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AndreC

So How 'Bout that 'Conomy

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edit: again though. I disagree with passive decay increase in chests. not everyone can afford multiple, let alone a single large magic chest to hide their valuables in.

I think that would be disasterous, and devalue the products even moreso.

decay with use is great.

Who said anything about chests? :P  (I know what you're getting at though; any talk about a change in one place is bound to lead to a blanket change, instead of a targeted one.)

Someone suggested once that a boat that no one has embarked upon in X amount of time should be kicked up to a faster level of decay, and this "timer" could be reset simply by you, or someone else, jumping in your boat once in a while.  I think something along those lines might work... Perhaps if you could "care for" a boat as you do a horse?  Or "brand" it so that it's tied in some way to deed protections... Surely there has to be a way to get the disused ones off the server, without making everyone's boats rot if they're gone for a couple of weeks.

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There needs to be a mechanic that removes items/tools from circulation over time - I hate to play devils advocate here, but to make a decent economy our regular non-consumables(Boats, Tools, Weapons, Armors) there needs to be a mechanic that removes said items from circulation after a certain point.

Right now, I can build my first mallet, and as I get better, just make that same mallet better and better and better, I'll have that mallet literally forever....  What we need to see in order to have a market for this stuff is to have that mallet at some point be come useless, and require me to make another better one, not just improve the one I have.

What we need to see happen is something along the lines of:

[list type=decimal]

[*]You create an unfinished item - This item remains unfinished until you chose to finish it

[*]Improve said item to your desired or your max QL

[*]Select an option to prep said item for enchantment(item cannot be imped ever again after this point) - this way, we don't all just enchant 1QL items with nothing to lose. Shattering an item should actually hurt a little

[*]Once all the enchants you want are cast, select an option to Finish the item

[*]Once finished this item is as good as it will ever be, you can repair it over time, but the QL will always be on a downwards spiral, eventually it will get worn out, and you will need to buy a new one

 

Lets be honest none of our items should last forever, and there is a NEED for Wurm to have a working market/economy, which right now, it doesn't have much of imo...

+1 for the idea of adding modules to boats!  First thing on the agenda should be be the ability to add storage containers to it - Ship Hold Upgrade 1-10, each one adds room another 100 item hold so we don't have use a billion rafts to actually be able to ship a useful quantity of anything.

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We can't just assume that Wurm shall be a completely capitalist society and force everyone to buy and consume items continually. One aspect that I haven't seen mentioned here is that most villages are self-sufficient; when the blacksmith needs his armor imped and the leatherworker needs better tools they help each other out, because this is the reason most people join up in villages (aside from the social aspect). So the "market" does very much exist, it's just that a significant chunk of it is localized to smaller communities with no external profits made. This is not just something you can take away.

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The real problem with boats is due to the addition of 2 servers last fall.  People were willing to pay any price for a ship, and we shipbuilders made a lot of coin putting out boats as quickly as possible.  After the migrations were done, suddenly there was an overabundance of ships available, which is still affecting the market today.  Give it a year and it will balance out more.

Other markets have different forces driving them.  For instance, horses aren't worth much anymore, but in my opinion they were overpriced at first anyway, some people paying 4s or more for a horse.  For the most part proper prices are found for things by demand and it works fine.

The only ones that hurt the markets at all are the ones that bought a skilled account.  An account that has max skills and has been through multiple owners is there to make money, not play the game.

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On the subject of boats and boat prices (considering time and materials required), I think there is actually a problem; boats pretty much last forever.  This has been brought up a number of times over the years, but it hasn't really been solved.

are you saying they shouldn't last for years? :/

If i keep imping my pickaxe and repairing it lasts for years aswell

You've nailed it there, though: your pickaxe wears with use, and you maintain it through repair and improvement.  Boats have no mechanic for "wear" - only natural decay.  Maintained boats should last, but unmaintained should not.

Well, ONLY if the owner has not logged on for ~2 months the boat should decay faster or something, i have like 8-10 boats, a rainbow fleet, alyeska and xallo have some too, i don't think its fair if i need to spend 2 days every month to keep them improved or anything.

Or make boats take damage on sailing like in mining as you say, every 5km take 1 damage, but otherwise no thnx.

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Well, after an interesting conversation in freedom chat today on exodus, I've began to ponder, why prices are so 'low'. Well low for the seller, and high for the buyer.

We seem to have lost the balance between low and high prices...

I think it's simple deflation...

The fact that prices are low for the seller and high for the buyer means exactly that the market is in balance.  I dont believe this is a situation of deflation, since silver coins are pegged to the euro, a silver coin is worth as much to us as it always has been.  Vroomfondel's keen insight of a 'boat bubble' stemming from the Deli and Exo servers explains the depreciation in boat prices.  As for other goods not fetching the prices they use to, it is due to 3 things.  First off, they can be produced more efficiently now because of ppl becoming more skilled at making them.  2nd is population growth (or lack of) having an impact on the demand for more goods and services.  Thirdly when a producer in wurm is making something in which there is not enough demand for, they are not necessarily forced out of business.  If this were the case in wurm, the supply would dwindle and the price would stabilize.  Luckily though that is not the reality here, we are free to pursue the crafts we enjoy, with market prices suggesting (as opposed to forcing) the proper type and amount of production.

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Making a boat is very very difficult - it requires hundreds if not thousands of actions - and a LOT of sellers just aren't putting their prices up enough at all.

If you want to sell more then you lower your prices. The problem with the boat economy is that people have been over-producing, then going "oh I need to lower my prices so I can sell more." That is NOT true.

Overproduction is when a market becomes saturated (ie there is nobody left to sell to.) I was talking to somebody who was selling small sail boats at 30c and they had 8 in stock... it's utter lunacy, to have that many boats in stock and to sell for such a low price.

By trying to sell more boats with a lower price, more people own one and hence there are less people to sell to. Yes, selling at uber-low prices will give you short-term profits... but with a small economy, you can sell to all of your potential customers in a week.

Severe price cuts are very unhealthy. Goods being too cheap and causing a saturated market actually caused the American Great Depression... and this under-cut of boat prices is going to make a lot of people rather poor. The 10i/action rule worked rather well, I recommend that boat builders stick to it because a few of them have just messed up their economy.

If there is no market for a product then it won't sell, no matter how cheap it is.

Allow me to emphasise...

IF YOU SELL LOTS OF PRODUCTS IN BULK, AND EVERYBODY BUYS A PRODUCT THEY ONLY NEED TO BUY ONCE, HOW DO YOU PLAN TO SELL THEM THE SAME THING AGAIN??

If every seller sells at a standard price then every player has one option but to go to them. Currently, people go to the cheapest seller and then that person probably won't buy the same boat ever again. They don't need to. It's not safe and it's not good... out of all products boats are the worst to have a price deflation because people really don't neeed more than one!! No economic continuity at all!!

Cheap enchants would be nice as they only last a few months. A cheap boat, with re-imps, could last forever.

Some Wurm players really really need an economics lesson...

/endrant

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There needs to be a mechanic that removes items/tools from circulation over time - I hate to play devils advocate here, but to make a decent economy our regular non-consumables(Boats, Tools, Weapons, Armors) there needs to be a mechanic that removes said items from circulation after a certain point.

I strongly disagree with this line of thinking.  Just because tools and armor is cheaper, does not mean the economy is any less decent.  The benefit we get as wurmians is higher standard of living.  The average wurm player has better stuff now than 2 years ago, and i bet the average wurm player finds that a good thing. 

Most players in wurm operate on a budget.  They vary greatly from player to player, but overall i believe that removing items from circulation will not boost the economy.  Sure, players will spend their coin reacquiring these tools and armor, but most likely it will be at the expense of not acquiring something else.  There will be no overall gain to the economy, just a shift of what ppl are buying, and everyone having less stuff as a result.

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Well, i have a fulltime job and dont want to spend all my wurm time maintaining my tools or having to invest money to buy new ones. I don't care about the market personally, it would be nice to have it as it was, but i don't want to be a part of it.

Just let em have my stuff and i'm happy, many others will be aswell.

The people you dont hear here are also the ppl that don't do any selling and just want to play the game.

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There needs to be a mechanic that removes items/tools from circulation over time - I hate to play devils advocate here, but to make a decent economy our regular non-consumables(Boats, Tools, Weapons, Armors) there needs to be a mechanic that removes said items from circulation after a certain point.

That would be madness. Our modern RL economy thrives on selling you the same thing over and over again (Apple.) How do they do it? They sell you something a bit better. So really, people need to be selling a noob a 40ql maul with basic enchants if at all, followed by a 50 with decent enchants, followed by a 60 with good enchants, followed by a 70 with great enchants, followed by an 80 with amazing enchants - this kind of technique of offering something a bit better every time gets a customer coming back again and again (think of how many iPhone versions there have been;) instead of just selling everybody the same good 70ql weapon and leaving it at that.

A good seller on Wurm will operate at the right price to make big profits and profit from every player on the game.

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Now with the faster timers everythign is even easier to create and the decay for tools sitting in chests or kept on an alt has not been adjusted, so the price will go down even more slowly.

Schiann - this caught my attention. like you said, the blanket effect. ...i've seen a few ideas with hardly a brief mention get turned in to full on updates.

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Stuff that we can do as players... if you want the price to go up, buy anything and everything for the proposed price and don't haggle. Your demand would drive the market to higher prices.

If you want prices to go down, get people to mass boycott the buying of anything but the absolute essentials and just make their own things. Demand would drop and supply would become excessive and people would look to lowering prices just to move goods.

Alternatively, have more people join the selling market to breed more competition and thus lower the price.

So wait, what was this thread about again?

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On the subject of boats and boat prices (considering time and materials required), I think there is actually a problem; boats pretty much last forever.  This has been brought up a number of times over the years, but it hasn't really been solved.

are you saying they shouldn't last for years? :/

If i keep imping my pickaxe and repairing it lasts for years aswell

You've nailed it there, though: your pickaxe wears with use, and you maintain it through repair and improvement.  Boats have no mechanic for "wear" - only natural decay.  Maintained boats should last, but unmaintained should not.

Well, ONLY if the owner has not logged on for ~2 months the boat should decay faster or something, i have like 8-10 boats, a rainbow fleet, alyeska and xallo have some too, i don't think its fair if i need to spend 2 days every month to keep them improved or anything.

Or make boats take damage on sailing like in mining as you say, every 5km take 1 damage, but otherwise no thnx.

Yeah i would suggest that Ships have actual collision detection. That way they Take dmg when you go full speed into the coast or when you sail into another ship on see.

You can actually sink while sailing -> actual salvaging. you need to repair and imp your boats back just like real life!

every dock would have a purpose then!

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Well, i have a fulltime job and dont want to spend all my wurm time maintaining my tools or having to invest money to buy new ones. I don't care about the market personally, it would be nice to have it as it was, but i don't want to be a part of it.

Just let em have my stuff and i'm happy, many others will be aswell.

The people you dont hear here are also the ppl that don't do any selling and just want to play the game.

my main opposition to the advanced decay suggestions.

does not help economy.

hurts game play enjoyment.

nuff said.

other subjects - we have an abundance of goods on the market. new players cannot compete because high skilled players pump out low-mid ql tools, and also advertise their high end goods to anyone and everyone.

"i'll get a better such and such from so and so"

"i can't compete with so and so because they make everything better and faster than i"

i hear both of those daily.

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Well, i have a fulltime job and dont want to spend all my wurm time maintaining my tools or having to invest money to buy new ones. I don't care about the market personally, it would be nice to have it as it was, but i don't want to be a part of it.

Just let em have my stuff and i'm happy, many others will be aswell.

The people you dont hear here are also the ppl that don't do any selling and just want to play the game.

my main opposition to the advanced decay suggestions.

does not help economy.

hurts game play enjoyment.

nuff said.

other subjects - we have an abundance of goods on the market. new players cannot compete because high skilled players pump out low-mid ql tools, and also advertise their high end goods to anyone and everyone.

"i'll get a better such and such from so and so"

"i can't compete with so and so because they make everything better and faster than i"

i hear both of those daily.

That is also because the game is not getting enough new players. The amount of premium accounts is not really raising if any at all, more ppl are getting high skilled and not enough people start to keep the market going.

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To get this right: I should be forced to buy a ship every few months or get it repaired just to have a few ship builders get their hands on my money? Are you kidding me?

Getting something in the game to make it easier for a few to make money while the majority buys their prem and silver from the shop seems like the most unfair idea ever.

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The economy is just fine. Prices go up and down all the time. Supply and demand. Simple.

Edit: oh and things will only get cheaper because people coming into the game. By the way this is a good thing, it makes

1. Players spend more time trying to make their premium money then an hour

or

2. More players who dont have the time to spend all day trying to make that premium money will end up spending really money on prem and will put more revenue into the game.

Both are not bad side-effects.

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After reading through all of the posts here, it seems clear to me that we're running a Walmart vs (insert local superstore) economy. Walmart being the people selling everything dirt cheap, and the local superstore being those selling for what retail price should be around. That being said, the only reason prices have been going lower it seems, is that five group sells something for 10s. Depending on small alterations or publicity of the groups, one of them has to take the majority orders so in order to combat this, everyone else drives down their prices to 9s, then 8, 7 and so on until it's the lowest point of equilibrium where it becomes for the most part unprofitable to make and sell, than what the effort is worth. This is happening with boats.

As far as having a system to kill tools from the system; No. Wouldn't make any sense. There are still people who drive 30 year old + cars, just regular maintenance and maybe a restore at some point, kind of applies to boats as well. As far as collision detection, no for now. When we have bridges, maybe. Right now we'd kill off at least 10 damage on a boat when we ram the shallow of a ford. Only decay I see that should be on boats is similar to houses with a bit of modification; 2 weeks until damage ticks become like house ticks, and 2 months when these ticks go to 2x

More decay, more tools, less prices. Metal doesn't normally up and disappear on its own, iron may rust but that's about it, I think the system is fine right now.

As far as the current market flooding of tools... It happens, but we don't have the pop increase to take it. If everyone wanted to help everyone, and themselves out for a bit, raise your prices or reduce inventory. This does mean a slight or complete coin hit sometimes, but until we get to the point where bring in more people.

My overall conclusion to this is that everyone already has what they need, so we've reached a stalemate for what can and can't be sold easily. Bulk supplies seem to always be in demand because they're meant to be used. There's always someone who wants to build some sort of mega-structure. Tools rise and fall regularly, but recently have begun to fall because plenty can make it, and everyone wants their cut of the profit, causing slashed prices and deals of the sort. Boats get made and stay for what can be YEARS, and can be salvaged under certain conditions and a bit of money. Boats therefore are overflowing the market, deflating the balloon by crushing prices as people might begin to sell their used boats too.  It's not people giving things away for free that kills the market, it's the decreasing population to market to.

As far as a 'fix' goes, it's a community effort, and nearly impossible because everyone wants to make money, if it's just to have it or if they have to meet a quota to keep their deed in one piece. The money also pools into the big producers. Groups who sell things of great quality, high or low quality, if it's purchased they're getting the money. Most of Wurm is a purchasing only population, with sales of things they just so happen to come by. If money isn't dumped back into the server via deeds and traders and premium purchase, major producers would possess multiple gold coins, if not a few already.

This also bases itself off of the RL economy complete. If money was generated for the most part, it'd have no solidity.

If nothing this taught me more about the Wurm economy than I'd ever find out on my own. I'm sure I missed a point somewhere but I think i got the major ones.

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I think the decay idea is needed but on a much tamer level. 

For instance - said boat hasn't been used for a set amount of time every month (lets say an hour) then it goes on the "decay" list and starts to decay rapidly.  After all if you leave a boat at a dock and don't use it/take care of it it will decay!

Same goes for tools stockpiled and saved.  If they haven't been used in over a month they could start a decay process.  Now, should chests decay? No.  Only certain types of items should decay.  A month might not be enough time for someone to utilize the item, given life situations.  So maybe two months?

Something does have to cause recycling of items/tools/boats on freedom, I'm not even on freedom and i understand that on the pvp servers it's just as much of an issue I can't even imagine on a server that's been up for years...

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Maybe make it so that boats of a certain age have to be refitted? Ie when they're a year old (RL time) you have to change the sails, every now and again they need some planks replacing, etc. E.g.:

[10:05:45] You see a cog. It is moored here. It could do with having the sails and some hull planks replaced. The boat also needs to be re-sealed.

There could be a negative speed bonus until these were fixed. This wouldn't punish boat users, instead a boat (like a RL car) would become a bit tired and eventually needs some maintenance by a professional (a mechanic, or in Wurm's case a shipbuilder.) The maintenance would require the same amount of skill level to build the thing in the first place... opening up a whole new market for "ship mechanics." A lot of people have an interest in ship building as a business and so this would give those people more to do, meaning they have to worry less about making new boats in the first place...

You could also make it so that you can only see which parts need to be replaced based on ship skill (like with horse traits.) So it could be:

1 skill:

[10:05:45] You see a cog. It is moored here. The rigging looks tired and you notice some rot on the hull.

30 skill (lets say you can see everything on a boat at the minimum skill required to start it +20):

[10:05:45] You see a cog. It is moored here. The mainsail needs replacing, the ropes don't have much life left in them and a section of the hull needs repairing.

I think that some kind of maintenance system would rock... along with quality affecting boat speed too. Heck, the parts replacement could "cap" the ql of a boat until you replace the problem parts. So if somebody wants a small sail boat taking from 15ql to 30ql then you can do it no problem, whereas a cog going from 20ql to a speedy 80ql would need a decent number of parts freshened up.

I'm not even going to cover attaching additional parts/modules to ships like forges and beds... there is just too much potential for them to discuss in one post!!

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I help out my friendly chain armour smiths by purchasing many sets of armor at bulk prices. Then I sell them slowly to players in instant need, or to priests who enchant them then sells them in bulk to another player who then sells them, then the player dies and loses all his items... and the cycle begins again. Of course my system is more complex than that, but this is simple economics. Everyone touches the item along the line. Full circle.

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The only issue I see offhand with any boat decay is the assumption that people will have the skills to maintain thier own ships, most boats are made by people with high skill and sold to people with little to no skill, there are exceptions but a person dropping 18s or so on a 60 ql Knarr wont want the same boat barely imped to 10 ql to keep it afloat, sure we could have traveling shipbuilders but that is just another unneeded new market.

As Elias said a lot of things are done in Wurm without the exchange of currency, people trade goods and services all the time for other goods or services or " Gasp " give things away.

If you can make enough in Wurm to play it free more power to you, but no ingame economy can make it so everyone profits same as the real world, in a crafting game saturation just goes with the territory, you make a bunch at once when your the top dog or top producer, more join the bandwagon, prices drop and you move on to something else until everything is saturated or people quit moving you back up in the ranks.

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Why not let people set up repair vendors?  The vendor would be equal to the skill of the player, and people could come by and repair their boat for some copper.    This could work with every type of trade.  I'm loving the ideas honestly, I think more decay is OKAY.  When you use your tool and it gets damaged is it game breaking?  No.  In fact it makes you have to imp your weapon or get a new one, but not right away... many many weeks later.

Plus with items breaking/decaying faster you'll offset the fact that items are easier to make for new players...  it balances itself out if done right.  So you no longer lose materials on trying to attempt to create something, BUT low QL goods decay faster.

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I would not have any problem with an adjustment in the decay rate.  I'd go along with the idea of the decay increasing it's rate the longer an item sits, as decay currently seems to have a stable rate.  Since it is an artificial market we need decay.  We do not have new inventions constantly coming out that make older objects obsolete, so decay is the only way to keep a demand for newly made items.

We have to be careful about how much decay however, as most items are enchanted and people won't want to lose those.  There is also the time it takes to make a really good weapon or tool, players hate to lose that investment.  That is why we can repair and imp, so those special items are not lost.  It's that delicate balance, so truly abandoned items go poof, but stored stuff is subject to only normal decay.

I don't like the idea of a repair vendor, that is something you should be doing yourself to earn coin.  It's not like a merchant, where you are selling items.  You are talking about selling a service, like digging or mining.

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Whykillme.

That's my entire point in all my posts here... the problem isnt' that the in game economy actually needs help...

it's that we need to attract more players. not just one surge. a steady flow of new people to buy, use, sell and lose break and replace things.

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