Wildstar Economy

[Vilidius]

Here are a couple of interesting posts on Wildstar from the dev team regarding the economy:

http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/news/wildstars_economic_game.php

http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/news/wildstar_uplink_analysis_money_sinks.php

I have to say, I'm pretty enthused about Wildstar because it's from NCSoft and while I don't love GW2 (never did, really) I admit their economy is fantastically stable.  After a long break, returning just to distribute gold and dick around a bit, I've been shocked at how much things haven't changed in the marketplace.  These people really know what they are doing in terms of designing an economy.  Hell, there are screwed up countries right now that could take a hint or two from this.

Of particular interest, I love the response regarding RMT (real money transactions).  I don't think Wildstar will be F2P on a gem system like GW2 (though who the heck knows) but I have totally become a fan of RMT.  I used to hate it.  And I truly don't even care if the gold is being sold by the game itself or being traded on a black market.  The dev answer is that the best defense to RMT is to design the economy carefully and avoid any kind of game-breaking opportunities to cash in.  Examples include the infamous cheese-making exploit of EQ1.  But I reverse that point in my own mind.  RMT is actually the incentive that forces devs to avoid breaking the game with cheese-making bullshit.  If they do now, they -know- they are going to get pummeled over it.

Anyway, just thought I'd contribute my thought for the day.

[Alirrin]

Examples include the infamous cheese-making exploit of EQ1.

Dare I ask ... ?

[Mixxi]

Mature cheese...Shadowhaven...*shudder* Thankfully, I'm clueless when these things come up. I may never get rich, but my characters can at least sleep the sleep of the just when I camp them.

Here's a thread with an explanation of the mature cheese exploit:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=1&mid=1109487684419362445&h=50

[Jasyn]

Wow.  They stopped that exploit so quickly that I never even heard about before until over a decade after the fact.

[Rumze]

The payment model used to be a big debate on the wildstar central forums , enough that it became a banned topic since folks would end up going in circles.
Im not sure what payment model they will end up going but after gw2  ( and city of heroes ) I would be happy with most plans they end up going. I think they have pretty smart folks in place for it so am optimistic.