How would you balance the economy?

[valeria]

I'm pretty much with 7DV.  If things aged and wore out more often, replacing them would suck up a lot of what I consider the floating money.

The only thing I'd argue with him about is the wood thing.  Wood, when properly cared for, lasts a really long time in low-humidity environments.  Like the desert.  I'd only have it decrease on use.

[bardlyone]

Yeah, doesn't it typically petrify, in the desert?

[Delirium]

I would standardize everything first. The costs of raw materials and finished materials would be balanced out, including factors such as production time, production value, rarity, and societal status. Crafting times, materials and tools involved, etc. Lots of excel work. I would have everything fixed and making sense in excel before I even began to touch the database.

Raw materials would be fixed first, and then finished goods in the next few waves.

I would overhaul the shopkeeps next. They buy limitless items, VNPC sales increase, but prices overall are lower for common goods and higher for luxury materials. Prices go down a percentage based on how many items they have in stock, but as long as they have the coin they will always buy. They will most likely have the coin because VNPC sales are high to reflect the actual bustle of business in the markets. Grebbers and hunters would almost always be able to sell what they find, but they would not make nearly as much profit. That would be okay because food and water would be more sensibly priced. Ale would never be more than 3 coins. A shot of whisky would be around 3-5.

Apartment rents decrease slightly in cost and gain the ability to include up to 5 coded PCs, with the implication that you could have a virtual family as large as you want in there.

Clan salaries would remain where they are to reflect their luxury status.

Then we go back to those excel spreadsheets and start on crafting recipes. Everything. EVERYTHING. Should be craftable.

The most important things would be to push back on feature/price creep, add more lower end but attractive common items, and limit the prevalence of silky black braies.

Once the actual influx and outflow of money made more sense, then we can start on things like wear and tear.

[Mordiggian]

I'm not qualified to comment on most of those suggestions but the crafting recipe thing is something we are working on. It's not something with any dates or deadlines because there are tens of thousands of items in the database and everyone would much rather do fun things with the players they oversee than do data entry all day. There are also code limitations that limit how fast we can implement recipes.

[Delirium]

Perhaps something those shiny new builders could get set up to do. Just have a full staff member review it and hit the okay button after they've built it.

[Synthesis]

I'm not too sure I'd do anything to the actual economy. I mean, nothing to vendors, banks, etc.

But I would create code so that everything wore out. Almost everything, that is.

All foot-wear and clothing, including packs, belts, etc, on a room-counter adjusted by quality and material. Repaired clothing would bear the repaired flag. Packs which were allowed to go to the farthest reachs of wear would become unusable. Sandstorms, by the way, would alter the room-counter a lot. You might go into a blinding storm with new clothes and come out of it with most of your new, unflagged gear now tattered.

All weapons, on a hit counter, obviously determined by quality. Only some weapons could be repaired - those that were would bear the repaired flag. I'd also add sharpening kits to repair edged weapons. Blunt weapons would generally not be repairable.

All armo ... wait, that's fine. I'm good with this. Also, add a room-counter.

All food would go bad, based on a IC-time counter. Raw food would go bad far faster. Dried food and nuts would remain good for the longest.

All liquid would evaporate on an IC-time counter.

All mounts would age and die.

All wagons would require repair via the wagon-crafting skill, based on a room-counter. Walla, use for wagon parts AND the skill.

All pet objects would age and die, based on an IC-time counter.

All hides would have to be tanned within an IC week, or spoil. This mirrors RL by the way, but is way more lenient. 'Tool' required for tanning hides? Salt, or brains. This is also a mirror of a real method, and the one most likely to be used by our Zalanthans.

Wood would rot, based on an IC-timer AND usage-timer. So your chair would eventually break a leg and you'd need to go buy another.

Jewlery would become dull, and require a polishing kit to return to an un-flagged status.

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but you get the idea. Simply by eliminating anything that lasts forever, you create a giant money sink and you allow people to visually see the harshness of the world. You create business for everyone, and uses for things previously considered flavor.

Oh, and anything on your person when you logged out would have the counter stopped. It would be silly to have a newbs clothes go to tattered status because he stopped playing for a couple of IC years, or his food to go bad while he's off-line.

All of that sounds incredibly boring.

It's the RPG equivalent of like...doing your fucking laundry.  If I wanted to do my laundry, I'd go do my laundry, not log in to the game.

[Delirium]

We would definitely want to keep in mind virtual realities and gameplay balance. Falling too much on the hardcoded side of things would get mindnumbingly dull, I agree.

[Desertman]

Decomposing food and cooking strategies and recipes to help preserve it would be awesome. (A better use for salt anyone? Using fires to codedly smoke food etc....)

Edged weapons getting a "dull" tag over time and kits to codedly sharpen them back up would be awesome. (Letting get too dull and go beyond dull for extended periods would then threaten breakage etc...)

Wagons needing maintenance would be pretty awesome. We would finally have a use for the wagon making skill, which right now is in game seemingly to just to irritate merchants who will never be able to actually do anything with it.

Jewelers being able to take the "dull" tag off of jewelry would be pretty sweet.

Basically most of what 7DV posted.

(Not down with the wood rot on furniture though or liquids inside containers evaporating. Just seems like a huge pain.)

[Beethoven]

I love a lot of 7DV's ideas, but I am afraid that a lot of people will be tempted to grab their perishables and log out with them in order to keep them from going bad.

[Desertman]

I love a lot of 7DV's ideas, but I am afraid that a lot of people will be tempted to grab their perishables and log out with them in order to keep them from going bad.

Ahahah. Watching them do this while hidden makes this worth it as a stand alone feature in its self.

[Barsook]

I love a lot of 7DV's ideas, but I am afraid that a lot of people will be tempted to grab their perishables and log out with them in order to keep them from going bad.

Then maybe have a in-game timer that ticks off while they are logged off.

[Delirium]

Who says they're not out doing what they always do virtually while logged off so the meat is actually the stuff they just virtually hunted yesterday while their player was at work?

I like to think that in general your PC putters along breaking even while you're not around to guide them toward exceptionality.

[Barsook]

Who says they're not out doing what they always do virtually while logged off so the meat is actually the stuff they just virtually hunted yesterday while their player was at work?

Good point.

[Beethoven]

I think the counter should definitely not tick down while people are logged off, because that would punish the casual players. But...I can definitely imagine people deliberately gathering everything they own that degrades until their encumbrance is unbelievably heavy before quitting out.

[Delirium]

a) staff can slap wrists when/if they notice it

b) who cares? a single PC can only carry so much.

[Beethoven]

I'm sorry, I hope I wasn't coming off annoying or nitpicky. I was just pointing out a potential abuse concern. I still really love the idea and don't think it seems like doing laundry.

[Alesan]

stuff

All of that sounds incredibly boring.

It's the RPG equivalent of like...doing your fucking laundry.  If I wanted to do my laundry, I'd go do my laundry, not log in to the game.

I agree more things should wear down. But all of that stuff combined really does sound like Real Life Simulator and we come here to play a game. I don't mind handwaving some of the more tedious bullshit in favor of doing more fun things.

[burble]

Synthesis is spot on.
I can see the tavern sitters now..clothes and backpacks rotting off because they couldn't get out to greb for salt due to the storms.

Is the goal to force people to spend all their online time making sid?

My thoughts go to a long-lived ranger with an apartment in Nak. Having enough sid to keep that place took a lot of work.
I kept track and 40% of the attempts at making arrows failed (that's with tools in both hands, on both feet and one up his nose). So figure, a dangerous trip north to get wood, greb for shards, get back to Nak, buy feathers, make arrows. Then go kill something to sell for serious sid.

That's a significant investment of time and effort.

Factor in making sure you have enough sid for water/rent for when you don't have a block of time to go hunting/grebbing or even logon and then 5-10K in Nenyuk doesn't seem like "rich" to me. I don't see anything wrong with making enough sid to not have to logon and greb/hunt/work every RL day just to have an apartment in a game. I can remember going through something like 2500 sid before having time to login and properly make sid one time.

Adding more drudgery to the game is a problem, not a solution.

So what are you trying to accomplish?

Keep fancy items out of players hands? Don't make them craftable by indies. Don't sell them to indies.
Don't like indies getting nice apartments? Only let the good ones be rented if a Templar or Noble recommends you. Don't let certain classes rent there anyways - merchants only or something. (let rangers have something halfway decent in case I ever play in Nak again though).
Indies flaunting wealth? Part of that is your pickpockets and burglars aren't doing their jobs. Make it easy, code the clerk at Nenyuk to take bribes and tell you the names and apartments of the five wealthiest indies in the city.
If you feel like the world is too safe for grebbers - put some nasties out there. Maybe then they'd have to hire escorts (not those, the other escorts).
Let the Templars appoint tax collectors. Have them run around assessing taxes on the spot (they get to keep 50% of what they haul in). That would teach people not to look like they have plenty of sid. Or you could have the water tax dudes at the gates tax everything for indies. (not in a clan = extra tax)
Hell, if indies really bother you that much, force people to choose a clan when they create a character.

I don't think the economy is a problem. But, I don't see a problem if someone spends all their game time sticking imaginary sid in an imaginary bank. At the end of the day, they couldn't do anything with it, it didn't hurt me, and it just didn't matter.

[Kismetic]

[RogueGunslinger]

The economy is fine in that I ignore the economy. Don't care for any of these proposed changes that would make things more tedious and force me to stop ignoring the economy.

[Delirium]

stuff

All of that sounds incredibly boring.

It's the RPG equivalent of like...doing your fucking laundry.  If I wanted to do my laundry, I'd go do my laundry, not log in to the game.

I agree more things should wear down. But all of that stuff combined really does sound like Real Life Simulator and we come here to play a game. I don't mind handwaving some of the more tedious bullshit in favor of doing more fun things.

I think the focus should be on making the economy consistent and somewhat believable (as outlined in my post) rather than on maintenance things that would punish people with low playtimes. Wear and tear for clothing is fine if it happens very, very slowly or in a "direct effect" manner, such as your shirt getting torn when you are clawed by a rantarri.

But before we implement wear and tear, PCs need to be able to tailor clothing to fix/resize it, and armor repair needs to not be so underpowered.

[Barzalene]

That's why I like m suggestions. Almost no coding. Newbies won't starve and people with too much sid will spend it.

[valeria]

I don't want to see clothing rot to nothing.  I just want it to show normal wear after a year of wearing it.  As a bonus, maybe grebbers wouldn't care if their clothing is crap.

I would like to see clothing repair and sizing as something pcs can do before that happens, though. But this is an economy thread, and I think that would help the economy.

[Bast]

Bring food prices to sane level. People would buy them more if a slice of cheese didn't cost 175 coins. Seriously how does anyone not clanned in this city eat? 300 coins for cookie? Are you kidding me?

Maybe with the bank exempt Merchant Houses and Noble employees from withdraw fees charge unaffiliated pcs way more to withdraw or deposit once they account reaches a certain size. Enforce better rp about it. If you are a hunter you should never more than 3k in your bank account at any time ever.   I tend not to let my Aides ever keep more than 5k at any time. Its really not hard to find things to spend it on...its just hard to find things that aren't so ridiculously overly inflated if encourages you to hoard coin.

Better Houses options...On most other muds these days you can do all sorts of cool things with housing. Its a huge money sink, just buying simple tables and chairs..more furnishing options would be a plus. A mud I tried out recently pulled coin out of your bank account to auto pay for feeding animals or servants you could buy. You could build farms which had a yearly upkeep cost as well and actually grow things. I -never- had enough coin in the game. I felt like I was always always struggling for enough coin to eat and feed my chickens with. In that same vein let pcs that have a proper social rank ( the Great/minor Merchant Houses or Nobles) to keep a slave have guards or just an npc servant to stand around the house. It would give Borsail something to sell more often and be something rich pcs could throw money at. Hit their account by x amount of coin each month to afford that npc servant or whatever.

[manonfire]

Return to the gold standard!

#ronpaul2012