Resources

[vilk]

How will resources be handled? Will players be able to mine their own ore a la Ultima Online? If so, how will the issue of world resources be handled? Will there be a static amount, though extremely large, like reality? Or, also like Ultima Online (Because I don't know anything about any other MMORPGs), will the resource level constantly fluctuate with player demand? If I remember correctly from my UO days, there was a fixed amount of ore that could be mined at one time; only so many people could mine and get results, thus creating a traffic-like situation: Peak hours would leave would-be miners fruitless for their effortrs and off hours would yield great results. What are some thoughts on this? Is this issue already settled?

[Kintoun]

BHT will try a staic amount of cash and items in the world. NPC's will be able to run out of items. Hoarding should not be so much of a problem as it was in UO, even if players collect all the cash and all the items.

I doubt that players can mine and create their own cash, but they might be able to mine and SELL what they mine for cash. Altho that has not be a stated trade-skill yet. Traffic situations would be great to see. Traders flooding in to hit the populous with their wares would be neat.

[Morte]

Mining as a skill in an economy with a static amount of resources could be a lot of fun. There could even be situations with an authentic Gold Rush(tm), when a particularly large vein of some valuable material is discovered.

[vilk]

Ah, very cool. Though I can see obvious problems with running out of resources (Hey, we're out of ore. Completely. Woops.), at least Arcanity probably won't suffer the same problem as other MMORPGs: Massive player bases of powergamers. UO, anyone? Yeesh.

[Dyson]

I actually think that could be an interesting situation; if all the Ore (or Wood, etc) did simply "run out" in one area, the CMs could let that situation stand for a few weeks and see how the world economics played out. Perhaps some Kingdoms would try to expand to the new sources of Ore (which makes for war, which makes for the need for equipment, making ore even MORE valuable), perhaps some people would re-smelt their existing armor into weapons, or re-smelt existing weapons and add enchantments to try and make them more useful, etc. If things got too out of hand (people were just simply killing each other in the streets over swords, and others were hoarding- basically there weren't really any "fun" or "interesting" consequences), the CMs could slowly replenish the Ore supply (or create new ones).

[vilk]

While it's very tempting for players to wish for replenishing supplies for resources that are very finite in the real world, I would have to stick with realism. Of course, there are far more people on earth than Novus and we've been around longer, and we still haven't exhausted our supplies of minerals and oil. Wood, on the other hand, is replenishable, which brings me to another question:

Will trees grow back?

[Jouk]

... when UO came out in '97 it had a "static" resource system. It didn't work.

The land ran out of wood, literally, the forests were emptied of all animals.

In the end the GMs had to add resources by hand as a hotfix (they then coded it so that resources automatically replenished).


What current games have shown us, is the fact that people love to hoard and collect things. So if they're planning on having a static resource system, they better plan ahead and have the resource system scale with the amount of players/production/etc and have plenty of slack in it...

[Rend]

I'm all for more realism, but static resourses always ends up bad. Ether for players or programmers.

[Jouk]

Yeah, and I always end up feeling like I'm living in Virtual Communism: They've got plenty of stuff, but they're just not handing it out... :D

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

So far in all the big 3 online, players hoard resources, mostly because they have nothing to spend it on. BHT is hopeing to have a truily dynamic economy, in which there will be things you wish to spend your resources on and therefore continuily free up resources to other players. Of course were going to have to see how it plays out.

[Jouk]

... I just hope it won't be like Anarchy Online. That game is just one huge moneysink...

Urgh... I'm surprised they don't want money for the air breathed... :p