Fun article about the economy on a Minecraft server

Long read, but I recommend it. Has a bunch of anecdotes about arbitrage, speculation, and all sorts of marketplace shenanigans.

Also, we’ve got a bit of a thread going on HN about how Boundless has a similar economy, if people want to join in:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16025758 (scroll down)

7 Likes

i Got to that story via Hacker News, and the comments section got me here!

4 Likes

Ha, awesome & welcome!

2 Likes

I think the idea of non-renewable items is a fun one. I would love to see how players scower planets to find one resource that is becoming more and more scarce. From what I understand this is what is happening right now with red gleam. I know that there is not a resource that doesn’t regen currently, but in theory a group can claim all of the spawn locations if they were determined enough. I would love to talk about the current economy of Boundless and what you think Boundless succeeds at and what improvements it could make. @nevir

1 Like

Yeah, I was thinking about that too; unsure how Boundless’ economy would react! I’m more of an armchair economist, so most of what I say is probably wrong :stuck_out_tongue:

It would certainly be a lot of fun to have some items that become more scarce over time - all the collectors would love it; though it can be pretty frustrating for newbies that missed the gold rush…

It’s also kinda interesting how it was portrayed in that article: Even though most mined blocks are non-renewable in MC, the size of the worlds (even when constrained) means that the supply of them is effectively infinite. The amount of player effort to mine a diamond seemed to be pretty stable (otherwise the price of diamonds would have invariably gone up). It might be better to frame it in terms of that (player effort)?

Re: the current economy, @OmniUno put up a really thoughtful list of suggestions for it that you might want to dig into, too:

3 Likes

Great suggestion and another good read. Do you know if there are any posts about the accesibility of portals? The networks that we have currently makes travel seem kind of easy and takes away from the disparity between resources in different planets.

1 Like

later on we have 50planets so thats gonna be more work later on

1 Like

@the-moebius Will portals still be the same as they are right now though? It seems that the disparity in resources does not matter much if I can go from planet 1 to 50 instantly. Prices would start to even out as portal networks inevitably grow. I had always thought that it would be more difficult to travel from one planet to another, making it more profitable for suppliers and difficult for suppliers.

hmm dont really know but ive seen that the big 3hop portals olmost always close faster then they open oh and there will always be players crazy enough to maitain the hubs even solo
ive seen it before no mather what cost thats all i can say

my hub portals are mostly individually fueled so plaza is even not a big effort maintaining it

I see and it seems like there will be changes to portal warp costs for anyone taking the portal correct? If this is the case then my concerns are probably negligible.

not sure try ask in support lol
or do some digging in forum
there was a discussion on this with some dev replys but dont ask me where :slight_smile:

no worries! I’m sure the devs have plans in mind already. Thanks for the insight @the-moebius!

hey btw your shop does it dont need a link to aquashopping or
therka plaza :sunglasses: our the shopnetwork portals :smile:

where are you rn? let’s meet up and hang hahaha

logging in now im at garden district off aquatopia at moment

hers more info

1 Like

I’ve seen some mentions of “payed locks” or something like that in game files, which is probably pay to pass system. Kinda like the regular lock but this one you can open if you pay. Guess that will end free travel era :smiley:

3 Likes

and so ends net travelality hahaha thanks for the info Spoygg!

4 Likes

too soon :crying_cat_face: hahaha

Probably it’s more simple to implement payed lock than payed portals, also more versatile.

1 Like

I totally agree with your analysis, and it is our intention to make travelling to certain worlds more difficult / costly so that there are more rewards for those that do travel. Having said that we want to make sure that people can reasonably maintain portals and portal networks because it’s a fun an interesting thing to do. As we plan out the final universe structure we are looking at this and we’re aiming for a sweet-spot between the two different directions.

10 Likes

That was a really interesting article – thanks for posting.

3 Likes