Economy in GEAS

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stilgar
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Economy in GEAS

#1 Post by stilgar » Sun Dec 21, 2008 1:43 pm

Let me start with a quote from antoher topic (Ideas, free coin consolidation service)
Olrane wrote:Free?

One big problem with Geas is that too many things are free or cheap, and money often takes little effort to accumulate. People give away items of power, don't charge for services such as training, and are generally buddy-buddy. It's rare to see someone who is greedy, because it's not "good". I think this is terrible for the health of the game economy.

The banks charging a 10% fee is a good incentive not to use them - and of course to be the target of thieves. I hope that everyone who doesn't use the banks gets stolen from, and I hope that all the others feel cheated by the banks. Either way, it's decreasing the amount of gold in the system and making it at least to some slight degree more valuable. It's a conflict that I think is good for the game, especially if the threat of pick pockets is made very real.

Sorry if I come off like a jerk. What I really want to see in the game is more people specializing in things and then trading heavily in them. An example of progress is how Triska tries to make a bit of coin off sharpening weapons. I'd love to see more Skalds not play for free (I realize that I did play for free almost always as Olrane - I regret it now that I've thought about the game economy more) and roleplay some degree of distaste for those who don't tip them. These are just examples - whatever is your specialty, capitalise on it.

I can't mandate your roleplay, but I find that a bit more conflict and charge when it comes to interpersonal MUD interactions only benefits the game and makes the play experience more interactive and interesting for all players. Selfless goodies are fine to some degree, but it's UNREAL how giving people are with their hard-earned money. Volog should be spat on more.


Right now the economy of GEAS is mainly not about avaibility and usefullness but accessibility. What currently really important is to be able to enter a certain place instead of being able to gather the necessary things (values) to access a certain item instead of making it valuable by its price and usability.

Why do I say this? You can have a LOT of gold coins, but can't spend it on a book if you have no one to write it. You can't spend it on a custom item if you can't enter a certain city, or you simply won't start to gather resources if you need mostly coins for it. You can't spend it on a potion if you have no one to mix it. And you can't buy a nugget, mineral or herb if you have no one to harvest it. Why would anyone become an alchemist or skinner if can't make profit out of it? Why would people bother leaving or joining a layman guild if no real consequences for them if they do so? Right now almost any layman guild is without REAL function. You join or leave not really matters. Your products are priceless and except hihg-end mining you simply can't make coins out of anything.

Want to give real value to coins? Make all products and raw materials accessible for coins. Everything. So, people will soon start to gather coins to buy them and will soon start to learn in layman guilds to earn money. That is what keeps the economy working. What we have right now? If you're not a high-end miner, you earn close to nothing with selling your nuggets, minerals not to mention they are even removed from the game by the shopkeepers upon selling them. Why so? Want to be a tanner? You have to be a miner too. Want to be a scribe? You have to be a miner, a skinner, a tanner, a parchment maker and a bookbinder too. Why?

The moment you know you mine an IC hour and place your minerals, nuggets into a shop and know you get a fair price you won't give them away for free. The moment you know you don't have to mine or skin an hour, but have to pay some coins for basic ingredients to be able to tan, make parchments, books, etc. you simply will think of it twice to do it all by yourself or simply charge others for coins for the things you can provide them.

No matter if my char likes it ICly what suggestions were made by the Taniels, I have to admit OOCly it seems for the first as a good initiative towards making GEAS economy work as if people lack the easy money from looting they should start to look for coins elsewhere. :wink: For the first it is at least a good sounding, but not properly aimed. Being able to access a certain service is the first step for people towards using it. Second step is to make people work for certain things. Prohibiting looting does no effect anything if avaibility, accessibility and usefulness of a layman guild or a certain product isn't properly planned. Nor making specific services only usable for a certain group of players via accessibility helps economy at all (I mean layman guilds and the custon items shop here)

I think solution lies somewhere here:

Make layman guilds and custom item smith easily accessible for everyone, BUT make good quiality items more expensive and they should require more ingredients. Why so? The moment people know they CAN have items in return for their work they will work towards it. Key is accessibility. The moment something IS avaible but you have to work for it, you will work for it. As long as its harder to gain access to the place where you can actually use a certain service than to use that service itself people will simply won't use that service and will look for alternate ways to spend their money or they simply don't gather money at all. I bet if people could buy mana, healing or wisdom potions for coins any time at the alchemists guild they would spend a LOT of money on them. If custom items would require leathers, minerals, herbs that would be accessible anytime for coins people would buy them. Not to mention if people could place their goods into the guildshop like they can sell it at the trade post they would place a LOT of things into those shops to earn money. Want people to buy yours? Work cheaper :wink: No players avaible to produce? Shops sell on fixed (high) price :wink: Really a lot of source for RP to get into a layman guild, to argue about prices for the guild members, non-guild members, trade services for raw materials or other services in return. A lot of things to make players value a LOT more a layman guild membership, not to mention the raw material sources.

Second point is usefullness. Let me take custom items as an example. Right now custom items are not compatible with guilds as far as I know, not to mention some guilds have already really premium quality items. Imagine implementing custom items with compatibility to guilds (extra holy items, custom guild armours, custom lineitems, custom desc mounts) meanwhile reducing the quality of "normal" guilditems would give another great boost for GEAS economy. You CAN have a custom leather/chain/plate armour a specific weapon even compatible with your guild if you turn in a greater amount of specific type and quality furs, ore, minerals etc. Instead of just paying coins. :wink:

Right now there are no wars at all for resources or land as its simply not worth to start a war on a mine, or a raw material resource. Why bother as a neutral or even as a member of a church entering the Tundra, Isyanir forest, Giat or Ironold or Amward if you can kill monsters at another place? You want "Neutrals" involved into politics? Make raw material sources worth more. :!: :wink: Although GEAS has its well worked out religious background its mostly hard for a "Gwenie" or a "Zhakrinite" or just a loosely religious character maybe a Scribe or a Shaolin to get involved into religious conflicts. It is and it was always a problem to get more people personally involved into conflicts. Here is the solution. Organisations like the Sathos, Crusade or the Taniel clergy or Asrals have frankly not much to offer for a "follower" or another organisation apart form the fact they aren't smashed if they obey which is close to nothing in return for the support they get from a cetain part of the population. Why would a dwarf become a citizen in Elvandar if not a Tanielite? Maybe for a mining licence? :wink: Why would a "Civilian" or a "Neutral" help any faction? IMO it makes more sense and of course more pressure on players if they have the accessibility to a certain Service but they lack the accessibility to the Raw materials to be able to use the service if they simply don't have the access (aka possibility) to use a certain service at all while they belong or don't belong to a certain group. Its like credit.. you see a product within reach and want to have it, so you take out some credit if you have access to it. You use it, indeed, you overuse it and you are even willing to pay double (means in most cases you also make double effort) for the same things if you see they are accessible for you within your reach rahter if you don't see them at all.


To sum up If its about creating a good working economy you need the followings: easier accessibility to services, constant avaibility and increased usefullness. Meanwhile increased raw material costs so lands and territorial control might increase its value. That would give more sense why would people pay heavy taxes on patrols or why should anyone try to conquer distant places like Amward, Ironhold or gan control over a forest or would pay for a mining, fishing, hunting licence etc.

Not to mention those characters who would not involve themselves into certain religious conflicts without forcing their RP could be easily involve themselves into conflicts like that on EITHER side for a single word: Profit :twisted:
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#2 Post by Chikatilo » Sun Dec 21, 2008 2:20 pm

the skalds could put a hat or something similar to the ground to sign that they might need a tip.

playershops in guilds with lower prices than in regular shops might work very very nice. Trading rights might become a hot topic in game like religion.
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#3 Post by krelji » Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:58 pm

Strictly on an OOC level I like the change regarding looting in Elvandar, but for as
long as earning money via scalping is more profitable than any of the other options
we won't see a big change in the economy.

My char would love some reliable business partners, but he doesn't expect to find
more than one among a couple of thousand chars. It's not that my char didn't try
to find some of those, or motivate others to get a real job. Knowing this, my char
naturally had to collect all the ressources he needs himself.

Anyway, it would be good to see a working economy in GEAS
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#4 Post by Abharsair » Sun Dec 21, 2008 4:21 pm

First, let me start by saying that a purely player-run economy wouldn't work at this point. It would take hundreds of online players to make it work which we quite obviously don't have. So I agree that all items/resources needed for crafts would have to be also purchasable for a certain (probably high) amount of money.

Secondly, I think the main problem right now is actually the abundance of money. Sure, there are poor characters, and newbies don't have much money anyway, but there are also plenty of bank accounts which thousands and thousands of gold coins deposited in it. The owners of those accounts usually don't bother to make more money because there is nothing to spend it on. Why put effort into a semi-lucrative craft is you already own everything you could possibly want? And that's why I think that we need more services or goods which are extremely expensive, nice to have, but which are also not essential. Custom weapons/armors are one example, but the demand for them is already quite satisfied.

We wizards have already discussed other ways to spend time and money, and we think we came up with a couple good ideas. Unfortunately those things take also time and effort to code, since it's not nearly as trivial as coding a bunch of monsters or rooms. However, once money means actually something, people might look again into making a living through means other than looting or mining. And even more importantly, once money is more scarce, the economy gets also a whole new dynamic.
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#5 Post by krelji » Sun Dec 21, 2008 4:47 pm

My char might be one of those with accounts ranging in the thousands of gold coins,
but considering the char is only natural for him to add some more on top of it. He
already spend quite a few of those this year, and rebuilding his account doesn't
have a high priority currently.

I think it would be nice if the mines would be a little more diverse, even to the point
where we might need some more - perhaps char funded - mines.
Cheap gems should be more readily available IMO, but mostly only small in size,
and significantly reduced in value. This way gem cutters could actually get good in
their craft.

I think the parchmentmakers could need a little adjustment also - at least if you are
working with mole furs. Usually my char gets around 600 parchments of acceptable
quality for a little more than 2 RL hours of work. Right now he's sitting on a heap of
more than 5000 of them, and I keep adding to them - due to lack of customers usually.
If I would make less parchments from the same amount of furs, my char would have
to work longer for the same amount of parchments, and this way he'd have less time
for whatever else he's doing.
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#6 Post by Olrane » Sun Dec 21, 2008 5:53 pm

I agree with you Abhar that the problem is the oversaturation of the economy with gold, and with Krelji that one reason for this is the extremely rewarding trade of scalping.

I think one of the more immediate steps that the wizards could make is to reduce the returns on scalping. It might annoy some players, but I think that players should be better rewarded in gold coins for doing non-combat activities, so that it diversifies the activities of characters. Perhaps the formulas for returns on things sold to shops could be increased, especially for things such as ore, parchment, books, and lumber so that there is more of an incentive to do those things.

Another thing that is problematic is that when nice things get sold to NPC shops, they're almost always immediately removed! I don't know what the reason for this is (to conserve space I presume), but if there was some kind of priority-tier set up so that shopkeepers would not get rid of high-demand things, that would be nice. It's depressing to see mithril, for example, disappear when it's sold. Other players would probably buy it if they could.

I understand that it's impossible to have a player run economy. Still, I support any steps people make toward roleplaying it out.

I hope I am not too demanding. If I knew anything about code, felt I could help, and didn't care as much about my mortals, I'd love to be a wizard if you'd have me. I've really enjoyed all the very visible progress that this game has had in the last few years, so thank you.

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Re: Economy in GEAS

#7 Post by stilgar » Sun Dec 21, 2008 6:35 pm

To include both Abha's and Krejli's points right now we have a group of players who sit on a ton of money without the ability to spend it on something they would think would worth them on the other hand current ideas would require to provide them things to spend on would require a lot of coding.

What's with the part of my idea to simply decrease the average quality of commonly accessible items such as normal and guildweapons and armours? If you ask me I think some (or quite a few of them if not all?) are simply too powerful. IMO not more than a 10% increase in quality would be acceptable to basically accessible ones. Want better? Order it! You want to be promoted? Get the resources for the better equipment! I think its a good way to show a characters determination towards raising in ranks to gather ingredients for better quality equipment required to access a higher rank within a guild. Custom desc mounts or custom/improved quality custom guilditems could be implemented easily for extra money IMO too. Almost sure people would spend a lot on those as a start. You are guildmember who wants to have a weapon not included in the basic weaponry? Possible if you deliver the proper amount of gold and ingredients for the smith. :wink: Same about armours, lineitems and such.

What if repairing custom items would also require raw materials not only coins? (makes sense IMO as they are made of premium quality materials so repairing them require more care and special ingredients)

What about items with special abilities? I bet people would pay HEAVY money for weapons that were crafted to harm the undead? Maybe for items that provide some boost to a skill. The more special the skill is the higher the price goes! Imagine the price of an item that gives an extra 5 points to the missile skill. Almost all the rangers would pay thousands of golds for such an item! (not to mention ritual and priests) And so on... I think these are easy to code and as they are almost if not items that grant legendary powers to their bearer the price can be as high as the buyer would (or maybe could? :twisted: ) pay for it?

And.. not only in coins. There are lifequests that require special ingredients.
What if certain ingredients would be accessible only under some certain requirements? Via rituals at proper dates at unique places? Sometime the information to access these specials ingredients could worth a lot of money too :wink: These could be also a source of a lot of RP IMO. When Crusaders help one of their members to get a special ingredient for a holy weapon, maybe a piece of armour. Thieves carefully plan how to steal a special item that is needed, or Taniels venture far into the North to perform a ritual etc.

On the other hand as I mentioned key is accessibility. What if (let me take here Krelji's example)mole skins simply not proper for parchment making any more? What if only deer skin is proper for it? Moles could be perfect for fur coats but simply not fitting for parchments (one of the reasons you barely see snakeskin wintercoats the raw material is simply not proper for the purpose :wink:)

Although cooking is already implemented people simply not cook, nor buy food in taverns as mushrooms are avaible or skalds can sing for food and drink. So what is the purpose of fishing and cooking? Maybe adding some herbs to the fish or meat could help people slighly in certain cases? (slightly improved healing?, slight and temporary stat boosts?, slightly improved manaregen?)

Just a few random ideas IMO worth to spend money on :wink:
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#8 Post by Delmon » Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:44 pm

I like the economy as is, and I'd hate to see this game turned into mass grinding for money like runescape.

let's focus on the RP, not money grinding. It's just like hack and slash.

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Re: Economy in GEAS

#9 Post by krelji » Sun Dec 21, 2008 9:09 pm

It's not about money grinding. It's about giving people a reason to get a real job
apart from hack&slay and providing them with things they want to spend it for.
Currently chars don't need much money for anything once they got all the equipment
they need, which is one of the reasons why money tends to pile up in the banks.
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#10 Post by luminier » Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:19 pm

Well I am all for everything, but lets have something worth spending money on before making everyone revolve around an economy. Or else we will just have people with huge bank accounts that gave them some skills along the way.
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#11 Post by isengoo » Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:27 pm

Luminier, you forget that if that happens the numbers can simply be tweaked.

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Re: Economy in GEAS

#12 Post by krelji » Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:40 pm

luminier wrote:Or else we will just have people with huge bank accounts that gave them some skills along the way.
Where's the problem if people are earning some coins while getting better with the
skills they're using? To me that's not much different from the hack&slay fraction.
IMO we need a working economy prior to adding more high value goods to the
game. Where's the point in adding those to the game if the only ones who could
afford them would be those who already have thousands of gold coins on their
accounts.
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#13 Post by tessa » Sun Dec 21, 2008 11:23 pm

One thing that might help is readjusting prices of some things. I could probably make more money selling junk like rusty axes, old rusty scalemails, old dirty helmets (aka, useless trash people normally probably wouldn't want), etc. than I could perfect furs, fish, meats, alchemy parts, etc (aka, craft or consumable goods which would probably be considered a lot more useful/valuable than hunks of junk). Looking at how herbs are priced may be a good direction to consider new prices for craft (raw or finished) goods or consumable goods or so forth.

Loot prices could also be reduced drastically depending on the damage the armour/weapon has, or the sharpness of bladed weapons. This could encourage people to repair and sharpen items before just toting them someplace and selling them.

Making repairs cost more would be nice, too. I remember repair costs used to depend on the material (or its value) and the current damage it had. Now, it seems almost everything but the occasional item (like belts or guild equipment) have a flat price of 1 bronze. I would like to see prices become more expensive depending on the material (perhaps general value as well) and damage of the item.

And on the last few notes of repairs, I would love to see repairing armours and weapons to work like sharpening does now! I think it would be a very welcome change and make the skill something used a lot more frequently than it is now (which seems to be nearly never).

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Re: Economy in GEAS

#14 Post by luminier » Mon Dec 22, 2008 1:50 am

krelji wrote:
luminier wrote:Or else we will just have people with huge bank accounts that gave them some skills along the way.
Where's the problem if people are earning some coins while getting better with the
skills they're using? To me that's not much different from the hack&slay fraction.
IMO we need a working economy prior to adding more high value goods to the
game. Where's the point in adding those to the game if the only ones who could
afford them would be those who already have thousands of gold coins on their
accounts.

One could argue the opposite. Whats the point in having money hard to earn when there is nothing useful to buy? And if I am not mistaken did you not just nail your own coffin? You said that the people who get skills from the money they make in a craft is the same as the hack and slashers. I thought the economy was suppose to make the crafts induce more roleplay. Was I wrong?

And Isengoo, I don't exactly know what you mean.
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#15 Post by isengoo » Mon Dec 22, 2008 1:59 am

If it skews too far in one direction, things can just be made more expensive/more cheap/sell for less/whatever. The point is - there should be a tangible system whereby people can participate in the game (using skills, roleplayin) without feeling like they are wasting their time. Right now, most of the layman guilds feel that way, minus a select few.

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Re: Economy in GEAS

#16 Post by luminier » Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:09 am

Alright, I agree there. In my opinion unless you choose to be completely alone and train all the time, then that should be the only way you can't really 'roleplay' in the normal sense of the word. And of course doing that is roleplay in it's own way.

But those guilds should exist to enhance roleplay for sure.
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#17 Post by stilgar » Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:30 am

A bit discouraging to see how people simply skip long comments only to read the short ones before posting :cry:
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#18 Post by luminier » Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:49 am

stilgar wrote:A bit discouraging to see how people simply skip long comments only to read the short ones before posting :cry:
Instead of saying how discouraging it is, why not bring up what you think we missed.
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Re: Economy in GEAS

#19 Post by tessa » Mon Dec 22, 2008 3:02 am

I read your posts and I agree with pretty much everything I read. I'll try to post more constructive thoughts/ideas on the matter when I have the time and energy to do it decently.

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Re: Economy in GEAS

#20 Post by stilgar » Mon Dec 22, 2008 4:59 am

luminier wrote:Instead of saying how discouraging it is, why not bring up what you think we missed.
The detailed ideas to spend a LOT of money on. (ie: lower the quality of "basic" guilditems and higher ranked equipment would cost more money and would have raw material costs, same for custom items, raw material needed for repairs, guild compatible custom items, items with special abilities) I see no comments on those or alternative ideas just general comments on the topic or mentioning something that was already told before.

addon to the topic:

IMO those items can be "found" in the game should not be nowhere near as powerful as those that could be accessed via customs items creation or specialized servies. This way people wanting to have legendary items could not avoid getting themselves involved into the economy (and price control by wizards) and work hard for these artifacts. They could serve as necessary "ingredients" for a real powerful artefact but should not act as one themselves.

This might sound harsh for the first, but hearing firsthand stories about characters that can afford to lose several sets of high-end custom equipment without much harm is a bit frightening for me and really questions what can be set up as a goal for a character like that? What would keep him struggle for more in GEAS?
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