iphdrunk wrote:
* Now that are more players, thus more mats available on the merchants, that the herbivores drop has been increased, does this mean that the mat merchant will be a satisfactory money sink? I used to say that dappers were pretty much useless but lately I am finding myself spending more and more dappers -- although my craft habits are wide, the usual suspects as resin, clothes, seeds and amber supplies are well below crafter needs and I have reduced my harvesting a lot--
I posted the following a week or two ago in a thread on another game's forums, that dealt with the exact same issue: the economy.
Are we sitting comfortably?
MMO Economics 101.
Every MMO I've ever heard of has what's sometimes called a "faucet / drain" economy. The faucet is whatever sources of gold (*) exist, and the drain is whatever money-sinks the devs are able to write in.
(*) I'll use the term gold as a generic for whatever the game currency actually is. Gil, Plat, ISK, Gold, Dapper, you name it, they all behave the same.
At this point it is important to note that this is completely different from any functioning real world economy, because in the real world, we don't have that limitless supply of gold. In game, there is ALWAYS some way to raise cash from a limitless supply. Farm mobs and sell the loot. Get NPC bounties for killing things. It doesn't matter. The point is that there is no limit to the amount of cash that can flow into the game.
This is an unfortunate necessity, because much as it has a very destructive effect of the economy, if there wasn't that endless sorce of gold, people would up and leave in a mighty big hurry. One of the major driving forces in a game like this is to watch the bank balance grow. It's not the only one, but it's still a big one. If that balance stays at a couple of hundred copper all the way up to level 50, can you honestly tell me they'll have good player retention? Nah, I didn't think so either.
It is also important to note at this point that as far as an individual player is concerned, transfer of gold to another player is pretty much the same as transfer of gold to an NPC - in both cases your bank balance goes down. However, from the point of view of the game designer trying to make a working economy, these are very different operations. In the first one (player to player) the money does NOT leave the economy, and hence nothing changes. In the second one, the money DOES leave the economy, and as I'll explain in a minute, this is a "Good Thing." (tm)
So you have some money sinks, e.g. buying new gear and the like from NPC's. As has been noted elsewhere, it's suicide for an MMO company to take this too far. Who here remembers the comments made in other threads about ongoing rent on housing in DaoC (I think it was DaoC) and the fact that people left because they didn't want to play a game that had the same responsibilities as real life.
And there you have the problem. People MUST always see that bank balance on the grow, and as a direct result of this, the economy must enter a state of inflation.
FWIW, The game company that cracks this one, incidentally, will make a killing, but they probably should not be allowed to run a real world economy, because as noted above the only similarity between the real world and an MMO is that they both use money as a means to barter for items. The similarity ends there.
Bottome line. It's a **** of a gnarly problem, that arguably can't be solved because the moment you do solve it, your game will cease to be fun to play.
First of all, this is a fairly accurate synopsis of MMO economies. This issue has been hashed out a couple of times at the GDC, and the results are usually the same. Something to the effect that "we admire the problem, but don't have a solution."
Secondly, the paragraph I highlighted explains why buying something from another player is
NOT a money sink. Not as far as the economy as a whole is concerned. It may appear that way to you, but as noted
the money doesn't leave the economy, therefore nothing changes. All it does is change hands.
That said, yes, the economy is broken. It's in a state of inflation that makes the Reichmark at the end of WW2 look wonderful. If they fix it, the game will probably lose a good chunk of it's subscriber base in a month or two, whch is about the last thing Nevrax wants right now.
-- Edit --
iphdrunk wrote:
That said.... my point I think stands: imagine there are genmats, or enough mats to be bought. Then the solo crafter enters in a snowball effect: I just need a starting investment and then I craft. I sell, and make a profit, thus being able to buy more mats. No need to dig at all, and no reason to stop. This of course assumes a constant flow of mats, or genmats, inexistant now but who knows with more players?
Just found this. In this second quote, the genmats
would be a money sink, if they were NPC mats, which is what I think you're proposing.
However, I think that the only net effect this would have is to reduce the amount of digging people do.
* Dig & craft is a money maker. We both agree on this.
* Craft reduces the worth of the goods: you get more dapper selling the raw mats than you do selling the finished product. This
MUST remain true at least for NPC mats, otherwise crafting becomes an insta-cash machine.
So, I suspect that NPC gen mats as a money sink would cause cafters to dig, craft, sell, and then take whatever percentage of the profits they were comfortable with and use them to buy gen mats. This equates to a reduction in digging, but not an elimination. To eliminate digging, craft would have to be break even. Crafting can't be profitable (see point 2 above). Crafting can't be a loss, otherwise digging is necessary to make up the shortfall.
Unfortunately, even break even isn't accepable, because it still permits anyone to level any craft skill to 250 simply by standing at the raw mats vendor. Cost of tools notwithstanding.
However, they
WOULD eliminate dapper from the economy. I just can't tell you if they'd eliminate enough to bring the inflation under control. I somehow suspect that they won't.
I don't miss it, but you are right, I should have been more precise. I was referring to the state of things currently, since I really don't know a dedicated crafter that doesn't dig -- although I do know a lot that dig despite not liking it -- pretty much stating a "crafter" in ryzom means a digger too. Being a crafter only is like soloing daggers, in theory possible, in pratice I yet have to see one ( a competitive one, I know a couple of crafters that don't dig, but the quality of their items is low) and yes, there are also digger-only players, but I would say not the majority.