I say this with all the love in my heart for a site that is still developing, but the state of the market unsustainable. Something has gone severely wrong, and I think at this point the site badly needs a professional opinion to work out some of the major kinks.

@Kal

I agree, it would help stabilize the unfairness between MS and pebbles and the overall economy which is relying a bit too much on FR or other petsites for crosstrading >.<;;

Edit: I did another post on page 3

So I read this and I’m confused.

While economists do play an arguably valuable role in the real world, I really don’t think a pet sim needs an economist. Let’s be real, all pet sim economies are terrible. I’ve yet to play one that has a good one. Because they don’t exist with the same rules as the ‘real world.’ Not to mention, an economist hired for the sites main goal is going to be to make the site more money. This might lead to balancing the economy in player’s favor, or the other direction.

While I understand big MMOs sometimes hire economists, they do so because they are arguably dealing with hundreds of millions of real life currency being bought for fake currency. They are also dealing with a much bigger player base than lorwolf probably ever will, and much bigger net income.

yeah, i'm no expert but things don't seem...good. to say the least.

and given how very many players have made it clear things aren't working, how many i see already trading things for other sites, and the fact we were promised that the most recent dev update would address the situation and then it just...didn't, well. i feel like disaster is on the horizon if something isn't done.

so if the devs are struggling behind the scenes to fix it or simply don't know what to do, i'd say this is definitely something they'd benefit from. and extremely preferable to just waiting it out and hoping things fix themselves, which i really hope isn't their game plan.

I distinctly remember Flightrising mentioning that they had done this, and I am not surprised as the economy on Flightrising has been very, very solid compared to most other pet sims.

It's an expensive purchase but I think it would greatly improve the site to at least have someone with a better understanding of economics who can advise on why certain features are really bad for the health of the economy.

Unfortunately as much help as other aspects of the site need, the economy is struggling and it's only going to get worse if it's not addressed as soon as possible. It's going to be really hard to fix things once there are more features and items and ways to get money, etc. It's best if dealt with as soon as possible.

This thread would benefit from specific examples on what's wrong with the economy to keep everything consolidated.

Huge disagree on this though. The devs should talk to their mods, who should be active players to know the innerworkings of the economy. They're there for more than just sending out account warnings.

@Ninetails

I'm not sure that I understand. Why would players approach moderators, who do not make decisions on game mechanics, instead of making suggestions for the devs to read?

Moderators on any pet site shouldn't be expected to be masters in the sites economy, not everyone is into that level of analysis of a site. They're here to uphold the rules and keep the community in line.

A lot of the problems around pet site economies do stem from it being fundamentally different from real life economies. Though it does mirror real life issues, such as inflation. These things snowball even faster on pet sites because pet sites have an ever expanding currency base. The more players join, the more currency enters the economy; the more currency that the site creates out of the ether as rewards, the more currency enters the economy. Much of the time, pets also enter into the economic ecosystem at a much higher rate than they can leave the ecosystem. The more pets there are, the less each pet is worth. The more currency there is, the less the currency is worth.

Additionally, there's the perceived value of pets and the currency to the players. Many of the complaints around moonstones exist because users have perceived their value to be significantly higher than other pet site premium currencies as well as much much higher than pebbles; mostly because moonstones are used for quite a few gameplay areas rather than only cosmetics. Pets are also struggling to have a value, from what I can see at least.

A big part of successful pet site economies is balancing all of these values. If there's currency entering the economy then there has to be an equal way for that currency to leave the economy, else the currency's value decreases very quickly. Premium currency usage must be balanced in a similar way while also ensuring that you do not alienate F2P players as well as giving it enough perceived value to encourage purchase. Pets have to be similarly balanced to currency; if a pet enters the ecosystem then there must be an equal way to remove a pet from the ecosystem so that the market will not be flooded.

Things like FR's exalting, pet death mechanics, and currency sinks, are all useful to a successful pet site economy. Conversely, Lorwolf doesn't have any equivalent to exalting and pet death other than releasing. Releasing is hardly encouraged, however, because it's rewards are so minimal. Exalting works because it gives rewards. Another site I'm on, called Sylestia, doesn't give rewards for individual releases but does have frequent "release contests" where players are rewarded individually for releasing the most pets. Pet death works because it's not even a choice for the player (outside of premium items that grant immortality).

Lorwolf does have some regular currency sinks, mostly in the form of mole market items, but the issue here is that you have to ensure that you cover all types of players with your currency sinks. Mole Market items mostly target collectors, personally I haven't spent much at the Mole Market because I don't care about collecting all the companions or anything similar. It also has the issue of having a limited supply, eventually players will run out of new mole market items and begin just stockpiling pebbles that they'll use immediately when a new item drops. You can't just target one player demographic with your sinks, you have to cover them all and you have to make sure they have longevity.

Personally, I think there's a lot of basic economy issues with Lorwolf that probably should have been considered way way back in the first game design planning. Pet site economies aren't a new discussion, there's a lot of examples of what does and does not work out there. It surprises me when new pet sites don't seem to consider the issue from the very beginning.

Obviously though, a brand new pet site will always need some time to balance itself out. However I would be surprised if these issues didn't appear during the beta/early access testing. And many of these issues will not be something that balances in time without significant changes.

@Loki Mods on any site wear many hats. It is always to a person’s benefit to reach out with site concerns to them if you go into it thinking that an answer might not be given immediately, or at all. Viewing mods as a ‘police force’ essentially takes away the fact they are also players. They shouldn’t be expected to be experts, but they should also keep an eye out on how the game plays.

On topic, I think it’s too early for one. Wait and see what other things they do to alleviate the need for moonstones, or make it easier for people to get them. They did say they have intent to release more things for pebbles. Since the new companions were released the pebble to moonstone price did decrease.

@Synesthesia

I would expect players to reach out to a mod if they don't understand how a certain aspect of the site works, or if they're not sure if X thing is a bug they should report or not.

It just sounds weird to say you should approach a mod because you're concerned the economy is failing.

As someone who has modded for multiple pet sites before, I would tell any player that directly messaged me something like that to go to the suggestion forums or use the contact us feature so the game devs/admins can read it lol

Anyway I know this is off topic, just really strange response to a suggestion thread about a concern that is echoed by a lot of players across multiple different forum sections/discord.