After we decided to green-light the player-driven economy, we had some decisions to make about how it would impact and change the other systems. It?s big, and its tendrils stretch throughout the game, touching almost everything. In most cases, this is pretty minor stuff, quick decisions that we can make on the spot and move on. It?s not a tough call to say, for instance, that players will be making the different types of ammunition; it?s not hard to plan out which towns need auction houses.
And then there are the ships. There?s capturing them, there?s building them, there?s losing them. Our original plan, where certain ships were lost when sunk, made a lot of sense in a world where the ships were supplied by the game at a fixed cost. It didn?t make as much sense in a world where every ship represented an enormous investment by player manufacturers and shipwrights. Even worse were the consequences for pirate ship capture; any ship could be duplicated endlessly among pirates, at no cost to anyone and with no real penalties. This isn?t scary in a world where ships are easy to come by, but under the new economy it?s unacceptable.
It was no better in the other direction, either. Without any kind of real penalty for being sunk or captured, ships would only ever leave the game world if their owners scuttled them. Shipwrights wouldn?t be rewarded for their tremendous efforts, and new players seeking to become shipwrights would never be able to break into the market, due to lack of demand. Once you had your ?ideal? ships, you?d be set for life, as long as those ships weren?t the kind you lost on death. And, given the resources required to build ships, why would anyone use any other kind of ship?
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