Rarity, antiquity, and decreased supply.

There is a total lack of original, rare, special, and valuable items in Second Life. While everyone is freaking out over land prices and the Lindex values, there is a major lack of value in most products. The supply is unlimited of nearly every item in SL, plus none of those items will ever decay or disappear.

Why should everything be made in unlimited quantites? What about making limited editions of items? Linden Labs needs to add an "Copy Limit and Edition Number" feature that would give costumers the confidence they need to know that what they buy is truly unique. A famous SL designer may make a limited run of wedding dresses or other fashions. The consumers of these items will be very happy to know which version they have, and that it is truly limited in its edition.

Sure, there are plenty of ways to "cheat" any system like that. That is not the point. The point is that more designers should start selling rare and limited items that people CAN transfer and re-sell, and that LL should implement a means to add "trust" to these transactions.

I spent a long time analyzing the player economy in Star Wars Galaxies. The conclusion I came to was that, in online worlds people value rarity higher then anything else. It makes you special, it makes you stand out, it makes you feel good while you play. That is how you can get more people to buy Lindens off the LindeX and stabalize the economy. Just like we have in RL, you need luxury goods, art, antiques, and other one of a kind items to entice people to spend more.


-Dak

This is in no way SWG. I'm tired of references to other MMOs.

There are some limited items out there.

But most of the reason behind having such low prices is because of unlimited supply. Only *some* people can get away with pricing something high. You want us to spend any number of hours/days making something that no one will buy unless its priced low then limit it? Good luck on that one.

There's limit edition stuff in SL. You just don't know about it, that's all.

*warm smile*

I agree with the mentioned need for rare items.

I wish there was a better way to ensure it.



Little do you know how right you are, about the hunger for rare items.

I would suspect any provider would be scanned, tracked, and hunted for days... I am soooo not getting into this again.

The thing about limited edition items is keeping interest in them, otherwise they fade into obscurity. I think possibly rather than having truely limited numbers that releasing the item in limited numbers every month or something, but continuing to release them indefinately might work better.

Or perhaps a limited edition of something that's being sold indefinately might work, say with different colour trim or something.

Have any of you tried doing a limited edition?

The reason I am asking is one family member is considering doing just that with one of his products. WOuld love to know the outcomes both bad and good.

*does insanely quick searching to try and beat Desmond to the post*

/130/fc/88583/1.html
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Other instances I can recall were that cyborg avatar (I forget who made it now) and the auctioned Dominus Shadow (is that how it's spelt?) I believe some of the treasure in the treasure hunts that've been run recently have been too.

Actually, SL is a whole heck of a lot like SWG. Infact, SL is like if the SWG engine was abandoned and the keys to the engine were handed over to all the players. The players then decided to make it a real economy, do away with the star wars theme, and open up dozens of planets. Now its of course not a Star Wars title anymore.... but its still the same metaverse, same communities, same geeks logging on wanting to feel special about themselves. Rarity made them feel special in SWG, and rarity will make them feel special in SL too - it just has to be implemented differently.

Most people simply follow the trends. Hence why would anyone start making rare items if nobody (or very few) people do? Also why would people even think to do it without some form of system implemented by LL? The only way to do truly limited edition items right now is to have a solid enough reputation that people know you won't be ripping them off.

I will make a post in the suggestion forums, I'm sure its been suggested before, but I do have a good idea for how to make a simple and effective "copy limit" system.

As far as I can see that's taking away pretty much everything about SWG. Maybe if you said what it is you actually think is similar you'd be understood.

No offence, but I seriously doubt it'd go anywhere. Might get some more discussion on it I guess.

What is this efective system you've come up with anyway?

It's just a basic Copy Limit box. When you check the "Allow copy" box, you could then have a drop down, or a text field, to enter the amount of copies that can be made.

That in itself wouldn't solve all the issues, but it would go a long way towards both encouraging limited edition items, and securing the fact that they are indeed limited editions.


I aim to solve problems through actions not words, so if you don't understand me, just watch me

So why not just make that number to start with and set them no-copy?

Imagine you have a 300 prim avatar suit.

How exactly do you make 10 editions of that, no copy, without having a reputation that people would trust? I don't mean how do you techincaly do it, cause I understand that. It's the fact that... You could make 100 more editions if you felt like it. There is no way to prove that you have indeed limited the edition.

Sure you could do it, infact that's how Ive bought limited edition items thus far. However the only thing that lets me feel it is truly limited, is the name of the creator and nothing more.

If there was a way to effectively watermark or sign/number each copy... Something to allow new designers and unrecognized designers to try their hand at limited or single edition work.

How do you guarantee you didn't make more copies before you set your numbers of copies permission on a copy of it?

This brings the discussion back to 1st life, where artists have had to answer that question for as long as they have been able to make prints.

In the end...

It comes BACK to your reputation.

Get busted for putting out more copies then you should, and you won't be selling anymore art. This could be added to the TOS: "Attempting to sell items as limited editions or numbered editions and violating either the letter or spirit of your agreement with your customers will result in termination of ones account."

Starax's wand, by price alone, makes it rather rare.

There are dragon AV's that are sold as limited editions and quite beautifully crafted as well.

I don't disagree with you, just wanted to point out some counter examples.

I have several things on exhibit that I do not sell, because I don't WANT them to become common. I've had some very bizarre conversations with people that couldn't understand why I would make something nice, display it, and yet... not sell it. As if the mere idea of not selling something was anti-SecondLife-ian.

I don't sell things because:
1) Some things belong in their own context. It's nice that we have amazingly deep pockets to hold cool stuff, but often I would rather go to something than bring it with me.

2) Some of my builds are *greedy* the last thing I want is someone to buy one of my massive particle displays and plunk it down on a 512sqm plot. Most wouldn't FIT in a 512sqm plot, much less leave enough particles left over for anything else nearby.

3) I did want dwell from them. But this reason is fading away.

There's an additional category to 'rarity, antiquity and decreased supply' and that's 'personal'. I hand out copy/non-transfer freebies rather often. As my creations drift from here or there so do the freebies... most never end up for sale being just prototypes that were never finished. The quantity is limited to the number I give out. If any of it has sentimental value all the better.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'll shush now. =)

--
llRezFamilyHeirloom( .... );

I agree with the whole rarity/scarcity idea. I've played SWG and I have to say that this economy is nothing like SWGs. SWG's economy was a whole heck more intuitive. From random spawning resources to specific types of resources needed to craft, it blows this "system" out of the water. Unfortunately, SOE took a great game and managed to break it.

Another example of the effects of scarcity/rarity can be seen in Ultima Online (I'm not sure if it's still around, been ages since I played). Close to its release, after you skinned an animal you would get "fur" as a byproduct of skinning. After a while they did away with the fur byproduct. People deleted their fur and few survived. Somebody figured that fur made great rugs in homes and thus the fur boom ensued. I don't remember how much they ended up costing, but remember seeing them on ebay.

For me, in most MMO's I've played(and I've played practically everyone out there), after I get done with the adventure content, I always gravitate towards the economic system. Personally, I think SL is lacking in its economic system compared to other MMO's out there. For a game that seemingly thrives on its in-game economy, the mechanics of the system leaves something to be desired.

Perhaps, it's just because I'm used to better developed MMORPG economies.

You're forgetting that SL isn't a standard MMO. Remember that the economies in other MMOs are, other than flukes like bugs and things that get nerfed like the furs, created and planned entirely by the company creating the game. Second Life's is more like a real economy and arises almost entirely from the actions of the users.

One of the major issues with this is vehicles...the instability crossing sims and that is not somehting that can be fixed on the vehcile, but rather a server side issue. Vehicles pretty much have to be made as copy/no trans in case a customer loses one on sim crossing, which is very frequent BTW. And you don't care make them copy/trans as if you do you are just making them for someone else to sell and claim. There is already one shop that is quite well known for this practice.

My reference to SWG was entirely in regards to the graphice engine. My appologies for only using the term "engine" cause obviously this was taken to mean "economic engine".

Anyways, my point though was that the most valuable items in SWG were the rarest as well, and that's the same in first life, second life, third life... O_o?

Actually, I was responding to Mistah's post there. I'd already asumed you were using SWG as an example of item rarity and little more.

Oh, and just for the record, SWG's (graphics) engine is really nothing like SL's.

Anyway, it 3am here. Nite all.

I'm going to have to disagree in regards to SL being like a real economy. There are no scarcity of resources, and like some of the other board members have pointed out in other threads, SL cannot be analyzed with current and centuries old economical tools. If we were going for realism, I would vote for SWG mostly for the depth of its system.

Here's an idea...


Make your items available for a limited time, say for 30 - 90 days. The remove them from the market for 30 - 90 days.

ok ok ok So I stole the idea from the fast food chains. Still, it might be worth the effort. It's not quite the same thing as a limited edition, but, it is the next best thing to adding more code to a program that already has a large number of bugs that need to be fixed. Why risk adding one more?

You can always use a vendor system like JEVN that allows you to sell a certain number of copies.

Just a thought.

One critical thing to note, is that it *is* possible to duplicate most rare items.

Consider the tulips I'd made.

If I *ever* sell a modifiable item (and I have and do), its prims can be edited to look like the tulip. With my name as creator.

Textures can be ripped easily if you know how to do it (I won't expound, but trust me plenty of people can). At this point, you could probably scam 90% of the people out there even if the object wasn't perfectly exact.

The last resort of safety is the scripts (which I put in the tulips as a safety precaution). I talked with some 'white hat' scripters and yes, there is an issue with scripts too. After I learned how script-hacking has been done, rest assured that I was convinced in short order that nothing in SL is safe.


So... what does this mean?

It means that if anyone, anywhere, within the life of the SL game hacks one of my tulips, MY reputation takes a *major* hit.

This is why I doubt I'll ever touch rare items again. My reputation is everything. I recently was entrusted with over 1100 USD to launch a private island sim for fifteen people (Caledon II, just launched this weekend). That would have been impossible without a good reputation.

It's simply not worth it for anyone to take the risk. Had I known more up front, I never would have done even the low-value tulips myself.

Can't sleep so I'm back again.
Okay, I'm not an economist. Maybe equating it to being more like a real economy isn't technically right. What I was trying to say is that it isn't predetermined what items are going to be worth more to the consumer, whereas the economies in MMOGs are, to an extent, already decided by the developers by how they've balanced the power of items and the spawn rates they've decided to give them. I think this is why you find SWG's economy to be more intuitive - everything has a value from it's conception and most items will be worth the same to most people. In SL, like in RL, the value of the majority of items comes from a variety of things and is different to each person. With Desmond's tulips, for example, to me they was very little difference between the value of the commonest and the rarest, whereas some people were willing to pay quite hefty sums for some of the rarer ones and weren't interested at all in the more common ones.