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In this last part, I'll analyze the idea of Currency in a more abstract way, to deal with some misconceptions most Players and Designers have about Gold and Prices based on Gold.
Currency Issues
In Diablo III (and most other MMORPG) we can observe an apparent Inflation caused by difference between Gold Input and Other desirable Reward input. This isn't true inflation in modern economics sense. It's a difference in the supply of gold (Gold input - Gold Sink) and the supply of other virtual goods (randomly generated loot for example). It looks like Hyperinflation if you consider the Gold as a currency, however if player use anything else for trading, this "inflation" theory is obviously broken.
Farming (and regular Playing) is basically a exchange of time (Playing) to tangible rewards (Gold and other benefits). The price a player ask when making a fair trade with another player is a balance between the time it would take to that player farm that reward himself and the Tokens he can offer to the other player. Basically players trade tokens (things with less reinforcement value than what they are trading for). The price a player attributes to an item roughly obey the following function: F (Item Value) = F (Intrinsic Value of the item) * F (Difficulty to farm the good) * F (Price other players would ask) where:
Note 2 : Some players trade simply to make profit - that's a focus on the third function
Gold Obsolescence
Gold, in most MMORPGs, quickly become obsolete as a source of player power - NPC's items have much less power than random drops. That happens because player usually can both acquire all shop bought goods (they are cheap) and their nature is similar to Final Fantasy VII logic for NPC inventory - NPCs sell "gear" just barely good enough to allow progression. Of all above factors, there's only one that the designer has no control over is: "Player's playing time". As a designer you control everything else. Lesson: Playing time is the true currency inside a game (This is also true outside a game as well, but this discussion enter philosophical camp, and is beyond the scope of this text)
If anything, all MMORPG economies should be analyzed in another perspective than just looking at the value of a popular currency. Consider:
Repair Costs and Positive Punishment
Keep in mind that players attribute Meanings to contingencies inside a game. I'll have to step outside behaviorism theory to explain this since "meaning" isn't observable construct. Let's say that "meaning" in the common sense wording is "attribute a justified and generally accepted cause to a phenomena".
But, back to a Behaviorism perspective, we can say that "Repairing an Item" is just "Losing a Token (Gold)". That is roughly equal to losing a "life" when you "die" in Super Mario World. Both cases are by definition Positive Punishments. Players tolerate losing gold because losing has a meaning. Same goes for losing Hit Points ("-I deserve to die if i get hit too much") or Mana points ("-Casting spells take a limited resource called mana to make it balanced").
Repairing itself is a behavior, and it is a Negatively Reinforced Behavior. If you don't repair you suffer an aversive consequence (like losing your equipment temporarily or permanently). Both options either reduces the "fun" a player gets when playing (their character becomes weaker and the game becomes harder) or increases the likelihood of Positive Punishments like dying (note that in Diablo III dying also causes gold loss).
Other Genres
For comparison, in competitive game like the famous FPS - Counter Strike - or the popular MOBA - League of Legends - the Positive Punishment would be a worse personal score rating or losing a game (and assuming that the cause was you lack of skill). In other words, a punishment is something that makes a behavior more unlikely. It's not required to be something concrete or countable.
Closing thoughts
I'm not saying that Diablo 3 is badly designed when it comes to Gold, it's just that their initial approach of controlling gold influx with high "repair costs" had behaviorism theory explainable flaw. It's was VERY aversive, let's see player point of view:
Diablo III producers even had to reduce repair costs later after lots of players complained about the high costs, then they tried to offset this by making a new set of token trading options (NPC stores) with much more expensive "prices". You can check their patch logs to confirm this if you want.
It's a temporarily solution since players will eventually stop spending money on these NPCs after they get all the new "goods". But, surely, before all players have these new rewards, these NPCs will reduce the amount of gold in circulation. Conclusion:
NPC Pricing - There are more options than you think
References:
Gold Sink (Wikipedia)
Hyperinflation (Wikipedia)
Inflation (Wikipedia)
Virtual Economic Theory: How MMOs Really Work (by Simon Ludgate - Hosted at Gamasutra)
In this last part, I'll analyze the idea of Currency in a more abstract way, to deal with some misconceptions most Players and Designers have about Gold and Prices based on Gold.
Currency Issues
In Diablo III (and most other MMORPG) we can observe an apparent Inflation caused by difference between Gold Input and Other desirable Reward input. This isn't true inflation in modern economics sense. It's a difference in the supply of gold (Gold input - Gold Sink) and the supply of other virtual goods (randomly generated loot for example). It looks like Hyperinflation if you consider the Gold as a currency, however if player use anything else for trading, this "inflation" theory is obviously broken.
Farming (and regular Playing) is basically a exchange of time (Playing) to tangible rewards (Gold and other benefits). The price a player ask when making a fair trade with another player is a balance between the time it would take to that player farm that reward himself and the Tokens he can offer to the other player. Basically players trade tokens (things with less reinforcement value than what they are trading for). The price a player attributes to an item roughly obey the following function: F (Item Value) = F (Intrinsic Value of the item) * F (Difficulty to farm the good) * F (Price other players would ask) where:
- F (Intrinsic Value of the item) = F (Power compared to other options currently available) *F(aesthetics value) * F (difficulty to use)
- F (Difficulty to farm the good) = F (how much individual player power is required to farm it) * F (which context is required to farm it) * F (chance to get the good when farming)
- F (Price other players would ask) = F (players willing to trade the good) * F (price these player would charge)
Note 2 : Some players trade simply to make profit - that's a focus on the third function
Gold Obsolescence
Gold, in most MMORPGs, quickly become obsolete as a source of player power - NPC's items have much less power than random drops. That happens because player usually can both acquire all shop bought goods (they are cheap) and their nature is similar to Final Fantasy VII logic for NPC inventory - NPCs sell "gear" just barely good enough to allow progression. Of all above factors, there's only one that the designer has no control over is: "Player's playing time". As a designer you control everything else. Lesson: Playing time is the true currency inside a game (This is also true outside a game as well, but this discussion enter philosophical camp, and is beyond the scope of this text)
If anything, all MMORPG economies should be analyzed in another perspective than just looking at the value of a popular currency. Consider:
- If players are always producing more goods (Items, gold or any other reinforcement) than they consume (usually most virtual goods doesn't suffer from obsolescence) with enough playing time wouldn't all players have everything?
Repair Costs and Positive Punishment
Keep in mind that players attribute Meanings to contingencies inside a game. I'll have to step outside behaviorism theory to explain this since "meaning" isn't observable construct. Let's say that "meaning" in the common sense wording is "attribute a justified and generally accepted cause to a phenomena".
But, back to a Behaviorism perspective, we can say that "Repairing an Item" is just "Losing a Token (Gold)". That is roughly equal to losing a "life" when you "die" in Super Mario World. Both cases are by definition Positive Punishments. Players tolerate losing gold because losing has a meaning. Same goes for losing Hit Points ("-I deserve to die if i get hit too much") or Mana points ("-Casting spells take a limited resource called mana to make it balanced").
- The best way to reduce the aversive feelings of a Positive Punishment is giving it a plausible meaning.
- Ideally you should present an Alternative Schedule to reduce or avoid the Positive Punishment Contingencies.
Repairing itself is a behavior, and it is a Negatively Reinforced Behavior. If you don't repair you suffer an aversive consequence (like losing your equipment temporarily or permanently). Both options either reduces the "fun" a player gets when playing (their character becomes weaker and the game becomes harder) or increases the likelihood of Positive Punishments like dying (note that in Diablo III dying also causes gold loss).
Other Genres
For comparison, in competitive game like the famous FPS - Counter Strike - or the popular MOBA - League of Legends - the Positive Punishment would be a worse personal score rating or losing a game (and assuming that the cause was you lack of skill). In other words, a punishment is something that makes a behavior more unlikely. It's not required to be something concrete or countable.
Closing thoughts
I'm not saying that Diablo 3 is badly designed when it comes to Gold, it's just that their initial approach of controlling gold influx with high "repair costs" had behaviorism theory explainable flaw. It's was VERY aversive, let's see player point of view:
- "I hate having to pay such ridiculous high repair cost." - Well mannered hypothetical player
- "Item repairing sucks! I hate the game! I hate the game developer!" - Non-well mannered hypothetical player
Diablo III producers even had to reduce repair costs later after lots of players complained about the high costs, then they tried to offset this by making a new set of token trading options (NPC stores) with much more expensive "prices". You can check their patch logs to confirm this if you want.
It's a temporarily solution since players will eventually stop spending money on these NPCs after they get all the new "goods". But, surely, before all players have these new rewards, these NPCs will reduce the amount of gold in circulation. Conclusion:
- Making a good game currency requires the skillful use of the control a game developer has over both Token Input and Token Output.
NPC Pricing - There are more options than you think
References:
Gold Sink (Wikipedia)
Hyperinflation (Wikipedia)
Inflation (Wikipedia)
Virtual Economic Theory: How MMOs Really Work (by Simon Ludgate - Hosted at Gamasutra)