Would it really be such a big problem though? Even keeping the flat rate initially suggested and making it have effect for every single trade would mean that you'd just have to sell one credit at the current ongoing rate in order to recoup any losses such gifts would cost you. It's only a 2% tax currently.
I don't play Lusternia much anymore, and while I have millions of gold and not much reason to care, if I ran out of it and had to wait for credits to sell in order to give away credits to someone else (and calc the difference I'd need from the credits I was selling on market to get the gold I'd need for my private transaction as well, since both are being taxed), then wait however long for those credits to be purchased (it can surprisingly take hours and hours for credits to sell off of market when you want them to, and stopping to lower the price to try to make them sell faster now means you have to juggle/change around more numbers than before), decide if you have time to try to bash/influence for the gold instead, etc...
I might just shrug my shoulders and say oh well. It's not a "big problem" necessarily, but it is a drain in a place where I see no particular purpose served, and on limited time, after a long day, that really kind of kills what was an on-whim activity.
I think everyone agrees with the simplest solution, probably including Estarra herself. We won't solve anything harping on the fact that it's simple enough to just refund the mines, because the refund isn't happening. This ultra-complicated-super-irritating solution is the alternative to a no-refund deletion of the mines (and of selling credits/lessons for gold, which, incidentally, also has been nulled repeatedly before in the past).
Estarra can literally bite a bullet and tell those with the mines they're no longer valued players, and delete their mines with a backhanded slap. What will she lose? Those players. And get this "simple" solution that everyone wants. She's making the effort to actually not do that. Yes, she'll also be torturing us with a new, complicated currency as a result of trying to not chase away players who have sunk 6000+ dingbats into their mines. I think, as a player who doesn't own a mine, I owe it to those mine-owners to actually consider this more complicated solution and work with it - it's not fair to them when their purchases get cut out under them like that, but if we can reach a reasonable compromise - where the problem is addressed without telling them "Go look for an attorney to try and get your money back." then I believe we should take it, complicated solution or not.
There's not going to be refunds (or credit/lessons for gold sales from the admin).
We're going to have to find a solution that works with this in mind, whether it's Shuyin's manse wipeout or Talan's raw-comms idea, or pokemondust as a new currency.
My advice? Don't look at this game in terms of real world economics, because even putting aside the fact that real world economics is still a constantly developing academic field (Keynes has his detracters, too), the economy of this game is likely to give said economists a headache with all the differences from real world settings. We need to throttle gold generation and add gold sinks. So that means cutting or throttling mine production in some way, alongside mob gold drops, and adding in things people will spend gold on (that won't be veto'd by the admin). Take that step first, and we can worry about untangling the complicated new currency (if we go that route) when the dust has settled.
Edit: Stupid forums fixed their linebreaks problem, and now I have to edit my post to put my linebreaks back.
It just doesn't make any sense if admin won't sell credits/lessons for gold, but they'll sell dust for gold, with which you can buy aethergoop, which is worth 5cr a piece and can buy arties as well.
Tangent - instead of creating some sort of new "dust", why not just expand the use of auronidion particles instead? It already exists and has a few current means of spawning. Build from there. That's what I'd do if I wanted to do things this way, anyways.
I don't think they said they'd sell dust for gold... They said you'd get gold instead of dust from presents etc. but not that you'd be able to buy it directly. Either way, personally I'd rather the ability to trade dust for goop didn't exist either (since it'd essentially turn maps/genies/etc into artifact-generating artifacts, which just seems wrong. I'm not sure if you can get maps or genies anymore, even?).
I don't think they said they'd sell dust for gold... They said you'd get gold instead of dust from presents etc. but not that you'd be able to buy it directly. Either way, personally I'd rather the ability to trade dust for goop didn't exist either (since it'd essentially turn maps/genies/etc into artifact-generating artifacts, which just seems wrong. I'm not sure if you can get maps or genies anymore, even?).
You can rub the pieces from other curios.
Avurekhos says, "Dylara's a PvP menace in my eyes, totes rekting face."
The eye of Dylara materialises in your hands and flings itself around your neck, tightening incomprehensibly until it is irremovable. Perfectly clean, this eyeball has been wrenched from the socket of Dylara. It has been animated by some unusual force, constantly looking around itself as if in shock or fear. It is bathed in a light covering of white flames that roll endlessly over its surface. A single chain of empyreal metal pierces either side of the eye, allowing it to be worn around the neck.
I don't think they said they'd sell dust for gold... They said you'd get gold instead of dust from presents etc. but not that you'd be able to buy it directly. Either way, personally I'd rather the ability to trade dust for goop didn't exist either (since it'd essentially turn maps/genies/etc into artifact-generating artifacts, which just seems wrong. I'm not sure if you can get maps or genies anymore, even?).
You can rub the pieces from other curios.
So in essence, you can't get maps or genies any more. At least not in any kind of reliable way.
I don't think they said they'd sell dust for gold... They said you'd get gold instead of dust from presents etc. but not that you'd be able to buy it directly. Either way, personally I'd rather the ability to trade dust for goop didn't exist either (since it'd essentially turn maps/genies/etc into artifact-generating artifacts, which just seems wrong. I'm not sure if you can get maps or genies anymore, even?).
You can rub the pieces from other curios.
So in essence, you can't get maps or genies any more. At least not in any kind of reliable way.
I completed my genie set outside a promotion. It's doable, it just takes patience and time.
I agree with @Lerad - we need to work with what we're given.
Dingbat Mines - Whatever the solution ends up being, there needs to be an associated cost with upkeeping that makes them competitive with village comms. @Talan's idea may work (it's a bit more complicated). I think it might be fair to remove the upkeep aspect of mines and let people harvest once a day and they just need to pay the upkeep fee at that time. Overall's can reduce that cost by a bit.
I still prefer Org/Guild/Order costs rather than individual costs (like a credit transfer tax). Putting this burden on the org spreads it out to the populace affecting everyone equally rather than placing the burden on a few people. As @Vivet/@Sylandra said - they would just not participate anymore, meaning more gold and credit hoarding rather than spending. Need to spend to get it out of the system.
While I know the gold throttle is here to stay, I also think we'd benefit from a 'normalization' of gold drops. We don't need crazy high drops from relatively mundane mobs. Raise the floor by 10-15% and drop the ceiling by 30% (or more). This will have the benefit of reducing gold inflow, as well as making it harder to reach that throttle.
Lastly - this new dust should -only- be available via Wheel/Presents/Genies/Maps etc. I don't think aethergoop idea is terrible as long as it's an appropiate cost (10k/goop sounds good) and the drops are low. I'm ok with a transfer tax on this because it is new and it's used to get relatively rare items. I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but those items that are made from dust should be removed from presents/genies/wheel as well so they are -only- brought into the game via dust.
Oh one other thing - We should limit the amount of maps and genies usuable per day. 5-10 maps, and one full set of genies. Limiting how easy it is to obtain this new found dust is important as well.
Apparently there has been multiple people that think trade artifacts shouldn't be profitable. I do not understand this stance. If the primary purpose of an artifact is to improve trade, then that improvement must be enough that it could eventually turn a profit. If it doesn't turn a profit, it's primary purpose (trade) has failed.
I bought my spatula years ago, when I was level 60ish. It was the first artifact I bought, and I bought it because it would help me make the money I needed to buy more things to keep up with people who had more money to spend on the game, could bash better/faster, and were just generally superior at certain aspects of the game. I bought it because I thought, "If I buy this, I can eventually afford to buy a different artifact that will make me good at combat. Look at that Ixion guy...I could be the next Ixion if I had the same artifacts!"
Clearly this hasn't worked out, but it demonstrates the same mindset that the "trade artifacts aren't for making money!" people are showing. Namely, complete ignorance about an aspect of the game that isn't their primary focus.
Yes, trade artifacts should benefit trade. They -absolutely- should, and they should provide enough of a benefit that they could pay themselves off in time. My spatula actually paid for itself pretty quickly, because credits were at about 4k per, most people were less than level 80, and carefully working around the commodity market allowed me to undercut competition on the price of constitution platters. I typically made 100k-150k gold a day just seling food from my shop, with the occasional person buying out my platters and shooting me up to over 500k. This was a -lot- of money at one point. It was possible because of my money-generating artifact (spatula), and my being able to shop around and buy out the cheapest commodities I needed, forcing other people to buy more expensive commodities, or do annoying quests to lower the prices.
Like it or not, the manse mines -are- trade artifacts. They produce commodities, which in turn are primarily used by the trades. Ergo, trade artifact. They -should- be able to turn a profit. They don't, and anyone who thinks that adding a cost to them is a good idea is probably not focused primarily on trade - they probably get the bulk of their gold somewhere else. Y'know, like bashing.
The concern that removing the mines will upset the mine owners is absurd. Most of the mine owners are already going to be upset, because the other proposed changes are screwing us over completely. At least if they're deleted and refunded, while perhaps unhappy, we can say "Well, at least we didn't waste our money." You can't please everyone, but maybe not go out of your way to piss everyone off.
Also, Yarith. Really? Comparing a trade artifact to a combat artifact, and arguing about how it won't pay for itself? Two completely different values - I have all sorts of artifacts that I never thought would earn me gold, but their value wasn't in their ability to make me rich. Their value lied elsewhere, and most of the ones I have bought for those roles have performed excellently. My jewelry bench hasn't made me any money either. It literally can't make me money, because it doesn't provide any benefit over a normal bench, which are already lying around to be freely used. It's 100% for my own ego and convenience. My cameo can't/won't make me money, but it satisfies my need to change races every five minutes. These artifacts have different points, and thus, their value is determined differently. I mean, by that logic, my enchanting gloves have never helped me kill anyone, so does that mean they're worthless? Rawr! Change to enchanting gloves, they don't do any extra damage or afflictions or anything! See? Stupid.
So the plan is to introduce a new currency that is better than gold and comms, to replace the gold and comms that Genies/Maps/Wheel/Presents create?
This is a buff to all of those items, and it does literally nothing to deal with the fact that there are no real gold sinks in Lusternia. It feels like you're pulling a fast one on Estarra, because this solution doesn't reallllly solve any problems. It does give wealth generating curios/arties a nice boost though! If that's what the goal is, then by all means...
Edit: I don't mind limiting the max number of genies/maps/etc. you can use per day, but that should go in regardless of 'dust'.
So the plan is to introduce a new currency that is better than gold and comms, to replace the gold and comms that Genies/Maps/Wheel/Presents create?
This is a buff to all of those items, and it does literally nothing to deal with the fact that there are no real gold sinks in Lusternia. It feels like you're pulling a fast one on Estarra, because this solution doesn't reallllly solve any problems. It does give wealth generating curios/arties a nice boost though! If that's what the goal is, then by all means...
Edit: I don't mind limiting the max number of genies/maps/etc. you can use per day, but that should go in regardless of 'dust'.
I'm working with what's being presented. I originally suggested that instead of gold, map curios could give temporary buffs akin to poteen pots. Estarra is the one who suggested introducing 'dust' and I'm simply working within those bounds. It would be easiest to just say 'fuck it' and remove all the problem items, but in case you weren't paying attention, that's not on the table. So you have two options. Work with what's on the table, or continue to be unhelpful by not adding your own ideas and simply complaining about what is being discussed. I'm hoping you'll select the first option and start being constructive.
The dust introduction solves a few aspects of the issue.
1) Reduced influx of gold. It removes 'free' gold by replacing it with dust that is limited in it's use
2) Offers a gold sink - You can trade it for gold, but with a transfer tax, that's more gold drained out of the system.
3) The items made with dust are temporary buffs. Argleblasters, Fruitpizzazz's etc. They last an hour so when they poof, the dust used to make them is permanently out of the game. Selling these items would move gold around the system, but wouldn't introduce more gold into the system.
Lastly - this is one part of the solution, not the entire solution. Trying to pan it off as that is short-sighted and ignorant of everything else that's being discussed. In the same comment you are responding to, I said we need to introduce org/guild/order wide costs to things like discretionary powers, raising shrines, constructs etc. Raising these costs does introduce gold sinks that will drain gold out of the game, but at the same time it won't target individuals and will spread the overall cost to the entire populace.
I don't understand all this resistance. I'm not even going to reply to Ixchilgal because there's really no need.
The whole point of this is so that people lose wealth. Estarra offered a generous alternative so that value isn't outright lost. I don't see why there's so much resistance. Edit: Though instead of lose wealth I suppose it's more a 'do not generate so much without any effort'
(I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)
== Professional Girl Gamer == Yes I play games Yes I'm a girl get over it
Tangent - instead of creating some sort of new "dust", why not just expand the use of auronidion particles instead? It already exists and has a few current means of spawning. Build from there. That's what I'd do if I wanted to do things this way, anyways.
Okay, coming back to this, choosing auronidion particles might not be the best choice. They tie into spheres and have an established gold exchange already. HOWEVER, there are still a number of other aether-commodities that serve no real purpose other than encouraging exchange from ship to ship. Stuff like "canker OIL" which no one usually bothers with when the rare aether-trading trips do occur.
If you want to expand on those existing commodities and give them purpose in the ways you have outlined for this "dust", make some cost gold and others aetherdust, or something else, you can create a gold sink (with gold sinking into these gnome trader ships) while also encouraging aethertrade in order to obtain the base materials for those specialty drinks or whatever. Depending on how you flesh this out, it could also be introduced in a way that doesn't feel totally tacked on.
Sheesh, you really think I'm pulling a "fast one"? Not sure how to respond to that.
No, they're saying that you are having a fast one pulled on you. Obviously that's not true as the dust is your idea.
Though I'm still going to say that the dust is not a good solution. There is no need to make a new currency/resource that is going to complicate an economy we already don't have a control on. Especially one that would expand power generation. Power should be your rarest item in the game, it is literally what wars are fought over. I know some of the presented solutions are "off the table" but a lot of people have put forward good arguments for it. People who would be negatively impacted by them have put forward good arguments for it. It might be worth reconsidering putting some of them back on the table.
I think the concern that the new currency will just replace gold is a valid one - but if the only way to get the new currency is limited through the arties that are dumping gold into our economy, and the new currency is used to exchange for things that provide no gold generating boost and will drain itself out (ie. temp buffs), then yes, it basically will be a throttle on artifacts generating gold. People with the artifacts will then no longer be able to use it to get more and more gold that will allow them to buy credits. They will have to bash to generate gold - and that is being throttled. This will dampen the gold inflow into the game significantly.
The crux, though is that the new currency should not be boosting gold generation. Therefore, the buffs that they provide should not be bashing related. (Consider removing the triple junction buffs?)
There are valid concerns brought up, like goop artifacts being able to give a permanent buff that boosts gold generation. One alternative I can suggest for that problem will be to not allow goop exchange with pokemondust, and instead allow pokemondust to substitute for goop reskins only, no outright buying of artifacts the way you can do with goop. You could make this new currency (henceforth called pokemondust). So you could spend 10 goop to reskin an artifact, as usual, or you can spend, say, 100 pokemondust. But pokemondust can't be turned into goop, nor can it buy an artifact you don't own - only reskin ones you do.
On the topic of trade artifacts paying for themselves - if the problem (ie. of non-stop inflation of credit prices) is solved and we see the ideal economy slowly form, your trade artifacts, including mines, will actually see more profits. The value of commodities it tagged to a numerical gold number - but the endless pumping in of commodities (and gold) is devaluing the gold, and thereby devaluing your commodities. With villages, commodities all have a mechanical price floor. No matter what happens, there is an absolute minimum gold value that a single commodity will be worth. But for as long as there are limitless commodities, that price floor has no meaning. The value of your commodities will always be rock bottom, regardless of how many commodities you can produce and how cheaply you undercut the competition. And to add insult to injury, with credit prices spiraling ever upwards, the pittance that you can make with your static mine output will decrease over time.
It doesn't take a genius to see that a healthy, moderate, and non-eternal-inflating economy is one that WILL actually give your mines, even if they are nerfed to all hell, more value in the future.
A gold tax on each commodity produced by your mine will cut into the possible profits you can make. It introduces a price floor from which you can sell your commodities, which lengthens the amount of time it takes before the mine can pay for itself. But if equilibrium credit prices are pulled into a lower range, the smaller amount of profit you generate could well get you more credits than the gold you're making now. Which will speed up the same pay-for-itself goal.
A spatula that was bought years ago paid for itself in a few months. A spatula bought today will take RL decades, if ever, to pay for itself. It's not rocket science to see that it's the continued de-valuing of gold that is causing this problem. Fix that, and the value of your trade artifacts will rise again.
It is important to remember that credit prices are ultimately the benchmark value we're looking at. If the new currency becomes a great success and gives access to really really really nice stuff that can't be gotten elsewhere (without adding more gold into the system), you have a winner. Because the new currency can't be turned back to gold, it can't be used to buy credits, and that pulls credit prices down. Or at least, it will, in theory. Both high end bashers (who are being throttled) and hoarders will find their gold income dropping, and a set of perks that they have to spend the new currency to get access to. That reduces their credit buying power, and eventually, credit prices will have to drop in response if the sellers want customers.
If we do go with the dust (have we thought of a better name yet), I would put a cap on dust generation from traps, curio rubs, genies, maps (but not for promotional items like presents, wheel spins, etc.). Again, what I like about this is that it would allow us to remove a lot of the "free" gold, potions and commodities from the game and still give value to promotional items (presents, spins, etc.). The other alternatives would be to just reduce the gold, commodities, potions from the presents or replace them with just with candies and potions and not sure what else. While I completely understand the resistance for a new 'currency' or system, I think it would resolve many of the main issues and the positives outweigh the negatives.
I don't understand all this resistance. I'm not even going to reply to Ixchilgal because there's really no need.
"I'm not going to reply to Ixchilgal because I don't actually have an intelligent counter point to make." There, I fixed it for you.
There is no sane, or intelligent argument that can be made that suggests TRADE artifacts should not turn a profit. That is their value.
Furthermore, commodity mines do not generate any more wealth (and in fact, generate significantly less wealth) than other means such as bashing, influencing, or even aetherspace - all of which are minimal effort involved. Scripts are already doing most of the work (even assuming you aren't using an auto-basher of some kind, pressing a button every couple of seconds while your healing system keeps you alive is not exactly tough work). In fact, commodity mines are -dependent- on those other things in order to turn a profit - because again, they don't generate gold directly.
Yes, I have a vested interest in not getting screwed over in this. What an amazing concept. Gee, imagine that the other person who's invested quite a bit into this feature is also unhappy, and not wanting to get screwed over. If I went around saying "lol warriors should totally only be doing like 100 damage tops because they're so op" then I would get called out on it, and rightfully so.
I've already stated that for whatever new goldsink to work, you have to remove the choice about it - if I don't -have- to spend money on it, and it doesn't interest me, then I simply won't. Putting a 'soft gold cap' is a dumb idea, because soft caps are -always- a dumb idea. Reduce base gold income, make commodities valuable again (which none of the existing suggestions are going to do, incidentally), and find a way to purge current gold that's already in the world. We don't need new shiny effects, we need to get rid of the old shiny effects, because it's a buildup of those that caused this problem in the first place.
Adding more stupid crap isn't going to solve the issue, it's going to make it worse.
I'm still all for giving it a name that's essentially just putting a name to a measurement of potential. Like, opening the present. "You receive 1.4 kiloDyn of creation energy." DYN "You currently possess 2397 Dyna of creation energy." or "You currently possess 1 Dynum of creation energy."
Edit: I misread. Basically I didn't want to derail and have a side argument. Adding a small cost to mines isn't all that bad.
Things like bashing and influencing also have a cost attributed to them. Potions, sparkleberry, scroll, and a combination of time and attention which isn't required to upkeep mines.
(I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)
== Professional Girl Gamer == Yes I play games Yes I'm a girl get over it
I've already stated that for whatever new goldsink to work, you have to remove the choice about it - if I don't -have- to spend money on it, and it doesn't interest me, then I simply won't. Putting a 'soft gold cap' is a dumb idea, because soft caps are -always- a dumb idea. Reduce base gold income, make commodities valuable again (which none of the existing suggestions are going to do, incidentally), and find a way to purge current gold that's already in the world. We don't need new shiny effects, we need to get rid of the old shiny effects, because it's a buildup of those that caused this problem in the first place.
Commodities won't be made valuable again unless we do something about the giant free influx of them, which happens to include dingbat mines. Read Lerad's post where he explains that even if they are 'nerfed to hell' but it ends up pulling the credit market down because commodities are actually worth something again (which they never will be unless there's a change to mines), you'll be much better off.
If we do go with the dust (have we thought of a better name yet), I would put a cap on dust generation from traps, curio rubs, genies, maps (but not for promotional items like presents, wheel spins, etc.).
Do you mean a cap on what can be held at one time, or a cap on what anything can give you in one production?
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
I've agreed repeatedly that something needs to be done about the free influx of commodities. At not point have I -ever- said that doesn't need to be dealt with. What I -have- said is that screwing over people who pointed out the mines were a bad idea when they first came out is the answer.
Influencing has a much lower up front cost to get started in (significantly less than the value of my mines), actually generates gold, and at the top tier, has almost no cost (I can and have influenced up over 100k gold with spending less than 1k on bromide/origami/perfume).
Top tier bashing does have a higher cost to get involved in, and to maintain, I agree - but it also generates obscene amounts of gold (Nirvana when the mobs are aggro is a good example of this, where individual kills can drop up to 2k gold, allowing me to bash 200k-300k an hour if I feel like it - incidentally, the primary cost here is health sipping and enchantment charges, and I don't recall the last time I actually had to restock health, so clearly the cost is not high enough to be noteworthy).
If you want to add a small cost to mines, fine, make it comparable to the cost of things that actually produce gold. Like, less than 1% of the gold you can generate by doing it, which is where the others are currently sitting.
For reference, the real dollar value of my commodity mines is $1815, assuming dingbats are 1:1 with credits, and you're valuing them at 27.5 cents per (same as the 5k credit package). Arimisia's set is $3300. You say, "adding a small cost isn't that bad," and we read "go screw yourself and your investments." The numbers that have been suggested don't merely detract from the value of the mines - they actively make them detrimental to own. Like, I will have spent $1815 (keep in mind, that's USD - I'm in Canada, so it's closer to about $2300 here) to be worse off than before.
You say deleting things isn't on the table, but there is literally no good reason not to. The only reason not to is because it would require someone to step up and say, "Hey, I made a mistake. Let's get rid of this for the good of the game, but here is a refund so you aren't getting screwed over by my lack of judgement." I'm not asking for someone to refund my credit card - I spent that money in good faith. It's not what I expect, it's not what Arimisia expects. What we -do- expect is that the money we spent doesn't suddenly become a detriment.
And incidentally, nerfing the mines at this point won't work anyways - I literally have hundreds of thousands of stockpiled commodities. You can bet that Arimisia does too. Do you know why I have so many commodities? Because they don't sell, which means they aren't making me money, which means that adding a cost to the mines is not going to reduce my income, it's going to make it a negative number.
So again, I will keep hammering this point home. Delete the damn things. I'll even turn in my stockpile of commodities, throw them into a nexus or whatever the hell the admins want done with them. Just actually solve the problem, instead of creating whole new ones without fixing this problem, and screwing over the people who have take the time and effort to invest into the game in the first place.
If we do go with the dust (have we thought of a better name yet), I would put a cap on dust generation from traps, curio rubs, genies, maps (but not for promotional items like presents, wheel spins, etc.).
Do you mean a cap on what can be held at one time, or a cap on what anything can give you in one production?
I would read that as being akin to the current gold cap, where the more you generate over that limit the less you get.
Ok, have fun with the new currency. If you make it so you can't buy aethergoop artifacts with it, that's a much better solution than the original proposal.
I'm still on the delete aether mines and refund them boat. It's such a no-brainer, and people with crazy mine stacks are amenable to the solution. You should let them convert their dings to credits if they want to though. They've already sunk that (insane amount of) money into your game.
(Disclaimer: I have no aether mines)
Edit: Something worth keeping in mind - If you want to create an effective gold sink, make a consumable item that is worth spending gold on to use in combat/crafting/influencing/bashing. Adding candies/tonics/kiwi/etc. to this new currency works, but you could also just sell them for gold and simplify the process. Same with aethergoop customization.
Edit2: Idea for consumable crafting gold outlay... You can hire someone to do certain tasks for you if you're trans in your tradeskill. For example, a trans enchanter could order a cube to be enchanted for them for X gold while they do other things. Or a tailor could order them to sew 10 gowns. You would need to provide the comms at the outset, and you would get it mailed to you after X time. (Perhaps this would be too onerous to code, but it would be nifty for people who don't want to idle around filling up a cube all day)
There was a suggestion made earlier (cbf to find who it was, sorry) that really struck with me about "freezing" manses. I like the idea, especially since most double as aetherships, for them to be unable to activate mines unless that room is unfrozen, or specific modules on their ship, since the people who can afford to have those can afford to unfreeze it, but people like me can keep our manses frozen since most of what we do in them is live there.
May be hugely irrelevant now, but catching up on a thought I had while waking up.
Comments
I might just shrug my shoulders and say oh well. It's not a "big problem" necessarily, but it is a drain in a place where I see no particular purpose served, and on limited time, after a long day, that really kind of kills what was an on-whim activity.
Estarra can literally bite a bullet and tell those with the mines they're no longer valued players, and delete their mines with a backhanded slap. What will she lose? Those players. And get this "simple" solution that everyone wants. She's making the effort to actually not do that. Yes, she'll also be torturing us with a new, complicated currency as a result of trying to not chase away players who have sunk 6000+ dingbats into their mines. I think, as a player who doesn't own a mine, I owe it to those mine-owners to actually consider this more complicated solution and work with it - it's not fair to them when their purchases get cut out under them like that, but if we can reach a reasonable compromise - where the problem is addressed without telling them "Go look for an attorney to try and get your money back." then I believe we should take it, complicated solution or not.
There's not going to be refunds (or credit/lessons for gold sales from the admin).
We're going to have to find a solution that works with this in mind, whether it's Shuyin's manse wipeout or Talan's raw-comms idea, or pokemondust as a new currency.
My advice? Don't look at this game in terms of real world economics, because even putting aside the fact that real world economics is still a constantly developing academic field (Keynes has his detracters, too), the economy of this game is likely to give said economists a headache with all the differences from real world settings. We need to throttle gold generation and add gold sinks. So that means cutting or throttling mine production in some way, alongside mob gold drops, and adding in things people will spend gold on (that won't be veto'd by the admin). Take that step first, and we can worry about untangling the complicated new currency (if we go that route) when the dust has settled.
Edit: Stupid forums fixed their linebreaks problem, and now I have to edit my post to put my linebreaks back.
Am I the stupid one?
The eye of Dylara materialises in your hands and flings itself around your neck, tightening incomprehensibly until it is irremovable.
Perfectly clean, this eyeball has been wrenched from the socket of Dylara. It has been animated by some unusual force, constantly looking around itself as if in shock or fear. It is bathed in a light covering of white flames that roll endlessly over its surface. A single chain of empyreal metal pierces either side of the eye, allowing it to be worn around the neck.
cheap, recurring/constant gold sinks ( < 1,000 gold )
Low cost frequent gold sinks (1,001 - 10,000 gold)
Mid cost occasional gold sinks (10,001 - 100,000 gold)
Expensive once in a while gold sinks ( 100,001 gold - 1,000,000 gold )
Luxury one-time gold sinks ( > 1 million gold? )
Maybe other categories will make more sense.
I completed my genie set outside a promotion. It's doable, it just takes patience and time.
I agree with @Lerad - we need to work with what we're given.
Dingbat Mines - Whatever the solution ends up being, there needs to be an associated cost with upkeeping that makes them competitive with village comms. @Talan's idea may work (it's a bit more complicated). I think it might be fair to remove the upkeep aspect of mines and let people harvest once a day and they just need to pay the upkeep fee at that time. Overall's can reduce that cost by a bit.
I still prefer Org/Guild/Order costs rather than individual costs (like a credit transfer tax). Putting this burden on the org spreads it out to the populace affecting everyone equally rather than placing the burden on a few people. As @Vivet/@Sylandra said - they would just not participate anymore, meaning more gold and credit hoarding rather than spending. Need to spend to get it out of the system.
While I know the gold throttle is here to stay, I also think we'd benefit from a 'normalization' of gold drops. We don't need crazy high drops from relatively mundane mobs. Raise the floor by 10-15% and drop the ceiling by 30% (or more). This will have the benefit of reducing gold inflow, as well as making it harder to reach that throttle.
Lastly - this new dust should -only- be available via Wheel/Presents/Genies/Maps etc. I don't think aethergoop idea is terrible as long as it's an appropiate cost (10k/goop sounds good) and the drops are low. I'm ok with a transfer tax on this because it is new and it's used to get relatively rare items. I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but those items that are made from dust should be removed from presents/genies/wheel as well so they are -only- brought into the game via dust.
Oh one other thing - We should limit the amount of maps and genies usuable per day. 5-10 maps, and one full set of genies. Limiting how easy it is to obtain this new found dust is important as well.
I bought my spatula years ago, when I was level 60ish. It was the first artifact I bought, and I bought it because it would help me make the money I needed to buy more things to keep up with people who had more money to spend on the game, could bash better/faster, and were just generally superior at certain aspects of the game. I bought it because I thought, "If I buy this, I can eventually afford to buy a different artifact that will make me good at combat. Look at that Ixion guy...I could be the next Ixion if I had the same artifacts!"
Clearly this hasn't worked out, but it demonstrates the same mindset that the "trade artifacts aren't for making money!" people are showing. Namely, complete ignorance about an aspect of the game that isn't their primary focus.
Yes, trade artifacts should benefit trade. They -absolutely- should, and they should provide enough of a benefit that they could pay themselves off in time. My spatula actually paid for itself pretty quickly, because credits were at about 4k per, most people were less than level 80, and carefully working around the commodity market allowed me to undercut competition on the price of constitution platters. I typically made 100k-150k gold a day just seling food from my shop, with the occasional person buying out my platters and shooting me up to over 500k. This was a -lot- of money at one point. It was possible because of my money-generating artifact (spatula), and my being able to shop around and buy out the cheapest commodities I needed, forcing other people to buy more expensive commodities, or do annoying quests to lower the prices.
Like it or not, the manse mines -are- trade artifacts. They produce commodities, which in turn are primarily used by the trades. Ergo, trade artifact. They -should- be able to turn a profit. They don't, and anyone who thinks that adding a cost to them is a good idea is probably not focused primarily on trade - they probably get the bulk of their gold somewhere else. Y'know, like bashing.
The concern that removing the mines will upset the mine owners is absurd. Most of the mine owners are already going to be upset, because the other proposed changes are screwing us over completely. At least if they're deleted and refunded, while perhaps unhappy, we can say "Well, at least we didn't waste our money." You can't please everyone, but maybe not go out of your way to piss everyone off.
Also, Yarith. Really? Comparing a trade artifact to a combat artifact, and arguing about how it won't pay for itself? Two completely different values - I have all sorts of artifacts that I never thought would earn me gold, but their value wasn't in their ability to make me rich. Their value lied elsewhere, and most of the ones I have bought for those roles have performed excellently. My jewelry bench hasn't made me any money either. It literally can't make me money, because it doesn't provide any benefit over a normal bench, which are already lying around to be freely used. It's 100% for my own ego and convenience. My cameo can't/won't make me money, but it satisfies my need to change races every five minutes. These artifacts have different points, and thus, their value is determined differently. I mean, by that logic, my enchanting gloves have never helped me kill anyone, so does that mean they're worthless? Rawr! Change to enchanting gloves, they don't do any extra damage or afflictions or anything! See? Stupid.
This is a buff to all of those items, and it does literally nothing to deal with the fact that there are no real gold sinks in Lusternia. It feels like you're pulling a fast one on Estarra, because this solution doesn't reallllly solve any problems. It does give wealth generating curios/arties a nice boost though! If that's what the goal is, then by all means...
Edit: I don't mind limiting the max number of genies/maps/etc. you can use per day, but that should go in regardless of 'dust'.
The dust introduction solves a few aspects of the issue.
1) Reduced influx of gold. It removes 'free' gold by replacing it with dust that is limited in it's use
2) Offers a gold sink - You can trade it for gold, but with a transfer tax, that's more gold drained out of the system.
3) The items made with dust are temporary buffs. Argleblasters, Fruitpizzazz's etc. They last an hour so when they poof, the dust used to make them is permanently out of the game. Selling these items would move gold around the system, but wouldn't introduce more gold into the system.
Lastly - this is one part of the solution, not the entire solution. Trying to pan it off as that is short-sighted and ignorant of everything else that's being discussed. In the same comment you are responding to, I said we need to introduce org/guild/order wide costs to things like discretionary powers, raising shrines, constructs etc. Raising these costs does introduce gold sinks that will drain gold out of the game, but at the same time it won't target individuals and will spread the overall cost to the entire populace.
I'm not even going to reply to Ixchilgal because there's really no need.
The whole point of this is so that people lose wealth. Estarra offered a generous alternative so that value isn't outright lost. I don't see why there's so much resistance.
Edit: Though instead of lose wealth I suppose it's more a 'do not generate so much without any effort'
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
If you want to expand on those existing commodities and give them purpose in the ways you have outlined for this "dust", make some cost gold and others aetherdust, or something else, you can create a gold sink (with gold sinking into these gnome trader ships) while also encouraging aethertrade in order to obtain the base materials for those specialty drinks or whatever. Depending on how you flesh this out, it could also be introduced in a way that doesn't feel totally tacked on.
Though I'm still going to say that the dust is not a good solution. There is no need to make a new currency/resource that is going to complicate an economy we already don't have a control on. Especially one that would expand power generation. Power should be your rarest item in the game, it is literally what wars are fought over. I know some of the presented solutions are "off the table" but a lot of people have put forward good arguments for it. People who would be negatively impacted by them have put forward good arguments for it. It might be worth reconsidering putting some of them back on the table.
The crux, though is that the new currency should not be boosting gold generation. Therefore, the buffs that they provide should not be bashing related. (Consider removing the triple junction buffs?)
There are valid concerns brought up, like goop artifacts being able to give a permanent buff that boosts gold generation. One alternative I can suggest for that problem will be to not allow goop exchange with pokemondust, and instead allow pokemondust to substitute for goop reskins only, no outright buying of artifacts the way you can do with goop. You could make this new currency (henceforth called pokemondust). So you could spend 10 goop to reskin an artifact, as usual, or you can spend, say, 100 pokemondust. But pokemondust can't be turned into goop, nor can it buy an artifact you don't own - only reskin ones you do.
Customisation (RP buffs, basically) won't affect gold generation.
On the topic of trade artifacts paying for themselves - if the problem (ie. of non-stop inflation of credit prices) is solved and we see the ideal economy slowly form, your trade artifacts, including mines, will actually see more profits. The value of commodities it tagged to a numerical gold number - but the endless pumping in of commodities (and gold) is devaluing the gold, and thereby devaluing your commodities. With villages, commodities all have a mechanical price floor. No matter what happens, there is an absolute minimum gold value that a single commodity will be worth. But for as long as there are limitless commodities, that price floor has no meaning. The value of your commodities will always be rock bottom, regardless of how many commodities you can produce and how cheaply you undercut the competition. And to add insult to injury, with credit prices spiraling ever upwards, the pittance that you can make with your static mine output will decrease over time.
It doesn't take a genius to see that a healthy, moderate, and non-eternal-inflating economy is one that WILL actually give your mines, even if they are nerfed to all hell, more value in the future.
A gold tax on each commodity produced by your mine will cut into the possible profits you can make. It introduces a price floor from which you can sell your commodities, which lengthens the amount of time it takes before the mine can pay for itself. But if equilibrium credit prices are pulled into a lower range, the smaller amount of profit you generate could well get you more credits than the gold you're making now. Which will speed up the same pay-for-itself goal.
A spatula that was bought years ago paid for itself in a few months. A spatula bought today will take RL decades, if ever, to pay for itself. It's not rocket science to see that it's the continued de-valuing of gold that is causing this problem. Fix that, and the value of your trade artifacts will rise again.
It is important to remember that credit prices are ultimately the benchmark value we're looking at. If the new currency becomes a great success and gives access to really really really nice stuff that can't be gotten elsewhere (without adding more gold into the system), you have a winner. Because the new currency can't be turned back to gold, it can't be used to buy credits, and that pulls credit prices down. Or at least, it will, in theory. Both high end bashers (who are being throttled) and hoarders will find their gold income dropping, and a set of perks that they have to spend the new currency to get access to. That reduces their credit buying power, and eventually, credit prices will have to drop in response if the sellers want customers.
"I'm not going to reply to Ixchilgal because I don't actually have an intelligent counter point to make."
There, I fixed it for you.
There is no sane, or intelligent argument that can be made that suggests TRADE artifacts should not turn a profit. That is their value.
Furthermore, commodity mines do not generate any more wealth (and in fact, generate significantly less wealth) than other means such as bashing, influencing, or even aetherspace - all of which are minimal effort involved. Scripts are already doing most of the work (even assuming you aren't using an auto-basher of some kind, pressing a button every couple of seconds while your healing system keeps you alive is not exactly tough work). In fact, commodity mines are -dependent- on those other things in order to turn a profit - because again, they don't generate gold directly.
Yes, I have a vested interest in not getting screwed over in this. What an amazing concept. Gee, imagine that the other person who's invested quite a bit into this feature is also unhappy, and not wanting to get screwed over. If I went around saying "lol warriors should totally only be doing like 100 damage tops because they're so op" then I would get called out on it, and rightfully so.
I've already stated that for whatever new goldsink to work, you have to remove the choice about it - if I don't -have- to spend money on it, and it doesn't interest me, then I simply won't. Putting a 'soft gold cap' is a dumb idea, because soft caps are -always- a dumb idea. Reduce base gold income, make commodities valuable again (which none of the existing suggestions are going to do, incidentally), and find a way to purge current gold that's already in the world. We don't need new shiny effects, we need to get rid of the old shiny effects, because it's a buildup of those that caused this problem in the first place.
Adding more stupid crap isn't going to solve the issue, it's going to make it worse.
but again, I think @Lerad hit the nail on the head.
Adding a small cost to mines isn't all that bad.
Things like bashing and influencing also have a cost attributed to them. Potions, sparkleberry, scroll, and a combination of time and attention which isn't required to upkeep mines.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
Commodities won't be made valuable again unless we do something about the giant free influx of them, which happens to include dingbat mines. Read Lerad's post where he explains that even if they are 'nerfed to hell' but it ends up pulling the credit market down because commodities are actually worth something again (which they never will be unless there's a change to mines), you'll be much better off.
Do you mean a cap on what can be held at one time, or a cap on what anything can give you in one production?
Influencing has a much lower up front cost to get started in (significantly less than the value of my mines), actually generates gold, and at the top tier, has almost no cost (I can and have influenced up over 100k gold with spending less than 1k on bromide/origami/perfume).
Top tier bashing does have a higher cost to get involved in, and to maintain, I agree - but it also generates obscene amounts of gold (Nirvana when the mobs are aggro is a good example of this, where individual kills can drop up to 2k gold, allowing me to bash 200k-300k an hour if I feel like it - incidentally, the primary cost here is health sipping and enchantment charges, and I don't recall the last time I actually had to restock health, so clearly the cost is not high enough to be noteworthy).
If you want to add a small cost to mines, fine, make it comparable to the cost of things that actually produce gold. Like, less than 1% of the gold you can generate by doing it, which is where the others are currently sitting.
For reference, the real dollar value of my commodity mines is $1815, assuming dingbats are 1:1 with credits, and you're valuing them at 27.5 cents per (same as the 5k credit package). Arimisia's set is $3300. You say, "adding a small cost isn't that bad," and we read "go screw yourself and your investments." The numbers that have been suggested don't merely detract from the value of the mines - they actively make them detrimental to own. Like, I will have spent $1815 (keep in mind, that's USD - I'm in Canada, so it's closer to about $2300 here) to be worse off than before.
You say deleting things isn't on the table, but there is literally no good reason not to. The only reason not to is because it would require someone to step up and say, "Hey, I made a mistake. Let's get rid of this for the good of the game, but here is a refund so you aren't getting screwed over by my lack of judgement." I'm not asking for someone to refund my credit card - I spent that money in good faith. It's not what I expect, it's not what Arimisia expects. What we -do- expect is that the money we spent doesn't suddenly become a detriment.
And incidentally, nerfing the mines at this point won't work anyways - I literally have hundreds of thousands of stockpiled commodities. You can bet that Arimisia does too. Do you know why I have so many commodities? Because they don't sell, which means they aren't making me money, which means that adding a cost to the mines is not going to reduce my income, it's going to make it a negative number.
So again, I will keep hammering this point home. Delete the damn things. I'll even turn in my stockpile of commodities, throw them into a nexus or whatever the hell the admins want done with them. Just actually solve the problem, instead of creating whole new ones without fixing this problem, and screwing over the people who have take the time and effort to invest into the game in the first place.
I'm still on the delete aether mines and refund them boat. It's such a no-brainer, and people with crazy mine stacks are amenable to the solution. You should let them convert their dings to credits if they want to though. They've already sunk that (insane amount of) money into your game.
(Disclaimer: I have no aether mines)
Edit: Something worth keeping in mind - If you want to create an effective gold sink, make a consumable item that is worth spending gold on to use in combat/crafting/influencing/bashing. Adding candies/tonics/kiwi/etc. to this new currency works, but you could also just sell them for gold and simplify the process. Same with aethergoop customization.
Edit2: Idea for consumable crafting gold outlay... You can hire someone to do certain tasks for you if you're trans in your tradeskill. For example, a trans enchanter could order a cube to be enchanted for them for X gold while they do other things. Or a tailor could order them to sew 10 gowns. You would need to provide the comms at the outset, and you would get it mailed to you after X time. (Perhaps this would be too onerous to code, but it would be nifty for people who don't want to idle around filling up a cube all day)
May be hugely irrelevant now, but catching up on a thought I had while waking up.
Ixion tells you, "// I don't think anyone else had a clue, amazing form."