Quote: Original post by shadow66ca2000
Inflation can never totally be controlled, but there are ways to help control it. If you have to setup ways of money circulation then and interest properly then inflation can be controlled.

Not really, because you have the problem of people dumping money into the system. If people are dumping real money into the system, you have a problem of creating things from nothing. Someone looking for a quick buck might dump lots of money into the system, reap a benifit and escape before they get caught with inflation. If enough enterprising people do that, you're game world will be shat upon and in ruins.

Quote: Game laundering will be illegal in the game of course.

heh, It ain't legal in the real world either. Doesn't stop it.

Quote: Like I have been looking at both sides and I keep saying to myself how this would make money and how would players make money.

If it's goal is to make money, than it's a game of chance and would be classified, at least in Michigan, as gambling.

What you need is a good lawyer. You have a lot of liability here, you need a good lawyer to advise you. I suggest one to look over everything at the major steps of your design process.

Quote: Original post by shadow66ca2000
I am not a bank

You claim that your strong point is business. If that's the case, use some of your business ability and go and find out what it means to be *classsified* as a bank - it's nothing to do with having a sign over the door saying "i'm a bank", it's defined by what kind of business you do and how you do it, and the moment you are running your own currency you are in SERIOUS sh*t because the default assumption in many jurisdictions is "currency implies bank".

If you really were so hot on business you would probably know more about how this has affected lots of online businesses, how people have had to employ rather unobvious business models in order to make it absolutely clear they are not a bank.

If you have to setup ways of money circulation then and interest properly then inflation can be controlled.

Quote:
Game laundering will be illegal in the game of course.

You mean "money" laundering, right? Well, who gives a monkey's if it's "illegal" in your game - it's a first-class criminal offence in real life. Think about it for a second: money laundering is only done by people with large amounts of illegally obtained money. Do you think they care what your game rules are? Right. Do you really thikn you can 100% guarantee there is not one single way to use your game for money laundering?

Put into perspective, how do you stop someone from dropping an expensive good on the floor and someone else "randomly" finding it and picking it up (that's money laundering - transfer of money from one owner to another so that it doesn't look like it came from the original owner). Money laundering is tricky enough to prevent in real life; in a game it's much much harder.

I'm all for new ideas, but ... only idiots think of ideas without doing the critical analysis.

Online banking is the way of the future. I think Paypal is going to become, so big. Paypal is also just now starting to expand into the ideas of allowing people to take out loans. Look at ING bank as well. There are no such things as a ATM that says ING on it. The bank is solely over the phone or on the INternet. In other words you really never see the money.

Money laundering will be controlled from items having a rating system on them. Items will also be filtered into the game so players won't be able to just stack up like crazy on like a few rare items.

Like money laundering would occur, but I would try to find everyway possible to make sure it can be taken out of the game.

Plus we are forgetting that the whole point of human "employment" is basically to do something productive that cannot be done by computers or other things. I could sign in to your game and get my computer to effectively run around earning money for myself.

Also your little micro-economy is based on the fact that all money made in the game will stay in the game, which it won't.

And lets not forget that a lot of people who play these games are not legal adults.

heres a perfect example of inflation that property that was bought for $26,500 will allow the owner of that land the ability to charge high prices for people to hunt or live on that land in the game. But you have look at the good side. If you bought an apartment in the heart of NEW York you would pay tons more then if you bought something outside of the city. It occurs all the time its part of capitalism. The only way to really restrict it would to put a cap on everything somehow in the game and make sure that you are offering enough of those items that a CAP would work. Its like looking at the NFL they have a Cap and F*** up everything. However, on the other side Buiness owner feel that they are safe when they buy an NFL team because they know right off the bat how much money it will cost them. I saw the NY Jets propose the idea to build a stadium in New York and the cost would be 1.6 Billion and the only reasons its that high is because of the area. This will happen in the game too some places will be cheaper then others, but there will be time involved of how long it will take to get from point A to B. I would always be thinking about a lawyers to help with legal issues all over the place with new games. I can already start to see the trend in paying for online items and virtual properties. People should look at the Second Life model by Liden Labs, which just got 8 million dollars in funding from Ebay.

ok the main thing about this game is you would have to be 18 years old to play. Well lets look at this if somebody gets hooked to a MMORPG and ends up playing 8-10 hours a day and misses work and stuff. To me that seems like they are hooked and maybe they should get something in return. To me an online game isn't really a thrill because to me its a losing situation no matter what. You play a game and you spend 10-20 a month. However, you never get that money back. I spend over 50 a month on Ebay, but I at least know I have a chance to get that money back. It would be the same thing in the game if a player spends money in the game at least they know they have some chance to get the money back. Thats why its not considered gambling. No one in the right mind would say ebay is a gambling site, but if your a seller you could win or lose depending whether your auction sells or not. In the game your character could beat the wolf or die trying. If he wins he the wolf's fur which he could sell. If loses he gets nothing. Its win lose scenario just like how every business is ran you can't always win.

The reason most companies don't do this is because there are too many legal issues to contend with, and because it gives players with lots of spending money an advantage over other players. Its supposed to be a game, so players should collect rare items and money based on the merits of their game play, not because they have a large banking account.

Furthermore, while it is true that some players could make money, most will not. All that money must come from somewhere. If players are making money by selling items, it is because other players are buying them. The players that are buying the items are spending money, not making it. And, unlike the real world, you can't eat virtual items so its not like an economy like this is self-sustaining. The players that do make money in the game will do so because they spend their entire time finding the fastest ways to collect items to sell. Collecting these items over and over will probably be tedius. The people collecting items probably wouldn't be having fun, and so it would quite literally be a job.

Also, we should consider the implications this has to society. The purpose of a game is to have fun. Therefore, the service that the employee-players are providing is fun to other players. I find the service of providing game items to others to have a rather minimal benefit, however. After all, the items are hard to get so that players would have a challenge and have fun acquiring the items. If it was better to allow players to just buy the items, the game companies could sell the items themselves since they can duplicate an item as many times as they want. This isn't the sort of "job creation" that is actually going to benefit society much. We live in a world with serious problems (e.g. starving children), and I would much rather see us create jobs that address those kinds of problems.

Finally, this has been done, to an extent. There is a company in Europe that made a game where all the currency was real money. You had no subscription fees, but all the shops where you bought item accepted real money. You could also sell items from hunting expeditions and mining for real money. I wish I could remember the name of the game. If I could, I'd send you the link.

you dont get your moneys worth playing a mmorpg? how about when you play other games you purchase? how about movies you see? theatre shows perhaps? Many people pay for those service and items becuase they get enjoyment and fun from them. Quite simply put, a person may spend $200 a seat for a boxing match or could sit at home and watch it. there is no difference in the amount of money that could be made (0 unless he gambles on who wins).

ebay is not gambling since it is not a game of chance. You give the seller money to purchase a physical item. You can attempt to sell that item at a higher price at a lter date in hopes o making a profit. This is more like commidities and stocks. Being good with businiess you would know this.

Your system proposes that a player pays a monthly service charge. In return they get access to the virtual world. They can kill creatures for items that are "randomly" spawned. They have a worth which is only valid if it can fufill a need. if the game is secondary to the idea of making money, the items wont have much value. People have been buying the virtual stuff on ebay because they dont want to spend time getting the item themselves. Pretty much you have one set of players providing a service to players with large disposable incomes. In a game where the objective is to make money like a job, only some people can make money. Why have a monthly fee? I mean if all the players are suposed to make a certain income for performing a task, then there is no need for them to pay for yoru service. I dont pay my job to work for them, they pay me. Maybe you do things differently in your area.

No sane person would pay a game company a large sum of money for business venture such as this. The ocmpany has expenses to keep the servers up and bug free. Make new content as players get towards the end game. How will you deal with server down time? Will you pay the players? What about a server rollback? Players wont like it if they just lost there $1000 uber sword because your system crashed. Expect a civil lawsuit and possibly criminal charge for theft. No amount of leaglese will fix that in your contract. The item belongs to the player, and its your responsibilty nothing happens to it. Sure you can place a clause that its not your responsibilty that the item is lost. However you will get a lawsuits. Whether you win or not it will still cost comapny time, court costs, and lawyer fees.

Also since there is no salary, it cant be classified as work. Unless you are paying minium wage to the employee, you are breaking the law. This si why no such system exist. Sure second lide has an econmy where yo can purchase sapce and items. However most of the costs are to cover expenses of the server with a small profit added in. The player only makes money if they can figure a way to get other players to spend there money.

Players put $10,000 in to the "bank". The company takes out $5000 for operating costs and $2000 for profit (unless you dont want to be paid). Now there is $3000 left for the players. Hold up, there is less money left for the players? how can they all make money? I know they can run quests for us. Its just like a gofer except in a virtual world. However if all the palyers do the quests you still only have $3000 for them unless you dip into yoru profits which makes you have $5000 for them. They still cant even break even unless you are so weathly that you can afford to operate the game out of your pocket, and dont mind giveing money to players for doing nothing more then play a game.

how about this, you give me some money for typing this all out. I mean you are willing to give players money for killing a virtual wolf and bringing you the virtual pelt. At least this is something that you can enjoy since I created it and not you. Then again you dont nuy things for enjoyment, only profit. since afterall you did try those stupid get paid while you surf scams. This is nothing more then an attempt at making money for doing nothing.

face the facts your lazy and have no useful skillset otherwise you would do somethign more productive like make a free mmorpg that ppl could enjoy. I dont need to get paid to play a game. Let me play for free.

Ap -> TAXES

All you need is a little taxation.
Let anybody use it. All you do is collect, maybe 1% per year on taxes.
Now if you have maybe 100K Credits, you'll have:
100,000 - (100,000 * 0.01) = 100,000 - 1,000 = 99,000

Now you would gradually put this in, with something like per week taxing.

Now, you need validity that the clients really are the clients.

What you do, is you get an open standerds going.

Each user has a username and password.
you generate a signing key using those two.

So, now when pl1 is giving pl2 10K credits, you know its Actually pl1 ging permission.

You keep track of each bill. (to stop money laundering).
Each bill has a serial number.
It also has one owner.
You let the users keep Track of their assets, but you keep track of who'se bill is whose.

for eg.
Bill #124234, owned by User_name, value, 100 credits, Transfered in transaction #123443.

The code number would be authenticated by your public key.

Now if anybody else tries to move that bill to somebody else, they won't be allowed to.

What you also have, are the equivelent of a paper trail.

Now eventually, you would want to get the bill replaced, to cut down on the paper. So you just go and collect this bill as tax (eventually) (what you could do, is keep a tab, which is the amount that person owes in tax, you can then use that to efficently put bills out of service)., and you burn it. and make another one.

Now what you also need is some sort of a contract system.
So, when something happens, give this person something.

Or else somebody is responcible to keep something from happening. In the case of it happening, do this.

Or a standered contract. Make this happen, and in the event of it not happening before this time, do this to this person.

Of cource all contracts would have to be signed by all of the parties.
This would practically be a programming language in the game.

Now, what you would do, is make the game world out of "islands". Those are handles by one server, or a team of servers each.

Now when moving from one to the other, there is a thourough checking of records, to make sure that no laundered money or items are transfered.

Another thing you might actually want, is a Bank.

When somebody gives there money to the bank, it puts that money out of use. it also gives you a spot to store items. So, it would just hold your items for you.

The banks would probably be seperate from the rest of the system (including being run by another company, which you make up), and the entire system must be kept authenticated.

You could also give items a lifetime. so for eg. an uber sword would last for eg. 2-3 years, and as it wears out, it gets less uber. Eventually it breaks, and you have to pay for a swordsmith to remake it (see contracting above).

Items can only be made from the wizards or the smiths.
The wizards can "Program" items (to for eg. make a sentry to guard a building, for money of cource, as well as giving it the power to shoot magical fire at enemies), and the smits just turn ore (which is gotten out of mines. Which can be made by smiths), into finished products. They can also remake things which are broken.

Anybody can buy land from the makers of the game, or from the previous owners for a price. (land is an item), And once they've got it, they can do what they want with it. Cut down trees (which eventually regrow), mine, build a house.

Balencing an economy would be hard to do, but i'm pretty sure that if you keep taking stuff out of circulation you can keep inflation down to a good level.

The legal aspect is going to be terrible tho. But making the entire game deterministic (for eg. a lv 1001 player will always beat a lv 23 timberwolf with x damage afterwords.) Would get rid of the game of chance aspect to it.

From,
Nice coder

A contract MUST be signed by both parties. Each party gets a copy of the contract which they sign. Then they mail each other the copy and would have to sign it. Though transactions dont require contracts. your company does since there will be TOS and a EULA. both are pretty meaningless if you say the items are real and want to avoid lawsuits by saying "you cant sue us". A written contract hols more weight (in fact some places click through agreements are about as good as not having anything at all). Again the legal aspect is a pain and you reaize this. contracts also dont hold for minors.

Unfortunatly you dont seem to comprehend the idea that money must come from some source. You are creating items that are virtual and placing some artifical restriction to ensure that they have some value at least collectible wise. however if your company does, so do all the players property. thus your company would have to pay the worth of all items in physical funds to all the players that have assests. not a route you want to go down I assure you.


To play nice, Please tell me about the actual game. What can players do? What is the setting? Will you be using shards or a single world? will you have instance dungeons for quests? What sets your game apart from the other mmorpgs besides the small possibility to make money (since afterall I could just play some other mmorpg that is not friendly towards this but much more popular and obtain the rare items for sale to the highest bidder instead of hoping for other players to play this small little game)? If its just a gimmick, then you ahve no hope at all.