GVBlackmoon Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Just something I have been working on since EQ1 the end goal is to drive gold farmers out of the game. There is more but I need to write it up and it is even dryer then this is because it deals directly with mechanics of the economy more then this does. Enjoy Economic Model for a Massively Multi Player Online Game Role Playing Game This paper is a high level overview of a player base economy of a Massively Multi Player Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) to use that is regulated and controlled to limit the impact of currency merchants within the game environment. This economic model will detail how to perform this within the game so that it can be controlled by the development team and allow for the maximum enjoyment for the player base. This is done by expanding how the economy functions and what tools are used in it to create a working economy. 1. Society and currency within the game. a. What is the level of society within the game? b. What is the currency with the game? c. How are assets brought into and removed from the game? d. What are currency merchants? e. How to deal with the exploiting of assets by currency merchants? 2. The game market place. a. What is the game market play? b. How is this system exploited by currency merchants? c. How the market can be changed to limit the impact of currency merchants within the game? d. What would the impact be on the player base by these changes? 3. Balancing crafting against loot. a. Why is crafting part of the economy? b. Why crafted assets need to be equal to looted assets? c. How crafting should impact the game? Society and Currency within the Game What is the level of society in a MMORPG? The level of society designed in all current games is tribal working at a basic hunter gather level. These tribes are called guilds that fill the needs of the players. These needs are strength in numbers to complete difficult missions, protection for other players if the game has player vs. player environment and lastly social interaction with people who have similar interests. The impact of this level of society on the economy is simple no economy is required since hunter gathers do not need an economy. This level of society should be contrasted with the actual society depicted within the game, which is either agrarian or an industrial level society. By ignoring the games society level within the game the development team limits the ability to manage the economy. For a game economy to work you have to rules by which all players abide, the easiest way to create this is to use the whole society rather than just the player base for the economy. What is the currency with the game? All assets within the game are used as currency, the reason for this is that all of them are either the game’s currency or can be converted to the game’s currency. These assets are the game’s currency, player property and raw resources. By taking this in to account it changes how to look at the assets being brought into that game thus can take into account how they will impact the economy as a whole. By realizing that all assets are currency within the game you can see where currency merchants will try to exploit the game for their own gain. How assets are are brought into and removed from the game? Currently assets brought into a game one of three ways; as raw resources from spawned nodes on different maps; to items and currency looted from defeated monsters and Non-Player Characters (NPC), and lastly as mission rewards provided by quest giving NPCs. This means that assets are only removed from the game two ways; one when a player purchases services from the game, and secondly when a player deletes an asset from the game. The purchasing of goods from the game does not remove an asset from the game. It simply changes it from one form to another form. What are currency merchants? Currency merchants or as they are normally called gold sellers are third party companies that acquire the games currency through cheap labor and then sell the currency to games player base at profit. This behavior causes inflation within the game and creates tension in the player base as they are spammed with unwanted advertisements and are forced to compete with corporations that are seeking to profit from their activity. The goal of any good game economy is to reduce and eliminate currency merchants from the game by making it inefficient for them to operate by removing exploits within the economy. How to deal with the exploiting of assets by currency merchants? To counter currency merchant’s exploiting assets, developers need to be control assets differently. While you still need to allow input of assets through gathering, hunt and as rewards, you also need to provide secondary markets for assets to enter into the market place. Primarily these are the resources used for crafting as well as what assets can be crafted by the player base. The other thing that requires changing is how the player market works presently. This is exploited by currency merchants who are then using the auction hall to create inflation within the game economy. The Game Market Place What is the game market play? The market place that is used within the most games is an auction hall. This allows players to post items for sale by setting a minimum bid as well as a buyout price. Some games do allow the players to sell directly to other players but this has never really taken off in the general design of MMORPGs. While in theory this system should work, but it is easily exploited by currency merchants looking to make the most off the player base. How is this system exploited by currency merchants? The auction hall system is exploited by currency merchants through manipulating the prices of resources and desired items. Driving the price up in the auction hall until it reaches the maximum price that the market will bear. They will then break grouped assets into smaller amounts and then repeat the process of driving the price up. This process does two things. One creates demand for their services and two provides them with the currency they need to provide that service. With their cheap labor they are able to out harvest players for game assets which they then sell to the players to gather the currency from the players thereby creating demand for their service. How the market can be changed to limit the impact of currency merchants within the game? The market can be changed a few ways to limit the ability for currency merchants to manipulate the prices of assets purchased and sold on it. First you could use a fixed minimum bid price and not allow a buyout price on an asset in the auction hall. This allows demand for that item to drive the price up, but this can still be exploited by the currency merchant who could use a second account to compete with the player. A better solution to this problem is to remove the auction hall from the game and use a consignment hall where a player places an order for an asset at a fixed price, and then these orders can be filled by either the game or a player. Lastly provide a secondary market for assets used in crafting and allow players to purchase them directly from the game thus eliminating all major avenues that currency merchants use to gather currency. What would the impact be on the player base by these changes? This reduces the inflation because it is now regulated by the game rather than being controlled by a few players or currency merchants. It also shifts the game even further to a demand side economic model which is closer to an agrarian or industrial society. This also benefits players who simply wish to be crafters by allowing them several ways to access the resources they require to perform these tasks. It also allows for new types of missions which could be based around supply shortages and embargos on goods. Lastly it allows more flexibility in how assets are managed within the game. Balancing Crafting against Loot Why is crafting part of the economy? Crafting is the foundation for the economy as a whole. It allows players to create items that are in demand by other players. This moves assets through players from their entry point to an exit point of either the consignment house or through players purchasing resources. This is important as the foundation of a functioning economy which gives players who just wish to craft the ability to do so. To achieve this though crafting needs to be equal to the assets that a player can gain through playing through rewards or from looting NPCs. Why crafted assets need to be equal to looted assets? The reason you need player crafted assets and reward and dropped assets need to be equal is without an imbalance in the economy. If there is an imbalance between the two for example dropped items are of great value because of damage or ability bonuses, then this reinforces the hunter gather society because players will seek out these assets rather than crafting them. The object is to get beyond this point to where marketed goods are equal or in some cases better than what a player can gain from rewards or hunted assets. Without this it is better to get rid of money and crafting all together and just devolve to a hunter gather society completely, and have all assets provided by hunting, mission rewards and tokens that can be turned into special vendors within the game. The logic for this is that it removes the reward to the currency seller, who without the ability to turn a profit on the game will leave. How crafting should impact the game? Crafting should impact the game in a fulfilling way that allows the player to feel like they are providing a skill and service to the community as a whole. This means they need to be able to craft items that provide for the needs of other players and turn a small profit at the same time. Crafting should never be an afterthought to a game it needs to be developed as a robust system with its own end game for those players that simple wish to have social interact with other people and to provide goods to those players. At the same time crafting needs to be regulated by the game to limit the impact of those that would seek to abuse this system. A player based economy is a fantasy and will never work. It is far too easily exploited by currency merchants for their own enrichment. For any economy to work correctly rules and regulations are required that all people operating within that economy must abide by. Without these rules the economy will simply inflate until the only solution for players is to ignore it and rely purely on dropped assets and mission rewards or to seek the services of currency merchants. This can be brought under control by including all of the possible crafters in the game and increasing how resources come into the game. With a well regulated economy currency merchants are controlled by restricting the access they have to the assets in the game. This combined with monitoring of transactions between players you will see how assts are being moved in the game and currency merchants and their employs will be reviled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tirshatha Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Wall of text crits you for eleventy-billion damage! Wow, uh...you got a bite sized cliff notes version of this? Even with the warning that was pretty harsh. Rather than try and educate the unwashed masses with a fire hose you should probably try and start with a smaller, more easily read, premise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noesis Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I would be interested in more. Haven't fully read the current, but it looks interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GVBlackmoon Posted December 20, 2011 Author Share Posted December 20, 2011 Wall of text crits you for eleventy-billion damage! Wow, uh...you got a bite sized cliff notes version of this? Even with the warning that was pretty harsh. Rather than try and educate the unwashed masses with a fire hose you should probably try and start with a smaller, more easily read, premise. Would you believe this is the cliff notes version. Basic Games uses a tribal level society which does not require an economy to work. Hunter gathers just go out and hunt and gather what they need. Solution is to use the society of the game rather then the players to regulate the economy. But that doesn't' go into enough detail for how this can be exploited by gold farmers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kasias Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Tank Gud im smart enuf to reed it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GVBlackmoon Posted December 20, 2011 Author Share Posted December 20, 2011 Tank Gud im smart enuf to reed it Lol been working on this a long time and when you get down to it this tends to be hard to explain. and this really is the short form it covers the basics from this it just gets in the mechanics of how to make an economy that is more robust and is driven by the players demand for the items they need and want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beowyf Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 so instead of farming gold, they would be farming resources to sell. 10 deer skin hides $10, 20 bear hides $20. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noesis Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 (edited) So what you're saying is if I go out and gather the mats myself, I'm getting the item for FREE?!No ways batman! More seriously, is this more theoretical ruminations or are there any concrete suggestions nestled in that mass? I still haven't worked up the courage to read it--when the caffeine moves me I'll take a bite. One thing I loved about EVE was the in depth economics and the reports. And space ships.I'm wondering if the fact that crafting is so easy in this game, how the market will play out.Granted, I don't know how much crew missions cost at 300+ but I would imagine it would get spendy if you're running multiple companions. Keep theorizing brave soul!(p.s. econ major here, this stuff is nerd food for me:p) Edited December 20, 2011 by Noesis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GVBlackmoon Posted December 20, 2011 Author Share Posted December 20, 2011 So what you're saying is if I go out and gather the mats myself, I'm getting the item for FREE?! No ways batman! More seriously, is this more theoretical ruminations or are there any concrete suggestions nestled in that mass? I still haven't worked up the courage to read it--when the caffeine moves me I'll take a bite. One thing I loved about EVE was the in depth economics and the reports. And space ships. I'm wondering if the fact that crafting is so easy in this game, how the market will play out. Granted, I don't know how much crew missions cost at 300+ but I would imagine it would get spendy if you're running multiple companions. Keep theorizing brave soul! (p.s. econ major here, this stuff is nerd food for me:p) Free but for the time you put into them this game has a new twist with the mission that give you the crit items costing money but outside of that it is still hunter gather. Yes eve does have a good system and they work at it harder then most games do. I look forward to your feed back I need holes bunch in this to find out where it is weak still but again this is just the first layer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecint Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Well, that was a hefty read for a forum post, but I have to say that I agree with most of the particulars. Game economy is a VERY complicated issue, and yes, it rarely gets the developer attention it deserves. One premise, a game with a healthy economy is, by nature, a healthier game that will have more longevity and provide a more satisfied and happy player base. (Crafters get a market and can run their 'business', non-crafters can get useful items at a reasonable price, everybody wins) I very much enjoyed your tribal vs agrarian/industrial analogy, very accurate, I felt, on several levels. A few points (clarified?) Any game where crafted materials cannot be sold at more than the cost of the materials, is an obviously non-working economy (i.e., I need 10 metal units, at a cost of $100, to create a piece of armor, which I can sell for $50 = broken!). Usually, the nature of crafting in most games is such that one player, working alone, cannot provide themselves with enough raw materials to conduct all the crafting needed. There are too many demands on the time of the player. Solutions I've seen to this are: macro'd/automated resource collection (SWG style), npc merchant materials (DAoC style). Care must be taken on this. Resource collection as a profession itself, so to speak, is a valuable part of an economy, but as you said, there is a large chance for exploitation here. One area that I disagree, at least slightly, was the idea that a consignment merchant (CM) would help control the currency merchants. A small element of their business is clearly setting price controls by having certain employees monitor and make purchases through the Auction House (AH)/CM. It is just as easy for them to control the prices (or at least heavily influence) whether the market be an AH or a CM. The real solution, as you suggested (in part?), lies elsewhere. One area you seemed to skip over was the robustness of the crafted items, in the sense of filling all slots for a character, with a controlled way of generating desired stats. This does not mean using a limited number of preset recipes to provide variety in stat distribution. I firmly believe the crafter themself must be able to decide how much a given stat will be on a given item. For example, that out out of a possible 10 points of stats, the crafter of an item determines that 8 points will be one stat, 2 points of another (and so on). Some limitations, of course, can be applied, varying by item quality (no more than x stats, minimum/maximum values for any given stat, etc.). As a corollary to this, the idea of stat limitations (and thus diversification) can actually be a game economy enhancer, at least for most games. By this I refer to diminishing returns or hard caps for stacking any single stat (str/end/whatever). A second corollary to the robust crafting system is to make it simple enough that the run-of-the-mill player will understand and know, with minimal effort, what a crafter can offer. That knowledge and understanding allows the community to actually seek out the services of crafters. The solution, as you mentioned, is multi-part; some ideas (or bullet points) on the matter... Price/supply controls -No AH/CM price could be above a certain limit (some multiple of the base assigned game value for the item?). -Bring in fixed price resources needed for crafting (much as EVE does with tradeables). -Higher level resources (blue/purple quality) should be available in very limited quantity, except via player sales. Robust and crafter controlled (not random) crafting system. -Crafters able to supply for all slots, with some control over the stats on the gear (or consumable) -Stat caps and/or diversification. -Known crafter capabilities Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kabilos Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I actually enjoyed the read immensely. If you are up for it, I'd definitely like to read the piece in its entirety. Maybe throwing a copy into a google docs? Thank you and keep up the good work. Together we can take down the companies responsible for ruining the game play for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GVBlackmoon Posted December 21, 2011 Author Share Posted December 21, 2011 Thank you for the feed back as for the crafting stuff for this game this was written up as a general overview for all MMOs, and meant I had to go lite in that area. As for the rest of it I will be short free time here in a couple weeks with a new job and will get to it in chunks where I do get into how crafting is handled and how resource should be handled as well as the end game to getting rid of currency merchants. Which most people will scream at but when you get down to it, turns out doing this is the fastest way to undercut them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denisgsv Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 yes i readed only 1 post , and yes i saw some mention eve , so i will add also : A player based economy is a fantasy and will never work. EVE wana have a word with you , it has BEST ecnomy in a mmo absolutly no competion there ,,,, a real economy . You can make a playstyle around it .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sykomyke Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 (edited) The solution, as you mentioned, is multi-part; some ideas (or bullet points) on the matter... Price/supply controls -No AH/CM price could be above a certain limit (some multiple of the base assigned game value for the item?). While in theory that is a good idea, it would just create a glass ceiling for the market price of an item. Essentially all goods would then just be marketed for their maximum allowable value. You create a permanent, non-adjusting level of inflation. Think "Instant inflation" very similar to how our gasoline prices skyrocketed in a relatively short period of time. Now they are stable and not really rising OR falling back down (even though by all statistical analysis they should...but that's a political discussion not for these forums) The other thing about this is that at first the inflation would be so massive it would hurt the "common/casual" crafters/buyers. Eventually as the aggregate income of the user increases these prices become less of a burden, and eventually the price level of the item is trivial. This hurts the economy in the short term (Allowing a few people who can deal with prices to profit from the situation) and then hurts the economy in the long term (price is now trivial, cost cannot increase due to the glass ceiling on item price). End result is that Bioware has to MANUALLY intervene in the economy and either increase the % increase on the cost ceiling OR they have to increase the number of materials required to craft the items. End result either way is bad. -Bring in fixed price resources needed for crafting (much as EVE does with tradeables). -Higher level resources (blue/purple quality) should be available in very limited quantity, except via player sales. I'm not familiar with the EVE model of crafting beyond that it takes months to do As for the second bullet point. Higher level resources are already available in limited quantity. Purple items required for artifact level crafting are fairly rare from what I've seen so I think this is a good thing that is already incorporated into the game. Robust and crafter controlled (not random) crafting system. -Crafters able to supply for all slots, with some control over the stats on the gear (or consumable) -Stat caps and/or diversification. -Known crafter capabilities More or less agree with all these points except for stat caps. Stat caps discourage the crafting system. Also since this game really only utilizes 2 stats for your character, I actually see this causing more harm then anything. Edited December 21, 2011 by Sykomyke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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