Rebalancing the Empire Economy [slow induce]

I think that Aikar is more cunning that we all give him credit. He is the de facto chairman of the EMC central bank and by simply floating the idea that we wants to increase the money supply by tenfold he is accomplishing exactly what he proposes without making any changes. Let me explain.

As a long term emc player I have accumulated a sizeable stash of rupees. My first reaction on reading Aikar's proposal to massively inflate the money supply in order to inflate commodity prices, is to liquidate my cash holdings into time trusted commodities (diamonds, emerald ore, lapis, etc). There is no longer any economic motivation in accumulating cash.

This in itself will inflate prices on many items.

I voted for leave it alone because I think that mega-mall owners will be working with 10 digit numbers on their rupees account and that could be really annoying

Not Switzerland, Switzerland is neutral

I don't mean to come off as rude or anything, but your economics thinking is not near correct. A natural business will gravitate towards maximal profit, so chicken will raise his prices.

Nonononononono! Lets say a item costs 10r one day, and 100r the next. But over that time, your daily sign in bonus goes from 100r to 1000r. Has the item become more expensive? In strictly numbers terms, of course it has. But in relative terms, it has not.

That is personal bias and has no basis in logical reasoning. Stop signs and stoplights are very annoying, they make driving take more time and thought. But it is a benefit to pedestrians and other drivers that people stop at intersections.

I myself, think we need to find away to get some money out of system. Perhaps develop a perk that you can only get with money(rupee), you could lower value of rupee by increasing what you get thru voting and what not. but you may be able to drive ppl in earning more if they had reason to collect other then just to be rich and buy what they want.

I think if this perk or pricy special item(non trade)(or perhaps a limited day supporter pass). you could get some money(rupee) out of system vs keeping it in.
(in sense it may drive rich ppl to spend more and earn more and to help stimulate economy)

What ever is done it wont effect me much but honestly if think it will help go ahead.
This just my thought, hope I explained it good enough...horrible at explaining my own thoughts : P

Vault, vault pages, stables, locked chests, /shop, promos at /shop, and [anything I didn't list] are already made as rupee sinks. We can't completely rely on rupee sinks and voting.

That is not the point of this update. It is simply so that we can have more flexibility with our prices. we sell iron for 2r/ingot. therefore, we can only sell iron for 2r or HALF that.

Yes but all those are limited, vault honestly not that much at all, vaultpages have a max, stables...free for town use(only cost 100r for wild summon), locked chest did that go free? problem with promos is ppl stock up with that and sell em down the line.(once in awile I sell ore buster)(and dosnt take out alot money from system). Im thinking somthin worth alot more and that's non trade might help...not saying it should be relied on...maybe just helpful to economy.

*EDIT* when I say more expensive...some worth over 100k-500k

I agree with Aikar now.

Makes Sense, Im not against the 10x raise(or ur sejusted x5), just hopin my idea would be helpful at some point. A lot of new ppl end up spending all there money right away from what ive seen cause they don't know the market. some of us try help em, other new ppl started there own shop and are doing well so far. Anywho thanks for explain akiar.

*EDIT* From another source.
prices are low cause so many people dont do any work and refuse to pay much for anything.
peoples refusal to mine in minecraft has always been ridiculous.

Just 2 comments.
Keep in mind that is an opinion.
and this viewpoint mostly comes from smp8

If we do this, there need to be more rupees out there. People wont use iron as much for pistons. Redstone would come to a halt, like to years ago when pistons where <70r each.

This NEEDS to be lifted up to healthy! I can't stand making no profit and no money with a shop which is why I am only about to sell cow items as they are still at a decent price. Personally I think we need to ban resource farm except for mob drops. The gold, wither skulls, and iron is way too low due to these.

10k character limit, so splitting it.

highlancer54 said:
I will comment more soon. Here is my first reaction and initial thought.
If you raise in game rupee bonuses only... it punishes those of us who save our rupees.
Aikar: Why do you think it would punish? Your new daily rupee intake would also start to increase.
Again I also said it would not be instant, so the value of the current rupees would not be instantly cut to 10%.
Now, if you sat their doing absolutely nothing for months, and then the economy does inflate upwards, then yes you would of lost value.

Inflation devalues existing currency. Always has, and it always will. Deflation rewards savers. Its economics.
Lets take a snapshot of one month. Assuming everyone votes every day (we should after all if we care), then for normal players, they get 1,100 rupees every day. This equates to 33,000 rupees per month created from nothing into the economy. Great job, you saved all month, did not spend anything, nor sold a thing. Current worth, is 507 diamonds from player shops. Now revaluation happens. Prices rise, say even 10%. (now going from 65r to 72r for shops). Your savings now just went from 507 diamonds, to 458 diamonds. Now the extreme of 10x the value the ‘goal’ now you have 51 diamonds worth (over exaggeration due to empire shop prices being fixed…(for now) So the ‘real’ worth becomes slightly less than the empire shop prices? Maybe 365 diamonds?
Either way, this is rupee devaluation through inflation. Now in the longer run, it took you one month to save 33,000 rupees. Increase the bonus, 10x, then how long does it take new players to achieve what it took you a month to do? Well, 1/10th the time, or 3 days. You can say, that you get the same bonus they do now, however what you have no longer is worth a month of time, its now worth three days.
This all being said, I know you are using the 10x as an example, and any increase would be gradual as you have indicated, so my examples indeed are skewed. Point is that it will hurt those who have saved as rupees which are “hard” to obtain, are will be “easier” to get in the future. Meaning those who have saved gets harmed, and those who have spent on items, will have gained.

Aikar: But that would be an extreme case. This would be a slow process, so anyone sitting on current rupees would be able to grow that rupees value in the same speed if not more than the growth of the economy in general.
Setting a new economy in motion with more rupees obviates the fact that what players have currently saved will be worth less than what is planned for the future.
Example: iron. Previously was mined. Was worth X rupees. Along comes iron farms (slow) iron worth drops. Then efficient farms, worth drops further. Many efficient multi tiered iron farms. Iron is now worth 2r. You and I both had 10 iron blocks at the beginning. You sold yours, I kept mine. At the end of this example, who made the smarter choice? You did because you sold when the price was high. Saturate the market with anything, and its ‘worth’ or ‘purchasing power’ is much less. Again, regardless of rupees, items, promos, etc. if you saturate the marketplace, it harms savers.

Aikar: I'm essentially just saying "Were going to give you more money" with the intent of a 10x lift in values.
Unless you sit on a rock, current rupee stores would also receive a 10x lift. But then that would be the players fault for just letting it sit there unused.
This form of inflation could still happen even without intent from our side as EMC grows.
Natural inflation from extra players is good. More people to mine, spend, save, interact, set up shop, become supporters, etc. More players means more rupees in the economy as well as more demand. AKA prices do not fluctuate as fast, as through a currency revaluation. Inflating an economy will have unintended consequence. Revaluation still does not affect supply and demand. And putting 10x the amount of rupees into player hands does not mean 10x in values. This is partially due to the empire shop prices as well. Empire shop costs are both known, and infinite. If shop prices are 65r per diamond, nobody could compete with the empire shop prices of 100r (cannot charge 650 per diamond).
It would also award those who keep their rupee balance at zero, when players purchase every 'valuable' commodity at current prices. (unless the plan includes to also re-value peoples savings at the same rate as the rupee bonus, etc...)
Aikar: Again, not instant, so unless your looking for something like a 3 year return on investment on an EMC economy, not a very wise thing to do.
A stable known economy is far superior to a manipulated marketplace. We do have minor variances as people do massive builds.

Do not forget about supply and demand when attempting to make sense of this economy, or failure is inevitable. Using your example, why is Iron 2r each? Supply is much greater than demand/use. Even if you re-valuate the currency, supply and demand will not change one bit (until 1.8 shakes things up a little if not prepared).

Aikar: Say you need 10 stacks of Iron Blocks for a build... 11.5k is a lot of money to a new player. And that's just on the Iron blocks! New players can not afford that.
Now, if new players get 1k a day, they would be able to afford that iron within 10 days roughly.
Today, it would take 100 days of income to be able to afford that. This isn't even considering the need for other resources such as food, weapons, armor, wood.
Money is super tight as a new player. So of course they are not going to spend their entire balance on a single item such as iron.
10 stacks iron blocks, OK say I’m a new player. I vote for 7 days, and get my 100r sign in bonus. This equates to 7,000 rupees. (no bonus vote…so just 100r per vote) With iron being 2r each, 2x64x9x10 = 11,520 rupees. If I did zero mining, sat around chatting and voted and am more than halfway there in a week. With mining, I can get 2-3 stacks of iron ore in less than an hour. Sell the diamonds, redstone, etc. I find on the way and within a week I have the iron I want. Remember with voting, we do get 1000r per day as it currently stands. If a player did the absolute minimum, and never voted, never went mining, I would be just fine with having someone wait 100 days to be able to afford that many blocks.
What happened to the good old vanilla days when we had to work for our blocks? Sure they will not spend all their rupees on iron blocks, but if we play, we can mine and trade items we find and collect for other items others have mined and collected. Possibly even chat and interact with other players. Remember, rupees are just a transfer medium to go between one ‘item’ to the next. If it is intended to have shops charge more for the items, at the same rate as rupees soak into the economy, new players will still have to wait 100 days. If not, then it gets closer to ‘creative’ mode where we can easily get many items for nothing.
My challenge to you is to get past 'rupees' and see that its 'in game currency' that is a transfer medium of 'goods' and 'services'. (and the voting and sign in bonus is a 'base salary')

I understand what you are trying to do though. And getting off topic a little (just a little) when promoting and offering quadruple rupee bonuses for the holidays, and then re-valuating the same immediately after the quad-bonus ends is... disappointing.

Aikar: Again please do not look at it as an immediate 90% reduction in value.
As explained above, people who have more cash on hand are at a better position to make even more money.
For a real life comparison, if someone said here is a stock you know is going to grow by 10x over the course of a year, the people who have more money are going to be rewarded much more than those with less.

Sure, those with cash on hand can obtain items with a known value, and once the economy stabilizes, they can resell under the new marketplace rupee values. Still does not affect supply nor demand.
If that stock is an alliteration to a diamond block, or a promo item, of course we should ditch all of our rupees immediately, and get as many commodities (rare blocks, promos, etc) as possible.
This means that we are taking unstable currency and putting it into an item with ‘known’ and constant value and waiting for the dust to settle.

Now, if you bought diamonds now then sold them 6 months later, then yes profit will be made.
My point. “Profit” because you are taking unstable rupees, putting it into ‘stable’ items, and then when the market stabilizes, selling for “profit”. However this ‘profit’ has no extra purchasing power due to the fact that the intention is to raise the cost of everything by 10x. If you get 10x more and everything raises cost 10x, how has the economy changed?
This goes back, to what is the intention?

The most common thought I see is
1) Helps with competition. Nope! Sell multiples items for differing costs! Iron sure you cannot split ingots up, but you sure can sell more ingots to get your ‘fractional’ rupees. Now what about diamonds? 55r? 54r? 53r? 65r? Currency manipulation has nothing to do with supply and demand! Period! If there is more money in the economy, now we will be squabbling over 75r, 74r, 78r?
You know what helps shops and malls sell more than a one rupee difference per item? Interacting with players. Try being kind and nice to other players. Karma comes around.
How many of you on SMP7 sees me constantly giving items to new players? Give em a fish, they starve tomorrow. Teach em to fish, you got a friend for life.

2) Helps new players get more spending less time? Yes I get it, we all want instant gratification! Starting out fresh is difficult. But… motivated players do not need a gosh darn rupee for anything! Remember, the days when we would be hitting trees with our fists? Chopping trees with wooden axes, then creating a wooden pic to get stone? Then iron with the stone pic? Then making a couple iron to get resources? Heck, I still live in a dirt house, now semi complete with some cobblestone! To quote M4nic_M1ner, “giving them more rupees won't help them nor motivate them in any way”

3) Why change the economy and value of currency? What is broken? This is for new players to get more items for rupees?

“They are able to start to see their construction much quicker, instead of a dirt shack.”
Thanks… I wrote the above, and read this comment

Also, if stable market prices are “boring” that means its somewhat stable.
What is the need to “shake up the box”?
In a year, next thing we know, as this cost bubble pops, we will need to re-valuate again at that point in time.

I'm sorry, but I don't think inflation will "fix" the economy. What the really problem is is how rare items are. Even if a free player gets 1,000 rupees just for logging on, that player will still pay 2r for an iron ingot if a shopkeeper sells it for that amount. And the reason a shopkeeper would do that is because iron ingots are so easy to acquire, through iron golem farms and the fact that iron ore and coal is very common in the wild/waste.

In a way, I'm suggesting that if you really want to fix the economy, you need to limit the items.

For example, let's say that in every sever cobblestone can only be found in X:1 Y:1 Z:1 per server. This means there are 10 cobble stone blocks throughout the ten servers. Now let's say that the one cobble resets each week, and assuming someone is mining the cobble each week, the server will have only 520 cobblestone block each year. That is approximentlly eight stacks of cobblestone.
NOW, people will pay a lot more than 5r for a cobblestone stack.

But the other thing you have to consider, is do people really want this item? I mean, cobblestone isn't very attracting, so even if there were only 8 stacks throughout the whole server, who would want to pay for it?

But I'm probably all wrong so I'll just like all the posts.