The economy

I have to say that the economy is stagnant. There is over taxation and income is very limited. I have to assume that the reason for this is because the "game masters" are trying to control over building. The problem with this is that with the amount of money you can earn in SL, there is no money left for spending and rewarding those who have built things and put them on the market. There is no "fun" after a very short while. SL creators say that the economy is based on a "Federal Reserve" that is limited to "how much money it would take to build in every square inch of the world the maximum number of objects. I say, that is not enough reserve. Extra money is needed as "personal reserve" plus there isn't enough money flowing in the economy. This is actually a great economic experiment!

I've had the most fun recently when I discovered a quirk. I exploited it last Sunday, and have since lost my dsl when SL crashed on me. I’ll be back tonight though, I finally got it fixed. Well I'm going to share it here. Hopefully more people can pull out money before it can be fixed (sorry guys, but I think it'll be good for SL) If you go onto land that is set so that no one can build on it, and shoot your gun, the bullets will not be created, yet you will be credited for the cost of the bullet object. Each time you shoot, you earn 10 linden dollars.

Of course Linden can take the money from me again, but I’ve been spending it on objects that are for sale, and sending it back into the economy. If more money can’t be generated, certainly the taxes ought to be drastically reduced. That’s my opinion. What is yours?

Love INgie

Phil is revising it. I make 7000$ bonus... bonuses only cover taxes! so I only get like 4000 of that 7000$ get it?

Sorry Nexus Nash, I don't think I understood you? Are you saying your weekly allowance is 7000 now and that just covers your taxes (sounds about right) My last payday was 3500 and then I was 1200 in the hole after taxes (which I thought I first read was taken once a month, then the next thing I realize it's every week?

Oh well....

Ingie

Ok here it goes.... if you have a high rating you more $$$ but the rating bonus and stiptend only cover your taxes. So if you have 0 rating and only stiptend, and you build a castle you WILL be in the hole. As I said my maintenance is 4000$ a week but I make 7000$ a week. So my taxes are all paid off. and with the 3000 that is left it DOSE NOT GO TO ME! but if I only have a bonus of 3000 and my taxes were 4000$ I would be 1000$ in the hole. Ok now if you sell stuff it PURE PROFIT!so if I was making 3000$ with a 4000$ taxe but selling 1000$ I would make 0$ money in a week!

Is there a way to calculate what your income should be, so that you can plan? Just wondering, 'cause it's a mystery to me ;oP

it's in the menus... account history.... but I think it only gives you what you got the week before.... I would need a Linden for this question.

I'm confused. Your stipend isn't all "real"? Yikes!

Well, imho someone needs to consider the difference between making a game "challenging" and making it "tedious" or "too frustrating".

Basically the time-investment or risk/ to potential reward ratio is the big issue. And seeing how to set this is what beta is for.

This game has many cool features, but if you come to it having been in a place like Active Worlds, where you can build ANYTHING - it's very, very frustrating to wait a whole week of real time to be able to afford... a big whopping new lamp and a rug - and then find out you misguessed the tax system - and now you are in the hole - and you can't build any new things. Which is what some players are experiencing.

Of course, if it's wide open, and the world is full of junk - if people can build anything they want - there is no challenge. I'm not saying to go this far. But I'd say slide the lever towards "letting us build more, quite a bit more"... that or I need to look into PD objects, which are apparently free (but other people can delete, even if your land is set on no build for others? meaning you can't make enemies and you have to pray no pranksters find you?).

Look, here's something else to consider - this game offers (so far) very little for the serious "kill minded player" - at least imo - ie the fighting is pretty limited in scope - tho it has some very nice and unique features - it's nothing like AO, EQ, DAoC in that those games are totally dedicated toward that. Here there is apparently no armor - you can make insta-kill bullets - sure, there are challenges to it - and someone who's put 20 hours into learning it will kill me 99 out of 100 times in a duel. BUT ... unless a clever scripter wanted to immerse himself into tweaking guns and such - this world's prime appeal seems to be that you can build your own stuff. And what is the reward for kiling others? You get nothing for it, save the satisfaction of murdering. Other games give you game-money for killing monsters, etc. Given that the prime appeal of this game seems to be that you can build your own house and yard - park - whatever - shouldn't the system be geared toward letting you do a little more of this - if not a LOT more of this? So far, except for public buildings, I've only seen - well maybe the world would get out of control if everyone had huge complexes - but I'm not nec. saying that. I've seen mostly very empty "cabins" - it's just too hard to build.

Maybe we need monsters to hunt??? or is that just not the focus of this game at all?? I'd love to see more rewards for learning how to kill. Ah. Duel bets? Loser pays the winned the pre-agreed sum?

Even that - compared to the mega-rewards in other kill games for hunting/killing stuff.... I'd focus on the "right balance" of "letting players build to satisfying levels" vs "playability, challenge and system overload." But that's my opinion.

Lol sorry I made you wirte all that I forgot something.... your bonus will make your total go up to 3500 REG amount so if you have 500$ on you when the evil tax man comes along ( IT'S PHIL!!! GET EM!) and your taxes are 500$. But you have a bonus of 5000$ so what is suppose to happen is that your bonus will cover your taxes so 4500$ and that your EXTRA bonus money will be use to bring you up and around 3500$.

Woops! Posted the above as Ingie, but it was me, Wolfgang - sorry Ingie.

I didn't register a second time on the way in to change it.

Anyway, re what I said above - it occurred to me what seems to most reward people so far is making stuff and adding scripts to make them do amazing things. Er - what I mean is - possibly, this area has the most potential to reward (as SL is currently configured).

First, if you build no house and leave no objects on the ground, you have no cost - no taxes. Once you build something, you pick it up - and your cost goes away - you only pull it out as you need it. And it is wildly satisfying for many of us to learn a new language, build something, debug it - and finally get it to do cool things. So this part of the game has the potential to be wildly satisfying.

But again, if your passion is building a castle or a palace... Active Worlds, w/ current SL taxes and money limits, seems to be the place. Unless I'm missing something.

What is tempting is that Linden scripts > anything I've seen in AW (plus better avatars). I could see SL becoming VERY attractive to players who want to build and script if they're allowed to do a good deal more.

Here's a thought - I'm going to explore using PD objects and hope no one messes w/ em (I guess I need to find out if others can mess w/ my PD things, even if I have "no build" on my land - IF no one can mess w/ em then, that'd be very cool). And I'm going to explore the idea of keeping a great deal of my assets in inventory - and only set them out while I'm in - and hope tax time doesn't come while I have my stuff out. So there are possibilities....

I had not realized things worked this way. This really puts a damper on what I had planned to do. I realized I was getting a decent amount of money from stipend and bonus, even though my rating is fairly low. Unlike most peole I see in world my modeling skills are very poor but my scripting skills are not. My idea was that I really didn't need a house or property. I would accumulate money, helped by having very low taxes I thought, and distribute that money to worthy projects. I would make more money by making scripts for people and building my reputation. By being generous I hoped to increase my rating thus giving me a larger bonus so I could have more money to give to people.

It seems this won't work as well as I had hoped because I won't make money past 3500?

I have just thought of a work around that makes this limitation essentially worthless, as long as you have a friend you can trust. Basically he would be my banker. I continually give him most of my money so that I can keep whatever bonus I can. I only get money from him to give to someone else, buy what I need etc. The downside being that he has to be on when I need the money and I actually have to really trust him.

I think the main problem with the system, as I understand it now, is that it punishes the succesful. If you do a good job, sell a lot of items and make a lot of money, you don't get the bonus of the person who does nothing.

I'm always in need of a scripter....if you wanna send me an IM some time in game I'm sure I could come up with a project for ya

Valfaroth Grimm

OK, It seems like there is a lot of tension over the economy right now, which is a bit puzzeling to me, because in my view, it looks like most of the previous bugs are "fixed."

First of all, things like Stipends and ratings bonuses are no longer "for profit" because all the money was getting traped in users accounts who had never signed on. Now what the stipend/bonus system tries to do is make your taxes bearable. If you have X amount of tax, it will try and recompensate you for that much tax. If you are below $3500, it will go beyond trying to match your taxes, and try to get you to $3500 (hey, look - a tax system that benifits the poor).

Now why take taxes at all then if the system tries to keep us at the same level every week? Because the system is deigned to be limiting (to a degree). That limit is of course the technical limitations of the network and the server. How this works to be fair to all of us is a bit hard to grasp, so I'm gonna use myself as an example (I hope this works).

I own a lot of land, I own a lot of objects - look at the leaderboard, if you combine the two together, I would not be suprised if I pay more taxes than anyone else in the game. Right now, I put about $8k into the economy via my taxes. Now, last night, I had about 14k in my account - so this coming tax time would have cut my funds in half. In comes the Stipend and ratings bonus. They try to absorb all of my taxable costs - land light, and object maintanace. Because I have a decent rating, I am able to get about 6k from this - and the other 2k has to go into the economy where it benifits the folks who are less wealthy, as well as adds the ability for your guys's stipends and ratings to work. but I've lost 2k - I'm still loosing more money than I want to - at this rate I will be broke in 6 more weeks. So I have a choice, either I can get rid of 2k worth of objects, or try to make the money back. There are an infinite amount of ways to make money in world - I sell stuff, some people throw parties, some folks have banks, lotto, scripting - one user sells pictures of naked ladies, one will striptease for $$. At this point the economy starts getting interesting - what can you make that others will pay for. Also, the vote boxes help out users who hold parties and build cool not-for-profit homes.

There has been some complaint about New users not being able to make money because they don't have the skills that veterans have. Well, I make money from my hard work scripting and modeling. Users who are "poor" also make money from my hard work scripting and modeling.

The shortwinded version of the point which I feel I just failed to articulate is: Taxes are not as limiting as they seem. Any user should be able to start off and buy a plot of land, and build an nice, but not to nice house. As time goes on, they will be able to pick up a few dollars here or there - if they convice their friends to vote on their house, sell a nice chair they made. Slowly the user who has no previous skills can gain land, build thier house up, buy cool clothes and stuff, and they can be confident that the system won't let let them go to broke unless they try to buy giant patches of land.

Last week, I built a building for someone, made my 2k back. THis week I found 2 more people who wanted buildings built. Ingie, you should have no trouble making money since you have modeling exp. I have no trouble getting people to buy stuff, and I came into this game with virtually no 3dmodeling skills at all. It took me 6 months to get to the point I am at now, and the limitations of the economy, while present, have not hampered my ability to build cool stuff - I just can't build whole cities, or a giant palace made of .1*.1*.1 lighted torri.

BBC

Is there anything to stop someone from just deleting all their objects the night before taxation, then restoring them from inventory the next day?

Are you charged for all the objects you own in the world right at the time tax is calculated, or some per-minute-of-existence charge during the last tax period?

I believe, at least with the land, that we are taxed immediately, when we purchase the land, so it's kind of pre-taxed. That way, if you release the land within the week, it won't matter, you've already paid the tax on it.

I think that's how it goes... should purchase some land tonight and see how much is deducted.... I'm bad about paying attention, I just want to get my work done all the time, LOL.

Last night I made an outragous swimming pool room, LOL, it was so much fun, but gaudy!! No way I can keep it, but it was fun to make. Maybe if I release it to public it'll stay, LOL.

By the way, that is a possibility. If you release your objects to the public, and no one wants to delete it, you won't get charged, and can enjoy it still. But if someone wants to build there, then you will not be able to stop them.

Hee hee hee, have fun, Love Ingie

I wonder if the immediate land claim tax could be pro-rated based on how many days left until your weekly tax day. That way if you're taxed on Saturday but you claim a new piece of land on Friday, you're not paying the land tax in full two days in a row (in effect, paying two weeks' worth of taxes for two days' use!)

your pay should equal your deserved amount ... thus you should recieve in your mony count all proceeds due you not just what it takes to cover taxes and up to the current 3500 max .....

If your entitled to say 9k with bonuses ect you should get 9k minus taxation

currently that isnt the case ...

I know im gonna get bashed with coments they dont want people haveing all that money because they will have more items out ect....
But we have to remember this....
If we are entitled then we shall recieve and that will only enhance people stay here in SL and make it a better world when it does go live...
And if the intentions are to keep you broke then why have a rateing bonus in place in beta at all ? if your not going to revieve
the procedes of that bonus?

Yes bandwidth is costly to the makers but thats part of the process, did Daoc only give you 1 realm to play in when it was in Beta..
Did EQ only have Freeport ?
Was AC just have Eastham?
I could go on I also played AO and AC2 beta , The Realm, and others but my point is basic ...

If we are supposed to get it then let us have it or change the system so its a non factor, its simply not right to be shown on paper we are entitled to something and then we dont get it...
Personaly I dont need much cash I dont play much anymore , mostly out of boredom , The store is Biuld (knights Supply a combined effort with Soulace) and its more or less filled with items and I have no desire to learn scripting nor do I have the patients for that. so until there is something more to do Im basicaly there to say hiyas.......

But if I wanted to take on a large project that would require alot of cash I simply couldnt do it all at once because the money they show due me never shows up because im over my " quota".

Not to mention I got hit with a money bug that took away a substantial amount of cash and has yet to be refunded, I posted about it a few days ago and so far no reply ....
They found the bug the same night I noticed it but at that point was no fix and was told once they had a fix I would get my cash back but that was 2 weeks ago now and still no refund, glad I wasnt holding my breathe! heh

At any rate thats my opinion bash me if ya like I could care less and will NOT reply to any bashing/flameing of this post.



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That was how the economy used to work - 2 weeks ago. It created a recession, because all the money was getting stuck in in-active users accounts, so instead of getting a $9k bonus, the top users would get a $500 bonus. So everyone who was actually playing was getting less money, and everyone was selling off their objects and land, and refusing to buy because the lack of available funds.

Now the only way to get "more" money directly from the system is the vote stations, which award folks who continue to bug folks to go vote at them. Now money won't get stuck in non-active users accounts.

BBC

Ugh, I gotta edit this babble, even I don't understand me, LOL

Actually, as long as I can build stuff, I'd be happy. The more freedom of building I can learn/get, the more fun I have. But, I must say, I don't understand why there is a land shortage like we have here (causing the need to restrict building). I mean, in Active Worlds, you can build all you want. Alpha World is HUGE, and there are no building restrictions. It's perpetual, and always there. So again, once you build on a little spot, and can no longer build anymore without going broke or removing your creations (which you want to enjoy) it would get extremely boring. However, if that were not a problem, and you include all the other options this "game" has to offer, it would well exceed AW.

It's really a problem in my oppinion, unless it's because it's beta, and the restrictions have to be tighter (for purchasing servers and bandwidth) due to money concerns or something??? If it won't be as bad in the future, once the company gets money to expand this.... well then, cool!

I build, I build and build and build, and if I can't build, I'll get quite bored. I don't mind raining in my projects to replace them with something better, but at the same time, I want to build kind of big stuff (which really doesn't matter, size that is, because it's the number of objects used, and I use textures to trick the system) but the land costs a ton, I won't be able to keep the stuff I make, although it sure would be fun.

Ingie (boy I'm babbling now...) at least I've edited it a bit, LOL

bored at work.....

This is a very interesting discussion and we thank everyone for living through the creation of a real, dynamic economic system.

Some changes are coming next week which should decrease taxation for most people. Check out my post in the Announcements forum.

have a great weekend and see you in Second Life