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Maken Tosch
OPERATIVES OF THE GOAT
2067
   |
Posted - 2013.04.20 23:12:00 -
[1] - Quote
I'm not gonna lie. This is going to be a complex discussion because of the nature of economics and how confusing it's going to be for players who are coming from other games that don't have their own economy. So let's try to keep this as simple as possible so as to mitigate any confusion among the newbies. Instead of referencing Eve ships as examples, I will reference Dust vehicles for clarity sake.
New Eden, as it stands after 10 years of operation, has an economy that is so in depth that it's really difficult to describe other than to say that it's based on the real-world global market... only without the government regulations.
Basics
To start off, the Eve economy is governed extensively by the laws of supply and demand. This basically means that if the demand for a commodity (example: a tank) is high and the available supply of said commodity is low, then the average price will increase accordingly. If the demand is low and the supply is high, then the price will drop accordingly. The supply will be dependent on the availability of resources needed to produce such a supply (example: mining materials needed to build a tank) while the demand will be dependent on what the buyers intend to achieve with such commodities (example: combat, market manipulation, etc.).
That said, the demand for one commodity can also potentially increase the demand for other commodities that complement it. For example, if a tank is in high demand, then the demand for the turrets and related modules will increase accordingly.
But those commodities have to come from somewhere. Manufacturers usually consider one of two options. Either mine the materials needed to produce those tanks, or buy the needed materials from someone else who has already mined them for you. Yes, even the materials count as commodities.
The availability of these materials is dependent on how much effort the miners put into acquiring them. The more materials mined and made available to the market, the cheaper the price. But then you have to consider how the miners got their equipment. This inevitably leads back to the manufacturer and the miners. It's an endless cycle of production.
Clarity
As you can see, something has to be given up in order to produce these commodities. What is given up is usually material acquired through a player's effort.
This is where things can get sketchy when you introduce AUR items into the market. If a tank is made available on the market that is only produced out of thin air via payment of AUR, then this will undermine the efforts of the manufacturers and miners which is bad for the economy. In Eve, AUR items are only limited to cosmetic things like clothing and monocles which are only produced out of thin air and can later be resold on the open market for ISK. But even then, there is a problem right now with those clothing items. They are indestructible and they never wear out. By that, I mean you don't lose them if your pod gets destroyed of you kept wearing it all year around without a single shower. As a result, when someone buys these items with AUR from the Noble Exchange store, they have essentially added another indestructible commodity to the economy which will only dilute the market with more of such items and will result in prices dropping as demand continues to reduce. The only way to bring the prices back up is if someone buys whole stock piles of them in large enough quantities and basically trashes them (right-click and "trash it") so no one can resell them. Even then, the measure is only temporary because the increase in price will only encourage people to spend AUR to get these items and resell them to take advantage of the price spike and thus result in the price dropping back down again.
In Dust, the suits were where and even the AUR weapons and modules are consumable. This means that if you die in battle with it, you don't get it back... ever. This means that demand will remain at a somewhat level pace. But there is one problem with them. Unlike traditional commodities, you are not asked to give up anything consumable like materials and whatnot to create it. This will only undermine the efforts of the manufacturers and miners even though you will one day be able to sell them for ISK.
BPOs don't really present any significant problem at all for the economy considering that they are no different than the militia level stuff and the ISK variant militia items are not produced in any way by the players. They are just NPC-provided items. Of course, as the buyers of BPO's become veterans and grow wealthy and trained in the years to come, the veterans will decide to ditch the BPOs and sell them to newbies for ISK assuming the newbies are willing to pay a hefty ISK price. This is no problem for CCP because the company will depend on the veterans for recruiting new players and try to maintain some demand for the BPOs.
But in regards to manufacturing and mining, the AUR items do present a major problem for them. Why waste hours of mining and producing if you can just get your credit card and get it instantly? That is the problem AUR items present.
One solution to this is to have each AUR item that can be consumed require some material in return. This way, mining can benefit because materials are needed. But this still leaves out the manufacturer. On top of that, this solution will only create more questions such how much material are we talking here.
The point of this thread is to help CCP understand how to better prepare the Dust economy how to make it work with these AUR items without hurting the industry aspect of the economy which is the very essence or core of the economy. |
Maken Tosch
OPERATIVES OF THE GOAT
2067
|
Posted - 2013.04.20 23:21:00 -
[2] - Quote
Iron Wolf Saber wrote:One little cavat, the clothes are very destructable if put in the cargo bay. It would make sense not to wear clothes in the pod.
Funny, my esquire coat never moved to the cargohold whenever I jumped into the pod. My clothes seem to be water proof. |
Maken Tosch
OPERATIVES OF THE GOAT
2067
|
Posted - 2013.04.20 23:31:00 -
[3] - Quote
Vyzion Eyri wrote:Well if the blueprints begin to work in DUST like they do in EVE, perhaps these AUR BPCs could simply cost nothing (perhaps 5-10AUR, 20AUR for prototype BPCs), but have them require materials too?
Just throwing ideas around; I'd say this is worth some discussion.
Thank you. I also want us to share ideas on this to see how manufacturers can benefit from this system. |
Maken Tosch
OPERATIVES OF THE GOAT
2072
|
Posted - 2013.04.21 09:19:00 -
[4] - Quote
@big mama
Take your rant somewhere else. This is a thread for sharing ideas on how to help merge the aurum items with the economy properly and hopefully give the members of the CPM something to work with as a blueprint for future iterations.
This is a not a thread for rants. Any attempts to derail this thread with rants will result in me asking CCP to lock this thread. |
Maken Tosch
OPERATIVES OF THE GOAT
2074
|
Posted - 2013.04.21 17:38:00 -
[5] - Quote
@Altina
Hulkageddon is a fun pass time. No doubt about it. Thankfully, it can still be hosted and sponsered even if Helicity Boson was banned. Someone else will just pick up the slack.
@Trollsroyce
I see your point there with manufacturing in Dust. Currently, in a first-person-shooter like Dust, manufacturing is only limited to clone production which will be the primary commodity in Dust. And since you won't be able to buy clones with AUR, the market for clones remains safe. I also like the idea of letting the Eve players do the manufacturing and limiting AUR items to just T1 variants but I see a little problem here. We don't want Eve players completely extorting Dust players knowing how Eve players are when it comes to power and greed. One way to solve that problem is to require the Eve players to work with the Dust players through planetary interaction which has already been established since the Tyrannis expansion. Dust mercs provide the protection and management of the facilities in the districts while Eve players provide way of manufacturing with those facilities. I'll let CCP figure out how to make that work.
But overall, we can't ignore the fact that currently the best way to start this off in terms of economics is to possibly require the purchase of AUR to include giving up a certain amount of a specific material so there is some demand for mining. Mining is still something that can be practical in a FPS like Dust since we'll soon be living in districts and have all this open terrain with free time on our hands. |
Maken Tosch
OPERATIVES OF THE GOAT
2081
|
Posted - 2013.04.21 21:49:00 -
[6] - Quote
Altina McAlterson wrote:The price of AUR items will be constant so I don't see how manufacturing them can work. What if the cost of materials gets too high for anyone to want to mess with it?
Not to mention you can't sell anything for AUR so how do you get paid? Iron Wolf Saber wrote:
PC will allow AUR items to drop provided they're not blueprints.
DId you mean so long as they are not BPO's? Or are you talking about something else?
I see what you mean. I completely forgot about that. That just complicates things now. |
Maken Tosch
OPERATIVES OF THE GOAT
2081
|
Posted - 2013.04.21 22:28:00 -
[7] - Quote
Altina McAlterson wrote:And if AUR items are produced by players what if there isn't enough supply to meet demand? Would that mean players paying real money can't buy the gear? Or what about if demand outpaces supply? Do you pay the manufacturer before the sale or after? If it's before that just becomes a free money fountain.
In current New Eden economics, you cannot buy what doesn't exist. The item has to be readily available and the buyer has to have the money at the moment of purchase. Otherwise, you'll just have to wait until supply is restocked.
Miners can take advantage of this by selling the special materials to NPC manufacturing corps that will consume the materials and pay the miner in return at a set rate. But then that only opens another problem as made apparent during the famous insurance exploit in Eve where if the value of the ship is less than the insurance payout, then all the buyer needs to do is buy the ship, insure it, and then blow it up to collect on the insurance. This happened when the price of the minerals dropped to levels low enough. CCP's counter to this was to allow the insurance payout to be based on the price of the base minerals needed for manufacturing which is then adjusted at certain intervals so that insurance payouts will never be higher than the value of the ship.
CCP can probably take a page from this lesson and apply it here as well. But regardless of how the materials are paid for, that means ISK is generated into the economy rather than transferred from one player to another. And that is another thing to remember about New Eden economics. There are ISK faucets (PvE mission running, killing NPC pirates, etc.) which pump ISK into the economy and there are ISK sinks (taxes, production fees, broker fees, etc.) that draw ISK out of the economy by destroying it. Ideally, it's best to keep it in a way that allows ISK to be transferred from one player to the next. That way, ISK is neither generated nor destroyed. Just transferred from player to player and this is what helps keep the economy balanced.
But by being paid by an NPC corp for the minerals, ISK is consequently pumped into the economy and that can cause problems. If you have too much ISK in the economy, the value of the currency lowers and items become more expensive. If you have too little ISK in the economy, the value of the currency increases while the selling price of the items decreases. You have to find a perfect balance between the two. This is where player-to-player transactions help out by keeping the currency circulating as long as possible before it is destroyed while also mitigating new ISK from being generated out of nowhere.
This is another part of the AUR economics that has me concerned. Regardless if it's Eve players or Dust players that mine the materials, the ISK is only coming solely from NPC sources. |
Maken Tosch
OPERATIVES OF THE GOAT
2086
|
Posted - 2013.04.22 13:24:00 -
[8] - Quote
Rusticuls wrote:But If CCP has a market of items that they sell for ISK (without mining) aren't they just destroying that ISK? It's not like CCP is buying up gear and hoarding it. CCP can help regulate market forces by selling gear themselves and keep ISK quantities at sustainable levels preventing inflation, right? The Corp production market can then complete with CCP by producing goods (hopefully similar gear but varied in color/design/etc) and trying to sell them for lower than what CCP offers. The Secondary Market can be used for players getting some value out of gear they dont want or need and helps prevent Corps/CCP from selling crummy gear at inflated prices.
This generates two major problems.
If an NPC corp sells items at a set rate then that creates a price ceiling in which players can't sell commodities at a price that is higher than what the NPC sells because then buyers will just focus on buying the goods from the NPC instead when the prices go higher for player-generated commodities. Then there is the impact this will have on industry because if the price of player-generate commodities goes up as a result of increased mineral prices, then the buyers can simply purchase NPC-generated commodities, reprocess (break) them down to the base minerals and sell the minerals for a profit thus undercutting the miners big time.
I guess there is no way to keep AUR items balanced with the economy outside the realm of cosmetics. It's just so complicated now that I think about it. |
Maken Tosch
OPERATIVES OF THE GOAT
2098
|
Posted - 2013.04.23 18:30:00 -
[9] - Quote
@The Robot Devil
So let me get this straight. Please correct me if I misunderstood you. Let me see if I can reiterate what you said in simple steps.
1. Player A wants to get an AUR Complex Damage Mod.
2. Player A goes to primary NPC market to buy one.
3. NPC corp asks player to pay 15 AUR along with 'X' amount of certain materials such as an Enhanced Complex Damage Mod (ISK variant produced by player B) and an Enhanced CPU Upgrade Mod (ISK variant produced by player C).
4. Player A goes to the secondary player market and buys said required items from players B and C.
5. Player A takes the purchased items to NPC corp and submits the materials for production.
6. Depending on player A's standings and invention skills, there is a chance that production of said AUR item will fail or succeed. <------See note
7. If failed, all that will be lost is the materials. If successful, player A will be given the option to pay AUR for the item.
8. If bought, player A can choose to either use the item or sell it in the secondary market for ISK at a rate determined by player-driven market forces thus eliminating the rumors of P2W.
Is this what you meant?
NOTE: I added #6 because it is based on the concept of invention in Eve Online where players who invent things have certain chances of success or failure depending on their standings with the NPC factory and their invention skills. Additionally, Eve Online players can significantly increase their chances for success by investing in their own private production facility. In the case of Dust, surface infrastructures in districts. |
Maken Tosch
OPERATIVES OF THE GOAT
2099
|
Posted - 2013.04.23 19:24:00 -
[10] - Quote
Altina McAlterson wrote:The Robot Devil wrote:The static price would only be in aur. The merc buys the damage mod and CPU upgrade and then pays an aur fee to produce the final product. The prices of the modules could change and the aur service charge per item produced would stay the same. The merc then owns the module and can sell it if they want to for ISK. Still won't work. Because the cost of the basic materials will change along with the ISK value of the created AUR item but the AUR cost remains the same then you could have some 30 AUR items that sell for 100,000 ISK and some 30 AUR items that sell for 500,000 ISK. Or 70 AUR items that sell for 2,000 ISK. You'd constantly have massive surpluses and shortages.
Eve Online's PLEX is already like that. You pay $15 for a PLEX that you can buy directly from CCP and sell it for ISK on the market. The ISK price will depend on the available supply of PLEX in the secondary player market. AUR is after all representing real-world currency.
So far, the PLEX system has been successful. You can even buy Fanfest tickets with it, donate it for causes, or pay your subscription with it.
This way, players will be given two options that in no way undercut the miners or manufacturers. This means the core of the market is safe and benefits everyone including CCP. |
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