Value of Player-Run Economies in Online Gaming

[Drex]

I wasn't quite sure where to post this one, so feel free to move it to gaming or general discussion or whatever, but I figure since it's obviously related to FFXI that Advanced wasn't a bad choice either. This'll be a kinda long post, so I'll sum it up in one paragraph and then put in my thoughts for whoever cares to read them after:

With FF14 around the corner and tons of other MMO/online games to come in the future, I'm curious how people feel about player-run economies in online gaming. Most of us have experienced at least one by now (FFXI's), and many other past and current games used them as well. One of my biggest questions to my fellow gamers is - Generally speaking, do you think player run economies work out to be to a game's advantage or disadvantage in the eyes of its players? More specifically, do you prefer games with player-run economies, or games with mostly NPC based economies?

I found FFXI interesting because as RMT became more and more of a factor, the game experimented away from player-based money making in some regards (especially with "big ticket" items like peacock charm and o.kotes becoming rare/ex and obtained through other means for the non-rare/ex versions). A lot of players opted to camp o.kotes rather than try to save up for them, for example.

Some of the advantages of a player-run economy are obvious - the biggest one being crafting. A player-run economy gives players the ability to level a craft and produce items to sell to other players for a profit. Of course, bots and idiots can eliminate those profits in a hurry, but even so, some crafters usually find a way to continue making money through other products.

Another advantage is the ability to sell gear you find/earn but can't use and to spend that money on gear you can. Finding a WAR only great-axe off an NM wouldn't help my RDM much, but if I sell it to another player, I can buy a nice magey ring with the money. Of course, you could make something similar in an NPC-run economy by having vendors that actually offer reasonable amounts of money for good gear you sell to them, and sell decent gear for comparable prices, but most games don't do that.

One I hear from player-run supporters that I don't really agree with is that it "encourages interaction among the players". Usually, auction house systems really aren't that interactive - in most cases sellers don't find out or care who bought the item, as long as they get their money. Likewise, most buyers don't care who they bought it from unless they made a typo or something and want to try to get their money back. Trading through chat channels/shouts is usually not very personal either: in most of my buying/selling in FFXI through trade, I forgot the person's name within 2 mins of the deal being done. Real player interactions are usually made through guilds and parties/raids, not buying and selling.

Another argument is that it lets players weed out people with bad reputations by refusing to buy/sell with that person. Of course, a lot of players who don't keep up with the drama may not know about the reputation and buy/sell from them anyway. Or, the player can make an alt/mule and do their trading with that char to avoid their reputation. So I'm not sure that holds up either.

Some of the bad signs of player economies include:

*Monopolization and Price Fixing - those icarus wings that were 5k yesterday are 20k today! And peacock charms doubled in price over the past week. Sometimes it's RMT, sometime it's players looking for a buck, but either way these are pretty bad for any economy.

*When items go obsolete everybody loses - I can't think of a great example from FFXI off the top of my head, but I know in Everquest the Wyrmslayer and Short Sword of the Ykesha basically replaced all low level weapons for a long time and killed a lot of NMs/quests/crafting that used to be profitable. I guess an example may be how goldsmiths felt when the mini-expansions came out with augment rings and earrings that shat all over their good synths.

*One player can ruin it for everyone - One dumb player (or bot) can break a whole craft for everyone else. Usually it's the "I'm gathering it myself so it's free!" guy who undercuts everyone by 50%. Technically he'll never run out of money because he's not spending money, but time, but nonetheless he can singlehandedly kill the market for a drop or craft if he floods the market enough.

*Indestructible items kill the economy - As more haubies enter the market, the price goes lower and lower because more and more people already have one and don't need another. Same for staves, nobles tunics, fowling earrings, etc. Eventually it's hard to make a buck anywhere anymore. On the other hand, players don't like replacing gear all the time.

*High play-time players are price-setters - Someone who plays 12 hours a day will usually have a lot more market power than someone who plays an hour or so a day. It's very hard for low play-time players to get "good" gear off an AH system unless it's very common, because it will usually require them to spend hours farming (instead of leveling) to get the money for it. This is even worse in elitist environments. Imagine back when SHes and noble's tunics were pretty rare, big ticket expensive items, but everyone laughed at you if you didn't have one, and would kick you from the group for not having it. This kind of thing is apparently becoming an issue in WoW with the whole gearscore thing (I wouldn't know, I don't play it, so take that with a grain of salt).

Meanwhile, NPC based economies solve a lot of problems. NPCs don't really corner a market and jack up their prices from a monopoly like players looking to make a buck do. Also, if players can't trade money, then RMT become a non-factor (except having them play your account I guess, but at least that would be a lot rarer than buying money and having it traded to you is since you'll probably just lose your account). NPCs don't care how many nobles tunics you've gotten crafted/gotten to drop, he'll still pay full price for 'em.

Of course you don't want EVERYTHING to come from NPCs. Some of the best items for certain level ranges have to be drop only. Maybe allow for turning in certain nice items that your class can't use in exchange for an equal item your class can use? That would get tricky. This also leads to a big problem with NPC based economies - sooner or later, the players run out of things to buy and hyper-inflation occurs. But if you can't trade money to others and have nothing to buy, then the amount of money you have stops mattering anyway, right?

Now my economics knowledge is basically just entry level economics stuff, so I'm far from an expert on this. That's part of the reason I'm making this thread at all. I'm curious, from a gamer perspective, and an economist perspective (to whoever may be one), how do you feel about these different systems and their pros and cons? What qualities do you think a strong gaming economy needs, realistically?

[Wakabo]

tldr?

Also...

Spoiler: show

Always I want to be with you, make believe with you~ <3

[Drex]

tldr?

Also...

Spoiler: show

Always I want to be with you, make believe with you~ <3

If all basic equipment was bought from npcs, and all advanced items came from quests, or systems like einherjar's ichor where you still do events and instances/bosses in groups or alliances but get rewarded individually...

1) would you prefer it over a player based economy where lots of good gear comes from an auction house and other players?

2) how do you think that would impact the game as a whole, and the game's popularity among other players? huge win, massive fail? meh?

3) anything you think that would be better than a player economy?

Other examples might be buying salvage gear with a rare/ex version of alexandrite that everyone gets X amount of per run, dependant on how much they accomplished that run (instead of wootz ingots and complete luck on NMs), or buying nyzul gear/weapons with (a lot of) nyzul tokens

[Lovex]

I think with things like currency and alexandrite, selling from npc would be better.

For everyone really..

Then you have things like materials and sellable armor, which I think can be used
for farming and ways to make gil.

I think a balance of both is good, but with things that can easily be monopolized
you have people taking advantage of that because so many people need such items
for upgrades and equip.

The biggest thing is currency, alexandrite, imp ingots etc.

Things that require alot of of the same materials to upgrade things should be sold
via npc for a reasonable price. This keeps them still challenging but doesnt allow
people to take advantage of people who have no patience or cannot reasonably
afford things.

If you cant have it balanced and even, i say player driven is better because
it benefits the ambitious. (i dont count cheating as ambitious btw).

[Yubar]

1) would you prefer it over a player based economy where lots of good gear comes from an auction house and other players?

Yes I would.

2) how do you think that would impact the game as a whole, and the game's popularity among other players? huge win, massive fail? meh?

It would be a win win situation for everyone. Every one would get their gear, there would be no cock blocking, not be forced to see gimps get awesome gear because all they do is just show up and think that makes them hard workers, there would be no favoritism, and lowering the time sink for gear and force cooperation with other people. Course, the only problem I see is the people who want to be special little snow flakes.

3) anything you think that would be better than a player economy?

Yea, one that isn't run by the player economy.

[Alderaan]

I prefer the system that eliminates the need for in game currency and encourages teamwork and the completion of content, thus turning the game into less of a business.

[konoko]

i for one do not see many problems with a player run economy in theory, but as long as non-player entities (RMT) take advantage of the econemy or player professions remain inadequate to make money within the player run econemy. i dont see it working any better than it has in ffxi

[Cantih]

All of your negative points make me not in favor of player run economies.

Two simple things to remember,
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Einstein
&
"Never underestimate the capacity of people to be complete dicks to one another." -idk

[millionsknives]

I think the big draw to player run is that it makes the game feel alive. While most of us dont think about it and may even complain, seeing people shout for selling/buying items adds life to the cities. Also an economy that fluctuates adds interest, it really creates a propper little world. If the game were NPC lead it would be so static

[Mojo]

It depends heavily on how they implement it. A player run economy can be an awesome thing, but the level of planning required to facilitate this makes it unlikely that there will ever be a good player run economy in any MMO. FFXI's economy has been getting fucked by the developers for years and it's probably going to continue on that course until the game is over.

[Kyreth]

The one thing about all game economies is that at the heart of things, they need intervention from the creators periodically to keep them flowing.

Craftbotters need to be squashed, risks for dumping into the economy need to be added, and bonuses as well.

I always thought it'd be evil as hell if every now and then the FFXI governments would "requisition" from the AH, clearing out AH stocks on many items and compensating people a percentage of the average AH price. Small stocks would be likely to get you a premium (90-110%), but "flooded" stocks would be bargain-basemented (50-70%).

[Corrderio]

tldr?

Spoiler: show

Always I want to be with you, make believe with you~ <3

Spoiler: show

♫And live in harmony-harmony-harmony!♫

Back on topic, a player run economy has it's ups and downs. In XI it's good for people who can control the price of certain items, however for buyers it can sometimes be a kick in the groin.

[Shamaya]

NPC run economies are just boring. Player based economies are much more engrossing. I think it's worth having the RMT around. Hell RMT can probably find ways around an NPC-run economy anyway. Just sell r/ex.

[Izlude]

Player run economy is significantly better though to me at least.. the only time I've seen a game run on NPC economy is single player console RPG's. Which is where a system like that belongs. If we still bought everything off NPC's than staves, nobles etc would all cost millions and millions of Gil still from before the huge inflation and deflation back in the day. And if SE had to update the prices all the time there would be so many issues with this... how often they would update the NPC prices, just having to go through every single item in the game, and how would they even decide the new price. This would literally need it's own mini-devteam just to do that. It really really makes no sense at all to not have a player run economy.

A lot of your points Drex are just confusing that you'd list them as negatives because if people are investing 12 hours a day, or are willing to undercut items that they're farming (which devalues their own time and won't be done for anything more than a quick buck.) they should be the ones with more control in the market than people who play one hour a day or people who're too lazy to bring up FFXIAH and take a 5 second look at price histories.

[Red Demon Taoist]

What's an NPC driven economy?

I've played a million MMOs and can't think of one example...

I guess WoW would be the closest I can think of, because of the insane amount of gold NPCs dish out for everything

(God I wish I could do a few FOVs in a couple hours and make hundreds of thousands of gil like dailies in WoW.)

But yeah, what kind of MMO doesn't have an AH and crafting? O.o

[Klutz]

If it was my choice I'd say screw the money system. Have it be so there is absolutely no money system. Everything is earned by going out and doing something, much more useful IMO.

Because in the process you gain skills/exp/whatever is in store for FFXIV.

I'd much rather have that than farm for days saving money for X item and then go to buy it and some jackass has jacked the price. Shit makes me rage.

[Tulun]

I think the biggest problem plaguing FFXI was how difficult money was to make; or at least, how much time it took to make anything of significance.

Overall, how EASY it is to make money is probably as important as player vs NPC. I think WoW's system of gold is far better overall, though, except for those who want to spend untold hours 'farming' money. And sadly, this is what it takes. A lot of the time it was about luck.
up the time:reward ratio and even player run economies aren't necessarily that bad.

[konoko]

if craftiong wasnt only profitable when you HQ T0/T1 synthes, i dont think the ffxi economy would be too terribly bad

[Drex]

What's an NPC driven economy?

I've played a million MMOs and can't think of one example...

I guess WoW would be the closest I can think of, because of the insane amount of gold NPCs dish out for everything

(God I wish I could do a few FOVs in a couple hours and make hundreds of thousands of gil like dailies in WoW.)

But yeah, what kind of MMO doesn't have an AH and crafting? O.o

Most MMOs don't have an entirely NPC based economy, but almost all of them have elements of one. Einherjar ampoules are an NPC based economy. Nyzul tokens are, though you can't buy much useful with them. Allied notes, conquest points, imperial standing (though they have coins and sellable stuff), etc. are all NPC based economies in FFXI. Aion has some in disguise, such as repeatable quests that need to be done X number of times, at which point you get a reward. For example, kill 10 steel rake snipers and bring their pouches to me. Do this 30 times and you get a nice hat. That's the same as getting 300 pouches and buying a hat with them, isn't it? And these styles of quests are far more reliable than hoping for a random rare drop to show up. Most people get a couple nice einherjar ampoule items before they ever win a lot for an e.body or valk fork.

Why do MMOs have to have a central player-based economy to succeed? There are plenty of online games from different genres that don't have an economy to speak of (for example: counter-strike was wildly popular despite players having no way to swap money outside of buying guns for each other and dropping them, which was really rare). Warcraft and Starcraft were fun online games people enjoyed despite never buying or selling items to each other. And obviously single player RPG games have an economy that ends up being "you have tons of money and nothing you need to spend it on", but there's still plenty of fun to have there. What makes MMORPGs special when it comes to money systems?

The one thing about all game economies is that at the heart of things, they need intervention from the creators periodically to keep them flowing.

Well sure, but there are some big consequences to that, too. What about, instead, an economy that doesn't have much of an impact on the gameplay at all? Wouldn't need intervention at all since it'd be background noise by endgame.

It depends heavily on how they implement it. A player run economy can be an awesome thing, but the level of planning required to facilitate this makes it unlikely that there will ever be a good player run economy in any MMO. FFXI's economy has been getting fucked by the developers for years and it's probably going to continue on that course until the game is over.

This is one of the main things that prompted me to even bring this up. Someone mentioned that having a good NPC based economy would require a whole separate dev team, but I disagree entirely. A player based economy is far more unpredictable and requires a lot more foresight and planning than an npc based one would. Supposedly EVE has a very good economy that is central to the game, but it took tons of planning and tweaking and analysis from real, expert economists to set that up. For every EVE economy there are 30 FFXI economies that will never be developed properly.

If it was my choice I'd say screw the money system. Have it be so there is absolutely no money system. Everything is earned by going out and doing something, much more useful IMO.

This is kind of what I'm getting to, though I think there need to be NPCs so you have someone to sell nice items that are useless to your character to, so you can use the money you get to buy something else nice that you can use. Not gamebreaking items of course, but gear to cover you until you've run enough Einherjar to get your E.Body for 10billion ampoules or whatever.

I'd much rather have that than farm for days saving money for X item and then go to buy it and some jackass has jacked the price. Shit makes me rage.

I think most players feel this way, yet some of the same players strongly support the very player run economy that is forcing them to grind 0 xp mobs for days to get money in the first place.

If we still bought everything off NPC's than staves, nobles etc would all cost millions and millions of Gil still from before the huge inflation and deflation back in the day.

The huge inflation and deflation were caused by RMT, which would be a non-factor in an economy where the players can not trade currency with one another at all. Sure, they could offer to log into your account and farm money for you I guess, and some people would be dumb enough to take that huge risk, but it would be a lot less common then just being handed some money in player based economies is.

By high levels most players would have nothing left to spend money on anyway, since the gear they got from doing instances/dungeons/etc. would be better than what the vendors offer (since, you know, they'd be experiencing the game's content instead of farming in bats in Zitah all day). If they have 10billion gil and nothing to spend it on and no one to give it to, does it really impact the game at all?

Price adjustments wouldn't really be needed unless they started out really stupid. You have a steady progression of better and better items that are more and more expensive, and if vendor-trash-items are worth the same to every player when they drop then every player takes X amount of mob kills or Y amount of instance runs to get enough money/tokens/widgets/whatever for the item they want off some mysterious NPC in the wilderness with a powerful staff that he'll let you have if you prove yourself worthy or whatever.

[niwaar]

Simply put... an MMO NEEDS a player run economy in order to exist. Part of the very core of the MMO experience is that the game offers many ways to play the game. Not everyone in XI are Meriters, or Campers, or HNM lsers. There are some people who prefer to diversify their actions in a game environment. Hell just look at the disciplines that have been announced for XIV to understand that there are many different ways people wish to play an MMO.

Yes, the 12hour people are always going to be able to succeed better in the game. Why is that a bad thing? Making everything easily accessible takes away the challenge of the game.

What's an NPC driven economy?

I guess WoW would be the closest I can think of, because of the insane amount of gold NPCs dish out for everything

But yeah, what kind of MMO doesn't have an AH and crafting? O.o

I am going to bring in something a WoW blogger posted recently here and say that games need 5 things to survive and be fun...

1. Surprise;
2. Risk;
3. Reward;
4. Challenge;
5. Discovery.

Just to point out that the Reward for it to actually be a reward has to have at least 2 or 3 of the other parts. Was it a challenge to get the gear? Did I have to put any effort into it? Was their risk involved in me being rewarded? A non player based economy limited Risk, limits reward, and can be hugely detrimental to challenge.

I dare to speak WoW in advanced only because Drex spoke it first btw. However, just to note, that recently doing away with most (if not all) Risk and Challenge (and heck Suprise and Discovery while they were at it) has diluted that game and its economy to hell.

While that game's economy is not purely NPC based, it has certain aspects that make it more NPC based than other games. The sheer amount of "free money" that you can obtain by routinely doing trivial tasks makes the economy weak. The big ticket items are almost exclusively sold by NPC these days or just plain free to those who want to put the time in.

Aion is not unlike WoW in this matter. However, they have tried to split the difference. They have high monetary value "trash items" that keep the economy going. As well as every craft requiring one or more NPC only sold crafting items. Where that economy goes wrong is that Abilities are bought and sold and other items are far too rare.

The one thing about all game economies is that at the heart of things, they need intervention from the creators periodically to keep them flowing.

Craftbotters need to be squashed, risks for dumping into the economy need to be added, and bonuses as well.

ALL economies need to be monitored or the will collapse. If you do not understand this by now, you certainly haven't been paying much attention to the world's economy lately.

Stopping the overflooding of certain items will never happen. Stopping people from being idiots and morons and driving prices high or low, isnt going to happen either. Making the currency worth something that people value is the key. Making farming easy enough but not too easy so people value the gil like they would value the dollar. "It took me 2 hours to farm 100k gil" means that person probably doesnt value it much. "It took me 2 days to farm 100k gil" means that person does.

The daily quest system in WoW, ruined that economy, while at the same time appeasing many players. That is something I for sure dont want.

NPC run economies are just boring. Player based economies are much more engrossing. I think it's worth having the RMT around. Hell RMT can probably find ways around an NPC-run economy anyway. Just sell r/ex.

Player run economy is significantly better though to me at least.. the only time I've seen a game run on NPC economy is single player console RPG's.

Your idea is an interesting one, but in the end, a game with the type of economy just wouldn't work for enough people to have fun for long enough for the game to be profitable. Hell, if I want a game without an economy, Id play FF13. Heck that game doesnt even have towns.