MMO "Economies"

[Alkiera]

One problem many MMOs come up against is that as a newbie, you simply cannot make money in the game economy.  Your loot has no viable market, either because it cannot be turned into raw materials (by you and your shitty skills) or it cannot be used (because only other newbs would buy your stuff, and they don't need to when they are up to their eyeballs in their own junk).  Another is that the goods provided are so narrow, relative to EVE, that you can either do it all yourself on a crafting mule or farm it yourself with your main.  This means you have little to nothing in the way of trade.  In turn, trade is good because it forces things to go up on market; without goods on a market, you can't have much of an economy.

Interesting that you bring this up--it was one thing that EQ actually did right in one way: higher level (200+ on a scale of 0-300) crafts in some cases required resources that either a) dropped semi-rarely, or b) could be crafted out of very common drops.

Velium blocks for smithing was an example--the problem was, the velium weapons that you could use to "uncraft" out blocks were not stackable (makes sense), and normally were sold to vendors for a couple of plat--who then turned around and sold them for much higher. Not a huge help to the "newbie", and a serious PITA to the high level crafter.

EQ's auction system theoretically should have covered this, and there was a niche for those that were willing to farm the unstackable weps and uncraft them to blocks, but in general the logistical issues weren't worth the trouble.

Eve does this too, in that just about anything can be refined, by almost anyone, down to it's component elements.  Those elements then sell, at varying prices, on the common market.  There were skills I never had which could increase yield from salvaging the items, but the resources I gained were nearly always worth more in the end than trying to sell the item itself... and there were always buy orders out for minerals, but not so much for random pieces of rat equipment.

I think that this process is one of the nicer aspects of Eve.

--
Alkiera

[Johny Cee]

The more I hear about EVE's economy,  the more I'm confused about how it differs in system from many other MMOs that have extensive crafting.

- Primary source of revenue generation:  running instances/killing mobs (universal),  resource accumulation (almost universal)
- Crafting produces items of value (same for DAoC, SWG, etc.,  though not for raid focused end games)
- NPC vendors as sellers of last resort (most MMOs)
- NPC vendor loot substandard (many MMOs).  With the corallary:  many times,  "good" loot is put on vendors at a reasonable price to be subsidy/benefit to the casual players,  especially when the cost of acquiring a good kit is seen as freezing out new players from the game.


Just about the only significant difference is the number of ecomonic actors.  Having between 30 and 50 times the number of players as is usually for an MMO server.  Is this the significant fact in why there is a perception that EVE has a more functional economy?  A larger number of actors,  plus a larger game zone,  means its harder for a few players/guilds to acquire a concentration of wealth/power?

Differences in functional efficiency of Auction House/Player Consignment Merchants are another possibility.  Though this lends itself more to problems in arbitrage and transaction cost rather then problems with the functioning of the economy,  unless there are significant and widespread deficiencies.

[Roac]

Just about the only significant difference is the number of ecomonic actors.  Having between 30 and 50 times the number of players as is usually for an MMO server.  Is this the significant fact in why there is a perception that EVE has a more functional economy?  A larger number of actors,  plus a larger game zone,  means its harder for a few players/guilds to acquire a concentration of wealth/power?

Concentration of wealth isn't so much a problem.  You're right in that EVE has a lot that is not fundamentally different from other games; all items can be farmed, and farmed forever.  Crafting is farmed items + time + skill.  The number of players is one difference, and don't underestimate it.  Having 30,000 players online at once vs 3,000 or less is a big difference.

Other differences are that resources are spaced out.  There are some resources that can only be gotten from certain locations.  For example, you can't get the high end ores in the safe areas.  Certain tier two items can only be made in certain areas, due to the resources only (mostly) being available there.  Some items can only be farmed in safe zones.  What this does is force trade; Caldari items are more cheaply made in Caldari space, for example.  If you want Caldari goods elsewhere, you have to ship them.  This *requires* trade.  Next, it's impossible for one player to make everything.  In the case of tier 2 things, it's almost impossible to even make one thing start to finish.  Again, the point here is that trade (or moderate scale cooperation) is required.  Another is that everything is expendable, so replacing items is constant.  Ships blow up - a lot.  When that happens, you tend to lose everything you had.  The people that get what little that survives often find little of personal use, so they either scrap (for raw material) or sell what they do get.  Again, trade is required.  The constant turnover of parts (ships, ammo, upgrades, etc) ensures supply.  Non-linear growth of cost for high-end items ensures that those who do succeed in concentrating wealth tend to spend it.  You may spend 10x on a ship for a 20% improvement.  That cost, in turn, directly relates to the difficulty in producing it and all the parts that go with it.  Lastly, although you can kill NPCs for the same loot that you can craft, there are literally thousands of items that can be dropped.  Certain NPCs favor a certain type of drops (Caldari pirates don't often drop Amarr engines), but this again encourages trade, either of the item or the raw material that you scrap it into. 

Contrast this to a game where you can get most everything yourself, either by going on a mission(s) or crafting it with a mule.  Once you are self-sufficient, you no longer need to trade, which in turn tends to destroy the demand side of the economy.  With low turnover of items, this further hampers the demand.  Normally this would suggest prices on the supply side fall through the floor - and in some cases, it does.  Often however, prices are artificially held high by NPCs who will *always* buy an item at a respectable value.  This, in turn, inflates the amount of money in the economy which tends to cause insane rises in the costs of high end items.  Money becomes worthless because it is no longer a true representation of wealth.  The only things which have value, in any economy, are things which are in demand.  Money is not in demand because it's so damn common, and is the "raw material" from every single drop.  High end items are the only uncommon item, and only because they are incredibly difficult to obtain and often guarded by powerful alliances/guilds.  The only practical outlet for money, then, is in the purchase of these few high end items since again, everything else is readily attainable by the players working alone.

Again, in contrast, in EVE everything is in demand because there is constant turnover of items.  "Junk" items can still be turned into raw materials, which can be made equally into n00b frigates or battleships.  Oversupply in any area can be remedied by (somewhat) simply smelting the extra goods and reforging them into items that are in demand.  This is not doable in an economy where the only desirable items can only be otained from drops.

[ajax34i]

everything is expendable, so replacing items is constant.  Ships blow up - a lot.  When that happens, you tend to lose everything you had.

I think that's pretty much the crux of it.  Everything gets destroyed, and the only thing you don't lose is your naked character personna with its skills (theoretically, you could lose skillpoints too but most people don't ever reach that stage/situation).

[Johny Cee]

everything is expendable, so replacing items is constant.  Ships blow up - a lot.  When that happens, you tend to lose everything you had.

I think that's pretty much the crux of it.  Everything gets destroyed, and the only thing you don't lose is your naked character personna with its skills (theoretically, you could lose skillpoints too but most people don't ever reach that stage/situation).

I thought insurance/clones all that jazz covered you from any real significant loss if you lost your ship... besides whatever you were carrying?

[ajax34i]

No.  Most of the time the modules are many times the cost of the ship.  And if they bring Tech 2 ships, insurance payout is crap for those.  In a 40-50 kills encounter (that would be a big fight), they're blowing up several billions, at least.

Besides, what makes the economy "healthy" is the fact that money and goods exchange hands; the guys who are fighting aren't neccessarily building ships, and the guys making the ships aren't neccessarily using them, so there's a lot of trade going on, making several non-combat activities viable.  It's not the fact that personal loss is big or small, it's that the items get destroyed regularly, and re-made, and money exchanges hands.

[DarkSign]

No.  Most of the time the modules are many times the cost of the ship.  And if they bring Tech 2 ships, insurance payout is crap for those.  In a 40-50 kills encounter (that would be a big fight), they're blowing up several billions, at least.

Besides, what makes the economy "healthy" is the fact that money and goods exchange hands; the guys who are fighting aren't neccessarily building ships, and the guys making the ships aren't neccessarily using them, so there's a lot of trade going on, making several non-combat activities viable.  It's not the fact that personal loss is big or small, it's that the items get destroyed regularly, and re-made, and money exchanges hands.

So if you equate these large ships to towns in Shadowbane, losing your huge ass town wouldnt be so bad if there were architects and builders who made the town parts?

Interesting.

[Roac]

So if you equate these large ships to towns in Shadowbane, losing your huge ass town wouldnt be so bad if there were architects and builders who made the town parts?

It doesn't equate well to Shadowbane, because with Shadowbane, only the 'upper class' can own towns.  More differences are that there are so few towns, and it took so long (several days) to destroy one.  In contrast, an individual EVE player might burn through several ships a week if they were in frequent firefights. 

[Lightstalker]

So if you equate these large ships to towns in Shadowbane, losing your huge ass town wouldnt be so bad if there were architects and builders who made the town parts?

It doesn't equate well to Shadowbane, because with Shadowbane, only the 'upper class' can own towns.  More differences are that there are so few towns, and it took so long (several days) to destroy one.  In contrast, an individual EVE player might burn through several ships a week if they were in frequent firefights. 

And, cleverly, losing your town disbanded your guild interrupting your ability to coordinate and communicate with your guild and nation mates.

[Vinadil]

Towns in SB equate better with POS/Station warfare in EVE.

I will likely Copy and Paste the response Roac gave above in other discussions... as it is one of the best I have seen in summarizing what EVE does well.

The other thing that I would add is that they do the exact OPPOSITE of all other games when it comes to resource importance.  In any game I have played once you "outlevel" a certain resource you never need it again.  You don't see people using bronze once they learn iron recipes.  In EVE you never leave behind a resource, and quite the opposite you need progressively more of it for each new Level of item you want to make.  That keeps the market Open to new people as there will always be a market for new harvesters/mission runners, etc.  That also means that there is No worthless loot.  I never sell anything to an NPC, because I can always beat their price by turning the item into raw materials and then selling those to players.  Same is true for a person 2 days into the game with the most basic of loot.

[Typhon]

That keeps the market Open to new people as there will always be a market for new harvesters/mission runners, etc.  That also means that there is No worthless loot.

Quick question: how does the EVE system adapt to the situation where there are few new people?  (I'm thinking that lower level resources also drop when harvesting higher level resources, thus assuring some supply of lower level resources - is that the case?)

[Vinadil]

When you Scrap items yes.  When you go mining... no.  So, when you go mission running and come back with 150 generic items that I don't want to mess with selling, I just Scrap (Reprocess) them at the station.  I will then get something like 100,000 base unit, 60,000 Base+1, and so on.  Right now I am sitting on 3.3 million of the Base unit and 4,000 of the Max unit just from Reprocessing stuff after missions.

If you go mining to aquire base materials, then the type of Rock you mine directly impacts the materials you will get out of it.  Many of them give several types of raw materials when processed, but if you are searching for a specific material then there will be a particular Rock that is most efficient to harvest.

[Roac]

Quick question: how does the EVE system adapt to the situation where there are few new people?  (I'm thinking that lower level resources also drop when harvesting higher level resources, thus assuring some supply of lower level resources - is that the case?)

The simple answer is that prices go up.  A better answer is to point out that basic resources are still mined in high level mines (although normally the miners will just dump them), or from scraping anything you have, high level or no.  Your most basic newb mineral is not only used at higher levels, but used in HUGE amounts.  Conversely, high level goods all smelt back down to their component minerals (minus some efficiency loss) and are available in high level mines.  There is even the option available to specialize, through months of skill investment, in low level mineral harvesting.  Nothing about the system really requires newbs to farm either low level items or ore.  Better put, the system allows low levels to make money by letting low level items be worthwhile.

A good comparison would be iron ore in UO, which most weapons/armor smelted to and could be mined/refined with relatively little skill investment.  Any joker with 50 points could do it, you just won't get terribly rich at it.

[Tige]

Concentration of wealth isn't so much a problem.

I disagree with this on pretty much every level.  Mouthbreathers run the economy in every mmo.  Some mmos have managed to slow the process but it is bound to happen.  When this happens you have the quintessential "have vs. have nots" scenario this makes for a frustrating experience for the new or returning player.  Without a controling body like the Fed or a Walmart you have huge barrier to entry for anyone who did not enter the game immediately upon release and at least keep the catassing hordes just over the horizon.  Items necessary for the newb to move up the food chain 6 months after release are few and far between in the marketplace.  Noob towns once choked with lag are ghost towns.  Looting the items off mobs is one way of triyng to keep your head above water. The problem with that is the loot tables are the same since release.  The items you are having difficulty finding used to be on the market for a dime a dozen when everyone was leveling on lvl 1-10 mobs.  With the vast majority of the population playing on the first or second expansion you are grinding 3x more to find decent armor to progress.  You could try and craft your armor but the same thing applies, you are grinding 3x more to find all of the stuff needed to make whatever piece you need.  You are now a armorcrafter by necessity, not choice.  What happens when you need a weapon or a decent healing potion?  You are hosed.

The live team is trying to keep pace with patches, bug fixes that should have been dealt with prior to release and content for the upper 50% of their subscribers.  If you are a new player that needs help completing a quest that requires a group you are F'd royally.  When the game was released 3 months ago it was the easiest thing in the world to get a grp to complete the quest.  Now forming a grp for it rivals putting together a 60 player raid.  Due to piss poor urban planning any high level player that would be willing to help is 45 minutes away in some town you can't even access because you don't have the right exp. pack. 

Until a mmo at least attempts to put in price controls to keep mouthbreathers at bay and add a walmart to help those who can't catass to victory the mmo marketplace will continue to work against the game.  This in addition to not having cities that never, ever, never, never, ever outlive their usefullness throughout the level span will continue to foster the have/have not population.  When you are a have not and have no viable route to become part of the mainstream game you will cancel before using your first month. 

   

[Roac]

I disagree with this on pretty much every level.  Mouthbreathers run the economy in every mmo

EVE's economy works fine, despite concentration of wealth.  It's also four years old, and reasonably friendly to newbs.  If anything, it's more friendly than any other MMOG I've played to date, even with player killing and full item loss.  There are plenty of things that EVE didn't do right, or at least didn't do very well but the economy isn't one of them; EVE has one of, if not the, best MMOG economies out there.

[ajax34i]

WTF are "mouthbreathers"?  And yay for "haves vs. have-nots", "catass-to-victory" and other idiotic terms being over-used.

I've recently played WoW on an "old" server and on a "new" server in parallel.  With the "new" server, I could find groups and plenty of lowbie items to buy, but nothing I'd loot would sell.  So I had to grind for cash.  With the "old" server, I couldn't find quality groups and the lowbie items on the AH were scarce, but all my raw mats looted and items I didn't need would sell at great prices.  I didn't have a problem joining a guild on either server, and on the "old" server the L50+ members would run me through instances for loot and quests pretty much whenever I needed.

Also, quests were optional, and I just didn't do the "group required" ones if I didn't find a guild group ready to go.

So, in my opinion, your theory doesn't hold because players organize themselves into guilds, and from the newbie's perspective, it's easier to be powerlevelled by a high level guild and brought up to the level where the rest of the server's playerbase is, than it is to grind the content yourself along with the masses, because everyone's just started, just like you.

[Tige]

I've recently played WoW on an "old" server and on a "new" server in parallel.

I'll resist using another idiotic over-used term here.

  With the "new" server, I could find groups and plenty of lowbie items to buy, but nothing I'd loot would sell.  So I had to grind for cash.  With the "old" server, I couldn't find quality groups and the lowbie items on the AH were scarce, but all my raw mats looted and items I didn't need would sell at great prices.  I didn't have a problem joining a guild on either server, and on the "old" server the L50+ members would run me through instances for loot and quests pretty much whenever I needed.

And without the handholding through what once was called content which is now nothing more than a inconvience where would you be on either server? 

Also, quests were optional, and I just didn't do the "group required" ones if I didn't find a guild group ready to go.

Fair enough as long as the quest item is not related to anything else then no harm no foul I suppose.

So, in my opinion, your theory doesn't hold because players organize themselves into guilds, and from the newbie's perspective, it's easier to be powerlevelled by a high level guild and brought up to the level where the rest of the server's playerbase is, than it is to grind the content yourself along with the masses, because everyone's just started, just like you.

If the economy was managed in such a way to at least curb the need to be powerleveled to join the server's playerbase the new or returning player could play on his/her time.  The point being once the initial group of subscribers hits the upper end of the game everything else behind it becomes 2x the grind it was originally unless you get powerleveled through it.  Guilds do help mitigate the gap but it's a symptom of the enconomy being too top heavy, too fast. 

[Vinadil]

Tige, it sounds like you do not have any direct EVE experience... but if you do then your newbie experience must have been significantly different than mine.  I think the first time I played EVE it was about 2 years old, and I had no problem making money fast enough to keep up with the skills I was gaining.

I just came back after a year or so break... and have made enough playing VERY casually (say 1 hour a day on average) to outfit my friend who just started playing with every ship he needed as soon as his skills came to buy it.  He could not have done the same on our 1-hour-a-day play schedule, but put him in a more average 3-hours-a-day and he would have been able to keep up just fine.

The beauty of EVE is that the "haves" keep the prices of raw materials high so that the "have nots" can always sell their items/materials for a good price.

[ajax34i]

Allright, perhaps I should clarify that I disagree with your "every MMO" statement specifically.

EVE doesn't seem to have the problems  you're describing.

WoW, in my experience, doesn't have the "2x the grind" problem; a newbie starting from scratch now grinds 1x as much as a newbie who started at game release, because it's possible (even optimal) to do most of the quests and content solo, and you do get enough cash from just playing the game to buy all your spells, and the mounts etc.

I will give you that in games designed to require groups for everything, it's a problem, because the newbie won't be able to find groups, but my impression was that MMORPG's were moving away from the "forced grouping" concept. 

Anyway, I was giving WoW as a counter-example to disprove your theory.  I can add CoH to that, and yeah EVE seems to have completely different game mechanics that don't lead to this difference in playerbase levels that causes the problem. 

So, not "every MMO".