This article is aimed at GMs and other player dedicated to managing and building a server.

This is going to be a fairly short article maybe.I will jsut be outlining some of the main techniques players and GMS can use to control and harness the economy of Ragnarok Online

The RO economy is mainly player driven.This is the main method of exchange of goods across many avant-garde games in todays online world.In Ragnarok Online this economy is driven by the Merchant and Super Novice classes.

Prevention is always better than cure

Is your servers economy bad?

Over pricing , Monopolistic market , Severely devalued items?

Different characteristics affect the prices on a server

Server Rates

This is notably one of the most influential factor on a servers economy.
Low Rate Servers Generally have Lower Prices since money is harder to generate

High Rate Servers – Are arguably one of the major victims of bad prices due to the the speed at which players can generate money and Greed (No not the skill)

Population

High Pop Servers and Low Pop Servers affect population somewhat but its effect can swing either way.

Accessibility

Dungeon quests On or Off

Some quests e.g. Kiel Hyre or Geffenia quest are notoriously long and are a major deterrent for many players.The players that have invested their time however have access to items and cards that a large portion of players would not.

@Warp Commands

@warp Cancels the need to do a great deal of quests if left unmanaged.

MVP Rooms

This gives access to greatly increased amount of MVPs. Increasing the amount of particular items on a market

Vendor Search

One of the greatest mechanisms for keeping a economy in check is the vendor search (if the server have @whosell enabled?). The vendor search makes a consumer educated as to the choices he can make before going through with a purchase.

The lowest prices are shown first which has been roven to push prices down.

Now you might say why wouldn’t i want 230 million Zeny for my Turtle General Card? Thats more money!
Pause for a moment and ask yourself, When i feel like buying my Card how much will it cost?

230 MILLION DOLLARS!

Now lets do some mathematics….
230,000,000 – 230,000,000 = ZERO

So we can see all those decimal places count for nothing if the relative prices between items are the same.
Additionally even on a high rate server, 230 mil is much harder to farm than say 100mil,50mil 35mil.

This means slower sales for you.

Lower prices = Faster Economy

The effect of vendors

Some server have vendors for the different items that a particular class may need e.g. Alchemist Merchant Gunslinger Merchant etc. These vendors can have ither a bad or good effect on the prices.

Primarily : These merchants set the base prices for certain commodity items.
E.g. No one is going to buy a Alchemist Manual for 500k Zeny when it sells for 200,000 in the stores.

Secondly:Decreases the rarity of items sold
Vendors dont have a stock like merchants

Thirdly: Vendors can kill smaller non-mainstream markets monopolies for players

Mainstream Market

Cards
Hard to acquire.Easy to sell.

MVP Drops
Depending on the server and its rates some of these items may be rendered useless but a large portion of MVP drops are still quite useful and cand be sold at a Good price.

Killing these can be quite a task.
Here are some other guides written by RMS users for killin MVPS

How to Kill MVPs: Valkryie Randgris, Thanatos, Ifrit by Sky

Niche Markets

These are smaller market that one can make sales in.Non Mainstream

Headgears
These quests can be rewarding if someone is interested in a particular headgear but doesnt want to do the quest themselves.And can be sold for a heft profit.

Quest Map Only Drops
iIf your one of 20 people that have access to a Quest Map you have the chance to sell exclusive items which you could (Healthily) Sell for a increased price

Commodity Items
Always in need. These are small profit items however they are not to be underestimated. A small profit multiplied by a lot of sales = Large Profit.

Commodity Items include everything from Arrows and Quivers to Grenade and Poison bottles.
A merchant should seek to provide these at a lower cost than Tool shop and other NPCs while still making a profit.

Quest Items
A wide range of items from Bloody runes for Valkyrie Helm or Skirt of Virgin for Pretend Murder these assist quester in their collection and help you make some cash

The Auctions
A severely inderused feature of RO on free servers
Auctions allow for the database querying that a Vendor Search Provides with the possibility of a increase in price and a Direct Purchase option.

The Auction House System by Shaelyn-Viriatha

MERCHANTS!

Store Names are Important!
Obscenities and other things like Account closing Sale!!!!!1 have a negatvie effect on customers.Especially if they enter a store professing HUGE SALES NAO! and the prices are far from sale range.

If your server has a high mechant population you may want to consider branding your store.This simply involves the use of the same name on a consistent basis so customers can fund your store quicker and more easily.

Placement is Important
The main town is always a good place to vend but at times this can get in the way of other NPCs and is a ban worthy offense.With this in mind one must seek to find places that are not too far out fo the way but are within reach of nearby players

View differ from mine? Speak your mind.
No ranting however lets keep the discussion intellectual.

Written by Alistair Douglas also writes at >> http://dontcomehereomg.blogspot.com/
And is an ezine article writer [he hopes]

Filed under: Other RO Writings