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Star Trek Economics and STO
leviathan99
Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
I think it's widely known that different Trek episodes (and different writers) had varying takes on the economics of Star Trek. At times, characters would spend credits and chase rare collectibles and at other times the same characters might brag how they had moved beyond money altogether. In general, the consistent thing seems to be that needs are provided for but wants are still rationed and may require striving or effort.
I've seen proposals in some European countries for a Basic Living Income and Switzerland's recent flirtation with the idea has been dubbed "Star Trek Economics" by supporters and detractors.
The idea is that everyone gets a basic wage. In Switzerland's case, there is no minimum wage and Europeans who are wary about social spending support it because it would make other social spending obsolete.
Now... I'm not trying to start a political topic here but an economic one because I can see this having interesting implications for STO and, in fact, I think some games like DCU Online have had variants of this already.
DCUO's approach is that you get a daily funhouse that functions as a 60 second loot shopping spree that awards currencies and semi-exclusive costume pieces, although you can pay for additional funhouse runs in the cash shop or buy variants of the costumes outright. In effect, it is a baseline living stipend in the game that anyone who logs in can claim. I think it helps that the claiming mechanism is fun but the idea strikes me as a fundamentally Star Trek idea... and I think it drove up player goodwill and activity when we had the Foundry clickers, even though those WERE contrary to design intent ultimately.
So here's the idea: Have a daily that gives a choice between EC, unrefined dilithium, rep marks (maybe not in equal quantities for all kinds and less than is needed for two projects), fleet marks, or a box that is free to open that contains a random lockbox prize EXCLUDING GRAND PRIZE REWARDS OR LOBI but also excluding the absolute least popular stuff.
Now, here's why this need not wreck the economy: if people's interests are stretched in enough different directions, this won't SATISFY everything a player wants. But it supplies them with a baseline so that time spent playing is more attuned to player desires than it is to gameplay needs. Don't like Nukara rep? You can do it slowly this way while spending playtime elsewhere.
I could even see having this vary slightly between factions and I have some more complicated thoughts from there, such as tying this to subscriptions but breaking the $15 sub into three $5 subs (separate faction subbing: Citizen of the Federation, Citizen of the Empire, Citizen of the Republic) with stipend reserved for people who sub all factions... and a lifetime acting as an "all faction subscription" which increases Cryptic's chances for lifetime sales over time. Adding a new faction would increase the value of a lifetime sub. I think this potentially has some accounting benefits for Cryptic as well.
But the basic idea is, well... a basic living income for players.
I've seen proposals in some European countries for a Basic Living Income and Switzerland's recent flirtation with the idea has been dubbed "Star Trek Economics" by supporters and detractors.
The idea is that everyone gets a basic wage. In Switzerland's case, there is no minimum wage and Europeans who are wary about social spending support it because it would make other social spending obsolete.
Now... I'm not trying to start a political topic here but an economic one because I can see this having interesting implications for STO and, in fact, I think some games like DCU Online have had variants of this already.
DCUO's approach is that you get a daily funhouse that functions as a 60 second loot shopping spree that awards currencies and semi-exclusive costume pieces, although you can pay for additional funhouse runs in the cash shop or buy variants of the costumes outright. In effect, it is a baseline living stipend in the game that anyone who logs in can claim. I think it helps that the claiming mechanism is fun but the idea strikes me as a fundamentally Star Trek idea... and I think it drove up player goodwill and activity when we had the Foundry clickers, even though those WERE contrary to design intent ultimately.
So here's the idea: Have a daily that gives a choice between EC, unrefined dilithium, rep marks (maybe not in equal quantities for all kinds and less than is needed for two projects), fleet marks, or a box that is free to open that contains a random lockbox prize EXCLUDING GRAND PRIZE REWARDS OR LOBI but also excluding the absolute least popular stuff.
Now, here's why this need not wreck the economy: if people's interests are stretched in enough different directions, this won't SATISFY everything a player wants. But it supplies them with a baseline so that time spent playing is more attuned to player desires than it is to gameplay needs. Don't like Nukara rep? You can do it slowly this way while spending playtime elsewhere.
I could even see having this vary slightly between factions and I have some more complicated thoughts from there, such as tying this to subscriptions but breaking the $15 sub into three $5 subs (separate faction subbing: Citizen of the Federation, Citizen of the Empire, Citizen of the Republic) with stipend reserved for people who sub all factions... and a lifetime acting as an "all faction subscription" which increases Cryptic's chances for lifetime sales over time. Adding a new faction would increase the value of a lifetime sub. I think this potentially has some accounting benefits for Cryptic as well.
But the basic idea is, well... a basic living income for players.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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What's my position?
That people should know what they're screaming about!
(paraphrased from "The Newsroom)
More that I find the idea of a basic living income an interesting economic concept and think STO would be a good place to try it out thematically.
What?
What?
Okay.
1.) Joker's funhouse doesn't go over cr 56, meaning any gear in there you get is capped to that.
2.) You won't make any money from Joker's fun house, you couldn't make from central city dailies. Cash is just thrown at you in DCUO, to the point that its economy in USPC is horrid.
3.)The amount of MoT you could get from Joker's Fun House is capped out.
STO is one of the fairest F2P games out there. Ever.
1.) There's no gear limit in STO, what you earn is what you keep.
2.) Dilithium is given out through story based quests in Foundries
3.) Energy Credits are thrown at you in this game, tour the galaxy once boom 350k EC then do a junk Foundry mission and there's another 200k EC
DCUO limits the amount of cash f2p and premium characters can have. Then in turn limits the expanded content you can play for free.
DCUO chugs out poor quality DLCs every 3 months to meet quarterly fiscal benchmark.
DCUO doesn't support the PC side of their game, seriously the UI is horrid. Why would you make people use that? I don't even know.
That all being said, Star Trek itself is horribly inconsistent about the existence of money. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkLxFLOW9ew
The following is an example.
Your argument is rather flawed, I'm not sure what you're specifically asking for, Dil, EC everything but Lobi Crystals just get thrown out you in this game, if you just play the game.
2) Assume for a moment that all labor was volunatary. Who do you think is going to volunteer to clean septic tanks? Who is going to volunteer to buy the equipment for it?
3) Value comes from scarcity of resources. Replicators can make a lot of things non-scarce, they cannot make labor non-scarce. That's what robots are for.
Replicator-based economics can only "work" (in the broad sense) if you can use any kind of matter/energy as source material. If you can TRIBBLE in the replicator and have it deconstruct the molecules into energy and then convert the energy into surf-and-turf for dinner, then you will have the ability to eliminate scarcity. You will still need labor to install/repair the replicator, to unplug it when it jams up, etc. If you cant get to the point of crapping into the TRIBBLE, you will still need all the other stuff like water mains, waste disposal, etc., and nobody is doing that for free.
Star Trek is fantasy...
Robots? Like Exocomps?
Replicators can make Exocomps and parts to build more Replicators.
Exocomps can assemble the Replicators and they can make more Exocomps and those make more parts for more Replicators. By the end of the year you could have a whole army of Exocomps populating a Moon, mining its resources, refining them, sending the refined resources to anywhere in the Galaxy.
But back to the question of the OP:
If they give people stuff for nothing it means they are just decreasing the prices for things. Makes no difference.
It would be totally pointless.
Also, STO is not a real life economy, not even close. Its a game.
Meanwhile we get ZEN stuff for nothing whjile with this idea we would have to do something for stuff we get supposedly for free.
In our dear world, prestige and people will to get it for anything is just the kind of stuff that destroys our planet to a nice place to live for our grandchildren. Prestige sure is good for everyone.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I'd be in favor of both raising prices and a daily basic income, for that matter, because it creates flexibility in terms of the activities that we perform without completely undercutting the point of themed currencies if the amount of themed currency needed is higher than what is supplied for free and you can only choose one free item per day.
It's about flexibility in activity (which can be weighted towards new activities by making the free option a higher quantity of old currencies versus a lower quantity of newer currencies) and a motivation to login daily.
Lack of productivity may be a concern in these kinds of systems IRL but that's generally solved by making the Basic Living Income a low enough amount that people are still motivated to work to acquire more. (Although, yes, people will gravitate towards tasks with high intrinsic reward versus tasks with low intrinsic reward. But why do you want to encourage people to do tasks with low intrinsic reward without compensating with high wages?)
In a game? That goes out the window because roleplay and AFKing are the only two tasks with literally no measurable "productivity" associated or reward attached. AFKing has low intrinsic reward anyway and roleplay is beneficial to the game's health but is difficult to measure the value of and so a Basic Living Income promotes it as an activity by promoting people to login without pressuring them towards a specific activity.
I don't mean to be short with my answers, but I'm not seeing the need you're talking about met. Could you elaborate?
Wow pre-EUR memories.... the fluff is old and wise.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
While not as generious as the preposed Swiss verison Canada did try a pilot project in Manitoba were minincome was very much a success. Which I'm sure is why it was ended sadly.
My character Tsin'xing