Hey people, In the past year DOG has done a great job moving forward the pox economy, giving less power to sharks and big stores (PB) other then limited runes. I come today to suggest a move forward before the launch of PS4, the implementation of Currency, more specifically Shards. Currently Shards are more or the less the value of none new runes, but real (street) prices still vary by actual demand and supply. First I would suggest the ability to directly buy Shards with in-game gold, giving people a decision, buy a box (High risk, high return chance) or don't risk it and simply buy a fix 100% guaranteed much lower box of shards. This is a good first step because it gives new players a real number to aim for, as in a barb bg will cost you 1800 shards, play X games earn X gold = 1800 shards with low risk method, or less game with good luck and high risk method. People can plan ahead and truly know what they need to do. Furthermore, I would float the currency ( or rather allow the market to fluctuate), as in kill all fixed sharding and forging prices and allow them to automatically fluctuate according to supply and demand through the system. As in no face to face trading, rather you in put rune you want, and the system shows you how much its worth according to supply and demand; and you may put it up at a higher or lower price in the system as you please ( System would automatically sell the lowest price to buyers till nothing remains but the highest price.) Why is this important? BG changing is huge in this game, changing from BG to BG is a huge cost at times, this would allow you to plan the correct time to change BGs to take advantage of fluctuations and maintain your value. Furthermore if you quit you can easily convert all your none limited assets to Shards..... a somewhat safe currency that will inflate overtime (Con: If not followed up with correct measures over time may cause hyper-inflation), but won't be completely utterly worthless like old runes tend to become with balance changes. Even with regards to trading face to face (specifically limited), this would make the system a lot easier, no more but I don't want this rune, I already have it. No, you just pay in currency, there is a reason the real world switched from barter to currency a long time ago. I don't have the time to bring you the specific items you need. Meta-wise, the more played BGs will be the most expensive in the market, many players selling old BGs to acquire the new flavors of the month allows a decrease in price of less popular themes allowing players to try out whatever they please. DOG can also directly sell Shards for money to new players, if new players wish to start with a good amount of currency ( And know that X dollars will 100% buy them the runes they specifically need at that specific timeframe (price range). Last point, this will add a new way for new players to make money(shards), by trying to predict nerfs and buffs to invest what little they have in price rises. Please don't bribe Sok, Council needs to be regulated for insider-trading. Please don't be corrupt. I would be glad to discuss any economic flaws/theories as well as financial concepts anyone would like to bring up to further regulate ( or de-regulate) as well as advance the economy. Thank you.
If I'm not mistaken, what you're describing sounds exactly like the Grand Exchange in Runsecape. I'm pretty sure your under estimating how that could be abused though if everything has a fixed "supply and demand" based value.
Why, exactly, would grafting a monetary meta-game onto Pox improve things in anyway? If someone wants to play a finance sim, there are plenty of other games out there for that. I'm pretty sure new players start playing because they want to play "Poxnora," not "The Great Invisible Hand Experience."
What's interesting about the whole Runescape economy is how incredible realistic it was at some-point (early G.E days), I mean they must have hired an economist or something to design it because it was absolutely well designed at the time, it did suffer from horrific realistic inflation though from lack of regulation;Hell it even suffered from massive speculation investement clans, aka hedgefunds/investement firms, I mean it was so realistically designed the game population literally progressed and developed just to how the original economy did in the past. I am not specifically aiming at Runescape's system, just a general stock-like system. Frankly I'd also like to implement all what we know now would protect the economy to avoid the downfall of many real-life as well as ingame economies. "if everything has a fixed "supply and demand" based value" May I ask what exactly is a fixed ... supply and demand based value? I believe that's just two contradicting statements mashed together?... But to be honest I may be wrong so please do clarify.
A big part of F2P systems Is a good economy, imo. We've seen newer systems such as league where you simply save currency and buy new champs as they come out easily, but Pox is not that simple... or cheap.
No you are right they are contradictory. You are being pedantic, but you are right. I realized after I posted that it was poor word choice but you get what I'm saying. the prices are not set by anyone, rather set to a system that determines value. I definitely agree with you about Runescapes economy post-GE though and as much as I loved it, I don't think it would be the same for Pox. We don't have the same variety of goods, we might as well just put a DO run Poxbox into the game
Please elaborate. And why, exactly, shouldn't something as simple as League or Hearthstone work for Pox? What about Pox's intra-game mechanical complexity extends to how some potential rune economy should function?
F2P implies you can play for free, an endless grind of single-player to save for the seemingly endless amount of runes in this game is like being a factory worker with a glass ceiling your whole life. There is no curve of less work more progress overtime. An economy allows people to take what they earn and correctly invest it to slowly move forward in their collections without the need for intense-mindnumbing grinding. Furthermore, I feel this could possibly create a positive "rune pool", where clans can invest pooled value to give out to their new players; if not their entire clan base. I admit just saying that, people aren't always going to use these systems for positive things, and greed may lead to very negative forcing of the market in such a small game ( a lot less as game increases in player base... PS4 hopefully). But that's where restriction helps out, as well as the game recognizing clans or groups who give out the most value to new players ( If being a good person doesn't apply to you, at least rewards and recognition will.) Keep in mind I am suggesting this without having went in to deep thought about it, since i'd rather see if the public would even want this firstly. I don't play hearthstone so I can't comment about them, but I'll talk about league. They have weekly free runes, you don't even need to buy anything to actually play vs other players in a real FUN game-mode. You have a currency that you more or less know how many games it takes to buy the exact champion you want, I can't say that about pox. I can't tell you how many games it'll take you to grind out any specific BG. League does not have a curve-system, you always grind at the same rate to earn currency, which I argued against in my statement above; but the grind isn't boring single player. When I played league you just kept queing for ranked and had fun, you had whatever champions you needed and currency just stacked up, and realistically over-time you were gonna get most (if not all) the champions just playing the game for fun. I can't say that about Pox.... you will not build a massive collection overtime just playing ranked for fun. And for whatever reason playing the same BG over and over is much more boring than playing the same champion over and over.
I can live with a simple poxbox model, being setup in-house. But they've stated before they can't do it for legal reasons or whatever. The reason poxbox or 3rd party stores always f**K the economy is a conflict of interest, they wanna make a profit, while a in-house system would be using it as a money-sink instead.
To be fair, I think Pox is doing a great job with what it currently has. I think implementing a giant economy reform wouldn't help move the game in healthy direction right now. Pox is going to have a player boom very soon. As a business, it is important to have stability, and to able to project earnings for the foreseeable future. New players would not in anyway benefit from an economy, since they don't own any runes, and will have to invest money into the game regardless. I can see it being a nice thing for older players since they would like to get their hands on new runes faster, or change BGs. Perhaps another quicker, more viable solution would be to: 1. Increase the number of "collector edition runes". This would give value for runes which would not see much play from older players and they could in turn sell these runes for profit (and interest on owning a large collection). 2. Allow for core set sacrifices / exchanges, at lowered costs. This would allow for quick exchanges of BGs will little cost. For example skeletons for barbs --> give 4 common skels, get 3 common barbs, etc etc
I am in support for this especially as it could lead on to bigger and better things. Only thing stopping player trading is how hard, laborious, unreliable, non-noob friendly and sharked it is. Path of exile realised this problem, having a similar database, "poetrade", to poxbox, and are seeking to implement a system where you put your item for x currency and it can be bought for the price you set it at instantly. I.e. I'm looking for a "tortun captain" from a data base of the entire population who wish to trade him. Differences between that and current? Checklist trade (e.g. set price from tune checklist/mass price checkboxed runes/decks/sets etc) Set b/o (would require prices set by game economy as the OP States) Instant b/o Potential currency sink (e.g. 5-10% tax to 'Dogz') Harder for new players to get scammed since the prices are economy based from IN the game (new players get rekt by not knowing about the poxbox economy). Sharks make profit easier (oh well) If the market is sinking rune profits to dogz rather than poxbox, it could be a worthwhile use of time and resources tbh. If pb trades ~50 exos a day with ~10% profit, that could be 5 exos that are instead being sunk in to the games economy sink and I feel like that's a positive thing. Especially since 50% of the trades on poxbox don't actually go to a player.
many people enjoy trading and making "gold" in games for fun as well as play. for instance,,, back in my eq days,,, my toons were quite powerful and after a while ,, I became more of a business man as opposed to a hero,,,, crafting/selling, trading, loan sharking,, we even had a casino. lol.. good game play and stragety are always first,, without that the runes are worthless,, but If a better system could be implemented where people can trade and do business just for fun.....it would improve the pox scene,,, imo.
The runescape grand exchange worked for a while, however many people manipulated the system very easily. I simply would buy all of a certain item in runescape and then sell it for an absurd increase in price. Super71 was my name on there also although now my account just gathers dust while jagex continues running the game into the ground with things like squeal, and treasure chests. The runescape ge however has very little in common with a pox economy, their is simply no way to manipulate the prices as people can just make runes themselves through the forge with the set amount of shards the runes have. Unless the forge was dealt away with, which would make no sense. I'm in favor of being able to purchase shards with real money, this would accomplish two things. 1) it would essentially be the version of being able to buy single runes 2) would increase the amount of runes in the game available to all players
