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Chapter 18.1: Lets Grind!
Chapter 18.1: Lets Grind!
Chapter 18.1: Let's Grind!
First day of the open beta, 6 p.m., 11 hours (real time) after the game was "officially in operation."
Yang Qiu, squatting in Exile Town's Town Hall, was silently monitoring the currency flow between players and "NPCs."
The concept of gold farming was non-existent by design in this game. The reason was simple: money in this game was actual physical currency, not just data.
The copper coins that players obtained through quests were real coins. Yang Qiu had purchased a ton of copper over the Internet at market price, then got a small manufacturer to custom-make the game currency, ensuring that the copper alloy coins contained no less than 50% copper.
At present, it seemed that copper coins would serve as the primary game currency for a long time. After all, Yang Qiu couldn't afford to make silver coins. A ton of the cheapest silver would cost several million yuan, and Yang Qiu had no way of coming up with that sort of money.
Of course, copper coins weren't bad either. At least, the indigenous NPCs like Hal and Rex were willing to accept these copper coins that hailed from Earth's industries… While they couldn't understand why the undead, who didn't need to eat, drink, or rest, were willing to work so hard for copper coins (nor could they comprehend the so-called reputation value), they could still accept these copper coins as their wages.
In any case, the currency in this world was already a great mess. Privately minted coins of noble origin varied greatly in specifications, quality, and grade. These finely crafted 50% copper alloy coins were more than sufficient to replace the worn-out copper coins circulating in the kingdoms of this world.
In short, to increase players' motivation to do quests and allow the limited currency to circulate infinitely, means of currency sink had to be established to counteract the NPCs' distribution of copper coins via quests.
At present, there were two main currency sinks. The first being an "essential item" that players needed, which was a waist bag sold by the tailor Yarisha.
Well… it was basically a thick canvas belt with four denim zipper pouches hanging from it, which could be used to hold various small items. Yang Qiu had contacted a certain prison online and had them custom-made by the prison, resulting in a high-quality and affordable product.
The price of this waist bag was 8 copper coins each.
Next was the "beginner gear" sold by a zombie NPC.
Each player could only receive a set of "beginner gear" once for completing the welfare quest of "cleaning for 10 minutes." If accidentally lost or damaged, it would cost 12 copper coins to get a replacement from the zombie NPC.
It was hard to say if these two currency sinks were sufficient, but in any case, Yang Qiu had to personally buy and distribute the waist pouches and beginner gears he got from Earth, which was pretty much a loss for him…
And it was precisely this that Yang Qiu kept the quest rewards relatively low. His instructions were for advanced NPCs with farmable reputations to only give out two copper coins per hour of work and one coin for zombie NPCs.
It wasn't that he was being stingy or greedy, but basically the players playing the game were living off… well, wearing his clothes and playing by his rules, so he had no choice but to carefully manage the resources!
There had been several rounds of players heading offline and logging in, and currently, 226 players were online. Judging from the enthusiastic discussions on the forum, in another two hours of Earth time, the player count would reach its daily peak, estimated to be around 300 players being online simultaneously.
Among the 281 players that had already logged in, even the player with the shortest time spent online had maintained an online duration of at least five hours (in-game time), doing quests for at least two hours and earning a minimum of four copper coins.
More hardcore players, who were enthusiastic about doing quests, would have around four to eight copper coins after taking into account the expenses of buying the waist bag.
With Yang Qiu's current reserve of 200,000 copper coins, releasing several thousand coins into circulation was not a problem for him. He wasn't concerned about the availability of currency but was instead considering more complex issues.
While immersed in the imprint matrix, Yang Qiu observed a group of players that were active in the designated construction area of the Wanderer Guild.
This group consisted of six young men, led by a young lad with the ID "Eight At Once," who seemed to be on rather good terms with Vanilla Pudding; the two referred to each other as "Brother Qin" and "Xiao Zhou."
Due to Vanilla Pudding's connection, Yang Qiu took notice of this group right from the start and easily deduced that they were a studio. After completing the quest for beginner gear, these six individuals immediately sought out the Ranger Instructor Tuttle and had stayed there since.
Having played a share of online games before, Yang Qiu knew that physical ranged classes were the preferred choice for gold farming in any MMORPG.
These young fellows from a studio didn't disappoint their title of gold farmers. They didn't mess around or slack off, instead devoting themselves to quests with great dedication. When it turned dark in-game and Tuttle got off work, these six would shift to doing zombie NPC quests. And at daybreak, they would return back to the original tasks.
Even when it came to the "essential" waist bag, these six fellows only bought one. All copper coins they earned were pooled together and held by Eight At Once.
If this were a normal online game, the game developers would certainly loathe for studios to settle in like that on opening day. While it was said that studios made online games convenient for players and more popular, every action done by such groups was aimed at shortening the lifespans of games.
For games with fragile economic systems, it would be considered quite an accomplishment if they could hold off gold-farming studios from disrupting the game for a year.
Of course, while "OtherWorld" was disguised as a game, it wasn't one. That was why Yang Qiu didn't have any aversion toward studios that were actively gold farming. He even wished for more of these cheap and hardworking laborers.
So, here lies the problem. Studios come for money, seeking to convert the in-game currency into real currency. If the currency that these lads worked so hard to earn held no value and could not be sold, their motivation would be undermined, and they wouldn't actively engage in questing anymore.
Yang Qiu stroked his chin and gazed beyond the industrious studio fellows, at a more profound future.
It wasn't just for studios; being able to earn some extra money from playing would also greatly stimulate the enthusiasm of players that were dedicated to grinding. In fact, if the game's economic system was well-designed and had smooth channels for converting in-game currency into real-world money, it would perhaps please grinders more so than studios.
This conclusion was based on solid evidence. While working on transforming the Taranthan Wasteland into a game field, Yang Qiu had extensively studied online games back on Earth. There was a certain nostalgic WOW server created two months ago where the ones actively gold farming weren't studios but a high number of mage masters.
It's not just the issue of normal circulation of currency. The value of the currency itself has to be considered… Simply put, there's a need to make it more valuable. Yang Qiu narrowed his eyes, deep in thought.
After all… not all players are willing to just come online and grind quests and log off when they're tired. That's why advanced NPCs that provide reputation points are more popular than zombie NPCs that don't.
Ordinary players are willing to do quests assigned by advanced NPCs in order to access the class advancement paths and obtain better weapons and gear. In other words, they do it to become stronger and not for numeric rewards.
Mindlessly doing quests at the beginning stage when players are new to the full-immersive "game" is fine, but as time goes by, players would get sick of it and eventually quit…
Then… No need to wait till players transition to their classes. The value of the game currency has to be raised as soon as possible to increase players' enthusiasm for quests.