Goblin Squad Member
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there should be NPC market for basic items. especially for consumables like ammo. spread on buy/sell should be significant, to encourage player trading, but NPC must provide basic market framework. eventually/hopefuly, NPC market would be replaced by players.
i'm currently trialing Perpetuum Online, and i'm totally at loss about not being able to buy basic ammo.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think we should be too worried - as long as there is a demand for it, it will be made available by the players at the marketplace, as it was in EVE.
I don't expect all the initial 4500 to be 'noobs', which are not capable of taking advantage of the new economy; craft the necessary items etc. Within a few weeks my guess is that we will have a bustling economy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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EVE market wasn't player-driven from the start. there were plenty of buy/sell orders for basic provisions. last sell orders (for player produced items) were removed just 3 years ago (2008, shuttles, iirc). that's 4 years into the game.
expecting that 4500 players will perfectly fit all required roles in economy is far fetched.
Chief Technical Officer
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In regards to player holdings, Ryan mentioned an abandoned town in the blog post. Maybe we'll have access to some of that without the income necessary to actually *build* the buildings.
It's not so much abandoned as it is overrun by monsters. If taking it and holding it were a walk in the park, the crusaders would have done it by now....
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Goblin Squad Member
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We'll have a lot to say about markets in future blog posts. One thing I'll say now in advance is that we need to make it possible for new characters to buy the stuff they need to get started in a life in the River Kingdoms. What may not be as obvious is that there also needs to be a market for new crafters to sell the stuff they make so they can earn an income and progress towards making more and more valuable stuff.
The solution I think (and don't hold me to this) that we'll use is that there will be NPC buyers and sellers for the entry-level stuff in the markets in the 3 NPC settlements. They will likely buy at a price that is fixed, setting a floor on entry level sales to ensure some moderate profit on those items. And they'll likely sell at a price that is low enough to be reasonable for new characters, but not lower than the buy price (so you can't just resell the items to the NPCs at a profit).
A player crafter who works on building up skills and abilities may be able to undercut the NPC sellers and still make a profit, and that's fine; it just makes buying entry level stuff even cheaper for everyone. If that happens, the NPCs should withdraw their offers to sell entry level stuff until there are no sellers willing to undercut them. Ideally the cost of the materials required, plus some value for the time required should produce a selling price that is higher than the NPC buying price, and we can adjust various elements in the economic model to try and produce that outcome.
If people try to keep the market for selling entry level goods closed (by consistently dumping inventory at a price so low that a new crafter can't make and sell things at a profit), we'd intervene to make that stop.
An organic model would have the NPC vendors put out "buy" orders when they run low on inventory, giving incentives to crafters to fill those orders, thus making all the stuff in the economy player-created. That will only work if there are enough crafters willing and able to fill all the NPC orders. If we find that there aren't, then the NPCs will have to create entry level goods from the digital ether. The sooner that ends, the happier I'll be, but we won't sacrifice the player's experience in pursuit of a theoretical perfect economic model.
Reading that response it seems like you're saying one of two things: either you're thinking that there should be an NPC net to ensure that the economy always functions reasonably, or you're saying that such a net would only initially exist until the playerbase is functionally weaned off of it.
The former makes a little more sense to me, as it seems more stable, while the latter seems precarious though it is idealistic.
So which is it?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Reading that response it seems like you're saying one of two things: either you're thinking that there should be an NPC net to ensure that the economy always functions reasonably, or you're saying that such a net would only initially exist until the playerbase is functionally weaned off of it.
The former makes a little more sense to me, as it seems more stable, while the latter seems precarious though it is idealistic.
So which is it?
It sounds more like this:
1. New players to the game will always be able to buy gear in order to be able to play
2. New crafters will always be able to craft and make enough money to profit (albeit slightly) from it
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't make skilled craftsmen able to craft basic items more profitably then new craftsman. More skill should mean more gold per time investment, not more gold per material investment. This is the major barrier to crafting in EVE and should be avoided as much as possible.
So getting better at crafting should not make me better at crafting?
No Gunner, yours approach sound bad.There should be a limit on how much better a crafter can get at making starter items (and middle, high and superior level items) but he should get better at it when he learn more about crafting.
The trick is making it in a way that there is a point where making a higher level item will generate more income than making lower level items.
To make a EVE example, the ammunition market is generally fuelled by new crafters. Even with unresearched blueprints and bad skills they will make a marginal gain. As soon as they get a even bit better the margin become way larger but then when they have amassed enough capital and skills larger items give out a way larger return, so they will abandon the ammunition production business and start producing other stuff.
That way new players always have a niche that is theirs in the crafter profession.
Almost all crafting work that way. Only the impatient new player that will start building big items immediately has a problem with that system.
@ Ryan
Very, very good. This first explanation is full of promises.
Getting better at crafting could just mean you are able to make the more advanced stuff that others can't make. It doesn't have to mean you can make 50 daggers a day instead of 10.
Of course, it could mean both, but also that making a higher skill item could be more profitable than making 50 daggers.
No, what I'm trying to say is that getting better at crafting should not allow you to make a sword out of less iron. It may allow you to make a sword faster, but there is no good reason that there would be any meaningful difference in material usage.
I see. I agree completely.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually Pathfinder rules do exactly that. As your skill increase you use less material as you will have less failed rolls.
If you stick to what you can make Taking 10 this problem don't exist, if you try to produce something more ambitious the less skilled guy will fail some roll and lose time and/or material.
The problem of the people that fail to consider the opportunity cost and treat the material they gather themselves as if it had no value is a common problem in all MMORPG. It is not a failure of the system, it is a failure of the player. The only system that I have seen capable to curb that tendency are NPC buy orders, but those generate another set of problems as they inject money into the system. If you don't have equivalent money sinks your system become imbalanced a you get a rapid inflation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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?
I find your reply a bit strange.
Let's remake your example:
Version A, crafter:
I try to make a common mace under normal pathfinder rules. DC 12
I suppose the guy making it has 1 skill and craft as a tranied skill. Nothing more
He as +4 to the skill.
Taking 10 is an automatic success.
Making a common sword. DC 15.
he fail only with a 1.
If he fail he will not progress in his work that week.
Making a masterwork sword.
Masterwork element DC 20.
He fail with 5-.
If he fail by 5 or more he lose his materials (so actually he never lose his materials but he will not progress in his work 1 week out of 4)
Version B, fighter
Fighter level 1 with a 15 in strength and 13 in constitution, typical basic equipement.
He go and fight a CR 1/6 Raven.
He hit the raven with a 11+ and any hit will incapacitate it
The raven will do1 point of subdual damage.
The probability of the raven felling the fighter before he land a hit are minuscule.
He go and fight a CR 1/3 skeleton. Still a minimal risk, but some risk.
He go and fight a CR 1 Gnoll. Now he is at a substantial risk. His chances to win are still better than 50%, but by a small margin.
So why the crafter should have a easier time? If he chose a challenge above his capabilities he will risk negative consequences.
If a fighter go and fight monsters stronger than him he risk being killed. If a crafter go and try to craft stuff above his skill level he incur the risk of failure and loss of material.
It makes perfect sense, even from a metagaming standpoint.
Influx of people might have been rumored, ergo producing an excessive quantity of 'entry level' supplies. Non-infinite, but certainly non-trivial.
Depending on the number of initial players, there will come a point where those supplies will be insufficient; it may not even be purely due to players, as NPCs may decide to take up arms based on player decisions. As such, local production will prove necessary, and as some new arrivals may be craftspeople themselves, there's plenty of justification for paying them off to make the economy continue to work.
(thought I'd posted this on Friday, how odd)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know this is an old post but I didn't find anything new talking about economy... So, I'm asking here.
One thing there absolutely has to be. is a money sink. There has to be a way to remove money from the economy. If money is always introduced through quests and harvesting materials, there has to be a way to remove money. I feel that was one of the biggest problems with EvE. The prices didn't account for inflation, as more money is introduced into the economy without a way to cycle money out, The people who have been around the longest will have ludicrous amounts of money and the money pool will be all located at the top. How do people propose this is resolved.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Gabrial, I suggest you read over the Money Changes Everything blog post. I think it addresses your concern.
Coin is a unit of account. Coin can be infinitely divided and combined. It is virtual and does not appear as an in–game object. When your character walks around, you're not lugging around a huge bag full of money. Coin has no weight and can be moved from place to place instantly. We may decide at some point to generate some in–game rationale for all of this using mystic hand–waving and such to "explain" the curious properties of coin, but for the sake of this dev blog we'll keep it relatively simple.
All the coin in the game enters via a faucet. Faucets are things like rewards from NPCs for completing various tasks, or payments made by NPCs when they buy things from player characters. New coin may also be found as loot when a monster is defeated, or it may be discovered as treasure while exploring.
Coin exits the game as well, via a drain. Drains include actions like paying an NPC vendor for something or paying a tax or a fee to an NPC or to some system service. Coin might be consumed by player characters in other interactions with the game world in ways yet to be determined.
When players exchange coin between themselves, it is neither created nor destroyed. When your character dies, the coin you were carrying is not lost, and it doesn't stay with your husk. It is possible for coin to leave circulation without being destroyed—for example, coin associated with inactive characters is effectively out of circulation. But should those characters return to the game, their coin will be there waiting.
In general, more coin will enter the game than leave it. This will allow characters to accumulate wealth, and it ensures that there's ample capital available for loans and gifts. But when the value of M increases in an economic system, it often drives inflation. So like real–world central bankers, Goblinworks will have to carefully manage the size of our M, watching to see that inflation doesn't overwhelm the game's economy. Luckily, unlike real–world bankers, we have 100% visibility into how much coin exists, who has it, how it is being used, and what prices are charged for goods across the whole game world. So we can operate with a kind of Olympian perspective unavailable to our real–world counterparts. We can adjust our economic system with precision, changing the amount of coin that enters via faucets, and controlling the amount that exits via drains. There's no perfect stable point; M will have to be constantly adjusted over time in response to player activity. It's just one of those maintenance tasks that comes with operating a sandbox MMO.
There will be faucets and drains. GW will adjust them as needed to control the increase of wealth in the system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know this is an old post but I didn't find anything new talking about economy... So, I'm asking here.
One thing there absolutely has to be. is a money sink. There has to be a way to remove money from the economy. If money is always introduced through quests and harvesting materials, there has to be a way to remove money. I feel that was one of the biggest problems with EvE. The prices didn't account for inflation, as more money is introduced into the economy without a way to cycle money out, The people who have been around the longest will have ludicrous amounts of money and the money pool will be all located at the top. How do people propose this is resolved.
GG,
Go here Easy to Navigate Collection of Goblinworks Blogs and read the two economy related blogs: Money Changes Everything (game currency), Butchers, Bakers and Candlestick Makers (game economy). If you haven't read the other blogs, you should definitely read those as well.
Cheers!
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are going to be money sinks, namely having to re-purchase your gear/equipment.
That's not what he meant by "money sink". That will (primarily) just shuffle coin between players. The system needs something (paying NPCs, upkeep costs on settlements, etc) to take coin away from the playerbase and destroy it.