IFM - Underground Economy Regulations

[frill]

  

6 minutes ago, SilentOG said:

The value of cash on this server is close to none, it's everywhere, everyone got 200k just for being around for the longest time, the drugs get consumed, the weapons get consumed, that's why they hold value instead of this endless stream of money hitting your account. The money not having any value is the problem, not the bartering
-1

 

i also -1 for this reason. silentog is very succinct and smart and nice.

 

people won't stop bartering until there are enough money sinks (the ones we have right now people already call onerous and unnecessary) to make the burn rate of money match the punishing financial hit of losing illegal firearms. w the specific illegal fac suppliers you generate is a double coincidence of wants in illegal econ that money doesn't enter.

 

there is an improbability of wants a needs that needs to be created to motivate transactions w money. having cash as monetary medium might solve the issue as it provides freedom to trade other things, but there is a limited scope of other items of interest for an illegal rper to actually spend the money on. you are just adding money as a restrictive middleman step to the bartering process instead of addressing the issue of the lack of demand for cash in the economy. people will still barter, doubtlessly, around the system. you could rpqm monitor high-cash transactions to make sure people are actually doing barter roleplay instead of just the equiv of an ooc escrow, but that would add even more restrictions to illegal faction economics. 

 

i cant think of anything that wouldnt put a chokehold around trade rp, especially as bartering is going to naturally arise when people are desiring to trade in-kind. you will need to create a roleplay economy where a medium of exchange is necessary and not forced thru ooc regulation bc people will just sidestep around it. ppl want guns and will swap for pure drugs. make ppl want money, not need it to get something they want instead.

 

 

[Spoon]

To have a working underground economy you'd first have to have an actual civilian economy that fuels everything.

[frill]

1 minute ago, Spoon said:

To have a working underground economy you'd first have to have an actual civilian economy that fuels everything.

 

no degree of mmorpg style econ balancing will dance around this fact. very well said

[mj2002]

54 minutes ago, Spoon said:

To have a working underground economy you'd first have to have an actual civilian economy that fuels everything.

 

But honestly, when it comes down to it, people don't want this either. Everyone likes the idea of things running as they should be, all the way up until they have to pay for something. Other players need to help solve this problem, not I. That is the attitude.

 

Every time a suggestion comes up, or a change gets implemented, where people actually have to own up to their own shit and pay for stuff, they bring up the 'but its a game' excuse. Well sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Either costs of every day life start to matter, or you have the situation where extremes pop up, like everyone driving expensive cars, having millions of dollars, not caring about money when that's the main motivation for most criminals that are portrayed here.

 

I've been making these suggestions for years, and every time people reject them because they don't want actual consequences or costs that affect them personally. What's the result? People keep getting free stuff and free money, everyone buys, and buys, and buys which should remain easy because 'let me just enjoy the game!', and in the end you cannot rely on obtaining money as a motivation any more. This is fine if you are capable enough to roleplay and portray a character completely separate of money. But for most players, when money is involved, they'll always try to min/max OOCly. With that last one being a given, you cannot then have money be meaningless at the same time and expect a vibrant illegal or civilian economy, where doing something actually feels like it makes a difference. 

All the realism OOC inconveniences are being stripped away, and at the end people wonder where all the challenge has gone.

Edited November 30, 2024 by mj2002

[ogsamir69]

1 hour ago, frost. said:

we been saying this has been a problem for years. that X is scarce so ppl are gonna end up trading, with something thats actually valuable.

 

no one wanted 2 listen and now every1 trading like its runescape

 

 

lmfao

 

This is exactly what I'm saying though, it's been a thing for a long time - now the problem is affecting the entire server and this genuinely has the potential to kill the server.

[ogsamir69]

28 minutes ago, mj2002 said:

 

But honestly, when it comes down to it, people don't want this either. Everyone likes the idea of things running as they should be, all the way up until they have to pay for something. Other players need to help solve this problem, not I. That is the attitude.

 

Every time a suggestion comes up, or a change gets implemented, where people actually have to own up to their own shit and pay for stuff, they bring up the 'but its a game' excuse. Well sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Either costs of every day life start to matter, or you have the situation where extremes pop up, like everyone driving expensive cars, having millions of dollars, not caring about money when that's the main motivation for most criminals that are portrayed here.

 

I've been making these suggestions for years, and every time people reject them because they don't want actual consequences or costs that affect them personally. What's the result? People keep getting free stuff and free money, everyone buys, and buys, and buys which should remain easy because 'let me just enjoy the game!', and in the end you cannot rely on obtaining money as a motivation any more. This is fine if you are capable enough to roleplay and portray a character completely separate of money. But for most players, when money is involved, they'll always try to min/max OOCly. With that last one being a given, you cannot then have money be meaningless at the same time and expect a vibrant illegal or civilian economy, where doing something actually feels like it makes a difference. 

All the realism OOC inconveniences are being stripped away, and at the end people wonder where all the challenge has gone.

We're on the same page.

We need to push to fix this.

[frost.]

26 minutes ago, ogsamir69 said:

 

lmfao

 

This is exactly what I'm saying though, it's been a thing for a long time - now the problem is affecting the entire server and this genuinely has the potential to kill the server.

its never gonna kill the server, but its annoying though

 

amount of times u need something and they be like "what u got to offer?" money to put food on ur table bastard

 

theres not enough of anything these days, both guns and drugs are scarce. drugs are scarce because guns were very very limited back then, so people started trading

 

ifm didnt wanna hear none of that, "we have enough guns on the server", yeah okay pal

 

this isnt me saying guns or drugs are unobtainable, but having to cough up something 90% of the time is ehhhh

Edited November 30, 2024 by frost.

[ogsamir69]

1 hour ago, frost. said:

its never gonna kill the server, but its annoying though

 

amount of times u need something and they be like "what u got to offer?" money to put food on ur table bastard

 

theres not enough of anything these days, both guns and drugs are scarce. drugs are scarce because guns were very very limited back then, so people started trading

 

ifm didnt wanna hear none of that, "we have enough guns on the server", yeah okay pal

 

this isnt me saying guns or drugs are unobtainable, but having to cough up something 90% of the time is ehhhh

 

If this isn't addressed and fixed, then I genuinely believe it's going to create other problems within the community, it's going to dishearten people and I believe over the next year or two it will drive out some amazing roleplayers who have given a lot to the community.

 

It's a multi-faceted problem, the value of money is not the sole cause and solution. Money will always be inflated unless you want extreme regulation on what and when everything comes into the server; from non-special vehicles and houses to weapons and narcotics. In order for a roleplay server to have a realistic economy there has to be so much regulation in place, it would also require the economy to wiped and that is not feasible.

 

This issue isn't one we will be able to solve by coming from an angle of "money has no value", that's literally just a complaint.

The solution is somewhere between stronger enforcement on portrayal/how people roleplay around money and controlling how the criminal markets alone operate.

 

Coming from an angle of "we need to fix money", no matter how much that might be the root cause, will never be feasible - the solution needs to be pragmatic.

[ogsamir69]

Boost

 

Any input from IFM or staff team?

[BOW]

+1