Gold Generation

Averi

I don't know if this would help because I know nothing about economics but what I understand from this conversation is this: 

There's not much gold exchanged between players because necessities are really cheap. 
Top tier people are bashing a lot and using the gold only for credits instead of other things. 
There needs to be a gold sink so all the gold stops going to credits and CFS isn't like 8000 a credit. 

What I don't get though, is that there is a lot of gold movement towards flavour things at the moment like houses, ships, mining and therefore isn't that a gold sink?  I don't think it's fair to tax a certain percentage of the achaean population and not the rest.  In addition, the recent gold cap seems to slow down the whole only top tier people can get credits thing.  

I will agree that there's not too much player vs player economy though and that the bare necessities aren't very good at generating or moving too much gold.  I think that is partially due to game mechanics but also due partially to people in cities who keep giving other people stuff for free/trade for other services rather than charging (I am guilty of this).  But I kind of like that, there's a spirit of helping and stuff and it contributes to city unity.  The craft skills do provide some exchange though between players and that is also nice, with commissions and group flavoured things.  I've even been commissioned multiple times to stand there and like emote text music for an hour so there's a lot of things in achaea that can be used to get gold if one desired.

I don't think the gold economy should be mainly PvP since there is an element of people being able to booster their character's gold earning potential with an IRL source of money. Therefore anyone can be better at attaining gold by paying real money into the system. 

If we were to have even more gold sinks, I honestly would like to see something about this whole minipet market thing.  There is a cap on the price of them anyway since no one is willing to spend 2000000000000bajillion credits on something that isn't a necessity and doesn't have anything except RP value.  If we could get like denizen stores that sell basic ones like cats and dogs and goldfish or something, that'd be nice.  The globes can still come out with new ones that aren't denizen sold but it doesn't seem the minipets are reused.  The older ones just eventually disappear from the market and I REALLY want a fluffy kitten. 

I also like the idea of having a way to purchase things like lucrescent nuts and heron feathers and racetrack betting tickets from denizens with some large amount of gold. That'd also let people who do not buy globes to experience some of the rp value of the smaller miniprizes in the globes and participate on some of the activities (like betting on the racetrack).  I'd also bring in a small amount of credits into the market.  I think a large problem with the CFS is that there isn't an ig way to bring credits in game aside from through the house sales and such without rl currency exchanged.  However, if there were too many ig credits, then no one would buy them from IRE anymore and achaea would be broke which is also sad.   

tl;dr  I don't quite understand the situation of why we need more gold sinks but if we do have more of them CAN I BUY A KITTEN WITH GOLD PLEASEEEE (or honestly, like just a kitten in general so I can live vicariously through Averi cause everyone in my life is allergic)????? Also, having gold -> racetrack tickets can possibly lower CFS to something reasonable without killing IRE profit.

Borran

That and in the player to player market, the currency is credits. Especially when you put in flavour items like skeleton pets. Notice that they are not being sold for 200,000 gold on market or ads, but they're being sold for 20-25cr. These aren't gold sinks, they are credit sinks.

Borran

The hoarders that collect the pets are the hoarders that collect the credits.  

Banking is also done in credits to avoid bank taxes and theft. 

Averi

Maybe I wasn't clear... but that's why  I was suggesting making minipets into gold sinks instead of credit sinks by having the option to purchase them from a denizen instead of a player, especially since they add very little to the game in terms of mechanics. 

The reason the player to player market is in credits is because there isn't really too much I NEED from a player except for credits (If I didn't want to buy them with irl money) because there isn't really a way to get them in game and yet credits are so central to this game that one can't really play achaea without having them.

Another thing I guess we could have to kind of ameliorate this are lesson quests where you can do a quest or something and get like a lesson.  Idk if that'd be good or bad for IRE profits though.

Tahquil

Sinks need to actually take gold and ctedits out of circulation. Mining and ships are sinks because the gold you use to pay miners, buy miners. Dock ships , pay crew are sinks. Pay someone gold instead of credits for a pet/item isnt a sink but just a trade as the gold remains in curculation.

We did once have a pet shop, however it was removed for (reasons).

Averi

I liked that one pet shop.  It sold cats.

Why was it removed?

Armali

A friend told me that once they bought a pet there, but then it aged and died and they were like NOPE NOT GOING THROUGH THAT AGAIN.

Shirszae

I always thought it was removed so they could start selling mini-pets

Tygrin

humgii racing tickets for gold, nothing can beat that as a gold sink

Sena

Tygrin said:

humgii racing tickets for gold, nothing can beat that as a gold sink

Except that establishes an official gold-to-credits exchange rate, which is something the administration has always been firmly against, even if it's a crappy price that's far above the usual credit market.

Aerek

Averi said:

What I don't get though, is that there is a lot of gold movement towards flavour things at the moment like houses, ships, mining and therefore isn't that a gold sink?  I don't think it's fair to tax a certain percentage of the achaean population and not the rest.  In addition, the recent gold cap seems to slow down the whole only top tier people can get credits thing.  

Aerek said:

The ultimate problem with gold sinks is that large, effective ones are always optional. You can't saddle everyone with a large, effective gold sink, or the game becomes too logistically tedious to play. Your gold sink has to target the rich, but you can't force people to participate in such a sink. If they refuse to pay into it and just continue to clean out the credit market, or whatever else the Admin finds detrimental to the game writ large, then all the gold sinks in the world don't help.

The issue was that those players were not actually participating in those sinks, or not to a significant degree. If you don't mine, don't buy/own ships, and don't care about player housing, then those sinks don't have any effect on your earnings. Not to mention, I can afford to participate in all three of those sinks myself, and I don't earn 800k in an IRL year. If you're generating 800k, 500k, or even 300k a day, then those gold sinks wouldn't even put a dent in that if you were participating in them.

Not trying to demonize the 1% here, what they spend their gold on is their own prerogative, but that's why gold sinks aren't as effective at countering gold inflation as limits on generation are.