Curse

Verlas Ho'Esta · Jan 18, 2006, 09:16 PM // 21:16

A lot of other MMORPGs include an economy system. Now, I know the merchants are set up to respond to supply and demand, and that is exceptionally cool, but I would like to see a little more added.

I would like to see individual Guilds become economic powers of their own right. Not just farming in PvE, anybody can do that. Guilds get their own islands, right? The islands are different from each other, right? Why not have each guild-hall island produce certain in-game resources?

The idea is that each island produces resources (Iron, steel, wood, fibers, granite, etc..) and stores them at a central NPC, say, a Guild Foreman somewhere in the hall. The island produces a certain amount of each resource per guild member per day, but the longer each member goes without logging in, the less that player's share is produced, so people who only log on once a month don't do anything, while those of us who log in almost daily produce more.
The guild leader can set up a certain percentage of these to be sold off at current market prices at certain times of day, or elect to retain them all in the foreman's storage to be retrieved by members. Any resources sold off via the foreman get split evenly among all guild members as "wages" (so smaller guilds mean everybody gets a larger percentage, while larger guilds mean a smaller percentage of a higher number). This also eases the necessity of farming for certain resources so PvE guild members can upgrade their armors as they go.

Here's where GvG come in. If an invading guild can beat the defending guild, they can choose to "loot the treasury", so to speak, and make off with a percentage of whatever resources were stored there before being sold off.

Here's my ideas for which islands should produce which resources. Amounts produced will vary greatly, and I'm still working on which ratios work best.
Frozen: Granite, Iron, Steel, Rubies
Warrior:Wood, Dust, Cloth, Charcoal
Wizard: Fibers, Dust, Cloth, Spiritwood
Hunter:Fibers, Feathers, Vellum, Parchment
Nomad: Bones, Dust, Granite
Druid: Fibers, Wood, Cloth, Spiritwood
Dead: Bones, Dust, Tiny amount of ectoplasm (one every 4-5 days)
Burning: Iron, Granite, Steel

I feel that this would add an expanded sense of economy and community to the game. It would encourage both trading and raiding between guilds. Most importantly, it would stave off the diablo 2-esque "why bother playing after it's over" malaise I've heard some players express.

I got the idea while playing on Starport: Galactic Empires (Freeware massmog. Low graphics, high content.)

benmanhaha · Jan 18, 2006, 10:21 PM // 22:21

I think it is an interesting idea. It has some bugs though.

a) The whole thing about the more time you spend in game, the more stuff you get, I do not like this. This would encourage people just signing on and sitting around. A lot more afk people. To fix this i would say we add a command to "harvest" the natural resources of your island.

b) I do not think the resources should be overly expensive. The rubies and ectoplasm should not be resources. This would encourage people getting like one island, this would let people GvGing come up with a strategy for one map, making it easier to win.(that last part might be a little out there)

c) The whole looting thing would be cool, but it would deter(sp?) new guilds fomr playing GvG, because they might lose all their precious resources. I think there should be an option to compete in the looting circuit, which has higher rewards, but has a chance of great loss, or you can choose to play in the regular circuit, which lets you keep your resources, but it also has lesser rewards.

Other than these few things, I really like the idea. There have been many suggestions on how to incorporate Guilds into PvP. I have liked some of them, but not a lot of them. This is one of the better one I have read.

The Herbalizer · Jan 18, 2006, 10:56 PM // 22:56

A person with two guilds and two accounts could simply farm one of the guilds.

benmanhaha · Jan 18, 2006, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Yes, but we shouldn't have to take into account people with multiple accounts. Those people can do lots of things, such as run themselves places, give themselves better weapons, etc. etc. A-net doesn't nerf people doing things for themselves, so i wouldn't worry about it.

Besides, there aren't enough people that buy multiple accounts to sway the ammount of resources farmed.