The economy is horribly inflated

No offense. Not trying to bait. Not trying to make anyone lose their mind. But this exact thing, a controlled economy, has been proven in reality (and in games) to not work.

I suspect that the SotA budget line item for "economist" was either non-existent or severely limited. Games that hire economists to help work the economy are generally successful. That being said, its not an absolute requirement.

They do need to figure out ways to get people to spend more of their gold, and a way to increase the ways people can make money. Mining for profit is woefully boring - gathering mats en masse in this manner is woefully boring. Making things that a) help people level up and b) give higher level crafters things they need so they don't have to do it might be a way to get this to work properly.

 

Maybe some of you folks forgot but one of the things we were told years ago was that specialization was the way they expected the game to go. Gather, Refine, Craft? Probably not top of the line at all three. If you don't have the pattern you need and cannot justify the (exorbitant?) price how about contacting someone to make the constantin ingots you desire. Probably wouldn't cost much more than the mats that you already need anyhow. If you're in a guild, ask around.

 

Sounds pretty inflated to me; thanks for making my point... 1st rule of business: make profit... If it costs you 100,000 in gold to make, and you can only sell it for 25,000 gold, then that's a huge loss... So, what you have are outrageously priced resources (materials), and an economy where no one (players) can afford 25,000 gold for finished products; sounds like a crippled economy... as the OPer said: they're not about to pay 1/2 their savings on 1 recipe... So, that means they wouldn't/couldn't spend 25,000 gold on anything... or the 100,000 gold to make it themselves...

No, I don't see the "balance" at all... So, you're just interested in getting your real $$$ back, so in essence you pay nothing... Like playing this game is just a 2nd source of real $$$ income for you... WoW, that's deep...

It would take me months to get these numbers, I'm not in to "farming" as you say, as I'm sure most players are not, except the overachievers, serious business men/women, etc, etc, etc... I'm not about to turn my entertainment into a 8-5 job, where I mindlessly do the same thing over, and over just to get ahead...

 

So let me get this right, you want to buy stuff, and even though there are the means to make good coin to buy the stuff, you don't want to do those things. Yep, I want to get a helicopter, 67 shelby cobra, mansion to live in with t3 internet, I dont want to work for it though, I just want it handed to me.

 

Its the entitlement generation.

 

None taken, this is just a discussion, right... So, where have controlled economies been tried (real or games)? To my knowledge, they failed because the wealthy wanted to horde their wealth to maintain their power over the ppl... Had that wealth been spread amongst the ppl, things would have been different... The King would not have been beheaded, and revolution never needed...

1st, I think there should be a boycott on selling virtual gold for real $$$...
2nd, no hoarding... If your not going to utilize it, then you can't sit on it... The problem with games is that everything is endless, mine 1 hr to get X amount, mine 2 hrs and get twice that amount, things just keep respawning endlessly... I think there should be "deminiting return" for everything, the more you farm and the more you hoard, the less you get... Loot, gold, ore, whatever, until you take a break and sell your stockpile or use it up doing whatever... You should still get exp and skill gains, but there's already caps to those...

That's a fine plan "on paper", but in practice, it falls on its face pretty quickly, I'm still hoping players will come to their senses...

 

You will never stop players from selling things for money, the devs understand this, hence why they allowed it.

Who cares if players horde or not, sounds to me like you just want to stomp on everyones freedom to do what they want to do.

 

Yes, I don't want to grind, grind, grind 8 hrs/day 5 days/week to afford purchasing overpriced stuff, I'm not a hamster in a wheel spinning away, I'm a slave revolting against the tyranny of the wealthy 1% percenters... My advice is to boycott high prices, and go gather your own... Craft your own stuff, shop for reasonably priced goods, buy when you can afford it... Don't fall for the "Rich man's Tricks".... Look it up on youtube...

 

Then go do that, we are not trying to put rules on your freedom, you just want rules on ours.

 

I didn't say "regulate" as in government control, I said "boycott", there's a difference... I advise anyone NOT to purchase virtual goods from private parties, Buyer Beware...

Hoarding is bad for the game, mainly if you sit on 20 million gold and don't do anything constructive with it... and I don't mean spending it to feed te inflated economy, that's what got us here in the 1st place... So, maybe they should "regulate" it with a cap or diminishing return... I explained it earlier...

 

Who cares if they want to horde coin, if thats what they want to do, why does it bother you so much.

 

Ah, but you are by pricing me out of the game... That's not freedom...

 

Hi, First post. But i've been lurking the forums for quite a while. This topic interests me so i will share some thoughts about the economy. First of all, i've played numerous mmorpg's since i started playing UO back in the days. All games i've played so far have their own challenges concerning the economy.



I think the issue is not about the pricing of virtual goods really. People can set whatever prices they want. In this game as in any other similar games, my experience is that the prices on crafted items, mined materials or looted items is set by the seller mostly by ad hoc methods. Normally a seller would set a price depending on two things.



One, the seller needs gold in order to pursue other higher prices items, so he sets the prices relatively low. Two, the seller sets a high price in order to either lure a buyer into thinking the item is special in some way, or the seller have no idea what a fair price would be. The whole point of putting out an item for sale, is of course the actual sale. However, this is actually pretty hard, especially in Sota i think.



The main problem in this game, is that it's almost impossible to be an educated buyer or seller. But this i mean that since there are no help from the game in evaluating the price of an item, the buyer is on his own, and since there are no way of knowing when and where an item is on the market without actually browsing all vendors the process of becoming an educated is actually a huge quest in it itself.



I think there is actually several easy fixes for this. And i don't think that a controlled economy is one of the. I'm all for a free market.



The first fix, would be to add information about the average price to an item that you put up for sale. That should be an easy fix for the developers. The average price would help a seller a lot. It would also help the buyer evaluate a potential purchase. The average price could be divided into locations, so a buyer could see the average price for a sword in Owl's Nest for instance. If i'm not happy with the price, i could travel to another location to see if the a better deal is available elsewhere. That way the element of local markets would still be in play.



Another addon to help control prices could be the introduction of Brands. For instance if i specialize in manufacturing plate armour, i should be allowed to name a brand to my product line. Guilds could perhaps have the options also. This would mean that if a high profiled crafter could create his own brand. Or a Guild could do the same. The brand would become attached with people's opinions. So if a player would want to equip the equivalent of Gucci armor. The Buyer would likely have to pay a higher price, compared to a no brand armor. The chance for creating a brand should be pretty hard to achieve of course.



I think that with relatively small measures, Sota developers could further enhance the dynamics of the economy. Without having to resort to controlled prices.

 

How, I have 300k to my name right now, I dont horde coin.

 

I have 201699...

 

I like this idea, bravo...

 

Might be difficult to get an average price on a 3/2 bronze sword with 16.2 thrust, 16.7 double slash, 17.2 rend, 6.2 strength, and 31.4 health though... especially if it has a messer pattern on it.

Could ask that Portalarium hire an economist... @ a dev...

 

The only thing I have to add to this thread is that the value of something is what it actually sells for, not what the seller is asking for.

 

I care because unlimited wealth breeds inflation, I've noticed the wealthy player doesn't care about pricing, so they will pay anything that's advertised, they just want it, so bad and they can afford any price and don't care about value or the health of the economy... I don't want to see this economy turn into another UO fiasco where a smith hammer cost 1.5 million and breaks after 10 uses, and gives you nearly zero % chance to improve an item...

And I've got 180,000 +/- if I were to start buying my mats, the gold would go quickly...

I have my own formula, but it's hard to get the costs down into the profitable area, I don't even think I break even... The items don't sell for much more though... to players...

 

I always pay on the low end, I do not buy high priced stuff, just ask all the ore sellers I buy from.