Game Guides Archive
Thread: Friday Feature Economy Stats April 30th
LLJK_Griz wrote:
you really should have used gif or png, there's like a meg worth of images on that page and half of them are unreadable
exactly 
or at least make a link to a larger picture... hehe
Excellent feature Holo! I'm glad to see you still keep an eye on the game from time to time.
One comment on the graphs - the colors are a tad hard for me to make out - they all look really washed out and light for some reason (my own excel graphs look fine, so it doesn't appear to be my system settings).
Second, I had thought the economy was in worse shape than it is, glad it isn't.
I'm still wondering about what happened to a proposed tax on items from the bazaar and vendors. If you charged a tax on bought items (5-10% or so), you could take money out in proportion to the money in the economy. If there was a sudden influx of money and item prices went up, the tax takes more money out of the economy. If there is a sudden drop in available money and item prices go down, less money gets taken out of the economy. This self-correcting system might make it easier to control the economy rather than having to constantly tweak the faucets and drains manually if the economy starts to get out of hand.
Also, you could tie the tax to the GCW - the rebels start winning, the Epire decides to increase its war effort and increase taxes. If the imperials are comfortably ahead, they could relax taxes and encourange economic growth. There couldeven be a role for smugglers to "get around" some of the taxes with their slicing skills.
Just some thoughts.
oh wow- billions of credits on one char?
hrm...
I only have 100k....
Holocron wrote:
- What was going on at around the time that created such a huge drop in the economy?
Not a clue. I'm not on the team day to day anymore, remember, so I don't know exactly.
- Also, can we get some larger images?
All of 'em are actually at the normal size I get them, except one. The last one I had to reduce hugely--normally, it's something that is ten or more screens wide and that you scroll across.
- What I would be really interested in seeing though is graphs like this for the different servers, to see how the ways people make and spend their money varies from server to server.
We're capable of getting that data, but generally, we track the economy as a whole across all servers, because by and large we can only make changes across all servers. We're not going to try adjusting the inflow of currency from missions on a server-by-server basis, for example. Obviously, if duping was prevalent on one server but not another, that would cause problems, but usually stuff like that happens on all the servers at once.
- how often does the dev team generate these reports and assess the economy?
These reports come off a webpage that is automatically updated every 24 hours. The "Fed" meetings, as I call them, were happening weekly when I was on the team... you'd have to ask the current folks how often they happen now.
- a breakdown by server would be very cool, as well as the resource breakdown by category (mineral, gemstone, gas, etc)
These reports only cover currency, as I mentioned. Tracking resources is actually a bit of a pain because there're literally hundreds of them, and they expire all the time. I keep waiting to find a commodities tracking and futures exchange on a fansite.
- It would be much more interesting to see a comparison of several different months of the economy and a break down by server. All this page shows is that the devs do some sort of tracking on the flow of money without giving any actual salient facts. As it is now... colourful pictures but no substance at all.
Well, we have to work within the limits of a typical Friday Feature length. You could easily write a book's worth about virtual economies.
I am unsure what salient facts would really be of use to you, other than for curiosity. Does it help you to know that on 4/2 the economy shed 601,519,132 credits, but on 9/26/2003 it gained 840,324,091? Let me know.
- Also, the graph showing the flow of money in is missing one... duping. I know there have been measures taken to eliminate it and probably a lot of it has been eliminated and that it is not an official source of money, but it does affect the economy. I, for one, would love to see an official estimate of what duping has done to the economy and how it has been dwindled.
By its very nature, duping doesn't show up. We log each time currency is minted by a game system, and what game system did it, and we log each time currency is destroyed, and by what. You might notice that even that tracking has some holes in it--transaction fees on the bazaar, for example, don't show up in the graphs (though the amount is tiny). Since duping is happening without a game system knowing it, usually, it doesn't show up at all. That's why we were able to catch the problem by looking at data that didn't add up.
- I'm glad to see the cashflow problem was dupers and that the game is slowly bleeding thatfalse cashback out.
Not all that slowly--we went in and zapped the cash out of accounts that seemed to be totally ridiculous. But a lot of the duped cash is spread out at this point, since it was used in transactions. So probably everyone has SOME counterfeit credits in their possession at this point. That's why going the route of running at a deficit is a better way to go for now. The best way to track this, much as I hate to say it, is to watch the value of SWG credits on eBay. Since we closed the duping loophole, the price has more than tripled.
- a per capita breakout and a profession breakout of income/expenditures would be better to understand the real state of the economy....
There's a ton of characters who exist as "money holder mules" essentially, and distinguishing them from normal chars is hard. And it's alsovery hardto pin down what profession someone is algorithmically, given how the skill system works. Lastly, since these graphs are about tracking currency creation and destruction, they don't speak to how money sloshes around within "the sink." Even a pistoleer might make most of their money from bazaar transactions, for example. So a profession breakout is kinda tricky.
and that's what countsIt is interesting that you only use 1 model across every server. My server is quite new (Infinity) and (I believe) uneffected by duping bugs.
However we are still subject to the general 'Drain' economy designed to combat problems that have occured on older servers.....
Humm......
Message Edited by OdiousEncounter on 04-30-2004 06:29 PM
(although that would probably be disheartening...)
OdiousEncounter wrote:
. Probably the most suprising thing I saw was the significant amount of money spent on skill training. Do people not know that they can go to players for training? Seems unlikely with the constant spam in coronet. I haven't been to a skill trainer in months, and I've only been once for something other than a novice skill (and that was on day 3 of the game).
This could be due to a number of things.
1. They need training in a profession that is not 'hot' and cant find a trainer
2. They have no desire to fight the constant spammers in Coronet, Theed or Bestine to find a trainer.
or
3. They are on at a time (and grinding) when it is simply easier and quicker to pay for a trainer.
Holocron wrote:
- What was going on at around the time that created such a huge drop in the economy?
Not a clue. I'm not on the team day to day anymore, remember, so I don't know exactly.
- Also, can we get some larger images?
All of 'em are actually at the normal size I get them, except one. The last one I had to reduce hugely--normally, it's something that is ten or more screens wide and that you scroll across.
- What I would be really interested in seeing though is graphs like this for the different servers, to see how the ways people make and spend their money varies from server to server.
We're capable of getting that data, but generally, we track the economy as a whole across all servers, because by and large we can only make changes across all servers. We're not going to try adjusting the inflow of currency from missions on a server-by-server basis, for example. Obviously, if duping was prevalent on one server but not another, that would cause problems, but usually stuff like that happens on all the servers at once.
- how often does the dev team generate these reports and assess the economy?
These reports come off a webpage that is automatically updated every 24 hours. The "Fed" meetings, as I call them, were happening weekly when I was on the team... you'd have to ask the current folks how often they happen now.
- a breakdown by server would be very cool, as well as the resource breakdown by category (mineral, gemstone, gas, etc)
These reports only cover currency, as I mentioned. Tracking resources is actually a bit of a pain because there're literally hundreds of them, and they expire all the time. I keep waiting to find a commodities tracking and futures exchange on a fansite.
- It would be much more interesting to see a comparison of several different months of the economy and a break down by server. All this page shows is that the devs do some sort of tracking on the flow of money without giving any actual salient facts. As it is now... colourful pictures but no substance at all.
Well, we have to work within the limits of a typical Friday Feature length. You could easily write a book's worth about virtual economies.
I am unsure what salient facts would really be of use to you, other than for curiosity. Does it help you to know that on 4/2 the economy shed 601,519,132 credits, but on 9/26/2003 it gained 840,324,091? Let me know.
- Also, the graph showing the flow of money in is missing one... duping. I know there have been measures taken to eliminate it and probably a lot of it has been eliminated and that it is not an official source of money, but it does affect the economy. I, for one, would love to see an official estimate of what duping has done to the economy and how it has been dwindled.
By its very nature, duping doesn't show up. We log each time currency is minted by a game system, and what game system did it, and we log each time currency is destroyed, and by what. You might notice that even that tracking has some holes in it--transaction fees on the bazaar, for example, don't show up in the graphs (though the amount is tiny). Since duping is happening without a game system knowing it, usually, it doesn't show up at all. That's why we were able to catch the problem by looking at data that didn't add up.
- I'm glad to see the cashflow problem was dupers and that the game is slowly bleeding thatfalse cashback out.
Not all that slowly--we went in and zapped the cash out of accounts that seemed to be totally ridiculous. But a lot of the duped cash is spread out at this point, since it was used in transactions. So probably everyone has SOME counterfeit credits in their possession at this point. That's why going the route of running at a deficit is a better way to go for now. The best way to track this, much as I hate to say it, is to watch the value of SWG credits on eBay. Since we closed the duping loophole, the price has more than tripled.
- a per capita breakout and a profession breakout of income/expenditures would be better to understand the real state of the economy....
There's a ton of characters who exist as "money holder mules" essentially, and distinguishing them from normal chars is hard. And it's alsovery hardto pin down what profession someone is algorithmically, given how the skill system works. Lastly, since these graphs are about tracking currency creation and destruction, they don't speak to how money sloshes around within "the sink." Even a pistoleer might make most of their money from bazaar transactions, for example. So a profession breakout is kinda tricky.
Even though it saddens me, I would like to thank you for confirming that you have been unable to prevent/track duping for a long time. If I may add my personaltop list of what has led to too many credits in the economy it would read as follows:
1) Problem #1: Duping which has notbeen tracked or fixed quick enough (massive $$$ eBay auctions).
2) Problem #2: I'm a reb but I'm saying this without any hard feelings towards imp players (I would have done the same as an imp probably and I acknowledge the achievement FP-wise to get three ATs)... Imperials being able to pull very high level and high paying missions solo for a looong time with AT-STs out(Endor? Pubam missions anyone?) and being able to solo a couple ofthose missions in a *very* short time.
3) Problem #3: I'm actually undecided if this should be at #2 or #3 but missions self-terminating or lairs with low hit pointshas been a problem for a long time (baz nitch missions in thebeginning and/or self-terminating missions .. be it faction or regular missions).
4) Problem #4: Creature Handlers (pre-nerf): Did this myself for a while. Was very easy to pull 20K-22K missions solo on Dathomir (Kamuriths) and finish them quickly (not as fast as imps with ATs but you could get pretty rich that way).
5) Problem #5:A prevailing problem at this very time we speak is "solo groups". Only getting worse due to the delay of the combat rebalance. It's no problem to solo Enraged Rancor missions at 37K/pop being any melee or ranged class (pure pistoleers/carbineers may struggle a little). Massive influx of money still coming from that channel.
That's all I wanted to share. Unfortunately, I have to say that the SWG development team has been *much* too slow addressing some of these credit generators (especially in fixing/tracking dupe bugs). It seems like there are no dupe bugs out there at the moment but the "solo group" issue is unresolved. I hate to say it but I don't think you guys will ever be able to return the economy to a reasonable level.
I guess you want to suck new players invia the space expansion. Well, good luck.
Not sure here at all if a new player will be willing to dish out millions of credits or thousands of FP for a decent starfighter (regarding the more than tedious process to obtain a reasonable amount of FP).
The "you dropped the ball"quote is oftenly used when players refer to the economy in SWG.Those people are often considered as being "poor whiners" and"no-achievers" in SWG. Not true. I'm saying they are right and all this with a doubledigit million bank account backing me up (no dupes or exploits used).
If a new player would ask me if it's worth to join SWG right now, I would have to say 'no' as money makes the world go 'round in this game as much as it does in RL. This game is far from newbie-friendly due to people who made the most out of points #1 - #5 above until now. Anyone denying that is denying the truth and it's getting worse with every day the combat rebalance (nerf) is being delayed. I feel for all new players. They must have a more than hardtime finding their way into the game.
OdiousEncounter wrote:Probably the most suprising thing I saw was the significant amount of money spent on skill training. Do people not know that they can go to players for training? Seems unlikely with the constant spam in coronet. I haven't been to a skill trainer in months, and I've only been once for something other than a novice skill (and that was on day 3 of the game).
There are SO many people grinding /addignore in Coronet, though...