So you want to fix the economy? Here are my suggestions...

[Narkano]

Why should there be any change at all?

I am a 100th level spellcrafter for example. Do I get any orders for crafting spells? Not even a single one for months!

Why is this the case when everyone around me constantly adds new adventuerer classes and constantly needs new spells? Why, when there're quite some new players starting a new career with Horizons?

Quite simple. They're in a guild an have their spellcrafters doing the work for free. And while crafting an item in the first place is quite feat to accomplish considering all the things you need, repairing them is just a simple thing.

You'll have the same problem and you'll change nothing about economy. The main problem being crafter-multiclassing.

Just try to imagine a scene in real life where all your friends and neighbours are highly specialized crafters in 1-10 professions and all have the required machines at their plots while resources are nearby. You can get absolutely everything you want and need right there in the street you're living crafted within a moment - and for free ... no economy will ever be possible then, even if your washing machine completely breaks down twice a day.

Another problem being players that completely undercut any prices at the market even with rare items that are in high demand, as is the case with forms and techs. The reason may be mass-farming or whatever. Prices drop steadily ...

The problem is the system itself, but since you cannot reverse the possibility of multi-classing and multi-classing is one of the main features of Horizins, the only fix to economy canbe achievedwith making proper useof exactly that system. Introduce items, that do not depend on single-player and/or single-profession crafting at all. Perhaps items so complex, that onlymulti-classed crafters with 2 to4veryspecificprofessions areable to make themand othersthat require several specialized crafters to work together for completition.

Crafting those items willbe a challenge even for multi-classed crafters and no doubt fun. And those items will be in high demand I suppose. Just make sure that especially forms for item creation thatrequireseveral crafters working together are introduced, since only then the whole community with their many beginners and remaining single-class crafters can benefit from such a system.

- Narkano

[Pharcellus]

I'm 100th level spell/scale crafter, and my alt is Expert everything crafter. I get a little bit of work, mainly because people know I can make certain things, or because I respond to peoples' requests in Marketplace, or a guildie needs something.

We've been putting items up for sale on the New Brommel consigner, and stuff has been selling like hotcakes.

Maybe you're having a visibility problem. No one who needs spells knows about you, but they know about Spellcrafter Joe, because he advertises, or makes spells for their friends, or their guild, or whatever.

I agree that multiclassing is a huge problem, and I wish that something could be done about it, but like you say, it is too much an integral part of the game now, so we have to work around it to find a solution.

I wouldn't mind making item crafting more complex, as long as the rewards match the effort involved. If I have to craft for a week just to make the Serrated Ginsu Sword of Uberness, it better ******** well be worth it to where I will get paid an adventurer's weekly salary to make it for one.

[Jayne]

If I have to craft for a week just to make the Serrated Ginsu Sword of Uberness, it better ******** well be worth it to where I will get paid an adventurer's weekly salary to make it for one.

I think you mean to say an multiclass adventures weekly salary. I am positive you would not sell one for my income in a week.

Jayne

[Aamer Khan]

Narkano, you asked why change anything?

Let me restate the issue.

"Economy" - a system of producing, distributing, and consuming wealth. (Webster's New World)

Without consumption, you cannot have an economy. Making more complex items still does not allow for all 3 sides of an economy to exist. Jayne makes a great point that because of multiclass crafting and guilds, the way it's setup currently, makes it impossible to have an "economy".

Those are the reasons it should change. Yes it may hurt your way of playing in the short term. BUT, if it corrects the system into something under player control, that have no NPC setting artificial limits or prices, then I say learn to adjust.

Everytime suggestions are made that might affect folks game play, a few folks will loudly decry the change as game stopping, then TG in reaction tries to implement a change to placate those squeeky wheels. And the situation gets worse.

I would love to see them decide on a viable plan, stick to it, and stop kneejerk reacting to every little noise, and show confidence in their product. To ever realize the potential this game has, TG must move forward boldly and do what is needed. If they fail, then they will learn. But I can't see how they will succeed if they don't go on and try. Fear of losing subs, leading to half done ideas is not working. It's obvious they have some plan, as is evidenced by the aggro changes, exp changes, and LA reworking. And even if the economy is on the back burner atm, sooner or later it will have to be addressed. Otherwise, all the new crafters will just quit out of frustration that they cannot compete, or that they do not have the cash others do.

It does not matter if my idea is right or not. SOME idea needs to be implemented.

[EmilyDawn]

Right now, we can produce amounts of wealth that are only limited by how much time one is willing to spend. No distribution takes place, and it is NOT consumed as fast as it can be produced.

I personally can, as a lvl 100 tinker, make 1 gold every 6 hours.

hiya Aamer. i think your intentions are good but i not really understand your reasoning here. i have lots more to spend than i make [:$] i just spent about 5gbuilding onmy plot which i saved up for like forever. i prolly spent about 40g already building my plot which took about 10mos.

not to mention tech gear is about 4g per suit. that alot of money when multiclass and need lots of suits. an potions too...i buy all 9 and 100 of each at a time at 900c. is alot of money. me have so much to spend. [:^)]

also, about making1g every 6 hours at PB. ya, you prolly can do that. but i also went out to elite blights the other day and made 600s in less than 2hrs. so which is better? [^o)]

[Pharcellus]

Yes, but once you have finished building your plot, have bought all your crafting and adventuring gear, what happens?

The only "consumption" that occurs is potions, food, and porting/consignment fees, and your money just sits.

For those that don't have/don't want plots, don't craft, and already have their uber teched adventuring gear, they run out of things to spend money on even quicker.

[Jayne]

Then maybe thats the "End Game"?

Jayne

[Pharcellus]

I don't believe in the "End Game".

To me, the "End Game" is when I press the Cancel Subscription button. Game over.

[Jayne]

Exactly, You log on and at that time you go from being you to a character in a game. You experience life as you in game. Some days its productive and others its not. We are in an imperfect world, such as life.

So for some they would say thats it, end game. And for the rest of us we log in and deal with it.

Jayne

[Vandellia]

I grant you that limiting the pawnbroker pay out is a good/solid idea my only issue with doing it currently is that some crafts have no outlet for their product other then the pawnbroker as the game currently isif you placed a limit on the pawn brokers you will most definately limit leveling in those schools, I am not going to get to specifics on the trade school/s involved becaue it will start this whole thing off on a rant or turn the converstation else where.

1 Tulga can always add more money sinks into the game its well established,
do we really need them ?

2 The main issue remains that the economy is artifically stilted/regulated by NPC's in direct competition with the players, this is a two edged sword it places a upper cap on the pricing of some commodities while it is insuring that some players will camp/farm the hardest to "corner" the market, it also limits the pure greed expectations on them for the hard to get items. i can site may cases wher the prices for objects is simply beyond the average/casual player.

3. Being in a big guild is definately an advantage because you do not have to compete to get the forms/tech and spend the money to get them. I am a long term plaer and i surly can not afford the pricing that the viel are causing and as i am in now a very small guild i spend far more money on tech components then i do anything else. and i spnd much money on porting while out wandering the world .

4. If you dont want to remove the vielo then revise and lower their pricing to 10 percent above a pawn broker this will definately cause a increased cashflow/sink of money. If you do want to remove the vielo then have the game randomly insert the hard to get techs on a pawnbroker (like a spawn)

[Alladania]

What if the vielo had a random assortment each day? No guaranteeing that you could pop over to Nadia and get whatever comps. You'd have to hope you got lucky. Would this reduce some of the competitive edge the NPCs have over the players? Then again, if this happened once a day, you'd have people camping them when they respawned their supplies, trying to get the 'good stuff'.

[Aamer Khan]

And that exactly what happened back when the Vielo had the WD stones... folks would just camp them to buy up the good ones.

The ideas I listed where to be taken as a whole towards providing a solution. Those of us that have been here a year+ may not agree on exactly what the problem is or how to fix it, but we all agree there is a problem. Those that have not been through the same things will naturally not agree.

Jayne... The idea is to have a game to play 4 years from now. End game cannot enter into that concept.

[Narkano]

While I understand that economy is an interesting part of a MMORPG indeed, I do not think it should go to such extremes as to let crafted gear decay with no reasonable explanation for that game mechanic.

While you may wellfind some strange explanations for an item's decay I do not consider any of them reasonable since they are unheard of everywhere else. Evenin real life a sword forged from ordinary steel might see much use in battle and nonetheless be passed down for generationsto come. It needs some sharpening and with the decades of resharpening a sword the blade becomes thinner but hardly less deadly. There is an end to a swords life cycle, but it takes quite some time if it was made by a master weaponsmith. We speak of enchanted (teched) weapons made of cobalt alloys or even mithril. An enchanted mithril blade should by all means be a thing that is nearly indestructableand might only get as much as scratched if you fight the most ancient of dragons. But it should never be something falling into disrepair within weeks and becoming dull within days. That does not even begin to sound reasonable to me. Not to mention jewelry and spells. I never heard of any mage in any world of fantasy to have his spells decaying.

But let's follow the suggestion of implementing forms and techs that make use of Horizons multiclassing feature. I just try to give a quickly thought-out idea ...

You might consider something like a "burning blade" tech that causes a blade toinflict some extra fire damage. First it might require some fiery essence that might only be gathered by an experienced gatherer and in itself be something to be sold. I can imagine gatherers using a unique skill, making the classmore useful as it was often suggested with the forums. That fiery essence might need to be refined and thendistilled with one or more trophies like fire wolf fangs andfire beetle mandibles into some kind of fiery oil, which can only be accomplished by an alchemist. The fiery oil might then be applied and imbued into afireopal. The fire opalmust be especially cut and prepared just for that purpose, which only a jeweler can do. The gem itself can only be created by the combined efforts of an alchemist and a jeweler working together or a single character being both. In the end the finished gem ist set into the sword's pommelduring the forging process. To properly handle and set the gem might require the combined efforts of a weaponsmith, an alchemist and a jeweler or again a single character having all those skills.

That base idea surely needs some more thought. For example where you can get those techs andforms to craft the required components. How rare those forms and techs should be. Perhaps crafting those parts is ratherdifficult and does not have a 100% chance of success while at the same time only 1 item can be crafted at a time and only 1 such attempt can bemade within a certain period of time ...

The tech might be used through all tiers and perhaps add damage like a flame attack spell I-V with a likewise visual effect to the blade.It should just be somewhat stronger tobe worththeeffort, perhaps adding double the amout of damage and having a chance to immolate the victim. Such an effect does not seem to be too powerful, since it is already possible with spells and crystals but nonetheless desirable enough.

Nonetheless I think that many such forms and techswould be possible and not too difficultto implement into the game. They make proper use of the many possible crafting classesand should even challenge multi-classed crafters. Such items as well as the parts of it sould be in high demand as there is only 1 attempt at a time and no one can simply craft 100 of them and put them for consignment.

Another interesting aspect of this might be the fact that the ideadoes nothaveto involve onlycrafters. Adventurers canbe part of this ideaas well to hunt the required trophies needed forthe different steps of crafting (or at least as soon as Nadia is gone- but of course you might also introduce new trophies that Nadia does not have) and of course to hunt for the forms and techs that might be a rare drop. Those new forms and techs should perhaps only be dropped byWA-mobs because it first sounds much more reasonable while being a challenge in itself and second it prevents mass-farming of mobslike golems, spiders and fyakkis. Another idea might be an enchantedforge in the mountains, that is the only place to accomplish the final step of forging thesword.A process thatrequirestime, during which the crafters need all the protection they can getbecause of the deadly fire golems roamingthe place ...


Your thoughts?

- Narkano

[Jayne]

My point is some can play them game fueled by there imagination and virtually never have an end game. Others will continue on complaing about this and that and tryin to get any change possible be cause they have no imagination to drive them, thus they treaten and say there leaving or whatever else it might be.

Believe me I don't mind change but its a very difficult to apply. No matter what the change is it will effect many.

The rich will get richer and the poor get poorer, LOL

Jayne

[Helcat]

but i also went out to elite blights the other day and made 600s in less than 2hrs. so which is better? [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-40.gif[/img]

Elite Blights drop an average of 2 silver per MOB.
There is NO WAY you killed 300 Elites in under
2 hours. Sorry tocall youout, but if we're going
to discuss ideas here, at least let's do it honestly.

[Valornyx]

Whilst I like the idea of having products that require multiple craft classes to manufacture, in the end this makes no difference to the the economy.

To use Guinness as an example, there is nothing he could not make all by himself. Although that many 100's in crafting is rare in the extreme, the number of "master crafters"will constantly increase because the players, with nothing much else to do keep building levels in whatever they don't have.

As soon as there are master crafters in each guild - the situation becomes what you have now.

Also - attunable weapons/armor etc slows down the issue - but ultimately does not change anything. It only prevents items from being handed from one player to the next. There already are or soon will be enough multicrafters to be able to supply this demand without breaking a sweat.

(Without having fully thought this through) I would propose that one way to fix this issue would be in effect to unmulticlass crafters by introducing new techs or forms that each character can only have one(or a couple) of.

This would (possibly) have an effect like the "lost" dragon techs (vengence etc..). There are only a handful of players that have these techs, so they are in demand whenever they are playing. The ones I know on chaos are very good about teching scales for other dragons, but the point is that there is a demand for their services because they are limited.

If each player could only have one of these type of tech/form then there would be a new demand through a limiting of supply.

Ok, as I say this was just a random idea that I had whilst reading this thread - it is not thought through - pick away :)

[EmilyDawn]

Yes, but once you have finished building your plot, have bought all your crafting and adventuring gear, what happens?

The only "consumption" that occurs is potions, food, and porting/consignment fees, and your money just sits.

For those that don't have/don't want plots, don't craft, and already have their uber teched adventuring gear, they run out of things to spend money on even quicker.

what is wrong with aquiring wealth after you've lvl'd all you can or want to?

is just something that happens after you been here about a year. i no think is anything wrong with that. after about 5 adv 100 and 5 craft 100 i think "realistically" you would be rich? [:)]

[Pharcellus]

While I understand that economy is an interesting part of a MMORPG indeed, I do not think it should go to such extremes as to let crafted gear decay with no reasonable explanation for that game mechanic.

While you may wellfind some strange explanations for an item's decay I do not consider any of them reasonable since they are unheard of everywhere else. Evenin real life a sword forged from ordinary steel might see much use in battle and nonetheless be passed down for generationsto come. It needs some sharpening and with the decades of resharpening a sword the blade becomes thinner but hardly less deadly. There is an end to a swords life cycle, but it takes quite some time if it was made by a master weaponsmith. We speak of enchanted (teched) weapons made of cobalt alloys or even mithril. An enchanted mithril blade should by all means be a thing that is nearly indestructableand might only get as much as scratched if you fight the most ancient of dragons. But it should never be something falling into disrepair within weeks and becoming dull within days. That does not even begin to sound reasonable to me. Not to mention jewelry and spells. I never heard of any mage in any world of fantasy to have his spells decaying.

Dunno, I have no problems with the reality of item decay. What items around you that you use heavily last virtually forever? Your car? Your computer? Your TV? Garden tools? Saws? I don't have very many things around me that has been used daily that has lasted through the years.

As for the durability of swords, there's a difference between ornamental and functional swords. In real battles, weapons break, blades chip, dent, or bend, tangs break. If you are lucky, you will come away from a real battle a) alive, and b) with a serviceable weapon needing minor repairs. Armor fares even worse. Armor in games isn't even close to being realistic. Armor repair was a big business for the armorsmiths of yore, almost as much as making the suits in the first place. That was the whole point of armor, for it to take the punishment dished out by your opponents' weapons instead of your body. Tattered/torn/dented armor and a mostly intact body bringing it back to him for repair was a compliment to the armorsmith because his handiwork did its job well.

Now, as for "magically enhanced", you also have to realize that the opponents are ALSO similarly enhanced. You NEED that Uber Mithril blade of rending to do any significant damage to the opponents you fight. Sure, a "mithril blade" in the REAL world would probably not suffer any significant degradation, but then you're not fighting magically-enhanced monsters in the real world, either.

As for mages' spells that need recharging, there is ample precedent in both games and fictional worlds where reagents (ie, "material components") are required to power them in the first place. So, no maybe you don't have to buy another copy of the spell and scribe it, but maybe you need a power reagent combination to bring it back up to full efficacy. I personally don't want to co-opt other games' requirements that you carry around reagents with you that are consumed in each casting, but something that you can do before hand that charges you up for a few adventure's worth of spell-casting.

[Joaqim]

I want character decay...as you're getting older, it's just logical that you slowly lose some percentage of your stats. You can slow down the proccess if you eat (good for cnf). It would solve your proplem with those "I can craft and kill all" characters.

[Jayne]

To many posts leading back to item decay. Funny I hear alot about decay for swords and such, but surely that can't apply to a septer and such magical stuff? That would be ridiculous, and I know I'm not in favor of making decay for my axe while others go left without such a handicap.

Jayne