Gold Sinks

Ilanore

So I've noticed that prices are starting to inflate, and I've heard some discussion about gold sinks, so I figured i'd make a thread where we could all discuss gold sinks and ideas.

 

One that I came up with, is for Elementalism users. They currently have unweave, to get gold from Talisman pieces. I'm unsure how much gold this gives, but perhaps this could also be "weave" which converts -excessively- large amounts of gold INTO talisman pieces? This is just an idea, and as a Sylvan i'm of course biased but it would be good to some for a few reasons. A pretty large gold sink which benefits all of us kind of, and allows those who would rather buy credits for gold to get talisman pieces without working for them. Of course, this could also devalue Talismans, but it's just an idea.

 

Also, I didn't put this in classleads because I think most goldsinks will not be class skills....

Mithridates

This won't really work. It's only one class, and catering to a specific group of people (High-level people that can probably bash the Talismans up in a couple days)

But yes, you are correct. There needs to be more gold sinks. A very obvious one would be to allow cities to purchase expansions at a very, very high gold cost. 

Antidas

Mithridates said:

This won't really work. It's only one class, and catering to a specific group of people (High-level people that can probably bash the Talismans up in a couple days)

But yes, you are correct. There needs to be more gold sinks. A very obvious one would be to allow cities to purchase expansions at a very, very high gold cost. 

The gold sinks need to be at the player level, not the city one. Making cities pay more gold for their upgrades and such won't do anything (or will do very little) to lower the amount of gold players are walking around with. Its the player-owned gold thats causing the problem.

Mithridates

Player-donated gold. But that was just a general idea. Basically, the only things you HAVE to buy from a goldsink are mounts, arrows, comms, and other stupid piddly things no one cares about, like decorations and furniture.  Perhaps buying artifacts with gold would be viable? 

Bishan

I don't know about arties for gold, sounds like a bad idea to me but I don't know enough about the business model to even really comment.  However, if that isn't viable, what about renting arties for gold?  It won't do much for people who have them all (here's hoping they don't) but I'm sure there are plenty of people who'd love to be able to check out that level 3 crit pendant if they have some time to dedicate to bashing or that OP wand of reflections

Granted....would that cheapen player bought arties?

Kyrra

The few auctions every year are a wonderful gold sink. I kind of wish they happened more often. I spent over four million on my bagpipes.

Kei

More common auctions for expendable items would be a great gold sink. For example, auction an item that lets you use, say, 50 tracking skills on Veiled people without owning a Veil, and have one or two of those come up every few months, along with a vial of stat elixir or, hell, anyone else remember the awe of someone having a vial of Metacure? (Anyone else remember Metacure and Farag's Rot?)

Basically, things people can drop their bank accounts on and the end up expending in a month, and thus could be semi-automated and not take attention or time away from the devs.

Eld

Auctions are good, but they're rare, and they really only sink gold out of the pockets of the relatively small percentage of players who have a few million gold on hand at a given time, or credits they're willing to sell to get it. Outright buying artefacts with gold probably isn't going to happen, but what would be cool (and has been suggested in other threads a few times) would be making the single-use artefacts like heron feathers and ethereal shrouds available in game for gold. 

As a gold sink, that has the advantage over auctions that it sinks gold from a broader section of the player base, and in small enough quantities that people aren't encouraged to buy credits to sell for gold for them, which largely nullifies the sinking effect. It also has an advantage over the idea of talismans for gold, insofar as the market for talismans will tend to saturate after an initial rush, assuming that the completed talismans are permanent; if they're temporary, then selling the talisman pieces has the same effect as selling the completed item outright, but in that case, I'd as soon cut out the middle step and just sell the item.

Eld

Kei said:

More common auctions for expendable items would be a great gold sink. For example, auction an item that lets you use, say, 50 tracking skills on Veiled people without owning a Veil, and have one or two of those come up every few months, along with a vial of stat elixir or, hell, anyone else remember the awe of someone having a vial of Metacure? (Anyone else remember Metacure and Farag's Rot?)

Basically, things people can drop their bank accounts on and the end up expending in a month, and thus could be semi-automated and not take attention or time away from the devs.

This came up while I was typing the above. The smaller auctions for temporary items is kind of in intermediate option between auctions as they are and selling single-use items. The item that gives you x senses on a veiled person would basically be a bulk purchase of shrouds.

My main concern with that, which you allude to in the end of your post, is required admin attention. From what I've seen of auctions, they seem generally to require pretty significant attention. I'm not entirely sure why that's the case, or how difficult it would be to reduce that effect for smaller scale auctions, but if it can't be fully or almost-fully automated, it's probably not worth it.

Accipiter

There are plenty of arties you could put in as short decay items with high costs. the level 1 stat things wouldn't be combat breaking, but give enough of a boost that people would spend 100k to get them for a couple of months. Permanent ones cost like 3.5m though, so finding a balance between "I would actually pay that much" and "why would I ever buy it with credits when I could just get the gold version" might be hard.

Sarapis

The gold auctions are almost irrelevant as a gold sink, frankly, especially given the fact that the admin attention required doesn't permit them to happen very often.

We're not going to be selling artifacts for gold directly. If you want arties, you can always buy credits on the credit market with gold, and then buy artifacts with those credits

I agree, btw, that we need more gold sinks, and am working on some ideas in that department. 

Rispok

Daeir said:

Dreadnought/Galleon/Man o' War ships for 20mil+ will see a fair chunk of money go down the toilet.

It's almost impossible to get people interested in sailing a galley, a bigger ship would be even more pointless.

Eld

Even WC/SS sales probably aren't sufficient to be a noticeable sink.

Accipiter

Ironically the cost is too high to be a decent sink. For most people (who don't buy credits to sell specifically for the thing) getting 20million is a huge time investment. I know I toss around 50-100k like it is nothing, but the 2.5m for a boat is a huge psychological hurdle for me. If things are priced from 50-250k you will drain a lot more than single things of a few million.

Saeva

Um... are people having a hard time finding things to spend their gold on? Because I could spend -all- of it. I promise. That seems almost impossible.

Blujixapug

I'm skeptical that this would have the desired effect because the market for regular talismans is dragons, and what dragons can do better than anyone is go out and powerbash up a huge amount of gold. It doesn't count as a goldsink if people are paying for it with gold they generate from PVE specifically for that purpose.

Ships are a great goldsink because they're a barrier to a huge amount of desirable content: lots of areas, quests, other activities like diving, and a unique form of PVP. They're a great prestige possession. They cost a *lot* of gold - the right amount to feel achievable, but also tempt people to dump a few hundred creds in the credit market for the immediate 2.5 mil. They have numerous upgrades with their own portioned-off costs. They have constant upkeep, meaning they never stop being a goldsink. And they can be org-owned, spreading the gold vacuum cleaner around everyone's couch cushion cracks. When ships were implemented, the effect on the credit market was noticeable and immediate.

Veldrin

How about expanding copying and modying the ship crew system to Housing.

Could hire maids/butlers, gartners and stuff like that and the different types could then do something specific like

gartners could be ordered to harvest from gardens/underground in the house/possible boost growth

maids/butlers could prevent furniture decay

if you added the trading room specials (forge, ouroboros, milking room, mice(?), alchemy lab* and so on) you could have a specialist that would keep those thing in working condition

could be that you'd need a denizen for the rooms, they could roam about and would require you'd first have a 'denizen quarter' which could host x denizens

*only the transmutation part would work

Shecks

Sell bound Mayan Crowns in game for gold, and create more uses for Mayan Crowns.

1)  Sell the MC's at like 300-500k gold, which is enough to be an effective gold sink, without significantly impacting Mayan Crown prices.

2)  This will create a way to get MC's outside of promotions and OOC purchases (along with the relatively uncommon ship trades)

3)  Provided there are ample uses for MCs (the stat potions are a great example), people will buy tons of them with gold, thus helping "bring balance to the credit market".

4)  This could be seen as putting a "cap" on MC prices, which it would, but it wouldn't regulate their sale price (in credits), as the gold price is (as proposed) much higher than the unbound MC market.  This leaves the credit market unmanipulated, but creates a way to use gold in game to prevent it from continuing to rise indefinitely.

Xith

From a wandering trader who has bound crowns as his wares? Like Kortoxian but less common to see.

Xith

With impending trade skill separation I'd suggest anvil/laboratory/ouroboros purchasable for homes. Like 400k including non-decay

Mithridates

Holy shit. A Shecks post I agree with. Except for the cap in price. Gotta let the free trade roll, man. 

Antonius

Ideally a gold sink would be sufficiently expensive that it's going to remove a sizeable chunk of gold from the game, sufficiently cheap that people will actually pay for it, and not something that only has to be bought once. 400k for an anvil or whatever in your house is great, but that's a one time expense. Like ships, there'll be an immediate noticeable effect on credit prices when they first become available, but prices will gradually increase afterwards after the initial wave as sales taper off rapidly.

Shecks' idea is interesting, but I'm not sure about it being Mayan crowns. They really work best as a promotional item that's available in a limited capacity, especially given the amount of administration time devoted to coming up with new Shop of Wonders items. I'm not sure there'd be enough new items released regularly enough if they could be bought all year round.

Sarapis

Gold sink: Wand of Zap.

1 billion gold.

Get to work people.

Anedhel

Allow Lupine Collar equipped mount owners to 'buy' their mounts coming back instantaneously at, say... 2,000 gold per riding level of the mount, from a specific denizen (so it can't be done mid-combat, or, at least, not easily). I bet that'd eat up a ton of gold, I know I'd end up throwing away a crapload of money on it!

Penwize

Sarapis said:

Gold sink: Wand of Zap.

1 billion gold.

Get to work people.

Well, I suppose I have something to save up for now. 

Tharvis

Sarapis said:

Gold sink: Wand of Zap.

1 billion gold.

Get to work people.

@Sarapis I'll take two!

Cathy

Sarapis said:

Gold sink: Wand of Zap.

1 billion gold.

Get to work people.

Cloak of Divine Fire and Stone of Instant Healing...

Together they make the Divine Hallows.

Sell for mad $$$

Xith

Sarapis said:

Gold sink: Wand of Zap.

1 billion gold.

Get to work people.

No prob. I'll just sell another 35 shops at 31 million gold each.

Xith

But aside from home forging, maids and security staff you can hire from Delos. More housing relevance.
With a term of service like 5-10 years. Configure them to replace sigils automatically as part of the benefit

Melodie

Owning a 21-room (presently) out-of-subs manor, not only does maids and butlers and whatnot fit into the theme of the home, the idea of them replacing sigils (whether you buy them and give them to them and they hold it in a stasis of sorts, or by whatever other means) is absolutely lovely. Would like this more than once. Sigil-replacing is such a bore.

I would sink much gold into this. I love the idea of having more of an atmosphere for something Aerek and I have spent entirely too much credits on.

Katzchen

Denizens that replace sigils in your house when given supplies yes please.