Economy Thread #483: Let's Start Over

Lin

I was going to post this on @Mihaketi's excellent thread, but it was only tangential and I didn't wanna derail the whole thing.

Here is an idea I've had for a while, short and sweet:

• @Oleis writes a news post. He is going to perform a game-wide deletion of all gold and commodities, starting everyone from zero.
  
• He establishes a schedule for this: three RL months from his posting. Until then, your assets are safe. It is imperative that you spend and invest your money in the things you want.
  
• Three months later, boom, the nuke drops. We all start broke. No money on hand, none in the bank accounts, none in your haven or a little box you buried in the Morgun Forest. No player-held commodities, either. None in your shops. Nowhere but the commodity shops.
  

The premise of this idea is simple: Aetolia cannot meaningfully improve its economy if many players are still carrying around boatloads of old money. Resetting the money entirely would require us all to start on the same level. We can see, then, how valuable questing, bashing, fishing, and other sources of income really are. This must, by necessity, include the commodity market. Whether being bought up en masse by some rich player trying to turn them for profit, hoard them uselessly, or just ignored entirely by players who have been holding on to a full cache of comms since the early 2000s, the commodity system feels crippled because our economy is so stunted.

In fact, the event for this could be pretty easy: change Aetolia's currency. Esterport establishes stamps or paper bills or some other tender and gold is made worthless. Bam. Done. I have no clue how to explain the commodities. I still think it's a swell idea.

Anyway, discuss here.

Teani

Talk about basic items suddenly going up in price, especially if you can only get commodities from the villages. They are sought after for crafters and enchanters, meaning everyone else might not be as affected by that as others. All the quests in the game wouldn't be able to support everyone suddenly having to go out questing to be able to purchase the commodities needed to make the weapons one uses for fighting/clothes to wear for decency or weather, enchantments meant to protect, and so on.

I keep a steady flow of commodities as a crafter/enchanter/concoctionist, meaning I prefer to have a stock so I don't run out for whatever reason. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that not everyone is simply hoarding things just for the sake of holding on to them. Prices fluctuate on the commodity market and it's only natural to look for the cheapest prices and buy then as opposed to running out to get commodities on the fly, when they are needed (especially with crafting shelves that require a stock in the shop cache).

While a complete startover might sound like a good idea in some aspects, it's pretty harsh on those who have been working hard to become a successful and rich, especially since there's nothing right not to really spend the gold on before it gets snatched up and disappears. There would have to be something out there compelling enough for people to spend that hoard on.

Just some thoughts from my brain.

Zaila

This system sounds like a great way to piss off the playerbase who has worked for their current money and lose a lot of players to whom that may be a "last straw" frustration and disappointment.

Oleis

I'm not comfortable with your posting erotica on the forums.

Kerryn

While the idea would fix the issues, it also creates some. Because many people have bought credits online and sold them for gold and deleting gold, in essence robs the player of a real life investment which will upset people.

New currency could still happen, maybe an exchange rate of 1,000 gold equals 1 platinum coin. Or revert the gold back into credits at a set price that's fair, leaving say X amount in gold so there is some spending money. So nothing is really 'lost' they can still resell the credits if needed. Even then, new artifacts that get them interested in buying artifacts is a must. Otherwise instead of sitting on millions of gold with nothing to spend it on, they'll be sitting on credits that they can't spend anything on, which will upset people just as much.

Or create gold only artifacts or allow players to buy them with gold. However, those sitting on millions likely have all the artifacts they need. So, the artifacts would need to be extra special to get players to open their coin purses.

Buying levels with gold, could be an option, requiring at least level 100 to begin buying them during certain promotion times. Gaining levels isn't exactly game breaking. Just makes it easier on players who hate bashing, but higher levels will require more gold to get to the next level. Buying level 200 is not an option. Maybe a cap of level 195. So hitting 200 is still an achievement players must work for. Or you may only buy 5-10 levels period.

Or special bashing instance areas that require a gold admittance. Mobs in that area have a small chance to drop cool things. Bullseyes, grimstims, chocolates, fun cosmetic toys etc. Perhaps even tickets that when combined can be exchanged for artifacts with various levels, similar to the riding crop. Requires 10 tickets for level 1, 20 for level 2, etc. as an example.

Make customizing artifacts cost gold instead of credits. It's a minor thing, purely cosmetic. And I don't think it is a big part of IRE's income as only a few do them here and there, so shouldn't see a big hit in their profits. Makes for a long term gold sink.

Let players buy an extra Trade skill, 25 million gold, allows you to hold a max of two trade skills, instead of just one.

Let players buy boats, that consist of 3-5+ rooms, depending on the size of the boat. From a small dinky rowboat all the way up to huge ships. Which allows players to travel between islands. Can be docked in Esterport and can travel to all the isles and to Delve. Enorion citizens could have theirs docked in Enorian.

Toz

Legalize vakmut racing, gold for vakmut tickets. I'd be broke instantly.

...Seriously though, gambling for bound credits with some fun progs behind it? Even at an unfavorable rate, that'd be a hit.

Lin

Oleis said:

I'm not comfortable with your posting erotica on the forums.

he liiiikes iiiiit~

Rhyot

In my opinion, this would be a terrible idea. In all honesty, what is with you guys and wanting to seemingly destroy the in game economy?? You essentially want to punish players for actually playing the game and doing what they do. Not only would you be harming those who have actually sold credits for gold in the past (to make sure they always had gold on them without having to spend days/weeks bashing or doing quests) but you're going to completely destroy the commodity market, which will affect the LARGEST of the playerbase, Crafters.

Without their vast commodities, they can't craft the clothes that we wear on our characters. There won't be enchantments. There won't be vials to be crafted for a time. And furthermore, with commodities the way they are it would be difficult to get the comms needed to even make weapons for general everyday use because the comm shops will ALWAYS be sold out. Hell, they're usually sold out NOW.

Oh, and let's not forget all the taxes for your shops/houses and let's see them get repossessed. Oh and guard costs/upkeep as well, that's going to put you in debt. Oh, and all your fancy guild stuff you wanna do, yeah, that's gone too now.

If you want to fix the economy, think of ideas for gold sinks. Ideas like what Kerryn or Toz had. Those were legitimately good ideas. Furthermore, this so called reset would only last so long. Eventually players would once again have the millions of gold they originally had and players would have the commodities they had again. So all your reset does is put everyone on equal grounds and the only players this benefits are those who are JUST starting out on an alt, the players who essentially have nothing anyway, and/or the brand new players entirely.

Do I believe there needs to be gold sinks? ABSOLUTELY!!!!! But I do not think we need a complete economy reset because that, in my opinion, would be seemingly catastrophic.

Leana

The real fix for the game is to up the value of gold on many small scales. Some examples are:

At some point hunger was getting an overhaul, where the lvl 80 satiation ability would be pushed to 100 and only keep you at 'Weak from hunger' but not starving to death. Being utterly satiated brought buffs to stats or regen or other things and being close to hunger created endurance/willpower issues. Nothing that would drastically sway PVP, but would affect daily life and hunting. Give food worth, at 300-500g a meal, and you have a small scale sink.

Another is to allow for equipment repair via gold. If a shield lasts 80 weeks, a repair can bring it to X formula based on its current decay rate below the 50% mark. Or something. Give it a chance to fail and lower the weeks of usefulness. I know this would need to be coded/created as Aetolia has no durability system. But, maybe it should?

I could probably sit here and come up with twenty or more small scale gold sinks that won't make you feel like you're being punished and add to the flavor of the world. I would shy away from death penalty or city taxes as they can hinder you and make you more risk adverse. Actually, why not change the voluntary donation to function through an NPC and results in minor buffs within the city. Like special colored names on CWHO for the highest contributor?

Really, all of these issues seem low on the priority list with the guild/city changes in store.

Aishia

IDK kinda make me sick to think about. Probably not an idea that would come from anyone who had accrued any real wealth or investment. Really harms years of investments for some people and lots of hard work.

Lin

Aishia said:

IDK kinda make me sick to think about. Probably not an idea that would come from anyone who had accrued any real wealth or investment. Really harms years of investments for some people and lots of hard work.

I made approximately two million gold in literally two RL weeks.

Mihaketi

Everyone proposing small-scale day to day life goldsinks isn't really addressing the problem presented by literal millions of stockpiled gold. All you're doing by adding small frequent gold costs is making life harder for newbies and people who don't have shops or tradeskills. The issue here isn't people not spending gold on needful items, it's people with steady gold incomes having nothing to use that gold on. Let's say you add a couple of thousand extra gold in costs to day to day life - how is that going to impact someone sitting on a ten million gold hoard?

Rasani

I have to be honest, given that I had to pay 800k to keep my tavern after it became an rp spot, the idea of losing my tavern because all the gold I'd saved up was gone is awful.

Toz

The option 'delete it all and make them start over' won't fix the problem either. It'll still be 'hoard this gold', except 10000 times worse because people want to re-amass their fortune. Better bet IMO is to do a time-limited event/thing that does a solid gold->something useful so people dump cash, or create valuable high-tier gold sinks.

Gambling also good, nudge nudge enable me.

Trikal

Lin said:

I made approximately two million gold in literally two RL weeks.

So how does removing all the gold in game right now help the situation if in two RL weeks people will be sitting on millions again? The problem of people having lots of gold presently is minor compared to the one of the games 'cash flow' issue of gold which is tons of gold generated, not so much gold that goes away. Sounds more like you just want to be the richest since you know you can make gold relatively quickly and if everyone loses theirs you'll be on top of the gold mountain.

We need things to cost more gold/have value that makes the gold go away not to another character. If comms are really as much of a problem as they are increase their generation and up the cost increase on them when they're bought out by a lot. That's a start at least of somewhere for gold to go. Make city guards cost somewhere around 10x - 100x of their daily upkeep costs as they are right now.

Ideally the gold sinks are around the gold veins, if bashing is a major gold vein, it'd be great for things like moss/health to be actual sinks instead of player to player passive gold transactions, but I don't really know how that'd be accomplished without essentially removing concoctions / reanimation as trade skills.

Recently-ish the vast disparity between the gold veins and sinks was attempted to be brought closer together after cryptic chests were removing by reducing gold drops from bashing and many bashing related quests, but better sinks are still needed. Both to replace cryptic chests and because there was already people who were stockpiling lots of gold, which is fine, but if that's seen to be problematic there needs to be a reason for people to want to spend it. Not just take it away because it's caused a problem. That's like going, oh my foot hurts, I should probably cut off my leg and get a prosthetic, then it wont hurt and I'll still be able to walk, so status-quo without the bad part right?

There's plenty of options that can be done to reduce gold influx into the game, but as stated by many when gold drops were nerfed and fears that seem to be regularly voiced, this can easily adversely affect newer players. We need something along the lines of end-game gold sinks. Good bashing areas that cost gold to get into sounds like a great option, as two people who regularly have lots of gold seem to also spend lots of time bashing, myself and @Rhyot/@Zsadist. Something that high-powered, high-leveled, high-income generating people want that we can spend our gold on is what's needed, not a reset that's just going to be status-quo in a few months anyway when I still have nothing to spend my gold on. Unless it's being suggested that I end up using that gold to buy credits from the players who want to do what they're already doing, but now have to fork over actual cash so they don't have to spend time doing things they don't want to do for comms crafting or whatever else it is.

Basic day-to-day gold sinks are cool, but they're not going to affect the millionaires much, and very much so are going to hurt the people who're just reasonably comfortable. @Kerryn's ideas are all pretty good on things that would reasonably cost a lot of gold and would be worth spending it on, but are luxuries. A boat? Heck yeah sounds cool, plus status symbol, what chick doesn't wanna go out on a yacht with a crazy bloodthirsty bugman.

Eliadon

Gonna leave this here:
EDIT: wqetrikqwjrioqwr wrong EC video.

Here:



It's very relevant for this discussion.

here's the one I accidentallied first:

Leana

How does one make 2 million gold in two weeks? Because I'd love to know.

Mihaketi

It's a fair way off two million but I've got something close to 300k after a week, week and a half of consistent fishing.

Toz

Actually that'd be interesting. High pay-in bashing areas, just add levels of difficulty to Giovelli(sp?)'s thing near BL, or different modes.

Charge 30k a pop for minipet racing tickets, payouts ranging from 1cr to 30cr if you win, sell forging hammers for gold instead of 750cr because they'll never be worth it, let us offer gold at shrines to get essence, maybe offer some of the consumables that don't do much (wholist colored names etc.) for gold.

You could even crowdsource it, make a thread asking what people would dump gold on?

Lin

The point wasn't me wanting to flaunt my capitalist supremacy, although the attempts to project on me were laughable. I was answering Aishia, who seemed to be under the impression that I was Bad At The Game and therefore perceived an unfair advantage because everyone was rich.

I'm rich, too. I have two million gold and that's not even a lot compared to many players. What do you even do with gold like that? I mean I'm basically done with this thread, it was just a silly thought experiment. But I think there's a lot to think about, re: the value of our currency.

Fezzix

This isn't necessary and/or productive in the slightest bit. - Buford

Aishia

I just think any situation where you're TAKING AWAY value instead of ADDING it is going to enrage more people than it pleases.

Buford

Alright guys, we're veering into less productive discussion, and more personal attack type territory. No need for that. You're debating the concept here, not the player. It's been a little while since a thread's been shut down due to hostile interactions, let's keep that trend going.