June 2003

• Damage and Stuff (Math and Code) Ben Chambers
• MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Derek Licciardi
• • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Mike Shaver
  • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Mike Shaver
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Daniel Anderson
  • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Matt Mihaly
    • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Luca Girardo
    • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of themarket. Ron Gabbard
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Chris Holko
  • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Matt Mihaly
    • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Justin Coleman
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of th e market. Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of th e market. Jeff Fuller
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Matt Mihaly
  • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Tess Snider
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Luca Girardo
  • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Tess Snider
    • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Matt Mihaly
    • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Jeff Fuller
    • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of themarket. Chris Holko
      • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments ofthemarket. Scott Jennings
        • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Jeff Fuller
• New Column by Dave Rickey "Engines of Creation" Now at Skotos Christopher Allen
• Announcing Shadow Door: an NPC Control Interface for Neverwinter Nights Robert Zubek
• ADMIN: So, what has been happening? J C Lawrence
• [Meta] Forward of moderated message J C Lawrence
• New Here MIKE MacMartin
• • New Here Mike
  • • New Here MIKE MacMartin
    • • New Here Miroslav Silovic
      • • New Here MIKE MacMartin
• Looking for a GUI Mud Development program Snicker Furfoot
• • Looking for a GUI Mud Development program Ben Greear
• ADMIN: List archives are now restored. J C Lawrence
• The Price of Being Male Rayzam
• • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
  • The Price of Being Male Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
  • • The Price of Being Male Rayzam
    • • The Price of Being Male Byron Ellacott
      • The Price of Being Male Dr. Cat
    • The Price of Being Male Castronova, Edward
    • • The Price of Being Male Boyle, Paul
      • The Price of Being Male Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
      • • The Price of Being Male Rayzam
        • • The Price of Being Male Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
          • • The Price of Being Male Rayzam
            • • The Price of Being Male Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
        • The Price of Being Male Marian Griffith
        • • The Price of Being Male Paul Schwanz
          • • The Price of Being Male Rayzam
            • • The Price of Being Male Paul Schwanz
              • The Price of Being Male Vincent Archer
              • • The Price of Being Male Rayzam
        • The Price of Being Male Castronova, Edward
        • • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
          • The Price of Being Male Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
          • • The Price of Being Male Amanda Walker
          • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
          • • The Price of Being Male Castronova, Edward
            • • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
          • The Price of Being Male Tazzik
          • • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
            • • The Price of Being Male Tazzik
      • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
      • • The Price of Being Male Marian Griffith
        • • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
          • • The Price of Being Male Tom
            • The Price of Being Male Marian Griffith
            • • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
              • • The Price of Being Male Marian Griffith
                • • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
          • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
        • The Price of Being Male Castronova, Edward
        • • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
        • The Price of Being Male Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
          From: Richard A. Bartle [mailto:richard@mud.co.uk]
          
          > 9) You don't include equipment as a factor (except by not
          > accepting characters that have been stripped of it), linking
          > this to level instead. Perhaps you should have included it?
          > Maybe the equipment that typically comes with female avatars is,
          > for some reason, not as attractive to potential buyers as that
          > which typically comes with male avatars?
          
          For an evaluation of everquest, this is a huge oversight. Level is
          only very loosely coupled to equipment quality. The most expensive
          characters on Playerauctions have a large set of valuable, but
          droppable equipment. Their price is dictated by the vultures who
          pick them clean, sell off the items individually and finally sell
          the asset stripped character at a large discount.
          
          As alluded to above, it's very hard to appraise an EQ character
          because there are two markets, the asset strippers who put a premium
          on equipment that is tradeable (i.e. not flagged nodrop, which is
          rare for top end equipment), and people who intend to play the
          avatar and will be happy enough to pay for 'no drop' equipment. To
          put it in perspective, it's not atypical for a high level
          character's equipment to be more valuable than the avatar. Due to
          this, the asset strippers should probably be considered the primary
          market who then sell on to the 'players'.
          
          Given the two markets, I'm not entirely sure how the analysis could
          be balanced without monitoring the value of items and factoring them
          in. This could be performed by measuring equipment prices across
          each and every server, and then indexing it against the value of
          platinum pieces on that server. The latter step being necessary
          because it appears to fluctuate +- 25% depending on the server
          (contrast Rodcet Nife vs Kane Bayle (a newer Euro server which you
          might expect to have less coinage...)). That takes care of the
          primary market. One then needs to have sufficient EQ knowledge to
          rank the 'no drop' stripped character's equipment in terms of
          desireability so that it too may be factored into the price.
          
          Perhaps female characters really are just less well equipped? Given
          the obsessive level of play required to remedy that, I guess that's
          something to be proud of, not ashamed of.
          
          Anyway, it is a lot of work, but if you could get sales data from
          the last two months from playervault, certainly not
          impossible. Would be easier if Ryan S. Dancey was willing to help
          I'm sure, but I imagine some form of screen scraper could get the
          info out his site anyway. Alternatively, one could visit the bazarr
          on each server and note the platinum value there of the items. This
          could then be directly indexed against the platinum value on that
          server. Of course for it to be accurate it would need to assume an
          efficient market, in economi terms, and I suspect that that may not
          be the case given the recent complaints of a free fall economy in
          EQ[1].
          
          Dan
          
          [1] Until recently, there was a set of items that were extremely
          resistent to mud-inflation for the last 3 years (dragon haste,
          fungal tunics etc). I no longer play but apparently these have
          halved in price over the last 6 months or so.
      • The Price of Being Male Paul Schwanz
      • The Price of Being Male Daniel Anderson
      • • The Price of Being Male Travis Casey
        • • The Price of Being Male Paul Schwanz
          • • The Price of Being Male Travis Casey
          • The Price of Being Male Chris Holko
          • • The Price of Being Male Travis Casey
            • • The Price of Being Male Sanvean
              • • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
                • The Price of Being Male Tom
                • • The Price of Being Male Sanvean
                  • • The Price of Being Male Tom
  • The Price of Being Male Paul Schwanz
  • The Price of Being Male Amanda Walker
  • The Price of Being Male shop@isparkinson.co.uk
  • The Price of Being Male Boyle, Paul
  • The Price of Being Male Ola Fosheim Grøstad
  • • The Price of Being Male Sheela Caur'Lir
    • • The Price of Being Male Jeff Crane
• Are gold pieces taxable? Koster, Raph
• • Are gold pieces taxable? Boyle, Paul
  • • Are gold pieces taxable? Amanda Walker
  • Are gold pieces taxable? Thomas Leavitt
  • Are gold pieces taxable? Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
• Functors / Loki (was: New Here) Eli Stevens
• Architecture Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
• • Architecture Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
  • • Architecture ceo
    • • Architecture Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
• SW:G this is so unfair Marian Griffith
• • SW:G this is so unfair Marc Bowden
  • SW:G this is so unfair Martin Bassie
• Players policing themselves (was: MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of themarket.) Derek Licciardi
• • Players policing themselves (was: MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of themarket.) Marian Griffith
• Q&A with Ken Troop, Lead Designer at Turbine Michael Tresca
• • Q&A with Ken Troop, Lead Designer at Turbine Threshold RPG
  • • Q&A with Ken Troop, Lead Designer at Turbine Mike Shaver
    • Q&A with Ken Troop, Lead Designer at Turbine Chris
• Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
• • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Zach Collins {Siege}
  • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
  • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
  • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
    • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Rossmann Peter
    • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) ceo
      • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
        • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) J C Lawrence
          • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
            • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) J C Lawrence
          • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Rossmann Peter
        • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Rossmann Peter
        • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) J C Lawrence
          • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
      • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
      • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann