Is the economy player run?

[phunk]

Just a thought, hadn't heard much of this. If so, is there an ingame auction house, or are sales restricted to shops and personal bazaars?

[JasonWFD]

http://www.pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?topic=117158&forum=20&61

We've been discussing a lot of things related to this topic in the above thread. Because there are going to be player shops based out of the "My Room" feature, there will be a player economy. The extent and functionality of this can only be speculated until the game comes out.

[Drakon]

This is just a guess, but I think it's a sort of auction house connected to everyones "My Room Shop". Like you go in a window that shows what you searched for and where it can be found and how much ect. I cant be to sure on that tho it hasn't been talked to much about really yet as I know of.

[Saner]

ya but its great most of the general stuff you can buy at NPC shops instead of some auction house.


NPCs have infinite supplies of the essentials at fair prices that never unfairly increase all of the sudden,
plus ever since PSO they offered a healthy and effective selection of equipment that will last until you find drops and grind stuff that are much better.

auction houses would have been terrible because with such an economy you are either very poor or very rich and there was no fine balance, everyone is screwing everyone else for a bigger profit. and that's no fun.

[phunk]

On 2006-08-21 11:40, Saner wrote:


auction houses would have been terrible because with such an economy you are either very poor or very rich and there was no fine balance, everyone is screwing everyone else for a bigger profit. and that's no fun.



Its fun if you're the person smart enough to learn ways to gain profit from it. =P

[PandaMasterX4]

Don't hate me because I can make a steady income on the ignorance of the masses. Anyway, regardless of how sales are, inflation will go up within time.

While you sit and party all day Saner, I'm going to be on the plains leveling and getting rares. Then you'll beg me to lower the price and I'll just go, "come back when you have more money." http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

jk... or am i...

[Saner]

I imagine some auction house exploiters saying "hey dis game has no AH! dis suks! Now I can't get 500k a stack!" http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif

[PandaMasterX4]

500k is chump cash

I remember when 500k use to be a lot, and now, you feel poor if you have under 1M.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: PandaMasterX4 on 2006-08-21 11:59 ]</font>

[phunk]

As long as the Economy isn't in any way or form designed like FFXI. I rather have my money comming directly back to me instead to an NPC. Its a long shot, but hopefully it might resemble that of SWG PRE-NGE.

[Saner]

On 2006-08-21 11:57, PandaMasterX4 wrote:
500k is chump cash

I remember when 500k use to be a lot, and now, you feel poor if you have under 1M.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: PandaMasterX4 on 2006-08-21 11:59 ]</font>


thats because everything is that game is ridiculously overpriced with pathetic and tedious means to get more money. so much for fantasy. more like hell.





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Saner on 2006-08-21 12:36 ]</font>

[Arrow203]

Hell... Pure Hell is SE.. Sonic Team > SE ... in so many more ways than i could even imagine.. oh fyi for those of you who didn't know SE on the BBB Was given a Rating F for customer service... damn GMs they suck

[Ryna]

With the game's focus on synthesis and player-stores, the game's economy will be player-run to an extent. It is currently unknown whether inflation will be a problem or the exact form it will take.

[hypersaxon]

The way I see the My Store thing working is, it'll be smarter to sell your old equipment here because if you sell your old equipment at the store, you're not going to get as much money as if you were selling equipment at My Store.

The obvious reason being, the store screws you over and only gives you a portion of what the item is worth. Whereas, at My Store you can sell for the same price that the store is selling it for, or if you're having a hard time you can lower the price a tad bit to get more players to want to buy it.

As far as the exact way it'll play out, as Ryna said we don't know yet. Just hope that people don't ask for astronomical prices for rares http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[Saner]

well ya the only drawback with NPC stores is that they don't buy your items at a fair value. but at least buying from them, the prices never go up.

and if someone dares to sell something commonly found in a npc store, higher than it's worth, than you know npcs are better dealers.

[hypersaxon]

Yeah, and that's what keeps things fair is that people aren't going to buy your items if someone else is selling it for less.

Rares though, are another story. Who knows how high prices will go for anything rare http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[Kyunji]

Saner, I don't know what exactly happened to you in other online games, but I'm guessing that you got screwed over because you didn't understand the concept of "profit." Also, NPCs don't sell rares; players do. As long as a catastrophic event doesn't occur (e.g. mass hacking, botting), player economies tend to remain somewhat stable.

Take, for example, the online game Kingdom of Loathing. It has had a player-run economy for years. In its early days, prices were fairly normal; rares cost far more than normal items, but were somewhat more proportional to NPC shops. However, one day, a bug allowing infinite "meat" (the game's currency) to be obtained caused the sudden introduction of billions of meat into the economy, resulting in massive inflation. Automatic prices, however, remained the same, meaning that it was made more difficult to purchase any sort of items without finding and selling a few rares or having some of this "bugged" meat. Over time, this problem has faded with the introduction of "meatsinks," expensive items which served the explicit purpose of eliminating some of this excess meat, but the prices have never fallen back to their original levels from before this event occurred.

In the end, the mass, illegitimate obtaining of currency is what generally ruins most player-run economies. When many people suddenly have much more money, those without it must increase their prices to make worthwhile amounts, resulting in inflation. When this happens on a massive scale, the economy is more or less dead and gone. If you didn't manage to obtain some of this illegitimate currency yourself, then you're screwed over whenever your try to buy items from player shops. As long as Phantasy Star Universe is carefully monitored and hacked weapons, items, and currency are removed from the game (or, better yet, prevented from being obtained at all) and botting and other such methods of "cheating" are prevented, then I think that everything should work out fine in relation to the player-run economy.

The problem is, however, that the chances of that occuring, given SEGA of America's reputation as far as Phantasy Star Online goes, that it is highly unlikely that few, if any, steps will be taken to prevent this from occuring, and the economy will become as wrecked as Final Fantasy XI's is said to be.

That's when I start playing Extra Mode.

[JasonWFD]

/clap Kyunji

I have faith that ST has learned from the past and will implement the necessary precautions in order to avoid as much cheating as possible. Server-side characters are a good sign. The end result won't be known for awhile, so... here's to hoping.

[Arrow203]

Please dont make me get into FFXI... With the Gilbuyers and the Gilsellers its insane... there was no glitch or anything that caused this massive inflation it was just the people who were there just to sell it (RMT) it has been for the past few years and it will still be like that until the game shuts down.. lets just prey to god that there wont be any RMT in this game... i beg ST PLEASE NO RMT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Natrokos]

Player economies are excellent so long as no 'outside influences' (such as the gilsellers and clans that relentlessly hunt rares like in FFXI) seep in. Some games guard against it better than others and for the most part a player economy is basically simple business sense....FFXI was indeed a horrific ordeal that has probably driven hundreds MAD. MAAAAAAAAD.

[Shadow_Wing]

I never really felt much hardship with gil in FFXI personally.... wait nvm I'm one of those rich high crafty BRD types so don't mind me....

Kyunji speaks the truth when it comes to how prices are made in a player based economy, take for example Remora's Economy, one of FFXI's server. From the intial to modern day, Remora's economy has seen massive inflation and deflation ranging from the introduction of billions of gil into the economy via immigrations (Server immigrations FTL....) to the deflation of prices found in modern day prices, which I believe is due to the fact that most of the gil is stuck with either crafters and/or gilsellers.

It seems with PSU most of the meseta that comes into and out of the economy will be via NPC based sources, as in quests and also NPC shops, this makes for a hugely regulated system.

Giving the fact that the game is mostly emulated via the server side it is harder to exploit and easier to regulate thus I trust that ST will do a considerably good job on many issues that plague PSO and other past MMO problems.

[Bleu]

Pardon my intrusion.

In PSO:BB we use PD's (Photon Drops) for currency since Meseta is utterly useless on it. If inflation of Meseta were to get too bad on PSU, the community could always adopt an 'unofficial' currency to balance things out perhaps?

[PandaMasterX4]

RMT definately cause inflation and huge problems. If ST wants to stop this problem early on, they're going to need to monitor it from the get go. Hacks and dupes will also need to be modded at source, and any unlegit item should be turned into a useless item.

The way it shows, is that everyone will be their own auction house. People will travel to heavy populated servers to see prices and then compete at that.

The people like myself who will try to attempt quick leveling, will be picking up rare items faster than the average, but we won't know what exactly to sell it as with the economy being so new. Meseta needs to not be useless in this game otherwise we'll have a new problem on our hands.

[Parn]

Whether inflation will be a factor or not is based purely on how dependant players are on NPC shops. Final Fantasy XI suffers because there aren't enough money sinks... think about it, how often do people spend a ton of money at NPC shops? They don't, and that's a problem. I made my fortune spending very little gil at NPCs, a little bit of gil through some auction house purchases, and then sold high on the auction house. There's plenty of ways to rake in the money, but there isn't enough to offset that income. The money keeps circulating between players, but very little of it is disappearing despite the constant amassing of it by players from monsters.

Phantasy Star Universe will suffer the same problem if players aren't dependant on the shops. Clothing seems to be expensive and it's a good money sink, but I don't think it's enough, really. I'm hoping some of the best weapons and items in the game can only be obtained through synthesis, and with only an extremely low chance of success on top of needing a few items that can only be purchased at NPC stores so meseta is constantly being removed from the system.

System of balance, basically. The same amount of meseta must be removed from the playerbase as a whole, at a similar rate to the amount being obtained by said playerbase, or the value of the currency drops. It's really inevitable that inflation will happen, but it's a question of "to what degree?"

[Saner]

not really, unlike FF11's AH, PSU won't solely depend on player vendors and drops. NPC shops will provide the bulk of the essentials at a fair price and limitless supply. ya FF11 had npc shops too but they never sold equipment/items you really wanted.

money is harder to come by but it all balances itself out since you can still sell drops you don't need to other players or NPCs if you don't care how much you get in return. Well in PSO I always sold extra stuff to NPCs and my money added up at a decent rate.

plus missions can be repeated and they reward money I think besides class pts.

[PandaMasterX4]

The game needs taxes

[Parn]

On 2006-08-22 09:15, Saner wrote:
Well in PSO I always sold extra stuff to NPCs and my money added up at a decent rate.

plus missions can be repeated and they reward money I think besides class pts.
Yeah, and in PSO, you had mass inflation as a result from the above. The reason is because every player's income of meseta far exceeded the amount of meseta erased when you'd buy consumables.

No one here knows how dependant we'll be on NPC vendors. This is why I said I hope we're still dependant at even late-game levels. As an example of what I'm talking about, I hope that say, one of the strongest swords in the game has to be synthesized and requires an expensive NPC-purchased lower level sword as the primary part in creating this super sword. In order for this to keep deleting meseta out of the system, success in making this item would have to be extremely low, which would keep the weapon particularly uncommon and therefore, that much more special. And it'd be something to strive for.

If there's lots of items that can only be synthesized like the above example, then things might work out really well. Otherwise, it'll be PSO all over again and meseta will mean absolutely nothing after a month or two like it was on Dreamcast. We'll see.

[Saner]

okay I'm just glad there is no AH.

and taxes? games don't need that. what good are taxes? what would a computer do with such collected money? give it away through raffles? http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[PandaMasterX4]

In the GC, meseta lost it's value once you got online really.

Items with low synth rates and requiring NPC isn't a bad idea, but think of how much the cost of the weapon is going to be once that person trys to sell it.

If they want a sure bet of deleting meseta, we need taxes. Make it something cheesy like, it's for the city events, blah blah.

That is a sure fire way, but of course it needs more to it than just taxes.

I bolded the words that have significant meaning of what i'm trying to say.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: PandaMasterX4 on 2006-08-22 09:50 ]</font>

[Saner]

since money is said to be harder to accumulate this time, taxes really won't be necessary.

besides many things are pretty expensive. look at the pieces of clothes, those sell for 10,000+ http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/anime2.gif

[PandaMasterX4]

Consider it being 10 months down the line. Do you honestly think that 10,000 is going to be a lot? Even if money is harder to obtain, you are going to need a sense of money removal, otherwise we're going to be flooded with money and it's going to be a problem in itself. Stop thinking about now and think about how things will be further down the line.

Do you think that america expect people to be instant billionaires from things like microsoft? Economy will always inflate and you need a sense of balance. Making taxes of say 10% would definately get rid of a lot of excess currency in the game.

Say you're trying to sale something for 1M. The buy needs to now pay 1,100,000 and the extra 100,000 goes bye bye.

[Saner]

well ya there has to be a balance but as long as its not so cruel that almost everyone is poor no matter what they do.

and for what? for an elite few to benefit from whatever riches they exploited from others? people will always find ways to get rich but not everyone will be rich so why can't everyone have fun in getting rich and stuff?

anyways money should not be too valued cause anyway not everyone will be able to afford everything. and even when they do, it isnt a matter of buying more and more, there are limits even with taxes so taxes would just simply slow down the inevitable.

but ya realistically I dont think they will add taxes.

they already made money harder to find and things costing more and synthesizing having low success, so as lon as they don't overdo it with hammering people with loss of money vs. fun, then things will be balanced anyway.

cause of course things like rares are stuff that even money can't buy unless form a player that has it. but ya they have it under control. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

and even if money gets to the point that everyone has a lot of it then oh well there are always other goals to look forward to besides wealth and purchases.

[PandaMasterX4]

The "oh well, let's let the economy go to hell in a hand basket" is a pathetic philosophy.

Slowing down the inevitible is still better than letting it blow up so suddenly. The taxes go to NO ONE. Sellers in FF had to pay a huge tax to place in the auction house (jeuno). Buyers didn't have to pay tax to buy form the AH, but if they wanted to buy from the bazaar, they had to pay tax.

Why do you think people started to mule outside once the mobs depopped after chasing someone? No more tax = more sales. If tax always exists, then we'll slow down a huge mass of pain that will exist later than sooner due to it.

Does ST have it all under control? doubtful. No MMO ever has it all under control. Truth is you can't please the masses and something will always fault. I hate the whole discussion of when people say "for an elite few to benefit from whatever riches they exploited from others" because EVERYONE has the oppertunity for this. Those elite that you state are just the ones with more focus than laziness.

In MMOs, no one is born rich. You'll get cases later on where friends will be given money just to start off, but I don't think people should be frowned upon for having things that the masses don't and try to sell for profit.