Discussion - Server Economy Recovery Possible? (1 Viewer)

[Doc James]

I was thinking about this lately. The economy on the older servers has made plat too common place. I remember when starting with the game in beta and at launch. If you just had a few plat, that was so great and you felt rich. But now that feeling of 1 or 5 plat is maybe 100K equivalent? If you could have control of deciding how to fix things in regards to the server economy, what would you do?

One fleeting thought I had was to make new spells from the new expansion literally 1 mil a piece. Or something like that. Of course, the economy shouldn't go completely the other way either.

 

[519helvis]

the problem i see is with the invention of krono there are technically two currencies ... with plat feeding mainly into krono ... i am in no means complaining about krono but it has definitely had a negative effect on the value of plat especially in regard to item sales.

 

[Redmonkey]

I think all servers should have the same economy as FV. Except TLP and they should not be allowed Krono other than to pay for their accounts. They should be plat only - after all that is the way old EQ was and that's why they play on TLP.

Yeah, its hard on the low level guys but the game is set to reward them with enough plat to pay for spells and their merc as they level. Like a level 50 zone will drop higher plat than the level 20 zone.. Then around level 80 that changes and stuff gets more expensive.

 

[Yannafuntime]

So, I suppose the first issue here is, what do you consider the "Economy" in this game.

Plat is presented as a precious metal currency but is in fact is closer to a fiat currency that is infinitely generated through little to no effort. To further confound any idea of Economy is the fact your Plat cannot buy everything or depending on the server you play on much of anything.

So is it even fair to consider "Plat" EQ's currency? As far as I'm concerned the answer is NO.
The closest thing to an actual currency would be the Krono. Not only can it be traded for any goods or services (TOS complainant or otherwise) But it can also be consumed for extra game time. Furthermore unlike Plat it's supply is limited and it's generation is confined to those who dump money into DPG's Coffers.
But, that still begs the question... What is an Economy in a game like EQ? Everything on the supply side (except for Krono) is virtually unlimited. TS Mats, Raid Gear, Group Gear, Spells etc etc. Make spells a Billion per copy, Make it a million a day to Rent the effects. Doesn't matter when your Money is fake and it's generation is unlimited.

A better gauge of a servers Economy IMO is how much Krono is changing hands.
Are prices moving up and down. Can you get an order filled in good time. The lower the price and the longer it takes to buy one is suggestive of a dead server.

Wanna see a real horror show for Game Eco... peep out the nonsense over at EvE Online. They post Graphs every month so you can know how many pixel things your pixel bucks can buy.

 

[Robahn]

Stop dropping TS mats (ores, silks, etc.). Offer them from TS mats vendors for a pile of pp.

1stly this takes a big chunk away from farmers.
2ndly plat would be removed from the game.

OG EQ had it this way and it worked.

Make the special TS mats (liek otherworldly) dropable and very rare drops, so they become bazaar items. Like bloodsoaked.

 

[Sic]

unfortunately any intervention i can think of (outside of P2W) disproportionately punishes people who haven't played forever

 

[durango773]

So, I suppose the first issue here is, what do you consider the "Economy" in this game.

Plat is presented as a precious metal currency but is in fact is closer to a fiat currency that is infinitely generated through little to no effort. To further confound any idea of Economy is the fact your Plat cannot buy everything or depending on the server you play on much of anything.

So is it even fair to consider "Plat" EQ's currency? As far as I'm concerned the answer is NO.
The closest thing to an actual currency would be the Krono. Not only can it be traded for any goods or services (TOS complainant or otherwise) But it can also be consumed for extra game time. Furthermore unlike Plat it's supply is limited and it's generation is confined to those who dump money into DPG's Coffers.
But, that still begs the question... What is an Economy in a game like EQ? Everything on the supply side (except for Krono) is virtually unlimited. TS Mats, Raid Gear, Group Gear, Spells etc etc. Make spells a Billion per copy, Make it a million a day to Rent the effects. Doesn't matter when your Money is fake and it's generation is unlimited.

A better gauge of a servers Economy IMO is how much Krono is changing hands.
Are prices moving up and down. Can you get an order filled in good time. The lower the price and the longer it takes to buy one is suggestive of a dead server.

Wanna see a real horror show for Game Eco... peep out the nonsense over at EvE Online. They post Graphs every month so you can know how many pixel things your pixel bucks can buy.

KR is a fiat/fake currency also. DBG's could go right this second, make 1 million KR, and sell them for 1c each, then all the KR people chase are now effectively worthless. Your last 9 words are the only thing that matters (and goes to show, no game Economy, its generated pixels).

Put it this way:

I work, to make money to play EQ (and food and beer and blah blah blah). I can go buy me a beer, if its the last one, then that beer will go for what people will (plat-flation, KR real life, secondary and in game cost) pay. Until somebody makes more beer (if possible) things are "traded" to have that last beer.

EQ "Economy" last beer? *name your dev* everytime you open a door in the new xpac, you get a beer.. all this can be done with plat, KR, xp.. up or down... and makes for a false/manufactured/fiat "Economy" .

 

[Doc James]

I suppose there are good points relating to an actual economy. Although the definition of an economy doesn't necessarily say there is a limit to goods, only that there are goods for trade. So there is that.

There is unlimited everything in EQ, which doesn't mean there is no economy. It just means there isn't an economy in relation to the real world economy (to a point). I suppose the better way to put it would be, the inflation of the plat. How to bring value back to it?

 

[Sofabutt]

You can farm a zone for vendor trash at about 30-45k per hour. That's why things are as expensive as they are.

 

[Caddylax]

Gosh dang these spell prices are already killing me trying to build some f2p groups haha.

 

[frenchysonline]

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[Bukktoof]

You would need to remove the ability to free trade krono and then you would need to put all the cosmetic items and mounts and stuff like that on vendors that only take plat. Of course that would ruin everyone (including dpg) rl cash business so it wont happen ....

 

[Codeguru]

One fleeting thought I had was to make new spells from the new expansion literally 1 mil a piece. Or something like that. Of course, the economy shouldn't go completely the other way either.

Ummm, YOU buy spells for 1m. I'll wait for the rank 2 group drops.

 

[an_image]

Easy...make gear degradable...even destroyable if not fixed...that would fix the economy. No more 24/7 farming without a cost associated with it. Also implement a critical hit back to the player random chance...that will give pause to the raid/bot farmers since they'd risk losing their shiny shit if running 24/7...

Not saying people would like the medicine...but that would fix some things. Make people sink plat back so there's less plat to go around to buy shit (e.g. Kronos)

 

[redhero1000]

Making everything including Krono and platinum only tradeable once (aside from consumption or vendor) would be interesting.

 

[redhero1000]

Easy...make gear degradable...even destroyable if not fixed...that would fix the economy. No more 24/7 farming without a cost associated with it. Also implement a critical hit back to the player random chance...that will give pause to the raid/bot farmers since they'd risk losing their shiny shit if running 24/7...

Not saying people would like the medicine...but that would fix some things. Make people sink plat back so there's less plat to go around to buy shit (e.g. Kronos)

If it were cheap to repair, the 24/7 farmers would continue. If it were expensive, the casual player could not play.

 

[an_image]

If it were cheap to repair, the 24/7 farmers would continue. If it were expensive, the casual player could not play.

Well it's more of a math thing @redhero1000 you just need to tweak the formula so plat farmers are affected more...as an example they kill more and thus have greater exposure to breakage...you've gotta kill 1000-5000 mobs per hour or so to generate real revenue via trademats/drops...so you start high...1/5000 chance of critical breakage....1/5000 degradation...and curb that shit down as needed to adjust behavior decreasing the threshold where/when necessary...

Breaking/replacing stuff then becomes a normal part of the game like in diablo as an example...and you make all stats on raid gear random....so there's always a chance at a better one...etc.

 

[Pigasus]

Kronos are the more stable currency of EQ. They stay pinned around a dollar amount slightly below the cost of 1 month of play time From DB. I know what a Kronos is worth on any server in dollars, plat has no correlation back to the world.

at least I think…. I am a RG noob, first post, but soaking in a lot.

 

[delfnec]

Whether it's plat in a wallet or a bank, maintain a high negative interest rate?

 

[Saffron]

Well it's more of a math thing @redhero1000 you just need to tweak the formula so plat farmers are affected more...as an example they kill more and thus have greater exposure to breakage...you've gotta kill 1000-5000 mobs per hour or so to generate real revenue via trademats/drops...so you start high...1/5000 chance of critical breakage....1/5000 degradation...and curb that shit down as needed to adjust behavior decreasing the threshold where/when necessary...

Breaking/replacing stuff then becomes a normal part of the game like in diablo as an example...and you make all stats on raid gear random....so there's always a chance at a better one...etc.

A random breakage on gear would hurt the new and casual gamer.

 

[BackFromBeyond]

Easiest way to stabilize platinum would be for DB to both buy and sell Krono to maintain the value of platinum within a specific range of krono. I want to say that CCP has made that sort of intervention in Eve Online in the past, but maintaining a stable currency is much more important in a game like that than it is in a game like EQ.

 

[B_I_G__D_A_D_D_Y]

There are two factors related to "economy". The arbitrary and capricious element is the value assigned by a Dev to components. For example, the 262 plat an NPC vendor will pay you for a blue diamond. Early in the game I think these prices were reasonable. Now I see a lot of people don't even bother to loot mobs since the perceived value is so low. Tradeskillers absolutely hate this!

But then you have the player side of the economy where prices are influenced by real economics and the time value of money. The worst effect I believe is due to the gradual reduction in player numbers. There just aren't enough buyers and sellers to maintain a good in-game marketplace. Alas, there is no fix for this. Just this week another well known player on my server passed away IRL. And that's a regular occurrence now I think across EQ.

 

[redhero1000]

Well it's more of a math thing @redhero1000 you just need to tweak the formula so plat farmers are affected more...as an example they kill more and thus have greater exposure to breakage...you've gotta kill 1000-5000 mobs per hour or so to generate real revenue via trademats/drops...so you start high...1/5000 chance of critical breakage....1/5000 degradation...and curb that shit down as needed to adjust behavior decreasing the threshold where/when necessary...

Breaking/replacing stuff then becomes a normal part of the game like in diablo as an example...and you make all stats on raid gear random....so there's always a chance at a better one...etc.

Yes plat farmers would kill more, but they would make more in the same proportion, even likely more so than the casual player.
If gear repair is cheap, as in say it takes 5% of your loot earnings per hour to fix then it will not prohibit 24/7 farmers.
If gear repair is expensive, as in say 75% of your loot earnings per hour then the casual guy has very little left in his pocket at the end of his short play week.

 

[RobRenfro]

I was thinking about this lately. The economy on the older servers has made plat too common place. I remember when starting with the game in beta and at launch. If you just had a few plat, that was so great and you felt rich. But now that feeling of 1 or 5 plat is maybe 100K equivalent? If you could have control of deciding how to fix things in regards to the server economy, what would you do?

One fleeting thought I had was to make new spells from the new expansion literally 1 mil a piece. Or something like that. Of course, the economy shouldn't go completely the other way either.

Doc nobody has Plat on FV and everyone want it. folks are hoarding it in advance of the new release so yes there could be a bump on FV for us if we are patient.

 

[Wild Beagle]

I was thinking about this lately. The economy on the older servers has made plat too common place. I remember when starting with the game in beta and at launch. If you just had a few plat, that was so great and you felt rich. But now that feeling of 1 or 5 plat is maybe 100K equivalent? If you could have control of deciding how to fix things in regards to the server economy, what would you do?

One fleeting thought I had was to make new spells from the new expansion literally 1 mil a piece. Or something like that. Of course, the economy shouldn't go completely the other way either.

The 'economy' hasn't done any such thing.
Game economies are NEVER really comparable to real economies for a couple reasons.
1. Money and items Enter the economy without work/effort
2. Money and items LEAVE the economy without work/effort

Unless you can control the population entrance and exit from the servers and the change of items from raw materials to finished materials and back to raw materials you can't possibly control the economy at all. No trade items, lore items money faucets and sinks... all break an economy. Top that off with the 'pool of money' needed to get people to use their money vs hoarding it without increasing it to the point that money is meaningless is a battle developers aren't going to win either.

 

[Kingkiller71]

I think Krono messes up any feasible way of flattening the economy. We could instigate a 10% reduction in all costs of everything bought and dropped, as well as reduce all plat holdings by 10%. It wouldn't make anything more expensive than it already is, but it would remove the high prices we see for certain items. It would also allow us to sell more stuff in the bazaar as the 2 million plat limit would in effect have grown by 10%.

However, if you reduced everything economy related by 10%, that would also have to include the value of Krono which some people would have paid RL cash for - and they would not be happy with that value dropping by 10%.