Player to Player Focused Economy

[Bonedaf]

Yes I realize an economy fix has been brought up before but hear me out. I did the search to see if there was any like this and I didn't see anything.

So the IG economy is crazy inflated and there doesn't seem to be too much open trading going on. I believe because a lot of it has to do with a focus more on NPC to Player buying/selling. The majority of trading is usually with raw materials - things you can't get from NPCs. Now why don't we do that with nearly everything?

Let's remove the majority of items NPC sell. If a player can make it then an NPC won't sell it. Similarly (and perhaps most importantly) if something can be made/used from that item or if it's a player made item then an NPC won't buy it.  This significantly takes the profit out of a lot of items, because now you need to find someone, a player, to buy it.

This dilemma creates an environment for new characters to come into light. One that isn't strictly a miner/crafter/fighter. He's a merchant, the middle man. Someone who sees all that useless junk people have and searches for another character who needs that material to craft or quest or RP with. It forces players to interact with players and not NPCs.

I think this will go along nicely as things develop: as more and more items are found around the world rather than only from NPCs (creating another character type as the scavenger/forager) and making more uses for items by the player. This will encourage players to specialize their characters rather than have them do everything, as it will be harder and harder to do everything. If they can no longer buy all their ingredients then they will have to hire someone to do it or do it themselves. They cannot simply purchase hundreds of health potions extremely cheap from on NPC, they'll have to interact and rely on other players, making it truly an MMO experience.

Lastly, I think this will even out the economy a bit more and lower inflation (although it won't eliminate it). As prices for goods and materials will change based of supply and demand rather than stay stagnant as the NPC sells them. Such as health potions or cooking ingredients. And when we start seeing more of a use/benefit (buff/debuffs?) for food items and such those will also be a market that becomes available/more profitable.

Now these changes won't happen over night. In fact it will prob be a bit outlandish at first because players will simply not care for objects unless they directly can use them. But I believe after a while tria savings will drain from more experienced players and newer players will need many items (armor, weapons, etc.) leaving markets open and profitability in those areas. This will also give use to lower/middle quality items. As not everyone will be able to afford or need q300 at that moment so they will settle for something cheaper. So crafters that aren't maxed out yet can still see some funds their way for their work and to improve their trade.

Thoughts? Am I on to something or is there something I completely overlooked that just makes this silly?

[Illysia]

It is a nice idea in theory but on this one I gotta disagree. NPCs used to sell much less and I really prefer being able to buy a wide variety from them. If nothing else, this fills the void that things like low player count and not available characters leave. This way you can always get what you need without, necessarily, having to specialize in everything yourself to cover any uncovered bases, which is kinda what happened before. And I think everyone prefers ease of tria to struggling for it. It has freed people up from some of the grind since they OOCly have what they need. Really though, it's just been my observation that trying to get mechanics to force things that should be done through RP doesn't necessarily end well.

What you are really looking for is players to step up on the RP aspect and RP specializations and fill market niches. That will take time to happen, but the first step is to increase RP. My character Danao makes jewelry out of things like bone and carapace, it's a niche even within the jewelry market, but that doesn't mean much if he rarely interacts with enough other characters who find a need for that and not every interaction he manages will be "Hi, need jewelry?". I believe the amount of interactions between characters needs to go up, then more people will return to depending on each other to fill niches like used to happen in times past.

[tman]

I get the idea but the method is far too extreme.  Having NPCs refuse to buy player made items takes a lot of the incentive out of certain crafts.

Why?  Because, in PS people do crafting for two reasons: to get better at it, and/or to make a profit.  But the problem is, the number of items you need to craft to level up is FAR more than the number of items the player base is ready or able to use.  Trust me on this.  I have an alchemist character who has stacks and stacks of potions in storage which I have tried selling, but nobody's buying.  I had another character who tried blacksmithing, but for the early levels there were no customers because nobody wants to buy low to medium quality weapons when other players are churning out 300q weapons all the time.  There just aren't enough players around to want to buy all the crafted goods.  Also for weapons and armor, most people only need one and they're set for a long time.  So demand is very low because everyone who needs good gear already has some.

And if you can't sell your goods to NPCs, and players don't want them, you're stuck with a crapload of useless junk.  What's the point of even practicing your trade at all then?  You're not getting money from selling your product, which means you can't afford to pay other characters for raw materials.  Alchemists and leather workers won't be able to pay hunters for animal parts and hides, so they'll have to either gather those themselves or give up their craft.  Smiths will have to mine their own ores since they won't be able to afford to pay miners.

So, you can see how this actually leads to less interaction between characters, because it makes it the intermediate crafting trades (going from raw material to product) essentially receive no or little pay. 

The one thing I agree with, though, is NPC prices may need adjusting to encourage player trading.  For example, part of the reason nobody is buying player made potions is because NPCs sell greater health/mana potions so cheap.  Why buy high quality potions for 1000 tria when you can buy 50q from NPCs for 200 tria and they work pretty much just as well?  The prices should be adjusted so that it is indicative of how effective the potion actually is.  Right now a 50q greater mana potion restores more than a high quality regular mana potion, even though the latter is 3-4 times more "valuable" according to NPC prices.   If the price was proportional to the amount of mana restored, buying potions from players would be a much more worthwhile.

[Bonedaf]

You both make very good points and I see your logical. Perhaps I didn't think this through entirely and pictured the perfect world scenario too much. I guess PS would have to have hundreds of players on at any given time for this idea to really work.

But like tman said perhaps we ought to think about revising the prices NPC sell things for?

[Illysia]

Perhaps raising prices will help some but at this rate we'll have to eliminate everything below a circle due to rampant inflation.

[Kaerli_Stronwylle]

While the core concept behind this is actually quite sound (look at Eve Online for a functioning implementation of this), it wouldn't work in PS for much because the market itself is so inefficient at putting buyers and sellers together, partly due to the small playerbase and partly due to the inability to share pricing, etal readily. (The bulletin boards wind up turning from gardens of information into practical weed-patches, and word-of-mouth doesn't help much either.)

[Volki]

It could set up an auction house like you see in other MMOs. Would limit player interaction, but I don't think players who would use an auction house are too keen on roleplaying transactions anyway.

[bilbous]

The only reason I buy anything, base ingredients or finish product is because someone seems to be low-level and needs a helping hand. Sometimes that means subsidizing someone with very advanced characters who really should be helping themselves but would prefer to pretend that their characters are unique and that the player is not connected to them.

I do not need the very best enchanted armor that money can buy. I don't need someone to get my ingredients for me. I can make due with whatever I can come up with. Pretty much the only things I buy from npc's are things that cannot be made and are required for making other things.

The player economy has always been overpriced with few people trying to get a fair price. Middlemen do nothing but drive up prices buying stuff selling for a modest profit over npc prices and reselling at two or more times what they paid. They are parasites.

I give far more away than I ever sell as the npcs subsidize the market. If someone asks me to make something for them I usually let them choose how much to pay. If I don't have the materials available I might refuse the commission or more likely put it off. If I can't have the npcs subsidizing my training I just won't bother. And I am not going to have that to do I might as well waste my time elsewhere, which I already do sometimes.

[Rigwyn]

Its kind of hard to have a player driven economy when you have a fist full of players with staggeringly different levels of wealth. I don't see how such an economy could remain balanced. If you had a few *hundred active players, then maybe such a thing could be entertained.

* I just pulled that number out of my ass. I really don't know what a good number would be.

[Illysia]

The game was a lot more fun back when you got upwards of 100 players online at once... I'm sure we can probably agree on that despite the extra friction it caused.

However, I spoke briefly with the player Korenis on the idea he had of a consignment shop for crafters that was run by players. It seemed like a good idea. Maybe someone could talk with him about expanding on that idea. That would allow players to better determine what is in demand and set prices for their goods. Competition might drive down the inflated cost, and people might actually be able to find the goods they need and or want. Maybe even set up specialized shops for basic goods.

[Bonedaf]

What if NPCs acted as middlemen instead of buyers/sellers? I know this is a bit of a different idea but what if you put your items up on "auction" by giving it to a certain npc. Another player could browse the items on auction whenever (even if you were offline) and buy what they need.

This doesn't really encourage interaction or RP with other players but it might smooth over the economy a bit. There would be a lot of issues we'd have to address, like duration of said times being shown there, and I'm not sure if this idea has been brought up before (prob has).

[Illysia]

I have only the faintest memory of it but I think it has come up before. The real issue is finding someone to code for it. PS has limited manpower so the best immediate solutions don't involve new code or new art.

However, once nice idea that, unfortunately, would likely require new code would be to make containers able to lock items but have an interface that would let a player use game mechanics to purchase and item or stacks of items from it. So then players could set up their own containers and turn them into stalls. Then it is the player who decides how long it stays up there.

[Bonedaf]

That does seem to be an interesting idea Illysia. That would allow more player to player interaction but not necessarily limited to those online. I like it.

[Aramara Meibi]

I have only the faintest memory of it but I think it has come up before. The real issue is finding someone to code for it. PS has limited manpower so the best immediate solutions don't involve new code or new art.

However, once nice idea that, unfortunately, would likely require new code would be to make containers able to lock items but have an interface that would let a player use game mechanics to purchase and item or stacks of items from it. So then players could set up their own containers and turn them into stalls. Then it is the player who decides how long it stays up there.

vending machines?

[Illysia]

Almost, but not ones to be left out long after the player is not around since Hydlaa would be littered with them. But the mechanics would work something like that.