~On the CS and its negative effects on the economy of Minetown~

The purpose of this thread is not to cast aspersions at the admins and moderators of Minetown but rather to bring to light those problems that have become apparent to me.

The Minetown credits shop is that place where most of the denizens of Minetown central and the surrounding towns and suburbs turn to to purchase gold for the services and products necessary to properly enjoy a large multiplayer build server such as Minetown. Since the official 1.8 and the temporary closure of the credits shop a lot of people in the chat boxes have set to whining incessantly about their inability to do this.

Stieg Hedlund; a game designer with 25 years of experience in the field has said, "... the economy of the real world and that of the virtual world are not all that different... If the federal reserve starts printing money the value of currency will go down, If the economy of a MMORPG prints money the same thing will occur..."

I believe that because the CS holds the power to "print" gold bars that the economy of Minetown is effectively setting itself up to have what I'd like to call a "Gold Bar Bubble".

The 1.8 Adventure update came out on September Twelfth and since then the CS has been close due to Bukkit's late updating schedule. It has been 15 days since then.

In a brief discussion with GodofSquirrels he says that the aprroximate DAU (Daily Active User) is about 215 people and the total MAU (Monthly Active User) is about 2000. If those 215 people optimize their potential credits every other day than 3010 gold bars will be introduced to Minetown over the course of two weeks.

This may not seem like much but if all of that money is going into the purchase of goods than none of it is being removed from the cycle and large clusters of gold bar can accumulate over time with little to no flush from the economy.

Let's pose the current gold bar at a set value=1 and that of the deflated printed gold bar a 1/10 the value of the first one. This would assume the amount of gold has multiplied by a ten fold value.

If right now 10 gold bars can buy you 640 cobblestone the deflated printed gold bar would require 100 to purchase the same amount. This is a major problem. If right now the credits are increasing by 3010 per two weeks if we say there are currently 10,000 gold bars currently in existence then this can potentially occur in only 66 weeks.

An average user reading this is probably dubious to the concepts expressed here and is more likely than not planning to post undiscerning coments and will probably pay little to no mind to the seriousness of this situation. This is because the effects of this are not currently present and the value of cobblestone is staying at the same rate for a long period of time without changing. This brings back the idea of a economic bubble.

An economic bubble or a market bubble is, "trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values". To put this into layman's terms it means that people are selling at buying at the same rate even though the value of the currency is dropping or the price of the good is increasing putting it completely at odds with the laws of supply and demand.

Because people continue to sell, in this case, cobblestone at the same rate even though the value of the gold bar is rapidly decreasing this dangerous economic situation has been put into a very precarious situation. Such that the opening of the CS and the sudden inpour of gold can set the bubble to "pop" leading to an almost apocalyptic economic situation that will likely drive people away from the server.

My opinion on the matter is that:

a. the price of gold relative to credits be more variable to account for the amount of gold in server at any given time.

b. that a admin or moderator run tax be implemented so as to create some amount of removal of gold at some substantial rate.

c. that the time between when credits can be earned increase so as to keep gold from coming in too rapidly at any one time.

and d. that the people of Minetown, independent to the aforementioned ideas, try to use up more gold as blocks or weapons or armor or to simply incinerate excess gold to keep the amount down.

This is in no way a scam or some way to trick people out of their money I am simply a concerned citizen who wishes to keep such an event from happening. Especially because with 1.9 gold nuggets will be introduced making gold a renewable resource I think that better regulation of economic affairs in minetown be put into action.

CrimsonYoshi

Fuq dis Shit. Imma go get sum KENTUCKY FRIED CREEPERS~~~~~

WAITWAITWAIT. I never said that the DAU was 215, you misinterpereted what I said and put it up here even after telling me to give you a random guess. And why did you mention your father?

Also, what your dad said doesn't really apply to Minetown because there are a bunch of people who keep large sums of money and do nothing with it So it's like the gold isn't even there. Without an exact sense of how much money is really there, people don't know how to fuel the economy very well. In Minetown, for the smallest increment of currency you can buy a bunch of stones that stretch to the heavens(or at least at my shop you can). But you can't do that in real life because we have a better sense of what money is going around.

For example, we'll say an insurance agent goes to the grocery store. They buy some apples and The staff at the grocery store gets their money. Then, let's say manager then breaks their arm and goes to the doctor. They get a pink cast and Dr.Person gets the money from the medical bill. Then the doctor gets a toyota prius and needs it insured. the money goes back to the insurance agent. But if the insurance broker hoards money, then they buy less food, the grocery store manager can only afford a sling and not a pink cast, and the doctor can't insure their car. The insurance company then brings in less money. HOWEVER, since the general economy is not aware of the hoarded money, There is considered to be more scarcity value. So the money keeps its value and doesn't go down.

And in Minetown there aren't even doctors or insurance to spend money on on the first place. So the money keeps its value even more easily. Ergo, The fact that they are supplying money via the credits shop makes no difference since people have nothing to do with it.

The whole point is that gold is not losing its value because people aren't using it for anything in the economy that often.

And to disprove what you said on skype earlier, people ARE disposing of some money with things like powered rails, diamond and gold tools and armor, etc.

I like your argument, it is well structured, thought out, and is not insulting. Props to you good sir

However, people still dispose of gold through the use of diamond tools, armour, admin shop, vaults, spawn shops, and a few other things.

I agree with both sides in a way. I think that the CS should at least have slightly higher or more in depth gold to credit conversion system, but I also agree that most of my gold goes into diamond tools and gold armor, because I can.

Naturally he's saying that we've opened up so many holes into the economy every time we open another one the economies value goes down (gold bars) eventually (Like he said) the gold bar/diamond economy will be at virtually no value, and he's saying you can't reset the economy after that unless you changed the currency option.

If I got that wrong then can you explain it a bit more to me in a PM?

Thanks,

Baber

Dose this quote imply here?

The economy will jew itself up if it theres holes like the OP says

EDIT: I FINALLY CHANGED THE PRICES IN MY SHOP <3

Btw, do you get insaulted by seeing stuff like this which is intended as jokes?