Thoughts on economics

[Tobin]

"The OOC economy has no great effect on the RP in of itself. Because gold in general does not mean we have a monopoly on anything, it only brings to the point that gold is decoration and has no real value other than to have a friendly competition of seeing who is the richest. In addition, while there are purchases that are "big" to certain people, it is not as if the rich keep the money to themselves. Time and time again, money has been donated and given to those who did not have enough. Economy in an RP is not something that has much value nor needs to be held in such high regards. There's a reason why we get 50 gp per post and 4% interest daily. It was never meant to have such a big vested role in the RP, at least that's how I see things"

I was requested to put it here. Personally, the entire money system would need a rejig to work. Just as said, things happened.

[Yuri]

The economy is a subject that is really a hot topic right now and I apologize for setting anything off. I'm a very open and blunt kind of person. I say what I think and give people the a run down on the situation. I like to bring possible big changes before the community before implementing them in order to get opinions and suggestions on how to make it better or why it's wrong. Gold for the longest time has not had very much value. The guild housing system was created to give the community something they have been asking for as well as an avenue to spend some of that gold. This was based on the economy at the time and made so it could be affordable by the efforts of guilds on some level. However with an update to the plugin for the monetary system, the stock market came along with it.

We originally thought that it was going to be like an alternative method to the bank interest bonus, which at 4% was good for an activity bonus. What we thought was that it would add some risk and a little more fun to the just posting every day. What we did not forsee was that the plugin would be bugged and could lead to some rather astronomical gains in gold. This has thrown things askew for those who participate in the stock market vs those that do not. I'l admit that my wording in the notes was too harsh. I did not intend for it to single out anyone or create new problems. I was wanting to state that we've got some inflation and that we're looking into how we can help fix it. For me when I put these things out there like that, it means I'm looking for some discussion and input. I want opinions on how we can fix things or make them have a little more meaning. In the case of gold, I've let it be because it does not have much impact at all right now outside of housing.

Because of how the market/gold plugin functions, we can only have 1 type of currency in the system, so adding anything else automatic is out the window. I had brought up a solution I was thinking about which was a new currency system tied into claims and AP which could be used for certain things like event items, upgrades and special items. One of the suggestions I heard to fix gold was to institute level restrictions on certain purchases which I think is a viable solution to it. In the end this was never intended to punish or single out players but to create a discussion on how we can improve the economy and make it more fun, meaningful and interactive for the people participating in it which is the reason for the whole update and the things staff here have been working on like new classes. Gold's function right now is fairly limited and we want to work on it without removing anything or making it a negative experience.

I apologize for the way that it came out with the economy. I don't want any more conflict over this. We're not going to scrap the current gold system but we want to add in new items and new things to help make it more meaningful. As for me, I have always been a gamer first and unfortunately that is how I view a lot of things as the RP communities are still rather new to me. From my experiences there I've learned that being as open and honest with the community is the best thing that I can do. It doesn't lead to surprises people don't like or me thinking an idea I came up with by myself is the best. It encourages discussion and allows for the community to help craft a solution they are comfortable with rather than being informed of one that somebody else decided for them. People that know me from SAO know that I'm not a big fan of user targeted patches as it's happened to me multiple times. I don't want to keep things secret and I want your guys help in order to come up with solutions and additions to this site in order to make it a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved. So please, when we bring up something we're working on, give us your thoughts and opinions. I want the focus to be on how we can make things better and not what is wrong.

[Saber]

NPC Shop.

I say this on almost every site I go to with items and money because it creates an actual economy. Here, to be honest, there is no economy. You just have people making money without having anything to spend that money on.

"An economy or economic system consists of the production, distribution or trade, and consumption of limited goods and services by different agents in a given geographical location. The economic agents can be individuals, businesses, organizations, or governments. Transactions occur when two parties agree to the value or price of the transacted good or service, commonly expressed in a certain currency." -Wikipedia

What that definition means is that a person or business makes an item, and sells it to the consumer who has earned some sort of currency. Said currency goes to the seller while the consumer takes the item. The seller then goes and makes more of their product with the money provided by the consumer, while the consumer works to make more money to buy more things.

We don't have that here. Sure, we have to pay for equipment and Housing but beyond that, there's nothing. There's no special equipment upgrades, no special weapons, no special emotes or flashing things, and nothing that actually effects our characters IC. Weapon skins are now becoming a thing, and that is what I personally think we need to see more of, as those actually cost a bit of money and as you can see on some people's mini-profiles; people spent that money. Aside from weapon skins and the two other things I mentioned, I have no reason to use the money I have. With that in mind; I am just going to keep bringing money in until I seriously am sitting on a pile of gold. That will only make the situation worse and by the time the Staff react, I'll already have enough to counter.

If you give people a reason to spend money, and make it worth their while, then they will spend money. No matter how stupid the item is, someone will buy it. Why? Because they want it. They may not need it, but their brains are telling them that it will die if they don't have it.

Create a flow of money and give players a reason to spend what they have, and you will have the economy you all keep talking about. I don't see anything close to an economy here, just money falling from the sky. If someone tells you otherwise, then they're wrong.

[Haneroze]

Like I've said previously, the economy was already doomed to fail with the bank, as you can simply not buy an item until you actually have more than enough to gain that item's price in a single day, rendingering the price completely worthless. To give the idea:

An item costs 100,000 gold.
If you have exactly 100,000 gold, buy it now and you lose somewhere between 3 and 5 months worth of daily income.
Keep posting daily for a month, and buying the item will now cost you only ~9 days worth of post.
Keep posting daily for another month, and it's now only worth ~2 days worth of posts.
And I'm not even considering the Stock Market in those calculations.

This difference of value makes it impossible for an economy to be born between the players. The value of gold is extremely low for high-level players, but much higher for beginners. So it's faaar easier for any veteran to just do things for free, knowing that the best newer players can give are worth nothing for themselves, while it would deeply hurt the pockets of that person. Instead, they give what isn't worth a single day of value to other players, to whom it is worth months of interest. No trade will ever be equal, but it at least has the good point that it's easier to be generous to newbies.


So here are some possible solutions:

-Make costs and transactions mostly based on percentage. Say for example, a personal house would be worth 10,000 gold + 30% of your total money. Every digit reduces the percentage by 2%, so if you have a million gold (1,000,000, so 7 digits), the price would become 10,000 + 160,000 (16%) gold. However, this solution may complicate both price calculations, as well as how you would pull it off (we have to make sure it takes into account both held, banked and stocked money). And as we know many people don't want to math, this choice would probably drive away a few people.

-Prices divide your total money by a set amount for every transaction. Except at lower values with the +50 gold per post, if you divide anyone's money by 10, you essentially cut away 59 days worth of posting (ignoring the Stock Market). It's quite similar to the previous solution, and so holds pretty much the same problems.

-Items become achievements, not goods. Reach 10,000 gold, and you get a personal home. Reach 100,000 gold, and you upgrade it to level 2. Some prices would probably need to become dynamic, like buying a Skill skin would cause the next Skill skin's price to be multiplied by 2. This is essentially how it's working currently, with the two differences that prices are not set within this view, and money are being deduced, making us take the decision that the longer you wait before purchasing something, the less you lose. This currency could also be renamed to something like "Buying power", just to say it does not reflect actual money you possess IRP.

-Find a formula that would allow to convert everyone's sum into a new linear monetary system. For example, everyone over 10,000 gold gets their total gold squared down, then multiplied by 100. This would mean:
*10,000 gold remains 10,000
*1,000,000 gold becomes 100,000
*100,000,000 gold becomes 1,000,000
And then money gain would change to a more linear one. I'm not saying this is a good formula, but it may be a good clue on how to deal with the conversion. If I was given data of everyone's bank, I could try to figure a formula that reflects better how much everyone would have on a linear gain system based on how much they currently have.

-Scrap the money system entirely, and simply have everyone decide how much money they have IRP. This would mean everyone can simply decide they have enough money for anything they want, and would thus require good trust of your players. And then again, some players may prefer having some sort of money to show off, even if it almost serves no purpose.


Which one you think is the best, I let you decide. We could even have a poll to let players decide which solution they prefer.

[Deleted]

I can elaborate on this more, later, but we had this problem on Epoch for a long time, and after a lot of debate and research we found only one possible solution:

Don't touch the economy.

Set up an NPC shop, sure, but you mustn't touch the flow of money itself. No matter what you do to it, even if it improves everything, you're going to piss off large parts of the memberbase and make people unhappy on either side of the spectrum. There just isn't a way to go about it. I can elaborate on all our findings more, later, when I have the time / care, but the basics is that there is not a good way to do it once its been done.

The damage is done, more or less, so you need to live with it.

That and the economy on LH never meant anything so idk why its a big deal

[Haneroze]

It's only a big deal if they wish to have a real economy. Which the players don't really want to care for much.

But I can very well understand how you came to that conclusion. When we grow used to something, we usually don't want it to get changed. This is the reason I left Firefox for Google Chrome, I didn't want any of the interface changes that came with the updates. This is one of the reasons the community grew horrible in Dofus, who continues, even after many years, to claim a server of a now much older version. And it's possibly also the reason why many people still continue to go back to old classic games which, even after 15 years, still have not changed one bit.

But also, we often find fun in stuff that is broken. Goat Simulator proved how fun it is to play with bugs. And a game where some stuff look really overpowered (other than cash shop items) is more fun to play than one where everything seem equal in power. A broken feature can be an attractive feature.

[Tobin]

Very well, I will weigh in with my own thoughts then.

Currently I am perfectly fine with any whole hearted changes to the money system, provided that it is a complete overhaul that it is designed to provide a reasonable buy/sell rate. That is pretty much the only measure that I would accept, since the current paragon of interest % means that there is very little reason to even think about spending money unless your already rich. The answer would be to up the per post count by 50 (for a total of 100 per post) and have the highest price ranged items avalible in the 10,000's, rather then the millions. That way there is a static system that support activity and personal wealth. This of course would mean a massive rejigging from everything from crafts to what not to produce a new item range, and likely the items themselves would likely have to cost less so that classes can make profit.

My first interest however is towards roleplaying. Everything else is a tertiary interest at best. I don't really care what money system is there or about any bells or whistles that can be attached to the RP. The moment the machanics start meaninglessly interfering with what I can do and cannot do is when I start having problems. Like that time it was suggested that we couldn't have high level players because weapons determined everything a few months ago, but we couldn't craft anything above level 10 anyways, that meant additional levels were fairly meaningless. That is the sort of artifical barriers that I have very little interest in. Thus I actually don't see any need in introducing a pricing system. I am just here to have adventures and everything else is just there as a little something to fiddle around with when I'm bored.

And what I am not fine with generally is a precieved discrimination against the players. Personally my only time I have felt as such was at the suggestion there simply couldn't be high level players, but then that turned out to stem from a misunderstanding. I believe firmly that there was a misunderstanding via poor commications, but as said the systems successes and flaws are often best exhibited by prioneering players.

In short, I don't believe theres a huge deal in change and I'm more then happy to say "the dwarf built a giganic money making empire for being the best brewer for a time. He's rich enough to get what he needs. Well, that and being a epic hero would mean that landers would generally accomidate his needs anyway."