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The Big Economy Thread

TullyMars

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
This is a perfect example of the type of inflation that the game's economy has undergone.

Saltpeter's price floats using a "commodity trader" algorithm. As players purchase it from the NPC, the NPC raises its price, simulating scarcity. As players sell back to the NPC, it lowers its price, simulating glut. Thus, the price of the item is determined by actual supply and demand.

The alternative to buying saltpeter is to mine it. It can be mined at a rate of 1,000 units or more per hour in a dungeon, with a mediocre luck suit and GM mining skill. It can also be mined at a lower rate from the safety of the deck of a ship. This means it is definitely possible to make gunpowder by investing time instead of gold into it.

The NPC pays 75% of its asking price when buying the commodity item from players. So if they're charging 500gp per unit to sell, they will pay 400gp per unit to buy. So, if you can mine 1,000 saltpeter per hour, that means you can sell it to the NPC and make 400K gold per hour. If you're selling saltpeter, you also have the option of selling directly to other players, undercutting the NPC price, to make more than what the NPC offers.
I take advantage of that all the time. I sell any saltpeter I mine to the npc. Also I constantly find people selling it for less than the npc will buy it for, so I buy them out and make a quick penny.
I also do this for arrows, bolts, and iron ingots. Many of these items you can find selling on player vendors for less than the NPC will pay you. All because people would just buy from the npc for convenience and let the prices go up and up.

I really think many more things should follow this pricing scheme and this could be a great gold sink.

Items this could currently be applied to.
Clothes - those that still do tailor bods just buy cheap clothes to fill their normal bods and turn the bod in hoping for a better bod. Problem is the clothes prices don't change. So for years the tailor npcs have been getting the short end of the stick. Now if clothes were in commodity pricing scheme, the price might rise enough where it would be economical for me to make the item rather than buy it from an npc. As a curious side effect, players would be able to loot these items that are rising in price and sell to a tailor for increased revenue. This could greatly increase the gold potential from lower end monsters.

Leather Armor (including studded and female) - ditto from above.
Metal Armor and Weapons - ditto from above.

I think the crafter npcs should realize noone (or at least very few) actually buy their wares for use and thus get on the bandwagon and make some money for themselves (aka goldsink)

Tools - Many don't spend the time to make tools or buy tools from another player. Sure they have more charges and such, but no one wants the hassle (of making and stocking or selling on a vendor or finding a vendor who keeps stocked etc.) when you can just recall to the npc shop and buy them fairly quickly. If all tools went to commodity pricing perhaps it would become more economical for me to buy a batch of say mortar and pestle from a player tinker rather than just recalling to the alchemist shop and buying 20 of them for 160 gold. Even if I don't change my practices, at least more gold is leaving the economy. And perhaps people buying tools would visit some newer cities looking for cheaper tools.

Reagents - I still haven't made up my mind about this especially with faction vendors and such. But I could still imagine a scenario where reagents were on commodity pricing. The price might rise soo much that it would make it profitable for me to stop and pick up the spawning reagent of the ground lol.

Now if you add in some new items that currently aren't traded on the npc market, then you can have some real interesting things happen with the economy. A vendor that buys colored ingots, orange petals, greater heal potions etc. I believe looking through the spoilers for the latest publish they are looking to implement this but keep it in the player realm. I think this might be a mistake, and I believe this should have been kept in the npc realm. I believe it is the greed of the players and there concepts of what they should get for an item that really screws over the economy. For example people selling blackrock stew on my shard are now selling it for 65k to 100k per shot roughly. I personally sell it for 5k a shot right now on a couple vendors. I think my price is still high and think it should settle in between 400 to 1000 gold. I've been on a mission to get the price lowered on this shard wide and in less than a month have accomplished this somewhat. It used to sell for 250k to 1mill gold. If a npc would buy and sell blackrock stew using the commodity pricing scheme, we could find out what the real value is as the price would be market driven.
 

puni666

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
What's the point of having a quest if you can just plop down the gold to finish it?

It's not really a quest at that point.
For the people that don't want to spend the gold on it or actually enjoy the quests...

Shouldn't matter if it's a repeatable quest right? The more they want to pay to repeat it quickly the more money that's removed and that increases the value of gold. Now if it's a unique one time only quest then yes it should have to be completed the regular way.
 

virtualhabitat

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
best post i read, 100% correct.
A couple of hours ago I was in the process of responding to this post and the post Sixunder is referencing.

I was going to point out that their sentiment seems to be shared by a number of people posting about High Seas.

I was thinking of the algorithm Phoenix described and It occurred to me to run and check the price of the only other NPC that sells saltpeter. The one in Felucca.
Sure enough, the price was a little over 200 gold cheaper per each. I spent the next 45 minutes recalling from a small ship parked in trammel and back to a small ship in felucca buying and selling saltpeter.
I got bored after I profited 1.1 million. I used the profit to buy some saltpeter (at the fel vendor of course).

The price now in trammel is somewhere around 540 gold per each and the price in fel is around 340 per each.

Now, I can be sure that exploiting the algorithm in this way is an unintended consequence. But what are the alternatives?

If I buy saltpeter at 340 gold per each in fel that is still over 10,000 gold for one cannon shot's worth of saltpeter.

If I want to sink an orc ship, or any other ship, I will have to fire the cannon something like 13 or 14 times to scuttle it.

So it would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 130-140k to scuttle a single ship.

*This cost is in saltpeter alone*
add ship repair, cannon repair, and cannon balls for a true total cost.

Is it any wonder that people get the idea that high seas is a waste of time and money?
********************************************************

In my opinion, I really liked my first couple of experiences with High Seas. This guild I joined has about a dozen or more people who really like it too, a few more are interested because they have heard us talking about it the last few days.

I believe the false scarcity created by this price algorithm has driven a large number of people away from High Seas.
*BUT*
Consider the other consumables ruled by the price algorithm.
Bottles, boards, cloth, etc..

Luna seems to consistently have the highest price, obviously because those vendors are most convenient.
Question: Why do these commodities not rise to the level that saltpeter has risen to?

I believe there are a few factors that mitigate the rising prices on these commodities that do not have the same effect on SP.

Let's look at bottles.
Bottles are a heavily consumed commodity, but the prices are kept low because there are countless NPC vendors that sell bottles across multiple facets. When the bottle seller in Luna reaches a threshold of,say, 15 gold per each, a player can easily recall to another town and buy them a little cheaper. Players can keep this up for some time. Some gypsy vendors even reset prices every day.

if the bottles get significantly higher in Luna players can, with very little effort, buy from one vendor in a different city and return to Luna and sell them to the Luna vendor for a modest profit. this further mitigates the price of bottles in Luna.

The demand for Bottles is probably fairly consistent from day to day, week to week. I imagine potions (bottles) are being consumed in great quantities by both gardeners and PvP'ers every day. Many of those empty bottles are not recycled.

*The friction distance for players to manipulate the bottle sellers is low.*

It's easy to hop from one vendor to another buying and selling, or just
buying (shopping for the lowest price).

Now, compare this with saltpeter. There are two vendors. One in trammel, one in Felucca.

Just like Luna, the Trammel vendor will have the obvious higher price because it's in the safe zone (no guard zone on the floating dock in felucca). I imagine there are those who don't even know there is another vendor in Felucca.

As I stated before, I did the vendor trick and bought and sold from the two vendors.
The difference is, there is only one to compare with Trammel. and it is infinitely more cumbersome to shag all the way out to the floating dock every time you want to buy supplies.

Wait, I know you can park a boat there outside the dock. Has anyone seen a parking lot of boats in Felucca? No. There isn't one because boats can be scuttled. In felucca you don't leave a boat out beyond the buoys so you can recall there whenever you want to like you can in Trammel.

You have to sail there.

*The friction distance is much, much higher for players to manipulate saltpeter vendors than it is for the other commodities. *

The lack of NPC's selling it, the friction distance getting to the cheaper vendor, and the incentive for miners to NOT sell back to the NPC so they can maintain a higher price all contribute to saltpeter's inflationary price.

The algorithm should be adjusted or tossed out altogether.
 

Dermott of LS

UOEC Modder
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
...

Owning and operating a ship is just a big waste of time and money.

Just like in real life!
 

TullyMars

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
virtualhabitat,

You have some good points.
With only two vendors, and one much more convenient and safe, saltpeter price jumped fast.
Perhaps this is a flaw but it doesn't necessarily make it a false scarcity.
I am glad an enterprising person made a million on doing the fel-tram thing.
This is not a bad thing because the amount of gold that players spent out of the system to raise the prices outweighs the amount you earned.
What was the original price of saltpeter? 4 gold? so that means in tram 536,000 more saltpeter was bought from the vendor than was sold to the vendor. As long as the price remains above the original price money came out of the system. Now that only amounts to about 144 mill gold out but its a start.
Also as you made your million, you were doing a public service by flattening the difference in prices for others.

Bottle prices are still high in multiple places, with some npc vendors buying them for more than 40 gold each. There are vendors that respawn daily with the 5 gold per bottle original price. By working this difference you can easily get over a quarter mill in an hour. With the right provisioner and alchemist shop runes and an 100% lrc suit and a couple packies, this is a piece of cake.

I think it is the vendor reset, enterprising individuals and the larger amount of npc vendors that keep the price of other commodities sold by npc's low. And perhaps this could even be considered an artificial low and the saltpeter could be considered more of real level price.
 

Mongbat137

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Aww, isn't that nice? We got a meaninglessly tiny nine-figure goldsink, and all they had to do was murder an entire booster in the process. Seriously, they crafted this entire High Seas thing and then took it out and shot it in the head because they actually think someone is going to burn 150k worth of saltpeter (plus everything else) to get 10k gold and maybe some named wine bottles or some garbage like that.

I absolutely defy anyone from EA to post in this thread and defend this crap. As far as I know, no one ever has. This was a developer-created thread, I know you're reading, and I dare you to defend your design.
 
F

FishinFool

Guest
These threads are painful to read as they underscore the lack of knowledge of economics.

The overall economy can still be saved, although it would take some time to run out alot of the problem areas.

First and foremost, Alai's commodity system needs to be removed in its entirety. This was the biggest screw-up since Diabl-UO. It's neck and neck with LRC for the utterly game changing in a negative fashion award. If you don't remember how the old vendor system worked or if you were never exposed to it, I can explain it on request. Oh, and yes LRC needs to be removed as well.

Next up, all of the advanced/superior resources need to be removed from community collection turn-ins. By attaching a point ratio on a valorite ingot in comparison to an iron one, you immediately put an artificial price multiplier in effect. Someone who needs to purchase metal/leather to fill a bod or make a suit of armor should not have their prices set by someone looking to get a new pair of Oakleys or a deco-chair.

POF - history

Insurance is the 800lb gorrila in the corner that no one wants to deal with. Again, my opinion is to remove it - however there would need to be something else available to offset it as this is more of a game play and practicality issue. Perhaps the ability to summon your corpse to a healer/ankh or hell, give the necromancers in Umbra a use - for a fee or for free with a durability hit.

One additional step that can help is a currency reset - with no conversion - platinum or copper since silver is in use for factions, however loot will need an overall pass to change coin drops. Depending on how the loot tables are setup should be fairly straight foreward. Coin drops at a rediculous rate right now and needs to be culled.

All of the fiddling with the supply/demand of the economy over the years has destroyed the value of gold.

One of the things that kept UO's economy moving along so well for so long before was that items would eventually break and need to be replaced.
 

TullyMars

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
These threads are painful to read as they underscore the lack of knowledge of economics.

The overall economy can still be saved, although it would take some time to run out alot of the problem areas.

First and foremost, Alai's commodity system needs to be removed in its entirety. This was the biggest screw-up since Diabl-UO. It's neck and neck with LRC for the utterly game changing in a negative fashion award. If you don't remember how the old vendor system worked or if you were never exposed to it, I can explain it on request. Oh, and yes LRC needs to be removed as well.

Next up, all of the advanced/superior resources need to be removed from community collection turn-ins. By attaching a point ratio on a valorite ingot in comparison to an iron one, you immediately put an artificial price multiplier in effect. Someone who needs to purchase metal/leather to fill a bod or make a suit of armor should not have their prices set by someone looking to get a new pair of Oakleys or a deco-chair.

POF - history

Insurance is the 800lb gorrila in the corner that no one wants to deal with. Again, my opinion is to remove it - however there would need to be something else available to offset it as this is more of a game play and practicality issue. Perhaps the ability to summon your corpse to a healer/ankh or hell, give the necromancers in Umbra a use - for a fee or for free with a durability hit.

One additional step that can help is a currency reset - with no conversion - platinum or copper since silver is in use for factions, however loot will need an overall pass to change coin drops. Depending on how the loot tables are setup should be fairly straight foreward. Coin drops at a rediculous rate right now and needs to be culled.

All of the fiddling with the supply/demand of the economy over the years has destroyed the value of gold.

One of the things that kept UO's economy moving along so well for so long before was that items would eventually break and need to be replaced.
Let stuff break? That is your answer?

I think that might underscore your lack of grasp of economics.

The whole system was/is based on the faucet-sink design.

If an item breaks, I go buy another item, from a player. Gold that is already in the system transfers hands. Sure the item left but what value is that item? All depends on which player you buy the replacement from or what you value the item at or how easily it is replaced or how many of that item exists, etc etc..

I thought we were talking gold here and not value because gold is basic and tangible, we see it go in and we see it transfer hands and then we hope we see it go out.

Needless to say I disagree with you about the commodity system among other things in your post. But I do think your comment, on attaching a point ratio on a valorite ingot in comparison to an iron one putting an artificial price multiplier in effect, provocative and worth exploring.
 

JC the Builder

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
This is a perfect example of the type of inflation that the game's economy has undergone.

Saltpeter's price floats using a "commodity trader" algorithm. As players purchase it from the NPC, the NPC raises its price, simulating scarcity. As players sell back to the NPC, it lowers its price, simulating glut. Thus, the price of the item is determined by actual supply and demand.

The alternative to buying saltpeter is to mine it. It can be mined at a rate of 1,000 units or more per hour in a dungeon, with a mediocre luck suit and GM mining skill. It can also be mined at a lower rate from the safety of the deck of a ship. This means it is definitely possible to make gunpowder by investing time instead of gold into it.

The NPC pays 75% of its asking price when buying the commodity item from players. So if they're charging 500gp per unit to sell, they will pay 400gp per unit to buy. So, if you can mine 1,000 saltpeter per hour, that means you can sell it to the NPC and make 400K gold per hour. If you're selling saltpeter, you also have the option of selling directly to other players, undercutting the NPC price, to make more than what the NPC offers.
That is all well and good until you do the math. At 500 gold for Saltpeter it costs 15,000 gold to fire a heavy cannon one time. I think it takes about 20 shots to destroy a pirate ship, or 300,000 gold. How much loot do you get for that?

This example shows how bad the UO economy is because this resource is not tied artificially to NPC prices.
 

Mongbat137

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
The really hilarious part is that if they put saltpeter vendors on every dock in the game like everyone told them to, none of this would be a problem. It's like they deliberately set out to ruin their own booster.

I shudder in terror at the idea of the hacks who designed this garbage monkeying with the UO economy as a whole.

How to make High Seas economically functional:

1) Saltpeter vendor on every alchemist NPC in UO.

2) Reward for defeating a pirate multiplied by 10. At least.

3) Contents of a high-end t-map in NPC ship holds.
 
F

FishinFool

Guest
Let stuff break? That is your answer?

I think that might underscore your lack of grasp of economics.

The whole system was/is based on the faucet-sink design.

If an item breaks, I go buy another item, from a player. Gold that is already in the system transfers hands. Sure the item left but what value is that item? All depends on which player you buy the replacement from or what you value the item at or how easily it is replaced or how many of that item exists, etc etc..

I thought we were talking gold here and not value because gold is basic and tangible, we see it go in and we see it transfer hands and then we hope we see it go out.

Needless to say I disagree with you about the commodity system among other things in your post. But I do think your comment, on attaching a point ratio on a valorite ingot in comparison to an iron one putting an artificial price multiplier in effect, provocative and worth exploring.
The way things are now, they may as well take the durability stat off everything that has it. Originally, not only did things wear down during use - but they actually lost their usefulness as they became damaged. You had to keep your equipment repaired, which could only be done so many times before it was no longer worthwhile to use.

People had developed a basic understanding that a) equipment was temporary and b) losing a corpse - while not the most convenient thing - wasn't that big of a deal.

Foundations - one thing builds off of another - this was a core mechanic that was effectively disabled/removed from the game.
 

TullyMars

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The really hilarious part is that if they put saltpeter vendors on every dock in the game like everyone told them to, none of this would be a problem. It's like they deliberately set out to ruin their own booster.

I shudder in terror at the idea of the hacks who designed this garbage monkeying with the UO economy as a whole.

How to make High Seas economically functional:

1) Saltpeter vendor on every alchemist NPC in UO.

2) Reward for defeating a pirate multiplied by 10. At least.

3) Contents of a high-end t-map in NPC ship holds.

I think there might be an easier way to fix it. Put a good amount of saltpeter or even charges in each NPC ship hold. That way you put out the initial outlay (lets say 300k to down one ship) and then you earn enough resources and materials to do another. If you just increase the gold, the profit margin would fluctuate depending on the price of saltpeter. With added saltpeter in the ship hold the price would remain static.

This actually reminds me of many of the bods. If you do the math for some you realize by filling it and turning it in, you are losing money.

At one time they had an alchemist on every dock and they were using the reagent pricing method on them.

Anyways, I always thought of pirating as an expensive hobby that you pay to enjoy. I understand some people are more profit driven, but some could care less what they pay for an adventure if they have fun. I personally don't think you have to make money on every adventure and occasionally just do something regardless of the cost. I consider firing a cannon a big gold sink but a failed one as too many people realized it was a gold sink and said "no thanks"
 

TheBlackCobra

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I've only skimmed this thread, but I feel compelled to add my 2 gold (or 2 million, as it may be!)

Whatever you do, remember one key detail:

Not everyone is super rich.

Now, some may say it's easy to be worth millions or billions in a week, and perhaps for them it is, but there are new players (no, honestly, there actually are, I'm married to one myself) who do not have a fortune. There are returning players who maybe left before generating enough money to buy Castle Blackthorn. Whatever fix to the economy is made, this factor needs to be held in mind. If we want UO's playerbase to grow again (and I firmly believe it can, under the right circumstances), we cannot alienate new players with an NPC economy designed to deal with millions in gold casually.

A prime example of this is High Seas - not the gold-sink ship, but the materials involved in outfitting and repairing a ship. Yes, outfitting should be as expensive as it is - it's a turn-off for new players trying it, but it's a good gold sink, and it's not a MAJOR turn off. It's potentially a 1-time payment to outfit a ship.
However, if you go fighting a pirate, and end up having to pay 60k in repairs for a 10k reward... that's not a gold sink. it may sound like one, but practically... people won't keep paying it. It becomes counter-productive to do so.

What we need are ways to limit the gold *entering* the system, first and foremost, and then ways to ease the money out, by "taxing" the rich and giving them something for it. So, how about:

1) Reagents to no longer drop, only be available from vendors. Yes, most people have LRC sets, but that does not effect alchemy, inscription, new players, etc. It's a small sink, but it's a start.

2) More re-usable gold sinks. EA have put in place a RL-gold sink with some of the items on UO Game Codes. It's time to start offering items like that in game, for a fortune. Earrings with a single stat, sold by an NPC vendor for an extreme sum, in the millions. Stats to be things like resistance (maybe a +1 and +3 version of the current ones available on UO Codes).

3) Unique recipe scrolls that sell for millions on NPC vendors. Perhaps that tinker repair kit that's been mentioned by players on and off since the game gained golems.

4) Enhancements to other skills that make people desire to spend money on them. Tents for campers, for example, that appear near the campfire and vanish a second or so after logout. Perhaps usable only in the Tram ruleset if there's an exploit potential in PvP. Sell them on vendors for a high price, and have them cost an amount of money in repairs to upkeep.

These were just some ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure there are flaws with them, but it's my suggestion at least - and my key point remains. Do NOT punish new players with this.
 

Ender76

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I have a bugged character. I can't get a GM response to fix it. I would gladly pay 5mm gold for a response today. Easy gold sink.
 

puni666

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I have a bugged character. I can't get a GM response to fix it. I would gladly pay 5mm gold for a response today. Easy gold sink.
I'm guessing they get paid a bit more than the equivalent to 5 Mil/hour.

I'd say you could pay 15 Mil and that would be fair.


On a different note they could raffle off a unique artifact with special hues that are unobtainable by normal means. Seems to me that if people can just farm items gold is only shifted around not consumed like it was with the raffling of Magencia plots. So I'm assuming that if someone see's a glacial gold artifact or pet hue they're going to go goo goo over it and dump some cash on the possibility of winning a raffle.


Oh another idea ... make fortifying powder obtainable by some other means than price gouging black smiths. I'd gladly deleted 80k gold instead of giving 200k gold to a player for him/her to horde.
 

Orgional Farimir

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I'm guessing they get paid a bit more than the equivalent to 5 Mil/hour.

I'd say you could pay 15 Mil and that would be fair.


On a different note they could raffle off a unique artifact with special hues that are unobtainable by normal means. Seems to me that if people can just farm items gold is only shifted around not consumed like it was with the raffling of Magencia plots. So I'm assuming that if someone see's a glacial gold artifact or pet hue they're going to go goo goo over it and dump some cash on the possibility of winning a raffle.


Oh another idea ... make fortifying powder obtainable by some other means than price gouging black smiths. I'd gladly deleted 80k gold instead of giving 200k gold to a player for him/her to horde.

So you don't want NPC to sell imbuing ingredents, but you want them to sell POF?

What is the difference.
 
U

UOKaiser

Guest
I've only skimmed this thread, but I feel compelled to add my 2 gold (or 2 million, as it may be!)

Whatever you do, remember one key detail:

Not everyone is super rich.

Now, some may say it's easy to be worth millions or billions in a week, and perhaps for them it is, but there are new players (no, honestly, there actually are, I'm married to one myself) who do not have a fortune. There are returning players who maybe left before generating enough money to buy Castle Blackthorn. Whatever fix to the economy is made, this factor needs to be held in mind. If we want UO's playerbase to grow again (and I firmly believe it can, under the right circumstances), we cannot alienate new players with an NPC economy designed to deal with millions in gold casually.

A prime example of this is High Seas - not the gold-sink ship, but the materials involved in outfitting and repairing a ship. Yes, outfitting should be as expensive as it is - it's a turn-off for new players trying it, but it's a good gold sink, and it's not a MAJOR turn off. It's potentially a 1-time payment to outfit a ship.
However, if you go fighting a pirate, and end up having to pay 60k in repairs for a 10k reward... that's not a gold sink. it may sound like one, but practically... people won't keep paying it. It becomes counter-productive to do so.

What we need are ways to limit the gold *entering* the system, first and foremost, and then ways to ease the money out, by "taxing" the rich and giving them something for it. So, how about:

1) Reagents to no longer drop, only be available from vendors. Yes, most people have LRC sets, but that does not effect alchemy, inscription, new players, etc. It's a small sink, but it's a start.

2) More re-usable gold sinks. EA have put in place a RL-gold sink with some of the items on UO Game Codes. It's time to start offering items like that in game, for a fortune. Earrings with a single stat, sold by an NPC vendor for an extreme sum, in the millions. Stats to be things like resistance (maybe a +1 and +3 version of the current ones available on UO Codes).

3) Unique recipe scrolls that sell for millions on NPC vendors. Perhaps that tinker repair kit that's been mentioned by players on and off since the game gained golems.

4) Enhancements to other skills that make people desire to spend money on them. Tents for campers, for example, that appear near the campfire and vanish a second or so after logout. Perhaps usable only in the Tram ruleset if there's an exploit potential in PvP. Sell them on vendors for a high price, and have them cost an amount of money in repairs to upkeep.

These were just some ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure there are flaws with them, but it's my suggestion at least - and my key point remains. Do NOT punish new players with this.
The reason they not super rich is because that part of the game doesnt' interest them. If they were interested then they would make gold because it's very very easy to do so with even a little bit of a brain on there shoulder. Those who were super rich in 1998 if they stoped making gold they be super poor today as they didn't keep up with the inflation. That would be there own fault. They cant complain if there not willing to do the leg work.

New players should not start super rich. They have to work at it like the rest of us. We all started poor and stayed poor for who knows how long. Those who wanted to make gold pursue it and became rich those who didn't care about gold stayed where there are. Everyone chose there path.
 

TheBlackCobra

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The reason they not super rich is because that part of the game doesnt' interest them. If they were interested then they would make gold because it's very very easy to do so with even a little bit of a brain on there shoulder. Those who were super rich in 1998 if they stoped making gold they be super poor today as they didn't keep up with the inflation. That would be there own fault. They cant complain if there not willing to do the leg work.

New players should not start super rich. They have to work at it like the rest of us. We all started poor and stayed poor for who knows how long. Those who wanted to make gold pursue it and became rich those who didn't care about gold stayed where there are. Everyone chose there path.
I didn't say anything about making new players rich... I stated that they are NOT rich, and thus any gold sink that affects new players directly is an inherently bad idea. Since this is a thread about fixing the economy, I'm not sure how you interpret "don't drive away new players" as "give new players a lot of money."

Having recently returned myself, the sheer cost of High Seas was a horrible turn off to the thing that brought me back in the first place. Fixing boats, adding ship combat... and then making it a hobby for the seriously wealthy...

I think the most I've ever had in game was 15 million, got by selling some character transfer tokens I got many years back. One of these days I'll have to find the tricks to making billions, because apparently, I don't have "a little bit of a brain," and spend a lot of time making enough gold to cover EM-generated deaths.
 

Petra Fyde

Peerless Chatterbox
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I wish I had a solution. My feeling is there needs to be something that's:

  • rented with an ongoing upkeep cost
  • of interest to the high rollers, but not really vital to gameplay
  • having no loss other than the unavailability of the resource if payment stops.
So, not extra storage facility, rented accomodation etc.

I don't have a suggestion as to what this facility/resource should be.
 

Haruchai

Seasoned Veteran
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I didn't say anything about making new players rich... I stated that they are NOT rich, and thus any gold sink that affects new players directly is an inherently bad idea. Since this is a thread about fixing the economy, I'm not sure how you interpret "don't drive away new players" as "give new players a lot of money."

Having recently returned myself, the sheer cost of High Seas was a horrible turn off to the thing that brought me back in the first place. Fixing boats, adding ship combat... and then making it a hobby for the seriously wealthy...

I think the most I've ever had in game was 15 million, got by selling some character transfer tokens I got many years back. One of these days I'll have to find the tricks to making billions, because apparently, I don't have "a little bit of a brain," and spend a lot of time making enough gold to cover EM-generated deaths.
You're not alone - though I would also nod in agreement with the previous poster as I have no real interest in making huge amounts of money. My playstyle has always been pre-AoS so by choice, I cannot fight the truly big money monsters.

After a long decline in play time after my guild left, I was drawn back to have a go with High Seas. I decided to mine the necessary ingredients rather than buy due to the above financial status. Phoenix-Mythic may well think he can mine 1,000 saltpeter in an hour if his calculator says so, but that's not my reality - closer to 130-150. (However, I don't mine for much more than an hour a day, and do it manually, plus smelting the ore etc)

One attempt at fighting pirates cured me of any desire to do so again. It's stupidly coded, stupidly expensive, and actually considerably less fun than standing at a bank shovelling my gold directly into the trash can. I find it hard to believe this was designed by someone who plays the game without a Test Centre type cheat code "-make 5m saltpeter".

I have little to offer the general thread, as my perspective is that once you take the decision to make a game "Monty Haul" it is doomed economically. Unless you take the equally radical decision to go back to breakable, uninsurable items and necessary ingredients like reagents (anyone else out there still run a mage with no LRC but a bag of reagents?) - and probably a gold wipe - you cannot stop the spiral of inflation. This latter course would be unpopular with the majority of the player base now used to items, so to do so would kill the game.

My own view is that economy is a function of community, and itemisation of the scale seen in AoS and subsequently (expanded geography too) has led to largely solo play and a failure of community. Without returning to a system where someone needs someone else, the economy is all about things and power (rather akin to modern Western corporate economies, but that's a different discussion altogether :) )

Therefore, as we have seen from Phoenix_Mythic's suggestions, you end up tinkering or making decisions that continue to exclude those of us who cling to an old-style way of playing. That's fine, because it's entirely my choice to play that way, and the majority feels different. But let's not pretend the genie is going back in the bottle.
 

Ahuaeyjnkxs

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I have a solution that was inspired to me that night when a wisp came to me and taught me how to cast armageddon...

Just throwing that in the air... its got to do with factions and dynamic storylines. It would not be too hard to implement.

edit : corrected a terrible spelling mistake ! noone told me ! *offended*
 

puni666

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So you don't want NPC to sell imbuing ingredents, but you want them to sell POF?

What is the difference.
It would make going to the abyss utterly pointless unless you're looking to farm renowned. I think they're looking for ways to keep us using the new features of this game, not make them useless. What kind of monsters do you farm for POF's?
 

Hell's Ironworks

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The NPC pays 75% of its asking price when buying the commodity item from players. So if they're charging 500gp per unit to sell, they will pay 400gp per unit to buy. So, if you can mine 1,000 saltpeter per hour, that means you can sell it to the NPC and make 400K gold per hour. If you're selling saltpeter, you also have the option of selling directly to other players, undercutting the NPC price, to make more than what the NPC offers.
Why would I , as a miner pay vendor fees and wait to sell 1 k saltpeter for 400k when i can just sell them for 390k right away to the npc vendor?

And i doubt that the npc prices for saltpeter are so high because pirating is that popular. lemme give you a hint , academic bookcase , hellhound treat , soon to be ¨rare¨distillery piece...
 
5

5% Luck

Guest
*puts on flame retardant suit*

Do away with LRC! Make people use regs!!!

This will help multiple systems. Factions will actually have a reason for holding towns. Gold will be flying out the game in massive amounts as people will be buying up regs to use. They will also have a cost to gain gold (100gp in regs to kill monster that gives 350 for example). That is just a start. Maybe even raise te price of regs a bit when you do? I think this would be one step in a good direction. Even if you dont do away with LRC. Limit it!!!
This is where I would start!

Now Im not saying as is its a good idea ...

BUT...

IF LRC stayed on the suit but needed charging via reagents or a home-deco/statue/npc that could make it work. If you could hand a new player a suit that is "fully charged" it eliminates the penalty for being a new player at the same time as regaining the sink for veteran players.

Like the reagent statue that spawns regs daily. Instead of that a new statue that when regs(or gold to prevent the need to shop for them) are dropped in it adds a %charge to a suits LRC. If the LRC charge runs out you CANT cast spells at all without arcane clothing or regs themselves scrolls ect.

One charge = one average spell adjusted over time

If a player only cast recall the NPC reagent price for recall is 3+5+5(heh last time I bought regs was 01) or 13 gold per charge. If the player started casting mind blast all day the price per charge for that player would rise.
 

T-Hunt

Sage
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Just use the thiting like chiv books to replace regs for mages/necros/mystics and bring in cost for weaving.

Have it so you can at gold to your canons as charges..

Or even to charge up the telepads..insted of gate scrolls,, but then you need regs and blank scrolls to make them so its up to the person who would rather use gold then buy or make them.

What about 1 mill to insta bond a pet?..or more....
You can also have a donation to help maintane the roads and bridges..sort of renewal tax if people would like to add....

You get a brick with your name saying thank you for building this bridge or road..eye candy stuff.

Add were you can pay to get your race changed...


You have been given alot of things you can do for gold sinks, yet no reply yet from the one who started this Thread...

Its same as ask the DEV,s...are you guys all MIA?
 
W

Wormie

Guest
to make a the market up go up with all the gold out there and make it stable is...

1. lower all gold on monster by 75% .
2. no more gold drop killing a champ monster in fel but in tram keep it like it is .
3. as much as u dont like to but raise the insurance on player items by 50%. there is too much good items out there that can be made with imbuing. should be a price to wear the good stuff .. or other suggestion is match the weight of the item to a gold amount.. example 500 max weight would be 10k gold per piece and 250 weight item is 5k gold
4. also paying for up keep on there houses.
 

Ahuaeyjnkxs

stranger diamond
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hahaha you sound like a facist in the US economical agenda :D

if this was the real world they'd be so happy that you don't understand a bit about how economy is created...

this is really really ironic to me :D
 
L

LoL/Sonoma

Guest
I wish I had a solution. My feeling is there needs to be something that's:

  • rented with an ongoing upkeep cost
  • of interest to the high rollers, but not really vital to gameplay
  • having no loss other than the unavailability of the resource if payment stops.
So, not extra storage facility, rented accomodation etc.

I don't have a suggestion as to what this facility/resource should be.
Housing perhaps. How many people would pay X gold/month for an extra house? Either the devs could restrict the size of the house completely, or add a scaleable payment based on plot size.

Want an extra Small tower? A Million gold a month. A extra castle? 20 million a month (note i just made those figure up on the fly, adjust them in your head to whatever you think would be fair). You could even modify the cost based on if the house is in tram or Fel, etc.

My 2c based on 5 mins thought. =-)

...of course the problem with this is currently they get REAL money from people that want another house =)
 
J

Jhym

Guest
I believe that is arcane clothing, which you notice how few people use it. It has its uses in emergencies but if it was the norm many things would change.
 
J

Jhym

Guest
It makes no sense to destroy the game by artificially removing gold through "taxing" or fees for no return.

I have no issue with adding new gold sinks if there is some weird desire to remove gold from players, but, truthfully, I see no sane purpose to it.

Players buy or sell what they wish for prices or items they want to pay. If I want to buy something for 50 million gold and you want to sell it to me, why in the world does ANYONE have a issue with it (most especially the devs?)


I defy those on this thread to quantitatively show that :

1) gold inflation in the game somehow hurts everyone if they know how to play
2) trading items and materials for huge sums of gold in the game somehow impacts others negatively other than desires/wants/envy
3) "revaluation" of the currency would somehow magically improve everyone's game play, from high end "rich" players to lowly newbies who only have 1K and a dagger -- be specific, HOW does it improve gameplay
4) players only want to pay set prices for everything, with no modification and only small profit possible
5) players do not want to pay the large sums they pay for certain items, they are forced into it because they can't play otherwise.

This is ludicrous.

I have no issue with adding in consumables that are useful or otherwise adding use to current consumables, if we insist on "getting rid of player money" because it's "bad", though I find it completely silly.

If so, why not have LRC based spells be only 75% as powerful as reagents. I GUARANTEE that players would almost immediately switch to reagents for most pvp and higher end monsters.

You could even create quality levels of reagents, say 'mediocre', 'normal','high-end','top quality','mages demand', sell them at different prices on npcs. The normal quality is our current base and cost for reagents. Top Quality (or higher) might be 3-5 times as powerful and thus be quite desirable for most mages, but be 20x or 50x as costly (or more). Perhaps those reagents also improve the power of potions and scrolls or anything else they are used in.

You CANNOT just remove current basic functionality or demand players pay more for it. You need to add value to what they are paying for, and make them WANT to spend money on the better things. This is a standard advertising tactic, and should be fairly obvious.

You also should trend toward using player loyalty. NPCs should get back to knowing their "customers" like they used to, and give discounts and added benefits. Perhaps link your karma/reputation to pricing as well on a npc to npc basis -- evil npcs like evil folks, good ones like good folks, and neutral ones don't like evil or good and all price accordingly.

In any case, added benefit is the only way to actually remove gold through npcs or other game mechanisms. I will not waste my gold on stupid things like changing my hair color. However, I would be glad to spend money at a healer for a "blessing stone" that teleports me and my belongings back to the healer with no chance of a monster taking my belongings (but perhaps leaves some percentage of loot for felucca pvp types.)
 
5

5% Luck

Guest
I tend to agree with Jhym there a bit. I mean a new player ( I have done this on a fresh char new shard) can get a decent item/pet and be right in the game in the 1st month of play. I tamed lesser hyriu. I kept at it till I found a rare color and sold it for high profit!

What I read the dev concern was other then the new player is the actual item count problem caused by hugh amounts of checks and that Jyhm you didnt establish an answer too
 

claudia-fjp

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
...of course the problem with this is currently they get REAL money from people that want another house =)
Currently they get a lot less than they should. I counted at least 2 dozen houses 18 x 18s and large towers spring up during last return to brit for free storage. Multiply that by all the servers then by the 5 or so years they've been doing it... That's a lot of people with free housing.

That doesn't even factor in the people who pay 1 month in 4 or people who quit years and years ago yet their houses never decayed. The housing server needs a major overhaul, until its fixed ideas like charging gold for extra houses won't be as effective.
 
U

UOKaiser

Guest
It would make going to the abyss utterly pointless unless you're looking to farm renowned. I think they're looking for ways to keep us using the new features of this game, not make them useless. What kind of monsters do you farm for POF's?
No it will make bods totally useless. Then everything else that relies on filling bods even more useles than it is now.
 

tirrag

Adventurer
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a very interesting thread. i am far from an economics major but here are some thoughts:

1) shard transfers convert to terminator style. basically when you transfer shards all you get is your skills, stats, and the same setup (ie clothes, gp) that a new player gets based on your skills. doesnt affect new players at all and the rich will need to re-establish themselves on the new shard.

2) insurance doesnt need to go away, just cost needs to be adjusted. it only costs ~400gp to insure extremely high-end items. it should cost many times more based on what features a piece of equipment has and the durability of the item. if you can afford to have high-end items you should be able to afford higher insurance. in addition to the increase, maybe also make the cost of insurance relative to how often someone dies or how often they have died in a certain timespan.

3) i like the mentioned higher end reagents for NPC sale that provide an SDI boost. alternatively maybe an NPC-only sellable enhancing agent that could be applied to existing reagent stacks to boost their power. once the agent has been used, lock the reagent stack to the account. the mage would choose which reagents to enhance based on which spells they would like to increase the power of. total power boost would be based on how many of the reagents used for the spell had the boosting agent applied.

4) like the concept of having a new, chargeable LRC-type property. make the cost of charging the new property more expensive, but using it would provide extra SDI. would require a new NPC-only sellable item which will recharge the new property. i realize this is similar to arcane, but its too easy to obtain arcane gems to use the existing arcane system. in order for something to work i feel it needs to be desireable, be in addition to what we have now, and be implemented only through NPC vendors (ie not available anywhere else).

5) as a country bumpkin vendor im 100% for a shard-wide vendor search. i dont think it would solve the problem though as money is just changing hands, not leaving the system. my only concern with this system is that it would be easy for vendor operators with $$ to simply spend one night a week and go buy up all the competitions cheap items and then resell them for the same inflated price on their vendors.
 

virtualhabitat

Lore Keeper
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a very interesting thread. i am far from an economics major but here are some thoughts:

1) shard transfers convert to terminator style. basically when you transfer shards all you get is your skills, stats, and the same setup (ie clothes, gp) that a new player gets based on your skills. doesnt affect new players at all and the rich will need to re-establish themselves on the new shard.

2) insurance doesnt need to go away, just cost needs to be adjusted. it only costs ~400gp to insure extremely high-end items. it should cost many times more based on what features a piece of equipment has and the durability of the item. if you can afford to have high-end items you should be able to afford higher insurance. in addition to the increase, maybe also make the cost of insurance relative to how often someone dies or how often they have died in a certain timespan.

3) i like the mentioned higher end reagents for NPC sale that provide an SDI boost. alternatively maybe an NPC-only sellable enhancing agent that could be applied to existing reagent stacks to boost their power. once the agent has been used, lock the reagent stack to the account. the mage would choose which reagents to enhance based on which spells they would like to increase the power of. total power boost would be based on how many of the reagents used for the spell had the boosting agent applied.

4) like the concept of having a new, chargeable LRC-type property. make the cost of charging the new property more expensive, but using it would provide extra SDI. would require a new NPC-only sellable item which will recharge the new property. i realize this is similar to arcane, but its too easy to obtain arcane gems to use the existing arcane system. in order for something to work i feel it needs to be desireable, be in addition to what we have now, and be implemented only through NPC vendors (ie not available anywhere else).

5) as a country bumpkin vendor im 100% for a shard-wide vendor search. i dont think it would solve the problem though as money is just changing hands, not leaving the system. my only concern with this system is that it would be easy for vendor operators with $$ to simply spend one night a week and go buy up all the competitions cheap items and then resell them for the same inflated price on their vendors.
1. While the idea of terminator-style xfer sounds good on the surface, it would be easy enough to broker wealth from shard to shard. One person with x on atl needs x on Gl. A simple matter of finding a person in a similar situation solves the problem.

2.I have discovered insurance to be a touchy subject with UO players.
personally I can see the merits of both views.

- Objectively, insurance does more harm to the economy than good. Not because it doesn't remove enough gold, but because it halts a built in recycle system.

Note that most players are walking around with multi-million suits. Virtually no one wears junk. Imagine if you lived in a country that sold only Rolls Royces for transportation and Versace for clothing. UO is more akin to that fictional country than not.

If insurance were removed the turnover and demand for produced goods would grow. Artifacts and certain imbued items would fall out of favor. People would not be able to have 800+ skill points on a character unless they were willing to risk losing it.

Hey, I like insurance. It makes me feel secure. That is its benefit.

3. I don't see this as significantly contributing to fixing the economy as much as it buffs spellcasters.

4. I believe the reagent cost idea is derived from the common belief that the amount of gold in the game needs to be reduced.

I disagree with this assessment. Too much gold is not the problem right now. I see the problem in two parts.

a. primarily, not enough value in the economy in the form of goods made by players, and readily accessible key resources that are relatively easy to get or relatively easy to buy from an NPC at a stable price point.
b. The gold that does exist is not circulating widely enough. If the conditions in (a.) are met, gold will circulate into more hands.


Gold sinks will not fix this.

5. Global vendor. Absolutely. This would further support my claim that the bulk of existing gold is only transferring among a relative few. Global vendor search/auction/whatever-you call-it would be an excellent tool to help facilitate moving the existing currency around to as many players as possible.
 
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