My Stream of Thought
sometimes my brain actually works... sometimes it fails completely...

Start with the money system...  since all MMO use open ended production of coinage they automatically deflate the value over time and cause what the unlearned percieve as inflation.

Now if you made a value for every item, and only allowed it to be sold to the vendor for 1/5 that value and to another player for 1/2 that value, then you could keep pricing in check and items still being sold to players that need them. Every trade window, auction sale, etc would make sure only "even value" was exchanged.

A very communistic approach, but practical as no matter how much money is in the game, an item has set value and can be afforded by the people who need it...

The only meathod for you to circumvent this process fosters trust as a by product. "You give me item A, and then I will give you gold X" trade would require it and would be the only way around the system. 

That's my stry thought on your topic for today.

Oh, and the beautiful irony of it is that is kicks the real life "communists" right in the teeth and makes the job really hard for them, namely Chinese gold farmers. No more 5k gold for item... now they need to get 5k of the Item for the gold...

(not really picking on the Chinese specifically here, it just sounded funnier to me that way. Gold Farmers are gold farmer... no matter the country)

I agree with you about controlling or "fixing" prices.

My favorite example is from World of Warcraft, where level 19 gear sells for more gold then level 70 gear because level 19 is one of the levels for "twink" PvP, so high level toons buy the absolute best level 19 gear for their twinks to dominate the 10-10 PvP bracket.

But I'd rather that the level 19 items are "capped" at a price value that is reasonable for that level of gear.

You can adjust the cap (both high cap and low cap) of the prices for an item based off of supply and demand. Only one of an item on the Auction House, price cap is much higher, hundreds of them on the AH, price cap and low price cap both go down...

Sure, us Westerners like our inflated, overpriced capitalistic MMO markets, why? Some fool will always pay 100 gold for an item that would sell to a vendor for 80 silver...

I'd be 100% all for market prices being capped at actual market value of that good.

I personaly would like to see that any item one makes can be sold to a NPC merchant or to another PC for a fixed price governed by supply and demand on that server. No items found can be sold to another PC only to a vendor. However one can invest xp for better item enhancements down to the last level they had. One could go to a vendor enchanter and get their item enhanced that way. A game where no PC cn give gold to another PC (just sell their personally made items to other PCs) All PCs on a persons account can trade between each other and one can have 2-3 characters on at a time per account.

There's a reason that Communism almost never works. It especially wouldn't work in a genre like MMOs where players are rewarded for the amount of time and energy they put into a game.

The questing system is probably the only Communistic part of the game... everyone gets the same rewards for the same quests, and though time spent might vary, no one is rewarded extra for working harder or faster. Could you imagine quests that say "Well, get me 10 boar brains, but I'll reward you extra if you bring me more"?

It would be pretty funny though watching people gather 200 brains just to see what they'd get.

I don't think he's talking about communism in that sense...

I think he's more talking about putting controls on the market to make it less then 100% capitalistic.

You could still buy/sell as much of a good as you wish, but the market would force price caps on that good to prevent unfair competition, inflation, etc.

Ah okay.

While there are drawbacks to a capitalistic system, a system that forces players to only sell things at a certain price would be pretty annoying. And hard for programmers to keep up with as well! Plus I think you'd see a lot of players abandon the market and instead spam trade/chat channels to get a price on an item that they see is fair, which would get pretty annoying.

instead of putting a cap on how much you can sell things for just limmit the amount of money in the game feed it in some how and drag it out so there is always the same amount ingame there are only a few problems with this kind of system chief among them is how do you keep a few players hording all the cash in the game

Caemsg, yes, that is another option, but requires more programming skill than you can imagine...

Even with the "brightest and best" any country has to offer they still mess it up in real life, so how would you "similate it" so it works?

lol, i didn't think anyone would bother to comment until I had the time to post my idea (I'm very busy right now)... as for communism, I was going in the direction of a classless and lvlless MMO (you know, everyone is equal, I guess that communism is a economic thing more that a society thing though), my good nerd friend and I were talking about this and he mentioned communism.... so thats the title.... good ideas though... I never really thought about inflation... that really makes it hard for new players to start after the games been live for a while... I'll add this into my 'idea'.... thx for all the premature input... lol

What I wanna see in a MMO is a barter system. Like say I go out and get pelts, and be able to trade them for x amount of ore. Without having to go to gold for a medium. I know you can do it with players I just want to see that sort of system in a NPC sort of way. I guess you can have an NPC give ore for pelts or something but I dunno..... sounded more fun in my head at least

Another option would be to put enough services in game in keep an unlimited supply of money from accumulating as rapidly. Some of these things could even have tiered prices based upon the level of the characer using them. Ideas would include:

• Ressurection services
• Potions
• Travel
• Housing
• Mounts

The first 3 items on the list could be 2'nd tier versions of abilities already possed by certain character classes. A ressurection from a temple might have a steep price compared to having a cleric in your group and require your body to be brought to the temple (or summoned at an additional charge).

Potions could provide short duration buffs that would normally only be available to certain classes, at a level of effect a couple tiers lower than the user. Potions could be defined as any vendor purchased expendable magic item offering utility / buffs / healing.

Travel services are a big one, yes by all means perhaps a wizard could transport himself and friends across the world for free, but you could also include a transportation service with ports, prices of course would vary by location / level. But they are so convieniant :)

Player housing: A huge expense, for those who wish to flaunt their wealth. Montly rental, annual taxes, redecorating costs (tradeskilled items ftw) This can pull huge sums of money out of the economy if done well.

Mounts: an expensive up front cost, but also require upkeep in the form of food. Some of those exoctic beasts can be expensive to feed and just might leave if they get too hungry.

The downside to all this is, the same people complaining about inflation in the local currency are going to be the people complaining that all these optional services cost to much for them to use. They will demand that the prices be brought down to the trivial level so every has access to them in near unlimited amounts, thereby defeating the purpose of putting them in, keeping the economy under control.

you know when you have a bank account, they may have a monthly service fee..... that could really curve inflation etc... just have it based on lvl and play time... instead of by month.

KingCam, sorry, didn't mean to hijack this...  lol..

As for your idea, Ultima Online has been doing that for over 15 years now... if not for the outdated engine of the game I might still be playing it.... Everyone has skill to start, you build skill by doing things... But generally even a noobling can take on and sometimes beat a vet there. Circumstance dictates a lot more in games like that.

lol, as a matter of fact, if you and 20 friends made new toons on the same server you could probably zergling rush rule for a short while before the vets organized... har har har

np lIiberty, I always enjoy what others have to say. Unfortunatly, I never played Ultima Online, I do know about the lvlless/classless system in it though...  It just needs to be redone in a modern game. I find that many games seem to have you start off as an adult with the skills of an infant... which is stupid...

ps, as for thursday afternoon, well it has come and gone... lol, another time... maybe my physics teach will take mercy on me and give less homework this weekend... and maybe I will actually remember to write in this thing, unlike today, HA!