Portalarium Currency Sales (Please Read) -- (Dev) Replied

@Monkus

Your ideas are good but there is no compelling reason to buy any of those things unless a player wants to for the sake of having it. By taxing transactions, players are compelled to pay into the 'nothingness' of the sink, in order to transact business in the world. They are compelled to participate in the sink.

Frankly, I won't buy currency from Portalarium for anything. I've never bought a PLEX with USD in all my years of EVE, though I could have and I've made billions in EVE. I never needed it. As I said, ISK is toilet paper to me and no amount of AUR vanity items is going to make me part with it. They're useless and intangible.

How will EVE ever make ISK meaningful again? They can't. It's too far gone now.

 

@vandigeth

ISK does not need to be meaningful for anyone other then new players old players will produce things using raw materials or alternate currencies this is why it is no problem if you make a brand new account you can start the game and buy anything you need today in Eve. That is a sign of a very good economy. On the other hand you have my 85 million SP pilot who makes everything he needs.

The economy is very simple @ 0.2 - 7.0 million players which is about as large as a MMO type market game could possibly get economies at this scale are simple.

 

@Sir Mishri

In response to your edit.

That is one of the other ways the Federal reserve can manipulate money the amount of currency in the economy. Simply jacking up interest rates paid directly to it is another way. We're heading to the same place, but we're on two different roads.

Maybe I'm wrong, however I will not quantify anyone's understanding of economics here. I'm only presenting my own interpretation and how I think it's best to manage the money supply without become UO or EVE all over again; at least on the multiplayer end.

 

@Monkus

Respectfully, it was you who first brought up the US economy so I thought you wanted to use that as an example. My apologies if I was incorrect in that understanding. I'm not familiar with the economics of Fiji or other smaller nations so I'm not going to try and debate those economies.

However, what I'm proposing is simply controlling the money supply to meet the demands of a growing, or shrinking, population. I know how to work the system to hoard oodles of game cash because every game does it the same way. Make money meaningful again. Let's set a gold standard for the currency in this game with controlled inflation.

My pilot is nearly 160m sp. I can make everything I need and pile huge hoards of cash away. I would love to have something to spend it on or be compelled to make more. An economic challenge is what I crave as a crafter and a merchant trader. I *need* it soooo bad.

Edit: 'I can make everything I need...' I don't cause I have too much money hahaha

 

@Vandigeth, and everyone else

I love that most video gamers are pretty educated or at least quite smart it is very relieving that people have new ideas, even if they dont mirror my own so congratulations to everyone on this thread for this brilliant discussion.

We do have different ideas on the direction which is fine and this thread is becoming an even better tool for the developers if they can implement a mix of all these ideas.

Bravo.

 

@ Vandigeth

I am hoping for that same challenge Vandigeth, you seem like you must play games in the same style I do which makes me very happy, that is why I am so passionate about avoiding a broken economy.

The market as well as being social with others is my main concern in any game. I love capitalism and I love working together to accomplish difficult tasks, I just want to make sure Portalarium is aware of this issue since RG has been out of the Game Development area for quite some time now.

I wanted to play the market game in Diablo 3 and that was completely ruined for me, if you want to observe a failed system... D3 is the worst economy of any game.

 

@Monkus

The only way to find the purest and best solution is to debate these ideas until they are molded into something that operates optimally. I applaud your good debating skills and welcome any discussion concerning the economics of this game with you.

Yes, we share that hope for a great economic challenge. Perhaps I am wrong, and I'm willing to face that if it proves true. More viewpoints are welcome because between all of us, perhaps we'll find the best suggestion of them all.

Unfortunately, considering Blizzard's track record, I never bought into D3 for that reason lol. I gave up on Blizzard post-D2. However, I did play WoW for a 2 month stint in the beginning and a 1 month stint in WotLK.

Edit: Also, yes I play games because I love a capitalist approach too. I like Capitalism 2 a lot even though it could be sooooo much better. I'm right there with you Monkus so consider us friends if you will.

 

@Sir Mishri

Not to flood the thread or derail it, but I wanted to say thanks for your support regarding colors. I think it's pretty important in the end. Sorry I missed that earlier.

 

Boy, getting complicated up in here.

I know this is a complicated issue and I admit ignorance to almost every level of economics, but I just wanted to say I am not a fan of buying gold. EVE did handle this is an interesting way, but I never found anything more compelling than using game resource to pay your monthly fee. Without a monthly fee not sure I would find any interest PLEX; although I was never in any hope of making enough ISK to pay my own way. Full disclosure I only played EVE for 6 months, but I had friends who played it for years.

 

@ Umbrae

Picture this instead of Game time people could earn expansion content and future releases, and on the other side people could pay for these features with real money and sell it on the open market to make in game cash. And Portalarium can leverage more money out of the playerbase as a whole which usually means more quality if the company is focused in it's goals and missions.

Imagine the PLEX system with the Pay 2 Play model....

Just mold it to SotA to fit it's model of expansions, added class trees, and other additions that will all be Pay to Own.

Edit: This is just one way to look at it. They could sell more expansion content this way and people like the idea of not paying for things even 40$ full releases could be bought with in game gold if someone sold say 3 15$ "British Gold Bars" if you look at my first example. So 1 guy gets a whole expansion for free and the guy that pays for the expansion gets 9 million in game currency. Kind of a win/win for everyone I thought...

 

Alright I took the time to break out my economics text books and did some studying on line about specific things game developers have done to succeed or fail in their market models!

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=sota-the-perfect-market-feed-back

Please give your feedback if you appose or like some of the suggestions I am extremely interested in what some of the posters in this thread feel towards it.

 

I don't think that this system can really be considered "Pay to Win." When I hear that term, I think of people who are paying extra and/or subscribing are getting a statistical advantage over people who simply play the game without spending extra money. Example would be a crossbow that does significantly more damage than anything else in the game, or armor that provides more defense than anything available in the game. The key here is that someone is paying money to get something that contributes to their success that CANNOT be obtained normally in the game.

If you are buying Gold from the company, you are not getting any statistical advantage over other players. You can buy the exact same gear as everyone else in the game. Your crossbow and armor are exactly the same as the other guy's crossbow and armor. He played 10 hours a day for a week, you paid $15, but when you fight, you are both on even footing.

However, this is a really bad idea. Being able to buy currency directly would completely knock the economy out of balance by causing insane inflation. The only way I can see this as being controlled would be if there was an equally massive reduction in currency. Something like being able to turn in-game money back into real life money, with a transaction fee of course. I dont know if that's feasible though...and without some major incentive to remove currency from circulation, inflation will destroy the economy.

 

@marthos

This system uses 2 currencies a currency that is worth USD but nothing in the game world ("British Bars") and an in game tender worth x amount in game, but nothing in the real world.

If you read my thread you can basically turn in game currency into real life money here is the example:

Monkus uses 15 USD and buys 1 "British Bar" on the SotA website.
Monkus takes the "British Bar" and puts it on the market for others to buy for 3 million "British Bucks."

Marthos buys the "British Bar" by giving Monkus 3 million "British Bucks."
Marthos receives his "British Bar" through the built in Escrow service of a Market.

Marthos then takes his "British Bar" which is still worth 15 USD and goes on the SotA website and buys the new expansion class which is sold for 15 USD or he can choose to save up 3 "British Bars" and buy a brand new 45 USD expansion episode!


That is how it works Marthos.... The currency does not actually inflate it moves from 1 player to another seamlessly!

 

Great discussion and analysis everyone. It?s easy to tell we are going to have some very smart/mature players playing this game which will help make it great.

That said, I can?t wait to murder some gold farmer, take his bag of gold, watch him rez and then cuss me out in Chinese.

 

Unfortunately I'd assume gold farmers will be doing either friends online or single player online mode... making it easier than ever for them to farm without interference.

 

Even if that wasn't true, gl killing farmers. If you think high school kids have infinite time / patience for PKing you, wait until you see farmers who are professionals. You'll go red on one worthless farming group. They'll vanish. A zerg of powerful characters log in and auto-assist on killing you. This is their job. They don't care about what's fun. They are ruthlessly efficient and have no empathy for you disrupting their business. A kid with a bot off the internet can be killed. A group of professional farmers is an entirely different thing.

 

I am very happy people have come to discuss these economy related issues, these are paramount for a successful game - and I am very excited that other players have an interest in the game development at this level.

@PrimeRib

Yes, gold sellers can be an issue you just need to have a system where a player can make money when he wants to without the need to go to a gold selling third party.

At least what SotA has done so far would at least reduce the visual effect that gold farmers give off... When you go to an area to kill some creatures and you run into a group of 6 characters running in a line killing everything...

 

@Isaiah

Look, let the game flush itself out - present ideas to make it better not "threats". I have seen people from the MGT470 group that make "threats" about wanting a refund... Or criticizing the developers choices prior to testing the systems and playing the games. I would guess everyone here has invested money in the game - let the game flesh itself out and come up with good ideas.

I am just throwing out ideas to get people thinking about things, I am not telling the developers or others what is best... The best way to get progression towards something better is to start challenging the status quo. You seem to be missing this concept...

Instead you are being a little dogmatic in your response instead of giving a novel idea or concept that is workable, that could grow and foster more great ideas from the community.

 

@ Isaiah

At least read the full concept before posting... It does not create gold from the Lord British mint.

What it actually does is gives players that do not want to buy expansion content with USD a chance to buy a "currency" they can then use to purchase content that you could only get by using USD.

They get this by paying another player an amount of in game currency on the open in game marketplace.

You are enraged about the thought of a system that does not even resemble the system I proposed.

 

@ Isaiah

Basically this is not a rage thread, this is a constructive thread made to get people thinking about these concepts and to see where people stand on these concepts.

This is not the place to rage and post dogmatic responses to other community members thoughts and ideas.

Please make your own thread if you want to have a thread of rage, threats, and ultimatums.