Policy failures in a virtual world mimic real life.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Greyfox, Sep 25, 2018.

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  1. Greyfox

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    1) High taxes prevent growth. You can barely give away taxed property deeds. Even when a taxed lot is free people are rarely using them. Taxes are too damn high. Pay high taxes or leave, most will decide to leave.

    2) Minimum income. We can obtain 500 gold just to log into the game and answer a simple question. The effort to login and collect free gold is even too much effort for many. Even when this free gold is enough for tax on two row deeds. Lazy people are alway lazy unless incentives provided to work. I am sure the top 1% still hold most of the gold.

    I have millions of gold and log in, the first thing I do is get my free 500 gold. Minimum income is a failure and only helping the rich. Inflation rises and actually hurts the poor. Gold has been declining in value dramatically as inflation rises. Economy 101, Keynesian stagnation.

    3) Punishing success while rewarding mediocrity. Creative people analyzed various crafting and markets to develop methods of positive income. Most recently brewing, many other crafts were found to create gold with some work. Each time positive gold methods were found they would be nerfed. This disincentivized working for gold within the game.

    The only profitable in game activities are resource gathering and end game crafting. The blue collar masses work in the mines and sell to the ruling elites. The ruling elites control the markets and make profits selling high end goods to the masses. Unfortunately most of the masses left. So the market suffers stagnation.

    4) Minimal reward for “hard work”. Level advancement through endless hours of grinding has minimal reward for time spent. Most will leave a system. Why attend 20 years of school to be a doctor when you can make the same income as a propaganda minister for the State with no schooling and make the same money?

    Why level past 100 when you are 99% as effective as a level 140? Level cap or make levels matter.

    6). Income redistribution. Giving out excessive high value items for free makes those items worthless. We have no rare loot drops. Devaluing items until nothing has value. What is next remove deeds and from those who paid and give to those without? Make owning properties worth the expense. Make some loot drops rare and useful. Make some store bought items rare and useful. If everyone has everything, no one has anything of value.

    7) Banning speech. Excessive moderation to make the forums a safe zone made the forums a dead zone. Being triggered means you are being exposed to more than an echo chamber. Diversity mandates difference of thought far more than a differing physical attribute.

    I have many more examples, but trying not to be too negative. I have fixes but will see first how this post is received. Never give up hope, never too late, until it’s too late.

    On a positive note, embrace principles of Capitalism and watch our virtual world explode with success. The SOTA graphics are fine, games like Everquest, Eve, and WoW are graphically inferior but the game play is far more intriguing and rewarding. SOTA has the foundation for a thriving player driven economy but needs the proper incentives in place.
     
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  2. Anpu

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    Well, I’ll happily take a POT taxed village lot deed, so I can build my dream Inn <3. If you can’t seem to give them away..... ;)
     
  3. Greyfox

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    I will give you a free village lot to live on in our POT, Aerie Centre Exchange. You pay the taxes. Deal?
     
  4. Anpu

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    Thank you very much for the offer! But for now I just want the actual deed, just in case I wish to move or other things.

    I’ll just keep saving up. I’ll get there eventually. :D
     
  5. CatherineRose

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  6. Greyfox

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    People are selling POT taxed village deeds for almost nothing, far less than the store cost of $165. I paid approximately $150 for the deed in cash. If Portalarium doesn't make the items worth the cost, no one will buy them. We WANT to give Portalarium money, but without incentive I'd rather donate to a more worthy cause like a Veteran's organization.
     
  7. Roycestein Kaelstrom

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    Of all these points, #3 is what drains most of my motivation to spend long hours in the game.

    At some point I decided to start investing in large planting pots to do agriculture as my main income and also to prepare for brewery. Things went well according to plan until profits from brewery got nerfed to the point where it's no longer worth the time. I haven't been sinking much time since then beyond logging in to chat with friends and some quick play session, then switch to No Man's Sky.

    I'll put more hours into the game to try out fishing changes this coming release.
     
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  8. Carlin the Druid Archer

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    I have a taxed place anywhere TOWN lot deed if you'd like to buy that? I'm happy to take offers over $100USD.
     
  9. Forum Name

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    Not sure why you need to “see how this post is received” before offering solutions. I suspect you know that just highlighting problems in any environment is usually not received well.

    If you highlight problems, people generally want your solutions , otherwise this is just pointless complaining. So offer them up if want to help,
     
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  10. Anpu

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    Thanks for the offer, but I am just too poor (cash). :( I do have a creepy doll to trade! :p
     
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  11. Jason_M

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    I'm not the biggest fan for "these are the problems I see/this would make the game better" threads because I'm too new (less than 3 months) to be quite as elbows-deep in it all as you folks.

    But I can say that, after three months, logging in every day, with only one taxed row home, adventuring hard every single day, that earning money is long and slow.

    I can't say that I agree with everything in OP per se, but in general I do. If the developers are limiting gold input into the economy in order to prevent the veteran players from flooding the market with cheap gold (inflation), there does need to be something for the younger players.

    In my opinion, land ownership should not have so high a cost of admission. Between row taxes, equipment repair/replacement, and consumables, I can make about 5k per night (~5 hours) of less-than-casual play.

    That's hard work and not tenable every day except by only the most hardcore people.

    Like @Jaesun, I also have a goal of owning a village lot, but it's going to be a long time, and my income will be further hampered by taxes when I have it. Then I have to decorate it.

    I would definitely like to have a town lot, but I expect that that white elephant is a pipedream. Judging by the many empty city lots in Brittany Estates, white elephant is a very apt if relative metaphor.

    However, as @Gloop said, criticism should be constructive. Unfortunately I'm just not clever enough with economics to help (if I were, I would be rich enough to RMT my woes away).

    I do have an odd seeming suggestion that would benefit the newer players much more than the veterans. Please consider allowing repair of items at workbenches without a repair deed. Maybe there can be a much cheaper fuel if it's absolutely necessary. Losing maximum durability can also be a drawback. In this way new players can take the time to improve the value of their loot after a long evening's battle.
     
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  12. Kara Brae

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    I agree with much of the OP.

    In my opinion the greatest policy failure was the Kickstarter decision to lure backers with the promise of property ownership as a rare commodity.

    The result is a seemingly empty world full of ghost towns. Prime property in every town has been claimed and left undecorated by inactive backers and by people with multiple accounts. In some instances like the OP's (@Greyfox) village lot in Aerie they haven't even bothered to place a house on the property, so there are empty lots everywhere.

    At the same time, the devs are trying to sell deco articles to earn money and there is hardly any market for crafted deco items and furniture. Engaged players are purchasing POTs and decorating them beautifully, but there aren't enough property owners to fill them.

    I hope this policy is changed in Episode two.
     
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  13. Vladamir Begemot

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    If you haven't seen this, it has information that might help you earn gold faster. Some of it is outdated (both deeds as well as banner prices are lower, wood is MUCH higher) so you need to keep that in mind. I think much of it is still relevant though.
     
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  14. Gorthyn

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    Property deeds, houses and probably rent need to be much cheaper.

    The ridiculous cost of buying property is one of the (many) reasons we are where we are with the lack of game population.

    As is the perception/fact of an elite and masses split in the game as mentioned by the OP.
     
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  15. Jason_M

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    Thanks, professor @Vladamir Begemot :)

    I remember reading that post way back when. I wonder though who is paying that much money for virtue armor, banners, and the current market price for commodities.

    I'm sitting on 500 copper ore, for a example, that I scavenge as I go, but I'm not selling it for 30 gp/per, for example.

    Now that I think of it, sir, the last time I made a commodity sale of any remarkable quantity was to you ;)

    I've put my commodities on my Pots CF vendor (maybe six weeks ago) at median prices according to Sota trader and have sold, I think, two items. I have a lot on the vendor.

    One of those items was 10 beetle carapace for 650 gp. Oops. Missed a zero. That sold in ten minutes!

    But now I'm just whining. I get out every week or two to the market towns and to sell a stack of sooty bark or beetles or tin. Time is also a currency affecting our online success, so I don't waste too much time clicking on vendors that buy wood for 10 gp/per or gold for 24 gp/per.

    Not that I'm bitter or anything :):p
     
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2018
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  16. Womby

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    One of the consequences of Capitalism is that there are winners and losers. Now, the difference between Capitalism in Real Life and Capitalism in a game, is that in a game the losers can up and leave for a proletarian paradise (some other game), leaving the winners to sit around staring at each other until the servers shut down.
     
  17. Azzamean

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    Isn't that sort of what is going on?
     
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  18. Lazlo

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    I think taxes could definitely use another look at some point, but oracle gold seems like a decent idea to me. It keeps people logging in, which makes them more likely to support the game in the future, and the downsides are pretty minimal imo.

    Also, while I agree with some of the opinions in the OP, I think the premise of the thread is pretty silly. The SotA economy does not mimic real life, and a lot of these ideas are not failures in the real world. For example, in the video game world of SotA, your tax money doesn't pay for road maintenance or healthcare or scientific research; It just disappears. On the other hand, in the real world, most of the countries with the highest quality of life also have very high tax rates. It's probably a lot better to just make the points without injecting the real world stuff, because this way will needlessly rile people without really adding any extra insight into what's going on in SotA.
     
  19. E n v y

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    All I can say to that is that not a single person in my guild who has left the game did so because they felt 'poor' in-game. They left the game due to things such as lack of content for their playstyle, poor quests and overzealous forum moderation
     
  20. Jason_M

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    I think the question isn't necessarily about reasons why players might leave the game (although we've seen that that topic is intrinsically related to every topic that comes up...) but instead about improving the efficiency and balance of the economic systems to both improve the enjoyability of the play experience as well as to better reflect the emergent conditions for different playstyles.

    I don't think the game is failing nor do I think the current state of affairs is bad. I certainly don't envy Portalarium as they have so many different players with so may different expectations to satisfy.

    But I do strongly disagree with puzzle rewards. You spend half an hour or more running around a map doing this or that and you get some gem fragments and a dirty wooden spoon. :eek:
     
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