Welcome to Project: Gorgon!


Project: Gorgon is a 3D fantasy MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that features an immersive experience that allows the player to forge their own path through exploration and discovery. We won't be guiding you through a world on rails, and as a result there are many hidden secrets awaiting discovery. Project: Gorgon also features an ambitious skill based leveling system that bucks the current trend of pre-determined classes, thus allowing the player to combine skills in order to create a truly unique playing experience.

The Project: Gorgon development team is led by industry veteran Eric Heimburg. Eric has over a decade of experience working as a Senior and Lead Engineer, Developer, Designer and Producer on successful games such as Asheron’s Call 1 and 2, Star Trek Online and other successful Massively Multiplayer Online Games.



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  1. #1
    Senior Member Khaylara's Avatar
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    Ideas for a healthier game economy

    I've been mulling over this for some time. What triggered me to post was another topic about work orders and the other trigger was realizing how much time I waste sifting through vendor stalls and consignment to find 1 ectoplasm or one gem to try an extraction.
    So my ideas without any particular logic

    1-make the vendor stalls cheaper but limit the types of items. For example if the room says "Potions" you can't place armors and weapons in your shop. Even NPCs refuse to consign certain items. Imo this system would encourage specialized shops, thus specialized crafts (not necessarily a craft like leatherworking or tailoring but also surveying, gardening etc).The stalls are currently too chaotic to find anything and there's no price competition when you simply have to check every single stall for a certain gem you eventually give in and buy it at 250 cause you don't have time to search ALL the shops.

    2-remove the stalls kept for storage. If a stall is empty (the content is not shown) that stall should be closed. Maybe with a penalty for using it as storage room.

    3-remove the option to sell things to certain NPCs or/and lower their money pool. For example Lamashu, Yogzi, Amutasa...they buy a lot of carpentry, tools, leather rolls etc which would be much better in player shops. Make it the viable way to sell things. I would definitely buy meditation stools, wood, many would buy tools etc from a shop that sells slightly above the face value and not double the price as it is now with used tabs. Just an example btw, the same thing can be said about the NPCs who buy scrolls, foods etc


    4-remove work orders or account lock them just like player stalls, per account. I lvled crafts w/o work orders and it's doable. At the moment it only creates inflation and forces people into exploiting the system.Related, next point

    5-don't allow dualboxing/multiboxing on multiple accounts for muling or any other purpose. One account should be enough. Let me detail why before anyone flames and the topic gets locked:
    -multiboxing for storage on like 5 different accounts allows players to circumvent the whole storage-favor system. Why would anyone travel between their storage spots when they can stay in serbule and transfer wood, gems, bones to a separate alt for each material. Very convenient but not how it's intended to work.
    -multiple accounts in a guild-coin pouches=inflation and unearned cash by one player.
    -multiple mules=the materials get hoarded and used by one player and are not being circulated into the game market. The result is a player in "single player mode" who doesn't need to buy or sell almost anything. No need for any interaction with other players in the game market (at the moment many players do this because it's the only viable way to make cash or level tradeskills)
    -work orders completed on multiple accounts
    -player stalls on multiple accounts

    6-Increase/adjust some of the prices. For example nobody is going to buy a piece of cheese if I'm selling it at real market value. I mean who's going to pay 2200-2500 for a piece of cheese. What goes into it-a stomach is 1500+, couple of mushrooms, 2 bottles of milk sold atm at 250-300 each, firkin/barrel/kilderkin (wood+hoops/slabs), some sort of textile like cheesecloth. My idea is adjust the face value for really valuable items like stomachs and apply point no 1 to create competitive pricing.

    7-Also needed-decrease the amount of gear drops but increase their value. Same with crafted pieces, those should be even more valuable.The argument I made for cheesemaking can be easily applied to tailoring and leatherworking. A piece of purple max enchanted 70 gear is around 1k+. A vervadium sells with 3k minimum in shops (?!). Ofc we can farm it but i'm talking about the case in which we buy materials (that's how it usually works in a healthy economy, buy raw materials from others, sell the finished product, you make a profit, they make a profit).

    No flaming please, discuss/add but keep it civil, if we start arguing it breaks the ToS and it gets locked. Bring arguments to support you ideas or to debate mine, no personal attacks. Thanks and looking forward to reading some other suggestions
    Last edited by Khaylara; 04-03-2017 at 05:51 PM.

  2. #2
    Senior Member ShieldBreaker's Avatar
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    For the most part I'm fine with the way things are at the moment. Of course there is always room for improvement.

    My biggest concern at the moment is how is the money going to get drained out of the economy when we get to actual end game content? Once you buy all the skills and abilities, get your end game gear do you just stop trying to accumulate wealth? Are there going to be recurring cost that you will have to grind out super high level work orders to be able to maintain what you have?

    My current biggest problem with the economy is that I have no idea what prices anything should be, or what skills sets will be of interest on gear. I usually end up just putting stuff in my store to face value during the last couple days of selling. Also I have stopped bothering to consign stuff. I like finding player work orders for recipe/ability scrolls, still worry a little if they are overpaying but they put up the order so.

    Unfortunately I've only got questions, and no solutions or answers.

    Okay while writing I came up with 1 idea.
    End Game Services for a % of you gross income for the year. Mainly to drain off excess councils.
    Something along the lines of if you want a teleport code for direct access to the capital or another land you can have unlimited access for 10% of your gross income payable up front, based on you previous years income. You would be able to check how much you will owe so you can budget accordingly. Obviously there would be other ways to get there, a boat fee per trip, or a gate toll, sneak in, bind to a nearby teleport and walk.
    If you had 20 or more of these type of services my hope would be everyone would find 9 they think worth the money and 11+ they can live without. This would clear out 90% of players income each year leaving the other 10% to live on. And if you don't play as much your not worst off, the price of the service comes down.

  3. #3
    Senior Member Khaylara's Avatar
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    True, I'm treating the issue as if 70 was the endgame (it is for now though) but the market model exists. My overall concern is that we don't have a proper game economy. That was not particularly an issue when we had 15 active players but it feels like an issue now. Anecdotal scenario but the way I imagine things:

    now: X low level player finds an unidentified poetry book (worth 150 councils cause the price is imho not adjusted according to rarity), sees its value and sells it to Hulon. Y high level player knows the value buys it off used tab at Hulon and resells it with 20 k (or uses it). In this scenario X player loses because the face value of the item doesn't show it's a rare item thus valuable.

    my scenario: X low level player gets an unidentified poetry book worth 3k face value (adjusted price), figures out it's worth a bit of cash but they can't sell to Hulon cause Hulon doesn't buy it. Ideally they will sell this book via their own stall or ask about it on trade and get a better price for it. What if Hulon wasn't buying scrolls but we'd have a dedicated room in the citadel with only scrolls and potions? (we have now but we can put any item in shop anyway-see point 1). Right now only a limited amount of players have the knowledge of the real market value of items and with more new players the problem amplifies. It's going to take newer players a while to learn the ropes and stop selling valuable items to NPCs.

    Very good point on draining gold at the future endgame. I can only guess that it will be nearly impossible (or it will take a very long time) for people to unlock and max everything. Level 70 is currently a hassle and we still have 3 unlocks to go to the future cap level. Paying taxes or having very expensive high end services is certainly a good idea for when the game is fully finished and launched. We had this issue before skills started getting uncapped above 50, we had nothing to do with the cash we made for a good while.
    Last edited by Khaylara; 04-04-2017 at 07:40 AM.

  4. #4
    Senior Member Niph's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Khaylara View Post
    now: X low level player finds an unidentified poetry book (worth 150 councils cause the price is imho not adjusted according to rarity), sees its value and sells it to Hulon. Y high level player knows the value buys it off used tab at Hulon and resells it with 20 k (or uses it). In this scenario X player loses because the face value of the item doesn't show it's a rare item thus valuable.
    When opening the vendor sale window, the item could have some overlapping icon or text indicating there is a pending work order for it.

  5. #5
    Junior Member Vinnicombe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Khaylara View Post
    now: X low level player finds an unidentified poetry book (worth 150 councils cause the price is imho not adjusted according to rarity), sees its value and sells it to Hulon. Y high level player knows the value buys it off used tab at Hulon and resells it with 20 k (or uses it). In this scenario X player loses because the face value of the item doesn't show it's a rare item thus valuable.
    This was actually me last week. I got an unidentified poetry book and had no idea of its worth, so I sold it off and then the next day I see a player work order for the item, paying 10k. I felt like I cheated myself. While I just try and move on whenever I realise I've made a big mistake like that, and I've done a few times now (played for less than a month), I don't think that's a good attitude for everyone to have when the player base really starts getting big once we hit Steam.

    A few players getting screwed out of what seems like a fortune if your first couple of weeks isn't a big problem, but potentially hundreds of players screwing themselves? Shouldn't be ignored.

  6. #6
    Senior Member Tagamogi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Khaylara View Post
    1-make the vendor stalls cheaper but limit the types of items. For example if the room says "Potions" you can't place armors and weapons in your shop. Even NPCs refuse to consign certain items. Imo this system would encourage specialized shops, thus specialized crafts (not necessarily a craft like leatherworking or tailoring but also surveying, gardening etc).The stalls are currently too chaotic to find anything and there's no price competition when you simply have to check every single stall for a certain gem you eventually give in and buy it at 250 cause you don't have time to search ALL the shops.
    I think the current system works really well, actually. Unless I'm bored, I always use the shop name and description when shopping. If I'm looking for gems, I only look for shops that advertise "gems" and just don't bother checking a shop that advertises as "buy my stuff" or "everything you want" or something generic like that. I think this actually rewards shop keepers that come up with a clear vision for their shop, and if they want to have a custom category like "Cotton, ectoplasm and level 60+ swords" instead of just "potions" and can fit that into their shop description, I think that's fine. I'm always puzzled by the game's predefined categories anyway.

    One improvement I would like is to be able to actually see the shop name and description without having to click on a shopkeeper first.

    2-remove the stalls kept for storage. If a stall is empty (the content is not shown) that stall should be closed. Maybe with a penalty for using it as storage room.
    That would be nice, although I don't think a penalty is needed.

    3-remove the option to sell things to certain NPCs or/and lower their money pool. For example Lamashu, Yogzi, Amutasa...they buy a lot of carpentry, tools, leather rolls etc which would be much better in player shops. Make it the viable way to sell things. I would definitely buy meditation stools, wood, many would buy tools etc from a shop that sells slightly above the face value and not double the price as it is now with used tabs. Just an example btw, the same thing can be said about the NPCs who buy scrolls, foods etc

    4-remove work orders or account lock them just like player stalls, per account. I lvled crafts w/o work orders and it's doable. At the moment it only creates inflation and forces people into exploiting the system.Related, next point
    I think both of these would be very bad, especially combined.Right now, if I want to level a craft skill, I have multiple different options:
    1. Fill work orders. This will allow me to make money while leveling my skill, but I will only be able to progress slowly since the work orders per month are limited. (Leaving aside alt turn ins; account locking there may be a good idea.)
    2. Craft items and vendor them. This allows me to progress as fast in my skill as I can find the mats, and as I can afford. I'm assuming here that selling to a vendor is going to be a slight loss compared to other potential uses of the raw materials.
    3. Craft items and sell to players. This forces me to progress very slowly since I have to depend on a variable player market to level up my skill. I'm going to guess there's not going to be a lot of demand for rough leather gear, for example. This may also force me to to take a loss selling these items if the players trying to level a given skill oversupply the available market.
    4. Craft items and destroy them. I can level as fast as I want, assuming I have cash.

    In most games I've played leveling a skill pretty much comes down to 4. People make money from combat and then blow that money to speed level crafting skills, entirely eliminating the fun of crafting until the skill's max level, imo. I usually end up playing a mini game with spreadsheets trying to decide how I can lose as little money as possible while combining methods 2 and 3. It's sometimes entertaining but also frustrating when sometimes the best answer is really just "get money elsewhere and burn it until you are x level in the skill."

    I love, love, love the Gorgon work order system.

    5-don't allow dualboxing/multiboxing on multiple accounts for muling or any other purpose. One account should be enough. Let me detail why before anyone flames and the topic gets locked:
    -multiboxing for storage on like 5 different accounts allows players to circumvent the whole storage-favor system. Why would anyone travel between their storage spots when they can stay in serbule and transfer wood, gems, bones to a separate alt for each material. Very convenient but not how it's intended to work.
    -multiple accounts in a guild-coin pouches=inflation and unearned cash by one player.
    -multiple mules=the materials get hoarded and used by one player and are not being circulated into the game market. The result is a player in "single player mode" who doesn't need to buy or sell almost anything. No need for any interaction with other players in the game market (at the moment many players do this because it's the only viable way to make cash or level tradeskills)
    -work orders completed on multiple accounts
    -player stalls on multiple accounts
    I'm going to wait until the new UI before I vehemently disagree with you. My interim opinion: I started out playing the game as intended, and vendored things I couldn't use. Unlocking new storage and finding new storage NPCs was absolutely thrilling. However, over time, and as I created an alt on whom I wanted to keep exactly the same items as on my main, the limited storage just became less and less thrilling and more and more a nuisance until I finally gave in and created storage alts for my convenience and sanity. I would like to get rid of my storage alts and I'll give it a serious try when the new UI comes out but if it doesn't give me the storage options I need to enjoy playing, I'd want to continue using storage alts.

    I've played games that allowed considerably more storage, and they do not turn into single player games where everyone hoards. As far as I can tell, some players just like to hoard, and other players are perfectly content to get rid of things they are unlikely to need. There are usually enough players in the latter category that the game economy gets along just fine.

    As a side issue, whether a single account per player is feasible would also depend on the number of available character slots. If I play long enough, I will eventually want to have all possible races and animal forms. That's more than 4 slots.

    6-Increase/adjust some of the prices. For example nobody is going to buy a piece of cheese if I'm selling it at real market value. I mean who's going to pay 2200-2500 for a piece of cheese. What goes into it-a stomach is 1500+, couple of mushrooms, 2 bottles of milk sold atm at 250-300 each, firkin/barrel/kilderkin (wood+hoops/slabs), some sort of textile like cheesecloth. My idea is adjust the face value for really valuable items like stomachs and apply point no 1 to create competitive pricing.
    One immediate problem with that is that the game isn't finished yet, and that the market value of stomachs is going to go down if their drop rate is increased (please!). There are going to be fluctuations like this throughout the game, and I don't think the NPC prices should be changed continually.

    One possible option could be to just identify items that are intended to be very rare and valuable crafting materials, and don't allow the NPCs to buy them. This would encourage people to check the player market for them.

    I am not convinced it's really necessary to protect players from themselves to that extent though. Part of the fun of playing a game is just finding out the best way to do something at times, and if that means you make mistakes that cost money while learning, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.

    Also, some players are going to be fine just vendoring, even if they could get more money from players because the player route is going to require more effort and take more time. I always cringe whenever I see my husband vendor things in any game since he will sell things that, to me, are rare and valuable. To him, it's just junk clogging up his bags, and he doesn't care that he could get twice the money from players. (Now, if it's a hundred or a thousand times their vendor value, he might change his mind but he's still not going to lose sleep over getting the most money for them.)

    7-Also needed-decrease the amount of gear drops but increase their value. Same with crafted pieces, those should be even more valuable.The argument I made for cheesemaking can be easily applied to tailoring and leatherworking. A piece of purple max enchanted 70 gear is around 1k+. A vervadium sells with 3k minimum in shops (?!). Ofc we can farm it but i'm talking about the case in which we buy materials (that's how it usually works in a healthy economy, buy raw materials from others, sell the finished product, you make a profit, they make a profit).
    Going to say no again - I like the amount of current gear drops since it gives you more variety to choose from if you are looking for new equipment to wear.

    As with #6 , I don't think there is a need to adjust the vendor prices for crafted gear based on the current and inherently variable player market.

    Quote Originally Posted by ShieldBreaker View Post

    My biggest concern at the moment is how is the money going to get drained out of the economy when we get to actual end game content? Once you buy all the skills and abilities, get your end game gear do you just stop trying to accumulate wealth? Are there going to be recurring cost that you will have to grind out super high level work orders to be able to maintain what you have?

    My current biggest problem with the economy is that I have no idea what prices anything should be, or what skills sets will be of interest on gear.
    Yes, all of that. I think the money management required in Gorgon when you start out is really neat - having to actually make the conscious decision to not buy certain recipes I could use because I can't afford to buy everything at once is a very interesting limitation. I'm just not sure how that scales to higher level players.

  7. #7
    Senior Member Khaylara's Avatar
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    "I'm going to wait until the new UI before I vehemently disagree with you. My interim opinion: I started out playing the game as intended, and vendored things I couldn't use. Unlocking new storage and finding new storage NPCs was absolutely thrilling. However, over time, and as I created an alt on whom I wanted to keep exactly the same items as on my main, the limited storage just became less and less thrilling and more and more a nuisance until I finally gave in and created storage alts for my convenience and sanity. I would like to get rid of my storage alts and I'll give it a serious try when the new UI comes out but if it doesn't give me the storage options I need to enjoy playing, I'd want to continue using storage alts."

    At the moment I use those too (though only one account-4 chars) but we shouldn't be forced to find ways around it by resorting to alts. That means something is wrong with the current system:P I doubt the new UI is going to change that aspect though.

    With the learning curve for new players...I disagree here. I noticed even few player work orders that I'd call plain scamming, like 850 councils for 10 strong rennet (10 stomachs). When you have the vendor NPC buying it for 40 councils you will sell it at 850 per 10 cause it sounds like a good deal...when the value is 15 k at least. Minor "scams" like these will be very hard to control once the population increases.

    Also Niph's idea is great and it could be applied to other items.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Tagamogi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Khaylara View Post
    At the moment I use those too (though only one account-4 chars) but we shouldn't be forced to find ways around it by resorting to alts. That means something is wrong with the current system:P I doubt the new UI is going to change that aspect though.
    Yes to both of that. I think (hope?) that the new UI is going to fix some aspects of the current system that particularly drive me to use alts, though.

    With the learning curve for new players...I disagree here. I noticed even few player work orders that I'd call plain scamming, like 850 councils for 10 strong rennet (10 stomachs). When you have the vendor NPC buying it for 40 councils you will sell it at 850 per 10 cause it sounds like a good deal...when the value is 15 k at least. Minor "scams" like these will be very hard to control once the population increases.
    I think some of those orders could be posted by new players who were looking for a particular item and posted for a value that made sense to them without being aware of the actual market value. 85 councils as an ingredient for mild cheddar cheese makes perfect sense to me too, if I look at it from a cheesemaking and worth of cheese perspective. I think the reason it is not worth 85 councils is more that there hasn't been time to do a cheesemaking skill review yet rather than that the game is trying to create an inflated stomach market. Probably... So, I'm not sure how much of an economy problem these items are going to be once the game becomes more polished.

    ( As an aside, I don't think posting for 10 rennets would be a very effective scam. Someone who has had played for long enough to accumulate 10 stomachs is probably well aware of their value at that point in time. Then again, scammers tend to be stupid, so who knows... )

  9. #9
    Senior Member Crissa's Avatar
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    Stomachs are just broken, so I'm not sure how they're a good example.

  10. #10
    Senior Member Khaylara's Avatar
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    ...they aren't broken(?!) and the accent is on "example". I just used stomachs and poetry books as example of items which are market valuable but not face value valuable. If that makes sense.



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