Jimmayus said:Not to be "that lore guy", but I'm surprised nobody has looked at Pantheon-specific sinks. I'm talking chiefly about tithing and sacrifice to chosen deities. One of the primary questions driving larger stories in the game is going to be "Where are our gods"? The reasons for the question aren't important, we just know it is a question. I suspect that many cultures will have rites where you offer up expensive offerings to curry favor. The priests of other factions might insist on tithing you just to get in the door to worship at altars (a.k.a. you must pay to click the buff-giving statue).
I like this one because instead of a direct plat sink in most cases, often what you will do is offer up food, or (alcoholic) drinks, the more expensive to make the better. This helps circulate the economy while removing items from the game, inadvertently reducing the total "wealth" in the economy.
Man you should read the lore on this site. I've spent multiple weeks writing treatises in the lore forums about various important things as well, so if you're interested there's tons of things to explore. The lore guys really made a fantastic premise.
edit: to keep this on topic: the "mob looting your corpse" thing seems terrible. Generally, RPGs allow you to keep all the currency you have on your person as a conceit because literal banks do not exist in the game. Without such a system in place the idea that you could lag out and lose years of currency seems like an extremely arbitrary way to punish people.
I just keep coming back to travel as a money sink because it's such a simple thing to implement. You don't need tiers of bonuses mapped out to be congruent, you don't need a bunch of arbitrary points sytems or whatever. It's literally just a "want to travel (quickly/over or around this physical obstacle/across the ocean) and don't have your own mode? Pay the toll, because even though I'm an npc I didn't magic this boat out of thin air for your personal convenience".
Greattaste said:Just as you gain the coin loot from a fallen adversary, you too shall lose your coin loot upon being killed by certain mobs or NPCs.
All humanoid mobs?
You only lose your money if you and your group wipe to the mob.
Maybe your 3009 plat will be on the a_desert_outlaw_001 that killed you. You need to go kill it and get your money back, before someone gets to loot 3k from a random mob.
Or you could do like I do and store all your money in the bank lol.
Jimmayus said:Man you should read the lore on this site. I've spent multiple weeks writing treatises in the lore forums about various important things as well, so if you're interested there's tons of things to explore. The lore guys really made a fantastic premise.
edit: to keep this on topic: the "mob looting your corpse" thing seems terrible. Generally, RPGs allow you to keep all the currency you have on your person as a conceit because literal banks do not exist in the game. Without such a system in place the idea that you could lag out and lose years of currency seems like an extremely arbitrary way to punish people.
I just keep coming back to travel as a money sink because it's such a simple thing to implement. You don't need tiers of bonuses mapped out to be congruent, you don't need a bunch of arbitrary points sytems or whatever. It's literally just a "want to travel (quickly/over or around this physical obstacle/across the ocean) and don't have your own mode? Pay the toll, because even though I'm an npc I didn't magic this boat out of thin air for your personal convenience".
I like the "pay a toll" idea however. :)
Following :
Raise/repair Deity_Faction :
Give offerrings of (god related) objects. E.g. from Greek Mythology : Raise Ares_Faction by donating swords/weapons of higher and higher quality. These can be bought, made or looted. ALl adds to sink pp though.
Improve Guild Tier/Status :
For guilds to increase their 'level' they need to improve faction with their 'home' city and get approval/permissions etc. These could be simple payments, or '500 Bolts of Silk'. Both take effort and cash.
Join/get-promotion of NPC organization:
For organizations like 'NPC_City_Crafter' and 'NPC_City_Gladiator' type organizations, an entry fee would be needeed. Plus fees or work to rasie your status/level within the group. May even be a monthly fee.
Feyshtey said:Liav said:Gambling is subject to irl gambling laws, so that wouldn't work practically I don't believe.
I've heard this said repeatedly, but I've never heard anyone quantify it. There are multiple games that have some form of gambling in them now. EQ2 has what is effectively slot machines. If there are gambling laws that impact this, how does EQ2 get around them?
Gambling...don't the servers belong to VR..therefore up to them? Not sure how USA laws work of course.
Lovecraft said:
- Rent for player apartments and housing.
- Fuels, regeants and supplies for crafting.
- Costs for researching new spells and crafting recipies.
- Tips, Donations or Bribes to NPCs to make them perform quest related actions.
- Tips to Town Crier NPC to publicily announce the player's latest completion of a quest.
- Tips to have town street performers to perform their acts.
- NPC armor & weapon vendors whose stock consists of items that player's have vendored in the region.
- Long term buffs purchased from town NPCs.
- Paying Barkeeps to hear what's new in the rumor mill with the chance of finding a new quest path.
Alot of that will be out of reach of newcomers who start off in rags..and have a few copper pennies. Hoping we don't make the money sink so stringent as to encourage RMT thinking..there needs to be a happy medium here, because once you get people buying plat/gold for real money...its all downhill after that for the game's economy.
Jimmayus said:edit: to keep this on topic: the "mob looting your corpse" thing seems terrible. Generally, RPGs allow you to keep all the currency you have on your person as a conceit because literal banks do not exist in the game. Without such a system in place the idea that you could lag out and lose years of currency seems like an extremely arbitrary way to punish people.
I just keep coming back to travel as a money sink because it's such a simple thing to implement. You don't need tiers of bonuses mapped out to be congruent, you don't need a bunch of arbitrary points sytems or whatever. It's literally just a "want to travel (quickly/over or around this physical obstacle/across the ocean) and don't have your own mode? Pay the toll, because even though I'm an npc I didn't magic this boat out of thin air for your personal convenience".
I actually think certain mobs looting money from your corpse would actually be kind cool. You could very easily store currency in the bank in EQ. I think it's a pretty safe bet that Pantheon will have similar banks. Always store most of your money in the bank... Never go out with large amounts in your pocket. Problem solved. That's also practical travel sense. I think it might be kinda fun to track down your killer to avenge your own death and recoup your monetary losses if you got caught carrying a lot of cash. It also would be awesome to feel like you hit the jackpot if you kill a mob that drops a bunch of plat they have accumulated from killing other players. Of course the amount of mobs that are capable of this should be pretty few and far between. Of course wolves and other animals wouldn't be able to. But certainly bandits and most other devious, intelligent mobs would probably search your pockets if they kill you. Maybe in some cases, perhaps they're in a rush, they would only be able to find some of the money on your body and therefore you wouldn't lose it all. I may some day regret advocating this lol but it sounds cool in theory.
Anyway, I do agree that travel should be fairly expensive!
Mobs looting your corpse...hmm can't remember which game it was, probably The Realm, where rogues could pickpocket you..(or was that Wow?) memory fails me, but what they pickpocketed came from a loot table, not your actual money. Sometimes they would get pocket lint if their skills weren't that good. heh Other than that, I am just thinking again of our newbies..with their rags and few copper to start, that might be a deterrent to continuing to play. Newbies are the blood of MMOs...let's keep them in mind. :)
Perhaps a guild can tip in enough money to buy a sort of giant raid pet, a construct. There can be constructs that have beneficial aoes around them, do direct damage, tank, etc. Maybe a group of very powerful summoners will summon a pet for a price...maybe a group of any NPC class trainer guilds can give stuff to you if you pay them and if you have good faction with them.
CanadinaXegony said:Mobs looting your corpse...hmm can't remember which game it was, probably The Realm, where rogues could pickpocket you..(or was that Wow?) memory fails me, but what they pickpocketed came from a loot table, not your actual money. Sometimes they would get pocket lint if their skills weren't that good. heh Other than that, I am just thinking again of our newbies..with their rags and few copper to start, that might be a deterrent to continuing to play. Newbies are the blood of MMOs...let's keep them in mind. :)
True, which is why it should be mostly limited to certain mid/high level mobs. Especially ones that may take most or all of your money.
But now that I think of it, Idk if this can truly be considered a gold sink because theoretically the money would most likely be re-introduced into the economy when that mob is killed and looted.
Bazgrim said:True, which is why it should be mostly limited to certain mid/high level mobs. Especially ones that may take most or all of your money.
But now that I think of it, Idk if this can truly be considered a gold sink because theoretically the money would most likely be re-introduced into the economy when that mob is killed and looted.
A portion of it could be lost when this happens so it cannot reenter the game. Maybe the enemy go pays for guards to help them. Maybe they upgrade their gear to become stronger since they are being attacked.
Yes syntro had a great post on this. Just to add 2cp, How about if you camp out in a town, you have to pay an overnight inn fee? Otherwise you have to camp outside- except for newbs they can camp in town up to level 10.
And if you camp outside, too close to the city walls or door, the guards would fine you for littering once you logged in from camping the next day, so if you camped you would have to camp out in the middle of the zone where the creatures are roaming and take your chances that when you log in, you dont happen to log in as the undercon or too-high-level-for-the-zone hill giant/air elemental wanders by.
Consumables/currency sinks for combat, for each class, can be a good thing, but I'll relate a story about that.
In the past year, another small development team started large scale testing of their MMO, and during that testing, increased consumable prices for combat up to the point where players were having a hard time breaking even. That is, it cost something on the order of 9 gold in gear repair to kill a creature which would, on average, give you 8g-10g in loot.
The problem, of course, was that it placed profit in the realm of the random-number-generator. Some players would get no loot, and if the RNG decided over an hour this was more often true than false, then would end their day of hunting in the red. Now, this set aside things like the cost of consumables for spells, poison, arrows, things like that. This was just... you're in combat, regardless of being hit or not, your gear is damaged, you pay, and some players couldn't pay.
They rolled back that change. It was universally considered bad design and bad implementation. Even in a testing environment, it lasted less than one day, because players are used to making money over time, while engaged in combat.
So, my advice is, be cautious about what you ask for. If it becomes an obligation to sacrifice-to-a-deity, or salvage-for-tradeskills every item you get, and we only get static loot tables, and/or mobs that don't drop coin, and/or repair-before-selling-to-an-NPC, and no bottom feeding, and gear damage from combat, and a variety of other mechanics, all of which sound great in theory... you might just get them all, and then have to take out a loan to adventure.
Yes, it's a balance thing, but it's incredibly easy to shut off all the taps or have far too many sinks.
Personally? I would appeal to players greed and personal desire for customization of spells, skills, appearance and gear as sinks. Then it's their choice, rather than obligation.
vjek said:
So, my advice is, be cautious about what you ask for. If it becomes an obligation to sacrifice-to-a-deity, or salvage-for-tradeskills every item you get, and we only get static loot tables, and/or mobs that don't drop coin, and/or repair-before-selling-to-an-NPC, and no bottom feeding, and gear damage from combat, and a variety of other mechanics, all of which sound great in theory... you might just get them all, and then have to take out a loan to adventure.
Yes, it's a balance thing, but it's incredibly easy to shut off all the taps or have far too many sinks.
Personally? I would appeal to players greed and personal desire for customization of spells, skills, appearance and gear as sinks. Then it's their choice, rather than obligation.
Agreed Vjek, definitely seeing a case here of "be careful what you wish for" I am just afraid that the money sink will be so stringent that newcomers will just say...THIS is not fun nor interesting. I remember a time in LOTRO beta testing where the cost of things ..to craft or otherwise was way out of line with what new players could gain monetarily. There has to be a balance. Otherwise ..Real Money Transactions will come into being...and pretty sure that's not something VR wants started up in Pantheon. Maybe we need an economist..like the MMO Eve online has lol.