Subject:  The Origin of Wealth |
Author:
Drayab
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Date Posted: 06:48:09 05/31/02 Fri
In my humble opinion, there is a flaw in the current economy. That being, that the major origin of wealth in the game is the funds that a new character starts with.
What is it, ~3000 gold or ~800 gracchi, depending on if you are a human or a dwarf? And what other ways can wealth be brought into the game?
Mining and, to a lesser extent, foraging are the only two ways worth can be created from nothing. Merchants can add worth to raw materials by creating better items from them, but that does not add any currency to the game: it simply increases the price for the item. Sure, a player my want the item more, but if the money doesn't exist for him to buy it, then what was the point of the merchant making the item in the first place?
I think the war has made this problem become very apparent in 4L lately. With all the taxes taking money from commoners so that the leaders can buy cannon fodder to send off to die in battle, the amount of currency that exists in the cities has been slowly dwindling. The only time an appreciable amount of money becomes available is when a character is created. And just imagine all that money that was left in the bank when characters get killed.
In short, the problem is that the amount of currency in the game is falling, and the way it is replaced is by people dying and creating new characters. This is okay for the people with new characters, but after you've been around a while and there's no good way to get more money, then you start to feel the crunch. It seems like the city leaders are short on cash because of the war (so that can't pay anybody) and the NPC merchants are short on cash because people have been selling things to them but not buying much. So you can't make money that way either. In the end, all the money is getting used to buy cannon fodder.
Yes, I can hear you. A war ought to ruin the economy. I think so, too. But I think there ought to be a way to recover as well, and I don't see that there is one.
Anyhow, I think there ought to be a way for people to create currency out of 'nothing.' Now, I'm not pretending to be an economist, but I think there needs to be a way for the players to create money from basic tasks in order for this player-driven economy to work. For example, there could be a raw-goods shop that will always buy raw materials and pay the seller with hard cash. This shop should never run out of money. That way there is a constant flow of cash into the bottom of society as long as they are working. The higher-ups could make their buck by taxing the hell out of them. And when they've got money they can hire people to do other, less mundane jobs, and merchants can make their money by working raw goods into objects like they ought to instead of melting down the ridiculious amounts of bronze armor available in the game right now.
I think it would make a nice three class society: the ruling class, the merchant class, and the working class.
Maybe somebody else has a better solution, and I think that there are definately particulars to be worked out in mine, but I think most people will agree that there is a problem. New characters shouldn't be the major influx of money in the game. In fact, I wouldn't cry a tear if they started off with less.
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