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Creating and sustaining localized economies
Dullahan
Member EpicPosts: 4,536
So as not to derail the thread where this was originally posted, I created a new topic to specifically discuss the economy in Pantheon, especially localized economies.
For instance, early on with less people having access to teleports, it seems more likely that players will gravitate towards a particular city (much like in early EQ). That would likely mean that items from dungeons and places near a certain city will be much more common to that area. As players level up though, how will you encourage continued allegiance to a particular city or economy? Will players and their items not, at that point, become much more spread out?
My first thought is through taxes and faction (not to answer my own question). I suppose if people could buy and sell for better prices that would at least encourage them to do so. Are there any other specific ways that you could encourage loyalty to a specific city or region of the world in the long term?
That sounds great. I am interested in hearing ways to create and foster localized economies.Aradune said:Btw, that's exactly the sort of thing we want to see happen in Pantheon -- we want a strong player-driven economy, so most items will *not* be bind-on-equip, no-trade, etc. Ideally, there's enough content throughout the levels that any one character could not 'collect them all' and end up getting all of the items they desire from the actual drop. I like the idea that you may find an item very useful to another character, class, race, etc. but not that useful to you, and you end up trading it to another player who has an item great for you, but perhaps not great for them. By having gear that is more specific, usable by certain classes, and by having enough content, this is doable. Also by having lots of situational gear, where one item isn't clearly the best for a given class/level in all situations, we hope to see lots of trading/buying/selling going on too. And then by not having global merchants/bazaars, we hope to add travel time and investment into the mix, where one item might be worth more in one part of the world than in another.
For instance, early on with less people having access to teleports, it seems more likely that players will gravitate towards a particular city (much like in early EQ). That would likely mean that items from dungeons and places near a certain city will be much more common to that area. As players level up though, how will you encourage continued allegiance to a particular city or economy? Will players and their items not, at that point, become much more spread out?
My first thought is through taxes and faction (not to answer my own question). I suppose if people could buy and sell for better prices that would at least encourage them to do so. Are there any other specific ways that you could encourage loyalty to a specific city or region of the world in the long term?
Comments
Dungeons or adventure areas that are farther away, less convenient, etc. will naturally have less players around. But we do a decent job with risk vs. reward, the players that choose to adventure farther away from these naturally occuring hubs will be rewarded with better, or at least more exotic, loot and other rewards. Hopefuly the same will be true of regions where the environment itself is more treacherous (see the post I just made about environments and atmospheres). I'd like to see the more risk taking players bringing in loot to sell and to trade to the more common hubs, making a nice profit. Localized economies should spring up naturally without a lot of artificial incentives. The players with more time or skill and who are less adverse to risk will make the longer journeys, and the players with less time or skill or who are more risk adverse will eventually still have access to the more exotic items because they'll be brought into the safer, more frequently traveled areas.
Over time, people will spread out as they become more powerful and more knowledgeable. But I still think localized economies will flourish unless we start enabling fast travel and teleports (which isn't the plan). Our responsibility will be to make sure the content spread is such that these localized areas emerge on their own. Our responsibility to make sure new localized regions emerge as players level up, as the game becomes more popular, as more and more about the game world is posted on fan sites, is to make sure we occasionally mix things up content-wise. We hope to have a combination of fairly frequent mini-expansions as well as, say, annual major expansions (new continents, playable races, raising the level cap, etc.) We also want to occasionally re-populate and revamp older areas that have become stagnant over time, so we don't end up with a huge world, but one where 95% of the players only frequent 5% of that world.
All easier said than done, of course, but that is the plan. Ideally these changes and additions result in localized economies/popular areas shifting, moving, and expanding over time.
Not sure if that totally answered your question(s) or not, so let me know.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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I really like the idea of the world supporting the role of the trader. Those who enjoy accumulating wealth should be able to travel and around buying and selling, learning the markets of different regions.
2) "you end up trading it to another player who has an item great for you" - does that supposed to mean barter system being preffered to opposed to monetary system?
Also, good old inapplicapable, defunct risk vs. reward concept
As an EvE vet this is a good example to use , currently Jita is the main market (it sells 5x the volume of 2nd largest market) however, this was not always the case, and was actually caused by the fact many moons ago CCP changed a few of the gates and it caused the original market hub Yulai to be less accessible, and given that Jita has access to almost all the main factions it was chosen by the players as the hub.
Where a game offers players the ability to create market you will see that in early days lots of small markets may exist, maybe just having things are very specific to that location , for eg equipment / crafting items etc, however as the game develops and grows older then you will see a dominant market and some smaller but still fairly dominant markets, of course there are bonuses to selling in the remote markets, think of prices, this will then create a nice secondary market for teh players who like wealth (traders moving goods from teh competitive market to non competitive)
People like convenience and will pay for it. So you will see the items moved around. Just a simple example lets assume there is a dungeon that has a boss who uses a specific damage type - then there will be a market opportunity closer by for a potion that can offer resistance to this, of course further away this potion has less uses so price decreases (note these are just random examples but often the case with most MMO styled dungeons)
This post is all my opinion, but I welcome debate on anything i have put, however, personal slander / name calling belongs in game
where of course you're welcome to call me names im often found lounging about in EvE online.
Use this code for 21days trial in eve online https://secure.eveonline.com/trial/?invc=d385aff2-794a-44a4-96f1-3967ccf6d720&action=buddy
Without it that would be a non starter, I don't think developers are so naive.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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2. We have no preference -- if people want to trade, let them trade. If they want to use currency to facilitate commerce, that's great too. Currency is just a general means by which players can exchange something that is useful to everyone (platinum, gold, etc.) for items that are specifically beneficial to them. A purely barter based system runs into problems because you may have an item I desire, but I may not have an item you desire. It's very much the same reason we have currency in RL.
3. Risk vs. reward is an 'old defunct' concept? Please, do tell us why you feel that way.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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Will there be any sort of item decay?
MMO economies are often overlooked and thus suffer from distorted rampant inflation. Money sinks and item decay are just a couple of tools that could be regularly tweaked to help mitigate economic woes.
I propose item decay based on rarity. The rarer the item, the longer the decay period - very rare boss/raid drops would have very, very long decay periods, but they would still eventually break. This would help keep the economy in balance AND keep us on the loot treadmill.
Cheers,
Skeezix
I asked if you actually meant something "more", ie. related to production/crafting specifics.
By not having global market, you are not adding anything but removing only - market competitiveness scales with market size, large the market, the better. Imo, it does not neccessarilly need to be global through entire game but it should cover more trading locations.
However there are two things that are not necessarily tied to each other - item listings and item distribution. You may list items for different locations, which helps to achieve price equilibrium, yet the items may be stored locally - you will need to travel to location to pick it up. Best of both worlds.
2) Thanks for clarification.
Also, pure barter systems do work - ie. Path of Exile.
3) It does not work because there is no way to evaluate average risk. It is based on some vague assumption that you may lose something, without any ability to define odds or value of the loss. You cannot predict player ability to mitigate the risk, which will throw your concept out of the window.
If you are incapable to evaluate risk, you cannot provide appropriate reward.
Also, there are issues with perishable products such as food or other types which are time sensitive (ie you need to move the product or it spoils or becomes unusable). Storage is a big one often over looked. Players are given large amounts of space, the ability to stack, etc... which allows tactics for buying up for marketing manipulation tactics.
The point is, there is nothing really challenging about selling and buying in an economy. I personally always hated it, but I had someone in one game act as if it was some major skill, I disagreed and so I gave it a go. In very little time, using all the gimmicks due to conveniences and no reality checks, I was swimming in more money than I knew what to do with and as I gained more money, my ability to manipulate the market grew even more.
The thing is, I think game economies have issues in every game because there is no consequence in the play. There is no urgency, no management of money or time, no decisions that if the wrong one is made, you lose your product and investment.
I think it would be interesting to see "some" of these mechanics implemented. Obviously this may be too much focus and I don't want to spur more feature creep, but I think such systems are the key to balancing them, keeping them from becoming just a legal form of currency duping (ie making ridiculous amounts of money with little to no risk). I think it would make the process more interesting and challenging for those who like the trading game. As it is now, most games, trading is like adventuring in mainstream games. It is all mundane no risk play of grinding results.
Some suggestions are putting in taxes, licenses, monthly rent and fees which could be based on the city and would be subject to change so the team could use this as a mechanism to adjust where trade occurs to obtain the goals they want. That is, if they want trading hubs to be smaller, and more nomadic taxes, licenses, fees,could be adjusted (reasonably, ie after a lease expires or every quarter) to help spur such results.
Also, space... Storage should have some limitation. Lets say the player pays fees to become a vendor and they rent "space" for their products. The more space, the more rent it costs, etc...
There are also ideas of making food products perishable and other types of mechanics.
Now some are going to say "but I play a game for fun, not to work a job" and I can understand that, but here is the problem. Without these balancing mechanisms, there is no reality in trade. There are entire gimmicks to work the system that would not be efficient if the player had to pay these fees and costs as well as deal with various issues often dealt with in RL which balance a given ecnomy and make success or failure in it meaningful. This is why most game economies are a complete joke with no skill involved, no risk, no real loss and they very quickly become gimmicks that imbalance a game.
I am not saying that all that I mentioned should be implemented, but I am asking the team to consider its effect on the economy, on game play, etc...
In XI we had a place like EQ did in an open zone outside a city where hundreds of people would bazzar tax free. Or you could go inside the city and use the AH with a limit of 7 items or item stacks and it was taxed. And then people would still shout in the major cities for direct trades etc. Which included not just items but services.
In most other games, getting a new item is routine. In WoW I frequently had more than one upgrade in a day. I never had any item for very long.
So I think that part of the conversation about trade is how accessible new items will be, and how quickly will they get replaced (for the average player).
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I think Pantheons goal is to slow the game down immensely and make game play matter again. There is no point in all of the features of meaningful travel, death, and progression if it is treated as a disposable. If one is to be meaningful, all of them have to be.
I know you don't have much time for posting on these forums, but trust me when I say its pointless to try to engage gdemami. He likes to drop in, make a bunch of statements, and then either ignore your response, or "respond" with a straw man argument and not actually support any of his claims, or try to refute any of yours.
Many of us have learned its best to just ignore him.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
In my opinion, there should be an auction house for little things (regional or global). No one wants to wander from town to town looking to buy some bandages or a stack of bat wings. But for items that sell for a decent amount, I vote for player merchants.
It would also be cool if you could leave a note at a player store, offering a trade. Say you stop by Victor's Armory to buy a breastplate. Victor wants 10,000 plat for the breastplate. You could post a note on his message board offering him 5,000 plat plus a dagger you found. When Victor returns to his store, he sees the note and can accept or reject the offer. [Of course, if Victor is in his store you can take that up with him personally].
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests