Guild Wars 2

In my experience with MMORPG’s (Everquest 1, Anarchy Online, WoW, and now GW2) I find that, after a small amount of time, the Trading Post / Economy is dominated by people undercutting the majority of others or incredible overcharging. In short, the economy doesn’t have a natural sense of competition that it should to generate healthy revenue for everyone.

I think an interesting way around this would be to allow players to select bonuses to supply and crafting. Players would select one area in their crafting profession for a supply bonus and another for a crafting bonus. Keep in mind, player would not get a bonus to their entire crafting profession, only one section (e.g. leather workers may choose a bonus to crafting leggings, but not all items made from leather).

A supply bonus would allow players to create items for slightly less materials than people without the bonus (say 10-25% less materials). By being able to craft with less materials players with that bonus would allow them to, conceivably, sell for less than others.

A crafting bonus would allow players to create items with slightly better bonuses than the same items crafted by players without the bonus (again say 10 – 25% better buffs). Having a slight edge in quality would allow players to sell these items for slightly more.

These bonuses would mean players would have a slight edge in crafting certain items over others. Since players cannot get bonuses across their entire profession it will create competition for certain items rather than everything made by one profession. Players wouldn’t simply give up on crafting because they are constantly being undercut by farmers or people simply levelling their profession.