Economy

[Aaron Goulet]

I think people are taking this to an extreme with regards to the impact.

1. Storing coin/raw materials in your apartment is always an option.  This creates an opportunity for burglars, not a detriment.

2. If people are concerned about losing all of their profits in a raid, they might have more reason to hire the Byn.  This creates Byn interaction, not detracts from it.

3. Again, independent merchants can lighten their burden by storing raw materials or coin in their homes.  Coin is heavy, but not so heavy that 10,000 is impossible to carry.

Something I've noticed in my nine years of play here is that people are more inclined to do everything themselves and hoard than pay people to do things for them.  Perhaps a revised banking system would actually encourage people to invest their coin instead of sit on it?

That being said, there are alternatives:

1. Increase House pay.  If you do the math, even a mid-level Noble House employee can't afford to buy an ale at the Gaj every evening without supplemental income.

2. Keep banks open, but charge a percentage-based interest on non-House employee accounts.  It wouldn't make much sense to put an upper limit on accounts (ICly, that's lost profits for Nenyuk), but they would benefit greatly from charging interest/bank fees in exchange for keeping your coin safe from theft.  If you have a small account, the fees are negligable on a monthly basis, but if you have a hundred thousand 'sid stashed away, it could cost close to a thousand 'sid.

[Cutthroat]

To me, the problem isn't that independent commoners can control GMH family/nobles/templars with massive amounts of money. They can't. Imagine what would happen if GMH member/noble/templar began to question where the money came from (and if responsible players are behind them, they likely would).

The problem to me is that money-hoarding generally discourages one or more of these things: interaction, playing realistically, playing in line with the documentation. Unless, of course, it's done responsibly. And I feel most players are generally pretty responsible about what they do. I don't think limiting bank accounts to 0 or 1000 or anything will fix that. I think a flat interest rate on accounts is a lot better. I like the idea of Nenyuk banks not being international - you shouldn't be able to access the money you deposited in Tuluk, in Allanak. In the long run, this forces people to carry money with them on trips. I think that's pretty good. Rich independents can keep easily involving people to protect them.

Anything that limits a need for an infinite money source is good. The more money that gets exchanged between players, the better. An interesting consideration is to make the resources gained from coded jobs more useful to players.

[Lizzie]

Aaron that was why I thought the idea of bank fees was a good one. If you aren't willing to carry your sids around when you travel, then you should have to pay for the privilege. So a Borsail sneaking up to Tuluk to talk with his sekrit spy pal and give him 1000 sids to whack Agent Kurac, should be charged a fee for withdrawing from the Tuluk branch of Nenyuk. And that Lirathan spy going to Allanak to pay off the gemmer for doing unspeakable things to his bardic enemy last Nekrete? Gonna cost him to withdraw from the Nakki branch of the bank.

OR, they could risk being robbed, and carry the sids on them. OR, they could hire the Byn to escort them and keep them safe.

I think this opens up more opportunities (or reminding everyone of opportunities that are rarely used) than it limits.

[musashi]

This is really long again. Sorry.

SOOOO, what we are accomplishing from this thread is to help screw burglars and prevent people from selling items to npc shopkeepers that REALLY REALLY REALLY like them.  Congrats to whoever likes to do this.

I'm assuming you're referring to what I suggested here, if you weren't sorry. But please explain how you have somehow inferred that burglars would be screwed, or how npc shopkeepers would not want to buy items from PC's ... from anything I had written above? The point I was making in my post was that we should not, in fact, change shopkeeper NPCs, or make things harder for burglars. I was suggesting changing something else entirely that is not connected to either of those two issues, but would indirectly moderate the amount of wealth a commoner could amass.

If anything, it would mean that burglars would be inclined to only skim off the apartments they break into (meaning less we hate burglars because they clean out our apartments and that's unrealistic threads), making life easier on them both IC'ly and OOC'ly since there would be less IC and OOC witch hunts on them for doing what their class is made to do. Living hand to mouth would mean that it would make more sense for a burglar to break into apartments more often, but to only snag the off thing he needs in order to get himself through the next month or so, and that people would be less likely to go completely beserk over it when it happens. I don't see how that screws over burglars. Please explain yourself.

And I never mentioned anything about regulating how much NPC shopkeepers buy. I don't even know where you got that one from. Though again, if anything ... having people be encouraged to live hand to mouth and only sell what they need to sell in order to get this month's rent paid would mean that shops wouldn't be filled to max on everything they buy nearly as often. Which means more PC's could sell to them. Which is ... the opposite of what you're trying to say would happen.

If you forced people to carry all their coins around in their backpack, every raiding scenario would impose a catastrophic loss on the PC, leading to more people simply running before the scenario could begin.

No, it actually would not. Because they wouldn't be carrying around 80k in their backpack, they would be carrying around a few large at best, which is easy to make again doing the same grebbing they were doing before. That's one of the nicer things about living hand to mouth, when you haven't climbed as high up, you don't have as far to fall.

And unless the raiding group was a big organized clan in and of themselves with a storage place to put this massive amount of coins they could in theory shake the whole game world down for, they have the same problem that the person carrying the coin in their backpack has. They might be inclined to only shake people down for what they need to make ends meet this month, and then just do it again the next time they need some more coin.

But honestly, raiding is not a career path in armageddon. Not like burglars who can actually burgle on a regular basis to pay their way through the game. Raiders have to have side jobs to generate coin on their own, and really only raid as a flavor role, so I doubt if raiding would be impacted enough to notice any change in it at all. I call red herring on this one.

Indies would rarely be able to hire the Byn for contracts, and they wouldn't need to anyway, because the excess coin generated by such contracts currently would only be a hindrance under the new system.  There goes a significant amount of money and interaction for the Byn.

I don't really agree with this logic either, because the indie money makers of the here and now don't really hire the Byn on a regular basis for profit runs worth tens of thousands of 'sid anyway. Most of the interaction and contracts I have seen the Byn get come from other clans and the local templarate. But even assuming that indies did, just for the sake of arguement, a change like this would not mean that they wouldn't be in a position to hire the Byn, it would mean that they just have to have a plan for what to do with that money they were going to make off the run beyond tossing it in an secure location to collect dust. Maybe they're bribing a templar and need a few extra large to put in the blue robe's pocket. Or maybe they just ordered 15k worth of nice stuff from a GMH and now they need to make some serious money to pay that off before the merchant gets back to them to let them know the order is ready.

In fact, given that the Byn is a large clan with a clan bank account of its own, the Byn could see even more interaction as PC's might contract the Byn to not only escourt them when they go to make their money, but to also hold onto, protect, and ultimently transfer that money to the person they are wanting to pay, for a fee of course.

So, I call red herring again.

  Independent crafters would stop selling the cool shit that PCs want and just get by hand-to-mouth by crafting forks and spoons and bullshit that nobody buys, because what's the point of crafting a cool silk dress that some rich Oashi aide might wear, when you can't really -do- anything with that extra 500 'sid?  I'd go so far as to say the independent merchant would completely vanish, because the ONLY thing the merchant class is good at is amassing incredible amounts of coins and using it to pay people to do everything else for them.

Ok so first, I believe you yourself were the one who said that the indie crafters making silly amounts of money were not merchants, but usually warriors/rangers with a crafting subclass. So which is it?

But lets just assume that they're all indie merchants, again, just for the sake of arguement. Is 500 extra sid really so heavy that it won't fit in a backpack? And really so massive an amount of coin that it won't say ... ... be ENTIRELY spent paying 1 IG month's worth of rent on an apartment? I'm sorry, but I feel like you are really, seriously reaching for the slippery slope logic here. I don't see a very strong connection between PC to PC sales and the change I was suggesting. Most of the time when PC's make deals with one another it's seldom for coin anyway, and more for favors and, as you yourself put it, getting people to do everything else for them.

Sure they might sell forks and spoons to make ends meet when there are no PC's around to sell stuff to, but they do that already. The idea that the merchant guild would just disappear outside of clanned employees is just bogus dude, sorry.

Your local criminal elements would suddenly find themselves without loot-laden PCs to shake down, and the trick-down economies in the 'rinth and desert-raiding communities would simply dry up.  Newbie grebbers who actually greb shit for indie crafters who don't want to spend the time doing it themselves would no longer have job opportunities, because again:  what's the point of paying someone to go out and greb obsidian shards that you can ultimately make hundreds of 'sid on when that hundreds of 'sid is just going to weigh you down and make you a target? 

I think the suggestions musashi presents are a great way to fix the problem of the rich-being-poor and the poor-being-rich, but they're also a great way to ruin the game in the process.

Local criminal elements do not engage in shaking down loot-laden PC's as things currently stand anyway. Not as their regular "this is how we make our staple income" routine at any rate. When it happens, much like desert raiding, it's flavor. It's not the stable, reliable thing that robbing apartments is. What this would do is allow for large criminal syndicates, as I said in my post above, to run a very smooth protection racket however, which is more in line with what large criminal syndicates in the real world actually do anyway when it comes to small time marks like local independant businesses.

To be honest, Synth, your entire post seems like you're taking things that in actuality, don't really happen too often now outside of opportunistic chance meetings, pretending like they're the life blood for large groups of people, and then further pretending like being limited to about 3-6k worth of coins at any given time (500 coins is NOT heavy, 3k is not heavy, poor strength humans can carry this and not be weighted down) will somehow make all of that dry up and disappear.

People would still be able to rent apartments. People would still be able to employ other people, people would still be able to amass the coins they needed to amass. The only thing that would change is that there would be no -point- in amassing wealth gargantian sums of money (in the 20k+ range) unless you had something to spend it on in the near future. Like employees in the indie grebber indie crafter situation you tried to claim would be ruined.

It wouldn't be ruined, it would be enriched. But it would hinge on interaction and getting other PC's involved. An indie merchant hiring on large groups of people would have all the reason in the world to want to make large sums of money. He has to pay those people so they can pay their rent, so they can buy gear. He has to pay the local guild to keep his apartment where the majority of his profits are held safe from being cleaned out entirely by people who (because they are clanned) could actually steal all his stuff and have a place to put it when they're done. If he's employing enough people and making enough money that he's getting into the ZOMG profit range, then he needs to start paying templarate and courting the banks to show that he's a profitable enough business enterprise to be worth giving an account to.

This would give indie merchants a new goal to strive towards, and plenty of interaction with all sorts of colorful characters along the way. I just don't see anything getting ruined by making it so that the only people in game with 120k in the bank are the people who are supposed to be stinking rich, and claiming that if commoners can not out-bid a templar on contracts/bribes to the byn/raiders/street muggers the game comes to an end strikes me as doomsday soothsaying, and not much more than that.

Well put, Synthesis.

I think too much emphasis is being put on the raw amount of coin people have.

Indies will never be as good as clannies. You can NEVER buy and sell a noble. Some of the hyperbole used is so... ridiculous. With a static caste system, it doesn't matter for shit if you had 10 BILLION sid, you'll never be as good as that noble. You'll never be as good as your shit-poor clannie equivalent. Because they are, simply put, better than you. You have money to throw around, sure, but you don't have an entire merchant/noble house at your back if you fuck up... or to keep people from fucking you up.

Sure, it's not perfect, it never was meant to be perfect. Unless all you people who like to play hard-working pcs want to play hardworking pcs who still die in the streets all the time because of hunger and thirst. Let's face it, you want to make people realistically poor, let's do this. No starting coin. No starting food. No starting water. Make salting pay one sid/piece, make mining pay 1/10th of what it does now.

Congrats. See how shitty it feels to run into the same brick wall over and over, killing ALL fun for the sake of realism? But hey, at least we're all starving now. Because, you know, we should all be shit-poor, right?

/end snark / sarcasm.

No, but seriously. Yes there is a conflict in (COIN ALONE) coin made between the documentation and game reality. BUT, after all these years, it's helped shape a lot of aspects of the game. There's a reason why Synth's post is so well written... It makes indies literally the very BOTTOM of the food chain. Which is true. But if you fuck with them too much, it's going to collapse the whole thing.

This is an example of what I said above in my first post. Where someone comes along and says: Ok yes, the super rich aren't really rich, and the poor are actually dripping in 'sid, but the super rich have perks, so that makes it all ok, right?

All this line of thinking has appeared to acomplish in the past year or so (and likely further back) is to give us about a month's break before a new economy thread gets stirred up with the exact same complaints. Because while it is very true that nobles, templars, and GMH people have perks commoners don't have ... we are not talking about those perks. We are talking about money. And how the problem is, templars, nobles, and GMH people should have more of it than commoners, but typically don't.

[ianmartin]

Actually Musashi, I was condensing the ENTIRE thread, not trying to target everyone in general.

What bothers me about most of these threads is that people come on and try to find ways to make the game less enjoyable for others because it doesn't fit THEIR idea of realism and Roleplay.

This is not aimed at you, but overall, I say this from reading numerous threads from over a year.

Just my $0.02.  Check out the old threads.

[musashi]

Ah. I'm inclined to agree with you in that I don't like it either when people come and start playing self appointed RP police, though I've been guilty of it myself in my newbie days  Oi, I'm still embarissed about that what makes a good hunter thread. As I recall I seriously showed my ass in that one.

But what I am trying to point out in the posts I'm making here is that there are other effective options to persue besides yelling at people to "RP better" or calling for the money grind to become even more of a money grind.

I don't like either of those avenues of thought, and I thought that maybe a different perspective would be nice. Because I have looked at the old threads, and I know that it's always the same complaints and counter complaints getting tossed around until someone finally throws out the "perks" trump card. So I'm just injecting a new idea.

[Salt Merchant]

I'm a bit shocked to hear that some nobles receive only 1 large a month. One large? That's what, five goblets of wine in the Trader's Inn and then they're broke for an entire month?

They definitely need a larger stipend that that.

Maybe if nobles were more useful to commoners (by means of exercising their influence to benefit the commoner in a -tangible- way), there would be a lot of bribe money flowing into their pockets.

[ianmartin]

@Musashi, I completely agree with you, but with much fewer words.

In the words of the immortal ianmartin:   'Yeah, What he said'

[Malken]

I'm a bit shocked to hear that some nobles receive only 1 large a month. One large? That's what, five goblets of wine in the Trader's Inn and then they're broke for an entire month?

They definitely need a larger stipend that that.

Maybe if nobles were more useful to commoners (by means of exercising their influence to benefit the commoner in a -tangible- way), there would be a lot of bribe money flowing into their pockets.

Nobles are crazy useful to commoners in -tangible- ways, and only the laziest of nobles would just live on their monthly stipend only.

What the hell, dude?

[Synthesis]

In much the same way, only the laziest of GMH employees would subsist solely on their monthly salary.

[Sinna]

In much the same way, only the laziest of GMH employees would subsist solely on their monthly salary.

I don't believe that's true. There's plenty of GMH employees that would be doing other things then making coin.  The RP of a character may full circulate around working very hard for the GMH without making more coin. I can picture a wagon pilot, a guard and even an Agent who spends all his time doing his job and not seeking out coin.

I think it's pretty sad when most concepts of characters include the "get rich" thing.  RP is far more rich that that.

[Sinna]

I'm a bit shocked to hear that some nobles receive only 1 large a month. One large? That's what, five goblets of wine in the Trader's Inn and then they're broke for an entire month?

They definitely need a larger stipend that that.

Maybe if nobles were more useful to commoners (by means of exercising their influence to benefit the commoner in a -tangible- way), there would be a lot of bribe money flowing into their pockets.

The last time I played a noble (albeit many years ago) The stipend was 10k a month.  We were, of course paying salaries out of that, back then.

[Nyr]

I'm equally surprised at some of these noble payment numbers.  I heartily suggest that the scurvy thieves return them to the previous owner's behind, because no noble (north or south) has been paid only 1 large per IC month as a recurring stipend, nor do I see any suggestion in any post in this thread that this is the case (yet it is being established as a baseline for some of the posts here).

[AmandaGreathouse]

Pretty much... I didn't mean anything about speculating what it is now. I can't imagine any one player has played in every noble house to speculate on all of their salaries. I was making a proposal for what to possibly change it to, not what it was. Sorry if it may have read in a way that other people have managed to get the other thing from it.

[Nyr]

It could also be that I misinterpreted verb tenses for the subsequent posts.  It's not a big deal at all, I was just clarifying so that player debate or discussion can focus on substantial items. 

[Ghost]

actually nevermind

[Synthesis]

In much the same way, only the laziest of GMH employees would subsist solely on their monthly salary.

I don't believe that's true. There's plenty of GMH employees that would be doing other things then making coin.  The RP of a character may full circulate around working very hard for the GMH without making more coin. I can picture a wagon pilot, a guard and even an Agent who spends all his time doing his job and not seeking out coin.

I think it's pretty sad when most concepts of characters include the "get rich" thing.  RP is far more rich that that.

What I meant to say was, "If you are employed by a GMH and you want to make extra money, it is easy. Ergo, if you are not making extra money and you are employed by a GMH and you want to make extra money, you probably aren't trying hard enough or you are a newb who hasn't yet learned the ropes."  But that seemed a little too much like freshman logic.

[Qzzrbl]

I love Musa's idea about the banking system.

It solves the INDIES RICH/NOBLES POOOOR! problem.

It provides raiders with juicier targets.

It gives indies more incentive to hire the Byn to fight off said raiders....

And some more awesome stuff I probably just haven't thought up.

[spawnloser]

I don't think that anyone working for a GMH/noble should have to do secondary work to supplement their income.  I don't think anyone working for a GMH/noble should do secondary work to supplement their income.  (By 'noble' I mean actual employment, not patronage.)  I had a character hunted down and killed, and part of the reason for it was work on the side, by my character's employer once.  I miss those days.

I think that indies can make a lot of money and that clanned people don't make as much, true, but I think there is a way to fix it besides suggesting that people that have what is supposed to be a cushy job have to have a second job (putting it into modern terms) just to compete with the world around them.

[jstorrie]

In much the same way, only the laziest of GMH employees would subsist solely on their monthly salary.

The laziest of GMH employees subsist on their predecessor's post-humous loot.

[Thunkkin]

The laziest of GMH employees subsist on their predecessor's post-humous loot.

You have entered the world for the first time!

> change objective Become the richest Agent EVAH!

Your have changed your objective.

> l couch

You see a goldmine piled here, along with silver weapons.

> l nightstand

You see three thousand silk umbrellas here.

> l platter

You see a couch on the platter.  The couch is covered with a second gold mine.

> think Huh.

You think, "Huh."

> change objective Find a way to spend all this.

[Akaramu]

I think this point has been raised before, but...

None of my PCs, indies included, ever had more than 5000 'sid at a time, and all of them except one were long lived. Maybe people just focus on making coins too much? I don't know. My PCs get very bored of grebbing if they have to do it more than twice or so per real life day. It's not a very fun activity... why waste your life away amassing 90'000 sid if you could just sit back and actually enjoy the coins? Buy booze, buy whores, buy decent food, throw parties with your friends.

Edit to add: While I don't think the bank limitation idea is a bad one... please don't punish the players of characters who like to party rather than go greb every single day of their virtual life. It's nice to be able to store those 2000 sid away for when you have a templar at your throat.

Or offer coins to some random newbs and start plots.

I'd write more but I'm sleepy.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I think this point has been raised before, but...

None of my PCs, indies included, ever had more than 5000 'sid at a time, and all of them except one were long lived. Maybe people just focus on making coins too much? I don't know. My PCs get very bored of grebbing if they have to do it more than twice or so per real life day. It's not a very fun activity... why waste your life away amassing 90'000 sid if you could just sit back and actually enjoy the coins? Buy booze, buy whores, buy decent food, throw parties with your friends.

Or offer coins to some random newbs and start plots.

I'd write more but I'm sleepy.

This.

[Vanth]

As is often the case, the heart of this issue was (IMO) captured in a nutshell on the first page of the thread:

the average Armer who spends 2 hours a day playing, and actually spends time with their family on weekends, isn't likely to amass the magnitude of wealth as someone who can play from work, plus plays at night, and plays on weekends, 5-8 hours every RL day.

The schism between clannie and independent only becomes wide for high-playtime players. 

If Salarri Hunter Amos and Independent Hunter Malik both play 10 hours a week (2 a day, 5 days a week), they probably make about the same amount of 'sid, but Amos has a better deal because of clan perks.

If Amos and Malik are both on 40 hours a week (and yes, quite a few of you play that much), then Malik is much, much more wealthy, because he is making money per RL time period rather than per Zalanthan time period.

It's really impossible to balance for this OOC factor in the IC economy.

[Aaron Goulet]

I don't think that anyone working for a GMH/noble should have to do secondary work to supplement their income.  I don't think anyone working for a GMH/noble should do secondary work to supplement their income.  (By 'noble' I mean actual employment, not patronage.)  I had a character hunted down and killed, and part of the reason for it was work on the side, by my character's employer once.  I miss those days.

I think that indies can make a lot of money and that clanned people don't make as much, true, but I think there is a way to fix it besides suggesting that people that have what is supposed to be a cushy job have to have a second job (putting it into modern terms) just to compete with the world around them.

I never thought I'd say this, but I agree with spawnloser.  Employees of a Noble House or Great Merchant House, especially those who are sworn in for life, should not have to resort to alternative sources of income.  Still, I feel that this is the current state of things.

This applies especially to grebbing, which should, by all accounts I've heard, be considered beneath most house employees.  Hunters and gatherers for the Great Merchant Houses are an exception, of course, but if they are left to provide their own supplemental income by gathering the same materials their employers need, it creates a conflict of interest, which is also a problem.

And, for the record, I still support the restriction of bank use to members of Noble Houses and Great Merchant Houses only.  One concern that was raised by someone (I forget who) is that coins get too weighty to carry around in large sums.  If this is indeed the case (and I'm still not convinced that it is), the staff should easily be able to modify currency weight to balance things a little.  This could even be justified in-game by the introduction of a new denomination of obsidian coin.

Musashi's proposed solution may not be the fix-all everyone is hoping for, but it does seem to fix a lot of issues with very little code modification.  We've proven time and time again by the frequent occurrence of these "broken economy" threads that pretending the problem doesn't exist and asking everyone to play around it simply doesn't work.