The truth about Gold in Uo..

[Tina Small]

Id love to see something to stimulate some of the less popular shards. not sure vendor fees is the way to do that, but its good to see people are thinking about it.

I doubt anything's going to change for the better on less popular shards. Too many people are just hanging by a thread now, waiting for news about things like the currency conversion, changes to account management, improved website, and details about the expansion the team is supposedly working on. Putting UO on Steam and improving UO's new player experience have been pushed so far out into the future that they aren't even relevant anymore I think for most people. Currency conversion was mentioned at the 15th anniversary party almost three years ago and still hasn't happened. It's been nearly a month now that Mesanna said at one of the meet and greets that they were going to make an announcement for people to apply to a focus group for the expansion and there's still been nothing posted about it officially. The meet and greet events are all done now and what is there to show for them? There's no official set of transcripts from them. All the time that went into holding them this last year was pretty much wasted because no one cared enough to capture and post transcripts on the official website.

We're reaching the end of yet another week and if you go by what's on the official website, we're still in a "no news" situation about upcoming publishes or the expansion. And we've got the long weekend coming up soon for Memorial Day and that is just going to be one more excuse for lack of communication, lack of news, lack of progress, lack of support, etc. It's gotten old.

 

[Loriel]

As I mentioned before this is a player driven game and that means we are all responsible for it and for the senior players that means being responsible for the game as a whole.

Consider this the focus group as we have been looking in depth at the changes that need to happen for this game's recovery, in addition to some other areas of improvement across the board.

Over on Europa we are actually getting more and more "young" players all the time, at least over the last couple of months so I disagree that it is hanging by a thread, although technically this is a thread we are writing on

What you have to consider is that the devs are probably working their butts on this as a priority over everything else that needs fixing, which means that they don't have time to constantly update us on their progress.

Take a look at the facebook pages which are official and you will find someone has taken the responsibility to post the transcripts. It could either be on the Europa Facebook page or the UO General Facebook page if that's the correct terminology for it.

 

[Loriel]

The general Facebook one is called Ultima Online Events Moderator

 

[Tina Small]

As I mentioned before this is a player driven game and that means we are all responsible for it and for the senior players that means being responsible for the game as a whole.

Consider this the focus group as we have been looking in depth at the changes that need to happen for this game's recovery, in addition to some other areas of improvement across the board.

Over on Europa we are actually getting more and more "young" players all the time, at least over the last couple of months so I disagree that it is hanging by a thread, although technically this is a thread we are writing on

What you have to consider is that the devs are probably working their butts on this as a priority over everything else that needs fixing, which means that they don't have time to constantly update us on their progress.

Take a look at the facebook pages which are official and you will find someone has taken the responsibility to post the transcripts. It could either be on the Europa Facebook page or the UO General Facebook page if that's the correct terminology for it.

Do you have links for all 27 of the transcripts?

 

[Loriel]

I think it is just Europa thanks to the good work of EM Emile Layne but I'm not sure who did the actual transcript perhaps a bit of digging might get some results ?

 

[Tanivar]

Be nice if they could just post it here where everyone can find it. I've never used facebook and have no interest in it.

 

[old gypsy]

Be nice if they could just post it here where everyone can find it. I've never used facebook and have no interest in it.

Ditto!

Actually, I did use it once - briefly - after my kids talked me into trying it. Never again.

 

[Lord Frodo]

One of these days people are going to stop think about UO in a real world aspect. No where in the real world is there any place that is even close to UO.
There is no way to fix UO's economy. You can not do gold wipes, that will piss a lot of players off. It is to late to impose taxes, rent or anything else to play UO, we already pay a sub why should we also pay in gold. Prices are what they are mainly because #1 people will pay them and with the population as it is there aren't as many resource gathers like in the old days so resources are in short supply which drives up prices on player acquired/made items. You can not fix the lower populated shards because there are not enough player to meet the supply and demand on the shard. Thank UO that we have Xfer tokens and shard shields to help the less populated shards.

This is what UO is and has been for 17+ years, do not mess with UO or you may kill UO.
UO has no taxes.
UO has no rent. Then only time you pay is when you first build and then you get it back when you remove it. So housing is FREE.
UO has no utility bills.
UO has no fuel bills.
UO has no food bills.
UO has a vendor bill only if you have vendors, not every body does.
UO has no worthy outlet for all the gold in the game.
UO can be played without paying 1 gold piece to UO.

 

[Loriel]

Crazed Zealot is absolutely the right title for you to hold mate

 

[Melchiah]

For me, as important as the economy may be, there are other areas that are worth much more attention. Yea, okay, it may not be in an ideal state, but it's not breaking the game for those players that don't engage in it.

Personally I'd rather see the time and care put into an expansion or reworking of the New Player / Journeyman Development to make sure that once the hard work has been done to get that customer into the game, they damn well stay here. And frankly, the crazy amounts of gold might make new players go 'wow, I want that' but it's less likely to make them go 'I'll never get that, I'll quit.'
If the vehicle is provided to educate and empower those that want to get somewhere, then more have-nots get to the stage of having. There's always been players with crazy amounts of gold, even 15 years ago when I started - inflation is a tricky thing, but in UO it's manageable. Doesn't stop you doing what you want to do, regardless of what that is. Scaling vendor fees? A lot of work potentially for very little return. Deflation and gold revaluation? Nah, just changes the currency drivers.

Take away those that have any what's left? Look at the proportion of players that have multiple accounts versus the time played, and I'll wager there's a correlation. Lose those players and as Frodo states, lose UO.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Crazed Zealot is absolutely the right title for you to hold mate

My opinion is no different than yours. You spout opinion without a working model. UO has worked this way for 17 years and you think you can fix it over night, you can't. Prove me wrong with facts and a working model, not with long winded opinions.

 

[Loriel]

Lol you are funny mate

 

[Loriel]

Melch at no point did I say we need deflation what I said about it is that deflation is nigh on impossible and that was in relation to someone talking about reversing the process that has already begun.

 

[Loriel]

The return on the scalability of vendor fees for those who are still building wealth would be a major break for those players and lets be honest you have to have built some capital to either have a house to place a vendor in or rent one in a prime location.

From what I can see a lot of Vets are looking at this and going, "well looks like he is trying to take our money and power away, let loads of people with no respect for the game I have spent 17 years working on into it and give them the freedom of the place."

What I am saying is that these are tools everyone benefits from if you take two minutes to look beyond your front porch. UO is not a retirement home for MMO players it is actually a very valuable learning resource for young people that are gathering knowledge of the world.

Think of all those different skill types that when you were 12,13,14,15,16 etc. you would not have had any understanding of. You might say but they don't apply to the real world because its a game etc but all of those skills have real relevance.

Your Boss is kicking up a storm about x.... just use peacemaking on him and calm him down. Anatomy ? Well that is how the physical body works as a singular organised being.

I hear a lot of opinions from people who have actually got their s*it together saying I'm fine no need to change a thing !

Reality is that this game is changing to the betterment of ALL players, as it has and forever will.

 

[Tanivar]

UO's gold problem could be improved by simple in game things as well.

Considering that the gold and loot items monsters carry for us to take when we kill them should be coming from the game economy and not just be more created gold.

Brigands rob an occasional bank for a minor percentage hit on many people's in banked gold.

A town invasion by NPCs like they do on occasion does a major hit on many people's banked gold, and the crown starts a war tax to fund the NPC troops.

Houses get broken into by thieves and gold and valuable resources get stolen. Wealthy looking homes get hit more often, brigands are not going to run around breaking into rickety shacks in the boonies. Rares are not taken.

Brigands you run into on the road are made much more lethal and may actually rob you.

Someone in the bank decides to retire early and takes a couple billion with him, many take a minor percentage hit on their bank balances.

Bank does gold transfers between towns and some is lost to brigands and pirates. This is a dangerous world we live in. Many take a percentage hit on their bank balances.

Vendors that are not paid don't go to the house sign, they leave and take all items on them with them.

Occasionally, say a one in 10,000 chance, your vendor proves to be a thief and makes off with the goods he's carrying?

Vendors get pickpocketed?

The devs need to just stop adding more gold to the game and use such in game methods as I've mentioned to get gold for the monsters to carry as loot, and have some of that gold just never be seen again as a way to reduce the amount of gold in the game.

 

[Loriel]

I don't think the total amount of the gold is the problem if I am being completely honest and I think that in the fairly recent past this has been a misidentification by the devs in terms of pinpointing the actual problem.

Its not the amount but the circulation of the gold that is the issue and the only way to increase circulation is removing barriers to trade as I have discussed previously.

 

[Loriel]

Yes I agree that the way actual money is spent and circulates in terms of going through NPCs shops and also player vendors has to impact the local economies in terms of each city and the townships and I have discussed this at length in terms of incorporating aspects of this into the Governor system, however that is another topic entirely and another area of the game that plans have been made well in advance of my involvement to implement and move forward with.

 

[The Craftsman]

This is what UO is and has been for 17+ years, do not mess with UO or you may kill UO.
UO has no taxes.
UO has no rent. Then only time you pay is when you first build and then you get it back when you remove it. So housing is FREE.
UO has no utility bills.
UO has no fuel bills.
UO has no food bills.
UO has a vendor bill only if you have vendors, not every body does.
UO has no worthy outlet for all the gold in the game.
UO can be played without paying 1 gold piece to UO.

You missed out UO has no insurance. Oh wait! Scratch that. They messed with UO and introduced Insurance and guess what .... it didnt kill UO. Not entirely anyway.

 

[Lord Frodo]

UO's gold problem could be improved by simple in game things as well.

This may have been a good idea when UO first came out but 17 years later, no TY. Who will get hit the worse, people that have supported this game the longest, castle owners, rares collectors. In other words the backbone of UO all for a few players that want everything equal. You now want to punish people that have worked hard to get what they have after supporting this game for so long, that is a good way to lose long standing players just for the sake of a few. Yes I help all new players but I do not think that they deserve to be equal to players that have been here for a long time. UO is not an experiment in communism, sorry we are not all created equal.

 

[Loriel]

Frodo I really cant take you seriously because you fail to grasp even the simplest of concepts.

You miss the point time and time again, have I said at any point that those are my intentions ? You are grasping at straws trying to drum up support for a tenuous proposition that somehow what I am suggesting is in some way going to alienate veteran players.

You don't even understand Communism... it isn't about everyone being equal... Have you ever read Marx ?

Alienation of labour is central to his ideas and that is all about individuality and self expression.

 

[Lord Frodo]

You missed out UO has no insurance. Oh wait! Scratch that. They messed with UO and introduced Insurance and guess what .... it didnt kill UO. Not entirely anyway.

I never said anything about Insurance now or when it was first proposed. I said that you could play UO WITHOUT, understand the word without, spending any gold to UO. To me Insurance was needed more for PvM because it was getting very hard to get rezed and you stood a very good chance to lose everything you had. I am still of the belief that true PvP, pre AoS (Age of ****) destroyed real PvP. Now PvP should be called EvE, equipment v equipment.

 

[Val'lyn De'ana]

You missed out UO has no insurance.

You are correct...at least on Siege

-Val'lyn

 

[Loriel]

I think most people here understand economic principle number one - Increase the size of the pie that means a bigger slice for everyone, even if their proportion of the total remains the same.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Frodo I really cant take you seriously because you fail to grasp even the simplest of concepts.

You miss the point time and time again, have I said at any point that those are my intentions ? You are grasping at straws trying to drum up support for a tenuous proposition that somehow what I am suggesting is in some way going to alienate veteran players.

You don't even understand Communism... it isn't about everyone being equal... Have you ever read Marx ?

Alienation of labour is central to his ideas and that is all about individuality and self expression.

Do you really think that you have had an epiphany on how to fix UO that we have not heard in the last 17 years. Do you really think that you know something that all the Devs in UO have not thought of but knew that it would not work. IMHO you say you started UO 15 years ago, i don't think so. Communism, not make me laugh, son I have seen real Communism at work, where or what have you done. Go ask your father/grandfather about Vietnam or ask people about Desert Storm 1&2 and everything that happened in between. Please go out and see the real world and how it really works before trying to fix a game that really isn't broken as much as you think. Once again I am sorry you can't do or have everything like some of us that have supported this game a lot longer than you. By the way if your OPINIONS weren't so long winded than maybe more than yourself would understand them. Ever hear the term KISS. You sound like my children did and my grandchildren do, talk, talk, talk, blah, blah and in the long run it is all BS and they are still in trouble.

 

[Lord Frodo]

I think most people here understand economic principle number one - Increase the size of the pie that means a bigger slice for everyone, even if their proportion of the total remains the same.

Let me guess you voted for whats his name, you know the Pres. So your fix is to turn UO into a huge Welfare State and give everybody everything. How's that working out. Earn what you have and stop expecting everything to be handed to you. YOU CAN NOT APPLY ANY ECONOMIC PRINCIPLE TO A DAMN GAME, THERE IS NO GOVERNMENT TO SUPPORT.

 

[Loriel]

I am talking about Communism in terms of Economics.. shall I explain that to you or do you just want to run your mouth about dictatorships instead... no wait you already did that.

 

[Melchiah]

Loriel, while I do not doubt your intentions are good in terms of wanting to improve the game, and I appreciate the efforts to apply a theoretical socio economical model to a closed market economy, it just isn't worth the time and effort for the developers to look into, let alone try to implement.
While the flow of gold into the game is greater than the gold leaving the game, there isn't a damn thing we as players can do, short of throwing gold into insurance, vendor fees & town governance that will increase the flow around the UO Economy. Not only that, but the increased flow will increase transaction costs and end up removing more gold in the longer term as non-player transactions become more common, both to NPCs and Player Vendors.
So concentrate on economic principal number one - increase the total size of the pie by increasing consumer numbers. Increase demand, stimulate supply and move the economy in the right direction. That would also give more money to Broadsword to develop the game further!

 

[Merlin]

Of course there is clearly another more sinister side to it which I have noted that people touch upon quite frequently and that is greed, plain and simple.

I will once again repeat the quote from the film Wall Street I posted earlier in the thread:

"The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA." - Gordon Gekko

Greed IS good. 'Greed' pushes people to work harder, to play more, to go to every IDOC, to get the best items they can and sell them back to the community accordingly. In example, I got a small soul forge last week after doing about 40+ Scalis runs in the preceding weeks. I've seen prices for this go from anywhere from 90M to 140M. Wouldn't almost any player want to get as close to that 140M range as possible? That isn't greed. It's basic human instinct to want to do better for one self. If the market believes the price is worth that, someone will pay it. If I put it up for a week and it doesn't sell at 140M, then the market has spoken to me: lower your price or continue to be hit with the vendor charge. A smart businessman would then lower their price.

For someone running a UO vendor website... someone who had administrative costs of paying for a website, and then paying themselves for the labor (read: time & effort), shouldn't they naturally want to get as much from the item as possible? Let me also say that the website vendors that sell items related to UO also know as you do that this game requires a strong community in order to thrive and survive. However, this doesn't mean things can be given away nearly for free.

Come up with a more detailed suggestion, rather than your broad Communist-esque suggestion of spreading wealth around from the rich to the poor thru raising vendor fee prices.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Lol you really have no clue do you

A whole lot more than you do or will ever have. I live in and fully understand REAL WORLD matters and know for a fact that UO is not even close to a real world model and that real world fixes do not fix fantasy lands. In the real world governments only allow so much money in circulation and tax their people to support themselves and things cost real money to survive. UO is flooded with gold and has an open spigot to an unlimited amount of gold. Until UO gives players something worth while to spend gold on than this will never end and 20 years from now someone will post another way to fix UO.

GOLD SINKS that are worth their weight in gold will be the only way to get gold out of the system.
Want a 2nd house, rent one from UO. This is for the very rich and to qualify for this you must have more than one account. This will make sure nobody shuts down accounts for houses. More houses need more accounts.
Gold sinks need to be scaled for every level of wealth. The turn-in system was a good idea but it was cheaper to use resources or buy off other players.

Taking away peoples gold / devaluing peoples worth / trying to make everyone equal is not a way to fix anything. Try that in UO or the real world and watch the riots. We already kicked you out of the USA over taxes once, don't make us do the same in UO.

 

[Tanivar]

In the real world governments only allow so much money in circulation ...

Actually real world governments can't limit the amount of money in circulation because it would all eventually disappear into the bank accounts of those who take in far more than they need to spend to support their lifestyles. Once all the money was out of circulation tucked away in savings accounts, the economies would stop because those people who make so little they have to spend all of it to survive would have no money to spend, until the government made more money and made it available to those who would spend it and make the economy move. Of course this new money would then disappear into big bank accounts and require more money be made by the government to get the economy moving again, and this will go on and on.

You have to wonder what gold would be worth per ounce it all money in the world had to be backed by gold in government treasuries. There's only so much gold in the world and a steadily growing amount of money. The value of each ounce of gold would steadily climb.

 

[Loriel]

I don't really think you guys have been listening to a word I've said.

Merlin - It isn't greed that motivates the top businessmen it is their intrinsic self drive and motivation to do well. There comes a point when money isn't the end they are working towards or the objective they set their sight on, money is the by-product of that.

Melch - You are probably the coming the closest of the people who don't seem to get what I am saying to understanding but you still aren't quite getting it. The way a consumer economy works is that money flows down from the wealthiest at the top to the least wealthy at the bottom and vice versa. However the issue is that the UO economy doesn't quite work the same to the extent that the wealthiest players don't pay "wages" to the less wealthy in the course of delegating work to them. So the difficulty arises that there is no flow of money down the chain only up as far as I can see from my personal perspective.

So what I am saying is that the costs for people who are making their way in the game should be less than what they currently have to endure, this relieves pressure on them and allows them to make purchases/sales and ensure that the money they have flows to other areas both upwards and downwards in the chain.

This is what is meant by circulation.

It honestly doesn't matter what the richest people have in terms of gold because that is not the issue, the issues we have we already talked about at length and I wont revisit them for sake of giving free advertising.

What the richest players can do however is take responsibility and encourage the less wealthy to trade with each other rather than just grab at any and all sales they can because that is what I mean by greed.

I hope anybody that has watched Wall Street understands the irony of that film. The whole point of that speech is completely ironic and Michael Douglas does it brilliantly. That is a man that is wealthy enough to know that there comes a point when it is no longer about the money. More about self identity, self determination, willpower to succeed despite already great amounts of wealth and about the competition, the struggle, the battle and the victory.

 

[Loriel]

Tanivar has got it

 

[Loriel]

For the record, the essence of the game is preserved in this scenario and you probably won't see much of a cosmetic difference to how things are run but the results you will be able to see for yourselves.

 

[Merlin]

Actually real world governments can't limit the amount of money in circulation .

That statement is patently untrue. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Economics 101 - The Fed in the US and other entities such as the Bank of England in the UK take money out of circulation, dependent on the demands on their respective monetary policy.

There's only so much gold in the world and a steadily growing amount of money. The value of each ounce of gold would steadily climb.

The amount of money doesn't affect the actual value of an ounce of gold, it only inflates the ratio. In example,when the Germans mass printed deutschmarks in the 1930's to cover war debts, did it increase the value of hard assets backing their paper money? NO! It just meant the hard assets are diluted by increased amount of deutschmarks, but the true intrinsic value of the hard assets remained the same.

 

[Merus]

I don't really think you guys have been listening to a word I've said.

Merlin - It isn't greed that motivates the top businessmen it is their intrinsic self drive and motivation to do well. There comes a point when money isn't the end they are working towards or the objective they set their sight on, money is the by-product of that.

Melch - You are probably the coming the closest of the people who don't seem to get what I am saying to understanding but you still aren't quite getting it. The way a consumer economy works is that money flows down from the wealthiest at the top to the least wealthy at the bottom and vice versa. However the issue is that the UO economy doesn't quite work the same to the extent that the wealthiest players don't pay "wages" to the less wealthy in the course of delegating work to them. So the difficulty arises that there is no flow of money down the chain only up as far as I can see from my personal perspective.

So what I am saying is that the costs for people who are making their way in the game should be less than what they currently have to endure, this relieves pressure on them and allows them to make purchases/sales and ensure that the money they have flows to other areas both upwards and downwards in the chain.

This is what is meant by circulation.

It honestly doesn't matter what the richest people have in terms of gold because that is not the issue, the issues we have we already talked about at length and I wont revisit them for sake of giving free advertising.

What the richest players can do however is take responsibility and encourage the less wealthy to trade with each other rather than just grab at any and all sales they can because that is what I mean by greed.

I hope anybody that has watched Wall Street understands the irony of that film. The whole point of that speech is completely ironic and Michael Douglas does it brilliantly. That is a man that is wealthy enough to know that there comes a point when it is no longer about the money. More about self identity, self determination, willpower to succeed despite already great amounts of wealth and about the competition, the struggle, the battle and the victory.

After reading several of your posts, there seems to be a key element you miss. You seem to be advocating for either wealth redistribution or higher taxes in for for if vendors fees, etc. You complain that there isn't enough transactions between those you identify as rich and those you indentify as poor (wealth redistribution). From where I sit, those with gold buy the things they want, they don't really care how rich or poor the seller is, just whether the seller has something at a price they are willing to pay. Aside from forced redistribution, how is it any "rich" persons responsiblilty to make a "poor" person obtain something of value in order to facilitate a transaction? Scaling vendor fees based on some calculation of account wealth doesn't really do anything to help "poor" players attain anything of value, rather it just punishes those who have found a way to do it. It also completely ignores the fact that many of those who would be considered "rich" do not store the bulk of thier wealth in gold... It is in items.

While I think in your head the idea of a more equal distribution of gold across the player base would make the economy seem better, I think the reality of that is completely unworkable. The perceived wealth of UO is a function of two things: First is 17 years of massive amounts of gold flowing into the system with very little of it being taken out. Second is the fact that some players have chosen a playstyle that is more effective at accumulating those items deemed "more valuable". Some of those players convert those items into liquid assets (gold) some do not. Those with more gold tend to be willing to pay more for items in limited supply (basic supply and demand).

So, if you are "poor" then you need to find a way to obtain something of value just like all those other players have... No player started thier first character will a billion dollar check in their pack. Then they can join the economy and participate in the circulation of currency.

The only long term solution to the over abundance of gold in the game without massively pissing off a large portion of veteran accounts is to provide something of perceived value that ultimately removes that gold from circulation. Tangible property will retain its relative worth, but with less gold available in circulation, the visible "price" as it is denominated in gold will appear lower.

 

[Melchiah]

Mmm, not quite a lack of listening to your points, I understand the point you're trying to make, I just don't quite see the motivation behind it... Or for that matter why this could be the "be all and end all" to UO's economy woes, when again, economy isn't the base issue, more player base size, attraction and ultimately longevity...

But anyway - fundamental issue as you've highlighted is the disparity of trade in terms of utility gained by both parties involved in a transaction. Under your proposed model, if greed is removed, what're the implications for the "poorer" and the "wealthier" to trade in low cost items that both parties can "afford"? In other words, what can you suggest that will make them want to engage in the trade in the first place?

 

[Loriel]

No I am not saying higher taxes mate - at risk of repeating myself I am saying that in no way will the rate increase but for those who can be classified top bracket with the new dev tools at their disposal, the rate will stay the same.

Yes Merlin, Merus and Melchiah... "The Three Ms" as I shall call you, its clear you do understand economics to some level but you are all making the same mistakes over and over again.

Again... the issue is not the amount of gold in circulation.

You make a valid point Merus that circulation does exist at a higher level through rares trade and that is commendable both in terms that you are willing to offer the point and in terms of the actual point itself.

However the reason that these items are becoming a store of value over gold is their liquidity value as you correctly understand it, however gold has the ultimate liquidity and fluidity in terms of getting what you want because it doesn't rely on limited players in the market for its circulation, whereas the rares trade so clearly does.

Melchiah you are asking what it is that brings the wealthier players to trade with those that have less yes ? Just as in any system or process you are looking at a scaled system. Perhaps the wealthier players might ask to display their wares on the vendors that can take advantage of a decaled vendor fee and in so doing offer a substantial rental fee as a trade of for taking advantage of this.

Now that is just a suggestion, but there also remains the point that I am making that Merus touches upon, the wealth divide so to speak.

I deliberately avoided using terms like "rich" and "poor" and credit to Merus he has picked up on that quite succinctly. The reason I didn't utilise these terms is both political and functional. No one wants to be called poor and wealthy is a better and less obtrusive word than rich.

The functional aspect is that I use this term "wealthy" to encourage the "filling in" of a wealthy middle class as I have explained before, that can ford the gap between the least experienced players and the most experienced and usually the wealthiest.

It is the growth in this particular area that is most needed, however the merciless and irresponsible wealth gathering of some individuals caused a stifling of the growth of this class.

What reason should you have to be socially responsible in encouraging this growth rather than simply taking control of any fresh green shoot and adding it to your collection ?

Well the results of that are all there to see in the state of the game today.

What is the reason the game is dying and no one wants to join up anymore, its that very same merciless and repressive attitude that pervades the top tiers.

You don't want anyone to get anywhere near as wealthy as you that's fine you can play by yourself for yourself until there is no one left to play with at all.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Actually real world governments can't limit the amount of money in circulation because it would all eventually disappear into the bank accounts of those who take in far more than they need to spend to support their lifestyles.

Here is a good link for you to read http://www.theatlantic.com/business...of-money-who-does-it-why-when-and-how/236990/

 

[Loriel]

Here is a good link for you to read http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/the-destruction-of-money-who-does-it-why-when-and-how/236990/

Good advert for using digital currency, debit cards etc.

 

[Merlin]

No I am not saying higher taxes mate - at risk of repeating myself I am saying that in no way will the rate increase but for those who can be classified top bracket with the new dev tools at their disposal, the rate will stay the same.

Yes Merlin, Merus and Melchiah... "The Three Ms" as I shall call you, its clear you do understand economics to some level but you are all making the same mistakes over and over again.

Again... the issue is not the amount of gold in circulation.

You make a valid point Merus that circulation does exist at a higher level through rares trade and that is commendable both in terms that you are willing to offer the point and in terms of the actual point itself.

However the reason that these items are becoming a store of value over gold is their liquidity value as you correctly understand it, however gold has the ultimate liquidity and fluidity in terms of getting what you want because it doesn't rely on limited players in the market for its circulation, whereas the rares trade so clearly does.

Melchiah you are asking what it is that brings the wealthier players to trade with those that have less yes ? Just as in any system or process you are looking at a scaled system. Perhaps the wealthier players might ask to display their wares on the vendors that can take advantage of a decaled vendor fee and in so doing offer a substantial rental fee as a trade of for taking advantage of this.

Now that is just a suggestion, but there also remains the point that I am making that Merus touches upon, the wealth divide so to speak.

I deliberately avoided using terms like "rich" and "poor" and credit to Merus he has picked up on that quite succinctly. The reason I didn't utilise these terms is both political and functional. No one wants to be called poor and wealthy is a better and less obtrusive word than rich.

The functional aspect is that I use this term "wealthy" to encourage the "filling in" of a wealthy middle class as I have explained before, that can ford the gap between the least experienced players and the most experienced and usually the wealthiest.

It is the growth in this particular area that is most needed, however the merciless and irresponsible wealth gathering of some individuals caused a stifling of the growth of this class.

What reason should you have to be socially responsible in encouraging this growth rather than simply taking control of any fresh green shoot and adding it to your collection ?

Well the results of that are all there to see in the state of the game today.

What is the reason the game is dying and no one wants to join up anymore, its that very same merciless and repressive attitude that pervades the top tiers.

You don't want anyone to get anywhere near as wealthy as you that's fine you can play by yourself for yourself until there is no one left to play with at all.

Majority of this reply is semantics.

No one is trying to prevent others from becoming wealthy. The only one suggesting taking gold away from anyone is your implication of going after the wealthy in this game and the false belief it will somehow help those at the bottom.

Come up with a more detailed suggestion, rather than your broad Communist-esque suggestion of spreading wealth around from the rich to the poor thru raising vendor fee prices.

See above Loriel. ^^^ You've made some broad based statements without much particular detail of how to accomplish it.

 

[Melchiah]

I'll ignore the assumption that I'm misunderstanding your point in it's totality. Deliberately perhaps, but that's because I need you to convince me that it's a valid argument, over and above the need to get new blood into this game. People don't leave because of a wealth disparity, they leave because they simply find the whole experience too disjointed, confusing, or isolating. It is a MMORPG after all.

So to go back to the original query to your entire point... Like the politician who stands in front of the public and says "We must fix the economy to benefit everyone..."

But if the economy is broken, yet you don't know it's broken, does that stop you from giving it a go in the first place?

How do you suggest we do it?

 

[Merus]

No I am not saying higher taxes mate - at risk of repeating myself I am saying that in no way will the rate increase but for those who can be classified top bracket with the new dev tools at their disposal, the rate will stay the same.

Yes Merlin, Merus and Melchiah... "The Three Ms" as I shall call you, its clear you do understand economics to some level but you are all making the same mistakes over and over again.

Again... the issue is not the amount of gold in circulation.

You make a valid point Merus that circulation does exist at a higher level through rares trade and that is commendable both in terms that you are willing to offer the point and in terms of the actual point itself.

However the reason that these items are becoming a store of value over gold is their liquidity value as you correctly understand it, however gold has the ultimate liquidity and fluidity in terms of getting what you want because it doesn't rely on limited players in the market for its circulation, whereas the rares trade so clearly does.

Melchiah you are asking what it is that brings the wealthier players to trade with those that have less yes ? Just as in any system or process you are looking at a scaled system. Perhaps the wealthier players might ask to display their wares on the vendors that can take advantage of a decaled vendor fee and in so doing offer a substantial rental fee as a trade of for taking advantage of this.

Now that is just a suggestion, but there also remains the point that I am making that Merus touches upon, the wealth divide so to speak.

I deliberately avoided using terms like "rich" and "poor" and credit to Merus he has picked up on that quite succinctly. The reason I didn't utilise these terms is both political and functional. No one wants to be called poor and wealthy is a better and less obtrusive word than rich.

The functional aspect is that I use this term "wealthy" to encourage the "filling in" of a wealthy middle class as I have explained before, that can ford the gap between the least experienced players and the most experienced and usually the wealthiest.

It is the growth in this particular area that is most needed, however the merciless and irresponsible wealth gathering of some individuals caused a stifling of the growth of this class.

What reason should you have to be socially responsible in encouraging this growth rather than simply taking control of any fresh green shoot and adding it to your collection ?

Well the results of that are all there to see in the state of the game today.

What is the reason the game is dying and no one wants to join up anymore, its that very same merciless and repressive attitude that pervades the top tiers.

You don't want anyone to get anywhere near as wealthy as you that's fine you can play by yourself for yourself until there is no one left to play with at all.

So rather than increasing the fee for the rich to sell thier own items on a vendor you propose giving a discount to the poor in hopes of creating a consignment market? No offense, but I don't see that having any chance of changing the economy in UO.

 

[Loriel]

I'm not sure exactly how much of what I have been writing before you joined the conversation you have actually read but its pretty clear exactly how and what is needed to fix this broken economy.

It is a waste of my time and energy reiterating the same points over and over again and trust me if you are trying to tire me out you will get tired long before I do.

Go away study and take part in real life business/economics, politics and philosophy and maybe you will start to see what I am driving at.

Look at the UK as an example because that is where I am from and maybe you will begin to understand better.

Yes it took a lot of confidence and self belief to achieve, a financial translator from the US in the Bank of England and a Prime Minister looking at the long term but we are well into growth now.

The flipside of it is reducing the impact of the black market economy and criminal syndicates and that is as much a social responsibility as anything that the big businesses need to do.

It is where this conversation stemmed from and the more that time goes by the more I have a sensed of who is responsible for this type of action no matter how they protest at what small part they may have in it.

 

[Melchiah]

I'm not sure if that reply is aimed at me, but this thread started a while before you joined it too...

I've read some of your missives on economy stimulation and I have to say they're fairly long-winded, wordy, and ultimately misguided when it comes to UO, but channel the Marxist principles of Economics fairly well towards abstract principles. You'll have to excuse my struggling European mind, I fail to see the significance of how the UK's performance under austerity relates to the UO economy?

However I'm still in the undecided electorate based on your manifesto for economic change, so a bullet-pointed manifesto would go down well!

Go away study and take part in real life business/economics, politics and philosophy and maybe you will start to see what I am driving at.

Those in glass houses can throw the first stones...

 

[Loriel]

Hey being accused of being a communist was just some truly misguided hogwash, at no point did I claim I was, simply using that as an example of how badly interpreted by assertions were by one individual.

 

[Loriel]

Also if you think my assertions are long winded you should come and run a few miles with me on the trail

 

[Melchiah]

Spoken like a true politician! Lose your seat last week?

So consider the non-playing population like the disenchanted, apathetic, non-voting youth. How do you engage them in UO (Politics) and keep them engaged?

 

[Merlin]

Go away study and take part in real life business/economics, politics and philosophy and maybe you will start to see what I am driving at.

Certified Public Accountant here who serves hedge funds and private equity clients with audit, tax, financial reporting and portfolio valuation. In NYC past 8 years, did 6 month internship abroad in UK in '07. I think enough qualification to comment on UO economics.



This is an overall fruitful discussion about UO economy, so I don't think any reason to take anything personally. Stick around for a while and participate in some other discussions and you will be on both sides of the coin at some point - the one with the popular position and the one who's being grilled a bit. I've been in your position more often then not.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

I will once again repeat the quote from the film Wall Street I posted earlier in the thread:

"The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA." - Gordon Gekko

Greed IS good. 'Greed' pushes people to work harder, to play more, to go to every IDOC, to get the best items they can and sell them back to the community accordingly. In example, I got a small soul forge last week after doing about 40+ Scalis runs in the preceding weeks. I've seen prices for this go from anywhere from 90M to 140M. Wouldn't almost any player want to get as close to that 140M range as possible? That isn't greed. It's basic human instinct to want to do better for one self. If the market believes the price is worth that, someone will pay it. If I put it up for a week and it doesn't sell at 140M, then the market has spoken to me: lower your price or continue to be hit with the vendor charge. A smart businessman would then lower their price.

For someone running a UO vendor website... someone who had administrative costs of paying for a website, and then paying themselves for the labor (read: time & effort), shouldn't they naturally want to get as much from the item as possible? Let me also say that the website vendors that sell items related to UO also know as you do that this game requires a strong community in order to thrive and survive. However, this doesn't mean things can be given away nearly for free.

Come up with a more detailed suggestion, rather than your broad Communist-esque suggestion of spreading wealth around from the rich to the poor thru raising vendor fee prices.

No Merlin, you should sell that small souls forge for 100 gold, so everybody can have a one!!! At least according to Loreil. ROFLMFAO BTW congrats on the forge. I just got one last week and I LOVE the convenience. I guess I should have given it to a new player though. OH WELL!

 

[The Craftsman]

I never said anything about Insurance now or when it was first proposed. I said that you could play UO WITHOUT, understand the word without, spending any gold to UO. To me Insurance was needed more for PvM because it was getting very hard to get rezed and you stood a very good chance to lose everything you had. I am still of the belief that true PvP, pre AoS (Age of ****) destroyed real PvP. Now PvP should be called EvE, equipment v equipment.

Of course you never said anything about insurance. mentioning something that was in real life and brought into UO would have spoilt your post wouldnt it. Whoosh. Straight over your head. And no. We didnt need it.