How would you balance the economy?

[Barzalene]

For shits and giggles (no call for action, staff) I was thinking this over.  I'd leave water where it is, lower the price of all food except the most decadent, raise the price of everything else except what's in the starter shops.

Whatcha got you guys?

[BadSkeelz]

Change the currency to humanoid heads. Hands, ears, and fingers for smaller denominations.

[Rogerthat]

Agreed with Bad.

[bardlyone]

Give all GMH pcs the sort of discount in all GMH shops that they have in their own, to represent the unfair perks/prices/gains of insider trading and crony capitalism. It would also give them much greater buying power in all GMH stores, without having to mess with anyone's pay or any prices anywhere on any individual level.

[ShaLeah]

Give Nobles a much larger stipend to start with.
GMH members not in the selling branches should be given more perks by their superiors. Bonuses.
Limit what independent people can sell. Most independents if not all can make THOUSANDS of sid a RL day. That's bullshit.
Squash stupid items that sell for a gazillion sid.
Any master craft NOT tagged GMH or Nobility can't sell for more than X amount.
Charge more for contracts.

[bardlyone]

Give Nobles a much larger stipend to start with.
GMH members not in the selling branches should be given more perks by their superiors. Bonuses.

Also these two things.

If you can't throw down for 2 head to toe silk outfits as a noble out of your stipend without saving, how in the world are you going to continue to be a fashion plate while also having the coin to drive outside plots and/or healthy amounts of coin to throw around on random mini plots and bonuses? I would think that would be about 20k at the bottom end (just personally).

[nauta]

Economics is hard!

One driving concern here would be the casual player who has a certain character concept: they don't want to have to be playing catch-up just to afford rent and the basic necessities.

We also want to make sure that sid is spent in ways that encourages RP opportunities, e.g., sponsored roles should have enough sid to hire Byn for contracts.

I'm pretty short on solutions, but what about the simple one:

o If staff can monitor bank accounts, have staff (and who wouldn't want to be that guy?) go out and clobber Amos the Twinkmaster with  a dozen spiders, or leak that information to a templar and encourage a shakedown.  Win-win!

Although, to be fair, at least in my limited perspective, Twinkmaster the Amos -has- usually either died to a mek or realized that money can't buy you the things you really need, namely, fun RP opportunities, and transitioned into the rest of society as a result.

[Erythil]

Current noble stipends, while probably smaller than they should be relative to the rest of the playerbase, are absolutely luxurious compared to what they were a couple IRL years ago.


I'd keep water the same price.
Food much cheaper.
Low end gear the same price.
Medium end gear more expensive.
High end gear much more expensive.
I'd give GMH employees an enormous discount on their own house's offerings.
(Note that having gear appropriately price-differentiated based on its relative usefulness will avoid arcane code advantages held by some people who know how the game works from the inside, and what has +skills and high dicerolls that wouldn't otherwise be apparent.  This could even be represented by a skill like appraise, given to warriors, that lets them measure the relative sharpness of blades of strength of equipment.)

I'd add new categories of ultra-high-end luxuries like metal, small wagons for indies, rare mounts.
I'd add incentive fundraising goals for non-noble clans that would add things to their compounds, give them new wagons to replace broken ones, etc.  When I was playing in Kurac and we had a set fundraising goal yielding a set goal (re-admission to Allanak) it really gave me a lot of impetus to make as much money as possible from every sale.
I'd put more emphasis on buying low and selling high -- making more outposts at which to do this in the obscure and dangerous remote parts of the world.  Some of the most fun I had as a merchant was doing the wood/obsidian trade route and hiring people to help me get through safely, but this route is one of the only ones of its kind.  Dangerous trading trips seem to be a staple on Harshlands and is one of the few things about that game that I liked.
I'd keep the Nenyuk fee-for-service but I'd lower the rates substantially.  To balance this, I'd give templar the option to pay a fee to look up the contents of someone's bank account.  This one might not be codedly feasible though.

[Saellyn]

If you want to offer metal, it has to be REALLY specific items that aren't too big. Metal is something of a fanciful deal. It can't be weapons or armor. Maybe like small bracelets or something. I really don't want this to transition out into a metal-heavy world.

[CodeMaster]

What does "balance" even mean?

I'll define it as "add more things that players will be naturally inclined to use their money for".  Here's a few ideas:

  - Widely differential stabling and more cheaper mounts.  A beat up, withered old beetle could be slow as hell and cost as little as 5 or 10 coins to stable (I'd love to see more Byn runners riding absolute trash mounts). While an Inix, the Buick of Zalanthan mounts, should probably be prohibitive at 100 or even 200 coins (having a half-giant around should be as expensive as it is worth it).

 - Small rewards for eating good food.  The more expensive the food you are eating is, the greater your chance of getting a small +1 stamina regen for eating it (filling you up beyond the normal resting cap that you have to sleep to surpass, maybe even to full stamina).  Since this bonus would be auto-determined based on food item value, some food prices might have to be adjusted accordingly.

 - Cheaper apartments but with special guard NPCs that players can give money to using the normal commands.  But the NPC has a script that records who has given it money, and it will wander the halls lingering at doors in proportion to how much the owner has given to them.  Non-tenant burglars could also give the guard money, which would encourage it to stay at the front desk.  This would yield a kind of blind auction system that has the potential to suck up a lot of coins.

[Molten Heart]

I'd evaluate all the resources and make them more scare. This world limit foraging and hunting.

I'd expand the idea of "sim desert" to keep track of hunting, keeping a virtual population of each critter population in a zone that'd change also based seasons and over or under hunting.

I'd making foraging and other gathering depleate the world in a way that change it. Making holes in the case of foraging for rocks but also depleting sources of things, like foraging for artifacts in certain places.

I'd create a web tool that searched the crafting database and created a crafting tree for any object entered. It'd list the value of the item, the value of every object crafted from or used to craft the item, and the buy and sell price from each avsilable  merchant in the game (broken down by geographic location.) Then I'd use the tool to evaluate existing items in the game and adjust as needed.

I'd give clan leaders more ability to reward clan employees with cash bonuses and other rewards. I'd also create new things to spend money on, like automated Tor academy access (to socialize, not necessarily join as a full member but enough to socialize.) Create trade guilds that'd offer special perks like special shops/prices and other minor perks to those willing to pay membership dues.

I'd let certain merchants, like hide/skin merchants) buy an unlimited amount of things with deminidhing returns offered when sold all at one time.

[Erythil]

If you want to offer metal, it has to be REALLY specific items that aren't too big. Metal is something of a fanciful deal. It can't be weapons or armor. Maybe like small bracelets or something. I really don't want this to transition out into a metal-heavy world.

I agree.  But right now it's a completely metal-free world.  Gold and steel should be mythical and rare.  But I've seen exactly two non-noble metal items in my many years playing, and that strikes me as unnecessarily restrictive.

I think there's been an overcompensation from the peak of the CAM-era, plainsman shenanigans-accented, everybody-has-all-reaches and steel undergarments mythical eras of the past.  As it stands there's a lot of cool things that could be circulating in limited quantities that don't circulate at all.  Would people kill each other for them?  Certainly.  And I think that's a good thing.

[Delirium]

If you want to offer metal, it has to be REALLY specific items that aren't too big. Metal is something of a fanciful deal. It can't be weapons or armor. Maybe like small bracelets or something. I really don't want this to transition out into a metal-heavy world.

I agree.  But right now it's a completely metal-free world.  Gold and steel should be mythical and rare.  But I've seen exactly two non-noble metal items in my many years playing, and that strikes me as unnecessarily restrictive.

I think there's been an overcompensation from the peak of the CAM-era, plainsman shenanigans-accented, everybody-has-all-reaches and steel undergarments mythical eras of the past.  As it stands there's a lot of cool things that could be circulating in limited quantities that don't circulate at all.  Would people kill each other for them?  Certainly.  And I think that's a good thing.

Yes. Bring some of the mythical wonder back. Just not all of it. That was overkill.

[BadSkeelz]

Bring back the mythical wonder so we can kill it.

[Lizzie]

The same way I've been suggesting every time the topic comes up. Change how the NPCs buy/sell product, but mostly how they buy it. Currently: A given NPC will buy up to 5 of any given item, and then not buy any of that item again until either game reset, or a built-in script has him "sell a few things" and that particular item gets chosen as the item it sells - which means ONE more of that item can sell to the NPC, until the next game reset. And the NPC  will only buy up to 5 of those items, IF he has enough sids to buy them with. If not, you might not even be able to undervalue it to a single sid, if the NPC doesn't have a single sid to pay out. This happens frequently.

How I'd like to see it:

The NPC will buy up to 2 of whatever he buys, from ANY PC, per game-month. So if you have 5 silky braes, 3 purple djellabahs, 7 white djellabahs, a large bag, and one of each carved wooden chest, the NPC will buy each of those wooden chests, the bag, 2 braes, 2 purple djellabahs, and 2 white djellabahs from you, for that RL week. He won't buy any more of those specific items from you until the month's timer runs out, but he will buy 2 of whatever else he buys, from you, that month (on a rolling month, not a calendar month). If 4 other people show up with the exact same stuff to sell, he'll buy the exact same stuff from them, in the exact same quantity. No more than 2 per item per PC per month.

This will help reduce stockpiling, though it won't eliminate it. It'll eliminate completely the whole "Amos's player is able to play 24/7 and therefore is always around when the game resets, that's why he gets to sell everything to the NPCs before they run out of sids, and the rest of us are fucked."

You can adjust the value max of this system, by making it so that the total payout for the month can't exceed 1000 sids (or however else) per NPC, per PC. So if you go to 20 NPCs you could effectively earn as much as 20,000 per month, assuming they are NPCs who buy the types of things you're trying to sell. But make it based on the PC who shows up to sell stuff, instead of the NPC who is there 24/7 buying and selling virtually and codedly. You can *also* tweak the haggle skill so that if a PC has already haggled to more than "x%" higher than the NPC's offer for more than 3 or 4 items, then the NPC will refuse to haggle further, and will only give you what he offers initially. He won't kick you out, but he won't let you haggle up for another month.

[CodeMaster]

I'd evaluate all the resources and make them more scare. This world limit foraging and hunting.

I think this would have the opposite effect, but I guess it depends on how you mean.  I think it was Synthesis who made the point that if you make these things (even coins) grindier to obtain, then people will just end up grinding more.  Which would exacerbate the problem you're trying to fix.  If you make these items deadlier to obtain, then I think we're onto something.

[edit: also I read your sentence in Tommy Wiseau's voice]

[wizturbo]

Yes. Bring some of the mythical wonder back. Just not all of it. That was overkill.

My #1 thing I'd like to see added into the game.  The key though, is to have it done subtly.  CAM was blatant in your face magick extreme.  The same level of magick could be introduced into the game, but placed in the hands of players with clear motivations to keep it low key.

[Molten Heart]

I'd evaluate all the resources and make them more scare. This world limit foraging and hunting.

I think this would have the opposite effect, but I guess it depends on how you mean.  I think it was Synthesis who made the point that if you make these things (even coins) grindier to obtain, then people will just end up grinding more.  Which would exacerbate the problem you're trying to fix.  If you make these items deadlier to obtain, then I think we're onto something.

[edit: also I read your sentence in Tommy Wiseau's voice]

The idea is that raw materials would become more scarce because their sources would become used up, this would make other more dangerous areas more desirable because they'd be relatively untouched. This is the way I believe the game world envisions it and is supposed to be. This would let the code back that up.

[Lizzie]

I'd evaluate all the resources and make them more scare. This world limit foraging and hunting.

I think this would have the opposite effect, but I guess it depends on how you mean.  I think it was Synthesis who made the point that if you make these things (even coins) grindier to obtain, then people will just end up grinding more.  Which would exacerbate the problem you're trying to fix.  If you make these items deadlier to obtain, then I think we're onto something.

[edit: also I read your sentence in Tommy Wiseau's voice]

The idea is that raw materials would become more scarce because their sources would become used up, this would make other more dangerous areas more desirable because they'd be relatively untouched. This is the way I believe the game world envisions it and is supposed to be. This would let the code back that up.

The game's "economic balance" is already tipped in favor of people who are available to play most often, because of game resets and crash reboots. The more you play, the more likely you are available to be the first in line to sell "five of each" to the NPC. Making it harder to acquire the materials will not solve that, and in fact will put MORE power into the hands of people who play more often, because again - they will be the first in line to use up all the resources, leaving nothing for those who happen to log in an hour later each day, or a day after the game reset. It'll only encourage spam-hunting and stockpiling, which defeats the purpose of "balancing" the economy.

[Synthesis]

Yet again, I have to point out that most NPC merchants have more 'sid after long uptimes than they do on reboots.  Sure, you have to diversify what you're selling to them, but that basically benefits rangers and merchants who have the ability to hunt or craft diverse shit...not necessarily any player who's logged in a lot.  And really, there's not -much- wrong with that system.

A reboot gives you a chance to dump any of the cheap shit you might've been hoarding, if you were specifically planning on catching a reboot, but hoarding in and of itself poses a huge cost in terms of either rent or bag-space, so it's not like hoarding is particularly easy.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I'm not too sure I'd do anything to the actual economy. I mean, nothing to vendors, banks, etc.

But I would create code so that everything wore out. Almost everything, that is.

All foot-wear and clothing, including packs, belts, etc, on a room-counter adjusted by quality and material. Repaired clothing would bear the repaired flag. Packs which were allowed to go to the farthest reachs of wear would become unusable. Sandstorms, by the way, would alter the room-counter a lot. You might go into a blinding storm with new clothes and come out of it with most of your new, unflagged gear now tattered.

All weapons, on a hit counter, obviously determined by quality. Only some weapons could be repaired - those that were would bear the repaired flag. I'd also add sharpening kits to repair edged weapons. Blunt weapons would generally not be repairable.

All armo ... wait, that's fine. I'm good with this. Also, add a room-counter.

All food would go bad, based on a IC-time counter. Raw food would go bad far faster. Dried food and nuts would remain good for the longest.

All liquid would evaporate on an IC-time counter.

All mounts would age and die.

All wagons would require repair via the wagon-crafting skill, based on a room-counter. Walla, use for wagon parts AND the skill.

All pet objects would age and die, based on an IC-time counter.

All hides would have to be tanned within an IC week, or spoil. This mirrors RL by the way, but is way more lenient. 'Tool' required for tanning hides? Salt, or brains. This is also a mirror of a real method, and the one most likely to be used by our Zalanthans.

Wood would rot, based on an IC-timer AND usage-timer. So your chair would eventually break a leg and you'd need to go buy another.

Jewlery would become dull, and require a polishing kit to return to an un-flagged status.

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but you get the idea. Simply by eliminating anything that lasts forever, you create a giant money sink and you allow people to visually see the harshness of the world. You create business for everyone, and uses for things previously considered flavor.

Oh, and anything on your person when you logged out would have the counter stopped. It would be silly to have a newbs clothes go to tattered status because he stopped playing for a couple of IC years, or his food to go bad while he's off-line.

[Old Kank]

Here's what I'd like to see, though I have no idea how it would work in practice:

I'd like the basic utility of 'sid to be changed, and I'd like PCs to be the primary entry-point for 'sid getting into the game.  No more grebbing for 'sids.  No more sitting in your apartment crafting worthless shit to suck every coin off an NPC shopkeeper.  No more rolling through the scrubs and returning to town with thousands of 'sids worth of hides.

Clan leaders get a large stipend, and rules on how those stipends need to be distributed.  Payroll manager NPCs need to be loaded, adjusted, linked to clan accounts, or otherwise controlled by clan leaders.

'Sid coins are used pretty much exclusively for the following: High end GMH goods, fancy/unique mounts, NPC followers, warehouses/shops, luxury housing, and large scale projects like wagons/festivals/new buildings.

A barter system that allows the common folk to exchange their hides/salt/gems/crafted trinkets for the basic necessities like food, water, and run-of-the-mill clothing, armor, mounts, etc.  Maybe this could be done by having a second, substandard currency, and maybe 'sids could be used to buy down, I don't know.

Basically: if you work hard, you won't have any trouble making it in the world, but if you want to get rich then you'd better be ready to service your betters.

[Mordiggian]

For the record, we do encourage PCs in our tribal clans to avoid coins and utilize a barter system as much as possible 

[Bushranger]

For the record, we do encourage PCs in our tribal clans to avoid coins and utilize a barter system as much as possible 

Alcohol, spice and sex are great bartering tools but who wants alcohol, spice or sex when it comes from an elf?

[Mordiggian]

the al'seik and arabet aren't elves

[valeria]

I'm pretty much with 7DV.  If things aged and wore out more often, replacing them would suck up a lot of what I consider the floating money.

The only thing I'd argue with him about is the wood thing.  Wood, when properly cared for, lasts a really long time in low-humidity environments.  Like the desert.  I'd only have it decrease on use.

[bardlyone]

Yeah, doesn't it typically petrify, in the desert?

[Delirium]

I would standardize everything first. The costs of raw materials and finished materials would be balanced out, including factors such as production time, production value, rarity, and societal status. Crafting times, materials and tools involved, etc. Lots of excel work. I would have everything fixed and making sense in excel before I even began to touch the database.

Raw materials would be fixed first, and then finished goods in the next few waves.

I would overhaul the shopkeeps next. They buy limitless items, VNPC sales increase, but prices overall are lower for common goods and higher for luxury materials. Prices go down a percentage based on how many items they have in stock, but as long as they have the coin they will always buy. They will most likely have the coin because VNPC sales are high to reflect the actual bustle of business in the markets. Grebbers and hunters would almost always be able to sell what they find, but they would not make nearly as much profit. That would be okay because food and water would be more sensibly priced. Ale would never be more than 3 coins. A shot of whisky would be around 3-5.

Apartment rents decrease slightly in cost and gain the ability to include up to 5 coded PCs, with the implication that you could have a virtual family as large as you want in there.

Clan salaries would remain where they are to reflect their luxury status.

Then we go back to those excel spreadsheets and start on crafting recipes. Everything. EVERYTHING. Should be craftable.

The most important things would be to push back on feature/price creep, add more lower end but attractive common items, and limit the prevalence of silky black braies.

Once the actual influx and outflow of money made more sense, then we can start on things like wear and tear.

[Mordiggian]

I'm not qualified to comment on most of those suggestions but the crafting recipe thing is something we are working on. It's not something with any dates or deadlines because there are tens of thousands of items in the database and everyone would much rather do fun things with the players they oversee than do data entry all day. There are also code limitations that limit how fast we can implement recipes.

[Delirium]

Perhaps something those shiny new builders could get set up to do. Just have a full staff member review it and hit the okay button after they've built it.

[Synthesis]

I'm not too sure I'd do anything to the actual economy. I mean, nothing to vendors, banks, etc.

But I would create code so that everything wore out. Almost everything, that is.

All foot-wear and clothing, including packs, belts, etc, on a room-counter adjusted by quality and material. Repaired clothing would bear the repaired flag. Packs which were allowed to go to the farthest reachs of wear would become unusable. Sandstorms, by the way, would alter the room-counter a lot. You might go into a blinding storm with new clothes and come out of it with most of your new, unflagged gear now tattered.

All weapons, on a hit counter, obviously determined by quality. Only some weapons could be repaired - those that were would bear the repaired flag. I'd also add sharpening kits to repair edged weapons. Blunt weapons would generally not be repairable.

All armo ... wait, that's fine. I'm good with this. Also, add a room-counter.

All food would go bad, based on a IC-time counter. Raw food would go bad far faster. Dried food and nuts would remain good for the longest.

All liquid would evaporate on an IC-time counter.

All mounts would age and die.

All wagons would require repair via the wagon-crafting skill, based on a room-counter. Walla, use for wagon parts AND the skill.

All pet objects would age and die, based on an IC-time counter.

All hides would have to be tanned within an IC week, or spoil. This mirrors RL by the way, but is way more lenient. 'Tool' required for tanning hides? Salt, or brains. This is also a mirror of a real method, and the one most likely to be used by our Zalanthans.

Wood would rot, based on an IC-timer AND usage-timer. So your chair would eventually break a leg and you'd need to go buy another.

Jewlery would become dull, and require a polishing kit to return to an un-flagged status.

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but you get the idea. Simply by eliminating anything that lasts forever, you create a giant money sink and you allow people to visually see the harshness of the world. You create business for everyone, and uses for things previously considered flavor.

Oh, and anything on your person when you logged out would have the counter stopped. It would be silly to have a newbs clothes go to tattered status because he stopped playing for a couple of IC years, or his food to go bad while he's off-line.

All of that sounds incredibly boring.

It's the RPG equivalent of like...doing your fucking laundry.  If I wanted to do my laundry, I'd go do my laundry, not log in to the game.

[Delirium]

We would definitely want to keep in mind virtual realities and gameplay balance. Falling too much on the hardcoded side of things would get mindnumbingly dull, I agree.

[Desertman]

Decomposing food and cooking strategies and recipes to help preserve it would be awesome. (A better use for salt anyone? Using fires to codedly smoke food etc....)

Edged weapons getting a "dull" tag over time and kits to codedly sharpen them back up would be awesome. (Letting get too dull and go beyond dull for extended periods would then threaten breakage etc...)

Wagons needing maintenance would be pretty awesome. We would finally have a use for the wagon making skill, which right now is in game seemingly to just to irritate merchants who will never be able to actually do anything with it.

Jewelers being able to take the "dull" tag off of jewelry would be pretty sweet.

Basically most of what 7DV posted.

(Not down with the wood rot on furniture though or liquids inside containers evaporating. Just seems like a huge pain.)

[Beethoven]

I love a lot of 7DV's ideas, but I am afraid that a lot of people will be tempted to grab their perishables and log out with them in order to keep them from going bad.

[Desertman]

I love a lot of 7DV's ideas, but I am afraid that a lot of people will be tempted to grab their perishables and log out with them in order to keep them from going bad.

Ahahah. Watching them do this while hidden makes this worth it as a stand alone feature in its self.

[Barsook]

I love a lot of 7DV's ideas, but I am afraid that a lot of people will be tempted to grab their perishables and log out with them in order to keep them from going bad.

Then maybe have a in-game timer that ticks off while they are logged off.

[Delirium]

Who says they're not out doing what they always do virtually while logged off so the meat is actually the stuff they just virtually hunted yesterday while their player was at work?

I like to think that in general your PC putters along breaking even while you're not around to guide them toward exceptionality.

[Barsook]

Who says they're not out doing what they always do virtually while logged off so the meat is actually the stuff they just virtually hunted yesterday while their player was at work?

Good point.

[Beethoven]

I think the counter should definitely not tick down while people are logged off, because that would punish the casual players. But...I can definitely imagine people deliberately gathering everything they own that degrades until their encumbrance is unbelievably heavy before quitting out.

[Delirium]

a) staff can slap wrists when/if they notice it

b) who cares? a single PC can only carry so much.

[Beethoven]

I'm sorry, I hope I wasn't coming off annoying or nitpicky. I was just pointing out a potential abuse concern. I still really love the idea and don't think it seems like doing laundry.

[Alesan]

stuff

All of that sounds incredibly boring.

It's the RPG equivalent of like...doing your fucking laundry.  If I wanted to do my laundry, I'd go do my laundry, not log in to the game.

I agree more things should wear down. But all of that stuff combined really does sound like Real Life Simulator and we come here to play a game. I don't mind handwaving some of the more tedious bullshit in favor of doing more fun things.

[burble]

Synthesis is spot on.
I can see the tavern sitters now..clothes and backpacks rotting off because they couldn't get out to greb for salt due to the storms.

Is the goal to force people to spend all their online time making sid?

My thoughts go to a long-lived ranger with an apartment in Nak. Having enough sid to keep that place took a lot of work.
I kept track and 40% of the attempts at making arrows failed (that's with tools in both hands, on both feet and one up his nose). So figure, a dangerous trip north to get wood, greb for shards, get back to Nak, buy feathers, make arrows. Then go kill something to sell for serious sid.

That's a significant investment of time and effort.

Factor in making sure you have enough sid for water/rent for when you don't have a block of time to go hunting/grebbing or even logon and then 5-10K in Nenyuk doesn't seem like "rich" to me. I don't see anything wrong with making enough sid to not have to logon and greb/hunt/work every RL day just to have an apartment in a game. I can remember going through something like 2500 sid before having time to login and properly make sid one time.

Adding more drudgery to the game is a problem, not a solution.

So what are you trying to accomplish?

Keep fancy items out of players hands? Don't make them craftable by indies. Don't sell them to indies.
Don't like indies getting nice apartments? Only let the good ones be rented if a Templar or Noble recommends you. Don't let certain classes rent there anyways - merchants only or something. (let rangers have something halfway decent in case I ever play in Nak again though).
Indies flaunting wealth? Part of that is your pickpockets and burglars aren't doing their jobs. Make it easy, code the clerk at Nenyuk to take bribes and tell you the names and apartments of the five wealthiest indies in the city.
If you feel like the world is too safe for grebbers - put some nasties out there. Maybe then they'd have to hire escorts (not those, the other escorts).
Let the Templars appoint tax collectors. Have them run around assessing taxes on the spot (they get to keep 50% of what they haul in). That would teach people not to look like they have plenty of sid. Or you could have the water tax dudes at the gates tax everything for indies. (not in a clan = extra tax)
Hell, if indies really bother you that much, force people to choose a clan when they create a character.

I don't think the economy is a problem. But, I don't see a problem if someone spends all their game time sticking imaginary sid in an imaginary bank. At the end of the day, they couldn't do anything with it, it didn't hurt me, and it just didn't matter.

[Kismetic]

[RogueGunslinger]

The economy is fine in that I ignore the economy. Don't care for any of these proposed changes that would make things more tedious and force me to stop ignoring the economy.

[Delirium]

stuff

All of that sounds incredibly boring.

It's the RPG equivalent of like...doing your fucking laundry.  If I wanted to do my laundry, I'd go do my laundry, not log in to the game.

I agree more things should wear down. But all of that stuff combined really does sound like Real Life Simulator and we come here to play a game. I don't mind handwaving some of the more tedious bullshit in favor of doing more fun things.

I think the focus should be on making the economy consistent and somewhat believable (as outlined in my post) rather than on maintenance things that would punish people with low playtimes. Wear and tear for clothing is fine if it happens very, very slowly or in a "direct effect" manner, such as your shirt getting torn when you are clawed by a rantarri.

But before we implement wear and tear, PCs need to be able to tailor clothing to fix/resize it, and armor repair needs to not be so underpowered.

[Barzalene]

That's why I like m suggestions. Almost no coding. Newbies won't starve and people with too much sid will spend it.

[valeria]

I don't want to see clothing rot to nothing.  I just want it to show normal wear after a year of wearing it.  As a bonus, maybe grebbers wouldn't care if their clothing is crap.

I would like to see clothing repair and sizing as something pcs can do before that happens, though. But this is an economy thread, and I think that would help the economy.

[Bast]

Bring food prices to sane level. People would buy them more if a slice of cheese didn't cost 175 coins. Seriously how does anyone not clanned in this city eat? 300 coins for cookie? Are you kidding me?

Maybe with the bank exempt Merchant Houses and Noble employees from withdraw fees charge unaffiliated pcs way more to withdraw or deposit once they account reaches a certain size. Enforce better rp about it. If you are a hunter you should never more than 3k in your bank account at any time ever.   I tend not to let my Aides ever keep more than 5k at any time. Its really not hard to find things to spend it on...its just hard to find things that aren't so ridiculously overly inflated if encourages you to hoard coin.

Better Houses options...On most other muds these days you can do all sorts of cool things with housing. Its a huge money sink, just buying simple tables and chairs..more furnishing options would be a plus. A mud I tried out recently pulled coin out of your bank account to auto pay for feeding animals or servants you could buy. You could build farms which had a yearly upkeep cost as well and actually grow things. I -never- had enough coin in the game. I felt like I was always always struggling for enough coin to eat and feed my chickens with. In that same vein let pcs that have a proper social rank ( the Great/minor Merchant Houses or Nobles) to keep a slave have guards or just an npc servant to stand around the house. It would give Borsail something to sell more often and be something rich pcs could throw money at. Hit their account by x amount of coin each month to afford that npc servant or whatever.

[manonfire]

Return to the gold standard!

#ronpaul2012

[manonfire]

#rEVOLution

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I don't suggest rapid counters with my wear ideas, and utility on things like ragged cloaks wouldn't disappear until it became a bundle of rags. Weapons that were worn down wouldn't be useless until they broke. In fact, almost no equipment like item would rapidly degrade. We're talking about a timer for a typical, 2 hours of hunting a day, seven days a week, ranger's cloak expiring once a rl month, or, basically, 2 1/2 days of riding time. That's actually a decent amount, seeing as how we don't ride all the time, since we roleplay and tavern idle, you know. Plus all that money you just made out there riding now has a reasonable sink.

The only rapid timer would be food and hides and raw materials. Do you wanna guess why? Stockpiles in the kitchen disappear. Hunters for GMH houses have real work to do, since some of those hides are certainly going to spoil, and those plants are surely gonna dry into uselessness.

Nobles spend money on looking new. 

Methods of repair would be instant, too, like washing the blood out of stuff is. I'd do away with any delay on all cleaning and maintenance tasks.

[Erythil]

I don't suggest rapid counters with my wear ideas, and utility on things like ragged cloaks wouldn't disappear until it became a bundle of rags. Weapons that were worn down wouldn't be useless until they broke. In fact, almost no equipment like item would rapidly degrade. We're talking about a timer for a typical, 2 hours of hunting a day, seven days a week, ranger's cloak expiring once a rl month, or, basically, 2 1/2 days of riding time. That's actually a decent amount, seeing as how we don't ride all the time, since we roleplay and tavern idle, you know. Plus all that money you just made out there riding now has a reasonable sink.

The only rapid timer would be food and hides and raw materials. Do you wanna guess why? Stockpiles in the kitchen disappear. Hunters for GMH houses have real work to do, since some of those hides are certainly going to spoil, and those plants are surely gonna dry into uselessness.

Nobles spend money on looking new. 

Methods of repair would be instant, too, like washing the blood out of stuff is. I'd do away with any delay on all cleaning and maintenance tasks.

While your idea is interesting in theory and would certainly make trade in basic necessities more frequent, I think it would have several unintended consequences -- like people logging out if they don't immediately find something to do, or idling in their apartments naked.  Because every second you're not doing something to advance your character is contributing to the active decay of your net assets.

I also think that eliminating NPC food dispensers would be preferable to making food spoil, if you wanted to make acquiring basic necessities a bigger part of the game.

But having played Atonement and Parallel, I don't believe that working hard to acquire basic necessities is anything other than tedium.  That's just my 2cents.  Armageddon's harshness has always been more about theme than coded reality, I think for playability reasons as much as anything else.

[wizturbo]

Bring food prices to sane level. People would buy them more if a slice of cheese didn't cost 175 coins. Seriously how does anyone not clanned in this city eat? 300 coins for cookie? Are you kidding me?

I totally agree.  Being very rich, and still having to sustain yourself on cheap strips of meat or something because a tasty diet would cost literally thousands of coins per RL week seems insane.

[Pale Horse]

Roll up a Merchant.

Corner the market on clay gathering, salting, 'sid mining, etc.

Use all the monez I've horded to hire rangers, deck them out in expensive equipment and then tell them to go out into the wilds and use their wilderness stealth/beat things into unconsciousness to plant coins on random mobs.

Noob rangers die to mobs, leaving their expensive equipment behind.  Mobs now carry coins.  As the easy jobs are cornered, players now band together to hunt mobs for coin and gather supplies from dead bodies, leading to the mass extinction of every living thing in the Known.

Starvation sets in, everyone dies, economy is balanced at the lowest level.  Zero.

Old economy system is then scrapped so a new one can be built.  I'm with Badskeelz and value is now given in the trading of heads, limbs and blood.

[Saellyn]

Bring food prices to sane level. People would buy them more if a slice of cheese didn't cost 175 coins. Seriously how does anyone not clanned in this city eat? 300 coins for cookie? Are you kidding me?

Maybe with the bank exempt Merchant Houses and Noble employees from withdraw fees charge unaffiliated pcs way more to withdraw or deposit once they account reaches a certain size. Enforce better rp about it. If you are a hunter you should never more than 3k in your bank account at any time ever.   I tend not to let my Aides ever keep more than 5k at any time. Its really not hard to find things to spend it on...its just hard to find things that aren't so ridiculously overly inflated if encourages you to hoard coin.

Better Houses options...On most other muds these days you can do all sorts of cool things with housing. Its a huge money sink, just buying simple tables and chairs..more furnishing options would be a plus. A mud I tried out recently pulled coin out of your bank account to auto pay for feeding animals or servants you could buy. You could build farms which had a yearly upkeep cost as well and actually grow things. I -never- had enough coin in the game. I felt like I was always always struggling for enough coin to eat and feed my chickens with. In that same vein let pcs that have a proper social rank ( the Great/minor Merchant Houses or Nobles) to keep a slave have guards or just an npc servant to stand around the house. It would give Borsail something to sell more often and be something rich pcs could throw money at. Hit their account by x amount of coin each month to afford that npc servant or whatever.

Yes but how did you even know how much money your aides have...?

[musashi]

I'm not too sure I'd do anything to the actual economy. I mean, nothing to vendors, banks, etc.

But I would create code so that everything wore out. Almost everything, that is.

All foot-wear and clothing, including packs, belts, etc, on a room-counter adjusted by quality and material. Repaired clothing would bear the repaired flag. Packs which were allowed to go to the farthest reachs of wear would become unusable. Sandstorms, by the way, would alter the room-counter a lot. You might go into a blinding storm with new clothes and come out of it with most of your new, unflagged gear now tattered.

All weapons, on a hit counter, obviously determined by quality. Only some weapons could be repaired - those that were would bear the repaired flag. I'd also add sharpening kits to repair edged weapons. Blunt weapons would generally not be repairable.

All armo ... wait, that's fine. I'm good with this. Also, add a room-counter.

All food would go bad, based on a IC-time counter. Raw food would go bad far faster. Dried food and nuts would remain good for the longest.

All liquid would evaporate on an IC-time counter.

All mounts would age and die.

All wagons would require repair via the wagon-crafting skill, based on a room-counter. Walla, use for wagon parts AND the skill.

All pet objects would age and die, based on an IC-time counter.

All hides would have to be tanned within an IC week, or spoil. This mirrors RL by the way, but is way more lenient. 'Tool' required for tanning hides? Salt, or brains. This is also a mirror of a real method, and the one most likely to be used by our Zalanthans.

Wood would rot, based on an IC-timer AND usage-timer. So your chair would eventually break a leg and you'd need to go buy another.

Jewlery would become dull, and require a polishing kit to return to an un-flagged status.

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but you get the idea. Simply by eliminating anything that lasts forever, you create a giant money sink and you allow people to visually see the harshness of the world. You create business for everyone, and uses for things previously considered flavor.

Oh, and anything on your person when you logged out would have the counter stopped. It would be silly to have a newbs clothes go to tattered status because he stopped playing for a couple of IC years, or his food to go bad while he's off-line.

I like the idea of all good breaking down, but I would rather the break down be based on use rather than time. Time is more realistic ... but I feel unfair to sporadic gamers over ones who play often.

Having the wear and tear be based on use strikes me as better for playibility's sake so that people who log in from time to time don't always have rotten food and tattered clothes waiting for them.

[Mordiggian]

Perhaps something those shiny new builders could get set up to do. Just have a full staff member review it and hit the okay button after they've built it.

There are still technical barriers that would limit the rate at which recipes can be added because of the way the game works at a code-level.

On top of that, it really is the equivalent of data entry. There are tens of thousands of items in the game, even if you exclude items that shouldn't have crafting recipes (like a piece of ruined clothing) and the process of assigning and implementing recipes for them is probably the number one least exciting thing staff or builders can do. Even if the code wizards set up a way for Builders to access the crafting tool, Builders aren't required to work on any given project. They pick what they would like to commit to from a list of projects that have been approved for Builder assistance.

This isn't to say that adding crafting recipes is something we aren't doing. It's just a slow, ongoing process. When a player in one of my clans orders a clan-specific item that has no recipe, I build one for the object in question. When I build new items for a given project, I include recipes where they make sense to exist.

[BadSkeelz]

My ways for dealing with the economy:

Don't earn money from NPC merchants. Earn money only from clan pay, handouts from rich PCs (who typically have stipends), and dead bodies.

Play a combat character who only crafts for his or her friends (if they even have a crafting subguild) and buy as much of your gear from PCs as you can, and you rapidly stop giving a shit about the fucked up state of NPC merchants and the larger economy. The only thing I buy regularly from NPCs anymore are consumables.

[Lizzie]

My ways for dealing with the economy:

Don't earn money from NPC merchants. Earn money only from clan pay, handouts from rich PCs (who typically have stipends), and dead bodies.

Play a combat character who only crafts for his or her friends (if they even have a crafting subguild) and buy as much of your gear from PCs as you can, and you rapidly stop giving a shit about the fucked up state of NPC merchants and the larger economy. The only thing I buy regularly from NPCs anymore are consumables.

You know, I tried that not long ago. Turned out no one wanted anything I had available. Either they had no use for it themselves, or they already had plenty, or they were perfectly capable and willing to get it themselves and not have to pay anyone for it at all. So - I backed down and ended up selling almost exclusively to the NPCs. I kept my balance at the bank low, considering how much I know I -could've- made. I think the highest I went with that PC was 5500 sids, accumulated over a few RL months.

[CodeMaster]

My ways for dealing with the economy:

Don't earn money from NPC merchants. Earn money only from clan pay, handouts from rich PCs (who typically have stipends), and dead bodies.

Play a combat character who only crafts for his or her friends (if they even have a crafting subguild) and buy as much of your gear from PCs as you can, and you rapidly stop giving a shit about the fucked up state of NPC merchants and the larger economy. The only thing I buy regularly from NPCs anymore are consumables.

This is a good point ... I think placing these kinds of voluntary "conducts" on yourself is one of the best ways to go.  A couple ideas I've had but never implemented:

One weird idea I've had rattling around is to make a character with a weak stomach who would only be able to eat items that started with a letter corresponding to the current OOC two-week period (B for the second two weeks of January, for example, so belshun fruit or something?).  When you get to the X's it's time to starve and drink ale.

Another fringe character might view coins as a source of bad luck and misfortune, and would deal only in trade with PCs and NPCs (in the latter case, only ever use offer <my item> <NPC's item>).  This would introduce a new learning curve where you'd have to determine which items would actually be light and valuable and desirable enough to be useful for this.

If you're a real D&D nerd you could incorporate your own dice-roll into whether or not a weapon became too worn out for you to use after a fight and toss it on the ground or junk it afterward.  Could encourage you to use cheaper alternatives on your pot shot kills, which would make more sense.

[Desertman]

I once played a religious zealot half-elf who was basically following Jesus (though I didn't call it that obviously) and would shun the very concept of the amassing of wealth as an atrocity against the poor.

His goal in life was to help people and be a "good person".

He started out as a "chuckle character" for me but I actually ended up really enjoying playing him until he died to a gith randomly. Rest in peace my breed. Your soul has gone to a better place.

Not really "related", but you guys reminded me of it heh. Thanks for the memories.

[FantasyWriter]

Bring food prices to sane level. People would buy them more if a slice of cheese didn't cost 175 coins. Seriously how does anyone not clanned in this city eat? 300 coins for cookie? Are you kidding me?

Maybe with the bank exempt Merchant Houses and Noble employees from withdraw fees charge unaffiliated pcs way more to withdraw or deposit once they account reaches a certain size. Enforce better rp about it. If you are a hunter you should never more than 3k in your bank account at any time ever.   I tend not to let my Aides ever keep more than 5k at any time. Its really not hard to find things to spend it on...its just hard to find things that aren't so ridiculously overly inflated if encourages you to hoard coin.

Better Houses options...On most other muds these days you can do all sorts of cool things with housing. Its a huge money sink, just buying simple tables and chairs..more furnishing options would be a plus. A mud I tried out recently pulled coin out of your bank account to auto pay for feeding animals or servants you could buy. You could build farms which had a yearly upkeep cost as well and actually grow things. I -never- had enough coin in the game. I felt like I was always always struggling for enough coin to eat and feed my chickens with. In that same vein let pcs that have a proper social rank ( the Great/minor Merchant Houses or Nobles) to keep a slave have guards or just an npc servant to stand around the house. It would give Borsail something to sell more often and be something rich pcs could throw money at. Hit their account by x amount of coin each month to afford that npc servant or whatever.

One of the things I was most looking forward to with Arm Reborn was the talk about being able to grow plants and raise herds of livestock.  If anything like that ever gets implemented, I'll probably never play anything else.

[Taijan]

Oh good, I'm not the only one who got inordinately excited about the thought of Zalanthan Harvest Moon.

[Erythil]

Bring food prices to sane level. People would buy them more if a slice of cheese didn't cost 175 coins. Seriously how does anyone not clanned in this city eat? 300 coins for cookie? Are you kidding me?

Maybe with the bank exempt Merchant Houses and Noble employees from withdraw fees charge unaffiliated pcs way more to withdraw or deposit once they account reaches a certain size. Enforce better rp about it. If you are a hunter you should never more than 3k in your bank account at any time ever.   I tend not to let my Aides ever keep more than 5k at any time. Its really not hard to find things to spend it on...its just hard to find things that aren't so ridiculously overly inflated if encourages you to hoard coin.

Better Houses options...On most other muds these days you can do all sorts of cool things with housing. Its a huge money sink, just buying simple tables and chairs..more furnishing options would be a plus. A mud I tried out recently pulled coin out of your bank account to auto pay for feeding animals or servants you could buy. You could build farms which had a yearly upkeep cost as well and actually grow things. I -never- had enough coin in the game. I felt like I was always always struggling for enough coin to eat and feed my chickens with. In that same vein let pcs that have a proper social rank ( the Great/minor Merchant Houses or Nobles) to keep a slave have guards or just an npc servant to stand around the house. It would give Borsail something to sell more often and be something rich pcs could throw money at. Hit their account by x amount of coin each month to afford that npc servant or whatever.

One of the things I was most looking forward to with Arm Reborn was the talk about being able to grow plants and raise herds of livestock.  If anything like that ever gets implemented, I'll probably never play anything else.

I have long wanted to develop an RPI centered around the theme of exploring and developing a new frontier, with all the tree-chopping and field-sowing that entails.  But I cannot program, so it shall never be.

[Barsook]

Go ahead and boo this post, but this keeps on coming up in my mind.  Remove the NPC shops and use the merchant and merchant houses to deal with PC to PC sales.  Well maybe for for all items, but most.  I do know the problem which is it would be hard to catch the merchant PC and get the orders ready, but hey, I'm just throwing it out.

[Erythil]

Go ahead and boo this post, but this keeps on coming up in my mind.  Remove the NPC shops and use the merchant and merchant houses to deal with PC to PC sales.  Well maybe for for all items, but most.  I do know the problem which is it would be hard to catch the merchant PC and get the orders ready, but hey, I'm just throwing it out.

I saw this system in action on the reboot of SoI, and I don't think it works.  It's especially difficult for off-peak players.

[Barsook]

Would be better if the NPC shops were only open during off-peak or no?

[bardlyone]

Given how many torches and basic items and flavor rp items and general items at large can't be crafted, that sounds like a horrible idea. And the majority of these items don't come from merchant houses, so they shouldn't be sold by them.

Edit to make sense of the thought. >.>

[Barsook]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

[bcw81]

#MakingHouseTorchnext.

[bardlyone]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it in concept. I just think that it would be untenable until every item that SHOULD be in the game world is craftable by players, otherwise it would really f things up.

[MeTekillot]

#MakingHouseTorchnext.

house illuminati(on)

[FantasyWriter]

How to fix the economy?
Obsidian coins. Do away with them. Shit would be get real.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

All mounts would age and die.

Mounts can already age to the point where you'd rather slaughter them than deal with it anymore.

[Suhuy]

Player solutions:

Stop expecting the code to do all the work for you. Stop thinking in coded terms at all, in fact. If your character concept is born and raised in the slums, then be from the slums. No matter how much you know about the code, don't let it influence your character's poverty. Regardless of how much your character has, make a point of complaining about the high prices of water these days. Stop complaining about players who amass huge amounts of coin and just let it sit there in the bank. Maybe they're saving it for a rainy day. Maybe they have a long term plan with it. What makes you think for one instant that they should be out there spending their tens of thousands every single time they log on? That fancy cloak your character owns which offers no coded advantage whatsoever is a RP tool that allows you to be expressive with the character you play. Coins are also a RP tool. You can keep expecting the economy to be "fixed" somehow, to make it more of a challenge to earn coins, but there will always be a learning curve to this which is overcome at some point. And then coins are no longer a challenge. To you, the player. But they should always be a challenge to you, the character. Staff can "fix" the economy over and over, but at the end of the day we are the authors of our character's lives and it's up to us to create some of the struggles they are going through. The code can only do so much.

Note: I am not saying there aren't coded changes which could help better simulate an actual, functioning economy, but I am saying no matter how much you implement, it will only go so far. Some of the responsibility is on our shoulders as players, and that's really all I'm getting at.

Coded solutions:

Code weapons and armor (and other tools) to break down periodically to better reflect the inferiority of such objects in a near metal-free world. Then test the code to make sure it isn't too extreme and won't immediately kill a 60-day warrior the very next battle they are in. Not until this has been fully tested and you're certain there is a reasonable, but modest difference, then and only then release it to the public, offering fair warning well, well in advance. I remember a good 10 or so years ago there were changes implemented to the way steal works. I had an elven pickpocket with absolutely incredible agility. I trusted his skills and knew what he was capable or and what he was not capable of. The very next time he tried to steal something, he died within seconds. I'd be thrilled if swords had a very finite lifespan (they're made out of bone for crying out loud!) but a change like this also requires certainties put in place so that very skilled warriors don't suddenly find themselves going from Conan to Sitting Ducks the instant some new code rolls out.

On that note, any change implemented should start with much smaller variables, rather than much larger ones. I doubt anyone would complain if they had to pay to stable their mounts for longer periods of time - if and only if the change introduced miniscule differences, rather than astronomical ones. The code helps to reinforce realistic conditions, but keeping them as small changes only helps balance the IC from the OOC world. I've seen a sword break before. Once. Ever. In my entire history of playing the game. So the code is there, only the variables need to be changed (from almost never to occasionally -- not from almost never to suddenly and miraculously every second battle you're in). Or if they do break quite frequently, have a sword snap and turn into a half-sword, rather than making the character instantly and immediately unarmed the moment their weapon is destroyed.

I see fancy violins and other instruments described as flawless masterpieces and think, how was that made so beautifully without metal? I see taverns filled with furniture and think, how are the tables and chairs held together without metal? I see entire wagons wheel past me and think, how the heck is that thing kept together without any metal? There are workable alternatives, but they are inferior alternatives which would degrade quickly. Imagine what the difference between the meaning of the word "smith" is on Zalanthas compared to any time period in Earth's history. And if the code were implemented in such a way that better fit our almost metal-less world, characters would need to be buying a whole heck of a lot more often as part of routine maintenance.

That's what I would do anyway.

[Revenant]

I don't, personally, think the problem is with indies having coin. When I've commented on the worthlessness of coin before, it's because many powerful clanned people are "too rich to bribe", when it really counts. Now some may accept a bribe because it's just good rp and a chance to get some corruption in, but when a <redacted>? Hmmm, maybe I have a mistaken impression of what that role is supposed to be about. You need to have ten or twenty large to bribe people these days, at least, depending on who you go to, if you're an independent, that's a LOT, and a bit of a tremendous money sink, consider, also, that you lack the protection and influence of clans and it starts to seem like the economy is just fine, on one front. I agree GMH wages and the like need to be looked at.

EDIT: Edited to remove what might possibly be considered IC info.

[Narf]

Player solutions:

Stop expecting the code to do all the work for you. Stop thinking in coded terms at all, in fact. If your character concept is born and raised in the slums, then be from the slums. No matter how much you know about the code, don't let it influence your character's poverty. Regardless of how much your character has, make a point of complaining about the high prices of water these days. Stop complaining about players who amass huge amounts of coin and just let it sit there in the bank. Maybe they're saving it for a rainy day. Maybe they have a long term plan with it. What makes you think for one instant that they should be out there spending their tens of thousands every single time they log on? That fancy cloak your character owns which offers no coded advantage whatsoever is a RP tool that allows you to be expressive with the character you play. Coins are also a RP tool. You can keep expecting the economy to be "fixed" somehow, to make it more of a challenge to earn coins, but there will always be a learning curve to this which is overcome at some point. And then coins are no longer a challenge. To you, the player. But they should always be a challenge to you, the character. Staff can "fix" the economy over and over, but at the end of the day we are the authors of our character's lives and it's up to us to create some of the struggles they are going through. The code can only do so much.

Note: I am not saying there aren't coded changes which could help better simulate an actual, functioning economy, but I am saying no matter how much you implement, it will only go so far. Some of the responsibility is on our shoulders as players, and that's really all I'm getting at.

One of the main barriers for me in playing a character that is openly poor is that there's usually someone, and sometimes multiple someones in any given situation that will try to codedly "solve" your poverty for you. Maybe they toss a heap of coins at you. More likely they'll tell you that you should get salting or join a clan. Quickly the conversation veers more towards things you can do to get permanently out of poverty rather than the game you wanted to play about surviving in a state of poverty.

Granted it's not the majority of players that do this, but there really only needs to be one in a given situation to cause problems.

[Delirium]

"Salting?! You crazy? With all them nasty beasts out there, and the sun and the sand? Might as well tell me to go jump off a cliff!"

[Beethoven]

Also don't forget:


Ivory-Salt Sickness                                                 (Disease)

   Also called Gambi Sickness for the flies whose bites cause this
ailment, Ivory-Salt Sickness is the bane of treasure hunters trying to
traverse the Salt Flats for the fabled riches of long lost Steinal.
Starting with the bite of a gambi fly, this illness advances rapidly
with headaches, blurry vision, tremors, and drowsiness following in a
matter of hours and lasting up to days. Only very rarely fatal in
itself, the temporarily debilitating symptoms of this disease can be
lethally crippling to those trying to cross the perilous expanse of the
Salt Flats. It is common for those taking part in a Salt Flats
expedition to take particular care to cover every patch of skin to
prevent gambi fly bites, and some have been known to carry a pungent
smelling sachet intended to ward away the flies, while others drink and
eat noxious combinations of food to make their blood unpalatable to the
flies.

[Beethoven]

It would not fix the economy in any sense of the phrase, but one very small thing I would do that I think would help would be to make you able to junk coins. I know you can give them to NPCs or whatever and pretend you junked them, but it would be so much simpler and more elegant if you could just junk them and pretend you gave them to your VNPC family, had them stolen by a VNPC elf, gave them to a VNPC whore, spilled them and had them picked up by scrambling VNPC urchins, etc. A lot of people would not do this, sure, but it would be a great start just to make it easy to do it for people who want to. Because realistically, there are virtual money sinks out there.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

All mounts would age and die.

Mounts can already age to the point where you'd rather slaughter them than deal with it anymore.

Really? That's cool - never seen that.

[Alesan]

It would not fix the economy in any sense of the phrase, but one very small thing I would do that I think would help would be to make you able to junk coins. I know you can give them to NPCs or whatever and pretend you junked them, but it would be so much simpler and more elegant if you could just junk them and pretend you gave them to your VNPC family, had them stolen by a VNPC elf, gave them to a VNPC whore, spilled them and had them picked up by scrambling VNPC urchins, etc. A lot of people would not do this, sure, but it would be a great start just to make it easy to do it for people who want to. Because realistically, there are virtual money sinks out there.

I think there are people, like me, that prefer the coin sinks to be in-game. To a certain extent, virtual RP just doesn't satisfy the feeling of playing an interactable game. It's the same reason I don't really enjoy solo RP. Sometimes I get the feeling that makes me a bad RPer, but it's just how I feel.

Junking coins sounds nice for people who can enjoy that sort of thing, though.

[BadSkeelz]

All mounts would age and die.

Mounts can already age to the point where you'd rather slaughter them than deal with it anymore.

Really? That's cool - never seen that.

I think you have to leave the mounts un-stabled for that to happen. The stable code generates a technically new mount with random stats every time you pull one out.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Hrm, and logging out with your mount and logging back in doesn't?

Well, no more stabling old Pakrat.

[LauraMars]

yeah the npc is different.  that's why sometimes your mounts are "bleeding lightly" when they come out of the stable - their endurance score is higher than what they went into the stable with and they need to regen the extra hp.  if you see a mount bleeding lightly you should be happy because it probably means they have a bit more stamina.

[Molten Heart]

Some stables save a mounts stats, but not all of them.

[CodeMaster]

yeah the npc is different.  that's why sometimes your mounts are "bleeding lightly" when they come out of the stable - their endurance score is higher than what they went into the stable with and they need to regen the extra hp.  if you see a mount bleeding lightly you should be happy because it probably means they have a bit more stamina.

I wish I could reroll my character for 20 coins...

[Beethoven]

I would like more coin sinks to be in-game, but it certainly wouldn't hurt anybody to have the OPTION to junk coins. There have been times when I have seen an echo of a vnpc beggar gripping at my heels and begging for coins, and I've kind of wanted to give him some whatever reason. If I drop 'em, somebody else will just pick them up. If I give them to an NPC, it kind of pulls me and others present out of the scene. If I just emote forking over the coins but don't actually do it, it seems kind of like cheating.

Yeah, it'd be a bandaid and not everyone would want to use it, but for people who want to keep themselves "artificially" poor--and judging from this thread there are a few--it'd go a long way.

Being able to junk coins would make things a lot easier in crash situations, too, when you might end up with a duplicate pack. (Yes, you can junk packs with coins in them, I think, but some of the items in the pack may be duplicates and others may not be...I've had this happen to me before, and the staff had to manually delete the coins at the end of my junkfest.)

[LauraMars]

yeah the npc is different.  that's why sometimes your mounts are "bleeding lightly" when they come out of the stable - their endurance score is higher than what they went into the stable with and they need to regen the extra hp.  if you see a mount bleeding lightly you should be happy because it probably means they have a bit more stamina.

I wish I could reroll my character for 20 coins...

finally, a solution for fixing the economy

[solera]

As a lone, low strength rinthi scavenger I found it a bit of a struggle to keep my sids low. She bought spice to swap for favour, and I did offload small onto a shop keeper. In retrospect, I should have given it to the muggers, and hope that didn't trigger their aggro code.

[musashi]

I don't, personally, think the problem is with indies having coin. When I've commented on the worthlessness of coin before, it's because many powerful clanned people are "too rich to bribe", when it really counts. Now some may accept a bribe because it's just good rp and a chance to get some corruption in, but when a <redacted>? Hmmm, maybe I have a mistaken impression of what that role is supposed to be about. You need to have ten or twenty large to bribe people these days, at least, depending on who you go to, if you're an independent, that's a LOT, and a bit of a tremendous money sink, consider, also, that you lack the protection and influence of clans and it starts to seem like the economy is just fine, on one front. I agree GMH wages and the like need to be looked at.

EDIT: Edited to remove what might possibly be considered IC info.

Too rich to bribe? I'm really confused about this as a concept. The American political system as it currently stands is based on bribing people who are already too rich to bribe is it not?  News stories about money in politics (from internet based news mind you ... corporate media pretends like the bribery does't exist at all) often focus around how cheap politicians are to bribe compared to how much money they already have.

Shouldn't the insatiable nature of greed cancel out this "too rich to bribe" concept like it does IRL? I would think that if someone isn't taking your bribe the more likely reason for them not doing so is that the favor you're asking for goes against a bigger fish than you who they are already preferring.

[Revenant]

I don't, personally, think the problem is with indies having coin. When I've commented on the worthlessness of coin before, it's because many powerful clanned people are "too rich to bribe", when it really counts. Now some may accept a bribe because it's just good rp and a chance to get some corruption in, but when a <redacted>? Hmmm, maybe I have a mistaken impression of what that role is supposed to be about. You need to have ten or twenty large to bribe people these days, at least, depending on who you go to, if you're an independent, that's a LOT, and a bit of a tremendous money sink, consider, also, that you lack the protection and influence of clans and it starts to seem like the economy is just fine, on one front. I agree GMH wages and the like need to be looked at.

EDIT: Edited to remove what might possibly be considered IC info.

Too rich to bribe? I'm really confused about this as a concept. The American political system as it currently stands is based on bribing people who are already too rich to bribe is it not?  News stories about money in politics (from internet based news mind you ... corporate media pretends like the bribery does't exist at all) often focus around how cheap politicians are to bribe compared to how much money they already have.

Shouldn't the insatiable nature of greed cancel out this "too rich to bribe" concept like it does IRL? I would think that if someone isn't taking your bribe the more likely reason for them not doing so is that the favor you're asking for goes against a bigger fish than you who they are already preferring.

Quite possibly. I must admit my own ignorance in all of these situations, but I've seen it numerous times. Someone gets their undies all bunched up and decides to go nuclear over, -seemingly- very little. I've managed to buy the time to escape most of them, but the hopes of ever fixing most of them are kind of dashed. I mean, it really depends on the players involved and their priorities and personalities, I suppose, and my own PC's priorities at the time, and my PC's personality, how the situation pans out. I admit, when they don't pan out in my favor, I think, "I could have done that a bit more cleverly and in a less than honorable fashion.", but, hindsight is always better than foresight. It's why I prefer playing weaker characters, they're never the types to stand up to potential pain, and come up with alternate strategies.

[musashi]

I understand.

In the last leadership role I played, my character was very amendable to bribes but from my vantage as the person being bribed rather than the person doing the bribing ... man ... lowly commoners seemed to have enormous grandiose expectations that went along with those somewhat paltry bribes by comparison.

I mean like ... a thief in the dungeons wanting to give you a small, or the promise of five small because he doesn't have the money on him right now ... in order to let him go ... that's whatever. There are no social consequences attached to my character no matter what I decide to do so in those cases ... really 25 coins would do it. I never bothered pressing people for more money or scoffing at what they offered. It was all 100% reward with 0% risk for me.

But a lot of the other times, outside of that prison circumstance ... I would have an indy merchant coming to me wanting to offer me like, 1,000 coins in exchange for total protection from the GMH he was intending to be in direct competition with.

Dude ... you think my PC gets to have meetings with the head of Kadius and give that NPC marching orders? Get the fuck out of here. 

[Eyeball]

I'm not too sure I'd do anything to the actual economy. I mean, nothing to vendors, banks, etc.

But I would create code so that everything wore out. Almost everything, that is.

All foot-wear and clothing, including packs, belts, etc, on a room-counter adjusted by quality and material. Repaired clothing would bear the repaired flag. Packs which were allowed to go to the farthest reachs of wear would become unusable. Sandstorms, by the way, would alter the room-counter a lot. You might go into a blinding storm with new clothes and come out of it with most of your new, unflagged gear now tattered.

All weapons, on a hit counter, obviously determined by quality. Only some weapons could be repaired - those that were would bear the repaired flag. I'd also add sharpening kits to repair edged weapons. Blunt weapons would generally not be repairable.

All armo ... wait, that's fine. I'm good with this. Also, add a room-counter.

All food would go bad, based on a IC-time counter. Raw food would go bad far faster. Dried food and nuts would remain good for the longest.

All liquid would evaporate on an IC-time counter.

All mounts would age and die.

All wagons would require repair via the wagon-crafting skill, based on a room-counter. Walla, use for wagon parts AND the skill.

All pet objects would age and die, based on an IC-time counter.

All hides would have to be tanned within an IC week, or spoil. This mirrors RL by the way, but is way more lenient. 'Tool' required for tanning hides? Salt, or brains. This is also a mirror of a real method, and the one most likely to be used by our Zalanthans.

Wood would rot, based on an IC-timer AND usage-timer. So your chair would eventually break a leg and you'd need to go buy another.

Jewlery would become dull, and require a polishing kit to return to an un-flagged status.

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but you get the idea. Simply by eliminating anything that lasts forever, you create a giant money sink and you allow people to visually see the harshness of the world. You create business for everyone, and uses for things previously considered flavor.

Too grindy. Why not put some positive things to use money on in, instead of spinning wheels to fight dilapidation.

[Eyeball]

Better Houses options...On most other muds these days you can do all sorts of cool things with housing. Its a huge money sink, just buying simple tables and chairs..more furnishing options would be a plus. A mud I tried out recently pulled coin out of your bank account to auto pay for feeding animals or servants you could buy. You could build farms which had a yearly upkeep cost as well and actually grow things. I -never- had enough coin in the game. I felt like I was always always struggling for enough coin to eat and feed my chickens with. In that same vein let pcs that have a proper social rank ( the Great/minor Merchant Houses or Nobles) to keep a slave have guards or just an npc servant to stand around the house. It would give Borsail something to sell more often and be something rich pcs could throw money at. Hit their account by x amount of coin each month to afford that npc servant or whatever.

+++

Add in that the good word of a Templar or Noble is needed before a house can be purchased; that should stir the pot.

[Barzalene]

A line of lifelike dead thind that can be sewn to clothes.

And a level.