10-21-2009, 09:38 AM
The standard way to prevent inflation in MMOs is to make sure that money leaves the world as fast as it comes in.
In real world terms, it's like every NPC is a printing press who prints money and the faster you kill them, the more money you're printing.
Things that take money out of the economy, like purchasing crafting supplies, resurrection fees, whatever, are meant to keep inflation under control by destroying money.
So while a real world economy wants to limit the amount of cash in circulation by limiting how much is printed, an MMO seeks to do a simpler version of the same thing by making sure something is destroying money as fast as it's being created.
Creating a real simulation of a real economy is probably a bit much to ask for in an MMO.
In real world terms, it's like every NPC is a printing press who prints money and the faster you kill them, the more money you're printing.
Things that take money out of the economy, like purchasing crafting supplies, resurrection fees, whatever, are meant to keep inflation under control by destroying money.
So while a real world economy wants to limit the amount of cash in circulation by limiting how much is printed, an MMO seeks to do a simpler version of the same thing by making sure something is destroying money as fast as it's being created.
Creating a real simulation of a real economy is probably a bit much to ask for in an MMO.