Taziar

There are tons of MMOs either without (OPEN WORLD) PVP or where it plays a small part.  Consensual PVP with very limited death penalties is pretty much the norm these days, most people don't want to go back to the early days of WOW where there was true open world PVP.  Turns out getting randomly one-shotted by high level players wasn't all that popular.  And Games like ESO have a fenced in PVP zone.  Fallout 76 had to quickly nerf their PVP even with small instanced servers.  Sure they can keep safe zones but if they have resources exclusive to PVP, non-pvp players won't be happy, and if they don't then it is harder to make (open world) PVP worthwhile.  
 
Really they just need to pick a direction.  The player base and game design for Second Life is vastly different than say Rust and trying to squash the two together in a single game is gonna end poorly.  Creative, Social, PVE, and PVP can all be fun but they don't always play together well. 
 
And to your point,  they need to decide on their marketing strategy.  Long term niche players works for some games, like DDO.  Some games benefit from attracting from a larger pool even if they don't stay for years.  Catering to one often has consequences for the other.
 
 

Is NQ planning on adding NPCs to DU?
I'm not here to debate. My friends and I just want a clear answer, in order to decide whether or not we want to keep supporting this game. We no longer want to support a game that's promising 100% player driven world. We fell for it before with other games which promised the exact same thing, and frankly, we're certain that it'll never work. So again, is NQ planning on adding NPCs. 
Note: I'm NOT saying that NQ shouldn't stay true to their original vision, I am just saying that if they are, I personally don't want to give them my money. 

Umm what? So, which hugely popular MMOs have permadeath? Not just full loot PvP but actually once you die your character and all their stuffs are gone? Stats, the lot. Very few - in fact as far as I can figure out none have it as a mandatory feature at present. So, don't think so. The reality is PvPers want realism for everyone but them.
 
As to Kickstarter - who cares - doesn't mean squat a few years down the road. Games evolve to survive or all the money and the work goes down the drain. Player built civilizations (in a real sense) has to be a joke, or a marketing term anyway. There is nothing in this game (PvP or otherwise) that would provide an evolutionary path to anywhere. I think we are at cross purposes in this discussion as the game has no where near the complexity required to even model a civilization never mind have one evolve.
 
Could you have small communities, maybe, if the tools were there to do everything yourself and then get into cross-community bartering, etc. Then though you have the completely missing gameplay elements of 24 hour security/policing/etc (and other community provided functions) that are impractical as a player function in a GAME that most people will play a couple hours a day. 
 
I just don't see it - the roadmap certainly doesn't see it. Maybe on the extended roadmap somewhere - but where's the food, the power requirements, water, weather, grizzly bears, etc, etc, etc? The game has to provide the environmental things to make all this happen - it isn't a player thing and it certainly has nothing to do with PvP.

Copying EVE is like trying to make a viral video.  A fools errand.
 
What is good/special about this game?
Voxels/Ship Building/Civilization Building -  Basically the Creative aspect
Industry  - which they destroyed, and intend to keep destroyed in the name of 'longevity'
 
So, they can either embrace its strength, the creative side, and develop gameplay loops around that, or they can focus on things this game does poorly (PVP, etc), redesign them and then build game around that. What they can't do is keep pretending they can do all of it without going bankrupt or having the game implode.
 
I don't particularly care which route they choose, successful launch or launchpad explosion, popcorn is salted either way.  But it seems that other people still see the game as it was pitched rather than what has actually been created.  I predict much disappointment in their future.

All opinions are welcome. As has been pointed out, sometimes a new player's vision or the early game play, or understanding of the game in general, etc. There are always lots of angles   So, while I appreciate the sentiment to what you are saying, it doesn't help us design any better to only look at one segment of player. 

A good game doesn't have to have PvP as its main content, it is perfectly sufficient to have PvP as a side content to keep this PvP minority happy. You see World of Warcraft and the arena or battlefields there, these are instanced - the free world itself is hardly used there to experience PvP, but rather ignored by the masses.

In Dual Universe I see a lot of solo players who want to build their ships or houses, city facilities, very many don't want to experience active PvP, try it out, yes - but as a duty, no.

Building the world, letting creativity go free is the ultimate goal of this game, everything else is allowed to come after that, always careful not to restrict the player's freedom when it comes to creativity. As far as the industrialists are concerned, they don't want to be actively involved in PvP either, but rather to use PvP to sell their goods so that they don't have to collect ores all the time.
But it shouldn't make sense to impose something on other players so that a few industrial players are satisfied.

I agree that you can bring PvP into play, but would limit it to the fact that there is a special solar system that acts as a complete PvP zone. The ruffians can piss each other off and the industrialists are sure to be happy too. But the main concern should be peaceful solar systems.

Not sure exactly how they are finding the fun. 
 
Surface mining is currently tedious as hell, and an  ugly blight on the planet) that feels like a mobile mini-game without the game part.  Nearly featureless ground spammed with a sea of various colored rocks you have to click on, with no creatures or threats of any kind.  Doubling down on that seems an odd choice unless you completely rework how it is done, and not simply making it more lucrative. It is currently a gameplay loop nobody wants or uses beyond the first few hours.
 
Ground mining is tedious as hell and feels like the first couple of hours of Space Engineers... before you build cool machines to help you mine and start having fun.  Your fix is to... plop down an auto-mining machine?  This will give us easier Quanta, but kinda makes one of the few gameplay loops in the game redundant.  Why not make it fun instead of automatic?  So we will have automatic leveling, automatic mining, where is the draw to play?  Where is the fun?
 
Asteroid Mining is new, so I have no idea of the mechanics.  But IF it is just the ground mining moved to an asteroid then there will be no net gain for miners. It could be good for PVP, assuming the risk is worth the reward, but that is a tough balance to achieve, as too little value and people won't do it, and too much value and the economy will be flooded by off-hours miners and/or dominated by orgs who simply have sheer number advantage to insta-delete any threats. There is at least potential with this one.  
 
PVP... Not my thing so I don't have too much to say. While I like Arena PVP combat (or other skill based PVP), most open world PvP is actually PvV (Players vs Victim), which doesn't interest me, though some people love ganking so this might add some fun for them.
 
The graphics definitely do need an update but is really the least of this games issues.  So meh?
 
Overall, I don't see many additions of fun for most players.  Slightly less tedium due to easier quanta, but not much in the way of actually adding fun (Asteroid mining mechanics being an unknown).  PVP is really the only thing I see getting a possible fun boost, but PVP is one of the hardest things for an Indie game to sustain.  Most Indie PVP fails hard because there is a minimum active population required otherwise it simply dies.  Something indie games with smaller player bases struggle with.
 
Overall nothing really bad, but nothing all that impressive either.

There are tons of MMOs either without (OPEN WORLD) PVP or where it plays a small part.  Consensual PVP with very limited death penalties is pretty much the norm these days, most people don't want to go back to the early days of WOW where there was true open world PVP.  Turns out getting randomly one-shotted by high level players wasn't all that popular.  And Games like ESO have a fenced in PVP zone.  Fallout 76 had to quickly nerf their PVP even with small instanced servers.  Sure they can keep safe zones but if they have resources exclusive to PVP, non-pvp players won't be happy, and if they don't then it is harder to make (open world) PVP worthwhile.  
 
Really they just need to pick a direction.  The player base and game design for Second Life is vastly different than say Rust and trying to squash the two together in a single game is gonna end poorly.  Creative, Social, PVE, and PVP can all be fun but they don't always play together well. 
 
And to your point,  they need to decide on their marketing strategy.  Long term niche players works for some games, like DDO.  Some games benefit from attracting from a larger pool even if they don't stay for years.  Catering to one often has consequences for the other.
 
 

Copying EVE is like trying to make a viral video.  A fools errand.
 
What is good/special about this game?
Voxels/Ship Building/Civilization Building -  Basically the Creative aspect
Industry  - which they destroyed, and intend to keep destroyed in the name of 'longevity'
 
So, they can either embrace its strength, the creative side, and develop gameplay loops around that, or they can focus on things this game does poorly (PVP, etc), redesign them and then build game around that. What they can't do is keep pretending they can do all of it without going bankrupt or having the game implode.
 
I don't particularly care which route they choose, successful launch or launchpad explosion, popcorn is salted either way.  But it seems that other people still see the game as it was pitched rather than what has actually been created.  I predict much disappointment in their future.

There are tons of MMOs either without (OPEN WORLD) PVP or where it plays a small part.  Consensual PVP with very limited death penalties is pretty much the norm these days, most people don't want to go back to the early days of WOW where there was true open world PVP.  Turns out getting randomly one-shotted by high level players wasn't all that popular.  And Games like ESO have a fenced in PVP zone.  Fallout 76 had to quickly nerf their PVP even with small instanced servers.  Sure they can keep safe zones but if they have resources exclusive to PVP, non-pvp players won't be happy, and if they don't then it is harder to make (open world) PVP worthwhile.  
 
Really they just need to pick a direction.  The player base and game design for Second Life is vastly different than say Rust and trying to squash the two together in a single game is gonna end poorly.  Creative, Social, PVE, and PVP can all be fun but they don't always play together well. 
 
And to your point,  they need to decide on their marketing strategy.  Long term niche players works for some games, like DDO.  Some games benefit from attracting from a larger pool even if they don't stay for years.  Catering to one often has consequences for the other.
 
 

Personally I think (open world) PVP is bad for this game.  PVP brings along baggage that is incompatible with some games.
 
PVP games come with heavy game balancing requirements.
PVP comes with a strong need to squash 'exploits'.  
PVP comes with more strictly imposed limits.
 
Sure, these are true of all games to a degree, but the scope of them in PVP that is vastly different, as well as the impact (In single player/PVE you are not targeting players with exploits, just NPCs).  Ever look at the patch notes of a PVP MMO?  Constant miniscule tweaks years after launch to prevent a singular 'Meta'.  This is not an attack on PVP, it is just that PVP is inherently highly competitive in nature and it incentivizes many things that can quickly become a headache for developers.  Headaches that require specific types of changes to address, which would conflict with the current game design.
 
What makes this game less suited to PVP?  Freedom and flexibility. The less rigid a system is, the more prone to exploiting.  The more a player has access to, the more prone to exploiting.  So creativity and customization do not pair well with PVP.  Scripts?  Good luck keeping them from turning into an exploitive nightmare.  The Devs will likely end up with two choices, restricting the creative aspect, or leave the PVP players to fend for themselves, either way, someone will end up very unhappy.  
 
Creative (actual creation, not dress-up) just pairs better with PVE and Social gameplay.  In PVP, creative is actually optimization.  It is about finding and perfecting the Meta to exploit the game mechanics. Not bad, just very different. 
 
Now if they what to shift the focus away from creative, PVP (open world) could work.  The 'player economy' model works well with PVP and is similarly sensitive to balance and exploits.  Or they could keep PVP sandboxed, such as with arenas, which would allow for slightly different rules/restrictions for PVP such as limiting scripts and the like that wouldn't affect the entire player base.
 

For starters, Congrats NQ for trying to communicate and doing it.

Right now you(NQ) have got yourselves  some room to move. Most of us will wait for a while before falling hard on you again.
And, It is quite important that we see some problems of the game being pointed out as "problems" by you.
 
The main change yet to see in communication is: When S hits the fan next time, and it will (bug, patch, priority, ban, exploit), will you remain communicative as we see right now? Or will we see more of that silence that we know so much?

About this part 3, some ppl have said it already and i agree:
Reducing pain is part of the task, but its not worth much if there is no fun at all.
 
NQ, ask yourselves  as players, not as devs.
Where is the fun part of the game? Is that "fun" durable or repeatable? Or restricted to the weeks 1 and 2? Or only for late game? Is this "fun" available to everyone? Or just big org members? Or just pirates? Is this "fun" enjoyable by most kinds of players? Or only grinders, builders or PVPes? Is this "fun" paid with a heavy sadness from other players? To me the game is not fun at this point. And I have all the quanta and resources I will ever need. 
 
Sure its fun to build a XS core. But above that, either I'm just joking around or it becomes complicated and not that fun.
This building fun will not keep me in a joy state for the next years to come.
 
Same as mining. 1st week of mining its actually not that bad. I found my self learning about how tools work and took pride of finding nodes faster than other ppl.
It was also a joy to receive my 1st paycheck from selling my ore. Knowing I could build something out of my earnings.
But can this joy fulfill me for years? Of course not.
How will automining increase my joy? 100% better than grinding all day, But by it self, brings no joy, just reduces pain.
 
How about the economy? Well, wining in the economy can bring some joy, sure. But at the expense of several others losing. While it brings diversity and an alternative way of playing the game. it is quite neutral in joy creation.
And with few big orgs doing most of the profit, joy is very limited...
Those big org members are working hard to be perfect. This is not that enjoyable. And competition is being squashed.

PVP is much like economy, quite neutral, or even negative for joy. For any winner there is a loser. For every loot gained, there is a huge frustration generated by loosing allot.

Again, cutting down on pain is Very Positive, and thank you.
But you still need to generate fun.

So here are some "easy" to implement suggestions for fun creation:
PVP duels/arena. Some place where ppl can go and shoot each other, with (informed) consent and with little to no consequence.
With both players being able to bring back their ships after the fight
  Directional voice chat. RP is very important for sustainable fun. Being able to say some words to the surrounding ppl, or to your ship, is quite important,
  NPCs and NPC loot is a must. No way around this. The only way to have a "positive joy balance" is to transport most of the sadness to NPCs.
I know this is hard to program. But start with dummy stuff. With little or zero AI, Like:
A Static station with just auto-firing turrets that will shoot at anyone in range. With a loot box inside.
Or a Non Voxel ship, simply a custom-made 3d model that will have an HP bar and will shoot at ships. When it blows up, a container with loot is spawned.
Or simply spawn loot boxes and clues to those around the map.
  Make it easier for ppl to move around. A good amount of joy comes from social interaction and team gameplay. But its quite hard to have team gameplay when someone needs 3 hours of millions of quanta in warp cells to come joy the team.
Fast travel is needed. In a way that it can only be used for avatars and never for cargo.
One idea is to UnNerf the surrogate.

You said:
"There’s a delicate balance to strike between staying as true as we can to the original vision, making smart design and production choices, taking players’ feedback into consideration, and creating more opportunities for community engagement. The game needs to be challenging but, most of all, fun. It can be a tall order sometimes, but not an impossible goal"

I say: Screw the original vision.
Most has been proven to be a sad failure:
Players don't give a damn about building any kind of civilization, they just want to fulfill their joy or close DU and run another game. Player exclusive economy is making every little guy being squashed by big orgs. Player made content made players quit because of lack of content. Instead, do what you must to make this work. To make us feel joy.

Good luck.
 

I agree with Blaze.  This is clearly a generic customer pacification message.  "We hear you and will make stuff better"
 
Seriously, the their three goals are ...
'Gather feedback earlier' - They have been getting constant feedback since launch.
"Change their process to allow them to take feedback into consideration"  - What?  You need a process to allow you to stop ignoring feedback?
"Improve the quality of releases"  - They are going to do this by postponing releases  Yes, slower content releases is what this game needs.
 
So basically stop ignoring customers, and actually test updates.  I mean, not that those are bad things, but they are kinda basic practices every business should do, not something that will save a game on life support.  
 
And yes, I saw the part 1/3... Just above a month old post about 0.24 Phase One.  

Sorry, but this is just the next iteration of "we heard you"
 
There is nothing substantial in this post, it does not commit to anything and just reiterates how NQ has failed to listen (which is not the same as hearing in case you wonder) to what their community is telling them.
 
That hey seem to think that much changed from Alpha is frankly very funny as they have just continued their attitude and ways from there with little to no change, that they seem to think or try to make the claim they did is probably the most worrying aspect of this post.
 
The proof wil be in the pudding here but based on the many previous attempts by NQ to spin their mistakes and shortfalls by not really taking ownership but pretend they will does not give me much hope for change.. But we'll see

"never despawn ships from the game, breaks connection with realism"
 
This is going to bite them in the ass in a major way.  Or would if the game became popular, so in a way I guess they found a solution to that problem. 
 
Space is big, but for the game to feel like a civilization simulator you need people to congregate. Those places can quickly become cluttered and laggy.  In normal MMOs, it can be hard to click on vendors because of the swarm of people on mounts blocking your view.  This game adds in collision to mounts, mounts being the size of a spaceship, and mounts staying there after the person logs out.  Oh, and they removed instancing so it concentrates people even more.
 
Not saying those can't be solved, but they should be at the implementing stage at this point, not still figuring out solutions to problems that the industry solved by specifically NOT designing the game like NQ did.  

"Plus he has been working many years on this game, so technically that is many years of experience on a big game. "
 
Working on a game is not the same as completing/shipping one.  The people who have started something and those that have completed said thing are in very different categories.  
 
Also, negativity in this forum is the least of this games worries.  And really, I think they need a wakeup call which will certainly not be a fountain of positivity.  There are many things they have either done wrong, or will otherwise bite them in the ass at launch.  It is almost like they have never played an MMO before.  

No punishment.

Turn crafts into a magic blueprint after a while*, which is stored in the market container and usable within 500m of the market container, similar to placing something via linked container. All the tech to do this is already there. 

As it is stored in the closest market, it would be easy to find. Cant find your ship? Check market containers via "J", which can be done from remote already.

Want to abuse the system? Sure, wait for your ship to despawn so you can spawn it again 500 meters further west. There is no way to abuse this if you are unable to take the bp with you.

Somebody "innocent" is hit? No harm done, just spawn the ship again. 

This would be a super easy pill to swallow, because nobody is punished, it would just get rid of all the permanent stuff at the markets.



*: So what is "after a while"? Best thing to make the game look alive, but not trashed would be the following rule: 
If there are more than X crafts within the tile, the oldest ship is despawned, unless it was parked for less than Y minutes.

So at market 6 there would only be X crafts at the same time, unless a lot of people arrived just now, it also means you would see different ships everytime you arrive (which is the difference between looking alive and looking deserted). Alioth moon markets would pretty much never despawn anything, or any of the outer planets.

At some point in the future you can of course add stuff like public advertisement space, an item that stops your craft from despawning which can only be used in a certain zone at the side (and in limited numbers at a time) etc. So any stuff that allows people to have semi-permanent presence at the market, you can add that later. For now we need something to get rid of stuff, not something to allow more.

No, they will leave because their stuff was needlessly deleted.  By your comparison to a car getting towed I think you are forgetting one very important thing.  This is a video game, something people do for fun, and realism is added only where it adds fun/enjoyment. 
 
If people redeploy them then they aren't really abandoned making your point moot anyway.  

You keep moving the goalposts and mixing arguments to cover different issues. 
 
Will compactifying help.  Yes, because it automatically removes all constructs not being actively redeployed, ie, left for long periods of time, which is the majority of them.
 
What about people who redeploy them?  Well, if they are willing to redeploy them it really isn't any different than moving them 5 feet to reset the deletion/free salvage countdown.  That is an entirely different problem.  People parking advertisements requires a totally different solution, unless they consider it emergent gameplay and encourage it.

In the end, I get there may be a need for changes and I also get that this will mostly always impact someone somewhere.
 
What I do not get is that NQ  still is unable to provide information in a way that prevents confusion and chaos. What was released is pretty much telling us nothing substantial and raises a ton more questions than needed due to lack lustre communication.
 
Combined with the fact we heard al these words before, several times in fact, and then say absolutely no change s of improvements performance wise after the changes came into play, I'd say NQ should really know better by now. The proof is in the pudding here and so far they have neglected to serve it.

This seems like a bummer.
 
But at the end of the day the screens are fluff.  Super awesome fluff, but they aren't needed to make the game work, as a game.
 
The question is will this be enough of a performance boost to justify hacking off such an awesome feature.
 
I do wish they had considered this five years ago, but hindsight is 20/20.  Nothing to do about that now.
 
 
 
 

'Your Way' is actually not any different that what I said.  
1.  Tell people now (short term plan, remember?) that there will be a wipe when the game goes live.  (Apologies and other politicking is a given)
2.  Establish that this is a Beta and permanence/balance is not guaranteed.  (Hence why I said 'announce possibility' of partial wipes during beta, which means as needed to facilitate development, it was all about changing expectations not arbitrary wipes.)
 
They were both about reestablishing with players the fact that this game is a Beta and very much subject to change.  Because it needs to be clear that people are Beta testers, not children given a golden ticket to become billionaires before the rest of the population joins in.  
 
Also, the Beta soft release WAS solely a way to force subscription money.  People would be naïve to think otherwise.  Because from a development perspective it was a horrible choice serving to create a player base of beta testers that feel entitled to be treated like live customers with character/world permanence.  It also created financial risk to engaging in normal iterative game development, which will just kill innovation and slow progress to a halt. It was all about milking the Beta-tolerant players of money. The subscription absolutely shouldn't exist during beta but I don't see them changing that. 
 
Note:  The fault doesn't just lie on the players, the Devs are complicit in creating and enabling that entitlement (and their blatant cash grab).  But frankly, how we got here is far less important than how to fix it.  
 
Note 2:  As to the 'existing player base', keeping them happy at the expense of future customers is foolish.  They aren't even a fraction of the players required to keep the lights on. 

Here's the thing... 
 
Unless JC got fired for a scandal or health/drugs issue then he got fired because they think the game is failing.  So one of two things will happen.  They shutter it, or they 'fix' it.  Lets look at the latter. 
 
If a VC is going to fix a failing restaurant they don't just come in and change the wallpaper and add a dash more paprika to the chili.  They reevaluate the entire business because whatever is there clearly isn't working.  That means major changes, and since the biggest issue is lack of customer interest they will focus on appealing to more people.  A broader appeal to a more mainstream audience. So anyone who uses the term 'casual' to denigrate suggestions they don't like are in for a very rude awakening.  When a game is failing, you don't double down on niche appeal after firing the guy who designed it.
 
As a newcomer it doesn't bother me but I suspect most of the people who consider themselves fans of the game will be writing a lot of angry forum posts in the near future.  
 
(The only other possibility is they are keeping JC and just giving him a boss, but I wouldn't hold my breath as it was his 'vision' that caused the subscriber count to tank in the first place)

Here's the thing... 
 
Unless JC got fired for a scandal or health/drugs issue then he got fired because they think the game is failing.  So one of two things will happen.  They shutter it, or they 'fix' it.  Lets look at the latter. 
 
If a VC is going to fix a failing restaurant they don't just come in and change the wallpaper and add a dash more paprika to the chili.  They reevaluate the entire business because whatever is there clearly isn't working.  That means major changes, and since the biggest issue is lack of customer interest they will focus on appealing to more people.  A broader appeal to a more mainstream audience. So anyone who uses the term 'casual' to denigrate suggestions they don't like are in for a very rude awakening.  When a game is failing, you don't double down on niche appeal after firing the guy who designed it.
 
As a newcomer it doesn't bother me but I suspect most of the people who consider themselves fans of the game will be writing a lot of angry forum posts in the near future.  
 
(The only other possibility is they are keeping JC and just giving him a boss, but I wouldn't hold my breath as it was his 'vision' that caused the subscriber count to tank in the first place)

Yes, gamifying schematics would certainly be an improvement from a content perspective, giving us something else to do.  It would still do little to help with the economy however.  No game in existence has a functioning economy.  No, not even EVE, though it is better than most.  The first game that does create a functioning economy will quickly be abandoned because it not at all fun for a majority of the people.  This game is not even vaguely close to having anything approximating an economy. And should stop trying.
 
An economy requires multiple things that never exist in an MMO.  Lets look at industry, for example.  Someone grinds, buys a schematic.  Month later they buy another with the profit from using the first.  Month later they buy 2 more. Then 4, 8, 16....  Rinse and repeat and nine months later they have all the schematics and massive mega factories.  They will dominate the market until they get bored and stop playing.  All before the game is even released (and no wipe is planned).  So before the game is even released, future players are screwed.  This would never happen in the real world.  Why?  Expenses.  Risk.  Innovation.  Companies can go bankrupt.  The market is complex enough to accept innovation.  But in MMOs, power/wealth only goes in one direction.  MMO success is based solely on grind.  Time spent.  
 
Also, lets look at an economy.  What are 99.9% of the people participating in it?  Consumers/wage-slaves.   Lets look at the 'iPhone example'.  In the real world, sure people don't create their own from scratch they buy it in the market.  But lets look at that chain and see just how poorly it works for games.  You have dirt poor miners in 3rd world countries supplying the resources (as well as miners from other places) working in miserably and dangerous conditions to feed their families.  Don't want to play that in a video game.  You have the people who spend a month at sea moving the materials from various places in the world to China.  Not my idea of fun. You have the workers living in dorms in China doing the same repetitive task for 12+ hours per day for barely enough money to live on, at least until they (try) to kill themselves (companies literally put nets to catch them).  Nope, not paying a monthly subscription for that role.  Out of the 100's of thousands of people in the chain, there is less than 0.1% that don't have soul crushing tasks (CEOs, designers, etc). So less than 0.1% of people would actually get any gameplay value from it.  Yay.  Can't wait to have that in my game. Now lets look at the other half of the economy.  Consumers.
 
As a consumer, I just want my iPhone (or spaceship part).  So I go to a market and buy one.  All I care about is getting the item.  It doesn't matter if 10,000 players formed a massive supply and manufacturing chain to produce it, or a Dev simply spawned it into existence.  All I care about is getting that part so I can go about my day.  So what gameplay value are consumers getting from it?  None.  It is one of those things that makes for a good article in a gaming news blog, but is basically irrelevant to people actually playing the game.  (The only player driven markets that adds to a game are based upon creative resources.  Such as selling ship designs, scripts, custom hairstyles, etc.  Actual player created content, not digital items grinded into existence.)
 
No real economy will (or should) exist in a video game.  Only a highly gamified one.  All the parts of it should be at least mildly enjoyable, not feel like jobs.  You cannot expect people to spend money just to be cogs in a wheel with only a small percentage of people having access to the fun mechanics.
 
TLDR; The entire idea of creating an economy to force people to 'work together' is flawed.  What it does is restrict the already limited amount of game mechanics to people based upon their role in the economy. Aka, reduce the fun, and fun is the only economy that matters in a game.   Instead, people should take part in every game mechanic they find enjoyable, and not have to grind to gain access to it.