Since the IA thread has been spiraling out from OPs original intent and with Glim's new guidelines for IA posts I felt the need to make this post.
To end the discussion regarding the inflation of gold on Amia I will say the following: As long as a currency is generated from out of nowhere and does not have a fixed amount the currency will inflate. This goes both for gold and Dreamcoins.
Now that we have established that the two main currencies (including resources) are inflated lets move on
Static money sinks already exist on Amia and many other games, they are designed to combat inflation by removing currency from players and the game.
Buying upgrades from the game;
Buying food, potions and supplies from the game that will be consumed during play;
Buying services from the game such as healing, item repair, transportation throughout the game world, or storage space (or storage time) for current or extra items;
Item degradation: items may have a small chance to degrade or break when used, repairing or replacement cost time and/or money;
Selling items to NPC "pawnbrokers" who resell them to other players at a substantial markup.
Dynamic money sinks are the ones which match their cost to a variable such as player or item level and most notably is repairing items in popular MMOs where the cost to repair the item is increased as the items level goes up. Another one is Auction systems (and yes scripts exist for nwn1 for that) where the fee to post an item is scaled to the selling price asked by the seller.
So here is my request should you decide to participate in this topic other than just the +1s. Name a money sink that you feel should exist on Amia
I can name two things. A dungeon which requires PCs to front up a sum of gold to enter as "entrance fee". E.g to pass this bridge you have to pay a toll. Another one is to that cities could petition for a NPC who in return for a gold cost (based on char level) would offer some rudimentary buffs for the player.
TL;DR: SHOW ME THE MONEY
PS: The maximum gold a creature (including player characters) can have is 4,294,967,295.
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Life should be prolonged only when it serves the greater cause of the death of the world.
I was actually thinking about this very subject just the other day.
My suggestion would be 1) to either drastically change or eliminate the Triumvir lamp system so that it's not a free ride for everyone, 2) scale cart and boat transportation costs to PC level, 3) add more "filler" environmental areas so that the opportunity cost of taking a cart at its prices versus using haste is more credible, and 4) halve the gold piece income per monster kill.
I've also thought about increasing the reliance upon NPC merchants and replacing the racial and charisma discount with a taxation system which draws gold and benefits the local community. This would discourage good PCs from going to the Abyss to buy things because it would benefit evil, which would then 1) lock paladins out of evil shops, 2) provide ethical considerations for RP, and 3) cause people to consider whether they really want to pay taxes to a city or faction they are already at odds with. Whatever it is which causes the increase in NPC merchant reliance will have to be thought about, too.
I've noticed that my wizard very rarely buys healing kits and potions, but the less-than-magical people drink them like water. If the taxation system was put in place, I think that it would at least be fair if arcane casters also had to stock up on spell components in order to cast spells (in addition to memorizing them in the spellbook), and clerics and paladins would owe a temple tax to continue being in favor with their god and church. Druids and rangers might have to buy saplings to plant trees somewhere.
Another idea could be to require player shops to buy a scaling merchant's license, and then shoppers would also have to pay a local tax. People who don't run shops with licenses lose guard protection and will probably be committing a crime (it would be metagaming to sell a lot of stuff in Cordor without a license and around NPC guards and the officer of the mercantile authority, for instance) Not only would this provide income to the city, but it would also drive some business out of Cordor and to Winya or Kohlingen or Bendir as merchants seek to profit their favorite communities or bring merchandise to other places. At the moment it seems like the only things worth opening a player shop for are epic items, though.
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Last edited by Paladin Araelin on Wed, Jan 29 2014, 18:30 PM, edited 1 time in total.
Silke, I would encourage you to research the previous several economy related threads to get a better idea of the complexity of the situation. There are some factors unaccounted for there. But thanks for the interest, nonetheless.
Silke, I would encourage you to research the previous several economy related threads to get a better idea of the complexity of the situation. There are some factors unaccounted for there. But thanks for the interest, nonetheless.
Now what poster would do research before making a topic Yoss? But fair enough. I put on my silver lurking badge and set out into the dark corners of the boards.
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Life should be prolonged only when it serves the greater cause of the death of the world.
The best money-sink in my opinion, and hence the best way to improve the economy, is to actually flesh out the lore of Amia. Now, this is something I have said so often for so long, that it feels almost redunant to repeat it.
The server stands now for ten years. We have so little lore around. Detailed entries of the population, culture, economy, life and military capabilities of the cities allow for Amia to really take a big step forward. No more railroad plots, no more abitrary changes to the cities so they fit to the plots, but making the plots fit to the cities.
Then allow the characters to actually play a part in it. If there are donations of 40 million gold to the Church of the Triad, Orphanage and City of Kohlingen, having them to be nothing more than a garbage bin will not encourage anymore donations of the like to be given. I know I will never give gold in charity-donations again because they do not matter at all. If they however lead to an update of the lore topic of Kohlingen and influence the plots, then it is something different.
Once you have a fleshed out lore topic, you can also see what you can still do to improve the city. Does Kohlingen have a good basic school system through the Churches? How about funding a university so Kohlingen becomes the center of the classical higher education of Amia? What is the naval strength of Wiltun, Kohlingen and Cordor? How about funding more intiatives in that regard? Well, right now, what speaks against it, is you can invest time and effort into it, but it does not matter. They are not set, and will be changed around to fit what ever theme the plot should take on. How about expanding the harbor, and building long-range trade vessels for amia's first route to Matzica? Then after a few months, updates come in. A merchant in Kohlingen square selling interresting objects from the far away land.
Improving a city or settlement, actually building something you can see or that has an influence on the lore, that is a great money sink. It is one of the most effective, as the kohlinger expansion has demonstrated. 30 mil and 15k building materials. It is also something that gains a lot of interrest from the playerbase, as Tarkuul or Drow-Town clearly shows. Now, expand on them, tie them into faerun as a whole and into one another, and flesh out the lore? Enormous potential for both roleplay and money-sinks.
Expanding the cities is the last thing I personally want to see happen. Money and resources are still infinite so this does nothing for economic woes except make inflation much much worse. Furthermore, the dev's are stretched thin enough as it is and expanding the cities simply does not pass the pro/con test.
On top of that, moving further into the cities=faction bases chasm is hardly the direction we should be going. There is a good reason why places like Kampos, and the various crossroads are where the players flock to, and it has nothing to do with the cities being underdeveloped lore wise.
Simply put, until the cities are actually cites again and being consistently used by more than just the people who run them we cannot waste our limited devs on expansion projects.
While I like the idea of being able to invest gold in lorey stuff this is where the wealth disparity shows its ugliest head - a million gold is nothing to a bosshunter or an old PC, but a new PC wanting to help out their local whatever is just going to feel useless. And it's just kind of weird when PCs are flashing around massive piles of gold for basic things when dealing with NPCs. I have a lot of trouble figuring out what's appropriate for an NPC bribe actually. Still, there are ways to handle all this, but ideally it works best if it's not shown off, and people don't simply buy module changes by throwing gold pieces at Amia. Just keep that in mind I guess.
It is more than just throwing a million gold pieces at something. I am talking about very high costs of a few dozen million gold, tied to steep material requirements and extensive roleplay to enable it for the larger projects that have an impact. That you need deep pockets for it is good, because that is the way to drain deep pockets. At some point, such projects will become far more difficult to fund and see to, and that is a very good point to reach.
The whole cities = factions thing is something that it does not need to contribute to at all, either. That is something only the staff can begin to change. Until they begin to appoint NPCs to the positions of importance the players vacate, it will remain in their hands. That you can only do if the plots do not make the positions necessary, or for having the NPCs in those positions actually become alive. Until they get some lore down and then actually work on portraying the city as a whole, the players are the center piece of the city, sorrounded by bleak changable faces that have absolutely no influence on the events, because they never are a part of them or relevant to them. And the events require some of the players to take such roles.
It is also a problem players at times do not want to give away control to a DM, as it often leads to complete inactivity of a city or abitrary changes of longstanding storylines that are incredibly immersion-breaking and unfair. So it is also about building trust to the community. I recall enough times that happened. A settlement/faction changing hands from one DM to another, leading to massive amounts of roleplay being rendered completly obsolete.
Anyway, we got tons of lore on waterdeep. We have little lore on Cordor or Wiltun in contrast. That is something that bothered me for years, as why should we not continue to enrich the region with lore and atmosphere that we play in? It is after all a roleplay server and persistent world. As for module changes, I did not have a project for a long while, and small updates I can easily help do. So that is also about using the resources you have.
Last edited by Pony on Wed, Jan 29 2014, 20:46 PM, edited 1 time in total.
Didn't Disco say you could, with large amounts of gold and job resource items, build personalised buildings? Granted, with dev backlog that'd take a while, but is that still a thing?
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It is more than just throwing a million gold pieces at something. I am talking about very high costs of a few dozen million gold, tied to steep material requirements and extensive roleplay to enable it for the larger projects that have an impact.
Yeah see that just makes my point about power disparities kinda hit harder, meaning that people who have never had that kind of gold will never be able to reach them, unless you manage some sort of bracketing feature which doesn't make a lot of IC sense.
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Gold doesn't make any IC sense at all anymore, unless on lower levels. It is way to easy to get and hoard. Currencies spawn from nether, and in PnP campaigns, there is an economy. With the lack of a limit on the quantity of money available in the world, there is no real economy in Amia. At least, no real economy based on gold/coins.
The best idea would be one that doesn't, in any way, give advantages/powers to gold hoarders. It would be to build an economy based on something else than a thing so easily found as gold coins in our server.
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Have we not considered making it more difficult to acquire gold? Smaller returns on sold adventuring gear, job system reductions, no money dropped per monster kill?
EDIT: I don't think capping money is the way to go, just create shrink on the process of gold.
If we wanted to get really nuts, we could even limit the gold/silver/copper supply to the amount of gold/silver/copper processed in the job system.
i.e. Dwarves harvested 20,000 lbs of gold this week, the mint makes 6 million coins.
Gold is much harder to get now than it used to be. One of the major issues here is that there is already a huge amount of gold in the economy, and only a tiny fraction of that is being traded and used. Most of it is hoarded away.
Solution: On gold only, everyone loses all of their gold and starts again.
I'll wheel out the old chestnut of - you buy gold 'items' - writs of sale, platinum bars, flawless diamonds... whatever. Having above an arbitrary amount of 'cash' gold (ie that GP number) on you will trigger an encumberance to reflect the massive bags of swag you've got about your person. The catch is that a lot of these items will either be in extremely limited supply (flawless diamonds, artworks) or of fluctuating value on where you trade them (ingots). Opportunities for arbitrage should exist as well rather than all merchants charging the same price +/- your appraise penalty. I shouldn't be able to go to a potion seller in Khem and get a misty for the same price as I can in Cordor, but rather local conditions (logistics of supply, spell ingredients, casting costs) should add or reduce prices as they do IRL.
Also de-gimping Pickpocket (as in take more than 20gp...) could help things flow around a bit.
Final thought, if this is done then loot drops should be a) more frequent and b) translate into more GP. Lowlevel/denomination item-money should be readily available and not weigh vast amounts (indeed the Gems in game already partly work for this) - but they should take up some inventory space, so you have to balance between keeping stuff in tangible assets (swords, armour, cloaks), fungible assets (stacks of silver/gold/platinum, gems) and actual 'ready cash' (gp). It would also give the Morgan & Sons a role of more importance as they could hold large amounts of cash and provide 'writs' - these would be essentially banknotes that players could trade between themselves and use in lieu of gp with shopkeepers (like real banknotes, spending an note would 'break' it into ready cash that you can then trade for healkits,potions etc).
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Silke, I would encourage you to research the previous several economy related threads to get a better idea of the complexity of the situation. There are some factors unaccounted for there. But thanks for the interest, nonetheless.
Now what poster would do research before making a topic Yoss? But fair enough. I put on my silver lurking badge and set out into the dark corners of the boards.
Thanks. I wasn't trying to be a dbag or anything, and I really do appreciate it when someone takes up the banner on this subject. It's just that we've rehashed it many times, both in front of and behind the curtains, and frankly at this point the DMs know more or less what ought to be done, I think, but the question is how to implement it fairly and reasonably. That's the finesse. But the discussions should never be squashed because there is always the potential that somebody will consider an idea from all sides of the issue and propose something heretofore unproposed.
The only gold sink that people with tons of gold will really use is something that allows them to do something they can't currently do.
The only example I can think of is to pay a large sum of gold to be able to transfer an item from an old character to a new one, or from one alt to another: for example if you find an epic item with one character that he can't use but another of your characters could use, you pay a million gold or whatever and a DM transfers the the item. This was how it worked on another server I played on and plenty of gold was spent this way. It would also cause more of the epic items that just sit in peoples' vaults to be actually used in the game.
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Aiseth wrote:
Have we not considered making it more difficult to acquire gold? Smaller returns on sold adventuring gear, job system reductions, no money dropped per monster kill?
EDIT: I don't think capping money is the way to go, just create shrink on the process of gold.
If we wanted to get really nuts, we could even limit the gold/silver/copper supply to the amount of gold/silver/copper processed in the job system.
i.e. Dwarves harvested 20,000 lbs of gold this week, the mint makes 6 million coins.
On the other hand, this will unbalance things, as the currently rich PC's will get even richer
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Here is a better look at what I think we should do, I have wanted to take something like this into regard for awhile. Let's play with the macro economics alone.
Every city state produces and imports. If we can account for production v. RP happenings, we can make something of a economap. I stole this idea a little bit from the World Campaign in Rise of Nations. When a place maintains an area, they receive the benefits from the resources there. Our map is already well drawn. What a city-state (area) produces is based on the RP principle put into making sure such a place continues to produce such. As there is lore for what villages do what and where, we have a good idea how to start. It would look something like this:
-*= Capital State, all else colored according to Capital Area's possession. -Grey State= Neutral or unconquered territory. -Areas with Underlined Products, maintain the lead production of good/service and take a +1 to their trade level if maintaining one of these areas.
Benefit Key:
Arts- Arts create commercial prosperity and ingenuity, state receives +1 Trade Level Agriculture- The means to growing your own food and livestock, +1 Trade Level Commerce- State is a recognized hub for trade, +2 Trade Level Exotics- Unusual merchandise or outlets as well as planar imports and rare components +1 Trade level Fish- An important trade staple of the nation is the fish soup, +1 Trade level Furs- A durable warm good for clothing, +1 Trade level Gems- Precious stones with high exchange rates, +2 Trade level Health- The means to a longer living society beyond basic needs, +2 Trade level Knowledge- Education is the means to empowering your people +2 Trade Level Lumber- Basic fuel for heat, as well as goods abroad. +1 Trade Level. Magic- More concentrated magic means more global power, + 2 Trade level Meats- Wild meat is an important staple for the opposite of gatherers +1 Trade level Metals- A staple for most warcraft, as well as durable infrastructure, +1 Trade Level Military- Great Security is always a sound investment, +2 Trade Level Naval- The uncertain waters are more certain, +2 Trade Level Textiles- Basic and fine materials for wear. +1 Trade Level Water- A basic resource for survival, not everyone is rich in fresh water, +1 Trade Level
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Trade Influence summary:
Treaty of Light: 12pts-- 12%GDP Cordor's Commonwealth: 12pts -- 12%GDP Enclave of Tarkuul: 9pts --8%GDP Jarldom of Wiltun: 8pts --8%GDP Underdark: 7pts --7% GDP Druids of the Grove: 7pts --7% GDP Myth Winya Ravana: 7pts --7%GDP Khem: 6pts -- 6%GDP Residual Osthavn: 5pts --5%GDP 363rd Layer: 4pts --4%GDP Forrstakkr: 4pts --4%GDP Frozenfar South: 3pts --3%GDP Frozenfar North: 1pt --0%GDP Neutral or unmastered territories: 17pts --16% GDP
Total Trade Points: 102
Okay. This is just the macro-side of the world's trade. A model I came up with. Next I will try to distribute the wealth accordingly with micro economics.
Edit: DMs can use this tool to factor in their events too, for example, Bendir Dale and the Shrine of Eilistraee are not producing Agriculture due to the dying of the land. It would make a tug on the rest of the economy as Bendir is the main gross supplier of agriculture! 3 Percent of the world's market has collapsed! Prices must rise.
Additional Side Note: Remember that Trade Influence cannot quantify actions in the freelance and black markets.
I must admit, as someone who plays a character that can get all sorts of places and can't go others I would also like to see more opportunities for traders and costermongers to exploit differences in the world macro trade. Can't get whiskey in the Underdark? I can get that for you... for a price! etc.
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Aiseth you cannot oversimplify every settlement like that.
Why not? You could argue that, say, the Dale could also have military or commerce, but that's not really it's primary feature, is it? Begin with the simple, and then expand. What has been provided already is a very clear and excellent example.
Keep going Aiseth, I want to see where you're going with this.
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I agree. Besides, anything NOT 'over-simplified' to begin with would be horribly wieldy & virtually impossible to understand. I think this COULD go a long way to establishing a 'meaningful' economy. Once in place, this sytem could even influence the amount of gold dropped by critters in neighboring regions: if bandits outside a poor area drop the same amount of gold as goblins outside Cordor...where did the bandits come up with it?
You could go a step further; why would bandits even BE outside poorer areas? A system like this could affect the creatures in surrounding areas, setting up 'migration' patterns (i.e. switching up encounters on various maps), making 'trade PC's' more lucrative (& more dangerous to play), creating more random encounters with varying frequency along the trade cart paths, etc.
It would be hellish to script...but it's also the most interesting idea I've seen on the forums in a long time.
I think if we want to get into Post-Greenwood levels of depth and setting and economy then we probably need to get people to actually sit down and figure it out. Aiseth's post is a start, but for example it totally neglects the industrial strength of the mines and forges of L'Obsul (yes, that place actually has something going for it). A comprehensive survey of relationships between city states should also be conducted.
I must admit now the idea of playing a character (or group) who is(/are) some sort of IC cartographer, surveyor & emissary of a large foreign power (perhaps looking to assess the viability of invasion or simply open deeper trading relations with Amian powers), is quite appealing!
I also think that a devaluation of the Amian Gold Piece would be a worthwhile endeavour. Either bump up shop prices to extremes to simulate the effect of inflation before some sort of financial restructuring (perhaps via the aforementioned banknotes) (or a popular revolt) and diversification of currencies, or simply go into everyone's archive and remove the last 3 digits on their characters gp in Leto...
Quote:
I made a few posts on the thread, but I think some sort of commission would actually be quite useful for devising the entire NPC economies of the region, how they interact, what their interactions with the outside world are and then that can translate into a system of fungible and tangible assets. [19:47:56] Like I think that if you have a Cordor banknote, it would be worthless to an underdarker NPC [19:48:14] because they can't trade them really, unless they are dealing a lot with other cordor note holders [19:48:40] Gems would be universally prized, but silver and gold coinpurses + notes + other items could have varying prices dependant on location
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I think if we want to get into Post-Greenwood levels of depth and setting and economy then we probably need to get people to actually sit down and figure it out. Aiseth's post is a start, but for example it totally neglects the industrial strength of the mines and forges of L'Obsul (yes, that place actually has something going for it). A comprehensive survey of relationships between city states should also be conducted.
That is where I am going next with this. Trade Relations and embargoes are what keep welfare at a low or high, depending on the success or failure of politics. Though, they would have a separate chart all together, as the output of goods do not matter to whom they do not go to, but to that the market still receives their product. Afterall, Kohlingen may put trade embargos on Wiltun, but may without direct transation, still buy deckwood that was made in Wiltun, sold to Forrstakkr. That's how the market works.
Foolish Surreal Example: Mexico doesn't buy Bananas from Paraguay, they buy from Haiti who trades directly with both Paraguay and Mexico.
On the topic of simplicity... why would you not want a simple model? Why would you want to make a frustratingly elaborate index, where only a handful of people would have to manage semi-regularly, while the rest of us would simply glance at it, and then continue roleplaying as we had been? I'm trying to create a nice addition, that will not evolve into becoming a great distraction. Things should be as simple as possible but not simpler, said Einstein.
That is not to say that the aforementioned model is perfected. I did not know about metal mines in the Underdark, for example, but the reason that I gave each competing nation or group the products that are listed, are because I have had the advantage of being on this game long enough to have watched the story intently and see where their powers are, quoted or otherwise. But also, it would be again, too elaborate to list -all- the productions of each environment.
Kohlingen does in fact have an 'agriculture' but I do not feel the city has put enough RP emphasis in directing a good majority of their resources to being just agriculture. That is the Guns V. Butter argument of trade. Do we have a strong military or agriculture? Kohlingen chose military.
The same goes for all those places, and I feel actually that I did a pretty good job of describing where each city's strengths are respectively, where their leading markets are.
Can and should a city have additional Product? Yes. But that would be a result of the players involved in such areas to put an ample amount of time and energy into making a market of remarkable interest.
It is clear to me that Tarkuul has made Knowledge a huge product of theirs given the lovely amount of RP expressed into building those credentials, and as result of such, Tarkuul not only produces Knowledge, I regarded them as the leaders of Knowledge product.
Same goes for Caraigh, where the guardians of Ceyren's Mill, I recall, put a large amount of time building Ceyren's Mill West, an area designed to the cultivation of wheat and poultry. Thus Caraigh has gained Agriculture as their product.
Who am I to say who gets what? I know, I know, I'm just a player and not a dm, designer, or what have you, but I just pulled this thing out of my hat because I saw something no one has expanded on really. Studying and following Economics is just a fun hobby to me in RL, I am not an actual Economist to answer Q't'ulu's question, in fact, my degree is in English. But I would love to take on something like this for Amia. That would be sweet.
This just came in my head, but let us add a fantasy element to the listings.
Remember these models are all in proto stage.
But this is the idea of Benefits:
Say that your nation's total area has a cluster of product that make up a 'set'.
One crazy example would be, ICly, Produce wonderland Bendir Dale focuses their people to capture the Amia Forest from the Grove as well as establish fishing in the Green Lake, they receive Meat from the forest, and earned Fish for their overtime RP at Greenlake and receive the Benefit: Good Diet.
Benefit: Good Diet -Fish, Agriculture, Meat Through maintaining a strong area focused in the production of foodstuffs, this state's denizens are well-fed. Food costs are well known to be less expensive inside the kingdom of Bendir Dale. They become the gastronomical goliath of Amia, and most Amians get their food out due to their domination in the food production market. Food prices rise elsewhere and drop within the kingdom of Bendir Dale. .
So, give me the end point of this system, Aiseth. If Kaithan decided to try making money at being an expert Herbalist, what could she do under this program that she couldn't before?
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Very intricate and thorough job with the individual economies, seems that prolly took awhile and well thought out. So much so that I feel this of little contribution but it -may- be something to consider. It was briefly touched on by 555 quoted below. One thing I disagree with is raising the cost of merchant supplies. Some people, explained in more detail below, don't have the gold as it is to buy supplies. I think if the prices are -to- high then that will deter new players from coming here since they couldn't afford to level there character.
555444333 wrote:
I also think that a devaluation of the Amian Gold Piece would be a worthwhile endeavour...
If you go to some place like Forstakkr, they make it readily apparent that they don't trust outside currency. They take one look and say "Who's head is that?" and will have nothing to do with the Cordor Crown stamped with Duke Montgomery's head. Now think of whats going on in Cordor. It -could- be possible that the Cordor Crown is simply loosing it's value due to peoples' faith in the government there. The recent situation in Cordor can easily reflect this possibility. Might even do some investigating and find out that the Cordor Crown that has been minted and used for so long, due to the corruption in the city, is actually only been passed off as gold piece but is actually a highly skilled counterfiet being mostly lead having only a small fraction of it's value. This -could- IC'ly justify the idea of taking the last two or three digits off the total amounts of character by using Leto. Considering how Forstakkr treats the Cordor Crown perhaps they are affraid of just exactly that. They don't trust the currency so they just simply refuse it and for good reason.
That said, honestly, I'm no epic builder, very few of my toons have ever had a million gold for any length of time. I don't think I've -ever- had more than two million on any of my toons. Admittedly I have gotten better at building and my toons by being able to solo have inevitably gotten richer. Having been in the population on Amia that isn't filthy, pathetically rich I can say for sure there is at least two classes of toons. Those made by epic builders that are mostly rich enough to buy a small country and the others that simply want to rp or can't build and sometimes have to borrow gold for healing potions. (I thought I'd add I'm not implying in any way that those that make epic builds don't rp, I count myself among the high percentage of players here that are epic builders and -do- rp as well). It blows my mind sometimes when I see one item in auctions going for four million. In essence I think -this- is the primary reason for the imbalance.
One suggestion that noone has brought up lol mainly because most of you will -not- like it is simply this. Make it so Epic Bosses will not spawn unless there is at least two or three actual pc's in the party this does -not- include summons, companions and the like. One thing this would do is -force- those epic builds to look for others to go with them. This would also give players that are not the best of builders to have a chance at the riches instead of being left behind since they are not needed.
I do have toons now that -can- solo epic bosses since I've learned abit about building heavy hitters myself. I still wouldn't mind seeing something like this to get this insane distance between the epic builders and those that don't know how ratified. It's unrealistic, metagamed (waiting for bosses to respawn without leaving the area over and over, even some -steal- the epic bosses and/or the loot sometimes after buffing the boss so those other than themselves get killed fighting it -then- they kill the boss and take the loot if any drops...bitches! Oh and let's not forget those that -sneak- by and take the epic boss spawn out from under a legitimate party). Anyways I'm getting a little off topic here so yeah basically make it so that the motivation to solo epic boss hunt and/or "steal" epic bosses is gone and the greed factor no longer applies. This would create the atmosphere where, if you want to go into the deadly depths of the unknown, you form a group and go as it should be. Heh alright now you can hang me and skin me alive.
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Last edited by Greyweaver on Fri, Jan 31 2014, 4:33 AM, edited 1 time in total.
So, give me the end point of this system, Aiseth. If Kaithan decided to try making money at being an expert Herbalist, what could she do under this program that she couldn't before?
I think it works the other way around. I have given you the end point, how PC work ICly effects the economy as a whole. How rebuilding Winya Ravana and reestablishing the elven community has given the product of arts, the richness of water, and the magic of the Selu'taar back to the elven people who organized and made it happen. They are results of the game's conflicts, consequences, and basically the jobs you have taken.
If Kaithan as a councilor said, Elves, it is time that we start an herbalist healthcare act. Kaithancare 2014, and this goes well in elf congress and does not flounder, then Kaithancare may grant Winya Ravana the 'Health' product to their city, increasing their tradepoints.
Okay, so I didn't give you the very very ending. Trade points will ultimately grant a state more trade power and loosen the trade power of other states. Perhaps raising the cap on sold goods, as well as Trade Benefits I am just now coming up with...maybe Winyans get paid a regular stipend for being Winyan. These are the things that fall into Microeconomics that are still on my drawing board.
Edit: To answer your question better, the job system and the economy system are not directly related. Not directly, but indirectly.
So why do we make money and what is it good for in regards to the state you are in?
Well, I know that sometimes when you put Gold inside the Area Funds Chest, it can be used to finance projects. This is usually at the discretion of the DMs as it should be, and that is how your gold can earn you incentives. Will your next Naval Project succeed? Perhaps and perhaps not, it all is a matter of how things pan out ICly in whoever's plot is overviewing your area. But if so, say that Wharftown became a naval base, *cough* the Sphere of Trade shifts!
The best money-sink in my opinion, and hence the best way to improve the economy, is to actually flesh out the lore of Amia. Now, this is something I have said so often for so long, that it feels almost redunant to repeat it.
The server stands now for ten years. We have so little lore around. Detailed entries of the population, culture, economy, life and military capabilities of the cities allow for Amia to really take a big step forward. No more railroad plots, no more abitrary changes to the cities so they fit to the plots, but making the plots fit to the cities.
Then allow the characters to actually play a part in it. If there are donations of 40 million gold to the Church of the Triad, Orphanage and City of Kohlingen, having them to be nothing more than a garbage bin will not encourage anymore donations of the like to be given. I know I will never give gold in charity-donations again because they do not matter at all. If they however lead to an update of the lore topic of Kohlingen and influence the plots, then it is something different.
Once you have a fleshed out lore topic, you can also see what you can still do to improve the city. Does Kohlingen have a good basic school system through the Churches? How about funding a university so Kohlingen becomes the center of the classical higher education of Amia? What is the naval strength of Wiltun, Kohlingen and Cordor? How about funding more intiatives in that regard? Well, right now, what speaks against it, is you can invest time and effort into it, but it does not matter. They are not set, and will be changed around to fit what ever theme the plot should take on. How about expanding the harbor, and building long-range trade vessels for amia's first route to Matzica? Then after a few months, updates come in. A merchant in Kohlingen square selling interresting objects from the far away land.
Improving a city or settlement, actually building something you can see or that has an influence on the lore, that is a great money sink. It is one of the most effective, as the kohlinger expansion has demonstrated. 30 mil and 15k building materials. It is also something that gains a lot of interrest from the playerbase, as Tarkuul or Drow-Town clearly shows. Now, expand on them, tie them into faerun as a whole and into one another, and flesh out the lore? Enormous potential for both roleplay and money-sinks.
Oh there is lore available on the server, just a good deal of it was changed due to RP changing things and what have you. Also there are some books that mention things that players contributed, which does have things from that players characters point of view.
There are quite a bit of things that happened during the firs years of the server that not many if any that still remember what happened. Fortunately I was able to hold on to my personal notes, but those are all from my characters view. The great thing Amia allows is that players are allowed to partake in events and make history. That alone is the main reason why I still play on this server after a tad over ten years in the game, and this December is Amia's ten year anniversary if I am not mistaken
_________________ "You are still willing to do these things? After all he is your father."
"And he is your Lord Husband. If there is a difference, please explain it to me...."
What if crafting had a much higher price for crafting with greater mythal? Only high level characters will be using greaters, so I think it could help.
Problem is that people will just hunt more, create more gold etc... it's not really a progressive taxation in that it just excludes people who won't do that.
We need to create a series of money sinks that hit you harder the richer you are - not based on a high-end item or your level, but a simple read on your gold in your bags. That way you deflate the economy whilst not persecuting those who play casually or don't have the patience to farm and farm.
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Man, this account is over 10 years old. Where do I get my old man beard?
All that does is punish the people who keep their wealth in gold. The people who have invested in items are unaffected. The problem isn't gold, it is wealth. The total value of all things.
All that does is punish the people who keep their wealth in gold. The people who have invested in items are unaffected. The problem isn't gold, it is wealth. The total value of all things.
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But fair enough. I put on my silver lurking badge and set out into the dark corners of the boards.
