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This topic is for discussion of implementing the krone currency, and this time we're going to succeed in coming up with a plan for doing so! I thought I would give some of my thoughts, and I know that there's been some talk between the Cabinet, but anyone can and should give their thoughts as well!

So my thinking is two-fold...first, we need to restrict the amount of currency made compared to other regions so it doesn't pile up into worthlessness. Most regions get in trouble because they award their currency with every post, but we don't really have a problem with people posting as it is. Our activity has been stable for the last few months...but where we do have lower activity is with things like recruiting, writing articles, creating new discussion topics...we should initially focus earning krone on activities like those. Then as we create things for people to spend their krone on, we can expand from there. It's easier to expand what we can give krone for over time than to restrict it.

Which leads to the actual main problem...what to spend it on? We need ideas that will be fun for the community and worthwhile, possibly utilizing some of the other aspects of the region we have such as the family system. Awhile ago I was toying with the idea of letting people buy land, which they can build structures on (like a family would have to have one house for each member), but I didn't get very far there. Maybe I'll come up with more during the course of this chat.

So that's where I feel we're at right now...please feel free to chime in.

Right off the bat, I'd like to say this is what I came up with while taking a shower, so it's not so well thought out. This is just a vague dump of ideas you can pick any or none from.

Any in-game currency of any type tends to have cosmetic value, which I believe gives some very good opportunities here.

My main suggestion is the implementation of badges; visible on your profile (I'll get back to that). These would range from the normal "Welcome to Wintreath" badge, handed out to new citizens to "reach 100 posts" to "reach 100 likes". These badges would be given out for milestones and so not enter into the economy. Secondly, I suggest the creation of "personalised badges".

Personalised badges are badges handed out to all people who post in a certain thread: Thus there could be a "Billy Potato" badge for people who post in that thread etc. Now, making all these badges would be tough work if it were to be handled by one person, so I'd suggest making 3 images of "normal" "epic" and "legendary" badges (distinguished by their shape) and then allow (and this is where the currency comes in) the person who made the post to buy the badge to hand out to all the people posting in the thread. The normal and epic badges would be available for purchase to hand out to all, and the person buying the badge would receive a badge one tier above it for creating the post.

Badges would be created by the creator of the post and submitted for review to Wintermoot. Creating the badge would entail using the pre-made image and editing it in PS or something similar. Then, the badge would be handed in to Wintermoot for a final review.

The badges would be viewable on the user's profile but up to five badges could also be viewable in a smaller size, under a player's avatar on the side of every one of their posts. The first badge could be free, the remaining could be bought, making for yet another cosmetic status symbol.

The badges also allow people to wear their colours as well. The Potato pope could make a potato papacy thread with a potato badge to be handed out to his potato-y underlings, who can then show their allegiance proudly.

Now as for the mechanics of the badge, I had imagined something like the steam badges, with a title above it and (if it's doable) a mouse-over text. The title would contain some sort of pun or reference (ex. Potato badge could be "I'm Spudtacus" or something) with the mouseover text giving an explanation as to why you have it (In the example, "Join the potato church" or similar).

My second and completely separate suggestion would be a "pay-to-bump" feature. allowing one to pay a certain amount of currency to bump a thread and make it appear on the news feed again. Possibly with an added feature of being able to pay to notify certain users with a forum message if you think they'd enjoy the thread.


I have given no thought to how much work any of these things would be and even less to possible abuses of the systems, but I thought I'd get the idea out there at least.

I've been advocating this system for a while now on the IRC, and that system is to use parts of Gaia Online's Economic Systems. They were able to run a stable economy for about 10 years, with manageable, and 'good', inflation.

Gaia Online does reward players for doing things on the site such as playing games, lurking, posting, voting in polls, along with various events and contests and sometimes as a random chance thing. However with things such as Posting and voting, it manages it by having posting be something with diminishing returns. Essentially every day your first post gets a set amount of currency, and then each post within X amount of time returns a lower amount of currency. It offsets this a bit by having periods of time in between posts allow the amount that you get from posting to potentially increase. This incentivizes participation and longer, and hopefully more thoughtful, posts. Voting does something similar, but it doesn't restore. We could borrow the posting and voting ideas, and also with the random chance, events, and contests. For playing games, it isn't really applicable here, so we can't use that idea as a faucet. Lurking may or may not be something we want to give a very small amount of Krones for (thing .5-1 krones given out for every 2 hours you are actually lurking or so). While this does use the currency for posts system, it avoids the inherent problems that other regions have with the flat amount system. It slows down posting a little, while still allowing it to be easy to get to prevent over-valuation and over-scarcity.

Before we continue I also wish to address the fallacy that allowing Krones to be earned for each post will be bad for the economy. Even WITH the flat amount for each post, inflation could be manageable if the amount was low enough. However the true issue is what Wintermoot touched upon, the lack of decent and meaningful sinks. I say meaningful because in order to get someone to actually spend their currency they need to see what they are getting as a greater value then the value of the cost for the currency. Therefore the issue is a LACK of meaningful sinks, not necessarily a leaky faucet.

Now onto Sinks, again we should take a look at Gaia Online's systems. For sinks they have a customizable avatar system, certain account changes, a shop system for the avatars, and used to have a connect MMO game (which you could both get and spend currency in). They also have had occasional gold-draining events, and other things too. With this system, we could take the Avatar system and the shop system. We could also go further and have certain customizations to be consumable or immediate, which acts as a true sink (as, ideally, items could be sold or traded between players). Certain items could also have durability and slowly take damage and break over time. Items would also only be able to be sold/traded to others or destroyed. You can never make currency from the items, in order to prevent it from acting too much of a non-sink. Also with customization something like gender-change could be a consumable items (NOTE: the actual gender on your account would be free to change, it only affects the avatar). For account changes you could have name changes require a fee (like 20 Krones or something).

Please note this isn't the full idea that I have, and I'm still playing around with some ideas as well...however this is the basic part of the idea. I do recognize my idea requiring a decent amount of work, both in coding and in art, however this system would make Wintreath more unique among other regions (not necessarily among websites, as we are using ideas implemented by Gaia Online first). It would lead to a really stable and good economy, with small and healthy levels of inflation. The work that would be put into this would be worth it for the fact that the system would work well. Meaning it is well worth the investment in time and effort for our region to use.

I'd like to point out that Gaia Online actually has a team to design their custom items for avatars.  Unless we actually take on some people with some good graphical design skills, I see any possibility of a similar avatar system not working out well.

The same goes for badges, since these things don't magically appear for usage.  Unless we can find people dedicated to making such items, we're not going to go too far.

Going back to Gaia Online, I'd also like to point out a few more things:

1.  They allow people to spend real money to buy in game items or credits to go towards in game items (credits separate from the gold you can earn around the site).

2.  The inflation there has actually gotten out of control, mainly because of the Marketplace.  Economy there versus a few years ago is vastly different to where you can make 1000 gold a post compared to 25-50 some odd years ago.

3.  They actually make all of their own material, from avatars and avatar items to their games.  That's one of thr main draws in that it's all original content.

Yeah, I do agree there is a big issue with getting the artwork and stuff done. I think I might be able to manage to be of some help with very small stuff but some of it may be beyond me.

I'd like to once again state my position that I currently do not see a point for a regional currency, though if someone comes up with a compelling and useful system, I will support it.

I'd like to point out that Gaia Online actually has a team to design their custom items for avatars.  Unless we actually take on some people with some good graphical design skills, I see any possibility of a similar avatar system not working out well.

We do have people that could help out in the graphical department.

Going back to Gaia Online, I'd also like to point out a few more things:

1.  They allow people to spend real money to buy in game items or credits to go towards in game items (credits separate from the gold you can earn around the site).

This was introduced later to help get money. We can avoid this for now.

2.  The inflation there has actually gotten out of control, mainly because of the Marketplace.  Economy there versus a few years ago is vastly different to where you can make 1000 gold a post compared to 25-50 some odd years ago.

Aside from the last part being confusing (Gaia Online didn't exist 25-50 years ago, )

Further you are incorrect about the source of the hyperinflation. The source of the hyperinflation and out of control inflation was not due to the market place, but instead can be marked to the creation and release of Gold Generators, which created gold automagically without effort.

3.  They actually make all of their own material, from avatars and avatar items to their games.  That's one of ther main draws in that it's all original content.

Who says we can't have original content?

I'll repeat what I said to the Cabinet:

The only thing I can think to sink money into is gambling and perhaps having the government take "taxes" every month or so to prevent excessive inflation. The Storting could even determine how much taxes are taken and the rates. There is obviously no shortage of things people could earn money from: recruiting, writing articles, completing other government jobs, winning competitions and forum games, hosting/participating in activities, earning badges (see below), winning in gambling, a regional lottery, etc. I'm not sure if the sinks are enough, though. Then again, currency could also be a status thing if we get enough forum members.

Looking at currencies in other regions/games, they all seem to have some kind of customizable "thing" you can spend money on to upgrade: an avatar, pet (Pokemon), nation (like in 10KI), or, as Wintermoot suggested, land and structures. I quite like the idea of buying land and building on it. We could even tie it to Weissreich's regional RP/map. Maybe that'll help kick that off. Plus, it'd be unique to our region.

On badges and such

Right off the bat, I'd like to say this is what I came up with while taking a shower, so it's not so well thought out. This is just a vague dump of ideas you can pick any or none from.

Any in-game currency of any type tends to have cosmetic value, which I believe gives some very good opportunities here.

My main suggestion is the implementation of badges; visible on your profile (I'll get back to that). These would range from the normal "Welcome to Wintreath" badge, handed out to new citizens to "reach 100 posts" to "reach 100 likes". These badges would be given out for milestones and so not enter into the economy. Secondly, I suggest the creation of "personalised badges".

Personalised badges are badges handed out to all people who post in a certain thread: Thus there could be a "Billy Potato" badge for people who post in that thread etc. Now, making all these badges would be tough work if it were to be handled by one person, so I'd suggest making 3 images of "normal" "epic" and "legendary" badges (distinguished by their shape) and then allow (and this is where the currency comes in) the person who made the post to buy the badge to hand out to all the people posting in the thread. The normal and epic badges would be available for purchase to hand out to all, and the person buying the badge would receive a badge one tier above it for creating the post.

Badges would be created by the creator of the post and submitted for review to Wintermoot. Creating the badge would entail using the pre-made image and editing it in PS or something similar. Then, the badge would be handed in to Wintermoot for a final review.

The badges would be viewable on the user's profile but up to five badges could also be viewable in a smaller size, under a player's avatar on the side of every one of their posts. The first badge could be free, the remaining could be bought, making for yet another cosmetic status symbol.

The badges also allow people to wear their colours as well. The Potato pope could make a potato papacy thread with a potato badge to be handed out to his potato-y underlings, who can then show their allegiance proudly.

Now as for the mechanics of the badge, I had imagined something like the steam badges, with a title above it and (if it's doable) a mouse-over text. The title would contain some sort of pun or reference (ex. Potato badge could be "I'm Spudtacus" or something) with the mouseover text giving an explanation as to why you have it (In the example, "Join the potato church" or similar).

My second and completely separate suggestion would be a "pay-to-bump" feature. allowing one to pay a certain amount of currency to bump a thread and make it appear on the news feed again. Possibly with an added feature of being able to pay to notify certain users with a forum message if you think they'd enjoy the thread.


I have given no thought to how much work any of these things would be and even less to possible abuses of the systems, but I thought I'd get the idea out there at least.

Badges are actually something that I'm wanting to do in the future, so I might try to get your thoughts/help with that when I get around to it. For the personalized badges, I feel like people wouldn't spend their own money to give things to others as it'd essentially be giving away money. But I like where you're going with everything.

For the second suggestion, you can just type a new post in the thread to bump it and mention people to notify them without having to spend money. Not meaning to shut down your ideas, I quite like your creativity, it's just critique.

Okay so Moot's idea of purchasing land inspired me this morning. I spent the last 8 hours brainstorming as well and here's what I came up with.

So someone purchases some land and at first it's just a patch of grass, dirt or in all likelihood, snow. Now that you have some land you can build on it as Gerrick has also considered. Homes, factories, barns, stables, cell towers, etc are strong possibilities. Below is a quick (and admittedly shoddy) mock-up I've put together:

We can have multiple plots of land in various sizes at differing prices. I was thinking the land could be made similar to that of RPG Mo. Over time it could grow to resemble the community here and maybe even a representation of Wintreath itself! Naturally we'd need to create our own graphics for everything and I'm certainly willing to aid in that effort. We could have all kinds of things. Not just buildings! Livestock, wells, veins of numerous materials, the possibilities are endless!

So basically like the idea that I presented for the avatars, but with potentially less attachment to it? Keep in mind I'm not against the idea (in fact when COMBINED with my idea, it makes it much more interesting). However personally I still like my avatar proposal. It really wouldn't require that much more work than what would probably be needed here as well...Also users would have more of an incentive to mess with it because it would be apart of their account and would be apart of each post and stuff...

I assume the most feasible way to display the land would be on one's profile.

Yes...however it would still be impersonal. I mean with avatars it shows a representation of you. As such you have a incentive to participate. With that...people don't really. as such you would have people who get krone, but don't spend it or whatever and this actually increasing inflation more as they are not removing the Krone they have.

Where's the lack of incentive? People could build representations of their own nations like this. I bet there are tons of people in NS that want a physical representation of their nation. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't one such person, heh.

Badge System
Fortunately, a badge/achievement system is on my list of things to do! I'm not sure when I'll get around to it, but the way it would work is that based on the criteria some badges would be awarded automatically, while others would require someone to manually apply them to people's profiles. These badges would display in the profile area, and there would be the option to display a set number more prominently...perhaps in their information alongside posts, as @Finrod Felagund suggested. I'm not opposed to allowing Citizens to purchase the right to hand out their own badges, either.

That being said, I'm not sure I understand the difference between normal, epic, and legendary badges. Are they different versions of the same badges or are they a classification system where each badge either/or?

Avatar/Shops
Let me ask you a question, @Chanku...so, I'm the leader of a great nation (not to mention a great region!), and I want an avatar befitting of my status...what's to stop me from getting an avatar that I think represents my character from anywhere and using it like we do now? Would we be getting rid of the forum avatars we use now? If not, where would the avatars you suggest be displayed? My concern is that to get the level of customization needed to get people interested in the system, you're going to need alot alot alot of graphics done, especially if it also competes with the general avatars we use now.

As for shops, I like the idea, but shops require things for people to sell...I can think of a few niche uses, like @Gerrick maybe having a shop for items to use in his Arena games, but I'm not sure beyond that. How will items take damage over time...Wintreath is not a RPG at the moment.

Land
When I came up with the idea I didn't actually have graphics in mind...my thinking was that it would be abstract...you would be able to see how many plots of land you had, how many buildings you had and what types, and then have options to build, buy land, etc. I'm not opposed to having graphics though if we can get people to make them.

What I've been having a hard time with though is with the substance of the system...I think that buildings need to serve some purpose to get people to by them, but on the other hand by doing so we could be driving the whole community in a new direction. If we presume people are buying land and raising buildings as nations, then we could do things like allow people to build military structures, raise armies, and fight each other, becoming a competitive nation game unto ourselves. On the other hand, if we presume people are buying land and raising buildings as individuals, we can do things like encourage people to come together to build cities, let people have businesses where they can provide services and homes to customize and store things in, and from there do things like crafting, resource gathering, etc...we would go in a more RPG route that would encourage people to develop individual characters.

I feel like if adopt this, it'll be bigger than a mini-game, and the choices we make in developing it will have an impact on how we develop as a site and a community.

Avatar/Shops
Let me ask you a question, @Chanku...so, I'm the leader of a great nation (not to mention a great region!), and I want an avatar befitting of my status...what's to stop me from getting an avatar that I think represents my character from anywhere and using it like we do now? Would we be getting rid of the forum avatars we use now? If not, where would the avatars you suggest be displayed? My concern is that to get the level of customization needed to get people interested in the system, you're going to need alot alot alot of graphics done, especially if it also competes with the general avatars we use now.

As for shops, I like the idea, but shops require things for people to sell...I can think of a few niche uses, like @Gerrick maybe having a shop for items to use in his Arena games, but I'm not sure beyond that. How will items take damage over time...Wintreath is not a RPG at the moment.

Well ideally the old system would be removed, at least for new accounts. I have a proposal I am wititng that addresses this.