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Niki

The Wurm Economy Problem

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Also rewamped personal goals system will be great opurtunity to revive economy, i hope developers are aware of that and reading this. See what's happening with grapes and maple these days from something that used to cost 1-2s per k and was hard to sell goes on auctions at astronomical prices like 3-5 times more, people even buy woodscraps lol. Now imagine that there are simmilar missions, like create 5k beer, distill 5k alcohol etc. There is no way one person can supply everyone with seasonal things and large need for land so economy would seriously starts flowing. Also imagine if people can complete several sets of personal goals on same character like crafter personal goals, natural personal goals, warrior personal goals, magic personal goals... only thing is rewards need to be though carefully so they are unique and worth the trouble to avoid oversaturation over longer periods, even maybe soulbound. I also agree with kingdom missions on smaller scale than that to reward with consumables :)

Wurm has amazing amount of content, problem is that most of it is practicly useless

Edited by kochinac
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I know you're using it as an example but just seeing distil 5k alcohol is giving me a twitch. There might also be less dramatic ways of introducing ways of making things consumable. The grape is a good example though because of the North/South division of green and blue if the goal was 2.5k of each red and whilte wine or if you're making a potion of temporary horse speed +.5 m/s and it needs both green and blue then there'd be a reason to trade.

In the mean time I can only imagine there'll be quite a bit of forestry skillgain and more grape in the ground for next season, the price might not last but there will at least be something moving on the market.

 

 

 

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On 6/17/2018 at 12:48 PM, kochinac said:

Also rewamped personal goals system will be great opurtunity to revive economy, i hope developers are aware of that and reading this. See what's happening with grapes and maple these days from something that used to cost 1-2s per k and was hard to sell goes on auctions at astronomical prices like 3-5 times more, people even buy woodscraps lol. Now imagine that there are simmilar missions, like create 5k beer, distill 5k alcohol etc. There is no way one person can supply everyone with seasonal things and large need for land so economy would seriously starts flowing.  :)

Wurm has amazing amount of content, problem is that most of it is practicly useless

 

I am totally not against this, I will always support anything in the game that works to increase the necessity of agricultural goods and the movement of those goods. The most realism in any medieval game should be the production, transportation, and storage of food product as boring as it is. Any player can forage for seeds, plant a farm and start living off the land and that should be encouraged. 

 

Wurm focuses rightly on the high tiers of production while often dismissing the bulk resources necessary, now we have way too many people working the bellows and not as many working the fields and chopping the lumber.

 

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for lack of realism...   This game really needs an instant-trade system.  Why? 

 

If i need a cheese bucket as a new player, I don't care about the quality but I also don't want to go find an animal to get a bladder. I'll give someone a copper coin for it.

 

Basically there's no one selling anything unless it is of the highest quality, and that's partly because the entry required to sell (mailboxes, enchanted, boats, wagons, etc) are all high end. 


But a lot of goods don't need high quality, and would sell for iron/copper fairly easily.

 

It would also give new players trying to make a living an avenue for easier selling of low end bulk goods (since they cannot transport it themselves).

 

We already have instant-selling through mailboxes, just make a trade market already!  It would make it a lot easier to see the current state of the game too, as it would show just how many people are selling high end goods.

 

Just give us a market button that people can post stuff/buy stuff from and it comes instantly to you for a fee.  Wurm can then take a % of the sale, removing some of the silver from the game world requiring people to buy more eventually.

 

Imagine you hate cooking and can just go buy a meal off the market...

 

Or you could buy a bunch of nails, because you don't want to have to go back in the mine and heat up the furnace but you also don't need one thousand nails... just ten.

 

 

Edited by jonsnow

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24 minutes ago, jonsnow said:

for lack of realism...   This game really needs an instant-trade system.  Why? 

 

If i need a cheese bucket as a new player, I don't care about the quality but I also don't want to go find an animal to get a bladder. I'll give someone a copper coin for it.

 

Basically there's no one selling anything unless it is of the highest quality, and that's partly because the entry required to sell (mailboxes, enchanted, boats, wagons, etc) are all high end. 


But a lot of goods don't need high quality, and would sell for iron/copper fairly easily.

 

It would also give new players trying to make a living an avenue for easier selling of low end bulk goods (since they cannot transport it themselves).

 

We already have instant-selling through mailboxes, just make a trade market already!  It would make it a lot easier to see the current state of the game too, as it would show just how many people are selling high end goods.

 

Just give us a market button that people can post stuff/buy stuff from and it comes instantly to you for a fee.  Wurm can then take a % of the sale, removing some of the silver from the game world requiring people to buy more eventually.

 

Imagine you hate cooking and can just go buy a meal off the market...

 

Or you could buy a bunch of nails, because you don't want to have to go back in the mine and heat up the furnace but you also don't need one thousand nails... just ten.

 

 

well atm you will get an high end one for nothing also. That 90 ql one what has high enchants and cost like 1s took the person wiht a priest probably 3-4h with high skills to get it. Everything is so dirtcheap that i have started buying rares for money i forage. The easiest fast way atm to make money in wurm is foraging - no skills needed, just some land or area. And you can buy bad ql, you can buy 1 or 2 nails all you have to have is a mailbox. And you have to specify. If someone asks for 10 nails cause they are in big desire and have problems i am pretty sure there will be 20-30 nails sent your way for the cost of cod. 

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The point is that an easily accessible market adds a whole new flavor to new and old players.  New players could be the ones you’re buying nails from, etc.  old timers would benefit because of the increase in transactions.   Everyone wins, since like you said people can still use the older system

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The economy is dead, it is going to stay dead, and there will be no miraculous resurrection.

Put shortly, economic revival requires a drop in quality of life, and this would drive away too many players.  It would literally push WU beyond achiever critical mass (we're so far below social critical mass we can practically play the "dying game" card).

The path to revival of the economy is a solid player influx, followed by a QoL drop (player exodus to WU), and followed by the devs making informed decisions about economic balance.

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what ever happened to thriving market deeds and all the started deeds loaded up with merchants. i miss spending a day to travel around looking at all the merchants by the docks

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I dunno why we don't have an auction house yet like in WoW or other games. An institution in starter towns, or a building you can create in your own deed according to certain specifications. 

 

Basically you open the auction house and see every item people have placed there to sell or bid on. Wow really had a good system for it, you searched for an item, bid on it, then you got it in the mail a few seconds later if you chose the "instant buyout" option. 

 

Seems now that we have a trade chat, an auction house should be the natural progression for it. Physically travelling to dozens of merchants on the map is really not feasible and slightly annoying. A cross server, integrated auction house should work best to actually give people a place to make trade deals and the such. 

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thats where i laugh  at some people i enjoy travelling i enjoy playing the game i am not  a grinder and i buy my silver from the shop.. all changes need to start from within if you want a better game then start acting like it.,.. thats my say over the years i have offered ideas on how WE can make the game better and not rely on someone else maybe coming or maybe changing .. i do my part for the game ask yourself if you do .. otherwise sleep in your own bed.. as they say and as i say LONG LIVE WURM...  and Niki just remember all the peple that disagreed with you have or have had a vested interest in epic.. so be it,.. if we all want this game to live then do something yourself.. offer a newbie a hand.. volunteer to hold the hands of a new group this game has a steep learning curve

i just dont think we are a cohesive group anymore i notice we all have differing opinions on what needs to be done.. we need cohesivenes.... or we arent a community..

Edited by shakys
Moderation edit

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I get where you're coming Psalamon, but all the people who have and still help newbies don't actually compensate for the players that Leave the game or the players that play for 1-2 days and quit the game. Yeah we can work hard for Wurm all we want and make it a better game and community but at the end of the day the game is owned by CC and it's their responsibility to update and improve the game and above all else, actually make it fun and attractive for new people. Quality of life improvements and updates don't make much difference when the playerbase is getting smaller and smaller every month. As for finding new groups, sorry to tell you this mate, but coming from Epic where we really had some knit communities I'm kinda saddened to see just how isolationist and split freedom is. Freedom sadly promotes a sense of individualism and selfishness where everything is up for sale, unique hunts, rare items, horses, etc, where you have 20 alliances per serves and so forth. It doesn't promote team work that much besides public projects. Players are still sort of divided there. Just my two cents there, make of that what you wish. 

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We can’t even tell if the economy is broke without an auction house.  For all we know people are just unwilling to participate simply due to the hassle of the current system

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In my opinion, the utter size of Xanadu has a large affect on P2P trade. 

Especially with it being smack-dab in the middle of most of the cluster. 

 

Some kind of bulk/auction system in the starter towns could be nice. 

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fixing the wurm economy is simple.  1st make drake and scale impable with drake and scale like every other armour. 2nd  make all drake dragon kills leather and scale   payable toall people of the kingdom.

 

this will give all players something of value to spend through all tiers of the market. the people who can afford drake and scale  just like seryll  would have to afford to imp it  thus raising those prices and everyones trade value every month when a drake is killed in the kingdom

 

with more to spend on higher value items  the whole market will increase in activity and value.

 

supply and demand. there is an over supply of nearly everything in the markets with the exception of people with money to spend

 

jmo

 

another thing you could do is make premium cheaper with silvers. this would depleat the number of silvers available and instead of people selling them for cash  they would have to buy them for deed upkeep. once the silvers are depleated i think the game would make more money with the need of silvers for trade

Edited by quasiwud

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1 hour ago, quasiwud said:

fixing the wurm economy is simple.  1st make drake and scale impable with drake and scale like every other armour. 2nd  make all drake dragon kills leather and scale   payable toall people of the kingdom.

 

this will give all players something of value to spend through all tiers of the market. the people who can afford drake and scale  just like seryll  would have to afford to imp it  thus raising those prices and everyones trade value every month when a drake is killed in the kingdom

 

with more to spend on higher value items  the whole market will increase in activity and value.

 

supply and demand. there is an over supply of nearly everything in the markets with the exception of people with money to spend

 

jmo

 

another thing you could do is make premium cheaper with silvers. this would depleat the number of silvers available and instead of people selling them for cash  they would have to buy them for deed upkeep. once the silvers are depleated i think the game would make more money with the need of silvers for trade

Scale and drake market is still doing very well, I don't think they need to change that. Seryll has huge demand because of no shatter.

 

I do agree with you on making this game cheaper. 10 euro + deed upkeep and possibly a priest alt can make this game very expensive for some - especially since the market is dead now. Is bulk still a thing? Do veterans still say to a newbie, go make bulk? How long does that last before they quit, I wonder? Triple A' titles are cheaper even, I was personally very discouraged when I started playing and saw the monthly prem cost to play a Indy game.

 

I later found out I had to pay EVEN more money to buy a deed form *this is before deed stakes* and EVEN more money to buy the land and EVEN more money for upkeep to basically RENT the land, I was not pleased I gave it a shot, but I doubt others will even when they fix the game with UI, tutorial. Not to mention Euro can change often unlike other currencies.

 

I'm looking at you devs. Pls fix.

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7 minutes ago, Niki said:

Scale and drake market is still doing very well, I don't think they need to change that. Seryll has huge demand because of no shatter.

 

I do agree with you on making this game cheaper. 10 euro + deed upkeep and possibly a priest alt can make this game very expensive for some - especially since the market is dead now. Is bulk still a thing? Do veterans still say to a newbie, go make bulk? How long does that last before they quit, I wonder? Triple A' titles are cheaper even, I was personally very discouraged when I started playing and saw the monthly prem cost to play a Indy game.

 

I later found out I had to pay EVEN more money to buy a deed form *this is before deed stakes* and EVEN more money to buy the land and EVEN more money for upkeep to basically RENT the land, I was not pleased I gave it a shot, but I doubt others will even when they fix the game with UI, tutorial. Not to mention Euro can change often unlike other currencies.

 

I'm looking at you devs. Pls fix.

i have no issue with the cost of owning and upkeeping deeded lands. you get what you pay for.  my point was if more silver ( as a result of premium bought cheaper with silvers than cash) were spent on premium the game owners would make more on the sale of silver coins that would be depleated although still needed for in game trade and deed upkeep

 

 

Edited by quasiwud

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On 9/22/2018 at 10:53 PM, Niki said:

..

I do agree with you on making this game cheaper. 10 euro + deed upkeep and possibly a priest alt can make this game very expensive for some - especially since the market is dead now. ..

 

I disagree, at least when it comes to say that the subscription is not cheap. For 80€ you get a 1yr subscription, the first month can be obtained by 2s ingame. Minimum upkeep is 1 silver. And it is possible to stay subscribed without a cent of RL money spent, though this will imply some activity. (as a personal side note, I don't have much money atm, but I cannot say that this game is unfair or exaggerated in its pricing)

 

Even with much activity for building, mining, developing skills etc. it is well possible to make 6-12s every ingame every month, so 1s is not equal 1€ unless you are buying large amounts of silver for RL money. If you are unwilling to spend anything you may accommodate with permanently paying upkeep but being premed only every 2nd or 3rd month, 2 in 3month or similar. No other game offers similar flexibility.

 

On 9/22/2018 at 10:53 PM, Niki said:

 

I later found out I had to pay EVEN more money to buy a deed form *this is before deed stakes* and EVEN more money to buy the land and EVEN more money for upkeep to basically RENT the land, I was not pleased I gave it a shot, but I doubt others will even when they fix the game with UI, tutorial. Not to mention Euro can change often unlike other currencies.

 

I'm looking at you devs. Pls fix.

 

 

That a deed is not property eternally is consistent with the medieval settings. All the kingdom or empire was considered land of the crown, and land property given as a fief to loyal subjects. Granted there is not much roleplay in Wurm, but anyway.

 

I think we all or at least most agree that CC has to make a living and pay the bills. An economical remark: Euro may have been a good idea or not, since its installation it has a net rise of 25% or so (was even 35%) against the USD. Many of the changes can be considered volatility of the USD rather then the €. And it is the currency of the country of CC as well as of the country where the servers are located so no much of a point to charge in other currencies no more stable.

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'everyone undercutting each other'
play a game like eve online where the margin is pushed to the limit of the prem/sub value (which you usually get mining ice ore +8hrs a day every day of the month)(they mastered the stock market)
that priest that spent 3-4 hrs getting that 90 cast is prolly worth 5c of their time plus the time for the favour ..i suppose cyborgs haven't been invented yet that work 24/7 so 10c + favour
'foraging is still the best method'
the question isn't does the market need fixing but can wurm weather this upheaval .. 350 players to 450 players is nothing to baulk at in context
i'm not rushing to prem my alt but i don't play entirely for the money. i play because i see wurm as an upmarket version of what is available to me (to create something substantial from my many years of gaming). i'd prefer dev's to spend a little, only a little regular time to cater to that upmarket sense to wurm (not that they aren't) (you can only sell so many canopy beds before you've reached the limit of canopy beds you can sell (once again..not that they aren't))
in all fairness i ask more questions about the reality of asking my parents for aud$100 for a transmutation rod for a vein i will have mined out in 2-4 days. i'm not saying make wurm cheaper but you can't pass off wurm as being entirely inexpensive. what teenager has an electricity bill?? if you can afford to pay your electricity bill you can afford to give back to the community..logic as old as time itself..rl nobel peace prize for the 'nudge' to convince rich ppl to pay their taxes
there's plenty that can be done that isn't up to entirely the staff. i appluade the staff for the valrie entertainment network.. we as a community have to make the game enjjoyable to play
i spent 3 hrs in dead chat today. it literally drove me insane to see the usual chatterboxes were prolly there the whole time. i started plotting a market ploy then i found this thread
the coup de gras: someone said the crystal ball wasn't worth selling ..while i was there to buy ..can't help plain stoopid [potc] "it's a jar of dirt!? is the jar of dirt sellable?" "if you don't want it sell it to Macoofer.." "no!" "then it's sellable.." i bought a tin rake for 6s
top of the line ESO house: ~usd$220 .. medium eve online citadel ~usd$9.99 (i didn't put hours of thought into that so it's very rough) my 10 storey 8x8 marble building cost me 1 transmutation rod (coincidently for a different purpose so much much cheaper to buy mats) & 16s labour ..that's how i look at it in nobrainer light in light of impalongs

Edited by Seraph
i believe a logical arguement should be 2 paragraphs long

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The issue with the economy is that you have goods going in, but very little coming out.

Even if you boost the rate at which items decay or get damaged, this will not lead to the prices of items going up, it will lead to prices of improving and upgrading going up.

 

 

The longer a server is running, the worse the economy gets. People get more skilled and the standard rises. Eventually the average skill rises enough that the market gets flooded with 'standard' quality items, and the value of these things approaches worthlessness.

 

Wurm Online sought to alleviate this problem by introducing rarities. Creating a rare item is largely out of a player's control, and thus the market can not be flooded by them easily. Eventually enough of these items get created that they too become worthless, but depending on the rarity that can take a long time. If economy is your concern, then focusing on rarity and systems like it (rune upgrades?) are the way to go.

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, Scribble said:

Creating a rare item is largely out of a player's control, and thus the market can not be flooded by them easily.

Hah, that must be understatement of decade, there a custom rare/supreme creation service thread recently, i think that speaks enough of that...

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11 hours ago, Scribble said:

Creating a rare item is largely out of a player's control, and thus the market can not be flooded by them easily.

 

My 24 rare short bows and 19 rare mauls speak otherwise.. and I'm not the only one with numbers like these.

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low prices are good from a new player perspective (of someone not trying to make money from a video game) so the lower the better, since more new players is what we need.

This game already has way more hidden costs then just a subscription. and with the grind that is needed to make high end yourself it can be very discouraging for new players. 

I honestly think it would be fair every paying customer should get 1 free deed of like 5 by 5 tiles which starts costing money if the premium is gone. and extra tiles costs money of course, but that is a different discussion.

 

anyway, too many things in this game take way to long to do yourself. not everyone has the patience to achieve high skill in everything so having a cheap market is a benefit if new players is what you want.

But there are downsides, if new players ever want to own drake armor, to get 80S with this market will take some time to do.. and that will never chance because to many people have bought their stuff in game with real money and therefor don't want the prices to go lower. even though lower prices of everything will be one way to get and KEEP newer players interested.

 

 

 

 

 

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28 minutes ago, elroth said:

low prices are good from a new player perspective (of someone not trying to make money from a video game) so the lower the better, since more new players is what we need.

 

 

 

 

This is very debatable and I would strongly disagree. When I was a newbie I got lucky in first few weeks I got rare fruitpress, I sold it for 5s, I was so happy and motivated to keep playing as I could do so much with those 5s, fund deed for quite a while, buy some modest skillers. These days if that happened to me as a newbie I could just suck it and beg someone to take that press for 1,5-2s with which even the other prices are lower I could do apsolutely nothing compared to the past 5s..

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On 4/30/2018 at 2:33 AM, Angelklaine said:

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

 

 

 

Wow. 161 replies. I haven’t been on all spring/summer/fall so far due to the motorcycle riding season ? I will be coming back to the game as soon as they salt those roads or it gets too cold and I don’t feel like riding. It will be interesting to catch up on the thread and the many updates to the game. Ttys all and have a great day!

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I keep seeing the same suggestions and blame for the economy. Oh, it's the veterans, or it's the ability to cash out, or it's the cost of deeds. If you really look at any long standing game with a stable economy, the one thing they have in common is a game progression. Wurm doesn't have that. There are not more and more difficult encounters that require better armor or insanely enchanted weapons that become obsolete in a year or two.  Without obsolescence, any economy will stagnate.


Several suggestions have been put forth in the suggestions section that would help with this, such as instanced servers such as a hunting server where no one can just plop down a deed and farm forever. This would present the opportunity for CC to create those bigger and worse baddies that need the improved and advanced weapons and armors that would require the new and more obscure rarer materials to craft.

 

I know it's not going to be the popular answer, but the game is too sandbox to have longevity. Yeah, some of the economic drive comes from the players in their daily activities, but a long lasting and stable economy requires that some of the basic items become obsolete to a player as they advance to make way for the new. This type of system also may improve player longevity as they have new challenges to look forward to, new goals to achieve (besides ql 100 and level 100 in every skill), and new things to explore.

 

Just my two cents.

Edited by Seriphina
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