The Broken Economy Is Your Fault

[JesterRaiin]

One of more underrated rpgs are SpiderWeb's Software series.
One of them takes place in a world of Avernum, some underground wasteland where refugees from tyrranical empire struggle with harsh environment.
I guess it's economy (or at least most interesting part of it) is covered pretty well.
- Even right before finish of the game enemies are not so well equiped. They still carry sticks and stones, or some bronze weapons - world of Avernum lacks natural metal resources. This also explains shopkeepers insatiated need of every worthless iron dagger - every ounce of metal is somewhat precious.
- Diversity of weapons is rather low. There are only few examples of weaponry, every created from 3-5 natural resources.
- Shopkeepers do not have limitless money, and they adjust their prices every time party sells them larger quantity of same products.

I understand it is not perfect economy, but still it beats pretty every newer and more advanced rpg i know.

 

[CanadianWolverine]

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.

Very well put. There are more character roles possible than just killing machine. The problem is for a game developer to be able to show the player a good time in those other roles. It is a problem I hope is over come because I am certain it is possible to have a good time.

Like take for instance this talk of game world economies not being plausible. If there was more to the economies than kill and loot for a player, it might be conceivably possible to be a bad guy or good guy just based on the effect you have on NPCs livelihoods and the impact that has on their lives. What if the point of gaining wealth in a game was to share it and improve other's lots in their NPC life? Or if you wanted to be the bad guy, help the rich get richer and the poor get even poorer? If you kill the monster who threatens the peasant's life, do they not still live the life of a peasant?

We are so used the model Diablo gave us, it works, that risk / reward cycle is short term fun and finishing off Diablo is meant to be the long term pay off from it. The problem with it is that it is repetitive and soon grows dull even in the light of new rewards. But the same would be said of badly implemented economy as well, no one really wants to grind - variety in the task is needed and should be kept in mind for any economic game for a Role Playing Game.

The possibility of plausible economies in a setting are exciting, I know it is for me anyways. It would be one more step towards a gaming world in which I actually gave a crap about the plight of the NPC, be it enemy, neutral, or friendly.

 

[Dork Angel]

After playing Oblivion where I have several houses full of items it's not worth my while selling and I now decorate my houses with magic items for fun, here are my thought on this.

1. Assuming a stable economy, money is neither created or destroyed, it just moves around. Taking Iron swords as the example, lets assume there is a set amount of them in the world (i.e. they rust/break/get lost at the same rate they are created). Lets take the shops as the repository of spare swords. If the system generates an iron sword on an opponent, it disappears from a random shop (I mean the bandit had to get it from somewhere. If he stole it, the guy he stole it off had to buy a replacement). When you go to sell the sword, it's value depends on the number of swords in that area. If there's a lot, the value is a bit less. If there's not many it's worth a bit more. An individual shopkeeper will have a set limit of stock he will hold. If he's got a full amount, he's not going to buy it at all. "Sorry mate, can't shift them..." If you want to spend your time shifting swords from low value area's to high value area's to make some money, fair enough. That's how it works in real life.

2. Adventurers being charged more than locals for items is fair enough (think of it as a tourist tax). Happens in holiday destinations all the time. As for the free sword to defeat a monster - "But I need it to defeat the dragon that's been terrorising you." "Yeah, well that's what the last 5 adventurers who came through here said and it's still there. I can't afford to provide free swords for every Tom, Dick and Harry. I've got a family to feed..."

3. Much as it pains me to say it, realistic carrying limits a must. In Oblivion I stock up on Feather and Strength potions just so I can carry everything home. It would be better if you were allowed to store a certain amount of stuff on your horse (makes it all the more painful when it gets killed). The danger is that you end up taking the fun out of the game. Do you really want to spend you time heading back and forth from the dungeon until it's empty. Realism vs Fun.

 

[Veylon]

I remember that X-Com: Apocalypse had a system whereby a certain number of new items would be created by manufacturers each month and made available for sale. If you bought them all, the price would go up, and if you did the manufacturing (or raiding) and sold items, the price would plummet. Even high-level alien ray guns get depreciated to the point where the man-hours spent making them cost more than the things were worth.

 

[Vlane]

Great article and I have one story to tell which is related to the "a foe dies I get his stuff" thing.

There was a moment in FF XII where after you fight Gilgamesh he drops one of his swords. What is the first thing you want to do? Go there and pick it up right? Well I tried that and a little windows pops up which says "It's just a legendary sword" and you can't pick it up. Just a legendary sword? Seriously? Fuck that!

Oblivion and Fallout 3 did stuff like that right. You kill an enemy who has better stuff than you and you loot him.

 

[Vlane]

1) Increasing rarer and stronger materials cost more and are harder to farm for

Not really because certain things are raid exclusive like the Orb of the Crusader (I think that's the right name) and everything else you need is really easy to get.

2) There exists a player economy for the items people really care about at all levels. Sure you can easily afford whatever the vendors sell, but it's like buying necessities which are cheap.

The thing is that if you are a new player you can't buy anything from the auction house. I have enough money so I don't care about that but some prices are ridiculous. A good sword for lvl 37 costs 10-300 gold which is a lot when you are new. I got lucky when I started because I found a lot of recipes which I sold for 500 gold each.

 

[FlipC]

Hmm one of the assumptions that seems to be repeating is the need for a universal currency at all. Why not return to the basic barter system? I have a low-quality Chinese Assault Rifle swap you for some 5.56mm clips and a Frag Grenade. You're limited to the current stock of the merchant and your carrying ability; particularly if you add a mild encumbrance value to ammo.

Even if you do accept low/zero weight items such as gemstones just add thieves to the game; sure swap 10 fine swords for 2 precious gems each time and wander around with them. Good luck hanging on to such easily stolen items long enough to get to the next merchant to trade.

 

[Obrien Xp]

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/guild-wars-economy-2-id1505.php

The link goes to an article explaining how arena net have stopped the guild wars economy from spiralling out of control, its pretty interesting if you can be bothered to read it.

The problem the gw economy has is that people can farm expensive items with ease, and anet has to nerf it but not too much or they'll nerf things that don't need it or shouldn't be nerfed. With the only support being the live team, the best thing they could do to help stabalize the economy would be to release the PvP-lovin' update.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

simple solution:

1. limit player carrying capacity
1.a. currency has weight
2. no banks
2.a. stashes disappear

 

[Alkey42]

I don't quite get where this article is going. It starts with an accusation: "is your fault". Which led me to believe that this was going to be a problem/solution essay. But it ends "I probably over-thought this". I would agree. While I am for games making sense when they can, abstraction is a useful tool for making things fun. I feel like the statement you made about the player being forced to have fun or act rationally contradicts the tone you set in some of your other articles.

If I play an RPG and complete a fed ex quest where the exp pushes me into the next level, and now I can use a new flashy spell. Am I not faced with the same supposed dilemma? I can act rational and not use the spell. Since being a delivery boy couldn't of granted me the insight to call down meteors or whatever. Or I can have fun and rain meteors down on the dinosaurs I am required to eliminate for my next quest.

You start off seemly stating that abstractions are bad when applied to economic elements. Then go on to say: hey wouldn't it be funny if we replaced the economic abstractions with a real model, but kept the other abstractions in place. It is an interesting thought, but doesn't jive with the first half of the essay. It also wouldn't be fun. I agree with your point about champions where they seemed to try to make things more nonsensical. But when I want to dungeon crawl I don't want to forecast the imaginary commodities market.

I think acting irrational in game for fun is just fine, and often the whole point.

 

[mattag08]

The solution to any source of cash flow is to have an equal cash drain. A great example would be the GTA games. While you do gain cash from enemies and completely missions, you regularly have to buy ammo, want new threads, or need a new hideout or business to run. All of this means that you'll usually have low amounts of money to start with and only after investing a lot of time and money will you come out a money making machine who rules the world (which is kind of the point of all the GTA games anyway).

A good fantasy setting source/sink relationship would work as follows:

1. Limit monster loot by making a few easy assumptions:
a. Monsters don't have gear worth picking up.
b. Monsters clothing is ruined during battle (I mean longswords and magic do a good number on leather armor and wooden/bronze weapons)
c. Monster's armor/weapons are not sized for average humans, so vendors wouldn't buy them (except as raw materials, probably not worth the player's while).

2. Add sinks to the system by requiring upkeep with the following:
a. Weapon/Armor repair
b. Spell components
c. Player sustenance
d. Player owned buildings
e. Player owned animals (horses? livestock?)

Vendors could then react appropriately since the only items the player's will sell will be high value items scavenged from boss-type humans. Additionally, the treasures that the player would obtain would partially allow him to buy better weaponry/armor but would also go to off-setting the cost of his upkeep. This would limit the explosion of profit that happens in most games. The longer you play the better you get at making money, but the upkeep of your better weapons/armor/buildings/animals will increase to offset your gains requiring you to make more money to continue bringing in the same profits as before.

This leads to a continual power creep, but one that the player must be able to sustain with a continual increase in quest rewards by tackling ever more daunting foes. In fact, you could almost say that it would be a game tempo setter because players of say Oblivion would not be able to rest on their laurels for a month and twiddle their thumbs with the Rest or Wait buttons while they unrealistically manipulated the game. They would have to continue questing in order to survive.

Good examples of how this type of upkeep system sets game tempo are found in Sid Meier's Pirates! and Mount and Blade.

 

[RandV80]

In my opinion the wacky in-game economies are for the most part a product of the inherent design of RPG's (or single player CRPG's to be more specific). You can minimize this by adding a money sink of some sort and creating a good balance, but some of the more creative idea's would be expensive to develop and have probably minimal impact.

One of the biggest factors, is that the large majority of gamers want their PC to become an uber elite bad ass at some point in the game, and game developers design to satisfy this. I'll use the original Balders Gate as a game who's economy works as an example. Nothing fancy was done here, rather through the course of the game you could only reach I think a max of level 7. Using the long sword economy, a standard long sword cost about 20 gold, and a merchant would pay you 1-2 gold for one. A +1 Long sword would cost 200 gold, and a +2 2000 gold. But since you don't become all that powerful in the game, even the +1 long sword is semi-rare. Having a 6 member party it wasn't easy upgrading everyone to enchanted weapons, armour, and jewelery, so much of your party is equipped with standard items. Which is the same as what the bandits/goblins/orcs drop, which combined with limited inventory space, encumbrance, and low resale value means you aren't stripping everything you kill to sell for gold. So while the in-game economy is the same as the rest it doesn't have that same broken feel simply because of the game design

Additional, at the base design level all these games work basically the same way. The game holds a static database of scripts and triggers, and as your character moves around the game world what's in front of you is rendered to screen and the appropriate scripts and triggers are loaded into memory. Once you leave the area they get sent back to memory waiting for your return. And with the improvement of technology all they've really done is expand the 'active' portion of the world around the player. Thanks to playing Oblivion this can give you what I've dubbed "The Truman Show" Syndrome. The developers can build a large and immersive world, but a sneaking suspicion sinks in that it all revolves around you. When you get a virtual game world that revolves around you the player then the in-game economy is going to follow suit. Why would you expecting a dynamic and realistic economy when the game world is anything but dynamic and realistic?

This is one of the things that have me a little disappointed with the current gen. Bringing out the multi-processor technology, I've been anxiously awaiting a more dynamic single player RPG. If you look at a game like TES 2: Daggerfall, the game world is far too big to manually create so they must have used a lot of scripts. And if they can build a game like that with scripts, couldn't they have some sort of world map running in the background, think Civilization or Total War series, which as the pieces move around the in-game scripts and triggers update without any influence from the player? Fallout 3 does this to a very minor extent, in that traveling merchants and patrols have set paths they move around regardless of what the player does. But I'm still waiting to see a game that does this to a full extent. And as for the topic of discussion, this would also create an environment where you could build a more realistic in-game economy.

 

[chickenlord]

i know this would be very difficult and is never going to happen, they could always put a limit to the amount of items, make them break(beyond repair) , making it so people still have to make them, and making items more rare, other then just a low drop rate( an actual shortage of the item)...i know its impossible...but just saying something that might work =P

 

[Necrofudge]

See this is the type of article I can relate to since I have played games like this. In both fallout 3 and oblivion I ended up with more stuff, money, property, etc then I would have ever needed. The game grew boring. To entertain myself I would dump some of my stuff outside and leave it there giving myself only a crappy weapon and some nice clothes. But even that grew boring. Maybe an economy would give a game a whole new aspect. Or maybe it would incorporate the game into schools to be used by accounting classes in high schools and colleges. Who knows? It could happen.

 

[Kmathers]

Okay....I'm not sure if this has been covered already, but I'm a newbie so forgive me

X-Com Apocalypse had one of the best economic models I have even seen, it was obviously taken from the frame of Elite or similar. For those that don't know it, it was a real time-ish (you'll know what I mean if you'd played it) strategy game with heavy RPG element - upgrading equipment, characters, training.

It also had heavy manufacturing elements, basically a lot of what we find in modern RPG's. It was around about the same time as Baldurs Gate. What was amazing is it showed the free market in action, with surprising results.

If you got a load of alien superweapons, they were worth say £2000 (to my US friends - $3000. To my Zimbabwean friends about 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 shillings.) You could unload them, but as you unloaded them, the price would drop. So far, so good. Other companies and corporations would buy them for alien defence. However, so would your enemies. So if you did a fire-sale on 2000 of these alien weapons, you would find that when the enemy tried to storm your base...they would be armed with the alien superweapon you sold them...

This was one of the examples of supply and demand. The best was, if incidents of alien attacks went up, so did the price of guns, as everyone wanted them to defend their buildings!!

So, if they can do this in a relatively simple strategy, could they not imput this model into a RPG. It's not based on individuals, it's based on organisations trading, and the players input can tip the balance of power - imagine the crux of the plot which is created by a player accidentally selling magic items which empower one empire to beat the other. I think that's marvellous, and will make the player think wider than just his own gratification, as fun as that is!

Cheers

 

[Unrulyhandbag]

I don't see what the issue is. I recall Elite doing a pretty convincing manner on my BBC micro at the same time as running awesome graphics (given the machine). All this needs is a list of needed goods to a group/area and a fluctuating required amount for each. Then set the price to change against the amount needed to the amount in stock. Set a 'merchant arrives' timer to alter the in stock amount of a few goods and give the merchant a destination and alter the goods at that location similarly. You could even add in modifiers for world events, seasons, factions, local laws etc. If this sort of thing could be emulated in the background of a game 25 years ago I'm fairly sure it should only be an exercise of thought and balance these days not an issue with such a thing being technically difficult

Oblivion appalled me with it's economy as there was apparently no attempt to make sense of it. One of the quests in the game was about corrupt guards and the peasant you spoke to complained that his months earnings had been taken. It was something pathetic like three gold. In the same town is a horse merchant asking for 1000g for an fairly average horse. Honestly? how is a horse, an animal raised in every city and pretty much necessary for any real travel in the world, worth 27 years of earnings for the average person?

If an emulated trade system was in place with other merchants on the road and reasonable pricing game worlds would be so much more convincing. Even better if the system was flexible and included factions\groups. A quest has you clean out a ban of brigands from the area and as a result the local need for weapons drops.

Sorry for the long post

 

[carpathic]

My problem with the economies in games generally focus on the fact that things in stores say "the +28 sword of firey greatness" cost so much that you can never afford them until you are already getting loot that is 50 times better.

The net result is I never spend any of my money in the stores except on healing potions and the like.

Frustrating really.

 

[Aiberg]

they took our jobs!!!

 

[moress]

So MMO's try to handle this with money sinks... like Diablo's gambling (which obviously worked wonders)... but I wouldn't say that the situation is entirely hopeless.

For example you might spend most of your time fighting beasts and demons, that would be difficult to 'loot' anything useful from. Perhaps it takes some skill to slay a violently thrashing unicorn without ruining said horn...

Another other thought would be to somehow make your cost of combat close to the value of the loot you gain... I imagine bringing the black knight back to full health from 1HP would be rather costly (having to reattach all those limbs as it were).