How do you RP the economy?

[Smilesville]

On 6/7/2021 at 8:38 PM, Clout said:

RPing getting 10k and actually talking about it IC like "Yeah, I get around 10 grand an hour" is a fucking disaster. 

Almost as bad as "I served 4 days for armed robbery" lol.

[books]

The moment you have two people who have conflicting ideas on what the economy on the server looks like ICly, everything goes to hell. Please enforce some sort of standard, it's painful watching people ICly argue over salaries/wages. 

 

I don't even care about the economy or the state of it, just please enforce some rules about what a salary is, what prices are to be roleplayed instead of relying on people do it themselves. It's confusing as hell when people start arguing about how a beer costs $200, or it costs $5 and they do it both ICly. The worst part is neither party is at fault, because there's no rule actually telling either of them is right or wrong. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by MotionSickness

[BINGBONGBALONEY]

19 minutes ago, MotionSickness said:

I don't even care about the economy or the state of it, just please enforce some rules about what a salary is, what prices are to be roleplayed instead of relying on people do it themselves. It's stupid when people start arguing about how a beer costs $200, or it costs $5. It actually kills me inside watching it.

If I'm correct you're not technically allowed to RP your cash as anything but what you have on hand - 100 dollars is 100 dollars - as that would be considered PG'ing and people have been punished for it in the past.

 

If someone's trying to argue IC that 100 dollars is too much for a beer because "IRL" you'd be paying 5 they're being petty and borderline mixing - I think the vast majority of the community understand and have come to terms with the fact that Los Santos is basically "fantasy" and we should take everything at face value instead of trying to connect dots between IC and IRL which don't exist.   

Edited June 9, 2021 by BINGBONGGHOST

[orca112]

The general census (and established in the continuity rules?) has always been $1 IRL equates to $10 GTAW. That is the general basis on how I decided on pricing for the pharmacy I run on one of my characters. Although prices inflated and some need adjustments, the general idea of 1 to 10 ratio works for the most part excluding Real Estate, vehicles and the likes. Realism where it is playable is the key here.

 

On the topic of vehicles - we desperately need an overhaul of the pricing to make it more realistic and balanced out between the many vehicles beyond "the price is XY because Nervous thinks the car looks this fancy/fast". Establish a vehicle management group or task force amongst the staff team considering property management will not be able to pick up on it due to the already immense workload. Have that group rework the vehicle market to make it somewhat equate to the real life equivalents and performance ingame.

 

Real Estate - whole other topic and already having it's own discussion in another thread, so I won't add much into it in here.

 

Economy and money in general - I go with how it would be IRL with paychecks being monthly or commission based and the rough idea of a 1 to 10 ratio for GTAW dollar. Due to the lack of negative costs and taxes - which are not there for a good reason, otherwise you'd turn the game into a grind fest where people sustain themselves rather than focusing on just roleplaying - a lot of money accumulates over time. The actual number on the top right corner of the screen, I personally see as more of an OOC thing. Depending on the character's wealth, status and job, they would have a specific cash flow or amount of cash available to them which can be used. Everything else is to support or enhance the roleplay and cover associated costs. From an in-character standpoint, you could see this additional unused cash as a trust or pension fund kinda thing.

Edited June 10, 2021 by orca112

[HeyMambo]

5 hours ago, MotionSickness said:

The moment you have two people who have conflicting ideas on what the economy on the server looks like ICly, everything goes to hell. Please enforce some sort of standard, it's painful watching people ICly argue over salaries/wages. 

 

I don't even care about the economy or the state of it, just please enforce some rules about what a salary is, what prices are to be roleplayed instead of relying on people do it themselves. It's confusing as hell when people start arguing about how a beer costs $200, or it costs $5 and they do it both ICly. The worst part is neither party is at fault, because there's no rule actually telling either of them is right or wrong. 

Nervous and others have discussed this plenty of times, in how the economy is not supposed to mirror real life. The problem is that people refuse to role play it, even when it's been discussed. People can't let go of real life and suspend their belief for just a moment in order to immerse themselves in anything else. Countless people have proven that in this thread. You could tell them to RP the economy a certain way until you're blue in the face and a lot of people will just ignore you and RP it the way they want. I haven't seen any sort of enforcement of it either way and that I can agree should change. If we're all into this whole continuity thing, IC economy portrayal should be heavily enforced.

[Smilesville]

4 hours ago, Numelo said:

Nervous and others have discussed this plenty of times, in how the economy is not supposed to mirror real life. The problem is that people refuse to role play it, even when it's been discussed. People can't let go of real life and suspend their belief for just a moment in order to immerse themselves in anything else.

Nervous has also tried to say things like "ten GTA dollars is equal to one dollar" and "the GTAW economy is a closed system" when these are demonstrably not the case. In no world can I sell three guns to purchase an apartment.

 

Sorry, but you're not going to tell me to disbelieve my own lying eyes.

 

"IC economy portrayal should be heavily enforced." Get real.

 

OOC interventionism is what's killing the economy, not helping it.

[HeyMambo]

6 hours ago, Smilesville said:

Nervous has also tried to say things like "ten GTA dollars is equal to one dollar" and "the GTAW economy is a closed system" when these are demonstrably not the case. In no world can I sell three guns to purchase an apartment.

 

Sorry, but you're not going to tell me to disbelieve my own lying eyes.

 

"IC economy portrayal should be heavily enforced." Get real.

 

OOC interventionism is what's killing the economy, not helping it.

I rest my case. Whether or not the economy is messed up, people shouldn’t be saying things like “A $100 beer is expensive because I can get it for $5 IRL.” That’s just as much the problem as anything else. Since the beginning people have fought this and it’s caused just as many problems as the economic model itself. It should be enforced that this is poor portrayal, messed up economy or not, because this is what’s been established.
 

There are things in a real world economy that make no sense, but guess what? We deal with it. We have digital coins with no intrinsic value that cost more than a car. Makes sense? Absolutely not.
 

Are there things here that make little sense? Yes, I agree with you. But guess what? We should deal with it and treat it as IC until it’s changed or clarified otherwise. Your view of “I will not RP this” is just as damaging. It’s basically OOC mixing based on your own biases. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Numelo

[Smilesville]

4 hours ago, Numelo said:

Whether or not the economy is messed up, people shouldn’t be saying things like “A $100 beer is expensive because I can get it for $5 IRL.” That’s just as much the problem as anything else. Since the beginning people have fought this and it’s caused just as many problems as the economic model itself. It should be enforced that this is poor portrayal, messed up economy or not, because this is what’s been established.

So what you're saying is that no economy exists outside of Los Santos? That within the game world, there's no place in the country someone can get a beer for $5? A $100 beer isn't expensive because we can get it for $5 IRL - it's expensive because we can get it for 5% of the price literally anywhere else in the world beer is available.

 

You call it poor portrayal.

I call it roleplaying the world outside Los Santos.

 

Regulations do not exist simply to crack down on inconvenient truths you dislike.

 

4 hours ago, Numelo said:

There are things in a real world economy that make no sense, but guess what? We deal with it. We have digital coins with no intrinsic value that cost more than a car. Makes sense? Absolutely not.
 

Are there things here that make little sense? Yes, I agree with you. But guess what? We should deal with it and treat it as IC until it’s changed or clarified otherwise. Your view of “I will not RP this” is just as damaging. It’s basically OOC mixing based on your own biases

I'm not going to get into monetary theory with you other than to say just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't "make sense." If you have some arcane knowledge by which the Los Santos economy makes sense, by all means, share it with us - perhaps you can succeed where the creators of the system have failed.

 

Let me provide an alternate hypothesis: the market will never function as a RL analog because there will always be OOC influences acting on it.

 

The high housing prices aren't due to something unique about the houses in Los Santos, it's due to the lack of scripted housing relative to the number of players. The high price of guns isn't because Los Santos guns are that much better - it's because artificial server rules limit the number of them in the city. The near universal price of labor in Los Santos isn't because we've achieved an egalitarian utopia - it's because the server script pays out 4k per hour.

 

Let's not be needlessly asinine in our "enforcement" of how people view the economy.

[verrevert]

The currency issue is why I disagreed with the decision to have Los Santos replace Los Angeles instead of it being an island off the coast of the mainland. It would be less jarring to role play a San Andreas $ that is pegged to the US $ to explain price differences, with some buildings being imitated than the current situation. That would provide a reasonable solution to the prices, but it is what it is and one of those things that come with it being a video game.

 

[HeyMambo]

3 hours ago, Smilesville said:

So what you're saying is that no economy exists outside of Los Santos? That within the game world, there's no place in the country someone can get a beer for $5?

Yes. It would be healthier for our in-game economy if everyone just RP’d this economy instead of fighting against it. Why do you need to RP an economy outside of ours anyways? It has no effect on our world. Stop over complicating things.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Numelo