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Niki

The Wurm Economy Problem

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I recently started catching up in Emoo's Vods, and noticed quite a interesting chat with him and the developers about the Wurm Economy. Got me to thinking of a few things that I would do personally but I'm curious to read what other players think. Do you feel that the economy is failing? What would help it improve; Item sinks maybe, disenchanting rares? Are you having trouble selling items? If so please provide feedback. Thanks.

 

I've hidden the player's names and the two developers names to preserve anonymity.

Chat below, if you need more context watch the vod ( here ):

 

 


DEV1:higher decay on everything would fix economy, but that ship sailed 10 years ago

 

PLay:morning.

 

DEV2:they'd leave

 

PLAYER:Too many experienced players, not enough new players = bad economy

 

DEV2:and there would be less supply too!

 

PLAYER:ditto

 

PLAYER:gotta be PoK to prevent skill decay!

 

PLAYER:Prices are low because of the low server pop imo

 

DEV2:solve PoI meta

 

DEV2:I'm only seeing upsides here

 

DEV2:It's a top heavy environment, high end accounts are sold

 

DEV2:90+ accounts don't leave

 

DEV1:its just been 10 years of people slowly undercutting each other, makes the expected price lower

 

PLAYER:They should've released wurm online on steam as well.

 

DEV2:so stop wurm from being a sandbox

 

PLAYER:i believe if the market was faster.. if it didn't rely on a bazaar like channel.. the undercutting would burn itself out quickly.

 

DEV1:ez fix, just get 10k new monthly subs

 

DEV2:If you're selling stuff in wurm to make bank, you're going about things the wrong way

 

DEV2:But that's not possible

 

PLAYER:There's quite a few reasons why prices are garbage, low pop, everyone has 70+ skills, but the main one i can think of was sending to any server for same price

 

DEV2:The speed at which items can be churned out means you'd need thousands of people demanding daily

 

DEV2:Emoo, what quality is your rake

 

PLAYER:used to be if you were in an area with no other people of that trade you wouldn't have people undercutting you since your neighbours wouldn't travel to beat your prices 10%

 

PLAYER:nowadays theres no reason to buy off your neighbour instead of that guy with 100BS or w/e on a different server that can imp 10x faster

 

PLAYER:the market is crowded. there is plenty to offer, and just few buyers. IMHO everyone have/can made everything in high ql. as already mentioned...

 

DEV2:When did you buy that rake?

 

PLAYER:stole from kratos :D

 

DEV2:So you got that rake about 3-4 years ago?

 

DEV2:Once you buy a high ql thing, you don't need to buy anything else

 

PLAYER:^

 

PLAYER:dev2 that variable depends on how often he farms.

 

DEV2:Not really, I've grinded to 95 farming

 

DEV2:I went through one skiller rake, and have one rare rake


DEV2:Once you buy an item, you keep it

 

DEV2:Weapons likely have better health due to how fast they damage

 

PLAYER:About 20 hours of shield smithing and my hammer dropped like 2 ql, and it’s only in the 70s

 

DEV2:Fact is, any change made to improve this would impact the current status quo

 

PLAYER:fair dues, i have noticed that some tools suffer dmg faster than most.. picks are bad for it. maybe rakes arent

 

PLAYER:Will never need another hammer

 

PLAYER:Maybe an imp every few months

 

DEV2:Would you be okay with your rake decaying quicker?

 

PLAYER:tbf the prices being down kinda feels like the amount of sellers have shrinked. Getting custom casted weapons i have been in aproblem of not finding a seller (although i am lazy so didnt try hard)

 

PLAYERr:each tool has a diff for repairing, pickaxe is one of the highest at 20

 

 

Edited by Niki

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There is already an active thread about this. Why not comment there?

 

 

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The "get new players and all economy problems go away" fix is shortsighted and won't work:

 

  • For some strange reason suddenly and out of the blue a lot of new players join (how? why?)
  • New players buy silver to buy tools from high-end crafters who rub their hands in glee - the economy is fixed!
  • Those new players interested in selling items themselves soon realize there is no market for <QL50 items without enchants
  • They get informed and realize it would take months or years and at least two accounts to be able to sell items themselves (and by that time the demand has dried out again)
  • New players interested in being crafters/traders leave and find another game
  • Those who stay have bought the tools they need *once* and never need to buy again
  • Back to square one

The system is flawed. And for as long as there is no turn around of items and high-end characters because they stay in the system indefinately (character sales...) that won't change.

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31 minutes ago, Eltaran said:

The "get new players and all economy problems go away" fix is shortsighted and won't work:

 

Correct. The system stays the same no matter how many players there are. A bunch of new players would only be a flash in the pan and nothing more.

 

The problem is: For highly skilled players in a craft (and I am one of them, LW skill 99.98) it's too easy to create/imp very high-ql items. And my skill and the items I create with this skill will never leave the game again. Thus over time the whole economy becomes top-heavy.

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5 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

There is already an active thread about this. Why not comment there?

 

 

 

Just like there are 11 other PvP idea threads floating around?

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15 minutes ago, whykillme said:

Exactly. Could even be derived from QL - you can improve an item but can only use it if you finish it. From that moment on it can be repaired (loosing QL in the process) but never be improved again. It would be a fundamental change though and the veteran lobby will cry crocodile tears over all the Euros they spent on items and how they'll leave never to return if any mechanics of the game change at this point. And thus - R.I.P. economy.

 

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When I was actively playing the trade chat was saturated with 90ql rare items with 90/90 casts selling for very cheap. I think the market is just over saturated with quality items, everyone has the opportunity getting these items. When you have a player ran market this happens, especially after 10 years. I agree with the lack of new population too hurting the market, less players can mean inflation or a huge overall market drop depending on how the players run it.

 

Also I saw a comment somewhere that read along the lines “of people are trying to make RL money off of Wurm they’re silly”.. Well I can tell you right now I paid my $80 a month car insurance bill for 3 months just selling skiller tools and I had maybe a total of 8 hours invested each month. Not a bad gig for a bunch of pixels. I can’t imagine what some of these bigger tool/weapon sellers make a week if they still have consistent business.

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A few things I gathered from the convo:

 

Quote

DEV2:If you're selling stuff in wurm to make bank, you're going about things the wrong way 

 

Completely right, but unfortunately you cannot force that moral on people. Some play for bank, and its sad.

 

Quote

PLAYER:used to be if you were in an area with no other people of that trade you wouldn't have people undercutting you since your neighbours wouldn't travel to beat your prices 10% 

  

PLAYER:nowadays theres no reason to buy off your neighbour instead of that guy with 100BS or w/e on a different server that can imp 10x faster 

  

PLAYER:the market is crowded. there is plenty to offer, and just few buyers. IMHO everyone have/can made everything in high ql. as already mentioned..

 

I have been one of the only people screaming and rallying against the mail system, and now the wagon system. Region economies are vitally important to Wurm Online, creating a global market place for goods just causes extreme undercutting because it massively expands the market, while reducing local markets to little more than 2 merchants selling scraps.

 

You can even look at it on a global scale in real life, cheaply made and easily produced Chinese goods flood markets, in the United States. Less quality good from Eastern European countries like Ukraine flood into Russian and European markets. Now apply that mindset to wurm, a game with, what, 2000 premium players? Yeah not good.

 

Also the part about the high level accounts, that was always my argument against account sales as well. You keep these old beasts circulating in the blood stream instead of naturally disappearing as they should. Resulting in the same accounts making the same things being grinded by more and more people until these accounts can mass produce 40 pickaxes, use their high level priest to cast 90 WoA and CoC on them, and boom you flooded the market.

Edited by FranktheTank
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When I was actively playing the trade chat was saturated with 90ql rare items with 90/90 casts selling for very cheap. I think the market is just over saturated with quality items, everyone has the opportunity getting these items. When you have a player ran market this happens, especially after 10 years. I agree with the lack of new population too hurting the market, less players can mean inflation or a huge overall market drop depending on how the players run it.

 

Also I saw a comment somewhere that read along the lines “of people are trying to make RL money off of Wurm they’re silly”.. Well I can tell you right now I paid my $80 a month car insurance bill for 3 months just selling skiller tools and I had maybe a total of 8 hours invested each month. Not a bad gig for a bunch of pixels. I can’t imagine what some of these bigger tool/weapon sellers make a week if they still have consistent business.

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"anonymised"

Quote

DEV2:Once you buy a high ql thing, you don't need to buy anything else 
PLAYER:^ 
PLAYER:retro that variable depends on how often he farms. 
DEV2:Not really, I've grinded to 95 farming

 

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To be honest, I think trying to fix the Wurm economy at this point is like trying to put a Band-Aid on a severed arm. There are too many highly skilled crafters around. Too many priests. They constantly churn stuff out, and there is already too much "high-end" gear with nowhere to go. Right now it's a "rares" market, but that's going to dry up too eventually. There -were- things that could have been done to prevent the eventual burnout of the economy such as forbidding account sales and transfers to allow the retirement of toons when people got bored, and enforcing item life cycles instead of having eternal gear. I can hear the revulsion and disgust at these ideas from large groups of old-timers who say they would never have stayed in the game if it had been like that - but that's sort of the point. You can cater to the vets or look to the future. But honestly, at this point, how much longer is that future really? Wurm has been around for a long time, and no online game lasts indefinitely.

 

Edited by Beanbag
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54 minutes ago, Holar said:

lso I saw a comment somewhere that read along the lines “of people are trying to make RL money off of Wurm they’re silly”.. Well I can tell you right now I paid my $80 a month car insurance bill for 3 months just selling skiller tools and I had maybe a total of 8 hours invested each month. Not a bad gig for a bunch of pixels. I can’t imagine what some of these bigger tool/weapon sellers make a week if they still have consistent business.


That was probably me, or should have been.People want to change a game to work for them, so they can pay their car insurance? Seriously? It's a game, not a job. The game shouldn't have to change so a few people can pay bills (unless those people are those who make the game). There's nothing wrong with selling to pay for your deed, or your sub, or shinies, obviously. I do that.  But I find this insistence that Wurm change to pay for anyone's real life bizarre. I'm sure it looks great to newbs that people just want them around for the cash. :rolleyes:

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Maybe one way for a new economy is to have skill transfers between Epic and Freedom full time.  This might bring normal non pvpers to Epic to grind and make gear/equipment on Epic to sell.  I can't even sell 2 supreme weapons I have on Epic.  No one cares for them.  Maybe gets Epic population growing too.

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I think the idea of saving the market is a priority but it isn't the biggest priority right now. The biggest priority is getting players but that will only temporarily give a stim boost to the market.  Lemme give a couple of arguments why. 

 

The main focus should be getting new players and focusing on the new player's experience throughout the game. Pushing out content like colored animals is fine, but really it doesn't solve any issues and just works to sort of keep the current playerbase interested in playing for just another week and that's it. 

 

I'll tell a short story on how my first experience with Ultima Online went. So I start up the game, new experience for me, very clunky interface, not many players around (sounds familiar?) . Eventually I meet a player that tells me each day they're having a meeting in a city nearby to talk and guide new people. I think to myself that's exactly what I need, the tutorial isn't very helpful at this point. So this player guides me to the city, and I see a bunch of players sitting on benches and talking. I introduce myself, I'm a newbie and ask for pointers. A kindly gal, tells me I need to focus on hunting, getting materials for a house and getting a horse. She leads me to her house, gives me a free horse and a set of free armor to help me in my journey. I thought the gesture was extremely nice at the time but even more I thought the idea of having a player meeting in a certain place even better. Which sparked another concept. Why not have designated opt-in "advisor players" for newbies. 

 

Picture this: You join WO, and when you're out of Golden valley a pop-up window lists advisors you can choose from to help you navigate wurm, teach you, mentor you, show you the ropes, and even help you in your journey. When the newbie seems confident enough, he can let go of his advisor, offer him a rating of how helpful it was and that's it. The idea is any player can be an advisor and it would add more value to the social aspect of Wurm. 

 

Also it would help in player retention since you wouldn't feel so alone and abandoned at the start of the game. 

 

Second argument for the market being how it is , it's pretty much known and reiterated by everyone. Items once in the market don't leave the market. I don't think you can fix this anymore than you could fix basic economic human behavior. People will always try to sell stuff as high as possible and buy as low as possible. The only viable thing i can think of is creating a secondary currency in wurm. 

 

Something like "ardent" currency where you can trade in game items for a new type of currency that can be exchanged to an NPC for short term buffs. 

 

Example : sell a file to a player for 20 ardents. Go to an NPC trader and choose an item , let's call it a crystal buff for argument's sake. A crystal buff that gives + 40% farming speed for 60 minutes. Or one that gives +30% mining speed for 30 minutes. 

 

The idea behind this isn't fixing the market since it's not fixable with its current rules. So change the system, change its philosophy and then that adds new life to the game. My two cents. 

 

 

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I think if you were going to introduce a mechanic to either increase damage or have a small chance of breaking a tool or item on use, the time would be now.  Maybe like if you roll a complete failure on a rare roll the item breaks instead.  So, as an example, if you are farming and you get a rare roll and it fails, the rake breaks.  Or if you are improving a weapon you fail, your hammer (active item) breaks.

 

To balance this:

I would also add something for a priest that is expensive to cast, where you can restore a broken item.  For those people who REALLY don't want to have their 40s item gone forever.

Add something to deeds that will allow you to decrease the chance of item breaking.  Sort of like how saccing increases rare chances.

One thought I had was, add new Colossus type items, that take HUGE amounts of resources, but when on a deed provided a benefit, and these structures decay and need to be maintained.  This will encourage people to live together.  Or maybe allow these items to be built in the alliance headquarters and all alliance towns get the benefit.  

 

Something needs to be done to help the economy.  Otherwise, I feel like the slow bleed of players is going to continue.

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Need more new players. Maybe make people aware of the game a little bit more? 

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1 hour ago, Retrograde said:

"anonymised"

 

 

No its ok she called you a dev so still totally anonymous 

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There is also something inherently wrong to me, about the idea of bringing in a bunch of new players so people who have been playing forever will just peddle goods like a merchant on the street telling them they should buy their plate armor and tools.

 

Complete opposite experience I had, and most of you had playing.

 

It seems sick to me.

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You can keep beating this subject till the end of time , there is no way you can fix it  other then stop the complete  sale of accounts .

No warning given wen it will or would happen to stop the mass sale of said accounts .

As is I still get weapons imped since I do not have the skill to do it myself or the will to grind weapon smiting to do it .

 

So keep throwing this topic around till you are blue in the face , it just cant be fixed at this point , no matter how many new players come in , as Frankthe Tank said you are just peddling to a few new pieces of meat till they get fed up and leave.

The game needs a reason and motive to for people to play , eye candy helps a lot but so does contain witch seems to me lacking , rifts were a good start so are missions at times , but that's it .

 

Terraforming is what got my attention and has kept me here , but that does not work for all players .

Figure that million dollar question and you have a winning game for players to stay and play ....

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1 hour ago, SmeJack said:

 

 

No its ok she called you a dev so still totally anonymous 

tbh i think he has a big hand in development even though he says otherwise.

 

2 hours ago, Retrograde said:

"anonymised"

 

sorry

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53 minutes ago, FranktheTank said:

There is also something inherently wrong to me, about the idea of bringing in a bunch of new players so people who have been playing forever will just peddle goods like a merchant on the street telling them they should buy their plate armor and tools.

 

Complete opposite experience I had, and most of you had playing.

 

It seems sick to me.

I actually agree with you, the new player experience needs work.

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The Wurm economy, like a lot of MMO economies, isn't built on a solid foundation. Rather, it's built on a sinkhole. This isn't their fault, it was and still is a common design. Other MMOs get round this by having expansions where the new stuff completely replaces the old stuff, thus hitting the restart button on the economy.

 

There are ways this could be fixed without resorting to the reset button, but the changes to parts of the game people are heavily invested in would be so great I don't think the game would survive.

Edited by Darmalus
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3 hours ago, NeeNee said:

That was probably me, or should have been.People want to change a game to work for them, so they can pay their car insurance? Seriously? It's a game, not a job. The game shouldn't have to change so a few people can pay bills (unless those people are those who make the game). There's nothing wrong with selling to pay for your deed, or your sub, or shinies, obviously. I do that.  But I find this insistence that Wurm change to pay for anyone's real life bizarre. I'm sure it looks great to newbs that people just want them around for the cash. :rolleyes:

 

I didn’t do it purposely for the money but I made enough to transfer cash out into my bank account. Free money? Naawww I’m gunna let it sit in a game where a market could crash and not make anything off of my overall investment. I know people who used it to pay for their electric bill lol. Only reason I see to play Freedom is for social reasons and to play the Wurm market.. what’s the first thing people do when they get a rare item on Freedom? “Pc rare butt cheeks?” 

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8 hours ago, Eltaran said:

The system is flawed. And for as long as there is no turn around of items and high-end characters because they stay in the system indefinately (character sales...) that won't change.

 

7 hours ago, Eobersig said:

The problem is: For highly skilled players in a craft (and I am one of them, LW skill 99.98) it's too easy to create/imp very high-ql items. And my skill and the items I create with this skill will never leave the game again. Thus over time the whole economy becomes top-heavy.

 

These two quotes highlight what the problem really is, that being some players think that the focus of the game ("Economy") should be about them making silver (coins) to then do with whatever they choose. So they bring up these points in some sort of attempt the more narrow the focus of the game to achieve this objective. No matter to them that by wearing down items into a status that would "encourage" others to once again purchase more of them. No matter to them that high end characters that have built up their skills have them once again decline under certain circumstances. They will profit from it! The game will be more enjoyable to them. They will make more silver/coins which are a RL money substitute/conversion.

 

The thing is that the rest of the players who use these tools or build up their skills to high levels will be the losers. Many players don't want to join in this crafting for dollars "economy". They will pay some price for items that they consider reasonable but when it reaches these types of suggested "improvements to the economy", then they will no longer pay what amounts to them to be RL Cash, since they won't join into this crafting for dollars game play but are rather the ones who have to pay for its benefits out of their own financial assets.

 

Those players who build up their skills to high levels also may not use them for these "economic" purposes but rather for their own and others enjoyment. Their characters and skills should nevertheless be degraded over time and removed from the game for the sake of this "economy"? This whole Play for Pay setup of the game only contributes to this mentality. It is unfortunate that the game is setup this way but it is what we consumers of these goods must deal with and resist or we will only be paying others more for playing the game for reasons aside from making RL cash substitutes/conversions from doing so.

 

What un-manipulated Economy there is within the game exists upon supply and demand. There are only so much of these profits to go around. There are also limits to what others will then pay for whatever is being sold. When these expenses become too high others cut back or move to other less exorbitant places (games/WU) to continue to enjoy living their lives. This type of mentality that wants the game to focus upon their ability to make more profit from "playing" it is what will be its undoing if these suggested paths are followed. Hopefully the better sense of the game Developers and its Overlord will prevail and they will continue to focus upon the enjoyment that the game provides in various areas aside from this opportunistic Play for Pay option, since in the end it results in the majority of its population Paying More to Play.

 

=Ayes=

 

 

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