Inflation and the Imperian Credit Economy
Hello, folks! I'm about to head to work, so I don't have much time to put towards making this complex and the like. However, I would like to begin discussion on markets, especially the Imperian credit market.
We're currently seeing a ridiculous inflation rate on credits-- While it used to be fairly stable at 10-12k, the recent months have caused the price to skyrocket up to 15-17k. This isn't a new thing, either-- As players know more quests and get higher levels, their gold acquisition becomes easier. Simple supply and demand dictates that the more Aspects and high leveled people we have in the game, the less gold will be worth, causing the rise in prices.
This rate doesn't go down, either, as no one is going to level down. Sure, you'll have people who drop out of the game entirely, but for the most part, high level players are also the ones who play the most, and have the most incentive to continue playing. This causes a large problem for newbies, where the purchasing power of gold decreases drastically over time, but isn't helped in any way. Increasing gold drops for smaller players won't help either, as that's just the equivalent of printing money, and won't decrease the price.
This rate doesn't go down, either, as no one is going to level down. Sure, you'll have people who drop out of the game entirely, but for the most part, high level players are also the ones who play the most, and have the most incentive to continue playing. This causes a large problem for newbies, where the purchasing power of gold decreases drastically over time, but isn't helped in any way. Increasing gold drops for smaller players won't help either, as that's just the equivalent of printing money, and won't decrease the price.
Even worse, and I know this makes IRE a boatload of money, phylacteries are killing the credit market. The supply of credits to the gold/credit market has dwindled to almost nothing, as most people who would spend money on credits have spent their allotted Imperian money on phylacteries instead of credits. The extension of the phylactery sale has further aggravated the problem, giving the game essentially two months where credits trickle in at a miserably slow rate.
So, what can we do to solve this problem? Deflationary tactics seem to be a bad idea, as lowered gold drop rates only really piss people off. Gold sinks are nice, but the incentive for gold sinks must be high enough that they can actually pull enough gold consistently out of the Imperian economy. One time fees such as monoliths and obelisks only put a few million gold down the drain every few weeks, if that.
What I'm saying is that IRE and Imperian make their living off an active, thriving gold/credit exchange market. Free market pricing is currently failing, but market regulation also doesn't seem to be the way to go. With the kind of real money already put into phylacteries, credits are no longer exciting or beneficial to the average player. The trouble with a massive credit sale is that credits are a useable and perishable commodity as well as a form of currency. Moreover, credits need to be taken into consideration for power creep-- If the market is flooded with credits, then average power level also rises, which can also create an unfavorable environment for newbies and casual players alike.
I'll think of possible solutions and the like later from my end, but what does the playerbase think? This is especially important for the admins, @jesse @jeremy @garryn , as whatever model the next sale takes should probably address this.
So, what can we do to solve this problem? Deflationary tactics seem to be a bad idea, as lowered gold drop rates only really piss people off. Gold sinks are nice, but the incentive for gold sinks must be high enough that they can actually pull enough gold consistently out of the Imperian economy. One time fees such as monoliths and obelisks only put a few million gold down the drain every few weeks, if that.
What I'm saying is that IRE and Imperian make their living off an active, thriving gold/credit exchange market. Free market pricing is currently failing, but market regulation also doesn't seem to be the way to go. With the kind of real money already put into phylacteries, credits are no longer exciting or beneficial to the average player. The trouble with a massive credit sale is that credits are a useable and perishable commodity as well as a form of currency. Moreover, credits need to be taken into consideration for power creep-- If the market is flooded with credits, then average power level also rises, which can also create an unfavorable environment for newbies and casual players alike.
I'll think of possible solutions and the like later from my end, but what does the playerbase think? This is especially important for the admins, @jesse @jeremy @garryn , as whatever model the next sale takes should probably address this.
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To be honest, the day of leveling a newbie of the credit market is long over. The awful system has been allowed to continue for too long and re-selling is too good of gold to really commit purchased credits to bound credits. The best way I've seen to get credits is city/guild advancement systems. I'm not sure if anyone else does it, but you can complete tasks for the Council to earn points and then turn those points in for favours, gold, credits. Show up to 15 shardfalls, get 15 credits. That's like 3 days of 'work'.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Both of you are right, though. There is an infinite and constant influx of gold that has nowhere to gold. There is far more gold being stored in people's bank accounts and pockets that isn't being spent than we know of, just waiting to be unleashed.
Funnily enough, the broken window fallacy no longer becomes a fallacy at this point. The big God war that broke lots of windows bled a lot of gold out and was fun to do.
I don't think I'm exaggerating when I'm saying that the longer things like this drag on, the worse problems get, and the more people drop out Another one of the big problems of the game, I think, is simply that there's only so much active things we can do. We might have a bunch of ideas that, on paper, would likely work to alleviate issues, but no matter what we think of, the admins have to be willing to work at it.
If you look really closely you can see there were intended upkeep costs(decay, consumable herbs being worth a value, crafting costs, etc, etc), but they're so damn trivial that no one really cares about them.
Increasing them, however, would be a damn terrible decision.
The main trouble is basically that whatever gold expenditures were designed at the beginning worked in the beginning, but as better areas/quests were introduced, gold introduction went wild and gold useage remained relatively the same.
A few short ideas(obviously not anywhere near thought out):
A) Currency exchange/commodity exchange between cities/councils/townes/guilds. Seriously, trade sucks. On the other hand, this also means we'd have to make commodities actually useful.
C) Give players mini-farmville or mini-neopets or something. Add some credit thing to it too. I'm sure it'll take off.
D) Make crafting more than just cosmetic items. Crafting for trade and stuff would be cool and useful. Rather than refineries refine things, you could make something where players do something to decide on components and whatever.
But I mean, the biggest thing is that something needs to happen. Whatever happens, there needs to be a degree of player automation, but events need to go off where players can contribute with gold, commodities, and whatever else there is. Buying an artifact with credits is cool, but using resources in a clever way to defeat big baddies or whatever is way cooler and not only keeps a playerbase, but makes people want to stay.
Also? The more gold dropped and gold desired, the more credits are bought and exchanged for gold, and yaaaaaay IRE gets money.
Simply, it seems like scarcity doesn't exist because everything we want(besides big ticket credit items) is generally fairly easy to access, and doesn't get used up easily.
The market stall example is a good one, but I'd like to add something-- It's not necessarily because of customer base increases and whatnot that put prices ridiculously low, but rather because demand is simply almost non-existent for things. How many herbs do even hardcore PvP and PvE people use? Nothing close enough to put a dent in their gold pouch, I reckon.
Concoctions and toxins being restricted, while annoying to the playerbase, acted as a good conduit for trade. I remember when the black market was thriving, and there'd be all sorts of trade from Celidon/khandava(who had the most herbs and concoctions) to Stavenn and Ithaqua(who had the toxins).
I guess another big issue is simply that unlike real like or any other game, everyone can produce everything equally. Thus, there's no trade because there's no need for specialization, and no one has any comparative advantages whatsoever.