A Solution to the in game inflation.

[Devonian]

Inflation in MMOs with any kind of player economy is inevitable, and undesirable.

Inevitable, because every quest, every loot drop adds currency into the system, and the player economy passes it around rather than taking it out of game to NPCs.

Undesirable, because it results in new players being unable to meaningfully contribute to the player economy, and prices the out of the expected competence.

We need a way to take currency out of the economy.

We need, House Pharlani's latest venture. A Casino. Make it a large structure, a zone in itself. Make it a good nexus for differing areas so that people are encouraged to travel through it. (Perhaps an airship like structure with drop off stations in market, harbour and else where. Perhaps concentrate some Collector NPCs in the lobby or floor itself, or perhaps a boost on the usual tavern regen rates from the opulent surrounds)

We already have roulette and craps in the Phoenix tavern's back room all that we need is an incentive to use the casino. Thus, I propose differing floors each with games from Cannith made slots, to more active table games. Buy chips as you enter, use them directly, or play for more, and at the end of an evening redeem the chips for either items available nowhere else, or the coveted players grind for ever types. The important thingis to have a desirable way to remove cash from the economy, and that means offering something to those late game players with the most of it.

It would become a social hub, a place to catch up with guildies, look for groups, perhaps even get a few hints on quests you may have over looked from the barman. Thoughts any one?

[Anthios888]

Interesting that this has come up, because I'm pretty sure that True Reincarnations put a huge dent in the inflation problem.

Stacks and stacks of haste pots... pages and pages of cure serious wounds... Yugoloth pots by the hundreds... oh my!

[Karranor]

Interesting that this has come up, because I'm pretty sure that True Reincarnations put a huge dent in the inflation problem.

Stacks and stacks of haste pots... pages and pages of cure serious wounds... Yugoloth pots by the hundreds... oh my!

Ain't this the truth! I have dumped millions into ~ing... hehe

[Impaqt]

Inflation in MMOs with any kind of player economy is inevitable, and undesirable.

Inevitable, because every quest, every loot drop adds currency into the system, and the player economy passes it around rather than taking it out of game to NPCs.

Undesirable, because it results in new players being unable to meaningfully contribute to the player economy, and prices the out of the expected competence.

We need a way to take currency out of the economy.

We need, House Pharlani's latest venture. A Casino. Make it a large structure, a zone in itself. Make it a good nexus for differing areas so that people are encouraged to travel through it. (Perhaps an airship like structure with drop off stations in market, harbour and else where. Perhaps concentrate some Collector NPCs in the lobby or floor itself, or perhaps a boost on the usual tavern regen rates from the opulent surrounds)

We already have roulette and craps in the Phoenix tavern's back room all that we need is an incentive to use the casino. Thus, I propose differing floors each with games from Cannith made slots, to more active table games. Buy chips as you enter, use them directly, or play for more, and at the end of an evening redeem the chips for either items available nowhere else, or the coveted players grind for ever types. The important thingis to have a desirable way to remove cash from the economy, and that means offering something to those late game players with the most of it.

It would become a social hub, a place to catch up with guildies, look for groups, perhaps even get a few hints on quests you may have over looked from the barman. Thoughts any one?

I fail to see how a Casino would "Solve" anything. WHy would someone gamble their plat when they can just go run some Slayers or a few quests and Win every time? Regardless of whether you pull anything uber or not, you ALWAYS can sell the stuff for plat.


No, the Plat sinks we need in this game are very Clear...

Housing.....

In-Game Customization... Armor Dying, Barber shops, etc...

Provide Reincarnate options that cost plat instead of RM.

[Halo_572]

Or you could not participate in the activities that are subject to inflation, by which I am guessing you are referring to the auction house. There is nothing compelling you to do so nor from randomly giving high value items away for free instead of perpetuating the selling of items.

I only use the items that I find or can buy from general vendors, so if you want to charge 10000pp for a +1 club good luck to you. It won't be my pp you will be getting.

But if there was housing I would partake, I did like the guild hall in guild wars even if the rest of the game was lacking. But not in a UK housing investment bubble way of trading, I would only buy from an NPC vendor and not some ingame speculator. I can’t see Turbine creating it’s own virtual housing market, but you never know.

The best model I have seen in a game so far is the Oblivion one where you could buy a house and put furniture in it in every city.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Reroll

[sirgog]

Or you could not participate in the activities that are subject to inflation, by which I am guessing you are referring to the auction house. There is nothing compelling you to do so nor from randomly giving high value items away for free instead of perpetuating the selling of items.

If we didn't have the Auction House, inflation would be even worse.

There'd be more plat in the economy (the AH is probably the biggest single sink) and so plat would be even more worthless. Instead of +4 metalline of pure good weapons selling for 200k PP, they'd be selling for a million plat - and that would be via forum trades or spammy trade LFMs.

In fact, people probably wouldn't accept plat as payment for anything. Just as IRL people won't trade their car for thirty million glass beads, why would anyone in-game trade something valuable for an enormous amount of utterly worthless plat?

[Memnir]

No, the Plat sinks we need in this game are very Clear...

Housing.....

In-Game Customization... Armor Dying, Barber shops, etc...

Provide Reincarnate options that cost plat instead of RM.

This.


/end of thread

[Anderei]

I fail to see how a Casino would "Solve" anything. WHy would someone gamble their plat when they can just go run some Slayers or a few quests and Win every time? Regardless of whether you pull anything uber or not, you ALWAYS can sell the stuff for plat.

Why would people go to the casino instead of making some extra hours at their job? Regardless if they make a good deal, you ALWAYS get a paycheck.

Its human nature dude, I think the casino is a great idea! Because if you are lucky you could make MUCH more than with slayers or a few quests... The casinos jackpots could even be stacked with stuff instead of a lot of plat.

[Impaqt]

Why would people go to the casino instead of making some extra hours at their job? Regardless if they make a good deal, you ALWAYS get a paycheck.

Its human nature dude, I think the casino is a great idea! Because if you are lucky you could make MUCH more than with slayers or a few quests... The casinos jackpots could even be stacked with stuff instead of a lot of plat.

I dont know what kind of job you have, but I cant just walk into the office, sit down for an hour, and grab an extra $100 paycheck at the end of the week. If I work an extra hour or two, I get a Hey, thanks! Your not fired this week...

DDO is about questing. Not gambling. Time sinks are definitly something we do not require.

[bobbryan2]

A casino would be fun if they had games you could play against other players. An eberron-specific poker room if you will.

I'm not sure I would enjoy playing against the house constantly, but a little head to head competition would be fun.

[Anderei]

I dont know what kind of job you have, but I cant just walk into the office, sit down for an hour, and grab an extra $100 paycheck at the end of the week. If I work an extra hour or two, I get a Hey, thanks! Your not fired this week...

Well there are quite some pickup jobs you can do for 8-12$/hours,

DDO is about questing. Not gambling. Time sinks are definitly something we do not require.

Actually casinos do exist in DnD, at least i know of PnP game tables where they like to go for a DnD-casino visit once in a while. Heck, there is even a casino in the DDO harbor! (altough that one is illegal)

yes maybe its not your kind of understanding of having a good time, and I respect that, but that doesn't mean this applies for everyone. I too personally don't like RL-casinos... But thats the beaty of MMOs they can converge so many ways of what you are able to do, they got roleplay, they got competition, its only the luck based games that yet often miss out, I think its a worthy addition, nobody is forced to go to pharlian-casino if s/he wants a more developed way of slowly increasing his wealth instead of the easy and quick and risky money.

In the long term you would lose money in the casino anyway, so any rational person would do slayes nevertheless. But like in the RL, people do enjoy it nevertheless, and then then people can diplo the casino tables all the time, because they think this will improve their win chances!

[Impaqt]

Well there are quite some pickup jobs you can do for 8-12$/hours,

um, no. I havent worked for $12/hr on almost 20 years.

Actually casinos do exist in DnD, at least i know of PnP game tables where they like to go for a DnD-casino visit once in a while. Heck, there is even a casino in the DDO harbor! (altough that one is illegal)

yes maybe its not your kind of understanding of having a good time, and I respect that, but that doesn't mean this applies for everyone. I too personally don't like RL-casinos... But thats the beaty of MMOs they can converge so many ways of what you are able to do, they got roleplay, they got competition, its only the luck based games that yet often miss out, I think its a worthy addition, nobody is forced to go to pharlian-casino if s/he wants a more developed way of slowly increasing his wealth instead of the easy and quick and risky money.

In the long term you would lose money in the casino anyway, so any rational person would do slayes nevertheless. But like in the RL, people do enjoy it nevertheless, and then then people can diplo the casino tables all the time, because they think this will improve their win chances!

I'm not anti-Casino. I'm anti Wasting the developers time. As you pointed out, the only people who would play would be the irrational ones. ("Rational People would do slayers")

[Devonian]

In the long term you would lose money in the casino anyway, so any rational person would do slayes nevertheless. But like in the RL, people do enjoy it nevertheless, and then then people can diplo the casino tables all the time, because they think this will improve their win chances!

Also, note that I had suggested allowing direct purchase of chips to get the same benefits for a flat fee. Price Chips and their relationship to the rewards right, you get the same effect.

And frankly, a big, purposefully planned social hub could really add to the wow factor for new players. It even fits Stormreach, itself a rough and ready fronter town.

[Borror0]

No, the Plat sinks we need in this game are very Clear...

Housing.....

In-Game Customization... Armor Dying, Barber shops, etc...

Provide Reincarnate options that cost plat instead of RM.

This. Especially the last one.

[Temet]

No, the Plat sinks we need in this game are very Clear...

Housing.....

In-Game Customization... Armor Dying, Barber shops, etc...

Provide Reincarnate options that cost plat instead of RM.

None of those are going to really eat up PP, and they're buy it or don't things (the closest thing there to a serious plat sink is the housing, and that's only provided it's a recurring fee - which still wouldn't be something people can constantly pump more money into). A Casino would consume massive amounts of PP as people fed it cash to try to get bound items that aren't available elsewhere. For that matter, even ignoring bound items a Casino would be an incredibly PP sink if it just offered consumeables you can't get elsewhere (like high CL potions/wands).

That said, I don't really consider this nearly as crucial as finishing implementing PrEs, or even putting new classes/quests/races in. Still, it'd certainly be more effective as a plat sink than most other options.

[muffinlad]

No, the Plat sinks we need in this game are very Clear...

Housing.....

In-Game Customization... Armor Dying, Barber shops, etc...

Provide Reincarnate options that cost plat instead of RM.

Indeed. Reincarnate options should have never been primarily based on RM...but I am sure that Cash, being king, is a hard thing to turn down once it has been turned on.

muffinstuffin

[Aaxeyu]

Casino? No thanks.

Haste pots that lasts 1 minute but costs 4 times what a normal haste pit costs? Yes please!

And remove the stupid AH fee.

[Gennerik]

Overall, I think the main issue that we're looking at is that after a certain point in the game (a certain, fairly early point), there isn't anything to actually spend money on that isn't from someone else.

Yes, some items can be bought from the Brokers, but that's purely based on what people find, and people still get money out of selling their equipment (which is fine). However, unless you want a regular +X weapon or armor, you avoid normal shops for actual equipment.

To get anything worth using, you either buy off the auction house, which mostly goes to another player (therefore not sinking plat in any real sense of the word), or you quest for it (where by the time you get it, you've amassed a huge fortune since most drops for good items are pretty low, and therefore just devalued the economy even more).

About the only thing that you may need to buy are healing items (scrolls, wands, potions), and for the most part that's for people that aren't running balanced parties. So really, the only real platinum sink we've got are healing items for impatient people.

Maybe we should start seeing shopkeepers with actual good items for sale. Maybe actual epic items for end game. I'm not talking about DDO epic items, I'm talking about normal, DnD Epic Level Handbook items (no augment slots, no multiple abilities, but direct translations out of the Epic Level Handbook). It would be a way to somewhat gear yourself for epic level content, before you've already run it thousands of times to craft yourself a DDO epic item. Epic items are grossly more expensive than normal items, and the price could even be inflated upward to provide that much more of a platinum sink, but I don't see it actually hurting the running of epic gear, since in most cases (there are a couple of lame epic items that aren't actually epic, even by normal DnD standards), the DDO epics are going to be more powerful, if for the sole reason of having the augment slot.

Other platinum sinks may be fine, too, but I think this would be a big market, without relying on other players to supply it, and it may even help more epic level content to be run (instead of skipped through, since many quests are just ridiculous).

[s1pinup]

No, the Plat sinks we need in this game are very Clear...

Housing.....

In-Game Customization... Armor Dying, Barber shops, etc...

Provide Reincarnate options that cost plat instead of RM.

Although these would be fantastic towards the RP side of the game (which is non-existant on my server) .. As we all know these would be a TP sink if added to the game.

I will say this the airship vendor surprised me when it was introduced and you could acutally pay for one with plat! I would like to see something else to spend my in game plat on because once you have all the gear you want for your toons, it just kind of starts piling up haha.