initial thoughts about the Rupees System.. (Important discussion imo)

PT, you can't assume that the flow of currency is stagnant because only two people bought from the town shop. There are a multitude of other places people can spend money such as player run shops, the vault, animals, locked chests. So the assumption that money is not flowing is quite wrong

I personally think that the rupee system is working just fine, actually it would be fine because Justin programmed it all I know that Justin will be working on a few tweaks, not actually sure what they are

I don't think theres anything wrong with current system.. Money circulates, as it does in real life- you cant stop that :S

Exactly, and its peoples choice whether to hold on to their money

I think the daily bonus should be lowered

If you insist on having another way to drain rupees out of the system, we could always go back to my Enchanter Idea... Did I ever even post that?

I agree with kilmannan, there isn't a big rupees trouble in scene, the only thing i believe is kinda over powered is Diamond and Gold Supporter (im not trying to get you guys less rupees, since im considering becoming one) a Diamond supporter gets 1,300r wich means (on a market price of 50r, considering there will be even cheaper) he/she gets 26 diamonds! also considering that

They will get 780 diamonds for those 20 dollars!
(or)
They will get 39k/month, without even selling stuff!

Well, as you can see, the diamond supporters might have big wallets to fit all those rupees so if they decide to use them the price of the stuff will devaluate a lot!

Also, as a last point, no-one uses the /shop because prices are to high! (those prices are designed to encourage players to make their own shops / buy from other shops.)

Here's how I see it.
You think that because only 2 people bought from the shop, that money isn't flowing in Empire. I'm not saying your wring, because I know how poorer players feel. But with all the options, buying animals, locking chests, and buying items drain the economy so that these things like your are thinking will happen don't. Economics from the real world don't work here. I am V.P. of a group of players who hold frequent meetings, and if the 5 rupees fee is put in place, than there are 7 to 15 of us, and we each post about 10 chat messages, so that would be 5o each. So the members who don't have much money could be unable to talk at all. Would they receive a message saying, " You have no money, so you cannot talk"? That would be like having a dictator ruling the server! And i'm not saying Justin and Jeremy are dictators or any mods. But it would be like France in the 1700's to 1820's, where the poor fight the wars of the rich men and toil in the fields while the rich live in luxury doing nothing. No offense to French players. But think about that situation for a moment. I'm not trying to sound angry, because this is just how I see it.

As a new guy and just over one month player of Minecraft. I haven't spent a ruby yet but I'm glad to have what I'm getting.... just in case i put myself in a tight or lose something valuable when fighting mobs to go dig some ore or fetching lava, water...etc. I don't plan to buy enchanted stuff as I want to learn to do it myself. I have had some very nice donations and assistance from experienced players and while coming from single player mode it felt kinda weird, it was also nice to see the camaraderie and support here.

I learned how to strip mine before coming here and while it may take 2+hrs to find diamonds it's still possible. Everything I've seen... even the random pits just outside wilderness spawning.... makes sense so far.

Awesome discussion guys, thanks for kicking it off PThagaard! This is what makes this community so great, the participation.

I like your ideas for more things to spend money. I also recognize that we could benefit from having a few more things to spend rupees on. We recently added locking chests, and animals a couple months back, but we could still do more. I don't feel the economy is in an emergency situation because I still see a high demand for additional rupees, such as people messaging me wanting to buy them, people stalking twitter for our giveaways, people voting every day, etc.

I did spend some time a couple weeks back looking into how the rupees economy is doing. What I found is one group of people hoard rupees and have shops but never buy anything. The other group spend every rupee they get right away. And a very very few number of people sit in the middle of those groups.

Of course we are always learning and evolving and I look forward to perfecting the economy even more. Keep up the good discussion everyone

I believe that we should abolish or greatly reduce tha daily bonus as i believe ppl should work for their money

EMC needs to attract supporters. The free rupee bonus is to reward those who financially support the development of the game AND encourage free players to log on and play.

And the world isn't as endless as we think. Most players don't take the time to go extremely far out to gather resources from untouched land. They prefer to work close to the spawn so they can teleport back to town to sell their goods or use their gathered resources to build.
Those who DO travel far typically only go back to town every once in a while; or they die and lose all their stuff. While the world is technically infinite, the number of players willing to travel far to acquire newly generated resources is not.
A perfect example of this on SMP1 is clay. Pthagaard himself even said that it is difficult to get right now due to the fact that the wilderness is lacking untapped clay deposits. One can travel far to go get clay or search in every nook and cranny trying to find it, but chances are most people do not want to do that despite how profitable it might be.

Im not saying abolish rupees bonus for moderators but yes for members
NORMAL MEMBERS!

If everyone worked in this game, there would be very little point in even having money. Why would you open a shop to sell all the items you work hard gathering so you could buy the very same items you just gathered?

While I understand that earning rupees and being wealthy in-game is a goal people like to set and it is by working towards goals that you derive your fun in game, I think by abolishing the daily bonus you're penalizing players like me who really couldn't care less about them, except that they're required to buy locked chests and other features only available via rupees.

Minecraft is a "sandbox" game, it's open ended, and the fun we get from playing it comes from our own goals and imagination, or in other words, we make our own fun. As a consequence, people play for different reasons and I think daily bonuses and purchasing rupees is a good compromise, as it caters to both builders and traders.

Having to work in a game is silly. While I agree that effort gives rewards greater value, playing a game doing hours of "work" that you really don't enjoy just so you can spend an hour or two doing something you do enjoy is not the answer - it would stop being a game and start being an occupation.

Ive already loaned money with interests

but do you have hired goons to kneecap people who don't pay?

But its only 100r a day..it doesnt exactly go far off one day, so it snot an issue :S If normal members didnt get rupees supporters would completely take over and plus it would be extrememly unfair.

then we sho0uld also lower the rupee bonuses for suporters

And ni prefer head busting

I have suggested this idea to JustinGuy but he said you won't be expecting this anytime soon because he has other things to do especially that he just got his first baby, but your idea might be different from mine because when I'm talking about moving a full residence I'm talking about all the blocks and stuff. Also when JustinGuy or GameKribJeremy all of a sudden resets the wilderness the economy will fluctuate dramatically, in such cases prices might go even lower! So this will probably ruin the economy of the server. So I do agree with your idea that there should be more things offered by the server so that rupees can be flushed out of the players pocket. I have one suggestion though, this might also stop spammers dead in their tracks, the server should charge the player "0.5R" each time they talk. This would teach players to talk efficiently and not talk like this: "thecontroller: So I have a shop| thecontroller: You guys should visit it| thecontroller: It's at 3607.". This is quite often annoying and floods the chat of the already flooded chat. So I hope some of your ideas go into JustinGuys "todo" list.

Im very happy the way this discussion is going - i dont take for granted that i am right, but i did provoke enough to get responses and i think there are some great ideas in this thread that can actually be used to benefit everyone.

Keep it up people - its lovely to see a game forum where people actually think before replying...! *Insert thumbs up smiley here*