The Economy - What of it?

What do we want to do? The 'economy' as it stands now is entirely factitious and from what I've seen either disregarded entirely or invalidated by players pulling out magical cart loads of gold out of nowhere. We have a few things we can do to solve this issue, and while this is only adding to the work I've got to get working on, I think it's an important enough topic to bring up and discuss with everyone.

I want anyone's thoughts on the matter. Personally I am not opposed to an actual economy. We can script merchant flags relatively easily that will give people items to sell, even blacksmiths ones if we chose to enforce that sort've thing (having people actually buy their gear, which would be a nice addition I think), and all this economy nonsense will come together nicely when the server is settled and the admin team has the time to run events and quests for you all.  You would in no way be earning sweps but merely tokens to represent your gear and equipment you've amassed so you have some way to prove it to the server you've earned your arms and armor. I would make it a point to also include other flags and if I can wrap my head around modeling eventually clothiers and outfit merchants.

I'd like to hear what everyone else wants to see on the server however, before I take this up with fnox (or go about mucking with some script myself). Keep in mind that a economy (however terrible they turn out to be) is pretty much the set standard for most RP servers and I think we're unique in that we haven't really considered hosting one yet. This might be a nice lure for new members.

NutScript definitely has the capabilities for a platform of non-functioning weapons and items to represent gear.

I like the idea of quests and such actually offering tangible rewards that your character can then actually spend. It might cause a lot of OOC competition for the different jobs and quests being handed out, which would be terrible, but it might also cause IC competition. And I personally believe that kind of competition would probably be nothing but good. At least for character development and roleplay.

I say yes. And if it doesn't work, there is very little effort in just wiping all the gold counters and going back to the "gold in your ass" system we have right now.

Having tangible items to represent gear will also solve ANY problems in the future of "he pulled X out of his ass" or "but its conveniently been edited onto my char page!" and also room to develop your characters. This will open up other avenues for RP, such as actual rogues or muggers (assuming players are mature enough to play-to-lose) and things of that nature.

Right now as the only Merchant about, I'm a bit hankering for some economy or some money figures, I didn't have enough idea for what to have for starting money so i chose to have only enough money to survive for a month and buy a store area, along with a month's wares.

Now I'm not asspulling, more so keep a general idea how the store is doing itself, the more people buy or the more i spend in trying to curry business. Right now I'm going at a loss, I'll start jotting down figures and make a kosher list once we get things koshered out.

Maybe tokens would be a good idea, blacksmith chars get blacksmith buisness flags and sell swords and stuff, merchants sell merchant stuff unless they got items from someone that made them or sold them. That way people could have a sense of things, personally, I've only bothered to write down big amounts, hundreds, thousands, in transactions or amount saved up.

Some mugging rp would be nice to see, i'm up for getting my shit jacked and my face tluined with a billy club.

I'm down for having an in game currency such as tokens or whatever, but I would not want a trader menu. If someone wants something on their person they can pac it on, but if someone questions it, they need to have a good excuse where they got it from

Alright. I think I'm going to start toying around with flags and things. But another idea came to me last night while I was getting sick.

I want to make owning property consistent. My idea basically is to start a thread with all of the own able buildings clearly defined, their prices, and if they're owned or not. I'll be able to mark out public buildings people can't buy like the Guard Barracks, and also give the players something to strive for. Remember there are three maps, (I know we've only been using one but it's likely to change tonight if people hop on) so there will be PLENTY of property to buy and of varying class. I think it's also possible to do with the script, I'm almost positive nutscript can save your props and ownership if we can figure out how to turn it on so I'm also going to look into that.

Props are saved, from what I've seen; ownership is not saving, at least over doors and similar actors. I've been on the server for awhile this past week, and while Static-ed props are still there, the doors of  their owners seem to have been reset.

---My Opinion on the Economy.

I spent about fifteen minutes writing a very long-winded and unnecessary rant here, but I will summarize it: I hate Scavwhoring. My alternative would be that I would gladly accept the Honor System to its fullest any day than accept Scavwhoring as an alternative. I do not believe anyone has suggested this so far, I just wanted to make my opinion.

Summary: Keep the Honor System Please.

As for how we may make the economy as pleasant as possible; I would suggest Heavy Honor System and some reinforcement from script. My experience largely comes from Tira2 where the best servers I've seen have best used its features (thanks Fnox) most benevolently.

--Create Items/Models with names as rewards for people. Example: +1 Stealth Suit. I'm not sure if we can do this with Nutscript, but it worked nicely for me as an admin on a friend's sci-fi server.

--Hidden Items / Encounters are enjoyable, but should -never- control the economy of a server. Also, I prefered using Tira2's name-able static props as to individualize the rewards based on who found them, and when.

--Ingame Currency is a tricky business. Few have ever considered using it away from the ScavWhore system. One possibility that I imagine might be possible due to another Nutscript server I was on, is that a character chooses a Wealth level during creation, or as one of their attributes. This would affect an hourly income in ingame currency. Even if the character has High Wealth, it should be an amount minute enough that they should never be infinitely wealthy.

--In addition to ScavWhoring, Business Flags and Business Tabs are generally undesirable in my experience with them. Typically, all I see them as is an OoC barrier to reinforce both ScavWhoring, PvPEconomy,and AdminPreference. This could all be done IC, but then again, I'm not of a mindset to asspull anything financially in any RP.

--Also, if we're going to ONLY use scripted items, without any level of the honor system, we have no reason to have PAC. The idea that Script Items are the only means of function, taken to the extreme of ScavWhoring, the idea of PAC is almost entirely contradictory.

In the end, I see it much harder to abuse the Honor System than it is to abuse any sort of artificial script-based loot system. Maybe it's just me because I'm some kind of asshole, and my mother always encouraged me to call bullshit on liars. It's a lot easier to maintain IC than it is to maintain a log of loot items, who was given what money, how they traded with so and so to get these OoC items, and how all these OoC Items now apply to IC

EDIT:

--Opinion on Property.
I think this is a pretty cool idea. Though, normally I'm all for people being able to cruise into any building that isn't currently being used for RP that suits their need, it'd be pretty need just to have an IC understanding of property, at least for the general affair.

Could you define "scavwhoring" for me? I have no fucking clue what that is.

Scavenge-whoring. Hoarding lots of items and as soon as you get wind of items being on the map to find you rush to pick them up. I'm just inferring that that's what it means.

I want to give a money system a chance. I know there's risk of so-called "scavwhores" as well as money-hoarders and people who wind up playing solely for little numbered points on-screen, but there's also potential benefits.

I don't see how a money system is more abuseable than an honor system. The reason it's called an honor system is because you're trusting people's honor to not be assholes, but let's face it: some people are. There's going to be abusers no matter what system we use; people who asspull limitless money on the honor system and people who whore it on a money system. A money system at least lets us keep track of who has what.

We don't have to code in things like hunger or exposure, all we need to do is adjust income to include those costs, sort of like a tax witholding in your paycheck, except it would include the costs of food and lodging in addition to taxes. So getting a meal at the inn would be solely RP-based, not using actual coin but spending it ICly. Buying unnecessary stuff like liquor or extra food would use the actual money. So it would be the responsibility of innkeepers and landlords to OOCly keep track of this.

For really poor people (like quarantine workers) we could have some sort of bunkhouse that's dirt cheap, providing shitty food and a place to sleep every night. Wealthier people would have more options, like the inn, or even a house if they can afford the down payment. That way money would slowly accumulate unless people get involved in quests and stuff or seek better jobs. There should always be options open for people to improve their lot or at least buy that cool sword from the blacksmith, even if some characters take more time to do that than others (and their level of poverty could be decided at their creation by the player himself, like Dominator said, maybe changing over time as they rise in society).

In the long term, things might still become problematic if the money isn't taken out of the system somehow. That's the one problem I see down the road, and I'm not sure how it could be fixed. But assuming we use some sort of honor system, would things be any different? Characters would still get richer over time. IRL, many people grow their savings, that's just a part of a free market.

Also, in response to the "scavwhores," the simple solution would be to not put random items on the map. Admins could decide locations for hidden items and if someone RPs walking by, give them a chance to stumble across it. A little trickier to do maybe, but more realistic than putting the server on a scavenger hunt for free loot. Alternatively we could just use props instead of the actual items and if someone finds it, decide if they did in fact find it by pure chance and if they RPed to find it, and then give them the item.

The entire 'scavwhoring' thing is debunked simply because I simply won't tolerate script players. It's as simple as that. I have no problem pulling players aside if I feel like they're abusing the system or they're missing the point entirely. I think the problem with other communities where there has been an economy is that it's A) the ONLY thing the server revolves around, whereas here it's just another thing to have, B) the admin teams were always baised / corrupt / etc. and never really punished the scriptplayers to begin with. These aren't problems we have to worry about here, and seeing as most of the RPs I've been in were dominated by scriptplayers I've grown pretty keen to them and I'm sure I can handle any that come our way.

I suggest we have some sort of money sink events such as Carnivals or Festivals in case of a overflow of cash on the server

I say we put in a casino

i like the idea of choosing a wealth level and then getting income based on that (being that some IC jobs, especially mine, may lie primarily in what would be NPC interactions. i don't think many of you are gonna die just so i have something to do). then maybe for more specific things like the guard, merchants, and whatever, have different income values and items they get because of their job

choosing houses is a good thing (never did that in olden so like 8 people would own the same house, especially because of the small amount of houses) but i think it'd be best just to make some thread with a listing of every house on each map and write in which are available / who lives there / owns it. we don't really need to buy doors that way, and for anyone who isnt aware, you can just put props inside or place a note somewhere noticeable (which is especially helpful if you've got some sort of business as i do)

Zaku wrote:

The entire 'scavwhoring' thing is debunked simply because I simply won't tolerate script players. It's as simple as that. I have no problem pulling players aside if I feel like they're abusing the system or they're missing the point entirely.

Beautiful. <3

I just gave my opinion as it was requested. From my time on Gmod, I thought we'd all know of Scavving and the terrors it brings. I didn't see it said, so I just wanted to make sure it was 'adamantly' a point that Scavving is not good. I'd rather say something stupid, than not contribute (or harm, in most cases) an attempt at solution by withholding my critique.

I feel the money system could work if we can keep working on the script, and if we keep trying with a people devoted to IC.

EDIT:
Also, I'd like to give the property system a try, so long as not every building is unusable 24/7 even while players aren't on. I think we could easily make this work, and it could be neat. Also, I'm a sucker for maps.