Being an accountant, and having majored in economics, I've always wondered:

What things do you all like about the Lusternian economy? What do you dislike? What can be improved upon? What should be completely rewritten, and how should it be rewritten? All of these questions below should come with the disclaimer "If necessary".

One of the concerns I can see is the value of gold, and gold sinks. Is it enough to just add a new guild and that takes 50 bazillion gold and that's considered a gold sink? What is an EFFECTIVE gold sink? Not much gold really 'disappears' in the world, with the exception of buying credits. What if credits weren't an option? What would make this a complex, interesting economy yet still stands in the boundaries of Lusternian High Fantasy?

How can tradeskills be revamped?

Where can the admin develop a need to fill?

I guess I look at the economy in modern days and how complex is it, and I wonder if having something similar would just be too much of a pain. Let's say that we could rationalize "stocks and bonds" in high fantasy; would it make a difference?

What are your general thoughts about Lusternia's economy?

One thing I've noticed is that too many folks give away their Trade's products or charge crazy low prices for them, which of course makes it tougher for others who want to actually make a profit over the costs of the commodities to do so.

Well, that's a good point, but isn't that what happens in the real world? Why should it be any different? In a way, there's no ability to specialize, per se, or differentiate yourself from another tradesman of the same skill level. The exception is, of course, item descriptions but in the end... If you need an item choosing what you want it to look like is often only a perk. What could they do to help this situation? (Again, assume that anything can be done.)

Lots more gold comes in than ever goes out. Like Noola said, trade labor is very undervalued, while bashing labor is quite profitable. Credits are the only major commodity, and there's no gold sink for it. Commodity prices scale very poorly in the villages, which in turn keeps player-run commodity shops regulated. I don't have anything to compare it to, but I wouldn't be surprised if commodity prices actually cause trade labor to be undervalued. All in all, I wouldn't say Lusternia has a well functioning economy at all, just rich people, lazy people, and newbies.

I agree with you completely. So how would you change things? What would you introduce to make it better, more vivid? More of a concerted effort to make money, and producing more value from that money? I have so much gold on me right now, sure I could go and buy credits, but I already have a lot of those. Anything I'd buy would merely be some sort of investment vehicle, where I buy it and hold it with the hopes to sell it at a higher price. Don't get me wrong, I realize this is the foundation of economics, but I'm keen on knowing how a game can expand on this concept. Economics today isn't merely about buy gold and hold it until it appreciates, that's only for the rich people, the lazy people, and the newbies. There's so much more to economics in the world that there's a field of study dedicated solely to it!

What about other currencies. If Mag/Glom/Seren/Celest had and printed their own currencies, would it be interesting? How could it be regulated so that it would be fair?

The only problem I have with the economy, is the fluctuating herb prices. For instance, Earwort and Merbloom, not to mention Sargassum and Spakleberry.

Also, being a jeweler, I always had trouble deciding what to charge someone, 50 per gem, yeah, that is normal.. but labor?

It's not like forging or enchanment, doesn't take extended time to do it right. Perhaps a scroll detailing reasonable prices?

For instance, most Alchemists charge about 3k to Fill a keg. Then, what about Enchanters doing a cube, or robes? Should there be a lower charge if they have their artifact for the trade?

I don't know, a guide would always be nice, just for suggestions for people to know what OTHERS charge, so you don't undercut Joe Paladin over here, with a mallet

Actually no. In the real world, it's all about profit. Why do you think there's such a problem with sweatshops and overseas product manufacturing? To lower the costs of production so there can be more profit.

...I could lie and pretend I wanted to say something not-silly here. But really I just wanted to do that.

One problem with the Herbs tradeskill is the competition. There are tons of Herbalists out there, and for you to even be noticed you'll have to charge, hmm, 5 gold per herb. Which sucks, since the higher amount of herbalists means extreme shortage of herbs that grow, meaning supposed higher prices.

Herbalists, 20 per herb, please.

While yes, the real world is all about profit, it's not just about lowering costs, it's also about gaining market share. It's a very tenuous balance. I'm a jeweler in Lusternia... I'm not lowering my prices because I can get the gems cheaper, or it takes less labor for me to make them (per se). I'm lowering the costs because I want more people to buy from me.

Well, it just means there's little or no wasted potential in terms of herb growing, so the shortage comes from that end, and prices are going to fall as low as they can get with maximum production.

It's tragedy of the commons in part too. Herbing areas are (more or less) utterly public. So there is no incentive for any one person to significantly conserve the resource (save for the quirky nature of regrowing herbs and not stripping them, but even then, we see strip harvesters).

Assuming production remains maximized, prices will arguably be a function of active population.

This seems pretty typical, economy-wise... Do you really think that the admin should establish a minimum for herb prices? (I'm going to assume no, and follow-up by routing you back on topic. How can the economy be improved here in Lusternia?)

My herb prices, for herbs that I will sell, are simple. No less than 10per herb and as high as I deem on any given day of the week.

I laugh when I see consumers try and demand the price when it is me who has the supply they need. Especially when they turn around and say "I can get it cheaper elsewhere." If that was the case you wouldn't have spent a week asking on Market for the same herb over and over. Go buy your cheaper herbs, when you can't find them because everyone else has exhausted the cheap market, you come see me and remember trade is based on supply and demand. He who has supply sets the price for the demand.

Simple suggestion.

No more gold drops from mobs. Get rid of them completely.

Find other forms of getting gold.

Complicated suggestion:

Allow each community to create its own form of currency. (It really makes sense especially in our highly fractious lusternian society to be honest)

Allow power to be converted to gold by the government. (print its own money) Have comm shops buy commodities. Allow corpses to be converted to power as well, or essence.

Secondary simple suggestion:

Make all trade skills require gold to use, thus creating gold sinks. Every vial made also take 50 gold that goes poof. Every weapon forged requires 100 gold which goes poof, etc. etc. Each herb picked takes one piece of gold from your inventory, or else you can't pick the herb. Come up with some magical reason for this to happen, and you have a nice gold sink.


Problems with these ideas: Combat and hunting and bashing require lots of gold to maintain a high activity level. So, removing gold from mob drops (which is the source of too much gold existing) would really make bashing and pvp harder to maintain, and create a culture of corruption if cities/communes converted power/essence into gold.

Gold drops have already been beat with the nerf stick. How do you propose anyone getting gold to begin with? Oh wait! Each Org can also put in welfare and unemployment insurance!

The possibilities of getting gold not from mob drops are virtually endless.

There is a huge influx of gold in lusternia right now, I'm not sure where the gold is coming from, but people are currently able to make more gold faster then they used to be able to.

But if you want to improve the economy of lusternia, you have to make people more dependent on each other for gold. You can't have the best source of gold be bashing.

Normally this is handled by mobs dropping items that have various values to different players, rather then dropping straight gold. (But I find that a lame way of doing it)

Myd: Also, remeber that economies existed and flourished for many years without modern economic systems.

What if one currency falls out of favour, or everyone just realizes it's easier to use the Magnagoran Rupee than the Glomdoring Wristslicers? Who decides what the exchange rate will be? How do you "force" players to WANT different types of currency?




So what's a good way of handling making players more dependent on each other for gold?

Economies may have existed and flourished for many years, but the point that I'm trying to emphasize is that the current Lusternian economy doesn't have anywhere near the fascinating (IMO) complexities of our RL global economy. I'd love to see it expanded. That's all I mean with that comparison.

Basically, if each commune/city had its own currency, then each commune/city would also have some means of creating that currency.

So basically, once a village is controled by say Celest, then that village only accepts Celestian teardrops in the stores. So the more villages a place owns the more that currency has value. The more villages change hands, the more unstable the currencies become. Could be fun!

Another option is that the highly elitist glomdoring folk, only accept the Glomdoring darkcoinofdeath and so if you want to shop in Glomdoring, you have to use thier currency. Or, Glomdoring takes the path of open seduction and has the option of accepting any currency in the village shops. i.e. it takes a different government type option which makes the village take any type of currecny. Or maybe even just each shop can have perms that take some currencies not not others. So my shop would take the Glomdoring coinofdeath , but makes things cost twice as much if they use the Magnogran pieceofdirt or the Celestian teardrop, but won't sell anything at all if they use the Seren weevildung.

There are really many many different ways of doing all these things.

The best way to make players more dependant on eachother for gold, is to remove the ability for a player to get gold by themselves.

i.e., if a noob needs gold, they russtle the cows and sheep, bring them to a village, and then sell the commodity to the comm shops. Or even allow each player owned shop to buy items as well as sell them. i.e. PRICE BIN 1 BUY IRON 50, would allow people to sell iron to me for 50 gp.

That's an interesting viewpoint on comm quests.

What are other ways of player-generated gold that won't be susceptible to jerks?

The things I think would fix it will never see the light of day, but hey, you asked and said earlier to assume anything is possible.

First: create need. Really, the only need is food, and food is cheap. If level 80 didn't remove the need for food and sleep, and sleep required a place to sleep (either rented or an artisan bed in a manse), you'd have a better personal gold sink.

Second: squish the value difference in unskilled labor. The big one here would be bashing. Low level bashing should be worth more, high level bashing should be worth less. Honours quests should have a smaller gold reward, or no gold reward, and find other rewards. Gold quests like krokani/aslaran/kephera/illithoids should just die altogether.

Third: make labor interactions between players matter. World of Warcraft does this well, but I don't see meshing it with our credit/cartel system. Some way of making the most desirable items rare but acceptable alternatives plentiful would be great, with decent scaling in between. If greatrobes required an auronisphere, you might see more people wearing leather, scale, and chain, but productive bashers and combatants would still have them. If you introduced robes with field plate stats that could be worn by anyone, but required a tailor who learned how to make them by transing tailoring then completing an honours quest, and required a ton of comms, including magic ink, an item that drops from supernals, demon lords, or avatars, and a reinforcing mantle crafted by a forger who himself completed a quest to learn how to make it and procured something from the Catacombs to get it and had to make it while benefitting from a herofete enhanced with an item the cook got by doing the Candyland quest, then enchanted with a pair of powerstones and auronispheres by an enchanter with gloves of mastery, the person asking for the high powered robes would be seriously lubricating the economy, and you wouldn't see many, because gold from bashing is harder to come by and not every trans tradesman can do what you want.