So far, I have found no better graphics to illustrate how economic inequity in Eco game translates into abandon and server failure.
Shortly after I published a long and detailed description of two successful servers, I got into an interesting discussion with a player who told me about another very successful server. The reason for this "success" was it managed to have more than 100 active players on day 2. I was obviously curious since this is a rare event if you take into account all the servers that begin everyday. On the plus side, he described admins as very talented and experimented.
I agree: this server was very well managed on the technical part and they avoided many mishaps. It's no small feat to welcome such a high number of players and still maintain order. So the following is not the example of the worst world indeed.
But what is interesting is, despite good elements of structure, the server did not last. And this failure with such a high number of players allows us to see more clearly common red flags shared with other worlds in Eco. Despite their central role in failure, these red flags are usually harder to see because of small populations or the lack of basic elements.
There are many reasons for servers to fail. From what I observed since 2018, servers mostly fail because players stop enjoying them, not because the environment was destroyed. In fact, the world described here never really suffered from environmental problems.
In other words, servers fail when people are permanently more motivated by another activity. It should be noted that free money in-game or colorful bonuses are short-lived tools. At the very basis of motivation lies solid theories known for a long time by psychology researchers. Playing on a world where we can make a difference, where we feel we have a chance to complete our projects, where there is some fairness, where everyday brings some form of entertainment are few key things to look for in a game where you expect players to log in regularly.
What I like about this particular world is many things about it are typical of a lot of failed worlds I have seen. Even the activity curve is typical:
Here, if you want to compare it to a successful world of 30 days:
Figure 2. Activity of a successful server (play) and the number of active citizens measured everyday.
As I said, ecology was not the cause of the fall. I have three markers to show down here, but I verified individually every crops, trees and animals. Visual observations on the map were made as well. Note the admins build a world's granary as part of the initial setup. So even if crops were low at day 3, the granary was actually filled with thousands of vegetables. This granary is a great idea, with the potential to save worlds with high populations.
The map chosen is a nice and balanced 2 km map. Even with more than 50 active players for a week, at least 1/2 of the useful land mass was still unclaimed or exploited. This is another example to support the idea that a 1 km world is enough for most medium-sized servers, especially if you are a new admin.
The collaborative settings (rate of new stars) were over the standard high settings, so I would say very high. The most active players managed to get 3 stars, maybe four if they invested heavily on house points and good food from the beginning.
Central plots were pre-made and sold to players. A central location welcomed the administrative structure and government stores (such as research). A road district next gave indications to settlers and avoided arguments about road layout later.
Laws were cheated from the start and it was impossible to craft research books, so I first hoped to see some form of community or paced research. There was indeed an official librarian on the server and he did a few contracts to craft the skill books and then sold the scrolls to everyone. This is a useful thing to do in order to allow every player a chance to find scrolls and avoid waste of resources because of parallel research. So kudo for avoiding this common problem about access to research.
However, there was no pace and no incentive for research linked to community goals and the tier 2 era was reached on day 1. The tier 3 era was opened on day 4 with fully functional mechanic shops. This is a very fast pace that often kills smaller servers within a week.
Like laws, fiat money was created before opening the server to the public. About 500k credits were placed in the treasury. Next, a law automatically distributed 300 credits to new players. Since wood quickly settled at 0.1 credits, new players had enough money to buy 3,000 wood logs without further effort. This kind of fortune is a big risk and I believe it contributes to many problems later.
Another law automatically paid for roads installed on district roads.
This seemed like a long standing server with experience of the game. As such it didn't come as a surprise to see the prices of resources near a popular equilibrium. Here are sample prices that stayed mostly at the same level for all the game:
There was no tax and the government automatically spent its initial money via laws (about 92k for new players and around 50k for roads over 15 days). The stocks in the granaries account for a small government spending as well. Considering the amount of players and the price of scrolls, we can safely assume the money made by the government did not go over 2,500 credits with research. The price paid for buying research papers and skilled work was roughly 800 credits. Research doesn't always lead to surpluses, but here we had 100 active players at some point...
There were no community contracts outside the automatic road law (you get paid x credits if you place a road block in the district). The town center decorations and infrastructure (ex.: massive electricity turbine park) were all spawned. In short, there were no opportunities for community work outside roads.
Considering the spending on roads and the huge fortune given to players at the beginning, there were plenty of opportunities to fund the infrastructure that was spawned. Public spending in Eco gives new objectives to players and contributes to something bigger than individual trades. In fact, many failed worlds hand out a lot of money to the new players in the hope to "make an economy", but spending it through community projects would serve them better to provide project ideas, start the economic flow and promote economic equity.
Modules are important items of the game. They are also the most expensive item of their era. The way they are made also puts them at risk for economic inequity because individual profit margins add up at each step. Those who cannot sell modules because of their skill or didn't have the opportunity to sell their level 1, 2 or 3 at the right time are usually at a loss when high profit margins are applied at other stores. In this world, like many, module distribution was left to the individual choices of players.
Many think that competition is the magic solution to lower the cost of items in this game. But rudimentary supply/demand is not the only thing involved here. Even with 100 active players, it was common to see margins of 50% and more for modules. The game ended with advanced modules 4 with a 81% profit margin over its cost.
There was no government or special event. The activity of the entire server was focused on trade between players (and roads).
Communication on the chat was somewhat painful with that many people and as a result, exchanges were not as high as we would expect for such a high population. Also, the discord had a surprisingly low amount of exchanges. I suspect many parallel communication channels and teams with their own discord.
Apart from the basic civil behaviors expected, there were no special rules such as realism of buildings or length between claims. It seems like a lost cause to uphold these rules with so many people anyway.
Several modes were added and gave nice additions to the looks of buildings. Big shovel and additional professions were added as well. Miners benefited from both perks, making it far less useful to collaborate with other miners. This is also why the cost of stones was a bit lower than the equilibrium.
This server is a very good example of a well managed lock and load or competitive scenario in Eco. To put this in place, you need to create a mint from the start, spawn a ton of money in the treasury and make a few laws to lock the "economy" in place. The necessary increase of the money pool with an increasing population is managed via distribution at login. The road problem is handled via automatic distribution of money too. Map management is made simpler with a pre-made central market and roads. Lastly, you prevent further addition of laws (typically with a constitution allowing only admins to do things) or discourage players from fiddling with laws. You then launch the server and expect no further investment of time on the government and economic fronts.
What typically happens next is a trade war (hence the lock and load theme). The only way to make money is through roads (but we can't all be engineers and they are not necessarily buying) and there is no other structure or means to ensure you will eat every day. So what is left is fear...fear of what could happen if others around you get more money because it would mean you lost your 300 credit share. From this point, the whole server's structure shifts to the idea that your success depends on the failure of others (competition structure). Luckily, there are many people around with money in their account...
The negative loop that drives down many similar servers is complex, but I get the feeling it begins with this competitive structure and the lack of collaborative models as alternatives. The dominant culture is further confirmed with the behavior of heavy players who are experienced with this scenario. Teams also advance faster in this type of context where there is nothing to slow down their fiscal advantage.
Basically, some players get modules and infrastructures really fast, which allows them to craft things with more efficiency and sell crafted items at a price that is lower than the normal players while retaining a profit margin. In other words, economic inequity quickly rises.
If I knew a few veteran players in this scenario, I would talk to them and we would form a stable cluster, but this is not the case of the many individual strangers here.
The next step is comparable to the fight we have seen for toilet paper during Covid or those we see yearly in some stores during sales. The players that did not rise as fast will seek the furniture, modules and infrastructures that advanced players have. They will want these items now and price won't be a problem since each player has a huge amount in their account (the value of about 3,000 wood logs). The other players see this rush and soon the whole mob falls into the race.
Next is where profit margins and nepotism hurt the most. Profit margin in the context of Eco means that on top of all the costs involved in an item (ressources, calories, fuel, side products) players added an arbitrary cost. You can also give you a small percentage to account for handling stockpiles and click on buttons. Adding the cost of your infrastructure is debatable, mostly because every player usually requires comparable investment on their buildings and there are many advanced tricks to lower their cost to a very low value (ex.: regional fab labs). Anyway, an isolated and reasonable producer can fund back his infrastructure quickly, unless he has paid too much for it (which is obviously a problem in this scenario) or he chose a wasteful design.
Players in Eco can gather their own resources, have no store rent, employees pay or insurance. This means high profits margins act as a huge transfer of free time or free resources towards established players. For the customer, a 80% profit margin means that if you bring 100 credits worth of resources to a store, the store will keep 80 credits as profit and give you back 20 credits worth of resources in exchange. So if the item you want has a base cost of 20 credits, you'll have to bring 100 credits (as ressources or money) and leave the owner with enough resources or money to craft 4 items for free (4x20=80).
There is also a common belief that carpenters, tailors and masons should sell their furniture at double the cost (50% profit margin) because "they won't sell many". I understand this point when applied to the real world. But in the context of Eco, this means that when another player brings you wood to buy a full set of furniture, you keep enough extra resources to craft a complete set of furniture for free. After two weeks on this server, the most successful carpenters who manage to win the race for sawmill and modules early applied profit margins between 28% and 85% on most tier 2 items.
Chefs sold food at low prices at first, but eventually, those who survived sold tier 1 food at 65%. The latter is interesting for teams: each time a player gets a salad from your chef, you get more than one salad for free. If your team has 3 players, you need about 2 or 3 outsiders to trade with you and you will have free food for the rest of the game.
Steam trucks were sold as much as 15 times their cost price until it lowered and reached 84% profit margin. Again, you sell 4 trucks and you have enough money to craft 21. The profits made this way allow you to get free building and equipment for industry and the following engineering skills. Other players who also hope to get the same will have to work from scratch instead.
I believe a high starting package helps this phenomenon, or at least delay the inevitable fall. When you have the worth of about 3,000 wood logs in your pocket, you don't mind to spend some of it in order to stay in the race. This is especially true if you are a new player and you don't have a clear idea of prices. But after a while, all you have is the option to sell things to those who have money. Since we are in a "lock and load" economy, the only ones who have this kind of money are those who applied the high profit margin in the first place, so you sell basic resources to them. And the wheel turns... This idea also worsens with high and very high collaboration settings, because players cannot avoid bad deals by picking the stars themselves: they are stuck in the crushing wheels of this system.
Another phenomenon happens with profit margins. A balance between basic resources is reached when their price means that logging, mining, hunting and gathering players expect to gain the same amount of money if they spend the same time to work. However, a miner/smelter can avoid buying ore from the other players and sell iron bars at a high price. When this happens, it is the same as if he sold iron bars at no profit margin, made with iron ore at a very high price. In other words, he gets more money from the same gaming time. Iron, and in particular nails, were sold at an average of 50% to 80% profit margin in this scenario. The latter means iron ore is sold at about 2 to 6 times the price of a typical balanced price. In a world where iron is a core resource as soon as we get to the tier 2 age (which was day 2 here), having smelters amass 6 times more wealth than other players is likely to cause some unbalance very soon.
Naturally, those who benefit from this trade war are those who won the initial infrastructure race, played a lot and benefited from team support (from which they got "trades" of zero profit margins or less). With such high price margins, you could believe that other players would just jump in and lower the price. This is what happened with hewn and many basic items that required no skill to make. But even if you play a lot and manage to reach the state of the most advanced players of your profession, chances are you will have spend money at the store of the advanced players from other professions. Overall, you get a system where more sales bring more transfer of time and resources to some players which then use this leverage to advance more and become even more interesting to buy from and hard to compete with.
The 10 most wealthy players a few days after the end of the early trade war phase had fortunes in the 10,000 and 5,000 range. This means they had enough money to buy 100,000 or 50,000 wood logs. The thing with "lock and load" economy means money can only come from roads and other players. Unless you made roads, a fortune of 5,000 means you had a trading behavior which allowed you to pump in your account all the wealth of 15 to 16 new players.
The previous figure is an example taken from the server. Most of these players are using the best tool of the era. So by adding to the price of iron ore (0.05 credits) the value of calories needed for the whole crafting process and tailing disposal, we obtain a 61% profit margin or basic ore sold at about 4.5x it's balanced price. This problem began when there were still about 95 active players on the server. The huge amounts of stocks observed a few days later indicate a strong competition atmosphere and poor understanding of resource flow in Eco (so much waste of time....). In fact, the latter surely contributed to the downfall of the server, but this is another story.
In many failed cases, admins and players complain about the fact they were too few or that one bad player brought the server down. In fact, the graphics are not as clear with small populations to explain a failure. Also, I hear things like, "many players will come and prices will lower" or "many players will come and we will have plenty of resources". However, when highly populated worlds happen, admins are seldom equipped to absorb the mob. Here we have a strong team of admins with a robust structure. Resources were plentiful and the road districts and granary structures did a great job too.
In fact, if you are looking for a high intensity trade war game, the lock and load model here is a solid base. In that sense, the server was a success.
Bring a few friends to stay alive longer
However, if you aim at a collaborative game where there is a high percentage of winners, the scenario here is the opposite of what you seek. While the lock and load is easy to setup and maintain, you can see fortunes of few players growing by a process of capitalization and cannibalization of the majority. High profits margins and closed resource flow (ex.: producers stock huge amount of crafted items and stop buying resources or simply never bought resources) shows an unhealthy economy where you must give away a lot of free ressources and can only hope to make it back by applying the highest profit margin too or become cheap labor for the big players. In fact, the first graphic of this article shows around day 11 what would be a world where about 80% of the citizens live in extreme poverty or slavery.
What I find the most sad about this scenario is that a lot of new players (perhaps around 80...perhaps more) end up in a world where the most competitive and aggressive behaviors (trade-wise) lead to "winning". Basically, these servers teach about competition, mistrust and fear of others' success.
Oddly enough, numerous descriptions of the game insist on collaboration. But collaboration requires a structure where my success is only possible if my neighbors succeed. The previous here is the results of many researches on collaboration in psychology. It is in complete opposition to the competition structure of this server where individual success depended on the failure of others. In short, competitive servers teach the opposite approach of what we need to win in Eco.
Economic inequity is a word that describes well what happened to this server. Inequities means players are getting apart from each other in the idea of fairness and getting the same chances. Large difference between gaming time, access to means of production, experience of the game, profit margins and favoritism/nepotism (ex. closed teams) tend to increase inequity between players. Some mods and modifications that help players do more in less time (ex.: carrying capacity and mining perks) can theoretically increase inequities as well. When left unchecked, economic inequity leads to social inequity in the sense the gap becomes so wide that some players find themselves in a position where they have no hope of exiting their condition: trying to do so would only fuel the gap between them and the established players. In some ways, they fall in a category of citizens from which there is no escape... except try on another world.
- I worked hard for this. Just work harder, and you'll get the same
- nope
Economic inequity is also interesting to observe through the following graph, where we see the median value of house points from active players compared to the number of active players. In this case, house points refers to the welfare or social status of players. What is interesting is the Pearson's correlation of -0.99 between the house value and active citizens during the 10 first days. I understand that the house points also increase a bit everyday, but there were some players with very high house points as soon as day 2. Such a strong correlation can be explained by a great loss of players with the smallest house points while the ones with the highest house points remain.
From what we see, the collaboration settings could also fuel the inequity through monopole and oligopole. And with a population of 100, it's more difficult to argue that there are not enough players to "compete and lower the price".
What is obvious is there is an equilibrium between the number of players and the collaboration settings (number of stars). In fact, the game suggests to adjust this setting based on the population expected.
However, the settings also affect the ability to protect yourself against competitive or inexperienced players who fail to make their crafting skills available (ex.: high profit margins or refusal to buy the basic resource). The scenario here had a tweaked collaboration setting that goes at the "very high" level, outside the standard options. This made possible aberrations such as smelters selling iron at 61% profit margins and more, even if there were still 100 active players when blast furnaces became available and 8 to 9 smelters when the server reached 12 days.
Since inequity and competition were probably key aspects of the failure, this community could have worked on contraptions or structures to reduce it. Examples of successful worlds indicate that fair module distribution works well. In this case a module "granary" could have been used with the aim to make module prices as close to their cost price as possible instead of insanely high 81% profit margins.
Inequity is also fought by giving unlucky players fair options to make money and contribute. This is where server monuments (ex. parks) and handling contracts comes into play. Of course it takes time, but some elected titles can be paid in-game for this too. Public contracts also allow some neat balance options such as keeping contracts open only to the poorest players, those who play the smallest gaming time and those with small sales/buy ratios at their store. You can also put conditions that foster collaboration such as the need to involve at least 3 workers (or giving bonuses based on the amount of players involved in the contract) and teach your community about the benefits of working together for real.
To make these contracts, the government will need money and you risk another problem if you just print money and spend it in a static pool of players. This means money needs to return to the treasury (cycle). Again this is a good opportunity to target the process by which competitive players accumulate wealth: buy at very low price or harvest alone, followed by high prices when selling. The AVT by Spouke has proved to be a powerful tool in this case. Also, in the real world, I bet there are solid arguments for taxing citizens with high revenues (such as in my country). Maybe you can find a clever way to make this possible in Eco too. Lastly, I don't like to see a player with 10,000 coins, which means he accumulated the value of 33 other players without giving them a fair chance to work in return. I wonder what would be the effects of a fortune ceiling or progressively higher taxes?
If taxes are not your thing (we have enough of it in the real world), then there was plenty of room with the fortune bestowed to new players (remember 3,000 wood logs). Simply handling 250 credits instead of 300 would have given 5,000 credits to spend on parks, community buildings, electricity infrastructure, etc. The server dies faster in a lock and load scenario if you give less money at start, but not if extra money is available through interesting projects afterward.
Also, calling the work of expert players with a work party is a popular tool on worlds with high collaboration settings that have a smaller population. In short, it allows a player with basic resources to get access to the skill of those who can transform them. However, this usually cripples the ability of established players to sell at high profit margins: it is hard to justify a high price for a simple click in this case. I can understand this would not be a popular option in a competitive world. The thing is, higher collaboration settings with stars call for better collaborative behaviors in game too. Warning here, higher collaboration settings do not necessarily lead to collaboration...as we saw here.
Last of all, my favorite: sharing workshops and houses. This is one of the best advantages that teams have over individual players. This is also an easy one to fix: instead of doing everything alone, share the space with another player. You may begin slowly by experimenting with joint buildings. I am personally at the state of fab labs and now find worlds with individual workshops rather boring. These are projects that Eco's governments or regional clusters of players can put forward too.
By the way, I like to observe outstanding servers. If you have any interesting proposal of server or if you want to have a second opinion about your current server, feel free to reach me.
Comments
Post a Comment