Re: SWG, I assume you know the boring answer - "Because people won't need to participate in an economy if they don't have upkeep costs to a certain level of power". I say with the deep wisdom of having link-crawled that blog, probably off the same source as you?
Hmm. I wonder if that's solvable. Because players won't do things that they find fun (like crafting, buying and selling) unless it matters, and since you have stuff going into the economy you need stuff going out. I suppose there's e.g. flight rising's exaltation mechanic, but in an old-school-MMO context you specifically need people to be sinking their best gear/character resources. Upkeep and/or decay is the obvious choice but I would like to know if there's another one?
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Hmm. I wonder if that's solvable. Because players won't do things that they find fun (like crafting, buying and selling) unless it matters, and since you have stuff going into the economy you need stuff going out. I suppose there's e.g. flight rising's exaltation mechanic, but in an old-school-MMO context you specifically need people to be sinking their best gear/character resources. Upkeep and/or decay is the obvious choice but I would like to know if there's another one?