Economy opinion

[CountZero 58]

So im thinking about how my server economy should work and looking for opinions.

 

 

I have a starter city in which i intend to have npc merchants selling gear as well as the modded crafter npcs imping stuff for people and modded buyer npcs.

 

 

The idea is that I will have basic npcs in the slum - selling basic tools and containers etc at 20ql and in each place a npc imper that will imp stuff up to 40ql for a price.

There will be a nicer area of town with better npcs - 50ql gear for purchase and impers that go to 70ql (obviously more expensive)

 

 

I also intend to have buyer npcs. Some in the taverns buying cheap food and drink, another in the kitchens of the royal palace buying more expensive food and drink.

There will also be a bulk goods buyer buying metal lumps and other basic resources and this is the first issue im at.....

 

namely, do you think I should just stick to buying metal lumps or should I add planks and bricks etc as well? My thinking is that having easy to obtain items will help out newbs and making them slightly processed rather than the raw matts will encourage them to skill up BUT wont this cause them to strip mine the local area of all resources? Newbs need easy access to resources so if i encourage them to harvest it all just for the sake of harvesting it rather than just using what they need i may be screwing things up a bit.

 

I suppose as an admin I could just respawn resources every now and then. What do people think?

 

 

Also....if I have a infinite source of money coming from material buying merchants, what do you think I should use for a sink? If I balance the numbers well do you think item buying and imping would be sufficient? I really dont want to enable deed costs and i dont want to force people to farm basic mats just to get money they need for something. I want economy interaction to be optional but at the same time it would be a bit pointless is everyone had far too much money or no hope of earning enough.

[Henry 21]

It is important to consider what people really spend the money on, so you can tweak their income better.

From my experience, most players tend to rather craft and imp things themselves, rather than buying them.

Unless the price for said things are really cheap and easy to get to, like you said having a starter city.

 

When it comes to bulk goods like rock shards, sand, lumps, etc. keep in mind there's going to be players running macros or bots all night long if you have an infinite demand for such things.

Usually the way to go with bulk goods is, make a buyer npc that buys each of those items for insanely low prices, like 1-2i per item. This way you encourage players to trade the resources for a better margin.

Another great benefit of having bulk goods this cheap is, that players can literally dump all their excess items (kindlings, seeds, etc) into the trader, helping with a slightly cleaner database.

 

Are you going to use traders as well? If yes, keep in mind that traders can and probably will fill up with insane amounts of silver over time or after restarts, which players can easily drain with some 'easy to get' high value items. Possibly spilling 50+ silver into a players pocket.

 

26 minutes ago, CountZero said:

I suppose as an admin I could just respawn resources every now and then. What do people think? 

This way you could possibly trap players in caves. You should consider setting the mining hits for walls to a higher number like 50 if you want to encourage more mining. You can also consider creating your map in a way, that veins already contain increased amounts of resources, like 15k-30k per vein.

[CountZero 58]

cheers for the reply.

 

the point of the raw mats buying merch is to give new players a way to make money which they can spend on buying or imping tools - this way they aren't forced into skilling up blacksmithing themselves if what they really want to do is build houses or farm or etc. If the prices for the mats are really low it will just encourage people to tear up a massive amount of resources.

 

I am working on the assumption that player base will be very low and so Id like to create a system that doesnt rely on players filling in the blanks. Player to player trading will still have a place as they can undercut the npc prices and also the npcs wont provide above a certain QL level.

 

 

I am not sure about traders at the moment - I dont want anything that buys from player except the modded buyer merchants. I also want npcs that have infinite stock of items to sell to players but I want to specify what those items are and what the prices are. I am not sure if this is currently possible? I may have to not use traders at all, use merchants and just keep refilling their stock

 

Im not sure how I would trap players in caves - the only mining type resources id want to re-spawn are ore veins and thats done by converting a normal rock tile to whatever.

[Henry 21]

30 minutes ago, CountZero said:

Im not sure how I would trap players in caves - the only mining type resources id want to re-spawn are ore veins and thats done by converting a normal rock tile to whatever.

Ah, yes you won't trap people with replacing cave walls with resources, even though that process will be alot of work.

I was thinking of maybe running a script that restores the cave layer, or maybe have something like a "Cave wipe" date, where you simply replace the cave layer with the original one, or maybe a new and randomized one, so players have to search for the good ores again.

 

Keep in mind, that you should never expect to know how many players are going to play and especially how they will behave.

 

34 minutes ago, CountZero said:

If the prices for the mats are really low it will just encourage people to tear up a massive amount of resources.

They will do the same if the prices are higher. IMO the best way to go with bulk buyers is to have them as a way out for excess resources, and not for a main source of income.

 

One of the main "goals" i see from players is getting enough silver to afford either a big deed for months to come or they save up for magical chest, transmutation rods, merchant contracts or even wagoner contracts.

Of course you can add them with your own price to merchants and regulate the market this way.

 

41 minutes ago, CountZero said:

I also want npcs that have infinite stock of items to sell to players but I want to specify what those items are and what the prices are. I am not sure if this is currently possible? I may have to not use traders at all, use merchants and just keep refilling their stock

I'm not sure if there's a mod for this yet. But if you're planning on selling special items only and they're quite costly, you can expect to not refill it that often

 

Also, have you thought of adding a bounty mod so players earn money for killing stuff?

[CountZero 58]

the starter town has a mini mine deed just outside it to give players easy access to iron. This is the only place id worry about re-spawning iron so i think it will be manageable.

 

Very good point about the bulk goods buying. Im not sure of a way around that - I wont have transmutation rods, contracts, or anything like that for sale to require a lot of money (deed costs are off) but if players are selling stuff to each other there could be motivation to abuse the buyer. I might have a word with the mod creator and see if its possible to add a daily sell limit per player. It wont stop people making alts but its something.

 

I really wanted to have a market of npcs selling low ql items for new players so stock could run out quickly depending on how many players there are. - Hopefully if i can balance the numbers right people will just buy once and look after their stuff with imping.

 

I might add the bounty mod - depends on whether or not i have the buyer npc i guess but Im really looking for income sources for newbs so fighting skills going to be an issue plus the fact mobs have a lesser spawn rate near deeds so they would have to travel which is a bit iffy for a new guy.

[OneShotPaddy 1]

If I may respectfully throw in the opinion of someone opening their first WO server...

To me, it seems that getting the NEED for an economy is the first step. You say that you will have a starter town (bad) that will have vendors selling gear (worse). 

I bring attention to this because I might suggest it would be better to let players do those things. If you'll notice, on most existing servers there is zero economy until you reach the higher levels because no one thinks it's worth it to buy or sell mid-quality tools, gear, containers, etc. And those who WOULD buy them have no money.

So what if, instead, you simply turn the server into a scarcity situation? You create the need for players to specialize by lowering the skill gain on your server, then decrease the amount of resources on the server. Such as wood, iron, silver, gold, tar, etc. This forces players to explore, think, plan, compete. This creates an economy because now people HAVE to buy things unless you make PVP a possibility. Now they are members of society who need to interact.

Otherwise? As Henry said above, your players are going to want to do a lot of things for themselves. Most things. For some players, all things. They will literally build a hut and hide in it, not generating any REAL economics. So if you remove the ability for them to do this, if you make it necessary to work together to survive, people may be more willing to buy/sell things to each other and to traders. Especially if you increase rent.

Have you also considered events where "the gods" are open to massive donations of in-game silver in exchange for "boons"?

Summation:
1) Lower resource tiles
2) Consider making a custom map with area-specific resources
3) Consider opening PVP
4) Don't make deed upkeep free (maybe even increase it a little?)
5) Consider in-game ways to remove/add money into the economy
6) Lower skill gain to around 1x or 1.5x

Edited August 21, 2019 by OneShotPaddy