Let's talk about INFLATION

Discussion in 'Bukkit Discussion' started by LEOcab, Mar 13, 2013.

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  1. Offline

    LEOcab

    If you have a server with an active economy then you may eventually run into the problem of inflation. I'm no economist but basically inflation is the phenomenon where the value of money deteriorates over time.

    If your server injects money into the economy by buying non-renewable resources from players (such as diamonds or coal) then money is probably worth a lot and inflation won't be much of a problem. However, most servers have more dynamic ways to inject money. This is my server:
    • Every new player that joins gets $50
    • Every real-life dollar donated equates to $100 in-game
    • Gold nuggets are bought at spawn for $1 (easily renewable via pigmen farming)
    • Mob kills yield from 25 cents to a dollar (renewable)
    • Every time someone votes they get $10 (easily renewable; up to roughly $100 a day per active player)
    That's a lot of virtual money that isn't backed by any physical substantial resource. If player A needs $50 and player B is willing to buy a diamond from player A for $50, then player A is better off voting five times or sell a few useless gold ingots rather than selling his precious diamond. So if player B really wants that diamond, he needs to offer more money, such as $200 which would be harder for player A to obtain via 'thin air'.
    It's fine to have the price of diamonds be around $200. However, after a few months of running and donations, money could be devalued to $500 per diamond. Your server could eventually end up like Venezuela or Zimbabwe, selling wooden logs for millions of currency units. It probably won't get to THAT point, but you get the idea. So, how do you solve this phenomenon?
    SAVINGS BONDS!
    Put up a shack at your spawn where players can buy and sell savings bonds. The price of bonds should fluctuate in line with the amount of money in the server. In the case of my server, I set the price of bonds to the total amount of money divided by 1000. The selling price is 90% of the buying price. Every time a player buys a bond, 10% of the money he paid will be lost forever, which helps the economy. It will inflate back up eventually, and when the selling price surpasses the original buying price, the player who bought that bond will be able to sell it back and make a profit. It is a long term investment, so this will mostly attract players with lots of money.
    I implemented this in my server and people seemed to like it, and it seems to be working. So I thought I'd share it. Feel free to discuss or build on my idea. :)
     
  2. Offline

    lol768

    You could just stop artificially introducing money via donations & voting.
     
  3. Offline

    LEOcab

    Then I wouldn't get any donations or votes... XD

    It's either that or giving people godmode/free diamonds... nope.jpg
     
  4. Offline

    FlawlessSin

    My server has shops where players can buy/sell goods, everything has a certain tax percentage on it that is sent to the server's wallet, where it will be stored to give to players who donate/vote.
     
  5. Offline

    LEOcab

    Hmm... That sounds better than what I'm doing. How do you manage that? What plugins?
     
  6. Offline

    Ne0nx3r0

    Notably ores may not be "renewable", but they are basically endlessly available. Especially once players start getting efficiency and fortune pickaxes.
     
  7. Offline

    FlawlessSin

    It should just be ChestShop and any economy plugin.

    Basically these are the Steps to take:

    Log in with an account (can be your own, if you have no others) to load in the data.
    Go to the config it should look like this(In my example I will be using the account "server" with a 5% tax on player shops, and a 10% tax on admin shops):

    SERVER_ECONOMY_ACCOUNT: "Server"
    #The economy account which Admin Shops should use and to which all taxes will go
    TAX_AMOUNT: 5
    #Percent of the price that should go to the server's account. (100 = 100 percent)
    SERVER_TAX_AMOUNT: 10
    #Percent of the price that should go to the server's account when buying from an Admin Shop


    ____________

    Now for voting purposes i use Votifier and OnTime (ontime can be replaced with VotifierScripts if needed)

    Then i make a reward to be issued when someone votes and it pays them.

    Then to subtract from the servers funds I just look at the MySQL database to determine how much money was given away, and modify the total of server's account
     
  8. Offline

    np98765

    Going off of Ne0nx3r0 's thoughts, I'd recommend nerfing the fortune enchantment. It was the only way to control players from getting massive amounts of mineral wealth from small amounts of mining (once they obtain a fair amount of XP).
     
  9. Offline

    Mr_Pleco

    Use towny as a money sink. It works great for me and my server.
     
  10. Offline

    Milkywayz

    Like Mr_Pleco said, a money sink is very useful for having the super rich to spend their money on items which can't return an investment. An example being allowing players buy enchanted items which cannot be repaired (protection 6 armor?). Sure them having it is OP, but the armor does wear out pretty quickly and their money returned little investment to them.

    Another example would be letting players buy spawners, just plain pig spawners and then charge more to change those spawners. Providing your economy doesn't allow players to sell the goods they get from the grinder, their investment returns exp for enchantments.
     
  11. Offline

    LEOcab

    Ahaha yeah, money sinks. Mine is Grief Prevention. :p
     
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