Q: Was there ever a demographic impact that you underestimated after the economy settled down a couple of months after release?
For example, Gaile said that the HoT announcement brought back alot of old players to the game and alot of new players bought the game for 75% off. I would imagine that if a bulk of players levels and reaches endgame at the same time, it puts out alot of demand for certain items at the same time.
Not too much, one of the reasons many markets remain stable is because they are designed to resist major swings with population changes.
A)ok, i will admit the reality is not that simple, but, thats supposedly what an ideal economy is supposed to promote.
I’m fairly certain Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize in economics for proving that ideal economies CAN’T exist… because right now they are made up of humans .
((note to self – go read up on his “Prospect Theory”))
Don’t forget Tversky. This is maybe my favorite economic study of all time.
to me, none of these are good reasons to keep a flawed system. In a real economy, flawed systems cannot stand, because they are inherently inferior to better solutions.
I want to live in the world you live in.
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Again this feels to me like two separate issues. One of price, one DIRECT availability, meaning you go obtain an item, you do not go obtain an intermediary item and exchange it for the item you’re looking for.
To the first issue, I’m not sure that I agree that there’s an issue. I haven’t seen strong argument that leads me to believe that a change wouldn’t leave everyone worse off. Silk is certainly not inelastic.
I’m not ready to discuss the second issue just yet.
Hm. What I find strange, is that John Smith posted on here, but only to comment on the validity of the thread, rather than the topic itself.
Is this an issue ArenaNet doesn’t care about, or is it just something they’re aware of, but don’t want to discuss right now?
It is something they are well aware of, and in fact John Smith said several times in various threads about the matter, that Silk was intentional and is working as intended. He also said in regards to player perception of a broken economy, that he doesn’t care. So from those type of statements that he already has made, one can reasonablly assume that in rergards to silk pricing is: that it is fine, its working like it should, and he doesn’t care about the misconception of silk being overpriced.
he said he doesnt care if players are unsatisfied with economy? really?
Question:
Do you care/will do something about the fact game economy is really perceived as broken?
Or if you instead think its well perceived, why don’t you look at every single thread that had the luck to remain for few hours in general section?
There were many threads about how important economy perception is in a videogame.
If by “really perceived” you mean that you mistakenly perceive a fantastic and functioning system as broken, then no… I don’t care.
i dont think this means he doesnt care if players are unsatisfied, merely that he doesnt care if that particular player thinks the economy is broken.
but i could be wrong, perhaps you are right, and he doesnt care.
That statement is taken out of context. Obviously I care about how the community feels about the economy, my activity on these forums should be proof of that. That individual I was speaking to was being intentionally antagonistic.
Q. Do you actively play GW2 (are you allowed to, have you ever)?
I do actively play, I have 3 80’s, I’m usually on Roche de L’Augure, but my forum account and play account are different accounts. The way that I play is generally different from a non-dev though if I’m interacting with the economy, and the same as a non-dev when I’m attempting genocide on centaurs.
Have you had any moments where you look at the market reaction to something you consulted with and said to yourself “I done kittened up”?
Bloodstone dust. Nothing like checking numbers after a meeting to see how much something has increase and there’s 10 more digits than you were expecting.
10 more digits!? Holy Clam Sauce Batman!!!!!
Thats quite a bit.
Other than Mawdrey, have you considered another Bloodstone dust sink? Maybe some new recipes or something?
Also what about the global economy ramifications of making Bloodstone Dust, and other ascended crafting mats vendorable?
I would be less concerned with the global economic ramifications than the fact that adding a vendor value isn’t an elegant solution, you should get something for that material that isn’t 2c, because 2c never feels good and just adds to the money supply.
Have you had any moments where you look at the market reaction to something you consulted with and said to yourself “I done kittened up”?
Bloodstone dust. Nothing like checking numbers after a meeting to see how much something has increase and there’s 10 more digits than you were expecting.
10 more digits!? Holy Clam Sauce Batman!!!!!
Thats quite a bit.
Other than Mawdrey, have you considered another Bloodstone dust sink? Maybe some new recipes or something?
Also what about the global economy ramifications of making Bloodstone Dust, and other ascended crafting mats vendorable?
I would be less concerned with the global economic ramifications than the fact that adding a vendor value isn’t an elegant solution, you should get something for that material that isn’t 2c, because 2c never feels good and just adds to the money supply.
Have you had any moments where you look at the market reaction to something you consulted with and said to yourself “I done kittened up”?
Bloodstone dust. Nothing like checking numbers after a meeting to see how much something has increase and there’s 10 more digits than you were expecting.
John, did it ever happen that a new feature or game mechanic that was proposed internally by the dev team was vetoed by you because it would have too big of an impact on the economy?
50 Times a week, I am the destroyer of the designers intention to make people happy.
I’m late to the party and haven’t read the thread yet so forgive me for any error.
To clarify:
While a purchase of an object with gems doesn’t indicate a purchase from that person, the gems that are used are from a purchase that somebody made. It is true that the gems in circulation in the currency exchange are purchased by a player and that exchange depends on a player of some sort making a purchase.
I’ll read this thread and follow up again shortly.
I checked the numbers and everything is normal. There is less than a .01 standard deviation since the beginning of the year in day over day ratio of ecto to dust.
2500 salvages is nowhere near enough salvages to be certain about anything, but it is enough to make me query the datasets for enough salvages to be sure (say 100,000,000 or so)
JS, do you ever think you are one of the Tyrian gods when it comes to the economy? The amount of insane changes to the game over the last 2 years in terms of economy is, to me, bewildering. Prices of goods have fluctuated astronomically since the game released. How many of these changes were you guys aware would occur when implementing updates to the game such as: changing weapon skins (and some other skin types) to BoE, rich orichalcum vein add/removal, introduction of ascended gear and ascended crafting (especially the crafting. balance of goods is ridiculous. 100 silk bolt >> 50 mithril bars is frakking ridiculous, not to mention linen and cotton. leather also is pretty much worth as much as the dirt beneath our feet), the mystic toilet (several guild members seem to be extremely lucky getting 2 dusks or zaps within 20 rares in the toilet whereas most, included myself, have dumped hundreds upon thousands over time in the toilet and have received not one). the economy is almost, if not more so, frustrating as the economy was in WoW between vanilla and the release of BC.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, but I’m going to make an attempt.
Prices of some goods have fluctuates in accordance with new content, new players or changes we’ve made, but overall the Tyrian economy is incredibly stable.
It’s really rare that the price of any major good fluctuates in a way we didn’t design or expect (it has happened, I think I spoke about it before in another thread). That doesn’t mean I think all good prices are where they should be or always will be, it means that we pay attention and make what changes we feel confident in.
The mystic forge itself plays a role in the economy, but the nature of the distribution of goods from it is another topic entirely (literally, it should be on the first two pages of this forum or so).
If this doesn’t answer what you were asking, follow up and I’ll try to answer more specifically.
I want to remind everyone that this isn’t a discussion about precursors or specific rewards, that’s a different conversation. This is a discussion of the pro/cons and philosophy behind different forms of RNG implementation.
I wouldn’t continue it in this fashion if I didn’t agree that there could be superior systems.
How do you feel about hybrid RNG systems that employ such concepts as ‘streakbreaker’ mechanisms, that eventually force or enable some manner of deterministic option? I’m curious, as they’re not uncommon (consequently, I imagine they’ve been examined in various formats before), and wondering what the reasons might be for why they aren’t employed…or if its merely a matter of that they haven’t been employed yet.
Are they off the table? If so, why.
Are they topically relevant? If so, how do you feel about them?
I don’t think they’re off the table. I’ve played several games using this type of RNG in my research recently and they are not my favorite solution, but that’s still a personal opinion, I haven’t developed a professional one yet.
I am sure one can come up with better solutions than these 3 John.
These aren’t solutions, they’re concepts that would be the framework behind a solution.
One thing that’s bothersome about all the feedback is that the overwhelming majority can’t stand it in it’s current form. But yet the devs continue to implement it as is.
Obligatory note that this statement has no factual backing in two senses. That being said, I began this thread because I wanted to open discussion on the fact. I wouldn’t continue it in this fashion if I didn’t agree that there could be superior systems.
I know it’s hard to imagine, but working in video games there is often a LARGE investment into changes. It’s not something that can happen overnight. I ask for lenience in this, it isn’t that we aren’t listening or not working, we are, really hard. I firmly believe this game has gotten better and better and better and it’s going to be better and better and better than it is now.
What would happen to the market in general if Precursors were added as an exclusive gem store item? I have a feeling that the prices of many items will actually climb (i.e. rare/exotic weapons, T5 and T6 mats) even though there would be less demand. My reasoning is that although there is less demand for such items, it would cut out a gold sink, which allows for more gold in circulation, which leads to prices being higher. And of course the gold>gem conversion would skyrocket, as more people would farm gold to convert to gems to but precursors. At least thats my assesment. Any thoughts?
The market would be empty, due to lack of server support… because our office would be burned to the ground by an angry mob.
There is NOTHING stopping a middle man from walking away with the items that both players give them.
Other than his reputation, yes. For the major TP players their reputation is worth a lot more than a puny precursor or even a legendary.
Middle Men are used in all MMOs to do major transactions where the in-game system is either too expensive or limits the trade in other ways (such as maximum amounts).
You brought up currency velocity in another thread. In most ways I think mmo economies are far simpler systems that RL systems except when it comes to calculating currency velocity. If I understand currency velocity correctly, there are units of currency that will never experience velocity; any units that are newly discovered and subsequently spent at vendors and/or WPs.
Is that a correct assumption?
That’s a way of thinking of it. Usually velocity of currency is used as an aggregated statistic grouped around some other fact. For example, very top level we would have the total money supply and the total velocity of money; it would be pretty normal to measure the changing velocity of all the game’s gold relative to the total money supply.
In the RW economies, are there units of currency that have 0 velocity? I would think a game economy would have a much higher ratio of 0 velocity units making an aggregate less accurate or at least more difficult.
I don’t think of it as units of currency having velocity, I think of it as the currency as a whole has velocity. There are definitely units of currency in RL and in-game that don’t move, but I’ve never really though about something like fort knox having no velocity before.
You brought up currency velocity in another thread. In most ways I think mmo economies are far simpler systems that RL systems except when it comes to calculating currency velocity. If I understand currency velocity correctly, there are units of currency that will never experience velocity; any units that are newly discovered and subsequently spent at vendors and/or WPs.
Is that a correct assumption?
That’s a way of thinking of it. Usually velocity of currency is used as an aggregated statistic grouped around some other fact. For example, very top level we would have the total money supply and the total velocity of money; it would be pretty normal to measure the changing velocity of all the game’s gold relative to the total money supply.
Remember that changes in the overall supply of currency doesn’t mean inflation.
Here’s a snippet from an awesome game economist team:
“Changes in the money supply dwarf the changes to prices. While the money supply grew more than thirteenfold, the CPI fell by almost a quarter. It‘s clear that these series aren‘t strongly correlated. The existence of money alone doesn‘t contribute much to inflation. Money that isn‘t being spent won‘t affect prices. This brings us to the concept of the velocity of money, i.e. frequency with which a given quantity of money changes hands in transactions. It can be stated as the total value of all transactions in a period, divided by the money supply. In our case, we shall be using monthly measurements, i.e. market transactions per month divided the average money supply that month. Only transactions on the general market are included.”
edit: In case it’s not clear, this is not from me or speaking of our game.
This is about DR. Is it based on when you kill something or when you pick up the loot? I vaguely remember people stating during the Blixx farm to pick up loot in 4 min intervals to slow down DR. Assume you’re allowed to answer this of course.
I cannot speak on the specifics, but I will say that it’s not really a thing anymore. In the last hour 26 people hit DR. Virtually nobody ever hits DR.
Your wording says 26 people “hit DR.” Does that include people who were already under DR? Is it “all the people who are under DR in the last hour” or “all the players who just got DR’d within the last hour?”
Also, it appears “within the last hour” was sometime monday morning. Care to share what the numbers are during primetime?
Since the halloween event, we haven’t hit triple digits in any hour.
This is about DR. Is it based on when you kill something or when you pick up the loot? I vaguely remember people stating during the Blixx farm to pick up loot in 4 min intervals to slow down DR. Assume you’re allowed to answer this of course.
I cannot speak on the specifics, but I will say that it’s not really a thing anymore. In the last hour 26 people hit DR. Virtually nobody ever hits DR.
It’s not a thing anymore because veterans like me have a better feeling for when we’ve hit the DR boundary and how to rinse it off (invigorating!). It still annoys me that I have the potential to be in the middle of Melandru and not notice that the evil mechanic has quietly taken hold of my soul.
That said, there is “loot DR” and “reward (ex:karma) DR.” Are these tracked together?
..and of course, questions you probably cannot answer:
1) Do you keep a history of when people hit DR?
2) Would you do a blind study where you compare the log of when a player hits DR with their manually tracked log of when they think they hit DR? (that is, without ever revealing the data to the end user, or having a juicy NDA in place, etc etc.)
This is about DR. Is it based on when you kill something or when you pick up the loot? I vaguely remember people stating during the Blixx farm to pick up loot in 4 min intervals to slow down DR. Assume you’re allowed to answer this of course.
I cannot speak on the specifics, but I will say that it’s not really a thing anymore. In the last hour 26 people hit DR. Virtually nobody ever hits DR.
Hey John, it seemed almost as if the huge influx of t5/t6 bones during the labyrinth were secretly designed to try and provide a floor for elder wood, knowing that a lot of people would use the opportunity to craft rare weapons. I don’t know whether this was actually the case or not, but in general, when you manage to sneak in some sort of hidden mechanism to shape the economy without the players really realizing, does it make you feel like a god? Do you laugh maniacally?
When we implement effective economic stimuli I do feel really good.
I also sometimes fall into fits of maniacal laughter, but I think that’s just a facet of my personality.
In the same manner that my thousands of forges and thousands of hours played feel without ever getting a precursor, so does the Halloween raffle feel having handed in up to 1k tickets and winning nothing (while others who hand in 2 to 3 tickets win).
I understand why it can happen, but that doesn’t make the experience feel any better. It just leaves you with a very bitter taste. You can talk about this all you want, but I consider that it is – bluntly put – your job as game designers to prevent this from happening to me and many, many others like me, over and over and over again.
In the same manner that my thousands of forges and thousands of hours played feel without ever getting a precursor, so does the Halloween raffle feel having handed in up to 1k tickets and winning nothing (while others who hand in 2 to 3 tickets win).
I understand why it can happen, but that doesn’t make the experience feel any better. It just leaves you with a very bitter taste. You can talk about this all you want, but I consider that it is – bluntly put – your job as game designers to prevent this from happening to me and many, many others like me, over and over and over again.
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