Taken from an IRC conversation



The basic idea is that once you purchase credits from the credit market, they bind automatically, forcing the AGREE message when you CREDITS BUY x AT y. This would theoretically trip the bonus lessons, if any, and would help prevent inflation on the market.

Then add the optional FOR in case you're making a donation, still forcing the AGREE since you're irrevocably sending credits into limbo (or an org account, which wouldn't make them bound, but wouldn't need to anyway).

For instance, I'm buying six credits for myself, and pay 6000 gold for it. I would "CREDITS BUY 6 AT 6000" as usual. Instead of just spending 36000 gold, I get a message asking me to AGREE to purchase and bind the credits. I'd type AGREE, get my 6 bound credits, plus 15 lessons for converting 6 credits. After that it's Business As Usual.

Or if I wanted to buy those credits for Zhiren, I'd "CREDITS BUY 6 AT 6000 FOR ZHIREN". I'd get a message asking if I was sure I wanted to purchase 6 credits for Zhiren at a total of 36K gold, I'd AGREE, then Zhiren would get the 15 lessons and 6 bound credits.

Or finally, If I'm feeling generous and want to purchase 5 credits for Celest, because they're sad right now, I'd "CREDITS BUY 5 AT 6000 FOR CELEST", get the same message as if I were sending them to a person, type AGREE, and Celest would get 5 shiny credits that are, as a rule, unbound.

The only thing this would impede is the buying of credits just to sell them for more that's inflating the market like a guard's ego in Serenwilde, since artifact purchases are done with bound credits to begin with.

Thoughts?

So buying them for yourself binds them but buying them for an org doesn't? That allows that little rule to be circumvented at will. As for donations... 'credits buy X at X', 'deposit X credits '. Done.

You could buy 2000 credits, sell them all for 5000 gold, and twenty minutes later you'd find most of them back on the market for 5999. It's my belief that rising credit prices are simply a result of gold inflation. A long time ago they cost around 4000, but there were also a lot let ways to acquire gold. No aetherspace, no merians/gorgogs, no grey moors - the list goes on. As players have more and more time to acquire more and more guild, prices will rise.

No. You can't cirvumvent this rule at will. If you receive credits from an org they should be bound immediately the same way, to prevent that from happening.

And at your last statement, just, what? That's what makes me doubt you even read it. The point of this is to prevent people from buying credits at 5k and selling them at 6k.

It shouldn't stop the inflation, it should just stop people from buying low and selling high. It's understandable that credits rise in prices as more gold appears. This should just stop people from artificially increasing the credit prices to levels that are waaay too high.

I fail to see how them not binding to an org (not that it's possible) allows one to circumvent the autobinding, since in order to get credits from an organization, you have to be a GM or Trade minister, if memory serves, and the transfer is logged and visible to anyone who can READLOG that org.

Really, since most orgs ask that you use the credits for you and not resell them anyway, I'd not mind seeing credits from org donations/credit sales auto-bind either.

I'm well aware that you can currently "CREDITS BUY X AT Y" then "DEPOSIT X CREDITS " or "CREDITS SELL X TO Z FOR 0", however, if the credits auto-bind you couldn't do that since you can only sell or deposit unbound credits.

What's the problem with buying low and selling high? Plenty of people are willing to pay 6000 and up for credits - if not, they wouldn't cost that much. There's nothing artificial about that. People who resell aren't inflating the market, they're just taking advantage of a discrepancy.

That. Because if everyone treats credits like stocks, buying low and selling high. We may get to the point where that looks reasonable.

EDIT: Just to emphasize, that's currently fully HALF of the credit market at the moment. Half the credits being sold are at that price. And the next quarter are at least 6500

People have been posting credits at obscene prices since day one. I don't know what motivates them to do it, but you could've logged in on day two of open beta and seen them going for tens of thousands. None are actually bought at that price, and it's no indication of where the market's going.

EDIT: Also I wanna be able to make mountains of gold off of guild credit sales kthx

Leave them unbound.

Binding them is pretty pointless in all honesty, think they tried it in Achaea and it really didn't take off from what I know of the situation.

Credit prices fluctuate, they'll go up and come back down and eventually settle. Gold is hardly difficult to come by either. It is interesting to note that the current increase in credit prices coincides with the return of Richter, he did this last time too

That rules half of the market out. Now the other half? All of which, might I add, are above the 6K mark by at least a couple hundred, and are all above the average purchase price.

Granted, a little inflation is going to happen. People are going to want to get as much for their credits as they can, and that's fine. Ostensibly, though, all of these credits that are on the market should have come from OOC means. And characters who didn't earn them are benefiting from them by buying them low, and then selling them immediately for a profit. The concept of an OOC medium providing IC wealth to a character whose only claim to the medium is purchasing it with IC wealth is just very, very odd to me...Especially since the other side effect of this is speeding up the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Leave the credits unbound.

Something you didn't think about, binding credits won't do anything but make credits more scarce and drive up prices.

Umm...how..? Wouldn't the people using and converting the credits already be doing that..?

A good chunk of the credit market is stored/recycled credits. (bought from the credit market and just sold when someone needs gold)

If we can't resell them again, there will be very few credits for sale.

EDIT: This is also why we have market makers in the financial system to promote liquidity. If there is a lack of liquidity (by forcing people to bind them) the spread will increase.

If you were aware you couldn't resell them, why buy them in the first place? Why not just let them stay on the market and keep your gold..?

Um...at attractive prices anybody is going to buy them. What you're effectively doing is shortening the supply of unbound credits by eliminating recycled credits from the market.

At the same demand, the prices will just go up.

Actually, you can and its soooo very simple. You can deposit credits into clans in which, anybody with the bank priv may withdraw credits or gold. Otherwise if you're doing it from a City/Commune, only the City/Commune leader can transfer credits. For Guilds it is GMs, yes.




Their motivation is to see the average credit price rise higher.

Good points! :approve:

If the price is unreasonable, they won't get bought. That's the standard. Not "If I don't appreciate that price, it's too high." Sometimes, the prices on the good stuff push people right out of the market. Capitalism at work, yo.

Look at it from the other end: someone contributed to the RL economy and the standard of living for all people who benefit from his/her job for those credits you're emoing over. All you did was play a game. What's the exchange rate between work and leisure, or between idle and productive time? If you look at the credit market and the credits page on the website and still decide that the credit market is cheaper and still decide that you want credits, then the credit market price is still too low.

Horrible idea.

Making money off of the credit market is an interesting "feature," in my opinion.

It'll teach all these young whippersnappers about the value of a dollar! Back in my day, we knew the value of a dollar.

Actually, I would much, much rather spend $10 or $20 for 15 or 40 credits than spend a sum of gold I've yet to amass on any of my characters for three, but unfortunately I don't have that luxury. Given the choice between spending $10 or $20 on an online game, and having that money available for rent and food, I tend to enjoy the roof over my head, and the food in my stomach.

Make no mistake, if I had the money, I'd spend it, and have in the past. And if you want to purchase credits with real life funds and sell them for gold, more power to you, I won't stop you. Hell, if I needed gold in game, and had some real money lying around, I would too. I'd just like to be able to see some sort of reasonable return on effort put into the game.

The question one must ask is this: At what point are credits bought to be used and spent, and at what point are they bought only to be resold. The latter group of credits is essentially worthless, in the long run. They may as well be widgets being traded for the use they're being put to regardless of the price on them. They're pointless.

It just...even in the real world it makes no sense to me why someone would just hoard things that had a use without using them. Like cars, and boats, and clothes, and jewelry. Why? Why buy something you don't intend to use in some way? Why buy something that's only going to collect dust? Why waste all the effort you went through to get the money it took to buy it? Why?

I was ready to concede to Jozan's point about inflation, but it still just...it makes no sense...and maybe I've just been awake too long, but...I simply cannot see the point in buying something just to sell it, other than for simple greed, which ends up hurting the players who can't buy credits out of game for whatever reason.

Question -


Answer -



People buy things because they want it at that time, it gives them the gratification. However, now that it is their property, they have the ability to sell it for when times get rough.