Economy

[musashi]

I agree with you completely Melody, but I think the reason nobles and templar tend to offer money, and are unable to muster up much else is that they're limited in what they can be involved in. Like it was mentioned before ... nobles houses and GMH and perhaps to a lesser extent templar ... have only a small selection of things "they do" and to deviate from it might bring the ire of their clan staff. This might not be a problem for a long lived noble/templar/blooded GMH person who has been around to know plenty of contacts to "refer" ... but for a newbie one ... it must be awful tough.

"I'll give you 200 to do this for me."
"No thank you."
"Well what do you want?"
"I want information on what goes on in Luir's Outpost."
"I um .. I only deal in plants."
"... ..."
"Do you want some tablets?"
"... ..."

I mean, of course they can (with time) find someone who does want tablets ... or will take the coin (good luck with that) to go to Luir's for them and find out some stuff so they can pass it on to that other person, but I think a lot of them might just get discouraged at it being so hard and store early on, never making it to that long-lived age.

But I admit that's just me guessing based on limited observation.

I feel like if things were priced better, and not so out of whack, then a noble offering a large to someone might actually mean something, and it could help give those new nobles a foot in the door.

[My 2 sids]

Which is why I think the two coin idea is awesome. That way, like I say, commoners can do common things and buy common things and horde common coin and organize common clans and go pretty far, but at a certain point, it just won't matter without High Coin, which they can rob for, steal for, kill for, trade for, favor for, etc.

So... almost a two-economy system?  One low-brow, one high-brow? 

That's actually a pretty good idea.  I mean, one of the main causes for game inflation/ deflation is the constant need to find that balance between a living wage (food/ clothing/ water/ maybe shelter) and luxury items (bribes/ 80 different silk items/ fancy dinner or drinks)  so maybe your two-coin idea would work.  That way PCs could survive, yet it'd still be a challenge to "thrive"

I suppose code wise we already have a sort of two-coin system (a certain four-armed man willing to trade X number of <color> coins for 1 <color> coin and then eventually buy <item>)   So, code wise the eventual accumulation of low-coins could be exchanged for high-coin. 

Ahh...  then the accumulation of high-coin could be more closely monitored than low coin!  That is, if a PC accumulates lots of low coin they have lots of low-brow plot-line sid.  BUT, if they suddenly accumulate lots of high-brow coin... it's an indication they intend to push the envelope of their social standing and they become fair game.

Brilliant!!!

Food/ water/ assortment of gear/ everything-needed can be done through low-brow sids   (Nobles would have plenty of that sort of pocket-change to establish themselves)
YET Houses could now offer something special (maybe a few high-brow coins to top workers)
AND those players who really wish to challenge themselves could have that separate challenge of accumulating and spending high-brow currency without drawing too much attention to themselves.

[Dar]

mumble, mumble. That's how ideas get stolen. *eyeshift* 

[Thunkkin]

I like the two-tier coin system.

I wouldn't want, however, to see GMH's gutted by this process.  Deciding which items require basic sids and which require Evil Overlord sids would have to be done carefully.

[My 2 sids]

mumble, mumble. That's how ideas get stolen. *eyeshift* 

  Sorry Dar!!!   

:gives Dar credit:

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Uncraftable items would require high coin. One item created for the coin and a script written for exchange and npcs in banks and the solution is live. I think its worth the work.

[Gimfalisette]

Uncraftable items would require high coin. One item created for the coin and a script written for exchange and npcs in banks and the solution is live. I think its worth the work.

Too simplistic. Many of the craftable items in the database are made of silk--shouldn't those be classed as luxury items? And what about luxury apartments, by definition aren't those luxury items? Is perfume a luxury item, even though much of it is craftable? And there's lots of low-level, basic equipment that is not craftable.

[LoD]

I don't know if development of a high-coin, low-coin system is going to be practical with Arm 1 coming to a close, especially if Arm 2's economy is going to be redesigned to address many of the economy issues.  Why not just balance out crafting, grebbing, and other such activities so that they result in a more realistic economy in Arm 2?  If there's going to be a larger focus on PC-led/based clans, coming up with solutions that mostly attack the issues plaguing Arm 1 might be moot?

-LoD

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

It was simplistic - I didn't have time to flesh it out. Posts from my phone take forever to write.

[My 2 sids]

I don't know if development of a high-coin, low-coin system is going to be practical with Arm 1 coming to a close, especially if Arm 2's economy is going to be redesigned to address many of the economy issues.  Why not just balance out crafting, grebbing, and other such activities so that they result in a more realistic economy in Arm 2?  If there's going to be a larger focus on PC-led/based clans, coming up with solutions that mostly attack the issues plaguing Arm 1 might be moot?

-LoD

Can't price codes already be adjusted in game?  Maybe simply raising/ lowering prices depending on a PC be a simple answer to achieve almost the same result?

[Boggis]

Haven't read all 8 pages but anyway... the economy is ridiculous and hurting the game. Players play with the reality that's put in front of them and right now the game throws money at people for performing menial tasks. Rather than trying to change the mentality of players I'd prefer to see some hard changes made to the gameworld and how much money can be made from things.

Drastically reduce the gain that people get from hunting / grebbing across the board. Unless you've managed to carve out a mini-corporation for yourself in these areas you shouldn't be earning good 'sid at all from them. Hunting / grebbing for your everday sort of things as a one-man indy effort should never, ever make you rich. If you want to be rich make a noble / templar, build up your own merchant organisation, build up your own crime gang, etc. It should either take rank or time to be wealthy. Going out for a RL week or two and relentlessly mining or whatever to get rich needs to be stopped.

Keep prices the way they are.

Nobles / Templars get large bank account balances to reflect the fact that they are the richest people in the land. The current stipends just don't cut it though I suppose they'd be closer to the mark if commoners' ability to make vasts of amount of 'sid was curtailed. Your average commoner will sit up and take notice then when a few hundred 'sid is offered up for a job instead of sniffily turning up their noses at a months wage for one job.

Independent commoner merchants should be properly taxed, extorted, call it what you will... and not feel aggrieved by it. It's the price of doing business is all. By all means it should be possible for an indy commoner merchant to haul themselves up to quite a respectable amount of wealth but it should be -hard-. You're unaffiliated and not from any of the established families so expect to have to grasp, network, grease palms, etc. for it.

Right now wealth in the game is virtually meaningless. Anybody can make an argosy load of the stuff in a fairly short space of time. Seeing somebody with wealth should mark out the character as somebody with power, success and (most likely) a network of contacts.

[Dar]

The problem with this, is that what you suggest Boggis, facilitates 'grinding'. If hunting brings very very little money, then good luck convincing someone to hunt. If a merchant cant get rich off the stuff he makes, then he has this much less tools to influence the world with, and involve people in. Especially since 80% of the stuff a merchant makes is useless and easily superseeded by the GMH produce (as it should be really).

[HTX]

Hunting / grebbing for your everday sort of things as a one-man indy effort should never, ever make you rich.

Looks like to me that creating interaction would be encouraged under Boggis' suggestion, as it would be necessary to work with others to become wealthy. As opposed to now, when a person can single-handedly generate unrealistic amounts of wealth, no interaction required, and who's to say they'll use that wealth to create interaction? Have you seen many indies pumping out plots and creating more interaction than, say, clan leaders lately?

I sure as hell would play a hunter if the ability to make large amounts of profit single-handedly was curbed; I'd find the struggle fun.

[Boggis]

HTX pretty much answered for me. But just to add to it - hunting / grebbing by yourself is subsistence living. It's something that should pay very low so that acquiring that new piece of gear is something of a struggle. It's never been a wealthy occupation IRL unless a) you managed to carve out some territory for yourself over which you oversee the operation on a large scale or b) you managed to find a seam of rare minerals, oil, etc. that people are ready to pay high prices for.

A) is certainly possible to do on Arm and is a possible road to wealth. It encourages interaction and probably conflict as well as you'll no doubt come into competition against others who might have the same idea in mind for the area that you're interested in.

B) is probably not possible on Arm given that it's an extremely resource poor world and discovering a seam of metal would be your inevitable death.

As for the point about "grinding" I don't think it's facilitate it. I think it'd probably make grinding for those kind of jobs completely pointless - you're never going to be rich by it so there's no point even attempting it on your own if that's what you want to achieve with your character unless you build yourself up into some sort of top-notch hunter who brings in extremely rare game which is actually worth a lot to people. Mr. Amos Scrabhunter does not fit this category and will never be rich. It'd make clan jobs more attractive as their monthly salary would actually mean something instead of somebody thinking, "Shit all I have to do is sell a few leaves and I'll make more than that". Free food and water would take on more meaning too. I'm not saying that you can't be rich as an indy scrab hunter or 'sid hacker but it really should involve more than >use hack deposit, >use hack deposit, >use hack deposit, >use hack deposit, >use hack deposit, get all, enter tent.

I think the same pretty much applies to indy commoner merchants - they shouldn't be getting rich by selling everyday stuff unless they're selling en masse. Your average potter churning out urns was never a rich man IRL. The path to wealth as a merchant has always been building up your territory through the interaction, collaboration and competition with others in order to increase your volume. Perhaps to facilitate this we could have artisan groups made up of players plus NPC crafters as membership. Players could rise up through the ranks to eventually head up this sort of unions (more interaction and potential conflict) and they could offer a guaranteed buying area for the produce supplied by its membership under the assumption that there's probably a market for it in the city. As a lowly skilled merchant you wouldn't get good prices for your stuff but you'd get by. The real money would come from being a master-crafter (something which I'd make take a longer time to be) or from being high up in the ranks of the group where you get a cut of profits. Yes there'd be conflict and opposition from the GMHs for this but they don't employ nearly enough people in the major cities really so it could be allowed to happen and let the conflict come IC. I'd give them access to decent crafting recipes and these would all require materials from PC hunters / grebbers as opposed to the GMHs where the fancy goods mostly seem to materialise from thin air.

If a merchant cant get rich off the stuff he makes, then he has this much less tools to influence the world with, and involve people in.

In a gameworld where everybody can get rich easily anyway being wealthy isn't a tool to influencing the world with and involving people in unless you're so unbelievably rich that you can afford to throw around massive amounts of 'sid. To get those massive amounts of 'sid probably involves more than a bit of grinding if you're a merchant. This needs to be reversed and money needs to be elevated to its proper position.

[Synthesis]

I don't think IRL hunting economics apply in a situation like Zalanthas, where going out to hunt is an incredibly dangerous occupation.  Hunters are paid well for hunted goods because ordinary folks don't even have the remotest possibility of going out to kill a duskhorn and actually surviving the encounter with the duskhorn itself, much less the half-dozen other things you might run into that are infinitely more dangerous by comparison.

We take things like "slashing weapons" and "archery" and "parry" for granted as PCs, but the fact is 99% of the non-militia population's skills are limited to "menial tasks" and "scraping by."  PCs get paid salaries like skilled workers in real life because we are the exceptionally talented and/or exceptionally trained, for the most part.

[Boggis]

I don't think PCs are exceptional myself. The GMHs are filled with other hunters and grebbers performing the same tasks PCs do. Or is House Kadius wholly dependent on PCs to bring in duskhorn pelts? In my opinion PCs are decidedly average. They occupy the same places in the world as NPCs do, do the same jobs, drink in the same pubs, etc. They never even rise up to really high positions in society - at best they'll get up to a middle management level in the House they work in. Guess those unexceptional NPCs have somehow managed to get all the top jobs around the place. The only real difference I see with PCs (apart from their player driven short life spans) is that they can rake in huge piles of 'sid doing the same things NPCs do and that this is leading to absurd situations where your average PC 'sid miner is richer than a noble and his NPC counterpart seems to be wondering where his next meal is going to come from.

[Synthesis]

I don't think PCs are exceptional myself. The GMHs are filled with other hunters and grebbers performing the same tasks PCs do. Or is House Kadius wholly dependent on PCs to bring in duskhorn pelts? In my opinion PCs are decidedly average. They occupy the same places in the world as NPCs do, do the same jobs, drink in the same pubs, etc. They never even rise up to really high positions in society - at best they'll get up to a middle management level in the House they work in. Guess those unexceptional NPCs have somehow managed to get all the top jobs around the place. The only real difference I see with PCs (apart from their player driven short life spans) is that they can rake in huge piles of 'sid doing the same things NPCs do and that this is leading to absurd situations where your average PC 'sid miner is richer than a noble and his NPC counterpart seems to be wondering where his next meal is going to come from.

The GMH vNPCs are presumably on the same pay scale as the PCs, so what's your point?

Those vNPCs and NPCs are just as exceptional as their PC counterparts.

And "rising to a high position in society" has zip/zero/zilch to do with "doing a dangerous job that you are paid well for."

[Potaje]

Dont most gmh have a rule against on the side profiteering. So there would be little argument about pc npc wealth equality. Now indies make more sid as they do not give the whole to a house. However they are on thier own and more vulnrable.

[Boggis]

The GMH vNPCs are presumably on the same pay scale as the PCs, so what's your point?

Those vNPCs and NPCs are just as exceptional as their PC counterparts.

And "rising to a high position in society" has zip/zero/zilch to do with "doing a dangerous job that you are paid well for."

My point is that certain types of PCs are earning an amount of 'sid which should not be possible for the work that they do and it's distorting things. Now if you're a hunter bringing in special game then fine you should expect to earn good 'sid as there really might not be many who're up to that job. But bringing in your average game from around the city? The kind of things that a newbie warrior can mostly take down on his own? Shouldn't make you a rich man in my opinion. I'm fine with a risk v. reward ratio but hunting isn't all that dangerous so long as you follow certain rules and stick to certain areas where you can be fairly confident about what you'll encounter. Somebody is keeping the GMHs stocked with crafting supplies to keep their vast operations going which wouldn't possible if they were dropping like flies. What gets PC hunters killed mostly is that they get bored doing the same job and they head off to see if their skills have advanced enough to take on a bigger mob or they want to go exploring new areas some.

I don't have an issue with GMH hunters who more or less play by the House rules as they'll be earning a fair wage - my only point about them before was that I didn't see PCs as being all that exceptional amongst the general populace. I would think that reasonable percentage of the population could be taught how to take down average game as a hunting party but that's just my opinion. The House hunters won't get rich quick off their monthly wage but they'll do alright over time. It's not a huge amount of money for a what can at times be a dangerous job but then armies and the like having been paying their soldiers to put their life on the line a shitty wage since forever. However when somebody can step just outside the city and pick up a few bunches of leaves or hack a little 'sid and earn what you earn in a month in a few days then there's a problem. These aren't exceptionally dangerous jobs being performed by exceptional people. I mean if you're fine with a one man indy 'sid hacker operation being richer than a noble then fair enough - I just think it's absurd. It distorts the meaning of wealth, the status of those characters who should be wealthy but are in fact somewhat poor in comparison and promotes solo grinding of fairly menial tasks (Red Storm and a certain subguild anyone?) to easily up your bank balance. Instead of a system that promotes interaction, collaboration and competition we have pretty much the opposite.

[Riev]

Am I the only one that gets my like 175 coins an IC month, and struggles to actually make ends meet beyond that?

I mean, beyond bonuses, thats all I get. And when I -do- get a kickback of a few hundred 'sid, I end up spending it on crap like clothing, or weapons, or more expensive food because I'm sick of Byn Stew.

Indies make more money than House crafters. Thats just simply how it is, and unless the prices for <SUPER SECRET METHOD OF MADNESS> go down, and thus everyone has access to cheap <SUPER SECRET METHOD OF MADNESS> there's little chance for changes. If the staff make duskhorn hide cheaper, or make duskhorn harder to kill, Tuluk will lose its Hello Kitty vibe. And if they make Allanak's scrabs and spiders profitable, PCs will complain about how hard they are to kill for the relatively little benefits.


Has anyone actually proposed a system that would fix the issue, or has everyone just argued that PCs have too much money? Because as usual, that is not 100% the case and you're penalizing those that prefer to play poor (ALLITERATION!).

[Synthesis]

Listen, it's been said time and time again, and it bears repeating:  just because an indie can make obscene amounts of 'sid doesn't mean in any way whatsoever that they can translate that into anything beyond an ability to buy objects.  Money doesn't easily translate into power on Zalanthas.  You might be able to offer the guild 10,000 coins as an independent to try to get a single templar offed, but even if that templar only has 50 'sid to his name, all he needs to do is learn about your little scheme to put the supreme Highlord's Kibosh on your testicles.  And that's why people would rather have a templar in their pocket than 10,000 'sid from some stupid newb who's been spam-foraging salt: because templars and nobles can really make shit happen, because they have connections and minions that are vastly more effective than pocketfuls of 'sid.

Furthermore, I really don't see hordes of newbs running around throwing cash at every problem that comes along.  I have witnessed (and I do this myself, sometimes) people using their period of "this is a new character and I'm not emotionally invested yet" to do dangerous and risky things (and let's not kid ourselves:  going out to forage salt or mine obsidian with newb skills is extremely dangerous and risky) to scrabble together a little more cash for some better gear before they join a clan where they won't be making enough to do anything with their free time or pay for an apartment.

[ghrave]

hate to revive a debate dead as a doornail, but I was wondering what, if anything, was done to fix the original problem? I'm a pure newb myself. I really liked the two coin types idea, but I haven't seen that in game, though that doesn't mean much with my under one day knowledge

[jhunter]

I don't know. Currently it isn't that realistic but I don't think tightening things down further is the answer.
There are jobs in the game which used to bring enough coin to survive off of that now do not because they have been tightened down to prevent a few from abusing it unrealistically. Once that happened, I no longer make pcs that attempt to do those jobs, move on to something else, then when they tighten it down because of a few abusing it, I move on to something else, etc. It began to turn into having to log in and work at the job for every moment logged in, just to have a chance to feed, water, and gear yourself. This left you for no time to do anything else logged in, because your character that would have been able to support themselves in the past, now is barely scraping by with every bit of logged in time spend working to do so. Eventually, there won't be anything one can do indy and make enough of a living to feed, water, and gear themselves.
I liked it much better when I could make an indy pc, pick out a job type and be able to support myself doing it. It is getting more and more difficult to do. Which means, if you are an offpeak player, someone who doesn't like playing in the coded clans, or someone with little time to play, you may as well give up on trying to play this game at all.

[Aaron Goulet]

Listen, it's been said time and time again, and it bears repeating:  just because an indie can make obscene amounts of 'sid doesn't mean in any way whatsoever that they can translate that into anything beyond an ability to buy objects. 

Didn't you specifically cite in a previous post that your PC was spending over a thousand in bribes and services?  Trying to underplay the importance of coin doesn't achieve anything, nor does it make any sense as an argument.  Objects are an important part of the game.  Coin is important as well, and while it can't buy everything, it can certainly buy a lot (food/water/apartments/weapons/armor/assassinations/etc).

[Synthesis]

This is a thread from late 2009 with the same title as the current thread, that's been necro'ed.

If you'll notice, the current thread is in "World Discussion," not "General Discussion."

And maybe I was overstating the case against coins previously, but the fundamental point remains:  they don't translate into power in any meaningful sense of the word.

My bribes to templars have generally been the, "please don't kill me sir" type, not the "now that we're pals, will you take care of these guys for me?" type.  That isn't really power.  That's kowtowing to power.  And that's the way it should be.