It's just my opinion, but the vast majority of games really fail at managing their economies over time. I was reminded of that this morning as I watched people race each other to get housing plots in FFXIV. Players just have too much money, and economic systems and interactions start to skew towards higher and higher prices because of it.
I'd like it if Pantheon could avoid this kind of problem in 3-4 years. So I thought I would start a thread for us to talk about effective money sinks - ones that pull money out of the game on an ongoing basis, and don't eventually become trivial and overwhelmed.
Here's an example of one I could think of that might work:
- Have a vendor NPC in major cities that sells cosmetic clothing sets. Each month, a new set of clothing is introduced.
- Prices for the sets are done in a "tier" system, with the price based on the tier of the set. The newer a set is, the higher it's tier value. So new sets always come in at the highest prices, and over time, older sets become cheaper to buy.
- Prices for each tier are controlled by an algorithm that updates each month (when the new sets are introduced). The algorithm looks at the amount of money players have, and then bases it's prices on a percentage of the average wealth of, say, the top 1/3 of players. What this means is that if players are accumulating more and more money, the algorithm will set prices higher when it updates. On the other hand, if money is leaving the economy, the algorithm will set prices lower.
If there's one thing I've learned from all the MMOs I've played it's that "normal" players will pay for fashion (as long as the artwork is compelling). So, I feel like this would be a pretty good method for pulling money out of the game's economy, and the pricing algorithm would insure that it always stays relevant s a money sink.
I'm sure there are other types of money sinks that would work and remain effective over time. What are everyone's thoughts?
Check out this thread: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4783/list-of-possible-in-game-currency-sinks
Also this: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4811/wizard-druid-sinks
antonius said:What about taxes for a city? To pay for guards, maintenance etc. Everyone starts in some city, and that city levies a flat tax every month? Say, X% of your cash every month of in game time, capped at a fixed % of your cash or something?
Generally speaking players aren't keen on having portions of their money deleted with nothing to show for it.
I'm one who hopes we will be able to identify much of the gear other players are wearing just by looking at them (not inspecting). I feel this kind of item recognition is very important so I'm hoping that any cosmetic changes are restricted to things like hair or weight/size or facial changes such as makeup or scars or skin tone etc..
That ^ being said, money/item sinks are very important. I'm definitely for cosmetic merchants that visibly change the characters base appearance (not their armor/weapon appearance).
I believe this has been mentioned before in a thread that discussed the NPCs who will provide extended buffs in exchange for gear. It will take a variety of item/gold sink options to keep mudflation in check.
Edit: I remember a discussion about having a toggle on/off for whether an individual would see cosmetic changes or see the actual gear that was equiped. That sounds fine to me as someone who doesn't really care much about cosmetic changes. I wonder if people who enjoy altering their look cosmetically would still do it if they know that most other people will have "cosmetic view" toggled off and won't be able to see their changes? Does that matter to people?
You could have a users fee for crafting equipment. Since most games have common crafting areas available to everyone it only seems right that any guy just coming in off the street to use the facility pays a fee. Crafters could pass on their expense to the buyer of their wares.
Could also have a fee for making a bank transaction. Could be a small set rate per interaction or a low percentage. If coin has wieght people will have to bank at some point.
I was also thinking about having an exchange rate. If coins are not auto upgraded to the next denomination when you have alot of one kind your bag you would have to visit a bank to convert all of your copper to silver or gold or plat. What if the exchange rate were not static? Today its 100 copper for a silver, maybe next week its 145, or 200. I don't think it should be in flux everyday like real world currencies, but making a change once a week or so could be fun and beneficial. Maybe some people would hoard their lower coin in the hopes of a better rate (it could go up or down). If done from the begining and handeled right all coin could retain value. At the very least it would slow down inflation. It would also help alot if mobs in the world never dropped the primary denomination. If platinum is what will be used for most player transactions make it so thatmobs only drop gold silver and copper. This lets the devs control the currency a bit more.
Bazgrim said:Check out this thread: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4783/list-of-possible-in-game-currency-sinks
Also this: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4811/wizard-druid-sinks
As Bazgrim kindly pointed out, we already have multiple discussions on this topic so I will go ahead and close this one down, please feel free to join in on the already existing threads.