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  1. Default Maplestory - Economics Project


    Hello all,

    My econ teacher expects a project based on what we learned in class by the end of the semester. The "default" project is one where you track a stock for many weeks and then record/present your results, but my teacher has allowed us to branch out provided it proves that you actually learned something in the class.

    My teacher actually started a Rift group, invited students and whatnot so they could see the econ principles in that game. I tried it out and didn't like it too much. So I decided to go with a game I'm more familiar with: Maplestory.

    I really haven't played since a little after Phantom, so about 1.5 years. I've been reading through the updates and been looking at guides, and decided on remaking a bowmaster (going advance my old bowmaster to a marksman), but I still got a few questions before I'm totally up to speed:

    1) Say I'm making a new character and am willing to shell out 20k NX. Anything in particular I should spend that on? I'm not aiming to make mesos (I can get the NX:mesos data for that without burning my own money) but making playing my character easier. I have a perma persian cat but no equips-- are the item/meso magnent things worth it? I'll be playing for about 2 or 3 months.

    2) How many mesos do I need to be comfortable? Comfortable as in enough for pots and scrolling and potential-ing. I don't plan on hammering and cubing and white scrolling and all that, unless I can do that free. But, you know, enough to be able to scroll a little bit.

    3) Best way to get my hands on some decent equipment and scrolls? Is through blacksmithing and hunting drops? What about scrolls- is there any way we can make them now or are there certain quests I can do over and over (I have a lot of old characters) that'll get me some? Any free hammers available? Are the cubes you can make now any good? How is the practice of buying equips from NPCs and fusing them with Alchemy- still good at getting maybe 4% stat on an item, or should I just forget it? Remember, I don't need any god-tier stuff, just something that's better than the baseline (going to monitor prices vs equipment upgrading, all that)

    4) Any questlines I HAVE HAVE to do? Never did quests before but I'm up for a good story.

    My goal in the game is to be an econ project, be a distraction from the rest of my life because damn am I stressed out, and to enjoy the storyline. I don't really intend to be joining any guilds or anything, but that may change-- so I need to do enough damage to be able to solo most things. I really don't want to be grinding at places that I've always grinded at for my previous characters, oh god no. So I'm going to avoid golems, most of nlc, trucks, CDs, mp3, mushroom kingdom, all those old/popular places.

    And...that's it, I think. Sorry for the questions. :)

  2. AFK at Ch 18 Leafre Straight Male
    Nion's Avatar [Jr. Event Coordinator]

    IGN: GreenTeaSip
    Server: Scania
    Job: Hero
    Guild: Symbolism
    Alliance: Lore
    Farm: Symbolism
    California

    Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    1. Yeah, I'd aim for EXP cards mainly because they help you with training. I disregard everything else because I am a one mind beast who usually grinds for a couple of hours at one particular spot.
    2. I usually get a lot of pots from farming but I'm okay with 5 mil funding because you can buy a lot of NLC potions and the rest of the time could be spent training. I would buy honsters because they're just like elixers and it helps out with training no matter what level you are. I would buy them in stacks of 500 every time.
    3. Events and such are great ways to get some equipments imo. I would rely on getting the free "equips every 10 levels until level 70" from ToT.
    4. Questline is more of the story and it's good. Mediocore EXP but if you care about learning something new about the game, might as well do the questline. Some that might be great are the badges for explorers. It'll take a while but you get a free equip at the end unless you got that hot time from yesterday.

  3. Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    1) If it's just 2-3 months, getting meso magnet/item pouch will help quite a bit even if they expire. If you want to actually get involved in the MS market, you'll need a shop permit to sell things. Other than that, you might consider getting a hyper teleport rock for convenience.

    2) -60% bow for ATT in your server are about 1m a pop (better scrolls obviously cost more)
    - Revealing potential on level 90+140+ equips costs almost 500k each time
    *Oops mindfart
    - Pots are the same as before (NLC pots); manageable with mesos you make off of drops and such as long as you don't burn through them willy nilly

    3) The absolute best way to scroll (without having a lot of mesos to begin with) is to take advantage of events, such as the RED coin shop which sells 50% +8 atk scrolls. Unfortunately you're on the tail end of the RED event so there aren't too many sources of coins any more.
    For equipment, you can make do with the normal class equips if you can find some %dex pots on them. Otherwise you can try making enough mesos to buy an empress set which is relatively cheap at ~20m for each piece (or even cheaper since you're making an archer).
    Cubes take forever to make. If you insist on doing it though, you should do Commerci trades as they drop the required mats somewhat consistently.

    4) Some of the class-specific quests in the past year were pretty good: notably the Angelic Burster and Zero questlines. But in general, quests are massively slower than grinding it out at those popular grinding spots (some of which have changed from your list).
    Last edited by Haishiro; 2014-03-02 at 09:20 PM.

  4. Trump minus th money
    IGN: xparasite9
    Server: Windia
    Level: 250
    Job: I/L Archmage
    Guild: Aerial
    Alliance: N/A

    Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    You have some fairly contradictory goals here.

    Furthermore I'd hazard a guess that you might find the economy, be it the player economy or the Cash Shop economy, does not follow the "rules" of economics you were taught, so you might find this endeavor to be an undue challenge.

  5. Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    Ah, I meant that I wish to solo most things I happen to come across in 2-3 months. Sorry, that wasn't very clear. Like, if I make find myself in front of an area boss I'd like to be able to solo that. Maybe Zak, if I'm really dedicated. I don't expect solo HT or PB in three months, haha. By "I don't plan on hammering and cubing" I meant that I wasn't willing to shell out any real life money for it. So, yep. Just trying to get by on ~30m (off my previous characters) and my previous knowledge of the game.

    My econ teacher actually said that game economies are really good for simulating econ principles. That's the reason why he set up the Rift experiment in the first place. I don't remember the reason, but I think it was due to the fact that it's really closed off or something. But on top of that he said that in life you can't see things like supply/demand as easily as you can in a game. I'll ask him tomorrow to repeat the rest of it.

  6. Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    What game have you been playing? Its like 90% cheaper than that, the 500k exp per reveal is for lvl 150 items and higher.

  7. Trump minus th money
    IGN: xparasite9
    Server: Windia
    Level: 250
    Job: I/L Archmage
    Guild: Aerial
    Alliance: N/A

    Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    The problem, though, is that supply/demand doesn't apply to the Cash Shop economy (instead holding to the "highest price the market can bear" model), and the player economy is so volatile due to its vulnerability to illicit behaviors.

  8. Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    Wait, how does it apply?

    About the economic volatility: why would this be a problem?

    Not questioning your beliefs, honestly, just want to know why this can fail horribly so I can look elsewhere.

  9. Trump minus th money
    IGN: xparasite9
    Server: Windia
    Level: 250
    Job: I/L Archmage
    Guild: Aerial
    Alliance: N/A

    Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    Supply/demand doesn't apply to the Cash Shop because the virtual goods have no limit on their availability. They are not dependent on anything; outside of artificial "limited time" sales, there are no shortages or overstocks.

  10. Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    It's a problem because there really isn't a real life analogue to duplication and mass generation of commodities. One duping incident will screw up all of your analysis on trends arising from supply/demand.

  11. Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    Is it too much to hope that no one dupes anything for a while?

    sigh.

    And you both are right about the fact that the game creates things out of nothing.

    I'll question him tomorrow, since this is a pretty glaring problem. No doubt Rift does the creating-stuff-out-of-nothing thing too, curious to know how he is able to handwave something like that.

  12. Trump minus th money
    IGN: xparasite9
    Server: Windia
    Level: 250
    Job: I/L Archmage
    Guild: Aerial
    Alliance: N/A

    Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    Virtual goods, (except for Cash Shop items), while coming from out of nothing, still require an intangible opportunity cost, namely a great amount of effort. Supply is thereby limited by the players' stamina and perseverance. There might even be further restrictions, such as on how many attempts be made per day (or week). The virtuality only becomes a problem (again, excluding Cash Shop items) when the repetitive or difficult actions can become automated or outright sidestepped through duping.

  13. Default Re: Maplestory - Economics Project


    1. Pet equips like the guys above have said will make things amazingly easy

    2. Depends on your potion requirements, most classes can function pretty easily with just a jr boogie familiar out to regen mp. As for potentialing, that sort of stuff isn't effective at lower levels due to your lower base stats and attack, so straight up farming for +10 att additional potential stuff would be more efficient. Scrolling is also trivial at lower levels but if you really want to, the best options are generally free (event stores)

    3. Event stores, events etc

    4. Nope. Story is garbage imo, lore is interesting but as far as interesting roleplaying decisions goes, nothing, your character is forced into a cookie cutter route every time. (not even sorry) If you wan't to read up on the lore then just googling questlines would probably be more interesting.

    Anyway from what I've learnt in my HSC course on economics. Maplestory is nothing like any real world economy, you just can't slot in economics easily besides lulzy supply and demand curves. Theres no proper market regulation for starters and everything is skewed heavily in favour of people who are spending real money in comparison to mesos, which has no concrete equivalent to anything IRL.

    Then again the syllabus of Australian HSC economics may be completely different to what you learn over in California. Goodluck nonetheless.

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