Time to talk about economy!

Other PvPers. And Thieves.

Kind of. And most of the PvPers will be willing to pay for that "best stuff", by using those "vast resources". Those that don't will suffer. This creates a Supply-Demand loop that actually creates a market for the goods made by Crafters.

Not really. They'll be like the "rares" in UO, driving up rarity and thus prices. Market forces should correct this, given time.

You raise a very valid point there. But its impact is likely to be more limited.

Cartels can drive up prices, by increasing rarity. But the downside is that they create a cash crunch for Cartel members, by making their resources il-liquid. At some point, the Cartels always crack, as OPEC did with the recent drop in Crude Oil. The trick is to ensure that there is some "shiny" out there that the Cartel members want more than fraternity. Remember: Cartel members are, by their very nature, competitors.

I contend that it WILL happen. In fact, I'll bet anyone a Day's Pay (my one day vs. theirs) that it will, within the first year of GoLive. We need to accept this, to some degree.

The questions are: 1) When?; 2) What will be the long-term impact? As always, it's 10% what happens; 90% what you do with it. This is precisely why I started the thread on Bubbles and Ponzi Schemes. This is why I support Lord Blackstone's POT currencies, to allow for market-based corrections to the inevitable.

I see your concern. And it has validity. However, Chris envisions PvP-oriented Gatherers (like Tahru) to foray into the PvP zones. Not peaceful Crafters. In fact, it's the "quests" created by the demand of the Crafters that may drive PvP Gatherers (and Thieves ) into those regions. Now you have a more balanced environment, that actually creates a better simulation of the Risk/Reward scenarios found in pre-Modern times.

I hope that this eases some of your concerns. I doubt it will be perfect. Especially pre-launch. But I think it will be good. And I really like the trajectory. I hope that you will too.

 

I like it, thanks Chris...

 

I like the idea of making coins from metal mined in the game, npc vendors would have to get there coin from other players as well for this to work however, heck, if done right npc vendors wouldn't even be nessicary.

 

You & Abj are asking very valid questions of such a system. My (speculative) answers are twofold:

• The value of any currency is always primarily been based on two factors: Rarity and Faith. Gold has been a traditional medium of exchange because it is rare, easy to work with, and (post-Archimedes) easy to ensure it's measurement. The USD is the current international standard because of its use by Wall Street and the US Government's willingness to back it up, with military force (if needed).

• You're right. This could cause large groups of players to suffer. In the short-term. For this reason, I agree that Portalarlium needs to maintain master controls of all currency. We trust them to manage your inventory. Why not trust them with our POT currency?

I believe, the Reward of greater Dev control over the Virtual Economy far outweighs the Risk of short-term player discomfort, for those that invest heavily in POT currency.

 

And Copper coins would likely be the least valuable, because Copper is plentiful. Supply-Demand.

 

I am sorry, but am not a fan of this. I am a fan of KISS. (Keep it Simple Stupid) The more gears in a contraption, the more oil to lube and the more to go wrong.

 

Thanks for the interesting post, Chris.
Unfortunately I am so bad at real-world economy that I won't even try to comment about the in-game one

 

So you want an economic crisis, you want PvP to exert economic control/manipulations. Thank you for making our point. You see it as good and we do not. I do not imagine too many people want that crisis to occur especially Portalarium as it has sunk many a game.

 

The notion that custom currency can have it's own value against any other currency is entirely unfeasible. First, there is no way for a game to measure faith in a currency.

Now consider this. Let's say we have 100,000 people playing the game. (I personally expect a lot more than that but it's a nice number). Now let's say we have a town that has 100 residents. How much custom coin would crafters have to mint in order for that currency to be competitive in a market with 100,000 players? Now consider for this example that out of those 100 residents.. 10 are crafters with the skills to mint coin for their town. How long would it take them to mint enough coin that it has value and is accepted by the 99,900 other players as useful currency?

 

No, I don't WANT a crisis. I assert that they are inevitable in a virtual economy. Or any economy, for that matter.

As to whether crisis' are "good": They are neither "good" nor "evil". They simply are.

Quick story:

• My former company was one of those that was crushed by the 2008-9 "Great Recession" (it was really a Depression, but whatever). It sucked. I watched it hurt a lot of people, including my friends and family.
  
  But the world still turns. Most of use have recovered. Some haven't. It was tragic. But it wasn't "bad" or "evil". It just was. (Although a lot of immoral people made the Crisis vastly worse, and they deserve to be punished for their misbehavior. The fact that they haven't is a disgrace.)

 

Sure there is. It's called an Exchange Rate.

Fair question. Here's my response:

• The number itself is irrelevant. If the number is low, then the scarcity is high. If the product (coins) consumes a lot of time and/or resources, this will also drive up scarcity. What matters is the value that players assign to said product, when exchanging goods and services.

About 300AD - 1200AD, the Byzant was the "gold standard" of currency in Europe, the Middle East and Western Asia. It was thus because a) they produced high quality coins that were of (mostly) equal weight and alloy mix, and b) Byzantium was the strongest trading empire in the region, with a powerful military to back it up. When their military started to decay, people questioned the currency. This eventually devalued the Byzant, which created runaway inflation, with weakened trade and the military. And the empire began to slowly implode.

Currency is simply a means to an end. A medium of trade. It is only ever worth what we think it is. Which, BTW, is why I offered a bet based on "a day's pay". Because that ensures that I put as much effort and risk into the bet as anyone else, regardless of how much $$$ we make on a paycheck.

EDIT: Explaining the bet.

 

That would depend on the value of the coin. If it costs 50k gold for one coin it wouldn't matter. What if a player owned town only sold rares in their currency. Equivalently tying it to the rares market which is what Chris was really discussing when he talked about Hyper inflation and barter system in UO. Think more along the lines of buying a bond or higher level asset. It wouldnt be necessary to compete with gold on a purchasing power level. But if you wanted to buy 100k ingots for 10 gold each you could trade 50 Bowen coins(20kg each) rather than 1 Million gold.

 

I have faith that portalarium sees we do not need an exchange rate, a stock market, multiple currencies, or an auction house. In my honest opinion it leaves to much to go wrong.

 

is gold going to have a weight in game?

 

This stuff would be player driven and the risk is implied. Already have people deciding on who can live where and can boot them anytime they want. Thats a risk.

 

" Is gold going to have weight"

Didn't mean to quote myself.

Thats a good question and why I think the horse isnt completely beaten at this point. Has this been discussed?

 

Well, I was never as much a KISS fan. But, please keep in mind that an alternative currency already exists for SotA. And it's out of the control of you, me, or Portalarium.

It's called the US Dollar. And folks are making exchanges in it for in game benefit now.

I support alternative in-game currencies to try to bring some of that back under the control of Portalarium. They can't ever recapture it all. But they can try.

 

we are talking about in game economy not fiat money.

 

I do not know.

 

What's the difference?

No, seriously, what is the difference?

If there are people out there willing to set an exchange rate of USD to SotA Gold, then the USD has become a defacto in-game currency. I don't like this. But it's the way that (almost) every MMO currency has existed to date.

I simply advocate that we support Portalarium in having as much in-game control as possible. That will help us to have a more healthy game, hopefully for a long time.