Welcome to Raph Koster's personal website: MMOs, gaming, writing, art, music, books.
Welcome to Raph Koster's personal website: MMOs, gaming, writing, art, music, books.

The whole Web
Raph's Website


Essays
These are full-blown essays, papers, and articles.

Presentations
Slideshows and presentation materials from conferences.

Interviews and Panels
Reprints of non-game-specific interviews, and transcripts of panels and roundtables.

Snippets
Excerpts from blog, newsgroup, and forum posts.

Laws
The "Laws of Online World Design" in various forms.

Timeline
A timeline of developments in online worlds.

A Theory of Fun for Game Design
My book on why games matter and what fun is.

Insubstantial Pageants
A book I started and never finished outlining the basics of online world design.

Links
Links to resources on online world design.



Economies in a virtual setting

I gotta tell you all, NOTHING is simple about this. :)

In UO we actually had to take OUT realistic economy sim aspects because they weren't fun. :P Shops being overstocked and not paying for player goods, shops going bankrupt from failure to compete with players, players going bankrupt from failure to compete with shops... and on and on and on. Every tiny change sent massive tremors though the entire game. We're at the point now where it's a lot less realistic, but kinda works, and sort of moves along.

If you expect a player to be able to make money occasionally from selling items they make, you will find that players will expect to be able to sell those items reliably for a reliable price. And telling them that there's a glut of bagpipes in the area doesn't mollify them much.

Some of the things we tracked and did:

There was more, but it boils down to this:

In the real world, you can spend $5 for a block of wood and turn it into a great wooden foozle. And the market in foozles can be so bad you lose your shirt. But in a game, players will say, "labor implies profit! I MUST make money at this!" and they will report that as a bug.

So now we have a less accurate economy, but one that satisfies players. And we learned (again) the lesson to never lose sight of the enjoyment of those who aren't as cutting edge as you are. ;)

In the end, UO began to move to a player-driven economy, whereby NPC shopkeepers are gradually being taken out of the loop. The sole concern is whether newbies will retain sufficient access to the goods they need to get started in the game.

Child's Play


A Theory of Fun
for Game Design

Cover of A Theory of Fun

Press

Excerpts

Buy from Amazon


After the Flood

Cover for After the Flood CD

Available on CD
$14.99


More stuff to buy

Gratuitous Penguin 2006 Wall Calendar

Gratuitous Penguin 2006 Wall Calendar
$18.99


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