I'm going to broach what I am sure will be an unpopular but necessary question: how is the credit market going to come back if a dozen or more people have several million gold more than they otherwise would have?

While people would throw a fit to lose their practically free omnitrans, toruses etc., anyone who made millions of gold off of the wheel can probably afford to give up just the gold.

Again, I don't see how the credit market can normalize any time soon if that gold isn't taken out of the system and the lack of a real credit market will do harm to the game in the long run. As such I really think that something should be done.

I can say with pretty great certainty that we will not be removing gold like that. We've already looked at ways to address it, and will certainly consider other gold sinks, so feel free to suggest some!

Mhmm, there have been a few threads on the subject, and a few good ideas floated around!

Especially the buy an aethercrew for gold idea.

I was going to suggest a gold only auction for things rp/epeen related items (Rather than combat arties), but then I realized it could introduce more gold into the game than it sinks, from people rushing to earn as much gold as they can to bid on the auction.

It doesn't matter how much people rush, a few of us have so much gold they could buy half the auction themselves.

Gold auction for regular Artifacts

Sojiro:

Gold auction for regular Artifacts

Except the people with the largest gold glut also got very large credit returns, as evidenced by the sudden influx of high-end artifacts being bought (like toruses).

Gold auction seems like it won't help the problem at all.

Maybe we should go back to forcing people to lose a portion of their on-hand gold on death, and add taxes on bank account contents over x amount every y increments of a given period.....



(I'm kidding!)

Toruses are dingbats, not credits. Just FYI.

Xenthos:

Toruses are dingbats, not credits. Just FYI.

Yes, and people are buying dingbats with credits.

Eventru:


Yes, and people are buying dingbats with credits.

Mostly they were spinning the wheel for tons of dingbats, or trading in coins for dingbats. It wasn't giving a ton of credits, it was giving about the same amount of credits back that you invested, plus tons of dingbats / lessons / gold (so it didn't really increase credit supplies in the game, just everything else).

Turning credits into dingbats via rubbing coins was actually removing the credits from the game though, unlike wheel spinning.

(I say this as someone who bought some 34-odd 100-piece packages and 8 50-pieces, so there was a lot of spinning to get a decent average from-- I ended up pretty much dead even to where I started on credit totals)

(Yes, I had a problem. :( )

Step 1: Delete selfishness & bank accounts
Step 2: Grant theft abilities to all archetypes
Step 3: Have the Gnafia take a cut (50%) of any gold which is stolen from one player by another.
Step 4: ?
Step 5: Negative profit!

The easiest solution is to add a gold charge to all the portal commands like portal enter and search then disable pyramids into them.

Hmm how about an expensive aether taxi service? Don't have access to an aethercrew or the instant transport item take the taxi that takes five minutes to arrive if not already there and five minute transport. The service could be halted during the time the bubbles flare completing their in current trip making it so that's not a cheap way of getting there when it happens. Mind you this is nothing more than the first thing off the top of my head

Konton:

Hmm how about an expensive aether taxi service? Don't have access to an aethercrew or the instant transport item take the taxi that takes five minutes to arrive if not already there and five minute transport. The service could be halted during the time the bubbles flare completing their in current trip making it so that's not a cheap way of getting there when it happens. Mind you this is nothing more than the first thing off the top of my head

That actually sounds like a decent idea.

The Person could have the option to pay a fee for a 'taxi' to an aetherbubble under their own city's influence, but to make it such a fashion that it would not nullify benefits of a bubblix, it could be made that a : Taxis do not operate during aetherflares (possibly due to instabilities near the bubble or something) and b : it takes time to travel there (maybe 1 IRL minute). (Possible c: Taxi has a chance of being blown up by a roaming aetherbeast, in which case you die - but you at least get your gold refunded)

Rich people will probably have their own aethership. It doesn't take long to fly to bubbles. An aethertaxi would be used more by people without aetherships.

Since this is an inflationary thing, I wonder if the economy should catch up to it.

That is, if the price of credits go up because of extra gold being in the system, perhaps prices of everything should go up to the inflated rate. Have people raised the prices on food, clothes, etc., when the credit rate went up. Although this might be tough since I believe to help combat the problem earlier the admin reduced gold drops. Perhaps everything needs to be normalized at the new price rates.

Another thing to consider is how many people are buying OOC credits--that's the real source of the credit market--if the supply goes down, demand will be at a higher rate, regardless.

The real problem of "just increase prices" is that the economy is completely player-driven, and the supply well exceeds the demand for most (if not all) goods. Heck, I could probably supply the entire Basin with alchemical stuff if I worked hard enough at it, and I'm far from the only person selling that. So in order to increase prices across the board, everyone would have to agree on doing it, and that would basically only last until a new trader comes around and starts undercutting people.

I think if you want people to spend gold -right now- you need to give them something they are only able to get now and then never again. Something unique that stands outside the regular order of things, yet doesn't unbalance the game. I know curio packages for gold are coming, but those are only relevant to people who actually want curios, because I dunno if people are really going to want to rub and spin those anymore. Plus rubbing / spinning returns a portion of gold again.

That wouldn't create a balance though; it would only remove accumulated gold. While certainly a step forward, it'd still not be the final solution.