Architect Archive

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No-Ni wrote:


SOE is actually attempting to turn the faucet down a bit to slow the inflow of money into the system. Apparently, they feel that the prices are inflated and that if they turn the faucet down, we'll all have to adjust our prices down. ...

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Pawlin wrote:

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No-Ni wrote:SOE is actually attempting to turn the faucet down a bit to slow the inflow of money into the system. Apparently, they feel that the prices are inflated and that if they turn the faucet down, we'll all have to adjust our prices down. ...

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As long ago as April there was more money flowing out of the game than flowing into the game. See this old astromech stat article. They had set it up that way to counter the impact of credit duping from the 1st instance that happened about 9 months ago (if I recall right). And that predated the latest round of duping so I assume SOE still has the economy balanced to drain funds with more outflow than inflow.

I think they are killing solo missions mainly because missions were never intended to work like that in the first place. Its another instance of players coming up with a way to 'work the system' that SOE didn't expect and then SOE nerfing it. But the reason for killing solo missions now may still be related to the balance between money inflow and outflow.

With JTL launch the economy and money ballance will change a lot in the game. This might be one part of it.

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Not having read the articles, would city maintenances be reduced as well?

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bluejanus wrote:

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Not having read the articles, would city maintenances be reduced as well?

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No-Ni wrote:

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Sevardos wrote:

It will be replaced with something else ... it always does.

Never under-estimate a gamers desire to find "the next best thing". Solo groups is an example of that - it wasn't designed to be an income faucet, players made it that way.

There are other ways to make income if you're 100% combat:

1. Missions - you can still get missions that will pay 11K each and are easy to kill. You just have to do more of them now. But, they'll be a snap to do compared to Jantas and Rancors (depending on profession of course)

2. Resource sales. You don't need a cert for harvesters. 'nuff said.

3. Organic harvesting. All you need in Novice Scout. Many templates can handle this.

4. Loot sales.

5. JTL. A few runs at Tier 3 or 4 will net you 20K to 40K credits just from the kills. The battles are fast and plentiful. Plus, you don't need to continue getting missions - just get one

Those are just the ones that came to mind. As I mentioned earlier though, someone will uncover "the next best thing"

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I only partially agree with your assessment. This economy is what SOE calls a faucet economy. Money comes in and it flows out with some swirling around in the sink before it goes. The money can only be generated via missions. Loot, Resources, and Scouting don't actually generate money because you have to sell them to another player(that's just the swirly part of the economy before the credits go down the drain). It is sucked out of the economy via maintenance, shuttles, decay, and swoop repairs.

SOE is actually attempting to turn the faucet down a bit to slow the inflow of money into the system. Apparently, they feel that the prices are inflated and that if they turn the faucet down, we'll all have to adjust our prices down. It's just like inflation under the Carter administration. You can't just print more money and think things will be OK. Prices will go up because money loses value if too much is introduced. Balancing an economy is difficult even if it's just an online game. Even with it's problems, SWG has got to be the best online economy I've ever seen.

In the end, this is probably much needed especially on Bloodfin but I'm sure other servers as well. It's gonna hurt for a while but it will make things in the game much more attainable for new players who start out with 1000cr and the clothes on their back.

Cheers

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My assessment was not in regards to the economy. Economic theory is actually my background but I try to refrain from applying it to a gaming economy because it generally only applies in a very rudimentary way - if that.

My comment was based on the fact that players will find another way to tap credit flows. Missions were designed by SOE to bring money into the economy. Solo Missions were created (discovered) by players to bring more than what was originally intended. That was what I meant by income faucet. - guess I could have been more clear on that analogy.

Just a side note: You can't discount commerce (loot sales, etc) out of the equation just because it's circulated wealth rather than earned wealth. It still is a revenue generating opportunity for a player (which was my point). The fact the buying power of credits will increase over time due to deflation doesn't change the fact that there will still be more ways to generate income. As well, as the buying power of credits goes up, the income level requirements will go down (in theory of course).

But like I said, a gaming economy is a unique animal that doesn't behave the same as in real life. Mainly because it's all monopoly money and people's attitude towards it is different; i.e., spending patterns, buying habits, wealth generatino, etc.

Message Edited by nurTsunami on 11-12-2004 11:43 PM

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Sevardos wrote:

It will be replaced with something else ... it always does.

Never under-estimate a gamers desire to find "the next best thing". Solo groups is an example of that - it wasn't designed to be an income faucet, players made it that way.

There are other ways to make income if you're 100% combat:

1. Missions - you can still get missions that will pay 11K each and are easy to kill. You just have to do more of them now. But, they'll be a snap to do compared to Jantas and Rancors (depending on profession of course)

2. Resource sales. You don't need a cert for harvesters. 'nuff said.

3. Organic harvesting. All you need in Novice Scout. Many templates can handle this.

4. Loot sales.

5. JTL. A few runs at Tier 3 or 4 will net you 20K to 40K credits just from the kills. The battles are fast and plentiful. Plus, you don't need to continue getting missions - just get one

Those are just the ones that came to mind. As I mentioned earlier though, someone will uncover "the next best thing"

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I only partially agree with your assessment. This economy is what SOE calls a faucet economy. Money comes in and it flows out with some swirling around in the sink before it goes. The money can only be generated via missions. Loot, Resources, and Scouting don't actually generate money because you have to sell them to another player(that's just the swirly part of the economy before the credits go down the drain). It is sucked out of the economy via maintenance, shuttles, decay, and swoop repairs.

SOE is actually attempting to turn the faucet down a bit to slow the inflow of money into the system. Apparently, they feel that the prices are inflated and that if they turn the faucet down, we'll all have to adjust our prices down. It's just like inflation under the Carter administration. You can't just print more money and think things will be OK. Prices will go up because money loses value if too much is introduced. Balancing an economy is difficult even if it's just an online game. Even with it's problems, SWG has got to be the best online economy I've ever seen.

In the end, this is probably much needed especially on Bloodfin but I'm sure other servers as well. It's gonna hurt for a while but it will make things in the game much more attainable for new players who start out with 1000cr and the clothes on their back.

Cheers

IMHO, the main reason normal economics doesn't apply to SWG is because there is something even more valuable than the credit. XP. Anybody still doing the grind is often willing to sacrifice a few credits in the name of XP. This is moreso true of crafters than combatents (which is one source of undercutting), but still applies to both. Other reasons mentioned certainly also apply, but I tend to think its mostly because of my XP > credit theory.

This is an interesting discussion with nice rational thoughts - let's keep it up.

One factor that hasn't been brought up with regards to the game economy vs the physical world is the somewhat open-endedness of my earning power. That is, in the physical world most of us have a relatively "fixed" income. We work our nominal 40 hours a week and get paid X. There are barriers (time, availability of jobs, etc) to just working another 10 hours and getting more money.

In the game we always have a willing employer / customer for our services - the mission terminal. So if I'm willing to play for another hour, I can bring in more cash. Obviously we have limits on our time, but the barriers to earning cash are much lower than in the physical world. This adds to the feeling of "monopoly money" that people have.

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nurTsunami wrote:

I agree that havester and house expenses should fall accordingly too with this patch. If combaters have less discretionary income to use, they will no longer be spending it on 'frivolous' items like clothing, furntiture, etc. and save it all for essentials like armor, weapons, buffs, etc. Crafters can't really lower prices too much, because they hit a bottom line of profit, dictated by how much it costs in resources and time to make the item. The cost of resources is from haversters' and factories' upkeep costs. If these don't go down, prices won't go down.

This will have far reaching affects on the economy. If an armorsmith makes less money from sales, he will not pay as much for resources, so this affects miners (anyone who makes a living harvesting)and rangers/scouts who won't get as much for thier goods. This further affects crafters since the rangers/scouts etc. won't be buying as much clothing/furniture/etc.

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One important point though, we don't need a reduction in maintainance costs, these are already low, to give you an idea.

Cost of mining Power @75% concentration is 0.05 to 0.1 cpu (depending on PE) avg 0.075
Allow powerbrokers a 100% profit - Power sells for 0.15 cpu

Cost of mining resources @50%using bought power is 0.25 cpu
Allow 100% profit for Grind and 300% profit for quality, cost of resources is:

• Grind - 0.5 cpu


• Quality - 1 cpu

Cost of manufacturing goods is more complex, so approximations are made here to take into account factory time, and crafting time. We get 300% increase for simple items and 700% increase for complex items, giving us:

• Simple Grind - 2 cpu


• Simple Quality - 4 cpu


• Complex Grind - 4 cpu


• Complex Quality - 8 cpu

Cost of selling goods is quite low, so allowing a 50% markup to cover costs and make a profit. This gives us final retail costs as:

• Simple Grind -3 cpu


• Simple Quality -6 cpu


• Complex Grind -6 cpu


• Complex Quality -12 cpu

Working on these prices we get the following, compare these to your server prices:

Heavy Mineral Mining Installation -

• 21k @ simple grind


• 5k @ complex grind


• 2k @ complex quality


• Total - 97500 Creds

Triple Stun Composite Helm -

• 520 units @ complex quality


• Total - 5200 Creds

T21 Rifle -

• 639 units @ complex quality


• Total - 6390 Creds

The economy is inflated, because the money is there the profit made right down the line to Power sellers is very high compared to their costs. I am not suggesting that we all price to these levels, but it does show where the baseline prices really could be.

Message Edited by lisasdarren on 11-15-2004 06:03 PM