Is there information on the economy?

Roybe

Roybe
This game is about trading and the economy. I know I have read that there will be a player based economy, which is awesome. Is there going to be an in-house economist to maintain and watch the overall health and direction of the economy?

I have tried to dig through the posts and development notes and have not seen this discussed much. Searches have left me wanting in the information I have been able to find.
 

SKaREO

SKaREO
Roybe said:
This game is about trading and the economy. I know I have read that there will be a player based economy, which is awesome. Is there going to be an in-house economist to maintain and watch the overall health and direction of the economy?

I have tried to dig through the posts and development notes and have not seen this discussed much. Searches have left me wanting in the information I have been able to find.
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I'm also looking for this information. A player-driven economy is a must if this is to be an online space trading and combat game. An economist is a must if you're going to balance it, it's the only way to properly plan and implement a player-driven virtual economy. Virtual economies don't operate at all like the real-world equivalents, and they add a massive layer of depth to the game due to emergent gameplay.
jontycampbell said:
AFAIK, No.

Moreover, that's not what (competent) economists do, or would have the hubris to attempt. Competent Economists really look at how humans (and to a lesser extent animals) make choices in a world of relative scarcity or abundance of resources to which they ascribe value to in a myriad differing ways, that's pretty much the core of it.

Economies are evolving, self-emergent phenomena - it's impossible to 'manage' free trade due to "The Knowledge Problem", something that politicians routinely disregard and come a cropper of:

IOW no one person or persons can possibly know what other people value or think is a fair deal at any one moment, 24/7, 7 days, 365 days, we never close - and know what is good for them. Only the persons making the exchange do. You'd have to be omniscient.
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You might want to read more about this subject. ;)
 
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mrinku

M
Um... not sure what you've been reading, but if you want a player based economy, you want EVE Online, Not Elite: Dangerous.

ED's economy is somewhat influenced by player trading, in that demand or oversupply can affect the local price (within limits), but it's basically an NPC economy that the players form a small part of.

From the FAQ (What are the general differences between "Elite: Dangerous" and "Eve Online"?):
"An important difference is that EVE's economy is totally player driven - so to have ships and weapons in the game have to be manufactured by players themselves, by collecting resources and providing them to factories. Elite: Dangerous uses an economic model that drives NPCs to simulate the flow of products, which also have all player trades as input to the shared universe."
 

Roybe

Roybe
mrinku said:
Um... not sure what you've been reading, but if you want a player based economy, you want EVE Online, Not Elite: Dangerous.

ED's economy is somewhat influenced by player trading, in that demand or oversupply can affect the local price (within limits), but it's basically an NPC economy that the players form a small part of.

From the FAQ (What are the general differences between "Elite: Dangerous" and "Eve Online"?):
"An important difference is that EVE's economy is totally player driven - so to have ships and weapons in the game have to be manufactured by players themselves, by collecting resources and providing them to factories. Elite: Dangerous uses an economic model that drives NPCs to simulate the flow of products, which also have all player trades as input to the shared universe."
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Well that's disappointing. This takes this game one step backwards from most MMO games...which is what it is being advertised as. Trading in these games is a fluid, dynamic, and ever changing thing in most MMO's. This game is sounding more like a single player game with a multi-player capability. Or have I misread/misunderstood the whole point of the game itself?
 

Elooder

Elooder
I think you understood it quite right. ED is basically an online single-player game with multiplayer elements. Since the ED universe is so vast, you won't be seeing that many other players while playing anyway. What is a couple of hundred thousand people in a galaxy with billions of star systems?

Personally, I'm very happy that ED is not a true MMO as, again personally, I generally despise MMOs and consider them to just be a fad, albeit one that's taking its time to die off but, thanks to systems like in ED, eventually will die off to be replaced with something much more grown-up (like ED, for example).
 

Wavey

W
Roybe said:
Well that's disappointing. This takes this game one step backwards from most MMO games...which is what it is being advertised as. Trading in these games is a fluid, dynamic, and ever changing thing in most MMO's. This game is sounding more like a single player game with a multi-player capability. Or have I misread/misunderstood the whole point of the game itself?
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The whole point of the game is You as a Commander not a guild /alliance/clan ect just you :) Being a commander means you cannot control/manipulate economies to much extent
 

OVMorat

OVMorat
Wavey1 said:
The whole point of the game is You as a Commander not a guild /alliance/clan ect just you :) Being a commander means you cannot control/manipulate economies to much extent
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That is very weak. Single players in EVE can and do have a great influence on the economy.
 

MadDogMurdock

MadDogMurdock
Totally different game - ED isn't about any kind of hegemonic domination.

One player can maybe trade about 1000 tons per hour or thereabouts.
That might cause a blip in a local economy but not on a wider scale.
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
Scales are very different - we are talking about colonized human space, which in 3300 is meant to be in trillions of people. So in markets players even together are very small part of participants. Still, they can and already do influence prices going up and down. But it's not EVE, and thankfully so - and no, it doesn't make it lesser game.

FD certainly know what they are doing regarding background simulation, so expect interesting economic effects due of different changes in systems.
 

Roybe

Roybe
I really do not care about a single person taking over an economy..or the power such a person would wield. My concern is that for overall longevity of the game. In-game coin must be controlled. If it isn't then in-game money becomes meaningless, due to ease of production. Healthy economics prevent out of control inflationary spirals that remove any challenge from the trading part of the game.

This becomes even more threatening to the health of the game in one that is not an MMO because in a smaller economic system, once the in game coin is created, it is very difficult to get it out of the hands of the players without hurting their feelings utilizing harsh cash sinks.

Finally, I did not intend to create a battle in the war over which space sim is best. That wasn't my intention and I am sorry some took this tack. Again, my concern is about the faucets and sinks of income generation in a game where part of the in game tension over this, IS a significant part of the game play.
 
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Roybe

Roybe
Elooder said:
I think you understood it quite right. ED is basically an online single-player game with multiplayer elements. Since the ED universe is so vast, you won't be seeing that many other players while playing anyway. What is a couple of hundred thousand people in a galaxy with billions of star systems?

Personally, I'm very happy that ED is not a true MMO as, again personally, I generally despise MMOs and consider them to just be a fad, albeit one that's taking its time to die off but, thanks to systems like in ED, eventually will die off to be replaced with something much more grown-up (like ED, for example).
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Then I have misunderstood the game and its design. It is being touted as an MMO in a lot of the media reporting on it. I am sorry you feel that MMO's are not grown up. I am over 50 and enjoy a few that have a BtP model, similar to ED. I've never played a sub game because subs are for suckers. I am dissapointed to find out this is an old school single player/multiplayer game...but not so dissapointed to leave. What I have played I have thoroughly enjoyed, and am looking forward to whatever ride the devs and the game are going to provide.
 

Rankaze

Rankaze
I don't think the purchasing power of any number of players in a galaxy with 400 billion star systems is going to really have much of an overall impact on the galactic economy. It's too big.

Even if the players manage to introduce a scarcity of a good in one area, it's not going to have any impact on what is going on in the next spiral arm of the galaxy.

Besides... even if players do accumulate tons of money, what are they going to spend it on? More ships? Sure, that's a personal luxury and the idea of having a dozen ships in hangars around the galaxy is kinda cool... but you can still only fly one at a time. There's a limit to how much advantage having more money actually gets you (other than the ability to not worry about how you're going to pay that insurance bill if you crash your Anaconda trying to dock it Imperial-style).

Also.. for those players who are actually playing a lot in multiplayer, PVP is going to be a pretty impressive cash sink of its own, just via the insurance costs of replacing large ships lost in battle.
 

laz001

L
I don't think the information in this thread is correct.

David has stated multiple times that he envisages an economy whereby players are able to influence/unbalance the economy of a local system/set of systems, to their own advantage.
 

Sandmann

Sandmann
laz001 said:
I don't think the information in this thread is correct.

David has stated multiple times that he envisages an economy whereby players are able to influence/unbalance the economy of a local system/set of systems, to their own advantage.
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Yes, he said that players can influence it... but not as individuals. He was talking about large groups of players taking the same/similar actions (eg: running governmental blockades for fun and profit) to form changes through social pressure, not individuals with the financial clout of a galactic Rockefeller making sweeping actions that alter the economies of entire societies.

[edit] An example if this was the recent Eranin/Federal conflict in which players were able to influence the outcome by force of numbers, either fighting on the Federation's behalf or trading on Eranin's.. it ended up as a stalemate.
 
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SKaREO

SKaREO
I can't express my disappointment. A space sim without a player-driven economy and without a strictly MMO-style gameplay is just not a good space sim. This can't possibly compete with EVE Online and that game is over 11 years old now... Looks like CCP Games is going to get another subscriber because they literally have the market cornered for space sims.
 

MajorEpeen

MajorEpeen
SKaREO said:
I can't express my disappointment. A space sim without a player-driven economy and without a strictly MMO-style gameplay is just not a good space sim. This can't possibly compete with EVE Online and that game is over 11 years old now... Looks like CCP Games is going to get another subscriber because they literally have the market cornered for space sims.
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ED and EVE are two different games. You do not have to have a player driven economy to have a great game. We thankfully have no crafting (yawn) which would be required for a player driven economy. We get to pilot our ships and not play "right click online or "microsoft excel in space".

You sound like you want to play EVE, and you are welcome to. I am here to play Elite, which I am hoping will be a great game in it's own right (So far, so good).

You state you cannot have a great space sim without a player driven economy. This is you opinion and I am willing to bet that many will disagree with you. You also state that this cannot compete with EVE online. I can tell you that Elite is not trying to compete with EVE online. One is a subscription based timesink, the other is a space sim where you get to fly your ship. I know which of those I would rather play.
 
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