SENSUAL UPDATE: I added a new section "Why COTH Needs an Economy". Its the new part 3, please give it a read if you have the time!
WARNING AND A HALF: This post is long! Longer than most of my posts! If you're the type of person who skims through stuff, DON'T. READ EVERYTHING. This is a serious topic (seriously serious!) and requires lots of thought and attention! Though, I do aplogize for my...discursive nature in explaining things.
Hello everywun~!
I dunno where to begin with this. Honestly. Economics is one of the most complex, challenging subjects you can engage in. If you were to pose 1 question to a room of 100 Economists, you would get 100 different answers. It can go in all sorts of directions, and no one can really predict what'll happen until it happens.
That being said, having an economy would strengthen RP interaction. At least in my opinion! Others shared this opinion too, which is why the whole in-game currency was implemented. And I really liked it! The idea of collecting wealth and money was hella awesome. But, unfortunately, it didn't seem to go anywhere.
Does that mean we should scrap it completely?
Sadly, many people think this. And while I can understand their reasons for it, I'd say we shouldn't...yet.
So! What do I want to do with this thread?
First off, I'd like to propose my thesis on why the current state of COTH has no need for an economic function. But, before I do that, I have to address the nature and function of an economy.
1. Why an Economy Exists.
Simply put, an economy exists because the world sucks. We live in a world where time, space, and resources are all limited. Because of this, human society continually runs into the problem of scarcity. People want and need more stuff and more space to enjoy their stuff in. But, they only have so much time to do it. If such things were unlimited, we would have no need for an economy.
So, we understand than an economy exists to manage resource scarcity. While no system has been able to perfectly manage the needs of the entire human race, we've evolved towards a pretty nifty system dominated by three basic functions. Price, Supply and Demand.
I'm sure we're all familiar with the functions of supply and demand. Supply goes up, demand goes down. Demand goes up, supply goes down. And price rises and falls depending on this. What many people don't understand is that these functions eventually meet what's known as an equilibrium, which determines how the society is utilizing that good. Equilibrium is defined when supply and demand are equal to one another, where upon a standardized price is determined.
So. Lets say the society demands 10 apples. The Apple Industry produces an output to meet that demand of 10. The quantity they supply onto the market is 10; they have no reason to supply more, because doing so would drive down the price of apples (cutting into their profits), and create a waste of however many more that the society isn't consuming. And lets say that at this equilibrium, the price is at $2 per apple. If a sudden drought were to wreck havoc on the apple trees, cutting the supply down to 5, the demand would shift dramatically. Society wants 10 apples, but only has access to 5 . This would cause the price to go up, continually increasing until demand drops. The general society likes having to pay $2 per apple, but with the sudden drop in supply, the demand for it will cause the price to rise and rise. Lets say it gets to $4 per apple. Eventually, some people will go "Ya know what? Apples ain't all that great. I'ma eat banana's, cause they're cheaper." While the real apple-fanatics will continue nomming away at $4 per apple. Thus, the demand for apples steadily decreases as more people switch to out to a substitute goods (bananas, papayas, etc), until the market reaches a new equilibrium.
In this way, society manages resource scarcity and inefficiency. With price, demand, and supply, the distribution of goods is managed in an as-close-to-efficient way it can.
2. Why COTH has no economy.
What makes an economy possible is the scarcity of the wants and needs of a society. Most of the time, these goods have universal value to all members of society. "Food", for example, is an industry with universal appeal; everyone's gotta eat something. You may not like apples, or bananas, or fish or corn--but you're gonna eventually partake in the Food market because its a biological need. People generally tend to want and need the same stuff. Of course, our tastes are all subjective enough to have the market give us a choice of differentiated goods (I.E - All them many flavors of soda), but we're still united in wanting similar stuff. Our demands, while different, still converge at the same points. Chances are, we're all going to make purchases of "Food" "Clothes" "Furniture" etc.
Usually, what differentiates products for us is the quality, price, and our own circumstances. You might really, really want that Gucci suit, think its totally stylin' and awesome, but if you can't afford it, you're most likely going to grab whatevers on the bargain rack in Wal-Mart. You might also be used to chowing down on ramen every night, but the moment you get that big promotion with the increased pay? Time to order up some sushi, awww yeah!
COTH, however, operates in a realm beyond basic demand. The way we assign value to things on COTH is completely esoteric, subjective, and...odd. Because we're primarily RP'rs, our wants and needs vary dramatically between whatever kind of narrative we're trying to create. So, while the general society may dictate that [Gucci Suit] > [Thrift Store Rags], the individual player will see it differently depending on what character they're trying to create. In an RP economy, [Thrift Store Rags] may attain more value than[Gucci Suit], if there are more characters demanding it.
Because of this, the 'demand' for the COTH playerbase is nearly impossible to determine. Our demands operate beyond the game design Blizzard set up. To copy-paste-re-iterate what I said in Rigley's post;
And with that sort of demand, one that Blizzard did not anticipate their players having, the means to produce those goods. Which leads me to my next point...
3. Why COTH needs an economy.
Many players are left asking the question, "With all the work and effort that's needed to make an economy work, why bother having one at all? Won't it get in the way of the RP?"
And to that, I say it can, should we put too much emphasis on determining the OOC mechanics of the process as a stand-alone mechanic, instead of focusing on how it can enhance the role-playing experience. Other servers have fallen into this rut, whereupon the mechanical nature of their economy overwhelmed the purpose of role playing.
Having said that, I argue that the presence of an in-game economy could very well enhance the role playing experience, rather than consuming it. However, we would have to be very careful in how we approach this problem.
Possible ways a viable economy could enhance the RP experience are;
A - An Economy Creates Conflict.
For many years, I've heard people complain about how COTH doesn't have enough activity beyond planned events. In the early days, people used to complain about 'Tea Time' RP, where players would sit in a tavern all day engaging in light social activity. For the 'Modern' COTH, the problem lies in OOC idling. While not everyone shares the same opinion on Hyjal (It remains one of the most divisive topics on COTH, in my opinion), there seems to be a general consensus that there isn't enough 'Conflict' or 'Activity' in the RP realm. People idle because, quite simply, they don't see any reason to get involved unless someone create an event or one of their friends logs on to RP.
With the presence of an economy, however, conflict begins to arise and develop as a natural matter of course. Most wars, nearly all of them, have some form of economic root behind them. Kingdom Y needs more space and resources to expand itself, currently controlled by Kingdom X. When Kingdom Y and X cannot agree on how to manage this need through diplomatic reasoning, one declares war on the other in order to take it by force.
In this way, having an actual economy would encourage players, guilds, and even entire factions to conflict with one another. Players who may not interact with one another before would now have a reason to do so, leading to more stories, plot lines, and conflict. As an added bonus, a political element can evolve from the collaboration and competition that the economy provides; players would have to form alliances, break alliances, at various different points, in order to facilitate their economic needs.
And, if I may flaunt my Marxist beliefs for awhile, the conflict doesn't have to be just limited to warfare. Class struggles and inequality are also a direct result of the economy; exploitation is a matter of course in nearly all Capitalistic endeavors. This sort of exploitation and disparity can enhance the narrative of the role player. After a few months of working in the factory, getting meager wages for your effort in creating goods that the owner reaps all the profit from, wouldn't you get a little fed up with it? Wouldn't you protest it, raise the issue with the rest of society, and (should it come down to it) end up rising against the injustice?
Or would it cause your character to seek other methods of income that aren't exactly...noble? Assassins, brigands, and slavers all ring to mind. Interesting venues of RP that can be greatly enhanced with an economic need behind them.
B - An Economy Encourages Activity.
This plays into my previous point. Now, many people will say "But its the wrong kind of activity! OOC Grinding is no fun!", and I will agree on that notion completely. But, by having a standardized set of universal wants and needs, players will become more active in their acquisition of goods.
In other words, now that the IC Currency has value (which can only happen when we establish supply and demand for it), players now have an incentive to become more actively involved with each other to attain it. In this environment, many of the RP venues that we complain about being "lacking" suddenly start appearing. Blacksmiths, tailors, merchants, business owners and workers; all become viable and needed. Players will want to get involved with more events and quests, because now there will be something for them to do with that money.
The increased trade and interaction between the players would encourage more server-wide RP. Players would create goods, sell them, and compete or collaborate with one another. Interaction between players would be necessary for this to happen.
C. An Economy Enhances Narrative
Whether an author is cognizant of it or not, socioeconomic factors play a significant role in any narrative that one is trying to establish. Having a character climb from rags to riches, or fall from fortune to destitution, is one of the central conflicts of any story. Sure, there are many things that operate in between, but economic factors always have some impact on the narrative story that any author tries to create.
So, why not include it? Wouldn't it be great if you had a character who was able to start with nothing and end up with something? Or wouldn't it be awesome if your character, in the process of RPing them, lost everything of value and thus had a reason to go all Edmund Dauntess on other people?
As it stands right now, such narratives are possible; but only through a meta-collaboration of players. You have to want to have your character fall from fortune, or you have to want your characters to suddenly have everything. With an economy, such things can evolve organically, rather than being planned.
4. .addrp item does not kill the possibility for an economy.
Not completely.
See, Blizzard didn't anticipate you wanting that [Random Green of the Whale]. Nor did it expect you to place any value on those 'Grey Sets' AKA "Vendor Trash". Therefore, there is no way to produce these things in the 'normal' realm of gameplay; despite the demand being there, there is no ready way in-game to create the supply. Sure, you could farm hundreds upon hundreds of bad guys for it, but unless Kretol dramatically changed the drop rate, getting the 'Vendor Trash' set that you want could be harder than Tier 8 armor. And, really, if you were playing a merchant character who supposedly produces these goods...would it make any sense for them to go on spurts of random Bandit Genocide?
No, it doesn't. And that's why the .addrp item command was so necessary. Now the means of production are in the hands of anyone who needs them(Marxist huzzah!), and we're a more efficient RP server for reasons beyond economic discussion. No matter how 'spoiled' you feel the .addrp item command makes us, you cannot rightfully say its the Silver Token days were better.
Which, as an aside, weren't all that great. Yeah, that's right, I said it. I think a lot of us 'oldies' have a seriously bad case of nostalgia, where upon we remember the 'old days' being better than they actually are. I've seen COTH make a lot of slow, but significant improvement over the four years I've been here. The .addrp item command is one of 'em.
"But Krent! 50 million paragraphs ago you talked about how supply was unlimited and how that eliminated the resource scarcity that an economy needs in order to exist! Clearly, the .addrp item command contributes to that, yes?"
Yes and no.
"Yes" on the notion that it produces unlimited amounts of the universally sought-out good [Gear].
And "No" on the notion that there's no real way for us to create a differntiated good out of the category of [Gear].
What's a differentiated good? Coke and Pepsi. Both belong to the category of [Cola], but due to the magic of advertising, they're considered two seperate products.
We can't do this with [Gear] because everyone has such vastly different, esoteric tastes. If left in the hands of a pure market economy, the industry for [Gear] could look very strange, with dirty rags having more value than expensive silken dresses. Would that make any logical sense in the in-character world? No.
Which leads me to my next (and most significant) point...
5. Ideas on what we'd need to do.
If we are to have an economy, there are two essential questions we must ask. One that both players and GM's need to work on.
First Question; What is it that we want? Beyond gear for our characters, what would you, that's right, you, want to have in-game? What would you be willing to work for, what you would be willing to take on extra quests and jobs to attain? In other words, we have to define our 'demand'.
Second Question: How do we produce these goods? What can we do, in-game, to create the stuff that we demand? This question would only be truly answerable by the GM's, but I encourage players to speculate. Depending on what people define as a "want", we have to ponder if its even possible on having that in-game. In other words, I'm asking us to define our means of production, our means of 'supply'.
5. Krent's ideas on da stuff.
Houses!
One thing I think players would be willing to work for is a house. We've already had houses established in place such as Hearthglen and Mirmiron's Anchorage; I think it'd be a perfect money sink for individual players. Houses could come in all sorts of flavors in variety, in all sorts of locations, ranging from "Generic box in Ratchet" to "Custom-built Villa outside of Silly-Moon". Players have been wanting housing for as long as I've been a RP'r, it's one of the universal 'wants' that stretches across all games.
However, we've never approached the idea seriously because...well. The GM's suffer enough. Finding the right place to spawn a house is an exercise in madness; the slightest divergence in terrain will cause terrible clipping errors. Even if we were to limit house-spawning to the Glorious Level 85 Bourgeoise, the requests would be too numerous for the GM's to handle. They got enough stuff on their plate already.
Which is why, if we were going to do it, we'd need to make housing expensive. At least any house of the custom-built variety. It should be something that'd require a lot of time, money, and resources to spend. Of course, if a character wanted to rent out an already-existing house in Hearthglen, the cost would be significantly lower because that house has already been built. But, if a player wanted to build their own house somewhere, then the cost would get significantly higher. Real estate is one of the most lucrative, and brutal markets for a reason. The cost of buying land, building something new from scratch, securing the property from whatever danger lurks around. It'd be one HEAVY investment.
That, and it should be noted that once a player buys a house...that's all they get. A house. No bed, no chests, no bookshelves or nothin'. Just. A house. There should be a separate market for 'Housing goods', which is where we can get our merchant / trade-skill RP'rs room to shine. There should be a way for a player to go out, gather the right materials, and create a [Spiffy Mahogany Table] or [Awesome Linen Bed]. Stuff that can be bought and traded for players to put in their house.
Lord of the Rings online had the right idea in this, giving players the ability to buy and create stuff for their houses. How we do it here, I have no idea.
Custom Items
All the talk of the 'Silver Token' made me remember another kind of token that existed once upon a time; the Gold Token. Incredibly rare (I only saw one ever given out), the Gold Token was something that allowed a player to submit an idea for a custom item. Now, this token was incredibly rare for a reason; creating a custom item was a pain. If I recall correctly, all of the stats for the item had to be taken from existing items that were in-game. If you wanted a specific enchantment, you had to look it up on another item and pull it from there (for example, if ya wanted a fire enchantment, you had to cite the effect from [Perdition's Blade]). The amount of time and effort-mostly on the part of the Admin (I think Kretol was the only one who could do this)-made this sort of...not worth while.
But, if there were some way to formulate a custom good, I think it could create the product differentiation that the current .addrp item command currently 'kills'. Sure, everyone can spawn an [Iron Sword], but not everyone could have a [Krent's Razorblade], which has its own custom inscription and insignia. I think this could really work for RP, as I've seen many characters RP having a family heirloom of some sort, be it in the form of jewelry, armor, or weapons.
Plus, wouldn't it be nifty if, hypothetically speaking, you were an Argent Crusader Tech-Priest about to get married by a Gunslinger Rancherboy, and the two of you got custom rings to signify the union? Rings that had In-Game currency value? Or, if you were a noble of a house that wore a special necklace of your family's insignia? Just hypothetically, now.
Of course, this should be ridiculously expensive. It may not be worth it due to the work load it places on the staff, most specifically Kretol. The ability to create such items would either need to be expanded upon more people, or someone would have to work some programming magic. Maybe have an NPC who'd be able to take care of it. Would that be possible? I have no bloody clue.
And, we have another issue that leads in to both things above...
6. Resources.
We'd need to figure out some way to create raw materials for all this stuff. While there are multiple approaches we can take, two stand out to me. Both of 'em bad, with a lot of costs.
The first would be to use the resources available in-game. Those ore nodes, those cloth sheets, the plants and herbs growing around in great abundance. If we could take those and then have them be the necessary components for whatever custom goods players want to create, then we'd be able to set up a raw materials market that would service the needs of the market. The benefit of this system would be the convenience; we'd be using something already set up in-game.
The down side? The resource nodes are too numerous, and scale according to Blizzard's design of an MMO, one we've already decided to reject. That, and the value placed on these resources would lead to too much 'grinding', with players having to run around the game world not-RPing. Also, in order for this to work, we'd have to completely eliminate the OOC tradeskill area. There wouldn't be any value placed in the resources if anyone could attain them with OOC gold. Either that would lead to excessive gold farming, or excessive resource-runs. Both which could serve detrimental to the RP experience.
The other side would be creating a separate "In Game Resource". This would allow us to set up a system of goods that operate beyond the game realm (Wood, for example), and have some semblance of control over how to manage it. We could make mithril, for example, rarer than it is in-game, with the more 'common' metals (iron, copper, etc) being far more...common. The problem then, is in the time it would take the GM team to create these commodities, and the placing of them. If we threw them out into the world alongside the 'In Game' resources, we could run into the above problems of players focusing too much on "The grind" and not on the RP.
What would be the solution to this? I dunno. All variances seem to have their own pros and cons, costs and benefits. Its something that will need a lot of time and effort to properly 'plan out'.
7. Conclusion (Finally!)
Regardless, if we want an economy, we're going to have to really, really, really, really, really want it. The solution isn't as simple as "Get rid of .addrp item!" Careful consideration will be needed to properly structure, plan, and distribute the goods and resources necessary to create the functions of an economy. Is it something that we, as a server, are willing to work towards? My argument is that such work can pay off beautifully, creating new and exciting possibilities for RP that we've never seen before.
But, at the same time, we have to consider the problems that other servers have faced when creating these sorts of systems. Prologue, while definitely innovative and incredible in terms of the mechanical innovation it had, ran into the problem of players concentrating too much on said mechanics and not enough on RP. This, of course, being my own opinion on the matter. We don't want to lose our focus as an RP server; anything and everything we do should facilitate and enhance the role playing experience. The way I saw it, Prologue lost its focus in this aspect, with many players concentrating more on getting super-buff awesome characters and bases rather than developing an interactive narrative. I don't want us to become like that.
...also. One important thing to note. If we do decide to do this, it would either have to come with a server wipe, or an economy wipe. As of right now, there's too much gold floating around in the market. Inflation's out of control; that's why people can drop 20 gold on a box of parrots at the Grogporter Auction. Just another thing to consider, when detailing all of this.
WARNING AND A HALF: This post is long! Longer than most of my posts! If you're the type of person who skims through stuff, DON'T. READ EVERYTHING. This is a serious topic (seriously serious!) and requires lots of thought and attention! Though, I do aplogize for my...discursive nature in explaining things.
Spoiler:
Hello everywun~!
I dunno where to begin with this. Honestly. Economics is one of the most complex, challenging subjects you can engage in. If you were to pose 1 question to a room of 100 Economists, you would get 100 different answers. It can go in all sorts of directions, and no one can really predict what'll happen until it happens.
That being said, having an economy would strengthen RP interaction. At least in my opinion! Others shared this opinion too, which is why the whole in-game currency was implemented. And I really liked it! The idea of collecting wealth and money was hella awesome. But, unfortunately, it didn't seem to go anywhere.
Does that mean we should scrap it completely?
Sadly, many people think this. And while I can understand their reasons for it, I'd say we shouldn't...yet.
So! What do I want to do with this thread?
First off, I'd like to propose my thesis on why the current state of COTH has no need for an economic function. But, before I do that, I have to address the nature and function of an economy.
1. Why an Economy Exists.
Simply put, an economy exists because the world sucks. We live in a world where time, space, and resources are all limited. Because of this, human society continually runs into the problem of scarcity. People want and need more stuff and more space to enjoy their stuff in. But, they only have so much time to do it. If such things were unlimited, we would have no need for an economy.
So, we understand than an economy exists to manage resource scarcity. While no system has been able to perfectly manage the needs of the entire human race, we've evolved towards a pretty nifty system dominated by three basic functions. Price, Supply and Demand.
I'm sure we're all familiar with the functions of supply and demand. Supply goes up, demand goes down. Demand goes up, supply goes down. And price rises and falls depending on this. What many people don't understand is that these functions eventually meet what's known as an equilibrium, which determines how the society is utilizing that good. Equilibrium is defined when supply and demand are equal to one another, where upon a standardized price is determined.
So. Lets say the society demands 10 apples. The Apple Industry produces an output to meet that demand of 10. The quantity they supply onto the market is 10; they have no reason to supply more, because doing so would drive down the price of apples (cutting into their profits), and create a waste of however many more that the society isn't consuming. And lets say that at this equilibrium, the price is at $2 per apple. If a sudden drought were to wreck havoc on the apple trees, cutting the supply down to 5, the demand would shift dramatically. Society wants 10 apples, but only has access to 5 . This would cause the price to go up, continually increasing until demand drops. The general society likes having to pay $2 per apple, but with the sudden drop in supply, the demand for it will cause the price to rise and rise. Lets say it gets to $4 per apple. Eventually, some people will go "Ya know what? Apples ain't all that great. I'ma eat banana's, cause they're cheaper." While the real apple-fanatics will continue nomming away at $4 per apple. Thus, the demand for apples steadily decreases as more people switch to out to a substitute goods (bananas, papayas, etc), until the market reaches a new equilibrium.
In this way, society manages resource scarcity and inefficiency. With price, demand, and supply, the distribution of goods is managed in an as-close-to-efficient way it can.
2. Why COTH has no economy.
What makes an economy possible is the scarcity of the wants and needs of a society. Most of the time, these goods have universal value to all members of society. "Food", for example, is an industry with universal appeal; everyone's gotta eat something. You may not like apples, or bananas, or fish or corn--but you're gonna eventually partake in the Food market because its a biological need. People generally tend to want and need the same stuff. Of course, our tastes are all subjective enough to have the market give us a choice of differentiated goods (I.E - All them many flavors of soda), but we're still united in wanting similar stuff. Our demands, while different, still converge at the same points. Chances are, we're all going to make purchases of "Food" "Clothes" "Furniture" etc.
Usually, what differentiates products for us is the quality, price, and our own circumstances. You might really, really want that Gucci suit, think its totally stylin' and awesome, but if you can't afford it, you're most likely going to grab whatevers on the bargain rack in Wal-Mart. You might also be used to chowing down on ramen every night, but the moment you get that big promotion with the increased pay? Time to order up some sushi, awww yeah!
COTH, however, operates in a realm beyond basic demand. The way we assign value to things on COTH is completely esoteric, subjective, and...odd. Because we're primarily RP'rs, our wants and needs vary dramatically between whatever kind of narrative we're trying to create. So, while the general society may dictate that [Gucci Suit] > [Thrift Store Rags], the individual player will see it differently depending on what character they're trying to create. In an RP economy, [Thrift Store Rags] may attain more value than[Gucci Suit], if there are more characters demanding it.
Because of this, the 'demand' for the COTH playerbase is nearly impossible to determine. Our demands operate beyond the game design Blizzard set up. To copy-paste-re-iterate what I said in Rigley's post;
Quote:Our approach to the game is vastly different from the design that Blizzard envisioned, and thus our demands operate in the esoteric; value placed on the intangible and aesthetic. This, of course, leads to an oddity in-game, as us RP'rs are prone to look at Tier 8 armor and say "Eww, wtf! There's no logical RP reason for someone to have spiked flaming alien shoulders!" Generally, we take more value in the things that make our characters look more 'believable' for the role we're trying to wrap them around. Stuff that makes our character look noble, or grungy, or what have ya.
The problem here, then, lies not in the value of these goods, but in the precisely limited way in which they can be produced. This is why the .addrp item command is so necessary; being able to get the specific item model of a gray item isn't something that can be done with current in-game mechanics. Blizzard wasn't placing any value in White Tunic of the Whale that randomly dropped off that Defias, despite how spiffy it looks on a character. Therefore, the ability to reproduce that item lies only in the hands of either a GM or someone with the .addrp item command. Taking such ability away wouldn't create an economy, it would stifle it. My estimation would be that it would shift our production to an oligopoly model; an economy in which only a few firms control market power. Which, of course, would be a very stringent and 'boring' economy, which is only affected by those who dominate the means of production (the ones who can do the .addrp item command).
And with that sort of demand, one that Blizzard did not anticipate their players having, the means to produce those goods. Which leads me to my next point...
3. Why COTH needs an economy.
Many players are left asking the question, "With all the work and effort that's needed to make an economy work, why bother having one at all? Won't it get in the way of the RP?"
And to that, I say it can, should we put too much emphasis on determining the OOC mechanics of the process as a stand-alone mechanic, instead of focusing on how it can enhance the role-playing experience. Other servers have fallen into this rut, whereupon the mechanical nature of their economy overwhelmed the purpose of role playing.
Having said that, I argue that the presence of an in-game economy could very well enhance the role playing experience, rather than consuming it. However, we would have to be very careful in how we approach this problem.
Possible ways a viable economy could enhance the RP experience are;
A - An Economy Creates Conflict.
For many years, I've heard people complain about how COTH doesn't have enough activity beyond planned events. In the early days, people used to complain about 'Tea Time' RP, where players would sit in a tavern all day engaging in light social activity. For the 'Modern' COTH, the problem lies in OOC idling. While not everyone shares the same opinion on Hyjal (It remains one of the most divisive topics on COTH, in my opinion), there seems to be a general consensus that there isn't enough 'Conflict' or 'Activity' in the RP realm. People idle because, quite simply, they don't see any reason to get involved unless someone create an event or one of their friends logs on to RP.
With the presence of an economy, however, conflict begins to arise and develop as a natural matter of course. Most wars, nearly all of them, have some form of economic root behind them. Kingdom Y needs more space and resources to expand itself, currently controlled by Kingdom X. When Kingdom Y and X cannot agree on how to manage this need through diplomatic reasoning, one declares war on the other in order to take it by force.
In this way, having an actual economy would encourage players, guilds, and even entire factions to conflict with one another. Players who may not interact with one another before would now have a reason to do so, leading to more stories, plot lines, and conflict. As an added bonus, a political element can evolve from the collaboration and competition that the economy provides; players would have to form alliances, break alliances, at various different points, in order to facilitate their economic needs.
And, if I may flaunt my Marxist beliefs for awhile, the conflict doesn't have to be just limited to warfare. Class struggles and inequality are also a direct result of the economy; exploitation is a matter of course in nearly all Capitalistic endeavors. This sort of exploitation and disparity can enhance the narrative of the role player. After a few months of working in the factory, getting meager wages for your effort in creating goods that the owner reaps all the profit from, wouldn't you get a little fed up with it? Wouldn't you protest it, raise the issue with the rest of society, and (should it come down to it) end up rising against the injustice?
Or would it cause your character to seek other methods of income that aren't exactly...noble? Assassins, brigands, and slavers all ring to mind. Interesting venues of RP that can be greatly enhanced with an economic need behind them.
B - An Economy Encourages Activity.
This plays into my previous point. Now, many people will say "But its the wrong kind of activity! OOC Grinding is no fun!", and I will agree on that notion completely. But, by having a standardized set of universal wants and needs, players will become more active in their acquisition of goods.
In other words, now that the IC Currency has value (which can only happen when we establish supply and demand for it), players now have an incentive to become more actively involved with each other to attain it. In this environment, many of the RP venues that we complain about being "lacking" suddenly start appearing. Blacksmiths, tailors, merchants, business owners and workers; all become viable and needed. Players will want to get involved with more events and quests, because now there will be something for them to do with that money.
The increased trade and interaction between the players would encourage more server-wide RP. Players would create goods, sell them, and compete or collaborate with one another. Interaction between players would be necessary for this to happen.
C. An Economy Enhances Narrative
Whether an author is cognizant of it or not, socioeconomic factors play a significant role in any narrative that one is trying to establish. Having a character climb from rags to riches, or fall from fortune to destitution, is one of the central conflicts of any story. Sure, there are many things that operate in between, but economic factors always have some impact on the narrative story that any author tries to create.
So, why not include it? Wouldn't it be great if you had a character who was able to start with nothing and end up with something? Or wouldn't it be awesome if your character, in the process of RPing them, lost everything of value and thus had a reason to go all Edmund Dauntess on other people?
As it stands right now, such narratives are possible; but only through a meta-collaboration of players. You have to want to have your character fall from fortune, or you have to want your characters to suddenly have everything. With an economy, such things can evolve organically, rather than being planned.
4. .addrp item does not kill the possibility for an economy.
Not completely.
See, Blizzard didn't anticipate you wanting that [Random Green of the Whale]. Nor did it expect you to place any value on those 'Grey Sets' AKA "Vendor Trash". Therefore, there is no way to produce these things in the 'normal' realm of gameplay; despite the demand being there, there is no ready way in-game to create the supply. Sure, you could farm hundreds upon hundreds of bad guys for it, but unless Kretol dramatically changed the drop rate, getting the 'Vendor Trash' set that you want could be harder than Tier 8 armor. And, really, if you were playing a merchant character who supposedly produces these goods...would it make any sense for them to go on spurts of random Bandit Genocide?
No, it doesn't. And that's why the .addrp item command was so necessary. Now the means of production are in the hands of anyone who needs them(Marxist huzzah!), and we're a more efficient RP server for reasons beyond economic discussion. No matter how 'spoiled' you feel the .addrp item command makes us, you cannot rightfully say its the Silver Token days were better.
Which, as an aside, weren't all that great. Yeah, that's right, I said it. I think a lot of us 'oldies' have a seriously bad case of nostalgia, where upon we remember the 'old days' being better than they actually are. I've seen COTH make a lot of slow, but significant improvement over the four years I've been here. The .addrp item command is one of 'em.
"But Krent! 50 million paragraphs ago you talked about how supply was unlimited and how that eliminated the resource scarcity that an economy needs in order to exist! Clearly, the .addrp item command contributes to that, yes?"
Yes and no.
"Yes" on the notion that it produces unlimited amounts of the universally sought-out good [Gear].
And "No" on the notion that there's no real way for us to create a differntiated good out of the category of [Gear].
What's a differentiated good? Coke and Pepsi. Both belong to the category of [Cola], but due to the magic of advertising, they're considered two seperate products.
We can't do this with [Gear] because everyone has such vastly different, esoteric tastes. If left in the hands of a pure market economy, the industry for [Gear] could look very strange, with dirty rags having more value than expensive silken dresses. Would that make any logical sense in the in-character world? No.
Which leads me to my next (and most significant) point...
5. Ideas on what we'd need to do.
If we are to have an economy, there are two essential questions we must ask. One that both players and GM's need to work on.
First Question; What is it that we want? Beyond gear for our characters, what would you, that's right, you, want to have in-game? What would you be willing to work for, what you would be willing to take on extra quests and jobs to attain? In other words, we have to define our 'demand'.
Second Question: How do we produce these goods? What can we do, in-game, to create the stuff that we demand? This question would only be truly answerable by the GM's, but I encourage players to speculate. Depending on what people define as a "want", we have to ponder if its even possible on having that in-game. In other words, I'm asking us to define our means of production, our means of 'supply'.
5. Krent's ideas on da stuff.
Houses!
One thing I think players would be willing to work for is a house. We've already had houses established in place such as Hearthglen and Mirmiron's Anchorage; I think it'd be a perfect money sink for individual players. Houses could come in all sorts of flavors in variety, in all sorts of locations, ranging from "Generic box in Ratchet" to "Custom-built Villa outside of Silly-Moon". Players have been wanting housing for as long as I've been a RP'r, it's one of the universal 'wants' that stretches across all games.
However, we've never approached the idea seriously because...well. The GM's suffer enough. Finding the right place to spawn a house is an exercise in madness; the slightest divergence in terrain will cause terrible clipping errors. Even if we were to limit house-spawning to the Glorious Level 85 Bourgeoise, the requests would be too numerous for the GM's to handle. They got enough stuff on their plate already.
Which is why, if we were going to do it, we'd need to make housing expensive. At least any house of the custom-built variety. It should be something that'd require a lot of time, money, and resources to spend. Of course, if a character wanted to rent out an already-existing house in Hearthglen, the cost would be significantly lower because that house has already been built. But, if a player wanted to build their own house somewhere, then the cost would get significantly higher. Real estate is one of the most lucrative, and brutal markets for a reason. The cost of buying land, building something new from scratch, securing the property from whatever danger lurks around. It'd be one HEAVY investment.
That, and it should be noted that once a player buys a house...that's all they get. A house. No bed, no chests, no bookshelves or nothin'. Just. A house. There should be a separate market for 'Housing goods', which is where we can get our merchant / trade-skill RP'rs room to shine. There should be a way for a player to go out, gather the right materials, and create a [Spiffy Mahogany Table] or [Awesome Linen Bed]. Stuff that can be bought and traded for players to put in their house.
Lord of the Rings online had the right idea in this, giving players the ability to buy and create stuff for their houses. How we do it here, I have no idea.
Custom Items
All the talk of the 'Silver Token' made me remember another kind of token that existed once upon a time; the Gold Token. Incredibly rare (I only saw one ever given out), the Gold Token was something that allowed a player to submit an idea for a custom item. Now, this token was incredibly rare for a reason; creating a custom item was a pain. If I recall correctly, all of the stats for the item had to be taken from existing items that were in-game. If you wanted a specific enchantment, you had to look it up on another item and pull it from there (for example, if ya wanted a fire enchantment, you had to cite the effect from [Perdition's Blade]). The amount of time and effort-mostly on the part of the Admin (I think Kretol was the only one who could do this)-made this sort of...not worth while.
But, if there were some way to formulate a custom good, I think it could create the product differentiation that the current .addrp item command currently 'kills'. Sure, everyone can spawn an [Iron Sword], but not everyone could have a [Krent's Razorblade], which has its own custom inscription and insignia. I think this could really work for RP, as I've seen many characters RP having a family heirloom of some sort, be it in the form of jewelry, armor, or weapons.
Plus, wouldn't it be nifty if, hypothetically speaking, you were an Argent Crusader Tech-Priest about to get married by a Gunslinger Rancherboy, and the two of you got custom rings to signify the union? Rings that had In-Game currency value? Or, if you were a noble of a house that wore a special necklace of your family's insignia? Just hypothetically, now.
Of course, this should be ridiculously expensive. It may not be worth it due to the work load it places on the staff, most specifically Kretol. The ability to create such items would either need to be expanded upon more people, or someone would have to work some programming magic. Maybe have an NPC who'd be able to take care of it. Would that be possible? I have no bloody clue.
And, we have another issue that leads in to both things above...
6. Resources.
We'd need to figure out some way to create raw materials for all this stuff. While there are multiple approaches we can take, two stand out to me. Both of 'em bad, with a lot of costs.
The first would be to use the resources available in-game. Those ore nodes, those cloth sheets, the plants and herbs growing around in great abundance. If we could take those and then have them be the necessary components for whatever custom goods players want to create, then we'd be able to set up a raw materials market that would service the needs of the market. The benefit of this system would be the convenience; we'd be using something already set up in-game.
The down side? The resource nodes are too numerous, and scale according to Blizzard's design of an MMO, one we've already decided to reject. That, and the value placed on these resources would lead to too much 'grinding', with players having to run around the game world not-RPing. Also, in order for this to work, we'd have to completely eliminate the OOC tradeskill area. There wouldn't be any value placed in the resources if anyone could attain them with OOC gold. Either that would lead to excessive gold farming, or excessive resource-runs. Both which could serve detrimental to the RP experience.
The other side would be creating a separate "In Game Resource". This would allow us to set up a system of goods that operate beyond the game realm (Wood, for example), and have some semblance of control over how to manage it. We could make mithril, for example, rarer than it is in-game, with the more 'common' metals (iron, copper, etc) being far more...common. The problem then, is in the time it would take the GM team to create these commodities, and the placing of them. If we threw them out into the world alongside the 'In Game' resources, we could run into the above problems of players focusing too much on "The grind" and not on the RP.
What would be the solution to this? I dunno. All variances seem to have their own pros and cons, costs and benefits. Its something that will need a lot of time and effort to properly 'plan out'.
7. Conclusion (Finally!)
Regardless, if we want an economy, we're going to have to really, really, really, really, really want it. The solution isn't as simple as "Get rid of .addrp item!" Careful consideration will be needed to properly structure, plan, and distribute the goods and resources necessary to create the functions of an economy. Is it something that we, as a server, are willing to work towards? My argument is that such work can pay off beautifully, creating new and exciting possibilities for RP that we've never seen before.
But, at the same time, we have to consider the problems that other servers have faced when creating these sorts of systems. Prologue, while definitely innovative and incredible in terms of the mechanical innovation it had, ran into the problem of players concentrating too much on said mechanics and not enough on RP. This, of course, being my own opinion on the matter. We don't want to lose our focus as an RP server; anything and everything we do should facilitate and enhance the role playing experience. The way I saw it, Prologue lost its focus in this aspect, with many players concentrating more on getting super-buff awesome characters and bases rather than developing an interactive narrative. I don't want us to become like that.
...also. One important thing to note. If we do decide to do this, it would either have to come with a server wipe, or an economy wipe. As of right now, there's too much gold floating around in the market. Inflation's out of control; that's why people can drop 20 gold on a box of parrots at the Grogporter Auction. Just another thing to consider, when detailing all of this.
Spoiler:
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