Massively^™

Once more with feeling!

Welcome to the third and final (planned) installment of our series on closed-resource economies in MMOs. So far, we've laid the foundation of the system and discussed how starting out, leveling up, and gaining loot could work. Today we will be exploring how crafting professions could still be possible even when the law of Conservation of Mass applies and how banking might function.

There's been a lot covered so far so if you haven't already, i recommend reading the first two posts. But since I know that gets into the TLDR length, here's a very quick recap.

In order to maintain a constant level of stuff in the game, new items could only generate once old items leave the game. Money would function in the same way, except that it would flow from NPCs to monsters (meaning any monies collected by NPCs would spawn as loot) in order to recirculate. There would need to be additional gold sinks (some of which we will get to in just a minute) and limits on the number of characters per server. Each server would then "age" as the average level of characters on it increased.

Welcome back for Part 2 in our series on closed-resource economies in MMOs. Last week we discussed how starting out in this *completely hypothetical* system might work, what some of the basic rules of operation might be, and what it would take to keep money available to players. Today, we continue on our chosen path to talk about how loot and gear could be distributed so that raiding, quests, and all the other content we enjoy would still be available even through endgame.

First, a quick recap of the groundwork we already laid out.

Rule #1: Server character limits. Yes, this would create the need for more servers in the game. But it would also enable the developers to determine a starting point for the goods, resources and money available at server start.

Rule #2: Items and money must leave the game in order to come back in as loot or gathered materials. That means that they must be consumed in some way, either by being dropped and deleted, or by being given to an NPC. Consumed items could return as they had left the game, as the resources used in their creation, or as another item entirely.

Rule #3: More gold sinks. In order to keep the loot flowing, there would need to be additional, enticing or mandatory ways for the gold to leave the game. An example might be to have service-oriented NPCs, such as the Work Orders in Lord of the Rings Online or the Saw Mill in RuneScape. Mounts or housing are always popular ways to get money back from players to NPCs as well.

Still with me so far? Excellent. On we go!

This is the first in a series of articles theorizing on what a virtual economic system that had a finite number of resources might be like. I would like to impress upon you that everything expressed here is hypothetical. As far as I am aware at this time, there are no games currently being made with a system like this. Also, this is only one potential way that it could be done.

There have been several discussions amongst friends and fellow bloggers lately of what the economy of game with no ability to spontaneously create items might be like. Specifically, what if all of the resources, loot, and money in the game was there at the start and no more could be generated during gameplay than had been removed? In short, what if the law of Conservation of Mass was obeyed in a MMORPG?

Let's be clear about this - we're not talking about each character starting out with a set amount of gear or money that they would then have to use throughout their lifespan. This would be a server-wide amount of stuff. All players would have access to it provided that it was available. Once an item was "destroyed", either by dropping it or by selling it to an NPC, another item could become available.

Game journalist and EVE Online player Jim Rossignol has been coming to grips with the idea of conflict in EVE, in a series of articles written for Eurogamer. Rossignol began by looking at "the basic principles of killing people" and progressing to the large scale conflicts between alliances.

This week, Rossignol goes a step further by looking at the politics at the heart of much of the large-scale conflict in EVE Online, and how despite all the freedom the developers give players, it was inevitable that power blocs of players would be at each other's throats. "Players plus resources, plus more players, equals conflict. That's the basic mathematics that powers EVE Online. And it's been working for over five years now," Rossignol says.

EVE Online is a vast setting where all players interact in one galaxy. While other MMOs are sharded across different servers, some with different locales, EVE places all of its players together. Its implementation ensures that many servers seem to be just one from the perspective of any pilot flying in New Eden. However, given the daunting size of EVE's explorable environment, there have been some players who took it upon themselves to map the known universe and release their findings as a resource for other pilots. Shayne Smart, aka Serenity Steele, is one such player. He's been getting some media attention in recent months as Vice-Chairman of the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). Beyond his duties on the CSM, Smart is also well-known to many players as the creator of EVE Strategic Maps, a spiral bound collection of star charts which some fans of the game find indispensable.

You would think Smart would find mapping out 5000 solar systems (each with its own myriad planets, moons, stations, and other resources) a feat hard to top. But what Smart's done is found a way to use the in-game browser in the EVE client to act as a sort of GPS, tracking your position as you jump from one solar system to the next, and allowing you to better see your relative position in the galaxy as part of your overview. The cartographer's latest 'minimap' effort is presently 2-D only and in beta, though is well worth a look and quite simple to use. Click the gallery below for Shayne Smart's instructions on how to use the free 2D minimap within your in-game browser.

It took a few weeks, but I finally made it to level 20 in Age of Conan. It was an intense time getting through quest after quest, killing random mobs, and starting to mark my map with waypoints in anticipation. Though the levels did seem to go quickly, they just could not be fast enough for me as I was trying to get to... resource gathering.

Yes, resource gathering is that important. It's the first look you get at the crafting system and a great opportunity to start hoarding money for later use (like for purchasing the lowest level horse in AoC, which costs a seeming fortune at 75 silver). That's especially true of games that put level minimums on skills as is seen in both AoC and World of Warcraft.

But AoC takes a new tack in the way that they approach leveling crafts. Keep reading as I take a look at what the pros and cons of this new system are for the crafting system and the economy overall.

This blogger has recently been gathering resources in Age of Conan, and despite the manifold other attractions of that game, resource gathering is so mind-scrapingly boring that you end up wishing your character's pick could be used on your skull instead. The first quest for any resource is to gather 20 of something - silver, ash wood, cotton - which is as simple as finding a node with some resources left and clicking on it. Sometimes, for variety, a bad guy of some sort will jump on you.

However, to progress to the second tier, you have to find a much rarer resource that has only a one per cent chance to drop while you're repeatedly clicking on the node. All you can do is click, click, click and move on. Apparently it's not much better in other games - set the mining lasers, put your feet up and go and make a coffee.

Far be it from us, though, to condemn anyone else's fun. So: do you enjoy resource gathering, in AoC or any other game? Do you go fishing in LoTRO, or in WoW for that matter? What mechanics make it fun?

Darkgolem has the second part of his 1-20 leveling guide for Lord of the Rings Online posted at Ten Ton Hammer. It has a nice spreadsheet layout that covers all the different little bits involved in getting those first twenty levels. Everything is covered in the spreadsheet, including which quest was taken, location of the quest, time taken to complete quest, level attained upon finishing quest and whether it was done solo or in a group.

It took about three days of playing for about five hours each day, although Darkgolem says it could be done in a day. The only drawback to the power leveling was that he found himself without feats, crafting skill growth and about three hundred less silver in his pockets due to fast travel fees. If you don't mind any of that though, you too could be level twenty in one to three days. A good guide for any players that don't feel like staying in the starting areas too long on a repeat play-through.

It would be a shame for December to end with just one chance to talk about what it's like to put your heal down. My technical problems have put a temporary hold on my series on healing in Tabula Rasa, but there's no reason we can't turn to the web for succor.

I'm guessing a lot of you play World of Warcraft, right? Well, healing in WoW is just as hard as it is anywhere else. At the high end, the hoops you have to jump through ... well, you'd almost think that you'd need some sort of advanced strategy. Perhaps people could even make a hobby out of commenting on what it's like to play a priest?

What do you know, both of those things are out there? Today's Adventures from the Back Row will try to offer up a few reliable resources for channeling the Light (or Shadow) in Azeroth. I'm also going to point out some bloggers who make it their business to channel the divine. Whether they're professional or kwai, upbeat or uber-cynical, everyone who wears the halo in World of Warcraft has one thing in common: idiot groupmates delusions of grandeur not enough mana.

In this next installment of TenTonHammer's Lord of the Rings Online resource collecting guides, the focus shifts to Bree-Land, which contains tier 1, 2 and even tier 3 materials. The guide informs us that Bree-Land is a veritable gold mine (so to speak) when it comes to finding tier 1 and 2 resources, but although it does contain some tier 3 nodes, it is best to think of these as a nice bonus rather than to visit the zone particularly to find them.

There are once again some notes explaining different areas in-depth, but here are the real pro tips: for tier 2 resources, head to the Eastern Bree-Fields, and for tier 1, the Midgewater Marshes have what you need. Of course, on most resource runs you'll need to hit more than just a single area, especially when you're not the only one out there collecting, so check out the Bree-Land guide for another handy table and the rest of the hints for harvesting there.