Gold Sinks don't work

The lack of perfection is no excuse not to strive for it or settle for something that's less than it could be.

 

I guess no one has bothered to read this article: http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html , including the OPer who posted it.

It's pretty old (1999), but it's still sound today. If you understand standard business practice, it's easy to understand what went wrong.

-Printing (faucet) currency and flooding the economy is what de-values that currency, and causes hyperinflation.
-Un-controlled "counterfeiting" (faucet) does the same thing.
-Skill gains based on production of low demand items is counter productive.
-NPCs selling (drain) low demand items is counter productive.
-Hoarding is bad for the games inventory system.

The article had a couple of solutions to these problems, one was to stop the practice of using your skill to produce low demand items for skill gains, instead create a "drain" and let the player become an apprentice by purchasing a commission. Then purchasing your skill points and recipes as your skill rises. The higher in rank you get, the more expensive it gets, but you are creating items to either sell to an NPC (faucet) or to players (null).

I think SotA has this one under control, stop giving currency as loot, instead give something a player made. And yes, the players are now responsible for keeping up the game inventory of items. OK, what if players only make "shirts", which is a low demand item, well it fetches a low price. The game should monitor supply/demand and adjust accordingly.

Newbies should have plenty of simple quests (jobs) to do for any "merchant" like delivering goods to someone in the next town, the first time they do it, the pay is good, but the more times they do it, the less pay they receive. Once they've purchased equipment, they would start "gathering" quests (jobs) to bring back certain resources, and again, the more they do it the less profitable it gets. As their "newbie" period ends, they should be on their way to an apprenticeship.

Hoarding should not be allowed, item count should matter. It shouldn't be possible to have 100 stacks if 10,000 each of shirts. It not only "blackholes" the server, but it also overloads the games inventory system, so don't allow it. I think stacks could be limited to 1000 of an item, the players inventory can be monitored, if you want 4 stacks of 250 each fine, but you can't have more than 1000 or your hoarding. I'm a crafter and I could live with that.

If the game is monitoring my inventory, then when I gather, I would get higher amounts and then, as my inventory grows, I start receiving little or nothing at all. Take the randomness out of the game, if I see an outcrop of Diamonds let me mine diamonds, iron ore can be limited to 1000, silver to 500, gold to 100, diamonds to 100 (these are stacks of). Sell prices should fluctuate with demand.

Game run "Auctions" for special unique items should be available, this can be a huge drain for gold (currency), a special event that players have to actively participate in and have the currency to pay for the item.

These are just some of the ideas I got from that article....

 

Issue with stacks. Give a stack to a friend or place it in a container other than your inventory or bank. Simple work around. The game would have to monitor ALL containers you own, including any property you own.

A simplier solution to inventories is managing weight and volume. Stuff takes up space. Now there's some leyway you have to give to harvesters. Either by allowing stacks of harvestable materials or allowing a single item to provide a lot of resource, depending on which makes the most sense. 1 log could provide a lot of wood for example but then you also might have an issue with how fast resources enter the market. 1 log could equal 50 boards and take 1 minute to harvest or 1 log could equal 5 boards.. taking 10 minutes to get the same number of boards. There's always that balance to consider, but does it make senes for 1 person to haul around 10 logs or a cart full of ore.

Whatever exceptions you make though the point is you can control how much someone can manage with weight and volume. A bank box or chest can only hold so much volume. If you're hoarding logs then what you should end up with is a large stack of logs on your lot and you're only going to have so much space for that. People wouldn't want to do it overly much as then it would start getting in the way and be an eyesore.

If you could just hide away 1000 logs in a single chest in your basement then there's nothing stopping anyone from hording mass resources. Realistically you've got to run out of space sooner or later.

 

HA! I've read that thing so many times it's silly, and yes I did post it...but you're saying that this article proves that gold sinks and faucets work? I'm saying no they don't, and that the reason UO had to goto that model in the first place was because they had to fix their economy as best they could in the moment. Then other game developers read that article and said "lets put faucet and sinks into our game cause that's the FIX" and now 20 years later we're still here with a bandage approach to economies.

 

Ok I'm just going to throw this out there since it's been awhile and it applies to the top. This was an idea I came up with as something players could potentially want to spend money on over and over again.

NPC Entertainers

It's all about getting the currency to flow through the system.

 

I would actually LOVE to hear Starr and RG's point of view on the old UO economy. That now infamous article, and what the plans for the SOTA economy are in light of all they must have learned from their years of experience.



I'm not even close to an economist. I'm probably the last person that anyone would want running an in-game economy. And that's why I think the economy should just be a finite group of resources that don't increase or decrease because there's no way for me or anyone else to screw it up. It's management free.

 

I think the notion that gold sinks don't work is a little too simplistic. There's a lot more to it than that. Like players running out of things they want to spend money on. Gold sinks have limits but that doens't mean they're not a valuable tool. I think a big problem other games face includes the fact that developers only have so much time and money to throw at the problem so they put something that works up until a point thinking they can make quick fixes later. Basically the economy is treated as a secondary feature. My personal speculation.

 

The way you phrase that is pretty much exactly how UO started. Resources alone can't be limited by nature or you get the same problem UO had. Suddenly you'll find there are no rabbits in the world because someone is hording rabbit meat. The primary problem is currency that doesn't move. You need players to spend their money willingly and repeatedly.

 

I totally agree with everything you said here with one notable exception. Putting gold sinks into a game doesn't fix anything...it's too complex. It only gives people the illusion that something maybe sorta got fixed and oh yeah we'll try to do better next month with new and improved gold sinks.

 

And that might very well be what RG and Starr believe...but it's my understanding that when UO had their initial problems (caused in part by gold duping), players adjusted to the economy (as real economies do) and created new forms of currency (I think they were sea shells or something) and people continued to gain wealth and prosper.

The problem was that the average person didn't understand what was going on, all they knew was that "gold" wasn't worth anything because of hyperinflation. So they got upset. To FIX this, UO (as I understand it) flushed gold out of the game any way they could (taxes mostly) in an effort to stabilize the economy. Which logically seems like a really smart thing to do, until you realize that you're now in charge of gold in and gold out...and honestly who here really believes it's possible to manage this on a daily basis with any type of accuracy?

I mean REALLY give it some thought. Whatever math or clever formula you might think would work here...are you seriously thinking that it's not going to get exploited? That it's not going to have unforeseen consequences? You're just THAT smart?

For the record, I think the devs are SUPER smart people, much smarter than I am for sure, but I don't think for a moment they can do it. If they can, I'd like to introduce them to the United States of America. That's an economy that could really use their help.

 

I didn't say they were a fix.. I suggested they were a valuable tool. Whatever framework you have for an economy to function, human behavior does indeed complicate matters beyond the ability for 1 tool to "fix".

Generally speaking, in-game markets in of themselves will behave a certain way. You can rely on people buying necessary goods for example. People will be willing to pay into most gold sinks (ie rent, taxes) because they're getting something out of it but I've yet to hear of any game that solves hording of currency. There's little incentive beyond a certain point to spend money. You've got your house, you've got your skills, your vendor which ideally brings in more money than you lose. Sooner or later you reach a point where normal game play starts throwing money at you faster than you can spend it. Gold sinks only absord so much and quick fix solutions never address the core issue.

So I started thinking about this problem and I asked myself "what do people willingly want to spend their money on over and over?" and I could only come up with one answer. Entertainment. In order to take money out of the hands of players and back into the system that has to come from NPCs.. Gambling run by NPCs is another possibility. The drawback for Portalarium here is the need to constantly add new content to NPC street performers or whatever else there is. You're only going to pay to watch the same juggling act so many times but I think the basic premise is sound. (Though technically this too is a gold sink, albeit a voluntary one)

 

Yes, Bowen...those are all great example of gold sinks, and I'm sure they would have varying degrees of "success". But it's playing whack-a-mole, the moment you smooth out one area, another issue pops up. If you gives players infinite ways to obtain gold (via monsters, vendors...however you're bringing it into the game) if it's not fixed (finite or closed) then players will find a way to obtain silly amounts of it. They'll use multiple accounts, quit the game but first give everything they own to a friend, just sit around farming or crafting the most insignificant resource for hours. If it has value, players will take it and hoard it.

Instead of focusing on gold in and out of the system...developers should think about how gold moves from one player to another within a closed system. And that's hard and it's never been done before and I don't have a great answer to all those problems, I just know THE answer starts with a closed system.

 

If we're talking the main problems with the US economy then we're really talking politics so I won't make any further comment than that except to say the biggest problem we have is government getting involved. Fortunately, what we're talking about is a game economy. As with any game system all you need is good design and implimentation. For that you need to understand the real root of the problem and address THAT. I do not believe the biggest problems in game economies lay within whether or not it's finite or comprised of faucets and sinks alone or even the tendency for players to horde. You can probably guess what I think the larger issues are here. The lack of spending.

Gold duping early on in UO was a serious problem sure.. but it was a bug used by a small fraction of the players that was solved relatively early on. In short, it was a short term problem and as far as I'm aware independant from issues caused by finite resources. I was playing during that time. I personally, rarely went adventuring. I didn't have a vendor but I made decent money as a small mining company. I owned a tower and a couple houses and someone even managed to save up enough to buy a castle. Of course by then there was no place to put it so there I was sitting on 1 million gold and absolutely nothing to spend it on except maybe a pile of horse pucky.

There was just no reason for me to spend what money I had and compared to most dedicated players I just was not bringing in that much money. So even for me with only 1 mil it was rather meaningless. Add in players who dedicate their time to aggressively earn money and they don't have anything to spend it on either.. that's a problem.

No gold sink can absorb surplus income if there's no reason to pay into them.

 

Well I'm certainly not arguing against finite currency. I admit I haven't considered specific feature for providing incentives to move gold between players. There's a lot of that already with crafting and related skills. Those however only move money to crafters. Greater diversity in goods and services may help on that front. Such as a theaterical troupe for example charging money for a play.

 

Now we're talkin! Great post.

So I highlighted a few lines that I want you to think about...

First, I think you're absolutely correct about the lack of spending leading to hoarding. But we're assuming that we're ever going to make enough gold sinks to compete with the irrational demand for as much gold as possible.

Above I suggest (with a lot of help from Mugly Wumple) that a closed economy could allow people to mine for gold, get gold, use gold, create gold bars...but if and when that gold starts to get hoarded, the gold would lose it's value via decay! So if you have 1 million in gold bars today...tomorrow due to continuous mining, those gold bars are very likely to be worth far less. So the best thing to do is SPEND SPEND SPEND today...not tomorrow.

 

It's unclear precisely what you mean by decay but it sounds like having a standard other than gold. Thus a gold bar worth 100 gold today might only be 10 gold tomorrow.. literally.. inflation does the same thing by increasing cost so I don't really see a net change here. You're only altering the display value of the gold instead of raising prices. Or are you saying if 1 person literally has a lot of gold in one place that specific gold begins to lose value? Which I couldn't get on board with as that's a pretty forced and unnatural mechanic.

Allowing the mining of gold introduces a new problem as that's a gold faucet. Mined resources are basically an inexhaustable resource.

One thing you could do though is allow for gold to be ued extensively in crafts. If you take mined gold and smelt it.. or melt down bars or even coins. You could use that gold for decorative inlays in crafts or even craft luxury items out of gold or other precious metals. Candlesticks, picture frames etc. Not only does it give players luxuries to spend their own money on, but it also removes that amount of gold from the market as currency. If your goal is horde wealth then it shouldn't make a difference what form that wealth takes and indeed the extra variety provided by crafts is more interesting that just a pile of gold.

Of course some people will take those items and smelt them down but overall I think the tendency would be to collect the items for display/decoration. So that might mitigate a gold faucet to some degree.

Working with gold of course should be a master skill if not also a subskill of smithing.

 

You're close.

In my mind it works something like this...

You go to the mine and get 100 lbs of gold. It's currently worth what? (gold?) Anyway, you know it's worth something because it's gold!

So you hoard it! Then you go back to the mine and you mine 100 lbs MORE gold. You're gonna be rich!

But now you take that gold back to your hoard spot and you notice that the gold you originally got is no longer worth what it once was. Again, what's gold's worth in gold? Who knows! But the gold you got first is now only 9/10th the purity of the gold you just mined. The longer you keep your gold, the less it actually has gold in it. The value begins to fade away. It's almost as if the gold is leaking out of a battery case (bar, ingot, coin). Bars hold their value best over time, then ingots, then coins...the coins are the worst! But they're the easiest to sell and transport.

So where's all that value going (over time)? Back to the mines! It literally forces players to spend it while they can.

And you rightly brought up using gold for "something" other than a currency. Alchemist's would want "pure gold" and craftsmen would need "75%" gold, etc etc....so that all gold would have a lifespan and a life cycle that required continuous participation in the economy to maintain wealth.

I almost want to patent this idea.

 

eh.. that's just to artificial for my taste. Besides, what's to stop a pair of players from buying from each other? If I smelt that gold right away and spend it on my friend's vendor.. or worse on a vendor on my own alternate account. Then wouldn't I keep the full value of that gold?

 

I wonder if you could tithe to the Oracle, to improve your past mistakes hehe could be a mini gold sink?

 

Nope. The value of the gold is a train that leaves the station the moment you mine it. And the train is always on time, you can set your watch to it!

So you mine it...and within a certain amount of time the gold starts to lose it's original value. It still looks like gold, but the longer you take to smelt it into a gold bar, ingot, or coin...the value leaks right out of it.

Some of the best craftsmen might be able to help you retain the gold value longer than normal, but it's eventually going to lose all value (becoming 'fools gold').

The best gold can be used in enchantments, some can be used in decoration, but over time the value of the gold in things like furniture just becomes fools gold unless you constantly update it with the real stuff (fools gold looks like crap too).