Relaunching an Old debate: economy

[iphdrunk]

All,

With the influx of new players, and the imho clear differences between rich people and not-so-rich people (some players can easily hand out hundreds of milions without a blink) and he good-intentions-but-yet-questionable high level players that can give a couple of milions to a new refugee, I still wonder about atys economy and possible solutions. This has been treated in the past, so I'm not going to rehash the same arguments and a lot of good ideas have been given:

http://www.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16798

http://www.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.p ... ht=economy

but personally, being the recent NPE something like a second relaunch of the game (take if with a grain of salt) with the influx of new players maybe something could be done and this could be a good moment for it

* Do you think that economy should be reviewed / revamped and it has somewhat a medium to high priority?

* 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--

questions like "would you agree to a dapper reset/some similar action in order to balance this aspect of the game" are never welcome, but, without other measures it will only mean that, in a few months
things could be similar, but on the other hand, I fear that any action made to balance econumy can have a limited effect with the already exisiting mass of dappers in game.


A pet peeve o'mine. Comments?

[jarko]

not much to say on this atm...money is no use still in this game is way to easy to get it.
And reset money for everyone...no use we high lvl players have loads of money in i couple of hours again...

[grimjim]

Fix the shops so that decent things especially mats, can actually be bought there, rather than stored there, either with a max markup (500% maybe) or with that you have to buy out at the full price you put something on sale for.

Give us a load of frippery to buy or add expensive customisation to guildhalls, apartments, even special breeds of packer/mount that only LOOK a bit more snazzy.

Clothes, haircuts, DECENT consumables, fix the shops, apartments, guildhalls, mounts, packers, limited-time special items (like the candycanes and so on).

The game just needs an outflow to match the inflow some.

[cloudy97]

Please tell me if I dreamt that the green pearl liquid that is called dappers was originally planned to eventually dry out or leak from the leather pouches we carry them in. If I it's true how would that affect the economy?

Could Kami threat be activated again? I'm sure it can also be used to balance the factions in a clever way too. And I think it would be a thrill digging at high threat places.

[katriell]

But be careful not to make dappers so valuable that the farmers start moving in...

[iphdrunk]

And reset money for everyone...no use we high lvl players have loads of money in i couple of hours again...

The problem is that dapper reset should also mean a "GH sup" reset otherwise still rich and that seems to be a huge no-no

[iphdrunk]

But be careful not to make dappers so valuable that the farmers start moving in...

Yes that is a good point. I tend to think tho, that they should be made valuable, but not easy to get (rate limited?, no bottable actions, etc.) That said, economy balance is a major thing, so many things can go wrong...

[geezas]

Having gone through the threads and thinking about it a bit I come to the conclusion that the economy(if there is any) does not conform to peoples expectations. We all live (well most of us) in a very money driven society, buying and selling a commodity with coin as barter is the standard, you won't buy a computer with a bunch of chickens and a pig. So from our modern point of view the atys economy seems rather dull and stale.

Our western styled, fast pace, highly volatile and exciting economy is in contradiction with what we see ingame. Atys is not a industrial civilization and imo more like a simple barter system and some dappers on the side to make things convenient. It relies on friends, groups, guild and faction for equipment, having the respect of others gives you a much better bartering position then 10 million dappers. You might even get a item as a gift or work with others to get the materials.

At some point dappers become useless, well they do in the real world as well. being happy and satisfied cannot be bought with money (although is helps a bit) and some things are not for sale. Try buying a specific painting of van Gogh, collectors won't easily let it go even for huge amounts of money.

So after thinking this up I feel there is nothing wrong with the economy, it's just not what we expect of it. Whether this is a design flaw or deliberate intention we cannot tell, as far as trading goes, we do not have the sophisticated markets other games have (eve-online comes to mind) but there have been a lot of design changes and the economy has not gotten much attention.

A few more fun things to buy would be cool, and some permanent credit sink in the form of rent would be welcome to but as stated in the above threads, people who chase dappers will all way’s have more then those who don't.

Another idea I had was the ability to set out a order at a merchant. As in I will buy X amount of Y mats for Z amount of dapper. To pick up in 7 day's if the order is fulfilled. Since merchants can hold my stuff to sell for a commission, they can buy for me as well. They stand around all day doing nothing anyway

[andypur1]

Fix the shops so that decent things especially mats, can actually be bought there, rather than stored there, either with a max markup (500% maybe) or with that you have to buy out at the full price you put something on sale for.

I also reckon that the NPCs should sell basic grind mats to a higher lvl, say to 150 or 200. I'm still at the stage where I would buy all the grind mats available without a huge markup, but at the moment, there is not the supply and my digging is going faster than my crafting as a consequence.

I regularly clear the shop of reasonably priced (<4k ish per mat, lvl 160+) mats on sale and it keeps my dapper supply in check

[arfindel]

An economy revamp would have been anytime welcome imho, with the presence of so many new players even more. I see it more like a medium priority, but still one top of the list in its kind.

As R2 comes maybe allow personalised vendors show up in game. A group of people, a guild even could make their own market there. They can be of course expesive to keep, but less dappers in game : less fake attacks isn't it? But then why not have Sehraci's own caravan of wagons stopped somewhere around a fire and having vendors for 3-4 kinds of crafted items.

In actual market I would disperse Dyron and Natae monopoly that's only due to the tp disposition. Zorai market is almost empty because there's no kara tp next to Min Cho and the kami one doesn't accept neutrals. Same to say about Avendale. Dispersing the population between capital cities and main commercial city evenly on each continent would improve lag problems and exploration desire in players as well.

Then there is the relation between customer and crafter. I loved to spoil my customers, to talk to them, make personalised objects, thank them for buying ... if we sell via vendors now we most of the time have no idea who buys the items we craft.

"yours sales" list is loading slowly and spasmodically and cannot be object of same filters that are already working in game on all the other lists of objects in a container

Speaking about "your sales" list days left of life on the vendor is not a criteria of sorting, which would be a nice addition for crafters and diggers.

Not seeing what you're buying is another issue. Not even at high levels people always know what's the difference in look between a medium plans medium mats LA and a medium plans excelent mats LA (which is none) or between a medium plans Fyros LA and a high quality plans Fyros LA (which, depending on taste, can be in favour of medium plans). A first fast correction is introducing an option to see the objects that don't depend on sex of the bearer (weapons, shields, amps etc.) Armors have a different situation somehow but a "dressing room" window would be nice to have.

Last but not least smaller containers can be good to have. How can a jeweler offer a full set for fighting stingas or cratchas or pvp or focus nowadays? Why not having the option to put them in a pouch with customisable name that the customer may consult later then buy it all at same time.

Money sinks are always good. As far as I can see most MMOs end sooner or later into inflation. Maybe an economy revamp is too much, but a simple, case by case, marketing revamp would solve at least a part of the problem, make offer and sales more fluid, make the dapper mean something and fortunes not concentrate in few hands but disperse in the mass of players.