There's a problem with money in the game

[Malken]

If you are in a militia or clan or gmh, you get no funds. We supply you with basic gear and give you better as you are promoted, feed you, give you a place to sleep and you better be happy you arent eating cockroaches to survive.  Maybe if we feel nice, we will buy you some ale. Maybe if we agree to bribe that templar, we will give you the funds to do so.

loooooooooooool

[Narf]

Possible solutions to help the rich PC problem:

Make food cost a lot more.  Then make it so people might have to go greb in a midden heap to find cockroaches to eat or something so they can survive.  Make a merchant that sells piss to drink.  Give them a reason to buy those cheaper rotting fruits.

Give even less sid for raw materials and basic crafting materials.  But buy more of it.  Why? Cause the merchants dont give a feck if its fair or reasonable and if you dont like it then feck off and starve.

Entry to the city costs sid or materials. You have to buy a pass to get back in. Cheaper if you buy before you leave then to buy on your way in.  Dont have enough? Then you better greb enough shit to barter for it. And we arent paying you shit for it. We got enough useless fecks like you inside and we dont fecking care if you feed the scrabs. At least a scrab can feed someone.

House Nenyuk takes half when you deposit. Yup, half. Cause feck you. Carry your sid on you and some elf will come deposit your sid for you.

Make armor and weapons cheaper...or I should say make available cheaper armor and weapons and make the good stuff more expensive. The cheap affordable stuff is crap and breaks easily and doesnt do much in the way of killing power.

If you are in a militia or clan or gmh, you get no funds. We supply you with basic gear and give you better as you are promoted, feed you, give you a place to sleep and you better be happy you arent eating cockroaches to survive.  Maybe if we feel nice, we will buy you some ale. Maybe if we agree to bribe that templar, we will give you the funds to do so.

Make a couple of templar pcs that do nothing but tax people. Constantly.  Dont have any sid? Fine. Give me your boots. That fancy cloak. That bottle of ale. Give it to me. Or die. Wouldnt bother that guy with nothing but trousers and whose starving, cause feck it, he will be dead soon.

Am I really the only one who thinks that the above sounds both ridiculous and awful as fuck?

Just because you see a single person expressing an idea on the GDB does not make it a majority opinion or trend.

Historically in threads like these, there's been a lot of objections to making the world harsher in ways that have an unbalanced effect on new players who haven't learned the game.

[hyzhenhok]

The game doesn't need to harder at the bottom. The problem is not the poorest PCs being too rich. Depending on race/class/starting location, there is already legitimate challenge to surviving on a fresh character, especially for inexperienced players.

The problem is the "middle class" of PCs who, having solved the problem of survival, are then able to accumulate endless stacks of cash. Solutions should be targeted at this middle class, not just blindly making everything more expensive and difficult. Giving them more expenses won't really deal with the problem, either. It doesn't really matter if Middle Class Ranger Amos is squeezed from making 1000 sid profit a month down to 500 or 250 or whatever, he's still going to eventually create an enormous, unrealistic pile of wealth by doing nothing more than surviving a long time and playing regularly.

This shouldn't happen, and I do feel if it were prevented, you'd fix a bunch of other problems. Primarily in regards to inflation (especially in PC-to-PC transactions), realistic roleplay regarding large sums of wealth, and Imm support for PCs who want to do interesting things  with their money.

(Altering Nenyuk isn't necessary for such a fix to be made. It's just the most obvious way to do it.)

[Shoka Windrunner]

Possible solutions to help the rich PC problem:

Make food cost a lot more.  Then make it so people might have to go greb in a midden heap to find cockroaches to eat or something so they can survive.  Make a merchant that sells piss to drink.  Give them a reason to buy those cheaper rotting fruits.

Give even less sid for raw materials and basic crafting materials.  But buy more of it.  Why? Cause the merchants dont give a feck if its fair or reasonable and if you dont like it then feck off and starve.

Entry to the city costs sid or materials. You have to buy a pass to get back in. Cheaper if you buy before you leave then to buy on your way in.  Dont have enough? Then you better greb enough shit to barter for it. And we arent paying you shit for it. We got enough useless fecks like you inside and we dont fecking care if you feed the scrabs. At least a scrab can feed someone.

House Nenyuk takes half when you deposit. Yup, half. Cause feck you. Carry your sid on you and some elf will come deposit your sid for you.

Make armor and weapons cheaper...or I should say make available cheaper armor and weapons and make the good stuff more expensive. The cheap affordable stuff is crap and breaks easily and doesnt do much in the way of killing power.

If you are in a militia or clan or gmh, you get no funds. We supply you with basic gear and give you better as you are promoted, feed you, give you a place to sleep and you better be happy you arent eating cockroaches to survive.  Maybe if we feel nice, we will buy you some ale. Maybe if we agree to bribe that templar, we will give you the funds to do so.

Make a couple of templar pcs that do nothing but tax people. Constantly.  Dont have any sid? Fine. Give me your boots. That fancy cloak. That bottle of ale. Give it to me. Or die. Wouldnt bother that guy with nothing but trousers and whose starving, cause feck it, he will be dead soon.

Am I really the only one who thinks that the above sounds both ridiculous and awful as fuck?

Just because you see a single person expressing an idea on the GDB does not make it a majority opinion or trend.

Historically in threads like these, there's been a lot of objections to making the world harsher in ways that have an unbalanced effect on new players who haven't learned the game.

I edited the post.  I  apologize for not being clear.  I was trying to be facetious and sarcastic but I guess it came off as I actually honestly meant all of it.  I didn't.  I was trying to point out the fact that you would have to go to some sort of extreme such as this in order to make the PC wealth disappear.  Or maybe don't pick up every left over scrab bit you find laying, half buried in the sand and selling it.  

I've had exactly one character who I felt was rich.  And he really really wasn't that rich.  He just was able to consistently keep getting funds to make it appear that way.  Paycheck to paycheck as it were.

Cause you don't have to have all the best stuff.  And the fact that there are people who think that is the only way to survive a long time, is well, it is a way to do it, just not my way. (anymore)  

Wealthy PC's will always exist, because you can easily get wealth.  Powerful PC's are different and completely divorced from their actual bank accounts.

Apologies for the way that came off.  I was on my phone at work when I typed it and should have mentioned it was a joke.  Every point I made would ruin the game for most of the playerbase, and basically make any new players quit in 2.3 minutes.

[Molten Heart]

If you are in a militia or clan or gmh, you get no funds. We supply you with basic gear and give you better as you are promoted, feed you, give you a place to sleep and you better be happy you arent eating cockroaches to survive.  Maybe if we feel nice, we will buy you some ale. Maybe if we agree to bribe that templar, we will give you the funds to do so.

loooooooooooool

This is how it seems ATM.

[bardlyone]

Apologies for the way that came off.  I was on my phone at work when I typed it and should have mentioned it was a joke.  Every point I made would ruin the game for most of the playerbase, and basically make any new players quit in 2.3 minutes.

Ah, not at all. Sometimes I just mistake things when someone's being facetious. I know what you mean about having enough to make it more or less 'look' like you have a rich pc. Whenever I hear about anyone getting even a 5-digit nenyuk balance on a commoner pc, it is always somewhere between baffling and mildly upsetting when they're the same people advocating making things harder on everyone else. Most people DON'T do/have that, so it usually leaves me going 

[Malken]

I used to save up like 10000+ easy on most of my PCs in the past, it was almost like an obsession of mine to have as much 'sids stashed up as I could. Over the years, I realized that I would just end up storing these PCs all the time, storing them with still like 10000 in the bank, so it was totally useless for me to keep amassing these fortunes, so I just quit doing that eventually. Now as long as I have the equipment (for the "look" of the PC) that I require to have fun and I have a little stashed away in case I lose my mount or something, I'm quite happy with that.

My foraging days are now mostly at the start of the character, just so I can be personally satisfied with the way he looks and so I don't come off as a n00b character off the boat (which I tend to hate), past that, I don't really need sids.

[Is Friday]

You guys could just stop amassing cash and instead concentrate on interaction, solo RP, RP with other people, and generally playing your role via emotes -- rather than PvE.

[Asmoth]

You guys could just stop amassing cash and instead concentrate on interaction, solo RP, RP with other people, and generally playing your role via emotes -- rather than PvE.

Just tossing this out there, most of the time I spend grinding sid, salting or whatever is due to the fact that I can't find anyone interested in doing otherwise.

I have had characters that I made literally just to interact with others on and not for their coded skills and have almost slapped people in the face with emotes and please interact with me type situations and they are just content to sit on their stool or walk right past.

[Malken]

You guys could just stop amassing cash and instead concentrate on interaction, solo RP, RP with other people, and generally playing your role via emotes -- rather than PvE.

Go back to your MUSH, nerd.

[Is Friday]

Just seems silly to me that people are complaining about their voluntary actions in the game. Even if you spend all of your time salting -- that doesn't mean you have to spend the money, save the money, or have it amount to anything. You could instead just blow it all on booze and spice, if you really wanted to.

[Shoka Windrunner]

Just seems silly to me that people are complaining about their voluntary actions in the game. Even if you spend all of your time salting -- that doesn't mean you have to spend the money, save the money, or have it amount to anything. You could instead just blow it all on booze and spice, if you really wanted to.

I strongly suggest spice.

[bardlyone]

Just seems silly to me that people are complaining about their voluntary actions in the game. Even if you spend all of your time salting -- that doesn't mean you have to spend the money, save the money, or have it amount to anything. You could instead just blow it all on booze and spice, if you really wanted to.

You put this better and more succinctly than I managed to, but this. This is EXACTLY how I feel. Instead of penalizing others with proposed changes, why don't you be the change with something that doesn't require staff help and just stop doing what you think is so awful and ruinous if you hate it so much. I don't get it either.

+1 what this guy said.

[Norcal]

Yes, there is a problem with the overall economy in the game.  There is an imbalance that makes it easy for certain types of players to get rich. In my opinion the imbalance is getting worse with certain new things IC. There have been other threads that have addressed this and made suggestions.
-GMH wages need to go up,
-Prices for things need to be adjusted,
-A tax on profits from items sold to any merchant. You might be able to make four small off that load of hides, but 25% is going to the Templarate.
-The flow of coin into the economy should be more carefully controlled.
-Also new options for spending.

There are already-lots- of opportunities for players to spend dosh. I think we could have even more (private homes that could be purchased or rented, hiring a private guard for your apartment, or having a class of apartments with better security, forms of entertainment). However they would require staff resources, and might not be a priority.

These might help somewhat, and improve things, but you are never going to fix the economy in the game. It is just one of those flaws that you just have to live with. It is still FUN!

[Shoka Windrunner]

I'd like to see coded, fade-to-black, type whorehouses.  Like seriously.  You pay sid to a whore, you go into a room, that is titles Fade To Black.  After a time, half a Game Time Hour, you exit room with a special desc like:

the dirty, grungy mercenary wanders out of the back hallway, a smile on his face.

[Alesan]

I'd like to see coded, fade-to-black, type whorehouses.  Like seriously.  You pay sid to a whore, you go into a room, that is titles Fade To Black.  After a time, half a Game Time Hour, you exit room with a special desc like:

the dirty, grungy mercenary wanders out of the back hallway, a smile on his face.

Yeah, why don't places have brothels? Could even give employment to PC whores. That'd be interesting.

[valeria]

I wish we could junk coins to better reflect paying certain kinds of people for their 'services.'  ... or can we?  Is there some mechanic I don't know about?

[Norcal]

I wish we could junk coins to better reflect paying certain kinds of people for their 'services.'  ... or can we?  Is there some mechanic I don't know about?

You can give them the coins I reckon.

[Alesan]

I wish we could junk coins to better reflect paying certain kinds of people for their 'services.'  ... or can we?  Is there some mechanic I don't know about?

You can give them the coins I reckon.

Virtual people?

[Shoka Windrunner]

I wish we could junk coins to better reflect paying certain kinds of people for their 'services.'  ... or can we?  Is there some mechanic I don't know about?

You can give them the coins I reckon.

Virtual people?

Maybe, buy the VNPC an actual gift/barter payment, and junk it as you hand it to them?

[Clearsighted]

Just seems silly to me that people are complaining about their voluntary actions in the game. Even if you spend all of your time salting -- that doesn't mean you have to spend the money, save the money, or have it amount to anything. You could instead just blow it all on booze and spice, if you really wanted to.

There's a couple areas in the game, where one might be able to make the case for the high karma required of the role bringing with it a couple 'nethack-esque conducts' to artificially limit themselves.

I do not think something so fundamental as the economy is one of those areas. Clearly, the game could use some design tweaking in that respect. Pretending otherwise and RPing around it might be a fine solution for some people, (and I'm sure plenty of us, including myself, have left thousands upon thousands of sids on the desert sands out of sheer apathy), but I think it harms RP.

Realistically, our characters would be clawing and scratching for every sid they could get. Better RP might be to roll with that, rather than take the Arm-hipster approach and scoff at having more than a large in our bank account.

[Rokal]

Possible solutions to help the rich PC problem:

Make food cost a lot more.  Then make it so people might have to go greb in a midden heap to find cockroaches to eat or something so they can survive.  Make a merchant that sells piss to drink.  Give them a reason to buy those cheaper rotting fruits.

Give even less sid for raw materials and basic crafting materials.  But buy more of it.  Why? Cause the merchants dont give a feck if its fair or reasonable and if you dont like it then feck off and starve.

Entry to the city costs sid or materials. You have to buy a pass to get back in. Cheaper if you buy before you leave then to buy on your way in.  Dont have enough? Then you better greb enough shit to barter for it. And we arent paying you shit for it. We got enough useless fecks like you inside and we dont fecking care if you feed the scrabs. At least a scrab can feed someone.

House Nenyuk takes half when you deposit. Yup, half. Cause feck you. Carry your sid on you and some elf will come deposit your sid for you.

Make armor and weapons cheaper...or I should say make available cheaper armor and weapons and make the good stuff more expensive. The cheap affordable stuff is crap and breaks easily and doesnt do much in the way of killing power.

If you are in a militia or clan or gmh, you get no funds. We supply you with basic gear and give you better as you are promoted, feed you, give you a place to sleep and you better be happy you arent eating cockroaches to survive.  Maybe if we feel nice, we will buy you some ale. Maybe if we agree to bribe that templar, we will give you the funds to do so.

Make a couple of templar pcs that do nothing but tax people. Constantly.  Dont have any sid? Fine. Give me your boots. That fancy cloak. That bottle of ale. Give it to me. Or die. Wouldnt bother that guy with nothing but trousers and whose starving, cause feck it, he will be dead soon.

Am I really the only one who thinks that the above sounds both ridiculous and awful as fuck?

Yeah, some of these are pretty riduclous.

[valeria]

I wish we could junk coins to better reflect paying certain kinds of people for their 'services.'  ... or can we?  Is there some mechanic I don't know about?

You can give them the coins I reckon.

Virtual people?

Maybe, buy the VNPC an actual gift/barter payment, and junk it as you hand it to them?

Yes, virtual people. It would be easier and make more sense to be able to just junk the coins. Since they would probably be more valuable to people watching your kids while you work or whatever.

I'm aware there are work arounds,but they're exactly that- work arounds. 

[Gaare]

I wouldn't call it a problem, though as a somewhat experienced player, when I play a gatherer, hunter, etc.  I try hard to spend the money in some realistic way. Bribe, probably is the best way of spending coins in realistic and fun way.

PS. Apart from wagons, which would be awesome in many ways; I always thought pleasure slaves, servant slaves, etc. would be nice addition. You know, non-combatant types of slaves.

[Malken]

I wish we could junk coins to better reflect paying certain kinds of people for their 'services.'  ... or can we?  Is there some mechanic I don't know about?

You can give them the coins I reckon.

Virtual people?

Maybe, buy the VNPC an actual gift/barter payment, and junk it as you hand it to them?

Yes, virtual people. It would be easier and make more sense to be able to just junk the coins. Since they would probably be more valuable to people watching your kids while you work or whatever.

I'm aware there are work arounds,but they're exactly that- work arounds. 

Maybe a "donate" command that allows you to specify the amount of coins you want to "use up (junk)" and also a reason as to why you used it so that Staff can get a report if they so wish it?

donate 60 Weekly payday for the nanny