I think that the bank should offer a conversion of gold, diamonds and MTC at a reasonable price. This way it would mean that people could charge the right amount of MTC for their shops, based on what they already charge in gold/dia, this way there would be no dispute over blocks being over priced when people charge credits for them. However as Forlel said if this was to happen it would probably drag down the worth of gold and diamonds even more. The only thing is that if there was no conversion offered by the bank there would be nothing to go by to base prices on for blocks and people would just carry on using the same rates that were already there. So, despite the fact that I like the idea of using gold and diamonds as the currency, I have to say that it would be a good idea to have just one form of currency i.e. MT Credits, yet if this was to happen people would probably still continue trading with gold and diamond, at least for a long time after the change anyway, so really it is quite difficult to get around this problem.

Going back to the original post, I use duckshop in my shop (frmarket) and I still sell for gold because I feel that people are happier to trade for gold and keep credits for rarer items, like spawner eggs, because you only get 1000 each time you vote on all the sites which can be used very quickly!!

revels21... look at player shops. They are ALL competing with each other for prices. If you set any price at the bank for diamond/gold to MTC so you can sell your gold/dia there, it won't affect the player owned shops at all. And again, like I previously said, MTC is a non-existent currency. I say this because mtc disappears once you spend it at the cs, there is no true circulation. MTC is spent more quickly than everyone voting brings in mtc. Setting a rate of buy back for dia/gold won't do anything to the economy in the game. You might see one or two shops offer similar prices, however the vast majority will remain at the 30mtc per diamond or whatever they are at, until they run out of supplies, at which point the prices will revert back to normal.

In addition, if you set an official gold/dia to mtc rate at the back, you will HAVE to increase all prices at the cs yet AGAIN. Why? I have 40 stacks of diamond blocks... say at 100 mtc per diamond. 40*9*100=36000. That's half a sheep spawner. The majority of poeple probably have more than me. Considering we allow the use of spawners, we have an infinite economy, which means prices will always continue to drop. Why? Spawner creates infinite items, those prices drop. They keep selling for gold or diamond. You trade in for credits, you buy more stuff at cs, you sell more infinite items and continue the process. It's an infinite loop, seriously. Why would anyone support such an exploit of the economy?

Also, whoever down voted revels, screw off. He offered his opinion, and this is an open thread. Don't down vote people on this thread, it's a dick move.

Thread Title: The End of Minetown?

Vanilla Minecraft is still fun to play you know..

we have 2 main currencies...gold and MTC

Gold is exceptionally easy to come by...MTC is not so, and thus is worth more...we are not going to make a gold to MTC converter because the only way to obtain MTC currently in game is via voting or winning a contest. We can monitor the amount of MTC in game where we cannot with gold. It is important for ppl to vote for us as more votes = better things for the server in the future.

Like i said, both are currencies and both are main forms...how people chose to utilize the MTC to gold ratio value can fluctuate the market drastically, but MTC has some things that you cannot do with gold...(mob eggs/spawners for example). Thus one way of obtaining a lot of MTC is by selling a lot of gold/diamonds at a low price. It may seem a jip at first, but in the long run if you are looking to buy something with creds, you come out ahead in the end.

Ye I can see what you are saying dunsjohn, I did say that it would have to be a reasonable rate, maybe 20-30 creds per diamond, which is close to what some shops already offer. So if you redid your calculation (I assume you meant 40 blocks, not 40 stacks of blocks <object class="emojione" data="https://resources.enjin.com/1489581540/themes/core/images/emojione/svg/1f61b.svg?0" type="image/svg+xml" standby=":p">:p</object>) that's 40*9*30 which is 10,800, which means that if a sheep spawner costs 175,000 that's just over a 16th of what you would need to buy one, that means you would need 10 STACKS of diamond BLOCKS to buy a sheep spawner, which I'm not sure too many people have. Also it is just over a 5th of what you would need to buy the cheapest spawner ($50,000). Also the spawners are priced based on the worth of the products of what they spawn so, unless it was for decoration, I'm not sure too many people would spend 3 stacks of diamond blocks on a spawner which they couldn't do much with, except resell it. But this is all pointless because of the point Zionia made, which I did, partially, think of at first and which I do agree with now:

Also going back to your point that credits are non-existent, diamonds and gold are, so as people sell the diamonds and gold they will also be receiving them by selling other items, and then reselling them for credits which are eventually lost just as they are gained through voting, and it will all keep going round in a loop which means there is a good chance they won't run out of stock and could even reduce their price even further if they get a lot of gold and diamond and want to be even more competitive with their prices, which means that there is a good chance that if an "existent" form of currency was kept in the loop as well as a "non-existent" currency, prices and the worth of gold and diamond will continue to fall.

I said 40 stacks diamond blocks... please re-read. Don't correct me if you're correction is incorrect, thanks. However, you did catch an error in my numbers (even if you didn't state it that way) so thank you for that, as I hate having errors, ugh! Also... your basis is incorrect. The majority of people don't buy spawners just to sell them back. That's like 10 people buying up 90% of the spawner markert. There's another 95% of people who wouldn't mind having spawners who can sell in their shops. When you see auctions on spawners, write down the names. You'll see the same 10ish names over and over again, with maybe one or two random names put in every now and then.

Also, yes I made my calculation incorrectly. However, I did mean stacks. I just forgot to multiply by 64. So, my number being 36000/100 *30*64=691200. That's roughly 4 sheep spawners. And yes, the majority of people DO have access to this amount of diamond blocks. They could easily harvest ALL their materials from their house and chests and sell them all. It's called asset worth. Including all my assests, I probably have 50-60 stacks of diamond blocks.

revels... please, do not ever post in a thread again without reading previous posts. I don't feel like explaining how mtc works. mtc is lost more quickly than it is gained, okay? You can vote for 150 days straight to buy a sheep spawner, and that money is lost in a second. As well, you have donators who get mtc as a donator perk. This mtc is then called promotional, and cannot be counted as a currency (like american express checks that you get as rewards, they aren't considered hard currency but can still be used). So, all those mtc are spent in addition to the voting mtc being spent... you come up with a negative in mtc circulation within Minetown. I would advise you to take an accounting or economics course. Not an intro course, though, around the 300 level so you go more in depth.

And again, if you read above... mtc and gold/diamonds have ZERO relation to each other. People are just getting as much credits as possible now for spawners... read previous threads. Why? Because by selling for very little mtc per diamond, you gain all the mtc that your competitors would have gotten. Once you have a spawner, you can sell for gold/diamonds and slowly regain the loss of money back. It is totally worth it, and if you read the previous posts, you wouldn't be saying such bull that you have no backing for.

This one, I won't apologize for any down talking because revels was ignorant of the fact that there ARE previous posts, and many of his points have been countered before he even stated them... his points don't even work in an economy. Just don't be ignorant anymore and you won't get such a harsh response, revels.

EDIT!!!! To whomever keeps down voting EVERYONE, fuck off. These people are offering their opinions. If you don't like it, debate it as I have just done in this post. Don't be a puss and just hit the red thumbs down, and run away because you aren't intelligent enough to hold a real conversation. I'd say at least 60% of the posts here have been down voted at least once, and I don't believe anyone here deserves down votes in this thread.

hi everyone.....please remember no offence between you guys....just a discussion.

Dunsjohn,

While there is an exit for MTC, I would argue that they are more likely in a positive balance, and that they do represent a problem for the hard currency economy.

Voting and donating are limitless sources of currency; in other words, there is no limiting factor (such as the number of diamonds available in the map) to restrict the amount of MTC that can be in circulation at any given time. Because of this, you create an open system: currency is flowing both in and out in unlimited quantities. Unfortunately, this open system in the MTC market also breaks a hole into the "Hard Currency" Market. Though spawners, eggs, etc. Are only initially available through the MTC market, once they've been introduced to the world, they also affect the hard currency market.

As I mentioned and you restated previously, no one wants MineTown to end up like a post-WWI economy, exemplified by the Wiemar Republic (Germany.) In those days, it took a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread; it was better to use your money as fuel than actually purchasing firewood. By leaving an open influx of currency into the economy, the entire system is undermined.

Voters and donors don't need currency to be happy; changing some of their potential commands as rewards or providing some other form of compensation that would not threaten the economy is a better solution than the one currently in place; MTC could be removed altogether or have their use changed.

Lock thread before more good financial advice is offered.

You're including donators. You can't include exclusive incentives. Not all members can donate, therefore you can only count voting MTC as actual currency, in which case you get a negative balance. In games where you can buy currency in game (Like LoL, Aeria Games and such) they have auction houses or rates or don't allow you to trade currencies between players. If that was the case, then we would see a positive inflow of currency being used in the market. Unfortunately, the auction house program is no longer used because it is unstable, and resulted in duckshop being implemented (I believe that's why we have duckshop now, right?).

As to the positive balance, you need to take an average, not an instance. Sure, from yesterday to today there is a positive flow in mtc from voting : spending habits. Three months ago to today, there is a negative balance. Back when there was an auction house, I believe there was a negative balance but it was fairly small in comparison to now.

Honestly, I have a plan to "restructure" the economy. It would involve just one HUGE building where there would be the new cs store. This store would have standardized rates. Then, the rest of the building would be populated by player's signs for duckshop. This way, everything is in one place. It should all be organized by item, and needs staff to make the signs for them. The staff would put the amount of money and amount of item to be sold. Credit sales would be disabled outside of this building, to control the location. So, you'd have 50 different people with signs for stone, each competing with each other, 50 signs for dirt, and what not. Of course, such a building would be the size of a city and would never be voted to be implemented. However, without an auction house, and if everyone will continue to complain about diamonds being sold cheaply (Why is everyone complaining about that, exactly?) this is the only solution that would work in comparison to the auction house.