Darkfall: Developer Journals

Darkfall Dev Journal #18: Economy, Prestige Classes & More

In today's developer journal, Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras takes us through three big issues he's seen discussed in the community lately: the economy, prestige classes and much more.

Every other Friday, Flambouras presents a developer journal that updates the progress of Darkfall here on WarCry.

In today's journal, there have been a few questions on the forum lately which caught my eye which and which I'd like to address.

Economic system of Darkfall: Now this is an interesting question actually because it goes a bit deeper than economy mechanics, which is what I believe the poster meant to ask about, but I'll do both anyway.

As far as how the economy works, this is the basic overview:

Warfare is the driving force of the economy. Everything in the game revolves around wartime production. NPC Merchants sell the basic items. Everything else is crafted by the players as you already know. Crafters need ingredients to implement the formulas to create the items they want to. Monsters also drop items. As far as items go, there is wear and tear through use. There are universal banks, clan vaults with player controlled access levels, a secure trading system, and in-game trade boards. 1 Gold is the monetary unit.

Clans can own resources, such as mines and they will know who has been using them. This will allow them to moderate their use in any way they see fit. Crafters can sell their products in exchange for protection, for gold, for other items, for raw materials to craft more items with. Surplus can be hoarded, put up for sale, or sold to NPCs merchants. Apart from selling products, a service economy is also very possible. Entrepreneurs would have to take advantage of market trends in order to being successful.

Now the question asked was about an economic system which is a lot deeper and would have to do with what to make, how to make it and who gets what's made. Overall, I guess a certain traditional economic system is at work within Darkfall.
Economic systems relate to society, so with people and institutions. If we take the clans for example, each of them could implement their own economic system. They can ask their members to contribute a certain amount to the clan vault, and then decide who gets what or what it's used for, reward their members based on their efforts...something like a participatory economy etc. There are quite a few options that can be explored and the successful application of economy may make the difference in how successful a clan will be. Claus says that the game is a sandbox so you can try out a lot of things, even when it comes to the economy. Kjetil comes back with the mathematical balance of everything. These two working together well allow for endless possibilities. So asking about the economy actually has more implications than what we have decided the economy is going to work like. You have a lot of choice in how to work it.

Another question about the prestige classes again: Unfortunately it's not looking good for launch. Priorities have taken over and we would rather do them right, than half-assed just to squeeze them in.

On item IDs, meaning what you'll find out about an item you've got. You will get information about damage protections, weight, value, durability, critical hit capacity, who crafted it, who enchanted it, minimum skill to use, what enchantment is on it, a basic description and of course the name of the item.