Another Economy Thread

Arukab - Raging Tide

Yes yes, it's this thread again. This time I'm trying not to be "QQ Lower gold AH cap" because as has been beaten into peoples heads and proven on every server, that doesn't do anything at all, even now people sell above the auction house price anyway through world chat or buying items and selling as is for a higher price and they can do that because there's no gold in the AH to speak of. Been that way on RT for long enough at least.

Instead, I want to see if all of us can come up wth ways to control gold prices while also creating a sufficient coin sink. The major problem we have is way more coin is being created than is being destroyed, I tried to find the thread that had the numbers, but I coudn't find it. Still, we need some hefty coin sinks and also a better way to indirectly dictate gold prices.

An idea I heard from someone else was that since most botters are sins who have botted to get Pan Gu; Creator there should be an NPC that allows you to exchange 700m (form of big notes) and Pan Gu tome or level 6 tome of that level into a level 7 tome (Love up and down seems to be the most popular, so even if it's just that one) thus keeping a scroll of tome in the high valuable price that it is while destroying 700m per exchange. We can see this bringing up the price of a script of fate, but the purpose here is a coin sink. To further manage this price spike in the script of fate I propose a way to farm Mystical Tome Pages to get around the high price, but still requiring a hefy comitment to farming the mats to make the tomes. Preferably in an instance to prevent botters from destroying that, too.

Of course, that won't effect gold prices much at all. The best way to indirectly control gold prices would be to make an NPC sell an item in the cash shop for a certain amount of coin. This is just an example, but say we make the General Summers Token available to purchase from general summer for somewhere around 9 million coins. Of course, this means that GST's will not mer very profitable to merchant, but I stress this is just an example of how we can indirectly control gold prices. This means that on sale 2.3 gold will be 8m, which is 3.47m to match the NPC price of this cash only item. Keeping in mind 3.47 is a match for the price, people who want to buy GSTs will buy lower and people who want to sell their gold for coin will sell higher, keeping the price at a semi-stable value. Again, just an example.

That's all I'm going to pitch for now, let's stop complaining and start suggesting. I'd like to see people come up with more ideas to stabalize the coin created vs coin destroyed while also finding a way to prevent gold from going over the AH limitations. Let's put our brains together and figure this out, I'm sure that if the masses agree on how things can be stabalized they will take them into consideration.

An idea considered in the thread below was to make crab meat and herbs available to purchase from an NPC, an item everybody needs and many buy in excessive amounts (myself included). The coin dumped into buying a couple hundred crab meat a weak per player would greatly help reduce the amount of coin in circulation with a regular and stable amount per player.

If the gold cap on auction house is raised then gold will be available to purchase once again thus being able to buy bound items such as spirit coins. The price would be high, but hopefully with the help of this thread, the GMs will find a way to lower the price.

If Spirit Coins were made into an NPC Purchasable item they would be available for everyone, give them a timer and they would become a regular coin sink for all players, thus lowering the amount of coin and helping keep the economy stable. Those that buy gold for coins would put gold on the market in order to get a hold of these spirit coins in high numbers.

Edit log:
8/24: Added NPC Purchasable potions and gold cap raising
8/26: Added Spirit Coins as NPC item idea

rieihdius

I believe that creating a coin sink is actually a good idea, however not with Boutique top items such as MOG or G. SumerTokens, because those are part of the main profit for pwi.

I think some items could be consumables (some sort of good apoth at good price) or timed Fashion weapons, flyer , etc also your first idea about the tomes is a good one.

Now about bots: even though i agree that bots bring inflation, I dont think thats the only factor to consider, As an example in this matter: a few days ago there was just one sale (Mogs) and gold prices did not go up too much, even on 2x (that a lot of people hate now lol) prices were lower in Archo. But now PWI launch a Spend reward promo and this with a full rank and rep sale and gold prices go up even though Bots have earning time now so....

I think Is part of the company's job to control inflation, but I doubt that they change their sale and promo plans to fix the economy b:embarrass

Arukab - Raging Tide

rieihdius wrote: »

I believe that creating a coin sink is actually a good idea, however not with Boutique top items such as MOG or G. SumerTokens, because those are part of the main profit for pwi.

I think some items could be consumables (some sort of good apoth at good price) or timed Fashion weapons, flyer , etc also your first idea about the tomes is a good one.

Now about bots: even though i agree that bots bring inflation, I dont think thats the only factor to consider, As an example in this matter: a few days ago there was just one sale (Mogs) and gold prices did not go up too much, even on 2x (that a lot of people hate now lol) prices were lower in Archo. But now PWI launch a Spend reward promo and this with a full rank and rep sale and gold prices go up even though Bots have earning time now so....

I think Is part of the company's job to control inflation, but I doubt that they change their sale and promo plans to fix the economy b:embarrass

Yeah theGST example was just the first item I thought up. I'm ok with botting it just needs to have an equivelent coin sink for the coin being created, since right now more coin is being created than destroyed. I'm iffy about fashion being an NPC item because it won't really lower the price on gold which drives the main economy in the game, but we definitely need something that will help it stabilize.

Quilue - Sanctuary

Bots is one factor out of MANY. I actually like the Pan Gu -> LUAD idea.

Aubree - Dreamweaver

PWI missed out on a huge coin sink opportunity of putting catalysts as npc items. But obviously it's big income for them so it has to be a cash shop item.

FaithDread - Heavens Tear

Making things that are otherwise unavailable with a coin sink is a go in my books. It provides many benefits other then fixing the economy. You add a goal, something players can aspire to rather then spinning the wonderful Perfect World wheel of fortune. Putting something in like so many coins and so many raptures (for example) for a top tier gem (Cit/Garnet etc) or a way to upgrade tomes through previous tomes and cash.

Im all for a coin sink of some value but the chances of it happening are nill. Its lovely to speak about, and possibly in a "Perfect World" there would be a means to an end. Sadly I do not think its the case.

Perhaps adding a new reason to purchase say DQ would fix things.. b:laugh

Saethos - Raging Tide

Devilskarma - Raging Tide wrote: »

1. Kill Auto-Cultivation.

2. Place NPC Sell Gold Listing at 4,000,000 coin (This way you can buy gold at 4 mil each from the NPC listing).

3. Lower the NPC Listing by ~100,000 coin per month till it finally reaches 2,500,000 coin.

Lowering the NPC listing doesn't do anything. Once the gold listing is too low for what people want to sell gold at they stop selling gold and sell the items they get instead. With no gold on the market in the NPC listing due to too low a cap then there's no way to get the cash shop items without loading gold directly or buying extremely overpriced from another player (MoG's going for 40m puts gold at 4m per and I saw a few sold at 45m, which is 4.5m per which is above the cap on gold.) Lowering the NPC listing will just take gold off the market for players that can't cash shop. Right now I want to get myself some spirit coins with the in game money I have, but they aren't tradable and there's no gold in the NPC listing. Instead I would have to friend a stranger and have them gift me the coin and I'd pay over the listing price for one gold...And of course I have to find somoene that will trust me to pay up once the item has been gifted.

In other words, lowering the listing price will just make gold elss available to the free players since cash players will not be selling gold through the NPC at all, very few do it already thanks to inflation everywhere. The best way to lwoer gold price is to do as the OP said, destroy coin from the server through coin sinks and also put things only buyable through cash there to indirectly purchase the items that were cash only, though I don't see the latter happening.

Perhaps there should be a way to get Deity Stones and Jade of Steady Defense in the game through big notes. I don't know the prices on my server right now let alone all the other servers but if there were a way to get these with coins then people would indeed buy them if priced properly which would destroy coin from the server and lower the prices of many things, but the pricing on them would be tricky. Too low and everyone buys them removing revenue from PWE, too high and nobody buys them changing nothing.

either way we need a really good coin sink. The problem with most of the big coin sinks like upgrading to emperor and dominance tomes is that people only really need it once, so count the people that have it and then they will put more coin on the server. I support the idea of upgrading the level 6 tomes into level 7 because people will then further upgrade into Dominance and emperor and destroy more coin than just 700m per pan gu, but over 1b counting the seals of war. This is still, however, one of thsoe things where once the people that can get it do get it it will slow down dramatically, letting coin accumulate faster than is destroyed.

Instead we need something constant, like how NW is constant in destroying a lot of coin per week, but it's just not enough. At this point inflation is so high we need something that destroys hundreds of millions of coins per week, so we're limited to something either only botters can use or something everyone can use, but lso somehting that has motivation to be used repeatedly so as to keep a steady coin destruction going on. That's the only way to fix the economy, take coin out of circulation. Maybe if when spirit coins are out of boutique they were made purchasable from an NPC, people who want to stay on top with spirit would buy them and give the coins a timer, length depending on price, and then you'd have a stable coin destroying market that would probably work very well. It would have to be done right, though.

Quilue - Sanctuary

If people don't get it by now they are never going to get it.

Raise the gold ceiling.

Saethos - Raging Tide

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

If people don't get it by now they are never going to get it.

Raise the gold ceiling.

That won't fix the economy, just make gold available and it will continue to rise. Then it will reach the cap again. Then the cap will be raised. Then it will reach the cap again. The point is that more coin is being created than destroyed, and the difference is damatic since botting was introduced.

Jarkhen - Archosaur

Saethos - Raging Tide wrote: »

Lowering the NPC listing doesn't do anything. Once the gold listing is too low for what people want to sell gold at they stop selling gold and sell the items they get instead. With no gold on the market in the NPC listing due to too low a cap then there's no way to get the cash shop items without loading gold directly or buying extremely overpriced from another player (MoG's going for 40m puts gold at 4m per and I saw a few sold at 45m, which is 4.5m per which is above the cap on gold.) Lowering the NPC listing will just take gold off the market for players that can't cash shop. Right now I want to get myself some spirit coins with the in game money I have, but they aren't tradable and there's no gold in the NPC listing. Instead I would have to friend a stranger and have them gift me the coin and I'd pay over the listing price for one gold...And of course I have to find somoene that will trust me to pay up once the item has been gifted.

You don't read too well, do you? He clearly said add an NPC that directly sells gold for 4m. Not "facilitates selling gold from other players for 4m". We already have an NPC for that, and it's called the Auctioneer.

Saethos - Raging Tide

Jarkhen - Archosaur wrote: »

You don't read too well, do you? He clearly said add an NPC that directly sells gold for 4m. Not "facilitates selling gold from other players for 4m". We already have an NPC for that, and it's called the Auctioneer.

That would be even worse for PWE, there would be little to no incentive to buy gold with cash anymore, then since it makes no money, shut the servers down sooner than normal since it wouldn't make enough money to support the games GMs and servers. I read it right but the idea was so ludicrous I assumed he meant something that makes more sense instead of something that would cause the end of the game entirely.

LuckingFoco - Raging Tide

I see people mentioning that players are buying boutique items and selling them for what would equate to 4.5 to 5+ mill per gold. Honestly I don't like being dependent on selling items to make more coin. If and when I sell gold as I have the past few days, the AH gold cap is plenty in my opinion and when I sell gold for the cap its an instant sale.

No having to WC I'm selling MoGs or chip packs for a hyper inflated price. No having to set up a catshop and hoping the items sell. I might be losing on some coin, but that's fine by me.

Quilue - Sanctuary

Saethos - Raging Tide wrote: »

That won't fix the economy, just make gold available and it will continue to rise. Then it will reach the cap again. Then the cap will be raised. Then it will reach the cap again. The point is that more coin is being created than destroyed, and the difference is damatic since botting was introduced.

It kicks the can down the road and makes the game slightly more playable for now. (Remember how "good" the game was when there was gold to buy...)

We all know what the real fixes are...but I'm more cynical with expecting them to come in a timely manner.

Implement gold sinks? Make the game more worth it to play and spend on? Stop crappy sales and promotions?

Maybe in 6 months or more. Raising the gold ceiling...you can probably get that next week.

Veneir - Dreamweaver

Yeah I had thought for a moment, 'why not just make an NPC that directly sells gold for a set price' but then I realized that would mean that players would have nothing to do with the circulation of gold anymore. The AH system is kind of 'meh' but it was thoughtful in that one thing.

Also, something that I have been thinking about in regards to botting, and please correct me if I'm wrong:
I get the impression that the reason botting is a problem is because it allows everyone 'equal' potential to make coin, as apposed to there being a whole bunch of people that have no idea how to make coin, and a few merchants that end up really wealthy. The concept that 'everyone' is able to make money is causing problems... because now you don't really have those people who are completely broke all the time evening out the merchants.

Slivaf - Dreamweaver

We really do need a coin sink npc, one that people WILL ACTUALLY use frequently, not something that people will rarely if ever visit.

Some things that people can't seem to do without these days:

Tokens (Tbh I can't see them putting in an npc for this sadly.. I am sure they feel this would hurt their bottom line so to speak.)

War avatar cards/packs. (same as above though sadly)

Hp/Mp food.

Charms (Hp/Mp/Def/Attack charms.)

Loads of Apo items (people are lazy after all)

--

I realize a lot of these can't/shouldn't be cheap in that npc, but they also can't be a stupid ridiculous price for it either, because the goal should be getting ppl to spend their in game coin at this npc.

Quilue - Sanctuary

Veneir - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Yeah I had thought for a moment, 'why not just make an NPC that directly sells gold for a set price' but then I realized that would mean that players would have nothing to do with the circulation of gold anymore. The AH system is kind of 'meh' but it was thoughtful in that one thing.

Also, something that I have been thinking about in regards to botting, and please correct me if I'm wrong:
I get the impression that the reason botting is a problem is because it allows everyone 'equal' potential to make coin, as apposed to there being a whole bunch of people that have no idea how to make coin, and a few merchants that end up really wealthy. The concept that 'everyone' is able to make money is causing problems... because now you don't really have those people who are completely broke all the time evening out the merchants.

No it's a problem because it creates coin. It introduces coin into circulation from nothing. If I sell something to another player, coin only changes hands. With more overall coin in the game, gold price rises.

Other things that introduce coins are stuff like BH and event rewards. That is why people want legitimate coin sinks, incentives to remove coin from circulation.

Personally, I see a partial solution here! People have pointed out that with limited bot time, overall coin generated from botting may not actually decrease as more players just fill the vacant spots left by those whose earning time is done. (Whereas before, the top geared hog a spot and doesn't let go).

So you notice people get nothing after earning time expires...the real solution to reducing overall bot income is to keep hogging a spot, killing mobs but dropping nothing, thereby denying the bot spot for the rest of the day. Best idea evar.

Veneir - Dreamweaver

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

No it's a problem because it creates coin. It introduces coin into circulation from nothing. If I sell something to another player, coin only changes hands. With more coin in the overall population, gold price rises.

Other things that introduce coins are stuff like BH and event rewards. That is why people want legitimate coin sinks, incentives to remove coin from circulation.

...this makes me wonder about how Switzerland wants to make it so they give every citizen adult 30K a year with no strings attached so they can try to get a better standard of living. :x

It makes more sense to add a coin sink than it does to limit botting... off the top of my head the idea of implementing an in-game 'tax' during player exchanges comes up. Like, based on how much coin you have on your account (which could be circumvented technically so ehhh... may or may not end up being too inconvenient) an extra percentage of the price of an item that you buy gets deducted from your bank/character/etc and just kind of dissapears, so it's not in circulation anymore.
Maybe from NPC purchases and not just players, too.
Something to make things more expensive for more wealthy accounts, but not expensive in the same way for lower level characters. (or even people like me who has been playing since like 2009 but only have lunar green HA and not that much going for me.)

Edit:: Oh I just saw your thing about people hogging spots even after their earning time is done. I guess that kind of works, though remember they will eventually get ported out once their weapon breaks... which only takes like twelve hours, so about four hours of nothing botting.
...well, not for archers. But they run out of arrows first.

ovenusarmanio

Veneir - Dreamweaver wrote: »

...this makes me wonder about how Switzerland wants to make it so they give every citizen adult 30K a year with no strings attached so they can try to get a better standard of living. :x

It makes more sense to add a coin sink than it does to limit botting... off the top of my head the idea of implementing an in-game 'tax' during player exchanges comes up. Like, based on how much coin you have on your account (which could be circumvented technically so ehhh... may or may not end up being too inconvenient) an extra percentage of the price of an item that you buy gets deducted from your bank/character/etc and just kind of dissapears, so it's not in circulation anymore.
Maybe from NPC purchases and not just players, too.
Something to make things more expensive for more wealthy accounts, but not expensive in the same way for lower level characters. (or even people like me who has been playing since like 2009 but only have lunar green HA and not that much going for me.)

Excessive money printing does cause inflation though, all on it's own. The more excessive coin that enters circulation the more inflation rises and coin decreases value. Coin sink are necessary but the bot generates too much coin to remain left unchecked. That's the reason nation wars didn't cause this kind of runaway inflation despite being an instance that spread wealth from cannies and raps around more equitably between the different tiers of players. Casual, hardcore farmers, lowbies, all could get a piece of the pie; as opposed to only people who were already well off enough to afford at the time pricey gear and +10 refines. Ofc letter geared players still earn a larger share. It's because nation wars didn't actually generate any coin into the economy. It's actually a coin sink. The wealth across more different types of players come strictly from the exchange of coins between players. The only reason that there was any increase in gold price (and there was) was simply because of demand, more people could buy things.

If you want to get more coin into the hands of different types of players. Nation Wars is an example of it being done right. It's a brilliant coin sink, one in which people voluntarily participate because of their ability to make money or things that they need. Any tax I think would just be bypassed, but like AH fees probably would at least take away some coins. Coin sink events or NPCs would be nice.

jwillson123

raising gold cap would not help anyone not even cashoppers.
Yes cashoppers will get more coins for their gold but that will cause merchants to sell their items for even higher price. So they gonna have more coins but they going to have to pay more coins too.


Coins have become a low value currency because having people getting coins doing absolutely "nothing" by botting. Botting also make some people not value their coins and over paid since they did nothing to get those coins.
In their mind they think ohhh pay extra 20 million? why not?
tomorow I will have 30 million with 1 minute of effort by clicking buttons to set up my botb:pleased

Botting also force other people to bot too to be able to compete.


Coin sink is not enough PWI needs to destroy and cut coins generating methods.
Like make all DQ value to 1 and even BH coins cards.

If they did that I can guarantee you gold will drop to under 2m.

An idea I had is to make new currency called bound coins.
Bound coins are generated by DQ items.
They can buy any npc item but can not be traded in AH and can not be used to buy items from catshops.Only way to get the unbound version is by selling coins cards. or quests maybe.

Veneir - Dreamweaver

jwillson123 wrote: »

Coin sink is not enough PWI needs to destroy and cut coins generating methods.
Like make all DQ value to 1 and even BH coins cards.

*sighs* Removing all ways for regular casual players to get a couple mil to hold onto at a time isn't a solution here. Not everyone is rank r99999999999999999999999. Limiting the top by making the 99% unable to make anything isn't useful.

WannaBM - Archosaur

This poll will of course never give a representative outcome. b:chuckle

most of those that dont care even open the thread.

jwillson123

Veneir - Dreamweaver wrote: »

*sighs* Removing all ways for regular casual players to get a couple mil to hold onto at a time isn't a solution here. Not everyone is rank r99999999999999999999999. Limiting the top by making the 99% unable to make anything isn't useful.

You do not need R9r3 to do daily BH everyone in TT90 can do daily BH.
Also daily quests should give more coins that are tradable too.

If they do that gold prices and item prices would come down fast since people would actually consider coins valuable again instead of trash.
b:laugh I want to see people pick up coins from bh. People think they are trash and do not bother picking coins up.

Veneir - Dreamweaver

OP hasn't editted his first post yet. He was planning on keeping a log for different ideas. *nudge nudge*

Meh. I think we all just obviously like our own ideas better. Only really constructive criticism, like why the gold NPC wasn't a good idea, is really going to get anywhere.

What do people think of taxes proposal; does it seem like it would do anything, or does it seem too exploitable if someone was really up to transfering coin between their always logged alts? Not making coin feel important enough still? Those are the main flaws I see with it, since linking by IP and not account is something I'd call out as blasphemy for multiple-PWI-households.

I just really want to see something that scales so doesn't hinder mid/low players.

Quilue - Sanctuary

jwillson123 wrote: »

raising gold cap would not help anyone not even cashoppers.
Yes cashoppers will get more coins for their gold but that will cause merchants to sell their items for even higher price. So they gonna have more coins but they going to have to pay more coins too.

It helps people get gold through AH without paying real money for it. Otherwise there is no way to compete. That's the whole reason maxed out gold buy kills the game.

All viable solutions need a short term fix and long term fixes. Raising the gold ceiling is the short term fix.

Veneir - Dreamweaver

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

It helps people get gold through AH without paying real money for it. Otherwise there is no way to compete. That's the whole reason maxed out gold buy kills the game.

All viable solutions need a short term fix and long term fixes. Raising the gold ceiling is the short term fix.

General response to conversation about your idea:
It's one of those things that sounds bad at face value, but as-is, the AH gold trading has no gold in the selling section. There's no way for anyone to get gold in a way that feels reasonably secure (just kind of basing your buy value off of what the other ones are, when you can't compare to a selling field so are blind, is not reasonably securely feeling). If the cap was raised to something the current pricers see as acceptable, it might actually help. So I support this idea.
...just remember to lower the cap back down after a couple years or something, when its back down below it enough to where people won't notice (sort of), since they won't try to price it that high anymore.

lodez

Any suggestions to rescue the economy has to fulfill a few criterion :

1) Safeguard the interests of the non-paying players.
2) Safeguard the interests of paying players.
3) Safeguard the company's interest as a public listed company accountable to its shareholders.

The reason for several of the promotions that PWI has put in place are to ensure that profitability and growth of the company.

Charge rewards : To encourage more players to convert real cash into gold which brings in money for the company.

Spend rewards : Every dollar converted to gold is reflected as a liability in the accounting books and this will only be converted to depreciating digital assets when converted to in-game items. Thus its important to balance between cash collection and in-game item conversion.

My idea of a good coin sink will be to introduce in-game vouchers.

Firstly, any spend rewards and charge rewards should not directly give game changing items (Orbs, dreamchaser kits etc), only cosmetic stuff should be directly given. Instead, in-game non-tradeable, vouchers should be given.

Secondly, vouchers can be given as part of BH rewards - to encourage player activity to do BHs, thereby patronising most of the unused lower level instances.

Thirdly such vouchers should be able to be bought from boutique for cash paying players.

How does the voucher work? It will be like perfect tokens of luck, however, for every item that can be converted a certain coin value has to be spent.

The implementation of in-game vouchers will satisfy a few things.

1) Non-paying players can farm vouchers + coins to get items that they want and do not have to depend on gold and packs to get items from the boutique

2) Paying players can buy vouchers from boutique and still have to spend coin to get the items, thus they either have to sell the gold to players - thus encouraging spending and also removal of coin from the economy.

3) The company can have charge rewards that does not inflate the in-game economy further, instead it will at the same time encourage removal of more coins from the game.

These vouchers can be time-limited, which extensions could be bought using coins, thus injecting a regular coin sink.

Devilskarma - Raging Tide

Let me explain how simple this really is, point by point, because these 3 steps have a LOT of things involved for sounding so simple.

1. Kill Auto-Cultivation.

Auto-Cultivation as is, allows players to bring in coins for not being at their computer themselves by the billions overall, pretty much weekly if not daily.

Most companies BAN botters by the tens of thousands at a clip, because this is exactly the sort of thing that destroys economies, thus destroying games and those companies' incomes.

Realistically, it has not been the majority of players that have committed to this, maybe 1-10% of each server? Those are the people that actually have billions from this Auto-Cultivation being brought into the game. The rest of the population does not have billions stockpiled / hoarded, because they can not do this botting bit for numerous reasons.

Killing Auto-Cultivation makes this method of auto-piloting / botting coins impossible from the point it is taken out of the game. This is a must if PWI is going to continue to run more than another year at this point.

^^^END 1. Kill Auto-Cultivation.

2. Place NPC Sell Gold Listing at 4,000,000 coin (This way you can buy gold at 4 mil each from the NPC listing).

AND... let me be extremely clear here... THIS is given that Auto-Cultivation is ALSO taken out of game... I mean really? People look at this alone and just completely miss seeing : Kill Auto-Cultivation. b:surrender

2. Place NPC Sell Gold Listing at 4,000,000 coin (This way you can buy gold at 4 mil each from the NPC listing).

All those people talking about "supply and demand," or "inflation" driving up the coin to gold ratio prices so high really need to go back and take a look at how and why those terms actually work. The basis behind those terms is "limited resources versus growing population" equals prices over time going up. What we see in PWI is populations decreasing.

In general, a system with cash shop currency versus in-game currency will first and foremost go up because a majority of cash shoppers want more bang (in-game coin) for their buck (irl $). This group will only consist of about 1-5% of a server population, and only includes truly wealthy in real life people. This is only part of what has been happening.

Next, in general, a system with true free to play farming / grinding types will want more bang for their buck as well... but their "buck" is not real money, it is instead their time and the in-game items they happen to be able to farm in that time. The majority of these types will push their goods' prices up to get in on what the cash shoppers are prospering on. This group will only consist of about 2-10% of a server population, and only includes people that can spend entire weeks farming because their life somehow allows them the time to do so. This is also part of what has been happening.

The next group is the merchants, they are basically unaffected by cash shop currency to in-game currency ratios, except when one looks at faster turn over rates of merchandise. This group will only consist of about 2-10% of a server population, and only includes the people with know-how, luck on right time / right place, and patience. The actual numbers of 2-10% are more likely lower as far as serious merchant types go given human psychological aspects involved. This group will generally just ride the prices as is, and has pretty much done just that.

The last group on each server is the "everyone else", the "majority" mind you. And it is the majority that have no power in effecting the cash shop to in-game currency prices. Even in the real world, governments curb what companies would do to the populations in ways that still are not effective enough when you consider the majority. In a game, a company can be quite the bit more effective on maintaining an economy than in the real world.

In PWI you have gold to currency exchanges which are currently only initiated when a player buys zen and transfers that to in game gold. That gold can be used to buy cash shop items. The other option is to sell gold for coin in the gold exchange / on the auction gold trader.

At the moment, the cap that was set by PWI is 4,000,000 per gold. At the moment we are already starting to see less and less if not barren gold selling going on, and this is in exchange for cash shoppers buying cash shop items to sell at rates that go above the 4,000,000 coin rate.

The simple solution to this, is PWE/ARC place a 4,000,000 coin rate listing that players can use coin to buy gold in game no matter if players place their own gold to sell or not... an NPC listing that is limitless.

Some people actually somehow believe this means that "no one would ever buy zen/gold through cash shopping ever again"... No, what would happen is the majority of players could buy some gold through in game coins... The prices in PWI would pretty much guarantee the majority is still spending real money to get more than what they could accomplish in game through any real means with in game coin they may be able to acquire. Furthermore, a "confidence" would build up in the players, as to people seeing that maybe PWE/ARC is not going to close PWI anytime soon. Right now, that "confidence" is severely lacking, which does effect cash shopping more than anything.

By creating this NPC 4,000,000 coin limitless listing per gold in the auction/exchange/gold trader, players will no longer be able to sell cash shop items above the 4,000,000 coin per gold rates that they are already beginning to do.

This again, is while also having killed the auto-cultivation ability entirely. After a month or two, economies will still be somewhat harsh, but they will become more stable than where they are current heading. Considering the economies have not entirely killed the game by now, a month or two would be fine for maintaining this 4,000,000 coin npc listing.

^^^ END 2. Place NPC Sell Gold Listing at 4,000,000 coin (This way you can buy gold at 4 mil each from the NPC listing).

3. Lower the NPC Listing by ~100,000 coin per month till it finally reaches 2,500,000 coin.

This third and last point is basically just a continuation of 1 & 2 in coordination with each other. This is a matter of after that month or two of stabilizing the economy at 4,000,000 coin per gold through the NPC listing... That NPC listing should be reduced by 100,000 coin per month to whatever the desired level is. Personally, I would think 2,500,000 would be the ideal sweet spot for both the players and the company and any "integrity" *cough cough* that this game might be able to whisper of.

Sylvae - Sanctuary

Devilskarma - Raging Tide wrote: »

This third and last point is basically just a continuation of 1 & 2 in coordination with each other. This is a matter of after that month or two of stabilizing the economy at 4,000,000 coin per gold through the NPC listing... That NPC listing should be reduced by 100,000 coin per month to whatever the desired level is. Personally, I would think 2,500,000 would be the ideal sweet spot for both the players and the company and any "integrity" *cough cough* that this game might be able to whisper of.

The NPC listing shouldn't ever need to be lowered from where it is set. That would be a hard ceiling, and any CSer would have to beat that no matter what. You'd have to set a daily/weekly limit, or the horders could abuse the market. But mostly if it was working, AH prices would come down regardless. All the maxed out bids would disappear, to buy the NPC gold. So gold sellers would have to price below NPC, and the next guy has to sell lower than him, etc.

If the NPC price needs to be dropped, it would just mean the whole idea failed. So lowering it wouldn't help any. Have to keep the CSers willing to spend money, and trying to force gold value lower just means they are more likely to keep it and use it on their own characters.

Plus with no daily/weekly limit and max threshold, everytime a sale comes the glut would be utterly ridiculous.

Arukab - Raging Tide

Veneir - Dreamweaver wrote: »

OP hasn't editted his first post yet. He was planning on keeping a log for different ideas. *nudge nudge*

Meh. I think we all just obviously like our own ideas better. Only really constructive criticism, like why the gold NPC wasn't a good idea, is really going to get anywhere.

What do people think of taxes proposal; does it seem like it would do anything, or does it seem too exploitable if someone was really up to transfering coin between their always logged alts? Not making coin feel important enough still? Those are the main flaws I see with it, since linking by IP and not account is something I'd call out as blasphemy for multiple-PWI-households.

I just really want to see something that scales so doesn't hinder mid/low players.

OP was spamming FWS to get some parts of his t3 before NW o,o

So if i get this right, most of you all want the gold cap raised so that gold can at the very least be put back in the auction house? That is reasonable, that way people can actually buy it again.

I feel like we need to further address the idea of a "bound coin." Forsaken World which is also under PWEs control has this concept, money that is NPC-echange only, so things like repairs and such. I feel the problem with this is that it would take repairs out of the coin destroying sequence, along with any NPC interation.

I think the idea of tokens in an NPC shop wouldn't happen, but maybe an NPC that sells crabs and herbs? Something everyone loves to have (herbs less so since botters get mana pots that are sufficient for replenishing your mana pool.) I like this as Silvaf I think it was said because it also might lower token prices, since many people buy tokens for hypers, teles, and pots. Ah, there's another idea. How about NPC purchasable teles? Now that I think about it, it should be either teles or pots, but not both.

I'll edit the first post after nation wars and after I've read more thuroughly, I probably haven't addressed everyones post yet but I will get there! Maybe if we all work together the company will listen to us.

Evryn - Morai

PWI does listen, but it takes a while for changes to filter to china, then get implemented, then filter back to us. And by the time they do such measures create a new Q_Qstorm - ergo earning time (even though I'm a botter myself, I fully support that measure).

I agree that a coinsink would be a good idea. Personally, I think it should be with the tokens of luck. Right now they vary between 20 and 30K each, with a lot of people buying, selling and reselling them. Making a coinsink by having them "craftable" at the mysterious merchant for 2 Mysterious Chips + 15.000 coins would help some starting players who don't have much of a need for Mysterious Chips (reward from the BH1's sometimes) by converting those into tokens, then into consumables. Resellers could still charge some 17K or so per token, but at least those'd have a ceiling and an infinite supply... provided you have the coins and chips.

Enforcing 2 accounts per person is a joke. There is no enforcement, therefor that rule is simply void and should just be stricken from the rulebook entirely. I by now know dozens of players ingame, usually those who already have R9 stuffs, who call for BH parties with 2 or 3 alts in the party. Or those who boast about having half a dozen bots roaming the map. Or entire factions controlled by a single player (Cotidie anyone? Check Morai's Lost City Jolly Jones around 2 AM. Or Wytches? Check the air-to-ground activity of a bunch of venos during archo assault south of Archo).


One thing I do recommend in order to keep the game accessible for starting players without the ability to cash: Make an infinity of gold available at the 4 million cap. You offer that much for it? You get it. Otherwise PWI will encourage out-of-auctionhouse trading, which it has no control over. And that's prime scammer ground.

Aubree - Dreamweaver

To the people saying about selling gold at NPC @ 4m coins:

1. That is what we have in the AH.

2: You drain actual income from the company if PWI offers and "infinite" amount of gold that wasn't issued via real cash.


No idea why some of you think gold was never supposed to cost this much. Have you ever noticed NPC price of some items? Mind you this is just for repacement, you still have to do the quests.

Expert Tailor Book, Expert Craftsman Book, 50m coins
Expert Blacksmith Skill, 100m coins

Bundled crafting packs from boutique in coin value, the whole shabang of 1 craft: 120m coins

Until gold passes that price, I wouldn't worry.