My opinion: Tax brackets based on "account's" highest item level obtained and further adjusted by "character's" faction/reputation with a pre-established maximum for special consumeable vendor purchased items.
A completely hypothetical scenario, to use the O.P.'s example of a port stone requiring several hours for a level 1-10 character to afford, the cost of the port stone can be based on what the "average" 10, 20, 30 or 40 character would accumulate in a couple of hours, then either lowered or raised a bracket according to faction with the vendor/city, but that should cap at least 10 levels before max character level, because a level 50 character (assuming 50 was max) should be able to amass significant wealth compared to a lvl 49 or lower, but paying the level 40-49 prices (say 100gp) would still be significant compared to the level 1-10 (of 4gp).
With that said, this should only apply to "special" items that would be utilized (and continually purchased) throughout a player's entire journey (like a port stone, potions, stat food, etc); and it would be important that those "special" items were unuseable outside of the level brackets as well (a level 11 character can no longer use "special" items purchases from the level 1-10 bracket "once they've logged off after out-leveling the level 1-10 bracket"). This would help reduce a lot of (not all) manipulation/circumvention of the "tax" and make gold farming/selling "less" lucrative.
But I ultimately agree with the notion of items of high importance/value should always feel "valuable"
Tax won't work. The characters that generate the most gold, and influence inflation the most are farmers. These characters pay the least tax. They don't buy transports, use junk gear that doesn't have much cost, and they don't buy much. While farmers can be bots, not all of them are. Farming isn't the same from game to game. Some farm resources, cash drops, cheap drops, expensive drops, whatever has a good yield for low cost. You won't stop farmers, best you can do is force them to sell to players, not vendors.
The only way to control inflation is control the money supply. The easiest ways are very limited or no cash drops, but this hurts newbies. And no vendors buying junk loot and resources, not having these hurts everyone if you have costs like repairs or teleport fees.
The question that should be asked and answered is how to make people have fun and feel wealthy without excess money. In a closed economy, I don't see how. Money from nowhere = inflation, no money from anywhere = destitution, stagnation.
Silvermink said:Tax won't work. The characters that generate the most gold, and influence inflation the most are farmers. These characters pay the least tax. They don't buy transports, use junk gear that doesn't have much cost, and they don't buy much.
Silvermink said: ... The question that should be asked and answered is how to make people have fun and feel wealthy without excess money. ...
IMO:
The overly simplistic and requires-more-context answer is: prevent coin currency from being traded directly or indirectly between players.
That way, you can allow characters to accrue as much value, wealth, coin, faction, standing, fame, reputation, standing, or similar "numbers" of progression ( including but not limited to coin currency ) and it has no economic consequence to any other characters.
vjek said:prevent coin currency from being traded directly or indirectly between players.
That way, you can allow characters to accrue as much value, wealth, coin, faction, standing, fame, reputation, standing, or similar "numbers" of progression ( including but not limited to coin currency ) and it has no economic consequence to any other characters.
that probably won't happen by game design. you'd have to cripple almost all of p2p trading. there's quite a few eastern mmos that do this already. it has its pros and cons, but it ALSO suffers from inflation.
this might change, but the design philosphy is to allow the freedom p2p exchange of in game goods and services.
also i don't agree with negative progression for not playing the game. it's not an easy thing to solve unfortunately. every mmo is plagued by this. irl is plagued by this.
thing is, at the end of the day, this is a game. and i'm already dealing with negative progression irl while having to play the game of life.
as a mmo consumer, i don't want to spend money on a sub, then be forced to play to prevent loss. thats the general mentality anyways.
this is just an idea here that's controversial:
suppose protf is a f2p model and the implementation of a negative interest rate it put into place. crypto gaming and nft gaming is of interest so lets suppose some type of system is thrown in.
crypto could be the in game currency that has negative interest rate OR if i'm subbed, it nullifies the interest rate loss. either way, as a publisher, i'm getting my money one way or another. pay now or pay later.
nft would function as equipment and acts as 'real estate'.
of course can be very volatile as equipment comes and goes just like the housing market. ya win some ya lose some.
of course could result into some wild insider trading (i know what items and equipment are going to be hit or miss because kilsin gave me intel on crafting mats and items that are going to be nerfed or buffed).
of course it's going to trigger people, well if they are aware what's really going on.
if the playerbase is okay with 'losing' in the nft or real estate market and having negative interest rate without a sub, then we would have some weird mmo where irl and in game wealth is kind of tied together O_o
it could even solve external third party transactions to some degree.
a bit of a tangent, but hopefully food for thought.
still boils down to who knows the knows and knows what needs to be known and knowing how to know when it needs to be known. they'll always rise to the top.
stellarmind said:vjek said:prevent coin currency from being traded directly or indirectly between players.
That way, you can allow characters to accrue as much value, wealth, coin, faction, standing, fame, reputation, standing, or similar "numbers" of progression ( including but not limited to coin currency ) and it has no economic consequence to any other characters.
that probably won't happen by game design. you'd have to cripple almost all of p2p trading. there's quite a few eastern mmos that do this already. it has its pros and cons, but it ALSO suffers from inflation.
this might change, but the design philosphy is to allow the freedom p2p exchange of in game goods and services.
also i don't agree with negative progression for not playing the game. it's not an easy thing to solve unfortunately. every mmo is plagued by this. irl is plagued by this.
thing is, at the end of the day, this is a game. and i'm already dealing with negative progression irl while having to play the game of life.
as a mmo consumer, i don't want to spend money on a sub, then be forced to play to prevent loss. thats the general mentality anyways.
...
IMO: (one response per your lines, from above)
-It hasn't happened yet, but only because no developer/team has actually attempted to address inflation in a way that's thematically consistent and fun. I mean, objectively, some developers/teams embrace RMT completely, so you have a huge range of how much integrity is being demonstrated.
-You don't have to limit all player to player trading, only that one thing (coin currency, if you have coin currency). Players can freely trade everything else. In the system I outlined on Pantheon Crafters, there is no limit to trading resources or un-adjusted items/objects, or consumables.
-Correct, players want to trade, and there is absolutely no problem with permitting that, except for that one thing (coin currency, if you have coin currency). There's no negative progression from not playing. if you are willing to implement a single unavoidable resource/money/coin/currency sink. Everyone is always on a level playing field, and time invested is rewarded. That appears to be an 'old school' design goal.
-Having a single unavoidable resource/money/coin/currency sink doesn't remove all/most/so much of the Fun from the game to the point where the entire game isn't Fun. It's just one more step.
-You don't have to do it that way, at all. If you are willing to implement a single unavoidable resource/money/coin/currency sink, everyone can acquire as much wealth, items, and resources that they want to, and it has no negative effect on the economy or any other players, at all, even in the slightest. Similarly, it grants incredible freedom and latitude in all the mechanics of looting, loot generation, resource generation, harvesting, crafting, and many systems that derive their inputs from those.
As a bonus, it can be tuned, trivially, to be anything between an onerous burden and a mild inconvenience, by adjusting exactly one value. That is: A combined modifier or multiplier of the 'cost' for a single unavoidable resource/money/coin/currency sink, per character or globally, depending on design goals.
Interesting discussion but I am not sure if it is focusing on the core concerns. Inflation, essentially, occurs when an economy gains more items of value than it gains things to spend them on. Currency is not really the issue - a pure barter economy with no currency at all can have the same problems. If maize is an essential food staple, and deer hides are an important clothing item, and 50,000 dead deer appear ready for skinning, it will take a whole lot of extra hides to buy an ear of maize. Even if wampum does not exist.
Whether inflation is a bad thing depends on perspective, and whether one is looking at it from the game's point of view or the players'. Also, of course, the level of inflation. Many games with busted economies do not have them because of normal inflation - they have them because of hacks and exploits and because the developers lacked the will or the tools to do anything about it.
Once we hit a year or two out there will be, hopefully, significant numbers of newer players and significant numbers of older (game time not real life age) players. Success will depend on keeping the flow of new players. Success will also depend on keeping most older players happy and with things to do in the game. Drying up sources of revenue is unlikely to incent the older players, Pricing anything on the market out of reach of newer players is unlikely to encourage them to stay (though it surely opens up opportunities for socialization).
Arguably inflation at maximum level is good for the game. It requires us to play (and subscribe) since a character not played for a year may have far less wealth in real terms when reactivated. There is an assumption in this thread that inflation is a bad thing and the real issue is *how* to fix it without introducing even worse consequences.
Apart from hyperinflation over very short periods - the Weimar Republic problem - caused by hacks and exploits - it does not seem self-evident to me that inflation is bad at all.
dorotea said:... and 50,000 dead deer appear ready for skinning, it will take a whole lot of extra hides to buy an ear of maize. ...
IMO:
Which is why you need to presume, in any MMO Economic design that attempts to claim to combat inflation, to presume all supplies of all items, resources, and similar is ~infinite, and design it appropriately.
Provided you do, there's absolutely no problem whatsoever with 50,000 (or other very+ large number) of anything being generated. In fact, that would be considered "normal".
In what I outlined above, the community of interest presumed that exact situation and addressed it in the corresponding solution.
Inflation itself is a hidden tax that applies to the real world as well as in games. It is nonsensical to create money sinks, taxes, etc. To alleviate the harm caused by a hidden tax.
If inflation of in-game currency is an issue, then it makes no sense to punish players for acquiring lots of it. Human beings are creatures of incentive. If players feel as if they're being punished for becoming lucrative in-game then it kills incentive to seek out profit. This is also true in the real world.
@vjek
addressing inflation in a manner that is thematically consistent and fun is. challenging. for games like rust, escape from tarkov or even br like fortnite and apex legends and to a lesser degree csgo or valorant or mobas like lol or dota2, this isn't a problem. people suffer losses, but get over it pretty quickly because everyone resets and starts all over.
it is experience and how to become more efficient with gathering resources and expending those resources that seperate the strong players from the weak players. either i give up and be lost to the game or i stay and become a bad boy.
in old mmos like wow, archage or eso, people would lose their minds if their gear got deleted when they died. probably even rage quit, but that would solve the issue of inflation.
correct me if my understanding is wrong here, but this is my take:
inflation factors:
time, supply, demand, resource aquisition efficiency, operational losses, risk.
there's probably more and some elegant math equation, but not my field of expertise.
money sinks = operational losses, but if my ability to acquire resources is still positive it doesn't matter. if the risk is violatile and could result in a negative losses, let's say 50/50 then that money sink will do its job of combating inflation.
im jumping around a bit here, apologies as my thoughts aren't linear.
the reason i talk about crypto and nft is similar to just limiting 1 part.
lets say i limit the money from being transferred at all p2p. well ppl will just start trading in items that have similar value (nft, real estate, consumables).
players will never be on a leveling playing field in this regard. some players will have exclusive knowledge on whats more efficient and can rob other players or circumvent systems.
knowing the know.
geh its above my head just sharing my thoughts on this.
If all direct Player-Player trades were not possible, but instead had to route through an NPC broker which charged a fee based upon some algorithm which incorporated character levels, the potential value of the items, etc then, as you level up and items typically become more valuable, these trade costs increase.
Also, and this would definitely upset the tradeskillers, but use of crafting stations would need to be rented. The rental fee could, possibly, be based upon the number of combines you wish to do as well as the overall value of the final item, etc. This would require the elimination of any crafting by mobile crafting stations.
Also, and this is something that is a slight modification from what you see in EVE Online: All racial cities have crafting guilds and if you want to do Blacksmithing, as an example, you take your materials to the local Blacksmith, 'tell' them what you want, give them the materials (along with a fabrication fee) and after some period of time you are given your items. This would take raising tradeskills out of the list of things you can raise as the NPCs would make everything without fail thus putting the 'difficulty' of tradeskills into the gathering of resources.
"Which is why you need to presume, in any MMO Economic design that attempts to claim to combat inflation, to presume all supplies of all items, resources, and similar is ~infinite, and design it appropriately."
If an item is infinite its economic value approximates zero. No matter how high its intrinsic value is. Thus, air and water are necessary for life but in many parts of the world they have no economic value. Not if there is unlimited clean air and it rains quite frequently. Go to a colony on Luna and things are likely to be dramatically different barring unlimited power and ability to transmute elements.
So ....you hypothesize all items, resources and similar as being valueless. That certainly would put a dent in inflation. But would it encourage us to play the game at maximum level? What would we be playing *for*?
Upgrades in equipment to use or trade to other characters. Experience points for alternate advancement if the game provides for such. Perhaps your model would allow for some things to be non-infinite. Maybe crafting recipes. Maybe housing decorations or cosmetic outfits. Would this be enough to keep people that do not like to play armies of alts happy? I don't know.
I am not trying to pick on your model or criticize it - just help brainstorm what the consequences might be and whether the model would produce a better result or a worse result. I do not really have an opinion yet. But as a player of many MMOs over the years and an economics major half a century ago I find it interesting.
Vandraad said:If all direct Player-Player trades were not possible, but instead had to route through an NPC broker which charged a fee based upon some algorithm which incorporated character levels, the potential value of the items, etc then, as you level up and items typically become more valuable, these trade costs increase.
Also, and this would definitely upset the tradeskillers, but use of crafting stations would need to be rented. The rental fee could, possibly, be based upon the number of combines you wish to do as well as the overall value of the final item, etc. This would require the elimination of any crafting by mobile crafting stations.
Also, and this is something that is a slight modification from what you see in EVE Online: All racial cities have crafting guilds and if you want to do Blacksmithing, as an example, you take your materials to the local Blacksmith, 'tell' them what you want, give them the materials (along with a fabrication fee) and after some period of time you are given your items. This would take raising tradeskills out of the list of things you can raise as the NPCs would make everything without fail thus putting the 'difficulty' of tradeskills into the gathering of resources.
can confirm this is the case as bdo system is very similar to this, however, is capped to prevent abuse by limiting, how much i can post on the central market, the price point at the top and low ends. so a heavily controlled market, but is % taxed instead of player level.
food, elixirs that are mostly obtained through player crafting functions this way.
lifeskillers have crafting stations, but its made by players. in recent times there are other options, but requires investments in specific lifeskills(tradeskills) to be 'somewhat' self sustainable.
there is interdependency that chokes players into a centralized system that taxes us with no p2p trading.
it's a 30% tax plus 5% for local terrorities per sale. this can be negated somewhat with a value pack (the subscription)
its not a bad system but regardless suffers from inflation still.
kinda takes the fun out of market manipulation and p2p stuff, but eh.
[ All my comments below are IMO: ]
stellarmind said: ... lets say i limit the money from being transferred at all p2p. well ppl will just start trading in items that have similar value (nft, real estate, consumables).players will never be on a leveling playing field in this regard. ...
dorotea said: ... So ....you hypothesize all items, resources and similar as being valueless. That certainly would put a dent in inflation. But would it encourage us to play the game at maximum level? What would we be playing *for*?Upgrades in equipment to use or trade to other characters. Experience points for alternate advancement if the game provides for such. Perhaps your model would allow for some things to be non-infinite. Maybe crafting recipes. Maybe housing decorations or cosmetic outfits. Would this be enough to keep people that do not like to play armies of alts happy? I don't know. ...
Vandraad said:If all direct Player-Player trades were not possible, but instead had to route through an NPC broker which charged a fee based upon some algorithm which incorporated character levels, the potential value of the items, etc then, as you level up and items typically become more valuable, these trade costs increase. ...
As a Dwarf, I will seek prestige by the accumulation of massive wealth. It's Roleplaying, and Player Agency.
While I would want to enjoy some of the fruits of that wealth, for myself and as largess for my friends, I am completely fine with taxes and money sinks, as long as they make sense in the game. If I pay a lot of fees and taxes, there should be consequences in the game.
Prestige can take many forms. Maybe there's something like Patreon or Super Chats, where your support enables a faction to advance, while they call out your support.
I'd prefer a gargantuan gem encrusted gold monument to my God in the middle of the Town Square, but I could settle for a simple "Thank you, Masked Man."
Balanz said:...
Prestige can take many forms. Maybe there's something like Patreon or Super Chats, where your support enables a faction to advance, while they call out your support.
...
IMO:
Agreed on the Prestige point, Balanz. A characters entire in-game value can be various forms of prestige, fame, faction, devotion, generosity, sacrifice, renown, reputation, and similar. But only if you want to strongly encourage that emergent player behavior. :D
One item I always felt was underutilized was being able to contribute, donate, or sacrifice items, wealth, xp, or any other accumulated "thing" of value from progession tracks/loops towards NPC and PC guilds.
Using that type of thing to advance world plot mechanics and/or provide public/community rewards to guilds always seemed like a natural extension of generosity, but rarely if ever implemented.
It also has the added benefit of being entirely separate, distinct, and unaffected by or for any inflation related mechanics, as a measure of each character's personal self worth or value.
Require all harvested items and all standard loot be sold to vendors and not be traded on an auction house or between players. Strictly limit how many of each item each vendor will buy and have the price reflect current supply. This creates a bulwark between infinite harvests / loot and the amount of currency in circulation.
We will have some items basically become worthless if far fewer players buy them from the vendor than are trying to sell to the vendor. That will lead to fewer characters bothering to collect it, restoring some value. But it won't be tens of thousands of characters being able to always sell worthless items for currency.
Also, create high end vanity money sinks that wealthy players compete over. Highest bidder gets a statue of their character in the town square for a week, for example.
Marxism doesn't work anywhere else so please don't try it here. That. Being. Said. Please... Do not add anything that isn't already planned for that will add one second to us getting to Alpha > Beta > then Release.
It is pretty obvious that many of the people here are aligned, but arguing over misunderstandings about what inflation is, and what money sinks are, so I will try to clarify.
Inflation in an MMO:
When in-game currency (lets say gold) is entering the game at a pace much faster than it leaves the game it accumulates in players wallets, giving them the impression that gold is less valuable so they charge each other more gold for items and services.
That is the end of the inflation story. It has nothing to do with the availability or scarcity of items other than the ability to sell them to vendors. The game could be programmed to have sun-god blades rain from the sky any time there was a thunderstorm, and so long as they couldn't be sold to vendors it would have zero effect on inflation. It would just make sun-god blades worthless and people would leave them everywhere like litter.
The first problem with inflation is new players enter the game earning gold at the designed rate from quests or grinding. They have not benefited from the massive accumulation of gold and so they can buy essentials like food and water at vendors for a reasonable price, but can't afford to purchase even basic upgrades from other players on the auction house which could cost millions of gold. Games typically don't raise prices at vendors to reflect inflation because it would further hurt new players, so instead purchasing anything at a vendor becomes trivially cheap to everyone else.
The second problem with inflation is that in-game ways of making gold lose all attention, even for new players. The primary ways of making gold should be quest rewards, mob drops, and vendoring items. But in an inflated game economy the focus is entirely on obtaining specific items that can be sold to other players. Why would a player spend all day killing orcs or doing quests to earn 50 gold when they could go harvest a single iron node and sell the iron on the auction house for 1000 gold? Inflation circumvents everything the in growth arc of quests, drops, and the economy as it was imagined by the game designers.
Money Sinks:
Money sinks are ALL the ways that gold can leave the game, and the ONLY way to prevent inflation. They are extremely important, but there are good money sinks and bad money sinks. I see a lot of anger over the idea of taxes or punishments for players who are doing well as if those are the only options, but they are not. Daily taxes are probably the worst and laziest way of implementing money sinks, while the best are providing goods and services that players want to willingly spend their gold on. Buying stuff from other players is NOT a money sink except for any fee's charged by the auction house. Buying a new sword at the blacksmith is a money sink. Paying to hop on a boat to travel rather than swimming is a money sink. Upkeep (repairs, food, spells, training) is a money sink. Money sinks should be scaled so that higher level players have bigger and better things not just to spend their gold on, but to yearn for and look forward to spending their gold on. Most of the things that games could have used as money sinks have been moved to the cash shops in modern MMO's.
I think the idea of a brokerage charge for item transactions and no way to transfer items or money any other way seems most sensible to me.
It's something I was in favour of back when people were discussing ways to limit an 'auction house' anyway, though I didn't really appreciate it was an effective way to control inflation.
A brokerage charge and/or regional tax of varying levels depending on the service chosen?
The service could have up to 3 parts: -
The Broker, providing an 'auction' listing for your item
The Consignor, providing storage and sale point for the item
The Shipment, providing movement of the item between vendors
Just employing a Broker means you only provided a For Sale 'auction' listing that puts buyer and seller in touch and the transaction is player-to-player as arranged by players (listing cost up front, sale tax at point of sale)
Employing Broker and Consignor means you get a listing and the buyer can travel to your Consignor to buy the item. Consignment fee applies.
Employing all three means a listing and the buyer can go to a Consignor more convenient to them (though still 'region' local?) for the transaction and would mean two fees and the tax. Transport fee (and delay?) applies.
Even avoiding all three and just /shouting your sale and meeting privately could still apply a sales 'tax' during the transaction.
Of course it involves a bit of suspension of disbelief, with the 'sales tax' being applied 'magically' at point of sale, but if it can provide a good level of control on an economy that would normally go wild: worth it?
disposalist said: ... Of course it involves a bit of suspension of disbelief, with the 'sales tax' being applied 'magically' at point of sale, but if it can provide a good level of control on an economy that would normally go wild: worth it?
IMO:
Yep, that is a way to do it, but it is a bit.. hmm. negative? from the player perspective, and I'll explain what I mean by that.
As long as player agency or choice provides the illusion of progress, players will do it all day long. The exact moment the player sees a downside to what they're doing, they will hesitate, and emergent player behaivior is born. Or put another way, if the player sees it as Fun, the consequence is likely positive. If not, the consequences are likely negative.
So, while it's true, you can add several different NPCs with several different economic throttles, with several different taxes, it does consequentially create several potential points where the player will see it as negative, especially when what they want to do most often is perceived as restricted or limited, regardless if it actually IS restricted or limited.
The whole auction house/market/public trading is a bit after the fact, when it comes to wealth generation. So, again, yes, what you've outlined could be used, and is perfectly valid, if you back up a few steps in the process and apply a similar design brush to the generation portion, you'll address the issue sooner in the framework/artificial economy.
A way to do that would be to have an NPC provide a 'fuel' (or similar) in trade for some resource that can't be traded, and that 'fuel' (or similar) is required by everyone, without exception, to turn everything that is an output from any wealth-generating loop into an input for any other loop.
That's sufficiently generic to fit into just about any game. Provided all wealth-generating loop outputs have no value (of any kind) and that 'fuel' (or similar) is required to turn everything that is an output from any loop into an input for any other loop, and that 'fuel' (or similar) can ONLY be obtained from that category of NPC, and that 'fuel' (or similar) is itself untradeable, then you would be on the right track.
That would be an example of a single unavoidable resource/money/coin/currency sink that would accomplish the design goal, without requiring more than one potentially negative consequence, from the players perspective.
vjek said:disposalist said: ... Of course it involves a bit of suspension of disbelief, with the 'sales tax' being applied 'magically' at point of sale, but if it can provide a good level of control on an economy that would normally go wild: worth it?Yep, that is a way to do it, but it is a bit.. hmm. negative? from the player perspective, and I'll explain what I mean by that.
As long as player agency or choice provides the illusion of progress, players will do it all day long. The exact moment the player sees a downside to what they're doing, they will hesitate, and emergent player behaivior is born. Or put another way, if the player sees it as Fun, the consequence is likely positive. If not, the consequences are likely negative.
...
I see what you mean, but it's a negative (tax) that isn't as big as the positive (loot) hit they already had and will often be part of a service (auction) that is saving them some time.
You could take the edge off by adding accomplishments for big tax payers? ;^) Discounts by faction so even though you are paying, you feel like you are special?
I feel like a sales tax - even if sometimes applied 'magically' - is still more natural/normal feeling than some kind of loot conversion or even pre-looting fuel/fee? Also different loot types and conversions is somewhat cumbersome?
IMO:
Ideally, it's one conversion for ~all "things", and it's post looting. No limits on loot or wealth generation would generally be a good couple of design goals, I think.
And everyone despises taxes. :)
If another design goal is to allow as much direct player-to-player trading as possible, and keeping the economic throttle as small as possible, I personally wouldn't use taxes or even the reasonable hand-drawn-facsimile of taxes, personally. I do like the idea of the discounts by investment/faction/rep/etc, so that players feel special. That is the exact type of thing that is almost universally perceived as positive/Fun.
vjek said:disposalist said: ... Of course it involves a bit of suspension of disbelief, with the 'sales tax' being applied 'magically' at point of sale, but if it can provide a good level of control on an economy that would normally go wild: worth it?A way to do that would be to have an NPC provide a 'fuel' (or similar) in trade for some resource that can't be traded, and that 'fuel' (or similar) is required by everyone, without exception, to turn everything that is an output from any wealth-generating loop into an input for any other loop.
Taxes/Fuel whatever you want to call them are not an adequate gold sink. Here is an example. If You find some boots on an orc and want to sell them to a vendor for 10 gold, but first you have to pay another NPC 1 gold to clean them, then why not just have them be worth 9 gold in the first place and skip the negative feeling of a tax? Taxes are ineffective because they only reduce the total amount of gold entering the system by a percentage. Gold sinks need to remove it almost entirely at a rate that keeps up with the amount being generated. Players need to save up for 2 months to dump all their gold on their first horse. What is more fun? The achievement of getting your first horse after so much hard work (a 100% money sink), or being taxed every time you vendor some items (10% money sink). The idea is that money sinks need to add up to 100% or be periodic milestones of 100% or there will be inflation.