so if you are logging in to protect yourself from derelictness then it means you are using those resses which is then again an unfair advantage
I'd say out of the 16 alternate residences I have (if I'm thinking of all my accounts), 1 of them is being held for a friend right now, one has 7 random DCs of Raw Beef sitting on it (which could easily be on my main residence), 1 is full of empty chests randomly placed everywhere which was used for an event, 1 has a large mountain and slot machine that was used for an event, and the rest are empty. So no, I'm not using those reses, and it's not giving me an unfair advantage.
even without using the resses it is unfair to people who are sitting there with one res that's what i think but we are getting of topic here so i'm gonna stop about this let's go on about the vouchers
First of all, if someone gets rupees this way, he/she isn't really paying rupees in auction but real life money. So they might not be so quick to pay for something ten fold. But mainly, I am talking about economy and you about a specific item. If he pays for something way above the market price, he will increase the price of this specific item, I agree. But if one item sharply increases its price, it will naturally push the prices of other items down, if the amount of money in circulation remains the same, because there is only so much money which can be spent. So price levels on average in the whole economy remain unchanged. If there are no new money created and the amount of product doesn't decrease, there can be no inflation. That is law in economics, which cannot be changed any more than laws of gravity. I don't understand your point about falling prices of vouchers, because that works against the people you argue against and benefits other players, who want those vouchers. One more point, you are giving example of this Alex. I suppose he wasn't selling vouchers, but he was able to influence the price of one item anyway. I am not saying it is good or bad, but what does it matter if he managed to do it by selling vouchers or not? The result is the same. Why should I care about the way he did it? It doesn't change anything on the fact. Opinion is not an argument. Facts are arguments. That was my whole point. Your opinion is "physical wealth and virtual wealth should not be reflective of each other", now present me with facts about the current state of affairs which prove or show that this is the correct opinion. I don't actually want you to do that, I am just showing difference between opinion and argument. You argue opinions with facts i.e. arguments. You don't argue opinions with opinions. And "physical wealth and virtual wealth should not be reflective of each other" is an opinion you used as an argument to argue that selling vouchers and using the money is not good, which is another opinion.
Actually no, this is very incorrect. New money is created everyday in mass amounts. You have votes and log in bonuses, which does a lot more than you'd expect. You've been on this server for 65 days, so unless you're an alt you are talking as if you have a solid experience of how EMC's economy has worked. EMC's economy is similar to a real life economy, yes, but they are still incredible unique because of how different the manufacturing of cash and goods is as well as the fact that no normal government exists on this server. Diamonds used to be 40r, prices change, and some goods are produced incredibly quickly and efficiently thanks to farms and some promos such as the pot of gold. So "the law in economics" does not 100% apply here. Also going back to what you said about paying auctions, they are paying in rupees, and that doesn't stop people, no holding back sometimes. I've seen it happen, and you just don't have the age on this server to have experienced what I have regarding how players have done certain things. Ok so for this one, I had not checked your age yet, and you completely read what I put wrong, so we're going to ignore that from now on. Anyone who knows what I'm talking about here should understand it, but Alex is not a "voucher salesman" necessarily. This entire argument is opinions. My opinion is against voucher sales, Raaynn's is for it. You can not tell me that it is a fact that vouchers should be sold, because it's not. It's an opinion. So you saying here that you can't argue opinions is completely obsolete to what is currently occurring.
Woah, woah. Quite turned around here. Opinions are what cause arguments, just look at any modern-day political party. Facts are not (or at least shouldn't be) arguments-- the person/party presenting the fact(s) should supply a source and the appropriate evidence.
Do you claim promos with all your accounts? Because if so, I'd say that would be very similar to buying supporter vouchers with real money.
... gosh I am really loving this. Darn good debate. Certainly i havent been swayed yet from my personal opinion... but this is quite enjoyable and gets the brain working.. nice to be able to get my mind off other things for a bit Now... on the point of vouchers not helping the economy... hmmm. So i have spent much of thiese rupees in shops... buying items of all kinds. If i didnt have vouchers to sell... then i wouldnt be buying those items. Therefore the shops wouldnt be producing thos incomes. Thus those shopkeepers would have less items to move.. and the economy would slow down... So no... i am not creating rupees..no. but it still drives the economy by moving more rupees into the hands of active players.
Of course I do, but I'm not buying these accounts with the direct intentions of acquiring rupees on this server, and I gave away most of those duplicates a while back anyways, because I hold them for several years before I do anything with them, then I just stopped caring. I'm definitely not going to say you're wrong with this one
A discussion about "Pay to Win" issues, more like a discussion about the ever growing decline in the EMC economy. Allow me to state my thoughts on the first post of this thread, this whole deal of "Pay to Win" like the other commentors have stated, gives you a advantage. This advantage of course is having supporter vouchers to do with in whatever way you want, whether its selling, gifting or personal use. Some people take issue to this, when there are alot of players selling vouchers and no one is buying, the sellers reduce their price in an attempt to get more players to buy. All I have to say about your place in this is its your choice to sell the supporter vouchers you buy from donating, and I have no problem with you doing that. The lack of demand as I mentioned earlier goes back to the overall decline in the EMC economy, fewer players are buying products so prices continue to climb down. One of the main contributors in this decline is overstocking, sellers are acquiring too many of these products and the demand just can't keep up. I can't say for sure if Raaynn is one of the main sellers that resulted in the decline of supporter voucher prices, but everyone needs to understand its not just 1 seller who's causing this to happen. There are plenty of things sellers can do to fix this problem, but of course it will be a slow process before prices can get rebalanced. I've done my part in limiting stock in my designated market and I hope more shops do the same. One last thing about the selling of Supporter Vouchers, just from what I observed Raaynn, you really only put the vouchers out when players are looking for them. Just keep doing that and we can work on the repair process.
Well I highly doubt EMC will last much longer (sorry guys it's just how I feel with the way player numbers are and have been looking). Prices will continue to drop on vouchers, eventually it won't even be worth it to buy them to resell, and that's when EMC get shit with the realization that they needed other ways to get money. Remote Shop Signs will probably work great for awhile, but eventually everyone that wants em will have em. I still think we should add particles, morphs, and other cosmetic features like that on other servers, because EMC will need an alternative money making method at some point, so they might as well do it soon to maximize the amount of revenue they can acquire.
I might have been blabbering nonsense but ah well, I typed enough of a text wall. I fore(see../saw..?) this eventual predicament happening years ago, and I too thought of these ideas as ways to pick ourselves back up. I thought particle effects, morphs, that kind of jazz would certainly help ourselves out. An impressive thing that [REDACTED BY STAFF] implemented was their "Shout" system. In which players pay money to just simply be able to broadcast their message throughout all their servers. I still think it's relatively useful if we had that here, considering we have 10 servers that players are constantly advertising through. --- However, I wouldn't underestimate how long we'll be up for. It kind of impresses me that we actually do sustain an average of 100 players online everyday, surprisingly just enough dedicated players that come here are buying supporter ranks and items to keep ourselves afloat. Although yes, there is already a noticeable decline of popularity. Residences being 400+ days derelict are actually not being reset. Which has actually become worrisome to me because this confirms our slow income of new players. Additionally on top of that, it's known that there's a specific ratio in how many players leave and how many people stay when playing in EMC. *If more people end up leaving than we can bring in, then that will lead to such inevitable declination* I personally request that we should see some internal metrics and visualization to see how our server is actually doing compared to the past years and now.. That way, major decisions can take place in what we can do to improve our server with. One thing I recommend to consider is Minecraft as a whole. The game itself has been running itself for like what.. 6 years? It's around this time period that players are rather moving on from their interests with this game and move onto new ones that are more popular.
Yah I've expected it for years now, and I just now bring back the idea of particles and morphs. I believe the past response I got regarding them was lag, but that was awhile ago. Also, a shout system would be a bad idea. You pay a certain amount of money for an item or access to a command, such as /shoutall then you can follow with a message, which appears as a normal chat message on all servers, or perhaps with [SHOUT] in the &e(Yellow) color. Definitely not a bad idea. (Also I'd suggest removing the server name) There was a site a friend showed me awhile back (a little under a year, I believe) that you could look at an archive screenshot of a website from a certain day, so we looked to see if EMC had any. I believe one of them was from 2014, and the numbers were significantly larger. However regarding the comment about MC becoming less popular. I personally feel Minecraft is still incredibly successful, and for a while I have heard people saying "EMC is only losing players because Minecraft isn't popular anymore" but that's not true. EMC needs more features. Games Server (which Krysyy SAID was being playtested, but I have a source saying that they were already doing that several months ago), Empires, and Dragon Tombs are seriously important in the survivability of EMC, but I'm not sure that Dragon Tombs will be happening.
One of EMC's most important features to me abide by the EULA. I support when I can (computer parts have ripped a hole through my wallet.) As Runder stated above, I do feel like selling vouchers is in fact benefiting other players as well as yourself, by allowing them to buy items they can't afford with IRL money with in-game money. Unlike "those PvP servers", I feel that either way, the money benefits the community just as much as it helps yourself.
Well, this has been a great thread I feel, and polite as we should all expect. Will need to bow out now as it looks like my new position will require about 100 online training, so not gonna have much time for here. Will likely use free time to work on my projects instead. I will continue to buy vouchers, as I see a different picture. As long as Aikar is able to cover his business EMC will likely remain up. It will likely not if he starts to lose money... and I am not talking rupees here. I remain a Diamond supporter in order to help him maintain this community, despite lack of time to play... And will continue to sell vouchers at times so that others without financial ability irl may also help support the servers. That's all. And I will be around...
As well as your opponent in this discussion you don't think about what you cannot see and only take into consideration what you can see. What you cannot see is that if those people (who buy vouchers) couldn't buy vouchers, they would buy something else they want, so it would be them who would spend those rupees in shops and auctions and thus driving the economy anyway. It is true that you move rupees into the hands of active players, except you first take them from the hands of other active players. I mean it is reasonable to suppose that someone who is not active and doesn't really play that much is not going to buy a voucher. Therefore you just reallocate rupees, but you are not driving anything which wouldn't be driven even without you. I think you understand my usage of the word "argument" in this context incorrectly. You think about this definition of argument: an oral disagreement; verbal opposition; contention; altercation: a violent argument But I meant this one: a statement, reason, or fact for or against a point: This is a strong argument in favor of her theory. I don't want to further the discussion on this point, because it is philosophical and moves this discussion nowhere, but maybe read what I wrote again. I have never said you couldn't argue opinions. I said you shouldn't argue opinion with another opinion. You should argue your opinion with facts. If you say selling vouchers is damaging the economy and you provide for this opinion evidence, examples or numbers which document it, you argue your opinion with facts. The facts might be incorrect or misinterpreted, but they are facts. However, if you say vouchers shouldn't be sold, because virtual wealth shouldn't reflect real life wealth, you just support your opinion with another arbitrary opinion. It is no fact, it doesn't prove anything and is evidence for nothing and that was the point of my first post. All that being said I rest my case in this matter. Once again you should probably read again what I wrote. I know new money is created every day, but that is not what we talk about here. Not a single rupee is created by selling vouchers. If selling vouchers wasn't possible, all the money would still get created. So I don't really see what your point is with this or how it is relevant. Secondly the laws of economics do apply here 100% as well, because different circumstances don't really change the laws. It is like if you said that because there are different conditions on Jupiter, our laws of gravity do not apply there 100%. Trust me the EMC economy is similar to the real world one much more than many different economic systems in the history of mankind for which the same laws applied. The rest of your post is pretty much just you implying that my opinions and arguments are less valid because I don't have the experience in EMC. Pretty poor argument, but I take it. However, the EMC economy is not that complex, you don't need to spend years studying it. Finally, I would like to give you a simple example of what I was arguing. I guess I should have done it before. Let's say we have a small economy with Adam, Bob, Charlie, Daniel and Edward. Adam, Bob and Charlie have 500 rupees each, Daniel has 100 rupees and Edward has no rupees, but he has 4 items he wants to sell in auction, each item is considered to be worth the same (400 rupees). All of them want the first item the most. Now, Daniel buys 2 vouchers, which he resells to Bob and Charlie for 250 rupees per voucher, because for them having the voucher is more valuable than bidding on the item they wanted. So now, Adam has 500r, Bob and Charlie 250r each and Daniel 600r. Then they bid on the first item, Adam really wants that item and bids to 500r (way above the generally estimated worth of the item), but Daniel beats him anyway with 600r. Now, there are 3 more items to be sold, which are worth 1200r, but those 4 guys together have only 1000r now. So Daniel managed to drive the price of one item up, but in doing so he drove the price of some other item(s) down. The EMC economy is just a larger version of this (with more people and more items), but it works the same. It is just harder to imagine and comprehend.
You will be missed by many on the forums and in game. Whenever you have time, games, non-real economics and external influences there are bound to be disagreements on each and how each impacts the other. Some would say since I have a shop and do a lot of reselling (obtained through many different ways) I am cheating the system and do not deserve what I have gotten as well. Like Raaynn, my time is limited due to IRL impacts so I try to do my best to not only profit but help. I get tons of notes from people who loved that I have certain things available in my shop. Sometimes I make money, sometimes I am losing money just depends on the current market and what people will pay. I actually love the idea of the voucher as it gives those without IRL economics a way to support the server, by causing people to buy them to resell. I have stated several times in threads we need to be aware of the IRL costs and supporters as that is all that will keep EMC going. So anyway the server can help to bring in money should be looked at as a positive for all of us. As for it creating inflation, not nearly as much as players who have amassed huge fortunes over several years of play. Players with such situations impact the economy in many ways but that is not the topic. In the end, with the game aging, the player base shrinking, we should be supporting each active player to help keep EMC alive.
At the risk of derailing this discussion, but being an Empire fan (obvously) I kind of feel addressed / provoked / etc. You do realize that the last days / weeks the player amounts have peeked once again to 128 - 132 and quite steadily too? I play at highly variable times, but I saw 128 online only last night. Around... 22 - 23 I think my local time, so that's 16 - 17 EMC time. Just to put this into more context: it was barely 112 - 116 a few weeks back, and last May / June we often merely peeked around 90 - 105. Going from 105 to 130 in a steady way isn't what I'd describe as "signs of vacancy". I actually addressed this a few months ago (April / May) when I joked a few times about how I had become the temporarily overlord of SMP2. Can pretty much forget about that now (though there are moments of course... Very early in the morning (EMC time & my time) it's around 30 - 35). But then I look at some of the "top servers" on the Minecraft forum (which I've started to frequent a little more as of late) and well.... I see 4 featured servers, player amounts are: 12, 90, 33 & 30 (at time of writing: note that we're completely ignoring where those servers came from). Then I go to the EMC Server overview and we're already (it's end of the afternoon here) at 83 players. If I then click at the top servers on Minecraft forum (sidenote: sometimes I do wonder why EMC isn't listed there anywhere) then I see: 49760, 1580, 418, 413 and 80. First: "that one big server" is often referred to on the Minecraft forums, people feel it's dying. Seriously... Almost 50k players, and... What's my point? Easy: if you want to believe EMC is dying and therefor also stop putting less energy and effort into it then EMC is dying a little bit. Not because of those numbers, not because of those derelict players, but because you already gave up. Staff is a very important force behind the Empire but in the end it's players like you and me (= you, random reader!) who are most important to the Empire. We're the ones who keep town chat alive, we're the ones who provide something for others to do, we're the ones who will go out of our way to help out the new players, we're the ones who throw newbies a bone sometimes (and now STAY on your res. you hear me? That's a good newb! (please don't kill me! )) and we're the ones who keep other players motivated to actually play and continue playing. The moment you decide to give up is the moment EMC is truly dying a little bit. But otherwise... Sorry but the numbers really don't add up to what you're saying here. To me this is a bit the same as all those people who feel 1.9+ was bad. I can respect that opinion, seriously, but considering the massive amounts of people who play 1.9+ (like 1.12 on the Empire) I also don't think you can state that these are signs that Minecraft is dying. At most, in my personal opinion, these are signs that your connection with Minecraft as a whole might be dying. But I think that's bound to happen sooner or later, especially if you've been playing for years already. It's natural! But that's still not the same as thinking that everything around you also dies with you... I predict we'll have a fun EMC anniversary this year, a 2017 time capsule event, and I'm even quite positive that I'll be celebrating my 48'th birthday next year in May. All on the Empire.
