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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! :D 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. :)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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, :P)
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? :P
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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.
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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:
(https://wintreath.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimgur.com%2FZDeC54X.png&hash=2eb8b8b0b08b4f0cd1cbebdc926a00a3)
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!
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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...
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I assume the most feasible way to display the land would be on one's profile.
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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.
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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.
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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. :P
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. :P
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.
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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. :P
Well ideally the old system would be removed, at least for new accounts. I have a proposal I am wititng that addresses this.
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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. :P
Well ideally the old system would be removed, at least for new accounts. I have a proposal I am wititng that addresses this.
Ah. Let me revise my statement.
I'd like to once again state my position that I currently do not see a point for a regional currency, particularly since some appear to actively harm the forum community, though if someone comes up with a compelling and useful system, I will support it.
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We could utilize it the same way Equinox used their Pokepets feature. They were displayed underneath the forum avatar. We could display these alternative avatars in the box that's beneath our avatars. Maybe it could even tie into RP somehow.
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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.
Personally, I'd prefer the latter. Or do both: where you could buy and improve lots in a city with other people; and then rather than creating a whole nation in the first, you start with a plot of land in the country, then upgrade buildings to become a hamlet/village/town, and you could then raise armies depending on buildings and settlement size. We wouldn't need detailed graphics for this, though I'm sure people would pay someone (Emoticonius) to create them for them.
We could then implement Chanku's avatar feature to be your character in all this. As others have said, though, the actual graphics for that would be difficult. Then again, it could just be abstract like the land feature, then people could pay someone to create them for them. And as Wintermoot said, I could develop a system where you can buy things for your personalized character that you can use in the Arena.
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Sure we don't need graphics for this, but that doesn't necessarily mean we can't have it. The land itself is easy to make. Here's an admittedly deformed prototype I made.
(https://wintreath.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimgur.com%2FmYzqvXX.png&hash=03192ea2306d2383d3810d9fa47d8bcb)
This too was hastily made but I can definitely get it done right.
Structures would of course take much more work but it is within the realm of possibility for us. I think we really should have graphics for it. Sure I'm no professional but I am confident that I can make great contributions to it.
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Suggestion if we do go down this path: use isometric tiles.
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Krone Implementation Plan
This document specifies how the Krone would be best implemented, along with how the Economy and it's systems should be managed. This will not include anything directly related to programming, but may include things related to how the system may be programmed or certain values to be used in the program.
Part I - Addressing Definitions
- Sink: A way for currency to be removed from the economy and thus destroyed.
- Faucet: A way for currency to enter the economy.
- Destroy: To have a given amount of currency no longer be part of the economy, thus ceasing to exist. If an individual has that amount and can spend it, it is not destroyed.
- Bank: The Wintreath Website itself and the economy system.
- Currency: A monetary unit. In this case it is the Krone.
- Currency Neutral Activity: An Activity that does not increase or decrease the supply of Krones in the economy.
Part II - Sinks and Faucets
In order to have a healthy economy, we need to have ways for the money to enter and leave the economy. In order for this we need to have sinks and faucets, and then have those sinks be meaningful while having the faucets be not too difficult to get. First let us address the easiest option, Faucets.
In my opinion, the best idea we could use is using the Gaia Online system, with some modifications. With the Gaia online system users earn Gold, their currency, as they browse, post, play games, vote in polls, participate in various events and contests, a battle system, along with random gold (or items) from a lottery-like system. In this system, we could use the posting, voting in forum polls, and events/contents. With the posting, we should remove its usage in the Spam area, as opposed to Gaia Online. Further, it should be noted, that in Gaia online posting has a diminishing return effect, where the more posts you make over a period of a day, the less money you make, with certain amounts being added back on to the amount of money you make for a longer period in between posts. This also somewhat applies to voting in polls, except it goes down each time. Events/Contests would be done later, ideally a few months after the introduction and management of the Krone. Further, posting should get more value than voting due to the fact that posting requires someone to actually respond and think.
Now, in order to curtail inflation, to prevent massive devaluation of the Krone, and to avoid hyperinflation measures must be made to remove the krone from the economy to act as a 'valve'. I propose that we, once again, borrow from Gaia online in a sense and introduce similar sinks. These are things such as shops and items, events, account changes, and inventory space. I will also be adding a small battle system into this (For more information about this See Part III - Forum Changes and Implementation and the section on the battle system). Now in order to make things like items, inventory space, and shops to be considered valuable, we must introduce a new system, which is also inspired by Gaia Online, an avatar that is customizable, but in a different way. To better understand this proposed system, see Part III - Forum Changes and Implementation. Shops would sell an item for a certain amount of gold, the item could be cosmetic or serve a function. If it serves a function, then it should be either single-use (for items such as consumables, like potions and food) or have durability (for items such as swords). Note that a function can also, ultimately, be cosmetic as well (such as a gender-change potion). With items that have durability, every day they will lose a small amount of durability, even if not in use. Items that can be in use, such as in the battle system, will lose durability based upon how it is used, and the system that uses it. For events, it could be something like Gaia Online's Save our Shops event, in which gold needed to be donated to protect the shops due to 'tax issues'. Account changes would include things like Name Changing and Changing the Gender of your Avatar (Not the gender listed on your account), which could cost a set amount of Krone to change it, although we could give one or two times free. I will also add that I think a good idea is to have things like joining guilds or registering families to cost a small, flat fee. I will be going over this a bit more in Part IV of this document.
Part III - Forum Changes and Implementation Details
Before I move on to other parts of the system and it's arguments, I'm going to go over how certain systems should be, ideally, implemented at the beginning.
Battle System
First, the Battle System. In this system a person could battle another Wintrean, or Monster. The reason why they would do this is that a small amount of gold might be awarded to a player for defeating a monster. For battling other Intrans, both players would (willingly) pay an amount of gold, and then they can battle, the winner gets some Krones, and may also get an item (such an item should be bound and cosmetic only. It must be cosmetic only if it may provide any advantage in the battle system.). Battling would be similar to what you think of in a JRPG, in players select their decision, and then they are acted upon at the same time. Items with durability would also loose a larger portion of their durability, but would be able to affect a stat. Certain Consumables may also help with this, by providing temporary buffs. There would also be a general 'stamina' stat, which would decrease with each battle and would need to be restored by eating or by waiting. Stats like Stamina, and Health, would regenerate over time (Health would regen at a faster rate than Stamina) however consumables such as certain foods would restore one of the two, or both.
Over time the battle system could grow into a larger system entirely. It should be noted this purpose is to help act as a sink primarily, in order to help remove durability items. Ideally this could also be worked into the Arena Forum Game as well.
Durability System
I will be going over how durability should work. As stated previously items that have a function in the battle system, beyond a one-time use, would have a durability, with it going down a small amount each day. Usage in the battle system would decrease its durability more, and also quicker, however it would provide a benefit within the battle system. Durable items may also have the daily durability removal be based upon how new it is, with newer items loosing less durability than those that are old. Durable items should also require to be repaired before being sold, as a way to further make this act as a sink.
Avatar System
The avatar system would, ideally, allow a small 'chibi' character that can be customized in 'parts'. As such this section is further divided into categories: Non-Item Customization, Item Customization, and Consumable Customization.
Non-Item Customization
Non-Item customizations are things that are applied upon being bought. As they are not items, they are untradable, and thus act as a sink. These items are things like Hair and Eyes are in this category. Under the category of hair it is hair styles and color, under the category of eyes it is eye shape, general expression, and eye color.
Item Customizations are simply accessories and clothing that can be used on an avatar to customize it. These are items and as such may be traded or sold by the players. They may be attached or removed at any time as well. Degradable items are also classified under this category. Most of these only affect some stats or are cosmetic only. These can be divided up into further categories, but for the sake of this document, it does not divide these categories. However, it does suggest that if Wigs are to be a thing, that they be treated similar to hats. Further it is HIGHLY suggested that Wigs are more expensive than actual hair changing, in order to make that sink more useful.
Consumable Customizations are those that are items, but upon being used are consumed for an effect. These items may be sold or traded by players. These can be things such as Gender Change Potions, or other kinds of potions. For example Gaia Online has a consumables that make you a Vampire or change your skin tone. These items act as sinks, but as minor sinks.
Shop System
The shop system is where users BUY things, users may not sell things to the stores, in order to keep the amount of Faucets lower and to add more discretion in how the economy works. Ideally there would be multiple 'shops', which would act as item categories so users can more easily find what they are looking for, however for the start of it we can just place everything in one shop, please note that from this point onwards I will be using the singular, shop, to refer to either the one shop or multiple shops that may be used. The Majority of items would need to be bought from a store, with some items being given away in contests/events ands some items may be obtained from the battle system (See the Battle System section for more information.). All the items would cost an amount of Krones, with the amount being determined by general inflation, and how easy and cheap the item should be, especially starting out. For example a plastic braclet may only cost 10 krones at the start and a diamond braclet may cost about 100 Krones at the start. At the start of this, each month inflation would be calculated and then the prices adjusted accordingly. After a year of doing this we would then only update it every six (6) months to one (1) year to keep up with the inflation. There would be no tax on shop transactions. Ideally we should also have some minor supply and demand effects here, and if something is in low demand potentially offering a sale, while if something is on high demand potentially raise the price up a little.
Trading System
The Trading system goes over things such as Gifting, Item trading, and player 'stores'. As such I've divided it up into three categories and will be addressing this in that order as well, under those categories. Also, notes this is a Currency Neutral Activity
Gifting
Gifting is basically giving the user an item or Krones, without getting something in return as part of a trade (for that see the Item Subsection.). A user would be able to either buy something from the store and give it to a user (potentially a user could also have a wish list as well), or could just send them Krones. This allows players to sell non-item goods, such as services, and still get Krones for them. This allows users to sell things such as Proof Reading Services, Legal Services, Images, and things like that, which may not have a tangible item that can be used on the avatar or in the battle system, but instead for whatever want they have. Krone sent through this system have the same tax as the tax on Krones in Item Trading (See the Item Trading Subsection), in order to prevent this from being used to bypass the Taxes on Item Trading.
Item Trading is where users trade items directly, this allows for players to trade items both have, instead of having to use Krones. This allows items themselves to have a value, however trades must be agreed upon by both players, in this system they could also use Krones as an item, however the tax should be either equal too or double the tax of the Player stores. This is to decentivize the use of Krones to circumvent the Player Store prices or the Player store taxes. This also allows some bartering and negotiation.
Player Stores are not actual, stores. Instead, a player may sell an item for a price that they choose, and it may be more than or lower than what you can get in the actual store. However, an item, upon being placed within this may be bought by anyone who can pay the cost. You can change the price as you wish, however you can not limit someone from buying it unless you remove it from sale. The items are also non-negotiable and are final as well (similar to actual stores). This is not grouped in with the actual store system as well. All transactions taking place here should have about a small tax on all sales, with a suggested tax of 2%, with it only being raised due to potential economic issues.
Also since we are ripping up the old systems and implementing new ones, we should allow the new system to be optional for members that have already signed up, potentially backdating it by a little to get people into this system already. However, make it so that once they opt-in to the new system they can not opt back out. This way people aren't forced into a system they don't want to use, however the trade off should be that name changes cost a bit more than it would on the new system, they can only earn a limited amount of Krones within a time frame, they can't use any of the new systems, and that the cap would be limited to the amount needed for a name change. If they do move to the new system, they do get to keep any Krones they have earned. This way we allow people to use the old system if they want too, while encouraging users to use the new system. Also, the cap of Krones that a person in the new system should be able to get should be limited to the highest bounds of a 32-Bit Integer, which is 2,147,483,647. The reason for this is two fold, one because it is high enough that it shouldn't be hit for a long time, and the second because it is low enough that if we ever have large masses of players needing to actually get past this, then we will probably have inflation issues at that point that we need to address.
Inventory System
With items, there needs to be something for people to hold them in, as such there needs to be an inventory system. With this, it's a simple idea everyone starts off with X amount of slots to hold all items that you have, even equipped ones. As this space is finite, there will be 'upgrades' that can be bought, which would expand the inventory by a number of slots. These upgrades are permanent, they also act as a sink in order to remove money from the Economy without having to worry about that much added value. Ideally, upgrades would get more expensive each time, with a limit. I would suggest every starts with a few slots in total, which may be upgraded later.
Part IV - Addressing Criticisms from an economic Standpoint.
I will also address the issues that have been brought up with some systems I have suggested, such as the fee for guilds and families or getting Krones by posting, in this section.
First off let me address the Fee for Guilds and Families. The cost for this should be about one post worth of Krones, or lower (ideally a bit lower). This shouldn't add too much of a disincentive to doing this, as it will be easy to recover the loss. However, to counter this and to make joining Guilds and having Families worth it, we could add incentives. For example guilds could easily give people a small amount of money for participating in guild activities or helping out with the guild. This incentivizes people to join guilds, however the money made out of this shouldn't be generated, but instead given from the guild itself. This would be done with people joining the guild, most of that money goes to the guild (with around a small portion being deducted for 'taxes'), which then can be payed out to members, this also must ONLY be available for guilds with fees, and no guild should be given any actual starting money. It should also be set at or around the fee itself. It should also be up to the guild if they charge a fee, if they get any money from the fee, and if they pay members (should they have a fee). For families, we could incorporate that into our system itself by having familial trades have a slightly lower tax than non-familial trades. However, joining and leaving families would have to be restricted and would require more lock-down in order to prevent abuse of this system.
Now to address the issue of the faucets in this system. You see, the concern arises from what most other regions do, however the issue isn't in the Faucets themselves, but the implementation of them, and the lack of sinks. Those with a concern over this faucet do, in fact, address the fact that most of the time the system have little to no meaningful sinks. However, that is one of the main issues in this. In fact for those systems meaningful sinks, which give value to people, would help alleviate those issues. However, the other issue is the exact implementation of said faucet. With the diminishing return used here, it doesn't exactly incentivize spamming, but does incentivize long, and hopefully more thoughtful, posts. This way, people not only are more likely to participate in discussions, but are more likely to contribute to those discussions. This also prevents the Krone from being too scarce, but also helps slow down inflation and helps prevent hyperinflation. We need to keep in mind that a leaky faucet can help cause, or speed, inflation up, however it is the lack of a drain that works which causes it to eventually overflow into economic devaluation and hyperinflation. We also should keep in mind inflation of around 2-4% is considered stable and good for the economy, so it is inflation greater than that, which causes economic issues.
Part V - Addressing the other proposals
Now, I do wish to address some other proposals for the implementation. This will mainly go over faucet implementations.
A suggestion has been to avoid giving Krones out for posting and the like, but instead have it through creating topics and having people respond to topics. This isn't necessarily a good idea, because you aren't giving incentive for people to actually post a response to threads, nor are you incentivizing good posts. You are, however directly incentivizing people paying those to respond to their topics and more spammy responses. You are also encouraging the creation of low-value and more short-lived topics which fragments some discussions and the like. Further there is the issue of how do you handle split topics and discussions, and how that is handled within this system. You also make Krones too scarce, and may cause over-valuation or the formation of a bubble to form. It would also be harder to hit a target inflation rate, make the economy grow slower than it should, and would inevitably create a large wealth gap between new and old people, and those who post more topics and the like, and those that lurk more.
Another suggestion has been to give payment out to government officials and those who do extra work, is nice. However only doing this only makes it too scarce, and doing it in addition to the above only makes it harder for new people to get involved and find their niche. This has an effect to where there will, once again, be a difference between new users and old ones, which will only grow more over time. This gap will ultimately decentivize people from participating in any case.
A final idea I will touch upon, aside from something I haven't already addressed above, is that is to give money to government officials as a payment. Again, there is the issue of it being too scarce and over-valuation with this being the only form of faucet. When combined with the above, it may make it slightly more distributed, however we still need to keep in mind that Wintreath is, largely, a meritocracy, meaning that ultimately money will mainly go to those at the top, and less will go to those at the bottom. Older users will have an advantage, as they are more likely to be government workers in higher positions and also have lower positions as well. Even if lower positions are opened up deliberately for new users, it will still be lower paying positions, thus meaning that the older users, who already know what they like to do and already have proven themselves, will more than likely still get more money. When combined with the above system, you risk over inflation and having too many faucets. Further, early in the system, we need the money to get to people first, and then we can look at adding more ways to earn, without affecting the economy or inflation too much.
Part VI - How this should be rolled out
This should be rolled out at once, however certain things could be teased before they are released. In addition to this we should focus on getting the systems in place first, and then get the art in place prior to release. It doesn't matter if the art is done days before, or a few hours before release. What does matter is that the system works and can handle things being added to it on a semi-regular basis.
Also, for things like the decrease on getting Krones through posting and voting, it should not go below zero, ever. Doing so will disincentivize posting. I will note that this will take a bit of time, and a lot of effort. However, in order to create a robust, stable, and functioning economy, one that is unlike anything else any region in NationStates has, we need to be willing to put this forward. I know I am asking for a lot, however we don't need to do anything super big either. Everything can be minimalistic as we tweak things and fix things. So long as they are implemented in an ideal fashion, we can build upon these systems later.
Part VII - On the Economy, Politics, and the Storting
I felt like I should go over this topic briefly, in order to discuss this and get this point out of the way. Please note this is not about the economics or implementation itself, more so it's about the political side of things.
At this time I recommend keeping this away from the Storting/Underhusen or any elected member of Government. We do not need to introduce politicization, insecurity, and popular will to the system until later on, if ever. Further, allowing the Storting to get say over important things this early in the development then it threatens the existence and stability of the economy we are planning. It will increase politicization as well, something we are not too keen on doing. I also highly suggest keeping decisions away from the Government in general, as having it is more administrative than governmental. However, I do suggest creating a Ministry of Economics in order to help manage the economy and provide suggestions. This will allow for someone, who knows what they are doing, to better manage and recommend changes and improvements, while not allowing them from going overboard.
Part VIII - Ending Arguments
The systems I have proposed here are non-exclusive and may be implemented with other ideas. However, interactions between them must be considered. Adding new Faucets or sinks must be considered and looked at from the question about how they will potentially affect the economy, especially if the economy is stable. This is not an all-or-nothing proposal either, you may choose what systems you want and don't want. However, be careful in doing so, I have created this with the idea that it will be all balanced, and removing or changing a sink or faucet could have drastic effects on the economy in the future. We must remember that we are not only implementing a currency, but creating an economy, and in order for this to work we must do work, we must look at potential interactions and look at this through the lens of economics. Failing to do so will lead to the failure of our economy before it begins. I have attempted to do just that in this proposal. This proposal is not perfect, but it is the best that I believe will work, with the most minimal amount of effort. Rome was not built in a day, and neither will our economy, our working economy.
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Interesting and thought-provoking plan, Chanku. I have one question, though: by "Name Changing," are you suggesting changing the name of your RP character, or your username?
Still, I don't see the need for a Wintrean currency or working economy, and as such I'm not sure it'd be worth the effort involved. I do like your point that something on this level would be unprecedented, though, and consequently I might be able to get behind something similar to this plan, if only because it's interesting.
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Since Chanku keeps bringing it up and insisting that we borrow from it, I'd like to actually encourage people to check out Gaia Online (http://www.gaiaonline.com) to see what exactly he's proposing.
The Avatar he's referring to is a character that you create when you join. You decide the hair and eye color and style (from a set list of starter styles) as well as the skin color and gender. As he mentions, it replaces the typical avatar, so every time you'll post, you'll see your character where a normal avatar would be. As per later updates, you also get to choose a starter set of clothes to wear (compared to the older version that only allowed peasant starter clothes).
As he stated, you can post around, play games, make topics, participate in events/Avatar contests, or play the Marketplace game to earn yourself gold. It's essentially a massive messageboard with other features that has gained a huge mass of members (total and active) since its inception.
Likewise, you can buy clothes/items from the shops or marketplace, buy the right to change your username (it increases in price every time you want to change your name), use the gold for "gambling" or as an entry fee to those same contests/events, setting up a guild, and other features.
Now...
*puts on logic cap*
There's several things wrong here, that won't/don't translate ideally for Wintreath.
1) As I stated before, Gaia actually has a TEAM of designers for their items. Everything that is released (especially the evolving/multi use items) are carefully made by artists. These artists are actually paid (and not in Gaia gold, but actual money) for their creations...after all, art, even little item customizations, take quite a bit of time...and you're not really going to find many people that dedicated without some kind of actual incentive behind it. As we stand right now, the best we can do is steal others' work and use it for our own, which is something I wouldn't support. We can also go the simple route and make crude bits and pieces...but if we don't go balls to the wall with it and make it WOW worthy, then it's not something people are really going to get into.
2) Again, as I mentioned, Gaia's economy is far from perfect. In fact, inflation has been so terrible that its essentially fallen on it's head. They've had to release more and more versions of the same items just to bring down the outrageously high prices for "legendary" items such as the Angelic Halo and Demon Horns (which amusingly, they try to counter by jacking the price of those items up by making them super rare items that you may get from a chance item that you buy with cash/from the marketplace)...but even then prices have still skyrocketed through the roof from people making bank from the Marketplace. As I mentioned, in its early stages, you'd get a simple 25-50 for making a post, and it'd go down each time per post. I just made a second post on there, and went from 967,204,678 gold to 967,212,556. That's 7,878 gold...and that's my second post. A third post? 8,612 gold. Here's things to keep in mind: It's not descending anymore, but set on a random amount in that area. All three of those posts were one word posts. So someone could do that for 3 posts (or even just an emoticon) and earn that much per post...keeping in mind that in 2005, again, you'd start with at most 50 with a descending amount per post, with you at most earning 25 per post after a set amount.
And that's just posting around the forums. Items have had to increase in price to meet that change, with items that were 300 gold now costing 3,000,000, some common items even hitting the billion marker. Legendary items (which normally ranged from the triple thousand to millions range because of their age and rarity) now figure into the trillion gold range (some even hitting the triple digits in the trillions).
In short, it's increased dramatically...and this is after starter sets and animated items were introduced.
3) by "later" real money options were introduced 4 months after its inception, in the form of the still-existing Monthly Collectibles. Ideally it was taking the place of what Wintreath's donations area is for...but again you're talking G.O has to cover not only site costs...but also paying its artists and other staff, so there was a bit of incentive there to make it much more appealing so that a mass amount of people would "donate."
4) Again, one reason this even works for G.O is their massive user base. It also has a massive list of active users, and even in its older days had no problems with activity. Heck, to give an idea today, here's what you're looking at:
Who is Online? - 12016 users. (7503 visible, 1899 hidden, 2614 guests).
Gaia has 2,338,072,348 articles posted with 29,679,225 registered users.
Most users ever online was 532,396 on Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:40 am
Note the underlined. 12016 users currently online, and 7503 are visible members, with 1899 others that are hidden. The GD (general discussion forum) has threads galore every minute, and new posts ranging within 5 seconds to (at most depending on the time of day) 10-15 minutes apart.
That's powerhouse activity, and that's activity that can risk the system that it has, because of its massive active user base.
Now there's the downside to that: Gaia Online is absolutely riddled with trolls, flamers, and spammers. It doesn't matter the area, because they're everywhere. It's highly common to see threads that mean absolutely nothing in a forum that asks for something meaningful. It's also not uncommon to see picdrops (either known as posting signature pics (which are normally of the user behind the name) of users...spamming pics of a certain theme (ranging from innocent to bestiality to gore), or spamming the same pic of something many MANY times), namedrops (usually tied with picdrops of user), trolls saying stupid things to get people upset, people in groups causing chaos (see the Flying Pump family, etc...), banned people making multiple dummy accounts to continue causing trouble since Gaia doesn't IP ban, and other such things.
EDIT: I'll also note that this isn't some new problem from the recent years, as Gaia Online even had this problem back in 2005. Even when I first joined (February 10th, 2005...just slightly less than 2 years after its inception), threads/posts that nature were prevalent in the GD (the known "cesspool" of bad activity). The only thing that's changed is that it's spread out to other areas.
5) Finally, games and the like take massive amounts of time...again, unless we rip off games that already exist or use the set ones given freely by the people who run the site that this board is based off of. Also, going in this route we'd most likely have to completely redesign the site itself, something Wintermoot would have to sit down and work on (I'd say with a team, but as difficult as it's been getting the cabinet to even function fluidly, it'd most likely just be Moot and Gerrick and a couple of others)...something I doubt he's even going to consider until our activity levels increase dramatically to even warrant such a huge change.
So it's great to want to emulate a system and make it our own...but rather than looking only at the big picture, look at the little cracks as well and ask yourself if we want those cracks in Wintreath.
We can implement the Krone without having to copy another site...and doing such will only make people wonder why they shouldn't just go to the site that did it first and did it successfully instead of staying here.
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I'll respond to the criticisms and questions that have been leveled here.
1) As I stated before, Gaia actually has a TEAM of designers for their items. Everything that is released (especially the evolving/multi use items) are carefully made by artists. These artists are actually paid (and not in Gaia gold, but actual money) for their creations...after all, art, even little item customizations, take quite a bit of time...and you're not really going to find many people that dedicated without some kind of actual incentive behind it. As we stand right now, the best we can do is steal others' work and use it for our own, which is something I wouldn't support. We can also go the simple route and make crude bits and pieces...but if we don't go balls to the wall with it and make it WOW worthy, then it's not something people are really going to get into.
2) Again, as I mentioned, Gaia's economy is far from perfect. In fact, inflation has been so terrible that its essentially fallen on it's head. They've had to release more and more versions of the same items just to bring down the outrageously high prices for "legendary" items such as the Angelic Halo and Demon Horns (which amusingly, they try to counter by jacking the price of those items up by making them super rare items that you may get from a chance item that you buy with cash/from the marketplace)...but even then prices have still skyrocketed through the roof from people making bank from the Marketplace. As I mentioned, in its early stages, you'd get a simple 25-50 for making a post, and it'd go down each time per post. I just made a second post on there, and went from 967,204,678 gold to 967,212,556. That's 7,878 gold...and that's my second post. A third post? 8,612 gold. Here's things to keep in mind: It's not descending anymore, but set on a random amount in that area. All three of those posts were one word posts. So someone could do that for 3 posts (or even just an emoticon) and earn that much per post...keeping in mind that in 2005, again, you'd start with at most 50 with a descending amount per post, with you at most earning 25 per post after a set amount.
And that's just posting around the forums. Items have had to increase in price to meet that change, with items that were 300 gold now costing 3,000,000, some common items even hitting the billion marker. Legendary items (which normally ranged from the triple thousand to millions range because of their age and rarity) now figure into the trillion gold range (some even hitting the triple digits in the trillions).
In short, it's increased dramatically...and this is after starter sets and animated items were introduced.
First off, on the posting thing, I would support there eventually being about 0 to 1 Krones after a certain point, for each posts. I also never said Gaia Online was, or is, perfect. Further it seems you are conflating the actual hyperinflation causes (which most of the things that show up, if you simply do something like: "Gaia Online Hyperinflation" on google will show pages that state that it's connected due to the gold generators. You can read more about the gold generation and hyperinflation here (https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/2f5vn9/a_case_of_hyperinflation_in_a_virtual_economy/). Well anyone can really.
3) by "later" real money options were introduced 4 months after its inception, in the form of the still-existing Monthly Collectibles. Ideally it was taking the place of what Wintreath's donations area is for...but again you're talking G.O has to cover not only site costs...but also paying its artists and other staff, so there was a bit of incentive there to make it much more appealing so that a mass amount of people would "donate."
Which we don't necessarily need to do. We have artists that are willing to help out and participate. Also, while this section is missing from my proposal, I wouldn't be opposed to a small amount of Krones for donations, albeit the amount you get would be capped at a certain amount, to avoid hyperinflation.
4) Again, one reason this even works for G.O is their massive user base. It also has a massive list of active users, and even in its older days had no problems with activity. Heck, to give an idea today, here's what you're looking at:
Who is Online? - 12016 users. (7503 visible, 1899 hidden, 2614 guests).
Gaia has 2,338,072,348 articles posted with 29,679,225 registered users.
Most users ever online was 532,396 on Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:40 am
Note the underlined. 12016 users currently online, and 7503 are visible members, with 1899 others that are hidden. The GD (general discussion forum) has threads galore every minute, and new posts ranging within 5 seconds to (at most depending on the time of day) 10-15 minutes apart.
That's powerhouse activity, and that's activity that can risk the system that it has, because of its massive active user base.
Which, do you honestly think it had this amount of users at it's inception? I'd wager that no, it didn't.
Now there's the downside to that: Gaia Online is absolutely riddled with trolls, flamers, and spammers. It doesn't matter the area, because they're everywhere. It's highly common to see threads that mean absolutely nothing in a forum that asks for something meaningful. It's also not uncommon to see picdrops (either known as posting signature pics (which are normally of the user behind the name) of users...spamming pics of a certain theme (ranging from innocent to bestiality to gore), or spamming the same pic of something many MANY times), namedrops (usually tied with picdrops of user), trolls saying stupid things to get people upset, people in groups causing chaos (see the Flying Pump family, etc...), banned people making multiple dummy accounts to continue causing trouble since Gaia doesn't IP ban, and other such things.
Which is an issue that affects most large forums at some point, especially with public registrations. This has even occurred to a smaller forum I was apart of that, at the time, was smaller than Wintreath is today!
This is something we will have to deal with at some point. However this isn't relevant to the discussion of an economic system at hand. Again I suggested borrowing from them, they aren't the end-all-be-all, however they do act as an example of what we can do with the systems that they use, and tweak and refine it. They are an example that we need to consider, as they have successfully pulled it off. It is, however, on us to improve on those systems where possible. Also some of these are administrative issues as well, which isn't necessarily apart of Wintreath's system.
5) Finally, games and the like take massive amounts of time...again, unless we rip off games that already exist or use the set ones given freely by the people who run the site that this board is based off of. Also, going in this route we'd most likely have to completely redesign the site itself, something Wintermoot would have to sit down and work on (I'd say with a team, but as difficult as it's been getting the cabinet to even function fluidly, it'd most likely just be Moot and Gerrick and a couple of others)...something I doubt he's even going to consider until our activity levels increase dramatically to even warrant such a huge change.
You are talking as if I haven't made games before, so I know the amount of work that goes into making something as simple as my first 'game', which was a simple TBS with only 3 unit types, a small board, and 9 units per team...with each unit getting one action. So I know how hard it would be. However the only game I have suggested is the Battle System, which doesn't need to be overly complex and, in fact, I have created it to be rather minimal at that. Further I recognize this will take a lot of work, in fact I addressed that in my proposal itself (to me, it seems like you stopped reading after skimming over Part II, or at least if you did you skipped a good portion on this itself, where I address it directly in the proposal, in terms of the games. In terms of the work I addressed it in several places, notably the conclusion).
However he wants to implement the currency right, which this more than likely will. It may very well drive up activity more too. It is a gamble, however it is one that is worth paying in my opinion.
So it's great to want to emulate a system and make it our own...but rather than looking only at the big picture, look at the little cracks as well and ask yourself if we want those cracks in Wintreath.
Yes, and I want to borrow from a working system and refine it to better suit us. However many of those cracks that you mentioned are either too generic to even be considered a Gaia Online specific issue or is not all that hard to solve. You have also, in some of the points, acted in a way that seems to mislead people. An example of this is in the hyper-inflation issue. The 4th Issue, you act like it's a Gaia Specific issue, but it's a bunch of different systems or issues, which my proposal doesn't even borrow or have. You mention the re-registration issue, but I've had that occur on a forum I was apart of that was smaller than this one, so it is a person issue there, and we can't really do shit about that. The lack of IP Bans is an administrative issue, which I don't touch upon here at all. The spam can be countered by having reported (and verified) spam posts (or found spam posts) could cost the user the amount they made, plus a fee of some sort.
We can implement the Krone without having to copy another site...and doing such will only make people wonder why they shouldn't just go to the site that did it first and did it successfully instead of staying here.
Yes, we can implement the krone without having to copy another site, however by not, at the very least, looking at sites that have done it successfully, then we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes and repeat them over and over again. Further Wintreath is more than it's systems, it is it's community. It also depends on which implementation is better as well. I also wish to leave us with this quote, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." Just like Bill Gates stole the tech things for Windows from Apple, we could do something similar. Obviously we should take what they have and improve upon it and make it our own, again, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." ~ Steve Jobs/Bill Gates, Pirates of Silicon Valley.
Now to address TauloverInteresting and thought-provoking plan, Chanku. I have one question, though: by "Name Changing," are you suggesting changing the name of your RP character, or your username?
Ideally it would be Username itself, however it could be the name of the RP character, depending upon the implementation details.
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First off, on the posting thing, I would support there eventually being about 0 to 1 Krones after a certain point, for each posts. I also never said Gaia Online was, or is, perfect. Further it seems you are conflating the actual hyperinflation causes (which most of the things that show up, if you simply do something like: "Gaia Online Hyperinflation" on google will show pages that state that it's connected due to the gold generators. You can read more about the gold generation and hyperinflation here (https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/2f5vn9/a_case_of_hyperinflation_in_a_virtual_economy/). Well anyone can really.
"Googling" it and actually watching it happen are two different entireties, Chanku. Anyone can google anything, but actually being there and watching it happen is something else entirely. Yes, obviously adding more "faucets" and putting more gold into "circulation" (as someone puts it) is going to be a big factor in hyperinflation...but what's going to be the reason they even do would do that in the first place? The Marketplace. The higher the prices for items, especially the rare ones, the more members complain when they can't get them. When you've got an item for 30,000,000 gold being waved at you and you only make 25-50 gold per post, you resort to other methods to get that gold if you really want that item. Games don't reward enough, so you jump into the marketplace game and charge outrageously high prices in hopes that you'll get that item. However, only certain people are even making a profit, because many of the items are cheap, so you have those same members complaining that it's unrealistic to even get that item.
So the developers respond by adding more gold opportunities, bumping up the price-per-post a bit, and adding more items a bit more rounded in price.
But then those higher priced items are taken away from the shops (see Monthly collectibles after a period of time, or finished evolving items after a period of time), and users that own that item decide to bump up the price of those. Those same rare items are bumped up in price to meet with those new gold generators, and likewise those new "rare" items find the same treatment.
And the cycle repeats. The hyperinflation may on the surface be due to the gold generators, but it's definitely not the underlying cause. The cause is most definitely the people taking advantage of the Marketplace.
3) by "later" real money options were introduced 4 months after its inception, in the form of the still-existing Monthly Collectibles. Ideally it was taking the place of what Wintreath's donations area is for...but again you're talking G.O has to cover not only site costs...but also paying its artists and other staff, so there was a bit of incentive there to make it much more appealing so that a mass amount of people would "donate."
Which we don't necessarily need to do. We have artists that are willing to help out and participate. Also, while this section is missing from my proposal, I wouldn't be opposed to a small amount of Krones for donations, albeit the amount you get would be capped at a certain amount, to avoid hyperinflation.
And how long are those artists going to be willing to "help out" for free? After a bit, they're going to get burned out and decide they don't want to help out anymore. Making art is nice, but in this capacity it would become a chore after a while unless they had more of an actual incentive to continue with it.
4) Again, one reason this even works for G.O is their massive user base. It also has a massive list of active users, and even in its older days had no problems with activity. Heck, to give an idea today, here's what you're looking at:
Who is Online? - 12016 users. (7503 visible, 1899 hidden, 2614 guests).
Gaia has 2,338,072,348 articles posted with 29,679,225 registered users.
Most users ever online was 532,396 on Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:40 am
Note the underlined. 12016 users currently online, and 7503 are visible members, with 1899 others that are hidden. The GD (general discussion forum) has threads galore every minute, and new posts ranging within 5 seconds to (at most depending on the time of day) 10-15 minutes apart.
That's powerhouse activity, and that's activity that can risk the system that it has, because of its massive active user base.
Which, do you honestly think it had this amount of users at it's inception? I'd wager that no, it didn't.
You're missing the main point here: G.O has never had our issue with activity. Even in its inception, it was an active messageboard despite how little of users it may have had. To give a similar example, 10KI is a large forum now, and it's always bustling with activity, even during the slow seasons. The size of it when it began is irrelevant because its level of activity hasn't changed since it was created. We have over 1000 members, and not even 1/8th of those members are active members, let alone active daily. We're lucky if we have even 20 members that are active daily, with really only a handful of areas getting that daily activity. G.O has nearly 30 million total members since its inception almost 14 years ago, and it still manages at least 10K active members a day.
Now there's the downside to that: Gaia Online is absolutely riddled with trolls, flamers, and spammers. It doesn't matter the area, because they're everywhere. It's highly common to see threads that mean absolutely nothing in a forum that asks for something meaningful. It's also not uncommon to see picdrops (either known as posting signature pics (which are normally of the user behind the name) of users...spamming pics of a certain theme (ranging from innocent to bestiality to gore), or spamming the same pic of something many MANY times), namedrops (usually tied with picdrops of user), trolls saying stupid things to get people upset, people in groups causing chaos (see the Flying Pump family, etc...), banned people making multiple dummy accounts to continue causing trouble since Gaia doesn't IP ban, and other such things.
Which is an issue that affects most large forums at some point, especially with public registrations. This has even occurred to a smaller forum I was apart of that, at the time, was smaller than Wintreath is today!
This is something we will have to deal with at some point. However this isn't relevant to the discussion of an economic system at hand. Again I suggested borrowing from them, they aren't the end-all-be-all, however they do act as an example of what we can do with the systems that they use, and tweak and refine it. They are an example that we need to consider, as they have successfully pulled it off. It is, however, on us to improve on those systems where possible. Also some of these are administrative issues as well, which isn't necessarily apart of Wintreath's system.
This is entirely relevant because of what kind of messageboard we want to be. We want to be an open and welcoming place to the people that come here. The last thing we want to do is chuck our ideals out of the window just to get a similar influx of activity like G.O.
You're talking about introducing things that would change how Wintreath would even function, and you yourself just stated that what I mentioned is an example of things we need to consider moving forward, so yes...it's relevant. If we're going to go with something that may alter Wintreath's dynamics, it's highly important that we look at everything related...including the simple little tidbits such as this.
5) Finally, games and the like take massive amounts of time...again, unless we rip off games that already exist or use the set ones given freely by the people who run the site that this board is based off of. Also, going in this route we'd most likely have to completely redesign the site itself, something Wintermoot would have to sit down and work on (I'd say with a team, but as difficult as it's been getting the cabinet to even function fluidly, it'd most likely just be Moot and Gerrick and a couple of others)...something I doubt he's even going to consider until our activity levels increase dramatically to even warrant such a huge change.
You are talking as if I haven't made games before, so I know the amount of work that goes into making something as simple as my first 'game', which was a simple TBS with only 3 unit types, a small board, and 9 units per team...with each unit getting one action. So I know how hard it would be. However the only game I have suggested is the Battle System, which doesn't need to be overly complex and, in fact, I have created it to be rather minimal at that. Further I recognize this will take a lot of work, in fact I addressed that in my proposal itself (to me, it seems like you stopped reading after skimming over Part II, or at least if you did you skipped a good portion on this itself, where I address it directly in the proposal, in terms of the games. In terms of the work I addressed it in several places, notably the conclusion).
However he wants to implement the currency right, which this more than likely will. It may very well drive up activity more too. It is a gamble, however it is one that is worth paying in my opinion.
I'm not talking about just the games, I'm talking about all of it. The games, the avatar system, altering the site itself to fit these new changes appropriately. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, and a team of people willing to sit down and utilize that time while balancing their own lifestyles. Remember Chanku, there's jobs and school, plus social lives that people have to deal with. Once again, you're thinking that people are going to jump at the chance to juggle all of that plus adding more workloads onto that to add features on a gamble just because one site pulled it off (but as you even said, is experiencing hyperinflation...the ONE thing Wintermoot doesn't want to happen). It's something that may take months to actually work and implement, and that's a big gamble to think that those same people (for something that has been discussed for well over a year, dare I almost say nearly 2) will even invest such time into that.
So it's great to want to emulate a system and make it our own...but rather than looking only at the big picture, look at the little cracks as well and ask yourself if we want those cracks in Wintreath.
Yes, and I want to borrow from a working system and refine it to better suit us. However many of those cracks that you mentioned are either too generic to even be considered a Gaia Online specific issue or is not all that hard to solve. You have also, in some of the points, acted in a way that seems to mislead people. An example of this is in the hyper-inflation issue. The 4th Issue, you act like it's a Gaia Specific issue, but it's a bunch of different systems or issues, which my proposal doesn't even borrow or have. You mention the re-registration issue, but I've had that occur on a forum I was apart of that was smaller than this one, so it is a person issue there, and we can't really do shit about that. The lack of IP Bans is an administrative issue, which I don't touch upon here at all. The spam can be countered by having reported (and verified) spam posts (or found spam posts) could cost the user the amount they made, plus a fee of some sort.
Generic, maybe, but again it's a problem nonetheless which we would have to decide which way to go. Do we brush it off like G.O does and occasionally delete posts? Do we become like 10KI where we put the ban hammer down on someone that even has a name that we don't like? There really is no middle ground to it because it's going to go either direction no matter what. We'd either become another messageboard with a mod police force that bans right and left (which I don't agree with), or we'd become a messageboard overrun by trolls and flamers that we can't control because there's too much activity to ever catch them all. You can report all you want (it's done all the time on G.O), but you'd have to rely on the mods catching up if the list of reported posts is never-ending...and that's if they decide they even care about it after a certain point.
We can implement the Krone without having to copy another site...and doing such will only make people wonder why they shouldn't just go to the site that did it first and did it successfully instead of staying here.
Yes, we can implement the krone without having to copy another site, however by not, at the very least, looking at sites that have done it successfully, then we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes and repeat them over and over again. Further Wintreath is more than it's systems, it is it's community. It also depends on which implementation is better as well. I also wish to leave us with this quote, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." Just like Bill Gates stole the tech things for Windows from Apple, we could do something similar. Obviously we should take what they have and improve upon it and make it our own, again, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." ~ Steve Jobs/Bill Gates, Pirates of Silicon Valley.
So...rather than being original, you're actually advocating that we steal from other places because they're successful. Gotcha. I'd rather our success be from being original and different from other places...not just because we literally copied a system from somewhere else and "refined" it. Why be the Apple or Windows guy that steal and backstab each other all the time when you can be the Linux guy that goes their own way and still garners a large follwing?
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I can definitely get behind the idea that whatever system we implement, it should be of our own making.
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"Googling" it and actually watching it happen are two different entireties, Chanku. Anyone can google anything, but actually being there and watching it happen is something else entirely. Yes, obviously adding more "faucets" and putting more gold into "circulation" (as someone puts it) is going to be a big factor in hyperinflation...but what's going to be the reason they even do would do that in the first place? The Marketplace. The higher the prices for items, especially the rare ones, the more members complain when they can't get them. When you've got an item for 30,000,000 gold being waved at you and you only make 25-50 gold per post, you resort to other methods to get that gold if you really want that item. Games don't reward enough, so you jump into the marketplace game and charge outrageously high prices in hopes that you'll get that item. However, only certain people are even making a profit, because many of the items are cheap, so you have those same members complaining that it's unrealistic to even get that item.
So the developers respond by adding more gold opportunities, bumping up the price-per-post a bit, and adding more items a bit more rounded in price.
Then it wasn't a systems issue, it was a developer issue. They made a stupid decision and that happened. However I was also there too Pengu, you seem to think that I wasn't around, I was.
But then those higher priced items are taken away from the shops (see Monthly collectibles after a period of time, or finished evolving items after a period of time), and users that own that item decide to bump up the price of those. Those same rare items are bumped up in price to meet with those new gold generators, and likewise those new "rare" items find the same treatment.
Then, you know, don't have fucking gold generators.
And the cycle repeats. The hyperinflation may on the surface be due to the gold generators, but it's definitely not the underlying cause. The cause is most definitely the people taking advantage of the Marketplace.
No, no, and no. It was due to the gold generators. Remove the Gold Generators and maybe add in some more sensible faucets, and boom, you don't have fucking hyperinflation.
And how long are those artists going to be willing to "help out" for free? After a bit, they're going to get burned out and decide they don't want to help out anymore. Making art is nice, but in this capacity it would become a chore after a while unless they had more of an actual incentive to continue with it.
Hopefully by that point, we might be able to afford artists or we would have new ones.
You're missing the main point here: G.O has never had our issue with activity. Even in its inception, it was an active messageboard despite how little of users it may have had. To give a similar example, 10KI is a large forum now, and it's always bustling with activity, even during the slow seasons. The size of it when it began is irrelevant because its level of activity hasn't changed since it was created. We have over 1000 members, and not even 1/8th of those members are active members, let alone active daily. We're lucky if we have even 20 members that are active daily, with really only a handful of areas getting that daily activity. G.O has nearly 30 million total members since its inception almost 14 years ago, and it still manages at least 10K active members a day.
Well you also have to consider that Forums are less popular today than they used to be, along with the fact that Wintreath is rather isolationist in NS and barely has a GP presence doesn't help either.
We haven't even started large expansion efforts past NS (which I have issues with, I do believe Wintreath should remain a region first, but what do I know? I'm just a stupid child, now aren't I?). Also, keep in mind that Gaia Online has a posting and participation incentive as well. We don't.
This is entirely relevant because of what kind of messageboard we want to be. We want to be an open and welcoming place to the people that come here. The last thing we want to do is chuck our ideals out of the window just to get a similar influx of activity like G.O.
You're talking about introducing things that would change how Wintreath would even function, and you yourself just stated that what I mentioned is an example of things we need to consider moving forward, so yes...it's relevant. If we're going to go with something that may alter Wintreath's dynamics, it's highly important that we look at everything related...including the simple little tidbits such as this.
Even if we don't change anything technically on the board, but focus on expansion efforts outside of NS, we are going to change how Wintreath would function. Expanding WILL change Wintreath's dynamics, and expanding will bring these issues here, regardless of HOW we implement it. It seems your personal dislike of me and my ideas is getting in the way of your judgment. It's irrelevant because it's an issue to large forums, or in some cases all forums, period. It does not necessarily matter what system we implement which causes the growth, because doing so will cause us to have to deal with them anyway. The only reason why we haven't yet, is more than likely, because NS regions are more restricted than others.
I'm not talking about just the games, I'm talking about all of it. The games, the avatar system, altering the site itself to fit these new changes appropriately. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, and a team of people willing to sit down and utilize that time while balancing their own lifestyles. Remember Chanku, there's jobs and school, plus social lives that people have to deal with. Once again, you're thinking that people are going to jump at the chance to juggle all of that plus adding more workloads onto that to add features on a gamble just because one site pulled it off (but as you even said, is experiencing hyperinflation...the ONE thing Wintermoot doesn't want to happen). It's something that may take months to actually work and implement, and that's a big gamble to think that those same people (for something that has been discussed for well over a year, dare I almost say nearly 2) will even invest such time into that.
If he wants to do it right, then he will. Otherwise he would have just gone ahead and implemented something, no? I would also argue my idea has less changes than some of the other ideas proposed here, and my proposal is the most complete as well.
Further the hyperinflation is, again, because of the stupid decision to add in Gold Generators.
Generic, maybe, but again it's a problem nonetheless which we would have to decide which way to go. Do we brush it off like G.O does and occasionally delete posts? Do we become like 10KI where we put the ban hammer down on someone that even has a name that we don't like? There really is no middle ground to it because it's going to go either direction no matter what. We'd either become another messageboard with a mod police force that bans right and left (which I don't agree with), or we'd become a messageboard overrun by trolls and flamers that we can't control because there's too much activity to ever catch them all. You can report all you want (it's done all the time on G.O), but you'd have to rely on the mods catching up if the list of reported posts is never-ending...and that's if they decide they even care about it after a certain point.
*blows whistle* Logical Fallacy, Black of White (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white) Fallacy, 10 point penalty.
This is very, very, untrue Pengu, and we both know it. Moderation is an issue for large forums, yes, however it will always be an issue. As Wintermoot wishes to expand the region, this will be something we will have to address regardless of what we end up doing eventually. Even if we don't implement this system because of this, all we are doing is shooting ourselves in one foot and then kicking the can down the road. There are other options though, there are shades of gray in this. Whether or not you wish to admit it, we both know it is true.
So...rather than being original, you're actually advocating that we steal from other places because they're successful. Gotcha. I'd rather our success be from being original and different from other places...not just because we literally copied a system from somewhere else and "refined" it. Why be the Apple or Windows guy that steal and backstab each other all the time when you can be the Linux guy that goes their own way and still garners a large follwing?
You mean Linus? He didn't really go his own way...he stole the UNIX and System V (I think...AKA Sys V/SysV) design for the kernel initially. In fact a lot of the early code (from what I can recall) seemed to be heavily based from Sys V UNIX. Linus did little new in his Kernel when it first released, in all actually. However over time it diverged and grew. It became it's own thing. There is nothing wrong with using ideas that are proven to be good, and then refining them and making them better.
Remember Pengu, few original successes were truly original and few original ideas are rarely successes. After all, 90% of all start-ups fail, and I guarantee you that a good portion of those were original. If you want original success, then that's fine, however you are gambling much more than with my system, you are asking for much more blind luck than with my system. Because at least it's based off of something that is proven to work. Besides, I'm the only one that has written a proposal that's as detailed as mine, and I'm the only proposal as fleshed out, and again, I'm the only proposal that's backed by actual proof of success.
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but what do I know? I'm just a stupid child, now aren't I?
It seems your personal dislike of me and my ideas is getting in the way of your judgment.
Okay, seriously? What the fuck Chanku? I'm not even going to respond to your post entirely because those right there are just messed up.
When did I EVER give you the impression that I actually disliked you?
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but what do I know? I'm just a stupid child, now aren't I?
It seems your personal dislike of me and my ideas is getting in the way of your judgment.
Okay, seriously? What the fuck Chanku? I'm not even going to respond to your post entirely because those right there are just messed up.
When did I EVER give you the impression that I actually disliked you?
Some of the ways you have acted towards me in the past...either that or I'm so tired I've ventured into sleep-drunkenness...or I'm on something...it's a combination of these. -shrugs- Or it could be that I'm just so tired I've started to read to far into your actions...and as I was typing this...it seems I mixed you up a bit with some other people...I do apologize, I fucked up badly...I really should go to sleep >.> <.<
On a side note, why do I keep late-night-sleep-deprevation-post? IT NEVER WORKS OUT FOR ME (alright well that one time it did...but that's an outlier).
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I do not like this. Not at all.
I made a promise to myself about staying out of YouTube comment wars or pointless politics here or any other communities I am in, but I feel I have to say something here.
Chanku, you've put a lot of thought and work into this, but my suggestion is if you want to make a Gaia clone then make your own site yourself. I don't like those kinds of games anymore, I come here for community, my friends, ect. This isn't really a game, sure NS is but not Wintreath, if you get what I mean?
I find this discussion here has just completely devolved and I really don't like it.
I agree with Pengu on a lot of what he said, and I also played Gaia online, about 7 years ago. If I wanted to play Gaia or any of its countless clones I would, but I don't, I don't like them anymore.
So I have to say just, no. To this. I find it ridiculous to try to turn our message board into this, the massive amount of time and work it would take, and that even after all of that I doubt it would even increase activity that much, I know I for one would probably just leave.
Gaia online was one of the first of its kind and the creators worked full time on it, now they have a team of roughly 100 full time, well paid employees, in an actual office... We have about 3 people who can maybe commit some of their time to this and we don't even know if they would.
This has nothing to with drama or anything. And your idea isn't "bad" it's just impractical and needless here to a ridiculous extent. Which is why I suggest if you want to make a Gaia clone, try it yourself.
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For the record my idea wasn't necessarily a full on RPG. I meant that the plots of land & buildings would only be image files displayed in a section of one's profile. I'd never expected it to be more than that.
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And now, my friends, we come to some forks in the road, and to allow each idea the opportunity to develop to it's full potential I've forked them off into separate topics. :)
Please continue to use this topic to bring up new ideas or ideas that have not been forked into their own topics. Otherwise, use this topic (http://wintreath.com/forums/index.php?topic=4234.0) to discuss the land system that I proposed, and this topic (http://wintreath.com/forums/index.php?topic=4235.0) to discuss the avatar system that @Chanku proposed. As mentioned earlier, the badge system that @Finrod Felagund brought up will be implemented in some form in the future, although of course we can still talk about it here too.
I'm very excited about all the discussions we're having...so far I think our odds of success are pretty good. :)
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So I thought I'd explain the badge tiers, even though I'm sure a better system would develop anyway.
My original plan was to have badges in 3 tiers, the first 2 could be bought for all the participants in a thread, the third couldn't. The idea was that you could obtain a badge styled after the thread's badge, but one tier higher, to differentiate the creator from the people in the thread.
This is clearly inefficient, because it doubles the amount of badge creation work necessary, as well as being useless, tbh. Now, the logical thing to do would be to have the three tiers be completely separate. Posts like word association or things like it could get a normal posting badge, RP threads could get an "epic" badge, all depending on what type of threads should be promoted.
Legendary badges could be handed out for big achievements, for instance posting post no. 100.000 or something similar. I was thinking of making them different because of a different shape and possibly sparkles?
Also I was thinking this could sprout a sort of side economy, with people perhaps paying others a commission to draw up badge designs or something.
That's what I was thinking about it anyway. I'd be interested on other peoples' take as well.
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I still think this is the most sensible option:
Tau's Krone Implementation Plan
Don't do it. At all.
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That's always a choice, too. :P
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Also, I'm not sure if forks are the best idea. It seems to suggest that the different proposals are mutually exclusive, which they aren't.
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That's true @taulover, but I worry that if we keep all the discussion to one topic it'll be difficult to keep on top of all aspects of each proposal...both the land and avatar proposals are pretty major, and at the very least deserve the chance to be fully flushed out while leaving this topic open to more ideas. :)
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Actually, they could be mutually exclusive if we chose. Example being, if we chose to go the land route rather than the avatar route, what's to say we couldn't replace our main avatars with the placement of our land/home that would change as we added to it?
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I hope you'll forgive me if this is stated somewhere and u missed it, but could someone explain the purpose of bringing a currency to the forums? Is it to increase activity? From my own observations everyone here seems pretty active and involved as it is.
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It would generate more activity (no such thing as too much activity!) as well as open up new possibilities to us. :)
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It would generate more activity (no such thing as too much activity!) as well as open up new possibilities to us. :)
I find that difficult to believe. I post here when I feel like it, just like pretty much every other forum I've been on, and would get no extra incentive to do so from an arbitrary system of 'monetization' - honestly it might even be a disincentive, considering that if you're a new person who is considering joining a community, there is already the barrier of introduction to worry about; why add another barrier by potentially gating things off for them, such that only people who have been there for an extended period of time will get them?
Sure, there's points to be made for rewarding people's loyalty, but there are multiple groups you have to appease at any given time, and the two groups that get the most appeasement are lifers because they have all the shit and the strongest voice, and new people because everyone loves the idea of new people, but these people have nothing, so to incentivize them joining you give them a bunch of stuff that pushes the dopamine button in their heads that makes them think 'yay this is fun'.
But at some point, the new people stop being new, and join the ranks of the 'everyone who can't really call themselves the old guard yet', and they're all sort of thinking 'well I'm kind of getting shafted by this system since there's new sinks being installed all the time and no new faucets, those old guys can get it because they ran out of sinks and have a lot of shit saved up, and those new guys get incentives, but I'm stuck here just...treading water. Treading water sucks. I wanna go swimming!'
And then they...go swimming, I guess? I'm not sure where that metaphor went.
Anyway; I agree with Taulover on the main thrust of each of his posts, which is, broadly, 'don't do it bruh'.
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Incentivizing activity promotes activity. That's the point. It doesn't disincentivize posting, participating in RPs, forum games or other regional activities since it doesn't penalize anyone.
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I agree that incentivizing activity promotes activity, that's implicit (and frankly explicit too).
But what I think is that while this 'economy' creates a different set of incentives apart from the natural ones that are inherent to the forum setting. You post now because, presumably, you want to; there's nothing that's pushing or pulling you away that is within your control, and so on some level you must find it fun, either because one find it legitimately fun, or because, like me, one is a lunatic who just likes hearing the sound of their own voice (even if it's entirely in your own head because you have to type everything out as opposed to being able to just say it).
Once you implement a system in which you're rewarded, sometimes, a bit, for this, then the incentive structure changes.
As an example; let's take Jim, a totally real person I didn't just make up. Jim likes posting a lot. But he's got other shit to do, so he can only do it in intense bursts, followed by lulls while he does his other shit, and then a fit of intense activity again when he has the time.
However, the incentive structure as developed (in this very real scenario I didn't just make up) rewards posts every two hours much more than a post every hour, and much more than a post every...say, 5 minutes. Jim is getting penalized, relative to a hypothetical individual who perfectly makes use of the incentive structure, which we'll term That Which Has No Life (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oALUNqVWQoQ). Perhaps that's simply a problem with the incentive structure being somewhat unfair; instead of that, you reword it so that if you have 5 posts per day, then each post is worth X ;if you have 10, it's worth Y, and so on.
But Jim works too much to have time on weekdays. He can only do shit on weekends. He's shot 5/7s of the week, and so relative to TWHNL, his progression is suboptimal. Well, maybe we can rework that, too, so rewards are distributed monthly, and based on an averaged daily amount.
But once you've divorced the reward from the actions to that extent, are you genuinely still incentivizing certain patterns of behavior, or are people just going to keep doing what they were always doing?
Fundamentally, there will need to be a decision at some point between some arbitrary notion of fairness, and the ability to incentivize behavioral patterns.
And if you're not actually incentivizing behavior, then there's no point to introducing an economy; but on the flipside, if you are incentivizing behavior, there is a real chance that some people will simply benefit inordinately (obviously not to the degree of TWHNL), and there may be complaints of unfairness which could act as a disincentive, which flies in the face of the whole point anyway.
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Currently there's no existing incentive to post. You either choose to post or you choose not to post. So starting an economy adds incentive. An incentive that could grow and become more appealing. And that's an opportunity we shouldn't pass up.
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It also hasn't been agreed upon that posts=currency. Wintermoot actually has stated that he's against the idea.
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I suppose my question is, do we need incentive? I feel as though compared to some other forums I've seen we're pretty well active. The only real thing I can see is maybe expansion of membership. I'm an "If it isn't broke don't fix it." kind of person. And I don't see a whole lot of problems with the frequency of posts.
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So I had an idea for something to spend currency on: ad space on the front page of the forums. I don't even know if it's possible, and it'd probably require a new layout of the page, but, essentially, certain sections could be bought where you can place whatever image you want in that section -- of course, Wintermoot would be the one literally placing the image there, so he'd have to approve it first. But people could place funny/interesting pictures they found on the Internet, UH campaign ads, art they made, etc.; or people could work together by buying several sections to make something bigger (I'm looking at the Potato worshipers).
Since there'd only be a limited amount of space, demand would dictate the prices, meaning currency could be removed from the economy quicker if there's more demand. And there could perhaps be a monthly renewal required -- preventing someone from owning a spot indefinitely -- otherwise, the spot goes up for bids.
It might make the forums look kinda gaudy, but it would also definitely be unique. Thoughts?