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Original post by Niphty
First of all, is the number of characters in game. The money supply would grow, but it would stay within reasons.
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The money supply would, of course, have to grow.. but it would grow slowly so that as more people arrived, the overall level of money did fall per person. This would result in helping to curb rich older players and poor younger ones, although the separation would always grow. I''m looking at ways to stop that, perhaps a higher tax on really rich people?
Richer players will just hoard their wealth, meaning the game gets progressively harder and harder for new players.
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2:Never did i want the player to have to pay for things that aren''t a luxury.
I wasn''t necessarily referring to your system, by the way: just to the futility of trying to simulate a full economy in a game. (And, more to the point, trying to simulate a 20th century economy based on numerous social issues, international trade agreements, and moral values that are simply not present in games.)
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Taxes are merely a part of the world system, and nessicary. The player would have to pay the taxes willingly, or risk being hunted down by the IRS squad
And like i said above, different tax brackets depending on ammount of money.
You just contradicted yourself. Are you saying taxes are a luxury? Or that you don''t actually have to pay them
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Remember, technically the government could just raise taxes and pay for our food and accommodation itself. What we would have left is disposable income. Any kind of taxation system, whether explicit taxes, or implicit accommodation/sustenance costs, is eating into the ''disposable income'' and reducing the player''s feeling of control over their character.
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3:Games are paying games for the most part.
There are about 2000 non-paying MUDs on the internet, and barely 10 paying MMORPGs. But I digress...
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A character which has a suspended account inactive for three months would have the money reclaimed back into the system. This way, if they pay for the character to be there, it''s there. However.. if they fail to pay for the character, they don''t have access.. so it''s nothing to worry over
What if they''re paying for access but not playing? Do youstill take their money away? Or what if they''re playing a little, but not enough for anyone to notice, and therefore their money is ''lost'' from the economy? (ie. someone who just comes on to chat.) If you balance your economy based on how many people you have in the game, it''s always going to be skewed by those who have money yet don''t spend it somehow.
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6:Natural resources are limited. But the limit will never be reached.
You do like these contradictions, don''t you!
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If the resources are effectively unlimited, then they are infinite. Otherwise they are finite. If the world will never run out, it counts as infinite for 99% of purposes, including economical ones.
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but think about the ammount of time the earth has been being mined. We still have resources. Prices go up slowly over time because we realize the resource might one day run out.
Only when we know these resources are limited or hard to come by. Value is a function of rarity and effort required. If a resource is getting more and more easily procured (more and more players are acquiring the relevant skills, and more of these items are therefore ending up in player hands) then the perceived value will drop. You need to enforce some sort of rationing yourself if you want value to rise.
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(snip long mining stuff)
If you really want to be a miner, well.. go out and try to mine on your own, but i doubt you''ll get far. Make friends in the business and work your way in
That''s roleplaying! whee!
That''s annoying for the person who has no friends and finds it hard to get into the game. Remember, if your game says they can mine ore, some players will want to mine ore! Not be turned away because the quota of miners is already allocated. In real life, their wish would be considered unreasonable, but in a game people want to get their own way, because the game is entertainment.
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p.s. let''s all agree to disagree?
That''s not the point of the forums, is it?
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Semi-radical idea alert: I think the best economy would be one with -no- currency. Let players barter for their goods. You -automatically- force them to place their own values on items, instead of trying to give objects some artificial numerical value to be expressed in a number of coins. Therefore, supply and demand rules will apply directly. All you then have to do is ensure that newbies can always get the items they need to play the game effectively, and the player-run economy will fluctuate and balance itself.
I''m not sure how well you could integrate NPC merchants into all this, but if you needed to, you could simply set them up to trade things on a one-to-one basis, with no regard to value. Load them up with 10 random items, and allow players to swap with them. If you balance your system well so that an item that is useless to one person is a useful item for the next person, the items available will change quite nicely.