Items in the Economy

[Korr]

One of my favorite things from an old MUD I used to play was the "limited item" aspect. Where an item would drop from a boss/quest, and there could only be 1 or 3 or 10 or w/e on the server. This was also a game where when you died you lost your inventory all-together, so others could get access to them and the "clean-up" as we call a reset would return any limited items to their rightfull quest area/boss mob

[Blystos Re]

Couple of suggestions:

1). Setting up "player merchants" to sell gear to others: If it goes on the merchant, the DMs of course have the option to buy it and make it go away. The player buying the merchant has to pay the merchant fee of x gold, selects the markup, and then the merchant "eats" a percentage of the gold earned. If you can't pay the merchant, the merchant breaks the contract and takes your stuff with them, taking items out of the economy.

2). Real Estate: I don't know the engine limitations of NWN2, but would it be possible to have maybe 5 maximum additional areas per city? The number would be fixed, meaning that's all that's available ever, and it would range from apartment living to a lavish mansion. Here's the fun part - PROPERTY TAX! If your character can't afford to pay the property tax on their property, the city will start taking any items stored in/purchased for the property. If you don't have any, you lose the property and it will come back on the market after a time. Players can also choose to sell their homes back to the city, or to another player.

3). Frivolous Spending Opportunities: I see Garagoth becoming the Las Vegas of Aetheria. Transmutors who can give you wings, tails, change your face or your skin color. Tattoo parlors, hair stylists, bars with alcohol to purchase. Gambling, visual effects, black market, drugs, DANCING! "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

4). Self Storage: Persistant storage can be purchased for One Ungodly Sum per x time period. You ain't got the gold to pay? They take your items.

5). Guilds Cost Gold: To start your guild and get a guild hall you have to raise x gold, as well as the other prereqs. This would be a speed bump for some guilds to get started, but for that fee your guild is subsidized by the local government (no property taxes), and you get a limited persistant storage capability with your guild hall.

I voted no mules. Muling always seemed a work-around to persistant storage, and equated to servitude and slavery, which my guild and I strongly oppose.

...we oppose gambling, drugs and debauchery as well...but then we also oppose Garagoth in general.

[LinuxPup]

Definitely drop more door knobs... if anything, we should have had more in NS4 too.

[Rufio]

There was an old game that I used to play that implemented a sort of market system that was rather interesting that could work here. The game was actually not a rpg or mmo of any sort, it was a league in mechwarrior 4, but the entire premise was that you started with one mech that could be used in league games, and in league games you earned money if you won, and quite a bit less if you lost. The interesting part was what came next; mechs could be bought on a market on the leagues website, but there was a limited quantity of any single mech that could be purchased, with the most desired ones selling out the morning after the market reset (which always occurred at random odd hours in the morning on a random day approximately a week from the previous reset). Based on the rate of sales from previous weeks, an algorithm was built into the website that would automatically increase the price of the most demanded mechs, and decrease the price of the mechs that didn't sell out. There also was a second market where league members could sell their mechs to other league members and set their own asking price, potentially selling the in demand mechs for large amounts of fake cash. There was also a 10% market fee for selling mechs which was used as a money sink to attempt to remove some of the cash from the economy, along with repair fees that had to be paid after every battle based on how many times you were killed. There was also a third market, the black market, which would randomly post mechs at prices below market value, but there was a chance that the mech you ordered would not be shipped to you (they made you wait a few days to find out so you couldn't just order black market mechs over and over). The last market was a standard way to sell mechs back to the system at a price based on market price (maybe 1/2 current market price). The system worked great, and the league became very popular, but eventually, the market did become saturated, and by the end, nearly everyone had the mechs they needed to be sucessful (though there were too many mechs to own all of them, which kept the market somewhat relevant for people wanting to pick up the lesser used mechs for fringe battle situations). The league had been going slower as the market became more saturated, but then got a big boost when a third party mod team released a pack of new mechs (the mod team had released a pack of mechs once before, and the updated version of the game became more popular than the official release, and all the leagues at the time played on the modded version) which instantly created demand in the market.

This same idea could be used in nwn2, but the market would have to be set up somehow in game, allowing people to buy and sell goods and creating a system of supply and demand using gold as a currency. Items could be bought and sold on different markets. One market (or more if markets similar to the black market is implemented) could be controlled by the server, selling items at a limited quantity and periodically restocking automatically, and also adjusting prices based on demand, and allowing players to sell back items to the system at 1/2 market price, deleting the items forever (not putting them back into the market, as that aid the over saturation of goods). Another market could be a player to player market allowing players to sell any items they want at any asking price in order to hopefully make a profit off of their items. In my mech example, there did end up being an over saturation of the market, but in nwn2, i don't think there would be as much of an issue, because people don't just use one toon forever and just constantly stock goods, bust instead there are constantly new toons being created, so as the number of items in the economy increases, hopefully the number of toons being created are increasing at the same rate, keeping supply and demand constant and balanced.

[Amoenotep]

rufio's walls of text hurts my pooor blind eye's

[Rufio]

rufio's walls of text hurts my pooor blind eye's

You should avoid books at all costs.

[Cluster]

Just a few thoughts...

Item decay is fine, but don't make it destroy the item. WoW has an item decay system that isn't too hard to deal with, and it makes for a decent gold sink. Making repairs convenient, and possibly making it so a specialized crafter can repair certain kinds of items.

Item decay can be brought on by damage, but then your generally going to have 'tank' type toons taking all the repair costs. Death should cause an amount of damage, say 10% of the items durability. Higher level items have more durability than lower level, but also cost more per durability point to repair. Makes for a nice gold sink, and also makes raids on dungeons more concious of dying, as their gear becomes damaged.

Once gear has lost all durability, it loses bonuses that are given by it. Most of this will likely be limited by the engine as to what and how it can be implemented. The main goal here is to make a decent gold sink for those that raid for gear often.

Don't make items disappear on death or any other such thing. These systems are excessive realism. Having all your stuff disappear from your inventory is just plain annoying and makes life very difficult for those without alot of time on their hands to play.

For an item sink solution, I like the idea of Bind on Pickup items. This way you can't mule the gear, but perhaps you could use a bank vault tied to that toon that could hold BoP gear. This way you don't have guilds hoarding the best gear, as the gear can't be hoarded. In order to get that item, you have to actually raid for it. This makes it so you can't just take out the guilds uber hit squad and farm also.

The BoP system might be tricky to implement. I'm not sure what all the engine affords for restricting the trading of items. It would be ideal for end-game gear, and maybe even some of the very high end crafting gear, making it only attainable to the crafter.

I'd like to see an Auction House type system within the game. Not only does it make a gold sink (players don't recieve all the gold that the other player paid), but it also promotes an actual economy between players. If the item doesn't sell, the player can pick it up, or have it put back in their vault, or have it mailed to them, if such systems are put in place.

Charging for travel as we already have eats up plenty of gold. Introducing consumables of many sorts also puts a sink on gold. Potions are a great place for this, going beyond healing pots and included some potions that provide buffs. Have them at a high enough price so that those that can craft them can still make money at it.

The best way to curb the gold rush though is to make it not so easy to obtain. Having small gold on drops, or even remove gold from drops period and give some small shared amount of gold across the whole party on creature kill, but don't make it enough to get by on. Instead, the auction system would be a players primary source of income. This gives some prestige to crafters, as well as people who farm items.

Obviously your not going to get away from the simple fact that there are always going to be those with more time to play than others, and those players are going to be richer and more well geared. Adding a 'cost of living' factor makes it so those that play more also spend more than those that don't. The more 'stuff' a person has, the more it should cost in general to keep it around. Even after a long time, it's still not that difficult to keep things balanced.

[MadUkranian]

What about a combination of things to control inventory? Probably a lot of development, but maybe implemented over time? Rust monsters oxidizing gear, pick pocketing NPCs, and item wear and tear that can be repaired for a price scaling appropriately for the quality - perhaps even saving throws the items have to make to survive certain kinds of damage? Higher end items would have to be repaired by craftpersons of greater skill (sort of like finding all the master artisan crafting stations). Maybe even lootable bodies for those who want to wait for rescue instead of respawn...

As a player I like the system in place now on NS4, but I understand the need for control. I think limited availability of epic items is a good idea, but it would quickly be taken up by the players who have time to be online all day every day. I also think binding to a player would have some shortcomings. If someone grabs the boss drop before the party rolls for picks, are they "stuck with it?" (oops, I guess it's mine now). It would also limit trade between players.

[mgrjebbo]

Be cool if items decayed if you did not use them, or if you did not take them to a vendor/weaponsmith to have them repolished and honed from time to time. Put a fee on the service. This would greatly enhance the economy imo.

[Nyeleni]

rufio's walls of text hurts my pooor blind eye's

Quoted for truth. Rufio pls try to put more returns in your text .

[Rufio]

man, this was months ago. No love

[Nyeleni]

Heh, no need to be sad. Jebbo fooled me a bit, resurrecting this old thread. Still, if you use more returns in the text, especially extended blocks, it will be more readable.

And I think crafters should be excluded from item decay. If it is implemented.
Not sure, how easy it is to include it in game though. And if it will create more woe than good. Especially with lag, if it has to keep track of every item in an inventory.