How to stimulate an Emergent Economy in DayZ - discussion

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

Hi - this post aims to be a brain-storming session. After reading the post regarding upcoming features for DayZ (sorry can't remember the topic title or author) which showed a texture for money, I have been thinking a bit about how you would get an economy going in DayZ.

 

A few ideas:

- It would have to be emergent – i.e. bottom-up as opposed to top-down (based on game rules).

 

- It would have to be based on trade - not sure how money would fit in as the corner stone of the concept of money is agreed value - although I could see a potential for money having value based on the lack of space in peoples inventories - money could be a space saver. 

 

- Raw materials would be a useful addition if crafting gets a fair bit more sophisticated - scrap metal (at different levels of quality affecting value), cement, fertilizer.

- So you would need to be able to craft useful items – e.g. vehicle parts, tools – or perhaps trade food – e.g. hunted meat, grown food. Items such as food or tools would need to be relatively rare as spawns to make trade a viable option.

 

- The ammunition as money system in Metro was pretty cool - where military rounds where usable as money but also could be fired - if they were made more rare and you could hand-press rounds (http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/161095-idea-ammo-handloading/) (of crappier quality and perhaps more likely to jam your weapon) then this might be viable.

 

- Agreed value could be negotiated on the spot – based on the current needs of the individuals involved.

 

- I suggested in a hand-signals thread (http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/162738-wishlist-handsigns/) a hand signal for ‘Trade’. Would be great to also indicate (via mime) what you want to trade (e.g. mime the drinking animation, eating animation, medical animation, reloading animation). The benefit of mime or hand signals is that you can communicate from a distance without using direct chat to start gauging the other player’s intentions. It is of course open to abuse but that would be the case in reality so I’m happy with that. It becomes a case of risk assessment and due diligence as to weather you decide to trade with someone or not.

 

Anyway to keep this post from getting tooooo long I’ll throw it open to the floor…

[Guest]

I think a bartering system would be epic, that way things could be cool!

[barrett_killz 229]

This ruins any kind of realism in the game. I'm against money or pay-to-win bulls*it.

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

This ruins any kind of realism in the game. I'm against money or pay-to-win bulls*it.

I'm not sure that we're on the same page... Any system that is emergent means that it is enabled by the game mechanics but not driven or enforced by them. Money is not my idea - there is a money texture in the files there somewhere (god knows how that will be implemented). And I don't know how Pay-to-win has any relationship to my suggestion - I'm suggesting a trade based economy, not one that is linked into being able to pay money in the real world (that would never happen in this game). Suggest you re-read the OP.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Roshi

[Gdaddy22 299]

Make house food rare, make people hunt or gather food from the forest, then we could trade things for rare beans

Edited January 11, 2014 by Gdaddy22

[Zedicologist 162]

This ruins any kind of realism in the game. I'm against money or pay-to-win bulls*it.

Pretty sure hes talking about an in-game market not like an in-game store lol.  I think this would be cool.  But very debatable if it actually belongs in the game.  I would welcome it though

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

This is obviously something that would develop over a long time frame as new features are added in (e.g. vehicles, farming, hunting, base-building) but I think it is worth exploring (and possibly implementing) the roots of this kind of system to see what works and what doesn't during the alpha...

[AmirDayz 54]

Yeah, for there to be an economy player interactions need to be usually less violent then say "See person, kill person, take his stuff", In fact some might say that the existence of an economy was only made possible by the existence of civilization, which in its way somewhat discouraged just killing everyone you see and taking their stuff.

So yeah, I don't think that DayZ is the kind of game that can develop a player-driven-economy.

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

I think this might be something of a useful social experiment... as development goes along there maybe more features that make people reconsider the kill players immediately approach and that may allow some sort of emergent trade. I don't know whether this would constitute an 'economy' per se but I like to see what comes of it.

[Deathlove 2286]

Im all for some kind of rare barter system or AH for latter on. Say you find some nice items. You list what other items you would like for trade on the gun or whatever and if you can find said items or weapons just trade them in for what you need. Player gets his stuff and you get yours no tricky stuff involved.

[joikd 25]

I doubt loot will be rare enough for trading to be needed.

 

I just had my character reset. Even without loot respawning and playing on a mostly filled server (30-40 players / no server hopping), I was back to fully geared (except for the long range scope) in 5 hours or so. I just need to hit the NWAF to find the scope. Since most players are concentrated in just a few spots, I just went where they ain't, and found many untouched towns.  

 

In order to make players want to trade, all loot must be much more rare.

Edited January 11, 2014 by joikd

[Th3mandalorian (DayZ) 7]

The trade idea is a good idea but not for a game like Dayz where you can KOS.

Why some ppl should trade and pay money if they can shoot in your head and take your gear?

The money idea is possible if you have a centralized and strong presence. like a town/country/government. 

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

Re: Joikd - That's also probably a product of the game being early alpha with very few item types and low maximum number of players (I understand that they are aiming for over 100 players being possible).

Edited January 11, 2014 by Roshi

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

The trade idea is a good idea but not for a game like Dayz where you can KOS.

Why some ppl should trade and pay money if they can shoot in your head and take your gear?

The money idea is possible if you have a centralized and strong presence. like a town/country/government.

I think Kos doesn't completely prohibit trade - it makes engaging in trade a lot more interesting. The difficult thing is setting up the conditions to make people want to trade despite the risks.

[spartanxapathy 203]

This ruins any kind of realism in the game. I'm against money or pay-to-win bulls*it.

 

You should probably read the entire post before commenting. No where does it say anything about paying real money for anything. I do agree that pay-to-win is lame, however. 

 

EDIT: OT... not a bad idea, would add more depth to the game. 

Edited January 11, 2014 by SpartanxApathy

[Zing Freelancer 58]

What do you currently value the most in DayZ?

Your food?

Your clothing?

Your gun?

Your ammo?

Your life?

Trust?

 

In Epoch you can use gold to buy and sell items between NPC's, I had little to no success in having trade between players. Usually when I am in position to provide an item to another player I do so without asking anything in return but his trust. Because knowing there is another guy watching my back is more valuable to me than my items. So what can we use money for?

The only thing I can think of is an ingame store where you can purchase items with money you find while scavagin, this will also invite microtransaction which will prolong DayZ lifespan by multiple years.

[Furtherado 100]

How would it be realistic not to trade?

 

I don`t know which side of the argument to be on, because certain pro-KoSers and anti-KoSers use the reality argument

whenever discussions about human interactions come up.

 

The fact is, there are tons of evidence documenting the willingness of humans to kill other humans

but also alot of evidence concluding that, even during harsh times, people care for one another and help.

 

Trade has been very beneficial throughout human history (you have surplus food, i have surplus drink), and realistically, trade is more beneficial than robbery, because you usually don`t risk your life doing it. But since you have unlimited lives in this game, you can just have the stronger side guard the loot of their fallen and it`s as if nothing ever happened. That`s why games can never be realistic, so stop using that argument all the time.   

 

If you were asked IRL to inititate a trade with another armed party, you knew you had several buddies watching over you, but that you would probably be the first to get shot if gunshots were to be exchanged, would you accept? IRL you would never do it, but in a game you woudl just go "GL, hope we win this fight" and easily sacrifice your life for the potential loot. 

Edited January 11, 2014 by Furtherado

[NotRedd 51]

I think that money will be sorted out by the economy like how diablo 2 was. You would find these items in it called "high runes" which made a lot of really really good gear in it. You would trade these raw high runes for rings and weapons and what not. More rare the item the more high runes your needed. I think we should just play it out as it is. 

 

Although metro idea would be cool.

[quobble 175]

money wont work in this game.

people are traveling mostly alone or in groups through lonely areas without any human encounters. While alone your money is worthless. Only if you find another person you can convert material goods into money and vice versa.

 

So, people rather trade items that they can use during their travels. Instead of having the money to eventually trade it at some point for items.

 

Also, people will just be dickheads and kill everyone instead of having a fair trade.

[Chauz 166]

Trading outpost will be coming up soon enough if there is a demand. I think I remember already seeing a thread or 2 about old groups setting up trade posts as soon as DayZ hits final version.

[AmirDayz 54]

Trading outpost will be coming up soon enough if there is a demand. I think I remember already seeing a thread or 2 about old groups setting up trade posts as soon as DayZ hits final version.

I bet those tradeposts won't at all be camped 24/7 by bandits, bandits who are in no way associated with the people running these 'trade posts'. Yup.

[Heiduk 265]

DayZ already has all of the mechanics it needs to support a basic barter economy (direct chat, and player inventories). Players just don't have any incentive to trade with each other.

 

Items never acquire any value because they are all common and anyone willing to grind the right loot spawns long enough can get anything they want. In the mod the problem became particularly obvious, over time even the rare gear got more and more common because players were continuously finding new AS-50s and NVGs but never destroying them. The standalone's item damage system will help with loot accumulation some but if the developers want a real economy to develop they probably need to cap total item quantities. For example, once the total number of M4s in the hive is equal to 10% of the active player base stop spawning new M4s until a few have been destroyed.

[klassent 28]

I don't foresee an economic standard of any sorts emerging in the post-apocalyptic world, outside of barter currency used within single settlements. Value of goods varies SO wildly based on immediate need as opposed to theoretical use, and DayZ is the kind of environment where circumstances are often classified as "Out of the frying pan, into the fire."

 

For a useful yet anecdotal example, one of the trades I engaged in recently with a friendly involved me carrying my usual M4, where he had a Mosin. Surely enough, we had each picked up both 5.56 and 7.62 in our travels, and we were both happier than hell to trade them to each other for the kinds we actually used. In this case, the easy ratio was just stack-for-stack, because even though I use 5.56, I still think 7.62 is a slightly more 'valuable' round, and his few 30-stacks of 5.56 seemed a perfectly fair swap for my few 20-stacks of 7.62... But our respective needs were low; this was a trade of convenience, not necessity. Let's instead say that I know for a fact that I've got a three-man squad headed straight to my base camp, and I'm all out of rounds for my Mosin... But, I happen to come across an M4 user as I'm scouring the nearby town, and-- in the hoping he trades as favorably as I did in my previous example, wonder if he has any 7.62 laying around. Well, he does, but he's holding it for his buddy, so he really doesn't want to get rid of it... "OH GOD PLZ! I'll trade you three 60-stacks for ten rounds, I need them."

 

Which, by the way, are the three magic words you never say during a trade, because something about human economics I've never quite been able to pin down, implies that the respective price of an item suddenly spikes up to match the perceived value... ;)

 

But, non-sequitor aside, circumstance can wildly skew the value of items like that even when they're the same classification of goods. Imagine how much more awful the standards might be if we were trying to measure something like Antibiotics once brain flu becomes more widespread, or gasmasks if we manage to get some kind of airborne infection afoot.

[djporternz 644]

What do you currently value the most in DayZ?

Your food?

Your clothing?

Your gun?

Your ammo?

Your life?

Trust?

None of the above.

 

Can Openers!

[djporternz 644]

Which, by the way, are the three magic words you never say during a trade, because something about human economics I've never quite been able to pin down, implies that the respective price of an item suddenly spikes up to match the perceived value... ;)

Supply-side economic theory. Well established and the engine behind capitalistic greed everywhere.

 

But I don't think that we'll be seing a single 'unit of currency' in-game. We're not going to be hearing anything like: "And how much is that in 'cans of beans'?" Every transaction is going to be a renegotiation of relative worth of the offered goods, and these values are going to be wholey subjective to each of the participants.

 

Plus you're going to get the extremes in basic humanity: One player when confronted with another dieing of hunger will give away a can of sardines to save their life, to the other who will literally take everything the dying man has for a single mouthfull of sardines.

 

It's definately going to be an interesting world to play in!