How do you RP the economy?

[eTaylor]

I pretty much do what @knppel said, money just pools in my bank account because I don’t spend bank money. I have one of those “poor” characters and I generally hover around $300-$5000 cash and that’s all I roleplay with because of my character. At the same time I keep my accumulated wealth in my bank account for resource management. Predominantly dealing with loss and replacement. Due to current affairs I rarely (read never) have to touch it. 

[i dont wanna od in LA]

i just use common sense and try to somehow mix the current prices of everything in LA with the server economy

[Busch]

3 minutes ago, Henning said:

 

Then stop. All you have to know is that 100=10 is the official conversion rate, anything after that can be written off as the quirk of a video game. 

 

I explained that this is a video game, look at it like a video game and things will make sense. Your response? "Well when I try to look at it like real life I can't comprehend it". Exactly! Because its a fucking video game economy setup by a bunch of volunteer developers. The more you try to "Understand" the economy and it's relationship to the real world, the less those quirks make sense. Because, again this is a video game not the real world it doesn't have to make sense as long as it's enjoyable.

 

 

 

 

I'd have to see where it's officially written that 100=10, maybe I have not kept myself very well updated. Nevertheless yes it is a game economy, and yes it doesn't match to real life. But in real life you got venezuela, united states, and zimbabwe. Realistically or most of the time we compare it to US. However for me and my niche of RP to use 100=10, it's really... Unreal. Since my character or my RP does not revolve around masks or buying small things like even guns.

 

 

Of course 100=10 goes well with small things or really depends what you RP as... But doesn't go well with my RP.

 

But I see the exchange of words between @knppel and @Henning to become more and more heated up. Some advice to avoid conflicts is reduce the use of bad words and lets not go at each other but instead the outside problem. Which there really isn't. I just asked how you guys RP the economy. Thank you guys.

[Lurleen]

I'm from a "developing" country and the economy here works better than irl for me. I dont know why you are all complaining. We dont really have inflation on the server, the only problem I see is the lack of houses at south central and the countryside.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Lurleen

[mj2002]

7 hours ago, Smilesville said:

I don't. More accurately, you can't.

 

Mechanical cash undermines the stated purpose of the server - but without it, there's no sense of progression and all we're left with are the stories that are created. (See also: GTAW is a MMO and not HRP.)

 

The transfer rates really don't match up no matter which two sources you pick.

• A gun that costs $500 in real life shoots to $15,000 in the best of circumstances in game, so $10 RL is $300 GTAW?
• Apartments in the city routinely cost upwards of $150,000 in real life, but only $35,000 in game, so $35 RL is $7 GTAW?
• The Vapid Blade (1968 Chevy Impala in perfect condition) is worth $28,000 - $82,500 IRL, and $62,400 IG. So $1 RL is $1 GTAW?
• Bartending in Los Angeles nets you about $16/hr on average, +$200 in tips per night. In GTAW, it's $2-4k. So $1 RL is $6 GTAW?

Anyone who tells you it's not a mess or has an exact exchange rate isn't looking at the whole picture. Anyone telling you to ignore it also doesn't RP the economy, else they have to explain why nearly every sports car owner is functionally unemployed.

 

It's a mess.

Suggestions on how to improve this, but still keep things interesting and achievable in a reasonable time frame for players, are always welcomed.

[Smilesville]

58 minutes ago, mj2002 said:

Suggestions on how to improve this, but still keep things interesting and achievable in a reasonable time frame for players, are always welcomed.

The sheer scale and unavoidably unrealistic behavior of players makes this a difficult challenge - I suspect my solutions aren't in line with the server's preferences, though. Namely, I think we got into this mess by attempting to balance realism with attainability when we can really only feasibly select one of the two without a mess that encourages grinding.

 

Namely, the only solutions I see are:

• The more likely solution which is to focus on attainability - accepting and understanding the limitations of the game to make them work for us instead of against us. We would need a powerful lore reason for why the market is so out of whack - and why despite the crime rates, anyone would still choose to live in Los Santos. This would no doubt involve fake historical events and a swift departure from the idea that Los Santos is remotely like any other American city. This is honestly the route I'd always have liked to see the server take because it doesn't clap us in irons to the idea of trying to get to a 1:1 representation of Los Angeles that, let's be frank, we're never going to get to.
  
  Call it the "Los Santos Autonomous Zone" or chalk it up to shenanigans with federal legislation and the governor's policies in the state - that's not important (for this discussion, anyways.) What's important is that we don't simply say a quick mathematical function can solve the issue and instead build up lore to explain why things are the way they are, including potential reasons to remain in Los Santos.
  
  Done right, this could be a revival of creativity and allow concepts that were shunned in the past because, well, "such-and-such wouldn't happen in Los Angeles." It would free staff from making so many subjective, difficult judgments and allow them to step back and let players drive the server rather than having the server stagnate.
   
• Or we could focus on realism. There's really only two ways to achieve this, and neither of them are particularly pleasant. Wipe out all financial assets, set realistic prices and start again, or wipe out the concept of mechanical assets entirely. Any attempt to siphon wealth from the population to bring finances down to manageable levels just isn't going to work - for all the talk about realism, players will avoid seeing their own assets drain away like the plague if they can.
  
  I honestly don't think the server would survive a radical shift in this direction. Namely, the profit motive can encourage people to act in a way that makes the game more immersive, even if the individual's actions are not particularly realistic. Trucking is the prime example of that - for all the fussing staff does at individuals who can't find a new way to emote stacking a box every run they make, another player just sees a truck on a highway and is immersed because that's a familar, realistic sight. Without game assets, you've wiped out the player's motive to do that, and the server is less immersive as a result, even though you may have made the economy more realistic.
  
  We would have to radically change how we think about wealth, and instead consider purchasing power rather than absolute cash. Buying a donut wouldn't eat into your funds, but purchases with recurring costs (cars, real estate, etc etc) would. Working a job wouldn't increase your cash flow, but being hired for the job would. Many players talk about not wishing to get off their RL jobs, only to come to their IG one - and this would definitely ameliorate that. Robberies, trucking, club openings, and everything else would be much less about making money and more about the story behind them. There's definitely holes in this line of argument that would need plugging before the idea is ready for prime time.

[Subeh]

The way I've always RP'd money is to just ignore the value on my screen entirely. To me it's just OOC funds and it's separate from everything else.

 

The amount of money my character realistically has is down to my interpretation; to an extent, some of the purchasable things are too. When my character bought her new car it was 90k at the script dealership; realistically a brand new mid-range vehicle isn't going to cost 90k, so I've always RP'd her as having paid around 30k for it. Any time I say that IC, I generally don't have much of a problem with later clarifying why I said 30k and not 90k. Similarly, if I'm asked to pay $250 for a beer or whatever at a bar, I just cut the zero off and RP it as having been $25 instead.

 

I just generally have my own perception of the economy and, to me, my OOC money is just there to accommodate whatever I'm doing IC - it isn't an actual representation of what my character realistically has. 

[Barbie]

why the fuck does it matter... just rp the server economy as the server economy and stop thinking everything has to be 1:1 with real life... it really isn’t a problem unless you choose to nitpick

[-MCV-]

I roleplay cheap items as /10 as 200-400 for a beer is ridiculous, guns as well, /10. The car/house prices are somewhat okay, maybe lower-end cars also /10, especially if second hand.

Edited May 9, 2021 by -MCV-

[Alyssa McCarthy]

3 hours ago, mj2002 said:

Suggestions on how to improve this, but still keep things interesting and achievable in a reasonable time frame for players, are always welcomed.

 

Hi, I'll respond to this because I think the implication you make that 'things are made interesting' by the economy could be no further from the truth and here are a few reasons why.

 

The current economy is not interesting

 

Mary Sue's

I believe the current economy does the exact opposite of promoting interesting characters. It promotes Mary Sue characters who own multiple supercars, live a lavish lifestyle and who's existence is revolved around moving from one nightclub to the next, having done very little, if anything to deserve it.

 

How is that in anyway interesting?  Why is it, every faction has rules around wealth that they constantly have to manage with their members because the current economy fails to do this?

 

It promotes a gameplay style universally disliked

Every player is given the funds and setup to be a 'mallrat'. This is a style of gameplay seemingly disliked by every civilian and illegal faction.

 

Yet the server economy promotes this style of RP by giving would be 'mallrats' everything they need to play this type of char from the moment they join the server.

 

Crime is made a hobby, not a necessity

The current economy makes almost every single criminal do crime out of hobby than necessity, which is entirely unlike RL. Most criminals resort to crime for reasons other than something to do because they're bored. 

 

By improving the economy, the reasons to do crime would be far more real.

 

Wealth Distribution

The current economy creates an inverted pyramid of wealth distribution and that's not a good place to be when at the same time, server staff want (and even punish), players for poor wealth portrayal, yet the server setup is completely responsible for facilitating it.

 

Improving the economy would reduce a large number of wealth portrayal issues and reduce the time staff and factions have to manage this.

 

 

What makes the server interesting are the factions, players and events who bring the far higher quality RP to the server in both civilian and criminal circles.

 

Simply put, the economy /should/ be managed far better. The server setup should help direct players in a better quality level of RP by having a more suitable economy system. If it was, it would help manage the above issues and create an environment that is actually interesting rather than bland.