The NYSE of Norrath

Looking at the Economy of EverQuest2

By: Tony "RadarX" Jones

Irony. It stalks me around every dark corner, jumping out and ruining everything. As I sit down to write an article about the economics of EverQuest 2, lo and behold, the broker has been taken off line for another discovered exploit. As of this moment, the game has no economy and I have no article to write. The end. Just kidding. MMO economics, despite what some people think, are as real and complex as what we see on Bloomberg or any other financial news channel you'll be forced to watch at an airport.

First, and foremost, you have to define what makes up an virtual economy. According to wikipedia (so grain of salt this) a virtual economy consists of the following: Persistence, Scarcity, Specilization, Trade, Property Rights.

Persistence is more or less the game keeping track of who has what in a permanent manner. If I earn 10 gold pieces, and I log out, I'm still going to have that money when I come back tommorow. If I could just get them to make experience debt not stored in a permamnent manner...

Next we have scarcity. This means time and resources must be utilized in order to obtain products or services. You basically aren't running around in "god mode" being unattackable, doing 47k hit points of damage (looks at Blackguard), and have 200 platinum pieces in your wallet. You have to commit of your time and make choices about what you invest your resources in.

Specialization means that the availiability of resources must vary from player to player. What this means, is players ability to produce goods and services will vary based on skill. Someone who makes spell scrolls for example, may not be able to make the ink required, and would need to procure it from someone who could. In my case, I don't craft ever, so it means I have to buy everything.

Trade, just means the ability to exchange goods between players. Trade of course can be limited by the game in the form of "no drop/trade" items to control them, but most are tradeable.

Property rights, is similar to persistence, in stating that goods and services belonging to players is recorded and maintained. Radar's chocolate cake is NOT Slide's chocolate cake so GET AWAY.

Why Am I Always so Poor In-Game?

Alright, so we've defined what an economy is, so what methods are utilized in EverQuest? Everquest 2 uses a mixture of free trade that is controlled by supply and demand, combined with devices that are also known as "money sinks"

As in the real world economies, most products are driven by supply and demand. A great recent example of this was the price of rare stones used for spells when the expansion Kingdom of Sky came out. The highest tier stone, worth a pretty penny, now became 50% cheaper because it was no longer in the highest demand. This of course affected the prices of spells, and the resources in tiers below it. I could draw you some pretty graphs to illustrate this, but these markers smell pretty good and I'm getting light headed.

Money sinks on the other hand, are nothing more than devices placed in the game to control the flow of money. An example of this is the early travel system that EverQuest 2 had in place. You could travel between continents very quickly but at a cost, thus requiring either time or money to get to where you needed to go. Another example of this, is rent you pay on an inn room. While the standard inn room's rent of 5 silver, is paltry sum to almost everyone, those of us who have moved into a house look at our cost in status and gold and have resorted to selling kidneys.

When Economics Melt Down

Like the real world, our virtual economy also is imperfect and prone to "issues." What happens when you merge servers thus merging two economies? Human sacrifice, cats and dogs, living together....mass hysteria! In the recent merge of Neriak and Kithicor I saw the prices of some items jump 100%+ and I really wanted that frilly carpet too! Was this just panic, uncertainty of what to do? I can't be sure, but it was a glitch that is still being worked out on our server to this day.

Flooding the market with certain products is also frequently an issue we see. Take for example Droag Lore & Legend items. I find it strange, that I could purchase all the items I needed to complete this quest for an ungodly cheap amount. Some of the pieces I purchased could have been sold to a merchant for more than they were listed on the broker. Tradeskillers also grind out levels, producing numerous items they want to get rid off so they see a little bit of a return. The problem with this, is nobody needs 52 Thexian Wine racks unless you are bulding some freakish wine rack pyramid to hide in during the apocalypse to come.

The final problem I see, is the secondary market. While this could be an entirely seperate article I think it needs mentioning. Let's face it, some people are just lazy or too busy to play and will buy money to get where they want to be. If there is more money in the economy, this of course causes inflation and makes the honest players cash worth less. The unfortunate side of this though, is the secondary market is huge. I don't mean huge like the amount of tupperware I need to clean out of my refridgerator, I mean enormous. There are no solid statistics on how much cash is brought in per year, but judging by the sheer amount of spam and news I see about it, there must be profit to be had. How can I summarize this? People, buying plat is bad mmmk?

What's the point? Honestly? If nothing else, maybe that in-game economics can be as complicated as you want them to be. You can look at the GNP (Gross National Product), nominal wages, compare our economy to that of the Argentina, and make a bunch of fancy charts with Corel Draw. The things I've mentioned, barely even scrape the surface of something so deep and complicated it would take a college research paper to do justice to it. Really most of us don't stop to think about this stuff as much, when the broker is actually working. When it is, I can buy the stuff listed there so it isn't taunting me with "Buy me....AHA! You can't!" Fortunately, by the time I finished this article, the brokers were back on-line and I purchased my frilly carpet which is displayed happily in my home. So, next time you purchase that Kaelish Moca Iced Foamy Chia Tea drink that is so uber, make sure to remember you are a part of a intricate economy that effects us all.