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Will there be an economy worth delving in to in GW2?
holifeet
Member Posts: 532
Or is it all going to come down to self sufficiency?
I've been prompted to this question after watching the crafting video posted in another thread. I posted a few thoughts in that thread but figured this deserved a thread of its own. The economy is after all a huge part of MMOs.
Now the commentary on the crafting video stated that there are 8 trade professions in GW2 and everyone can learn all of them. They can quit one and pick up another at anytime, but old skills will remain at the level you took them to. That just means everyone can be everything, and make everything.
I just worry that this will make the GW2 economy worthless after time. I might progress in jewelcraft and make a nice bundle of rings and earrings. Who's going to buy my jewellery if they can just make it themselves though? Why don't I just stick to making stuff for my friends and myself and forget the trade exchange (in whatever form it takes)?
Yes it makes sense to be able to do the lot, I guess. Anyone in the real world can be profficient in any skill they wish to. It takes huge time and huge effort though.
I've seen this before, but not quite so handed to the player. In LotRO every player could have two skills on a character and it followed that it was easy to be profficient in every skill with enough alts. It was a lot of hard work to do so, but easily possible. I just didn't really see a huge amount of buying and selling because most people could make this stuff if they wanted. There were recipes and raw materials on the exchange but it was almost limited to that.
Now GW2 seems to want to dilute things even further and let every player be everything, and not have to worry about alts to do it. What is that going to do to trading?
I've been buzzing about this game of late. Now I have seen this about the crafting and it's left me feeling a bit deflated. I just can't help but feel it makes a mockery of everything that promises to be so great and involving in the game.
Have I got it wrong? Have I missed something important?
.
Comments
Yes the switching of crafting professions will cost ingame currency, and the higher the skill level you are switching too the more costly it will be.
Im not sure if it will be enough to stop all trades on one toon but thats just a case of balance and can be easliy changed.
I guess this depends on how much it costs to switch crafting professions at the max crafting level, if it is 5 platinum to switch I doubt people will be bunny hopping professions all the time. But to tell the truth this feature does not affect me, I am an altaholic and I will have all crafting professions eventually maxed across my alts, just like I have done in ever themepart MMO since WoW. I am sure people will be able to still play the AH and make money like all themeparks but I know I will not be trying to make money off of crafting. This has never been something that interested me in themepark MMOs, now when I have tried sandboxes I was all over the crafting, but really in a themepark I just do not care!
I think the correct answer is that we simply don't have enough information to know, yet.
It depends upon how useful crafting is, how varied it is, what percentage of players choose to do it...
... how easy materials are to find, how robust the trading for materials is...
I'd say the correct answer is 'answer unclear, ask later', followed by the fact that they don't seem to be trying to revolutionize the economic side of MMOs. Part of the problem is that to make a serious economy, you need to make things difficult for people. Aggravating, really. You need to make it so most people are DISCOURAGED from mastering crafts, or even getting seriously good at them. Or you need to create a severely interlocking web of interdependencies...
... and it helps if you deliver a good that is mandatory, rather than simply nice to have.
All of which is counter to various goals and philosophies of Arenanet's game design for GW2, like making it so people don't need to rely on specific people to get stuff, making it relatively grind-free (For important stuff. For stuff like fashion and titles, that's different), and making it fun or at least simple to get into all aspects of the game (Even PvP has been revamped from GW1 so that from high end to low end, it's all the same PvP type, just the competition quality is different)
They did not solve the economical issues that will arise and that have arisen in games of late and new. Although true you can learn any new profession like in the real world, they failed to balance the economical effects this new crafting system will have. You will no longer be community dependant. You can sustain everything yourself. To truely become community dependant, there should be penalties for switching or for multiple craft. Unless you can not be rewarded tons of gold from questing, dungeons, and mob kills, then this crafting system might work. If you can, it is doomed to fail. They simply did not solve the real world problem of to much gold in a mmog. until proven otherwise, gold will become useless when the first set of high levels hit 15B Gold count.
I struggle not with life, money, emotions, and world, but against old mindsets and selves to be proven obsolete in a age and time of rapid changes. Go create fun, so you can have fun.
I don't think te economy will be as realistic as in the sandbox games. In GW1 is money not that useful and since stats on gear wont be so important in GW2 either is it likely that this game wont be the number one game of people who like to be traders.
But the good news is that if gold isn't as important as in Wow there will be less goldsellers and hacked accounts as well.
Of course this is just speculations, but if I loved trading I would probably wait for World of darkness online to release instead.
Or cursing that Pre CU SWG doesn't exist anymore.
To create a really good economy, you need scarcity.
Just a look at GW2 design shows they're not really super big into scarcity.
About the only way scarcity will heavily impact the game is cosmetically, and in PvP, where it's scarcity of talent that causes people to rise to the top.
Economy will also be influenced by raw material pricing. Seeing how harvesting nodes only deplete on a per player basis and don't have individual cycles, I wonder how the potentially huge influx of materials will affect the market as well.
*imagines a dozen farmers all chopping away at a single node*
Naturally they should balance the material sink, which is crafting, to accomodate for that potentially large influx; i.e. needing a lot of mats for every recipe. If they don't properly balance material faucets and sinks, crafted items might become next to worthless.
*curious is*
My brand new bloggity blog.
It'd be funny if they made the stores pay good prices for raw materials AND made the raw materials something it's hard to get on your own.
THough the problem with that is who would want to pay that much money just to craft if they can get things just as good through other parts of the game?
It's a mystery how they're planning on doing it.
... but hey. Just a look at the economy of the world shows running an economy isn't easy. Even if they plan it one way, it might not turn out that way. I personally don't think it'll have some amazing in-depth economy, but who knows what will end up being valuable, and how robust trading will be, until the game actually is running?
Also, you're a bad pony, leaving us GW2 fans without enough relatively-intelligent naysayers to shake our fist at! Putting all that work on other people like Maskedweasel, Puremallace and Foomerang.
LAZY pony.
Even in games where you are allowed tons of character slots and advancing crafting doesn't require adventure leveling, few people craft and even fewer craft everything.
If people have time and the desire to collect and craft for all professions, more power to them. Most people want to adventure and don't care about crafting. Some dabble in something that makes sense for their profession, but many abandon crafting advancement as the progression becomes more difficult and profit for time spent doesn't seem to be worthwhile.
There is really no reason to place strict limits. As long as crafting takes enough time and effort so that the process isn't trivial, there will be plenty of non-crafters to consume what the crafters provide.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Not a lazy pony. Just a little tired from discussing and anticipating pre-launch games rather than playing them. V_V
My brand new bloggity blog.
This thread basically covers the same ground as this one, which was made a little later, but has more discussion going on.: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/325136
Going to lock this one as a duplicate.
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