The goal is PRECISELY that most players remain poor. If everyone remains poor alike, then the expensive items remain expensive, but not out of reach from everyone. And the money doesn't come from nowhere. You have to work to get it, like gather materials for the crafters with the money.

On the whole, I think some people are getting wrong right from the premises. Money is merely a convenient way to accelerate the bartering. "I'll give you five rabbit skins, and you make two pairs of gloves from them, one for you, and one for me? what do you say?" This kind of things has happened since two people were able to get in conctact. Money as minted coins only appeared rather late in History, and only as a way to make commerce easier. You could bring a coin weighing an ounce of silver from point A to point B, it would still weigh an ounce at arrival, and still have the approximate same value.

Here and now, in any MMO, you are playing some adventurer. The main occupation of any adventurer is to, well, have adventures in the wild. He doesn't produce goods, and certainly has close to no chance at all to become rich by wandering around idly. Hunting isn't the same thing as butchering, or hide gathering, or even trophies cutting. And each of these things is necessary for a community. If you want to act solo, then be prepared to starve for a while, and be equipped more or less like a caveman. Only those who can rely on others to get something they are not ready to do for themselves can go further than the cavemen.

And this is precisely what this system is aiming at: creating forced interaction. You cannot get anything better than a caveman's spear or wooden stick without gowing to find someone who can equip you with something else, and bartering it. You want a metallic weapon? Find yourself some metal, five days worth of food, THAT much coal, two rabbit skins, and we have a deal. Or maybe, if you already have had access to some other barter, and already have earned some gold for yourself, you can buy it fair and square, because the gold you will give will go round and buy the smith some food, some coal and metal ore, and possibly some more rabbit skins than what you would have given. It's commerce to you.

I think you should probably read 'no gold drop' as 'no gold spawning'. Of course there's nothing to stop a troll nicking all your cash when it kills you. UO used to have a system where mobs would occasionally loot a player corpse. I think it's a good idea - and it's fun to go hunting for the particular orc that looted you to get your stuff back.
Of course, a clever mob will be *using* your +4 broadsword when you see it next...

Interesting point.

If you were to hunt "intelligent" mobs, and you died, the intelligent mobs would loot your body in the same manner you would loot theirs if you killed them. But as YOU can decide which weapon is the best to keep from dying, how could you implement this sort of behaviour in the mob's attitude? How can you get a troll to use your Broadsword +4 instead of his Bigger Club? And as a secondary question, would you gain more XP if you killed a troll using a +4 broadsword instead of one swinging half a pine?

By the way, I think you can probably find a way to uncover that thread, somewhere in the "AI FORUM" of Gamedev. It's about a simulation of natural cycle. There is something related to moving spawning points, and emergent behavior patterns there.

We're getting slightly off topic with the concept of intelligent mobs' weapon selection. The main point is that items are kept circulating to keep the economy ticking, and (in the case of reactive spawning / population tracking) that supply fluctuates. Without fluctuations in supply against demand, prices remain fixed and trade stagnates. If mithril is comparitively plentiful at one time, and adamantium at another (assuming they're both similar materials) you get fairly realistic trends in armour fashion (since all of a sudden one material or the other becomes much easier to maintain / replace bits of. Edit: This obviously relies that there is a correlation in decay for armour with its use - i.e. if it gets hit a lot, it gets ruined quickly.

In order to give starting players an easy foot on the ladder, and to give experienced players a niche, NPC crafter / vendors are capped at fairly low levels of skill for the most part, and don't make stuff to order, just to fill set stocks. As the game progresses, many NPC vendors come under player control (via the Guilds).

something i havent seen here that you should consider is modelling it based on actual economic theory.

the difference between most MMO's and reality is that MMO's do not implement a true scarcity of goods. most MMO's have a limitless supply of everything and simply reacts to the player base and their actions.


Gold is limitless since drops are limitless. Most crafting resources are based on limitless nodes, that respawn over time, which is a simple throttle for how much gold enters the system at a given time.


The concept isnt unique but the perceived hurdle is that no one wants to be poor in an MMO. Of course the reality is that no one want to be poor in real life either. Everyone has to be a hero in an MMO which of course means that nobody can be a hero.

Scarcity of goods combined with real consumption of end user goods will allow a stratification of income levels.

You will also be in the position to use the supply and demand metric to introduce goods trading and transport as a viable capital gains strategy.

Once travel itself becomes a quest(the caveat here being that if travel is boring and without event then the occupation will be as well) , you will begin to see a predator prey relationship on the main highways, which no MMO has accomplished since UO.(to my knowledge)

the concept requires a shift in thinking and is easily discarded because it involves taking a chance with your user-base as opposed to emulating what already works.

We use scarcity of resources as the main driving force for conflict and trade both within a kingdom and between kingdoms. And risk though it might be, the total worth travelling through a particular route node is an attractor for bandit NPCs, so it's well worth (if you're a lord tasked with trading with another kingdom) assigning militia quests to guard caravans as they travel - which costs money (from taxes) and equipment (bought from the Guilds)... and possibly lives (both of players and NPCs).

Of course, the opposite option is also open, for kingdoms to effectively prey on each other's trade routes (especially if you can lay the blame on another kingdom). These actions can severely harm economies, but historically, the use of sanctions and trade sabotage as a precursor to open warfare is not unprecedented.

It'll be fun to see how the different game instances pan out...

As far as crafting goes, and the NPC's supply: Dark and Light allows for players to become NPC's when they are offline. Thus allowing them to sell items while they are offline. This could also be useable as someone who has the materials to make a weapon but not the skill, can take it to an offline character to make. The player sets the rates beforehand and this can be done automatically. Keeps the currency within the players.

Also in a player controlled society (even the king is a player), what about having them control the caps to which others can sell certain items.

Travel and Trade.... I'm already tackling many other risks with the way my game works. What's another?

Quote:

Original post by trapdoor As far as crafting goes, and the NPC's supply: Dark and Light allows for players to become NPC's when they are offline. Thus allowing them to sell items while they are offline. This could also be useable as someone who has the materials to make a weapon but not the skill, can take it to an offline character to make. The player sets the rates beforehand and this can be done automatically. Keeps the currency within the players. Also in a player controlled society (even the king is a player), what about having them control the caps to which others can sell certain items. Travel and Trade.... I'm already tackling many other risks with the way my game works. What's another?

setting artificial caps for selling prices will only drive the market underground and further inflate its value.

Yeah. Either that, or, if your enforcement process is good enough that can't happen, will result in your message boards being flooded by annoyed playerswho can't sell their carefully crafted +10 Sword of Uberness for its 'true value'. Artificial caps or controls on item value do not a fun economy make.

You'll absolutely have to deal with the fact that players use their wallet as a score counter. The longer they play and the tougher they get, the bigger they expect that number to become. They demand that they accrue wealth and assets as a visible manifestation of their superiority to newbies.

Since all the MMO economies to date have rewarded them for that, it's pretty much guaranteed that players will be disappointed by the omission of that dynamic from future games.

Yojimbo was the baddest dude in Japan, but he didn't have a fat wallet and an inventory filled with lewt. He had a sword that was probably of moderate quality, having been issued one back when he was employed, a threadbare hakama and a worn kimono, which he had probably patched himself on numerous occasions. For all that, he was uber. You'll never see that kind of tough guy in an MMO.

The basic misconception that every player deserves to be King Arthur is at the root of the economy problem. If you get rid of the notion that everyone is entitled to hero status and should be wearing six gold crowns and wielding an enchanted sword made of dragon teeth by their fourth month in-game, then everything else falls into place.

The economy isn't an economy, it's a metagame, a second grind. Players expect to be rewarded for killing mobs, and they expect that reward to accumulate and unlock new graphical treats, stat boni and bragging rights. That's the dynamic we're contending with.