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Player crafting question
How will this work ? I'm just afraid that having player made equipment will ruin the game economy like it did in eve online. Its great that players will get to craft but greed takes over all the time. World of warcraft is a good example of this. An item at a vendor would go for 60 silver. But at the auction house goes for 20 gold. It destroyed that game economy and gave rise to all the gold farming and ebaying of gold. I guess i'm against player run economies in games. I really do believe if players were not greedy humans, there would be no need for buying credits or items on ebay. Greed is what keeps gold farmers in bussiness. How will the dev's handle this when it happens(and it will) I hope they have something in mind or have thought about this.
it has nothing to do with greed, it has to do with people not being content with the things you have and being unable to prioritize.
its not like you need all the things that are for sale...
its not like you need all the things that are for sale...
In any capitalistic economy, you will have to assume that everyone is as greedy as the system allows you to be.
I am sure that in Vendetta-Online, the players will get as much "stuff" as possible when crafting comes along. Partly because the players burn thru "new" items quickly, and partly because there are many players with over 100 million credits.
There does need to be a limiting factor on what money can buy you.
I am sure that in Vendetta-Online, the players will get as much "stuff" as possible when crafting comes along. Partly because the players burn thru "new" items quickly, and partly because there are many players with over 100 million credits.
There does need to be a limiting factor on what money can buy you.
the thing is that vendetta currency is so underpriced compared to "real" currency's. if the riches player in vendetta currency sold all of their money, they would get about $200. whoop de dum dum! some profitable pursuit that was!
I'm going to re-assess and rebalance the economy before going forward with crafting. I don't want crafting to imbalance things either. The intention is to tie things together, not upset what's already there.
Very important that you realize, with both Eve and WoW, the problems with the economies come from different sources. However, both come back to two points, exclusivity and surpluss funds.
In Eve, the developers have some half-baked scheme to distribute blueprints, which then get sold off to other players, who are already the richest, most monopolistic players in the game. The end result means that one player winds up with all copies of a very limited and exclusive blueprint. He is then the only player to make the item, and can charge whatever he likes. Even if he wasn't the only player to make it, these blueprints are so few in number that there isn't much in the way of competition, especially as spread out as Eve is. Add to all of it that even a indy Veldspar miner can make millions of credits a day, and active players make even more, there are way to many credits in alot of players pockets to burn.
WoW suffers from too much gold, period. End-game players have nothing to spend it on except decking out alts, to get them to end-game faster. WoWs answer for more content typically comes in the form of more through-the-roof requirements to make anything too, and thus higher prices are demanded for such time invested. Despite this, WoWs economy is under very good control. It's player greed, both in terms of what's asked and in terms of what's desired, that drive up AH prices. And if you don't shoot for the best-of-the-best uber-rare items, you will find the prices are where they should be. (The short would be this: You didn't need that blue sword at level 21 anyway, the green one you had worked fine.)
In Eve, exclusivity is from there being only 4 (out of more than 50,000 accounts) of any tech 2 blueprint in the game, most of which are bought up by the same cabal of people. In WoW, it's the rarity of items or the efforts ivolved to aquire/make them that cause them to be expensive, and thus exclusive.
Also, on the subject of WoW, vendors do not sell items that players can make, and vice versa. Niether handles items that are world drops either (rare exceptions). Jarfaru stated "An item at a vendor would go for 60 silver. But at the auction house goes for 20 gold.", which is not true. The vendor prices found on websites are calculated by reversing the sell value. The base sell value is dileberately way under the items actual worth to keep players from exploiting the manufacturing system. Under the system, the raw materials are actually worth more than the finished product when selling to a vendor. Find any of the green "limited quatnity" items vednors sometimes sell (the exception mentioned above) and they go for several gold, not silver as was stated.
Incarnate:
My suggestion to avoid the Eve scenario is either don't make item production exclusive at all, or make them only limitedly so. i.e. Exlusive productions rights for a month before becoming producable by the general public.
To avoid the WoW scenario, keep item production relatively simple (shouldn't take days/weeks/months or 40-man epic raids to accomplish). There is no easy fix for high-end players and surpluss funds however.
To keep all-of-the-above in check, simply make *all* items avaible through NPC vendors somwehere (and in infinte, non-impactable (price wise) supply), but at a premium, 125-150% of intended player sell value. Thus keeping players from being able to price items astronomically, without being undersold by the game itself. It would still enable players to profit, and force strategic placement of sell orders to be more important to profitablity. ("You could buy my Nuetron Blaster MkIV here in Deneb for 1600 credits, or you could go all the way to Sedena an pay just 1200 credits from the station. Yeah, I know it only costs me 800 to make...") The more common the item is intended to be, the more NPCs vendors should sell it. Thus if no players were selling a Plasma Cannon MkI in a new player system, the NPC vendor would be there, and every other station, to fill that needed void. Jackhammer rockets might require a wormhole or two to find from an NPC if no player had them set up in that station or close by though.
EDIT: Further, having NPCs continue to provide equiptment will provide a fall-back for the low Vendetta population not being able to provide everything. With as few players as we have currently, an entirely player driven economy would leave most stations without any inventories, which would deter new players.
In Eve, the developers have some half-baked scheme to distribute blueprints, which then get sold off to other players, who are already the richest, most monopolistic players in the game. The end result means that one player winds up with all copies of a very limited and exclusive blueprint. He is then the only player to make the item, and can charge whatever he likes. Even if he wasn't the only player to make it, these blueprints are so few in number that there isn't much in the way of competition, especially as spread out as Eve is. Add to all of it that even a indy Veldspar miner can make millions of credits a day, and active players make even more, there are way to many credits in alot of players pockets to burn.
WoW suffers from too much gold, period. End-game players have nothing to spend it on except decking out alts, to get them to end-game faster. WoWs answer for more content typically comes in the form of more through-the-roof requirements to make anything too, and thus higher prices are demanded for such time invested. Despite this, WoWs economy is under very good control. It's player greed, both in terms of what's asked and in terms of what's desired, that drive up AH prices. And if you don't shoot for the best-of-the-best uber-rare items, you will find the prices are where they should be. (The short would be this: You didn't need that blue sword at level 21 anyway, the green one you had worked fine.)
In Eve, exclusivity is from there being only 4 (out of more than 50,000 accounts) of any tech 2 blueprint in the game, most of which are bought up by the same cabal of people. In WoW, it's the rarity of items or the efforts ivolved to aquire/make them that cause them to be expensive, and thus exclusive.
Also, on the subject of WoW, vendors do not sell items that players can make, and vice versa. Niether handles items that are world drops either (rare exceptions). Jarfaru stated "An item at a vendor would go for 60 silver. But at the auction house goes for 20 gold.", which is not true. The vendor prices found on websites are calculated by reversing the sell value. The base sell value is dileberately way under the items actual worth to keep players from exploiting the manufacturing system. Under the system, the raw materials are actually worth more than the finished product when selling to a vendor. Find any of the green "limited quatnity" items vednors sometimes sell (the exception mentioned above) and they go for several gold, not silver as was stated.
Incarnate:
My suggestion to avoid the Eve scenario is either don't make item production exclusive at all, or make them only limitedly so. i.e. Exlusive productions rights for a month before becoming producable by the general public.
To avoid the WoW scenario, keep item production relatively simple (shouldn't take days/weeks/months or 40-man epic raids to accomplish). There is no easy fix for high-end players and surpluss funds however.
To keep all-of-the-above in check, simply make *all* items avaible through NPC vendors somwehere (and in infinte, non-impactable (price wise) supply), but at a premium, 125-150% of intended player sell value. Thus keeping players from being able to price items astronomically, without being undersold by the game itself. It would still enable players to profit, and force strategic placement of sell orders to be more important to profitablity. ("You could buy my Nuetron Blaster MkIV here in Deneb for 1600 credits, or you could go all the way to Sedena an pay just 1200 credits from the station. Yeah, I know it only costs me 800 to make...") The more common the item is intended to be, the more NPCs vendors should sell it. Thus if no players were selling a Plasma Cannon MkI in a new player system, the NPC vendor would be there, and every other station, to fill that needed void. Jackhammer rockets might require a wormhole or two to find from an NPC if no player had them set up in that station or close by though.
EDIT: Further, having NPCs continue to provide equiptment will provide a fall-back for the low Vendetta population not being able to provide everything. With as few players as we have currently, an entirely player driven economy would leave most stations without any inventories, which would deter new players.
Imposing atrificial restrictions on an economy is where all of those other systems went wrong in the first place.
I propose a system like this for crafting/economy (kind of a summary of a different thread, not all my own ideas):
1. UP FRONT COSTS
Players make all of their own stuff, and must invest in the infrastructure to create items as well. For example, If I wanted to make a supercharge battery that held 300 charge but recharged at 55/sec, I would need to start with the basics and build up. I'd probably need two different kinds of metals, refined from mined ore. I'd need some plasteel for the casing, and maybe some additional exotic item to make this cooler-than-usual item.
Additionally, players would need to invest in a machine to refine the ore (or pay someone else who has already obtained the machine to do this for them), a machine to mold the battery case from plasteel, a machine to assemble the components, etc etc. I'm thinking that these machines are relatively expensive not only to initially PURCHASE, but to maintain as well.
Additionally, players would need to rent space from stations to keep these machines. Or, alternatively, they could build their own stations, but that's another topic.
Additionally, there are short-run "crafting" machines, and then there are production-run "assembly-line" machines which are exorbitabtly expensive (Say, 10 million each)
So, let's say that making your own supercharge battery means you have invested about 5 million of your own money so far to get to a point where you can start experimenting with combinations.
2. EXPERIMENTATION
Formulas for "normal" items like we buy now are well known. Say to make a traditional fast charge battery, stations use 10 cu of xith and 10 cu of pyronic, along with 5 cu of plasteel and 1 cu of heliocene, and they run it thru their "assembly-line" machine. This costs the station 300 cr per battery and they can sell these for 400 cr, say.
In order to craft anything, a player buys a datapad (10,000 cr, say) and plugs it into his/her crafting machine. Formulas for "new" items are not known. Players must experiment with adding a pinch of denic or smidgen of vismetal, and see what they get. Doing so will take a bit of time, and will be frustrating at first, but eventually properties of the various ores and items will become apparent, and the guesswork will become more "educated." These formulas will become closely guarded secrets for guilds or players. If the process does not yield anything useful out of the crafting machine, the datapad becomes useless and essentially is wasted.
When a player hits upon a "winning" formula in their crafting machine, they can opt to purchase the infrastructure for the "mass-production-assembly-line" version of things, or they can sell their design datapad. either way, a TON of work has gone into this item. Lots of hours and lots of money. Crafting will not be for the faint-of-heart.
3. PRODUCTION
The datapads give that player or guild exclusive rights to that item. And that's not a bad thing. If someone else wants it, then let them go craft one. So, OK so our player has created the supercharge battery and it's now going into production. Only the machine that contains that specific datapad will be able to churn out the supercharge bettery. However, due to the materials required and the equipment necessary, it's gonna be expensive. Looks like 85,000 cr each. Of course, the player can opt to sell the batteries for 1 cr each, but there will only be so far he can go with that before all the batteries are bought up and he runs out of money, since he's operating at a gigantic loss.
The factions/nations will always have an advantage on pricing since they are gigantic networks of stations, not just one station or even one little rental unit in a station. Their pricing for standard items will ALWAYS be cheaper, due to volume (a la Wal-Mart). So trying to compete on price will be a losing proposition for all but the absolute largest multi-station guilds. It's be like local hardware store trying to compete with Home Depot.
So the smart players will opt for quality over quantity, making boutique items that take a LONG time to craft and are expensive. Plus you lose them when yer ship goes boom, which happens a lot. But there will always be opportunities for players to find niche markets and compete. I think stations should be able to find those niche markets as well, hence...
4. STATION A.I.
Stations should be able to determine when there are large amounts of supply and or demand. If Ion cores are not selling, they reduce the price to clear them out. (Since keeping Ion cores in stock will be expensive for stations as well.) If they are out of Heliocene, the stations offer missions to players/NPC's to obtain MORE Heliocene - with players obviously getting first choice, if no player takes the mission in the allotted time, the NPC will take it happily.
If pirates camp the station and blow up the returning Heliocene miners, the station hires escorts to protect the miners. Of course, this added cost is worked into the price for Heliocene and the Station may put a recurring bounty on the heads of the offending pirates, or it might just have another station mine it and deliver it, or if none of those work, it may just stop selling Heliocene. If there is a player item that the A.I. thinks will sell well, it may send NPC's to buy the items from the player station, and possibly create another market for it. (Or even buy them all up to avoid anyone else getting them, eho knows?) ALL of the Station A.I.s should think like ultra-competitive greedy capitalist pigs. Which leads us to...
5. WORKING ECONOMY
Once the stations obey the simple supply/demand rules, and keeping inventory in-stock costs money, and rental space costs money, and costs for escorts are quantized, and transport costs are quantized, and formulas for everything are established, then the economy will work. It won't be a matter of creating 10,000 special-case rules that maintain the economy, but it will be a simple matter of adjusting the percentages of what relates to what, like what Alan Greenspan did with the U.S. federal reserve fo 20 years. A little hike here, a little drop there, and wait to see what happens. Small steps will have far-reaching changes.
So, anyway, that's what I think we had come up with in the crafting/economy thread before this one. Please add comments/suggestions...
I propose a system like this for crafting/economy (kind of a summary of a different thread, not all my own ideas):
1. UP FRONT COSTS
Players make all of their own stuff, and must invest in the infrastructure to create items as well. For example, If I wanted to make a supercharge battery that held 300 charge but recharged at 55/sec, I would need to start with the basics and build up. I'd probably need two different kinds of metals, refined from mined ore. I'd need some plasteel for the casing, and maybe some additional exotic item to make this cooler-than-usual item.
Additionally, players would need to invest in a machine to refine the ore (or pay someone else who has already obtained the machine to do this for them), a machine to mold the battery case from plasteel, a machine to assemble the components, etc etc. I'm thinking that these machines are relatively expensive not only to initially PURCHASE, but to maintain as well.
Additionally, players would need to rent space from stations to keep these machines. Or, alternatively, they could build their own stations, but that's another topic.
Additionally, there are short-run "crafting" machines, and then there are production-run "assembly-line" machines which are exorbitabtly expensive (Say, 10 million each)
So, let's say that making your own supercharge battery means you have invested about 5 million of your own money so far to get to a point where you can start experimenting with combinations.
2. EXPERIMENTATION
Formulas for "normal" items like we buy now are well known. Say to make a traditional fast charge battery, stations use 10 cu of xith and 10 cu of pyronic, along with 5 cu of plasteel and 1 cu of heliocene, and they run it thru their "assembly-line" machine. This costs the station 300 cr per battery and they can sell these for 400 cr, say.
In order to craft anything, a player buys a datapad (10,000 cr, say) and plugs it into his/her crafting machine. Formulas for "new" items are not known. Players must experiment with adding a pinch of denic or smidgen of vismetal, and see what they get. Doing so will take a bit of time, and will be frustrating at first, but eventually properties of the various ores and items will become apparent, and the guesswork will become more "educated." These formulas will become closely guarded secrets for guilds or players. If the process does not yield anything useful out of the crafting machine, the datapad becomes useless and essentially is wasted.
When a player hits upon a "winning" formula in their crafting machine, they can opt to purchase the infrastructure for the "mass-production-assembly-line" version of things, or they can sell their design datapad. either way, a TON of work has gone into this item. Lots of hours and lots of money. Crafting will not be for the faint-of-heart.
3. PRODUCTION
The datapads give that player or guild exclusive rights to that item. And that's not a bad thing. If someone else wants it, then let them go craft one. So, OK so our player has created the supercharge battery and it's now going into production. Only the machine that contains that specific datapad will be able to churn out the supercharge bettery. However, due to the materials required and the equipment necessary, it's gonna be expensive. Looks like 85,000 cr each. Of course, the player can opt to sell the batteries for 1 cr each, but there will only be so far he can go with that before all the batteries are bought up and he runs out of money, since he's operating at a gigantic loss.
The factions/nations will always have an advantage on pricing since they are gigantic networks of stations, not just one station or even one little rental unit in a station. Their pricing for standard items will ALWAYS be cheaper, due to volume (a la Wal-Mart). So trying to compete on price will be a losing proposition for all but the absolute largest multi-station guilds. It's be like local hardware store trying to compete with Home Depot.
So the smart players will opt for quality over quantity, making boutique items that take a LONG time to craft and are expensive. Plus you lose them when yer ship goes boom, which happens a lot. But there will always be opportunities for players to find niche markets and compete. I think stations should be able to find those niche markets as well, hence...
4. STATION A.I.
Stations should be able to determine when there are large amounts of supply and or demand. If Ion cores are not selling, they reduce the price to clear them out. (Since keeping Ion cores in stock will be expensive for stations as well.) If they are out of Heliocene, the stations offer missions to players/NPC's to obtain MORE Heliocene - with players obviously getting first choice, if no player takes the mission in the allotted time, the NPC will take it happily.
If pirates camp the station and blow up the returning Heliocene miners, the station hires escorts to protect the miners. Of course, this added cost is worked into the price for Heliocene and the Station may put a recurring bounty on the heads of the offending pirates, or it might just have another station mine it and deliver it, or if none of those work, it may just stop selling Heliocene. If there is a player item that the A.I. thinks will sell well, it may send NPC's to buy the items from the player station, and possibly create another market for it. (Or even buy them all up to avoid anyone else getting them, eho knows?) ALL of the Station A.I.s should think like ultra-competitive greedy capitalist pigs. Which leads us to...
5. WORKING ECONOMY
Once the stations obey the simple supply/demand rules, and keeping inventory in-stock costs money, and rental space costs money, and costs for escorts are quantized, and transport costs are quantized, and formulas for everything are established, then the economy will work. It won't be a matter of creating 10,000 special-case rules that maintain the economy, but it will be a simple matter of adjusting the percentages of what relates to what, like what Alan Greenspan did with the U.S. federal reserve fo 20 years. A little hike here, a little drop there, and wait to see what happens. Small steps will have far-reaching changes.
So, anyway, that's what I think we had come up with in the crafting/economy thread before this one. Please add comments/suggestions...
Well...that sounds fun :) I would love to have my own station or at least guild stations and maybe...(Yes this is pretttty old) we can walk around? :)
That sounds very good, Zyl and LeberMac! :)
I would note that I like the idea of limited production run datapads, but only in the context of infinite use datapads existing. It should take no time and be fairly cheap to duplicate infinite use datapads. Limited production run datapads then could only be made from infinite use datapads. Then, someone who discovered/researched a new item datapad could attempt to retain some control over its distribution until someone else discovered/researched the same. As more and more people discovered/researched the item datapad themselves, eventually (or as soon as a single player decided to sell infinite use datapads) only infinite use datapads would be produced/used and would be generally available.
P.S. I want to help with the station A.I.!! :)
I would note that I like the idea of limited production run datapads, but only in the context of infinite use datapads existing. It should take no time and be fairly cheap to duplicate infinite use datapads. Limited production run datapads then could only be made from infinite use datapads. Then, someone who discovered/researched a new item datapad could attempt to retain some control over its distribution until someone else discovered/researched the same. As more and more people discovered/researched the item datapad themselves, eventually (or as soon as a single player decided to sell infinite use datapads) only infinite use datapads would be produced/used and would be generally available.
P.S. I want to help with the station A.I.!! :)
personally, I'd like to see crafting as a physical process that requires piloting and special ships. most of the products talked about here are already sold... datapads, blasters, missles, rockets, batteries...
why not have the crafting aspect be stations?
a group of players would need to aquire the raw materials to build a station, and similar to mining, but with more options, flexibility, and time involved.
so, for instance... TGFT wants a station. they have to build it. it may take a week, and come under attack if found, so it's location is kept secret, materials are aquired slowly and stockpiled, and shifts of workers take turns piecing together synthetic hydrocarbons and plaststeel until the basic structure is finished. this could affect the look of the structure as well, if for instance I place two cubes next to each other or make the dock face north.. by physical placement.
I guess I just think that the in station experience is already the weak point of the game... it's just lists of items and options, it's not as much a simulation as the piloting. "crafting" a battery under those circumstances is really just extended buying/trading, it's not really craft.
my 2c
why not have the crafting aspect be stations?
a group of players would need to aquire the raw materials to build a station, and similar to mining, but with more options, flexibility, and time involved.
so, for instance... TGFT wants a station. they have to build it. it may take a week, and come under attack if found, so it's location is kept secret, materials are aquired slowly and stockpiled, and shifts of workers take turns piecing together synthetic hydrocarbons and plaststeel until the basic structure is finished. this could affect the look of the structure as well, if for instance I place two cubes next to each other or make the dock face north.. by physical placement.
I guess I just think that the in station experience is already the weak point of the game... it's just lists of items and options, it's not as much a simulation as the piloting. "crafting" a battery under those circumstances is really just extended buying/trading, it's not really craft.
my 2c