Question(s) About Economy

[parayna]

Ok.. um, this may be a tiny bit weird to be thinking about/be worried about right now, but how does the economy of the script work? Like, each new person who joins the site gets X amount of money, which is good! Seeing as the more people who join the more, in theory, money you need circulating at any one time. But as far as spending as such on the site works... wouldn't, again in theory, in the future prices have to be bumped up because there is so much money being tossed around that everyone, once they gain a foothold in the site, will be able to afford pretty much whatever they want? (I've seen it happen in sites (Howrse for example) but they sorted it out and it was just my luck that I had briefly left while they sorted it out so never saw how it was managed >.<)

Say... everyone gains 1000 money when they join, you can get 20 moneys when they click an egg and there is a bunch of stuff for sale all over the market ranging in price from cheap to more expensive. Surely the more money that is in circulation (e.g. the more money gained from clicking that everyone is getting), the more even the most basic member will be able to afford? How would you regulate it?

I just don't want my site to turn out that everyone is earning loads of money and being able to buy everything as that would take the fun out of 'earning' and accomplishing things XD

Uhh.. not sure if I am explaining too good >.< But let's use another example. Well, the game World of Warcraft only has a certain amount of money in circulation at any one time. All the money is in a central 'bank'.. thing. And whenever you gain money from defeating baddies or doing quests, the money is taken from the already existing 'central' account and given to you/whoever else is earning things. This regulates prices of the game as the money is reused over and over and not just generated from 'nothing'. Also, when you put things on the auction house, the auctioneer takes a cut of the profit (also charging something to put items onto the auction house). This money is then also added to the central bank account thing.

Is that a better explanation? I don't truly understand that myself (like the inner workings of it as my Dad explained it when I asked him how to regulate the economy on my site) He just got mad because he thinks the site is a waste of time ¬.¬ But anyway.. he explained that the money can't be generated from thin air as that would mean too much would be going around. So is that what happens? Is the money generated from thin air when you get people earning money, etc? It would mean a lot if someone could just give me a brief explanation XD And maybe even a few pointers on how to price things :P

Thank you,

~Parayna

[IntoRain]

Yes, the money system in mysidia is from thin air. When you earn something or when you use money, it just increases or decreases your money variable in the database
Most sites are like that I believe, but give you many different ways of spending that money. Of course, there are some where players just keep on hoarding money and can pretty much buy everything xD

[Kyttias]

Well... here's some fun articles to thoughtfully read over?
[x]: How to prevent inflation in a virtual economy?
[x]: Virtual economic theory in massive multiplayer games.
[x]: Wikipedia - "Gold Sink"
[x]: Examples of money sinks in games.

At a base, this framework alone may not be enough to stimulate an economy. Think of creative ways you'd like to handle the economy, and worry about implementation and programming only after you have an outline decently prepared to move forward with. Virtual economies are notoriously difficult to balance.

I will leave you with one last link, to a youtube video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W39TtF14i8I

[Hall of Famer]

Well I think the economy system is a bit way beyond what we can take care of at this moment. I do have some plans for it, but the earliest time I would actually consider implementing it in the official script will be version 2.0. To think that there will be at least 4-5 major releases before that. Its interesting to brainstorm the idea though.

[parayna]

Thanks for the replies guys! ^_^ I will definitely check out those links, Kyttias. And it might be nice at one point for something to be implemented HoF XD But for now I am just excited for the next script to come out, so 2.0 would be perfect :P I would probably just end up doing like raffles every so often where people buy a ticket item and then whatever was spent on that item (in total, site wide) is added into a pot and given to one winner XD (Maybe minus a certain amount or shared with a few other winners, if it's too much)

There are so many things you can do but I was just curious as to how it worked so thanks again XD

~Parayna