Economy

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Markets in Ashes of Creation are regional, which means that each market has its own character. Because resources will shift locations as they’re exhausted, this will keep people moving about the world, seeking out the best resources for their crafting builds, and the best markets for their goods.[2]

Summary:

  • There will be no central auction house or warehouse.[2]
  • There will be item decay and other ways to combat inflation.[3]
  • There will be player to player trading.[4]

Marketplaces

Marketplaces are constructed service buildings that are available for placement by mayors of any Town (stage 4) node or higher. These are distinct from a market, which is the unique node building that unlocks at Village (stage 3) of Economic nodes.[5]

These are buildings that the mayor has agency over determining whether or not they should be a constructed project. Constructible buildings can be selected at open plots that are gained as the as the node advances. If they elect to begin construction of one of these types of buildings- one of which is the marketplace- it'll grant certain trade benefits as well as some stalls that the citizens may participate in.[5]Steven Sharif

A node's government decides the placement of its marketplace. After that, the community must come together to build it.[5][6]

Marketplace UI

Template:Marketplace UI

Player stalls

Niküan player stall concept art.[7]

If there were ever a cornerstone serving as the bedrock of Niküan trade, then this modest stall would be it. Stacked from floor to thatched roof with all manner of catch, it is prepped for a full day of commerce and trade. Here, haggling is not merely a suggestion, but a requirement.[7]

Player stalls (also called Kiosks and rental stalls) are rentable locations near the unique building in an Economic node[9], in Marketplaces (the constructible building available for placement by mayors of any Town (stage 4) node or higher), or as business buildings on freehold plots.[10][5]

All nodes do have the ability to spawn player stalls. If you're not an economic node and you don't have a market- that's essentially your unique building- then you can construct essentially what is I guess would be called a... marketplace; and that marketplace will then come with certain services and it will come with a certain number of stalls. The economic node as I recall has the ability to construct an auction house and the auction house serves through the economic means the ability to list and sell items and that comes with additional stalls as well for the players.[5]Steven Sharif

Renting a player stall enables players to sell items as well as provide repair and enchanting services, even when they are not online.[11]

  • Player stalls are rentable by node citizens.[12]
    • Player stalls may be utilized for a period of time based on the price paid to rent the stall.[11]
  • Player stalls are linked to a player's warehouse.[13]
  • Player stalls do not require the attendance of the character or for that character to be online.[12]
    • An attendant NPC is assigned to the stall.[13][11] This may be an "image" of the player.[14]
  • Players are able to input required items for repair and also purchase required materials for that repair.[15]
  • Player stalls may still operate during node siege declaration. This is subject to testing.[16]
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
  • Players are not able to be attacked or robbed while occupying their player stall inside the limits of a node.[17]
  • Bulletin boards that list the items available in player stalls can be accessed from anywhere in the region.[14]
    • These give the location of the stall so players can travel there and purchase the items.[14]
  • Stall sales are also listed in auction houses.[18]
    • This may no longer be accurate.[19]

Economic node benefits

Economic nodes that have reached the metropolis stage unlock the linked economy superpower. Economic nodes with this superpower share their Auction house listings with all others.[20]

Economic Nodes that have reached the Metropolis Stage unlock the Superpower “Linked Economy”. Any Economic Node with this Superpower unlocked shares Auction House listings with all the others, meaning that the items listed in one Linked Economy Node can be bid on from any other Linked Economy Node. Linked Economies also connect a Metropolis and any Vassal Economic Nodes belonging to that Metropolis.[20]

The Linked Economy Superpower has the potential to create a massive market that spans the world. This will allow players to attain and sell goods with ease, providing those who have access to these Economic Nodes a faster path to fortune in the lands of Ashes of Creation.[20]

Item sinks

It's important for a healthy economy to have item sinks, so that anything that can be crafted can also be destroyed:[22]

  1. Over-enchanting carries the risk of destroying that item[23], rendering it useless for use temporarily.[24]
  2. Players gain craftable items and recipes from deconstructing (salvaging) completed items.[23]
  3. A portion of resources and materials are lost when caravans or nodes are destroyed.[25]
  4. Corrupted players who die can lose gear.[26]
  5. Item durability (item decay) does not destroy items, but it acts as a materials sink.[26][27][28] Zero percent durability will unequip an item, increasing its repair costs.[29]

An important aspect of a healthy economy is having some item sinks available... There are three kinds of item sinks: You can gain craftable items from deconstructing completed items; You can have decay... and if you want to over-enchant that item there will be a potential to destroy it as well. It's important for an economy to experience those types of emphasis on what can be crafted as well as seeing those items that are crafted be destroyed as well..[28]

The concept there is this is part of the engine that is supply and demand. So the server is constantly generating these materials on tick as they propagate throughout the world and get repopulated, players are going out there and collecting these things. We want to make sure that there is a driving force and factor behind what crafters and gatherers are out there doing: There's constantly going to be a demand for them to supply these things. Whether that death is from PvP or from PvE these are going to be necessities for players to constantly provide.[27]Steven Sharif

Item durability

The decay system is not going to be some worthless "Oh I'm just going to throw some gold into this and it's a simple gold sink". It's actually going to require some base materials in order to repair decayed items; and decay occurs from death and also the destruction and disable system. For the weapons over the over-enchanting will require those materials as well. So creating that dependency I think is healthy for the crafting economy.[30]Steven Sharif

There is item durability (item decay) in Ashes of Creation.[28]

If you allow it to get to certain stages, or to get to a destructed stage then it requires a lot of material components in order to return back to its former glory.[33]Steven Sharif
There is durability in the game... It's not going to be a trivial durability. There is a potential to destroy gear (weapons and armor), but there is also an ability to reforge that destroyed gear using a portion of the materials necessary as well as finding an item creator who can reforge it.[28]Steven Sharif

Item deconstruction

Players gain craftable items and recipes from deconstructing (salvaging, dismantling, disenchanting) completed items.[23]

There's salvaging where you can deconstruct an item to get components only capable of retrieving from salvaging an item that can be used in crafting other types of items.[22]Steven Sharif
Specific crafting components yielded by gear deconstruction, and some of these components can be only be obtained from gear of certain enchantment levels and type of equipment. These components are needed for certain recipes for gear and other ancillary crafting professions. But the itemization team is still ironing out some of these flows.[37]Steven Sharif
  • Item deconstruction will not be a meaningful way of circumventing restrictions on transit of resources and materials.[39]

Player to player trading

There is player-to-player trading in Ashes of Creation.[40][41][42][43]

Q: Will Ashes of Creation have player-to-player trading? Will there be anything stopping me from gifting a friend that's fresh to the game a bunch of in-game money to help them get on their feet quickly?
A: There won't be anything to stop you from doing that.[42]Steven Sharif
The nature of player to player trading already introduces that in an open economy game... that is why we have measures to attempt and heat flag suspicious transactions, active gms and other honeypot systems/agents that will be active in discovering those types of cheaters.[41]Steven Sharif

Banking

Banking between characters is being discussed.[51]

Account management

Ashes of Creation web site design preview (WIP).[52]

The account management page is used to assign or reassign cosmetics to characters within an account.[53][54][55][56]

  • Cosmetics can be reassigned to other characters (alts), but can only be active on one character at a time.[53][55][56]
  • There will likely be a cooldown for reassigning cosmetics between characters.[53]

Caravans

Alpha-2 caravan being escorted to the Miraleth node.[57]

The Caravan System is a major aspect of the economy in Ashes of Creation. While the rewards can be great for moving massive amounts of Commodities and other materials across the world of Verra, players can choose to be Caravan attackers or defenders, making these hotspots for PvP battles.[58]

Caravans are vehicles that facilitate the transfer of cargo across Verra.[60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68]

Caravans are the induction of emergent gameplay, which means you cannot predict the situation you're going to be in when you use a caravan. That's part of the risk: The risk is the unknown. If you could predict it then your ability to mitigate that risk would unfortunately remove that dynamic- that ratio of risk versus reward.[69]Steven Sharif

Sharemarket

Stock exchanges (also called Stock markets and Share markets) enable players to buy and sell shares in Nodes, Guilds and Social organizations.[82][83][84]

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
  • There is no regulatory commission to restrict the purchase and sale of stocks.[85]

Security systems

Security systems will be in place to combat cheating, exploiting, botting, gold selling/real money transactions (RMT), item duplication and other things that affect the economy starting from Alpha-0.[86][87][41][47][48][49][50]

  • A broad spectrum of approaches are going to be utilized in order to try to protect the integrity of the game once it launches. Testing of these systems will begin leading up towards Alpha-2.[87]
Security is always at the top of any concern when you have a closed system like an MMO is... We've seen a lot of MMO is launch without security in place and the economy gets ruined as a result thereafter. And every band-aid that's slapped on top of that wound is just making things worse. And so part of why you take the time in order to ensure that things are done correctly is also the security component of things; and that's where testing with a live audience is a bit different also than testing with a Q&A audience as well, because you're going to get those bad actors- and we call them bad actors because ultimately they're attempting to destroy the fun for others... So what we've done is we've hired some security experts who've worked on massive other MMOs like World of Warcraft and other games, and they bring with them lot of experience; and we're going to be testing that in leading up towards Alpha-2. It's a very important part of Alpha-2. It's not something that we really addressed with Alpha-1 because again, that was a much more barebones functional testing experience. We did see some issues during Alpha-1 and we made it important for Alpha-2 to test those systems. We have a broad spectrum of approaches that we're going to be utilizing in order to try to protect the integrity of the game once it launches.[87]Steven Sharif
  • These systems collect user data and flag abnormal activities for investigation. This combined with player reporting functions generates a live "heat map" that draws attention to unusual behavior.[86][41][47][50]
We do have already built into the game on the outset is essentially behavioral metrics. So in the game, as a player does normal things and they acquire normal gold, that's all good and well, but if there starts to be item IDs that appear on the player account that are out of the norm, like either a large amount of gold, or significant legendary items, what it does in the back-end it flags the account for view so that we can take a look at where did this item come from. Is it coming from a known gold seller or a flagged bot, or whatever; and then we investigate. So we're going to be pretty hard on the ability for players to subvert the natural economy systems by RMT or botting.[47]Steven Sharif
  • Botters, cheaters, gold sellers, and RMTers, will face severe penalties from the active GM/community team.[86][88][89][50]
It's important to note that there is a sanctity that must be protected within the game from RMTing; and let me just go into a little diatribe about this: But in games that I've played where the company or the publisher does not enforce rules, it becomes the standard that you buy gold if you want to be competitive. If you want to compete at the top tier levels in certain games, and everyone's buying gold, you almost either have to buy the gold or you're just not going to be able to compete with those people and that's a really shitty feeling to have. Excuse my French, I apologize. That is sucky; and in order for that not to be the case it is the responsibility of the publisher or the developers both to make sure that we have stringent practices from a CS- from a customer customer service perspective- to enforce our rules and to make sure that players are aware if they partake in this there is a huge risk in doing so. It's not going to be a slap on the hand. It's not going to be a "we told you once, we told you twice, we told you three, four, five six times okay. We're just taking some gold away", that thing. We have got to ensure that it is feared to do those things because that ashes has active GMS, it has active customer service, it has an active community team.[89]Steven Sharif

Real estate

Players buy the deeds for housing from the node itself, or may buy and sell properties from other players.[90][91][92][93][94]

  • The developers are considering an auction-based method for listing new properties that become available for purchase when a node advances.[95] Currently freeholds may be acquired via auction.[96][97][98][99][100][101]
    • A grace period will occur before the housing becomes available for auction.[95]
    • Bids will then be accepted starting at a minimum reserve value that is based on the number of citizens in that node.[95]
    • At the end of the auction, the highest bidder will win the house.[95]
  • Housing will have a base price that scales with the number of citizens in the node.[102]
    • There is no cap on the price of player-originated housing sales.[103]
    • In-node housing will be at a premium, and is expected to be hotly contested.[94]
    • The more apartments that have been purchased in a node, the higher the price scales.[104]
We're establishing a real estate market that players can invest in and then sell within the in-game economy, but also they are a resource that's subject to removal through the sieging system as well, so there's a bit of risk implied there but the idea is that this is something for players to strive for.[106]Steven Sharif
  • Housing ownership can default back to the node if the owner fails to pay their property taxes. A balance and penalties will be charged to the new purchaser of the home in the manner of a "foreclosure process".[102]
  • Players will not be able to exceed their allotment of housing in the game.[112]
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
  • Rental and leasing concepts are under consideration.[112]

Business chains

There's no reason why you couldn't license your name to somebody else who also has a freehold and who also has an Inn and work together.[113]Jeffrey Bard

See also

References

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  2. 2.0 2.1 Unreal Engine Interview, 23 May 2017.
  3. Livestream, 5 May 2017 (10:47).
  4. Livestream, 5 May 2017 (10:32).
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Interview, July 8, 2020 (55:05).
  6. Livestream, May 19, 2017 (33:57).
  7. 7.0 7.1 Ashes of Creation Instagram, 2020-08-19.
  8. Livestream, May 29, 2020 (1:00:57).
  9. Livestream, May 30, 2019 (1:26:16).
  10. Livestream, June 30, 2023 (25:05).
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 Livestream, May 10, 2017 (16:36).
  12. 12.0 12.1 steven-player-stalls-shops-online.png
  13. 13.0 13.1 Livestream, October 30, 2020 (1:04:59).
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 Livestream, May 10, 2017 (35:16).
  15. 15.0 15.1 player stall repair.png
  16. Livestream, October 30, 2020 (1:06:09).
  17. Livestream, October 16, 2017 (59:39).
  18. steven-player-stalls-shops.png
  19. Livestream, July 31, 2020 (1:34:06).
  20. 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 Know Your Nodes: Economic Node Type.
  21. economic-metro-linking.png
  22. 22.0 22.1 22.2 Livestream, May 10, 2017 (10:47).
  23. 23.0 23.1 23.2 Livestream, May 8, 2017 (20:41).
  24. Interview, July 30, 2020 (16:17).
  25. Interview, July 18, 2020 (55:01).
  26. 26.0 26.1 26.2 Livestream, May 28, 2021 (1:53:04).
  27. 27.0 27.1 27.2 27.3 27.4 Interview, February 7, 2021 (13:14).
  28. 28.0 28.1 28.2 28.3 28.4 Podcast, 2017-05-13 (25:55).
  29. 29.0 29.1 Durability.jpg
  30. 30.0 30.1 30.2 30.3 Interview, July 29, 2020 (16:46).
  31. Podcast, May 5, 2017 (43:05).
  32. Livestream, August 28, 2020 (2:05:07).
  33. 33.0 33.1 Podcast, September 29, 2021 (32:35).
  34. Interview, July 19, 2020 (51:11).
  35. Interview, July 29, 2020 (15:04).
  36. Livestream, May 5, 2017 (20:41).
  37. 37.0 37.1 steven-enchanting1.png
  38. Livestream, July 30, 2021 (1:16:05).
  39. steven-deconstruction-transit.png
  40. 40.0 40.1 40.2 Video, November 30, 2023 (58:54).
  41. 41.0 41.1 41.2 41.3 41.4 steven-rmt.png
  42. 42.0 42.1 Livestream, May 15, 2017 (10:32).
  43. Livestream, January 18, 2018 (46:56).
  44. Livestream, February 24, 2023 (1:12:24).
  45. Livestream, October 28, 2022 (24:28).
  46. Livestream, April 30, 2021 (1:14:49).
  47. 47.0 47.1 47.2 47.3 Interview, July 19, 2020 (1:12:37).
  48. 48.0 48.1 Livestream, November 17, 2017 (38:35).
  49. 49.0 49.1 Massively OP, 2017-06-1
  50. 50.0 50.1 50.2 50.3 Livestream, February 9, 2018 (20:40).
  51. Livestream, May 26, 2017 (18:10).
  52. Livestream, January 29, 2021 (46:48).
  53. 53.0 53.1 53.2 steven-cosmetic-reassignment.png
  54. Livestream, May 26, 2017 (18:10).
  55. 55.0 55.1 Kickstarter item application.jpg
  56. 56.0 56.1 kickstarter mounts.png
  57. Video, January 31, 2024 (29:15).
  58. Newsletter - January 2024.
  59. Video, January 31, 2024 (5:22).
  60. Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:30:52).
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  68. About Ashes of Creation.
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  74. caravan UI.png
  75. Livestream, May 22, 2017 (40:40).
  76. caravan zone.png
  77. Video, October 31, 2023 (34:12).
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  80. Video, October 31, 2023 (29:36).
  81. Livestream, January 29, 2021 (1:25:14).
  82. 82.0 82.1 steven-stock-markets.png
  83. 83.0 83.1 Livestream, May 17, 2017 (11:27).
  84. 84.0 84.1 84.2 Stock Exchange.jpg
  85. 85.0 85.1 Interview, October 20, 2018 (5:51).
  86. 86.0 86.1 86.2 steven-anti-cheat.png
  87. 87.0 87.1 87.2 Interview, July 9, 2023 (1:47:04).
  88. steven-penalties.png
  89. 89.0 89.1 Livestream, August 26, 2022 (1:32:45).
  90. 90.0 90.1 steven-selling-freeholds.png
  91. 91.0 91.1 Livestream, June 26, 2020 (47:32).
  92. Livestream, June 26, 2020 (54:03).
  93. MMOGames interview, January 2017
  94. 94.0 94.1 Node series part II – the Metropolis.
  95. 95.0 95.1 95.2 95.3 Livestream, May 12, 2017 (55:01).
  96. 96.0 96.1 Blog: Exploring the Boundless Opportunities of Freeholds.
  97. 97.0 97.1 Livestream, June 30, 2023 (1:12:07).
  98. 98.0 98.1 Livestream, June 30, 2023 (14:09).
  99. 99.0 99.1 Livestream, June 30, 2023 (13:10).
  100. 100.0 100.1 Development Update with Freehold Preview.
  101. 101.0 101.1 Video, June 30, 2023 (21:22).
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  105. Livestream, June 26, 2020 (1:02:12).
  106. 106.0 106.1 Livestream, June 30, 2023 (1:15:34).
  107. stevenclarification.png
  108. Livestream, May 19, 2017 (32:23).
  109. steven-freehold-sales.png
  110. Livestream, June 26, 2020 (56:08).
  111. Livestream, June 30, 2023 (1:20:20).
  112. 112.0 112.1 Livestream, May 30, 2019 (1:23:41).
  113. Livestream, May 26, 2017 (50:00).