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A Question About Currency


Davis

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My question is as follows; How in the Dual Universe world, will Quanta(Currency) be continuously inserted in order to simulate a real working economy? 

 

It's been mentioned by the developers that they hope to remove all NPC trade (Which I think is great) but I don't understand how it's possible to do that when an economy needs a regulated injection of cash currency in order to regulate inflation. The basics of economics dictate that as more money enters a economy, the less value the currency retains (The very basic definition). In modern day, banks usually regulate currency injection on behalf of government treasuries, so who will do it in Dual Universe?

 

The reason I ask is because without currency injection at a regulated pace, there can only be a certain amount of total money after the NPC's are removed. For example if they remove the NPC's and it's been six months, and all the players in the world have traded 20 billion Quanta worth of goods, then there can only ever be 20 billion Quanta in the world. Obviously this is a problem because it will make prices rise ridiculously high, especially if they money is spread thin between players. 

 

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Prices would actually sink dramatically as the value goes up on the currency.  I don't think it's much of an issue though. Much like a pizza now costs .0001 bit coins or whatever... quanta can follow a similar path.  Bitcoins are continually produced though, so not the best analogy.

 

The main issue I see is players hording quanta and taking advantage of the increased value.  And if it is an issue, I'm sure it will be addressed somewhere in the beta stage.

 

In the end I imagine those npcs will be activated every now and then.

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22 minutes ago, Hades said:

Prices would actually sink dramatically as the value goes up on the currency.  I don't think it's much of an issue though. Much like a pizza now costs .0001 bit coins or whatever... quanta can follow a similar path.  Bitcoins are continually produced though, so not the best analogy.

 

The main issue I see is players hording quanta and taking advantage of the increased value.  And if it is an issue, I'm sure it will be addressed somewhere in the beta stage.

 

In the end I imagine those npcs will be activated every now and then.

An interesting side effect of the bots is that they will effectively set pricing standards for certain raw or refined goods. If all the bots are offering 100 Quanta per 12 cubic meters of platinum for example, the price of plat won't be any lower than that (in the local area) since sellers could just sell to a bot and make more than people would be offering to buy.

 

Depending on how much currency is actually floating around, this is going to do some strange things to the supply and demand of goods, and its going to be really difficult to do meaningful trade probably for over a month.

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I have seen that before in games. where the npc price sets the lowest possibly price. But if the npcs were turned off for a bit people would have to pay whatever price they could get, and there could be price drops. perhaps the currency should be manufactured by players, but it is resource intensive? you have to get all the materials and take them to the arkship and the arkship turns them into currency its like its own npc 

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NPC's setting prices are only somewhat true in a limited context.

 

When you build a market in a high population density area, you're more likely to have bots showing up purchasing things to inject money into the economy there, however, you can't just expect to build a market in the middle of nowhere and have bots start purchasing everything you try selling.

 

So the closer a market is to a population dense area, the more likely it is that prices are going to be regulated that way. If you want people to come out to your markets, you'd probably start offering more money for things. Even if you were buying from a population dense area, you might offer more money to people for their goods simply because you need them more than the black hole the bots are going to put them into. 

 

It's also not guaranteed that everything you try selling will be bought by an NPC, so some things might have to have their prices determined by the market completely. 

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1 minute ago, yamamushi said:

It's also not guaranteed that everything you try selling will be bought by an NPC, so some things might have to have their prices determined by the market completely. 

That, or the market NPC's might be set up in such a way where each time they are turned on, they will only buy so much of the same thing before they stop accepting more trades of that type. This is sort of how Starmade works.

 

That way when the bots turn on, they will only buy a certain ammount of DIRT for example before deciding that they are no longer trading for dirt. The value of dirt in the marketplace as a whole would only be affected until the bots have bought as much as they are willing to. The same would go for other materials as well, so if the price of lets say Iron were artificially bumped-up by the bots, it would be a temporary bump.

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We don't know to what extent NQ's money-injection mechanics (i.e. fake resource buy orders) will interfere in the player-driven market.

 

Hopefully the fake buy orders will only be i.r.o. the most common basic ores, with the price of everything else being determined by pure supply-and-demand mechanics on the market. If the fake buy order prices are set very low, it will mean that quanta will enter the economy relatively slowly, and making "new" money will require much grinding. But it would also mean that players wouldn't have to struggle to "beat" the prices offered by NQ's buy orders.

 

We also don't know how important cash will be to the average player. What is cash needed for in DU, other than to buy resources from other players ? We don't know how R&D works, or what the effect of skills will be regarding the manufacture of alloys, parts, elements, etc..

 

It may be that a medium sized org can supply all the needs of its members without needing much actual cash...

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19 minutes ago, NanoDot said:

It may be that a medium sized org can supply all the needs of its members without needing much actual cash...

It depends on your definition of medium sized, but I doubt it. 

 

If small to medium groups can be self-sufficient it would work against the overall goal of the game, in my opinion. 

 

Regardless of how you pay for something trade will be vital. A component will most likely exist of subcomponents and so on. Trade is essential to stimulate the emergence of cities etc. 

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10 minutes ago, Falstaf said:

... 

 

If small to medium groups can be self-sufficient it would work against the overall goal of the game, in my opinion. 

 

How would you avoid that ?

 

If the ability to manufacture components is purely skill-based, a group of 20 players can possibly co-ordinate their skill training to cover all options. The only constraint would be the volume of items they can manufacture and/or assemble.

 

If your group can acquire sufficient resources in DU, and you have the required skills for building/manufacturing, what need would you have for money ?

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Just now, NanoDot said:

How would you avoid that ?

 

If your group can acquire sufficient resources in DU, and you have the required skills for building/manufacturing, what need would you have for money ?

I'm not a developer but one reason I can imagine that it won't be that easy is time. 

 

Resource gathering takes time. Production takes time. Designing takes time. I know I'm stating the obvious but it's a really important factor in motivating trade. Remember you need to be physically present to have your factory manufacture objects and so on. To be completely self sufficient you'll need a very large infrastructure with an almost unlimited amount of time. 

 

Sure, if your perfect group in that perfect scenario has everything they need whenever they need it, they wouldn't need money perse. 

 

Fortunately the chances of that happening are very small. :)

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Falstaf said:

... 

 

Sure, if your perfect group in that perfect scenario has everything they need whenever they need it, they wouldn't need money perse. 

 

Fortunately the chances of that happening are very small. :)

 

 

On the contrary, I'd imagine that a group of 20 could very easily be self-sufficient in their basic needs.

 

It all depends on how important "rare" resources and "high-end" parts and elements will be in everyday game play. Large orgs may have a virtual monopoly on those kinds of items, which would mean other players would need cash to buy those things from the suppliers.

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DACs may become ingame currency. So for example when you purchase DAC that equals to 30 day time, you can transform it into ingame currency smth like 1 billion mini dacs. So you will be always able to pay for you subscription directly by ingame currency, in its turn everything ingame will always have real value. So it may work a bit differently to what we see in EVE, but from by point of view it would be much better for several reasons:

- Natural currency deduction from market during game lifetime, currency amount is always limited

- Currency does not appear from nowhere

- People see real value in currency itself and estimate prices for ingame items according to it

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All great answers, I appreciate the input. It's definitely a very tricky thing to solve. Making a working virtual economy is extremely hard, it'll definitely take some serious work to get it right. The idea of toggling the NPC traders is the best idea in my opinion, only because, as someone mentioned, if prices rise dramatically or drop dramatically based on demand, the NPC will create a price floor and even the market price back out. But that could take months since this will be like a real working economy. 

 

What's important to remember is that they have in fact (From what I have researched) created a proper outflow of the Quanta through the DACs. That will be a commodity that will always be bought at every opportunity because people will want free game time.  The only way to make a virtual economy work is to have a way for money to enter the economy at a regulated rate and for it to leave. But they must be balanced so that one isn't moving more rapidly than the other or else the above economic issues will occur. 

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5 hours ago, Miamato said:

DACs may become ingame currency. So for example when you purchase DAC that equals to 30 day time, you can transform it into ingame currency smth like 1 billion mini dacs. So you will be always able to pay for you subscription directly by ingame currency, in its turn everything ingame will always have real value. So it may work a bit differently to what we see in EVE, but from by point of view it would be much better for several reasons:

- Natural currency deduction from market during game lifetime, currency amount is always limited

- Currency does not appear from nowhere

- People see real value in currency itself and estimate prices for ingame items according to it

I think there was a discussion on this and NQ didn't seem too enthused with the idea.  DACs are going to be DACs.  Nothing more nothing less.  You can sell them to other players for in-game currency... or you can use them.  

 

Anyway, that's besides the point imho.  We most definitely don't want the main currency to be DACs... at least I don't 

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Just now, Hades said:

I think there was a discussion on this and NQ didn't seem too enthused with the idea.  DACs are going to be DACs.  Nothing more nothing less.  You can sell them to other players for in-game currency... or you can use them 

The reason why I suggested such approach is that in EVE there is a problem with isk amount rising too much. And PLEX system is not enough for taking isks out to balance isk amount. So the problem is in regulation of game currency injection into game. And there are two points here actually: 

- short term regulation, on the very beginning of the game life-cycle. If it goes wrong - initial price system may work against stability

- long term. When more and more players come to game - it will need more currency to fulfill rising market users. This is much harder to balance and may harm long term assets value. 

That is why I think that actual playtime should be the currency. I know that NQ is who decides everything, but we are here to share our thought and probably change someones mind if NQ members read and analyze forums :)

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No skin off my nose either way, but I remember people coming up with some pretty good arguments for and against the idea.

 

I think this is the thread if you'd like to read through it;

 

 

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14 hours ago, Davis said:

... 

 

What's important to remember is that they have in fact (From what I have researched) created a proper outflow of the Quanta through the DACs.

... 

DAC will NOT create an "outflow" of currency from the game. You will be buying DAC from other players, so DAC will only transfer currency from you to another player, the quanta will remain in the game world.

 

The only "money sink" I've heard of in DU is the possibility of "rents or taxes" that may be charged for claiming hexes in the safe zone. Presumably the tax will be payable to the arkship AI ?

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DAC is really not a currency because it can be consumed (It's more like a consumable. or perhaps if you don't use it, it becomes a collateral or commodity then). What I'm wondering here, is where will Quanta come from. In other MMORPGs, currency comes from selling junks that you obtained from Drops to NPCs. It comes from the NPC, and what gives that currency it's "value" is how long it took to farm it. Some valuable-items, NPC cannot and will not pay the right value for that, hence, they would rather sell it to players than to NPCs. What gives value to currency (in MMOs, as per my observation) is how long it took to farm it. If you have Bots/Hackers in the game, it will be faster to acquire, hence, inflation(higher-price).

 

How long it took for currency to be farmed : Item availability and rarity, and Supply vs Demand

 

Question is; where does Quanta come from if we don't have NPCs or Monsters that will drop them?

 

My suggestion:

We need NPC to exchange a collateral to currency. That collateral is only limited and exclusive to some or few material(only they can be exchanged for currency). For example, in real-life, we have Gold for that. You mine these, and you exchange them for currency. value of currency will be dictated by supply of gold in the universe. If they become scarce, inflation. If they become faster to farm, inflation. If farming slowed down, deflation. Ofcourse, be creative, don't just put gold, give us a very rare metal or item (make it up, for example, anti-matter lol).

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6 minutes ago, Eternal said:

DAC is really not a currency because it can be consumed (It's more like a consumable. or perhaps if you don't use it, it becomes a collateral or commodity then). What I'm wondering here, is where will Quanta come from. In other MMORPGs, currency comes from selling junks that you obtained from Drops to NPCs. It comes from the NPC, and what gives that currency it's "value" is how long it took to farm it. Some valuable-items, NPC cannot and will not pay the right value for that, hence, they would rather sell it to players than to NPCs. What gives value to currency (in MMOs, as per my observation) is how long it took to farm it. If you have Bots/Hackers in the game, it will be faster to acquire, hence, inflation(higher-price).

 

How long it took for currency to be farmed : Item availability and rarity, and Supply vs Demand

 

Question is; where does Quanta come from if we don't have NPCs or Monsters that will drop them?

I am curious about this as well

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You know how we had shells as direct-commodity-exchange during 19th century? I don't know if that existed elsewhere, but I'm from Asia. Even before contact with the West, we were already using Gold as currency(gold was that collateral). With this, we can do trade. There were currency to commodity trade, and there were commodity to commodity trade (item to item). The Qing Dynasty and it's preceding Dynasties traded with it's neighbors. 

That example of Gold is perfect! (Just give us NPC to exchange them for Quanta)  Either we use the currency, or the gold itself as collateral.

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This Gold-to-Quanta-exchange will be fixed in rate and will never ever change. What will dictate the value of Quanta, is supply of Gold in the universe, how long it took to farm, over Item(commodity) availability and rarity, and Supply vs Demand of Item.

If they really don't wanna give us NPCs, then make this "Quanta" a material(not paper) and is mineable, so it can be that collateral. It's the same-thing!

that's my suggestion. Again, don't stick to gold-material, be creative(I'm using gold as an example only). 

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