Contested content: yea or nay?

It seems to me that "convenience and need" is nothing more than a rephrasing of "supply and demand"

The supply was high (it was there for you to purchase) but the cost was set to high, so your demand wasn't high enough to justify spending it. Therefore no sale was made. Either someone with a higher demand for the product will buy it, or the price will go down in order to move the product. This is a function of the way supply and demand works.

In this case your demand for the product was high enough to support the price. The next batch put up will likely be a slightly higher price and this will continue until the product stops selling for that price, at which point the price will begin to drop until it reaches a level where the price is fair at the current level of demand. Again, the way supply and demand works.

This is sometimes true, and if there is a low supply and a high demand, you will definitely get people raising the prices to get as much as they can out of the people buying. And this will work...until the supply grows enough for the prices to start falling again. If there is one item for 10 gold on the market and 20 other identical items for 1 gold each, the one for 10 gold won't sell until the others are gone. People can set prices as high as they want, but if there are people willing and able to price their products lower, they will ultimately have to follow suit, or wait until the other products are gone (supply decreases while demand remains the same)

In a situation where NPC vendors can sell the same items, this will introduce an artificial cap to the prices that players can reasonably expect to receive for their items (because if they charge more than the NPCs, people will just buy from those NPCs), but I was describing a free (completely player driven) economy

Where have I said I want the game to be 'easy' or all 'instanced' (yes I think there should be some instances)?

What I do want is a solid free market economy - that's the kind that works and keeps people playing. It's not my problem if people on the forums don't know basic macroeconomics. SOE does. In fact, they have economists working with them designing and maintaining their games.

If we get a solid economy, then you can be sure that nothing on a broker or auction house will ever sell for more than it is worth. And that's what is best for both buyers (everyone) and sellers (adventurers, raiders, crafters - again, pretty much everyone).

Available to purchase != supply is high.
Supply is high = 15 plus instances of the item and/or prices to choose from.

I think often in the AH, it's often the case that prices neither go down (reduced by the seller) nor does someone with higher demand make a purchase. The items just sit where they are.
If there is enough supply, someone will underdut the greedier prices.
I don't think there is true demand in MMOs - which is why the interdependent crafting never worked in EQ2.
I do expect to see something closer to true demand in EQN.

I never expect games to have solid player economies.

Every single viewpoint you have on every single topic is "more easy mode, more instancing, more carebear, more hand holding, everything must be fair, ninjas and guns everywhere" terrible, boring game design. I literally disagree with you on EVERYTHING. What you want is exactly what every recent MMO has already offered, and they are all garbage. What others want, such as myself and clearly many others if the viewpoints expressed on these forums are any indication, is a game that's not the same as all the other trash out there. We want something closer to the original MMOs and the freedom they gave us without having so damn many developer created tools and restrictions. I hate to be cliche, but seriously, based on your viewpoints on just about every topic I've read, WoW offers everything you seem to want. Why not just play it and have fun?

Global auction houses suck. They are the complete opposite of fun, immersive game design. Why do you care if something sells for "more than it should"? Are you that afraid of getting ripped off? Too simple minded to do your own research and come to your own conclusions about what something is worth? Need others to set the price for you, so you can open your handy little global auction house interface and have everything right there at your fingertips? Heaven forbid we open up other fun play styles (ie traders / merchants) by having local markets with different prices in different regions. And heaven forbid if someone pays a little too much or a bit too little for an item. As much as it might suck to get ripped off, it's equally exhilarating to get an awesome deal on something that someone sold too cheap too.

The game you seem to want to design might be fun for you, but it won't be fun for long when it dies out in 6 months like all the other tripe released in the past several years and you're left with no one to play with.

I think this really have something to do with you not taking part of the player economy really.
I take it, that you do not sell to other players either (this is what I am basing this post on at least.)

If you are only selling to NPCs, you will only make money based on the games set economy.
There are not any games (that I know of) where the NPC economy have anything on the player economy.
If you are sellling to a player market, then you would be making more money, and the prices for whatever you wanted to buy, wouldn't seem so crazy.

That is not to say, that there sometimes arent some players that sets prices on items to an outlandish level.
Or that some players will manipulate the market. It happens.
But in general, things are more or less being sold for what players can affort, as long as these players are also partaking in the economy by selling their items to other players.

To take it a bit far out, it is like only soloing and obtaining solo gear, and then thinking that group content must be near impossible for anyone. Even though people that group are breezing through that content.

I have one simple rule for myself when using the auction house. If I need crafting mats and they cost 1k. Then I go and farm whatever it makes me the most for the shortest time needed, either it being what I need or something more expensive.

Example: I need copper ore and its selling for 100 gold per stack. I can farm a gold ore stack in the same amount of time as the copper ore, but the gold ore sells for 1000 gold per stack. Even though I need copper ore ill farm then sell the gold ore and buy to buy the copper ore.

I end up buying a ton of crafting mats but I also end up selling a ton. Overall most of my money in games come from crafting mats.

I've placed stuff on the AH before. Usually, slightly under the lowest price.
Haven't gotten enough response to make it worth much attention.

True.

Hasn't been my experience.
But, tons of people make that work for them, sure.

They're generally outlandish.

Not really. I mean, I can make a comparison of value between quest rewards, my own effort harvesting and prices players ask for harvested resources to gauge whether the prices are outlandish.

High supply and low demand = very low price
High supply and high demand = average price
Low supply and low demand = low price
Low supply and high demand = high price

All I'm saying is that in games, in my experience, high price is set purely on seller greed.
Low supply high demand really has little to do with that.
If there is a high enough supply in the AH, some people will undercut the price.

Just as I'm a solo player and don't care about raid gear, I just focus on vendor economy rather than worrying about vendor economy. I don't really care about having enough cash to use the player economy because it's mostly gouging prices anyways. Lots of people have fun with the player economy which is great.

I just don't the littile matrix actually works like that in EQ or WoW or NWO.

Well, it's a good thing we're both on these forums then, so the devs hear both points of view.

I don't care at all about people getting ripped off. If the broker system works (and I've said I'm not against regional markets) they can't be. If the price of a good is too high, there's no demand. Nobody buys it. But the supply will increase - other people will farm it. Then the undercutting begins until you reach a price where there is a demand for a good - even if it's only one player. He buys the item for what he feels it is worth. Then they might have to lower the price some more to create more demand - again, the people buying it are paying what they feel it is worth.

Greed is what makes the free market work. It's the 'invisible hand' that benefits everybody, so long as supply isn't artificially limited, there aren't barrier to entry into markets, and price and supply information is visible to everyone. Those three things are achievable in an MMO where they are not in the real world.

Edit: To add to this - let's say I need ten bone chips from some low level mob for something. To keep things easy lets say it would take me an hour of farming to kill enough mobs to get said chips (just sticking with easy numbers here). In an hour, I can easily make 10 plat doing repeatable quests (a lot more really, but again, sticking with the numbers). If those bone chips are on the market for 'only' 75 gold each, it's worth it to me to buy them, because it saves me time in game. I win, the player farming the chips win.

Now at that price, lowbies who don't have access to those high paying repeatables will probably find it worth their time to start farming those chips themselves. Supply increases, and so the cycle goes. Prices drop until you reach a point where mid level characters, who can maybe get 5 plat an hour (easy numbers) will pay - anything less than 50 gold each would save them time.

The market forces will work as the prices change and what players find profitable or not may change on a daily or even hourly basis. This is an exciting economy - this is one that will keep people playing.

Making people search through bag's o crap or jumping through hoops to buy things isn't going to help the market run any more efficiently, and isn't going to make shopping any more fun for the players, most of whom would rather be out killing things and taking their stuff and earning XP, or exploring, or crafting.

You can have regional markets - and the prices of goods on those will differ depending on what is readily available in those regions - not just the goods themselves, but the ability of players to make plat, which I've shown is a big part of deciding what something is worth, and how far these regions are from where the 'action' is.

Then your price was too high to create any demand. Simple.

The fix is to drop your prices in steps until somebody buy it (ie: there is demand for the good at that price)

I find cutting by 25% is normally lets me sell nearly everything pretty fast. If it doesn't sell in a 24 hour time frame I undercut it again. Pisses people off but I rather sell fast then sit on something waiting for someone to finally buy something. I also find that those who think they have a market cornered in something will buy it and hope to resell it.

It was the lowest price.
But, price wasn't the issue. No real "demand" for the item(s) was the issue.

I'm too casual to min/max over buying/selling.

And none of this has to do with contested content and items being rare, which was the entire point in the first place.

You just went off on a diatribe on economics that no one cares about, most people won't take the time to read, was completely irrelevant, and no one was disputing anyway.

And you don't need a global auction house for any of the above to be true or work well in practice.

im all for contested content, I remember the camp checks and all in eq1. of course you would have to wait in line if groups were full, but it didn't mather to me, I liked it. of course, camp checks shouldn't occur in EQN because of the AI, but that remains to be seen

It has everything to do with contested content.

If a mob spawns only twice a week, and is the sole source of some tradeable commodity, the supply of that commodity is artificially limited. If it drops a non-tradeable item, that doesn't affect the economy at all. If it drops a tradeable item that can be gotten through other means as well, it's not a detriment to the economy.

Having one or two really rare items isn't going to kill the economy - you're right about that. It's when too many things become contested and many resources become scarce that it becomes a real issue.

Yes, the "little matrix" that I outlined is very general and only applies to the very basic level. It doesn't take into account many variables that can affect the prices of items, but it is a very good overview of the process.

For example, this in no way takes into account the watering down of the value of in-game money due to the influx of gold sellers. Many people will take advantage of the ability to drop $20 and save themselves a couple of hours of actually playing the game to gain the same amount of money... Then they go spend that gold they bought on the market to buy overpriced goods. People are charging such high prices solely because they can due to this situation.. This is the reason you see outrageous prices in Auction Houses, it's more a matter of inflation than greed.

Yes, that way they can make a game that appeals to no one equally.

I am for contested content, but do understand that a select few instances are probably needed. I just don't want to see any instances that are required to run a 100 time for tokens and crap. Also keep instances low in numbers and when a new one is released make a previous instant open world contested again.

I don't think instances will be repeatable by the same character.

CONTESTED!! Going back to my most fondest memories in MMOdom was starting out in nektolus forest in eq1 beta, Creeping along killing spiderlings to level and getting that silk to make better armour, only in zone to hear the shout YOUNG KODIAK, RUN!!!, No wonder it was contested territory and it was social that made it great!

I know this may become a wall of text and apologize if your eyes start stinging, so I will try to break it up as much as I can.

THE JOURNEY:
As a Dark Elf making the trip to Qeynos I learned a very important lesson dark elves are hated by humans in the north, and they hit really hard!, making crossings in off track places just made it more enjoyable in the end!
Back in the day, it was about the journey, going to Lower Guk, asking if a certain boss was camped, if your a squishy the group would leave camp go and get the other person greet them warmly and go back to trying to achieve the wanted drop/quest and the xp was so much better.

WORKING TOGETHER, NOT JUST FOR MYSELF:
It used to be about working together to survive the encounter E.G. Plane of hate EQ1, The wrong move usually meant, clerics camp, monks feign everyone else take one for the team! Nowadays, it's "OMG see my DPS it was UBER ROFLCOPTER". "Err dude we wiped...".
I was told after going LFG on my Paladin in EQ2asking to do DPS, that Paladins are tanks, right thanks, already knew that, but I wanted to DPS, was not in the mood to tank. Let alone while I DPS I group heal every 6 seconds it is up, but I guess hey I don't do big numbers

TODAYS SINGLE PLAYER ONLINES:
Todays MMO's are not bad but any means, but the content gets torn thru at an alarming rate and pretty much does not require you to group nor have major benefits to grouping to reach maxium level, one good thing about having no levels!

CONTESTED RAIDS:
A lot of concern on this topic I remember on the quellous server back at the top of Vanilla EQ, Wraith was top dog, on Nagafen and Lady Vox, I remember it being frustraiting that one could not get into one of those raids, but that time was so so brief in the whole scheme of things. As a developer sony has grown, and I would not be surprised if on launch they have 6 or 7 or so contested raid targets(Each with different requirements) , not every guild can raid every night and eventually after one guild has moved on there will be room for opportunity/PUG raids.

INSTANCED CONTENT:
Not Everyone wants/has the time to group up, and I understand that, I won't ask if you realise this is a Massively Multiplayer Online game, instead I offer an Idea.

"Advanced Solo Instance" - If Area is a determining factor in gear stats then Advanced solo's armour/weaponry should have 70% values of the stats. ONE RARE DROP, NO DROP.

"Contested Overland Rares" - 55% of the area gear. This is for a Standard rare, each Toughness level would increase value by 5%, bringing it up to on par advanced solo instance level on the toughest. RARE DROPS would bring it up another 5% bringing it up to be a better idea to fight with a group rather then take it on alone.

"Contested Dungeon Gear" - 100% value, this should be your base value. RARES at 110% - 125%.

Personally I hate advanced solo's I have already done every solo 10 times in the new EQ2 ToV Expansion, it feels too much like the same time I left WOW's Lich King Xpac, and consequently stopped played EQ2 cause of that reason. But they can be good stepping stones, good place to visit but do not want to stay there!!

RARE SPAWNS NAMED:
I miss these, they gave you a target when you are not grouping, how much of us went back to previous xpacs after we got a new max level to a name, down to a name no-one kills anymore to get an item we wanted, E.G. Rogues Illusion masks in EQ1. Rare drops, Rare items, make it worth repeating content.

IN SUMMARY:
I'll be playing an MMO, not a single player game, so Contested all the way please. You can have advanced solo instances, but really a stepping stone nothing more, we should be playing WITH each other not AGAINST. Bring back camps, and Rare drops, Rare names, nothing like finding one it will make your MMO DAY!