Economist

[Jason.3485]

Do you guys think Arena Net still has an in game Economist?  i remember The economist John i think his name was?  He would post on the forums regularly.  The Gw2 economy is still in decent shape after all these years that’s why i was thinking there was someone behind the scenes still.

[Randulf.7614]

Prob something multiple people/teams monitor. 

[Zebulous.2934]

I am not saying that this was done.  Corporations tend to get rid of specialists after some arbitrary period of time and than add those duties to someone else's work load.  If the change doesn't produce a critical incident a specialist for that skill set is never hired again.  Everyone just has to make do.

[TexZero.7910]

55 minutes ago, xan.8936 said:

Do you guys think Arena Net still has an in game Economist?  i remember The economist John i think his name was?  He would post on the forums regularly.  The Gw2 economy is still in decent shape after all these years that’s why i was thinking there was someone behind the scenes still.

No i don't think they do.

After John Smith, Chris Cleary took over and he's no longer with Anet either.

[Wolfofdivinity.6251]

I think they do only because of the restrictions they place on stuff like Mystic coins and certain sinks that have been added. These numbers don't feel arbitrary they feel planned. 

 

It's probably a side job but someone surely is watching....otherwise you end up with an economy like SWTOR....wayyyyy over inflated with no end in sight.

[Solvar.7953]

I do wonder that after the game was out for a while and the economy was chugging along and things were mostly balanced, there just wasn't need for a full time economist.  Some dev could watch the market (or forums for complaints) and see if prices for certain things are getting too out of whack and make adjustments - those adjustments could be more sinks or increased supply.

 

[Danikat.8537]

7 hours ago, Solvar.7953 said:

I do wonder that after the game was out for a while and the economy was chugging along and things were mostly balanced, there just wasn't need for a full time economist.  Some dev could watch the market (or forums for complaints) and see if prices for certain things are getting too out of whack and make adjustments - those adjustments could be more sinks or increased supply.

 

I have no idea how it works in the games industry but in my field that's exactly how it's supposed to work. A specialist comes in to research what's needed, trial and develop a workable system, train up other people to run it then once it's all working they move on to develop new ways of working somewhere else and the other staff take over the long-term management.

I could definitely see this being something that's easier to do when it's an embedded process rather than a seperate job - for example if the people designing a new legendary collection or whatever can work out for themselves what are reasonable costs and what the impact on the economy will be, instead of them designing something which sounds good to them and then having to re-design it all when an economist gets time to review it and tell them all the reasons it won't work.

[Astralporing.1957]

12 hours ago, Wolfofdivinity.6251 said:

I think they do only because of the restrictions they place on stuff like Mystic coins and certain sinks that have been added. These numbers don't feel arbitrary they feel planned.

Planned does not mean it's not arbitrary. Not being arbitrary does not mean there's been a lot of thought put into it. A lot of thought being put into it does not mean it's been done by someone with good economy experience.

And as far as i know, since Mr Smith has stopped working for Anet (many, many years ago), noone with comparable experience in game economy systems has come to take his place. It's likely been taken over not by someone specialized in it, but by general team of game analysts (someone mentioned Chris Cleary dealing with it for a while, and he definitely wasn't an economist himself).

There's probably some guidelines they follow that have been set long ago, but those guidelines to be current would likely need constant adjustments, and they just do not have anyone to do those. The introduction of direct gold purchase to Vault for example is not very optimistic. I'm quite sure that the original economist would have never allowed that (as he was always extremely concerned about introducing any forms of new direct gold faucets), but now it was introduced without blinking. And not just with a capped purchase option, but with unlimited one as well.

[starlinvf.1358]

3 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I have no idea how it works in the games industry but in my field that's exactly how it's supposed to work. A specialist comes in to research what's needed, trial and develop a workable system, train up other people to run it then once it's all working they move on to develop new ways of working somewhere else and the other staff take over the long-term management.

I could definitely see this being something that's easier to do when it's an embedded process rather than a seperate job - for example if the people designing a new legendary collection or whatever can work out for themselves what are reasonable costs and what the impact on the economy will be, instead of them designing something which sounds good to them and then having to re-design it all when an economist gets time to review it and tell them all the reasons it won't work.

Except it was a full time position. MMO Economies are notoriously volatile due player tendency to hyper optimize, combined with most of the player base being focused in few areas at a time. 

If not very carefully tuned, hyper inflation and over saturation are inevitable outcomes. Many dev teams tend to give up and overcompensate in sinks, before just resetting the slate every major release.

Ascended and legendary gear tried to recycle existing materials that saw little to no use.  Especially mid tier mats. They then paired it with another gating mechanism to slow players down.   This self balanced over time, since you could farm everything except leather with targeted effort.  

Compare that to research notes that are indiscriminate, and not time gated. This lead to a frenzy of sinking out the market, despite  the things you buy them with were time gated instead.   It did this by demanding insane amounts of notes, even though its framed as salvaging things you were meant to craft first.  This was a bad system, and its their long term solution very akin to other MMOs do once and forget scheme. Gods help us if they make a new version of research notes to do it again for a new set of items. 

[Omega.6801]

12 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I have no idea how it works in the games industry but in my field that's exactly how it's supposed to work. A specialist comes in to research what's needed, trial and develop a workable system, train up other people to run it then once it's all working they move on to develop new ways of working somewhere else and the other staff take over the long-term management.

I could definitely see this being something that's easier to do when it's an embedded process rather than a seperate job - for example if the people designing a new legendary collection or whatever can work out for themselves what are reasonable costs and what the impact on the economy will be, instead of them designing something which sounds good to them and then having to re-design it all when an economist gets time to review it and tell them all the reasons it won't work.

This makes a lot of sense and would explain how 1) the established parts of the economy (gold, ectos, mystic coins, materials, older currencies) stayed relatively stable over the years) an 2) how things like the SoTo essences could go so terribly wrong (stacking into the thousands if not going for the armor with nothing to buy). Usually the experts can set up a system, while the people they train are there to maintain it.

[Wolfofdivinity.6251]

12 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Planned does not mean it's not arbitrary. Not being arbitrary does not mean there's been a lot of thought put into it. A lot of thought being put into it does not mean it's been done by someone with good economy experience.

And as far as i know, since Mr Smith has stopped working for Anet (many, many years ago), noone with comparable experience in game economy systems has come to take his place. It's likely been taken over not by someone specialized in it, but by general team of game analysts (someone mentioned Chris Cleary dealing with it for a while, and he definitely wasn't an economist himself).

There's probably some guidelines they follow that have been set long ago, but those guidelines to be current would likely need constant adjustments, and they just do not have anyone to do those. The introduction of direct gold purchase to Vault for example is not very optimistic. I'm quite sure that the original economist would have never allowed that (as he was always extremely concerned about introducing any forms of new direct gold faucets), but now it was introduced without blinking. And not just with a capped purchase option, but with unlimited one as well.

Right I don't think it's a priority anymore, but I do think someone keeps up with it.