Economy again - Fix Idea for Funcom

[_______________wefix]

I am a fixer and would someday like grid armor MK4. After the infamous 950 mill bid a few days ago I was discouraged but figured it was just 1 exploiter and price would go back to the outrageous 300 mill range.

Today I saw that grid armor MK3 sold for 300 mill in 1 hr! Surely this is not what Funcom intended. It is a near certainty that you could advertise GA MK4 right now for 500 mill and someone would pay.

I have been trying to earn money to afford GA MK4 for a while now. After the battlesuit price reduction, there is nothing I can sell to the vendors for over 830K and I can get 1 mill for NCU or 2 implants, so that is my best bet. My biggest sale ever is 6 mill for 6 of them, and it took 6-ql200 blitzes to get that. Then you need to advertize and sell. If I wasn't a fixer I am not sure how I could even make this much money. I am nowhere close to even 300 mill.

My point is that, based on my earning experience, I believe that most of the money is created by exploiters, not earned fairly, and it has a very negative impact on the game (no I am not quitting - I just never get any of the really special stuff). And the money has the secondary effect of driving the price of IQ rings, Shades of Lub, PPPE, etc over 50 mill where most of the honest players cannot afford them.

I honestly believe that this concerns Funcom and they are doing what they can to stop it. Hopefully the exploits are now fixed, but the damage is still done. So hopefully you are looking for ways to repair the damage. Here is an idea. Funcom should create some characters and have them sell some of the offending items. You know the ones: Grid armor, Nullity sphere, IQ rings, PPPE, Dragon Armor, Shades of Lub. This would serve to lower the price - AND get the credits out of the game FOREVER.

I am not talking about infinite amounts either - not enough to spoil the game and ruin their uniqueness. Just sell enough to sap the excess cash and get the prices down some. You would not even need to reveal you are doing this, just do it secretly.

[Darkbane]

This is a problem in many games of this type, money is unrestricted, so unless there is a means of removing money from the game... hey presto, inflation.

Money sinks are needed badly in AO. These have to be things available from shops or NPCs which players *will* want, but which cost rediculous amounts of money.

Eg. A number of new lines of yalm in different colours/skins which cost 10 times as much as your basic white yalm. 'Designer' clothes that look different from existing clothing and cost millions. One shot portable save terminal that cost 20 million or more...

I'm sure FC can come up with some ideas, and until they do, and implement them, prices will only be limited by the size of a player's bank.

[Dovve]

High rent apartments with a pool and jacuzzi on the terrace would be a nice start

Or rentable guild zones... just like a backyard with lots of rest and recreational areas for chatting with friends or holding meetings. Complete with grid entry point, a shop term for sell offs and a bank. There could be one "guild" node in the grid that everyone uses to go straight to their guild's zone. Being able to save and rez there would be nice too.

[Talanie]

that thread with the guy selling ga mk 4 for 950 mil was a complete joke by the way... though I agree the economy is completely messed up atm

[_________Crazynotion]

Anyone whose looked at economics for more than three seconds knows you need a cash flow, not just a few one-off payments. They tried the 'lets make something expensive' with Horses in EQ. Not sure if that's worn off yet or not, but basically it doesn't help matters in the slightest - just means one more thing to save for before your money starts accruing in huge heaps.

The really obvious sink is income tax. But no-one likes that in real life, let alone in a game.

The key cash sinks in RL are:

Food (regularly required)
Clothing (which needs to be replaced)
Shelter (rent/mortgage)

In AO we don't need any of these - they're all luxuries. Is this bad? Not entirely sure... after all, I don't want to worry about balancing my books IC as well as IRL.

Other regular cash sinks need to be identified. To make people happy, they need to be things that people can avoid paying.

The rented expensive apartment is a good idea.

The one type of 'luxury' expense that won't work is gambling. While in theory this is the perfect cash sink (all gambling games favour the house), in practice it is a legal quagmire - even without the use of real money. FC would be best avoiding that one entirely.

[_______________wefix]

Although I agree with those above that this is not a long term solution, I was specifically trying to remove a bubble of "exploited" credits, real fast. This will only affect the extremely rich, not the genaral players.

I hear they will make a credit sink with the addon pack.

[Darkbane]

We can but hope so, and yes, it needs to be an ongoing cost, one-offs just delay the inevitable.