Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Player based economies the good and the evil
headwound23
Member Posts: 19
I thought I would throw in my thoughts about player based economies. They seem to get worse as a online game goes on. I believe there are several reasons for this. The obvious one of the gold farmers always come to mind. But how about the nature of drops in an online world. When they are "bind on equip" like in WoW, that creates a market for the farmers. One the best examples i know of is the economy in FF11, which i played off an on for 2 years before me and my friends switched to WoW. From the time I started until the time I quit prices on items shot up a crazy amount. You either farmed like silly for hours on end or bought gold online. A friend of mine had the idea of making all gear based items "bind on pickup" like some are in WoW. I wonder how dramatically that would change the economy. This has always been a major concern of mine ever since FF11. But I rarely see posts about it. Although I have to admit I'm kind of a newb when it comes to reading posts online. I've been reading posts recently since I've taken a break from WoW. I'm not sure how any of the new or upcoming MMO's are going to address this issue. Any opinions on this subject would be great. Thanks.
Comments
I honestly dont see your point really. First of all, UO has/had the best economy of any game I have ever seen, and you could sell your stuff, items or whatever online, via online UO trade sites or ebay .... seems to work real real well. Because the items were actually worth real dollars, then it actually made the items seem valuable to people. When I sold my account, I actually ended up getting more money from the sale then the 3yrs worth of month fees to Ultima Online, (game was essentially free?).
Funny that America's economy seems to be real real healthy and it allows people to sell items and property online.
Just think if all the money you made in real life couldnt be transferred, or any possession you ever had could only be trash canned or sold back to the merchant you bought it from. Wonder how bad the economy would be. I guess the same thing applies in games. Games that focus on BOP items have economies that suck?
First off, money supply. Traditional macro-economists adhere to the equation MV=PY, or the amount of money that is circulated (money times velocity) equates to whatever is produced and sold (price times production). Taking V and Y as constants, an increase in money supply will make prices rise. A pretty intuitive relationship - if people have more money, they can afford to pay higher prices, no? The problem partly lies in money sinks in the game. If more money is created (by selling to NPCs) than is destroyed (by losing money to the game - rent, fees, buying from NPCs), prices will invariably rise. In FFXI, there were very few money sinks - only transport and AH fees. People hardly bought from vendors, and all other money was merely transferred to other people. In WoW, there were a bit more money sinks - sending fees, transport fees, and vendors actually sold useful things. Of course, gold farmers play a role here in creating lots of money!
Second, equipment. If equipment, or any other asset, does not degrade, it, in effect, will always retain its resale value. If it degrades, and you have to repair it, you will lose money on it. Thus, people will be less willing to dish out high prices, as they will have to take into account degradation. If the item, when used, completely loses its resale value (i.e. it binds on use/equip), then my actual wealth will go down when I buy an item - expressed in sale value, the item becomes pretty much worthless. So, in FFXI, whenever I bought something, I'd be sure I could sell it back at no cost other than an AH fee - it would be an investment, and my total wealth would stay the same. In WoW, I would consider resale value and reparation costs - and these lower the initial price I'm willing to buy things for.
Third, auction house system. Depending on the system, either buyers or sellers will be advantaged. In an actual auction, where simply the highest bid counts, the buyer will be at the advantage. He can compare items on price/quality, check prices and buyouts and can bid as high as he wants, as long as it is higher than the previous bid - and this can be well under sellout price. However, when you use a set-price system, the seller will have the advantage. He can look at competitors and price accordingly. If all look at each other and decide to raise the price a bit, the buyer can do nothing about it. In a blind bid system, it is even worse. Because nobody can actually see the current prices of items, which is an essential prerequisite for competitive markets to work, it becomes very attractive for sellers to start raising prices. After all, the others are very probably thinking the same thing. The result is a rampant rise in prices for wanted items. The empirical evidence can be found in WoW (open auction) and FFXI (blind bid).
TL;DR - It's not just equipment, it's the whole of the economy :P
"Kono yo ni aku ga aru to sureba sore wa hito no kokoro da."
Interesting post Brainey. The ability to sell virtual world items in the real world economy is why the US Congress will consider taxing virtual world MMORPG players this summer. So, next time that dragon drops that sword of invincibility, or you make 50 platinum on the virtual market, your US based MMORPG provider will be issuing you a 1099 so that you can pay US income taxes on your virtual world profits. You did, of course, report the sale of your account on your tax return, right?
See how that affects your gaming.....
Ya the entire tax debate on imaginary income is interesting. Taxes suck in general, but are necessary to some degree. Basically we are operating in a virtual world now. 99% of all transactions are handled electronically now right?
Regards to taxes, yes I definetly claimed the account sale. It was done via ebay/paypal which tracks the sales and just 1 sale was 2k alone..
Anyways, I think the tax thing is more for games like Second LIfe where people can trade real life services. Like trading some item for another real life item both parties using in game money. This to me shows just how close Real Life and Virtual Games are merging. I know I have been in situations where people have offered me a real life trade for virtual cash, all off the books sort of thing.
I agree with other poster that said ITEM drops cause most of the item inflation.
What do you guys think of SOEs future intent?
If you want to buy items, or travel throughout the game, etc, you are charged RL money each time.
I'm not going to search for the link where that female spokesperson said that but there is an artical.
I could easily never play another SOE game again, but if this becomes the industry standard, I would have to give up MMOs (not that there are any worth my time coming out anytime soon).
Well for me I would just have to balance it all out and make a decision. I am going to assume you have played Play for Pay games before. What is the difference of paying a set fee of $15 per month or a per use cost? What if the per use cost only charged you $10 per month? So essentially you would be paying $5 less?
I could care less how they charge the money. As long as its a great game, and the cost is not more then the entertainment value I felt it was worth, then I would play.
Other players should be considered an extra and a bonus rather than a necessity.
Player-driven economy goes against such a basic. You can't relly on other players to be responsible for the FUN of your game, thereby player run economy can only be partial, you need a NPC selling everything players does, at a "reasonnable" price...or make sure that the way(s) to acquire the item is acceptable and available for everyone who will consider they NEED the item (as soon as it is arguable that they need it, they need it, so as soon as it help them in what they do, it has to be availavle somewhere in stuff they do...)
If you grant too much responsabilities to the players, some will screw other players on purpose, which is indeed quite bad for the community and the game progression (refers to the Sleepers in EQ for referrences and example on players screwing other players on purpose).
The last thing you want, is to grant more power to the players who are already the most powerful in the game. Thereby player-run economy can only be partial. Bad design such as the Sleeper must be avoided at all cost.
EDIT: See, if your competitors give a Ferrari to everyone playing, you may think that you don't need to, but you will end up having nobody; as nobody is crazy and everyone will go get the free Ferrari. Best soloers have to be soloers, best groupers have to be groupers...aka, not tradeskillers or raiders or whatever silly.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Of course EVE also has the advantage of a large players per server #.