Server / Player Economy

[ChaosSlayer]

I kind of agree with Falcore.
The server economy needs to be planned from before server is ever open, and number of really desired items should be significantly smaller than number of players. (think like back in a day, there were about 2,5k players per server and only about 50 SSOYs in circulation) Essentially there should be 2 sets of items for any given level range (even lower levels) common items, and rare items. The everyone can obtain common items, but rare items would become something player would seek and trade for. The current gear progression layout pretty much provides any given player with everything his class needs to progress. Economy on other hand is based on a shortage, which then causes demand. I think its not possible to just push THF into "economy" mode without heavy restructuring of gear progression tier and its availability.

[Lillu]

my suggestion would be to simply implement some brand new, desirable and RARE items (for every level range) that are dropable and could boost the economy.

this poll seems to be an even poll, just like the 6 boxing poll before. we need a compromise

[ChaosSlayer]

there is another important issue.
Speed of leveling up is detrimental to item tier longevity.

Let say you add 5 ULTRA RARE items to crushbone.
They will be better than ornate gear. However, rather than try to camp/buy them, a player simply levels up to Guk, and obtain common Guk gear which a lot better than crushbone gear, and common.
You add 5 rare items to Guk - player levels up to Sebelis in few hours and gets sebelis common gear.
And this trend never really ends except maybe at raid level.

To give you an opposing example - EQ2 had gear tier every 10 levels with 2 sets in each (common and rare), but it actually took a WHILE to pass from 1 tier to the next, unless you were power leveling, so any piece of gear you would obtain in Tier X you would serve for for weeks before you could get an upgrade.
This of course can only be archived if leveling from 1 to 50 would take casual player at least 2-3 month, rather than hours
Or, we need a level cap of 200 =)

[Rocums]

or have the rares only apply to the 55+ range, drop anywhere in the world at like a .00001% chance and be some of the best items in them game.

[Ydiss]

or have the rares only apply to the 55+ range, drop anywhere in the world at like a .00001% chance and be some of the best items in them game.

Sadly, this approach would present the exact same scenario that makes Diablo 2 a game with a non-viable "market".

Totally randomising your marketable loot renders the market a non entity from the start as you might as well run a lottery instead; on the opposite side of the coin, making items readily obtainable leads to saturation.

It's a very, very fine line to run and get right. I'm with Falcore on this and a 50% split of opinion for such a drastic change to the server is a bit too low for my tastes.

Adding in the odd random item to the zones that can be traded isn't a horrible idea but then we already have that, don't we? We have some nice magic items that can be traded and we have several dozen items for quests that can be traded.

Yet I don't see a huge demand for these in the /ooc channel (the odd player will auction for trades but that's about it) and people tend to just get the items themselves (most of the time through natural progression). Isn't this enough to show it wouldn't work?

Any significant change of this type would require testing in my opinion, at least on a test population and over a few weeks. That or the change should be slight.

[Kron]

There is not enough people on a daily basis where any sort of economy is viable.

Make certain items tradable, there will be a initial surge in farming of said items. In the end this would die, and mean nothing within a few weeks. Economies are not created by some minor changes in script or code. Economies are created by a vast amount of people. There are always things to trade no matter the restrictions placed on a person, this server does not have the population to sustain a varied and wide ranging economy users would like.

This server is structured, and custom. Zones laid out and cycles set for progression. I have no complaints in making items that were previously no drop, to be dropable items. In the end what would they do with them besides give them to there alts or guildies? As I said this is a structured and set sever. Meaning progression; items a person may want to aquire is already set by the admin. You can not force an economy on a structure which you already forced the progression. In the end it is futile, as much as it may emotionally suck.

Agree with the above totally

Making loot droppable is the worst idea I have ever heard of with respects to EQ EMU. The server is based on progression and there is a clear character / guild development path to be taken. You get better loot as you clear harder and harder zones - makes sense

Somebody answer me this question:

What benefit will an economy bring to an EMU server where maximum 100 players play?

If someone can answer me this question and dont start chatting with a long ass response. Keep it succinct and to the point.

Regards

[Kron]

my suggestion would be to simply implement some brand new, desirable and RARE items (for every level range) that are dropable and could boost the economy.

this poll seems to be an even poll, just like the 6 boxing poll before. we need a compromise

But why do we need an economy?

[Brisco]

my suggestion would be to simply implement some brand new, desirable and RARE items (for every level range) that are dropable and could boost the economy.

this poll seems to be an even poll, just like the 6 boxing poll before. we need a compromise

But why do we need an economy?

Going to flip this around, let you explain why and ask, Why dont we need an economy? Seems to me the goal of every EMU is longevity and appeal to attract as many players as possible and retain them long terms. Any type of economy would both appeal to some and disappoint some. But I would imagine the camp that likes an economy is bigger then the one that is agasint the idea.

Also the notion to remove items and currency from the game would utterly kill the server off. EQ is a "carrott on a stick" game, it has been from Beta in 98 till today. I wager nearly every player but a small, small handful likes the idea of finding things and buy things in general.

History also gives us an idea of how many ppl prefer an economy over not having one. When EQLive added the Bazaar, the small "The sky is falling, no more EC tunnel spamm" crowd whined for months when this was announced. Once the Bazaar went live, it was the single most popular feature ever created by SOE, and some of the biggest users were the anti-bazaar crowd selling wares to the masses.

BTW, I was under the impression the bazaar code worked? Does it? (directed to the DEV staff)

[TheBloodmoon]

Going to come out of my hole for a minute here because I feel like a change of this magnitude will have a huge effect on this server indefinitely...

The more I read and think about this idea, the more I oppose it. There's many factors to building a good economy. You have to think about the basics of it though. Is there a (high) demand (for any goods)? Is that demand exponentially large enough to need a supply? IE: Does the demand outweigh the supply or does the supply outweigh the demand? Is there an even demand across the board in levels? Is there enough supply to avoid inflation?

Obviously, there's a lot more to an economy than just that, but you can't start an economy without it. Considering those questions first, I don't believe there's a demand high enough that is SUSTAINABLE unless most of the gear flagged tradable becomes "breakable" (IE: have to be repaired with materials that cost currency) or "expendable" (expendable could equal items necessary for quests, or a limited charge clicky, etc). The population just isn't large enough to warrant that much need. You don't have to be an economist to understand that once the demand falls, prices fall when the supply gets too large. Then it becomes to easy to obtain too much too early. For a custom progression designed server, this takes away from the original idea of the server itself. You'd be destroying the roots of what makes THF so fantastically fun. The progression tiers.

Also, for the veterans who "hold the capitol" if items become flagged for trade, what could they possibly need the money for? If they are at the top, there is 0 money sink for them. There's absolutely no motivation. If you're high enough to farm it to sell it, you're obviously high enough to not need the money to purchase gear. The only option here is create a necessary need to have a money sink, which would more than likely need to be something like a hired mercenary system where you pay for your bot, or similar where the money disappears from the economy. This, in my opinion, is completely undesirable.

There's a lot more to this issue, and it's HUGE. It could create a severe amount of issues in the future if proper measures aren't taken to ensure there is no ability to abuse the economy and unnecessary inflation (yes, some inflation is necessary at times). It requires extreme planning and designing from the ground up. This isn't something you can just inject into an already established progression system and see what happens. It's a bad idea. Really bad.

[Ydiss]

my suggestion would be to simply implement some brand new, desirable and RARE items (for every level range) that are dropable and could boost the economy.

this poll seems to be an even poll, just like the 6 boxing poll before. we need a compromise

But why do we need an economy?

Going to flip this around, let you explain why and ask, Why dont we need an economy?

Because the progression is so well designed as to not need it, the world is so much smaller and faster to get around to need an alternative method of obtaining items and the player base (read: demand) is so small the market would not be sustainable.

The only way to make the market last and sustain itself on an MMO scale is to revert to the original EQ orientation of making all desirable items scarce in ratio to the total player-base, to make the world huge and the items difficult to obtain and to give players of all levels a requirement to spend the money they earn from trading.

Whilst THF is technically MMO it's certainly not really "massively" so. So a market for it would need to be small which must mean making the items worth selling and buying more rare than they already are.

Put it this way:

Has there been a single item below T2 raid zones that you've been desperately unable to attain yourself, that you'd need to buy it instead? I can't think of a single one, personally.

Thus we would either need to make the current items (that would be made trade-able) much tougher to attain and/or make brand new items that are rare and worthy of trade.

Does the server actually need these changes? I haven't really seen anyone put forward a convincing argument that persuades me the idea of adding trade is not just for the sake of adding trade alone and nothing else.

I like a good economy in an MMO, but the emphasis is on the word "good"