AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

It's been a while since I've been wheeling and dealing in Amian gold, but how's that money problem from a few months ago working out? How there was too much of it or something. I know I'm doing my part by destroying as much gold as I can.

As a personal opinion, Money Inflation in the PC-to-PC Market is still exploded and rediculous.

But the overblow multi-million auctions have been less frequent. So perhaps there is some success with housing rental, purchasing of job good from traders, gambling houses, ects.

Or it could be that there has been a lack of highly demanded items between the multi-millionairs.

Regardless, because gold can constantly and indefinitly appear off monster as well as items to sell for 100,000's, the PC-to-PC Market will always face inflations.

Unfixable unless prescribed my specific and extremely drastic changes, which are not going to happen because players do not want to suffer when the current system grinds to a sudden and grotesque standstill.

50% of all money disappearing would be an interesting effect.

50%? Not enough. More like, if you have more than 500k, you're dropped to 500k, and a variable placed on you so the system knows it ganked you. Then all sales are capped at 35k or whatever number.

That's still not a fix though. That's a bandaid for a problem that would come back later. But it would ebe an immediate fix for the gold 'crisis'.

Still think we need a simulated Wall Street crash on Amia.

TormakSaber wrote:

50%? Not enough. More like, if you have more than 500k, you're dropped to 500k, and a variable placed on you so the system knows it ganked you. Then all sales are capped at 35k or whatever number.

That's still not a fix though. That's a bandaid for a problem that would come back later. But it would ebe an immediate fix for the gold 'crisis'.

That idea, I like.

Fix the gold inflow vs gold outflow, then you can kneecap hoards.

You know, something like this happened on Ultima Online more than a decade ago. You know what happened? Somebody "found" an new material (like titanium) that made the gold standard obsolete, and all the super-rich players were left holding a pile of coal.

But I like the idea of a 30s style market crash with people jumping out of the two-story buildings in Cordor, bouncing, getting up and doing it again and again.

D-Finitiy wrote:

You know, something like this happened on Ultima Online more than a decade ago. You know what happened? Somebody "found" an new material (like titanium) that made the gold standard obsolete, and all the super-rich players were left holding a pile of coal.

But I like the idea of a 30s style market crash with people jumping out of the two-story buildings in Cordor, bouncing, getting up and doing it again and again.

"Lifes not good without money!" *jumps and dies*
*random character* *uses scroll* "There you go."
"I.. I am alive again!"
"That makes 2k gold."
"Nooooooo!"

*Reiley jumps and dies. Random character raises him*

// ooc raise
// yea, thanks
*a minute passes*
// how about 2000 gold for that?
// what?
// for the raise.
// no I mean what gold
*another minute passes*
// hey it's not cool to not pay people back for raising you
// mistell?

This is pretty pointless.

If it makes you feel any better drop a 0 off the end of any monetary amount you see.

Its rather not pointless.

The economy do be fixed when:

Store sales are capped to 20k
Spells cost gold: 2 GP/Spell Level x Character Level
Tormak or Yoss' cull to 500k
Lowering Chances of Solo Loot to 1 - 3 percent (Setting Boss Loot to 1 percent static)
Improving Chances of Party Loot (Including Boss Drops)
Appraise is maxed out on all merchants
Loot/Gold drops are cutoff if your party CR is five higher than the creature CR (CR adjustments to specific creatures follow)

That won't do it. I've already spelled out what will, and it doesn't involve a cull to 500k.

Yossarin wrote:

That won't do it. I've already spelled out what will, and it doesn't involve a cull to 500k.

Can you provide a link?

No. I don't know where I detailed it, but I detailed it somewhere and I don't like repeating myself. If it didn't matter the first time, it won't matter the second, third, or fourth.

It is pointless. The very first thing you learn in Economics 101 is whenever you try to artificially limit the economy in some way, the free market finds a way to compensate.

And I've seen this borne out on every single PW I've played on that tried to do so.

The only problem that exists is in the minds of the players who are too lazy to go out and earn money.

No, they are earning money. The problem that exists here that you do not see in the free market is the fact that it is an enclosed microcosm. They are earning money. The problem is that the level 30's do not have expenses and so are pulling in a disproportionate amount of money compared to everyone else. This applies double for clerics and mages.

The problem is not "you are too lay to get money", the problem is "a million is not enough because I have 55 million".

There's also the fact that this isn't real life economics and although rich and poor and poorest may exist, it's not something we try to model espeically when it is destroying the fun for many players.

It is not pointless. But as long as the bossfarmers and goldfarmers play Scrooge with their gold, the economy will be a shambles.

When I joined Amia in 2008, it was pretty well agreed people wanted a solution to the inflation but nobody would like any of the ideas. The economy topic that was going then was actually one of my first posts on the forums to reply to. I remember being given a kuddo's for it as a new player

Have always been proud of that warm-welcome.

Since then, Amia has implimented Rentable House and the Job System. Both of these can leech gold right out of the PC playerbase! Gambling does this too now, with some payback.

And that actually seems to be helping. Giving something players want that is "extras". Not a spike on heal potions ("needs" for a lot of players) but houses that are "I would like to use this because I can! 5k for the reset? No problem!"

It's the same way players actually buy Drinks ICly and hand them out. Or food. And we place it on the tables and/or actually 'use' them so it vanishes. boom, so did the gold.

The small, little helps that Amia is getting is the "Extra Goodies" that leech out money directly. Is it a fix? Naw. But it's progress.

That and the Black Caravan, a merchant guild that can suck out money just as well as it can go throwing it out to buy something. No doubt it has absorbed multi-millions from Amia.

There is progress. And it is there. It may be small. But the greatest thing is the playerbase actually enjoying it. Those of us who buy the houses, buy the food/drink, that like the Black Caravan prices, that purchase from the job-system. All those extra RP goodies in there just plain eat up gold. And people like it!

Even if the BC has removed 100,000,000GP from the module since its inception, that only covers about 400 runs through the spires/yuan-ti.

I'm pretty sure those places get at least 20 runs through per 24hr period, minimum.

200,000,000 now, Dwagin.

The failure of the unregulated market. The communists were right all along!

One idea for a small moneydrain that makes IC sense is taxation. Want to b a citizen of a settlement and thus enjoy the benefits of citizenship? Pay your taxes. In good soscial-democrati fashion, theese could even be progressive. If you are Uncle Scrooge, you will pay a lot more than Donald.

I especially forsee this happen on certain auctions.

First, set the cap for every item sold to 2-5k gold. Second, put a system in place that subtracts gold from all characters whenever an item is sold, with the excuse of taxes, various living fees.

For an instance, Evil Joe sells an axe for 4000 gold. Let's say the server has 400 active characters. Each of those characters get 10 gold taken away from them.

This would stop the inflow of gold, and in turn, make the economy regulated. On the other hand, it would most likely create an abomination of lag that the world has seldom seen. Possibly.

Doesn't work, people. You just shift to an item based economy if you devalue gold.

Valuable commodity remains valuable.

Neso wrote:

For an instance, Evil Joe sells an axe for 4000 gold. Let's say the server has 400 active characters. Each of those characters get 10 gold taken away from them.

This would stop the inflow of gold, and in turn, make the economy regulated. On the other hand, it would most likely create an abomination of lag that the world has seldom seen. Possibly.

Great, so not only do I have comparatively less money than the gold farmer, they actively take my gold? I think that's a terrible idea

Torzeng hit the nail on the head. The rentable houses, BC, etc. that take money from the "bored 30's with nothing to spend their money on" and completely eliminates that gold from the market is what's needed. The issue is, how to find other ways to stimulate these Scrooges to spend more of their money.

What if a string of Auction Houses sprung up and all auctions had a surcharge tacked onto them. 10% perhaps? You pay 3 mil for that SS longsword, well, the seller only gets 2.7 mil. It may not be much, but with how many auctions I see, it would be a start. You get caught running bootleg auctions and you get a fine from the city (which would be more than the 10%, or course) or something similar.

Want to set up a shop in the Market Hall? You have to pay a surcharge to Cordor. Almost like buying a temporary license to sell stuff from the city. It could be a flat rate or could track items going out of your inventory and automatically charge a percentage based on their value and would last for one reset.

Agree to a price, leave the borders of Cordor, hand over the money. Or simply drop the gold on the ground, drop the weapon, and pick it up.

Yurell wrote:

Agree to a price, leave the borders of Cordor, hand over the money. Or simply drop the gold on the ground, drop the weapon, and pick it up.

That'd be bootlegging and if a NPC happened to come across and notice and just so happened to tell the authorities, then they face the penalties. Treat it in the same fashion as twinking or muling. Sure, people do it, but when (not if) you get caught, you face the penalties. I'm sure it helps to cut down on it. Could even go so far as to have an "enforcement squad" that may show up and take the gold and the item from both sides. Either which way, the threat of being caught could be more than enough to keep that kind of action to a minimum. That and if they set it on the ground, they always run the risk of a crash causing them to either lose their gold or their item. I know I wouldn't risk a piece of my epic loot to the chance a crash could get me.

*Shrugs* Or you could just auction the items on the forum.

Edit: My point is, that people will always try to avoid it, and can do so with relative ease. I'm not opposed to trying it, but I have a look at that 10% you gave an example of, and see enough money to pay for every raise I've ever had on my characters.

I do tend to notice that the only ones severely against an economic paradigm shift are the extreme bossfarmers.

ainjyll wrote:

Yurell wrote:

Agree to a price, leave the borders of Cordor, hand over the money. Or simply drop the gold on the ground, drop the weapon, and pick it up.

That'd be bootlegging and if a NPC happened to come across and notice and just so happened to tell the authorities, then they face the penalties. Treat it in the same fashion as twinking or muling. Sure, people do it, but when (not if) you get caught, you face the penalties. I'm sure it helps to cut down on it. Could even go so far as to have an "enforcement squad" that may show up and take the gold and the item from both sides. Either which way, the threat of being caught could be more than enough to keep that kind of action to a minimum. That and if they set it on the ground, they always run the risk of a crash causing them to either lose their gold or their item. I know I wouldn't risk a piece of my epic loot to the chance a crash could get me.

On further reflection, how about a server-wide 10% charge on transfer of wealth. I'm sure it could be done in an IC way (e.g. there's no way you're handing over three million gold - mayhaps there's a charge on the letter of credit?)

But something definitely needs to change ... I'm still very interested to see the current distribution of wealth - the more poorly skewed it is the more needs to be inflicted upon the top end.

A nice scattergram with level, number of characters and wealth in gp on a log axis.

I seem to remember several years back that people used to RP auction on high level gear. This never happens anymore, its rather depressing.

Xaviera wrote:

A nice scattergram with level, number of characters and wealth in gp on a log axis.

Or a linear. I'd be happy with just the raw list of gold and having to do the work myself of sorting it and graphing it.

TormakSaber wrote:

No, they are earning money. The problem that exists here that you do not see in the free market is the fact that it is an enclosed microcosm. They are earning money. The problem is that the level 30's do not have expenses and so are pulling in a disproportionate amount of money compared to everyone else. This applies double for clerics and mages.

The problem is not "you are too lay to get money", the problem is "a million is not enough because I have 55 million".

There's also the fact that this isn't real life economics and although rich and poor and poorest may exist, it's not something we try to model espeically when it is destroying the fun for many players.

It is not pointless. But as long as the bossfarmers and goldfarmers play Scrooge with their gold, the economy will be a shambles.

Why does one person have 55 million while another has one million?

There is only one answer. The person with 55 million probably did 55 times more work to get where they are.

Money does not just appear. You have to WORK for it, by selling loot, or some service people want, or something else valuable.

Work is the basis of any economy and this is no different.

Expenses ultimately mean nothing. Whatever you do to create expense will affect everyone equally unless you come up with something arbitrarily unfair to have a greater affect on those who actually do more work to make earnings.

Considering how little RP goes into 'Working' much of the time (As the gold income on the server comes from looting constantly, and farming bosses); I think a nice dissuasion by a mechanically unfair, but systematically appropriate cost would be great.

IE; If Rich - Life costs more. Level the playing field between those who actually Roleplay most of the time, and those who spend their days perfecting PvP Technique, introducing the Fire Giant King's face to the earth every day, and spending half their time in the Spires for loot.

What a wonderful double standard that is. You reward people "OOCly" through game mechanics, then arbitrarily screw them over when you decide their RP is not up to snuff, because they spend more time adventuring than you think they ideally should?

And tell me what perfecting PvP technique has to do with this at all? That's completely out of nowhere with this discussion.

Somehow a part of me doubts that the mechanical X% for Epic Loot was made with the intention that people would just repeatedly smack the same boss 50 times until they get what they want, and instead was put in place so people would actually have a reason to interact with eachother to acquire the wares. It's very hard to consider a group that's killing the Fire Giants repeatedly over the course of a week as 'Adventuring' as opposed to 'Farming'.

Maybe just make Epic Loot a 100% Drop, but only the first time you ever kill it; then 0% from thereafter. Hm. That's a thought.

Add Point;

Perfecting PvP Technique OOCly, I mean. I'm pointing at the general server culture wherein the majority of the same people whom farm bosses all day are primarily interested in mechanical expertise such as a full suit of Epic Loot, invulnerability in PvP, and the gold to do anything - as opposed to the actual roleplay.

Last edited by 762 on Tue, Apr 20 2010, 8:45 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Would probably make a big part of the game boring for a lot of people, but sure, see if you can sell it to the team.

Adding another point to your added point: You might consider there are actual roleplay reasons for characters wanting to be as strong as they can be. Maybe they get into conflict a lot?

BrainSplitter wrote:

Maybe just make Epic Loot a 100% Drop, but only the first time you ever kill it; then 0% from thereafter. Hm. That's a thought.

While I agree with everything else, I don't think that would be a good idea. If you get stuck with a worthless bit of loot, you're stuck with a worthless bit of loot from your one chance. Although perhaps if you remove the '0%' if in a party it could work.

I forever fail to see how being 'Epic' is a 'big part of the game' on a roleplaying primary server. PvP is avoidable, a suit of Epic Loot does not make you a better RPer, and having 100,000,000 gold - while perhaps a matter of pride - is ultimately not going to help you in RP anyway.

Btw; the 100% Drop was more a shot at the IC of it all, as opposed to an actual suggestion. It'd be a baaad idea.

I like the idea of having one chance and one chance only. Maybe have that one chance with each boss, and whatever you get, you are stuck with and that's that. No point in going there for epic loot anymore.

Come play a Banite Ron. Tell me how avoidable you think PvP is then, unless you go hide and don't do anything worthwhile.

Welcome to conflict RP. PvP comes with the turf. So does wanting your character to be strong, because your character wants to be strong.

Not everyone wants a tea and cookies server. If they do there are plenty of good only servers out there.

Sylfwe wrote:

I like the idea of having one chance and one chance only. Maybe have that one chance with each boss, and whatever you get, you are stuck with and that's that. No point in going there for epic loot anymore.

That would exceptionally polarise haves and have-nots that exist at present.

Do you think the have-nots would have more chances to get good loot as things are now or if they get the few bosses 100% chance?

I'll take the latter.

762 wrote:

Come play a Banite Ron. Tell me how avoidable you think PvP is then, unless you go hide and don't do anything worthwhile.

Welcome to conflict RP. PvP comes with the turf. So does wanting your character to be strong, because your character wants to be strong.

Not everyone wants a tea and cookies server. If they do there are plenty of good only servers out there.

Conflict RP can be done quite tactfully without PvP, and I'd rather not play a Banite, TYVM. I like my conflict, espionage, and mentally stimulating challenges against other players without the dose of PVP Warmongering that's being supported right here.

This strange, euphoric link between Conflict and PvP is one I've never been able to draw, given I seem quite adept at getting one but not the other much of the time.

Sylfwe wrote:

Do you think the have-nots would have more chances to get good loot as things are now or if they get the few bosses 100% chance?

I'll take the latter.

As things are now. 'Low grade' epic stuff is quite common and purchaseable.

BrainSplitter wrote:

Conflict RP can be done quite tactfully without PvP

As I've done many a time. But as soon as you take PvP out of the picture it becomes meaningless to the point of why bother.

Why? Because conflict RP revolves around THREAT. Remove that and it's all social RP.

If that's the PW you want, giggity.

But that ain't Amia.

Hey, tell you what? You RP your way, without trying to force others to it. Sound good?

That's Amia.

Yurell wrote:

Sylfwe wrote:

Do you think the have-nots would have more chances to get good loot as things are now or if they get the few bosses 100% chance?

I'll take the latter.

As things are now. 'Low grade' epic stuff is quite common and purchaseable.

You miss the words "good loot" that were in my previous question. But, nevermind. Just leave things as they are, then. Everyone gets to have whatever kind of fun they like and I've never been bothered by that. The have-nots can continue having not and the ones who work more can continue having more.

Mo money, mo problems

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