[konidias]

Originally Posted by Googi

The third and fourth suggestions make sense. The first one does not. How do you scale for items like spellbooks, which have no real-world equivalent? How do things like how the item affects that players stats (on servers with stats) factor into the scaling? Even when you can find a real-world equivalent, it doesn't protect you from having huge initial/"official" value vs. market value gaps because the supply of and demand for an item in the server's economy is probably going to be radically different from what it is in the real-world economy.

I've taken this into account. I just forgot to include it. But thanks for bringing it up. Like you said, you can scale fantasy items properly but most items do have a real-world equivalent. If they don't, then you determine a cost based on the strength or ability of the item in comparison to the weakest/strongest possible items in your game. So if you have a "magical sword of great justice" you would first include the cost of a normal real world sword of decent to great value, and then you would add more cost based on it's strength in comparison to that of the weakest and strongest sword.

The huge initial/"official" value vs. market value gaps can be at least partially less "huge" by estimating the market value beforehand. Shops shouldn't start selling items slightly higher than base price. You can always include an initial higher starting price for items that you think will be purchased more or have greater use or whatever.

I don't see how you can say the first suggestion makes "no sense" though, based on your reasons. It still makes sense, it just fails to mention the things you brought up.

The second suggestion has very little to do with having a "successful" economy and has a whole lot to do with keeping players dependent on NPC shops. It seems to be centered around some kind of belief that players buying from shops is "good" and players buying from other players is "bad" (or at least, the system you're suggesting is one that would discourage players from buying items from other players.)

This system is really only aimed towards servers that use item shops. If you have a server with no shops then obviously you're not going to use that advice. But that doesn't mean it would be less successful. I think you're just reading into things too deep. I don't believe that it's not possible to have a successful economy without shops. But I do believe it would be a lot harder to attempt a server where players didn't buy things from shops... such as letting the players craft the items or winning everything from quests or events.

Overall, it isn't really a guide to having a successful economy, it's a guide to fighting inflation/deflation, which can be an important aspect of managing a server's economy but isn't the ultimate measure of success. The ultimate measure of success is the economy's ability to attract and keep players (for example, you wouldn't want to introduce some kind of anti-inflation measure if introducing it would cause you to lose more players or potential players than the inflation that would result from not introducing it would.)

I'd have to disagree with you. The economy has little to do with attracting and keeping players. That falls on gameplay, content, overall design... But if you want your point to be valid, then wouldn't a controlled and balanced economy attract players? Is that not then, a successful economy?

edit: As an example, no servers on Graal have ever had a successful economy yet they still had high playercounts. UN hardly has an economy at all (last I checked) and it maintains a high playercount. However I think that following these tips can at least save a few servers from having to go down the old "reset road". Some servers have been reset like half a dozen times just because the economy turns into a beast and consumes everything. How can you release new items when old items are worthless and everyone has far too much money? Nothing at that point can save the server except for doing as you said... taking severe anti-inflation measures or nerfing items or lowering money made from jobs... which is not where you want to end up.