I would be amazed if it had ever trended downward for any significant period of time.

I want some of the other game artifacts (besides the chessboard and bombard) to be made available to purchase for an org with gold. Commune/city fate decks and dice!

I think that'd be more an organizational gold sink than an individual one.

That makes as much sense as gold in a bank- it doesn't.

PS A tall, impossibly slender viscanti maiden, Kalas Keryn is clad in exquisite, finely-tailored clothing, plain except for a measure of golden embroidery at the hem of her heavy skirts and around the draping neckline. Golden ribbons sweep her hair, a deep ebon streaked with blood red, away from her face. Though her skin has the characteristic red tone of her kind, she is carefully preened and powdered to appear paler than she is, so that the cold intelligence of her black eyes seems even more stark. The horns upon her temples curve downwards and come to wicked points next to each cheekbone, and she bears a twisted staff held grimly in her left hand.
It has 2175 months of usefulness left.
It appears to be of level 55.
It weighs about 31 pounds.

The problem is not "gold in the game". It is "where the gold in the game is given". If everyone in the game sees a substantial increase in their income, then higher credit prices is normal and healthy. However, that is not the case. In the past, when credits were cheaper, gold earned by the low-end bashers is still the same as they are earning now. The income gap is widening, effectively. Someone listed the ways which gold is generated in the game, infuencing, questing, aetherhunting etc. In effect, though, bulk of individually earned gold comes from high end bashing. Clearing out all the keph hives nets you about 100k gold from drops alone. Selling the corpses gives you maybe another 30k or so.

On the other hand, low end bashing doesn't get much gold. Newbies doing rockeater quests, org gold mines, scholar/bard runs, can net roughly 2k per round, at anywhere from 10minutes to half an hour each, depending on their familiarity with the game. I certainly can't clear all the hives in half an hour, but I can clear around a quarter of them. Ascendants using poison based attacks and critting hard will go much faster.

So you have lots of gold generated at the high end, and these people buy out credits and inflate the market. No big deal, if their income can support their credit buying, then the market is healthy. The problem is that this leaves the low-end bashers, the newbies who need the credits to retain interest in the game, high and dry.

Now, we want to lower credit prices so that low end bashers (newbies and oldies alike) can have access to the credits. So we introduce goldsinks. These goldsinks must be:

1) Persistent - if it's a one-off thing, it won't be effective at lowering prices. People will just save up, dump into the sink, then go back to buying out the credit market.
2) Hold a unqiue value higher than credits - novelty is one, uniqueness is another, limited editions etc etc. They must hold a value which interests buyers more than credits.
3) Scaled with tiers, so that low-end bashers can use inferior or lesser versions of these goldsinks and won't be left out or forced to give up credits to use these goldsinks or vice-versa, while also being expensive enough for the high-end bashers to make a dent in their income.

Theoretically, they will supplement the demand for gold for high-end bashers - they have more things to spend on now, constantly, and these things are all of value to them. This means they have less spending power on credits, and prices will then naturally drop. Low-end bashers can get credits without having to climb over 16 different mountains, while high-end bashers with their income gets new, shiny stuff to play with and also cheaper credits, albeit slightly less of them.

All of the above are assuming that the supply of gold generated and credits remain constant. If the market is inundated with either, then the prices will fluctuate again.

Some ideas that can work with this is convienience items. Novelty items are fine and all, but the shine wears off. And unlike novelty items, which attracts some people but doesn't interest others, convienience is almost universally appreciated. If you tack this onto something integral to the game, like combat, you have yourself an award-winning goldsink. Things like bandoliers, potionlists, which newbies can pretty much do without, but which high-end bashers or min-maxers would want, are prime examples. However, as mentioned, we want persistent investments, not one-off ones.

Adopting the model of karmic blessings could work with this. You rent an item that makes your life easier, and it poofs in an hour or something. The more different convieniences you rent, the costs stack exponentially, making it impossible to get everything active at once. High end people can afford to stack multiple items, while newbies can buy one to make their lives easier without high costs. Income from the high end has to be split between maintaining these convieniences and buying credits, and naturally they will be willing to pay less for the same credit, causing prices to drop over time.

Convienience things that help trade skills are probably the best way to go. Combat based boosts mess with the powercreep. Think of any trade that is tedious and grindy, and create an effect that makes things easier without making things cheaper. You could create an orb that lasts for an hour, which lets an enchanter with it in his inventory while recharging a cube do so at 10 times the speed. You could create an item for every trade that lets them craft multiple of the their items at the same time, stacking the balance. Like, instead of having to make a vial one by one at 5s bal each time, with the item you could make 50 items at a go, and take 50x5s, (maybe a little discount of 10s) instead. Cutting down spam and things that require you to repeat the same command for little to no reason are great places to implement this for a decent gold cost.

Right. It'd still be more fun than putting gold in the bank for no other reason than having a pile of gold, however.

If you hoard enough, you should be go into a back room with it, and dive into it Scrooge McDuck style.

Eegads you brought a Neos and played, Full meld up!

I remove 10 nexus counters and tap into my nexus to ascend Ceren to Fillin, Earthen Ire. BOOM WHAT MELD NOW!?

Lerad makes a good point. I was thinking of the same earlier but he outlined it even better.

I'd like to add to it that it used to be less of a problem because influencing was easy if you knew how to go about it, but then and now still (most) guilds push first time novices towards bashing, or novices know only about bashing because of the tutorial, and the fact that influencing is a whole skillset scares them. (Most) guilds also empathize on learning guild skills and it may be a requirement for a guild rank. What I am trying to say is that in the past a well-informed novice could earn a good share of gold through esteem sales. But now with the nerfs to influencing that doesn't hold ground either. And low-level bashing has always been godawful. It's perhaps a little off-topic but I do think all guilds should provide a clear outline of how to go about influencing, and let novices know that they have a choice. However, that will mean that those responsible to teach will have to learn the basics of it too. /endofftopic

Ok, to get back to the topic at hand, first off the coin shop if added would indeed need some tweaking, lower odds or perhaps just take certain things out of the table.

I also like the idea of rent-an-artifact. Use the same loot table as the bandit event or just evaluate what can and can't be rented. Cauthorn is a lovely fellow and lets me borrow his artifacts from time to time to go bashing, and I must say being able to try out the effects of certain artifacts makes me more inclined to buy them. However for this to work right now the owner must be online to hand over the artifacts, not be wanting to use them himself, and he must stay online for as long as I go and use them (I think?). It'd be a lot nicer if I could pay an npc some gold and rent a temporary set of runes for example. Put a cap on it too, like you can only rent 3 artifacts at once and/or maybe increase the price for each rented so people don't abuse the system

I heartily approve of Rent-An-Arti.

Definitely. Can't believe I didn't think of it... I'd so rent a pearl ring when the sargassum-harvest comes about.

Heh. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. The middle class shrinks. Where have I heard this before?

That aside, aren't dingbats like more elite credits? Sure, they can't convert into lessons or purchase certain artifacts, but they are used to buy some useful and unique arties. Only problem you pointed out is that they are used to acquire "one-off" items. All the same, I'll return to my argument that a dingbat open market would be appreciated. That is, offering in-game DINGBATS ALL OFFERS to accompany the DINGBAT TRANSFER... syntax.

The trade convenience is an interesting idea, but many trade arties help reduce costs (as well as time). Introducing a cost for trades would only increase the costs of marketable items. With the PORTAL SEARCH SHOPS syntax, you can find the cheapest item across all manse shops. Wouldn't make sense that some shops would pay for convenience (and thereby drive up costs) to compete against those who prefer inconvenience and lower costs.

You could make the same argument against trade artifacts bought with credits. When, in fact, these people are more likely to attempt to grab a greater share of the market with undercutting.

Remember, In Lusternia, trade business is not how you earn a living. It's a hobby, by and large. Anyone that relies solely on trade for income will be vastly outmatched by the true bread winners.

I honestly can't see the problem of this. Nothing is forcing people to pay for the added convenience, so every shop is on equal footing.

Speaking of PORTAL SEARCH SHOPS and gold sinks, Barrin had an interesting idea a month or two ago. Every game-year, manse shop owners can choose an amount of gold to invest in their manse shop's marketing budget, by paying that much, with a command they do at their shop. During the following year, manses are listed in PORTAL SEARCH SHOPS in the order of the amounts -- whoever paid most is at the top, then the next highest, and so on, with everyone who didn't pay at all, at the bottom in the same order they are now. I wonder, though, after a year or two, would only one or two shops end up spending on this, because everyone knows someone else is willing and able to pay more, so there's no point in bidding? I'm not sure how it would pan out. But the idea certainly seemed interesting.

I think it depends on how willing the top few might be to keep on paying the same amount or if they decide to drop it over time to save some money, thereby giving incentive to others to try to compete again.

If it was blind bidding (and players chose not to reveal), then I can imagine it being hard to second-guess what another might bet. Done that way, I can't see it not working.

However. After one has done the portal search, doesn't one just go to the cheapest, rather than the first on the list?

Really manses and aetherships are top tier gold sinks. Manses are a vanity item and mostly private (made somewhat public with manse shops). Aetherships are mostly public endeavors, spearheaded by orgs and guilds... not to mention the wealthy individuals. Both are upgradeable and customizable with tons of credit- and dingbat-based arties.

Aren't manses and aetherships gold sink enough?

Take someone like Vermilla for instance. Extremely wealthy by my standards. Skillflexed omni-trans. Operates her own manse shop. Aethership is all decked out. She has everything anyone could ever want... except a reliable aethercrew.

Acquiring the manpower to load the ship with enough bodies (even a bare-bones crew with people doubling on modules and slivvens) can be problematic-- at times for anyone. I've seen tons of market aether announcements calling for more crew (mostly slivveners).

SO... WHAT IF... you could "rent" a gnome from the Starhopper at the aetherplex to man a gun for one day's duration. There would need to be syntax like PILOT RENT GUNNER ON AT FOR <# of time> DAYS. One gnome per ship. Gnomes have higher than average damage output, but don't crit at all. Would probably need to have some balance-less, pilot-side syntax to make them turret & fire. Takes up a higher XP module and frees someone up to slivven/siphon.

Not saying this is a great idea... but it certainly fills a need AND perfectly fits Lerad's criteria for a viable gold sink.

Janalon has flashes of the manpower shortages last night and the ridiculous measures we took to alleviate them!

I'd be up for hirable aethercrews! Might even want to remove the limit of one per ship. Perhaps even add in a gnome for siphoning and empathing (although I'm not sure how the empath would work).