Welcome to the 1,212th edition of Loading...

Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.

One of the frequently overlooked though integral aspects of
character advancement in MMOGs ties directly into whatever shape the
in-game economy ultimately takes. Players obsess over seeing the hordes
of currency they’ve amassed throughout the course of gameplay
constantly increasing nearly as much as the almighty XP bar. While most
developers carefully plot out multiple means of keeping in-game
currency gains in check, more often than not MMOGs fall prey to the
ugly beast otherwise known as mudflation. We take a look at this aspect
of MMOG gameplay and its effects on new players today in Loading…
Market Mudflation Overload.

The Pulse

You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result is the Ten Ton Pulse ( href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).

Here are today's top 5 Pulse results:

1. target="_blank">World of Warcraft
2. Star
   Trek Online
3. Dungeons and Dragons
   Online
4. EverQuest 2
5. Aion

Biggest movers today:

1. Star
   Trek Online
   (UP 8 to #2)
2. Global
   Agenda (UP 5 to #8)
3. Star Wars: The
   Old Republic (UP 2 to #17)

Recent Releases

• 9/9
  - Dungeons
  & Dragons Online Unlimited (release date)
• 9/15
  - Runes
  of Magic "The Elven Prophecy" (expansion)
• 9/22 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/177">Fallen
  Earth (release date)
• 9/22
  - Aion
  (release date)
• 10/8
  - Cities
  XL (release date)
• 11/3
  - Dragon Age:
  Origins (release date)
• 11/10
  - Final Fantasy
  XI Ultimate
  Collection (release date)

Upcoming
Releases

• 12/1
  - LotRO:
  Siege of Mirkwood (expansion)
• 12/1
  - EVE
  Online: Dominion (expansion)
• 12/2
  - DOFUS 2.0
  (release date)
• 12/15
  - EverQuest:
  Underfoot (expansion) 
• 2/2
  - Star Trek Online
  (release date)
• Early 2010
  - APB
• Feb. 2010
  - href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/expansions/sentinelsfate/index.vm">EverQuest
  2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion)

Loading... Daily

I’ve seen it time and time again. A new MMOG launches and the
in-game
market sees an initial flood of low level items, each priced somewhat
competitively based on a slight profit over what an NPC vendor is
offering for a direct sale. This is the typically the ‘golden age’ for
the in-game economy – the singular point in the overall lifespan of a
given title when new players can most easily afford to purchase items
from other players. But once the critical mass of players begins
reaching the level cap a dramatic shift occurs where items are no
longer priced based on what a new player can afford, but on what a max
level character is willing to pay to obtain items for their alts.

The end result is that new players are essentially forced to ‘play
the
market’ in order to gain currency at a high enough rate to afford to
purchase items that once sold for a fraction of their current cost.
Meanwhile, the amount of coin gained from base gameplay remains a
constant which in most cases falls far short of anything even remotely
resembling a competitive rate of advancement when compared to the base
prices established by max level characters. Logic might dictate that
lower demand would result in lower prices, but I’ve yet to witness this
in a single MMOG.

Over the years developers have tried any number of methods for
keeping
mudflation in check, but in spite of their best efforts this same cycle
keeps repeating itself with each and every new release provided a
sizable enough player base renews their subscriptions after the initial
free month. Artificial coin sinks are one of the most abused tools in
developer’s arsenal of tricks, especially when it comes to taking mass
quantities of coin generated by max level characters out of virtual
circulation. Be it some form of durability loss for items or linking
successful gameplay to a constant need to replenish things like
regents, ammo or consumables, each of these methods falls far short of
ever achieving their goal.

Even when taken to extremes, coin sinks typically fail miserably at
keeping the lower end market in check. For example in href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow">World of Warcraft
you might think that the 6k gold required to fly epic mounts in
Northrend or the 1k cost of dual specs would serve to ease mudflation
but that hasn’t been the case at all. Stacks of wool cloth which sell
for less than a gold to vendors are priced at over 50 gold on my
server’s auction house. This may sound like a pittance to a jaded level
80 that’s been playing for the past 5 years, but I shudder to think how
a brand new player could ever manage to afford those prices without
being forced to play the market themselves. Don’t even get me started
on how nutty it is that dual specs open up at level 40 yet have the 1k
cost attached to them. Back when I was taking my first character
through the game no one in my guild could even afford the 80 gold for
the base riding skill at level 40 let alone 1k. All I know is that if
Cataclysm has any hopes of attracting new players to the game then the
base coin gain at lower levels is in need of a major facelift.

That’s not to say that over the years developers haven’t placed a
lot
of emphasis on establishing a solid baseline for currency gains up
front. Anyone who was playing Champions
Online at launch will recall
that the first few major patches swung the economic pendulum to polar
extremes where one day your character could barely afford to retcon a
single power and the next you had enough excess resources that you
could purchase a completely new costume at the tailor every hour if you
wanted to. But as Bill Roper pointed out in an href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/73612">interview just prior
to
CO’s launch, you need to hit those extremes with a large concurrency of
players before you can feasibly establish norms that fall somewhere in
the middle.

Meanwhile Aion
is standing directly at that crossroads where enough
players are hitting the higher levels that it’s beginning to have an
effect on low level market values, though in general most items still
remain affordable for new players. A common complaint in the game ever
since launch is that it’s hard to earn any sizable amount of kinah
during the base leveling experience, but that is no doubt a very
deliberate design decision intended to keep that ‘golden age’ of the
economy alive for as long as possible. If history is any indication
though, right around the 6 month mark we’ll begin seeing mudflation
begin sinking it’s teeth into the market values of low end items
forcing yet another new generation of characters to play the market if
they want to afford playing at all.

It will be interesting to see how some of the new titles just over
the
horizon such as Star
Trek Online or Star
Wars: The Old Republic
tackle the issue of mudflation. Will we simply see another exciting
round of artificial coin sinks with a side dish of consumables, or do
the developers of two of the most hotly anticipated sci-fi MMOGs have
some new tricks up their sleeves?  Only time will tell, but in the
meantime be sure to share your thoughts on how mudflation effects
character advancement for new players right here in the Loading… forums!

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Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day



From our /OOC
(Off Topic) forum



style="font-weight: normal;">Avatar



You're apparently pretty busy playing href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2213">Dragon Age
Origins
and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 these days to post much about MMOGs,
so I'm once again dipping into our /OOC forum for today's epic thread.
We're talking about Avatar. No, not the character you create in an
online game, but the upcoming movie. I've got to admit that I'm
intrigued by the movie. If you are, too, href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=47834">join our
discussion.



==============================

Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread



"There seem to be a growing
number of "Stop Exploiting" movies coming out lately as the planet's
ecosphere begins collapsing at a more pronounced rate. It looks pretty
interesting artistically but not much more impressive than the Final
Fantasy flicks."



- SirRobin

==============================



Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!

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5 new Ten Ton Hammer MMOG
features today! 72 in November! 3,044
in
2009!



New Exclusives Today at Ten Ton
Hammer

• Fat Men Can't
  Dance - Hands-on with Audition
  
  How many online games have a 4:3 ratio in favor of the women? Not many.
  How many games can get an out-of-shape writer dancing in the chair?
  Even fewer. Audition, from Redbana, does both. Take a walk on the cool
  side with Ten Ton Hammer as we take a look at the online game that over
  300 million worldwide have registered to play.
  
  
  
• Exclusive
  Interview with Alganon Creator, David Allen
  
  David Allen was the driving force behind Horizons, is the co-founder of
  QOL (Quest Online, LLC), and is on a mission to spread the word about
  his latest endeavor, Alganon. For every player that's complained about
  games not having enough depth of meaning, being forced to fulfill the
  same party role day after day, or wants a chance for their name to
  forever live on in a game's history, it's time to listen up. Eric
  "Dalmarus" Campbell sat down with David and Alganon Lead Designer, Hue
  Henry, to get the latest scoop on this ambitious new title.
  
  
  

New Guides

• href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/guides/crafting/cooking_pt2">Aion
  Cooking Guide 100-199
  
  Congratulations on making a bunch of food no one could ever possibly
  want in the first tier of cooking! Your reward is paying to upgrade to
  a tier where you still can't make anything useful for another 50
  levels. Don't fret, it'll all be worthwhile in the end. Getting to that
  end as efficiently as possible is what we're looking to do, and we show
  you how to do it in our second part to our cooking guides, 100-199.
  
  
  
• Runes of Magic
  - The Rogue: A Beginner's Guide
  
  When you want to sneak around in shadows and make your enemies pay for
  unknown transgressions you will find yourself in a Rogue state of mind.
  If you feel more at home in the shadows than in broad daylight then a
  Rogue just might be for you. Join ZeroMerc as he tries to pry the Rogue
  out of the shadows in our newest class guide for Runes of Magic.
  
  
  
• href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/guides/classes/spiritmaster_pvp_primer">Aion
  Spiritmaster PvP Guide
  
  As we’ve discussed in previous articles, Spiritmasters don’t
  significantly bring the pain in grouped up PvE. The caster’s DOTS and
  pets do some damage, but overall the Spiritmaster holds the role of
  support player. Thus is not the case in PvP with the Spiritmaster
  playing the role of puppet master. With stuns, fears, dispels and other
  tricks up their sleeves, Spiritmasters are much more pivotal in PvP.
  All this and soon our pets will fly, ensuring havoc throughout the
  universe.
  
  
  

Today's Hottest Content

1. style="font-weight: bold;">Lord of the Rings Online: Siege
   of Mirkwood Beta Impressions
2. Down
   to Earth or
   Another Planet - a Star Trek Online
   Ground Combat
   Q&A with Dan Stahl
3. style="font-weight: bold;">Global Agenda Medic
   Class Q&A
   with Exec. Producer Todd Harris
4. Call
   of
   Duty: Modern Warfare 2 PC Review
5. Neverland
   Online Novice Pack Giveaway
6. Dragon
   Age
   Origins - PC Version Review
7. style="font-weight: bold;">GuildPortal 8 Year
   Anniversary Interview with Aaron Lewis
8. style="font-weight: bold;">Alganon – Breaking
   Out of the MMOG
   Mold in Open Beta
9. In-Depth LotRO:
   Siege of
   Mirkwood Expansion
   Q&A with Jeffrey Steefel
10. Allods
    Online Beta
    Key Giveaway

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Thanks as always for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer
network!

- Reuben "Sardu" Waters and the Ten Ton Hammer team