How will the economy work?

In a typical virtual economy you must lose things in order for goods to have a stable value. Here's what I mean:

In EVE Online you might sell ships. To assemble them you need raw materials all of which go into making a ship. The ships can be destroyed and lost forever. Therefor you have a guaranteed future need for new ships.

In World of Warcraft no such mechanism existed for non-consumeable items. Hence why items that are rare at the start of a new expansion are worth a fortune but over time become worthless. Blizzard combated this by introducing new content and new "best tier" of good. They were also able to combat it by having an absolutely massive player base. In the end though prices would fall dramatically from where they started.

So, what's the planned mechanism for stabilized prices once people reach the fully developed character stage of the game?

Personally, I'd loved to see a system where after using an item its durability drops. When it hits 0 it breaks and must be repaired to be used again. Repairing it would then lower its its stats and make it worse. This way an economy is created where items eventually need to be replaced just by playing.

It'll also make it a little more rare that someone in the "best gear possible" will be using that gear. As it'll be both expensive to buy AND eventually need to be replaced.

Lastly, I'm not against a full loot pvp environment. The thing to remember is it creates an economy where items you lose are eventually resold back into the world at large. I used to run a GM armor vendor in the pre-trammel days but I never had a smith in those days!

 

Agree, just about everything that your character would use in-game should have a shelf life. This would keep crafters in employment, and actually make them some money.

 

The key to a successful player driven economies is item sinks. The most appropriate of which would be:

Durability loss and destruction
Dropping all your gear upon death to be retrieved (difficult if you faceplant in a dangerous area alone)
Item breakage through failed repair or failed enchantment
The absense of item insurance/binding

Given that Richard is so keen on allowing players to play the primary role of a crafter, I see systems such as these (or of similar effect) to be in the game,

 

I am interested on how trading system will work...

 

The same away every trading system works! I kill you, take your stuff, and sell it back to you at my vendor!

Seriously though, I would like to see how it would work as well. Since we can't guarantee sharing a map will it be mail based?