I'm serious. The economy in Antares has been pretty bad for a while. I've seen people constantly start businesses, and then give up because it was too much of a struggle. Now, I have a few thoughts on this in general, but of course I'm looking for others input. Since the economy includes everyone, everyone should get involved. The Economy Asspull Some time ago, we were all worried about "Asspulling" funds (For those of you unfamiliar with the phrase, it references people's habits of treating their own ass as a personal bank from which they could withdraw as much money as they needed at any given time). Of course, this was in the best interests of the community, and still is. However, there is still a critical issue with the economy. All money is still asspulled in general. Despite all of our counting, and keeping track of how much any of us are spending, money is simply generated as we need it rather than having tangibly existed in the first place. Colonies are literally the worst for this as money just appears. Why Does it Even Matter? The lack of a stable functioning economy has sort of created a few roleplay problems I've noticed. First off, there are very few people with any decent amount of cash on the server, and even then it takes a fair bit of effort to even obtain it legitimately. And those people that have it, are fairly frugal with it. Now this wouldn't be a problem if they money actually had more value. We tend to treat money on Antares as 1 pixel = 1 USD, mostly because it is a simple system. But because of its value, and its difficulty to come across, it means that the few people that even have it, hoard it. It causes a complete economic standstill, and renders money virtually worthless except on small low ticket items like food and drink. Basically my point is there is no big money trading in Antares. Which makes sense, because there isn't any big money stuff to buy or trade. But I do believe that the market doesn't exist, because there is no money to facilitate that market. The Game Is About Story-Telling Though. Yes it is (Telling: banker joke). With the economy in a virtual lockdown however, this means that you are eliminating a huge source of character power. I have seen many people express interest in bigger enterprising in Antares, but of course it can't be done. Not easily anyway. It already takes a fair deal of time and effort to just earn a meager amount of invisible in game money. I think we need to start enabling some trade. It will allow for a wider range of character dynamics, as well as stimulate people's desires to start unique businesses on the frontier to gain an upper edge, leading to more unique roleplay. My Suggestions I have a few, but rather than suggest that we uproot our current economy for any of those, that leaves me with one more suggestion. Economy injection seems to be the best way to go. Pick some of the bigger companies, colonies, and characters, and literally inject their bank accounts with cash. It will be an incentive to spend, effectively correcting the current value of money to its volume in the frontier. It might take a bit of tweaking, but if there is a fair deal of money in Antares, it will make the entire process of earning it feel more natural because then at no end is anyone making it up ever. It keeps it so you still have to earn your way up the ladder through rep in Antares, but it overall makes the whole process a little more streamlined. Thoughts?
I like this thought, mostly because it appeals to the kind of roleplaying I like, and opens up all sorts of interesting stuff: The Haves and the Have-nots class conflict, the new and old money rivalry, it gives meaning to slums and aristocracies and lastly and my personal favorite right now, the ladder climber challenge. My own two cents are that by doing this we add a lot of flavor into Antares too, entrepreneurs and shopkeepers with new and inventive ideas as well as funding and incentives for activities that makes sense. An injection of funds would really make all of that fun and worth while, feeling like you've actually earned something when you make a trade or provide a service. Also, lets just say that even though tracking funds isn't the most fun, it's not actually that bad either, it just depends on how much effort you want to put into it. I personally do enough accounting in real life that it's pretty much a bore to do it online for a rp character, but I don't mind doing something super simple just to show where my money has come from and gone (even if there's a little bit of assumed buying happening in Cy shop's case), even if it's just every three months. I think that's where most people get hung up, they don't feel like doing a lot of accounting. You don't have to do much, just the big purchases mostly(the new starship, the weapon, or maybe the bulk materials for your house, etc., not super complicated). ((I wonder if it's possible for everyone to have a viewable character sheet in your profile where people can just check out your character and people can keep track of funds very easily, they might have a wallet inventory on their character sheet, maybe?))
While i'm new around here (And haven't even been on the server yet! ), its obvious asspull could be stopped if money was a physical object. I understand this is difficult to do, but I've got an idea. The ingame currency is pixels, and the pixel compressor allows them to be made into actual objects. Now, compressed pixels are only in quantities of 1k, 2k, 5k and 10k pixels, but this can be worked around. Reduce the value of each pixel stack, so that: 1k = 10 Currency 2k = 20 Currency 5k = 50 Currency 10k = 100 Currency Now, there's the obvious problem, which is: What do I pay with if something is 5 Currency. The answer is you dont. All prices would have to be based around the system. The only real solution is to reduce each compressed pixel item by 100, making 1k = 1 Currency, and yadda yadda. This is obviously painfully small numbers, and there's no large "Bills" so to speak. The best solution, is to have a modder create simple currency items, like paper money or coins, which increase in value, similar to money in real life, but thats unlikely to happen. The last problem is: Where does the money come from? The only real thing I can think of is an admin run bank (If we even need a physical bank), or if no actual bank is needed, just give players money when needed. Players would obviously need a starting amount of $$$, and ways to make more, which is even harder. There is no real easy solution to this problem. Once again, I havent even been on the server, so this suggestion is really a shot in the dark, and not coming from experience. tl;dr Use compressed pixels as money, have admins dish out money to keep economy going.
Hey buddy. Welcome to the community. But I have to disagree with your idea. Money is easily hackable and asspulled in general. We sort of try to go on a trust system here, which is why there are no physical in game objects for money. None of us really want money cluttering up our inventories, and on top of that, it is going to be more work for the moderators, which you should remember are just ordinary unpaid dudes. I don't think you could really enforce such a thing. At the very least I don't think people would totally abide by it. Some people already do this sort of thing anyway. Its good to see backing from one of the other entrepreneurs in Antares.
The issue with physical money is that anyone can duplicate anything in their inventories using Starcheat. It's just far too easy for someone to open up Starcheat and export/import the items, then say they're millionaires in-character.
Physical currency wouldn't work for me, yeah. It's counterfeiting waiting to happen. Personally I prefer the honor system and just picking and choosing who you buy and sell things to in Antares. I wouldn't take unreasonable money and I wouldn't set unreasonable prices. It's kinda like creating interest in people by being a realistic dealer. I wanted to make a bank once. I like handling money and making records. I even made an accountant on the server once! Ramble ramble. The only thing that is reliable is to just be good with how you handle money and hope that others will follow.
I'd agree, also, I've been on this site for little over a year now and I'd like to open a Mint. A place to begin manufacturing money. The money would then be distributed to various colonies in exchange for resources. This would be a practical and canon way to explain how money works. Let me know your thoughts on the matter. [DOUBLEPOST=1439041667][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, also, monitor the money via transactions in Starnet, only make it physical IC. If you want money, Batman needs to transfer it over Starnet to you for giving him a good, service, or otherwise.
A server-side script would be perfect, imo. No physical money, but you have a sort of "account" that keeps track of transactions for you. Determining a starting amount would be kinda difficult, since it would vary from character to character. I think making a character with any large sum should require an application, but other staff will probably disagree with me
