I think it is worth it for the traders of the video game community to discuss the idea and purpose behind commodities in MMO we have played and in Ashes of Creation. This is not a decision of balance but should focus on purpose and systems/process around them. As an old EVE Online, I apologize in advance for the essay.
I kind of wish they showed the caravan system with player crafting resources or town/node upgrading resources. The problems I see with commodities are.
- Commodities typically do not interact directly in the player economy (prices are not supply/demand driven). Meaning players have limited direct effect on supply chain and pricing, which may not have been explained yet.
- Commodities become a money printer into the economy (money faucet). Any time a npc just gives the player money for something it’s a money faucet that fills the economy like when the government prints more money, when this money is being spent by players it can contribute to inflation for the player economy. I wonder what money faucets are planned for Ashes of creation. I am guessing Commodities sales, Quest rewards?, maybe starting character money. Also the sinks that drain the money, I think there is are taxes, I guess buying stuff for the towns is the sink then. To me this implies that commodities are one of the first ways to generate gold for new players/servers.
- I hope commodities do not get balanced higher (money/time) than trading player generated and crafting resources so that people’s time is spent contributing to the crafting economy instead of focusing too much on moving commodities.
- It’s interesting that commodities have a perquisite currency to purchase them, meaning players must do another activity before being able to afford commodities. I would like to hear from a developer why commodities were designed this way. I think it was to drive players to go after other activities and make commodities secondary feature for money generation. The concern here is for trading focused players or groups, commodities require them to do other activities they are less interested in before trading commodities, but they could still move between town on mounts. Also was wondering about trading commodities to other players to move and sell them for you so players can focus on other activities. One thing I learned from EVE Online, when a mechanic someone enjoys is nerfed too hard to require hoops to start doing, they typically just go back to the game without these problems. Some people like trading aspects of games, like Euro truck simulator players. Being that AOC has a large world we may have to figure out how to provide early game transport income for those types of players.
My concerns may be too sandbox focused and I know AoC is made to be a hybrid sand-park game. I played Voyage Century, which had a large trade system for moving commodities around the world, so I am not against the idea for a theme park game. I would like to see info on how they plan on balancing currency sinks and faucets (not numerical details just flow chart). It would be interesting to know what benefits commodities provide the destination nodes, other than just money through taxes. Commodities in EVE Online are ignored since there is enough player made stuff to move around.
