Frozenfire's Economy 102 Essay - January 2002

Ok, the UO economy is down the drain. Inflation has already been covered and this update will talk about risk to reward ratio– or rather the lack of one.

Players turn to games for various reasons, almost all of which circles around entertainment or fun in some way. Different gamers enjoy different games. While all games are intended to be fun and a diversion, they have different ingame incentives that players react to. In UO there are many things to do, so players can choose what interest them the most. To keep these sub games interesting, the game designers add rewards to give players incentive to participate. Rewards in UO can be many things: fame/karma, slayer titles, magic items, semi rare item drops or just plain gold and other more or less useful items/resources.

So just what should determine rewards? Great feats merits great rewards. My own personal opinion as to just what makes a an accomplishment “great” are these four factors in order: risk, player skill, time spent and appeal.

Risk is very important in determining rewards.Who dares wins are just a couple of sayings built on this fundamental principle. Risk could be risk of character death, loss of possessions, temporary or permanent loss of skills (ie pk/faction stat loss), resources lost or fame/karma loss.

Player skill should be rewarded whenever feasible. It gives everyone a reason to keep learning and practicing to become better. Playing as a team with skill should also be rewarded. The downside is that differences in connectivity and computer systems puts players on an uneven playing field.

Time spent is also an important factor. A great feat that takes 5 seconds to accomplish is not that great, is it? On the other hand, an epic 30 minute battle. Some skills that take longer to GM, should provide some extra ability to gain better rewards, compared to skills that are quick to GM.

Last is appeal. Some activities in UO is inherently more fun than others. The tediousness of some sub games, means that they should offer a good reward so as to entive players to participate, even though there may be more fun sub games to be found.

Those are the factors I believe should determine rewards, and to some extent this is already present in UO. The problem is that the game is dynamic and keeps changing, and along the way, the imbalances have added up.

If we look at PvM, pre UO:R, all the best spots in dungeons were PK hotspots. Does anyone remember banking every 2K to minimise loot lost if you were Pkd? Compare that situation with Shame today. In Trammel, you can safely farm Earth elementals at 300 gold a pop (+gems) and only recall once you reach your carrying limit. Risk is definitely lower, the skill required has been reduced (no need to be able to evade/fight pk:s) and yet the money made per hour is better. That’s the exact opposite of how a good game should reward its players.

Clearly, playing patters can quickly tell us where the most favorable risk/reward ratios are to be found: Bards/Tamers are dime a dozen. Few even bother hunting with a warrior, once they graduate from the basic spawns. The ranks of crafters are increasing too, but the number of shops are falling (more on this in the third and last update). Trammel dungeons are crowded, while Felucca mostly empty.

Not only does the ease of moneymaking with Bards/Tamers fuel the inflation, but if people want to compete with rich tamers/bards for houses or other attractive items, they need to start their own tamer or bard or sink more time into earning money. While OSI has made many different templates viable in PvP, it remains a sad fact that there are, in reality, just 2 viable classes  in PvM.

So if the risk/reward is unbalanced, players will react and the result is a surge in the sub games with the best perceived risk/reward ratio. Finding a perfect balance is impossible, but there is much that can be done. Once these imbalances are evened out, more sub games will be competitive when adjusted for risk, and result in a more varied playing pattern. Once risk is reasonably adjusted to cap the earning potential, the inflow of gold should at least slow down and lessen the inflation. Add some gold sinks, mentioned in the previous update, and the economy should show signs of recovery.

Next update will focus on why self sufficiency is bad for the economy.