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[Loki_999]

(I request people do not respond to this topic until all parts are finished.  Ill make a final post to that effect when complete)

 

EDIT: Note: Not too many people are setting out now to create new PWs (although we can see there is one that was recently under discussion), so why am i writing this? Partially to help me organize my own thoughts about the PW where i develop and what I can do to improve things there, and perhaps others will also find it useful when considering their own economy, maybe find fault with my reasoning and make their own suggestions, or whatever. It may even just be interesting reading, if you like the ramblings of a madman

 

Part 1: Introduction

 

I've been having lots of thoughts and discussions recently on the topic of PW economics.  Every PW that i know of has problems with its economies in one form or another.  Some work fairly well, others basically have practically no economy.  Usually not for want of trying, just because they didn't consider specific scenarios.

 

To give a specific example, our server (Sigil: City of Doors) was set up with the idea of encouraging player trading and enchanting. This meant merchants mainly had flavour or low level items only. The value of many of those items were not really considered, resulting in flavour items with prices in excess of half a million, simply due to how the game engine calculates base item values.

 

The problem with the system is that when there are very few players around (a problem we have been facing for months now) is that there is nobody selling items and enchanters are almost impossible to find. The few who exist rarely bother advertising because there is nobody to enchant for anyway.

 

This leads to the situation of a dead economy, and also the problem that on a server where it is expected you can find an enchanter to boost your gear for a price, instead you are reduced to grinding areas until you find items good enough to allow you to progress to the next harder areas, making the levelling process longer and more boring that it was designed to be. Not so much a problem on a server with slow levelling, where you may spend weeks grinding the same areas, but our server is relatively quick levelling, so this works against the server design.

 

Some people have said "With a very low server population there can be no economy anyway". I disagree. Single player modules can have a kind of economy, and so can PWs, even with just one person playing. All it takes is supply and demand for an economy, and NPCs can provide the other side of the equation.

 

Of course, if you want players to interact and trade, then you will need to ensure that players can provide services cheaper than NPCs.

 

So this leads me neatly into the next section.... (more later)

[Loki_999]

Part 2: Economics 101

 

So, as i mentioned, a PWs economics needs to be designed so that it works regardless of number of players around. In order to try and achieve this (and i'm not saying is entirely possible), we at least need to understand the basics of economics.

 

First off, ill define some terms, some will be commonly known, some will only be known by those who have studied finance and economics. 

 

Ill then finish off this section with an example of PW economics that people may never have thought of as being actually part of the economics.

 

Please note, i'm not necessarily using dictionary definitions here. More my definitions for how i will use the terms going forward.

 

Supply and Demand: Ok, i don't think these two need defining, but they are important to keep in mind, especially remembering that supply and demand do not need to come from PCs, although generally speaking, there can be more fun to be had from PC-to-PC transactions.

 

Utility: The amount of pleasure, enjoyment, or benefit that is gained from a transaction. Utility varies from player to player and character to character for the same transaction.  So not all players/characters will assign the same value to any particular transaction.

 

Risk: (again a bit obvious) The chance of a transaction failing or resulting in a net loss.

 

Value: This is not fixed and is strongly correlated with utility. It is a function of all the above terms. eg: The higher the risk, the higher the value. The more supply, the less value something has, etc. For example, setting the cost of a healing kit to 100 gold does not fix the value for different players. The price is set, but how much they value that item at that price differs.

 

Price (or Cost): When something is exchanged for gold, items, or services, then it can have a price. This is different from value as value can be more ephemeral.

 

So, on to a rather unusual example.  People often fixate on PW economy meaning transfer of gold, services, or items between players, or perhaps with NPCs.

 

But what about grinding?

 

I think many people would say grinding itself (not counting the gain of gold and items from monsters) is part of the economy.  However, i beg to differ.

 

What is the direct demand from grinding on most PWs?  Yes, people hope to get gold and items, but sometimes thats not from monsters directly, only from chests for example, or from quests.  The direct demand is for XP.  What is the supply? That is time. You give up time (and effort) to get the XP. The XP is supplied by the death of monsters which the server grants.  In this way, the server (or monsters) act at the other side of the transaction. Risk is obvious - the chance of death, and any penalties applied from the server upon death. Utility is covered in part by the actual enjoyment of the grind itself. People who like grinding will get more utility from it.  However, all gain some utility in the form of the XP itself and thereby their characters gaining levels. Of course, players who do not enjoy grinding or do not desire their characters gain levels, then they gain little or no utility from the grind.  It has little value for them. For others, the value of the grind is quite high, at least until they hit epic levels.

[Loki_999]

Part  3: But what about the gold?

 

Ok, so the example with XP isn't really the main point, because most people will fixate on the gold aspect of the economy (and rightly so).

 

Just keep in mind though, gold is only the medium through which trade is made. Just like in the real world, the value assigned to gold is arbitrary and not necessarily a reflection of its inherent value.  Still, at least gold can be used for something, unlike the paper or digital money most of us seem to chase after with such vigour in RL. If you are into customization and have the development resources, there are many options open to you whereby you can replace gold with other modes of transactions.  Not that any of them will solve the problem by themselves, but could allow alternate solutions to the economic problems (more on this later).

 

Still, gold is not solely used for buying items or services. For example, enchanting can also carry a gold cost even if you enchant yourself (assuming you have enchanting enabled on your PW).

 

Before thinking about loot lists, where gold and items (which may be sellable in return for gold) are obtained from, and many other aspects of where you might obtain the gold, the first thing is where gold might be spent.

 

Some of this obvious, spend gold to get better items in order to survive at higher levels. Spend gold on consumables which also help with survivability.

 

But these only work up to a point, as players approach max level, their need for such things drops off, and this brings us to the next point...

[Loki_999]

Part 4: Epic Millionaires

 

Maybe its not epic levels on your server.  Maybe you cap levels at 10. Regardless, at some point players reach max (or close to) level and no longer have a need to spend gold.  In fact, they may just keep acquiring more and more, especially if they offer enchanting or other services.

 

This is a bit of a disaster! Why? Well, when you consider real life rich people, they still take part in the economy. They still spend and they tend to spend on nicer things than the common man.

 

How far are you willing to go in order to provide epics with expensive items on your server? Should they be capable of getting more uber items? Special things like own housing? Can they set themselves up as heads of guilds and are you prepared for the IC and OOC conflict that may come with such things? What about muling of epic items down to low level characters? Do you have rules against muling? Or does your server permit?

 

I will cover in more detail later the options for epic (and regular) characters to partake in the economy but for now consider one big problem of the epic character.

 

They have lots of money, they may keep getting more. They have grinded for a long time, got the best items, and maybe even have many many items which they don't need, they don't value them.  Maybe they sell them to NPC merchants... and just get even more gold.  Or, as may be the case, they start selling them off to low level characters at cut down prices. 

 

Assume a PW with max +5 AC bonus on armour.  Now the epic of course has got his set of +5 armour. But they have found plenty of +4 armours and maybe lots of +3.  Now, on this PW it was set so that low level characters are not likely to find anything above +1 or +2 armours grinding at low levels.  In a way it is good they can go to a PC merchant and get a nicer set.  Its encourages interaction and gives the low level character a chance to get a better item.

 

However, the epic who is selling does not value the item and by this point, does not need the gold, it does not value the gold either.  It may actually simply value getting rid of a useless item more than making a good profit.

 

Of course, a good RPer would still hold out for a good price because they would be playing the character... unless, that character happens to be a charitable person who gives things away for free.

 

The most likely outcome though is that epic sells the armour for a ridiculously low price.  They get no real utility from the sale either so they have little motivation to do much sales in general, and when they do, they sell low.  On the other hand, the low level char has just got a great bargain on a decent item and still has lots of gold left over.  Looks like gold is now worth less that initially envisaged.

 

Item properties therefore have to be also a consideration...

 

Part 5: Item properties and max values

 

Some PWs try and handle this problem by making magical items rarer to stop an excess of items being found. Or limit the max values on enchantments. While these methods can have some value, they also carry their own problems. Rarer items means grinding becomes harder (which could be seen as positive) or maybe enemies then need to be made weaker, but then it also means those who get lucky have a distinct advantage over those who are unlucky.

 

Making the + value on item abilties higher or lower affects the value of wizards and clerics.  Consider +STR properties on items. Most casters have access to the spell Bull's Strength giving +4 STR. In a low magic world, one where the max +STR value is less than 4, casters can still be a valuable asset in a party for boosting the strength of the melee party members. Once the max enchantment goes to 4 or above, the need for casters for that particularly ability is reduced.

 

This seems to be an argument in favour of restricting plus ability enhancements.  Until you then consider what else can happen.  If the non-casters cannot get the same benefit, then they will look to scrolls and wands with those spells and invest heavily in UMD. Most fighter types have no real RP reason for UMD, but they will do it to get an advantage... unless they have better things to spend skill points on that can also provide a decent advantage.  Later on we will look at skills and how they can be used to affect the economy.  The other problem with restricting ability bonuses is what happens when your server suffers from low population, so they melee characters cannot find a caster to party with?

 

If you have designed your server's enemies to expect parties with a proper compliment of buffs, the grinding solo or without proper support is going to be extremely difficult and offputting. However, if you design assuming a character might have no support, then when they do, the enemies become too easy.  Depending on monster difficulty it could then push players to invest in UMD more or, perhaps, they will skip it in order to invest in other skills.

 

At this point i'm not making suggestions about what might make good or bad max item enchantment values, conclusions come later, its just food for thought here.

[Loki_999]

Part 6: Consumables

 

This is potentially a very good source of spending.  Assuming the consumables are a) actually useful and b) in a price range that is acceptable.

 

There is also no need to limit yourself to the default consumables such as healing kids, potions, etc.  You can use tag based scripting to provide a wide variety of effects.  Also don't just settle for "Poisons are worthless", why not roll your own?  Same goes for traps or grenades.  If you make consumables interesting (or powerful) enough, then people will spend on them.

 

Of course, you also need to get the price right.  Going back to economics, risk vs utility, imagine a potion that gave you the spirit shaman feat favored of the spirits, that would last until you rested. Now, if the death penalty on the server is loss of 1000 gold, then if you put the cost of that potion at 1000 gold or greater, people would not see value.  If you put the cost at 500 though, then such a potion could be in high demand. If death penalty is loss of XP, then you need to consider how much effort the XP loss cost and try and figure out the value from that.

 

(Personally i would avoid things like potions that grant rarer abilities possessed by classes as to avoid watering down the value of those classes, instead go for new or unique effects).

 

Wands and scrolls are also consumables. If handled badly they can also lead to people taking UMD just to get their hands on them.  Ill definitely have more to say on the topic of UMD as it relates to the economy later when i discuss skills in more detail. For the moment, remember that the price of crafting wands and scribing scrolls can be adjusted (even if it means replacing with your own functions to get the desired prices). You'll be wanting to consider their price and availability early because later you will also want to consider whether such things can appear as findable items later.

[Loki_999]

Broke my hand, so next sections will have to wait a few weeks