Speaking as long time gamer - and I'm talking Crowther and Woods timescales here, I believe Blizzard have managed to create the first working economy in an RPG. Sure, there was a nascent economy in Diablo 2 (online), and the ad-hoc adoption of the Stone of Jordan (SOJ) was fascinating. For those readers not familiar with Diablo2, the SOJ was adopted as it was quite rare, and easy to store as it only took up one item slot in the players inventory. Unfortulately, the Diablo2 economy was completely ruined because it was very easy to 'dupe' items, and players were frequently conned while trading. Blizzard learned from this, and the 'online only' playmode in WoW is testament to this.
The inclusion of an in-game auction house, and just as important, an ingame email system capable of transferring items as well as gold was equally fundamental to the success of WoW as the actual transfer of items between players is done at the server-end and thus cannot be cheated without using invasive/detectable hex-editors/packet-sniffers. A good example of how much players trust Blizzard to 'govern' the economy is evidenced by their recent inclusion of Sony's Rootkit technology - a technology that a lot of people, including the EFF, class as 'spyware'.
The parallels between the real-world economy and the WoW economy are also quite striking. Just like the real-world, WoW has a class system. I'm not talking about Druids and Warriors here, I mean real classes - the 'haves', the 'have-nots', and the 'wannabes' - we even have social-climbers and role models as evidenced by the proliferation of Guilds.
Again, just like the real-world, the WoW economy was ticking along quite nicely - until - BANG - a war breaks out - and then the economy is sent into turmoil as economic forces altered the balance of the economy. Unlike the real-world, the only casualties will be broken pixels, but the cause and effect is the same.
The recently declared war between the nations of Azeroth against the Ahn'Quiraj is of-course completely manufactured by Blizzard - (sounds familiar huh!) , as is the 'shortage' of raw materials for the war-effort - yet it has created a virtual 'siege mentality', and heated discussions, like this thread, about the relative benefits of altruism versus profiteering.
This signifies to me just how successful Blizzard have been in so many aspects of the design of WoW, and in particular the economy. Heck we even have the 'Spiv' character from the real-world - the Enchanter - forced by Blizzard to peddle his wares on a virtual street-corner instead of being a part of the 'real' auction-house economy.
Let's not forget however, that this is just a game, and it is meant to be played. Playing the markets is just as valid a playing style as hacking up monsters. The WoW economy can be played speculatively without *really* hurting anyone afterall.
It's just a game - play it any way you like...
Incidentally, I have got almost as much enjoyment out of reading this thread as I get while playing the game itself !! Would anyone else care to add to my list of parallels between the real-world economy and WoW...?
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