Welcome to ChaoticAbyss

I DO feel like gold comes too easily in CA. (I tried that out, and made 12k in no time). I think that a fully player based economy is worth trying (I'm not saying you didn't try) even if it's hard to carry out.
My biggest concern about having many powerful items on the server, is the fact that it WILL lead to item harvesting, and people will get rich really fast. This happens in every single server. And it's very logical. If you know a cave where you can get an item worth 20k, of course you go back again and again. Ten trips to the cave and you've got 200k. Even if you spend 50k for healing supplies, you've still got 150k. Before you know it, you have million gold pieces in your pocket.

The lifespan of a player is therefore rather short. Here's roughly how it goes:
First you start, and explore.
Then you find a place that is a good source for items.
Then you start gathering those items.
Then you become rich.
Then you buy everything you've ever wanted.
Then you kill all monsters serveral times and collect their items.
Then you get bored.
Then you start donating the items because they are like worthless trash to you.
Then you get even more bored.
Then, at some point, it gets so boring you decide to leave the server...

And that's many times the end of the story. All that can be done in a relatively short time (5 to 15 days in real life time), or even faster if you get item donations from high level characters. There are already dozens, if not even hundreds of servers like that, so it would be very disappointing to see this server join the mass.
I've explored the world a little, and seen that you have great ideas, interesting scripts and an unique atmosphere in many areas, so there's high potential to really make this one of the best PW servers ever.

Since the vast majority of gold in CA comes from acquiring and selling high end items I think its fair to start with a table of equipment to character level.

When we first started we had intended to create NPCs that gave specific XP rewards, 1k, 2k, 4k, 6k, and 9k.  This quickly provided futile so we mapped NPC levels instead.


1k     lvl10     +2 equipment
2k     lvl15     +3 equipment
4k     lvl20     +4 equipment
6k     lvl30     +5 equipment
9k     lvl40     Any equipment

As a general rule, the lower levels between each class will have less equipment than NPCs at a higher level.  So the average level 10 npc will normally have a sword and armor at +2 while an NPC at level 14 may be completely equipped with +2 items.  There are exceptions to this rule were it makes sense.  For instance, city guards are level 10 and are fully equipped.

+1 equipment is scattered around among different NPCs where it is reasonable to do so.  Some merchants might carry a fancy +1 short sword for instance.

So any real change in gold will have to be a result of modifying the equipment that is dropped or perhaps further modification to the heals that are available and their cost, since heals are the only items a player really needs to purchase.

Would it be better to decrease the gold that is available or increase the price of what is on the market and make other items necessary, such as making food a requirement to rest?  Personally I'd rather add cost to the world.

sounds like a poll a brewin ....

Such insight! :P


So consider this, assume the price of everything in CA just increased by 400%, because it did, and the price of certain important items like healing kits, wands, and certain potions, have been artificially inflated by the merchants.  How close to being balanced are we?

I went to the dwarven mines. Got my backpack full of stuff, and the value was over 100k, for one trip. Then I killed several people here and there, and now all my equipped items are +2 or better, and I've got 200k of cash (even after I bought many expensive items). My character is only level 8. Was level 5 when I started. All this took about 2 to 4 hours real time.

I'm suggesting that ONLY the "boss" creatures should drop special items when you kill them, and when they do, it would be one item, and its max value would be around 1000-3000gp.

I need to party with you!

I can't kill in the mines at level 5 with any of my characters short of using a lot of heals.  The cleric might handle the non-guard npcs below level 1, if the fight is one on one, but the guards require a boat load of heals.  All my characters are being played straight with no metagaming so they all have only the equipment they can earn themselves and so far I don't have a single lvl 5 character with + equipment.  I do have a pally that can hit level 5 tonight so I will make a concerted effort to duplicate your success with access only to the heals that I have money for, which isn't much, and the standard equipment he has.  Heals of course are now over 100k a piece so my characters would have lost money, assuming they even had the heals to go in there.


If we limit special equipment drops to boss creatures and then only in the range of 1k-3k don't we automatically limit the reason to slug through a dungeon and in effect become a RP only server?

I was well equipped, because I killed some NPCs (mostly guards) and got good items from them. I died several times attempting this, but after getting the Ironskin Ring, it was starting to go well, and after that, going to the dwarven mines wasn't so hard. That's when my 2-4 hour looting journey begun. Don't say I cheated. It's possible to kill NPCs if you face the consequences, so I did so :)  

Of course all of the creatures would drop something, but a single loot from a single creature shouldn't be 8000gp. One magical item, fairly low in value would be enough. Plus, if a level 40 character goes to the dwarven mines, he has no trouble in collecting 200k worth of loot (this isn't the tactic I used, because the level 8 character is the highest one I have).

Isn't also gaining XP one of the reasons why people go into dungeons? If they know that there is a boss monster waiting there with a valuable item, and they need to chop their way through the guards to get there, wouldn't that get them going?

Regardless of how you change it, you will never eliminate the ability of a higher level player to exploit lower level areas for equipment and the resultant cash.

Based on how you advanced, which I won't call cheating  :wink: , any player can eventually gain an advantage he wouldn't normally have, regardless of how the drops are changed.

Perhaps the biggest adjustment needs to be a removal of the xp loss cap so that players can loose a level if they die.  This would stop a player from dieing over and over again to simply gain equipment for himself and then repeating the procedure to gain money.  Level loss would obviously force a player to make do with what he can get his hands on without dying.  In that instance, a player will only be able to buy a single heal potion or high end healing kit after a tour through the dwarven mines.  

Obviously this won't prevent the mines or any other area from being exploited by players whose levels are much higher, which is always going to be an issue.  We could however block people from entering an area if their level is too high, for instance no players over level 12 in the mines.

I'm certainly willing to follow the wishes of the majority but I believe it is more logical to make the economy demand the money that can be made.  I believe it is more realistic if NPC's who would logically have the means to posses high end equipment do,  and for epic (lvl 20+) characters to not be walking around in ordinary gear.  Another issue will be npc/monsters that can't be touched because of low level weapons, like earth elementals or golems.

I'm disappointed that we seem to be only people interested in this as well.

So, if we change the drops so that most npc/monsters use std equipment we will also need to change the store pricing back to the original values.  Is it better to do that or try to balance the economy with the current prices?  Personally I think the current prices are more realistic.  800gp for splint mail is much better than 150.

regardless of what you do, there will always be 'exploits'.  for a really lame  example, the dwarven ward stone can sell for 1g, and the dwarf guy will continually give it to you (which is a good thing actually, cause i swear i lose mine like its going out of style) so if one was so inclined, a lvl 1 could sell this stone 10,000 times and have a nice little nest egg.  but if the sale prices were dramatically increased, this would be a less useful tactic.  so instead of pc's looking to sell back equipment dropped by npcs, they should be looking use it, as the stores wont have much good stuff.  and then even if the character uses his new found equip to raid a lower lvl area and get rich quick, heals are still moderately difficult to come buy, (which is cool) and then maybe 'better' items could be sold through guilds or they can spend there money on crafting stuff, which is still a very time consuming job.  my lvl 20 char has a ridiculous amout of gold, but thats how it should be :)  but i have a lvl 8 or so, and he still has trouble making ends meet, sometimes...

Here is what I think ...
We are trying to build an economy in this game. The deal now is that prices are so jacked up that the PC is better off killing for EQ to sell or forced to craft it themselves and sell to other PC's. Once we see level 20+ people making good EQ, then we are probably going to see lower level people running around with higher end EQ, so long as they meet the price set by the PC. There might also be some PC that are nice and give it away ... I don't know why ... but sure ...
The other thing is that is doesn't make sense that when I kill something I cannot get their EQ ... doesn't just disappear ...
To that end, our econ is now on a scale that I can agree with ... in the real world .. if everyone has money to spend ... it doesn't lower the prices .. it raises them ... if money is scarce then the prices will be low cause the gold has more value. Right now it is inflated with a 400% markup .. this is because gold can be made pretty easily ... so now you have to spend more of the gold you made ...
I also don't like item level restrictions ... I might not know how to use the power of the sword ... but I think I should be able to weild it. Since I don't know how to use it ... then perhaps it should be able to hit ... this however is not the way the NWN game works. In this game you also have alignment restrictions and class restrictions, both of which I don't agree with. This should be a personal choice of the PC of whether or not to use it. But I also know that this would throw off the balance of the game so I leave that alone ...
I wouldn't mind item level restrictions based on the strength of the PC ... or other modifiers. I don't know if that is possible ... the idea being that ... this weapon is to heavy for you to swing ... therefor you cannot weild it ...
Now on to getting EQ that should be impossible for lower level characters to get from killing. It is possible before the XP/Death penalty to respawn where you died and continued dying until you killed the target. You wouldn't have to treck back and there is no XP loss. We put those in to help discourage this. It is still possible for this to happen since you cannot loose a level and if you pick something close to your start location. I therefor prospose that we remove the level loss check and instead give the PC 3 deaths per level. If they go over this then they will loose the level they are currently at. If they 3 times again, then they loose another level ... and so on. If they died in lets say level 5 ... We will call it the death counter is incremented by one ... die twice more .. then they find themselves at level 4 .. if they gain a level to 6 then the death counter is reset to 0. This along with XP/Gold loss should help discourage/elminate this behavior.

I think these steps will help balance this all out ...
anyway ... there is my two cents on the matter ... perhaps there is another way, a better way ... if you know it, share it ...

I understand the realistic view completely. Creture's items don't just disappear. But what if we give them normal weapons, and just tweak their abilities? All monsters could also drop a gem, potion or a small gold treasure 5-100gp (depending on the difficulty).

Again I want to point out, that this money issue among many others, can be solved by putting the whole economy to the hands of the players, so that all special items would have to be crafted (and only very few items could be attained from rare boss monsters). I'm willing to get all my characters deleted if the whole economy is changed to fully player based one, so that I would need to start from the beginning, would make things fair. All this would not mean the server would become RP only. I've seen a fully player based economy working well on a pure hack&slash server.

About death: you can gain XP by killing commoners or merchants, and that gives back the XP you lose if you die while trying to kill a guard.

Well I'm all for a full player based economy, which I want and will be looking at some merchants today.

Keep in mind that FPBE that is dependent upon the player base to make high end items is going to be extremely limited even with a large player base because high end items are very hard to make and the skill required to get there will take some serious dedication.

Another issue with depending upon the crafting system now is that I'm not sure it will work in NWN2, not that it can't be addressed then but I'm trying to keep NWN2 in mind when we do something. Plus one of us will have to make a concerted effort to get all the crafting resources in the module, which of course needs to be done.


So I'm in agreement to following this suggestion. If we can get FPBE running then high end items can be limited. It will not stop some of the exploitative actions we've talked about though. I think that some modified equipment should be available though as some race/class combo's need all the help they can get.

Something I floated by Podilarius at lunch today was removing high end items off NPC/monsters until at least lvl 20 and then perhaps topping that at +3 or +4 for lvl 40. Of course even then a lvl 40 guy can come in and clean out the lvl 20 npc's for their stuff.

How restrictive do we want it?

1. For instance do we want the avg level 20 - 40 npc carrying std equipment with a few boss types carrying one or two high end items or can these high end npc's all carry some form of modified equipment?

2. Do we have +1 equipment available on a wider ranger of npc below lvl 20 or is this too much money.

3. Do we just strip everything?

i for one would rather have really bad-a$$ stuff, and then just be killed by an even more bad-a$$ monster with even more bad-a$$ stuff.  to me, even from a role-play perspective, it gets boring running around with only  +1 items at high lvls.  

one thing i aslo hate is that when npc's die they dont drop the stuff they were using.  this doesnt bother me for most of the easy outdoor spawns, but if i spend hours fighting some boss who's whooping me with what looks to be a real nice sword and all he drops 30g, then i'll probably go watch tv instead.  therefore npc's should drop their equipment, and pc's should be able to use it and sell it.

so my opinion:  just make stuff expensive, and at least allow guild merchants to carry somewhat decent equipment, so a char should be able to get at least a +1 sword at lvl 5 or so, and if gold is going to be plentiful, jack the price up, which is probably easier than reconfiguring every npc.  as far as npc's with really good stuff, just make them really hard to kill.  that is, the lvl of the equipment be around the lvl of the npc.  if you feel that a lvl 20 should be able to kill the npc, then have the npc with equipment that is not insulting to a lvl 20 char.  if a lvl 40 goes around killing that npc just to get loot, well hey, at lvl 40, thats kinda his right.   for example, mordec has way too good stuff considering a lvl 20 and a lvl 15 or 16 owned him   :twisted: .  well, actually the lvl 15 died and it was pretty funny, so he didnt own much, but the lvl 20 did fine.

IF the economy is based on players, there shouldn't be even +1 items in NPC shops, because when you start crafting, the first items you make aren't that good (weapons have propably +1 attack bonus, or not even that). If +1 or +2  weapons are in stores, nobody will buy any of the first items the new craftsman has made. Many people are jealous and greed. Many will rather give their money to a NPC than a player. And even if they weren't jealous and greed, some people are just a bit shy, and they don't want to bother the other player in order to buy stuff. If those items aren't for sale on any NPCs, people have no choice but to find a player who can craft, or to start making them by themselves. That may sound like forcing, but I think it's just a matter of getting used to how things are. 80% of people will get used to it, and there are always new players to fill the gap that was left by the 20%. Learning to craft is expensive and time-consuming. When you train, most of the items will fail and the material is ruined and wasted so you need to buy and gather more (not all components can be found in the nature for free). In order to advance in his skills, the craftsman needs to get money somehow, and the best way is to sell the items he just made.

Of course, very few will have the patience to get very skilled in making items, but that's the way it is in real life too. Eventually about 2 to 10% will become highly skilled and they will be able to make relatively powerful items. Some people want to craft and become good in it, others want to chop meat in dungeons instead, and the rest wants to do them both, but they all need each other. Crafters need adventurers so they can sell their stuff, and adventurers need crafters so they can buy stuff.

I want to point out, that I didn't say that a high level boss monster should drop only 30gp. A boss monster could drop a single powerful item, but the monster should be really hard to kill. The regular monsters don't need to drop anything more valuable than 300gp. (I would put the maximum amount to 100gp, but I'm trying to degotiate a compromise) An option would be that if you get powerful items from monsters, the NPC shops would not give huge sums for them, so that way people would try selling the items to other players, or just keep and use them.

This whole economy system may seem a bit desperate at the moment, since there are 0 players on the server, but if the server gets full, things will change radically. Suddenly there are many new players who dream about honing their skills until they can make fantastic items, and sell them with a fantastic price. Also the demand for better equipment will skyrocket, as the adventurers need better gear, because they just can't kill that annoying troll chief with the regular stuff. This will also make them form thundering parties who will kill anything on their path... or at least, that's what they think when they exit the city gates. You must have dreams, or else you've got nothing.

Propably the crafting things cannot be transferred into NWN2 (I can't know for sure), but if that happens, the players could always recieve some kind of compensation in the new server. For example, the items and bank account of his best character could be measured and transferred into the new server in gold.


PS. We are talking a lot about powerful items, but let's not forget that it's not the sword that makes the difference. It's the hand that wields it  :wink:

PPS. I'm not saying that we should eliminate all the exploitable features, because it's impossible. I'm just saying that we should try to minimize them.

I think its obvious from the way the four of us are going around and around that no matter what we do we will end up alienating someone so my concern is to limit that and create the broadest appeal possible.

I'm all for creating a player based economy, with perhaps a little help at this stage.  I've never intended for merchants to have anything but normal equipment, although i added some wands and stones in this last update to provide some purchase options.

If everyone can agree on those two items then we can move on.


Obviously I feel like we should leave the equipment in and create an economy that demands the large amount of gold available.  I can see where this completely conflicts with using the crafting system though and integrating the crafting system into the economy has also been on my wish list from the start, not that I really know/knew how.

I really want realism in the module.  Part of the reason I started this is because other servers pissed me off with ridiculous drops from NPCs who were obviously wielding something nasty.

Here are my submissions for consideration:

1.  Since only ordinary equipment is available for purchase is it reasonable to give NPCs +1 equipment and if so at what level?  I will check but I believe with the current market that will sell for about 150-300 gold depending on what it is.

2.  Higher end NPC's, bosses and what not, can have +2 equipment which I think will sell around 400-600 gp, once again I'll check.

3.  We will need to decide on a logical price for heals, especially heal potions.  The price should encourage the use of the heal skill and partying with clerics.

I suppose if we have a player economy the guild stores and guild specific items will have to be removed.

I'm looking at several vendor systems right now.  Please take a look at the post regarding these since a player vendor is a requirement to create a player based economy.

I am all for a player based econ. The problem is as you say ... there are only a handful of regular players. I do hope that one day we have to split the mod up on different servers just so we can handle the player load. Until that day, the way in which I see it going down is this:

1) We have jacked the prices up in all the stores. If you sell a heal potion that you picked up ... u might get 3000gp ... if you try to rebuy it ... it will cost you on the order of 150000gp ... this is cause we are running a 400% markup.
The player vendor represents the player in selling so that the PC who is crafting doesn't have to be on the server. We are hoping to use a limited number of these per city so we don't have the running around everywhere and using precious CPU cycles. We are developing this currently so give us some time.

2) We would like to keep it somewhat real (I know this is fanatasy). If you are fighting a level 10 creature and you are level 20 ... the kill should be fairly easy ... now you are killing this dude for a few reasons ... either you are pissed and the guy is in your way ... you are questing and this guy needs to die ... or you need coin ...
I contend that people will take the easiest path ... lower level characters are going to try to earn enough coin to purchase crafted weapons and armour so they can kill bigger creatures to get better crafted armour ... some like to crawl the dungeons ... but if I can get a +2 weapon from a crafter instead of crawling through 3 level of nastys to get it ... I will purchase then run through it ... cause with a bigger weapon I can kill easier. This could lend to the misuse of the player vendor system by the lower level PCs ... as you said we cannot prevent all things ...

Right now I am designing the Paladin Estates ... This place is going to be based on the average party level so you won't be able to get stuff that is outside your level. You will be able to kill and get the stuff they drop ... only level 1 - 5 creatures are completed ... starting at level 20 they are going to have +1 items .. and then up from there ... with level 40 creaturs not have more than +5 items ... these will not have magical modifiers either ... here is were I think we are confiusing issues ... I don't consider the + modifier to be high end weapons ... what I consider to be high end is the ones that have that PLUS magical or other modifiers .. I don't think that regular creatures should have those type of weapons ... I think that should be reserverd for boss types ...

I realize that crafters when they start out will only be able to make like +1 weapons .. in the area I am creating you have to be a level 20 char to get the level 20 creature that has the +1 weapon .. it would be much easier to buy that from a player  or a player vendor at a lower level ...

in the end it all comes down to the choice of the PC and what he is going to do ... he is going to realize that buying a +1 weapon from a player is going to cost less to him than buying from a server vendor ... but the server vendor needs to be there when there is no one is making weapons ... this is so that new players can get started ...