Wipe the GMI from creds

[Ekarona]

So now that GMI is gone. We can fix the economy, just wipe all the credits on GMI from everyone.

[Caloss2]

Do stop trolling.

[Aeliniyah]

Well... if they really want to kill AO for good, i'm sure it would be easier to just pull the plug.

[Gene13]

Up with skirts! Down with pants!

...

[NotInAGuild]

I approve of wiping creds from the GMI, but I won't deny that I have over 200b currently NOT in the gmi, unlike Ekarona.

[hans76]

I approve of wiping creds from the GMI, but I won't deny that I have over 200b currently NOT in the gmi, unlike Ekarona.

Thats sounds like confession that you have been exploiting/duping items for credits...
Too bad FC does not care and will not investigate your accounts

[NotInAGuild]

Thats sounds like confession that you have been exploiting/duping items for credits...
Too bad FC does not care and will not investigate your accounts

Or I've played the game for 12 years and have nothing left to spend creds on, but whatever you wanna think.

[Doctorhyde]

I left the game 10 years ago and felt "rich" with a 2B alt bank. But even then I knew people with 100B+ (and not hard to do, as between toons and orgs it wouldn't take 20 fr00bs to store it). I came back, grabbed a GRACE, sold it and equipped the toons who needed stuff.

Anyone who exploited GMI and wasn't caught easily has more than that.

Much as I would love a way to reset out the cheated credits ... there isn't a good way to see that happening. And wiping GMI credits would punish a lot of people who didn't exploit.

The only way I could see a viable way to do an economic reset would be to set up an alternate server and allow character transfers to it, free, but not allowing more than 1B credits -per account- to transfer on paid accounts and 0 on fr00bs. People who wanted a new economy could go. People who don't could stay. Hell ... go even farther and on the NEW server enforce a no multi-box team rule (many ways were bandied about on how to accomplish that).

Won't happen.

FC isn't going to add server resources. And AO probably might not survive a new population split ... though it might well get a chunk of new players if people could go to a server where they new they would be needed and they didn't need to farm to buy things.

None of the above is said with the idea that it will happen. The point is ... long way to get there ... give up. You're tilting at windmills. GMI will be fixed in some form, credits will return from it, and everything will go back to the way it was.

[Legendfluf]

It'd be very detrimental if they'd wipe credits from GMI, but I can see that it would help curb some of the exploited credits... however not all.

There would still be tons sitting in orgs or on tons of created accounts.So wiping GMI credits would hurt a good majority of those who actually farm and sell things.
I'd stand to lose about half my credits (about 2B), mainly as I keep a good chunk inside GMI to buy on-demand or when I see things have dropped significantly into m price range.
I farm enough to have enough for myself and friends, but not enough that I have full org banks and froob accounts completely full of credits like many who need to justify their epeen.

[Nadiao]

I'm not sure there are enough drugs globally to get anyone high enough to think this is a good idea with no consequences.

[NotInAGuild]

Much as I would love a way to reset out the cheated credits ... there isn't a good way to see that happening. And wiping GMI credits would punish a lot of people who didn't exploit.

QFT

The only way I could see a viable way to do an economic reset would be to set up an alternate server and allow character transfers to it, free, but not allowing more than 1B credits -per account- to transfer on paid accounts and 0 on fr00bs. People who wanted a new economy could go. People who don't could stay. Hell ... go even farther and on the NEW server enforce a no multi-box team rule (many ways were bandied about on how to accomplish that).

Not allowing ANY credit transfer would be the best option imo. It wouldn't be a new economy without a complete credit wipe. But even with a complete credit wipe, players could still bring high end items with them to sell on the new server, so it would probably be best to not allow players to bring anything to the new server and make everything start fresh. Otherwise some cheated items/characters/credits would end up there and ruin it quickly.

[hans76]

Or I've played the game for 12 years and have nothing left to spend creds on, but whatever you wanna think.

I've played this game for 14 years.

Bellow I'll list some facts and logical reasoning which will prove that your explanation is a lie.

1. Farming credits in legitimate way was always time consuming and boring no matter if it was farming ingots, pearls, tradeskilling etc.
2. Any normal player needs credits to buy items for alts, twink projects etc.
3. Once you have every possible item ingame plus more credits that you can spend (and 10-20b sounds like more than enough) there is no motivation to spend any more time for farming credits in a legit way.

Disclaimer for forum mods - Bellow there is a logical reasoning and not personal attack

I can speculate that there are 3 possibilities of explaining how and why would anyone have 200b (outside GMI)
1. Those credits came from exploits/item duplication (so it took very little time to create them) - thats against EULA
2. Those credits came from running a "credit buy/sell company" - thats also against EULA
3. Any person that kept farming credits (which he/she did not need in any way) instead of playing the game (making new alts/twinks, enjoying pvp, helping friends etc.) should either contact psychiatrist or just quit AO (as there was nothing else to do).

[aramsunat]

Wiping GMI would benefit no one. No. One.
Those who have exploited have a lot more elsewhere, so will not care about the wipe. Legitimate players will suffer.
What is the point then?

The economy will not be fixed by arbitrarily erasing credits. You can only "fix" the economy if you close the leaking tap.
Sploited creds by themselves is not that much of a concern. In a sense, in the long term it might be even seen as a good thing.
Why? Most creds made by players are by selling services. The price of services is strongly tied to the money supply ie. inflation. People push up the credz of their work, and as long as they find customers, they keep raising the prices. On the other hand, static shops (such as the implant shop) never raise prices. This means you can buy implants, clusters, rechargers, stims, towers etc. relatively cheaper. Imagine a "fixed" economy, say in which you can buy a piece of Combined Commando for 100m. All of a sudden those shops become stupidly expensive.

Also, inflation dilutes the effect of cred farming (monster parts, pearls etc.) on the economy

The real danger is if the influx of "creds out of thin air", such as sploited creds or pearls or blood plasma outweigh the cash drain of shops, perk reset provider etc.
As long as there is balance - for instance those that accumulated huge amounts of credits, either legit or non-legit ways remain mature and dont start spending like crazy - we are good

It absolutely does not matter if someone has 1 billion or 500000 billion. What matters is how you use it. Even the "poorer" players, say who hold "only" 500 million, can harm the economy by starting to purchase relatively cheap services for absurd prices.

[Doctorhyde]

(snip)
I can speculate that there are 3 possibilities of explaining how and why would anyone have 200b (outside GMI)
1. Those credits came from exploits/item duplication (so it took very little time to create them) - thats against EULA
2. Those credits came from running a "credit buy/sell company" - thats also against EULA
3. Any person that kept farming credits (which he/she did not need in any way) instead of playing the game (making new alts/twinks, enjoying pvp, helping friends etc.) should either contact psychiatrist or just quit AO (as there was nothing else to do).

Seriously man.

Yes, SOME of the players with hundreds of billions of credits exploited. Some of those got caught. But look at GMI today (ok, not TODAY, but just remember prices from a couple days ago). An orgmate was looking for a QL161 Disk of Cloudy Crystal. There was one on GMI. For 6,000,000,000 credits (6B). And ... another person was willing to buy it for them.

(for reasons on that QL, it was max QL equippable for his twink and it gives the best nano buffs of any similar item)

I found a QL159 in my bank and offered it for "whatever was fair" and ... I ended up with a QL300 set of Combined Commando armor. Way more than I would have even thought of asking. And I have other 10 year old Disks and a crap ton of other stuff I could sell at current prices.

So if I go sell all my old crap in my bank, including various Intelligent symbs, all sorts of twink gear, etc ... I could imagine 100B or so. If I start selling lootrights and do that for a few more months ... if I end up with 200B ... am I an exploiter or am I crazy?

Note: that's not my game style. But for a LOT of people who still play AO that is exactly their playstyle. End game content has been stagnant for years. Playing the economic game is what keeps them going. "How many credits can I get?" is not an uncommon motivation for playing. What else is there really for a long time player who geared their toons years ago except that?

I know many folks who repeatedly run solo Mitaar, Albtraum, etc etc purely for stuff to sell.

Maybe you think that is crazy but I wonder how AO would be if those folks left the game right now? We're all a bit crazy for still putting significant effort into something that has stagnated like this. Anyway ... be careful when making insinuations. You need to realize the people buying things for those prices today are what is allowing specific players to get that much bank without exploiting. Even the exploiters got their credits from somewhere. The game population shrank, people gave away their credits when they left, the economy contracted and inflated. Doesn't make someone with those credits today provably exploiting nor crazy.

Hell ... I've just about convinced myself that the inflated economy may well be GOOD for this game in its current state. MAYBE if it were addressed now there would be enough people active to start bringing in PUG and regular org raids ... but I'm not so sure.

PS. Hint to Funcom ... if you're really wanting to address any of the lootrights for credits issue ... any new end game instance needs to limit looting to people in the raid instance when it started ... other games have done for the same reasons.

/rant ... late night ... really should have just gone to bed

[hans76]

What you describe is a side effect of those exploited credits.
You could be honest player who got his credits in a legit way.
But a lot of present prices are so ridicolously high because for ppll with tons of sploited credits it does not matter if they pay 1b per item or 10b.

Same goes for selling lootrights and crazy prices there.

[Splitshot]

Interesting discussion. Even the players that got credits 'the legit way' have illegit credits. That's the problem with these exploits. As DoctorHyde pointed out, selling a low QL relatively easy to get (if you have a city and right level toon) item for 6b is rather crazy. That's what happens when people can just print their own money. However, I don't think wiping all credits from legit players would be a good solutions. I've already heard concerns in game from people that just want to access what they have in the GMI.

There is one relatively simple solution that does wipe credits out of game, but it comes at a cost to Funcom and their current cash flow model. That would be a period of time in which FC either through their own in game characters or otherwise, offer items (Grace, armor, Nano Cans, exp nanos, Pioneer backpack, etc) Anything that sells for tons of credits and then remove those credits from game. This of course would need to happen after they went after any exploiters.

[appolonia]

Bellow I'll list some facts and logical reasoning which will prove that your explanation is a lie.

1. Farming credits in legitimate way was always time consuming and boring no matter if it was farming ingots, pearls, tradeskilling etc.
2. Any normal player needs credits to buy items for alts, twink projects etc.
3. Once you have every possible item ingame plus more credits that you can spend (and 10-20b sounds like more than enough) there is no motivation to spend any more time for farming credits in a legit way.

The only thing you're proving is this is YOUR pov, and some other guys'. However long you played AO, it seems you didn't get in touch with enough kinds of people, what's a shame in a MMO, right ?

- I absolutely love farming, and LOTS of people have been from start. I sold, in a month, a GA4 and 198 ELLTS I was lucky enough to drop, in the first months of game, for 400m and 1B, and I know for sure the people who bought the stuff had to farm/borrow creds, since, at this time, you would know most players almost intimately. So, huge amount of creds and farming are not new, you just had to know how to, and be willing to. Things then went absolutely crazy with pearls and monster parts farming, but there's always been people willing and able to make creds whatever.

- NEVER did I buy ANYTHING for my alts, and I don't have twinks. My first chars were Engi, Trader, and Fixer. I'll leave you thinking about it.

- LOTS of people absolutely LOVE making money, see EVE, or people crying after Sony's SW crafting system was destroyed, or the number of transactions on WoW's auctions houses, and so on. Legit 20B is a laugh, it's nothing, if you love that kinda game, and AI made it so easy to make money. Oh sure, it made scam/sploit easy and appealing, but people where selling nodrops LONG before lootrights, for the game was so well coded that you could just throw a backpack full of nodrops and your neighbour would loot it.

Anyway, I'll give you a hint : When SL went live, and I had a break at work, I would log my fix in Ely and kill the big dryads. I was then selling an average 10 FRN a day, 5M each. Just picture 6 months of this. And before this, with the GA3 a buddy gave me (spend less to be richer), I had ran through RK to death, farming nanos, dynas, the very interest of a fixer's gameplay. 1M there, 5M here, 50M in my pocket. Yes, reread the word, GAME - PLAY.

The thing is not to sell one expensive thing, but a lot of affordable ones. Too bad they never heard of Henry Ford in the hole you live in, for exemple. The only thing that stopped me from farming my cities - because I LOVE semiafk killing greens with my Crat and Engi, then crafting things with my Engi, then selling them on GMI - was the creds limit, since it's absolutely terrible to spread money through thousands alts after your guilds bank overflows.

And you know what ? Without people like me, you'd never get a hand on your precious AI armor and so many other things you... BOUGHT for your alts and twinks.

I'll second you on one thing, RK2 at last was a sploiters' lair, and sure it helped making money, but at the time there were far more people playing, and it was easier and more rewarding to let them make a million then take it from them, because there were quite few of us farmers/crafters, and we had potentially hundreds - pleased - customers. Same goes IRL, where wealth was based on land - the loot you get from looting stuff IG, and some people are more willing and/or more able - lucky ? - to benefit from this wealth. If anybody was a slaver, robber, scammer, you'd sure know it, but as for now, the vast majority of people are part of an economic system bordered by the poorest and the richest, exactly how AO is, and I act the very same way IG than IRL, except I had far more fun chatting with buds and blowing stuff in AO than import/export things IRL.

You also could have wondered, if some people are willing to hold trillions of billions creds and fulls banks of stuff, are they all scammers, or could this be applied to honnest people to, except they don't wanna/can't scam ? Maybe you live in a kind of ultra pure communist country I don't know of, but whatever you do, some people will always want to accumulate or hoard things, and would you want to, you could find dozens theories about it on the web.

So, anyway, you're basically wrong, and I proved it. Whatever, there are TONS of scammed creds and stuffs ingame, FOR LONG, and the current state of econony is, from what I read here, a complete mess, what it was not when I left in August, though already unsettled. Not so long ago, people had a day to dupe basic items and make tons of creds from them - most of them well known and never banned, of course - and that didn't break the market, instead it made it run smoother for some months. Markets should have been blown when they took bounties out of S10, whatever, things went on well, because, you know, the market and all, people adapting to serve their interests at best. The actual problem seems to be elsewhere, and it lies more in the fact that people rely way too much on GMI ad didn't try to revive the old ways.

And then there's the GRACE problem, but that a completely different story, and FC won't work on it anyway.

I strongly recommand people to go looking for those scammer's site(s), where you'd realize there's a bunch of w4nkers whose' goal is just to ruin AO, Fight Club' style, because, well, they're w4nkers, because AO was coded by monkeys, because FC is ruled by another kind of monkeys, and it's easy as hell to cr4ck AO, while FC won't do anything about it, ever.

[hans76]

Appolonia:
1. As you wrote you left in August... Trust me economy in August was almost perfect compared to its present state.
2. What you wrote earlier is a description of recipe how to make pennies compared to present state.
3. As for the rest I agree with 99% of what you wrote especially the last few paragraphs.