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AndreC

So How 'Bout that 'Conomy

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The problem I have with the economy system is the only things worth selling is tools, armour, boats and horses.  Why not make more items valuable that people want.  Tailors is one I would start off with first.  Make it where they can make shirts and sell to the public.  The player would wear the shirts and decrease the fatigue and hunger bar.  Priest could where them and it would help them.  While we are at it make it where spiders give silk.  Hunters could sell it to tailors and make silk shirts which in turn give better fatigue rate.  That would boost the economy in my opinion. 

Also Jewelery is another thing that needs to have a reason besides sacrificing. 

Point being give players a reason to use different skills. 

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I think there are a lot of good observations and opinions in this thread.  The economy in Wurm isn't difficult because of one single element, but rather a host of smaller issues.

Squirrels has brought up something that's always irritated me, nevermind the economy.  If you expand your Skills tab, that list is pretty darned long.  And yet, how many of those skills are really useful and utilised?

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having an impalong-type event every 6 months doesnt do us any favors. I fully support impalong once a year.

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having an impalong-type event every 6 months doesnt do us any favors. I fully support impalong once a year.

Q.Q i want free tools!

Q.Q i want free imps!

Q.Q AFTER IMPALONG THERE NO MARKET!

yea i agree, 1 every year is more then enough.

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More "useful" items to sell would be great,hopefully by adding perks to items that don't sell instead of force creating a need :)

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I think there are a lot of good observations and opinions in this thread.  The economy in Wurm isn't difficult because of one single element, but rather a host of smaller issues.

Squirrels has brought up something that's always irritated me, nevermind the economy.  If you expand your Skills tab, that list is pretty darned long.  And yet, how many of those skills are really useful and utilised?

And how much of a market is there left? Everyone wants kick-butt swords. Well, that market is closed because there's people out there who make awesome swords. Same goes for all the other obvious must have items.

The answer would probably be: more skills! So there's more items to make, more demand for them, a market that can not completely be covered by the few ultimate crafters.

As people have said: the current market is bad except for perishable goods and those don't bring in the kind of money many would deem worth the effort.

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The 90+ mining market has room but not many folks make it that far.

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I dont think decay should be touched, If I store my tools within a decent container I dont want them to randomly decay out of thin air.

Im not too where I stand on this thread. I dont know if greedy people want to keep their high prices...High or people are just wanting more money.

Personally, I was probably the only dedicated  lamp maker after Boston handed me his business. Yeah I made some money but the server split pretty much crippled it because I dont have the time, effort or will power to sail 2-5hours for xSilver. Same applies for my lanterns and dyes, although they are mail-able.

Same goes with my Dye business, I see people starting to ask me how to make x colour and what to combine to make it, now Im just waiting for people to start popping up in the market...Its always the same, people pick up and copy good ideas.

Overall, I think theres too much focus on Economy and just let it be an...Economy, it'll have ups and downs but seriously I play Wurm for Wurm, not for WurmSilver.

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Overall, I think theres too much focus on Economy and just let it be an...Economy, it'll have ups and downs but seriously I play Wurm for Wurm, not for WurmSilver.

Perfectly said right there.

Too much talk here of how to change the "market".  A market is just how buyers and sellers get together and trade things.  It is rather silly to talk about how to alter the market this way or that way.  The market just responds to buyers demand and sellers supply by way of lowering or raising prices.  It is us that should be changed by the market, not the other way around.  If prices are too low for sellers liking, that is the market telling them wurmians don't really need anymore of that product and that there efforts would be more appreciative in the making of a different product. 

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If there's anything wrong with the in-game economy just now it's down to a lack of new blood (when was the last surge in population?). Until Rolf starts running ad campaigns/actively promoting it will probably stay this way.

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Economy for the most part is fine...

However when someone has a 'sellout' in a public channel (which one should know is not the normal price) suddenly everyone expects that 'limited time' price to be the common price....

Thus things that were commonly 1 silver a mere two weeks ago, and were at that level for years, are suddenly selling for 30 coppers!

That is the insanity.....

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There is nothing technically wrong with the current market. The reason the market becomes saturated with skilled players and low demand is that Wurm has a low player turnaround. If Wurm gained and lost a thousand players every month the demand would be much higher. There is nothing to fix except make the game better. However, adding/buffing skills to expand the list of "core functionality"-skills might help (like Shipbuilding; it's a recently added skill that has become one of the most important Carpentry subskills).

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As I'm reading through this thread, it strikes me as odd that people are focusing so hard on boat building and ways to cause boats to fall apart so that they can sell more boats.  The boats are just part of the Wurm market and are controlled by the same factors as any other product in the game.

Prices are high when one of three conditions are met:

1) There is a limited production of an item, one under the possible level of demand for that product.

2) The raw materials (or subcomponents) are rare or expensive to acquire, meaning prices must be at a certain level to ensure profit.

3) An artificial control of the market allows price fixing.

In Wurm, since sooner or later everyone can do almost everything themselves, there is no limited production.  While not everyone is going to build their own large cart or high QL enchanted tool, enough people can and do that the possible production of any item is very high.

In Wurm, since basically all materials are infinite in supply, the only cost that really matters is time.  Technically this includes overhead time, like making tools to make the product or building an initial mine for the ore, but most people can't really factor those things in, so ultimately it's just how many clicks it takes you to make the item you're selling.

In Wurm, there are enough separate groups that nobody can get enough control of the market to set a price everyone must sell at.  I doubt this is even possible because the barrier to entry in any market is so low that a new player starting today could go off and find the supplies and earn the skills to join any market if they're willing to put in the time.

Ultimately, pricing is about supply and demand and these are self-regulating factors in the long run.  People produce a product and set the price at X; more people are willing to produce the higher X rises.  People wanting to buy the product are willing to pay Y; more people are willing to buy the product the lower Y goes.  Over time, X and Y meet somewhere and that's where the market lands.  Since the "overhead" of any production is just time, if the prices for your chosen product are too low in your mind, that means that there are producers out there who value their time less than you value yours, so their "cost of production" is lower.  In the real world, you either get out of that market because your profit isn't high enough or you learn to accept that this is the profit level you're going to make.

So, really, if you don't like the price of boats or tools or wildflowers, don't complain that these items have to be made to fall apart so that you can have more market.  I realized that sort of thought process seems right because of the modern way of doing business, but this is an artificial construct.  Items are designed to wear out quickly or become obsolete so they can sell you a new one again soon.  That only works when people have plenty and there is money for luxury.  Wurm is more frontier.  You expect to buy a good tool and have it last a long time, until you finally wear it out.  When you have more funds, you may buy a better tool, such as a pickaxe with enchants or stronger armor, but the economy is not and should not be based on the constant artificial churn of items for the latest and greatest or because items were built to fall apart three days after the warranty ends.

Think of the economy as more like old frontier towns.  Communities were self sufficient, trading with their fellow villagers for specialized skills.  (The blacksmith got food from the farmer, the farmer got tools from the smith.)  Trade between communities happened if there was surplus that another might have use for and for specialty goods that weren't produced locally or not enough were produced locally.  (Traveling to a silver smith because there's only one in the region.  Importing tea because you can't grow it locally.)  Wurm doesn't seem to be about big, modern marketplaces.  There simply isn't enough market churn (more players coming in and out) and there aren't enough specialized goods.  It's frontier survival, not Walmart and the malls.

Which is probably why I've seen more people trying to hire someone for manual labor in chat than I've seen trying to buy finished goods.

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This is a separate thought, so I'm putting it into a separate post.

If you want to improve the economy, you have to expand the market.  As others have said, one way to do this is to get in new players so there is a bigger market overall.

The other way is to expand into a new type of market.  To help stir up the market in this game, the designers don't need to make items decay faster (which can drive players away), they need to add new items to the market.  Creation of new, aesthetic items would create a whole new market, especially if those items required a lot of steps to make, a high skill, or a combination of different skills so that not everyone could easily make them on their own.  People wanting to deck out their homes would have more options and stir the market if they're buying paintings or tile edging or decorative rugs or special dyes or new statues or whatever else the designers can come up with.

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What Gowrst said. Ideally, the number of skills and products that can be produced should be way, way more than one single player could ever hope to get skilled enough at to be a competitor in the market.

Afterthought: this could even be done by specialising in sub-sub-skills. Leatherworker - unicorn hide armours, for example.

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The only thing wrong with the economy is the lack of new players who stay with the game long enough to need to buy stuff.

*shudders* at the thought of Rolf mucking with the economy.

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Hi,

The only thing wrong with the economy is the lack of new players who stay with the game long enough to need to buy stuff.

This is one of the most important problems IMHO. The usual nOOb comes, chops some trees, starts to build a shack, and rage-quits after getting eaten by an invincible wolf.

I cannot help but see the current setup for newbies as sub-optimal. They are required to join a deed as fast as possible, for security. Since they are thrown onto servers tailored for Premiums. Now even rats are spawning as "Aged raging", how should any newbie be able to handle such?

Do we expect any new players to immediately join a village? Do the new players like this, or accept this? I doubt. We try to be as helpful as possible, offering special deed roles for newbies, as well as all help we can afford, but most often it's the desire of new players not to get spoon-fed, but to do their own thing, for a while at least.

And here the smelling stuff hits the fan. All servers now are made for Prems, and not at all newbie-friendly. Newbies are thrown into the battle as soon as they have completed the tutorial, and it's a battle they cannot win. At least as long as they are not ready to accept the help of a village.

But this is making quite a lot of our precious newbies leave fast. They don't leave because we have such long action timers, they don't leave because we don't have multi-story houses, they don't leave because any imbalances in PvP - they leave because they are getting eaten over and over, and because they have to survive in an environment not made for them.

GV, as it was made, didn't work as desired. The new way doesn't do this, too. Maybe there'd be possibilities in between, that might keep the newbies for a bit longer?

Atm I see long term customers leaving due to constant nerfs, bugs and undesired changes, as well as new players leaving quickly due to no love received by the developers. No wonder that the demand in the marked is low, no wonder that nobody is ready to buy our stuff.

Constructive proposals:

[list type=decimal]

[*]A dedicated default entry server for newbies, with adjusted monsters. And with Premiums. Wurm light, with higher decay out of deeds, with faster tree growth, made to keep more newcomers in the game. Deliverance?

[*]Code split between PvP and PvE, finally. The constant nerfs due to PvP imbalances are severely hurting the PvE community, that is the one sporting by far the most customers. Who should pay for the development of Wurm? The PvP ppl, all 3 of them?

Without the numerous PvE crowd Wurm is dead, accept this. They are the ones that pay for the development of this game. They are quite easy to maintain, just don't nerf 'em into oblivion every other day.

Any approach to win new customers to the game, as well as any approach to keep old customers would be beneficial to the Wurmian economics. It just has to be done.

Have fun!

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Without the numerous PvE crowd Wurm is dead, accept this. They are the ones that pay for the development of this game. They are quite easy to maintain, just don't nerf 'em into oblivion every other day.

Thats what happening now, becuase a PVP server needs balancing.

The only reason people stay at this game, is because there is none like this out there, rolf is just nerfing and not caring about the paying part of his game. Cause he simply wants PVP to work, which is stupid as hes been trying to do that for to long now.

Look at the taming nerf, nobody in freedom needs that nerfed. And that is a very good example. Economy for good animals down a bit, because they are useless now anyway.

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wurm-year.png

I guess season/ vacation months have something to do with it too. Less time to play means less likley to get prem, less prem means less people who can make full use out of 21ql+ tools, therefore flooding market, somewhere in there. Logic may be a bit flawed.

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What about a system like the Grand Exchange on Runescape. I think they did a terrific job.

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Afterthought: this could even be done by specialising in sub-sub-skills. Leatherworker - unicorn hide armours, for example.

I disagree on the grounds that if you make a skill too difficult to increase because mats are hard to find, you will create artificial scarcity because nobody will want to work with it.

In your example, you suggested Unicorn Leathermaking.  Let's take that all the way down.  Imagine if you had a special leather crafting skill for every type of animal out there.  Just how frustrated are new players going to get when they can't make a simple bag because they focused on Rat Leathermaking and the only leather they can find now are dogs?  How many experienced players would just give up on leather because that's too frustrating?

While people could trade their dog leather with someone who has rat leather, but new players tend to quit if they get stopped from proceeding early on.  As new players are the lifeblood of a game, both in the game and financially, they need to be encouraged and not stymied.

I think the best way to stir up the market is not some artificial manipulation of existing skills, but the addition of new avenues of schilling and crafting.  As an example, everyone can make a chair, but if there were several new models, some of which require a high skill level, there are people who would buy them for decoration.  You could also do things like a "canvas chair", which would require high cloth making as well as high skills with carpentry, or a "leather char" that was padded and required leather making as well. 

Labor intense aesthetics can also be useful in stirring the economy.  People already pay for digging and surface mining to level and prepare their deed.  Imagine if there was a really pretty brick walkway or brick tile border that people wanted, but which required a lot of labor to create and install.  (More like building a wall than building cobblestone.)  That's work that those with money but not time will pay those with time but not money to do.

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I cannot help but see the current setup for newbies as sub-optimal. They are required to join a deed as fast as possible, for security. Since they are thrown onto servers tailored for Premiums. Now even rats are spawning as "Aged raging", how should any newbie be able to handle such?

What about a dedicated newbie camp just into the game?  There would be walls, guards, some shelters, and something to keep higher level animals away.  There could be special "enchanted" land that sprouts trees quickly so there would be wood.  Other resources could be there for practice, such as a mine that very quickly restores itself with shards so that you can keep mining.  Each character could be given a temporary storage that held as much as a large chest, but which was accessible from a central token like the bank is now.

The new players are told as part of this that they can set out on their own but that finding a village makes life easier.  Then after a certain amount of time, say their first 24 hours of play, the players are told that they have to go out into the big, bad world now.  (With appropriate warnings along the way of how long they have, of course.)  Once past the 24 hours, they no longer have access to the settlement.  Unlike the tutorial, they could leave at any time.  They just cannot go back once they hit 24 hours.  (Which should give them time to meet some people, craft a cart, that kind of thing.)

(This is just an off the top of my head idea.  It would need some polish and need some consideration for keeping older players from exploiting it with a string of newbie alts.)

Of course, Rolf does not have to do this himself.  If experienced players are concerned about the new player experience, they could build and help maintain this town themselves.  Someone is already maintaining things like Freedom Market, the various tunnels and roads, the boat bridges, and other projects.  There would probably be people willing to do this too.

If Rolf wanted to make this even easier and more likely, he could create a way for more experienced players who have dedicated time to the new player settlement to quickly travel back and forth to their deed so that they can go, help some people, and still go tend crops and such. 

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I agree new player areas need to be toned down in terms of mobs.... champion trolls should NOT spawn near the starter deed.

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I agree new player areas need to be toned down in terms of mobs.... champion trolls should NOT spawn near the starter deed.

I see your point. Personally, I loved the esert troll spawn.

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A dedicated newbie server would only work if it had periodic wipes/resets, otherwise it would just become GV with people staying there indefinitely.

Forget messing with the game (again), the focus should be on advertisement and implementation of features/graphics which are already planned or underway.

People need to see there has been improvements made in the visual department (whenever all this new shiny stuff gets put in) and have it shouted from the rooftops.

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