Darkfall Economy

[neghsmoke]

The economy is almost always the most important aspect of the game in any decent MMORPG. Some games do it right "like eve-online" with local banks and a buy order / sell order system like the stock market. The benefits of such a system are easily recognizable. You have instantly opened a new way to play the game, being a trader. Find profitable market routes, provide goods in a certain area when something big's going down so people can buy their reagents locally (at an inflated price of course). This is an open invitation for merchants and pirates alike to take to the seas in search of profit (or plunder).

If you look at WOW's universal bank system, you'll see how watered-down or inflated the prices become as farmers take over the economy, and there are no "regions" or limitations to buying / selling distances, so there's almost no work involved. If it actually takes skill and presents risk trying to move goods from one area to a more profitable area, the farmers will either band together and play the game like everyone else, or stick to the "safe" routes, profitting less and reducing overstock "which tends to water down prices"

Another very important part of the economy of an online game, which supports full loot and free pvp, is the balance between time spent equipping your character, and time spent losing this equipment (pvping). If darkfall has done what I hope they have done, it will be ALMOST viable to pvp 24/7 selling the loot you grab as long as you can keep a positive k/d ratio. The better pvp'ers should easily be able to make a living and buy all the necessities (hell maybe even make some cash) by maintaining an extremely high k/d ratio.

The problem with offering a completely free universe is that the economy is so much harder to balance. How do you make it so the absolute best weaponsmith in the game, and the best fisherman in the game can both make similar profits when we know weaponry will be in such higher demand?

I know i've raised a lot of different points, some of which seem almost unrelated, but the most revealing indicator of the success of an MMORPG will be the market economy and how it's implemented. I would love to hear any comments or opinions you have that are related to darkfall's economy, or things you enjoyed that other games' did right in this sector.

[LordTenacious]

You haven't raised any points, because these points were discussed in depth (http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=64880&highlight=Economy)in the last few days (http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=66759&highlight=Economy).

If those threads don't sate your hunger, just search the word "Economy".

[neghsmoke]

LordTenacious perhaps you should put some thought into your reply as I did my post. What I asked (the point of the post) was to bring up positives and negatives of other MMORPG economies which would benefit or hurt the darkfall game as a whole.

[Mwix]

I think they need to stick with the realism they have created. Universal bank accounts kill any sense of realism. Trade routes-- mineral gathering-- these things should be hard to do, and they should be realistic. People who mine ores, or fish-- or skin animals, and build and craft items should be able to really profit.

Allowing people to harvest minerals in safe areas, and then build and bank their goods-- just to travel lightly to a more dense, and dangerous area, open their bank and sell these goods SHOULD NOT be allowed.

[Darkfalz]

A very nice thing that I'm looking forward to is being able to gank farmers. If you see farmers in your area, you could always make friends among the other races... and let them know where said farmers are if you don't want to take the standings hit yourself.

In this way, there will be far less inflation. Hopefully item decay is extremely robust and people will need a steady stream of goods and weapons to keep their towns kicking.

[LordTenacious]

LordTenacious perhaps you should put some thought into your reply as I did my post. What I asked (the point of the post) was to bring up positives and negatives of other MMORPG economies which would benefit or hurt the darkfall game as a whole.
Fuck off and die. There's no point into going into so much as thought as we already have before, you fucking turd. If you had read the god damn threads, people compare this game to other games and also describe their points in detail.

But I guess other people's thoughts aren't good enough for you unless they come specially marked for you.

[Byggin]

The angry dwarf is only stating that this topic has been beat to death in countless threads.

If you search the archived threads you will find quite a few of them that we have compared dfo to many games and yes EVE was in almost all of those threads.

But it doesn't matter much now, economy is done game will go to beta soon.

[Aeros]

I hope certain items aren't outrageously priced, like dye in Guild Wars was, one vial of black dye could cost around 7-8k gold, due to the extremely rare drop rate as opposed to one chest piece of armor (most expensive piece to get) was around 2.5k, so I really hope useless items don't become the most expensive ones in the market.
Also, I hated the fact that farming creeps was the only way to get gold in certain MMO's, so I really hope that gear is costly enough so that pvping and killing people is a profession in which you are able to support yourself financially.

[LordTenacious]

If you search the archived threads you will find quite a few of them that we have compared dfo to many games and yes EVE was in almost all of those threads.

It's not like I linked him threads to go to that covers his points.

Oh wait, I did. That's more than what most people will do around here.

[FaithlessRedeem]

I agree, this economy is sounding like it will be alot better than previous mmo's. Establishing profitable and dependable trade routes is what made every ancient empire sucessful, so it should be the same for an empire building mmo. In the Total War games, economic warfare was always an effective and profitable alternative to charge head long into spears. With DF, the economic raiding will still be pvp so economic warfare shouldn't be "boring" at all. I hope hireed NPC's can take over established trade routes so not all the time in game will be used traveling with a muke train.

-Faithless
Redemption Clan Member

[Toxic Waste]

The angry dwarf is only stating that this topic has been beat to death in countless threads.

If you search the archived threads you will find quite a few of them that we have compared dfo to many games and yes EVE was in almost all of those threads.

But it doesn't matter much now, economy is done game will go to beta soon.

In short your thread is kind of... unwanted? Needless? Pick one.

[Byggin]

Can I choose all of the above?

[Slisk]

Hazzah! A new economy thread... Time to necro some of my responses I gave in the last few days.

Problems forseen in the economy and suggested solutions.
I see 3 kinds of economic problems


1) Inflation. Traditionally ways of controlling inflation include...

a) controlling the money supply ie controlling how much NPC's will pay for your monster loot / resources, how much money monsters have on them etc.

b) Money Sinks. Money sinks are plentiful and obvious in a FFA PvP empire building environment in which everything degrades or can be destroyed. Total war between clans should be an expensive affair and a well balanced game will balance the risk of losing wealth against the strategic advantage of going to war (ie securing more resources, controlling trade routes, eliminating competition etc). btw I like your casino idea

2) Wealth Gap. The power balance that is implicit in level based games flows through to their economic game. High level characters earn more and only trade with other high level characters. This effectively means that lower level characters are entirely unable to partake in the economic game until they reach the "end-game" and even then gear differences introduce another whole level of power stratification and economic isolation. The solution is to make everyone part of the economy through several important steps.

a) Narrow the item and player power gap. This can be achieved by increasing the durability, utility, looks and reliability of higher level items while allowing only modest increases in actual raw power (damage, protection etc). For example a lower level exploding potion should do only slightly less damage than a high level potion. Only it's radius should be a little smaller, and it should have a certain unreliability (ie variable detonation time from throwing from 0-4 seconds etc).
b) Allowing lower level goods to be used for high level products. Such that newbs can still sell on their precursor goods to high level crafters to be used in making higher level goods.

3) The strategic Economic game. Solving inflation and narrowing the wealth gap is well and good, however the game would be boring if all trade happened at a safe centralised universal trading halls. The real economic gameplay will be in finding new markets to buy and sell goods at. Creating a dynamic flow of money and goods based on supply and demand. Factoring in resources and trade into strategic targets for military action. The only way to achieve this is to have localised trading and some level of asymetry of resource allocation.

Also Hazzah for localised item banking. Reasons are self evident and tedium can be minimised by a well designed trading system so restocking servicable gear at a pinch should be cheap and quick.

[Porthios]

Fuck off and die. There's no point into going into so much as thought as we already have before, you fucking turd. If you had read the god damn threads, people compare this game to other games and also describe their points in detail.

But I guess other people's thoughts aren't good enough for you unless they come specially marked for you.Holy fucking shit, calm down. At least he produced a well thought out post, with some good points--even if they have already been brought up before. Those posts you linked him to. There are another 50 made before those. Point is that everything is a repost on these forums anymore. That doesn't make a post inherently bad unless it's damn near a copy of another thread that's on page one of GD.

I'm just happy that that a new guy actually made a decent post with good grammar for a change rather than asking stupid questions that are either unanswerable or easily answered by reading the FAQ.

How do you make it so the absolute best weaponsmith in the game, and the best fisherman in the game can both make similar profits when we know weaponry will be in such higher demand? I think that we still need to know a lot more about the game before we can answer this question. How easy will it be to procure the resources necessary to make a weapon? How long will the entire process take? Will there be options to buy weapons from NPCs in towns?

Suppose that we could only buy common goods from players. Suppose that players require food, and they require weapons. Suppose that weapons are in much higher demand than food (and by that, I mean that weapon making man hours are in higher demand than food gathering man hours). IF there were equal amounts of farms and weapons smiths, and weapons were in higher demand, then the price of weapons would obviously higher than the price of food (by that I mean, that 1 man hour of weapon making would be more valuable than one man hour of farming).

So the farmers look over and think, "Hmm, wtf are we doing farming when there is so much more money to be had weapon making." Then half the farmer rush to the field of weapon making. This large influx of weapon makers shoots the supply of weapons so high, that the price plummets. The weapon supply is so high, in fact, that one man hour of weapon crafting is actually worth less than one man hour of farming.

So the weapon makers look over and think, "Hmm, wtf are we doing weapon crafting when there is so much money to be had farming." So some weapon makers meander over to the profession of farming.

We rinse and repeat, and the value of one man hour on each side fluctuates like a teeter totter trying to find a balance point. Eventually, a balance is found, and the balance is maintained until something changes the demand of either product.

Of course, you're always going to have the cool factor of being a weapon smith, which is going to lead to it being a field that is more competitive, which will always drive the prices down. I mean, it's fun to gather ore near a mine that's being fought over by several clans, and then to rush back home to make a huge arsenal of weapons. I'd much rather do that than sit in one spot all fucking day while casting a pole into the water and retrieving fish.

[Ghostpaw]

I'm just happy that that a new guy actually made a good post for a change rather than asking stupid fucking questions that are either unanswerable or easily answered by reading the FAQ.

It's a nice change of pace.

[Shane]

I really hope that gear is costly enough so that pvping and killing people is a profession in which you are able to support yourself financially.

I'm sure it will depend how good you are at it, just like any job. :)