Topic: Money

[fehknt]

Credits? dollars? gold coins? iridium ounces?

OK, so what we call it isn't too terribly important.

I'd like to talk about what it can buy, and how important it will be to a character.  Also of importance is banks, credit, lotteries, and real estate.

Oh yeah, and anything else to do with CASH.

As for what it can buy... I kinda imagine a universe where anything is for sale: planets, solar systems, moons, spaceships, technology, weapons, beer...  For the right price.  I'd like to see real estate being a real status symbol among players, (possibly real estate and bank accounts are common across characters?) and I'd also like to see to it that any character with enough money can buy real estate.  

Now, this entails some problems, mainly the characters that join early, and make a land rush, combined with characters that join late and don't get a chance to buy land.  Well, let others TAKE land, if they have the military might, and the takee doesn't have anything to back up his property claim.  Require some sort of development on the land within 30 days or the property reverts to an unowned status.  Continue to "find" new star systems, possibly offering naming to discovers, and a discount on purchasing wholesale land...

Banks should generate minor interest, and serve a real safegaurding function.  Unless all money is electronic, in which case, all money is in a bank anyway.  Credit lines should be available, and I personally think it'd be great to see a head contract going out on really bad debtors that went to disreputable banks just to get a huge loan they couldn't pay back in time...

Lotteries could work in a very real way: perhaps the cops fund thier operation through galaxy-wide lotteries in addition to charging for thier services, and skim off 50% of all ticket sales for themselves, the rest goes into a pot and every month a lucky winner is chosen at random?

I think that's all my ideas right now...  Let's hear yours!  (yes, you.)

[Morgul]

I don't like 'credits'. It's too generic. Here's my thoughts: There are two major factions: The League, and the Terrans. The League was formerly the USA, so they still use dollars. The Terrans could use either 'Euros' 'yuan' or 'yen'... Hrm. How about the Terrans use 'New Euros'?

Aside from the namming, I think that all the ideas fehknt suggested work well. I want banks to be useful, and I think that characters might even be allowed to transfer money from one character to another... at a nice 25% interest rate. (Cut it to 15% if it's from one player to another). Oh, and safety deposit boxes should be a part of it... as well as wills. (When a character dies, and you choose to create a new one with half the stats of the old one, the game should automatically name the new character as 'next of kin' and give you all the stuff... after taxes, fees, and burial costs, of course.

Lotteries are a nice idea, since the Gov't and law enforcement needs soem $$. Also, Taxes (and the need to file them) should be part of it as well. (Military personnel are exempt I'd say)...

... or do we all hate taxes enough that we choose to leave them out?

[fehknt]

HAH!  I like the idea of including an income tax.  Of course, that's only for the work that's on the books.  For the self-employed merc, you could probably keep a fair portion of it off the books if you tried.  A freighter captian could probably not keep his stuff off the books due to the volume that gets unloaded... except for the small cache of hidden contraband, or illegeal passengers... <:o)

Can you spend one money type as the other?  I'd suggest not unless you accept a bad exchange.  I'd also vote for certian precious substances that have value to either group (like gold or platinum or plutonium or iridium or buckministerfullerene or...) and be able to have a stash of that as "emergency cash" for when you have to deal with people that don't exactly operate within the law and so probably can't accept a direct bank deposit.

Oh, and the "next of kin" thing, I think you should enforce choosing a first and last name, and have the last name be forced to the same thing.  Ok, that's not always the way it happens, but it'd add a little more flavor, I think.  Run a group of characters that are all in the same "family"... heh.

Military personell could be exempt from taxes on their military earnings, but if they make money on the side, I think it should still be taxed as per normal.

[Duffy]

A very important thing in MMORPGs is a stable economy. Most of the time the economies end up getting horribly inflated. Easiest solution to this is create enough money sinks just from day to day playing, all the ideas mentioned sounded good. Probably could include docking fees for ships,  upkeep costs on your ship and real estate, maybe protection fees in certain places ran by the more villainous types of people, etc...

Just don't make the system to figure out what you owe too complicated, or so ridiculous that even the cautious money saving player has to scramble to make enough for there "monthly"(or whatever it ends up being) payments.

[fehknt]

What about having a little (very little) box in a corner that shows current monthly fee total.  Have taxes deducted instantly from any transaction where the player gets paid, so (s)he doesn't have to make sure there's money in the account to pay percentage of earnings stuff, and make it prompt the player anything if anything they are about to do would put them below thier total monthly payment in cash reserve.

All fees should be one of two types: monthly or instant, with the exception of income tax.  Some public facilities should be available, but perhaps limited availability means you have to wait in line for the free stuff.

[Morgul]

I believe it would be simple enough as having the server take care of it, and automatically deducting the amoutn from the person's account. If they don't have, a line of credit will be extended by thier bank... at a nice fee + interest. If they don't pay... well... that's what bounty hunters are for.

[fehknt]

Yes, but I don't think that players should have to figure out what they owe by adding up all thier fees themselves.  There should be an easy way to find out what you owe.

[contingencyplan]

As far as having to "file" taxes...  I think we should definitely leave that out.  By that time, technology will be advanced to the point that the gov't will know most of the info about law-abiding citizens.  Thus, they can tax people correctly, according to whatever rules are in place, without any user intervention.  In any event, if we add a bunch of bookkeeping to a player's responsibilities, people will get bored / frustrated / torqued off, and leave.  Not good.  At most, we should simply send them the bill or something, and have them click a button to pay it.  This gives people the option of not paying.

Also, instead of income tax, we could have a sales tax.  Texas, for instance, doesn't have a state income tax; rather, we do sales taxes (and property taxes and a bunch of others at the varying levels of gov't that I haven't taken the time to research yet...).  So we could have things in the game have an additional tax on them (that should be clearly evident when purchasing something  - that way, we don't get someone going "But it says $80k, and I have $80k?!").  Or, we could do property taxes - you can do the real-estate thing, but you have to be able to pay the taxes on the land you own.  Or docking fees.  These ideas sound good.

Or, we could have the Terrans do an income tax, and the League do property or other kinds of taxes.  Or vice versa, or some combination.  Makes working with one group or another more interesting.

I'm not sure taxes are such a good idea, though.  On the one hand, it does add to the realism of the game - we have governments, and those governments must be sustained.  However, I'm not sure people will enjoy playing the game if there's an added burden of paying taxes, regardless of the type.  

If we do end up doing taxes, it MUST be for a purpose other than "realism" - the money must actually go somewhere, to someone, to do something that the players can see.  Otherwise, people will resent paying them (much like many do in real life...).  So before we decide HOW to collect taxes, we must decide WHAT that money will be used for.  And if the ideas don't knock our socks off, I think we should consider dropping the tax idea.  I don't think we should just create "money sinks."  We should do something that the players will find worthwhile.

~Brian

[Duffy]

An automated system is probably the best, but since it sounds like Finances can become a mildly important part of the game I suggest adding a Finance screen to the interface, it would show what you totally owe and the breakdown, it would also give you the option to pay now if you have the spare cash at the moment and to pay certain bills only (whatever reason you may have). With these sort of options it covers those who don't really care that much and just pay what they owe whenever they owe it and for those who would like a little more control of what they pay and when.

[Morgul]

The taxes idea was, for me, a tongue in cheek thing .

Oh, about the realestate thing... It was commented that there could be a land rush, or something... Well, that's just it... How could there be, if there's already people living on them? Just because they're NPC's, and not players doesn't matter. It's not like this is a void universe that's being created as players join... it's already got most of the land taken up by it's inhabitants.

[Duffy]

Money sinks are a necessity. Otherwise players will eventually all become horribly rich and nothing will have a practical value anymore, everyone can have everything. Player to player trade will get horribly inflated, think of the diffrence of $5 for a gallon of milk....but if we were all rich why not charge $50? Which is fine unless your a new player and you need that milk. (random example but you get the idea)  It happens in MMORPGs all the time. One of the biggest problems with MMORPGS after running for awhile(hell usually only takes a few months) is the economy, to date I have not heard of a single MMORPG's economy that has not been wrecked. Hell i've helped to inflate prices before in World of Warcraft. (amazing how much you could drive ammo prices up)

But I do agree it would be better if they could actually be seen to have some effect on the game, that way players don't regard it as simply a money sink. Quick examples, lets say you pick the higher docking fee, it provides more security for where you ship is berthed, or maybe a bribe since you might not be liked in that city. If you pay a certain property tax (depending on where you are in the univese) you get police coverage. Get something for your money while insuring a stable economy. Helps with the realism factor.

[Morgul]

I agree with Duffy. We need 'money sinks' that actually provide *real* benefits. I also plan on having a *real* economy....

[contingencyplan]

Real economy - have a stock market?  That would be cool - esp. if you have real businesses that post profits, etc.

[Morgul]

Real economy - have a stock market?  That would be cool - esp. if you have real businesses that post profits, etc.

Why not? Hell, If we have banks, we should... (We could even have something like eTrade )  Along the smae idea, we should have inssurance.. and maybe work that in with the death thing... hrm...

[topher]

A stock market or some kind of commodities would be really neat to see.  However, I think someone with some major economics background would be needed in order to provide input on some inner workings.

/me starts training Tax Evasion level II

=)

Chris

[fehknt]

Hey -- I'm just noticing that the player-made organizations are being molded into something like corporations... we could simply let each player-group "go public" and release stock to get some capital, and from then on, the price of the stock is regulated by normal stock-regulation things (isn't it just a measure of what people are willing to pay for it??)  (And things like dividends need to be thought of... oh my!)

Tax Evasion Level II == Luck Level II -- you simply hope not to get audited!

[ryguy_1617]

well, i didnt read the whole forum carefully, so it was prolly alredy mentioned, but the tax maybe should be based on how much the player has, like a percentage; idk?  And, i really think this whole economy complexity will help make this game awesome.

[Morgul]

Well, I was thinking that it should work just like real life... income tax, taxes on fuel, things like that. Then, maybe a annual or monthy tax....

[ryguy_1617]

oo ok that is good too lol ; yea and i ges it would b better that way because it would give it an even more realistic feel

[Dawn]

I definatively aggree that if there are to be taxes they HAVE to be automated and the filing process can be no harder then you recieve a bill on a very irregular baises stating what taxes are owed and you can pay them at you leasure before your due date. Otherwise the government can use the money that they have sucked in with thier sinks and place a large bounty on your head. I know that in my case as a player I would HATE having to spend time filing taxes on a game that I'm paying money for. I think that it may be simplest to use a sales tax, type idea where the tax you owe is simply subtracted on every purchase without your consent.

Also, For bounty hunting, I think it would be cool to create tools that make it simple for bounty hunters to find players. In several games that I've played I would love to take up the role of Bounty Hunter, but it's impossible to find people. You want the government that see's all and knows all to make this information avalible to registered bounty hunters, and these guys should of course have to pay thier fee's to be Bounty Hunters.

Ohh and for Real Estate, I love this idea! Obviously your charictar role as an indivdual in this game will not grant you enough power to control a single planet as in some other space games, But I think it would be cool if you could own a state on a planet... As in, we create many differant planets with specific states and attributes throughout this game and you corporately with your alliance/corporation and it's members purchase and maintain a state on planet where you can manufacture/mine trade goods, miltary vehicles, ect. possibly even the ships that players pilot. Any thoughts?

btw, if we are looking for somewhere to drop all of the credits that go down the sinks, My charictars account is always avalible.  ;D