assistance setting up an economy system?

[kelik 10]

some people on the server i play on are trying to set up a basic economy system using the (currently useless) gems. so far what we've come up with are as follows:

chipped gems are worth 5 gp (gem points)

flawed gems are 10 gp

normal gems are 20 gp

flawless gems are 50 gp

exquisite gems are 100 gp

the type of gem doesn't matter, because they appear with different frequencies depending on the rock you mine, so it would be too difficult to determine the true value of each gem type.

for comparison, we are thinking the approximate value of a stack of charcoal would be 20gp. meaning 4 chipped, 2 flawed, or a normal gem.

my question to you, the forum, is; do the numbers match up with the approximate rarity of each gem quality, and do you think the value of charcoal that i gave matches to the amount of time it would take to find the appropriate gems?

also, if you've been on a server that used a similar economy, please describe your server's economy system and what you thought were its strengths and weaknesses.

[Silverfur11 0]

so this is what the server set up with the gems

[kelik 10]

so this is what the server set up with the gems

this is what we have drafted so far, but we need input from others to see if it all makes sense based on other's experiences.

[Incompatibility 16]

This is only viable if people do extensive mining, as the only way to get gems are rare drops from stone, or of you give everyone the same amount f gems and have an admin regulate the currency, like what governments tend to do. The former method involves strip mining, and not everyone prefers that method of acquiring ore. I prefer the spelunking approach and hoping to spot some ores on the cave wall.

If all transactions would be through the use of gems, that means people could potentially get rich by just mining stone. I personally don't think it's a good idea seeing how you can earn so much money through such a trivial task. That would be like for every piece of land you harvest and replant, you get money.

I say let the players decide what the value of items are.

E.g. One player lives in an area barren of any good trees (hickory, oak, maple, etc.) he might value saplings of those "rare" trees and will pay more for them.

Bartering is a simple method of trade and probably The most stable. Economies won't get inflated nor will the collapse under a bartering system.

Stick to the basics, I mean what real advantage does having farmable gems have anyway?

[kelik 10]

This is only viable if people do extensive mining, as the only way to get gems are rare drops from stone, or of you give everyone the same amount f gems and have an admin regulate the currency, like what governments tend to do. The former method involves strip mining, and not everyone prefers that method of acquiring ore. I prefer the spelunking approach and hoping to spot some ores on the cave wall.

If all transactions would be through the use of gems, that means people could potentially get rich by just mining stone. I personally don't think it's a good idea seeing how you can earn so much money through such a trivial task. That would be like for every piece of land you harvest and replant, you get money.

I say let the players decide what the value of items are.

E.g. One player lives in an area barren of any good trees (hickory, oak, maple, etc.) he might value saplings of those "rare" trees and will pay more for them.

Bartering is a simple method of trade and probably The most stable. Economies won't get inflated nor will the collapse under a bartering system.

Stick to the basics, I mean what real advantage does having farmable gems have anyway?

the reason those of us that want this think it's a good idea is because of gems being somewhat farmable. people who have nothing to offer others in barter can offer gems, however, those that don't like mining or something can do another job and sell whatever product they are making. this is why i want the value of gems to be consistent with the value of charcoal. it allows us to have a base value to judge the value of gems against (if charcoal is worth 20gp per stack, than someone selling copper could come up with an estimated value for copper) i also want to make sure that the value of charcoal vs gems is balanced in the amount of time it would take to earn one or the other, so a player has to choose "do i try to farm for gems, or do i try to farm charcoal to sell for gems?"

you are right in saying barter is valuable, but not everyone has goods that can be bartered. using your example of someone searching for specific saplings. what if he finds someone that has the right saplings, but is only willing to trade them for cassiterite. the buyer of saplings only has bismuthinite. he does find someone willing to sell casseterite, but they, again, only want to trade for something specific. and the one other guy that wants to buy bismuthinite will only give sphalerite. this leaves the buyer of saplings with the issue, he could trade away his bismuthinite, but get back something equally worthless to him that doesnt help him toward his goal of new saplings.

with gem economy in place, he could sell his b ismuthinite to the one guy for gems, then use said gems to buy whatever he wants, including new saplings. barter might still be offered as a backup (one guy selling saplings for X gp with a discount if you bring a certain item to the table) but having a single currency stops complex "trading games" from happening just so you can supply someone else's demand to get what you wanted.

[BloodravenD 7]

I say it's a pretty good idea, seeing how there is no other use for the gems...the only problem I see is that charcoal to me, should be worth more than the gems. Also if you go by the wiki, it is wrong on the amount of charcoal you get back, I only ever get a stack and a half, and thats with all the logpiles filled with logs. I'd say it's a good system, but if it were me, I'd go with bartering.

[Phaedin 5]

I've been doing extensive research on charcoal production and it appears to be very random. I've gotten almost 3 full stacks to as little as 1 1/2 stacks with willow wood. Sycamore netted me around 2 stacks per. I'm going to be doing further testing. Multiple runs of each type of wood.

[kelik 10]

I say it's a pretty good idea, seeing how there is no other use for the gems...the only problem I see is that charcoal to me, should be worth more than the gems. Also if you go by the wiki, it is wrong on the amount of charcoal you get back, I only ever get a stack and a half, and thats with all the logpiles filled with logs. I'd say it's a good system, but if it were me, I'd go with bartering.

I've been doing extensive research on charcoal production and it appears to be very random. I've gotten almost 3 full stacks to as little as 1 1/2 stacks with willow wood. Sycamore netted me around 2 stacks per. I'm going to be doing further testing. Multiple runs of each type of wood.

i am very interested in the results of your tests. please post them here or link to your topic when you have results

from observations made on my server and personal experience, a fully loaded charcoal pit will yield anywhere between 1 and 3 full stacks of charcoal, with an average of about 2 and a quarter stacks. so far this seems about equal to the amount of time it would take to get the equivalent value of gems (2 and a quarter stacks of charcoal equals 45 gp currently, depending on your luck you may have found a few normal gems or even a flawless gem in the time it would take to gather and burn that wood).

there is a bit of luck involved in both processes, but so far this is what those on my server have observed to be roughly equivalent. though with further thought it might be prudent to increase the value of charcoal to 30 gp per stack rather than 20 gp. though i like the number 20 since someone could sell in incrememnts of quarter-stacks at 5 gp each. discuss?

[Gorni 73]

Still too cheap i think, set it to 40gp/Stack and you can still go with quarted stacks to sell for 10gp.

[kelik 10]

Still too cheap i think, set it to 40gp/Stack and you can still go with quarted stacks to sell for 10gp.

you could be right. i've issued a test on my server, and i'd like to issue it here to fellow forum members as well. to better get an idea of value of gems vs charcoal, anyone who is interested should try making a batch of charcoal and timing how long on average it takes to collect and burn the logs, then see how much gp worth of gems they can find in that same time, the goal is that i want to see if the average amount of gp found in that time equals the approx value of 2.25 stacks of charcoal, which seems to be the average amount of charcoal per batch.

also, based on your experiences on the rarity of the different gem qualities, are the amounts of gp assigned to each quality level consistent with their rarity?

[HidingInTheLight 10]

I like the gem idea for currency, it's something I had been thinking of as well.

The only problem I see is setting up a set price for anything. The longer the server runs the more gems will be in circulation so you'll get deflation. So at the start people may only be willing to pay 20gp for a stack of charcoal, but after the amount of gems in circulation increases prices will increase.

I'd let things run in a free market setup. If people are willing to pay me 50gp for charcoal, that's what i'd charge untill someone else started undercutting me or I could start charging more if I couldn't keep up with the demand.

[kelik 10]

well, we started using this system in the nessaja server, so far it seems to be working fine, the final numbers we decided upon were:

chipped = 5 gp, flawed = 10 gp, normal = 20 gp, unflawed = 50 gp, and exquisite = 100 gp

we are recommending the value of a stack of charcoal to be 40 gp, to have a value backing of the economy. this gives everyone an idea of what everything is worth, though we had one guy try to sell a set of steel armor for 10k >.<