Post by kalbaern on Feb 7, 2009 10:39:34 GMT -5
This is a public response to a PM I recently recieved here and after long consideration I've decided that it would benefit many if I answered it publicly. The questions that where posed are highlighted in yellow with my comments and answers to both underneath each query or concern.
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I was thinking about the FRC economy and one thing that sort of stuck out was that the folks with money would piss off the staff, who would make it harder to get money, but it only seemed to effect the people who didn't have much to start with. **Money here in general is hard to come by. with a 20% hit if you respawn it'll be harder still. Any of the magic items folk will covet will be expensive and or rare though we'll have about the same things available as on FRC as far as plusses and abilities go.
There were 2 things the rich had in common for the most part. Insane appraise, and most were PC merchants. We'll leave the exploiters for another day. **Eventually I'll add an outdoor market or two to facilitate PC traders. As far as them displaying wares in inns and towns, that will be frowned upon. I'd think most NPC Innkeepers and Town Merchants would be in an uproar about "non tax paying merchants".
In regard to appraise, have you ever thought about lowering the ingame percentage cap for rolls. I believe the standard cap is 30%, that's huge in a low money economy. By lowering the cap, you don't hurt the low appraise folks, but do cut the overall wealth of the folks with exceptionally high appraise. **There's no real way to cap appraise that really works best. Most Merchants will have set maximums they can pay out though. Once we've a decent player base and more than a handful or merchants I will however start adding features to stores that give better pricing based on other qualities. I'll enable flirting with some merchants to get better prices based on Charisma .... and Persuade to haggle for that best deal at times. Many later will have racial preferences, IE the Dwarves will deal better with dwarves and the elves with elves.
On the PC merchant issue, my biggest pet peave was the 10k cost of a license. When they cut back on all the drops, the only people who could afford the licenses were the rich and high levels. It killed the chance for low levels to RP merchant PC's and created even more wealth for the few who could afford it. I wholly agree. other than public displays of wares in towns mainly, there will be few if any restrictions on PC Merchants whether they are Fulltime or Parttime Merchants in their play.
The other issue with PC sales was the Entori rule. When a PC can't sell an item for less than half the retail cost to another PC, it inflates the economy for the people who have the least to spend. It was pretty much a non issue for epics, but most of them already have about everything they can buy for their class.
I realize it was partially to prevent people selling 70k armor to lowbies for 10k, and twinking in general. However, I think it was an over reaction that ended up again putting all the available coin into the hands of same merchants they were attempting to balance the economy over. **No such rulings will be enforced. We will however in some cases take a player(s) aside if we believe that they have been selling way to cheaply only to their buddies as a way to get around Twinking Rules. It should be obvious if they are or are not and would be dealt with as needed, but we won't penalise everyone for just the actions of a few idiots here if we can help it.
*big shrug* I'm not sure what the best answer is for this. From what I've read here it looks like one of the things you're trying to keep under control from the start. I think the biggest point that many of us have stated ad infinitum is that you have to be careful not to screw the folks who are just getting by in any efforts you make to cull the upper end of the economy. **You'll come to find that with lower costs on crafting items in general ... we're actually doing our best to start a thriving PC based economy here. We're always open to input and ideas here as well.
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As a rule ... all most PMs are answered in private. This one I thought had questions that many would like to see answered though. I have not left the senders name attached to it incase they did not want undue attention though.
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I was thinking about the FRC economy and one thing that sort of stuck out was that the folks with money would piss off the staff, who would make it harder to get money, but it only seemed to effect the people who didn't have much to start with. **Money here in general is hard to come by. with a 20% hit if you respawn it'll be harder still. Any of the magic items folk will covet will be expensive and or rare though we'll have about the same things available as on FRC as far as plusses and abilities go.
There were 2 things the rich had in common for the most part. Insane appraise, and most were PC merchants. We'll leave the exploiters for another day. **Eventually I'll add an outdoor market or two to facilitate PC traders. As far as them displaying wares in inns and towns, that will be frowned upon. I'd think most NPC Innkeepers and Town Merchants would be in an uproar about "non tax paying merchants".
In regard to appraise, have you ever thought about lowering the ingame percentage cap for rolls. I believe the standard cap is 30%, that's huge in a low money economy. By lowering the cap, you don't hurt the low appraise folks, but do cut the overall wealth of the folks with exceptionally high appraise. **There's no real way to cap appraise that really works best. Most Merchants will have set maximums they can pay out though. Once we've a decent player base and more than a handful or merchants I will however start adding features to stores that give better pricing based on other qualities. I'll enable flirting with some merchants to get better prices based on Charisma .... and Persuade to haggle for that best deal at times. Many later will have racial preferences, IE the Dwarves will deal better with dwarves and the elves with elves.
On the PC merchant issue, my biggest pet peave was the 10k cost of a license. When they cut back on all the drops, the only people who could afford the licenses were the rich and high levels. It killed the chance for low levels to RP merchant PC's and created even more wealth for the few who could afford it. I wholly agree. other than public displays of wares in towns mainly, there will be few if any restrictions on PC Merchants whether they are Fulltime or Parttime Merchants in their play.
The other issue with PC sales was the Entori rule. When a PC can't sell an item for less than half the retail cost to another PC, it inflates the economy for the people who have the least to spend. It was pretty much a non issue for epics, but most of them already have about everything they can buy for their class.
I realize it was partially to prevent people selling 70k armor to lowbies for 10k, and twinking in general. However, I think it was an over reaction that ended up again putting all the available coin into the hands of same merchants they were attempting to balance the economy over. **No such rulings will be enforced. We will however in some cases take a player(s) aside if we believe that they have been selling way to cheaply only to their buddies as a way to get around Twinking Rules. It should be obvious if they are or are not and would be dealt with as needed, but we won't penalise everyone for just the actions of a few idiots here if we can help it.
*big shrug* I'm not sure what the best answer is for this. From what I've read here it looks like one of the things you're trying to keep under control from the start. I think the biggest point that many of us have stated ad infinitum is that you have to be careful not to screw the folks who are just getting by in any efforts you make to cull the upper end of the economy. **You'll come to find that with lower costs on crafting items in general ... we're actually doing our best to start a thriving PC based economy here. We're always open to input and ideas here as well.
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As a rule ... all most PMs are answered in private. This one I thought had questions that many would like to see answered though. I have not left the senders name attached to it incase they did not want undue attention though.
