what is a coin sink????

Demonicin - Lost City

uh this may be a really noobish question but no other better way to gain knowledge than to ask so...

whats a coin sink? b:puzzled

what is it used for? b:puzzled

thanx in advance b:embarrass

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary

Demonicin - Lost City wrote: »

uh this may be a really noobish question but no other better way to gain knowledge than to ask so...

whats a coin sink? b:puzzled

what is it used for? b:puzzled

thanx in advance b:embarrass

You've heard of money-laundering? That's done in a coin sink.

ResMePls - Heavens Tear

What is a coin sink?:Earthguard Race

What is it used for?:Sinking coins.....

Thanks in advance:Your welcome.

Bunnybites - Harshlands

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary wrote: »

You've heard of money-laundering? That's done in a coin sink.

Yep, just behind Dreamweaver if you throw all those smelly coins in the water...... they sink. Then you can dive down and get them all fresh and laundered!!

Orrrrr, just a way of getting lots of coins out of the game. They put something up that people pay lots of coins for........ thus a coin "sink"

Demonicin - Lost City

i'm confused. why do they want to get lots of coin out of the game? please guys serious answers.

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary

Demonicin - Lost City wrote: »

i'm confused. why do they want to get lots of coin out of the game? please guys serious answers.

Short, non-technical answer, the more coins that are currently in the game, the more stuff tends to cost in player-player transactions.

Aedrian - Lost City

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary wrote: »

Short, non-technical answer, the more coins that are currently in the game, the more stuff tends to cost in player-player transactions.

And, in order to reduce the amount of coins on player-hands, they make a coin sink, as, increasing the price on teleporters or the option to buy DQ points with in-game coins.

That or the fee increase on decomposing armor, the fees on sharding an armor (Yes, you have to pay to imbue shards) and such.

Vixter - Harshlands

a coin sink is something like auction house taxes, money spent to teleport, etc. when you are forced to spend coins for a service.

they are there to "try" to keep the economy in "order." although our gold prices are 1mil now, these little coin sinks dont help our economy anymore. back when the game was fresh and everyone was poor, these coin sinks did help.

if things like teleporting was free, imaging how much you could teleport. do you use the dog to get to arch? a lot of people do to bypass that coin sink because teleporting a lot can start getting expensive. the more money that is in the game, the more the prices of items will rise. so these coin sinks are made for people to spend coin to make less in the game, to try to keep prices reasonable.

but like i said, now gold is at 1mil, so the price of teleporting and AH taxes arent a big deal.

Xarathox - Dreamweaver

Demonicin - Lost City wrote: »

whats a coin sink?

Perfect World International.

LenieClarke - Heavens Tear

MMORPG economics are weird. in game, money almost literally does grow on trees --- it drops from monsters you kill. money is created, out of nothing, by the simple act of people playing the game; this creates a theoretically infinite supply of coin.

(this is also subtly and importantly different from the real life situation of money being created by bank loans. but that explanation would get long and off topic.)

most MMOs' economies suffer from horrible inflation, partly because of this infinite money supply. over time, and rather quickly, stuff starts costing more and more coin --- because there're more coins to pay with, so they end up being worth less.

so games try hard to get rid of this coin, by having things in game that entice you to spend it and get nothing lasting in return. teleport fees. the various auction house fees. the gold buying fee is a huge one. (i wish they'd do away with the gold selling fee; we've got too many gold sinks.) pets and mounts getting hungry and needing fed... with pure water, which costs coins. whatever costs you in-game coin and doesn't last, especially if you have to pay it often, is a coin sink. we don't have enough of them --- almost no MMOs do.

andrewgray

LenieClarke - Heavens Tear wrote: »

MMORPG economics are weird. in game, money almost literally does grow on trees --- it drops from monsters you kill. money is created, out of nothing, by the simple act of people playing the game; this creates a theoretically infinite supply of coin.

(this is also subtly and importantly different from the real life situation of money being created by bank loans. but that explanation would get long and off topic.)

Ever wondered why the US dollar is doing so badly against the rest of the world at the moment? (The Australian Dollar is worth more and has been for months now)

In game economics is no different to the real world at all

Money is created from nothing, it has been half a century since currency had any value (tied to gold) - this is called Fiat Currency

There are plenty of youtube vids about this.
Check youtube for terms such as 'Federal Reserve, World Bank, Inflation' and you will get a better idea of what I am talking about (I do have specifics but will let you take your own journey of discovery - Welcome to Wonderland Alice)

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary

andrewgray wrote: »

In game economics is no different to the real world at all

Money is created from nothing, it has been half a century since currency had any value (tied to gold) - this is called Fiat Currency

There are plenty of youtube vids about this.

There's plenty of youtube vids about alien abductions, too. And reptile-people. And psychics. And doomsday prophets. And cancer-curing crystals. etc... And what does that prove?

Absolutely nothing.

I'm no economics expert (got an A+ in Economics 101, but that's about it), but I know enough about real-life economics to know that it isn't like PWI economics. There are definitely similarities, but no, they're not the same.

If they were, I'd be a real-life multi-millionaire by now, easy. b:surrender

MageMERC - Harshlands

I dont really have my head around this subject too well but:

Lets look at perhaps the average 95+ players

High levels get TW rewards and better rewards from grinding so they get money for nothing (sort of)
5aps now continually run nirvana for drops
They may be the category that uses real money for zen especailly more recently for the sales and earlier for the rep

So generally they might have plenty of in-game coins.

What this means is that they are also more likely to buy what they want in so far as cash shopping and not want to waste time shopping around (ie - its more profitable to buy something slightly dearer if it saves time and they can get back to grinding or Nirvana)

Obviously then prices just go up and up and up until finally it reaches a plateau where even the rich wont pay any more for something. But by that time everyone else is out of the market and cant buy anything. The effect is best seen in the gold price market, and who knows what that plateau is, because the prices havent stopped going up in a long time.

For this reason they create sinks to remove money from the game attempting to therefore slow the expenditure of the rich.

Have a look at the cost of guild bases if you want to see a coin sink - holy **** that costs some dollars. But for those high levels, charms are also a big coin sink.

But have a look in the auction house at the cost of sage/demon books if you want to see how others suffer. High level or cashed up players can do the high level instances more easily and one reward is the book drops, and since they arent desperate for money sit the book prices very high. I, for example, cant afford to buy any in the AH, yet there are many of the same ones that seem to never sell, yet the prices dont come down, likely because the holders dont need the money.

I think have teleporting as a coin sink really sucks, and that the economy doesnt benefit when the coin sink effects every player, even the poor. I believe the coin sink should only affect the rich, but not necessarily give them nothing. Making very useful or powerful items for high levels with a time limit for eg, might be better.

Another consideration is the whole subject of the 5aps sin, which now even spends less on the charms coin sink because of bloodpaint so they get richer and richer and richer.......

Please dont flame this, its just meant to give a very basic precis on something thats actually quite complicated.

Flyingkea - Dreamweaver

@MageMerc there is some scaling of teleport coin sinks - at low levels you arent realloy going to spend more than 200 coins to get from a-b. where-as it costs 8k to get from Arc to 1k streams. But I agree with pretty much everything else you said.

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973

Charms and skill books are not coin sinks. Those are just costs.

Remember a coin sink has to have a drain, after coins go through the drain they have to be just gone.

When I buy a charm from a catshop the coins are still there in the catshop. It's just that another player has it but he is free to buy whatever he wants, driving up costs on other stuff. Anything when you pay another player coins is not a sink. Paying an NPC to teleport you or paying an NPC to learn a skill is a coin sink. Those coins are effectively destroyed and can't be used again.

In a stable economy the coin sinks (skills, teleporting, guild bases, people quitting with coins in their account), would equal the coin sources (selling DQs to an NPC, TW bounty, tokens of best luck).

MageMERC - Harshlands

Good point Asterelle, I actually threw charms in after an edit because i thought someone would flame about how much it costs in charms to run some of those instances but you are correct the money stays in game.

I also dont necessarily disagree about the point made about tele's. To me it seems petty to charge for teleporting but I guess if hundreds of people are doing it regularly it would add up. The scale of teleporting, perhaps then doesnt go far enough. Would the high levels tele to FC, Brim, Nirvana etc if it was increased to 50k? Not sure, some would I guess....

Also I wasnt saying that the books are a coin sink. I was saying (true or not, I'm not 100% sure) that the result of too much money in game, similar to rising in gold prices is general inflation and a good example is the cost of the skill books.

Mosz - Heavens Tear

MageMERC - Harshlands wrote: »

Also I wasnt saying that the books are a coin sink. I was saying (true or not, I'm not 100% sure) that the result of too much money in game, similar to rising in gold prices is general inflation and a good example is the cost of the skill books.

no, not a very good example, since the majority of skills can be gotten from tokens and tokens get to a low end plateau, the majority of skills have gone down in price over time actually, the meh skills are dirt cheap when before packs even they were worth a lot , during early packs they were still worth something, if by skills you ment:demon HF, demon fist mastery, demon nova, the few really expensive skills then be more specific

Ugly - Heavens Tear9

Coin sink is when the ship of captain Sparrow full with coins and gold bars sink in the ocean b:laugh

Xarathox - Dreamweaver

Ugly - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Coin sink is when the ship of captain Sparrow full with coins and gold bars sink in the ocean b:laugh

How about a kitchen sink made entirely out of coin glued together? o.o

Jadsia - Lost City

A coin sink is a method used by the system to maintain the value of the coins by having them absorbed back into the system. Coins are generated and introduced into the system from mob and boss drops as well as mat farming. In order to maintain a certain coin to player ratio certain fees, taxes etc. are accessed on players for a service to remove excess coins. This is a simple attempt to control inflation.... lol not taking into account the inflationary pandora's box the admins and devs create with their wild cash shop sales and tokens. That's a whole lot of other QQ threads there.

Demonicin - Lost City

wow thanx guys now i understand b:pleased

Typhyse - Sanctuary

No one mentioned gear repairs, or decomposition feesb:chuckle

KAZMOENEEK - Heavens Tear

coin sink..uhh lets see.hmm guild base is one..uhhh..tw is another..uuhhhh ah andits fee's..buying goldin ah and its fee's.hmmmm basicly other stuff that dont benefit your character as well is a coin sink.

Wunderkind - Dreamweaver

wedding banquette, that is all.