Economic Controls

Ration power – Newbies shouldn’t be weilding ultra-powerful armaments. A well functioning economy will limit access to powerful items.

Support specialization – An economy which limits what a player may possess though pricing will force players to choose their items carefully. For example, it tools-of-trade are expensive, then players will need to specialize in only one trade. This encourages individual players to find a niche.

Encourage interaction – A well functioning economy can motivate players to meet with each other for trade and work.

Provide goals – There are many possible goals in a complex game, just as in real life. Acquiring wealth will generally help a player along the road towards any goal they select. In fact, acquiring wealth can serve as a default goal when the game setting or the player’s imagination temporarily fails.

Support economic role-playing – some players will always enjoy taking on specific economic roles such as artisan, merchant, or trader. A well functioning economy is crucial to supporting these natural roles.

vendors now charge a fee based on the value of the goods assigned by the player. Thus, players can still set the values too high, but they will be charged rent proportionately

Feedback Control System

The feedback control system used in Alter Aeon works by tracking the total amount of money in the game in order to dynamically adjust drop rates and shop prices. Players with more than 1 million in currency are taxed for 2% of the money they own over that limit. This keeps the economy permanently stable. The peaks in the total amount of in-game currency do not vary more than 10% in a time period of 2 years.

The intended purpose of gold sinks is to remove currency from the game, as excess currency leads to inflation of player driven prices. Game designers must balance between scarcity of currency and ease of acquiring currency.

Greater methods of currency spending can be implemented when players accumulate more wealth than intended. One example is Ultima Online; after the Renaissance expansion, players could earn money without fear of loss, due to the implementation of non-player versus player areas. As currency entered the economy at a greater pace, new "luxury" items were sold at high prices for the purpose of reducing large sums of money.