a dead economy......

[Ufedhin]

These repair wizards must either be changed or removed from the game, these little monsters are in my view a large part of why the economy in illarion is a shambling zombie.GET RID OF THEM OR CHANGE THEM!
"Oh but what of my precious magic armour or sword?" then i say keep the repair wizards but have them only repair enchanted items (stuff made with pure elements) and let the cost of the repair of these magic items be vey high but let the wear on them be slower. This way a player can keep his special magical thing, but economically its more sence to eventually have a craftsman / woman make you a new one.
But for Irmoroms sake let normal things wear out so craftsmen and woman can replace them and not the repair wizards!.Food is another important factor getting food is a down right no brainer...(as it seems we cant have our great system of good food condition on Gobiath back)is as though we all live in a land of bounty ,fruits,veggies ,fish ,pigs etc all these things all year round ,can we not have a lean time of the three months of winter where these things produce nothing or at least very little ?,i hear the cry of hardship already ,but i say to them is it not fun ? the planning, the struggle to survive the lean times this sort of thing makes games fun ,easy street is a road to bordom and stagnation? the vendors still sell food so its not that hard to live just expensive if you have not planned or sought help from the cooks /farmers.

Example : one can stil kill pigs/cows in winter but they are very lean chance to get meat is very slim ,same with catching fish they sleep deep down and dont bite much,fruits ..you might get lucky with a withed apple etc..same with edible herbs.
I believe the game would be much improved with these changes.

[Estralis Seborian]

We'll discuss both points, good input!

[Jen]

Heyho Unqualified comments from me!

Can't say anything about the wear/tear vs repairs on armour, I don't play any fighter characters (at least not long enough to know what I'm talking about..)

but...

I *love* the idea about the hardship during winter times. I play a farmer character and I personally think it would be a blast not being able / hardly being able to farm something during winter. You'd have to prepare for the winter time ahead of it, prices would go up during those months too - all in all it'd really make you think and give you some great roleplay incentives. I'm all for it!

[Estralis Seborian]

Just keep in mind that a new player who wants to play a farmer will barely wait six RL weeks before he can start his chosen profession. In those six weeks, he'll most probably find another game .

But we'll discuss changes to food, just don't expect any changes too soon - fixing something that is not broken is not a good idea and we first have to identify what exactly can improve the game.

[GolfLima]

* I like the Idea of seasons (we had this long time ago at Gobaith) - may be at winter you can collect/harvest.... only 50% of the quantity you can collect / harvest ... at summer/autum (keep in mind: seldom players (farmers) <-> winter)
* generally the repaircosts are to low ..they should be increased ( <-> i guess, fighters dont think so )
* special / magical items should be repairable to expensive costs
* tools should not be repairable

[Uhuru]

Economy is broken though. Can't sell food. Can't sell the things Uffe was describing. He does make some good points. I see a new mantis ticket (http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=9987) regarding free food, but I'm not sure how the dev's will be able to manage this in a way to keep all users of the resources happy. Cooks can use quite a lot of them and Evie and I have been known to spend all day just harvesting fruit and such. I seriously doubt we are alone in this behavior.

The question isn't how to "force" players to stop eating free food, but rather how to get players to start buying stuff. Food and other crafted items. I used to enjoy planning for winter, but for us, we used to store so much, it was a non-event. All it did was hurt our new players, so I would rather avoid that. Even lowering the rate Uhuru sells her food at (she practically gives it away in exchange for empty plates now) she has very few customers. This makes no sense to me. Does it to anyone else?

[Jen]

Yes, rather than 'turning off' farming during the winter, you may just be able harvest a certain percentage of it. You could also have particular vegetables that grow well/less well in each season. Cabbage for example would be a fine winter vegetable. People will just have to binge on cabbage soup during those times! Hehe.

[Mephistopheles]

I like these ideas, the current economy in player trade is rather bad (being offered 1-10 gold for a Slight magical gem is rather insulting ) its will encourage hoarders but I don't think theres anything wrong with that.

However.. I'm very edgy as to the high level equipment as Ufedhin said... some things are just damn hard to get.

[Velisai]

Leave grain growable all year and limit the rest during winter? Also, the snow cover is even more important to make winter actually feel wintery.



As for the economy, just forget about it. I've played enough games to know that it will never "work", whatever that means. Hell, even RL economy doesn't "work".

As far as I understand the intent of the devs, the current state has not been created with player to player sales as a primary concern in mind. First priority was to give every profession the possibility to have economic success via sales to NPCs. This allows every player to choose the profession they want. Even if there are 60 smiths and only 6 fighters in Galmair, the smiths will not starve.

With free, regenerating resources and easy access to tools, there will always be overproduction and that will always let the prices drop to rock bottom. This is especially true if we get more players some day. The stuff will be available at every corner and competition will be intense.
If you limit resources and access to tools so much that some of the stuff we produce actually becomes rare and valuable, you'll create poverty, which will hit newbies and casual players.
To balance these things is just impossible.

So screw economy, give us the cool stuff, like magic.

[GolfLima]

* to master a craft (lvl100) means:

one way:
1) gathering a lot of ressources and try to use them (( i never found a solution what to do whith thousends of stones ))
2) making a lot of useless things ( my char still have more than 70 perfect visored helmets, 10 perfect nobles armor ..and some dwarvern axes at the depot - lower quality he sold to NPC´s)
he could never sell all these helmets to player char. (( it is the same for other crafts ))

other way:
1) gathering a lot of no needed materials ...and try to find some pure elements (pure fire for melting merinium ...and pure ??? to make a rare item) --> most of the gathered items can not be used in this quantity
2) making some rare items --> can be sold if they are of good quality

[Estralis Seborian]

A very good post, Velisai. I assume there is only one single MMO out there that seriously attempts to create a working player economy, called Eve Online. And for a game that is fun and has a target audience of casual roleplayers, it is not a goal to have a fully working economy. However, we want to make the game fun and if anything spoils the fun, we have to work on that. With simple solutions, we can achieve a lot, but not everything. The extra effort we'd have to invest is not justified by the low benefit.

So, yes, we could invest time into having weather depending grow cycles of grain, vitamin content of vegetables and their effect on constitution and realistic production cycles of plate armours that take RL weeks to finish. Or we could add some cool fireballs to the game. Your choice after all .

Nevertheless, the mentioned aspects - free food, food use and repairing - will be taken care of. And, no this does not mean we swing the almighty nerf hammer and remove dozens of bushes from the game and make repairing 3x more expensive. I will never understand why this is the first thought of so many players...

[Evie]

Or we could add some cool fireballs to the game. Your choice after all .
...

FIREBALLS .. HELL YES!!!!


.. crawls back under her desk

[Ranwyln]

As Vel said, working economy will prolly never happen (and for me it is no economy sim ), as in each game ppl investing more time into it/playing it since ages, are richer, have more resources and so on and with a not increasing playerbase this wont change too soon. Problem is that a lot of things work together e.g. increasing repair costs ---> needs better loot from monsters or fighters are forced to do another profession. I personally like the idea of not repairable items like tools (hell a changed handle and hammerhead is already a new hammer ), maybe lower items...or as money sink you can buy Repair Receipts for single items so you are abel to repair this item in the future e.g. receipt of repairing magical serinja: xx gold for the receipt usable on one magical serinjah and after that its possible to repair it like we are able to do now already. Or repairing has some sort of charges depending on quality or whatever...making a sword a thousand times sharp again will give you only some metal dust..e.g. magical serinjah (30 repair charges more/less dunno), so you can repair it 30 times and than you need a new one.

[Ufedhin]

A very good post, Velisai. I assume there is only one single MMO out there that seriously attempts to create a working player economy, called Eve Online. And for a game that is fun and has a target audience of casual roleplayers, it is not a goal to have a fully working economy. However, we want to make the game fun and if anything spoils the fun, we have to work on that. With simple solutions, we can achieve a lot, but not everything. The extra effort we'd have to invest is not justified by the low benefit.

So, yes, we could invest time into having weather depending grow cycles of grain, vitamin content of vegetables and their effect on constitution and realistic production cycles of plate armours that take RL weeks to finish. Or we could add some cool fireballs to the game. Your choice after all .

Nevertheless, the mentioned aspects - free food, food use and repairing - will be taken care of. And, no this does not mean we swing the almighty nerf hammer and remove dozens of bushes from the game and make repairing 3x more expensive. I will never understand why this is the first thought of so many players...

Good to hear, .the reason i bring this up is because many players are in no way interested in hacking a bloodly trail to ultimate power.Many enjoy the simple things crafting ,and farming,talking etc of course a real working economy is not a realistic aim but we can achive one that at least limps along rather than the undead version we have now. Winter lean times give every one a serious pause on how to survive winter and Mas ,this is a good thing yes? helps along farmers ,cooks makes them more important as they should be (yet they still be peasants ) without food nothing is possible.

As to the repair situation,i dont agree at all that it should be limited to tool s! as some have mentioned, why penalise the workers only ??that is what it would be if weapon and armours where not included in the whole deal it makes no sense that a farmers sickle cant be repaired yet a mace used to beat to death a thousand skeletons can be?? that dont work at all. Items with pure element however need special consideration as i suggested.But we need to help the crafters in this game, new crafters not older ones who are afraid of loosing a monopoly.(myself included)

How to survive the winter lean times as a newbie if they join the game in winter?,How about have it made known to the new player that the food vendor in the town of the players choice will grant alms "by the kindness of the ruler a megre ration to assist the poor" say a loaf and a bowl of cabbage soup per day, obtainable for say 25 times once a day over winter only .
Maybe a new character joining in winter gets a note of alms from the npc that helps you choose your town ,presentation of this to the food vendor triggers the alms winter package ? Just an idea.


The game claims a medieval flavour to it , so make it more medieval bring it inline with that!

[Ufedhin]

Oops dont think Cadomyr has a food vendor ,new Cadomyrians might need to apply to a palace official for winter alms.

[Alytys Lamar]

Another Problem to adress, too = new players DON'T have much silver to buy the stuff or even use the Portals to go to another town.
So why should they waste money on player crafted things ? They seeming to be as expensive as at the official merchants.
If in Winter is nothing to harvest you probably starve to death very fast - I mean helloooo - 1 cookie 4 Silver on the merchant ????

Since I never was the grinding type of Player I think its expensive to be a true Roleplayer

Suggestion: make a official Player Market (on Forum and IG )
Let the Players buy a Trader/Merchant and put the wares in there - the scroll for it should be on sell on a NPC in every town.
The wares should be at bit cheaper then the NPC Merchants - but otherwise let the economy flow.

( This works not bad in WURM online btw a smaller Sandbox Game - but there is a bigger playerbase - so not really to compare. But I did see this Systrem also in different UO RP Games and it worked not bad )

[GolfLima]

* my char often give things to new players as a gift
* i know a lot of char helping "newbies" with things, coins, knowledge ....
* things (tools/armor/weapon) made by players are often perfect - from NPC merchants only normal
* there are some basic crafts where you can earn money

* there is a forum market -> but not often used by char, most used for rare things like pure elements or magical gems

[Alytys Lamar]

* my char often give things to new players as a gift
* i know a lot of char helping "newbies" with things, coins, knowledge ....
* things (tools/armor/weapon) made by players are often perfect - from NPC merchants only normal
* there are some basic crafts where you can earn money

* there is a forum market -> but not often used by char, most used for rare things like pure elements or magical gems

This is nice from you for sure, but it isn't the point. The point is - how can you install a economy in a RP game that works more or less ?
And that the crafted stuff is pretty expensive you have to admitt. I did read the *Apothecary* post- OH MY Goodness - does someone really use this expensive things ?
Helping others is a wonderful RP opportunity - but you can only help if you have money and things for yourself.
About the Market in Forum I was sure we had one on old Forum - but didn't see it here so far.

Basic Crafts ? its for me still grinding and a thing I do not like to do.

[Djironnyma]

Forum Link: http://illarion.org/community/forums/viewforum.php?f=90

Please keep in mind that Illarion neigther is nor should be an propper economy simulation. The most importent point is not that the economy of illarion "works" or make use at all. The economy of Illarion is suppose to support players rp/fun - mostly of crafters but indeed also of other chars.

Btw. to gift people items is one of the best way to destroy prices of items / an economy . A better way to support newbies is to give the simple tasks like collect materials, pay them and sell them items then

[GolfLima]

to gift people items is one of the best way to destroy prices of items / an economy

if a simply fishing rod (20 silver) or a sicle (20 silver) kill the economy than must be something wrong

[Mephistopheles]

Economy doesn't work irl so.. umm.. how exactly to make it work here is a rather difficult question.

[Ufedhin]

The economy is not needed to work as in properly , but as Djironnyma wrote it needs to support the players/crafters/warriors etc..at present i think it falls short of this.
As as to working a bit to make coins to live ,i fail to see how that relates to grinding and inhibits roleplaying ,however yes lazy beggers and wastrels tended to die off in the winter in medieval times especially in the colder climates .My character can even find use for those that do.

[Evie]

.My character can even find use for those that do.

*just sits laughing*

[Alytys Lamar]

.My character can even find use for those that do.

*just sits laughing*

Sure - they are dead Maybe butchering the corpses ?
Related to the economy - Not all NPC's are buying the same in the different towns - or am I mistaken ?

[GolfLima]

* right Alytys
* most of the things could be sold in 2 of the 3 towns
* a golden coin (in the box) will show you best price - otherwise it is a silver coin
* some "rare" things are only sellable to the NPC´s - you cant buy them from them

[EnderDDT]

This discussion seems to be missing the actual problem. That is, people /can't/ reliably buy from or sell to other players.

It goes something like this: the next time you need a new fishing pole (or whatever) your options are as follows: wait a possibly absurd amount of time in hoping that a crafter will be about and have the item you want, spend 20 gold round-trip trying to possibly find a crafter who can make the item in another town (assuming you port to the right one) and still have to pay for the item afterward, or just bite the bullett and buy it from a vender (I assume you focus on a craft that your town supports). And selling is exactly the opposite. You have items and just hope that someone will want to buy them and just happen to be around.

Even advertising, such as the forums, won't fix the problem. The reason? This is not a supply/demand problem, this is a distribution issue. The supply is there, we have crafters. The demand is there, we have people who need to buy stuff, including regular tools, and would like to pay less than the exorbatant prices the NPC clerks charge. It isn't even about being able to repair tools, the appropriate prices to buy tools (not what the venders charge) is way less than what it would cost to repair a tool from nearly decayed; and this is what currently is in the game. What we don't have is a way for people to trade who aren't in the same time-zone and to get what they want, when they need it, and without too much fuss.

Until this is addressed, we will NEVER have anything like a real "player economy".

PS: even if we fix this, we run into other problems. Market flooding being one that has already been brought up (if all 30 crafters see are competing to sell their average of their 50 hammers each, even 1000 customers wouldn't be enough). Comparative disadvantage (for higher end items, you want the best and nothing else is worth buying; so only the best crafter will be able to sell their items and the rest will be in the poorhouse). The repair guy is there for a reason, lets remember that before yelling for the nerf hammer, and his prices are such for a reason (and yes, it is already cheeper to replace common items by buying from a player than it ever would be to repair).