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Poverty

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TheMightyPaladin
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Poverty

I know a lot of superheroes are really rich,and some are in it for the money.
But there are some who aren't and they're not getting paid for this.
Spider-Man and Paladin are the 2 who come to my mind right away.
Since being a superhero doesn't usually pay, and makes it hard to hold a steady job, you'd think there would be quite a few superheroes who were struggling to get by.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this so help me out.

I feel like an MMO makes it pretty certain that all the toons are going to be self sufficient,
weather it fits or not and most of them are going to get rich before very long.
We get something we use as money every time we beat a bad guy.
I've joked about the silliness of us mugging the muggers before
but now in all seriousness I want to ask:
What if I want to play a hero who has to struggle to make ends meet ?
Sometimes being poor is a big part of the heroes identity.
Some heroes can't afford to impress their girlfriends
Some heroes need to come up with money for rent.
Maybe a hero's powers caused a stir forcing him to leave high school.
Or his sick single mother can't work any more.

I think there should be a way to play a poor character.

Interdictor
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There is - you just state in

There is - you just state in your bio that your character is poor. Why does there need to be anything further?

TheMightyPaladin
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Because when he gets tons of

Because when he gets tons of influence, or whatever we're calling money in this game, and can buy whatever he want's it isn't very convincing.
Even giving it all away doesn't work because this hero shouldn't have it to give.

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I would say this is more of

I would say this is more of an RP thing. Hancock is the only superhero I can think of who is effectively homeless, but with the reach and capabilities of his powers, one might be mistaken that, in game terms, he has quite a few enhancements in his ability slots.

To be honest, it's something that turned me off the idea of a Secret Identity system that went beyond the day jobs thing that City of Heroes had. Adding in a mechanic in which you have to stop your heroic endeavours for certain periods of time in order to earn some money, maintain your identity and tend to the social needs of NPCs isn't a selling point; especially since Villains will likely not have to worry about all of that. For the most part, their identity is probably well known to the world, or those who would matter, and if they need cash, all they need do is, well, mug someone or rob a bank.

It's a consistent character trait that I like, something that is rarely touched on; out of all the heroes in the world, the only one I can think of that had a truly detrimental effect on their life because of the hero gig is the first Nova. He didn't get into college and is now stuck with some crummy part time job because his heroing pulled him away from school too much and no one would employ him.

So, yeah, definitely something worth thinking about for a roleplay purpose, but I don't think it would be a worthwhile or welcome game mechanic.

I do a DnD Podcast, which can be listened to here.

Additionally, I write up my sessions of a Teen Heroes game here.

Interdictor
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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Because when he gets tons of influence, or whatever we're calling money in this game, and can buy whatever he want's it isn't very convincing.
Even giving it all away doesn't work because this hero shouldn't have it to give.

But "influence" ISN'T cash money - it's good will and the effects of positive reputation and relationships generated by your hero as he does good deeds.

Peter Parker might be just barely making ends meet financially - but Spider Man usually has quite a bit of pull in the hero community.

This is definitely a role-playing thing.

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Interdictor wrote:
Interdictor wrote:

There is - you just state in your bio that your character is poor. Why does there need to be anything further?

^This.

It's not like people don't come up with concepts of rich characters when they roll up their first character in a MMO.

Someone's in game currency has nothing to do with their concepts, because it's only used for things that are for the most part, ooc items.

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I have a way for your

I have a way for your selected character to actually be poor. every time you get drops...just mail em to me. :p

seriously though, the bio is the best way to show this fact and just basically turn a blind eye to the drops that the mobs leave behind. look at the money as nothing more than more experience you character has garnered and when you spend said money on items that increase his powers/stats it represents that he has come to understand his abilities a lil more which accounts for him becoming more effective.

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Influence was called what it

Influence was called what it was because it was never meant to be money fluff wise. Fluff wise it was your character getting things however he would logically get it, like intimidating black market reps into giving him stuff, or getting the stuff as gifts from your fans. It should be the same thing in this game.

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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It is always possible to be

It is always possible to be rich in friends/connections and poor in pocket. It is also possible to have a wealth of assets/commitments and be poor in terms of liquid currency on hand.

If you want to be "poor" in terms of liquid assets, simply give them away as charity to others. (Non-)"Problem" Solved.


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I want MY toon to be more or

I want MY toon to be more or less middles class, but be "house poor" because he bought a bigger house than he could afford and now he's underwater on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and has to get a second day job to make ends meet because he's too proud to let his wife work.

Too specific? ;P

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

We get something we use as money every time we beat a bad guy.
I've joked about the silliness of us mugging the muggers before

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Because when he gets tons of influence, or whatever we're calling money in this game, and can buy whatever he want's it isn't very convincing.
Even giving it all away doesn't work because this hero shouldn't have it to give.

These quotes highlight the main points of your thread. In a nutshell you've incorrectly assumed that Influence equals Money in these games.

It's true we used Influence to "obtain" in-game things like enhancements. But the whole concept of Influence/Infamy was just a numerical way to quantify "good will" or "famous reputation". It had nothing to do with how many dollars your character had in a bank.

When you defeated a buy guy the game increased your Influence total. But that wasn't because you were technically stealing the guy's wallet and pulling out Influence bills to stuff into your own wallet. What you were doing was gaining the trust/admiration of the enhancement vendor down the street who saw you stopping crime. Because you had gained the vendor's admiration he was willing to give you that shiny new enhancement you wanted as a reward for helping to stop a certain amount of crime in the city. That "certain amount" equaled the amount of Influence you spent.

There's a simple reason why these games didn't strictly define Influence as Money and I'll use several comic book heroes as my prime examples. Batman was able to be the type of superhero he was in large part because he was a billionaire. He could afford all the gadgets and gizmos from the very beginning. Now let's say I want to have a character in an MMO that's just like Batman - am I supposed to be given billions of "game currency" just so I can be instantly rich like Batman? No of course not. Conversely let's say I've been playing my Spider-man MMO clone for years and amassed millions of Influence. Sure he could get all sorts of enhancements but that doesn't mean he has any money in any bank. He can't buy private jets or penthouse condos because Influence does NOT equal money.

Money (the way we think of money in real life) is something that you have to roleplay in these games because if it was literally used as the in-game currency then you'd have all sorts of weird problems like a poor Batman or a rich Spider-man. Basically you have to mentally separate the concepts of Influence (in-game currency) and Money (real life currency). It's really not that hard to do.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I want MY toon to be more or less middles class, but be "house poor" because he bought a bigger house than he could afford and now he's underwater on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and has to get a second day job to make ends meet because he's too proud to let his wife work.
Too specific? ;P

Yeah, but that's his wife. Could he make his dog get a job?

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Interdictor wrote:
Interdictor wrote:

There is - you just state in your bio that your character is poor. Why does there need to be anything further?

Precisely. I had a character who was broke and homeless. I was perfectly capable of RPing this without requiring an in-game system to enforce it. Likewise, I can RP a fabulously wealthy character without needing an in-game assist. It's all about role playing.

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I'm with the majority here.

I'm with the majority here. Inf wasn't money so much as just a Game Need.

We are dealing with a MMO game and some mechanics are needed for fair play, game progression, and general balance. Money in any MMO serves some of those functions. Yes it can cause other problems like too much gold in the game system but that's another talk.

The only person that knows how much $$ you have on a character is you and the Main Computer records. My Homeless bum Hero Anonymous was poor and lived in one of those alleyways. He was dressed in a Military Jacket/Vest faded jeans boots and shirt. When he fought bad guys the only difference was he had on a different army Jacket, a Hoodie, mask and gloves. In other words I made it as basic and common as I could to keep that homeless man look.

It didn't matter that he had enough INF to buy a skyscraper the only person that knew and cared was me. There shouldn't be a game system that forces you to be POOR if the only people that know it is the player. Game Balancing wise it's unfair advantage when most of the Income would go to power improvements.

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I wonder if it would help or

I wonder if it would help or hurt to have "cash" as a crafting ingredient. It's separate from in-game currency or Stars; it's just this salvage-like item. Given as a bounty/reward or won in a heist, it's something you put in your crafting of other items. Why? Because it's literally buying parts for it.

So items which logically could be expensive may in fact require "cash" as an input item to craft them.

Do this to highlight the distinction between in-game currency and setting-concept money.

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Money is a Tool.

Money is a Tool.
Tools are used to Make Things.

Works for me.


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Additionally, trading "cash"

Additionally, trading "cash" on the market (or even buying it from "vendors") would be the equivalent of, say, Spider-Man going to the bank or calling upon the populace to support him in getting something done. He needs it for his next iteration of his web-shooters, or something, so he puts up a Kickstarter and spends some of his "influence" and good-will with the people of New York to get them to donate.

i.e., it makes sense to be able to trade this "cash as an item" for in-game currency, or vice-versa. Just like any other item.

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I'm of the opinion if players

I'm of the opinion if players are using something to purchase and trade goods with from each other and vendors then it is in effect currency no matter what label it is given. The adherence to the Inf concept was outdated the moment the old game devs switched the "inf score" from what it was in pre-alpha to its currency model.

For those that aren't aware or forgot, originally Inf was a score earned in game through action but was to deplete over time when not in action - including being logged out. The higher the score the more the world changed to adapt to the character's growing Inf - to the point where statues would be erected of your character. That was part of the whole pitch anyway. Obviously that didn't pan out but its in part where we had NPCs passing by and commenting on your character's exploits. They couldn't come through on their original concept, kept the name and definition, but it was in all other ways currency.

That being said, we aim to limit the number of in-game currencies - the basic rule we have used is if something requires the function of a type of currency then use the game's currency for it.


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That makes sense. I hate

That makes sense. I hate keeping track of all of the 'money equivalents' in any game I play. Blue diamonds and gold stars and green clovers and purple triangles... may as well be a breakfast cereal.

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Someone's been eatin' me

Someone's been eatin' me Lucky Currencies!


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

I'm of the opinion if players are using something to purchase and trade goods with from each other and vendors then it is in effect currency no matter what label it is given. The adherence to the Inf concept was outdated the moment the old game devs switched the "inf score" from what it was in pre-alpha to its currency model.

The question as to whether something like Influence is equal to Money really boils down to determining what Money really means to the average character in a superhero-based game. Or in other words does Superman have any need for gold?

Obviously Influence was used as the main currency of CoH. As a MMO game there is a fundamental need for some kind of exchangeable currency and so for every way that was important Influence was the gold of CoH. The philosophical problem comes when we try to apply a game's need to have currencies with the concept that many types of superheroes literally have no need for money. This is not really a problem in a standard fantasy based MMO game because every good elf, dwarf or hobbit needs physical gold to buy things. But when you consider characters like Superman or Wonder Woman they don't really need gold to make them tick.

This is why I still think that the "outdated" idea of Influence being an abstract measure of fame/reputation is still worthwhile for games like CoH and CoT. Yes on one level it will be treated simply as gold is used in WoW. But it still needs to be defined as a non-physical commodity for superhero games so that it actually applies as well to Superman (a character with no need for money) as it does to Batman (a character completely based on physical equipment).

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Redlynne
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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Or in other words does Superman have any need for gold?

Setting aside the point about the light of a yellow (gold?) sun ... perhaps Superman doesn't "need" gold, but Clark Kent could sure make use of some. Even if he winds up giving it all away as charity, since other people value gold Kal-el can always find a way to "use" gold, even if he doesn't "need" it for himself.


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Lothic
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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Or in other words does Superman have any need for gold?
Setting aside the point about the light of a yellow (gold?) sun ... perhaps Superman doesn't "need" gold, but Clark Kent could sure make use of some. Even if he winds up giving it all away as charity, since other people value gold Kal-el can always find a way to "use" gold, even if he doesn't "need" it for himself.

Right but Superman doesn't need physical currency in a superhero MMO the same way your average Bosmer needs gold in ESO to buy a better set of medium armor. At any rate Superman could always fly out to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and bring back tons of gold to help all the little snot-nosed orphan kids he wants. ;)

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I don't like influence as

I don't like influence as currency and I gather that Tanim doesn't like it either.

This is really a big part of why I raised the question originally.
I just wasn't sure how to express my problem (as should be clear from the way I asked for help in the OP)

I like what influence was originally supposed to be,
and I think there should be other ways to earn in game currency in the game.
Possibly giving characters a regular income based on their day job.
An amount that would be really low because it assumes this is just our spare cash after our mundane expenses are covered.
Villains can rob people for money and heroes can do jobs for money.
There could even be a Wealth tertiary power set to increase your income.
A poor character like Paladin wouldn't take that set but a rich character like Last Crusader would.

Does Superman need to eat?
If he does he needs money. Unless he lives entirely off the food from his family farm in Kansas.
Not likely since it's run by just a very old woman with no hired help ever shown.
Does Superman get uncomfortable and want a soft place to sleep?
We've seen that Clark Kent maintains an apartment, (whether he needs it or not).

And if Superman brought back tons of gold from outer space, he would have an effect on the price of gold that could ripple through the whole economy. A little gold, he could get away with but tons would make him a threat to the world.
We've already seen that he can make diamonds whenever he wants but he doesn't because he knows that would be bad.

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Unfortunately most people don

Unfortunately most people don't want a poor superhero. Most people want Batman or Iron Man. There will be an outcry for the money used in the game to have a balanced earned rate. People won't want it to be too slow. People won't want it to be too fast. It will have to be balanced just right. Too slow and you will have early Jack Emmert CoH issues with people still using Training Origin Enhancements at level 50. Too fast will mean money will be worthless and lead to a huge inflation of the economy. So it has to be balanced just right. Perhaps the Devs could design some kind of toggle for everybody to turn on or off money being earned in game. Then for those that want to be a poor hero they can do so, for those that want to earn their money and buy all the things they want they can do so.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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The problem arises that there

The problem arises that there has to be something, more or less, that can be gained from defeating enemies besides XP. Influence made sense at the time because by beating up bad guys, you were showing how trust worthy you were to the populous, Infamy for the opposite effect, and Information because of the situation in Praetoria meaning such a thing was priceless. Influence and Infamy were methods by which you could call on favours or intimidate people into providing you with what you need.

I will admit, Ingenuity doesn't strike me as an appropriate abstract in that sense. Ingenuity is the capacity for cleverness. It might work as a bartering thing in the loosest of terms, but I don't think it is something that can be gained as a form of currency; a quick thinking fellow doesn't get dumber after having a good idea, as it were. Alternatively, while you were no less influential or intimidating, I would say that the capacity for losing 'Inf' came from the fact that after a while, people would be unable to keep providing you with favours or equipment. Information was a little easier to define, since you can't pay the same person with the same information, it had to be new and important.

As said earlier, the problem with a 'realistic' earning method to a solid currency is that it then takes the player away from the part of the game they came for: Being a Super Hero/Villain/Person of ill defined morality. They likely get enough of that when they leave the computer to do other things that provide them with the means to play the game. That, and the advantage in the earning of money would be eternally in the Villain's court, since they can lie, cheat and steal to earn that in game currency.

A solution might be to have heroes who register their powers, should they have any, earning a commission based on their good deeds. You punched out Doctor Tyche? With minimum collateral damage? Here's a check for $50k, spend it wisely. The problem then arises for heroes that don't want their powers registered, or are bad ass normals and have no powers to register. Do they miss out on funding too?

Well, if that is the case, maybe it isn't a branch of the government that pays out your cash, but rather a charity organisation, founded in Titan City, dedicated to funding the heroics of these mystery men and women. Someone mentioned earlier (I am far too lazy to scroll up at the moment) that a hero could crowd fund their efforts to keep their activities on the go, and maybe that would be it. A patreon account, as it were, for people to fund their favourite heroes without strictly forcing them to reveal their identity. In this capacity, perhaps the higher a fame stat is, the more money your fans would send on a regular basis, or it just works the way Inf used to and you get a pay out for each good deed on the fly.

The only thing between the heroes and their cash then would be a moral obligation. Would you, as a hero, feel obligated to take this money for the sake of good manners, or are you going to turn it down because you don't think it's right?

If you're in the latter, then there would obviously be a pinch on your bank account, so how would you earn money if you were to turn away the funds of the people?

I do a DnD Podcast, which can be listened to here.

Additionally, I write up my sessions of a Teen Heroes game here.

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Or the government could just

Or the government could just put bounties on some bad guys like in the old west
And bonding companies might have bounties on some others like in the modern world
Families could offer rewards for the return of their loved ones.
Some superheroes like James Bond even make a living by working for the government.
and it's been mentioned more than once in the comics that the Avengers pay their members
That could be an advantage to joining a Super Group.
And if you have enough influence there are probably ways to trade it in for cash ,
like a kickstarter campaign, or letting someone use you in their commercial.
(though some products might cause you to loose influence- 8Man!)
If all else fails you can use your powers as a street performer and beg for donations
or act as a heater for an outdoor restaurant.
that could add a little humor to the game.

As for this taking people away from what they came here to do:
nonsense, we came here to be superheroes like the ones in the comics and the movies.
Some of those heroes are rich
some are poor
some never have to worry about money
and some change their financial status during the story.
Wasn't that a big part of the Dark Knight movie trilogy?
Didn't Spider-man have to work at the Daily Bugle and deliver something on his scooter?
Didn't Kick Ass have to use sticks and a taser because he couldn't afford anything better?
(Though they never talked about how he paid for all those surgeries and metal implants after the first time he got the crap beat out of him).

as for people still using training enhancements at 50th level,
I've seen talk on other threads about there not being a bunch of different types of enhancements in This game, so there's that.

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

As for this taking people away from what they came here to do:
nonsense, we came here to be superheroes like the ones in the comics and the movies.
Some of those heroes are rich
some are poor
some never have to worry about money
and some change their financial status during the story.
Wasn't that a big part of the Dark Knight movie trilogy?
Didn't Spider-man have to work at the Daily Bugle and deliver something on his scooter?
Didn't Kick Ass have to use sticks and a taser because he couldn't afford anything better?
(Though they never talked about how he paid for all those surgeries and metal implants after the first time he got the crap beat out of him).

What I mean is that the game's focus is the activity of being a superhuman and using your abilities to fight or create crime. The core aspect, the prime contextual goal of the game is to deliver an experience in which you are being a Superhero or a Supervillain; this is where the majority of the entertainment lies in the game, the reason why players will play it and possibly pay for a subscription if they are so inclined.

If, for example, your superhero character does not earn money except for when they work a job, or beg on the street or perform with their powers, it is actively taking you away from the act of fighting crime. Mechanically, it would create a spot of down time where you would have to perform a task that isn't what you picked up the game to do, but you need to do it to keep playing the main part of the game.

It becomes interpreted as busywork that you'd rather not do, especially since you have to earn money in real life to support living in general, let alone access to the game. As immersive or realistic as it might be, it isn't fun, which is what a game at its core is meant to be: fun.

While it would be realistic to live like Spider-man and have to work a job at the local paper, earning a less-than-satisfactory pay in order to provide access to those enhancements that you need so much is not fun. In fact, it's a core reason as to why, for the most part, Peter's days at the Bugle are kept out of the limelight of the comic's action; people came to read about Peter being Spiderman, not Peter having a mundane if not frustrating day at the office.

This is why Influence was important. If interpreted as social standing and trustworthiness, it would give an arguably good substitute for an in-game currency that you will earn while doing the core, fun part of the game, so the only times you would be forced to stop doing the fun parts of the game is if you have to tend to matters in the real world.

I do a DnD Podcast, which can be listened to here.

Additionally, I write up my sessions of a Teen Heroes game here.

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My proposal included a base

My proposal included a base income,
and a tertiary power set called Wealth
for people who don't want to worry about money
or who want a lot of it
also rewards from government or bonding companies, or from family members would be automatic on completing missions
so there would be no necessary interruptions, just a comment in the mission description about who, if anyone, is offering a reward.

Some contacts might not be able to give you missions unless you're on their payroll, so signing up for the mission, will increase your income but insure that you're continually contacted with more missions. (like the police radio missions, or the Batsignal) If you refuse a mission from that contact, you'll be fired, losing the extra income, and the opportunity for future missions. (maybe you could be rehired if you explain that you couldn't come in because you were saving the city from Doctor Demon)

pay for being in a supergroup would also be automatically added to your income.

Finally some ordinary jobs could be treated as missions, or as mini-games
that don't involve combat and that give cash instead of XP
they would always be something you could do if you wanted but you'd never have to.

You could also get cash awards along with some badges

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

My proposal included a base income,
and a tertiary power set called Wealth
for people who don't want to worry about money
or who want a lot of it
also rewards from government or bonding companies, or from family members would be automatic on completing missions
so there would be no necessary interruptions, just a comment in the mission description about who, if anyone, is offering a reward.
You could also get cash awards along with some badges

Government tasks and missions like that are a good idea, as they provide reward for playing the game as it was designed, allowing the player to use their superhero character to do super missions.

Wealth as a power set might be a problem, as mechanically I can't see how it might work. I doubt most players would want to dedicate an entire power set to increasing their bankroll, when it could be dedicated to shooting lasers or punching things with fire.

Rewards from families is essentially what influence was like. If you stopped a mugging on the street, the person you saved will speak highly of you to other people. Word of mouth spreads fiercely, and stopping that mugging alone will earn you some influence in high places.

The base income thing is problematic because, again, Villains will not be as restricted. While they might not earn a base income, being criminals and all, they could potentially earn far more money at a faster rate with a series of successful muggings, bank robberies and hostage negotiations. It would imbalance the method by which a person earns that money, villains becoming far better equipped than their heroic counter parts because blueside had the moral decency to earn money fair and square.

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Villains with few exceptions

Being really rich can be a big help. Batman's real power is unlimited cash.
and cash can be a big help if you're into crafting, just ask Iron Man or Blue Beetle.

Villains with few exceptions are in it for the money so if they get more it's to be expected.
They might however run into some trouble with villain expenses that heroes don't have.
Henchmen
bribes
money laundering,
bail bonding
lawyers
fines
and villains are expected to blow more on wild parties and such.
being robbed by other villains who just know you're not gonna call the cops
plus villains might even have to pay some contacts for info
instead of potentially being paid by a contact.

If you try to stay on the lam all the time it's gonna get expensive
don't give villains a free ride
If they think they can just take whatever they want whenever they want it
they'll find it impossible to lay low.

I don't know what kind of plans they have for villains, I don't play them or let my players be villains in my pen and paper gaming
(When I'm the GM, you can do whatever you want in Super Crusaders III, if it's cool with your GM) so I don't know what to say.
But I expect that for villains having it and being able to use it can be two different things.
Plus, some missions just wont pay out every time. Being a bad guy is a gamble.

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

I'm of the opinion if players are using something to purchase and trade goods with from each other and vendors then it is in effect currency no matter what label it is given. The adherence to the Inf concept was outdated the moment the old game devs switched the "inf score" from what it was in pre-alpha to its currency model.
For those that aren't aware or forgot, originally Inf was a score earned in game through action but was to deplete over time when not in action - including being logged out. The higher the score the more the world changed to adapt to the character's growing Inf - to the point where statues would be erected of your character. That was part of the whole pitch anyway. Obviously that didn't pan out but its in part where we had NPCs passing by and commenting on your character's exploits. They couldn't come through on their original concept, kept the name and definition, but it was in all other ways currency.
That being said, we aim to limit the number of in-game currencies - the basic rule we have used is if something requires the function of a type of currency then use the game's currency for it.

The game needs a currency that works like INF did in CoX, whatever it gets called, it's the stuff you earn when you defeat mobs. It's the stuff you trade for stuff you want in the game's player-to-player market. You may as well not even try to create any sense of immersion or explain it, it's just there because this is a game and the game needs it.

As for how many currencies the game will need, a lot of currencies in CoX got invented for different reasons. They invented Reward Merits as a way to make different task forces pay out appropriate amounts of rewards per hour spent doing them average. Hero/Villain Merits were part of the alignment system as a reason to do tip missions repeatedly to get swag, if you were VIP. The Incarnate System first rolled out the Alpha slot and shards, then had to invent threads because people had accumulated so many shards by the time they had more trials to do and slots to unlock, everyone had like a billion shards they didn't need anymore.

So I hope we can stick to using as few different currencies as possible, but then you need to address the problem of people being able to automatically buy their Lore slot using shards as soon as Lore slots get rolled out. I don't mean to suggest that there will be actual Lore slots in CoT, but you need to avoid that effect, namely the one where you roll out a new thing with its own separate currency (shards) then let people accumulate them for FAR too long before you're able to roll out anything new to spend them on, such that by the time the new thing comes out, veterans already have the shards to buy it outright with no grinding or doing of the new content required.

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Merits, alignment tokens,

Merits, alignment tokens, shards. Strands, et al, were not actual currency. They often get lumped into the label of currency becuase they are earned and spent, but only in so far as the particular character is concerned. They are actually more of a gauge or character bound component consumed for creating a reward. If players could trade any of those additional 'currencies' between one another or sell them through the game market, the label would be more accurate. I fully understand why each were created and most necessary, but just as necessary is understanding the difference between that is a currency, what is a tradable component (which can end up become its own form of currency is not set up correctly), and what is a character-bound component.


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Merits, Tokens, Shards,

Merits, Tokens, Shards, Strands ... all of these were simply Bound Materials used for making/obtaining other Items. They were not, in and of themselves, an economic "currency" being openly traded between players as a medium of exchange and value.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Merits, alignment tokens, shards. Strands, et al, were not actual currency. They often get lumped into the label of currency becuase they are earned and spent, but only in so far as the particular character is concerned. They are actually more of a gauge or character bound component consumed for creating a reward. If players could trade any of those additional 'currencies' between one another or sell them through the game market, the label would be more accurate. I fully understand why each were created and most necessary, but just as necessary is understanding the difference between that is a currency, what is a tradable component (which can end up become its own form of currency is not set up correctly), and what is a character-bound component.

For what it's worth I'm not arguing for having something like Influence in CoT just because I like multiple currencies in a game. I share your general dislike for multiple currencies. I'm actually arguing for something non-physical like Influence to be the base currency of CoT in an attempt to have something more universally meaningful to all super powered characters than simple "money".

As I pointed out earlier there are some superheroes where "money" like we care about in real life has no real meaning. Sure Clark Kent technically has to eat and sure if Superman brought back tons of gold from space he could destabilize the global economy. But my point is when was the last time you read a Superman story where he worried about the rent on his apartment in Metropolis? For him (and many other superheroes) it's a non-issue how much money/wealth they have in a bank account. For them some amount of money-based wealth is just assumed and never plays a significant part in what they do or don't do as characters. Why should they care about earning money/dollars/gold the way players do in other games?

Even in the case of guys like Batman or Iron Man (whose entire basis as superheroes arguably rests on their ability to buy all sorts of physical gadgets) the exact amount of money they have is pretty much never an important detail in their stories. It's just abstractly assumed they have "unlimited stacks of cash" to use to accomplish their goals. In effect it doesn't really matter that they have money at all because again it's a backstory non-issue to the story at hand.

One more time if CoT operated on a non-physical currency like Influence we would all use it like classic game gold regardless. It would be the standard currency used by everyone to buy and sell everything so for every reason that mattered it would be considered the "money" of the game. But because it represents something BEYOND simple money it would actually apply more universally to ALL characters in this game, not just the ones who technically have to use physical cash to buy gadgets.

TL;DR: The concept of Influence would apply equally to both Superman and Batman. Money really only has meaning to Batman. Get the difference?

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Being really rich can be a big help. Batman's real power is unlimited cash.
and cash can be a big help if you're into crafting, just ask Iron Man or Blue Beetle.

As big a help as it is, it's not technically worthy of a power slot. Money in their case is simply something taken for granted, a universal answer to the question of how or why. Arguably, money made little difference to Tony Stark's capabilities as Iron Man, since he made the first one in a cave. With a box of scraps.

It also, at its core, creates an imbalance in the game. By having a power set dedicated entirely to the act of acquiring more wealth, non-RP minded players will quickly catch on to the fact that they can max out Wealth as a tertiary pool until they have all the bits and pieces needed for the build they have planned out, and then respec into that build when all is said and done.

Segev made a good suggestion in using 'Money' as an aspect of crafting. I would go so far to say that money, in this scenario, could function like a lesser philosopher's stone, capable of being used in place of another crafting material since you can use said money to buy it through another means.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Villains with few exceptions are in it for the money so if they get more it's to be expected.
They might however run into some trouble with villain expenses that heroes don't have.
Henchmen
bribes
money laundering,
bail bonding
lawyers
fines
and villains are expected to blow more on wild parties and such.
being robbed by other villains who just know you're not gonna call the cops
plus villains might even have to pay some contacts for info
instead of potentially being paid by a contact.
If you try to stay on the lam all the time it's gonna get expensive
don't give villains a free ride
If they think they can just take whatever they want whenever they want it
they'll find it impossible to lay low.

Again, all of this technically counts as unnecessary busy work that makes things too complex for gameplay standards. In fact, it might be argued that players will be turned off the idea of 'greed' as a villainous motivator, since using such greed would then be needlessly complicated.

That, and not all villains will need to pay bail or hire lawyers, not all of them have henchmen who they hire in the formal sense, if at all. Some of them might have such a grand reputation that they can't or don't need to bride anyone. Surprisingly, not all villains party.

Being robbed by other villains also creates a problem,. as players log in to find a chunk of their cash missing because of a random event with an NPC, or a player getting uppity. In the case of the latter, it can technically be seen as a form of enforced PvP, which is against what was stated in an earlier update.

Like with the heroes and their day jobs, this is technically stuff that happens in the background of comics so that the reader can enjoy the villainous plots and struggles with the hero first and foremost.

Radiac wrote:

The game needs a currency that works like INF did in CoX, whatever it gets called, it's the stuff you earn when you defeat mobs. It's the stuff you trade for stuff you want in the game's player-to-player market. You may as well not even try to create any sense of immersion or explain it, it's just there because this is a game and the game needs it.

This is it, in a nutshell. Inf worked on all three sides because it was a currency that was gained in a universal manner. A system by which a player would earn the resource needed to unlock other aspects of the game simply by playing the game. It was balanced and fair, and the player could put it to the back of their mind while they focussed on other things.

Actual solid dollars wouldn't work because heroes don't mug the people they're stopping. A physical currency designed for their community, like a Paragon Dollar, wouldn't work either because villains wouldn't be able to trade with it in the rogue isle; to them, it'd be like Disney Land Fun Bucks. Instead, what was designed was somethign that revolved around a player's 'status'.

Heroes and Villains are non-entities. Legally, unless they reveal their identity, they are a non-person, a non-existent individual with no legal papers, no solid identification beyond what they call themselves and what they look like. However, their deeds extend far beyond the scope of your day-to-day individual, and so they become legends, myths even. They bring good or bad with each passing moment, and do so in a way that can very, very rarely be replicated. They are beyond human, abstracts almost, and humankind tends to put a lot of stock in things beyond their ken. As a currency, heroes and villains using their grand social standing worked, or at least it worked a lot better than a real, physical currency.

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

And if Superman brought back tons of gold from outer space, he would have an effect on the price of gold that could ripple through the whole economy. A little gold, he could get away with but tons would make him a threat to the world.
We've already seen that he can make diamonds whenever he wants but he doesn't because he knows that would be bad.

This is exactly why "money" the way we think about it is totally pointless to Superman and other superheroes like him. He could create/gather as much mundane "wealth" as he wanted for himself whenever he wants. Why would money like that be an effective medium to reward his actions in a MMO game?

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Merits, alignment tokens, shards. Strands, et al, were not actual currency. They often get lumped into the label of currency becuase they are earned and spent, but only in so far as the particular character is concerned. They are actually more of a gauge or character bound component consumed for creating a reward. If players could trade any of those additional 'currencies' between one another or sell them through the game market, the label would be more accurate. I fully understand why each were created and most necessary, but just as necessary is understanding the difference between that is a currency, what is a tradable component (which can end up become its own form of currency is not set up correctly), and what is a character-bound component.

I like everything I've read about powers.
I like everything I've read about customization.
I like everything I've read about user-generated content.

I dislike everything I've read about ingame economics. Everything. I'm beginning to think you folks might want to bring someone on board who understands what an economy really is and how it develops over time.

You're scaring me. There are countless ways to do this badly and only a bare handful of ways to do it right.

You need a nice Austrian school economist onboard. Be very wary of Keynesian economists. They treat math like a kind of magic.

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What if the In-Game Currency

What if the In-Game Currency was called Reputation? Would that make more sense to people besides Influence? You build up a Reputation for doing good or bad, then when you walk into a store the owner recognizes you based on the amount of Reputation you have and will give you or reward you with items that you want. Would that make more sense? It's not actual money so you wouldn't feel like you were mugging a mugger to pay for the things you buy.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

What if the In-Game Currency was called Reputation? Would that make more sense to people besides Influence? You build up a Reputation for doing good or bad, then when you walk into a store the owner recognizes you based on the amount of Reputation you have and will give you or reward you with items that you want. Would that make more sense? It's not actual money so you wouldn't feel like you were mugging a mugger to pay for the things you buy.

To me the terms Reputation and Influence are functionally equivalent. Or to make my point more directly the actual term used in CoT doesn't really matter as long as it encapsulates the idea that it represents more than physical dollars and cents in a bank account.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Agreed, but Reputation is a

Agreed, but Reputation is a more generic term that can be broader and more easily understood. Villains can earn a bad reputation which leads to them intimidating store owners to "hand over their goods or else", Heroes can earn a good reputation which will lead to store owners offering them their goods as a reward for protecting them and the city they live in. Same goes for Vigilantes and Rogues. I just think people like TMP can wrap their minds around that idea better than trying to use a more fancier word for something that basically means the same thing and used much in the same way but in a more complex way.

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Greyhawk wrote:
Greyhawk wrote:

You need a nice Austrian school economist onboard. Be very wary of Keynesian economists. They treat math like a kind of magic.

I am exceptionally leery of bringing in an economist devoted to the Austrian Faith Based Economics school which has been PROVEN WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING in the last 6 years.

We've had a very REAL real world stress test of Austrian school economics. Everywhere that their advice has been followed there has been heaping helpings of failure and misery.

NOT Recommended!

-1 to you Greyhawk.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

That being said, we aim to limit the number of in-game currencies - the basic rule we have used is if something requires the function of a type of currency then use the game's currency for it.

If this is your goal, and assuming you don't mean to count Reward Merits, Shards and so forth among the "currencies" that are to be limited, what exactly do you mean by this?

Are you suggesting that we have Stars (which can be purchased for real money and can be used to buy play time, etc in the cash shop) and only Stars as the game's currency? If so does this mean that mobs that get defeated will yield Stars like mobs in CoX yielded INF? If so, doesn't that amount to basically paying people to play the game instead of charging them to play? I feel like that will devalue the Stars over time. People in CoX had like billions of INF after a while, if that happened with Stars people could eventually get to the point where they don't need to pay a sub or spend money on the game for anything after a while, because they've manipulated the market to the point of having so many Stars they'll never be able to spend them all.

On the other hand, you could do it such that mobs defeated do not drop Stars or any other currency, just random swag like SOs and recipes, salvage, etc. But then of course that stuff can be traded for Stars in the auction house presumably too, if it's the only currency, so a person could still, in theory, sell off their randomized drops to fund their future game play, and you're still probably living with the same problem.

Also, these in-game markets are at best a simulator for a real market and even the real markets are fraught with problems, abuse, etc. Once people start exploiting the market for personal gain, it's all over. At some point someone is going to make money by buying low and selling high, or by cornering the market on Alchemical Silvers or something.

From a dev point of view, I would think it was a good thing in CoX that INF wasn't directly translatable to real world money in the sense that it wasn't backed by hard currency in any real way and you couldn't exchange it back to the company for play time or store items at all. People could try to sell INF to people over the real world internet or whatever, but that was all negotiable by the buyers and sellers. If you're going to sell Stars then accept them in the cash shop as money for things like subscription time, costume pieces, etc, then allowing people to grind for Stars by defeating mobs then you're paying people to play the game for you. I think if any player is ever going to turn a profit on this game it should not be accomplished by becoming a source of cheaper Stars than the game developer itself. You're shooting yourself in the foot if you let that happen.

I think it would be better to have Stars, which can be purchased for money in the cash shop and then used to buy stuff and also some kind of fake gold type currency that mobs drop when you defeat them. The Stars can then be controlled and the value of a Star in real money is not subject to getting attacked by the means I've described above. If anything, the value of the fake gold will decrease due to inflation, etc, but that's not as big a problem when it's not something you're accepting as payment for cash shop stuff in the first place.

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

Agreed, but Reputation is a more generic term that can be broader and more easily understood. Villains can earn a bad reputation which leads to them intimidating store owners to "hand over their goods or else", Heroes can earn a good reputation which will lead to store owners offering them their goods as a reward for protecting them and the city they live in. Same goes for Vigilantes and Rogues. I just think people like TMP can wrap their minds around that idea better than trying to use a more fancier word for something that basically means the same thing and used much in the same way but in a more complex way.

If "Reputation" would be an easier word for everyone to understand then I'm all for it. I didn't assume CoT was actually going to reuse "Influence" regardless because of its direct use in CoH - I've only been using that legacy word here because it's what every ex-CoH player in this thread could relate to.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Greyhawk wrote:
You need a nice Austrian school economist onboard. Be very wary of Keynesian economists. They treat math like a kind of magic.
I am exceptionally leery of bringing in an economist devoted to the Austrian Faith Based Economics school which has been PROVEN WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING in the last 6 years.
We've had a very REAL real world stress test of Austrian school economics. Everywhere that their advice has been followed there has been heaping helpings of failure and misery.
NOT Recommended!
-1 to you Greyhawk.

Greece

Edit:

Just to be clear. Greece, Venezuela, Portugal, Ireland, Argentina, etc.

Keynesians don't exactly have a stellar record either, especially when their magic numbers are combined with "social justice".

But I digress. Reality is somewhere between the two and to the extent it applies at all to virtual worlds, neither Keynes nor the Austrians can completely account for an economy that effectively has no limits on the money supply.

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*cough*

*cough*

While I am personally fascinated by politico-economic discussions, and I certainly see how they pertain to trying to run an in-game economy, I would like to point out that the political aspects of it cause people to treat it more as a religion than a science. Keyensians vs. Free Market types will argue vehemently and point to cases where they claim their opponents' views were used to ill effect, and then their opponents will say it either "wasn't done right" or deny that it was their policy run at all. (I even know where I'd fall on these discussions, and know from experience that I wouldn't be able to persuade anybody who didn't already agree with me.)

I will say that we have past experiences with other MMOs and their economies to guide us, and can see some of what went wrong.

I am not sure what about having "a currency that acts like inf/gold/etc." is so disconcerting; by itself, it is not the cause of the major problems in other MMOs' economies. The problem comes in from the infinite expansion of the amount with limited means of sinking it back out. (Supply of money increases far faster than demand for it, essentially.)

This is not inherently solved by avoiding HAVING an in-game currency. All an in-game currency does is provide a fungible medium of exchange for players to acquire things from vendors (a currency sink) or each other (on the player-to-player market).

It's rather inescapable to have some form of currency in the game. Not if we want anything resembling a player-to-player market, let alone vendors. Diablo II showed us that players will develop their own currency if the one provided by the game is inadequate to the task (see: Stone of Jordan).

Whether this should be literal in-game money ("dollars," since the game takes place in a city in the USA), or as some more abstract thing (your influence in the city, your favor with various factions, gratitude owed by the townsfolk, or the like), the fact remains that it will function like a currency when used to buy goods as sold on the in-game and player-to-player markets.

The discussion over how it is fluffed shouldn't scare people over how it actually gets implemented in game.

The only way for their to be an economy in-game is for it to be player-to-player. Anything else is just a specialized form of crafting with a universal ingredient and varied "crafting tables:" you put your ingredient (the currency) on the "table" (give it to the right vendor) and select the desired item.

The economy between players on the open market will be where actual economics enters in, and that will be driven almost exclusively by supply and demand. There are a number of ways to structure it, and the change in what information is available will influence whether or not arbitrage is even an option and how complex it is, as well as how easily people can manipulate the market. The more information and more direct the sale-to-sale transactions are, the harder it will be to manipulate the market as people will recognize spikes' temporal stability (are they temporary because of some artificial efforts, or are they stable because the items really have become rare or more common?) which makes people more likely to wait out temporary problems.

How much of a "game" to play there is there vs. just easy "shop ebay" style searching will also influence this.

But none of this is dependent on the fluff of what the in-game currency is.

The biggest thing about in-game currency is that we will need to make sure there are adequate sinks to keep its supply from rising continually.

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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

The biggest thing about in-game currency is that we will need to make sure there are adequate sinks to keep its supply from rising continually.

And this has been my point in almost every single economic touching discussion around use of currencies in City of Titans. For every Supply there has to be a Demand. For every Source there needs to be a Sink to drain away into. We can debate the relative "tuning" of the Sources and the Sinks ... but the fact that having a Source DEMANDS that a Sink also must be present cannot be handwaved away.

Trouble is, making Sources isn't all that difficult. People love getting "phat lewts" dropping for them. However, the making of Sinks is something that is rarely appreciated and is typically resisted, even though they are, in fact, needed and necessary.

I therefore consider it promising that Segev is (duh) looking to balance both sides of the equation(s).


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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I think it would be better to have Stars, which can be purchased for money in the cash shop and then used to buy stuff and also some kind of fake gold type currency that mobs drop when you defeat them. The Stars can then be controlled and the value of a Star in real money is not subject to getting attacked by the means I've described above. If anything, the value of the fake gold will decrease due to inflation, etc, but that's not as big a problem when it's not something you're accepting as payment for cash shop stuff in the first place.

Ohh.. you want Gold Stars to be Locked to the Cash Store, and the Silver Stars to be combine'able (10 or 20) to make gold stars (with alchemy)!? ;D

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Radiac, I think Tannim did

Radiac, I think Tannim did not mean to say that stars will be the ingame currency. As far as I understood, we will have stars for the real money market and one seperate ingame currency. Ingenuity if I recall correctly, although that name is not popular with everyone. And the aim is to stick to that as long as possible, to solve everything that can be solved with just those two currencies.

Greyhawk, would you mind elaborating a little more what worries you about the ingame economics topic? I would really like to hear and understand your opinion.

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+1 Segev. YAY adequate

+1 Segev. YAY adequate currency sinks! BOOO rampant inflation!

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Segev does seem to have this

Segev does seem to have this on lock down.

My core concern during this thread was mainly the idea where the player having to acquire whatever becomes the currency and playing the core of the game were separated in some fashion but I think that goes without saying. The debate over whether the currency was contextually an actual, physical amount of money or an abstract was mainly down to which made more sense when acquiring it on both sides of the moral coin, thus keeping that aspect of the economy balanced over all players.

Though one thing does come to mind, however, a fresh idea that I would like to present you with Segev, if you haven't thought of it already.

Segev wrote:

The economy between players on the open market will be where actual economics enters in, and that will be driven almost exclusively by supply and demand. There are a number of ways to structure it, and the change in what information is available will influence whether or not arbitrage is even an option and how complex it is, as well as how easily people can manipulate the market. The more information and more direct the sale-to-sale transactions are, the harder it will be to manipulate the market as people will recognize spikes' temporal stability (are they temporary because of some artificial efforts, or are they stable because the items really have become rare or more common?) which makes people more likely to wait out temporary problems.

Really my only experience of 'Stock Market' style economics would be in my first year of Uni, in which a bar on campus was holding a regular night where they sold their drinks based on their demand. I played the market easily, since I'm not a drinker and I cheerfully gulped down pints of cola for about 50 pence a pop (about a third of the regular price).

Point is, of all the things in a game I'm learning about designing, I haven't really covered economics yet.

Anyway, I was thinking, since players will trade acquired items over the market for the in game currency, would it be plausible to adjust the supply of those items in a way that mimics this stock market change? Say, for example, a week in July you have a period of time where one rare item drop has its drop rate increased in a certain task force or raid, and another rare item has its drop rate decreased. "For one week only, super rare salvage "Dr. Tyche's Beard Hair" will have its drop rate boosted in the Anthem task force!"

Would this sudden, but temporary shift in supply adjust the demand enough to keep the player market alive, as well as provide an alternative incentive for high level players to revisit older content? The thought occurred to me, since a lot of prices on the CoH market were relatively stagnant for the longest of time.

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One sink could be ingame

One sink could be ingame games. Those video games in stores and such can be played, just a few currency and have fun playing Pool or Clappy Cape. In game gambling hall could do the same, just like all gambling locations the amount going in is greater than the amount going out.

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I've discussed ideas that are

I've discussed ideas that are...questionable about their likelihood of implementation...designed to try to combat market fluctuations before. One that I like (but which will take some care if it's to be implemented) would be to have the NPC vendors on the player-to-player market. That is, they actually have a finite supply of in-game currency and a finite inventory, and they use the market to "re-stock" or as a place to sell their inventory if the prices get high.

If they run out of inventory, then they might actually spawn missions. "Hey, HeroGuy, my shipment of Wonderphlebotinum has been hijacked by the Sky Pirates of Pinned Zance. Can you go stop them from taking the next shipment ,and find out where they're lairing? You can keep some of it for yourself, and I'll get my supplies restocked!"

Players who take these missions will increase the vendor's supply until he reaches a point he won't give out the mission anymore. And he'll only give out the mission if he can't get the items on the market, either, for an extended period.

Meanwhile, playing the market with an intent to maximize their profits in in-game currency, the vendors will engage in arbitrage, smoothing out some of the highs and lows. Also, by having a finite supply of in-game currency, we have places we, as developers and game managers, can "vanish" in-game currency without any players being the wiser. NPC vendors all have more than X in-game currency? Remove X/2 from each NPC's "bank account." We've just flushed a lot of currency from the system!

The other form of sink would be in the form of consumed things: rent on personal/team spaces, base items which require exotic "fuels" to keep running, increased power consumption costs with larger bases... and that's just looking at base maintenance. The idea would be to try to calibrate costs such that larger bases mean you need a larger income in in-game currency to break even.

As ever, actually balancing sinks to sources is going to be difficult, but I would honestly be pleased if, at least briefly, we found ourselves overdoing it on the sink side of the scale. Not because it would be good for the game (it wouldn't), but because it would mean we'd finally found a point where the balance tipped the other way. MMOs, as a general rule, have massively more sourced currency than sunk.

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I would have concerns about

I would have concerns about the NPC's playing the market. I would think there could be a potential for manipulation there. A PC could possibly find a way to force NPC's to buy up all the stock of certain items while hoarding a bunch, therefore making it easier for them to price gouge certain items. Or vice versa, buy up all the stock in an item and forcing the NPC to flood the market with said item making something that was once extremely expensive worthless. I'm just not sure I'm a big fan of that idea. I know players can manipulate the market on their own, but having the capability of also using an NPC to do it..........just doesn't sit well with me.

Renting things is never really a great idea either. Certain things might be okay for renting. Perhaps there could be a Rent-to-Own? While in the long haul you'll end up paying more for an item than you would have if you had just outright bought it, but it might be easier for someone to pay a little amount per week, bi-week, or month to eventually own it?

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I like Segev's ideas on

I like Segev's ideas on economics here. The existence of multiple vendors all trading in a certain commodity (whatever it is, Circuit Boards, etc) will tend to create competition for the commodity and thus prices will be kept down by competition. If players can get a Circuit Board from a the local NPC vendor "Radio Hut", or the "Circuit Boards R Us", or across town at the "Mega-low Mart", etc then it becomes HARDER to corner the market, not easier, I would expect.

The one thing that bothers me is that in order for the NPC vendors to have the desired effect, people have to be willing to buy/sell stuff with them instead of just using the player-to-player market and cutting them out.

This leads me to several ideas:

1. Force all players to deal with NPC vendors when they want to buy/sell anything.

2. Force all non-sub players to deal with NPC vendors but let paid subscribers access the auction house directly, which has a clear advantage of cutting out the middle man.

3. Make NPC vendors the ONLY real source of salvage components so that everyone who needs an Alchemical Silver to make some IO is then forced to talk to an NPC to get a "fresh" Alchemical Silver created when there aren't any available on the market. NPCs would be on their own to set individual prices, and could maybe even cut discounts and special deals to players who have done their missions or whatever.

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Of course if you just make us

Of course if you just make us always have to buy and sell from venders
and don't even make a way for players to trade with each other
then the prices will be fixed where you want them and they'll never change
boom no inflation
no real life economics
we can just get back to being superheroes and villains.

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Except you'll have players

Except you'll have players with excessive amounts of money that will have nothing to spend it on and then money will be pretty much pointless.

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No, you'll have to have

No, you'll have to have vendors who sell everything you need for crafting
and of course the rare hard to get stuff will cost more and might even have a wait
unless you're willing to do a mission for the vendor.

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Sorry, but it happened with

Sorry, but it happened with CoH. It'll happen with CoT if there is no Auction House.

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What happened?

What happened?
inflation?
seriously, if there is no way for players to trade with each other they can't drive prices up.

Another big advantage to this approach is, it's a lot less work for the devs than anything else that's been suggested.
So here's a bone devs take it.

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

seriously, if there is no way for players to trade with each other they can't drive prices up.

We actually have the history of CoH to see how things were both before there was an auction house and after the auction house was established. All in all I think most people considered having the auction house a net improvement for the game. The Pros outweighed the Cons.

P.S. As an anecdote I can recall there was a period where my main character (pre-auction house) had amassed something like 400-500 million INF and was basically stuck at that amount for several years before the auction house actually made spending that much INF worthwhile. Without an auction house my INF horde had essentially become meaningless.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Another big advantage to this approach is, it's a lot less work for the devs than anything else that's been suggested.
So here's a bone devs take it.

If the Devs didn't have to bother with creating the game itself they could probably save themselves a lot of work too. Please...

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Vendors are a fixed rate.

Vendors are a fixed rate. Once players got to level 50 and then bought all the SO's they needed for their character, that character became a cash cow. People would then use the maxxed out level 50 character to run missions and just save money. They would then use that saved money to further fund their other alts, which was easy to do as they were making more money than they were spending. That's why the Auction House was introduced. To get rid of all the excess money that players had floating around. The more money people saved, the more they were willing to spend on items needed from the auction house. It therefore helped to get rid of a lot of players' saved up money that they had nothing to spend on. Suddenly people who had a billion inf were wanting to buy the PvP Proc. That PvP Proc became a high demand item and therefore started costing a billion inf.

What people didn't see was that it also helped the newcomer make a lot of money. Suddenly Alchemical Silvers were going for 250,000 a pop. Those were items that were common drops in the lower levels. Do enough missions, receive a lot of Alchemical Silvers, and suddenly you were a millionaire. A lot of people were afraid of the Auction House or just didn't want to use it. I was one of those at first. I finally took some time to learn how to use it. After I did, I loved it. I was always at a balance of having everything I needed and yet never any inf at the same time. That's hard to explain, but that's the way it was. Most of the Inf I had was always tied up in the Market. I had several items that were either being bought or being sold. If I needed money, I'd go check to see what was sold and collect the money. If I had money, I'd see what I needed to buy and go put a bid in for it.

The Auction House is a beautiful thing for a MMO economy. It helps to create a really good money sink so that money isn't just running rampant.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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I disagree. Segev, I've been

I disagree with themightypaladin. Segev, I've been very impressed with your ideas and want a market.

On a slightly different note, how are currency sinks going to interact with inactive accounts? For me, I recommend shutting off sinks for individual stuff at 90 days since last login.

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My favorite thing about

My favorite thing about inflation was that I could sell anything super fast just by checking how much other people were selling stuff for and offering my stuff for half the price. I made less on each sale but I think I made more money much faster, and none of that crap I sold cost me anything. It fell from the sky just because I was playing.

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

My favorite thing about inflation was that I could sell anything super fast just by checking how much other people were selling stuff for and offering my stuff for half the price. I made less on each sale but I think I made more money much faster, and none of that crap I sold cost me anything. It fell from the sky just because I was playing.

Right... and WITHOUT a market you likely couldn't do that little trick of yours.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I haven't been paying

I haven't been paying complete attention to this thread but I will say that not having a market/AH would be ludicrous. The very idea of not having one is silly to me haha.

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Mind I still think a totally

Mind I still think a totally NPC market that sells everything you need would be an improvement to the game
Prices would be fixed so people could afford things when the devs are ready for them to have it
everything would be available at all times so crafters wouldn't be stuck waiting hoping to find that godawful rare ingredient they need
vendors could give missions to get rare stuff faster or cheaper
You wouldn't be stuck with crap no one would buy because vendors would always buy everything
(Since it cost money to post stuff, if no one bought it you lost money)

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That being said, a market

That being said, a market does not necessarily need to be in issue 1; but by issue 3, absolutely need it

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Mind I still think a totally NPC market that sells everything you need would be an improvement to the game
Prices would be fixed so people could afford things when the devs are ready for them to have it
everything would be available at all times so crafters wouldn't be stuck waiting hoping to find that godawful rare ingredient they need
vendors could give missions to get rare stuff faster or cheaper
You wouldn't be stuck with crap no one would buy because vendors would always buy everything
(Since it cost money to post stuff, if no one bought it you lost money)

Hopefully CoT will be able to better design their system so some of these things won't be an issue. There were a lot of crap recipes in CoH that nobody ever bought. Then there were the ones that were in extreme high demand. Then you had the PvP recipes that could ONLY be gotten by playing PvP. As we all know PvP wasn't all that fun to do in CoH. So, with a new game being designed from the ground up, lessons will have been learned, and better ideas will be implemented. I do not think it will be as bad as you think it will be.

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People will find ways to sell

People will find ways to sell to each other. If there isn't a Market, people will just set up a trade between themselves instead. Soon someone will create a website that lists the current trade values for certain items, and next thing you know you have a Market. It'll just be offline instead of through the game.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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Brutum wrote:
Brutum wrote:

I haven't been paying complete attention to this thread but I will say that not having a market/AH would be ludicrous. The very idea of not having one is silly to me haha.

Not talking about NO market
Just a totally NPC market with no way for players to sell things to each other.

By the way that would also eliminate the annoying trade chat.

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

People will find ways to sell to each other. If there isn't a Market, people will just set up a trade between themselves instead. Soon someone will create a website that lists the current trade values for certain items, and next thing you know you have a Market. It'll just be offline instead of through the game.

Not if there's no way for items or cash to be exchanged between players.
What are you gonna do?
ask an NPC to hold it for you?

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Hmmm.... Wouldn't that make

Hmmm.... Wouldn't that make all other vendors pointless? Edited out that second part because you mentioned no trading to static. On that note I'm not sure if not being able to trade would be a good idea. Wouldn't removing the ability for people to give people gifts be a negative thing? No more surprising newbies with influence gifts or rewards for costume contests.

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

oOStaticOo wrote:
People will find ways to sell to each other. If there isn't a Market, people will just set up a trade between themselves instead. Soon someone will create a website that lists the current trade values for certain items, and next thing you know you have a Market. It'll just be offline instead of through the game.

Not if there's no way for items or cash to be exchanged between players.
What are you gonna do?
ask an NPC to hold it for you?

That's not going to happen. There will be ways to trade between players. Gifting to players. Mail boxes. So unfortunately your idea is just not going to hold water.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Mind I still think a totally NPC market that sells everything you need would be an improvement to the game

Again the history of CoH tends to invalidate this opinion.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Prices would be fixed so people could afford things when the devs are ready for them to have it

People could always grind to get the in-game money they would need to buy anything at any level.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

everything would be available at all times so crafters wouldn't be stuck waiting hoping to find that godawful rare ingredient they need

Part of the excitement of playing the game would be the "luck" it takes to earn/get the cool toys.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

vendors could give missions to get rare stuff faster or cheaper

Vendors could still give players various missions even if an auction house existed in the game.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

You wouldn't be stuck with crap no one would buy because vendors would always buy everything

As you yourself recently mentioned you could always dump junk on the market for super-cheap to get someone to buy it.

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

That's not going to happen. There will be ways to trade between players. Gifting to players. Mail boxes. So unfortunately your idea is just not going to hold water.

Too bad.
I think it was a good idea
interestingly, it's how most PnP games work.

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My suggestion is to not be

My suggestion is to not be afraid of the Market. Instead use it as just another tool to be able to play the game. Learn the Market and how to make it work for you, not against you. I'm not saying that you need to become an Ebil Marketeer, that's MY job, I'm just saying to learn enough about the Market so that it can be of benefit to you when you need to use it.

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But markets are SOOOOO Scary

But markets are SOOOOO Scary
I want to hide
every time I go there there are.....other people.

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I have a feeling you

I have a feeling you misunderstood Segev. As far as I understood he wants to have NPC vendors use the auction house. You will not buy items at a fixed prize from an NPC, you will just bid on another item listet in the auction house. You might never know if it was a player or an NPC who put it there...

Those NPCs will be programmed to buy cheap and sell when demand is high, but just a little cheaper than mot others, to raise competition.

The only problem I see there is that those NPC vendors could be too good at that. As an AI they could be capable to react almost instantly to any change on the market, way faster than even a dedicated marketeer could and that could lead to the AI dominating the market. But that could be easily circumvented if they get programmed to only check the marked every few hours or so.

If this system is implemented, we might never notice it is even there, until the NPC vendors start giving out quests because they have run out of stock.

I love this idea.

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Lutan wrote:
Lutan wrote:

I have a feeling you misunderstood Segev. As far as I understood he wants to have NPC vendors use the auction house. You will not buy items at a fixed prize from an NPC, you will just bid on another item listet in the auction house. You might never know if it was a player or an NPC who put it there...
Those NPCs will be programmed to buy cheap and sell when demand is high, but just a little cheaper than mot others, to raise competition.
The only problem I see there is that those NPC vendors could be too good at that. As an AI they could be capable to react almost instantly to any change on the market, way faster than even a dedicated marketeer could and that could lead to the AI dominating the market. But that could be easily circumvented if they get programmed to only check the marked every few hours or so.
If this system is implemented, we might never notice it is even there, until the NPC vendors start giving out quests because they have run out of stock.
I love this idea.

It's fair to say I didn't understand him because most of this stuff goes over my head,
but I didn't misunderstand him either, in the sense that you mean.
I was actually making a completely different proposal.
anyway it looks like my idea died so whatever is done
I'll probably just go on selling crap for half what everyone else does.

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Just so you know Paladin.

Just so you know Paladin. Most of the time I would put my salvage up on the Auction House for 1 Inf. What it sold for, that was beyond my control and I just took whatever I was given.

Now when I needed to play the Market and actually make some money, that is when I flipped stuff and tried to do things like run the prices up on certain items just so I could make a quick buck.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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I used to buy stuff cheap on

I used to buy stuff cheap on the Market and then sell it to Vendors for large profits.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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I want to make it clear that

I want to make it clear that NPCs playing the market is probably NOT going to be a launch thing. I just don't expect we'll have the time to program that yet, and it's not high enough priority compared to other must-haves.

That said, the mental picture I have is of NPCs who do sell things the way normal vendors do...but their prices vary by what they expect they could make on the market. They may or may not ever get used for storefront work, if trading with them on the market is more cost-effective and convenient, so it will take some thought to make them more than occasional quest-givers (when their stock runs low). Maybe they'll occasionally offer better prices to PCs who sell items to them directly, if that can be used to help them rebuild stock and keep it off the market. (Hey, NPCs might want to corner a market on their signature items, too!) That remains to be seen.

There absolutely, positively will be a player-to-player market, no matter what. It's too essential to the kind of interaction that MMOs thrive upon for us to neglect it. In fact, one of the plans I'm most pleased about in the effort to cut out the gold-seller requires it. I won't belabor this thread with that angle, however.

My personal goal wrt the market and the MMO economy is to figure out what players are going to want to do, and then set things up to enable that in a way that the path of least resistance towards it improves the game experience for everybody. That's generally where I start from with any of my off-the-wall ideas.

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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

There absolutely, positively will be a player-to-player market, no matter what. It's too essential to the kind of interaction that MMOs thrive upon for us to neglect it.

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+1

+1

Ah buy orders for lvl 50 enhancements. I loved them so.

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I like the NPCs among the

I like the NPCs among the market of PCs, since it could get the market flowing and the potential for in game missions to fix 'problems' in the market sounds thoroughly entertaining.

In regards to NPCs with differing prices in a non-market capacity, will there be opportunities to haggle?

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Additionally, I write up my sessions of a Teen Heroes game here.

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Paladin, I did not mean to

Paladin, I did not mean to address you in person. I just had the feeling that what Segev said did not came across as intended and tried to help to put that right. Just in case.

As it turns out, I too had not fully grasped the concept he had in mind.

So, sorry if I had offended you, that was not my intention.

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Oh No man

Oh No man
I wasn't offended at all.
Like I said
a lot of this stuff goes over my head.
I'm a comics and gaming nerd not really into economics
and like I said, my proposal was based on how things work in pen & Paper games
where there are a lot fewer people involved.

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Late to this thread, but not

Late to this thread, but not to the ideas. Way back in 2013 I posted a thread on "what if the various NPC vendors were simply alternate interfaces to the market?" This is a lot like Segev's idea, and would fit in nicely. Basically, the idea was that if there's a market, and people are selling doohickeys there, and vendors sell those same doohickeys, then the vendors should be able to act middlemen to the markets.

Thinking about it more, there are other mechanisms that could be implemented. Players could pay the vendors 10% more than the market value for the item, and the vendor would simply buy the item for the player. Same with selling stuff: vendors would buy at half the market rate and sell at whatever the low end of the market rate was. Or something similar.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Lutan wrote:
Lutan wrote:

Greyhawk, would you mind elaborating a little more what worries you about the ingame economics topic? I would really like to hear and understand your opinion.

As an example, Segev mentions having NPC vendors participate in the market and using that participation as a form of arbitrage preventing or lessening the impact of rapidly oscillating movements in the prices of individual items.

I'm not convinced this will work because NPCs are not genuinely autonomous actors in the market. They only do what they are programmed to do. The way Segev describes it, their inventory and liquid cash would be finite quantities. If inventory in a particular item fell, they would go into the market to purchase that item (behind the scenes of course, running as a server-based script no doubt). So what happens when the vendor runs out of both money and inventory? Players, unlike NPC vendors, are autonomous actors. They can go from vendor to vendor comparing inventories to learn what is or is not in demand. Using that knowledge they can wait for a vendor's supply to fall, then dump stockpiles of that item on the vendor, draining the vendor's cash reserve. If the item in question is readily available in the market, then the vendor cannot sell the excess supply they now have in order to replenish their cash reserve. Spreading this out over say, three dozen vendors, makes it more difficult for players to track, but not impossible. Many players know how to use a spreadsheet to track the market and look for weaknesses they can exploit. It only takes as many players as vendors to completely overwhelm the vendor system. What happens then will depend on how well the server-side vendor participation script handles exceptions.

Even if there are a couple of hundred vendors, one large supergroup with market-savvy officers would be enough to completely nullify any impact of the vendors because no matter how sophisticated the vendor participation script is, people will still be smarter. For a working example of this spend some time in Lineage II. Their auction system benefits no one except a small clique of guild leaders and castle owners. Prices for necessary items that are not available at vendors are insane, and prices for the components are equally insane because it can take months to acquire those materials unless you have a full clan all hunting the same monsters at the same time.

The CoH market used a double-blind bid system. If I am trying to buy Alchemical Silvers, the only thing I can see is how many are available and what the most recent five sales were. So, if I see 1573 Alchemical Silvers and the most recent completed sale was 25,000 per item, then I know I have to bid at least 25,000 to buy at the current market price. However, I cannot see what sellers are actually asking. So I can register a bid for any price I like. If I bid 25,000 and wait ten minutes and cannot make a buy, then I know that everyone who is selling is asking more than 25,000. At that point, I have a choice. I can leave my bid on the market until prices fall below 25,000 (which might never happen) or I can cancel my bid and put in another one at a higher price.

Now let's suppose I'm a seller. I go into the market and I check prices. I see there are 1573 Alchemical Silvers and 2 bids (the fellow in the paragraph above), but I cannot see how much the bids are for. I know that those 1573 Alchemical Silvers are being offered at something higher than 25,000, but I don't know how much higher. Nor do I know if the 2 open bids are at the market price or below it. So I put my six Alchemical Silvers on sale for 15 each. Two of them are immediately transferred to the fellow looking to buy and I get 50,000, but the other four are added to the stack, bringing it up to 1577.

So now I come into the market and I'm neither a buyer nor a seller. I'm just browsing and checking prices. I see 1577 Alchemical Silvers and 0 bids. The last sale was for 2 at 25,000 each. I also notice that the five completed sales that are displayed were several days apart. This tells me buyers are simply bidding the going rate and sellers are either waiting for the price to go up, or asking some amount below 25,000 so that they sell the item immediately. I know that vendors pay 500 each for Alchemical Silver. So I post a bid to buy 10 Alchemical Silvers at 250, half what the vendor pays. I immediately get the four from the seller above (who unfortunately has now sold his four Alchemical Silvers at half of what a vendor would pay, but still far more than they were asking). Now I have a bid for six at 250 and the interface updates to show 6 bids, 1573 available, last sale at 250 each. So I post another bid for 10 at 250 and then go back to running missions. Two days later I come back. Now the market show 1573 still available, but the last five completed sales were for 250 each and there are currently 300 bids outstanding. I don't know what those bids are, but I do know they are below 250, which is far below whatever those 1573 sellers are asking. So I take my 14 Alchemical Silvers and I dump them at a vendor for 500.

The double-blind bid with instant matching when asking price was below the offering price but paid at the offering price insured that sellers were never "ripped off" while buyers could always choose to either pay the going rate or leave a bid for a lower price and take their chances. It also meant that when sellers asked more than people were willing to pay, their inventory stayed in the market until someone came along who was willing to meet their asking price (which could easily mean the item never sold). It was, in my opinion, the finest ingame auction system I have ever encountered. It was "done right". It was a truly free market that moved according to the whims of the players and did not require players to be participants in the market unless they absolutely had to have the best items in the game or did not have the patience to fight enemies until they required enough of whatever component it was they were looking for.

Before the hero and villain markets were combined I almost never played the market. There was very little movement on the villain side. I would check the market for bargains and I would often buy items that were selling for less than vendors were paying, but for my own crafting I generally relied on fighting enemies and collecting drops. After the markets were combined I made a ton of INF collecting magic drops from Circle of Thorns and Carnival of Shadows and dropping them on the market for 15 INF each, which meant I collected at whatever price was current (and sometimes far above the most current sale price!). On one or two occasions I would drop something on the market at 15 when the posted price was 250,000 or so, and receive over a million INF because the asking prices were so outrageous that people were bidding that much and still not completing a sale. I have no idea what other sellers were asking, but it must have been insanely high. There were a couple of occasions where I bought rare enhancements off the market at market value, but not many. If I needed an enhancement to complete a set and I could not gather a critical item I would go into the market, place a bid at 80% of the current rate, and then wait for the price to fall. The longest I had to wait was two weeks before the price came back down to a level I was able to pay.

Part of my concern about the ingame market in CoT is the little information that has been revealed has been more along the lines of "we're not it like SoAndSo" rather than, "our market is based on SuchAndSuch assumptions and will function according to SuchAndSuch principles." Until more concrete information has been released I suspect I will continue to doubt the market will work well. I have played in only half a dozen or so games with an active market because markets are almost never included in Alpha/Beta testing phases (which is a major mistake in my opinion). Of those markets I have participated in, only the CoH market worked in a way I would consider fair and equitable. Sellers always received either their asking price or something higher while buyers always had a choice of gathering materials on their own or paying whatever price the sellers were asking.

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The City of Heroes Market was

The City of Heroes Market was the worst of both worlds. It was double blind with enforced blindness piled on top of it.

In order for markets to do their function efficiently, information is required. Last 5 transactions was a woefully inadequate standard of information gathering which aided the Ebil Marketeers in manipulating the markets through low barrier to entry data manipulation about the market's current state of play.


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