We wanted to have ships and manses available to everyone, even those who didn't purchase credits, so we chose to have them cost gold. However, one of the hurdles to buying manses and ships is the gold cost. However, for those that purchase credits, it seems a rather long wait to be at the mercy of the credit market before you can purchase your manse/ship. Thus, I've been pondering how to remedy this situation.

Because cities and communes are the richest entities in the game, it makes sense to look to them for the gold source tjat players go to in order to quickly convert credits to gold. However, cities and communes would have to actually want or need credits to motivate them to buy in bulk. Since cities and communes have expressed a desire to own their own ships, I was thinking this:

*A system to sell credits directly to Cities/Communes.

*Cities/Communes can convert credits to 'Development Units' at the rate of 1:1.

*Development Units can be used to build things that cities/communes may want. For example, a fulcrux orb (city/commune owned) would cost 350 Development Units ("DU"), manse rooms would go for 350 DU each, an algontherine egg would go for 250 DU, turret for 75 DU, grid for 150 DU, etc.

*We could implement other "upgrades" that cities can purchase for DUs.

Anyway, this is just an idea I've been throwing around. Thoughts? Comments? Better ideas?

Would manse artifacts be purchasable for a city/commune manse and then be able to be placed within? Such as endurance regen, willpower regen, privacy, etc? And if they were purchasble and placeable would the regen rooms work as they are now or would they apply to any and all members of that city/commune?

It looks like you're making DUs/credits the equivalent of 1000 gold though.

This would direly inflate credit prices, and just downright kill city/commune credit sales. Why not just make it so communes and cities can build these out of commodities or gold? The time it takes for the building to be complete depends on how much gold is spent on construction. It's more realistic. I think I posted something about city/commune/village improvements somewhere.

Personally, I'd be pissed if ships were suddenly available via credits after I just sold a bunch of my own at way under normal market value to buy everything with gold. Of course, with the conversion rate you expressed, no one in their right mind would use it given the available market guarantees at least three times that value. It's so much better for a city to take all the credits they own and sell them to their citizens or just on the market and take that gold and use it towards these things than to just convert them into DU at a 1:1 rate and waste it all.

No offense, but this really wouldn't be a valuable addition to the game, at least not in its current formulation.

I think Estarra was thinking of the added benefit having people buy credits with OOC money, such as the Iron Council paying $ for Credits, or others donating credits directly, then directly converting them to DUs. As well as having community ownership that nobody can screw with.

DU's might make sense for the Arenas, as well as other potential community upgrades.

The biggest problem right now is that the market rises and falls for credits, so there's no real way to convert them into goods directly. Everybody is undercutting the market so they can get their ships, which make it all the longer for them to get the gold.

To be honest I am in favor of a Credit Minimum price, as a standard. The purchases of OOC credits are what drive Lusternia. At the very least, if somebody needs gold fast they can sell it to the large organizations for the bulk rate, or the commune members themselves can invest in OOC credits and get a direct benefit from the conversion rate.

Maybe I don't understand the economy well.

I would like a faster way, though this will make it alot harder for us to get things.

for example for me to get a turret and a room in the ronseyder it shouldn't be more than 100 credits, if this were implemented with 1000 gold per being a standard then i would need to be buying 400ish

I think I have to agree with Rhysus. I'm not seeing the incentive for cities to buy credits at much more then 2000 per, and that if they're generous, considering DU's seem to equal 1000 gold.

Oh, and did you intend manse rooms to be 150 DU, instead of 350? Thought I remembered them cost 150k gold.

I'm by no means an economist, but I am not sure I like the sound of tying down credit prices to effective value set by the game. At the moment, even though the market rises and falls dramatically, you are assured that simple supply and demand will guarantee that the value of credits is directly tied to their current worth.

If items which can be purchased in gold can also be purchased by credits (the communes/cities don't necessarily have to do it themselves, they can get the leader to buy manses/algontherines/etc) then you are setting a hardcoded value to each credit. I think this is a Bad Thing.

If those DU's could be used to purchase upgrades that were specific for cities and communes, and didn't have a personal equivalent - arena's, extra forge rooms, maybe even hunting area extensions, etc... then I think the system would be safer for the economy.

Or maybe I just have no idea what I'm talking about.

Something materialistic to do with the intensive amounts of gold cities and communes have would probably be nice...but I don't know why we'd need to do this whole DU thing.

I think the having extenions to the orgs would be better, like having upgrades for the arenas or such. Like having something which does the distortion affect inside the city/forest, or such.

I agree with the general sentiment that this could be used for city improvements, but I don't know how necessary that really is either. I suppose automating the process of building new shops or adding arena events is semi-useful, but is it worth creating this odd DU system for? I'm not convinced.

It's a novel concept, and I thoroughly like the idea of having organization-owned property, such as manses, ships, etc. It eliminates the problem of transferral of power (particularly after vitriolic elections), and I think it's a sound idea. I would also like to see this extended to clans, such as can happen in Aetolia/Imperian, where a clan can be pledged to an organization.

As others have noted, the conversion rate needs an adjustment. You would be asking the cities to take a hit of 2 or 3 times the cost of a private manse or upgrade if the conversion rate were 1 credit/du for 1,000 sovereigns. I would suggest simply allowing orgs (cities, guilds, clans, and orders) to purchase these things for gold, and in their name. This allows them to compete at market rates like everyone else, or just raise funds through gold donations. I can't see a compelling reason for orgs to be treated differently than players and forced to use this DU proposal.

Communes and cities should be given something to spend their gold on, not be able to buy credits to convert them into DUs. I'm all for city/commune improvements bought with gold, Power, or commodities.

EDIT: I'm with Nokraenon here, org-owned clans, ships and manses would be great. All those things can be bought with gold, anyway; there's no point in forcing a conversion rate, unless you want to force credit prices down to 1000 by making it impossible for cities to sell credits at higher prices.

Also, from a rather selfish point of view, I don't like extremely rich cities and communes being able to purchase algontherines for their citizens, obviously being able to outdo any private citizen venture.

Obviously these ships can be far, far more improved compared to private vessels... with really no drawback. In the same way that I find organizations giving cubixes to their ministers a little unfair, so would I of cities that can outfit a fleet of powerful ships for the use of their citizens. So while an individual might pay hundreds of RL dollars to purchase a ship.. join the right city/commune and you get one free.

Edit: What was the point of paying all that gold/credits for something that you can get just by talking your way into politics? Customization? That's not exactly encouraging.

There really isn't that much of an incentive for cities and communes to have their own personal ship other than bragging rights. One ship will not matter in aether battles and the like. Takes a whole armada of them to be effective.

I agree with Nokraenom... Why not just have commune/city bought property? That way the cities/communes could raise gold for their fleet and such, and the leaders in the org set the privs... Seems more simple, and allows for the supply and demand sort of thing. If the goal of this is to set a minimum for credit prices, I guess you could make it that communes can buy "Units" with credits at 1 credit per 3 "units" or 1100 gold per unit, this encourages selling credits at 3k... (perhaps 4k or 3.5k would be better per 3 units)

Yes but that doesn't help the person who wants to convert credits to gold.

It may be worth noting that the worth of a DU/credit is not 1,000 gold but rather whatever people are willing to buy them for. Also, the DU price for a city-ship egg should not be compared to the gold price of a player-ship egg because they are (in practice) two separate items (i.e., cities cannot buy eggs except with the special DU system).

If a city advertises that it will purchase 1 credit for 1,000 gold and yet there are people willing to buy credits on the credit market for 5,000 gold each, you would have to be braindead to sell your credits to that city. Cities would have to be competitive and offer to buy at 5,000 gold (or whatever the going rate is) if they want those DUs.

Anyway, again, this is a brainstorming session and not a system that is scheduled to go in. I just wanted to hear your responses and opinions.

This would solve one of the many problems that stands in the way of The Moonhart Circle trying to make an offical Serenwilde manse/ship for public use.

I say:



I'm wondering though, would there be privs set, or, is there currentally a way to set privs so that commune/city leaders are always in charge of the administration of said things bought with these DU's? (I bet you can tell I've never had a manse before )

Will the city owned ships/artifacts be any different or limited compared to player owned ships/artifacts aside from being unstealable?