CypherWulf
Member
I know that in the current state it is almost impossible to have a functional economy due to the number of players, but I was wondering what the plan for the economy is during and after open beta. I've heard mention that there is no plan for an auction house-style central point of commerce, and if that's true, I hope you're willing to reconsider. If you want an example of how a multiplayer game in functions without one, look at Path of Exile. All commerce is routed through community-created external websites that just end up replacing what should be in-game. Scams and automated/semi-automated attempts to take advantage of new players' lack of information concerning an item's value are rampant. There is no additional real player interaction, just copy and pasted messages sent between players, and in many cases, arbitrage bots become the richest characters in a league. Despite this, the developers refuse to implement any sort of in-game tool on PC, instead, they have re-made some of the community tools as their own, but you're still expected to leave the game, find your item, then return to the game to message the seller, and hope that they're online and willing/able to stop what they're doing in order to complete the sale. The console version does have a very basic item listing/remote trade tool, but the search function is intentionally borderline useless, and it is generally ignored except for certain kinds of items (crafting tools/currencies and unique items).
At a minimum, not having a reliable way to sell reagents or equipment to other players creates a situation where 3/4 of equipment and 8/9 of reagents that drop are completely useless to a given character beyond a few silver per day of vendor value. Nobody is going to want to spend their time spamming /trade or sitting in town trying to hock a 5 silver weapon, they'll vendor it for 1 silver and get back out into the world. The same goes for crafted items. Crafted items are supposed to be functionally unlimited in supply, and available to smooth over gaps in drops and dry spells in the leveling process, but without a tool to enable commerce, they will never be sold, since it's not profitable when you compare the income potential of crafting and selling vs the income potential of getting back out in the world and farming/running dungeons.
I understand the appeal of trying to harken back to the good(?) ole days of trade tunnel /ooc, but that was a product of the times in many ways. When you look at it without the rose-colored glasses, it becomes apparent that it only ever worked because EQ was the only game in town. In the last 25 years, the average gamer age has gone up significantly, more so for MMO players. In 2006, the average MMO player was 27 (source), with about half of players having full-time jobs. Now, the average gamer is 34 years old, owns a house, and has children (source). MMOs existing is not new and novel anymore. The parasocial experience of chatting with strangers is efectively zero these days, and for those that are still interested in it, there are hundreds of other chat services. Requiring two players to meet in chat, then meet in-game simply isn't a reasonable expectation anymore, there needs to be some sort of asynchronous tool.
There's lots of ways to implement it, I (like any gamer) have ideas, but this is your show. You know your game and what would fit best with your vision, but realisticaly speaking, there needs to be something that allows players to engage in trade while offline or doing something else, without leaving the game. Auctions, commodities markets, consignments, in-game posting boards with COD delivery, NPC couriers that can deliver an item from your bank, just something.
TLDR: Economy is one of the hardest things for any multiplayer endeavor, so getting it right is something that takes real intention and planning, and I'm wondering what the plan is.
At a minimum, not having a reliable way to sell reagents or equipment to other players creates a situation where 3/4 of equipment and 8/9 of reagents that drop are completely useless to a given character beyond a few silver per day of vendor value. Nobody is going to want to spend their time spamming /trade or sitting in town trying to hock a 5 silver weapon, they'll vendor it for 1 silver and get back out into the world. The same goes for crafted items. Crafted items are supposed to be functionally unlimited in supply, and available to smooth over gaps in drops and dry spells in the leveling process, but without a tool to enable commerce, they will never be sold, since it's not profitable when you compare the income potential of crafting and selling vs the income potential of getting back out in the world and farming/running dungeons.
I understand the appeal of trying to harken back to the good(?) ole days of trade tunnel /ooc, but that was a product of the times in many ways. When you look at it without the rose-colored glasses, it becomes apparent that it only ever worked because EQ was the only game in town. In the last 25 years, the average gamer age has gone up significantly, more so for MMO players. In 2006, the average MMO player was 27 (source), with about half of players having full-time jobs. Now, the average gamer is 34 years old, owns a house, and has children (source). MMOs existing is not new and novel anymore. The parasocial experience of chatting with strangers is efectively zero these days, and for those that are still interested in it, there are hundreds of other chat services. Requiring two players to meet in chat, then meet in-game simply isn't a reasonable expectation anymore, there needs to be some sort of asynchronous tool.
There's lots of ways to implement it, I (like any gamer) have ideas, but this is your show. You know your game and what would fit best with your vision, but realisticaly speaking, there needs to be something that allows players to engage in trade while offline or doing something else, without leaving the game. Auctions, commodities markets, consignments, in-game posting boards with COD delivery, NPC couriers that can deliver an item from your bank, just something.
TLDR: Economy is one of the hardest things for any multiplayer endeavor, so getting it right is something that takes real intention and planning, and I'm wondering what the plan is.
:There have been games where you cant repair gear and gear brakes down, this makes crafting more important and helps the players to group together to get the mats for the gear they want/need. It allso makes dying a bit more meaningful (not that it needs changing, just throwing it out there).
