Geas economy

[Devi]

I thought it might be interesting to try and get a feel for the economy of Geas. It seems like some things are too cheap, and some things are too expensive.

For example, buying a meat roll costs eight times as much as sending a letter and repairing mithril equipment, and getting a rumour from Bimok costs a boatload. Clearing the thildens once is enough to afford a full set of armour.

Profits:
Killing a darkelf (scalp): 2 sc
Killing a gremlin: 2-4 sc
Singing a song at the inn: 2-7 sc
Juggling (on a good day): 5 sc
Killing a thilden (scalp): 6 sc
Killing a golem: 7-9 sc
Selling 10 grams of mithril: 1-2 gold
Clearing the gremlins: 2-3 gold
Clearing the thildens: 3-4 gold
Completing a quest: 2-5 gold

Costs:
Send a letter: 1 bc
Repair a mithril dagger: 1 bc
Milk: 3 bc
Meat roll (in Elvandar): 8 bc
Open locker: 1 sc
Platemail: 7 sc
Candle for Taniel: 14 sc
Rumour (from Bimok): 1 gc
Large backpack: 1 gc
Full set of basic armour: 1-2 gc
Belt: 4 gc
Stable fees for horse: 5 gc
Dwarven chainmail: 7 gc
Mithril dagger: 100-150gc
Horse: 150-250gc

[Grindel]

Good point.

Iron nuggets are worth what (without checking) 1 gc per kilogram? Compared to the prices of standard swords it is amazing that no one tries to hand in some swords at Xuchal instead giving him nuggets...

The Dwarven chainmail is a good exception form the current standard prices, Grindel worked hard in his very first days to afford one. This was more realistic and definitely more fun than treating weapons/armour like cheap junk.

I would not think it bad to have a plain sword cost a handful of gold as everyone gets the first one in the tutorial. Metal and workmanship has it's price.

[Olrane]

Yeah. As it is right now, it takes almost nothing for a newbie to move up to whatever armour/weapon he or she desires, and totally kills the chance for experienced characters to help newbies and get them in their debt

I'd like to see more inflated prices to go with the more inflated economy, but I understand that for the sake of newbie-friendliness and just the huge amount of time it would take, this is not a priority.

[tessa]

Yeah. As it is right now, it takes almost nothing for a newbie to move up to whatever armour/weapon he or she desires, and totally kills the chance for experienced characters to help newbies and get them in their debt

It would help if people would actually sell high end items like eagle masks, ash spears, or slender daggers and such without just giving them away like free donations, too.

It's very annoying for me to scrape together 20 gold coins to buy an ash spear or something, and try to find someone who can sell one, and then watch some older player come up to a newbie and go, "Hello there. Oh, you use spears? Here, take this ash spear. What? Nope, you don't have to pay me. It's free. *smile*"

[luminier]

i wish i got a free ash spear.... *frown*

oh wait i was a crusader.

[Delmon]

Just as a note: When I was a newbie, I completely loved the fact that decent armours from the shop cost little so that I could fit in rather quickly.

If we do raise prices and such, I'd think we would need to have a set of basic armours handed out free at the end of the tutorial or the end of character creation (like a three choice package deal- leather, chain, or plate).

Also note that the best quality custom robes (18 gold+) and leather products equal in quality the cheap gear in the shops.

[Olrane]

That's kind of what I meant, Tessa, although you said it better. Stuff just ain't worth anything, and people make it worse by giving stuff away.

Now, I can't tell anyone how to roleplay, or that their "good" characters shouldn't be generous. I do wish, however, that high end items took some degree of difficulty to get.

In response to Grindel's post about iron being worth 1 gc per kilo, stuff like that should be worked out by trying to make deals with other players. One of the things that this game lacks almost completely is a living economy, and if everyone would try to assign values to things and sell them between players more often, an economy might emerge. I know that recently one of my characters paid a good bit more for iron, and everyone in the transaction was happy. As mundane as that is, trade is a great place for roleplay and adds a ton to the game environment which simply cannot be simulated by the computer.

I urge people to try to avoid needless generosity and to engage in trade so that real value can come to those nearly useless gold coins.

[Devi]

A good example is katanas, which should definitely be sold for a few gold as opposed to tossed around like they're nothing.

I think this would improve if people started to create a trend. I used to hand things out for free, until I realized it was hurting more than helping.

[Devi]

Just as a note: When I was a newbie, I completely loved the fact that decent armours from the shop cost little so that I could fit in rather quickly.

This is kind of the problem. You can get the best non-guild non-custom equipment on the first day of playing. There is no real newbie armour.

I think we need a level below the standard armour. Currently, it's kind of like:
shop armour -> guild armour -> custom armour.
It'd be nice to have:
cheap shop armour -> expensive shop armour -> guild armour -> super expensive custom armour

If the current armours were made more expensive, and crappier armours were added, it'd do a lot to add a sort of newbie period. One of my favorite parts of Geas was buying a horse - scraping together the money was a challenge. It's nice to have goals.

Another big problem is that it's possible to get a full set of decent armour by killing a relatively easy mob. This is often with the help of an impressive and strong character. I really love the ragged armour and goblin weapons, since they help make it harder to jump to the top so quickly.

[tessa]

Actually, there are degrees of some armours:

leather shirt -> thick leather shirt, jacket -> studded jacket -> thick studded jacket, etc.

The problem is, most of them cost about the same, so there's no reason to get the crappier ones.

And like Olrane, I really would recommend to people to start putting a price tag on things and not just toss them out for free. Tessa has a small stockpile of katanas/ash spears/eagle masks/elven arrows/winged helmets/gleaming greatswords/etc. by now due to her treasure hunting ways, and I actually thought about opening a small shop of sorts to sell these rare items to others. This idea was quickly abandoned, however, when I realized no one is going to pay x gold for these items when their friends will just supply them for free.

[eirikeld]

That was a very good point about the iron ore costing far more than the weapons it is used to make. That is just backwards.

Also, why does a belt cost 20 times the cost of an entire leather jacket?
Inquiring minds want to know!

if most basic armours cost a gold, and decent ones 3 (leather vs. studded leather), then the quests at the beginning would mean more. as it is, knocking down just one quest that pays you gold gives you enough to buy a full set of decent leather armors. You are set for a long while, with one simple errand for Lutien.

This just seems a little odd.

[Grindel]

In response to Grindel's post about iron being worth 1 gc per kilo, stuff like that should be worked out by trying to make deals with other players.

I was more thinking of the price a shop would pay, or what the appraise tells me. Buying would cost more, making standard weapons even cheaper in comparison.

A weapon or armour should never cost less than the iron used to make it -- what a shopowner pays you for loot is a different case. No gold as he wants to make a deal, but surely more than a copper coin.

[tessa]

On that note, it's kind of a pain selling a dozen or more of a certain type of armour, and only getting like 1 bronze coin for everything because there's already at least 1 item of that type in stock.

[Devi]

Another option would be to lower the money given in the beginning quests, lower the value of gems, make the gremlins give a few coppers and scalps (like darkelves, orcs, and so on), and make the thilden scalps worth a silver each.

I'll number these things:
1. In my opinion, and I say this as the player of a miner/gem-cutter, gems are worth *way* too much. A good trip can net over 100 gold, which is almost ridiculous when compared to any other way to make money. Cutting gem prices would also make stealing a little less lucrative.

2. The gremlins could not be one of the top sources of money in the game.

3. Currently, advanced players can get into the thilden gorge. I remember that Devi did this for a while (before I started being worried about the poor newbies!). The thilden guards could be smarter, so that they cannot be sneaked past. Getting passes could be more difficult for newbies, so that the streets aren't littered with them (asking an npc for them, for example), the tickets could be collected by the guards, and/or thildens could give less money.

Curb the profits instead of increasing the prices. Combating inflation is tough because we have copper and bronze coins, which are SO worthless that people actually leave them on corpses.

The best idea would probably be to do both - create a hierarchy of store-bought armours and weapons (some that are more expensive) and decrease the ways to make easy money.

[knut]

gremlin area, thilden are newbie zones - not for experienced characters!

[Olrane]

True, but that doesn't mean that older chars don't stop by to make about a gold coin when they're in need. I think that Devi has the right idea - to drastically reduce the money pool in the game by cutting down the sources that don't have a good reason to be so good. Yes, things like gem cutting should make a lot of money, although maybe not as much as Devi says. Also, I think that crafts should make MORE money. I think the ideal is to make many different ways to make good money, especially ways that only indirectly require fighting. Alchemy should be profitable to alchemists, so should the crafts in Arborea. Skalds could make more money playing in pubs.

As it is now, newbie quests give a huge amount of money. That should more than cover any newbie equipment costs, even for something like dwarven chainmail. There doesn't need to be a constant money tree at the gremlins/thildens, because it 1. encourages older players who don't need the fighting experience to kill gremlins/thildens, which makes newbies suffer, and it 2. leaks a huge amount of money into the game for work that is in no way equivalent to the output.

I really like the idea of specialized skills being a better source for money than simple fighting. Craftsmen not being able to turn a real profit seems a real problem to me.

[Delmon]

Then you are suggesting that the Trappers guild be a useful way of making money?

[rafael]

Well the newbie quest coins don't last much. Basic locker, switching around equipment until you find something that works for you, belts, some quests require capital to complete (I payed up to 20 gold to get one done) and food and whatnot. Don't forget that newbs pay more for stuff and get less since they are terrible traders too. All in all all those newbie coins will likely vanish long before you hit the 5 days play time mark.

I will agree that the craftmensguild don't seem to be a viable source of money without player-to-player deals, though.

[eirikeld]

I agree that the craft guilds should be able to make more money, perhaps excluding the gem cutters who apparently make too much already. I have tried a few of the guilds, and gotten little for it. I think the skalds are fine where they are, making a few silver per inn. There is a time limit built in, and it does go up a bit with more skill. However, I have tried tanning a bit, trapping a bit, and others. You are better off skipping the trapper guild completely, and just selling meats in the elvendar general store.

However, I do not think a new player at <5 days needs to be worrying about a locker. I certainly wasn't. basic equipment = about 3 gold. so you don't know what you want? try it again. make that 6 or 7 gold. even to join the skalds, it only costs 4 gold for a flute, or 10 for a fiddle that can play everything. This seems quite reasonable. Maybe you don't manage that right away, but you can already sing and make about a silver per inn as a new skald, so you have a way to earn decent money to work towards your instrument.

Now, with the other guilds, like tanning, it was j ust a money drain at the early levels. buying herbs, or finding them if you choose. hunting down animals, and selling the results from all that you could carry for a couple bronze. forget it. you can find that in the nibbler hut just laying around.

[tessa]

If you wanted to curb money, then I think starting at the higher end is better than the lower. That is, cut down the prices for mining/gem-cutting before cutting down prices for thilden/gremlins.

Keep in mind that while an experienced char. can go kill gremlins and thildens for quick cash (even though he really should leave those things for newbies) if he's too lazy to go mine, a newbie can't just go grab a hoe and go playing in the mole or paleone caves if suddenly the newbie-intended sources of income dry up.

And as far as curbing gemcutting goes, I think perhaps it would be better to make gems and expensive metals harder to find, rather than making rubies worth only like 5 beers worth of coins.