The EMC Shop and the daily sign-in bonus

So I came back on after being on a hiatus for a year or two and I noticed something that has started to some concern me a little.

The last version of the EMC Shop I believe. Even if I stand corrected on the loss of the EMC Shop the other suggestion should still be pursued.

I do not know when the EMC Shop was removed but it has always acted as a fiscal ceiling for the economy on certain prices. Essentially, it kept the daily 100r bonus relevant. I understand the movement towards increasing the foot traffic at player shops however I feel as if this puts more players at risk then it helps. Prices can now skyrocket without limit and even though they are steady at the moment the future market implications could be very problematic for new players.

My concern lies in the fact that from the day I started playing EMC the price of Diamonds was 40r and the daily bonus was 100r. Today the price of diamonds is around 105r -110r and the daily bonus is still 100r.

We essentially could have a market prime for inflation without any raise of universal basic income (daily r bonus). A new player had a spending power of 2.5 from their daily bonus when I first joined. Today they only have .95. New players today have a 2.63x less spending power than I had when I first joined.

[Suggestion]

I believe new players today should have the same spending power as I did, and that the EMC shop should be reinstated to provide the essential service it has always provided. A cap on prices. The daily bonus should be adjusted for inflation and thus should be raised to 250r (because 263r would be a weird amount).

Before this discussion can begin I wanted to address some counter-points I know some individuals may raise and I can hopefully defend this important and necessary suggestion.

• Some may think that raising the rupee balance would just increase inflation because people would have more spending power and thus afford to pay more. This would most certainly happen without the EMC shop which is why I believe it needs to be re-instated.

• Another contention would be that people would see their money be devaluated if inflation runs out of control. This is true in a sense because everyone on the server would become richer so the divide between the poor and the rich would narrow. However, people would have more money to spend and as the United States discovered with a strong middle class and disposable income comes immense economic growth. People could afford to buy not just more of one particular item, but multiple items in general. An individual with more money might spend money on buying because of want and not need and thus you will have the rebirth of the consumer economy of early EMC along with a much stronger EMC economy.

Now by no means is this a silver bullet, but I believe it is a step in the right direction.

I leave you all with this final thought. Think of all that has changed on EMC since 2012. Think of how much is different from 6 years ago. Nearly every aspect of EMC has changed slightly or been improved. I would likely not have recognized EMC today from the EMC of the past if I did not live through the changes. However, one thing has stayed the same; the 100r daily bonus.

I think it is finally time that EMC raise the daily bonus to give new players the spending power a lot of us enjoyed when we first arrived at the best server on Minecraft.

Edit: You can discuss the validity of the proposals as a launch point for a discussion but note I no longer support my own suggestion.

Maybe a reverse empire shop? One you can sell to but not buy from. So new players have to work but they can get money regardless if there is no shop to sell to? Provides a way for new players to make some money from "worthless" items as they transition into the items with worth?

Let the great debate begin!

I appreciate and understand that the direction EMC has moved is toward the independent and self-serving economy. It is the responsibility of shop owners to regulate their own prices, but this is about the hardworking members of EMC who spend hours stocking to bring resources to the masses or the lack of motivation of individuals to get materials themselves. This is about the crushing weight and responsibility that is being put on these individuals and as there are less and less malls, more weight is being put on the remaining shop owners. The EMC mall provided a source of supply for when you could not find stock anywhere. Also, people cannot afford to spend hours resource gathering when the economy crashes or they have no money. This encourages people to leave EMC.

I also wanted to thank you in advanced chickeneer for weighing in and you provided interesting reasons as to why the EMC shop would not be reinstated. That being said I also understand that the Empire shop is off the table, and I respect the decision by the EMC administration to run as they believe is to the best service of their members. However I disagree with the conclusion that the Empire shop served no purpose.

It was, in fact, one of the main benefits of EMC compared to servers, given that there was a shop that an individual could buy any items at and there could never be a hypothetical lack of supply. I believe the Empire shop could have functioned efficiently and effectively with care and attention. Just like how we have staff for build team, contribution team, senior staff, mods, community manager, etc. There could have been a shop manager who would have spent their time ensuring Empire Shop's prices where (as an example) 15% above the market value. It would require dedicated attention and I believe the EMC community would be more than capable of providing an individual(s) that could rise to the challenge and all of EMC would be better off for it.

I digress and refocus on the more pressing suggestion; to raise the daily sign-in bonus to 250r to account for the inflation incurred from six years of economic activity on EMC.

Good point, chickeneer, the daily bonus has grown quite a bit with voting rewards being added. And for the past years, those have been increasing. You now not only get rupees, but also diamonds and emeralds you could sell, and even custom items.

Suppliers are a great start, and there are suppliers on EMC. However, I would like to remind you to have suppliers you must first have money to buy the blocks from the supplier. When it takes 10 days to reach 1k without voting you can see why many new shops don't have sell signs. So actually more money does help promote suppliers so to the contray the sign-in bonus is actually very relevant.

Everyone already does this. The assumption that

1. People on EMC are just not working hard enough has been a consistent answer for not raising the rupee balance
2. The implication that economics is as simple as supply and demand. If this was the case there should be no sign-in bonus. Because for the exact reasons you would use to defend the existence of sign-in bonus calls into question the necessity to raise it. I believe a 150r increase is not a "Super pay jump" as I mathematically based it to be proportionate.
3. and the current economic structure isn't completely one sided.

are all what we have been doing for the last 4 years. Having a Supplier economy is a good part of an economy but to think that a supplier economy should be the primary economy is missing the whole picture. Economics when studied, you learn that things need to be looked at holistically.

I agree and as I said this is no silver bullet. However, this does not negate the validity of the increased rupee bonus.

Over 6 years I have spent a good 60% of my time gathering materials and or farming. It takes alot of time. The fact that there is no reliable alternative anymore is why I stopped playing in 2016 because I can't go to college and play EMC when it take hours to mine and farm and there is no quick alternative.

Not raising the daily sign-in bonus is a great solution to confine the economy to two things. Supplying and gathering.
It used to be that you could have a hotel, or a resturant, or do something creative. People had extra money left over from spending it on their necessities. My first 100k was no made through a shop but through a hotel. Now I have two empty skyscrapers with rooms that will never sell because no one has the money to spare on such luxuries. Resturants are a failure and now so are megamalls. What ever happened to play your way? I used to not have to leave town ever. Now I feel like I have to leave it everyday. I used to love the creativity that people had when it came to making money. Now it seems EMC is giving them only one option to make money. So much money was lost when people quit 4 years ago. I spent 3 years with SSRC providing jobs to SMP2ers to give people money so they can shop and grow. I shouldn't have to be the economic generator especially since I do not even have much myself to be spending carelessly. So the assumption that increasing the daily sign-in bonus or "minimum wage" as you referred to it as, is not a problem always in the real world. But on EMC it is, because there is a lack of currency in circulation. Literally.

Honestly, It's not fun to spend hours, days, weeks farming to stock a mall with low prices, and then to have noone buy it because they literally have no money. And if I lower my prices too much then another shop owner will just buy it and sell it at a higher price. Sure I get money, but the new player still has no materials and no money. This isn't about me, this is about all of us. It's not just the supplier, or mall owner, or the newbie. We are talking about the creative heart of EMC. What used to be the core of EMC. The economy.

I'll leave you with this chickeneer, A quote from Henry Ford from April 1934. Someone who understands economic better than both of us.

"No one loses anything by raising wages as soon as he is able. It has always paid us. Low wages are the most costly any employer can pay. It is like using low-grade material--the waste makes it very expensive in the end. There is no economy in cheap labor or cheap material. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to reduce wages. I think we were the last big company to come to it. Now I am mighty glad that wages are climbing again."

I appreciate it. No decision is a silver bullet, but if you make alot of small steps, you'll find your self in a better place (literally).

Also voting is very helpful, but it cannot be the only way to receive more rupees. EMC is the source of all money, players just simply pass it around. New players are just so disadvantaged because the economy is not as industrious as it used to be yet they start at the same spot I did.

I can bet my life that increasing the daily sign-in bonus will give new players much more freedom to play their way, and increase economic activity, and make EMC more fun for everyone.

I really believe the re-instatement of Empire shop with Mall manager staff, with the increase sign-in bonus, with the voting rewards, with the already constant hardwork of suppliers and mall owners will actually culminate into a holistic solution to this problem.

(Got ninja'd quite a lot, I see...)
Chicken, I don't get why you think mining should be the best way to make ruppees, or, mainly, how you think that that would be possible. I currently make millions of ruppees a year by passivly owning some worth-increasing promo's (yeared ones) and three-four million by buying and reselling stuff, which I use to buy more worth-increasing promos. You're not going to beat the 15mil+ a year you can easily make in the promo marcet (I know people are making way more than Tom and me) by mining, even if you would have a lot of time.
I would actually argue it's neat it currently is lowest down, as it is the least difiult. I think you can make 10Kr an hour by mining, if you do it properly. It should be that something more dificult to do (like designing, which also makes me some ruppees) gains you more, as there is a smaller amount of people who is able to do it good: It's a thing of supply and demand: the supply of miners is quite high relative to the demand: quite a lot of people can mine, andquite a small amount of the people actually need a lot of resources. Also: most things you can mine are farmed in a different way Coal? Wither skeleton farm. Iron? Iron farm. Redstone? Witch farm. Emeralds? voting. Diamonds? Voting. Gold? Pigmen farm. The only thming that cannot me farmed in another way is lapis, I think. Lapis isn't the most-usefull thing you can mine... (dying doesn't happen often, and enchantemets are gathered by villagers) I actually think making redstone farms can also be quite luctrative, but I didn't try doing that (jet)

Well, technically, it alredey is at that highth, probably even higher. (chicken kind of mentionned it)
That is due to (in my experience) way more people voting: the main base income isn't only the log-in bonus, the vote bonusus do also count up and make the avarage passive income of a normal player quite a lot higher as just the log-in. Due to the high amount of vote-ads in game, I think newer players will understand to just do that when they are in need of ruppees.

And I guess this is where our opinions would differ. I believe that everything you have should be earned, not given to you. There is no work required to log on to EMC - that's why the log in bonus is so small. It's supposed to be insignificant in the grand scheme of things. If you log on every day for a month, by the end of the month you will have around 3k rupees just from log in bonuses, and you can buy a few things with that 3k. But you shouldn't be making a living off of that log in bonus.

Giving players free rupees so they can buy things wouldn't solve any problems, because shop owners would just raise their prices. While re-implementing the Empire Shop "might" help with this problem, who would determine what the market cap should be on an item? Like Chickeneer said, the player economy does a good job maintaining fair market values on its own, without staff intervention.

Rather than increasing the sign-in bonus, I would prefer seeing systems implemented that gave players an incentive to work for more rupees. It should take a lot of time to make a lot of rupees on EMC, otherwise those rupees are worthless. But that doesn't mean we can't do something to give players an incentive to actually play the game and work for their stuff. Like chicken said, if shops are out of stock of an item, rather than relying on the Empire Shop now, players have to actually play the game and go collect that item themselves, like they should.

When you want something on EMC, you should have to spend hours working to get it. There shouldn't be an easy alternative to doing hard work to get rupees and items on EMC. That's what Minecraft is about, is about putting in the hard work to make something amazing and creative.

Voting is not the base income because voting you have to do something to receive it. Also, putting a focus on voting for money and not signing in. We should be encourgaging people to come online daily. Not just to vote. Should we not be doing both? Encourage people to vote and to come online. Also, new players usually do not get involved in the promo market. This is about making EMC more fun, easy, and accessible. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the new players. Also, more people with more money means they can buy more things. Demands for non-necessity will go up possibly but there won't be rampant inflation because it will still be just as hard to diamonds and keep them stocked.

Or increase demand. The more money ppl have to spend the more demand there is. People will always choose to shop over getting it themselves. Your goal is to fight human nature, we should use it to our advantage and reward those who rise above that human nature. There is really no downside to raising the daily sign-in bonus. Everyone wins.

Edit: So if less money means more balanced prices why haven't they gone down, instead they have gone up?

I respect our differences in views. If this were real life I wouldnt even support a universal income like EMC has. However, Empire Minecraft is a game, our goal is fun. Not hard work and life lessons, maybe this is why PC multiplayer servers are suffering compared to MC realms. I am just trying to bolster EMC "Play your way" slogan.

And they quit because EMC is a game and is suppose to have an element of fun. It's not real life. Yes we want people to work, and they do. I do not see why we are pretending that huge swaths of the current EMC community is somehow beyond lazy. Also, we are talking about 11 - 14 year olds. We need to stop treating them like they are 20yrs old. Our goal should be to be inclusive of all age groups, and all play styles. Some do find stocking malls to be fun. But if you are only allowing for one type of game play than we can't "Play your own way"

We all love EMC, we all want it to thrive. I really feel like this is a no-brainer for the benefit of everyone on EMC.

What your describing though, isn't EMC, imo. Those types of players aren't interested in survival minecraft anyways, so they aren't EMC's target playerbase. I would suggest that a Creative server is a better solution for them - unlimited access to everything, no hard work required other than just "building." If we were to cater to those players on EMC, our playerbase that enjoys survival minecraft would suffer because of it.

EMC is good at what it does, which is vanilla survival minecraft. If we start trying to cater to other types of players, I think we would lose focus.

A better way to do this, imo, would be to open a creative server on EMC. 240x240 reses and make it separate from the rest of the Empire - a place for people to exercise their creative talents on EMC without needing to rely on rupees and the economy. This would need to be a rather lengthy and in-depth community discussion though, to see if this is something our players would want EMC to devote time to.

EMC is all about its economy. Increasing the daily bonus would definitely help with the inflation I've seen happen over the last year or so. Increasing the daily bonus just a bit would probably help with over all activity (and keeping members on the server after they join) because people would be able to better afford what they're looking for.

Idk if this comment makes any sense with the discussion thats happening but imma just drop it here anyway.

Peace

Thank you Kryssy for weighing in. I understand the lack of importance of the cap, and I was probably wrong to think that. I understand voting bonuses is the apparent primary source of income. So I would like to thus make the suggestion to remove the daily sign-in bonus completely. 100r is a arbitrary number that is not based on current inflation rates, or market prices and since it is, has, and will stay static I think it should be removed. Then more people would vote right? Also, I really appreciate everyone's thoughts and comments.

It was a fun discussion. Maybe we should start a controversial thread about economics? any takers? Guess debate is closed