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Original post by littlered just wanted to say thanks to everyone for contributing - I need to sit down with a large cup of tea and go through this all carefully - there's some great comments been made here.

Just remember to project what certain features will do as a whole to the game.

I believe alot of developers overlook the fact that certain features in their games can become what I like to call - "Living Features" meaning, that they operate themselves and are always evolving. Economy is a good example of this, and if you go through the loops to set it up correctly, this could be one of the premiere features in your game that pretty much runs itself and creates obstacles and rewards in and of itself without you hardly having to touch it. EVE's economy has sort of done this.

Remember, small choices can lead to big factors and those factors aren't always detrimental :)

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Original post by: Stangler You are wrong, it is a sink. Destruction of ships in EVE is not only a sink but a threat of a sink that encourages hoarding and the accumulation of value.

It encourages the accumulation of resources. Resource have a value, but they are not value itself. This is where you are getting confused.

If a player accumulates a resource, then it means they ahve a lot of that resource. But if another player find a lot of that same resource (or dumps a lot of it into the market), then the Value of Player 1's resources have gone down, even though they have exactly the same amount of resources they had before the actions of Player 2.

Players can not hoard value becaue value depends on the actions of players, not what they have in their valuts.

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Ultimately game economics is difficult because you have to constantly give value to players in exchange for their time.

they give resources for their time and these resources can have value. the problem with the Sink/Source model is they have a static value for these (as far as the game is concerned -due to vendor prices and such). So long as this is above the value the players place on a resource there is not real provblem and the developers can control the economy. If this value the players place on a resource drops below the game's value on that resource then there is a problem because the control the developers had to manipulate the economy and keep it working caused by that resource diapears and the developers loos control over the economy.

In a player driven economy, ther eis no inhernent value placed on items so this situation can't occur. However, to do this the developers have to surrender this control from the start and build in adifferent way of controling it (ie: indirectly).

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This doesn't make much sense. Time is the real commodity being bought and sold by players. Any thing in game has a cost to a player based on the amount of time it takes them to get it.

Obviusly you didn't understandw aht I said because you then corrected me by stating exactly what I was trying to say.

Yes, the only source of value in the economy is thoguh time. Well actually I'd call it effort and efficiancy to be more accurate. Two players can spend the exact same amount of time in the game, but if the first one does,'t put their time into creating value for themselves and the second player does, then the second player will get increased value and the first player won't. SO it is the effort, rather than time specifically. Also, if a player is more efficient in turning effort into value they will increase their vlaue quicker than someone who is inefficient.

SO it is really effort and efficiency that is the source of value. But also note this is not drops and loot that create value. that might be just how the game give value for effort, but the loot and drops are not value in their own rights.

With drops and loot, the developers are stating: "this is valueable", then by having a set sell price with vendors the developers dictates the value of the loot that the players sell.

This is the source sink model with static value. You can design such a source sink modle to work, as you know the value of everything and can adjust it directly to make sure it fits. However, if there is any disturbance to this highly crafted balance, then the whole thing falls apart. So the source/Sink model only works if nobody uses it! (a pretty big flaw don't you think).

This is because players place their own percieved value on the resources (drops and loot) which is different to the value placed on them by the developers. Because the values are different, the values for some resources will drop and other will increase. But because the value of some drop, it pushes these below the threashold requiered by the developers to controll the economy and you end up with an anstable economy.

It is analgous to what occured in the real world econopmies in the 1980s. With the advent of computer modeling, economits belienved they could modle how people would behave in an economy (they called thei the Homo Economist model). But their assumptions were that people had perfect knowledge of the economy and acted in the most rational way to increase their wealth.

The probl;em is that people don't have perfect knowledge of the economy (even the economists dont have that) and people don't acty in perfectally rational ways. In other words, the model stated that if goods and sevices were valued as specific amounts, then the economy would work. But as the only way to get these value was through perfect knowledge and complete rationality this never occurred and people assigned theor own values to the goods and services which was different from the requiered values and thes system needs constant attending to keep it in check, and even then we get occasionaly hiccoughs like the recent economic crisis.

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Original post by Edtharan [It encourages the accumulation of resources. Resource have a value, but they are not value itself. This is where you are getting confused. If a player accumulates a resource, then it means they ahve a lot of that resource. But if another player find a lot of that same resource (or dumps a lot of it into the market), then the Value of Player 1's resources have gone down, even though they have exactly the same amount of resources they had before the actions of Player 2. Players can not hoard value becaue value depends on the actions of players, not what they have in their valuts.

Of course they can hoard value. You are confusing market value with personal value to the player. Just because someone is not selling something that doesn't mean it lacks value to the player. In fact the exact opposite is true. If the hoarded resource had no value then they wouldn't keep it and they wouldn't have traded their time to obtain it in the first place.

Value is personal and it is when the market value of a good is higher than their personal value of that good the player will trade that good.

In terms of MMO economies this concept of value is important because when players play an MMO they are essentially entering into a trade where they trade their time for value. This value comes in different forms but there are two basic categories value comes in. Value that is recognized in the code of the game and value that is not. For example if they play for an hour and get a spaceship. That space ship represents tangible value in the game.

The player could also have fun playing for that hour. That is also something of value to the player that makes it more likely for them to trade their free time for game time.

MMOs are very dependent on providing the player with in game value.

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Original post by Edtharan Quote: Ultimately game economics is difficult because you have to constantly give value to players in exchange for their time. they give resources for their time and these resources can have value. the problem with the Sink/Source model is they have a static value for these (as far as the game is concerned -due to vendor prices and such). So long as this is above the value the players place on a resource there is not real provblem and the developers can control the economy. If this value the players place on a resource drops below the game's value on that resource then there is a problem because the control the developers had to manipulate the economy and keep it working caused by that resource diapears and the developers loos control over the economy. In a player driven economy, ther eis no inhernent value placed on items so this situation can't occur. However, to do this the developers have to surrender this control from the start and build in adifferent way of controling it (ie: indirectly).

It all comes back to time investment and the rate in which resources enter into the economy. Vendors that provide a bottom or top price on a good are just safe guards for MMO economies that are unable to fill the needs of the players.

If vendor prices are drastically impacting the economy then there is another issue at work which needs to be managed just like all of the ways various resources enters into the game economy.

Also Vendors are not what define an economy as sink/source.

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Original post by Edtharan Obviusly you didn't understandw aht I said because you then corrected me by stating exactly what I was trying to say. Yes, the only source of value in the economy is thoguh time. Well actually I'd call it effort and efficiancy to be more accurate. Two players can spend the exact same amount of time in the game, but if the first one does,'t put their time into creating value for themselves and the second player does, then the second player will get increased value and the first player won't. SO it is the effort, rather than time specifically. Also, if a player is more efficient in turning effort into value they will increase their vlaue quicker than someone who is inefficient. SO it is really effort and efficiency that is the source of value. But also note this is not drops and loot that create value. that might be just how the game give value for effort, but the loot and drops are not value in their own rights. With drops and loot, the developers are stating: "this is valueable", then by having a set sell price with vendors the developers dictates the value of the loot that the players sell. This is the source sink model with static value. You can design such a source sink modle to work, as you know the value of everything and can adjust it directly to make sure it fits. However, if there is any disturbance to this highly crafted balance, then the whole thing falls apart. So the source/Sink model only works if nobody uses it! (a pretty big flaw don't you think). This is because players place their own percieved value on the resources (drops and loot) which is different to the value placed on them by the developers. Because the values are different, the values for some resources will drop and other will increase. But because the value of some drop, it pushes these below the threashold requiered by the developers to controll the economy and you end up with an anstable economy. It is analgous to what occured in the real world econopmies in the 1980s. With the advent of computer modeling, economits belienved they could modle how people would behave in an economy (they called thei the Homo Economist model). But their assumptions were that people had perfect knowledge of the economy and acted in the most rational way to increase their wealth. The probl;em is that people don't have perfect knowledge of the economy (even the economists dont have that) and people don't acty in perfectally rational ways. In other words, the model stated that if goods and sevices were valued as specific amounts, then the economy would work. But as the only way to get these value was through perfect knowledge and complete rationality this never occurred and people assigned theor own values to the goods and services which was different from the requiered values and thes system needs constant attending to keep it in check, and even then we get occasionaly hiccoughs like the recent economic crisis.

They are trading time for value. Efficiency of that trade is just one factor of many that determines how much time and value is being traded but in the end time is being traded for value.

You are once again confusing market value(price) and value(personal).

A source sink model doesn't have static value. Even a game with vendors like WOW the market value is not static.

I don't agree with your assessment of real world economies either.