The largest factors in the Lusternia economy are credits and gold.

Gold is used to get credits and goods.

Credits are used to get more skills, artifacts, and many other things.

When credits get high things seem to get slow, overall economy takes a drop...

I propose a credit standard! Credit market will cap, at cap the system can always sell credits, but the number is high (5000) that way selling will be lower and even if its 4999 it wont get to achaea levels.

Cutting speculators on credits might help a lot without needing a market-inhibiting cap like this.

What is the key problem you are trying to fix?

Greed is good.

I don't see the problem. "Capping" the credit sale price would go against the spirit of a free market, something which IRE games have tried to uphold, whether the consequences be good or bad. Not sure what Shiri means by "cutting the speculators"...

I'm a currencies trader by occupation, Lusternia is obviously my free time and fun time, and seeing the currency prices fluctuate up and down is a very interesting lesson in how money in the real world behaves. I am currently trading the EURUSD and have in the last week seen the price drop from 1.3854 down to 1.3525 and back up again to 1.3662 as I speak. That doesn't sound like a lot, but in the span of those prices I could have easily made several million dollars. Lusternia's economy is actually very healthy in that aspect. As one currency devalues, gold, another gains value, credits. If you want to increase the value of one over the other you need to find a way to make gold more desirable while on the other hand removing the desire to purchase credits. It's a very delicate balance and even one wrong thing added to the market can shift the demand for credits or gold into an inflation. Right now the Euro is more desirable to own than that of the US Dollar. A lot of people and even governments are shifting their dollars into Euros and in the process deflating the value of a dollar and hitting the US economy really hard. China did a great job of this last November when they dumped BILLIONS of US dollars back into the market.

Achaea came up with their solution to the perceived credit market inflation problem just recently: all credits bought on the credit market are given to you as bound credits, thus no reselling them on the same market at a higher price.

That actually sounds like a good idea.

I tend to go "against the grain" when I sell credits. I usually sell for 1000 gold below low market value. I don't need tons of gold, and I want other players to have better chances. At least I'd know that people who buy were gonna use them, instead of buying them to resell.

Undercutting people on the price of credits won't ever be a reasonable or even working solution to the inflated prices of the market. The demand is simply too high for suppliers to meet it at reasonable and appropriate levels. It's like trying to buy a Wii or an iPhone on EBay.

You will see people, like me, that will sneak into the market, buy the credits at the lower price then turn around and scalp them at a higher price for a small amount(I don't actually do this in Lusternia but it's something I do with currencies in the real world). I know full well that that small amount builds up on every single trade you do over time.

that is a bad system

There are several things you buy with credits and not gold in lusternia; like many knights buy their better swords with credits rather then gold, some people buy in game credits to give them away as gift, to fund competitions.

Yeah, I know what you are saying Viravain, which is why the next time I do it I'm going "off market". (Via tells and for people I know who could use them).

The things that you must buy with credits, however, are bought with bound credits. Buying armor from a blacksmith with credits is not something people have to do, and it's a bit unnecessary, in my opinion. Anyway, I was just letting folks know how Achaea solved the "problem."

How about we let the free market on its own, instead of putting some communist limitations? If you can't afford these credits, work harder. Money in Lusternia is easy to get, and gets easier with every new area relased.


6 instead of 8.5 lessons / credit, and the disability to trade the credits to friends? Just another reason NOT to play Achaea I guess.

OOO a Viravain. Hi Viravain!

A trend in Lusternia I noticed is (even though its not intentional) that a credit bonus comes out right around prices going up, and prices therefore drop as people try to flood the market for gold.

If we made credits bought go straight to bound credits we would quite literaly run ourselves out of credits, as we dont have the same sales. That is why I said a limit where there would always be credits. If you capped credit prices would that really be bad? Gold is in demand largely because of credits, and I ask Viravain, how do you decrease the value or need of credits? They are used for skills and artifacts, both of which directly affect everything else (a jeweler with hammer can sell cheaper than without hammer, same for enchants, etc etc).

We need a way to reliably get credits without having to get to the point of achaea.. I will note we also have no limit on gold, however we dont have Achaeas player base (and therefore credit sales) and we had people out for awhile. Their return may mean more purchases, but will the market return to good prices such as 4K? Probably not. As a novice I could have bought 3 credits leaving newtons, not I can get 2, that may not seem big but I could get out of newtons in some hours, not days of playing time, hours. That is a good reflection as it can get easier as you go, or it can get harder. I would like to be able to get credits cheaply so among other things I could get gloves, this would allow me to sell my product cheaper without changing my need for powerstones. This is good, having to pay 5500 gold a credit when I need 400 (2.2 million gold). 4000 gold per is a savings of 600,000 gold.

I am all for free market, but sometimes big brother (in this case.. divine?) could use a step in to prevent things from going crazy.. or we may end up with credits bought too often and prices getting to 10000 gold per credit. (Those buying just to sell later really do hurt the market, and cause prices to all rise, and if buying meant they were bound then we would likely run out of credits). So I ask for a way to make credits -Guaranteed available- even if its at a fairly high price.. by placing a cap there is every reason to sell lower that it if you want credits to sell. This lets people who want them always able to get some, and those who want to sell sell at a price people can be more happy with.

You could try making storing large amounts of gold more attractive (or safer)?

What about banks providing a tiny amount of interest on their accounts each year? Maybe even paid in commodities to further reduce the problems of inflation.

(Although I'm sure there are dozens of problems from an economics standpoint, but that's for better people than me to worry about!)

Credits go down in price when there is a feature added which involves buying things for mass quantities of gold. (Aetherships.)

I think the current supply and demand is fine. That's all it is - the market works out as it shuold, responding and then calming down after major credit buying/selling.

Credit market is fine, also, making a 100th topic about it won't change anything.

However...


Now that is a good idea, but I'm afraid it's not gonna happen since it also has been postulated a few times already.

100th? I didnt even know there was another.

And that I interest thing would be kinda interesting, better as comms I think.

But can we get anything done about it?

Idea: Start charging more for your services, like herbs, alchemy, enchantments. Maybe people will consider selling credits for gold if there actually is a need for it, right now it's much harder to come by credits than gold, and credits are needed a ton more, so who wants to sell any?

To be fair, they do give you the lessons you would get if you had bound the credits manually when you buy them.

It's called hyperbole I believe, but I've seen at least several rants and 'ideas' about credit market in here, and I'm sure it repeats in every IRE game.

Capping the market sounds kinda... wrong. Bound credits is a more reasonable proposal, I guess.