Sassify your inner econ geek

by Vladimir Cole { Sep 9th 2006 at 7:09AM }

How do you control inflation in a MMOG economy so that new players feel they've got a chance to catch up to rich, long-time players? How do you enable a healthy secondary market for objects? How do you encourage user-generated crafting and content creation?

Sam Lewis, lead designer of the Cartoon Network MMOG, presented his views on the topic this week at the Austin Games Conference. His goal: educate the audience on the ways in which basic economic theories can help designers create better, healthier MMOGs.

So, out of the bajillion MMOs we saw unveiled at E3 this year, how many do ya reckon were created by designers who paid any attention to basic economic design principles? This is why really good game designers are so rare: they need to be true renaissance (wo)men.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neo @ Sep 9th 2006 8:50AM

I'd like to point out EVE Online's economy as a benchmark in MMOs - mostly player-driven, inflation is not a tremendous worry thanks to careful balancing, and complex beyond my ability to describe it. The Eve Galactic Stock Exchange was set up a few months ago to encourage trading of shares, in recent weeks there have been several successful IPOs by in-game corporations, several mineral indices exist (the Matari Mineral Index and the Phoenix Mineral Index, both in different sectors of the galaxy)... all of this done by players. I am unaware of a more complex or realistic economy within an MMO...

Kiey @ Sep 9th 2006 9:31AM

I recently graduated with an economics degree, and I've actually thought about this, specifically in WoW.

WoW really should have crazy inflation in their currancey because there is essentially an infinite amount of it. When you kill a monster and it drops gold that gold isn't coming from a central source that has a finite amount. As long as you keep killing enemies you'll keep getting gold. Same thing works with all the shop keepers, when you sell something to them they don't have a finite supply of money that decreases when they pay you.

But it is possible to remove money from circulation in the game either by just dropping it or buying something at a shop from an NPC, since essetually money at a shop just simply disappears. So there is an force that can infinitely remove money from the system, but when you get into later points in the game players are only buying items really from other players, and since they are the ones who really put a lot of money into the system, it doesn't balance out.

That being said, a real economic system in an MMO seems not undoable but it does require doing a lot of stuff that could potentially turn off new players. So it isn't really necessary, which I guess is why developers haven't really bothered too much to try and impliment such a system

Psaakyrn @ Sep 9th 2006 9:41AM

I would like to add that current-gen MMOs, in my opinion, are using outdated concepts, expecially in content generation and network distribution. There're still very large difference between Diablo II and conventional MMOs, and I would like to see more

Still in my opinion, there's far too little peer-to-peer content generation capabilities, which could serve as an extension of the SL format, except without the large server costs (the last time I've seen this done was in Furcadia).

I would think that in this point in time, it should be possible to allow player-scripted (with restrictions) objects to exist in a conventional (aka WoW) MMO, as opposed to a sandbox (aka SL) one. Naturally, the scripting would probably involve using pre-made ingame objects/scripts (which would be basically entirely object oriented) to prevent overpowering.

And lastly, I would like to see more 2D MMOs done in the "sidescroller" format, aka Maple Story. 3D isn't that bad, but has it's own share of problems, like larger development time, difficulty in control, and etc.

In the case of economy and catching up, there's several ways of doing it. The easiest would be to merge character templates with conventional levelling (similar to CCGs theme decks), with another being the sidekick feature of CoH. But the best way I believe is to revamp the whole award-over-time idea. One idea I think might work is a customization-over-time method: you slowly adjust your character to suit your playstyle over time by exchanging abilities, which means that in general, older characters are more specialized, but newer characters would still be equal in terms of having capabilities you sacrificed.

Benny @ Sep 9th 2006 10:13AM

Is it supposed to say "Sassify"?

LaughingTarget @ Sep 9th 2006 10:35AM

The main problem is that MMO's lack viable money sinks. Unlike real life, MMO characters never have to worry about eating, paying taxes, paying for shelter (rent or buy), handle transportation costs, lodging on long journeys, etc, etc.

World of Warcraft, especially on the older servers, is particularly bad. On many servers, "green" items and up are becoming wildly inflated. Many long time level 60 players are restarting new characters and instead of working through dungeons, have their high level character buy stuff off the auction house and mail it to the lower level one. Combine this with the emergence of the level 19 PvP clans, and some types of items can sell more than higher class ones at twice the level. A green level 19 item should not sell more than a blue level 40 item, but they do.

High level players are flush with cash. There is simply nothing that can contribute to the removal of cash from the environment. After paying for all of their skills and elite mount, players just pile on the cash.

Something I suggested to Blizzard way back when the game first started, becuase I saw this potential problem (not potenial anymore now that it happened) back before launch, was to include guild and player housing. They could be easily handled by placing an instance zone in each major city that teleports the player to either his personal domicile or guild hall. These structures would require a regular rent, higher depending on the quality of the structure (from a one room shack to a sprawling estate), plus could add additional benefits to characters.

What Blizzard could do to make particularly guild halls and homes attractive is to do two things:

1. Add the addition of trophies. Whenever a player or guild goes into a dungeon of some sort and kills a boss, there should be a chance to drop a trophy from that boss. His head, decorative armor, or in the case of some of the larger besties, the whole darn thing. I am sure a guild would love to have a stuffed Onyxia out in their courtyard. The guild can then buy trophy mounts to place their trophy, and can then show it off to anyone they chose to invite into the hall.

2. Guild halls should be able to have instance portals to any dungeon in the game. For an outlandish fee (500 gold each for the highest level ones and reducing down to 100 gold for stuff like Ragefire Chasm), players can buy instance portals to whatever dungeon they may want to go to, all without having to trek out there. The portal would be added to the monthly upkeep of the guild hall.

All in all, structures would be effective money sinks. Since it is not reasonable to create a fixed money supply in the world, because the coming and going of player characters in that world is not predictable, it needs to be offset by an unlimited method of removing cash, particularly one that is attractive to the bulk of players.

Psaakyrn @ Sep 9th 2006 11:19AM

Actually, I think the whole rare-item system in many (if not all) MMOs doesn't quite work. Take for example: WoW. Nearly all rare items I get are far under my level. (e.g. Getting a rare blue level 19 item when you're level 28-32 DOES NOT HELP).

The guild halls might work in some respect, but it still probably wouldn't support enough money-sinks due to a few reasons:

1) Not all players join guilds. Self explainatory.

2) Hard to balance. There will still be a discrepancy between guilds with long-time gamers (which will get all the fancy stuff and be more than able to afford rent), and guilds with newer ones (which would still fall back into the old-player/new-player problem, only extended to guilds).

No matter how you make of it, unless the whole item/commerce system changes, you WILL still get a bad disrepancy between old and new gamers.

vc @ Sep 9th 2006 11:22AM

Yeah Benny, it is supposed to say "sassify." See Clarence Carter.

Trent @ Sep 9th 2006 11:28AM

Since I too was an econ major many moons ago, I have also found myself thinking about the economy of Guild Wars. It's essentially a market with millions of mercenaries/soldiers (the players), thousands of gold-carrying monsters and a handful of merchants. There are only a few NPC peasants or farmers that are pretty much just there for show. How can such a odd arrangement support itself? Who grows the food for these armies? How do merchants acquire their luxurious and expensive wares?
The problem here is, of course, is that it isn't a real market. You can't really apply neoclassical theory to such an artificial model. Sure, the price of black dye fluctuates and rare weapons can fetch millions on the trading block, but the money comes out of the ether.
Maybe if the developers got rid of all the npc merchants and money-dropping monsters, a true economy would emerge. But who really wants that in a video game? It would just be like normal life. I would spend my work day selling widgets at the widget store in Saint Louis, and I would spend my video game time selling wood planks in Kaineng Center. That wouldn't be very much fun, would it?
And why are monsters always carrying around so much gold? Maybe the monsters have their own merchants that we don't ever see.

Dan @ Sep 14th 2006 8:50AM

I can assure you that it's utterly standard for any MMO designer to study a good deal of the economic theory behind MMOG's, who'd employ one who didn't?

Psaakyrn @ Sep 9th 2006 12:22PM

to #8 Trent

Technically, it's already done, IIRC, but I just can't seem to remember which..

But Animal crossing, if you consider it to be a disjointed MMO, would fit the bill close enough. Sure, about all you do is plant crops, tend to gardens, go fishing, do interior design, and interact with NPCs. But it works, mainly because of the focus of the game itself, not the economy..

But anyway, What's the difference between choping down some logs, or chopping down some enemies curiously named logs? Not much really, in terms of economy, if they both produce the same end result of player getting cash. The trick is, in real life, there's this miney sink called "leasure fees". (ok, so it goes more complicated than that, but I'm a programmer, not an economist. c.c)

I particularly liked the money sink for Diablo II, which works amazingly well, aka the gambling portion. In addition, you've lots of stupidly rare items which stay stupidly rare (or to be more precise, was even stupidly rarer previously) even when you hit max level, giving high level players a source of barter. So in practice, Diablo has both a money and barter system set up, which is actually quite well done, assuming you don't hack. As a bonus, they even have a magic-find system, very rarely implemented by other MMOs due to difficulty in balancing, which still works due to how they set the whole system up. (by limiting the max NPC buyback, making certain items unaffected by MF, etc.)

TeddyN @ Sep 9th 2006 1:18PM

That's so true about the need of designers to be real 'renaissance people'. Earlier, you guys covered a post about the fact that programmers are programmers- not writers. This is why games are so fixated with simple 'good and evil' routines.
Well, programmers also need to be aware of 'the way things work' in the real world. Ever since taking classes in economics, I've always thought of ways in which those principles could be applied to MMO's- in the current situation, most MMO's are almost entirely in the 'state sector'. Services such as flight to different cities are provided abstractly by the programmers; prices are set randomly (or might as well be), and are completly undynamic. That is just one example, as everything in an ideal MMO should be changing and evolving, and manipulated ever so slightly by the player's actions in the world.

I have faith, however, in the idea that as video games become more mainstream, and gamers become spread more evenly over all generations in society, the diversity of the base will be reflected with game-makers who have far more diverse capabilities and knowledge. Once games become a more accepted means for expressing aspects of the world around us, we will see realistic economies, well written stories, and people who treat the mechanics of a game as seriously as they do the mechanics of the real world.

otakucode @ Sep 9th 2006 1:47PM

When you run a virtual world with fake rarity of items, items only limited by probability of drops, your economy will always inflate. It's a simple mathematical rule. You make a drop 1 in a million and over time, the population of that so-called "rare" item will grow.

One possible solution that has never been tried in a grphical MMO, as far as I know, is true item rarity. Some items should be unique. One of a kind. Unless destroyed, they NEVER drop again. Beyond the benefit of stemming inflation, this provides massive benefits to the community. On a given game instance, the person with a unique item will be known. I know because I played a MUD for 6 years, and to this day I can name characters and the equipment that became their persona. It offered a way for players to distinguish themselves.

For such a system to work, limiting the population of each game instance is necessary. Otherwise, players will feel they have no chance at distinguishing themselves. Statistical analysis of large MMO populations and the growth of characters over time would make a determination of how big of a population could reasonably be supported with a given base of limited items.

Virtual economies are a very interesting subject, and I could go on for another 50 pages about them, but as it stands today, the idea of fake rarity is behind most problems in game economies. It also detracts from the atmosphere of the game and hobbles the development of true characters in the virtual world.

Psaakyrn @ Sep 9th 2006 2:23PM

to #11 otakucode

Another way is to make said items equilivant to consumables. Diablo IIs Rune and Runeword system seems to work rather well in this regard. Additionally, certain random item stat combinations are just so rare that they could be considered one-of-a-kind. Granted it's not technically so, but when the drop rate is so low that it would take months for even the first to drop, it might as well be. (see additional example: Doofus eggs)

(Yes, I still think Diablo II is one of the best MMOs of all time other than the hacking issue, so sue me.)

niko donburi @ Sep 11th 2006 6:01PM

How would the economic system of WoW change if the items purchased or found lasted for only a finite amount of time or uses?

Do you think this would also have repercussions on other aspect of gameplay (i.e. guilds)?