EUO Economics

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Kybare
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EUO Economics

Post by Kybare »

I've never found a multiplayer game with a decent economy. The basic problems with online games are that income is high while expenses are low. This means that it is only a matter of time before anyone can become rich (this isn't necessarily a bad thing since if you were constantly poor, you wouldn't want to play the game).

That being said, I would like to try to improve the EUO economy. I've been away from the game for awhile so I'm not sure exactly what all has changed. That being said, I'd like to see if anyone has any feedback on the subject.

I would suggest not discussing sinks - I do not believe that the solution lies with taking gold from people. I would like to hear ideas about ways of limiting gold from players or making it harder to get gold. We need to make gold worth more and this is most easily accomplished by making it scarce. Any ideas?

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Dudle
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Post by Dudle »

Hi Kybare,


I think that the economy needs to 'settle' a bit - enchanting being overhauled has changed the game, (no more uber weapons/armor sets available upon request).

Since there is going to be more changes made to enchanting it might be a good idea to see where that goes first, (some form of reduced enchanting).

This would have been a good topic before the 1.2.1 overhaul, (dropping gold when you get killed by a mob...is that a sink?). :smile:

Dudle

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Post by Aristarch »

The most obvious way would be to decrease the amounts found in chests and from monsters.
I'm not sure however if it's possible to repair economy without reducing the quantity of gold currently in circulation.
To be worth more, the golds needs to have some use, now it's only used for training skills and some lower-class transactions - it has little use for players with skills maxed out. The higher end equipment is also rarely traded for gold, mostly for same kind high-end items.
This way, lower level player has higher ratio of expenses/income than higher one and it should be rather elevated along the way, possibly even rising.

My bubbl id is Aristarch.
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Post by Grodst »

Aristarch nailed my idea. Cut way back on how much gold dragons drop. By the point you can farm dragons, you have enough gold to indulge just about any and all crafting trees. Realistically get over 5k from pit w/o any chests. Over 2k from hidden draggy caves. My millions would be w/o those draggy runs.

Oh, and WELCOME BACK KYB!!
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Post by Aristarch »

I've got a feeling that to be stable, the economy needs to have an outflow comparable to inflow. Currently vast majority of gold gets accumulated in players' chests and keeps circulating between them, the gold is vanishing rather slowly, especially when players already develop their skills high enough. Due to all the drops that were previously possible to buy from merchants only the gold is even less needed now. I think it would be better if monsters didn't drop 'ready' products(like alembics - they are craftable) but rather ingredients to make them:
-make blank scrolls craftable instead of being dropped(why do the regular goblins carry them anyway?)
-cloth might be craftable as well
-hides from monsters that have to be then processed into leather
-make overall 'ready' drops more rare and more fitting into the genre of mobs

The gold being dropped on death doesn't solve the problem of removing extra gold- it will be most likely found by some player and reintroduced into the circulation.
Ideas:
-some new quests might need amounts of gold to spend
-a limit on bank capacity that would be enhanced by buying it
-perhaps make leveling cost - it would be neccesary to make a proper sacrifice at the shrine to level up; it should be properly adjusted to level of the player
-curing res sickness might cost a bit; that's also a way to make death loss more severe
-certain spells might need ingredients
-make abilities and spells more costly
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Post by Ulric »

Well the fasted way to get rid of money is to Tax players. The goal would be to hit the high lvl players in the bank account and not hinder the low lvl players much.

Once a month a tax could be due of the amount:

TNI = Total Number of Items owned by the player
TNSI = Total number of Stat Increase points on items
TNAD = Total number of Attack or Defense points on items
NHS = Number of Houses
LVL = Player level

(TNI / 100) + (TNSI * 100) + (TNAS * 1000) + (NHS *10000) / (201 - lvl)

Note if the player lvl is > then 200 then 200 would be used.

I have to do some more calculation to see if this would be a valid formula but you should get the idea.

If the Tax can not be paid then the player can not lvl until the tax is paid.
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Dudle
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Oh god please no...in-game taxes?

Post by Dudle »

I think i get enough of taxes in RL. I do not want to worry about not being able to pay taxes in game and im not going to play just to get enough gold for taxes monthly :mad: . Now if you taxed merch sales or people doing trades - sure, have at them. :smile:

Im guestimating that i would need about 137k g/month...which would wipe me out in 3 monthes ( i have a house with 12 chests...some almost full...was going to try and get 100% enchanting before it changed :( also i cant list more than 100 items in the merch).
I also think this would be unfair to house owners too - why make someone who supports the game have to pay more in game - kinda backwards :shock: .

Give me a tax break for having a house and/or for getting avatars. :smoke:


Dudle
"I know that you knew that I know, but did you know I knew that you knew I know?" Cassanova Frankenstein 'Mystery Men'

"Buddah, Zeus, God...one of you guys do something!" & " Help Satan! You owe me!" - Professor Farnsworth 'Futurama'

"Hmm hmm hmm, when you do things right, people wont be sure you've done anything at all." Probably a computerized space probe that collided with 'God' 'Futurama'
Jaral
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Post by Jaral »

I would like to clairify what is meant by a good economy. It sounds like you all are specifically talking about reducing/preventing inflation. People are able to get gold by killing things and selling loot to merchants, but it almost never really leaves circulation. Therefore the value of money continuously drops, because there is more and more of it around. Very few things are scarce, especially on reg where character progress and equipment are permanent.

So really we do have to talk about sinks. No amount of limiting income can fix the fact that gold rarely leaves circulation. Basicly unless you are a mage needing to buy spells, you can play a character to max level without making more than a couple thousand gp leave circulation. In fact, Im not aware of anything for sale from non-player merchants that costs more than 8th lvl spells (1.4k or something?). Oh yea training... except that is completely optional and only has to be bought once.

The solution I see is to have something moderately expensive that people want/need to buy from NPC merchants. It needs to be more useful/necessary/expensive(?) for high level players who are making more money (as opposed to the academy). Most importantly, this commodity CANNOT BE CRAFTABLE. Otherwise players will craft it and undersell the npc merchants, defeating the purpose of removing money from the economy.

Perhaps in order to raise stats you would need to train at some trainer, for a cost around stat^2. I do like the shrine system though. Maybe that could be used for gaining levels, but not stats? I dunno.

On PD, people could buy res for their characters for like lvl^3 gp or something. I suspect that egg makes more money from res stones and restores than anything else in this game though, and I wouldnt want to mess that up.

One more idea that keeps coming to me is sanctuary potions. Many vaguely dnd based games have a sanctuary potion that temporarily reduces all damage taken by 25-50%. This would work, but it could mess up the gameplay and make high level monsters too easy to kill. Believe me, 25% damage reduction is HUGE. 50% makes you feel invincible. On the other hand, its very funny to see people suddenly die because sanc ran out while they were fighting something hard... :D
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Post by Jaral »

Er ok, Ive been thinking about economy a lot recently and drug up a couple more ideas. First of all if you have some time there is an interesting page about the economy on Ultima Online: http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html. Not that I think we should be like them or anything, but it makes interesting points about the flaws in game economies.

Some interesting ideas I would like to shamelessly rip from that page:
*No more increase-by-doing on skills (at least crafting). Instead pay for increase (training). Specifically with crafting, if you have to perform the skill to raise it, you have to make lots of items that are not in demand. That causes the worth of those items to plummet (basic supply and demand law). If instead you had to pay a fairly large sum in order to get the training to make those items, it would be more worth your while to find someone who had already paid for the training and buy from them. Ie, a fuctioning economy instead of everyone learning every skill. This would basicly require a skill-wipe to implement effectively, which would be Very Unpopular(tm).
*Item decay. Most items should decay over time, thus decreasing the supply and increasing demand. Food/potions/reagents should spoil over time, armor and weapons should damage when used, with a limited number of repairs available, and eventually break. This would also be Very Unpopular, as I think most of us would cringe at the thought that our equipment would eventually break. This would heavily encourage hunting and crafting though. People would save their really good equipment for hard fights, and otherwise just wear whatever is cheap and replacable - just like real life.
*Buying Titles. Interesting Idea.. pay game money for titles such as Lord, Champion, Earl, Whatever. Just another exchange of ingame money for ego-stroking.
*Lotteries. Possibly the best idea, I REALLY think this should be implemented. Just like in real life, you rig the probabilities so that the total income from tickets will be significantly larger than the total payouts. This works best with a large number of people though. Maybe instead an ingame casino could be implemented. Blackjack anyone? Slots? Casinos and gambling are possibly the most time tested and proven way to get people to part with their hard earned money. :D
*Discourage hoarding. Besides inflating the database on the server, having huge numbers of items hoarded ensures a vast supply that will always be far in excess of demand. I know in my chars bank account I probably have over 100 newb weapons that I have stored to give to sell on the cheap to new chars. Of course there is actually some demand for this on PD... Im not aware that there is a limit on how much you can put in your house/bank. Limiting the bank account to 100 items, or maybe charging 1gp per day per item would discourage hoarding and increase scarcity, thus increasing value of items again.

Jeeze I make long posts.
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Re: EUO Economics

Post by Roxal »

Things I liked:
.By Jaral:
..Item Decay
..Lotteries
..Buying Titles
..Discourage Hoarding (version: gold payment vs too many items)
.Aristarch:
..Cost should scale
..make amount from chests/monsters lower

Things I propose:
1. Higher Title
Becoming a "Baron" or "Chief" would allow for higher displayed title when someone looks at you
But, all costs will be 1/2/3/4/5 gold coins more costly for you.
2. Golden Race
Like human.. but must survive by eating (Level)^(Level/5) gold pieces instead of normal food.
Allows for 200% skill max
3. Golden monster spawning..
Once a month (random date) calculated on the 1st..
"amount of items you have" scaled tax occurs and the gold is replaced with a "gold monster" spawn... once killed.. this monster drop is a 'timed' random artifact.. (timed in real time starting from the initial wear)
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Eidolon
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Re: EUO Economics

Post by Eidolon »

these ideas are funny. what would you have ppl do who try to sell stuff but there are no buyers and/or are collecting items to raise armourer or weaponsmith? or do you not know abt the game which you're trying to propose new ideas for?
EUO Main Page wrote:•Rare & magic item collecting & hoarding
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