Game Economy Speculation

[chumbucket]

Obviously, none of this is even close to era accurate, but just for the sake of pondering what would be the outcome of a T2A free server adopting the following policies:

1. A limited amount of gold in the economy, scaled with number of players. Players and their bank contents are deleted after a period of non-use.

2. Additionally, a number of gold sinks are incorporated. In particular, gold in bank boxes is taxed (i.e., moved back into spawning on monsters and t-maps) on a say monthly basis at a rate of 10 to 20% or perhaps progressively depending on total. Also, vendors continue to charge to sell wares, but at a set percent, i.e., you pay up front, say, 5% of the total sale price to list an item for sale on a vendor. Vendors thus are still gold sinks and can't be used for gold storage.

3. Gold cannot be locked down in houses and decays in five minutes on a house floor or in a container in a house. Same with boats. The goal is to keep all gold storage in bank boxes, which are taxable.

4. The world is divided into regions which are allotted a certain percent of the total available gold. And then individual spawn is allotted a percent of that gold. Regions can then be depleted of the existing gold due to overhunting.

5. NPCs sell non-craftable items, but do not buy anything. They take money out of the economy (but back into the general spawn of gold) and do not put gold back into it.

The overall aim is obviously to limit the sort of inflation that every online game ever faces. The obvious downside is that players can't just grind their way to excessive wealth, and what wealth they do have will have a limited shelf life and must be used. But on the other hand that would make a lot more room for player economies since people will be forced to spend gold.

[Budner]

That's very well thought out. But what problem are we really trying to solve? Inflation is not bad per se, particularly in a context where the participants in an economy can "print" their own money (e.g. by farming, etc.).

If you cap the amount of gold, what will happen is that early participants in the game will buy everything valuable (especially property and rares) and hoard them even more than they do on this shard.

On this shard, escalating prices incentivize people to part with their properties and rares. I'm not sure tighter monetary controls would actually be a good thing.

Provocative post though.

[WiseOne]

Communism is the only way!

[Downs]

i would then institute regs and fishsteaks as currency.

pwned

[corruption42]

Agreed, interesting idea... seems like with the regional divisions it might work with something like a faction system. Make part of the participation in the economy also encouraged and driven by the participation in player-driven spontaneous events. Something like this actually seems like it could solve for a lot of the problems the faction system had -- and add a level of depth for the population to get involved in.

Where else might the effects of such a stunted economy be felt throughout the genreal mechanics of the game? What does the limit do to the value of crafting skills?

[RaveGreen]

Too much brain power required for this post, but I'll give you my quick thought(s)...

Last thing I want to do when I log in at night is have to worry about making $$ just so I have some. For instance, I haven't been spending much time farming because I've FINALLY got comfortable with what I have (which, honestly, isn't much). So instead I have been working characters that don't require me buying regs and farming $$ to support.

I feel that with Chum's suggestion I am always going to feel like I have to farm or make $$ just so the tax man doesn't drain me dry if I get lazy for a while...

Also, with vendors NOT buying items from players I think you are going to discourage a lot of people (complete noobs or returning noobs) from playing. I bet a lot of people choose this method of making money because they don't want to PvP or feel they can't compete with the number of PKs on this server.

When I was new, before I re-figured out how things worked, I was doing the sheep > wool > cloth > fancy shirts thing to get my first character ready for the dungeons. If I wouldn't have been able to do that, and if I didn't have the support of some great people in C^V, I probably would have said "screw it" and looked for something else to spend my time on.

my 2g...

[McCray and Company]

Can we have bulk order deeds and Renaissance housing too?

[Blaise]

TL:DR, NEA, GG.

[Francois424]

OSI tried something like this once (or part of your suggestions anyways).

It was called "Siege Perilous"
For me as a casual player, it sucked balls... Really, it did.
Then again I know lots of ppl loved it.

The economy is fine, except for the serious housing issue of this shard (3 accounts * 5 char = 15 houses ? Now, that's a problem... era accurate yes, but still a problem ). Not to mention that most of what you need, you can get or earn in-game without being dependant on other players.

It's nice to have a few million gold, I am sure, but far from necessary... unless Vega throws us a surprise and sells us a Castle.

[Budner]

Agre completely with Francois. Economy is good, biggest issue is house hoarding by 15 characters (and let's face it, sometimes more). I'm guilty of hoarding. I do it to make money in this economy. It works.

[Light Shade]

i would then institute regs and fishsteaks as currency.

pwned

This. Its like real life, taxes go up, money moves elsewhere's so that it can't be taxed.

[DrFaustus]

Don't discuss uo economics with anyone worth less than 75 million.

They haven't figured it out yet

[Vega/Delo]

Not a developer in anyway but not sure if this would work. Like light said money will be masked by the items it represents (house deeds). If they could even attempt this Dr could easily find who can afford his purple air Jordans.

[Missy B]

i wonder which tax bracket id fall into. Either way id just find ways to hide my money from being taxed. it would be like real life. However if you want to institute this you'd have to add all the other things like interest from banks and a stock market and blah blah blah...just keep it the way it is that way if you want to take a break from the game, because it is a game ,and not real life, you wont lose all your money from over taxing.

[Capitalist]

Speculators are the reason gas prices are so high. Let's not do this to ourselves.