Game Economy Speculation

[Frank White]

Fuck gas price is Insane . We pay out the ass in Canada.. don't fuck with uo economy

[chumbucket]

Again, it wasn't a suggestion for this shard. Just a random pile of thoughts that seem to fit together.

People getting frustrated would be bad. So probably that alone would make it unworkable. Perhaps a reagent farming/growing system could be put in place to get a non-gold source of those, but even that wouldn't help too much I suspect. People would want a definite reward for killing monsters. Perhaps non-gold loot could be upped?

I was also thinking of this in the context of at most one account of characters, one house per account, and even one character per account maybe.

I'm not sure an alternative currency could develop, since gold can be spent at NPCs and player vendors and nothing else can. There'd be no buyback of house deeds. Obviously, people might buy items in hopes of preserving the gold they are worth, but worth fluctuates for big ticket items even on UOSA so that'd be a gamble.

[Downs]

In before archy posts an offthe wall player ttemplate

[Vhyx]

In before archy posts an offthe wall player ttemplate

25 Camping
12.2 Evaluating Intelligence
100 Carpentry
15 Begging
100 Herding
25 Blacksmithing
67.8 Tinkering
90 Tracking
50 Magery
77 Animal Lore
86 Cooking
52 Alchemy

[Jakob]

I was also thinking of this in the context of at most one account of characters, one house per account, and even one character per account maybe.

Or just one account instead of three? Never got why we would have three accounts.

[archaicsubrosa77]

NEA But you knew that

[Francois424]

Well I played on a shard once back in late 2003 that had a rule of one character per.
Unfortunately it sucks and was nowhere as polished as this one is (quite the jewel it is) so I left quickly.

But beside the "One Account/character only" rules, they also made it so you had a 1500pts cap on skills and 250 on stats. So one character was pretty all you needed, and it was good for mixing 2-3 templates into one. Unfortunately, it had early UO ruleset, so lots of skills would suck. Let's say my character had most usefull craft skills, and could defend against PK rather well.

It was fun having people not hide from their actions behind alts or mules.

Oh and that shard economy sucked balls as well, except for tailoring, 3gp spools of tread rocked.

[testuseraccount]

Chum, you are barking up the wrong tree my friend.

You need to realize that Derrick has this shard specifically aligned to player to player conflict on all levels, in order to maximize the output from the players in the shortest period of time.

That is why there is no larger or expanding GM program, and that is why the events system wasn't fixed, because it provided an outlet for the pent up angst/etc to offload. By allowing systematic abuse of systems clearly not designed to handle such functions, like the stabling, without being balanced by GM's intervention; It is building a requirement of vigilance from players that goes beyond 99% of most player's abilities and into the realm of "need to hire person to look after this full time". It only takes a griefer a few seconds to cause a weeks worth of problems for the rest of the player base, meanwhile someone defending against such things is actually a full time job. And no, doing the same thing as a griefer to prevent griefing, just makes you a griefer and procreates and advances such culture even further.

You want to fix the economy? Make sure things are balanced as they are supposed to, if you aren't willing to do that mechanically; atleast do it in a way that works (and has always worked).

My suggestion: Get rid of every hour saves, revert to 1/2 saves a day, get a cheaper server and pay some people a basic monthly salary to GM. Otherwise, make a separate donation/subscription area for a proper GM programme.

Thanks.

[DrFaustus]

Chum, you are barking up the wrong tree my friend.

You need to realize that Derrick has this shard specifically aligned to player to player conflict on all levels, in order to maximize the output from the players in the shortest period of time.

That is why there is no larger or expanding GM program, and that is why the events system wasn't fixed, because it provided an outlet for the pent up angst/etc to offload. By allowing systematic abuse of systems clearly not designed to handle such functions, like the stabling, without being balanced by GM's intervention; It is building a requirement of vigilance from players that goes beyond 99% of most player's abilities and into the realm of "need to hire person to look after this full time". It only takes a griefer a few seconds to cause a weeks worth of problems for the rest of the player base, meanwhile someone defending against such things is actually a full time job. And no, doing the same thing as a griefer to prevent griefing, just makes you a griefer and procreates and advances such culture even further.

You want to fix the economy? Make sure things are balanced as they are supposed to, if you aren't willing to do that mechanically; atleast do it in a way that works (and has always worked).

My suggestion: Get rid of every hour saves, revert to 1/2 saves a day, get a cheaper server and pay some people a basic monthly salary to GM. Otherwise, make a separate donation/subscription area for a proper GM programme.

Thanks.

D.a.f.u.q.?

[testuseraccount]

Do you know why people like this game faust?

Because it simulates one aspect of real life: Every little action effects everyone else.

Most MMO's try to limit that by providing less risks, so less things affect other people, basic logic for a growing "care bear" culture, no?

They forget that with less risk and less affects, there is less of a game as well: Which effects everyone playing it in a negative way.

There is no way to police or balance a system like "UO" mechanically without breaking it entirely because like the designers said themselves, they never intended for most of this; thus they never saw it coming.

Unless of course you use the same system they did to adapt to it: The GM's.

(If you guys are missing the point, its that GM's will balance the economy by removing the inherent unbalance in the system, thus stabalizing the economy and lessening the growing; unfair control of greifers and macro bot controllers. Even then it won't be perfectly balanced, but atleast it will be better then what we have now.)

[chumbucket]

I wasn't suggesting UOSA adopt anything like this at all. I was just bored at work, and posted this to invite discussion.

[testuseraccount]

I got that chum; but exactly as well, you were barking up the wrong tree :X

Chum at heart, you know I am right. Ever since that big event years ago you started opening your mouth more and becoming more openly helpful to the shard in many ways. The only problem is that you never leveraged your rep fully and tried to actually change things in a small way instead of the real way you really want, deep down. That many of us want.

Instead, you traded your rep and your ideals to act as a petty servant for the shard, and you know; that would of worked great if Derrick were the only one in charge, because you might of gotten to em. But these so called "GMs" at the moment are little more then a shadow of their former selves and have given into the thoughts of decay and bitterness and would never let any real change happen, because it suits them.

He who controls derrick, controls the shard: It would of been better off if derrick were less receptive to people's input. I am guilty of this as well on a personal level, but I am more of a 'muse' who reveals people's true intentions and say it back to them, instead of conjuring my own, albeit at a cost to myself on occasion.

If we can't remove razor or assist programs due to their addictive nature: Then this is the only way to provide a better and balanced experience.

[Budner]

I think you may be over-estimating the power and influence of any single player.

[Duul al'Vath]

2. ... Also, vendors continue to charge to sell wares, but at a set percent, i.e., you pay up front, say, 5% of the total sale price to list an item for sale on a vendor. Vendors thus are still gold sinks and can't be used for gold storage.

Adam Ant's Angel Island shard implemented this idea. He set it up so that you could either use the old system or opt in to the 7% system by use of a deed. I actually liked the 7% system because it made tracking profit margins much easier. It won't do anything 'new' for the economy but I did like the option.

5. NPCs sell non-craftable items, but do not buy anything...

Angel Island also had this instituted. It did work but it mainly forced player interaction in the economy as opposed to a gold sink. Adam's system charged more for resources so that, other than regs, resources were harvested as opposed to store bought.
The population on AI was never very strong and this system might have played some part in that fact. New players were used to being able to sell bows and fancy shirts to make money like they did back in the day.

[Braden]

Obviously, none of this is even close to era accurate, but just for the sake of pondering what would be the outcome of a T2A free server adopting the following policies:

1. A limited amount of gold in the economy, scaled with number of players. Players and their bank contents are deleted after a period of non-use.

2. Additionally, a number of gold sinks are incorporated. In particular, gold in bank boxes is taxed (i.e., moved back into spawning on monsters and t-maps) on a say monthly basis at a rate of 10 to 20% or perhaps progressively depending on total. Also, vendors continue to charge to sell wares, but at a set percent, i.e., you pay up front, say, 5% of the total sale price to list an item for sale on a vendor. Vendors thus are still gold sinks and can't be used for gold storage.

3. Gold cannot be locked down in houses and decays in five minutes on a house floor or in a container in a house. Same with boats. The goal is to keep all gold storage in bank boxes, which are taxable.

4. The world is divided into regions which are allotted a certain percent of the total available gold. And then individual spawn is allotted a percent of that gold. Regions can then be depleted of the existing gold due to overhunting.

5. NPCs sell non-craftable items, but do not buy anything. They take money out of the economy (but back into the general spawn of gold) and do not put gold back into it.

The overall aim is obviously to limit the sort of inflation that every online game ever faces. The obvious downside is that players can't just grind their way to excessive wealth, and what wealth they do have will have a limited shelf life and must be used. But on the other hand that would make a lot more room for player economies since people will be forced to spend gold.

I proposed a set of monetary policies when the shard was still young. All were rejected on the grounds of era accuracy, which was probably the right thing to do. After all, UO itself suffered massive inflation during the day. Gold sinks do not work. Also, controlling the amount of gold released into the economy would not work unless there was an actual conversion between it and another currency, which we also rightfully forbid. Otherwise, people would hoard massive amounts of gold and very few people would end up with it. If there was a conversion system and we controlled the conversion, it would work. It would not work with items.