In some of Trollson's excellent posts, a few things were brought up that I wanted to touch on first of all..
7.1 "Its fantasy, we don't have to be like the real world..."
rant alert!
This is an excuse rolled out whenever something blatantly daft is added to the game, typically to cover up some other fault. A good fantasy world follows the real one closely, except in a few places; it is the familiarity that makes the fantasy stand out. Overriding common sense and common knowledge just produces Bizzaro World.
Amen. I am exceedingly pleased someone has mentioned this. "Fantasy" does indeed represent a "suspension of normalcy" in a certain sense, but however "fantastic" one makes a game, a world, a story... it has to have an internal "coherence" with both itself *and* with general "familiar characteristics of reality as we know it to be." It's what makes the "suspended disbelief" actually suspendable and allows a player to become immersed.
Example from other games.. if you are fighting an ordinary, non-magical sort of creature.. say, a fox.. and you kill it, why in the holy hells did it just drop a 6-foot long polearm? Why would it even have such an item? Where could it concievably have kept it? Etc..
For that matter, why do non-human creatures drop human currency at all? Can the cyclops go to the "Quick-Ye-Mart" and buy a slurpy? I think not. And while it may make sense for a goblin to drop a weapon, it ought to have actually *used* that weapon while you were fighting it, if it had it on hand. No sentient creature, when fighting for it's life, uses fists when a sword or axe is available to it. Similarly, if a visibly armed opponent is killed.. where does its sword go when it dies? Does it automagically vanish? Maybe if you had an obviously magical / spectral sort of creature, this would be concievable.. but uh.. Armed Skeletons? Armed Orcs? Every single one of these *ought* to drop what we see them running around with. Just for the sense of sanity.
Similarly, in other games, I have had to kill in the vicinity of hundreds of *obviously and visibly* two-eyed creatures to collect a dozen "creature eyes" for some sort of quest or other. Apart from this being patently rediculous, and absurdly prevalent in "Korean GrindCore" MMOs, it's bloody annoying. Same thing with bridges, map designs.. etc. There's a certain degree of "Common Sense" that is *really* needed to be interjected into a lot of gaming.
Ok.. now that that bit has been properly "amen'd"...
Value is determined by supply and demand:
(i) Harvestables are available in unlimited quantities, so in general have zero value.
(ii) Animal parts are limited by spawn rates, so could hold some value.
(iii) Exotics (stones, enhanced, modables) are extremely rare, and so have a strong value.
Since EL is a grind-for-experience game, characters are rewarded for actions, harvesting and creating items. This reward deducts from the value of items -- in effect, harvestables and basic goods (no exotics or animal parts) have negative value in the economy.
Well, to begin with, Harvestables are not available solely in "unlimited quantities". True, concievably that vein of ore will never run out, but in order to be actually *used*, those items *do* have to be harvested by someone.. ergo the availability is limited by the amount of time and harvesters being employed. Perhaps this is just a quibble, but well, when you have 280,000 iron ore to harvest for a project, believe me, if you can talk somebody else into harving some of that for pay within your timeframe, this "valueless" item suddenly becomes a lot more valuable. Unless you *like* spending a week of 16 hour days muling iron....
Now, "Economics" gets a lot of talk-time.. and even in the "Real World", there are thousands of different Theories about how to manage one. Some of them seem to work, some of them less so. Some of them, like our own Western system, encourage the development of a lot of "fake weath" based on paper, and parasitically concentrate it into the hands of a relative few.. Which periodically "corrects" after the exaggerations become unsustainable... and usually the "less elite" get burned the worst for buying into the system.
In a MMORPG.. you will hardly *ever* have a "real economy".. Unless you have things like "fixed, recurrent expenses" to maintain your character's life (rent, food, taxes, etc..) and all the thousands of "non-economic factors" that play into limiting production.. (ie, physically able to do certain tasks, the need for sleep, fatigue, permanent death...) you simply cannot have an actual "economic simulation". Age restrictions.. (children and the elderly generally consume, but they generally also do not produce much) Life Cycles... blah blah blah.. the list is rather endless.
So from my perspective, attempting to model a "game economy" off of a "real world economy"... generally always results in "Epic Fail".
What you really have to do is essentially model "resource flow control". Which obviously can be tricky. For example.. what society that you know of has ever had a "Professional fighter" class of citizens who do *nothing* but fight... *without* having used some form of labor exploitation to pay for their violent recreation? Either taxes/tithes, in terms of state or church sponsored armies, or the nobles rents from the peasants who work the land, or whatnot... in every culture that *has* had these ranks of "professional warriors".. there's usually a thousand or so toiling peasants supporting each one of them. You just can't approach this as an "Economy" without destroying either 1) the fantasy, or 2) common sense.
So what you wind up with, when you get down to it, is balancing flows. Stuff in vs stuff out. And that's what bits like "money sinks" attempt to do.. albeit poorly.
Now, it'll take somebody with a far greater mind for mathematics and organization than myself to develop workable models for this sort of thing.. but to my way of thinking, there are perhaps a couple suggestions that one could employ towards this end.
1. Completely centralized economy. This is used to some extent by a number of MMOs... Essentially, NPC's buy and sell everything in the game. This sets a "de facto" value for every item, (with the possible exception of certain rares.) P2P trading then occurs within a limited range of values for most items, and frankly, the differential between NPC buy/sell prices is usually rather low. This allows currency to be more easily managed.. but doesn't really bring about much of a "dynamic market", with the exception of certain trades in rares.
Upside: It's fairly easy to manage and regulate. An algorythm could even be set up to adjust npc prices based on the number of each commodity available in the game.
Downside: Really puts a damper on the "Economics" aspect of the game. Without "threshold values", it allows resource hoarders the ability to manipulate values, and it also tends to prevent anybody from really having much mobility economically.. Nobody gets rich, usually.
2. Just minimize the use of coinage in the first place. If you look at most more "primitive" economies, you're really not dealing with "money" much. Money is usually reserved for the "Elite" classes.. Nobles, High-end Merchants, bigtime traders.. The vast majority of transactions are conducted via barter. One really doesn't see that much inflation or whatnot in a barter economy, except in times of exceptional circumstance, like famine, plague, or war. And, seeing as how such things in an MMO are completely controllable by the developers... It's also equally manageable.
Upside: Fits with theme, also tends to produce a more stable and manageable resource flow system.
Downside: More complex to set up, also tends towards inertia, and favors producers of "staple" goods. *Really* has to be well designed.
3. Eliminate trader NPCs altogether. Manage resources via availability limits. Put a "P2P" trader system in place, like a market or auction sort of function. The economy may soar, or it may crash and burn.. but whatever happens, it's all up to the playerbase to decide. People may bitch, but the Devs at least can say "Hey, this is all your system guys.. we had nothing to do with it."
Upside: Probably as close to an actual "self-regulating" economic system that could be implemented.
Much less headache for the Devs and Mods.
Downside: It's as close to an actual "self-regulating" economic system as can be implemented. Which means it's vulnerable to the same kind of "pain in the ass" problems that "real world" economic systems are prone to. Also tends to be hard on newbies. Inherently volatile.
2. Monster Treasure Tables
3. Experience for success or failure?
Both good ideas. Although with the Experience, I'd actually suggest XP for *both*. Although probably weighted differently. Skill related vs difficulty of the task, yes... but well.. If I learn a thousand ways how to *poorly* swing a sword at an adversary, that's still not exactly getting me much closer towards how to swing a sword *well* at an adversary. In reality, one has to experience *both* successes and failures in order to develop skill. You screw up so you know how *not* to do it, and provide you with incentive to better yourself, and when you succeed, you know a way *to* accomplish the task.. and eventually by repetition and comparison, you learn. Unless, of course, you just "get lucky and figure it out". Still takes practice in the same method to refine, however. This could probably be modeled in an interesting way.
Ok.. a couple of other thoughts.
1. Class-based systems suck. No, I mean really. Violates that whole "common sense" rule in an extreme way. Look.. if in real life, I can have a degree in Religion, make chainmail armor, do leather work, make candles, cook, grow some of my own food, and build computers for people.. Which I do, btw... Why on earth shouldn't my "spellcaster" be able to figure out how to pick up a battle axe and smack some guy in the head with it? Why should an herbalist not be able to learn how to make armor? Unless there's an obvious and reasonable *in-game* reason for it.. restrictions are bad. Especially arbitrary ones.
If your God requires you to take on certain strictures in exchange for his/her/its favor, that's one thing. If a guild or social structure requires you to only do certain things in exchange for membership, that's the same kind of thing. But in a world where say.. magic exists freely.. and is a fundamental law of nature, and not some kind of severely limited effect.. there ought be no reason why I can't learn magic just because at some point and time I smacked something with a sword.
This doesn't necessarily mean I'll be able to cast uber-spells through a suit of plate armor.. but well.. within the realms of fantasy physics, all things ought to be possible unless there's some kind of mechanistic preclusion to them. Provided, of course, that somebody was absurd enough to put in the time/effort/resources to getting to where they *can*.. and with equal sacrifices in terms of what they *can't* do as an "opportunity cost" when those limits are pushed to extremes.
Point being, the less you restrict, the more options you leave open for someone to find things they really like doing to find enjoyment in your game. Equally, the more you enable choice, the more chance somebody will find something they really dig enough to want to play your game as opposed to somebody elses. This goes for everything.. races, character customization, skills, abilities... everything.
Doesn't matter if it's so much "stupid".. I mean, I knew people back in the original Everquest who were grandmaster Brewers. And that was it. All they did was spend their days brewing stuff. And they paid for it. I knew people who all they did was Fish. They just wanted to be a fisherman in a game.. and they paid subscription fees to be able to do so. To me it seems a bit weird, with so many things one *could* do, to pay for a game like that and only do one limited bit of it... but different people find enjoyment in different ways.
2. PK areas. Look, I'll be frank here. I don't like PK much. At all, really. Why? Because it degenerates too quickly into drama and B.S. "Outlaw" levels and such don't work. Why? Because there are some jokers out there who just want to cause other people as much grief as possible in order to get their own jollies. They don't care if they have "outlaw levels" of 9 million and are "kill on sight" by every NPC in the game.. They don't care if they suffer performance penalties, provided there is some way to remove them... They just do what they have to do it get to where they can find some noob and ruin his day. "Predatory Gaming" honestly should not have a place in MMOs. It produces nothing for the majority of the community, and frankly, in many games, has driven people away from them.
It may not be "realistic" to have non-pk zones... but frankly, it keeps the serious jerks under control.. and bloody hell.. *something* has to. Which is why EL's current "PK Maps" approach is something that actually does meet with my approval.
Now, PVP is another matter.. If two people *want* to fight it out.. hell, go for it! I have no problems whatever with this, and I think it's a very reasonable thing. Make wagering available. Charge a few GCs to watch pk battles in an arena somewhere.. whatever you feel like doing with it. But under no circumstances would I want to see "free range pk" implemented. That's just open season for predators, and it makes the game less fun for those of us who aren't quite so socially maladjusted.
In real life, however, if two people start slugging it out with swords in a killing fight in the middle of the mall.. they are going to 1) meet with perma-death in a hail of police gunfire, or 2) wind up spending many years of their limited lifespans in a prison someplace. Until a means of "equivalent penalty" to those extremes are introduced into a "free range PK" setting, there is no effective method of minimizing griefing or harassment pk. It's just not worth the hassle for a minority of players to get their jollies off in this fashion.
On the other hand, I have no problem with "Free Range Consentual PVP". There's no reason why a couple of top fighters couldn't have a combat demo in the middle of "Newbie Island", for instance...
3. Creature Parts. This may sound a bit weird.. and it kinda ties in to some of the other things mentioned... But in one absolutely *wonderful* tabletop AD&D game I played in, our DM was kinda liberal with things, and allowed us to really think "outside the box" in terms of how we handled situations. Well, as our party got more powerful, we started inventing some of our own spells, setting up side businesses, etc.. Now, the DM had to manage all this, and put some limits on things, of course.. But here's the fun bit.
At one point in time, we wound up killing a large dragon. This was fairly well into a long campaign, and we had some pretty powerful characters.. But here's what we did. Yes, we did get a bunch of gold and magic items from the dragon's treasure hoard... But we made off with *far* more loot in the long run simply off of the dead dragon body.
A few calculations of weight, surface area, meat to bone ratio, etc.. several preservation and "purify food" spells.. (the mages were kept busy for quite a while).. the contracting of several teams of mules and wagons, and one gore-soaked barbarian with a vorpal sword doing skinning/butchering later.. We had several tons of "Dragon Meat" being shipped off around the world via our merchant contacts on consignment sale to "exotic food vendors", a thousand square feet or so of "Dragon Wing Leather" for exotic garments.. (boots, anyone?), Eyes, teeth, bone powder, sinew, organs, etc for various mages to do their fiddling with... And enough Dragon Scale Hide for several suits of high-end armor. We made a bloody mint just using the parts from a carcass. Of course, the DM, being a smart guy, had modifiers put in for such things as "X percent of the hide was ruined by battle damage, and so isn't salvageable".. But we still made off quite well through creative application, and that was the important bit. And if some markets didn't exist.. such as some of the "exotic food vendors".. we hired people with parts of the treasure hoard to invent those markets and set up businesses.
Now.. obviously this would be rather a pain in the ass to set up in a MMORPG with unlimited spawns and such.. but well... It was really freakin cool! Our group had more fun planning out how to dispose of all the "Dragon Bits" than we did killing the thing and rooting through its loot pile.
Thusly, one of the things I would like to see is "creature parts usage".
Now, perhaps not to the Nth extent as we did with the Dragon bits... but well...
Have you ever been to a store that sells fur coats? Yeah, I know it's not PC to be wearing fur.. But essentially you can get a coat made out of just about *any* conceivable kind of fur. Hell, if you wanted to, you could make an entire suit.. jacket, shirt, pants, cloak, gloves, underwear and hat... out of mouse fur... it'd just take thousands of the little bastards and tons of time.. but well, you *could* do it..
So why is it sensible that I can only make a scarf out of fox fur? Or that a fur cloak can only be made out of fox and wolf fur? Why not a bearskin cloak? Or a rabbit fur scarf? You see my point. Having more options to make "near equivalents" of things not only adds realism, but it helps diversify resource consumption. Yeah, it takes a bit to set up, but there's just something kinda neat about a system that allows you to take advantage of the resources you *do* have available when there's no explicit reason why you couldn't. Make some fishhooks out of animal bones.. its how it was done in the old days... make sword/knife hilts out of carved deer antlers.. it's also done today. Boxes out of logs.. the list is endless, and just about *everything* can be put to *some* use somewhere. More options = better, imho.
Same bit with things like swords.. Look.. if you take a 4 foot piece of steel, and sharpen it.. you have a sword. A crude sword, mind you, but a sword nonetheless. There's not a *hell* of a lot of difference whether that sword is a flamberge, a standard 2-handed "great sword" with a straight blade, or a really big scimitar... so why not have the same stats for each, and just different look options. Let the smith choose what he wants to fashion out of the same sorts of ingredient combinations. If you can figure out a way to do something like this, I may have to love you forever.. lol
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