Another Economy Thread

Devilskarma - Raging Tide wrote: »

1. That is NOT what we have in the auction gold trader/exchange... on RT it has been completely or near completely barren of gold to buy for at least days that I have noticed. An NPC listing at 4,000,000 coin would guarantee there is gold that can be bought if you manage to get that much coin up somehow.

An NPC listing will also stop people from buying cash shop items and selling them for OVER 4,000,000 coin per gold equivalent...

---Here's an idea... Chests of Coin that have 1,000,000 coin each in them... how much gold are the perfect hammers to open those? Do a little math... you were supposed to actually come out with a profit on those initially... THAT is what was intended originally, and with damn good reason. Sure, that changed up and PWE/ARC decided to just roll with it. But the original intention was not for gold to ever be as high as it already is...

Ideally, an NPC listing should be about 2,500,000 coin per gold. That specific amount is a perfect balancing point for the players and the company, as based on ways to make coin in game... IF they also would get rid of that stupid Auto Cultivation / Botting **** b:scorn

And the reason to implement the 4,000,000 coin NPC listing first, and then drop that listing by 100,000 coin per month, is so you dont destroy the economy. It does have to be done slowly.

Welcome to PWI, the Perfect World learning system of everything NOT to do in order to have an MMORPG with any sort of integrity b:victory

How does PWI make money if gold is an NPC item? Also hammer is bad example simple because many cash shop items were rendered useless by PWI simply giving them away. You can look at geographic map for that example.

Sylvae - Sanctuary wrote: »

This only makes sense if you completely ignore the fact that those books are free for whoever reaches them the first time; the high price was to discourage someone from reaching that point, and then buying books cheaply and selling them for a profit. This was actually the worst example you could have used. Again, I got mine for free. Those books were just tossed in for someone claiming they "NPCed" the books by accident, and want replacements. They are there, just gonna cost a lot.

Mats are not free. Most of the mats have a really low drops rate. They have mats for that purpose in the cash shop. Remember when PWI used to have mat sales? People would merch them because people needed to buy them to upgrade crafting skills. Then came crafting boxes and I haven't seen a mat sale since.

Aubree - Dreamweaver wrote: »

How does PWI make money if gold is an NPC item? Also hammer is bad example simple because many cash shop items were rendered useless by PWI simply giving them away. You can look at geographic map for that example.

If gold can be added to the gold trader listings, as an NPC listing, then people can free to play grind for coin and guarantee that gold will be available to buy in said manner. When you consider the prices involved in this game, in order to be able to even reasonably compete in all events, it must be obvious that there is absolutely no way whatsoever to gain the amount of gold necessary to do so.

Balancing the economy will take killing auto cultivation / botting and implementing said NPC listing at 4 mil, and eventually bringing it down to a level that is still a stretch to achieve from within game... but only just a stretch... 2.5 mil per gold npc listed would be that point. At that point, prices are at least tolerable and not out of control. People that have left the game DO check back in to see if PWI has grown a brain yet. Things like Horizons did bring a lot of old players that left the game back for some amount of time, but that time has passed and the servers are seeing the results compared to 2-3 years ago at this point.

As is, if nothing at all changes as things stand right now... PWI will be closed by next summer (2015), possibly pushed to that following december (2015). Simply (1) killing auto culti and (2) adding this npc listing at 4 mil, and (3) then lowering it to 2.5 mil at 100,000 coin per month, will stabilize and fix the economy with no other changes necessary. Seriously. This alone will will bring other players back (being they will check the forums or pop in to see what direction this game is going), possibly even begin to keep new players rather than lose them to out of control prices... and possibly bring in more new players.

Beyond this, the only thing PWI really would need to do is stop breaking the intended lines of options for content of up and coming players. Examples include but are not limited to things like :

1. Abba and SoT... should have NEVER been revised for higher end game geared players, unless it was an ADDED option. They literally killed "coming of age-to end game" content based on where and when it was originally intended to be played. By doing so, they literally took away another option of "things to do" for players at that point.

2. Nirvana and Casters Nirvana... They should have NEVER created Nation Wars rewards in such a way that would kill another option of things to do for players. Nirvana used to be a major attraction.

3. Sage and Demon skill books placed into a level 100 RB1 Dungeon? I mean really? b:shocked Whoever decided that was a good idea, should also be b:fatb canned. Again, those are items intended to be gotten at about the same time as you even decide to go demon or sage... At level 89, no rb needed... so i can only wonder wtf were those people smoking, the whole chain of people involved in that decision? Cause I damn well want some of that b:dirty

Aubree - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You ignore the fact that people were hot on the trail for mats. And yes with all that PVE going on, people would buzz all about mats sales coming. And yes I'm talking mats for the quests. Everything to do with the quest. Yes I was always offering to craft peoples molds and TT. I think you're being obtuse on purpose.


1 book replacement 100m coins. What do you suppose that cost was pulled out of someone butt? Back a few years ago when I saw that cost, it was amazing. Now it kind of looks normal.

No one bought a book for 100 mil coins, that was my point. But they put it in because there's always someone looking to scam the system, would sell their free book and claim they NPCed it. Well there's an option in there, they can get it that way. Everyone else used the free one.

Hardly being obtuse pointing out the fallacies in your argument for comparing a 100mil book no one bought to current gold price. The only mats that were high were rough fur, and later on colored glue. Most of it was cheap, and it was cheaper buying from players than buying from CS even during 100k -200k gold prices. No one cared about mat sales, because they were still more expensive.

Do you even know what the quests were? It sounds like you're trying to cover the knowledge gap, because it sounds like you don't even know what was entailed for the quest. Which again, would be pointing out how your comparison, if you're using an example you don't even have full knowledge of. There wasn't a huge cost to doing them, again if the person had any knowledge. I got all crafting skills done, with just mats I gained during normal farming. So the only cost would be opportunity cost, and it was nowhere near 100 million. So your example is terrible. That point still sounds.

scruncy wrote: »

here is your solution:

combine coins and gold in boutique.
if you wanna buy something from boutique for 1gold you have to pay 1gold and 1m coins ,
2gold and 2m coins and so on.

Infinate coin sink

Veno pets nooooooo OTL
*as in a reaction, not as in 'no because of ___'*

I'd be concerned about tokens of luck going up even more than they already have.... people need those. There was an idea that they could be sold by an NPC somewhere, that'd probably have to be a thing.
...really don't know if I like that idea, though.

Aubree - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I have no problem gaining gold. I buy my gold at 3,999,900 max. I can't find in your post where PWI makes money giving away NPV gold. Yes giving away because everything in the game is pulled from thin air. Nothing exists until it is generated by the game. With the exception being gold. It's generated by cash.

Arukab - Raging Tide wrote: »

I'll update the first post once an agreement is met about the gold being NPC purchasable.

I, for one, would rather not see that. Yes it would destroy a lot of coin, but it would also make PWE lose a lot of money, and lead to the eventual shut down of servers.

If your method of making coin is botting through their auto-cultivation system, then that will not at all influence how you would make coin in game with out it. Whatever your method is for making in game coin, they would not just be "giving away gold via an npc listing". They would merely be allowing some amount of a reduction or discount on cash shop items, based on time spent in game to make coin, that brings cash shopping more into a realm of reality for real people.

**ADD (to this above point) : By also allowing this, it allows the players to get closer to achieving their "gold target" needed for various items. Being closer to target also tempts players to just spend real $ to just get it over with and get that "shiny". Different people will of course have different will powers to this end, so some will hold out to get it free while others would certainly buckle. That is human nature.

PWI would make money on the basis that population would maintain itself if not increase, most likely a majority of whom all played and left at this point, but this would open a path to start pulling in new players. Increase of population = more potential of that population to want to spend on the game. That potential ultimately = more $ for the company.

You see, there needs to be a balance between heavy cash shoppers and true free to play players in order to have a healthy mmorpg world with integrity. PWI fails miserably to accomplish this. PWI is great as a study of everything not to do so far that I have seen, and they even have accomplished this on the foundation of having a game with such great potential. A healthy mmorpg world with actual integrity would prolong the life of this game, not close it down faster.

It is the current path this game is on, you know the one where populations are decreasing at a ridiculous rate (um, due to the economy and disgustingly pay-to-win part of it), that is going to close the doors of PWI. And sure, given all the titles PWE/ARC has under it's belt and all the idiots that will not learn their lessons in PWI, PWE/ARC will likely maintain many customers in their other titles after PWI is shut down. But here is another point, the way they handle this game will influence their following to other titles. Word of mouth also influences how many new customers they will get to their other titles. Given what looks like both intention to kill this game and intention to milk the everliving **** out of their customers here in PWI, that will dictate their future in the industry at all. How many times will they PWI their customers before the entire company must also close it's own doors?

And please, no one start on the "this game is just old now" routine... there are already mmorpg games past their 15 year anniversaries b:cute

Keep in mind that what would of work does not mean it will work now and what wasn't a problem can now be a problem. A lift in gold cap in time would of bought the game more time to properly address the problem, but the problem have been ignored for too long, and if the problem has reached its maturity, a simple lift in gold cap won't yield the same result anymore.

The reason is because many things have changed, perception have changed, attitudes have changed. If you suddenly lift gold cap now, the previous gold sellers won't suddenly sell the same amount of gold they use too, and what gold is available will be swept up by all players like their life depend on it, to the point where gold will go up higher than they are worth. Even worst is that if the sum of coins (accumulated coins + possible generated coins) is still in large surplus exceeding gold price at a given period of time, then gold will continue to rise until, a) the new gold cap is reached or b) prise rise has consumed all suplus coins in circulation.

Also, What wasn't a problem pre botting can now contribute to a problem or can also become a problem itself. One of the main reason is the accumulated affect over time during a rise of a problem. Bh for most its life, made the game more fun which contributed indirectly to the increase of gold for sell in ah, therefore it wasn't a problem. However, with a surplus coins generated post botting (evident in pve server), they can become a problem now because of the dramatic decrease in the number of gold sellers, among other reasons.

Some form of coin sink might be neccessary now though it wasn't during the early stage of the problem. A neccessary first step is to bring back a new version of dq reward, one that suits the current game. Instead of earning it from mob kill/drop, you buy it with coins. Such have controlls over the surplus coins problem avoiding its impact on pws boutique sale, but increase what players get from their current playing and effort. For example it, it shouldn't hurt pw if player can buy more teles, increase the speed of minor rides, be able to dye items that does not require more than say 7 or 8 random dye, be able to buy charms during a festive event etc.

here is a idea that will make a lot of people made but will fix everything. Wipe everyone Coin and Big Notes make all trades for Gold in AH go Poof !!!!!! Set gold to be at 1 mil max at 1.5. Being that every one would have to start gaining coin again it would drive prices of stuff down. But having a actual fix to the market would help out a ton. Ya ya i know this idea wont suit most people and hell ide be taken a HUGE loss also. But Long Term would be a Great Fix also take away the auto botting. But like i said i know my idea will just make a lot of people mad but instead of thinking of short term of right now think of long term and see how much this would fix stuff. I know many people would leave ( yawn been there good bye ). But as far as fixing stuff this would be the best way i can think of and least work on the staff of pwi

c44102 wrote: »

here is a idea that will make a lot of people made but will fix everything. Wipe everyone Coin and Big Notes make all trades for Gold in AH go Poof !!!!!! Set gold to be at 1 mil max at 1.5. Being that every one would have to start gaining coin again it would drive prices of stuff down. But having a actual fix to the market would help out a ton. Ya ya i know this idea wont suit most people and hell ide be taken a HUGE loss also. But Long Term would be a Great Fix also take away the auto botting. But like i said i know my idea will just make a lot of people mad but instead of thinking of short term of right now think of long term and see how much this would fix stuff. I know many people would leave ( yawn been there good bye ). But as far as fixing stuff this would be the best way i can think of and least work on the staff of pwi

See, even I do not agree with that, and I would have near no losses if your idea was actually implemented. The best thing for them to do is

(1) kill the auto botting cultivation program --> this would stop what can be clearly recognized as the main issue to the economies to begin with. Just think pre-new horizons vs post new horizons expansion, what else changed beside the auto cultivation system being implemented that would have such an economic impact?

(2) set the npc listing at 4 mil for about a month or two --> this would work as a coin sink and PWE/ARC would only temporarily be eating the problem they created in the first place. Now also realize, a great majority of those that benefited from auto cultivation have likely paid through the nose already, besides the very small percent of people that managed to somehow keep truly free to play to get the gears needed to be able to really profit from auto cultivation. Also keep in mind, at 4,000,000 coin per gold that even 1 billion coin only amounts to 250 gold. This would not really last all that long for most people. They could even make sure of that point by introducing pack fashions, mounts and flying gears at 100 gold or even more in the cash shop... and people would BUY that stuff... even if only for a limited time! Hell, even add those 'coin sink items" everyone said in the cash shop... while gold is at 4 mil per... imagine 750 gold for scroll of tome or 1250 gold for crown of madness... This would be more of a coin sink than any npc in game selling these items at coin prices... and people WOULD BUY THEM!

(3) bring the npc listing down by 100,000 coin per month for the 15 month stretch, until the npc listing is then 2,500,000 per gold. The 2,500,000 coin per 1 gold is the perfect point for it to be at because 2,000,000 would be extremely nice to the players (this is based on ways that the majority of people in game make coin verse the prices everything would be at in game). By having the npc listing at just above that real sweet spot for the economy, it would still be a stretch for most players to achieve any useful amount of gold as free to play, but it would be tolerable. That balance between free to play players and heavy cash shoppers would bring this game back to life.

I would disagree on your 1,500,000 per gold myself at this point. The reason I would disagree is 1,500,000 does not match up with what is reasonable for both the players and the company, and the company does need to make operating costs and at least some profits.

To understand where I am coming from, I am actually looking from the perspective of both player and creator whereas mmorpg's are concerned. I personally played paper, pen and dice rpg's since the summer of 1984... I have played online mmorpg's since around 1997... There are clearly major differences in how mmorpg systems can properly work on paper verses how those same systems can work in any real time online mmo type system... I collected information on strategies to create a foundation for an mmorpg system from 1984 till 1998... I was able to take all that information and build a foundation as a framework of strategy categories between 1998 and 2005... I have solved many issues needed to make mmorpg's at this point, including issues PWI itself clearly can not solve (not to say that I have seen other companies solve any of those issues yet either). The only reason I have not finished my own rpg system is another project I began in 2006 at this point, of which will act as a good amount of starter $ to begin getting back to my rpg system work.


The biggest issue with PWI implementing these 3 points is not operating costs or profits. The biggest issue is their being as greedy as they are, which is also extremely clear from my experiences elsewhere. If PWI really wants to make more $ profit above and beyond that, instead of killing their customer base, they should actually get sponsors through advertisements in game. The way they would do that is on every loading screen have random advertisements instead of their company art, they could even use their forums and websites for this purpose. STOP ****ING YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!! b:angry

Devilskarma - Raging Tide wrote: »

See, even I do not agree with that, and I would have near no losses if your idea was actually implemented. The best thing for them to do is

(1) kill the auto botting cultivation program --> this would stop what can be clearly recognized as the main issue to the economies to begin with. Just think pre-new horizons vs post new horizons expansion, what else changed beside the auto cultivation system being implemented that would have such an economic impact?

(2) set the npc listing at 4 mil for about a month or two --> this would work as a coin sink and PWE/ARC would only temporarily be eating the problem they created in the first place. Now also realize, a great majority of those that benefited from auto cultivation have likely paid through the nose already, besides the very small percent of people that managed to somehow keep truly free to play to get the gears needed to be able to really profit from auto cultivation. Also keep in mind, at 4,000,000 coin per gold that even 1 billion coin only amounts to 250 gold. This would not really last all that long for most people. They could even make sure of that point by introducing pack fashions, mounts and flying gears at 100 gold or even more in the cash shop... and people would BUY that stuff... even if only for a limited time! Hell, even add those 'coin sink items" everyone said in the cash shop... while gold is at 4 mil per... imagine 750 gold for scroll of tome or 1250 gold for crown of madness... This would be more of a coin sink than any npc in game selling these items at coin prices... and people WOULD BUY THEM!

(3) bring the npc listing down by 100,000 coin per month for the 15 month stretch, until the npc listing is then 2,500,000 per gold. The 2,500,000 coin per 1 gold is the perfect point for it to be at because 2,000,000 would be extremely nice to the players (this is based on ways that the majority of people in game make coin verse the prices everything would be at in game). By having the npc listing at just above that real sweet spot for the economy, it would still be a stretch for most players to achieve any useful amount of gold as free to play, but it would be tolerable. That balance between free to play players and heavy cash shoppers would bring this game back to life.

I would disagree on your 1,500,000 per gold myself at this point. The reason I would disagree is 1,500,000 does not match up with what is reasonable for both the players and the company, and the company does need to make operating costs and at least some profits.

To understand where I am coming from, I am actually looking from the perspective of both player and creator whereas mmorpg's are concerned. I personally played paper, pen and dice rpg's since the summer of 1984... I have played online mmorpg's since around 1997... There are clearly major differences in how mmorpg systems can properly work on paper verses how those same systems can work in any real time online mmo type system... I collected information on strategies to create a foundation for an mmorpg system from 1984 till 1998... I was able to take all that information and build a foundation as a framework of strategy categories between 1998 and 2005... I have solved many issues needed to make mmorpg's at this point, including issues PWI itself clearly can not solve (not to say that I have seen other companies solve any of those issues yet either). The only reason I have not finished my own rpg system is another project I began in 2006 at this point, of which will act as a good amount of starter $ to begin getting back to my rpg system work.


The biggest issue with PWI implementing these 3 points is not operating costs or profits. The biggest issue is their being as greedy as they are, which is also extremely clear from my experiences elsewhere. If PWI really wants to make more $ profit above and beyond that, instead of killing their customer base, they should actually get sponsors through advertisements in game. The way they would do that is on every loading screen have random advertisements instead of their company art, they could even use their forums and websites for this purpose. STOP ****ING YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!! b:angry

You listed a lot of good ideas and reasoning, But 1 thing i would change is the 4 mil per gold most people can barely keep up with stuff at 3 mil. ( not cointing the ones that nonstop bot ) I really like that idea if they would start at 3 mil and go down. I do see this on both ends also there has to be some kinda give and take. I dont wanna try and add a lot of stuff to make things harder on them. It is both end falts the people who put in the auto bot program and the gamers who constnely use it and the people who are always buying and reselling gold making it higher and higher. I do agree we need some kinda fix making gold more expansive isnt helping people at all its more hurting things.

Devilskarma - Raging Tide wrote: »

"
The reason I said 4 mil is because I'm on RT, and we have had absolutely no gold whatsoever for a while now.

Not true. I look multiple times a day to the goldprices in AH. Yeah, can be boring. However the last few days people are still buying gold for 3,999,990 coins (we can't sell for 4 mil). A few hours back I noticed that 212 gold would be bought for this price*. Now - only 4 hours later - only 9 gold is 'open'. And here is the problem. To bring the economy down for a bit people shouldn't buy. Gold will go down.

Since the goldprice is high more RL money is involved making PWI a pay2play for most people who - in my opinion - are bored anyway. Luckely for me the Jones quest is still available, lol.

Here the actual prices on RT, servertime 01:53

* current prices
Price: Buy -- Amount
3,999,900 -- 9
3,600,000 -- 9
3,502,000 -- 54 <- price set to 3,5 mil or higher!
3,500,000 -- 9
2,000,100 -- 9
2,000,000 -- 50 <- price set to 2 mil or higher!
210,000 -- 1 <- don't mind this one
200,000 -- 50 <- o yeah, nobody would use dollars

Devilskarma - Raging Tide wrote: »

Thats on the "Buying" side... but what about the "Selling" side?... as far as I have seen, it has been empty.

Sell side is not listed because sellers are selling at max cap. So "absolutely no gold for a while now" is completely false. It is being sold at cap, which is what the buyers want to pay for it. Buyer would probably pay more with out a cap and seller could sell higher.

Devilskarma - Raging Tide wrote: »

Thanks, I think... I had no idea about that. But I would have expected to see listings even at cap, which I didnt see. So my bad there.

If buyers had not already put in to buy at cap, you would see sellers selling for that. But since there are so many buying at cap, you won't see the sell listed. Gold is being sold.