Anything new to fix the basic economy?

So, I see stuff for updating the economy way at the back of the chain (ultra specialization), but nothing for the base economy (gathering,processing,basic crafting). I can't believe that the part needing the most work is being ignored. Am I missing something in the next few patches that address basic crafting?

 

You may ask the devs to clarify the gathering part of crafting in the release post mortem live video chat. Watch for the link on the homepage and leave a comment there.

 

I just bought a ton of gold ore, copper ore, and tin to make an insane amount of special GM weapon enchanting, GM blade masterworking weapons which I'll be able too sell at a profit fairly easily.

Everyone who mined it made a million gold and everyone who wants good equipment but doesn't want to craft can turn their adventuring gold into the best equipment.

More players and this single scenario will be reproduced many times over... just need patience.

 

Nice! and good luck too! Should get some sweet stuff out of it.

 

That is fine if you are filthy rich. Where is the market for simply refining? Where is the market for base goods? (basic iron sword) You are in the ultra-specialized part, not the basic 99% of where the main part of the economy needs to live.

 

I also expect the economy to only have bursts on game changes.
Think its been brought up too many times though.
Imo its the sheer ability of being able to get, refine, craft and enchance yourself, is what the issue is. Self sustain.
Only reasons stuff sells is someone weighs their time over harvesting. Not skill.
*shrug*.
Devs have been asked numerous times. No real answer ive seen, so im assuming they have the big picture figured out

 

EDIT: long posts suck, so
1st paragraph: what devs have discussed
2nd and 3rd: basic equipment appeal
4th 5th: how they have dealt with basic crafting in the past

Some ideas the devs have talked about are:

Having exceptional refining success produce exceptional components that affect the production process in some way, having your gathering skills further influence your chance of obtaining rare materials, and adding rare recipies that require alot of skill to obtain.

As far as selling a basic iron sword, its the same as not being able to craft an exceptional sword in ultima, you had to burn thru and melt down a hundred "usless" items to get to the stuff other players wanted.

To make basic equipment appealing beyond its low cost, youd have to sell it very near its material cost, because most of anyone who wants basic stuff is looking for enchant fodder, and can likely make it themselves, and would only buy it if it saved time and didnt put them out too much.

In ultima, they eventually gave earning potential to low end stuff in the form of bulk orders.

The devs have also discussed thier desire to add a job board similar to this at some point, but they want to keep as much of the economy between players as possible too

 

Excellent observation in regards to the bursts of player economic activity. I've noticed this too.

 

Damn Sara, you're already at GM Weapon specialization enchanting? Did you have a crazy amount of gold ore saved up prepatch?

 

At what point can you say "Alright, I've earned enough. I don't need to bathe anymore." ?

 

The economy doesn't exist for newer players like myself. I can't afford anything useful or produce anything valuable.

 

That hasn't been developed yet.

Don't get me wrong, there's a market for commodities, but the relationship between high end and low end goods and services has a HUGE gap.

That's not true at all. There are all kinds of things on the low end that people can make and other people will buy (either because they're lazy, super rich, or don't know how to make it themselves). It's partially a population issue, and partially the fact that everyone can do everything if they spend enough time in the game. I believe both of these problems will be fixed over time.

But I'd like to know what it is that you'd like to do in the game that you can't do? Is it a time issue?

 

Like Baron Drocis said, you can gather, refine, and craft..and make some money.

Simple things sell. Salvage some bows, swords, cloth, and leather from bandits and sell just enough to keep money coming in.

Skin, harvest, gather, and save everything you come across. It starts slow. Some people are highly focused on making money, others like myself just enjoy playing and are in no great rush to be the übermost pixel person.

Relax, have fun...that's when you win.

 

I live in a fairly populated town. There's such a huge gap between the haves and have-nots there's literally nothing they can do for each-other. The total lack of specialization kills any need to player-to-player interaction in my limited experience with the game.
I'd like to make some bronze armour, but that ain't happening. There's absolutely 0 demand for the leather that I've produced. There's no way I can afford to buy bronze, tin or copper without spending more-time grinding than it would take for me to get those items directly. There's no need to get them, in any form from someone else. I can mine, refine and craft all on the same character without limitation and there's no quality difference between my ingots and a master-crafters. Ive got a lot of problems with the economy or lack-therof. I'm looking at the daunting amount of time required to grind the materials or gold necessary to get basic items or make any progress in crafting and I'm frankly disgusted. Wurm Online is less of a grind.

I'm sorry but, even WoW's crafting is a little more interesting with the requirement of special gems or rare drops to make special items. This game's crafting consists of grinding, grinding and more grinding.

The best way for me to get bronze plate??? Buy a few COTO and bypass countless hours of mindless grinding. That's messed up IMO.
Crafting could be so much better.

I don't consider interactions with NPCs as participating in the economy.

 

You bring up a lot of great points. I won't argue against much of what you said.

If you want to arbitrarily sell bronze armor and there's no market for that, you have to adjust at some point. I'll be the first to agree that everything in the game should have a purpose, but just because you decide to sell bronze armor doesn't mean people should buy it. I think you understand that, and the real problem is that the economy is player driven but we have a low population and the need for items like bronze armor isn't there, which is predominately a byproduct of either a poor design or an incomplete implementation of that design. I believe it's the latter, which means until then you either find other things to do in the economy that have value or you wait until the implementation is complete.

 

Salvage and sell the scrap, then buy the ore and make what you want. Lack of buyers is more a population issue then a crafting failure. Yes, crafting can and hopefully will be improved upon in time but I believe that once the population goes up there will be a lot more people who don't want to bother crafting at all.

 

I didn't want to sell bronze armour. I wanted to craft it, but I am unable to without massive amounts of mindless grinding. I've tried selling to no avail bows, leather, gold ore.

 

Yep player base is still very small MMO wise because the game is still in Alpha, and the early adopters don't need as much.
I've only been playing 5 months and can basically craft everything myself, and I work 40+ hours a week.
I did find prices high on crap armor at the very beginning though. And it is usually people trying to take advantage of newbies. However, unless you craft like I do, basic equipment is pretty easy to find. And basic gear can be bought of NPCs to carry you through a lot of the game. Just doesn't seem like it. So yeah those of us that craft specialty gear... want it for particular reasons, not because it's a huge advantage. And I sell my good stuff CHEAP... but I'm all the way in Xenos. Razial and Reis Trading Co.

 

Crafting will continue to improve as the basic framework is coded and optimized.

The feedback in this thread helps to keep development on track.


@Baratan are you playing alone? Joining a party? Joining a guild?

@codedragon76 what do you want for the base economy (gathering,processing,basic crafting)?

 

Lack of buyers is more than a population issue. Here is my thought:

1)everyone can make everything due to no skill caps
2)we do not know who sells what and where due to no in game bulletin board system which I prefer over the auction system for the medieval feel of it. This should have work order requests, announcements, and Wanted posters on it.

None of the tweaking is going to fix it.