I dont really think that a player run economy would require the players to design and develop the actual game content(Second life?)We got the devs for that. Though...it would be awesome if players could design their own ships and weapons.

Resource collection methods is something thats already standard in every MMO. Ex( including games like WoW, Everquest, Guild wars, DAOC, Runescape, Lineage, etc): mining, farming, fishing, crafting, trading, etc etc etc....

Though theres already one method of earning money used by the players which isnt in the game background: merchanting (buying low, selling high)

VO doesnt favors/encourage the implementation of this method...due to the lack of a good and reliable trading system between players.

forget the player run economy.

economy since the agricultural revolution of 10,000 BC depends on innovation anyways, which is rather difficult in a computer game because innovation basically equals cheating. example - they once let players write lua code. first thing that happens is someone writes a teleportation script to get out of fights.

just make the economy relatively stable, and then build a bunch of fun games on top of it.

its a game remember! those of us with jobs play with the f@#$@# 'economy' every day, and it is not exactly 'fun'. let the NPCs deal with the economy.

what is 'fun'? well that depends on the person. but basically it is everything that has been in entertainment for the past 3000 years.... on the 'sport' end... a level playing field, competition, simple rules that are somewhat easy to follow, easy to pick up but hard to master....(soccer, chess, square dancing, checkers, croquet, bowling, karate, mankala) and on the 'fantasy' end.... stories, characters, imagination, language, and so forth (folk tales, poems, drama, comedy, tragedy, etc...)... and then basic rules of phsyics mixed with art (ballet, music, circus, etc)

the problem with a 'realistic' economy is that the rules are not simple and the playing field is not level. thats why we like games and sport, because we wish the real world were more like that.

but what about world of warcraft? why is that fun? the answer is this: world of warcraft is not fun. it is addictive, but it is not fun. the same goes for alot of other MMOs. they are simply not fun. they are work, they are like a job. the only 'fun' is pushing your bar up so that its higher than other peoples bar. oh joy.

do you ever hear people talking about some fun event they did in wow? no, they only talk about what armor they have and how much hit points they have. do they talk about some big boss they killed? no, they talk about what drops they got after they killed it.

this is teaching our kids bad values. when they get in the world, they are only going to care what kind of car they drive, how many HP it has, how many sq feet their house is, etc.

so... if you ask me, make vo more like a mix of sports and adventure games, and maybe even throw in some music and dance elements (not sure how you would do that, but dance dance revolution and guitar hero did it... the closest thing in VO is the cargo-drop art), because i dont care about pushing my bar up.

my car is green, my house cozy, and my computer is a square box.

ananzi, we have no doubts that you're unable to get your 'bar' up.

Well, whatever trollish remarks ananzi has (STFU btw), we're not suggesting here modeling the real world, nor WoW, nor making it a hard, harsh and cold struggle like Victorian times. Read my postings. Refer to Section 2, paragraphs 1 and 7:
- V.O. is a player-vs-player universe and and players want to PvP in fighter ships.
- The Economy should be abstracted from the players; V.O. is not a resource-management or XXXX type game.

We are saying: the money in VO has problems (read my posts);
and the Devs are working on the Economy for VO 2.0;
and we are just chipping in with constructive ideas for a:
- dynamic economy
- which has a simple model that behaves fairly rationally
- which preserves the value of money (is devoid of "perpetual-money making machines")

STFU? what does that stand for? i dont get it.
super troll, fine and upstanding?
swing true, fair uther?

please explain to the audience why you would use this phrase, and what i possibly did to warrant such exceptional praise.

anyways, i am glad you boiled down your post into like 10 lines so i could understand it.

on the other hand, i dont see how you can stop inflation / deflation without having someone whose job it is to actively manage it.

on the third hand, where is the code? you have an interesting model but where is the flash animation or whatever showing it work?

In my personal opinion having a dynamic "real" economy is FUN.

I think it is very clear from the detail of earlier posts that thinking about economics and the factors involved in a fictional market based economy is something that some people ENJOY.

However *not all players find economics entertaining*, at least not as the main mechanic in a game.

From my experience it seems like there are several types of players. A well functioning New Economy in VO should well provide for all of these types. Also, these are archetypes, most players are some mix of two or more of these.

Type A - Players who enjoy combat and PvP primarily. These players are only interested in the economy as it allows/prevents them to more effectively compete in PvP. An economy that serves these players well would reward players for success in PvP activities at a rate which would allow the player to maintain their craft, rearm, and purchase better equipment at a rate which would not seriously hamper their ability to advance.

Type B - Players who mainly enjoy the social aspects of the game. They are mainly interested in the economy as it allows/prevents them to keep pace with their in game friends. However, the social aspects of trading are also a source of entertainment for them. In addition a crafting/manufacturing system that forced players to cooperate to create higher level items would also be of value to these kind of players.

Type C - Players who enjoy exploring all aspects of a game. These players wish to try all aspects of a the game, at least to some extent. An economy that serves them well would have very low barriers for entry for crafting and manufacturing, at least at lower levels. The system should also impose few penalties for exploring and experimenting with all aspects of the game.

Type D - Players who enjoy participating in the game economy above all else. A well designed New Economy should provide a realistic enough model to provide rewarding interaction to these players while being robust enough to not be overly exploited by their actions. The actions of thses players should not overly adversely effect the game experience for other players.

These are my thoughts on the matter what say you?

My thoughts are all along the line of "apparently artificial inseminations causes a birth defect where the poor child is unable to use commas" and "where's my damn child support."

Thanks for your comments MechaSteve
In my suggestion I say the New Economy model detail should be abstracted away from the playerbase, and implicitly, I mean that Traders will study the Economy in a way that other players will not. (As they do currently, btw, tracking prices and profitable routes).
I don't put too much emphasis on Crafting because I believe a New Economy model can be delivered in the medium term; and Crafting in the long term; and the first is not dependent on the second.
The type D player or Trader: Well in my mind, their very actions of exploiting differences in prices and differences in supply and demand curves between locations, brings the economy into balance. Arbitrageurs make for an efficient market, as they arbitrage away inefficiencies (if the market prices respond to their actions). In an ideal situation enough D-players (Traders) and you wouldn't need NPC trade convoys. However, that ain't gonna happen, so VO will need NPC trade convoys to keep rebalancing the micro economies in the system. There will still be the opportunity for Traders to make money though!
Thanks -- Foo Fighter

what the hell...

As a new player I surely don't have the overview to make some decent comments, so please forgive me: VO has too much aspects I love, but I'm just too impatient for holding my mouth on this topic.

I was just about writing something in the lines Eddy initially did, when I found this thread. Couldn't express these thoughts better, so thanks a lot. At one point I disagree, though. Even for a level 1 or 2 player it's way too easy to make more money than you ever could spend at this stage, just by doing your basic fighter missions. With 11 cu cargo capacity you just need to pick up some containers before you recover and your income will grow on the fly. Later, with your first vulture and only 2cu, this will become a little more tricky...

I'm under the impression, the broken economy is in the first place a sacrifice to boost PvP. Nothing wrong with this, at least understandable, but way too harsh. I also can hardly believe, that the "Type A - Players" MechaSteve mentioned are building the majority. But if that would actually be true, so why would we need a large universe at all instead of just a more compact arena?

If anyone still needs to be convinced that money should count in VO, in particular in the light of PvP, than take it this way: being a trader right now is quite boring, because it's pretty much pointless, same goes for miners. So people meet for more or less artificial PvP events, which again reduce the whole action to sorta arena-like game. Only few people play the still boring and pointless roles. If there would be more traders (and miners) around, there surely would be more fun for pirates. Both traders and miners would spend some money for protection escorts against the latter, so PvPing would get some background.

The way it is now, pirates hardly can take much money from their *cough* customers, who otherwise would simply prefer to throw their (way too cheap) ships and cargo away.

As a last note, I very much like the idea of limited, dynamic station resources so that every once in a while even pure fighters need to support their traders and/or miners (if not even getting their own hands dirty), who's existence then eventually would make sense.
That's nothing new, though. Terminus (at least the TPE variant) and Jumpgate had this kind of economy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating more realism. Space games rise and fall with the illusions they provide. Even such an hopelessly outdated game like ELITE used some clever tricks to provoke an illusion of a really huge universe and the idea of long travels and deep space exploration. Something I'm currently missing in VO, but that's for another thread (I'm afraid these thoughts are quite unpopular, anyway)...

Thanks, some good comments there piCommander.

The biggest problem I foresee about game economies is that they try and wedge all the players in the same boat. So a miner who makes alot of money without much risk won't need it, and a soldier who makes squat will most likely end up in debt. There needs to be some way to tie it all together.

One way is to put all the big money making objects in dangerous places, so that the traders are reliant on the soldiers, and they in theory work together. Eve does this to an extent. But even then, it's usually easier to work with yourself than with another person, so most people have a mining alt they use to fork cash over to their PvP character.

A different method is to design the game so that fighters are simply far cheaper than trading or mining ships. A single fighter ought to be able to take down a much larger undefended freighter. This makes the damage a fighter can do greater than its cost, so that those people who defend against fighters can supposedly make a living. In other words, if every kill that a combat pilot makes earns more money than the ship the pilot flies, then the average pilot (who manages a 1:1 kill/death ratio) will be able to play VO without ever having to touch a 'moth, and traders will always have to be on the lookout for danger.

This thread died out in 2007?! Has there been any updates on reworking the economy model?

Yes, this thread from 2007 died out in 2007. Amazing discovery Professor Obvious. If you look around a bit, you'll also find some threads from 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 about the economy that all died out in the same year they were written.

Economic improvements are on the devs' list of big things that need fixing sometime.

But basically , yeah, any realistic hope of Guild Software doing someuseful with the economy died out around 2007.

When are you going to die out, lecter? >.>

Around the time VO does - so, not long now.

TL;DR

I would tend to agree with the OP. Exactly how a true dynamic economy is implemented in vo is beyond my knowledge of the underlying elements of vo , but anything other than the present price roll off model would be welcome.

For me, one very very very important point arises here (from 2007):

-Fighters must be MUCH cheaper than trade ships - but no cargo bays, or <=3cu at most!
-Freighters are more expesive, but are almost useless for combat.

So, the two model ships should be a Centurion and a MothXC. Two very distinct classes.
-If it can carry cargo enough for any profit, then it must have only self-defense turrets, and be very expensive.
-If it can fight, then no use for trading.

So, make all fighters become much cheaper while losing almost all its cargo hold.
While trading version keeps the cargo bays but loses weapons/maneavrability/speed and become much more expensive!