game is taken away from earning specific individual items via these activities in favor of purchasing them from vendors. The satisfaction you get from buying things is just not the same (IMO). So, having money sinks that provide convienence to players and facilitate those core "fun" activities" makes sense to me.
I know that. You asked what I use money for.
I think you misunderstand me, though. When I said spend money on costume/dyes, I was referring to systems like WildStar, where it costs gold (really, more like several platinum) every time I want to apply a dye to a part of my armor, or like in WoW, where it costs gold (actually a pretty significant amount) every time I want to apply an armor/weapon skin. The comment on mounts/cosmetic rewards was really a side thing. It's pretty standard for reps to offer cosmetic rewards, so I mentioned it as something I tend to spend my gold on. In NO WAY was I suggesting that is the primary way to obtain all cosmetics...
At one time I performed analytics. Every morning at 4AM reports were generated for me that were based on a number of things. One report generated XP gains. One report generated coin gain. There were others. One of my favorites was the coin gain. This report basically consisted of the amount of coin gain for every character in the game. The report generated for me was a variable consisting of the number of players I wanted to check. So, sometimes it generated a report that only had the top 40 coin gainers over the course of a single day. Sometimes that report generated a report with the top x thousands. It really depended on what my goal was at that specific time. The one thing that is glaring here is that this was coin gain based OVER TIME. TIME is perhaps the most underutilized aspect of any MMO today. I will not use the title of the game I worked on. But, the back end of this game was nothing short of amazing. It kept track of everything. There was a unique identifier for every single thing in the game. Right down to individual copper coins. There was an occasion or two where duping occured. It was caught iummediately. Every single coin duped was recovered. You can imagine the fun and games that happened as a result. It did NOT affect a lot of people. Coin spread is pretty limited when you take in to account the amount of time it takes to spread it. This post isn't about duping, so forgive me. This post is just a helpful nudge to let you know that the team is on this. Through analytics they can determine what a decent coin gain over time is. If you are the biggest coin gainer over a specific amount of time (and really, this can be adjusted so that it isn't over a day - it can easily be over an hour, over a minute, or - through automation - can alert certain folks in almost real-time of unusual activity), then you can be guarenteed that your activity is being investigated. Most of the time the folks I checked on were playing the game as intended. In every title there is going to be someone that is the top DPSer. There is going to be someone that is naturally more skilled at healing than almost everyone else. Likewise, there are your players that just seem to know where the money is. Through analytics it can be determined pretty easily what the ideal coin gain is. If the system is robust enough, the DevTeam can actually adjust coin-gain over time with a simply command. In many cases, analytics was used to determine that certain mobs were pushing more coin than was intended. The analytics guy simply had to shoot an email to the DevTeam to inform them that coin gain on X mob was exceeding (and in some cases not meeting) the intended goals. Adjustments could be made and the system became balanced again - all in a very short amount of time. Analytics is also an amazing tool for catching gold-farmers.
So how does this info apply to sinks? It determines the need for existing sinks and if required, the need for a new sink developed over time. You will not see all of the sinks created at launch. Other sinks will be developed as the economy grows. YOUR DevTeam is on this. These guys have SO much math on them that they wear it like armor.
Weapon gear degrading.
We must use our blacksmithing or pay more for a blacksmith to repair aurmour. Either of these chosen we would still need to purchase certain items to do the repair from a vendor.
Unlocking advanced recipes could be quite expensive from a npc after quest completion.
Anything added to a vendor is a sink.
As expansions are released could come with more expensive vendor items if economy is not balanced.
I am reading alot of - " and the guild will pay for repair costs, or the guild wil pay for X"
What about players need to pay weekly or monthly dues to be in a guild. Or a guild is not formed unless X amount of people pay founding dues that are then continued. like union dues.
From the dues players pay, the guild as a true NPC absorbs (removes) some cash from the game but leaves the rest changed as "guild money" that only certain officers can spend, and even then spend only at NPC's. So for armor repair- because of strength in numbers one officer can take all the player armor and bring it to NPC to get them fixed and debit the "guild money" account.
officers cannot access or withdraw the "guild money" except for certain repairs or whatnot. Wealthy guilds may even pay NPC guards with guild money to keep certain stretches of road protected as a form of PR.
That way, if members leave a guild, the guild will lose the input of PC dues. If there are no PC dues to absorb, the guild folds and PC's are automatically un-tagged and are unguilded.
Unfortunately, this might also be a means to allow stronger guilds to absorb or crush other smaller guilds, but it will not stop players from forming new guilds, so long as they have the minimum numbers, and founding dues.
Manouk said:What about players need to pay weekly or monthly dues to be in a guild. Or a guild is not formed unless X amount of people pay founding dues that are then continued. like union dues.
I play a couple MMOs with guild tax systems. The usual form is that it takes a small % of coin looted from every kill and deposits it directly into the guild bank. I think the important thing is that you should be able to toggle them on or off (as you can in those MMOs). Nice thing is I don't think I've ever seen guild tax systems result in the death of smaller guilds.
Kiera said:Weapon gear degrading.We must use our blacksmithing or pay more for a blacksmith to repair aurmour. Either of these chosen we would still need to purchase certain items to do the repair from a vendor.
Unlocking advanced recipes could be quite expensive from a npc after quest completion.
Anything added to a vendor is a sink.
As expansions are released could come with more expensive vendor items if economy is not balanced.
Yup. These are all good.
Actual guild halls that act as a meeting area for guilds that can contain crafting stations, postal services and vendors with gear depending on the value of the guild hall. Then have rent that would require guild members to tithe in order to maintain their guildhall. Have 2 in each city and if another guild wants to occupy a guild hall that is already occupied they would need to pay a substantial fee as well as have enough members to maintain the rent. Or there could be a pvp challenge between guilds in a neutral arena on Terminus to determine the "gang" with the most cloute in a certain town.
Another money sink could be an Arena Quest. Pay an entry fee to battle a beast for XP or another player for a cash prize of 150% of what the fee was (so one player will lose their entry fee and one player will gain money).
More than one game that allowed crafting stations in guild halls or personal houses wound up regretting it.
A game with Pantheon's emphasis on people being in the same areas and socialization would regret it very fast.
I think Pantheon needs a relatively limited number of crafting areas all available to the public where crafters will congregate and see eachother. If - as I very much expect - crafts are inter-dependant this is even more important. By interdependent I mean many items require parts from multiple crafts. A sword may require a blade from a metalworker and a hilt from a tailor for example. The way things often used to be and VR willing will be again - let it be so!
I'm looking forward to magic items being salvagable and sacrificable. Magic items will be properly rare - they won't just be farmed for sale or sold when outgrown.
Salvaging normal loot and looting crafting resources is another way to stop coin being generated in the first place (rather than most loot just being vendored).
With that in mind, vendors could have limited coin... that might be too prhibitive though.
Auction houses should have heavy sales tax for the convenience and to encourage direct sales.
Fast travel should be properly expensive so you have to plan your travel not just zip around willy-nilly.
Banking should be convenient, but have fees. I never understood why such a massively valuable service was free.
Wardrobe/cosmetics/dyes or whatever is used should be expensive enough that people are discouraged from doing it frivolously.
Skills/Spells/training should be expensive enough to have to save up for, though there's a balance - you don't want to continually level without ability to buy the skills to go with it.
Food and drink that gives a small stat/other bonus could be expensive.