The Wurm Economy Problem

[FranktheTank 1,901]

9 hours ago, JakeRivers said:

https://jenn001.game.wurmonline.com/mrtg/paying.html

 

closing in on 2400 prem accounts

 

no player base, no economy, and yes having 3x the subs makes an economy happen

 

its not about how much stuff is worth, its how much demand there is for stuff, the value of goods is only dictated by supply and demand, but the moving of goods is dictated by how large the population is

From the Tracking my group takes part in, when we heard people expected a sizable summer bump in population to help fix it, it still did not matter according to the chart we assembled which displayed a more steadily dropping curve.

 

One reason factoring into this that many people do not realize is the aging of the populace, this happens in a lot of games, even World of Warcraft is not exempt. What many players could do in the past in 1 day may require multiple now that the populace is more likely to have full time jobs, kids, and/or other hobbies. World of Warcraft mitigated this be easing the game and requirements to play, you no longer have to be a high level with the best gear to experience higher tier content, and there are many ways to get the gear for that highest level aside from grinding. 

 

I am not sure what direction wurm should head, as there is not mass influx to combat the aging population, and there is no foreseeable ease to the game to stifle the exit of players.

 

 

[GoldFever 299]

7 hours ago, Hailene said:

 

I'm happy to grind up random skills. I like the feeling.

Then again I like doing a lot of things I wouldn't want to impose on others. Just because something works for me, doesn't mean it's good for the majority.

 

If the majority of the player base is such that they want to sell to other players to make rl money as some sort of end-game content, then simple math makes it clear that they will be disappointed. It is not a sustainable niche to support primary game development. Development must always focus on the quality of life and actual game play. If sales can slip in sideways and make a few coin, great, if not, not.

 

6 hours ago, Rumi said:

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

 

I used to not care about market too much. But now I want to pvp and progress there, and I need items like drake/dragon armour, or tomes, which cost ridiculous money (accounts seeling cheaper than these today) and  am not willing, or able, for that matter, pay hundreds of euros for those items. So suddenly I care to earn money here, which seems impossible and makes this game too much "pay to win" for me.

 

Pay to win is always a valid issue.  The simple solution is to increase the supply until it is affordable by all.  If a tome cost 5s vs. 500s, problem solved, right?  Pay to win used to be an issue on standard gear as well, but now with the increased supply, almost everyone can afford at least a nice plate set and a good sword, etc.  You see the dilemma? You want something "easy" which you can make/find/acquire to sell to buy that which is not "easy" and as such still has a high value.  There is a basic contradiction here. 

 

On a related note, there is much moaning about how the high skilled players killed the market by making too much stuff, only partly correct. Significant design decisions were introduced to greatly increase the ease with which high quality stuff could be made and therefore would be made.  This was by design and in my view the market is now working as intended to reduce the cost of this high ql stuff and to therefore remove the pay to win component associated with only a few being able to afford it.  Want examples, two "recent" ones come readily to mind, chopped veggies for favor and ql gather runes/imbues.  Very easy to get 100ql ore now and that means high ql imps are not bottlenecked by resources.  Second example, favor is so cheap these days that it is practically free compared to what it was worth before, meaning endless chain casting by all priest types to generate the highest value enchants is now easy to do without a whole raft of alts to support it. Both those changes killed some very good markets for certain players and maybe they were right or maybe wrong.  Point is they were design changes with direct effects on the market. Personally, I think they had the right idea but went a bit too far.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, FranktheTank said:

From the Tracking my group takes part in, when we heard people expected a sizable summer bump in population to help fix it, it still did not matter according to the chart we assembled which displayed a more steadily dropping curve.

 

One reason factoring into this that many people do not realize is the aging of the populace, this happens in a lot of games, even World of Warcraft is not exempt. What many players could do in the past in 1 day may require multiple now that the populace is more likely to have full time jobs, kids, and/or other hobbies. World of Warcraft mitigated this be easing the game and requirements to play, you no longer have to be a high level with the best gear to experience higher tier content, and there are many ways to get the gear for that highest level aside from grinding. 

 

I am not sure what direction wurm should head, as there is not mass influx to combat the aging population, and there is no foreseeable ease to the game to stifle the exit of players.

 

 

 

Population is aging, and while you didn't come out and say it, the customer base is literally dying as well.  We all know of prominent examples of this.  Long term players just...gone.  Rest in peace.

[MrGARY 12,421]

1 hour ago, GoldFever said:

Population is aging, and while you didn't come out and say it, the customer base is literally dying as well.  We all know of prominent examples of this.  Long term players just...gone.  Rest in peace.

 

Yeah, which is why we probably need to focus on qol and other new player friendly changes over ones that ruin qol to favor a market.  When I look back at how bad wurm was for qol when I started over 8 years ago, I don't even know why I'm still here.  I literally spent hours turning longsword blades into scrap and smelting scrap into lumps trying to make a longsword in just sheer waiting times for everything, and I had to give up instead.  If it was like that now and I started now, I'd have quit as soon as I started, most people by now in 2018 probably would too. 

 

I think one of the biggest problems with the market is that people think their garbage is worth gold.  I go to FM and look around at the merchants, I see the prices people put, and it's just mind boggling.  Why is a supreme tool with enchants worth 30s?  The fact that wurm has the potential to make like $36usd/hr with no taxes while sitting on your rear playing a game while watching your favorite movie/tvshow is pretty much whats wrong with this economy.  Even just making things worth 10s on average once an hour is stiill $12usd/hr, which is more than minimum wage except you aren't paying taxes still.  That's pure solid cash that goes into your paypal/bank that you can go buy groceries with or another game or something.  What does a supreme tool even offer over a regular one...?  0.2 second faster timer?  marginally higher ql which is totally negated by gather rune which is probably worth 10c or something silly?  is it worth $36usd because its just a different color?  People for some reason are willing to overpay ridiculous amounts for pixels (750e for a fantastic bone....) which leads to prices of everything special increasing which is not noob friendly, and prices of everything not special decreasing which is noob friendly for buyers except people still want ridiculous prices for things not special, which helps absolutely nothing.

[Spolmit 627]

Wurm is going to find it almost impossible to solve the 'economy problem'. The issue to me seems to be that the skills pyramid is inverted. By that I mean that 0-30 skilled players are unfortunately small in numbers whereas those above 70 in skills such as smithing etc are, as a percentage of the total population, a large cohort. The result of this means that there is a glut of very high quality pieces because many players are capable of making such gems.

 

It is not for me to say whether a player who can make a tidy amount of rl money from Wurm is right or wrong but surely the essence of Wurm should be that money gained should in most cases end up back in the game?

 

How we get the skills pyramid back to having a large base of newish players again who can buy better medium quality tools from middle level players who in turn are able to buy top quality tools from elite players escapes me. Any player arriving in Wurm with money can literally buy the best tool around- and some do.

 

 I do realise that for some, making money does allow them to play Wurm. Could it simply be that most players worrying about the economy are simply top players who wish to make even more money that can be transferred into rl currency? For me, Wurm is about enjoyment above everything else. Yes I do buy occasional things but much prefer to make things through my own efforts. Maybe it is players like me who are the problem as we play for enjoyment and not for coin

 

[Sila 339]

only problem that is realy here is...  we got good game... but no advertise done at all!   start pay for adwords to get new players here fast and easy.

[Alyeska 2,621]

I see three major problems that are stalling wurms economy;

 

- Most items are not consumable (the things that are still provide an active market; think about affinity food, bulk materials, and only rarely a re-imp on something heavily damaged) - once bought, will never need buying again; and

 

- Everybody can do everything. When you can eventually grind a character to, or buy a character that can, smith his own tools, imp his own armour, farm his own crops and cook his own meals, why would you bother to spend silvers to buy those items? This is why enchants are still a sellable commodity, as not everyone has access to spellcasting abilities. The only thing that is actually restricted.

 

- Everything is easily accessible. The only things that hold value in the market are the couple rare things we have like dragon hide, tomes and moonmetal, and even those are not very uncommon.

 

As far as I know, I don't think anyone wants any of these things to be changed, because the whole charm of wurm lies in being able to do what you want. I'm sure you will meet a lot of resistance when trying to adress any of these. Just thinking back to the anger when weapon enchants started to decay, which was quickly reverted. Each time a specific class or race is mentioned as suggestion, it gets shot down because everyone wants to do everything. Unique drama is nothing new because of the value of the items involved in it, so making resources or items limited or difficult to obtain will surely lead to more fighting.

 

If this is to be adressed, new things need to be added that don't follow those rules. Make it consumable, so it needs to be replaced. Make it very difficult to do. Make it require high skill or loads of time. Make it server specific, or event specific, or something that makes it hard to obtain one way or another. I have noticed that lately more and more items are following this rule and it is exciting. Archeaology statues are wonderful; they look badass, people want to have them. But don't want to spend the time searching for ever so many fragments; they buy either the statues, or fragments. Runes are consumed when applied, needing more and more runes for your items. These are things I see being bought. Just my idea of what's stalling the economy.

[Roccandil 959]

Quote

If this is to be adressed, new things need to be added that don't follow those rules. Make it consumable, so it needs to be replaced. Make it very difficult to do. Make it require high skill or loads of time. Make it server specific, or event specific, or something that makes it hard to obtain one way or another. I have noticed that lately more and more items are following this rule and it is exciting.

 

I like the general principle of mitigating problems by adding cool new things instead of nerfing old ones.

[Niki 2,278]

1 hour ago, MrGARY said:

I think one of the biggest problems with the market is that people think their garbage is worth gold.  I go to FM and look around at the merchants, I see the prices people put, and it's just mind boggling.  Why is a supreme tool with enchants worth 30s?  The fact that wurm has the potential to make like $36usd/hr with no taxes while sitting on your rear playing a game while watching your favorite movie/tvshow is pretty much whats wrong with this economy.  Even just making things worth 10s on average once an hour is stiill $12usd/hr, which is more than minimum wage except you aren't paying taxes still.  That's pure solid cash that goes into your paypal/bank that you can go buy groceries with or another game or something.  What does a supreme tool even offer over a regular one...?  0.2 second faster timer?  marginally higher ql which is totally negated by gather rune which is probably worth 10c or something silly?  is it worth $36usd because its just a different color?  People for some reason are willing to overpay ridiculous amounts for pixels (750e for a fantastic bone....) which leads to prices of everything special increasing which is not noob friendly, and prices of everything not special decreasing which is noob friendly for buyers except people still want ridiculous prices for things not special, which helps absolutely nothing.

What about those tomes you farm with your friend; and have been selling lately? Why are they worth 300+ euro when all you do is sit on your rear watching netflix spamming alt goals and drinking sunkist? You've probably made more wurm bucks than any of us in the past year. I don't think it's reasonable for tome farming to continue either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2018 by Niki

[MrGARY 12,421]

7 minutes ago, Niki said:

What about those tomes you farm with your friend; and have been selling lately?

 

tomes give 3 charges, and theres 2 of us

3-2=1 quick maths

 

i dont think you understand that to win the game you actually need to put in effort instead of making threads and not just "lol spamming goals"

i dont think you understand that you're fully capable with the skill merge to try to gain tomes on epic to complete personal goals too

i dont think you understand that if people like yourself didn't oppose keeping used tomes in the transfer we wouldn't have to try to replace them

i dont think you understand that having an extra tome means you may as well sell it to recover the time/resources you spent to get it

i dont think you understand those prices are because of exactly what i said, freedom made it this worth and unlike on epic im not giving them away for free to people that aren't putting in effort to obtain them

[Niki 2,278]

10 minutes ago, MrGARY said:

 

tomes give 3 charges, and theres 2 of us

3-2=1 quick maths

 

i dont think you understand that to win the game you actually need to put in effort instead of making threads and not just "lol spamming goals"

i dont think you understand that you're fully capable with the skill merge to try to gain tomes on epic to complete personal goals too

i dont think you understand that if people like yourself didn't oppose keeping used tomes in the transfer we wouldn't have to try to replace them

i dont think you understand that having an extra tome means you may as well sell it to recover the time/resources you spent to get it

i dont think you understand those prices are because of exactly what i said, freedom made it this worth and unlike on epic im not giving them away for free to people that aren't putting in effort to obtain them

You control the tome market right now because your kingdom on Epic pretty much controlled valrei forever. If you choose to flood the market with your insane amount of tomes you could easily. All you need them for is to finish off personal goals on your alts which you spam to get a new tome for winning the game. I get what you're doing, you have all the cards so you're milking it slowly. I'm calling you out because you're a big issue why this game is failing in general because you're not helping things by doing that. Will things change? Probably not, seems like no one cares anymore to be honest. However I don't think you should call people out who spend hours making supreme when it's fairly uncommon to happen. The hypocrisy is strong with you.

Edited May 1, 2018 by Niki

[FranktheTank 1,901]

1 hour ago, Spolmit said:

Wurm is going to find it almost impossible to solve the 'economy problem'. The issue to me seems to be that the skills pyramid is inverted. By that I mean that 0-30 skilled players are unfortunately small in numbers whereas those above 70 in skills such as smithing etc are, as a percentage of the total population, a large cohort. The result of this means that there is a glut of very high quality pieces because many players are capable of making such gems.

 

It is not for me to say whether a player who can make a tidy amount of rl money from Wurm is right or wrong but surely the essence of Wurm should be that money gained should in most cases end up back in the game?

 

How we get the skills pyramid back to having a large base of newish players again who can buy better medium quality tools from middle level players who in turn are able to buy top quality tools from elite players escapes me. Any player arriving in Wurm with money can literally buy the best tool around- and some do.

 

 I do realise that for some, making money does allow them to play Wurm. Could it simply be that most players worrying about the economy are simply top players who wish to make even more money that can be transferred into rl currency? For me, Wurm is about enjoyment above everything else. Yes I do buy occasional things but much prefer to make things through my own efforts. Maybe it is players like me who are the problem as we play for enjoyment and not for coin

 

 

But that kinda plays into the whole post I made earlier (not being harsh, I get if you did not see it) in relation to people just selling things to new players is not a viable way to keep these new players. It ruins the mystery and fun of wurm if you have people screaming "HEY NEW GUY BUY THIS PLATE DON'T MAKE YOUR OWN".

[MrGARY 12,421]

36 minutes ago, Niki said:

You control the tome market right now because your kingdom on Epic pretty much controlled valrei forever. If you choose to flood the market with your insane amount of tomes you could easily. All you need them for is to finish off personal goals on your alts which you spam to get a new tome for winning the game. I get what you're doing, you have all the cards so you're milking it slowly. I'm calling you out because you're a big issue why this game is failing in general because you're not helping things by doing that. Will things change? Probably not, seems like no one cares anymore to be honest. However I don't think you should call people out who spend hours making supreme when it's fairly uncommon to happen. The hypocrisy is strong with you.

 

I don't think you understand anything that you're talking about and spreading false truths doesn't help anyone.  It's as bad as when you claimed that we worked with zekezor to remove fountain pans, when I had 5 of them myself that I wanted to keep.  If you want to believe that I have whatever an insane amount of tomes is, have fun.  If you want to believe that excessive hard work to win new tomes to use on my own account is milking a market, have fun.

 

I'm not even calling out rare farmers, I'm pointing out that people are overpaying which leads to price increase which is an actual issue with markets....

[Alyeska 2,621]

43 minutes ago, Niki said:

 hypocrisy is strong with you.

 

Gary is a big issue? I thought this thread was about how the market is dead and wurm is failing (didnt notice that latter part yet) - but someone who finds an active slot in the market is bad and causing wurm to fail? Literally makes no sense whatsoever. Either way, I don't see how he's doing something bad, if people want to pay money for a tome and he has them - he's not even "poaching" them from uniques, so he's not "denying" them to anyone else - then his system is actually an example that the wurm market should be following. Apparently so if he is making that much money off of them ever so easily, we oughta learn from him, not complain.

[FranktheTank 1,901]

22 minutes ago, Alyeska said:

 

Gary is a big issue? I thought this thread was about how the market is dead and wurm is failing (didnt notice that latter part yet) - but someone who finds an active slot in the market is bad and causing wurm to fail? Literally makes no sense whatsoever. Either way, I don't see how he's doing something bad, if people want to pay money for a tome and he has them - he's not even "poaching" them from uniques, so he's not "denying" them to anyone else - then his system is actually an example that the wurm market should be following. Apparently so if he is making that much money off of them ever so easily, we oughta learn from him, not complain.

I think Niki wants tomes.

[Niki 2,278]

5 minutes ago, Alyeska said:

 

Gary is a big issue? I thought this thread was about how the market is dead and wurm is failing (didnt notice that latter part yet) - but someone who finds an active slot in the market is bad and causing wurm to fail? Literally makes no sense whatsoever. Either way, I don't see how he's doing something bad, if people want to pay money for a tome and he has them - he's not even "poaching" them from uniques, so he's not "denying" them to anyone else - then his system is actually an example that the wurm market should be following. Apparently so if he is making that much money off of them ever so easily, we oughta learn from him, not complain.

I should've explained myself better, so fair point. I don't have a problem with Gary or his friends and what they're doing. Right now what their doing, is just a clever use of game mechanics. I just find the whole system a can of worms though. Taking stuff from a non-existent economy (Epic) and laundering tomes over to (Freedom) by using them on epic to win game on freedom, because the personal goals are linked. Is just a broken loophole. All it's going to do is ultimately create more problems long term to the economy. It should be addressed at some point, just like player gods was.

 

I get that people on epic want to bring all there items to freedom. I understand it sucks, some would say that would officially kill the markets for good - I'm in concordance so yeah I'm against it.

 

I'm sorry Epic is dead but that game mode was never meant to have a economy influencing freedom.

[Niki 2,278]

1 minute ago, FranktheTank said:

I think Niki wants tomes.

and waste my karma? psh never!

[FranktheTank 1,901]

1 minute ago, Niki said:

I should've explained myself better, so fair point. I don't have a problem with Gary or his friends and what they're doing. Right now what their doing, is just a clever use of game mechanics. I just find the whole system a can of worms though. Taking stuff from a non-existent economy (Epic) and laundering tomes over to (Freedom) by using them on epic to win game on freedom, because the personal goals are linked. Is just a broken loophole. All it's going to do is ultimately create more problems long term to the economy. It should be addressed at some point, just like player gods was.

 

I get that people on epic want to bring all there items to freedom. I understand it sucks, some would say that would officially kill the markets for good - I'm in concordance so yeah I'm against it.

 

I'm sorry Epic is dead but that game mode was never meant to have a economy influencing freedom.

But what if, more people realize this is a thing, come to epic for ezpz tomes, and therefore increase epic population and pvp!

[Niki 2,278]

Just now, FranktheTank said:

But what if, more people realize this is a thing, come to epic for ezpz tomes, and therefore increase epic population and pvp!

It's happening right now, and the freedom economy is suffering because of it. I think people are starting to sell rares for 2s each.

[rixk 830]

5 hours ago, GoldFever said:

 

If the majority of the player base is such that they want to sell to other players to make rl money as some sort of end-game content, then simple math makes it clear that they will be disappointed. It is not a sustainable niche to support primary game development. Development must always focus on the quality of life and actual game play. If sales can slip in sideways and make a few coin, great, if not, not.

 

Also those people will be disappointed, who want to earn money to buy things in game: highend armor, tomes whatever. And that's the thing, it is impossible to separate traders based on what they will use their money on.

[MrGARY 12,421]

22 minutes ago, Niki said:

I get that people on epic want to bring all there items to freedom. I understand it sucks, some would say that would officially kill the markets for good - I'm in concordance so yeah I'm against it.

 

Let me spell it out for the 50th time

 

It's not about bringing items to freedom, its about putting the buffs/spells onto my account to use for whenever I decided I want to go back to chaos, because the buffs/spells I won on epic were not allowed to stay attached to my account.

If I did not need to replace used tomes, I wouldn't even dream of doing the effort required for winning the game

If won tomes gave 2 charges, there wouldn't be any charges being sold outside of winning duplicates

It has absolutely nothing to do with a market or controlling it.  It's like if you buy a humble bundle with 3 games but you only wanted 2, you're gonna sell/trade the 3rd game key because you don't need it.  That doesn't mean you're now controlling some game key market because you got more than you need

 

18 minutes ago, Niki said:

It's happening right now, and the freedom economy is suffering because of it. I think people are starting to sell rares for 2s each.

 

how in gods name is this epics fault

Edited May 1, 2018 by MrGARY

[Niki 2,278]

6 minutes ago, MrGARY said:

 

Let me spell it out for the 50th time

 

It's not about bringing items to freedom, its about putting the buffs/spells onto my account to use for whenever I decided I want to go back to chaos, because the buffs/spells I won on epic were not allowed to stay attached to my account.

If I did not need to replace used tomes, I wouldn't even dream of doing the effort required for winning the game

If won tomes gave 2 charges, there wouldn't be any charges being sold outside of winning duplicates

It has absolutely nothing to do with a market or controlling it.  It's like if you buy a humble bundle with 3 games but you only wanted 2, you're gonna sell/trade the 3rd game key because you don't need it.  That doesn't mean you're now controlling some game key market because you got more than you need

I realize that, but can I ask why you think you should have that privilege? People on freedom before this winning the game nonsense started had to deal with extremely low drop chance uniques for tomes. Not many arch mages on freedom, that isn't a slap on the face to those people? Don't you think what you're doing is exploitative? My moral compass says it is but I'm not in charge around here.

Edited May 1, 2018 by Niki
typo

[MrGARY 12,421]

9 minutes ago, Niki said:

I realize that, but can I ask why you think you should have that privilege? People on freedom before this winning the game nonsense started had to deal with extremely low drop chance uniques for tomes. Not many arch mages on freedom, that isn't a slap on the face to those people? Don't you think what you're doing is exploitative? My moral compass says it is but I'm not in charge around here.

If you put in effort to win, then I don't think theres any exploit and it's fair.  The only slap in the face is people trying to ruin it for others because they are jealous.  As far as selling the extra charge, well I'm just doing what you wanted to see? 

 

Logging started 2018-03-07

[17:19:46] <Niki> never have i've seen you sell before this is new
[17:21:05] <Gary> its merely currency exchange
[17:21:30] <Niki> Still it's somthing, hope to see more of it

 

I get the feeling by now it's not about the economy's actual faults, but trying to smear scapegoats as the devil who are also violating game rules. Maybe it's because you don't want to see competition even if it's just getting rid of assets not needed and far from an actual entry into the economy as a business, or maybe it really is just other people aren't allowed to have fun.  Whatever it is, clearly has nothing to do with the economy

[Niki 2,278]

Just now, MrGARY said:

If you put in effort to win, then I don't think theres any exploit and it's fair.  The only slap in the face is people trying to ruin it for others because they are jealous.  As far as selling the extra charge, well I'm just doing what you wanted to see? 

 

Logging started 2018-03-07

[17:19:46] <Niki> never have i've seen you sell before this is new
[17:21:05] <Gary> its merely currency exchange
[17:21:30] <Niki> Still it's somthing, hope to see more of it

 

I get the feeling by now it's not about the economy's actual faults, but trying to smear scapegoats as the devil who are also violating game rules. Maybe it's because you don't want to see competition even if it's just getting rid of assets not needed and far from an actual entry into the economy as a business, or maybe it really is just other people aren't allowed to have fun.  Whatever it is, clearly has nothing to do with the economy

I didn't mean tomes. Or taking advantage of a broken system, where Epic-MR are always going to win the game. You've basically made fun of me for so long whenever I tried to sell something or discuss economy, I see you sell for the first time ever one tome, and decided to make a joke. Don't twist my words please.

[Mayra 3]

So people cant sell the tomes now because it hurts the market?

[Niki 2,278]

Just now, Mayra said:

So people cant sell the tomes now because it hurts the market?

Come again? Where did I say that?