World of Warcraft Economy Mod - Phase 1

[Goatfish]

This is otherwise known as the $million idea.

I personally prefer many ideas that many different people like, opposed to one.

If the goal is to revitalize the world and make it more alive, then it has to be the million dollar idea by definition. A bunch of half-assed solutions targeting small minorities of players isn't going to revitalize the world. That is unless you give players the freedom to develop the world as they please, which by itself is a million dollar idea, just way harder to implement without breaking everything.

[Demonly]

If the goal is to revitalize the world and make it more alive, then it has to be the million dollar idea by definition. A bunch of half-assed solutions targeting small minorities of players isn't going to revitalize the world. That is unless you give players the freedom to develop the world as they please, which by itself is a million dollar idea, just way harder to implement without breaking everything.

I would love to see a worldstate system be implemented into World of Warcraft. Where actual cities/towns have "residence" and you contribute to the cities/towns overall wealthfare to reduce rates among trading/auctions/etc, or even to give boosts of particular "profession" while in said city/town.

Or even contributing to the wealth of the cities/towns to earn rewards/as a group/outdoor content.

if this is what you mean by "develop" as they please.

[Scoutonduty]

As far as garrisons go:
1: Lack of customization.
2: Convoluted and limiting adventure tables.
3: Repetitive and boring associated quests/invasions.
4: Damage to the existing game economy.

These 4 pretty much sum up my feelings. It felt like yet another over promise and under deliver from Blizzard, which is par for the course even so many years later. Blizzard is just notoriously bad at making fun mini-games, and even worse at making them interesting community events. I'm still shocked that after so many years we don't have an in-game player tournaments of any type, and there is an awful lot of potential for it as well as lore backing it up. They leave a lot of the community engagement to third party sites instead of having it in game, and I view that as a glaring mistake that's been long ongoing.

So again, what's the point of mining all that iron? What is it used for? What do you get out of it?

My point being that people don't go farm dungeons when they have everything from that dungeon. What I see from your idea is a whole lot of stick and no real carrot. If you make the carrot too juicy then people who don't want to do it will join in just for the rewards, and if it's not enough then almost no one will do it and it won't help with reviving the world at all. The only way I can see it being viable at all is if the materials have a separate market and are used for something more impactful such as player housing, which might be useful so it doesn't cause mass inflation of regular trade goods.

Finally, there is the worry about the systems that WoW is built on. There are tons of bugs and funky stuff in the game already, and a lot of random stuff ends up breaking even 1 expansion later for seemingly no reason. I just did a "horse and cart" quest in pandaria the other day where the horse took off randomly and the cart I was riding went sliding in random directions through the mountain. It reminded me of the Skyrim opening glitching out.

I don't want you to take this as a "barrage of hate" as other people are saying. I just want workable solutions that will attract enough people for long enough to keep it relevant and desirable.

Ah thank you for the kind words.

I agree on a lot of criticism you have for the garrisons. If i were to argue how my system would try to avoid that heres how:
1. There is no need for customization, because that would mean a lot of work for blizzard for a niche system. Not very likely. But there is no need because we already have a rich world. I mean open up the world map, pick a zone on kalimdor, northrend pandaria or eastern kingdoms. Find me a quest area, or place of interes you really enjoy. Now imagine what could be produced there. I am sure you are able to chose at least one zone you would enjoy do a profession you like.

2. Having a world wide economy with logistics is already complicated enough. I feel like the game does not have to have any additional or artificial depths here. The elements can be broken down to segments and you can scale it to any size you wish. I mean you like mining at gol bolar, great do that and sell your iron (which now has demand, because some players enjoy metallurgy). Oh you want to write an addon that calculates the most efficient traderouts and organize a guild to have just in time production, be my guest.

3. This is the most tricky part. But i feel like every hobby has its chores or repetitive parts which can only be overcome if you enjoy the activity as a whole. I mean mining in the end is just running through a cave looking for shinies. Thats why i feel every profession should have its minigame thats not too complex but enjoyable to some. Enchanting could be some soduku style puzzle, mining can be something like pokemon diamond and pearl where you scan the walls for shiny stuff and when you find it you can either delicately extract the most of the valuables or you just quickly smash on it and get ressources quickly. Landmarks in wow tell a story. And im sure you remember the quests for a lot of them. I mean i guess most people have leveled a ton of alts. Whats your favorite zone to level in? If so can you recall a quest you dont mind doing over and over again? Maybe that landmark could have the invasion of exactly that quest.

4. im sorry it would totally damage the market for vanilla crafting materials. runecloth, copper ore and malachites gonna be in high demand and supply now.


So whats the point out of that iron? Well imagine the final step to the progression line is your very own guild ship that you and your guildies can steer. Would you like one that has a steel stlye? well better farm lots of iron and coal. You would prefer an elven version made from noble mithril? Go farm that. You want a nightsabre to pull your cart? well better raise them well in winterspring with all that meat you farmed in the arathi highlands. You see its about combining aspects of the world. If you i took away all of your mounts and ask you to chose one i am sure you have at least one favourite style that has history rooted in warcraft. and with different people enjoying different styles the world will see a well spread of players.

The point with the carrot and stick is just a matter of perspective. If i see deadmines i would not want to run it. If i skim through transmog and realize there is a nice club that can drop there i am already incentivised to run deadmines over and over. What if you could achive the title "xxx of Go'sheks stead" Would that make you invest 1 week of grinding 10 pumpkins a day to unlock that title? I feel like the road is the most important thing, not the actual carrot. The carrot should not be a reward in terms of player power. The carrot should just look appealing to you.

Well most things are very light weight and not that complex. if dragon riding works then steering a vehicle will too. And since its not endgame relevant, more like a recreational job that has the option to become endgame for you there is no big deal if one part of it breaks. Like what would you say if there is an old raid where a mechanic does not work in the current expansion? it either gets fixed if its a problem for lots of people, or it gets ignored.

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I would love to see a worldstate system be implemented into World of Warcraft. Where actual cities/towns have "residence" and you contribute to the cities/towns overall wealthfare to reduce rates among trading/auctions/etc, or even to give boosts of particular "profession" while in said city/town.

Or even contributing to the wealth of the cities/towns to earn rewards/as a group/outdoor content.

if this is what you mean by "develop" as they please.

Residence itself was already a thing back in 2008 but it never came. With my attempt i wanted to at least have the option of identifying with a place. The landmarks should have an upkeep that reflects their popularity. So if a lot of people work in a place it should be shiny and intact. If a place is not visited it should rot and make some people find their task in cleaning up abandoned places so there is a cycle going. But yea if you like camp taujaro and you meet someone doing his stuff over there to because he likes it too i feel like its a good base to socialze and take a break. And maybe you two will start to make camp taujaro great again.

[Goatfish]

Ah thank you for the kind words. <snip>

Ah yea, this sounds a bit better than how it came across on your first post. It's vastly more to integrate into the game, but could be interesting. The only place I would disagree is on customization being niche. I really enjoyed the idea of some of the systems in EverQuest 2 for instance with player housing and even player created dungeons. The biggest issues are really development time and how it works on the WoW framework.

It's a little disappointing every new expansion because I see something new they added and it always seems unrefined or badly thought out. It's still cool to think up some of these ideas, but I like to keep them grounded in the reality of what we might actually get. Making requests of Bliz has always been more of a monkey's paw, where you might get your wish, but it will probably be twisted into something you didn't want.

[Scoutonduty]

Ah yea, this sounds a bit better than how it came across on your first post. It's vastly more to integrate into the game, but could be interesting. The only place I would disagree is on customization being niche. I really enjoyed the idea of some of the systems in EverQuest 2 for instance with player housing and even player created dungeons. The biggest issues are really development time and how it works on the WoW framework.

It's a little disappointing every new expansion because I see something new they added and it always seems unrefined or badly thought out. It's still cool to think up some of these ideas, but I like to keep them grounded in the reality of what we might actually get. Making requests of Bliz has always been more of a monkey's paw, where you might get your wish, but it will probably be twisted into something you didn't want.

Thats why i think a modular system like this could work waaaaay better than the next best thing.
I mean get a group to work on tarrens mill. implement the landmark when ready with a small patch. Watch if everything works, go let players vote or decide on the next landmark. if you add a land mark every month there is content for years to come and its all in small steps. if something is broken? deactivate it and fix it.

[Gurahk]

Surprised no one mentioned that this would probably fit the the Warcraft survival game they are working on. If it's anything like Ark or Conan or w/e.

It's a new IP, not a warcraft game.