Economics and scarcity in Ryzom

[lathaserevi]

To me, an interesting way to study what people do in any MMO world is to look through the lens of economics. What is valued? What is scarce? What motivates activity? What can be exchanged between participants?

Please note that I'm not advocating economics as the only way to look at things, just a useful way that interests me sometimes. For the new Ryzom based worlds that are likely to open up in the wake of the open source release, it may be critical to success to set up the economic interactions in a way that interests and motivates players. And remember, economics does NOT just apply to Dappers. It's about all kinds of value, scarcity, and exchange.

I hope that this thread can focus on looking at the existing world of Atys through that lens. I seek to understand, not to convince you of anything. Any new ideas would likely be tested out on new non-Atys worlds, and only retrofitted to Atys if they were clearly huge wins and someone could convince the Atys devs of that.

Being new to Ryzom, I have only the view from this year; I'd particularly like to hear from people who know the history of how Ryzom progressed over the past years, and might have some insights on how the value and scarcity of important game items and character qualities have evolved over time.

Thoughtful contributions, please, and flames to /dev/null .

Lathaa