I’m curious what others think about the current state of the LW economy, and if it will change in the short-term or long-term.

Pebbles are both somewhat hard to save unless you’re grinding activities and moonstones are harder still. Plus the current rate of exchange seems to be quickly going up. Meaning, for me the exchange is 1:15,000 but I haven’t seen any moonstones on the flea market below 1:22,000 in quite a while.

With regards to items, it seems like nothing is worth a considerable amount of currency except for Kickstarter items, exceptionally pretty wild wolves, and … that’s it. Some special ID wolves will get a good price and rarely Generation 2 wolves will also but I can’t think of anything else that can be a consistent source of income. Even the harder companions to get are very low value in my option (i.e. the tigers from the Arena), and selling items such as food or craftable apparel for a profit is slow and difficult.

In summary - I’ve been having trouble identifying what “niches” there would be for making currency without spending real-life money or lucking out in getting wild wolves.

What are everyone’s thoughts?

it's really ironic that i log in after almost a month and this is the most recent post. i stopped playing because the economy, frankly, sucks. there are no pebble sinks, making pebbles nearly valueless once you've acquired the 30 or so apparel pieces and familiars that require them. earning moonstones is capped at 2.5 per day and moonstone apparel costs dozens of them. the wolf release feature provides a laughable amount of pebbles for the invested time and food points. getting a decent looking wild wolf is nearly impossible (strictly by the numbers; i've complained at length on another post so i won't soapbox here) because there are four color slots and there's no way to tweak them a little without randomizing all four.

lorwolf is just... really disappointing me, honestly. i backed the kickstarter because it looked like a solid proof-of-concept. but the complete radio silence from the developers has carried on for literally months. they have made only the most token of efforts to address many players' concerns about the game being heavily weighted toward paying players, and a tedious, boring grind for everyone else.

maybe september will give us an announcement that'll turn my entire attitude around. it's possible! i'm still in the official discord, just in case. but at this point, my hopes are not high. it's a bummer, 'cause like i said, really solid proof-of-concept. nice looking art. markings and color system that's similar enough to FR that i knew i'd enjoy it, but different enough to feel fresh and interesting. it's just the economy, man. :pensive:

edit 15 mins later: i did some poking around the forums and it looks like the moonstone to FRG ratio is down from 1ms:14g to 1ms:11g. moonstones losing buying power in cross-site trades is, to me, a bad sign. it means i'm not the only one who feels that LW is not worth remaining invested in.

I hope that time will straighten out some of the valid issues mentioned above, and that added content will do the rest. My fear is that players will abandon the site before it evens out and the economy will get to DV levels of bad. I played early access (was too late for the kickstarter) and figured there'd be more improvements by now. Since May there's been some additions but no real new content, like wolf breeds, pattern changes, or other specialty items. I'm not saying the devs aren't working on things. I'm just saying it seems a bit slow and players may not be invested in the same old, same old. I love the concept, but I'm getting burned out, too.

I was always assuming that more pebble items were going to be released to significantly help stabilize the economy. The way it currently is is definitely not sustainable in the long run. There isn't much of a game going on if all the best stuff costs RLC.

I'm currently okay with doing the grind in preparation for the promised stuff to drop, but if it takes too long to deliver (maybe a few more weeks?) then I'll probably lose interest and switch to playing something else.

I've been playing for the past two months, the economy really sucks. Stuff is way too over priced, and to even get "good" looking apparel ie: custom apparel, even that costs an arm and a leg. I don't really mind the grind, but theres not a whole lot you can do when the conversion rate is so high.

I think it will definitely get better, but it might take a while. We're in a bit of a slow period right now, not helped by the fact there wasn't any update at all during August due to the release achievement system being pushed back. Delaying this feature to make sure it was functional was definitely the right decision by the devs, but the unfortunate side effect of this is that we have now gone two months without an actual update. Things feel very stagnant because of this, and a lot of players are probably taking time away from Lorwolf or just playing minimally until something new draws them back. That of course means less people buying and selling wolves+items.

There's some features that needs tweaking, and a lot that feels lacking at the moment. We really need more patterns, better incentives to release wolves, and more stuff for pebbles in general. In the grand scheme of things though, we're still very early on in the game's lifetime, and I think a lot of that stuff will come with time. The devs are working on stuff behind the scenes, and hopefully they are taking player feedback into account when planning new features and reworking existing ones. This rough period seems like it's just growing pains to me.

This is a tricky one. Everyone else above here has covered the topic quite well. I've watched multiple people now leave one site for this one, and then return.

I keep seeing the same answers when people are trying to value things: "don't know, just try and sell something and see what works". I almost feel like Lorwolf doesn't have a true economy yet, which is strange because the site has been released long enough to have the opportunity to develop something stable by now. With a confused playerbase of few new players and others jumping ship, of course the site's economy is in weird flux. There are only a few things that are worth player trading for, and that needs to change to strengthen the economy. New items that only the devs can give us.

But a game also needs to run for a certain amount of time in order to identify these problems- and then it takes time to develop solutions. Devs need to observe the game in action and see what players will do with their items and how they shift the economy before providing fixes and balancing. Aside from that, they have so many other things to worry about than just in game economy at site launch. It's a small team of people, working on developing new things while waiting for enough player feedback to roll in, then carving out time to work out the things players prove need revisiting.

The remaining question is though: do we have devs that are willing to do this stuff players are asking for? Probably: the game is brand new. There's no reason for them to not look into altering this stuff for us. It's in their best interest to do so, but it can't happen overnight or in a week. Art assets take a lot of time, and so does proper coding.

So all in all, I'm optimistic for things getting better. If it's still like this after a year, that's when we should be concerned.

The game is still really new, they said they will cover these issues; they've hired new artists to do work on pebble items, the achievement system should reward us with currency...it'll all just time, I'm personally not worried

I second Cealygosa. I truly believe everything will balance out and the devs have some really great plans ahead of us.

They've been very transparent and have kept us updated. It feels quiet, but that's because they're actually working very hard to bring us something amazing. New updates take so much time behind the scenes and that just requires us to have patience. And honestly, there's soooo much to do in the meantime with the professions and how much they tie in together. Once you start reaching certain levels in them you can really start bringing in a decent amount of currency and do things like hunt for Kapros through your own resources from mining and crafting, and it doesn't cost you a pebble. I've discovered for myself that companions can bring in a ton of currency if you collect the right ones, and not nearly all of them are kickstarter related.

In terms of economy, I feel like things are so expensive (like the current ms to pebble ratio) because so many people just aren't playing and contributing to the economy. There's a bunch of things I watch for in the FM but players just aren't selling things, and that causes what is listed to be so expensive.

What actually worries me is the number of people leaving because they don't have the patience to wait out what the devs have promised to bring us and enjoy the amazing game that we currently have. I only say that because I'm constantly finding things to do in this game that I hadn't known about before.

I second and third Riverglow and Cealygosa. Lorwolf is a game of patience, and there's a lot of users who get upset they can't buy what they want right away without working.

Thanks all for your thoughts. :) Does anybody have ideas on how we can make money consistently at this stage in the game?