Mood: Just blah.
Music: Paint It Black, Rolling Stones
Game: World of Warcraft, Planetside, Call of Duty, Auto Assault Beta.
Book: None.
Muffin: Raspberry-Mango.
Punchline: None...frankly, I probably should remove this line. I mean, no one tells any jokes any more.
On the way to work this morning, in the stupor-haze that is my morning commute, seeing as I wasn't able to pick up my free morning paper, I ended up sitting there with my eyes closed, thinking about MMO economies.
Yes, I know. Some people just sleep, or think about vacations, or people-watch, or read. I think about games. So I'm a bit pre-occupied with games. You'll get over it.
Anyway, to jump right into it, the fundamental reason why the economies in MMOs suck boils down to just one thing: An infinite influx of cash and goods without a forced outflow of cash and goods.
This probably seems pretty obvious...and game designers throw a nod in that direction by providing something affectionately known as "cash-sinks" in to drain cash from the economy. These sinks, such as item repair, travel fees, training fees, all help to remove cash from the economy, and slow inevitable inflation.
For ease of discussion, we should name the pieces and sides. Any cash or item belonging to a player is considered "player-side." Any cash or item in the world (including with vendors, "mobs" (or monsters), or on the ground/in chests to be found, for example) are considered "world-side."
"Cash" is raw currency, whether it be gold, credits, bills, or small rocks used to purchase goods and/or services. "Items" are persistent objects. They can be weapons, armor, clothing, mounts, food, or any other object that remains in world indefinitely.
If you've played an MMO for any length of time, you know the problem. You can go out into the world for an indefinite period of time, and kill the same group of monsters indefinitely, and the monsters will keep "respawning" and, of course, each monster you kill has more cash and items. Doesn't matter how many you kill, there's always more.
When the government prints more money and just puts it into the economy, inflation occurs. The same thing happens here. The more cash that enters the economy, the higher prices run...until starting characters end up being priced out of any reasonable market.
So, to combat that, game designers make it so that NPC vendors will always sell base goods for a given amount...making it so that players cannot set a price ridiculously high...which they will if an NPC vendor cannot undercut them. Then you have the other factor...items are in such plentiful supply, they sell for ridiculously low numbers. So now, cash is worthless, and there's a million things to buy...you've effectively made it so cash management is pointless. You've reduced the game to a level-grind.
Yes, there will always be rare items that are ludicrously expensive...because there isn't a huge number of them, and because NPCs can't acquire or sell them. So those items are priced according to the inflationary cash unit.
When you throw trade skills in the mix, players can create items, adding still more items into that pool, and further devaluing the price of items...often to the point of making it such that it actually costs more to make the item than you could get by selling it. As added comedy value, the items used to create player-made items often increase in value, as levelling in crafting is often valued by players, so that you can make more money by selling raw materials (dropped or found in the world) than you can from the fabricated items.
Again, this is merely a function of an infinite influx of items/resources into the game world without sufficient drain.
Now, this is a game. Players require constant reward in order to keep playing...even if they have to work for that reward. They need better weapons, armor, spells, goodies to keep them playing. So you can't just limit the drop of everything...they need rewards.
So how do you balance the economy such that the influx of cash matches the outflow? Cash sinks are ALWAYS seen for what they are. They're cash sinks...which only forces players to grind cash to deal with them, which accelerates the decline of the economy. Even if they're painted to look like part of the game world, they still smack of a game mechanic.
I have a solution to this. I'll explain it some time...but hopefully I can take this idea and turn it into a white paper, a talk at a conference, or perhaps even a beta game system to sell to an MMO....
And THAT would be a good job.
Posted by Glenn at August 15, 2005 09:47 AM