Dunbal

Former EVE player here,
 
   I certainly don't advocate cloning EVE at all. However EVE is/was groundbreaking in terms of its economy because it is (apart from the artificial and inflationary infusion of ISK through ratting/incursions) a "real" economy. Absolutely everything is player made by raw materials that have to be mined for one way or another. Absolutely all the prices are set by players and the market as a whole. So if DU is aiming for a player-driven economy, similarities to EVE will necessarily develop. It would be foolish both to repeat the mistakes made in EVE and not to try to learn from what has been proven to work - and hopefully make it better.

Nothing lasts forever. Metal fatigues and rusts. Complex systems break down. Machines have to be maintained. I wish/hope there would be some approximation of entropy in the game as an overall balancing/leveling force. It should not be possible to create highly complex systems and hope that they will work perfectly and last forever - especially if they are exposed to harsh conditions - g-forces, combat, multiple atmospheric re-entry, etc. While a stone pillar can last 1000 years with no problem other than a little erosion, an F-16 cannot fly more than a few dozen hours without extensive maintenance.
 
If there is some way of tracking the complexity of a construct and the materials it is made of, this should be fed into some sort of algorithm that degrades effectiveness over time or increases the probability of a functional/structural failure. Better still if forces, loads and stresses are tracked - then this usually should be the point of failure - where the stress is highest.
 
This would also force people to build redundancy into their constructs. You wouldn't want your vital systems to fail in the middle of combat, for example...

Nothing lasts forever. Metal fatigues and rusts. Complex systems break down. Machines have to be maintained. I wish/hope there would be some approximation of entropy in the game as an overall balancing/leveling force. It should not be possible to create highly complex systems and hope that they will work perfectly and last forever - especially if they are exposed to harsh conditions - g-forces, combat, multiple atmospheric re-entry, etc. While a stone pillar can last 1000 years with no problem other than a little erosion, an F-16 cannot fly more than a few dozen hours without extensive maintenance.
 
If there is some way of tracking the complexity of a construct and the materials it is made of, this should be fed into some sort of algorithm that degrades effectiveness over time or increases the probability of a functional/structural failure. Better still if forces, loads and stresses are tracked - then this usually should be the point of failure - where the stress is highest.
 
This would also force people to build redundancy into their constructs. You wouldn't want your vital systems to fail in the middle of combat, for example...

Former EVE player here,
 
   I certainly don't advocate cloning EVE at all. However EVE is/was groundbreaking in terms of its economy because it is (apart from the artificial and inflationary infusion of ISK through ratting/incursions) a "real" economy. Absolutely everything is player made by raw materials that have to be mined for one way or another. Absolutely all the prices are set by players and the market as a whole. So if DU is aiming for a player-driven economy, similarities to EVE will necessarily develop. It would be foolish both to repeat the mistakes made in EVE and not to try to learn from what has been proven to work - and hopefully make it better.

kek - Do NOT get me started!!! Even Reddit wouldn't have the storage required for my rants on THAT topic...

Yep, until one player comes along who doesn't scam people and screw people, and tadaa, everybody's favorite money-changer is born.
 
You don't _need_ currency. Anyone who has played, say, Ark:Survival Evolved knows that currencies will emerge. Before certain things happened to make it quite common, Chitin used to be the currency there. It was an item relatively difficult to obtain from critters and many servers had exchange rates set between chitin and other items. Once chitin became freely available due to dev modifications, other items have been used as a means of exchange - including gunpowder.
 
Artificial currencies encourage grinding and farming for currency. Leaving the means of exchange to the player encourages scamming, murder, and all other sorts of EMERGENT GAMEPLAY. I know which I prefer.
 
In EVE there is a guy called Chribba. He has earned the trust of all players because he's honest. If you want to buy a supercapital from someone else, you go through Chribba (or one of his designates). The seller deposits the supercapital with Chribba, and you deposit your cash with Chribba. That's the only way you are sure you won't get scammed. There's no reason other players can't rise to that level of trust in DU.

I tend to agree with Dinkledash. Currency is a man-made thing. It should not be imposed by the devs. Doing so will result in a wholly artificial economy subject to all the things that destroy artificial economies in other games - imbalance, inflation, etc.
 
If you look at the history of currency on our planet - humans have used all sorts of things from shiny rocks, to rocks with holes in them, to livestock, to other humans (slaves), to bits of metal, to bits of paper and now, actual electronic bits.
 
I think that players - in their markets - should be allowed to create their own system of credits and debits - just like the moneychangers of old. Actual "currency" is, after all, just a "chit" that represents a credit somewhere, kind of like a casino chip. The actual value of these "chits" depends on the faith the community as a whole has in the organization that backs that currency. So the Republic of Zimbabwe, for example, might have trouble convincing the community as a whole to adopt its currency, while the United States of America has no trouble having others use its currency - even when both nations apply very similar monetary and fiscal policies...
 
So what I would like to see (because it is what closely models the real world) is that players/organizations should be given the TOOLS to fashion a unit of currency that fulfills the basic requirements of money: it has to be portable, it has to be difficult or impossible to forge, it has to be difficult to destroy yet fairly easy to store, etc. Then let all the different organizations try to create their own currency. Some will be more successful than others. Some will go bankrupt, leaving players with millions of units of a currency no one wants anymore. And some will become hugely successful and become the de facto currency standard throughout the game.
 
If this is NOT done, then the devs will be assigning arbitrary values to things and these values will simply be exploited. It's much easier to create the conditions for real trade and real allocation of value through market forces, and then let the thing run itself.

Thing is, one of the main functions of a government is minting and printing currency.  I can see that in the beginning of the game we're going to need currency issued by the defacto government, the Arkship AI godmind.  However, as planets become independent, have their own military and economies, write and enforce their own laws, they're going to want to manage their own monetary systems as well.  Well managed economies will have stable currencies and exchange rates, while poorly managed economies will experience inflation, attempt to enforce price controls, etc.  
 
I think it depends on how many players we ultimately have.  If we top off around 20-30,000, we probably won't have enough players to have independent planetary economies, and all banking and currency will have to be managed by game mechanics.  If we have 100,000 players, we'll probably have two or three large political units with enough interested players to manage a government bureaucracy, arrange for deficit spending to build large battlefleets, have elections (or not) and manage customs and immigration issues.  In that case, there may be enough critical mass for money to be minted by these organizations and the arkship currency can be retired. 

I actually rather like the idea of being able to turn a resource into currency...
 
It would work just like real life.  Money was more stable when it was gold backed...
 
But maybe several... or all resources should be able to be converted... at differing rates.
 
 
But really what is the difference between there being an NPC you take things to and get currency back... and clicking a convert button to do the same thing?
 
 
I don't like mined resources being destroyed irretrievably... So the convert system is good because you can convert things back...
 
I'd want the NPC system to then sell the resources on the player market.  It would then function as both a currency faucet and a sink...  If it gives out more currency than it's receiving for selling the resources at average market price... then its a faucet and if it's receiving more currency than it's giving out then it's a sink.  It would function to inflate or deflate currency values to a balance point set by the devs.
 
Markets are local yes... but I think the listings are global... meaning you can see what everyone everywhere is selling and their price... and you can buy it from anywhere... but you have to physically go there to take possession. 
 
I'm rather liking this sell to NPC and NPC puts it on the market for current market average idea.  People would still be able to play the market and have value fluctuations based on distance from population hubs and inflation would be kept in check.

I call that video "Three Guys, One Freighter" .

MegaWars III and Island of Kesmai. But most lately EVE Online. I've used the Dunbal nickname since 1986 back when they were called "handles". You may call me grandpa.

Hello Kitty Universe.

Yes Warden but such is the nature of sandbox games. Hopefully the early birds will be sensible enough to develop the safezone with respect towards newcomers.
 
You dont have to own a house to play right. So hopefully the newcomers will have a fair market unit and useful industrial infrastructure.
 
On the server tech, JC calls it 'dynamic area splitting'. It basicly divides space in seperate sections as people density increases in that given area. The more sections are created the more server hardware is called upon to handle the load. And this happens seamlessly, we as players wont notice this happening.
 
So everybody spawning at the same place after character creation shouldnt be a problem according to his predictive models and tests.
 

Even if the universeis endless, and it's not hard to get around (neither of which are necessarily true according to the devs), there are still plenty of economic reasons why people will want to stay centralized. You can't make money if there's nobody to sell anything to. You'd also have to be entirely self-sufficient in terms of rare resources, construction, even new blueprints. You'd have to design and build everything yourself. Not to mention you'd have a real hard time getting any more recruits, as they'd have to travel all they way out to wherever you are to be worth anything. No, I think people will stay centralized because it will be difficult not to be close to the Hub, which will probably be the Arkship.
 
To use the EVE example, the closer you get to the trade hubs, the more people there are, Jita especially. Even null-sec entities that base their existence on being on the fringe of space still live as close to the core as they can. Not many alliances have their base of operations out in Cobalt Edge, or the back end of Period Basis, do they? Even if they own sov there, that's mostly for ratting space, and the rest of the time they fart around the high-traffic areas like everyone else.

The point is, that empires will have their hubs, capitals, etcetera and querry worlds. Imperialism costs. Storeing those minerals will be a logistics thing. To store minerals, you need space, and that space better not be near the borders to a hostile faction That's the point of sovereignities. Also, trading routes. If you have a strategic point, you'll be able to add tolls to it. Those tolls add up to more money for your faction.
 
A capital of a faction located far behind enemy lines, is the kind of place where the builders and industrialists will have fun in tournaments for PvP, while a shitstorm will be raging in the borders, were PvPers wil lbe clashing to keep borders safe.
 
 
Ah.... they say video games are art, and I do like it when art imitates life.

I think the best possible answer is:
 
Kickstarter at 315k with 23 days to go.
 
Sorry to see you go. kthxbai

Perhaps it should be like what you get when you step off a cruise ship.  Vendor's, low life, etc.
 
Maybe recruiters for various causes screaming the loudest about why you should quickly join them for safety or otherwise.  I'm sure it will be a sight to behold.  
 
I'm optimistic that a city will rise up around this area.  
 
"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."  Obiwan

I think the best possible answer is:
 
Kickstarter at 315k with 23 days to go.
 
Sorry to see you go. kthxbai

Thanks for all the warm welcomes. Now keep it up for.. Oh 2 years
 
@Kane Hart: I have taken a look at your channel and like what I see so far.
 
@Neosphaler: I hop so too.
 
@Dunbal: General Calamari... Hungry again. Why do you torture me?

Yeah that's the one. Last I heard he wanted to visit a place called Italy, was last seen near a restaurant and never heard from again.

Yeah I don't disagree with you. I've been online a long time. I mean a LONG time (1986, when I got my first CompuServe account). I've gone from paying $6 an hour for online services (at 300-1200 baud, of course!) to free to play games. And while this is anecdotal evidence, there is a definite correlation between the cash you invest and the strength of the online community. When we paid $6 an hour, everyone was polite, online communities were rock solid, people helped each other and pulled together both in the forums and in the games. There were "bad" people too but usually they were the "honorably evil" types, playing in character but never, say, attacking newbs, etc.
 
Then the model switched to "flat rate" monthly subs... games filled with beggars who would do nothing but sit around begging hard to get items from players. People started doing dishonorable things "for the lulz", etc.
 
THEN models switched to F2P, and you could expect hackers, exploiters, griefers galore etc, on top of everything else. Needless to say communities and forums also degenerated into flame wars and trolling contests the cheaper it got.
 
While I'm certainly not proposing going back to a several hundred dollar/month hourly subscription model, I do wish to point out that there IS a correlation between how much real cash you have to put into a game, and how civilized players' conduct is in that game.

I don't doubt either your sincerity or your efforts. I think it will be interesting to watch. There's always something the devs haven't thought of that someone else has. Anyway to some extent that's what the Alpha and Beta are for, right?

Hi.

Welcome to the Forums.

You are asking for instances in a game advertising a revolutionary tech for NO instances.

One of us is missing the point.


Cheers!

^ I suppose. One can discuss and debate many days and weeks - but in the end we have to wait and see how it actually, literally, plays out and what fine-tuning may be required.

One does not simply fry giant space squid...even with energy weapons.
 
Thanks for the welcome.