Myndaen2008-03-26 00:12:48
QUOTE(Xavius @ Mar 25 2008, 06:59 PM) 495804
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.
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.
Addressing your thoughts backwards:
3) Much more interrelation between skillsets, between each other and the game. I like this idea!
2) What would prevent high level bashers from bashing low level areas for the gold?
1) I agree, COMPLETELY, that we need to create a need, but I don't agree that that need should be sleep or food. In the most broad terms, I'm playing a game to have fun, and bringing in real world chores like eating and sleeping shouldn't be necessary. I would argue in favour of removing hunger and sleep as a necessity. But that aside, I wholly recognize that there needs to be a need in order for there to be transactions, it's just a question of: What is this need? What can we make into a need that wouldn't be a chore? So, it'd have to be less of a need, and more of a want. Or.. A I-want-it-so-much-I-need-it. But I'm stumped!
Daganev2008-03-26 00:26:34
QUOTE(Myndaen @ Mar 25 2008, 05:12 PM) 495816
Addressing your thoughts backwards:
3) Much more interrelation between skillsets, between each other and the game. I like this idea!
2) What would prevent high level bashers from bashing low level areas for the gold?
1) I agree, COMPLETELY, that we need to create a need, but I don't agree that that need should be sleep or food. In the most broad terms, I'm playing a game to have fun, and bringing in real world chores like eating and sleeping shouldn't be necessary. I would argue in favour of removing hunger and sleep as a necessity. But that aside, I wholly recognize that there needs to be a need in order for there to be transactions, it's just a question of: What is this need? What can we make into a need that wouldn't be a chore? So, it'd have to be less of a need, and more of a want. Or.. A I-want-it-so-much-I-need-it. But I'm stumped!
3) Much more interrelation between skillsets, between each other and the game. I like this idea!
2) What would prevent high level bashers from bashing low level areas for the gold?
1) I agree, COMPLETELY, that we need to create a need, but I don't agree that that need should be sleep or food. In the most broad terms, I'm playing a game to have fun, and bringing in real world chores like eating and sleeping shouldn't be necessary. I would argue in favour of removing hunger and sleep as a necessity. But that aside, I wholly recognize that there needs to be a need in order for there to be transactions, it's just a question of: What is this need? What can we make into a need that wouldn't be a chore? So, it'd have to be less of a need, and more of a want. Or.. A I-want-it-so-much-I-need-it. But I'm stumped!
I also like 3 alot, good idea, and almost doable if they change the smelting rules. i.e. certain items for certain trade skills boost the numbers possible on created items.
What so hard about having the creation of items require gold? Call it a cartel fee.
Actually this could be good in general. Let cartels set the prices for items they make. That is, Darkhammer cartel charges a 5gp fee to create a set of fieldplate. So everytime I type FORGE FOR 3363, it takes 5gp from my inventory. Each item would also have a minimum price, so things like frogges might be a minimum of 500gp
This would also allow for more "rare" items to be made, or even custom items to be set.
Myndaen2008-03-26 00:45:10
QUOTE(daganev @ Mar 25 2008, 07:26 PM) 495823
What so hard about having the creation of items require gold? Call it a cartel fee.
Actually this could be good in general. Let cartels set the prices for items they make. That is, Darkhammer cartel charges a 5gp fee to create a set of fieldplate. So everytime I type FORGE FOR 3363, it takes 5gp from my inventory. Each item would also have a minimum price, so things like frogges might be a minimum of 500gp
This would also allow for more "rare" items to be made, or even custom items to be set.
Actually this could be good in general. Let cartels set the prices for items they make. That is, Darkhammer cartel charges a 5gp fee to create a set of fieldplate. So everytime I type FORGE FOR 3363, it takes 5gp from my inventory. Each item would also have a minimum price, so things like frogges might be a minimum of 500gp
This would also allow for more "rare" items to be made, or even custom items to be set.
I think what you're describing could be boiled down to just another gold sink. I think it'd just take money out of circulation and wouldn't really make things any more complex or interesting: What I think we'd see is the price of said items increasing, as the creator of said items would likely add that to their cost, and then that money just disappears (?) into the ether.
I think gold sinks are good, and certainly necessary sometimes... But I'm looking for more ways to make a game economy more complex and interesting, not just another gold sink, so keep thinking and get back to me!
Unknown2008-03-26 00:46:43
I like the ecconomy how it is.
Daganev2008-03-26 00:51:57
QUOTE(Myndaen @ Mar 25 2008, 05:45 PM) 495830
I think what you're describing could be boiled down to just another gold sink. I think it'd just take money out of circulation and wouldn't really make things any more complex or interesting: What I think we'd see is the price of said items increasing, as the creator of said items would likely add that to their cost, and then that money just disappears (?) into the ether.
I think gold sinks are good, and certainly necessary sometimes... But I'm looking for more ways to make a game economy more complex and interesting, not just another gold sink, so keep thinking and get back to me!
I think gold sinks are good, and certainly necessary sometimes... But I'm looking for more ways to make a game economy more complex and interesting, not just another gold sink, so keep thinking and get back to me!
It serves two purposes.
1 goldsink
2. Artifical value and reasons for various prices.
i.e. Ialie would now have a brand item, that only the richest in the realms could afford. All the while, she doesn't have to be active and the one actually producing the item. It makes cartels and cartel leadership more important, and makes that aspect of lusternia more complex.
Richter would most likely do the same thing. Its like when you buy Phildalphia cream cheese in the supermarket for $5 instead of buying the alberstons brand for $1.50 even though they are really the exact same thing.
Unknown2008-03-26 01:08:01
The economy actually could use some more gold-sinks in my opinion. In virtual economies the steady addition of currency brings prices up. That's going to happen in any game, be it World of Warcraft, Everquest or Lusternia. There's also always going to be net inflow in a virtual economy. You go out and kill Monster and Monster drops 100 units of currency. You kill 19 more Monsters and there's now 2000 more units of currency in the game. You need money sinks to control that inflation.
Myndaen2008-03-26 01:36:01
QUOTE(Fireweaver @ Mar 25 2008, 08:08 PM) 495841
The economy actually could use some more gold-sinks in my opinion. In virtual economies the steady addition of currency brings prices up. That's going to happen in any game, be it World of Warcraft, Everquest or Lusternia. There's also always going to be net inflow in a virtual economy. You go out and kill Monster and Monster drops 100 units of currency. You kill 19 more Monsters and there's now 2000 more units of currency in the game. You need money sinks to control that inflation.
If I might rephrase my original request, I'm hoping to find ideas that would add complexity to the economy, not additional gold sinks. Can we try to focus on that? If gold sinks are required for whatever you suggest, that's great, add them in, but also please add in some other way to the complexity!
Shiri2008-03-26 02:00:46
General stuff.
Lowering the amount of gold from bashing so that you can actually make money from trades is one thing, but then how are novices supposed to pay for equipment? I don't know. I think this is an unfortunate feature of the fact not everyone is transing guild skills and such, yet people who don't are supposed to still be able to afford it by bashing mindlessly. It's a pain from the perspective of wanting economic diversity, complexity, relevance of tradeskills etc. but I don't think this is something the game can really afford to change.
Correct that there isn't enough relationship between trades, nothing more to add here.
However, on whoever said about all those hard-to-get supergreatrobes? WROOOOOOOOOOONG. Reminds me of Ixion's prenerfs. Don't tell me the hours he spent on that meant no one bitched about them.
I really like GW's system wherein maxed robes are easy to get, but maxed robes with awesome skins are a bitch and takes hours of bashing. 'course, that wouldn't work in a text game. OTL. I think we'll have to give up on this one.
Lowering the amount of gold from bashing so that you can actually make money from trades is one thing, but then how are novices supposed to pay for equipment? I don't know. I think this is an unfortunate feature of the fact not everyone is transing guild skills and such, yet people who don't are supposed to still be able to afford it by bashing mindlessly. It's a pain from the perspective of wanting economic diversity, complexity, relevance of tradeskills etc. but I don't think this is something the game can really afford to change.
Correct that there isn't enough relationship between trades, nothing more to add here.
However, on whoever said about all those hard-to-get supergreatrobes? WROOOOOOOOOOONG. Reminds me of Ixion's prenerfs. Don't tell me the hours he spent on that meant no one bitched about them.
I really like GW's system wherein maxed robes are easy to get, but maxed robes with awesome skins are a bitch and takes hours of bashing. 'course, that wouldn't work in a text game. OTL. I think we'll have to give up on this one.
Xavius2008-03-26 02:02:30
Running a bit with Dag's idea to flesh out a fourth idea I completely forgot to post: better funnelling of gold into and out of the central orgs. Rather than scholars, bards, and power quests creating gold, they could distribute gold from the city's coffers at a rate set by the steward (which needs some sort of justification to exist anyways), which is funded by income from shops, comm sales, banks, and maybe crafting fees, power tolls, and sales from a city shop of rare crafting items that require a group to obtain.
And in response to why people wouldn't bash low level areas: low xp, and there'd be better gold to be made by practicing a craft or helping others to practice crafts.
And in response to why people wouldn't bash low level areas: low xp, and there'd be better gold to be made by practicing a craft or helping others to practice crafts.
Shiri2008-03-26 02:05:58
I always thought the steward existed solely to stop the treasurer ganking all the moneys out of the coffers and running to another org.
Daganev2008-03-26 02:21:02
It should do more then that!
Shiri2008-03-26 02:40:45
They have the manse/ship-holding thing now...the deeds. Whatever it's called.
Nerra2008-03-26 13:33:03
QUOTE(Noola @ Mar 25 2008, 06:25 PM) 495726
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.
Yeah, when people say "OH just supply and the comms and 200 gold" your REALLY dragging down everyone.
Proof that player prices are to low!
When I joined Credits were 4000ish gold. They are not 5000+. That's a 25% increase in credit prices.
Health Refills have gone from 200 to 220. That's a 10% increase. This maens the "Basher" has about 15% more gold to buy credits with while the shopkeeper has about 15% less. Even still, people sell let's say a shirt in a shop for 700 gold. The comms behind this shirt were maybe 450-500 gold. This shirt should sell for 900-1000 gold. In the real world, most stuff has a 100%+ markup. The problem is the tailor doesn't consider the 300 credits they spent to trans the skill. That's a 1.5 mil deficient in gold right from the start that never really gets factored into clothing. If you try to sell a trans-tailor shirt for the 2k gold it's worth, people will just buy the 500 gold one and your out even more.
QUOTE(Xavius @ Mar 25 2008, 07:59 PM) 495804
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.
I disagree. Naga/Krokani pay quite a bit (about 150 per krokani and about 200 per naga). They can be hunted relatively low level.
Noola2008-03-26 13:53:11
QUOTE(Nerra @ Mar 26 2008, 08:33 AM) 496094
Yeah, when people say "OH just supply and the comms and 200 gold" your REALLY dragging down everyone.
Proof that player prices are to low!
When I joined Credits were 4000ish gold. They are not 5000+. That's a 25% increase in credit prices.
Health Refills have gone from 200 to 220. That's a 10% increase. This maens the "Basher" has about 15% more gold to buy credits with while the shopkeeper has about 15% less. Even still, people sell let's say a shirt in a shop for 700 gold. The comms behind this shirt were maybe 450-500 gold. This shirt should sell for 900-1000 gold. In the real world, most stuff has a 100%+ markup. The problem is the tailor doesn't consider the 300 credits they spent to trans the skill. That's a 1.5 mil deficient in gold right from the start that never really gets factored into clothing. If you try to sell a trans-tailor shirt for the 2k gold it's worth, people will just buy the 500 gold one and your out even more.
Proof that player prices are to low!
When I joined Credits were 4000ish gold. They are not 5000+. That's a 25% increase in credit prices.
Health Refills have gone from 200 to 220. That's a 10% increase. This maens the "Basher" has about 15% more gold to buy credits with while the shopkeeper has about 15% less. Even still, people sell let's say a shirt in a shop for 700 gold. The comms behind this shirt were maybe 450-500 gold. This shirt should sell for 900-1000 gold. In the real world, most stuff has a 100%+ markup. The problem is the tailor doesn't consider the 300 credits they spent to trans the skill. That's a 1.5 mil deficient in gold right from the start that never really gets factored into clothing. If you try to sell a trans-tailor shirt for the 2k gold it's worth, people will just buy the 500 gold one and your out even more.
I know! I played a tailor once. I made some clothes to sell in the cartel's shop. I told the trademaster who owned the shop what I wanted to charge for the clothes. I don't remember the exact details now, but it was something like a pair of pants that required say five cloth and some tints. I took the price of cloth in the comm market of the org and added a small flat amount of gold per cloth to it and then did the same with the tints. Then I added a base price for 'labor' to make pants. So, anyway, the pants wound up being like 1,900 gold. Or something. It was a while ago.
Anyway, the shopkeeping cartel trademaster told me no. All the pants in the shop had to sell for 750 or something, I don't remember now really but let's say that because it was something silly like it. I asked why. Why do all the pants need to sell for 750. And the trademaster said, because that's a reasonable price and selling the pants at the price I wanted was too much profit. Too much profit. WTF? I then asked her about a design which called for lots of really expensive commodities where 750 wouldn't even cover the materials needed. The trademaster said, well, that's why you make lots of different designs. You lose gold on some of them, but you make it up on the others.
I wanted to shake this person. That's not how it's supposed to be done! You're supposed to sell things for the maximum amount people will pay. If people are buying, then it's not too high, is it? If something sits in your storeroom for weeks, you lower the price a bit until it sells - and then you know what the 'reasonable' price for that item is.
You don't charge a silly low price for every type of item with no consideration for the materials needed! And you don't base your materials prices off the lowest selling village either! You base it on you org's going rate. Might as well give the things away otherwise.
Kaguya2008-03-26 14:06:15
QUOTE(Noola @ Mar 26 2008, 08:53 AM) 496099
Undercharging rant
The worst of this comes into play when people with trade artifacts do this. If it allows them to make more of a certain thing per identical comm set, they will charge less for it instead of the same price to increase profit, meaning that anyone without the artifact will not be able to accomplish the same without actually losing money (since the end price sold may sometimes be lower than the wholesale price without the artifact). And if that artifact boosts how long the decay time lasts, or anything else like that, and they don't upcharge accordingly... well, trade artifacts suddenly become necessary just to be profitable and be able to compete.
Unknown2008-03-27 05:37:28
I realize that this causes some problems and opens the door for abuse, but why not make all manse/aethership artifacts cost gold? It seems like a majority of manses/ships are owned by organizations, and that using gold to improve them would be quite helpful.
Also, I kinda like the idea of tradeskill items costing the manufacturer gold. There was talk long ago of making the gold an excise of sorts, and placing the gold fee into the bank account of the cartel responsible for designing the good. I still rather like that idea.
As for applying taxes to herbs and raw comms, maybe a tax or some sort of licensing is due for taking comms from a particular org or area?
And for alchemy/enchanting, tax the use of alembics/circles for the benefit of the city/commune that owns it.
I feel that a majority of gold that leaves the economy should do so through the hands of the cities/communes, not individuals. In this respect, the most challenging issue facing the economy is finding something that orgs can blow milllions of gold on, that benefit the members of the org and aren't aimed at simply making more gold (like Vernals and Domoths, but for gold). Village improvements, an expanded manse system, maybe more room for expansion in the cities and communes themselves.
Also, I kinda like the idea of tradeskill items costing the manufacturer gold. There was talk long ago of making the gold an excise of sorts, and placing the gold fee into the bank account of the cartel responsible for designing the good. I still rather like that idea.
As for applying taxes to herbs and raw comms, maybe a tax or some sort of licensing is due for taking comms from a particular org or area?
And for alchemy/enchanting, tax the use of alembics/circles for the benefit of the city/commune that owns it.
I feel that a majority of gold that leaves the economy should do so through the hands of the cities/communes, not individuals. In this respect, the most challenging issue facing the economy is finding something that orgs can blow milllions of gold on, that benefit the members of the org and aren't aimed at simply making more gold (like Vernals and Domoths, but for gold). Village improvements, an expanded manse system, maybe more room for expansion in the cities and communes themselves.
Arel2008-03-27 05:58:51
QUOTE(Folkien @ Mar 27 2008, 01:37 AM) 496367
Also, I kinda like the idea of tradeskill items costing the manufacturer gold. There was talk long ago of making the gold an excise of sorts, and placing the gold fee into the bank account of the cartel responsible for designing the good. I still rather like that idea.
I think this works well for bookbinding, where you have to pay an outlay fee to bind a book. That keeps scrolls from costing 40g or whatever leather is worth.
I also like the idea of having an associated gold fee for cartel designs so cartels can make money. Something would need to be added for cartels to spend that money on, though, and I can't think of anything good. Suggesting buying another design slot per year is just too cruel on the Charites.
Daganev2008-03-27 15:22:16
Cartel money would go to the owner of the cartel who paid 1,000,000 gold to get the cartel in the first place. Money would also be used to submit private designs.
Also, it would be nice if Glomdoring and Serenwilde could actually tax people who pick herbs, so that for every herb some amount of gold is taken from the inventory and placed in the commune coffers. The same could be done for enchantments. Every use of the enchantment room does the same thing. (Or any tradeskill room for that matter)
You could really get a real economy going with just that change I think.
Also, it would be nice if Glomdoring and Serenwilde could actually tax people who pick herbs, so that for every herb some amount of gold is taken from the inventory and placed in the commune coffers. The same could be done for enchantments. Every use of the enchantment room does the same thing. (Or any tradeskill room for that matter)
You could really get a real economy going with just that change I think.
Unknown2008-03-27 16:04:16
QUOTE(daganev @ Mar 27 2008, 11:22 AM) 496433
Cartel money would go to the owner of the cartel who paid 1,000,000 gold to get the cartel in the first place. Money would also be used to submit private designs.
Also, it would be nice if Glomdoring and Serenwilde could actually tax people who pick herbs, so that for every herb some amount of gold is taken from the inventory and placed in the commune coffers. The same could be done for enchantments. Every use of the enchantment room does the same thing. (Or any tradeskill room for that matter)
You could really get a real economy going with just that change I think.
Also, it would be nice if Glomdoring and Serenwilde could actually tax people who pick herbs, so that for every herb some amount of gold is taken from the inventory and placed in the commune coffers. The same could be done for enchantments. Every use of the enchantment room does the same thing. (Or any tradeskill room for that matter)
You could really get a real economy going with just that change I think.
The problem being that the player economy (be it with the players themselves, or with the orgs) is still grossly inflated. This -is- a good way to pull more gold from richer individuals and put it back into orgs, or to revitalize part of the tradeskills market, but the orgs need something to spend their millions of gold on. Again, making manse/aethership artifacts cost gold directly (and not draining or reliant on the credit market) is a good start, as the biggest customers in this department seem to be organizations.
Myndaen2008-03-27 16:09:45
QUOTE(Folkien @ Mar 27 2008, 11:04 AM) 496444
The problem being that the player economy (be it with the players themselves, or with the orgs) is still grossly inflated. This -is- a good way to pull more gold from richer individuals and put it back into orgs, or to revitalize part of the tradeskills market, but the orgs need something to spend their millions of gold on. Again, making manse/aethership artifacts cost gold directly (and not draining or reliant on the credit market) is a good start, as the biggest customers in this department seem to be organizations.
Got anything a bit more original? Yes, yes, gold sinks are great and necessary, but I'm trying to garner ideas for making an ECONOMY, and making it as interesting and complex as combat. (Yes, it'll never get there, but why can't we try?)
