A theory on the in game economy.

[metsie]

I dont like the idea of untradeable magna :P

Let's say you have 1 lvl 5 archer/barb/knight and you dont have any boss drops to sell and no good drops from normal mobs.

So what can you do? If you start to grind and hope that you drop something good that you can sell, that is just fail. I bet you have to spend more to repairs than what you can get from items IF you are so super lucky that you can drop anything useful. :I

Or you can buy luckyboxes with real money and propably get something crappy junk, but atleast you could sell it for some money.

So if mags cant be traded and there would be this black market thing, NGD would have to lower arrow/repair cost a lot , make drop rate way better and alter lucky boxes so that they dont drop useless items.

[Gawyn_Trakkand]

Originally Posted by metsie

I dont like the idea of untradeable magna :P

Let's say you have 1 lvl 5 archer/barb/knight and you dont have any boss drops to sell and no good drops from normal mobs.

So what can you do? If you start to grind and hope that you drop something good that you can sell, that is just fail. I bet you have to spend more to repairs than what you can get from items IF you are so super lucky that you can drop anything useful. :I

Or you can buy luckyboxes with real money and propably get something crappy junk, but atleast you could sell it for some money.

So if mags cant be traded and there would be this black market thing, NGD would have to lower arrow/repair cost a lot , make drop rate way better and alter lucky boxes so that they dont drop useless items.

well not necessarily, Gold will have a higher value as you can get better items with it than what you can now so selling crappy drops and loot will get you gold too so then you can spend that in the black market Magna makes trading magna only and some of us dont have the gold or items to buy magna or trade for it. As with Lucky boxes someone will usually want what you consider crap.

[mr_scsi]

Originally Posted by Gawyn_Trakkand

Second and prolly the biggest OMG U NOOB WUT R U THINKING, make magna UNTRADABLE permanently. i know some of you will think wtf.... but magna has taken over the economy and destroyed golds worth.
.....
I know that it'll be hard to collect the magna required for a weapon BUT i've always said that Magna weapons should be UBER.

I'm not sure I like the idea of not being able to trade magna, but I agree with you that it has destroyed the gold economy.

IF magna were to become untradeable, the mag weapons need to get WAY better than they currently are. As they stand now, mag weapons really aren't worth the 5k mags.

and an aside to NDG, WTF with the rocks? Is that really necessary!!?

EDIT:

Also mags would have to go into an account wide inventory. So no matter which char you picked them up with, you could use them on any chars you have.

[Klutu]

Making Magnanite untradeable yet.

Selling to merchants would offer 1-3k gold per piece

All Bosses can drop 1-5 magnanite

raise the spawning of Rocks up 10-15%

offer 1-3 magnanite on some quests (all realms gaining a equal amount)

Creating 1 quests per day (Side Quests) too obtain magnanite. Collecting Resourses for a npc would reward you with 1-3 pieces of magnanite maybe some aswell (5 thorkul meat - 5 magnanite - 15 snake skins = 3 Magnanite ect..

This way players can still have magnanite be used as a way to gain gold. would add some quests when the Wz's quiet gives a reason too keep my large amount of thorkul meat

NGD can setup 20-25 Quests and just rotate them daily.


just a thought

[backe]

/me takes a deep breath...

Okay. Here's the problem.

Gold devaluation has been around since the beginning of the game, and it has essentially been written into the game. The reason is that there are far too many sources of wealth and not near enough sinks. This issue has become more obvious recently due to the increase in level up requirements (higher XP curve) and the implementation of magna. While these changes are not the direct cause of currency devaluation, it does increase its visibility. The real issue here, is there is no market stability whatsoever, and adding currency divisions (cents) and a market to trade (which already exists to a point, its just more of a social development rather than a coded one) will not solve the problem.

But lets actually break the problem down on both sides.

In Regnum there are quite a few sources of wealth, be it gold found directly from mobs, quests, and fort captures, or indirectly, such as gold acquired from the sale of drops. Whereas, the only real use for gold is repairs, fort upgrades, clan formation fees, and items (which could easily be debated). Without a reasonable way to remove wealth from the economy, prices become inflated and the currency becomes devalued.

I believe we are at a point at which gold has been stockpiled to such a degree by all players that it has become essentially worthless, which is why players have taken to using magna as the primary currency in Regnum's economy. Magna, is a perfect example of how Regnum's economy "should" have been designed. It is easily portable, its availability is easily monitored and can be "silently" changed by NGD via its spawn rate, it requires no skill or character level to find, and it has a GIANT sink in the price tag on magna weapons.

Solutions:

Now I know a lot of people are going to want to crucify me for this, but don't stop reading before I can explain myself.

Repair rates/arrow cost. Currently, we need them to be excessive. Its unfair, absurd, and makes no rational sense whatsoever, but I repeat, we need repairs/arrows to be expensive. If NGD did decide to reduce repair/arrow cost and increase the percent of return on items sold to NPC's the results would be catastrophic. In a very short period of time, hyperinflation would crash the entire gold-driven portion of Regnum's economy.

A better solution than the current taxation (of primarily archers and warriors) would be the addition of diverse gold sinks. Some ideas in the past that I have heard include;

• Minor XP scrolls (say 10-25% boost)
• Single day mounts (this would not only be a good gold sink, but would also even the playing field between premium and free users)
• An item market for players with a sales tax
• Clan operation taxes (perhaps based on the number of players within a clan)
• Minor character customization (hair/face changes with only the default character creation styles)
• War banners and dueling banners (which I think should be available to all players, not just premium)
• More weapon/armor customizations (also expanded premium options so xim sales don't plummet)
• Low level lucky boxes with IMMENSE price tags

That's all I can think of at the moment. I will say though, while the economy of Regnum is very undeveloped and needs a lot of work, gameplay should be a much higher priority than this issue.

[Gytha_Ogg]

Originally Posted by backe

I believe we are at a point at which gold has been stockpiled to such a degree by all players that it has become essentially worthless, which is why players have taken to using magna as the primary currency in Regnum's economy.

To some extent, yes, but I still hear from warriors, and especially archers, who are hurting for gold for repairs and arrows, or who level mages to build up and transfer gold. Also, new players will not yet have a stockpile.

Originally Posted by backe

Repair rates/arrow cost. Currently, we need them to be excessive. Its unfair, absurd, and makes no rational sense whatsoever, but I repeat, we need repairs/arrows to be expensive. If NGD did decide to reduce repair/arrow cost and increase the percent of return on items sold to NPC's the results would be catastrophic. In a very short period of time, hyperinflation would crash the entire gold-driven portion of Regnum's economy.

An easy way to balance would be to reduce arrow cost (borne only by archers) and increase repair cost for mages to bring them in line with warrior and archer repair costs. If repair costs for all classes were equitable, then they could be tweaked up and down as needed to nudge the economy.

I mean, come on, anyone can patch knight armor with a bit of Bondo, but it takes real skill to re-phoenix-feather a staff, or embroider "Wizzard" on a mage's hat.

I like some of the ideas for gold sinks, but NGD has to be careful not to make them so attractive or easily available that they cut into sales of Xim items.

'Junior' versions of some items could work, as you mention, 10-25% experiennce boosts, or single-day mounts, maybe some items that complement Xim items, like, if you have two +3 gems from gem boxes, you can spend gold on a Mr. Fusion that makes them into one +5 gem (yes, some of the value is converted to energy - that's entropy for you!), or maybe a Xim horse's saddle eventually needs replacement, which costs gold. Solid-color new haircuts for Xim, but you can get highlights for them for gold, but they eventually wash out. Kibble for your pets (spectral kibble for zarkits).

Anyway, lots of possibilities, but yeah, gameplay first.

[Gideon_Slack]

Originally Posted by backe

[...]


The real issue here, is there is no market stability whatsoever, and adding currency divisions (cents) and a market to trade (which already exists to a point, its just more of a social development rather than a coded one) will not solve the problem.

[...]

I'm no Milton Friedman, but don't markets need efficiency and knowledge among consumers to function?

Without an auction house, the Regnum economy is inefficient (relies on spamming realm chat), and consumers have a difficult time comparing costs or stats of what is being offered for sale.

With a persistent auction house, many more people would participate in the Regnum economy. The auction house could even be cross-server (like they do in Runescape).

Now, this wouldn't remove gold from the economy, but it should spread the wealth around a bit more.

Also, another goldsink: fort upgrades. A little social engineering could make people spend more here. Currently no one knows if you've given money to help defend the realm. If there was a leaderboard or some other public acknowledgement of upgrading forts, we might see a lot more people spend their gold here.

[tjanex]

Maybe you have to make a poll than we can see who want that idea and who not...

[Mr_Egg]

In terms of the gold/silver/copper.... I'd say that's kinda unnecessary, as it just adds complication to it, when it could be kept simple as gold.

However, Gawyn's other two ideas (and lots following them) I agree with. If we give gold more of a value in terms of items that can be bought, and disable magna trades permanently (although maybe passing between chars in the stash would be allowed?), then the economy might balance itself out. Although, if gold becomes the ultimate currency, would that make mages slightly more powerful than other classes?

A multi-realm auction house is an idea I like a lot though, but to me, the only logical place to put it is central island, which would require it to be open all year long, although maybe it could be made so you can only get back to your own realm from there, to stop zergs short-cutting across it.

It could be set up vaguely like a merchant-type thing, where you give an NPC your items, set a minimum value of gold for each one and a time limit (maybe standard 24 hours), and then the item cannot be bought for a bid lower than the minimum value, and the highest bidder wins. Players can then come back after the set time and talk to the NPC again to receive any gold from auctions or items that they bid on and won.

And I know that this opens it up to being spammed full with items that would take ages to sort through crappy items with bonuses like +2% cold resist, but to combat this, maybe separate it so that mages, warriors and archers each have an NPC for weapons and armour, so people can find what they're looking for more easily. Oh, and another way to stop the items being over-spammed could be to pay an initial fee to float the item on the market..... maybe 10k or so per item.

On the note of giving gold more value... how about being able to buy xim with enough gold? I know this would probably never be implemented because it takes away a little of NGD's income, but if it was 100k gold for 10 xim or something, that'd be 24milllion(is my maths right?) for a light horse, and might get people motivated to get collecting more gold.... and actually, now I think about it, might get new buyers hooked on xim items, and so could work to NGD's advantage.


I'll shut up now because I feel like I'm rambling about nothing all of a sudden

[Gawyn_Trakkand]

Originally Posted by Mr_Egg

And I know that this opens it up to being spammed full with items that would take ages to sort through crappy items with bonuses like +2% cold resist, but to combat this, maybe seperate it so that mages, warriors and archers each have an NPC for weapons and armour, so people can find what they're looking for more easily. Oh, and another way to stop the items being over-spammed could be to pay an initial fee to float the item on the market..... maybe 10k or so per item.

I was thinking maybe a NPC in each realms capitol in the taverns, and then a filter system on the actual menu so you can find exactly what you are looking for.