In-game investing; taking a mechanism from simulation games.

[Mbaums]

I’m posting this because it’s probably a half baked idea and I’m looking for input to beef it up, or totally nuke it.

Other simulation games have this system where you buy stuff, and turn that stuff into money. Like a more blunt version of tradeskills in PG. Think of monopoly. You are putting money on hold while buying property to then earn a return on the investment. This is something MMOs essentially don’t touch because they can’t. I think PG can. I’m going to talk about how, pros, cons, and the effect.

Hulon is everyone’s favorite banker, so he is the NPC as the example. Once soul mates with Hulon, what if he allowed you to buy 1 “stock ticket” or whatever for 55k, when his weekly pool is 60k, and he will buy-back that ticket for his full weekly pool price. The instant cash is essentially no risk and some reward. The flaw is an instant 5k a week to not use Hulon as a vendor.

Improved version: What if players could only buy one “stock ticket” if the vendor’s money was totally kicked. This changes everything because it essentially forces a week wait time to get the system started. Once it gets started, it promotes players to NOT sell to their favorite vendor, and keep track when he has cash again. The idea behind this is, Hulon has been buying so much trash from players, he takes a loan from you, his soulmate.

Pros to this idea: It pushes the high end player to shovel his items into the player economy vs using the same NPCs. It promotes the low activity players to login for a weekly money chore, which forces them to see what updates have been happening.
Cons: It arguably rewards minimal play-activity for a council rewards.

Thoughts? is this a recipe for inflation, or a good system to tie-up players money?

[Glythe]

The instant cash is essentially no risk and some reward. The flaw is an instant 5k a week to not use Hulon as a vendor.


So for not using a vendor you can buy a ticket that you get money back later? Sounds like a way to make more money passively on alt characters.

[cr00cy]

Hmmm... This sounds like a very passive way to earn money. And passive ways to earn money can easily be used/abused simply by alts.

Idea itself, I think, has some merit. But instead of making it a simple cash return, I would make it so you can invest money differently companies/enterprises.

So, sticking with Hullon as an example, let's say he would offer you an investment option. You could make only limited investments at any given time (it could be set number, or dependent on some skill, like Industry). First you decide what kind of business you want to invest in - this will determine what kind of rewards you will receive. Then you decide how much you invest - this will decide both rarity and amount of possible rewards - amount you invest is minimum value of rewards you receive (so if you invest, let's say 10k in mining expedition, you will receive metal slabs that total vendor value is at least 10k).

Then you decide time of investment - minimum one week, maximum one month. The longer term, the more rewards. So following the above example, if you invest said 10k for one week, you will receive minimum 10k worth of slabs. If you invest for two weeks, you will get minimum of 15k (just an example)

And finally risk. When choosing investment, you will have several options of various risk levels. The higher risk - the greater possible rewards. Going back to mining example again - you can choose mining expedition in Latibule, that will grind you mostly base and simple slabs, with small chance for good ones, that has low risk, or oen to Gazluk, that will have higher risk, but grand better slabs, or pick even riskier options and pick expedition that looks for rare mining materials - copper, gold, etc.

Time of investment increases risks, investing more than the minimum required amount lowers it.

[Mbaums]

So for not using a vendor you can buy a ticket that you get money back later? Sounds like a way to make more money passively on alt characters.

You and the other poster had the same concern, and this is something that came to me in the shower (and I forgot to mention that solution): Tie the mechanism to retail management and it becomes too much of a pain to do on multiple alts. And possibly tie it to having an active vendor stall up.

The issue behind having it a free-for-all per character is once the optional membership happens, the potential of doing this ~6 times is problematic. Especially because it can only be tested among players with 4 character slots. If testing it runs amok now, it's not the end of the world.

Editing b/c no one replied after me and I more thoughts--
My biggest concern is promoting inactivity --> profit. Having the farmers almanac type code bounce the NPC-needing a loan around each week would actually solve this. It would require the player to keep on his toes, and the reward sometimes would be so small it's not worth doing, or require the player to live as an animal long-term.

[Glythe]

You and the other poster had the same concern, and this is something that came to me in the shower (and I forgot to mention that solution): Tie the mechanism to retail management and it becomes too much of a pain to do on multiple alts. And possibly tie it to having an active vendor stall up.

My main character is industry 72, my main alt is 70 and my third industry alt is at least 68. My fairy alt is 31 but I 'cheated' for the first time with this character and used I think 22 industry potions to start on 25 industry (after completing a level 1 mission). I am not trying to brag but overall I feel I am pretty young in terms of /played to some of the people who have been playing longer than me as I have taken 2 long breaks from the game.

If the idea is really investing should it not be more like : invest X amount of money based on favor cap with npc xyz? You invest money and you can only get it after an 'investment cycle' has completed (let us say maybe that is 30 days). Then you have 3 days to collect the money or it automatically gets invested again.

That seems like a pretty simple idea again but there are some problems. If you allow rich players to be able to invest more they will make more money and become even richer. Also what happens if someone decides to quit the game for a year so they can come back with 10 or 20x their initial investment? That also seems like a flawed premise.


I think the bottom line is that there are plenty of ways you can make money in this game.

1. You can run a shop and without killing a single monster just run around to the different vendors all day and make a killing reselling items that should not be on vendors. This includes buying things that are not priced correctly in player shops and resell them at a markup.

2. You have plenty of vendors you can drain for weekly income.

3. Industry can make you a ton of money if you are willing to grind it up on multiple characters. With one character you can easily clear 500k. With 4 characters and the right skills you can clear 2-3 million a month (depending on how far you are willing to take it).

4. You can do the daily mission on up to 4 characters.

5. You can sell items to other players and/or fill orders for the player work order board.

[cr00cy]

Another idea - How about instead of givign us cash directly (since, Glythe pointe dout, we have a lot of ways to earn money) Investing would do something different. For example, invets in vendor, and it will have higher money pool, offer you better prices for buying/selling, or maybe will start selling new items.

Invest in trainer, and he/she/it will be able to teach you new/unique skills.

[iRdhzejYF]

Saw your post while looking into similar ideas—love the concept. Adding an investing system to an MMO could be awesome, but it’s tricky.
Maybe tie it to gameplay, like tasks or running a vendor stall, and offer rewards like better vendor prices or unique items instead of straight cash. It’d feel more connected to the game that way. If you’re working out how to keep it balanced, ideas like addressing key business challenges (https://hub.waveup.com/guides/focus-on-your-pain) might help. Definitely has potential with some tweaks.