Dwagin wrote: Xaviera wrote: The point of the question is to see what players are prepared to have happen to themselves. In other words, if you think it's a good idea but don't want to be nailed with it yourself, don't vote for it. This poll is flawed, it should be likely asked of those with the most amount of coin/economic insight not people without it.
As it would affect everybody, even those without much money or financial acumen will be affected. It's only fair to ask them too.
Dwagin wrote: Xaviera wrote: 2) Taxation system: A percentage of gold is taken from a character's cash on hand periodically - on login would probably be the easiest option, with some minimum interval (eg. 4hrs). It can either be based on RL time passed or actual time played (both have positives and negatives). May bottom out at a minimum below which no tax is assessed (eg. 5-10K). To promote more farming than already occurs? To punish people who play more hours per day so they have to farm more per day? I dislike this, its not the way, its a kludge to fix a different problem. Two claws down. (Income and outflow balance.)
See my comments below. I don't see that it will necessarily promote more farming than already occurs. People who are already farming won't stop, because they aren't looking for gold, they're looking for phat lewt. The incidental crap they pick up goes right back out to merchants for cash (the amount of which will be reduced by buy caps and slowly drained away by taxes). About the only time it might 'promote' farming is if a nice item comes up for auction - then I can see everyone rushing out to acquire more cash, but since everyone knows that gold doesn't stick around long, hopefully inter-player commerce will be more based on items once you reduce the 'staying power' of coin.
TormakSaber wrote: All of it. Simultaneously. Except taxes and gear repair. This must also be accompanied by a a slash of the entire store of gold you hold dear, with no warning, so that you may not attempt to weasel around it.
I personally favour 2-4 as they are applied across the board and so are equally fair (or unfair). 5-7 are good, but will only affect those who use those various services/features. I concur with Tormak that 8 is no good. 1 is a one-time fix but doesn't solve the problem (inflation doesn't go away). Only 3 (buy caps) and 6 (no gold drops) will have any significant effect on the amount of gold entering the economy, and none of the other options drain it away in any consistent manner.
Because gold comes from hunting, the only way to really stop it coming in is to cut down the supply of it (3) and have merchants pay less for the items (6) that are the only other source of unlimited income (besides the job system, which isn't big enough at this point to make a significant difference). Because people will still hunt and will still accumulate gold, there has to be an ongoing drain that is both all-encompassing and fair (2).
I think that 2 accomplishes this. It gets rid of gold, the same as 1, but more gradually, so it's less painfully obvious. It also has the virtue of being a continuous drain, so it helps to keep the problem from recurring. I think it should be combined with 3 & 6 for maximum effect. 4, 5 & 7 are really just icing on the cake.
My original proposal for tax was something like 1% per hour of logged-in time to reflect 'off-screen' expenses. It was combined with a stipend system where you also earned a small amount of cash from other 'off-screen' activities. Basically, if you just sat around and did nothing, your cash reserve would stabilize at some level (just under 100K for a maxed-out PC). If you do the math, it took a 1% tax rate something like 11 months of playing 35 hours a week to get down from 10 million to that level. It was based on RL time played on the assumption that if you weren't logged in you weren't doing much ICly (and you certainly weren't out hunting a lot) - the only down-side I can see of having it based on actual playing time instead of elapsed time is that rarely-played epics with hoards of cash could jump in to buy things at auction and then disappear again, so perhaps it should be based on elapsed time (and I'm inclined to think the rate should be at least 2%/hr). Those who are hunters or merchants will have higher balances but will have to turn the cash over faster to avoid the slow drain.
To me, this taxation system - even without other changes to the economy - accomplishes all of the desired goals - a continuous cash drain which is fair in that it affects all players in the same proportion and at the same rate and is also not too painful (in that balances take a while to drop). At the same time, it lets hunters/merchants have higher balances (though they have to be a bit more cautious about cash flow issues) but lets non-adventurers retain some cash for incidental expenses.
AlphaWaves wrote: I must add: Common gold sinks (Advertising, rented housing etc) only encourages me to Grind for GP, because I get a wee bit jealous of all the goodies that would push RP, but only achievable (And up-kept) by those that grind daily.
If you want to rent a house, though, or do anything else beyond the occasional purchase here and there, you may still need to go out and kill a few monsters or work with the job system if mayhem isn't your cup of tea. Still, my system has a minimum balance (100 * level^2 gp), so even a 5th level who never grinds ends up with about 2.5K gp, which should be enough to equip for an expedition or rent that cheap house for a reset. So in fact my tax/stipend idea should accommodate all types of players except hoarders.
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