Thema: Dealing with inflation... without unbalancing.

Over and over again I get on the forums to see constant complaining about AH prices, greedy players, and rampant inflation.

My server does not really have inflation trouble to the extent of other servers mentioned, but I do think over time the sheer quantity of gold does create some issues.
My Solution? Create a naturally scaling gold-sink. The tools to do so are already in the game today: The auction house and the store.
HOLD ON: I don't mean just the store, but some of the items in the store.
Create an auction house seller for store items that are currently *very rare* or non-existent in the game.
Place no buyout on the auctions, and take the proceeding gold out of the economy.
What would a "Steed of the Hunter" sell for on the auction house? 500 gold? 1000 gold? 5000 gold?
Some players have tens of thousands of gold on certain servers, and yet other servers have "only" thousands. Personally, I have been playing 8 months and have "only" hundreds of gold.
Stat tomes? Sure they drop, I had one drop just the other day. But I wouldn't say they are common, in fact I would class them as "exceedingly rare". +1 Virtue tome? (not the temporary ones) Would I pay 50 gold for 1 Zeal on my guard? It would be VERY tempting for sure...

Putting store items in-game can be tricky, and so can dealing with inflated prices.
Naturally, some things would sell very well and some would not, but I could easily see store sales actually INCREASING by this method.
"Well, I can buy vitality 4-7 on the auction hall, but 1-3 are just too expensive for me right now, oh well, its worth the money since I can get the rest in game"
"Good grief... 1000 bids on that Steed? I can't afford 2000 gold, guess 2000 turbine points isn't really THAT bad..."

Thoughts? Possible hurdles?
Personally I would suggest selling really big items like steeds on weekends only, with sales ending every 3 hours for a full day (thus allowing world-wide availability and only 8 per server for that item)
Possible themes include Steed Sunday, Stat Tome Tuesday, Flash Friday (1 hour sales), Monster Monday (more small items on sale for shorter durations)
The only thing I could think of possibly making this idea nonviable would be the servers unable to handle massive AH activity at certain times.

First up,
The Store is NOT a Gold SInk and NEVER WILL BE.. you cannot spend any in-game gold in the Store. You earn Points or SPEND REAL MONEY buying them

I don't see the point of having LOTS of in-game gold on any character

Those players who you see posting at such high prices are 1 of 2 things .... Gold Bots or Idiots

You say you have been playing for only 8 mths and only have 100's of gold

Well good on you

I have been playing 5yrs and only have 37g on my main, and 62g on my bank character
I dont have any need for any more.
There is nothing in this game that is worth more than 6g

If people are prepared to pay stupid prices then that's their fault

There was somebody trying to sell an Unidentified level 52 Hunters 3rd age Bow on the AH for 900g bid 999g buyout the other day

Nobody is going to buy anything from the store to put it on the Auction House.
That is when the Store will become a REAL MONEY sink

Basically it boild down to the idea.....

OK I'll buy the Steed of the Hunter for 2000TP, but I have to buy that costing me $10.
I'll put it on the Auction House at 1000g which costs $0 and even if bought I get nothing for the $10 I just spent in the store

I think that the true measure of success is 'how much gold (or resource equivalents) have you GIVEN away to fellow players?' My gold exists for the betterment of my game experience and those of my 'fellow adventurers' - true wealth comes from giving more than receiving.

And this is coming from a Finance MBA and Wall Street veteran.

Cheers,

Fara

Zitat von Malindruel

First up,
The Store is NOT a Gold SInk and NEVER WILL BE.. you cannot spend any in-game gold in the Store. You earn Points or SPEND REAL MONEY buying them

I don't see the point of having LOTS of in-game gold on any character

Those players who you see posting at such high prices are 1 of 2 things .... Gold Bots or Idiots

You say you have been playing for only 8 mths and only have 100's of gold

Well good on you

I have been playing 5yrs and only have 37g on my main, and 62g on my bank character
I dont have any need for any more.
There is nothing in this game that is worth more than 6g

If people are prepared to pay stupid prices then that's their fault

There was somebody trying to sell an Unidentified level 52 Hunters 3rd age Bow on the AH for 900g bid 999g buyout the other day

Nobody is going to buy anything from the store to put it on the Auction House.
That is when the Store will become a REAL MONEY sink

Basically it boild down to the idea.....

OK I'll buy the Steed of the Hunter for 2000TP, but I have to buy that costing me $10.
I'll put it on the Auction House at 1000g which costs $0 and even if bought I get nothing for the $10 I just spent in the store

You appear to have COMPLETELY missed my point, and indeed my suggestion as well.
Let me reiterate with smaller words and less detail:
Put store items on AH (That is, TURBINE putting things on AH, NOT players), take the gold from it out of game.
Increased access to store items, decreased gold inflation, possibly sell more from store. Everyone wins.
People who don't use the AH anyway? Nothing really changes. People who want to buy but not sell? Other items cost less because the gold is going elsewhere.

Finally, your suggestion that anyone spending more then 6g is an idiot? Very insulting, and downright erroneous.
I have bought and sold hundreds of gold worth of items, stuff that other people wanted more then I did and were willing to pay, or things I was willing to pay the price for instead of grinding myself. If a Worn Symbol of Celebrimbor is only worth 6g to you, I am quite sure I can find a number of people on ANY server that would be willing to take it off your hands for that. You don't want to sell? Golly, you must mean it is worth more then 6g to you. If you are not happy to sell at a given price then it is worth more then that amount of currency (to you.)
You may have a reason that you wish to "earn" the item for yourself, and that is quite alright... but it does mean you value the item more then that 6g of currency.
While you may fail to utilize the economy ingame, please do not push your narrow views to all players.

This is such a silly idea that I thought it was a joke until I saw the OP's 2nd post.

The AH was programmed to accept only unbound items. So to accommodate this idea, Turbine would either have to unbind the store items making them tradable or rewrite most of the AH code. When someone uses in game currency to obtain an item, Turbine gains nothing. What incentive, would they have to invest the expensive man hours to accommodate this idea? If they sold a $10-$20 dollar item on the AH they LOSE that $10-$20 dollars.

Also, the assumption that, just because a few people on a server have huge amounts of gold laying around on their characters so everyone else must also, is absurd. As a previous poster implied, most people have LESS than 100 gold at any given time and are quite happy with that.

Zitat von Maldrake

This is such a silly idea that I thought it was a joke until I saw the OP's 2nd post.

The AH was programmed to accept only unbound items. So to accommodate this idea, Turbine would either have to unbind the store items making them tradable or rewrite most of the AH code. When someone uses in game currency to obtain an item, Turbine gains nothing. What incentive, would they have to invest the expensive man hours to accommodate this idea? If they sold a $10-$20 dollar item on the AH they LOSE that $10-$20 dollars.

Also, the assumption that, just because a few people on a server have huge amounts of gold laying around on their characters so everyone else must also, is absurd. As a previous poster implied, most people have LESS than 100 gold at any given time and are quite happy with that.

You appear to have had a different experience with store items then I have...
Anything that can be mailed (including stat tomes, emotes, and horses) should require no re-writing of code to place on the auction house. Stat tomes exist in game (unbound). Horses and emotes can be mailed: You can win them from the lottery!
When you detach the item from the mail, it auto-applies to your character. This is all well and good.
When you win an emote in the lottery a second time (and you already have it on that character) That emote is UNBOUND.
I have had it happen twice, and was able to put them on the auction house (didn't sell as it fit no categories so few if anyone saw it) Sell to another player, or mail them to another toon. Make the horses function the same way.

The binding upon items is not necessarily dependent upon "Just because it's in the store"
Simple example? Crafting with ingredient packs will generate a CRAFTED item that is bound to account. Surely you are not suggesting turbine created a separate version of every crafted item just in case it was produced with an ingredient pack?

No, of course the idea that EVERYONE has tons of gold is ridicules...
But so is the idea that it is HARD to get tons of gold. This idea would give people with massive amounts of gold something to SPEND it on. With less gold in the economy, the price on all items starts to fall (deflation).
As gold quantity is reduced (or at the start on some servers) the selling price is also falling (the people with massive stockpiles have spent those stockpiles). Note also the statement of "No Buyout", therefore adding something not currently available at a price the MARKET sets.

Yes, it would cost some money to implement... but if nothing else, the good publicity of "Look, it IS available in game" should counteract that.
And before anyone else jumps up with this suggestion... NO, it will not significantly increase gold-sellers to have store items available for ingame gold. (Ludicrous to mention perhaps, but I am starting to wonder...)
No, this idea would deplete available gold while making the ones paying happy to see it go. Want something from the "Turbine Seller"? Better save up the money now so you can bid next time its on sale.

tbh dealing with inflation in a world that has unlimited amount of money is never going to work, lets face it there isn't going to be a recession anytime soon in an MMO.

There are numerous other ways to create a goldsink:

1. Increase cost of repairing
2. Add house expansions that cost TP/gold and add a sum to maintainance
3. Increase price for horsetravel
4. Increase AH fees
5. Have the trolls outside Isengard take a toll off people wanting to enter to see all the machines inside
6. Create NPC robbers that roam the countryside
7. Create Unique in-game titles only obtainable for a set number of persons/server for a set amount of gold
8. Create a mount atht looks good, has 75% speed and cost 2k gold
9. etc

I never understood honestly how gold sinks would help newer players with less money. Since you can't target the rich player and tax them for being wealthy, then it simply means that they will grow broke long after the new player is totally destitute.

You could argue, as some do, that you could have game items that cost vast sums of gold to obtain that are luxury items, but then instead of new players complaining they can't afford the AH they will claim to be disenfranchised by the game in that they are precluded from luxury items.

The economy, at least in my limited perception is like a ship rising in the water. Prices go up as income goes up. Extra gold means that seasoned players will spend more on items that newer players are selling transferring some of that wealth. The poor player two years ago is the evil rich player of today. The poor player today will with a little motivation be quite comfortable 50 levels from now.

What do the majority of players dio with gold anyway? Well, I need these hides and I have 300 gold, don't have anything to spend it on and I don't care to farm hides. Click the AH button and there goes a few gold. Well, tomoorow I will earn 2x that anyway in a short session. Thank you!

There's no reason I can think of to sell Store items via the AH. Vendors would do. However, if they're going to do that they'd need to set prices somewhat above the time costs of accumulating TP since "gold" has been around far longer than TP (and Turbine would rather get paid in real-world $$ than in-game gold). I don't know actual numbers because I don't "grind" for much of anything, but let's say that people who know what they're doing can grind out 50 TP/hour or 5g per hour. A mount that would cost 1995 TP would mean ~40 hours of gameplay, or around 200g. Make it 300g.

Would lots of players pay 300g for the Steed of Night? I'm a little skeptical, and if not... it wouldn't act as much of a "gold sink". Might be worth a try, though.

The ideas I've proposed a number of times to act as gold sinks (because most everyone might be willing to get in on the action) :

1. Gambling mini-games. In-game gold only, with "jackpots" of highly valued game items (e.g. Worn Symbols).
2. NPC Tinkering on all sorts of equipped items with geometrically decreasing benefits for geometrically increasing costs. Example: +8 damage costs 5g. +4 more costs 10g. +2 more costs 20g, and the final +1 costs 40g. Rich players would buy them all (75g for +15), poorer players would get just the first one or two (5-15g for +8 to +12).

Getting players to spend smaller amounts of gold on more optional things would suck more out of the economy, in my opinion. Of course, they could also use the OP's idea of selling big-ticket items for lots of gold, and I'm sure that would pull some out too.

All of these suggestions are vastly better than the more common one (price controls).

Khafar

Zitat von EagleNine

I think that the true measure of success is 'how much gold (or resource equivalents) have you GIVEN away to fellow players?' My gold exists for the betterment of my game experience and those of my 'fellow adventurers' - true wealth comes from giving more than receiving.

And this is coming from a Finance MBA and Wall Street veteran.

You are a kind and generous person.

I think there is a real class problem in the game, and I don't mean character classes. It's the monied class versus the unmonied class. People with a lot of time to play tend to amass great quantities of gold; people with less time don't. I have been playing for over four years. I have seventeen characters, of which I play eleven. And I have less than 200 gold amongst the lot of them. When I sell crafted stuff on the auction house, I price it remembering how difficult it was for me to buy anything when I was bringing up my first character. (I joke to my kinnies that I am selling for the Wal-Mart crowd.)

I am sure Turbine knows about the wealth gap. They can't raise prices on basics (such as repairing) without hurting the cash-poor players. I have been revolving an idea in my mind, but haven't quite worked out the details. It's some form of a millionaires' club. Wealthy players (by which I mean, wealthy in game gold) would pay a high fee and ongoing dues to get into the club. It would provide various special benefits that would not impact normal game play (no functional gear, for example), but would add cosmetics, bragging rights, and special content (content that would not give any rewards that could be exchanged for money). Perhaps special inns that only the wealthy could enter. As I say, I'm not sure how to work this out, but targeting the gold sink to those with the most gold seems to me the only way to deal with the problem, if it can be dealt with at all. Give rich people something to spend their money on.

I don't know if it would work, and I'm sure some people who couldn't afford it would complain about the unfairness.

I like the thinking of creating a gold sink for money in the game, but I don't think your expanded AH idea will work too well. The main reason is because all the same people who are complaining about how they can't buy things in the player AH are just going to scream bloody murder about being unable to win any of the store item auctions.

The different categories will respond this way:

People who are either too lazy to craft for gold, farm for gold, or play the game well enough to earn gold will never be happy and are simply miserable, envious, parasites who like to complain about the "class gap".

People who cannot put as much time into the game as others, and so simply for the honest reason they don't have as much gold won't care for the AH idea because they have no use for it. For these people, the simple fact of the matter is time = in-game gold and they have chosen to use their time for something else. Nothing wrong with that, it's just a choice.

Some people are just clueless and uncreative about earning money and simply don't know how to earn gold easily in this game. No one has explained crafting, farming, reputation items, etc to them. They're going to complain out of frustration because they just can't understand how everyone else seems so rich.


In my particular case, I have about 50g across 4 characters having started playing last September. Could I have more? Of course, there are people in my kin who craft a lot and earn 100g a week. But I don't need it and don't want it. I used to have more gold but decided a wanted a Worn Symbol but didn't want to run raids for it. So, I spent 2 weeks prospecting and crafting my butt off selling resource stacks, jewelry, and rep items from Trollshaws. I earned enough in 2 weeks to buy my Symbol and got a 2nd age bow. As I try to build the perfect LI, I'll probably do that again and again to collect more symbols. It's just how I've chosen to play the game.

Zitat von Malindruel

First up,
I don't see the point of having LOTS of in-game gold on any character

Those players who you see posting at such high prices are 1 of 2 things .... Gold Bots or Idiots

You say you have been playing for only 8 mths and only have 100's of gold

Well good on you

I have been playing 5yrs and only have 37g on my main, and 62g on my bank character
I dont have any need for any more.
There is nothing in this game that is worth more than 6g

what a load of bs... the value of an item is equivalent to the effort required to get it.
Is a third age weapon found in the landscape worth anything? Not really. Is a rare first age symbol from the most difficult raid in the game worth something? I should say so. Do you actually have any idea how markets work? Why would anyone sell a rare and valuable item for a sum that can be acquired easily in a short amount of time (yes, 6g is NOTHING)? In fact THAT would be pretty stupid, not the opposite...
but hey, just go around calling people idiots because they know the concept of value determining market prices... but if you ever happen to find a worn symbol of the elder king by chance, I'll gladly pay you 6g for it...

Zitat von Malindruel

First up,
The Store is NOT a Gold SInk and NEVER WILL BE.. you cannot spend any in-game gold in the Store. You earn Points or SPEND REAL MONEY buying them

I don't see the point of having LOTS of in-game gold on any character

Those players who you see posting at such high prices are 1 of 2 things .... Gold Bots or Idiots

You say you have been playing for only 8 mths and only have 100's of gold

Well good on you

I have been playing 5yrs and only have 37g on my main, and 62g on my bank character
I dont have any need for any more.
There is nothing in this game that is worth more than 6g

If people are prepared to pay stupid prices then that's their fault

There was somebody trying to sell an Unidentified level 52 Hunters 3rd age Bow on the AH for 900g bid 999g buyout the other day

Nobody is going to buy anything from the store to put it on the Auction House.
That is when the Store will become a REAL MONEY sink

Basically it boild down to the idea.....

OK I'll buy the Steed of the Hunter for 2000TP, but I have to buy that costing me $10.
I'll put it on the Auction House at 1000g which costs $0 and even if bought I get nothing for the $10 I just spent in the store

Nothing in this game worth more than 6 G?

We playing the same game or do you have everything provided for you by a kin?

The general cost of items = the difficulty to get said item which translates into a gold price. (as was stated above.)

If people want to undercut themselves or "be nice" that's their problem.

Certain items have certain costs and they usually play off of each other, meaning, this is 5G, this other item is a BIT better, I'll post it for 7G.

Zitat von Strikerin

Put store items on AH (That is, TURBINE putting things on AH, NOT players), take the gold from it out of game.

Turbine will never sell store items on the Auction Hall for gold. Gold has no value to Turbine. The only currency that has value is Dollars, Yen, Euros ... Turbine might sell Gold for dollars.

Some companies like CCP use a two stage mechanism to sell Gold via dollars. CCP sells a virtual Game Time Card for dollars. The buyer can sell the GTC in game for Gold. The person that bought the virtual GTC with ISK (Eve Online in game Gold) can then apply GTC to their account to get 30 days of Game Time.

There is no real solution to this issue. The problem is that new players with low level characters are competing for products against the players with high level characters that can earn Gold much faster. There is no way a player whose highest level character is 20 can compete against someone like me that has multiple level 75 characters. There are a lot of players with one more level 75 characters looking to buy stuff.

Zitat von Fralin

6. Create NPC robbers that roam the countryside

lol this would be interesting to see. That might be a neat little idea. Them mezing you and then robbing you might be fun too.

But then you might want to also allow them to rob other things.

Zitat von Fralin

6. Create NPC robbers that roam the countryside

Only if I can kill the robbers. Plus there is a bank that the robbers can not get at for gold storage.

Flashbacks of darkfall and being ganked near the bank after going out on a resource mining trip. Everything gone!!!

Okay, first of all. Turbine can't get involved with the so-called 'inflation' with regards to the Economics of LOTRO. Things that are over-priced are solely left at the discretion of the poster and it's laughable that you're making a post about it. What do you think this is? A command economy? We're not in the Soviet Union with Turbine being the State Organiser of the Economy. No, this is a free market and everyone can do whatsoever they want. If you don't have the money to pay for goods, then that's tough for you.

I assume Turbine has at least a vague idea how the gold supply is behaving on each server and whether they think things are out of control. If they do, they can either lower the amount going in, say by making vendor trash mob drops worth less, or increase the amount going out, by increasing the cost of crafting mats or something. If they want to leave new players alone, they could increase the cost of relic melding, since that would only affect high level people. But they haven't, so I guess they're happy with where things are at.

First off, the OP is on the right track insofar as there is a problem with the gold Source:Sink ratio. Its way too easy to create gold, way to difficult to spend it on NPC goods and services. The AH, of course (being player-to-player), merely reflects the state of the economy, but has no influence on it.

Selling store items for gold might be one solution. You'll never get Turbine to sell "top shelf" items like Stat Tomes, but you might convince them to put up some of the less-popular consumables in-game on a vendor. They'll never undercut their own profits by selling things that people actually pay TP for, though. So the problem there is that it'll never be enough to make a difference by itself. You'll never get Turbine to sell items valuable enough to warrant dropping 100+ gold on them.

We need a more comprehensive review of NPC gold sinks. Luxury items cant do the trick alone. We need some real meaningful way to spend gold in-game with NPCs. Buying Marks for gold (not Medallions or Seals) would go a long long ways, especially since that would let you convert your gold to LI upgrades like GSoEs and Fused Relics, which would create a lasting marketplace, not just one-time purchases. Purchaseable consumables (not competing with Chef or Scholar consumables) would help a lot too; these could be Store consumables like lesser Accelerators, or new ones entirely.

Gambling, also, can be a great gold sink if the cost and rewards are structured right, since that lets you offer more valuable items without "setting" a fixed price for them; gambling also tends to draw money more from those with way too much extra sitting around, which is what drives inflation up the most.

Zitat von Mephistophelis

Okay, first of all. Turbine can't get involved with the so-called 'inflation' with regards to the Economics of LOTRO.

Turbine can and has to. Not by command economy, of course, but by manipulating the gold source:sink ratio to try and keep it in overall equilibrium with playerbase net growth. You cant create a flawed, faulty system and then expect the players to collectively self-manage it, despite the flaws.

Every actor will act in their own self-interest, even if its detrimental to the overall economy. People who need gold will farm gold, for instance, even if they're helping to contribute to the very same inflation thats driving the prices so high that they need to farm gold in the first place.

There is no need to deal with inflation in a videogame because it is not actually harmful to the ingame economy.

But since having to go get ingame money is an incentive to spend time ingame, opening the opportunity for Turbine to sell gametime and items for real world cash, it is in the interest of Turbine to keep the amassement of gold somewhat in check.

Although the idea of placing items in the AH is not bad, it would be much easier to sell cosmetic items on vendors for ridiculous amounts of gold. As can be seen from the TP store, which might seem to lose a little business through this, players are happy to spend oodles of money on items that have no, or only minor, impact on power. As long as the offers in store vastly exceed the budget constraints of the average player, good business will continue and some gold be drained from the game as well.

Zitat von Shismar

There is no need to deal with inflation in a videogame because it is not actually harmful to the ingame economy.

Go play D2 and tell me inflation doesnt harm an in-game economy. You could go play HGL too, but that game got shut down :P

I'd really hate to see LOTRO end up as a barter economy because gold becomes so inflated its worthless.

A healthy, robust in game economy actually behooves Turbine, too, because it creates incentive to participate in the economy, via crafting, harvesting resources, selling good loot items, etc. - all of which create more incentive for players to log in and invest time and effort (and money) in their characters.