The Broken Economy Is Your Fault
- Thread starter Shamus Young
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That's one of the things that's always bugged me about NPC merchants of unsavoury character. They'll be in the middle of a wasteland /pirate den /a hut made from the bones of their enemies but they'll happily buy your stuff, hand over a small fortune and then just let you walk away. They'll sometimes even have some sort of villainous scum of a bodyguard with them and he won't do anything either, just pick his nose with a giant sword while you blissfully show your back to him and walk away, pockets jingling with 2 metric tons of gold. If you applied anything like reality to that situation you'd have to kill both of them, get killed yourself and robbed posthumously or beaten to a pulp, robbed and then put into slavery.NeedsABetterName... said:
Frustrating. The shopkeepers had the cash-on-hand cap, and it was far too easy to become a tycoon early on, even if your Charisma was low-ish and you weren't leveling barter much.Grand_Poohbah said:
But it was fun, and there were a few big-ticket items worth saving for. I think a bit more of a money sink in the mid game would have helped a lot.
One thing that annoyed me in Oblivion and Fallout 3 was that when you save a town/person/world from the big big bad the merchants still think its ok to rob you blind.
Hero; Yeah I just slew the dragon, pretty much saved the world, how about a discount on the beer?
Innkeeper; You pay 10g, same as everyone else.
Back in my day, when you saved the world the King would give you a nice parcel of land and marry you off to one of his many daughters. Now just about all you get is hostile indifference.
Hero; Yeah I just slew the dragon, pretty much saved the world, how about a discount on the beer?
Innkeeper; You pay 10g, same as everyone else.
Back in my day, when you saved the world the King would give you a nice parcel of land and marry you off to one of his many daughters. Now just about all you get is hostile indifference.
Buying used items for a pittance and then selling them back to you at ridiculous prices? Gamestop, anyone?
By far the worst in-game economy I have encountered was Mass Effect. I sold 90 percent of the loot I gathered, and there was no big-ticket items that I felt warranted buying, as my gear improved steadily anyway. I don't think I bought more than a couple dozen things through the campaign, and ended with well over a million credits.
Fable 1 put an interesting spin on Supply and Demand economics with variable prices for objects in merchant stock depending on how many of the item he had, and although the system was flawed and very open for exploitation, it was a little more 'realistic'.
Fable 1 put an interesting spin on Supply and Demand economics with variable prices for objects in merchant stock depending on how many of the item he had, and although the system was flawed and very open for exploitation, it was a little more 'realistic'.
The other way to fix a broken economy is to simply make the game about something else. We've all become desensitized to it and just accept it as the norm, but there ARE alternatives to killing and looting for a living. I always find it very odd that in most RPGs shopkeepers are completely willing to buy an endless torrent of obviously stolen arms and miscellaneous crap--why don't they get suspicious after your character has brought in his seventh load of bloodstained broadswords and hole-riddled armor? I know I would have a problem buying goods from somebody if I suspected they had killed the previous owner, stripped their corpse naked, brought the stuff to my establishment, and are now arguing with me for a higher price. I also find it weird that blacksmiths are willing to build up an inventory of 50 or more broadswords when it's clear that my character is the only one who frequents their shop--50 broadswords would probably last them for 20 years!
The problem with building a realistic economy is that realistic economics is not very exciting--it can be interesting, but it does not really go well with fantasy action. Money sinks, like paying taxes, buying food, paying for lodgings, buying clothing, etc, are a definite possibility, but if you use them to the degree that you have to in order to achieve realistic economic control you've basically just created a computer version of everyone's depressing real life. I suppose you could build in some kind of "lifestyle slider," where you could decide how well your character lives (if they tend to splurge on food, clothing, and lodgings, or if they live a minimal and spartan existence--you could even tie it into things like health and illness, kind of like how in the old Oregon Trail game you could decide how big your meals would be and that would affect the frequency of illness in your party!), and the setting you chose would affect how much money was bled away over time. But take a game like Oblivion--its about gods, dragons, and epic heroics! If you follow the core quest your very first adventure takes you through the gates of Hell! Why do you have to mix in mundane day-to-day finances?
Personally, I would like to see more games where you don't have to worry about looting and buying and selling gear and all that. I think it's materialistic and rather sociopathic, and games that don't bother with it usually feel a lot less cluttered, in my opinion. There are plenty of reasons why a person could plausibly not loot a defeated foe--perhaps it is considered intensely dishonorable? Perhaps the world has superstitions about it--I've heard of a lot of cultures where taking things from the dead is horribly bad luck, allowing their spirits to haunt you and torment you. There are cultures where you have some attachment to your equipment as well--warriors the world over often regard their weapons and armor as sacred, and would not think of simply swapping them out with those of the guy they just murdered!
I'm just saying that there are other ways to make an RPG than the whole kill->loot->level->kill more->loot more->level more model. I would like to see some other ways, because I think that model is getting rather boring.
The problem with building a realistic economy is that realistic economics is not very exciting--it can be interesting, but it does not really go well with fantasy action. Money sinks, like paying taxes, buying food, paying for lodgings, buying clothing, etc, are a definite possibility, but if you use them to the degree that you have to in order to achieve realistic economic control you've basically just created a computer version of everyone's depressing real life. I suppose you could build in some kind of "lifestyle slider," where you could decide how well your character lives (if they tend to splurge on food, clothing, and lodgings, or if they live a minimal and spartan existence--you could even tie it into things like health and illness, kind of like how in the old Oregon Trail game you could decide how big your meals would be and that would affect the frequency of illness in your party!), and the setting you chose would affect how much money was bled away over time. But take a game like Oblivion--its about gods, dragons, and epic heroics! If you follow the core quest your very first adventure takes you through the gates of Hell! Why do you have to mix in mundane day-to-day finances?
Personally, I would like to see more games where you don't have to worry about looting and buying and selling gear and all that. I think it's materialistic and rather sociopathic, and games that don't bother with it usually feel a lot less cluttered, in my opinion. There are plenty of reasons why a person could plausibly not loot a defeated foe--perhaps it is considered intensely dishonorable? Perhaps the world has superstitions about it--I've heard of a lot of cultures where taking things from the dead is horribly bad luck, allowing their spirits to haunt you and torment you. There are cultures where you have some attachment to your equipment as well--warriors the world over often regard their weapons and armor as sacred, and would not think of simply swapping them out with those of the guy they just murdered!
I'm just saying that there are other ways to make an RPG than the whole kill->loot->level->kill more->loot more->level more model. I would like to see some other ways, because I think that model is getting rather boring.
You say you have enough money to buy cities, but you never really had the chance to buy cities, do you? You don't really know the correct piece to buy a city, so you may be wrong. Isn't it very possible that the economy is suffering from hyperinflation, so of course items are cheap for you...they are cheap for EVERYONE. Sure you may acquire one million gold pieces...but that'll be enough to only buy you butter.
Alternatively, buying cities would be a nice moneysink indeed.
Alternatively, buying cities would be a nice moneysink indeed.
Or you could just do away with the concept of an in-game economy in the first place, rather than "break" it. Frankly, who needs one, working or otherwise? It's an unsustainable effort to integrate a true economy into a game, and it won't be appreciated by a majority of players. Meanwhile, people who have done any study of economics will tell you that it doesn't work or even make sense thanks to the nature of eternally respawning items and their easy to exploit nature.The_root_of_all_evil said:
If a designer integrates a full economy, they will have taken a lot of effort to only impress one group. That is, the intermediates who know that there is such a thing as an economy and find that there is one cool, yet don't know enough to know the system as it stands is pointless. That group probably isn't very big either. After all, thanks to the unentertaining prospects of economic study, you either learn about economics, or you don't.
This kind of feature is a very special affair. Only certain games demand such focused attention on one mechanic - the idea you have is one example. You could base a whole game around that. But I don't think there's any point in putting such a feature in a larger game. Unappreciated efforts drain time and money from ones that could actually improve a game in the eyes of a wider audience.
I can think of two in game economies that have interesting mechanics/in-game explanations to the functionality of their economies to consider. Both are on completely opposite sides of the spectrum of what they're trying to accomplish, but both do a pretty good job.
1) Fallout Tactics - Here you can loot most of the stuff that enemies used, but the only place you could sell it was at the Brotherhood of Steel compound. I felt like the economy in that game made sense because you were being given "Brotherhood Marks", which in of themselves are arbitrary and only useful to The Brotherhood itself. Presumably, anything you sold to the quartermaster was used to equip Brotherhood initiates, so the weapons and armor had some reason for being purchased. Additionally, the value of each weapon deteriorated as you sold more because the quartermaster could equip everyone with that item or better. You eventually picked up ridiculous numbers of Brotherhood Marks, but I never felt (from an in-game perspective) "unbalanced" because the marks were arbitrary and only important to the vendor you are selling them to. He didn't care if you had lots of marks because the only thing you were going to do with them was buy new stuff from him to blow up more baddies - which provided him with more gear to equip initiates. His goal (and yours) wasn't to hoard wealth - but to provide motivation to you to help him equip his initiates with better gear.
2) Eve Online - As an MMORPG the goal of Eve's economy is completely different then that of a single-player RPG. Eve's player driven economy works for a number of reasons firstly because "gear" (ships and modules) aren't permanent. If your ship blows up in Eve it's gone, and 75% of the modules equipped are gone as well. Hoarding gear in Eve isn't effective because to use it you have to put it in situations where it could be permanently destroyed. This helps items keep relatively steady prices as there's always demand for more items because old ones are being destroyed. Secondly, a big part of the Eve economy is production of the items with raw materials. Since every item can be reprocessed into raw materials even the lowliest item has some residual value and can be sold because a skilled refiner can more effectively reprocess the good into a usable form. This provides an open market for players to make use of those items either by selling them to parties that need them - or reprocessing them into ore.
I think the take-away is that vendors need a reason to buy the gear as much as players need a reason to sell it. What does a general vendor need with 500 iron swords? Sell them to the guards because they need better gear. Once they're all equipped with iron (and will only pay for steel, for example) then take it to the blacksmith who will reprocess the swords into ore. Make the guards pay a decent sum for a useful, finished product while the blacksmith pays only copper because the sword isn't a +10 Obsidian Sword of Awesome Ork-Death - but simply a piece of obsidian ore with some residual magic essence to be processed and sold. At some point you can keep bringing the smith swords to reprocess, but you'd be much more time efficient just being a miner and mining the ore or killing bigger baddies and selling better stuff to people who need it.
Just some food for thought. -
1) Fallout Tactics - Here you can loot most of the stuff that enemies used, but the only place you could sell it was at the Brotherhood of Steel compound. I felt like the economy in that game made sense because you were being given "Brotherhood Marks", which in of themselves are arbitrary and only useful to The Brotherhood itself. Presumably, anything you sold to the quartermaster was used to equip Brotherhood initiates, so the weapons and armor had some reason for being purchased. Additionally, the value of each weapon deteriorated as you sold more because the quartermaster could equip everyone with that item or better. You eventually picked up ridiculous numbers of Brotherhood Marks, but I never felt (from an in-game perspective) "unbalanced" because the marks were arbitrary and only important to the vendor you are selling them to. He didn't care if you had lots of marks because the only thing you were going to do with them was buy new stuff from him to blow up more baddies - which provided him with more gear to equip initiates. His goal (and yours) wasn't to hoard wealth - but to provide motivation to you to help him equip his initiates with better gear.
2) Eve Online - As an MMORPG the goal of Eve's economy is completely different then that of a single-player RPG. Eve's player driven economy works for a number of reasons firstly because "gear" (ships and modules) aren't permanent. If your ship blows up in Eve it's gone, and 75% of the modules equipped are gone as well. Hoarding gear in Eve isn't effective because to use it you have to put it in situations where it could be permanently destroyed. This helps items keep relatively steady prices as there's always demand for more items because old ones are being destroyed. Secondly, a big part of the Eve economy is production of the items with raw materials. Since every item can be reprocessed into raw materials even the lowliest item has some residual value and can be sold because a skilled refiner can more effectively reprocess the good into a usable form. This provides an open market for players to make use of those items either by selling them to parties that need them - or reprocessing them into ore.
I think the take-away is that vendors need a reason to buy the gear as much as players need a reason to sell it. What does a general vendor need with 500 iron swords? Sell them to the guards because they need better gear. Once they're all equipped with iron (and will only pay for steel, for example) then take it to the blacksmith who will reprocess the swords into ore. Make the guards pay a decent sum for a useful, finished product while the blacksmith pays only copper because the sword isn't a +10 Obsidian Sword of Awesome Ork-Death - but simply a piece of obsidian ore with some residual magic essence to be processed and sold. At some point you can keep bringing the smith swords to reprocess, but you'd be much more time efficient just being a miner and mining the ore or killing bigger baddies and selling better stuff to people who need it.
Just some food for thought. -
The same could have been said about AI (Counterstrike), Jiggle Physics(Dead or Alive), Phrase AI(Left 4 Dead), Sun Glare/Breathing Physics (Soulcaliber), AI Directing (Left 4 Dead), but the game was much improved because of it.Silva said:
Eve Online's economy works so well because it was well thought out earlier. Make a simple model to be imported into other games and the amount of time wasted is well worth the additional cheats prevented. I'm sure you can name quite a few games where you can sit outside the vendors mugging to grind cash. Everquest/WoW/Guild Wars all have NPC mugging vendors. Eve/Warhammer doesn't and means you can get onto doing interesting quests without having to mug 5 rats for their tails.
So the point of this article would be to completely dismiss....everything said in this article? Nice.
There was an interesting sounding system in a game called Avatar, originally released in the 70s (which I haven't played). From my understanding, there is only a fixed amount of money in the game world; initially, it is all in the dungeon, in the hands of monsters or in treasure chests. You can't farm the game, because you would end up with all the money that is available. However, as you need to spend money (on levelling, healing, buying items etc.) that is then fed back into the dungeon.
The big flaw with the game was that it is a MUD, and so if a player has a lot of money but is inactive, it tied up part of the economy for everyone else. However, I think this system does have some merit for a single player game.
Dannie's comment, regarding more challenging (but fewer) enemies could be applied too. Let's face it, if the player holds huge amounts of money, the question isn't why bandits are still attacking them when they get culled on a massive scale, but why they aren't providing more of a threat to the player to try and get rich quick.
The big flaw with the game was that it is a MUD, and so if a player has a lot of money but is inactive, it tied up part of the economy for everyone else. However, I think this system does have some merit for a single player game.
Dannie's comment, regarding more challenging (but fewer) enemies could be applied too. Let's face it, if the player holds huge amounts of money, the question isn't why bandits are still attacking them when they get culled on a massive scale, but why they aren't providing more of a threat to the player to try and get rich quick.
actually if I couald actually do what he said in the later part of the article I would laugh my ass off since then all the out of job tradesmen would either become beggers (the really crappy ones from oblivion) or hunt you down since you put them out of the job. but then you'd be evil for killing them since their famililies will die of starvation without a proper income to support them,
I disagree if gaming is ever to evolve it must tackle the issue of broken economy, in fact the economy aspect itself may be a marvelous minigame worth playing. Another thing worth exploring for realism sake and to help spur said economic issue is to build in a degrading worth scale into items or shrinkage (i.e. stolen and broken) items difficult yes but well worth exploring especially in any persistent online game.