Gabriel's Economic Plan Part A

[excaliber7388]

Originally Posted by DustyPorViva

A percentage fee upon withdrawal would have the exact same effect as taxing, except that it would be much better received by players by allowing them to have a decision in what happens with their money instead of it just constantly disappearing.

Welcome to the real world

[DustyPorViva]

Originally Posted by excaliber7388

Welcome to the real world

That's the problem, this isn't the real world :P
People want to have fun.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by excaliber7388

Welcome to the real world

The real world doesn't have money magically appearing from shop NPCs but more importantly it has a functioning government. If you read my ideas you'd realize that your tax system is just stupid as it would piss people off and is not a good replacement for LACK OF CONTENT which is the real problem (assuming we're ignoring glitches).

[LoneAngelIbesu]

Originally Posted by Crono

The real world doesn't have money magically appearing from shop NPCs but more importantly it has a functioning government. If you read my ideas you'd realize that your tax system is just stupid as it would piss people off and is not a good replacement for LACK OF CONTENT which is the real problem (assuming we're ignoring glitches).

It doesn't matter how much new content is pumped out; it won't destroy any money, it'll just recycle it. That's like pumping more oil to solve the oil crisis. The problem will get smaller for a while, but you'll just run in to it again sooner or later. What's good about taxes, bills, or even donation funds like TSA talked about, is that no money is recycled. It just disappears.

There is truth to making new content, though. Making new content masks the fact that you're taking away players' money, because they're getting something new out of it. But, that new content shouldn't be anything that players can just turn around and sell.

[DustyPorViva]

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu

It doesn't matter how much new content is pumped out; it won't destroy any money, it'll just recycle it. That's like pumping more oil to solve the oil crisis. The problem will get smaller for a while, but you'll just run in to it again sooner or later. What's good about taxes, bills, or even donation funds like TSA talked about, is that no money is recycled. It just disappears.

There is truth to making new content, though. Making new content masks the fact that you're taking away players' money, because they're getting something new out of it. But, that new content shouldn't be anything that players can just turn around and sell.

Content is a HUGE part of the economy and can help it out immensely. The problem is the content can't be rare. You have to have it available to all players equally(not cheap, but always in stock) or else it will become rare and you will only be able to buy it from players. While having items in stores be stocked is a nice idea in theory, all it does is push players to buy it all out and resell it at high prices.

Getting rid of the whole stocked item thing would probably help a ton.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu

It doesn't matter how much new content is pumped out; it won't destroy any money, it'll just recycle it. That's like pumping more oil to solve the oil crisis. The problem will get smaller for a while, but you'll just run in to it again sooner or later. What's good about taxes, bills, or even donation funds like TSA talked about, is that no money is recycled. It just disappears.

That's not true, once money is spent in shops (buying cars, skateboard, ammo in the default shops etc) it disappears for good. A lot of this money probably came from glitches being abused in the past. The addition of new content would burn through a chunk of money, but the staff would actually have to do their jobs and have a steady flow of new content added to the server.

There is truth to making new content, though. Making new content masks the fact that you're taking away players' money, because they're getting something new out of it. But, that new content shouldn't be anything that players can just turn around and sell.

You can try to sell cars but you'd have to underprice it quite a bit, you can't really inflate the prices on cars because anyone can walk to the dealership and buy a car for stock prices.

Home content should be tradeable if it's rare but what I'm suggesting first is having a base line of goods ranging from cheap to expensive that you can easily buy in a store.

[LoneAngelIbesu]

Originally Posted by Crono

That's not true, once money is spent in shops (buying cars, skateboard, ammo in the default shops etc) it disappears for good. A lot of this money probably came from glitches being abused in the past. The addition of new content would burn through a chunk of money, but the staff would actually have to do their jobs and have a steady flow of new content added to the server.

It's not really destroyed, though. The players can turn around and sell the new items for profit. The only way to prevent that is to have an unlimited stock. If you have an unlimited stock, then you might as well be planning for the next economic crash. Since this is Graal and not the real world, you'd have to find a balance between unlimited stock of basic items and advanced items. For instance, a basic handgun could have an unlimited stock, but an AK47 shouldn't. You don't want to destroy supply-and-demand, otherwise you have socialism, and then you're just a dirty communist.

[DustyPorViva]

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu

It's not really destroyed, though. The players can turn around and sell the new items for profit. The only way to prevent that is to have an unlimited stock. If you have an unlimited stock, then you might as well be planning for the next economic crash. Since this is Graal and not the real world, you'd have to find a balance between unlimited stock of basic items and advanced items. For instance, a basic handgun could have an unlimited stock, but an AK47 shouldn't. You don't want to destroy supply-and-demand, otherwise you have socialism, and then you're just a dirty communist.

There really is no need for supply and demand though... unless you're just asking for complications. What does supply and demand do to help the economy other than encouraging the player-run economy(which as shown, is terrible)?

[excaliber7388]

Originally Posted by DustyPorViva

There really is no need for supply and demand though... unless you're just asking for complications. What does supply and demand do to help the economy other than encouraging the player-run economy(which as shown, is terrible)?

We already have it. People buy up all the weapons for an area, then sell them at really high prices

[LoneAngelIbesu]

Originally Posted by DustyPorViva

There really is no need for supply and demand though... unless you're just asking for complications. What does supply and demand do to help the economy other than encouraging the player-run economy(which as shown, is terrible)?

Any non-socialist economy needs to be based on supply-and-demand, otherwise it will fail. Supply-and-demand is fairly simple, especially if there are player-owned shops (it's almost naturally occurs when there are player-owned shops). You just have to track how popular an item is, and adjust the item's price from there.

There are no problems with player-run economies. The problem is that the "economic circle" isn't being completed, from what I've gathered from this thread. A player can make money, but there aren't many ways that the player loses money. Buying items from NPC shops doesn't destroy any money whatsoever; it just recycles it. NPC shops are essentially warehouses for players who buy items and sell them for profit. And that's really how it should work.

I liked your idea of car insurance and your basic house-related bills. Stuff like that fits well with a modern server. Of course, you'd have to give people a reason to buy car insurance. I'm not sure how Era's cars work, but I'm going to assume that they don't get in wrecks.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu

It's not really destroyed, though. The players can turn around and sell the new items for profit.

As I just said, they can't profit out of cars or house goods because these things would be sold in shops for a fixed set of prices and have a steady supply. That's how common items on Era are (cars, skateboards, some ammo, and a few guns).

The basic guns (pistol, uzi, ak47, shotgun) do have a near unlimited stock. They stock up to a certain amount every so often.

[excaliber7388]

Originally Posted by Crono

The real world doesn't have money magically appearing from shop NPCs but more importantly it has a functioning government. If you read my ideas you'd realize that your tax system is just stupid as it would piss people off and is not a good replacement for LACK OF CONTENT which is the real problem (assuming we're ignoring glitches).

True. If there were more things to buy, and more choices, things would be better.

[Demisis_P2P]

Originally Posted by Crono

The real world doesn't have money magically appearing from shop NPCs but more importantly it has a functioning government. If you read my ideas you'd realize that your tax system is just stupid as it would piss people off and is not a good replacement for LACK OF CONTENT which is the real problem (assuming we're ignoring glitches).

This is only partly true.
The only content that we can guarantee most players will buy is new guns.
Most players ignore cars, houses, etc.
And they'll only buy the new gun if it's better than the old gun.
So eventually we run into a problem (that we're already kind of in) where everybody is using guns with stats so high that anything higher would be excessively lame.

The other problem is that even if we keep the new items stocked, after a few are bought players will start selling them for whatever the shop price is minus a few thousand, so nobody has any reason to buy anymore from the shop now, because they can get it for cheaper from players who have already bought it.

In an attempt to circumvent that problem (since it has been a problem for a long time) I suggested making a pawn shop that buys back items for 75 percent of their shop value, which should prevent the street value of items from ever dropping too low, and since the bought-back items would be removed from circulation more will need to be bought. Downside being that it does create money out of nowhere to actually buy the items back from the players in the first place.

As other people have suggested the only real way to fix the economy is to have reoccuring small fees that completely remove money from play (e.g. house upkeep costs).
The idea of adding a chance to fail when making an item isn't bad either, but I think that might be too annoying.

[Understood]

Originally Posted by Demisis_P2P

This is only partly true.
The only content that we can guarantee most players will buy is new guns.
Most players ignore cars, houses, etc.
And they'll only buy the new gun if it's better than the old gun.
So eventually we run into a problem (that we're already kind of in) where everybody is using guns with stats so high that anything higher would be excessively lame.

Maybe if you guys stopped making the newest gun better than the one before it, people would start buying items for other reasons. Maybe they'd spend their money on other content, or hell, buy a gun because it looks cool. You just need to rid the players of their expectation that the next gun is going to be better than the last. Just about every player on Era -wants- a house, and close to everyone has purchased a car at one point or another. If it's there, people will buy it, especially the rich guys. One thing in particular that attracts the rich players is rarity--there might be ways to take advantage of that.

Originally Posted by Demisis_P2P

The other problem is that even if we keep the new items stocked, after a few are bought players will start selling them for whatever the shop price is minus a few thousand, so nobody has any reason to buy anymore from the shop now, because they can get it for cheaper from players who have already bought it.

It might benefit the economy to set a mininum resale value for every item that what purchased from an NPC shop. Your pawn shop idea is also good, except for the money out of nowhere part.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Demisis_P2P

This is only partly true.
The only content that we can guarantee most players will buy is new guns.
Most players ignore cars, houses, etc.
And they'll only buy the new gun if it's better than the old gun.
So eventually we run into a problem (that we're already kind of in) where everybody is using guns with stats so high that anything higher would be excessively lame.

They weren't ignoring cars in 2006, you guys must have messed up somewhere because people loved it. Everyone had to have one. It was after the reset of late 2006 that people seemed to lose demand for cars (thus ignoring them), and it's probably because-

a) you raised the prices of the stock normal ones
b) you stopped adding new cars
c) you didn't develop new things to do for cars (upgrades, races, more passenger seats etc)

or just all the above. Correction, it is all of the above.

They ignore playerhouses because you haven't given them a reason to actually buy one. It's the staff's job to offer features that will increase the demand of something, like say, a playerhouse.

The other problem is that even if we keep the new items stocked, after a few are bought players will start selling them for whatever the shop price is minus a few thousand, so nobody has any reason to buy anymore from the shop now, because they can get it for cheaper from players who have already bought it.

Items such as housing furniture to store inventory in will most likely not be sold by other players in high numbers because they will actually need it. This is assuming that Era gets it's playerhousing sorted ahead of time and kills off the lockers.

Downside being that it does create money out of nowhere to actually buy the items back from the players in the first place.

Um what? It would work just like any other shop that pays you. I kind of do like the idea, though.

As other people have suggested the only real way to fix the economy is to have reoccuring small fees that completely remove money from play (e.g. house upkeep costs).

How does this make sense? You just said that players ignore housing and now you're going to kill the demand even more with the upkeep costs?