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Lost Pages of Taborea: Fixing the economy

Jeremy Stratton — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Economy, Opinion, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic, Lost Pages of Taborea

I've got one more article concerning the current state of Runes of Magic's economy. To round out my trilogy, I'm taking a look at actual fixes to what could be seen as a broken mechanic. If the current inflation is indeed seen as something that is broken and could quickly damage the playability in RoM, then the fixes would likely be band-aids. It would take too long to rework an entire system filled with thousands of items, each affecting the other. The fix would also need to be implemented quickly. That puts some limitations on our speculations. What does the fix need to concentrate on?

The problem seems boil down to the excess amounts of gold that can be hoarded -- hundreds and hundreds of millions can be saved up. It's also possible for high-level, well-geared players to accumulate gold rather quickly. In this week's Lost Pages of Taborea, I want to take a look at gold sinks (including one Frogster is testing), gold-caps, and some other ways to tame the economy.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: Fixing the economy originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: Beating the economy

Jeremy Stratton — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Economy, Opinion, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic, Lost Pages of Taborea

Last week, I expounded on Runes of Magic's current economic situation. Prices are crazier than the obligatory car salesman's, only in reverse. That is to say, prices are extremely high for everything right now. It doesn't stop the game from functioning, but it does put a lot of gear and upgrading tools out of reach for new and free players.

This week in Lost Pages of Taborea, I want to look at a handful of ways that you can continue to enjoy RoM until the storm blows over (if it blows over). Even though prices seem out of hand, you can still get equipped well enough from new quests to start running dungeons. The minigames have been rejuvenated into farming grounds, thanks to the introduction of crimson stats. And even though it is often scoffed at, arena gear is an option for those willing to grind honor points or materials.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: Beating the economy originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Massively Exclusive: ArcheAge's Jake Song on consensual PvP, inflation, and more

Jef Reahard — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Economy, Game mechanics, Interviews, MMO industry, New titles, News items, ArcheAge, Sandbox, Crafting

ArcheAge news has been a bit sporadic of late, and it's also been quite some time since we talked to the devs or took a spin through one of the game's closed beta phases. Like many of you, we're dying to know more about XL Games' forthcoming fantasy sandpark, so we went straight to the source to see if we could drum up anything new.

Lead designer Jake Song was kind enough to field a few of our burning questions, and we're pleased to present you with another Massively ArcheAge exclusive that touches on everything from localization and story to consensual PvP and item decay. Join us after the break for that and more.

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Massively Exclusive: ArcheAge's Jake Song on consensual PvP, inflation, and more originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: State of the economy

Jeremy Stratton — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Economy, Opinion, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic, Lost Pages of Taborea

For months now, it's been no secret that Runes of Magic's economy has been out of whack. I've been sitting on this article, watching and waiting to see what would happen next. The assumption, of course, is that I think something will happen. I keep thinking that Runewaker, Frogster and RoM will align like stars to zap the economy back to its previous state, or that RoM's economy will act like a large, slowly deflating balloon, but nothing's happened for months. That's not to say the something that could happen will never happen. This period of severe inflation is a drop in the bucket compared to the life of the game. But what if the economy stays the way it is?

I've stopped asking questions that pointed and started asking how this new economy makes sense. I don't think anything is more wrong with the economy now than it was before. Prices are higher, much higher, on everything. For some, that's enough of a problem, but is it a problem for the operation of RoM? In this week's Lost Pages of Taborea, follow me down the rabbit hole to see how the weird might actually be normal.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: State of the economy originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Anvil of Crom: Recessions, appearance tabs, and PvP for the returning player

Jef Reahard — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Economy, Game mechanics, Opinion, Free-to-play, The Anvil of Crom

Welcome to the Anvil of Crom, Conan fans. It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks, and all of the announcements, new content, business model changes, and general gameplay shenanigans are only going to generate more Age of Conan discussion as the summer wears on.

This week I'd like to take a brief time out to highlight some worthwhile (and ongoing) community discussions. Every so often it's good to take a bit of a break from my rantings and ravings and hand the microphone to you guys, and what better way to do that than by examining a few of the more interesting forum discussions to be found on both the U.S. and EU boards.

Without further ado, join me after the cut and add your two copper to the comment section.

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The Anvil of Crom: Recessions, appearance tabs, and PvP for the returning player originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Trading platinum for Station Cash items OK with EQII's Georgeson

Jef Reahard — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Economy, News items

EQ2Wire has an interesting tidbit regarding the exchange of platinum (EverQuest II's in-game currency) and items purchased with SOE's Station Cash. With players now able to gift Station Cash items, EQII vets wondered aloud on the game's official boards if trading some of their surplus plat for SC paraphernalia would lead to a ban.

Surprisingly, EQII producer Dave "Smokejumper" Georgeson took a laissez faire approach to the discussion, in effect saying that players are welcome to the trades provided they're not facilitated by any third parties. "We really don't want to put a hard value on platinum to SC conversion rates, so we would probably only step in on this if we thought it was going to cause us legal headaches in the future. So...if kept on the low-down, it'll never cause problems. But if someone put up a website selling items officially with posted conversion rates, I have a feeling that legal might want to step in and stop it to avoid issues. Make sense? Keep it person-to-person and I don't think this will ever be an issue," he wrote.

In addition to the exchange discussion, EQ2Wire's Feldon chimes in with a brief analysis of the game's economy and inflation troubles that's worth a read if you're thinking of heading back to the world of Norrath.

Trading platinum for Station Cash items OK with EQII's Georgeson originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: ISK sinks and faucets

Brendan Drain — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, Game mechanics, PvE, EVE Evolved

In EVE Online's player-run economy, the flow of ISK is a vital concept. While there are many ways to make ISK in EVE, most of them only move it around from one player to another. When you mine ore and sell it on the market, for example, the mining process doesn't introduce any new ISK to the game. Only a few game mechanics can be called ISK faucets, as the game mechanics actually create ISK from thin air. Similarly, the ISK sink mechanics destroy ISK or remove it from the game in some manner.

To the individual player, the difference between something being an ISK faucet or not is largely immaterial. When you sell something on the market for a few million ISK, or get the insurance payout on a lost ship, it doesn't really matter to you where that ISK came from. Where the concept really matters is in discussions on inflation and how the game chooses to reward us in PvE. Are ISK bounties and rewards always a good idea, or could their over-use eventually lead to runaway inflation?

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the various ways in which ISK flows in and out of EVE Online, and why we should care about inflation.

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EVE Evolved: ISK sinks and faucets originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 24 Oct 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Making/Money: Auctioneer Wishlist

Alexis Kassan — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Economy, Making money, Making/Money

WARNING - MATH AHEAD!

A few weeks ago, a reader e-mailed me with questions about some Auctioneer data that they have been collecting. Though the question was regarding trying to determine inflation patterns on their server, it got me to thinking about what Auctioneer actually captures. And what other data points would be most helpful in making evaluations of item pricing or looking into economic trending.

While I'm not about to go through all of Auctioneer's algorithm rules, I would recommend that anyone who uses this mod check them out on Norganna's Wiki. They explain where the recommended prices come from. Basically, it's a comparison of the historical data accumulated from all of your auction house scans and the most recent snapshot data. The market value ends up being either the median of historical or recent data, flavored with the user-set preferences for markup or markdown.

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Making/Money: Auctioneer Wishlist originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Making/Money: MUDflation IG vs. IRL

Alexis Kassan — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: Economy, Expansions, Game mechanics, Patches, Endgame, Making/Money

We have tackled the subject of mudflation tangentially a few times of late. It seems to have suddenly become the economic buzzword of MMOs. We have all experienced it. We have come to expect, if not accept, it as part of the games we love to play. And though Wikipedia, in its infinite wisdom, has dubbed it an in-game only phenomenon, I posit a different approach to looking at this occurrence.

Mudflation is an immediate devaluation of previously owned items due to the gain or release of newly available items. This is not unlike technological advance in that the release of the latest new toy makes all others somewhat obsolete. The differences here are the perceived need for the item, the amount of devaluation, and the time frame in which this occurs.

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Making/Money: MUDflation IG vs. IRL originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RF Online server rollback combats cheaters and 500% inflation

James Egan — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Exploits, RF Online, News items, Free-to-play

RF Online in the Philippines recently had serious issues with dupe hacks, prompting an unannounced rollback of the servers. PlayNoEvil writes that the operator of RF Online for the Philippines, Level Up Games, discovered a dupe exploit and tried to purge it from the servers as well as those who used it. However due to time constraints with unraveling the intricacies of the exploit, the company decided to roll back the game to a point before the exploit was used.

Level Up Games issued a statement on the problem: Based on DB evidence, numbers as well as feedback from the community, the GMs, the Vanguards and also from our field agents, there was an oversupply of in-game currency and gold - as high as 500 %. GMTristan of RF Online Philippines clarified the situation further on his blog:

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RF Online server rollback combats cheaters and 500% inflation originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are tolls the cure for mudflation?

Chris Chester — Sat, 17 May 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Economy, Making money, Endgame, Opinion

A couple weeks ago we introduced Steve Williams' notion of mudflation, its causes, and a general framework for its eradication. On Friday, he posted part two of his three part economic plan, suggesting that the best way to remove currency from the player economy was to replace large money sinks like item repairs with frequent, small, invisible tolls for things like entering a city, using reagents, and changing zones. By making these sorts of things invisible instead of up-front, you can stem the devaluing of your currency without pissing off the players, or so the argument goes.

This blogger is far more fond of having money sinks that yield tangible results. Things like player housing (and the subsequent decorating that goes along with it), guild cities or hang-outs (CoX's Supergroup Base system works quite well), or more types of crafting always seemed to yield better results. Even though the concept of an invisible toll system is really in the players' best interest , we can't imagine the response being anything other than vitriolic. In any case, we're looking forward to act three of Williams' economic treatise to see how he wraps it up.

Are tolls the cure for mudflation? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 17 May 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Curing mudflation before it starts

Chris Chester — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Economy, Game mechanics, Making money, Endgame, Opinion, Academic

For many players, the mysteries of a virtual economy are best left as that -- a mystery. The numbers, the abundance of terminology, it all conspires to create an environment where players generally don't want to know why the economy works, they just know that they'd rather it did than it didn't. Is that really too much to ask?

Steve Williams of Living Worlds proposes some potential solutions for curbing mudflation -- that seemingly unstoppable inflation that occurs at the endgame when players accrue large amounts of currency and the once high price of rare goods comes tumbling down. He proposes that it's actually possible to limit the amount of currency available in the economy by allowing players to use alternative currencies like vendor trash to barter for basic services like armor repairs. It makes sense, since repairs and vendor trash generally exist in limitless supply and don't actually need to be a part of the economy proper. This is only Part One of Williams' proposed system, so we'll have to check back again soon for his full set of ideas.

Curing mudflation before it starts originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 05 May 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Making/Money: Newbs at Auction

Alexis Kassan — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Economy, Crafting, Making money, RuneScape, Making/Money

... And we're not talking about selling accounts on eBay.

One of the most frustrating aspects of being a new player in an established game, to my mind, is the cost of start-up crafting materials. Hit up any public market area, auction house, trade square or similar as a newbie and you will see what I mean. Even low-level items of any use (i.e. not vendor trash) are sold for seemingly absurd amounts given the time that would be required at early levels in order to generate the money. It can make the start of a new character infuriating and the game too taxing (pun fully intended) to continue. Why does this happen? What makes these things so costly? Why can't we all just get along...? (Oh wait, that's another column entirely)

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Making/Money: Newbs at Auction originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Time is money, friend!

Eliah Hecht — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:51:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Economy, Game mechanics, Opinion, Free-to-play, Browser, Kingdom of Loathing

MMOs have a variety of currencies. WoW, Dungeon Runners, and dozens of other games have gold, EverQuest one-ups that with platinum, Final Fantasy has gil, and EVE Online has ISK. Like real-world economies, MMO economies can exhibit a variety of interesting characteristics, from inflation to deflation to complete death. Inflation in particular seems quite prominent; in my WoW experience, everything has gotten more expensive over time on every server I've played on. More expensive in terms of gold, that is.

Tobold argues that this inflation is, in effect, not real. His thesis is that time is the real currency of MMOs, not gold or ISK or whatever. And with respect to time, most in-game economies undergo deflation, not inflation. While it may cost me twice as much gold to buy a stack of Netherweave now as compared to when the Burning Crusade launched, I make gold five times as fast, so in fact it takes me less than half as long to get the Netherweave as it used to. Low-level characters are better off as well, because there is now more of a market for what they have to sell, so they'll have more gold to put towards items and training.

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Time is money, friend! originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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