Towny (my stand on it, problems and solutions from a "new" member)

Khafra

I know the idea of the economy being unbalanced has been brought up countless times, with two completely different viewpoints, but not a single player has given a physical (or probable) solution to the problem at hand. People love to throw the term around, without a real understanding of it. The dictionary definition surmises to “a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money.” MeepCraft hasn’t had inflation since before the reset. Prices of items have been stable - or lowering - consistently. Items have less value than ever before, while Meebles have more value.

Problems:

Item prices are stagnant; the value of items neither increase or decrease.
Towny, by definition “is a versatile, player-controlled land management plugin for use with Bukkit/Tekkit/Spigot/Libigot. Towny offers solutions for pvp, griefing, chat, inflated economies and monsters to minecraft server admins. Towny allows players to work together and against each other as they see fit.” The whole premise of towny is dysfunctional from its intended state.
Towny taxes are a major issue to new players and old players alike.
Therefore, towny prices are also concerning.

Solutions:

The simplest solution to deflation is inflation. Adding more money into the economy would allow people to spend money; no longer having to hold onto it for their town tax. People who earn money are more likely to spend it -- not through a central shop, but through players.
- Not many people will remember (or agree with the example I’m about to share) but go back to the early days of the server, January of 2017. Alexxx and I successfully raised the price of diamonds from 200 meebles each to triple that. While the means to get the money wasn’t legit, it allowed the economy to flow. People used the money to buy towns, towns which these players still own to this day. After that, prices were stable for around a week or two I would assume, but there forth decreased to where they stand to this day, at 100 meebles.
- A comparison to 2012 or 2014 wouldn’t be fair, all 3 servers had their similarities and differences, economy wise. In 2014, the playerbase started diminishing at a noticeable rate (in fact, most players came to a conclusion the server was already dead) and we first noticed a decrease in item prices… Diamonds in 2012 went for 1,000 meebles each, but in 2014, half of that. Go forwards a few years, possibly the end of 2016 or early 2017, when witch spawners were introduced into the admin shops. The economy noticed a huge boom, but only from a secluded (minority) of the players. People were happy with this, as these players used their money to reinvest into the people - they call it trickle down economics. Item prices started increasing at this point, due to players having money! Although they had a finite amount of meebles, they had a pool large enough to make profit. Nowadays, there’s no pool to take from, there’s no admin shops, no way of making money. Relying on the people doesn’t work unless there’s money in the first place. Regulation on items is good in moderation, having a fairly inactive staff team hold an iron grip around the economy doesn’t allow growth.
- Deflation is not good, you put in more work for less money:
  - Cactus farm (8 meebles/64 cactus)
  - Sugarcane farm (5 meebles/64 sugarcane)
  - Diamonds (6,400 meebles/64 diamonds)
  - Other natural materials (lapis, redstone, gold, coal, iron, wood, and their sub products.)
Towny is meant to have an inflated economy, and for good reason! Towny is meant for you to not lose your items, and staff have gone far out of their way to make this true. This isn’t necessarily bad, but you are using the wrong mindset for towny. Instead of decreasing the flow of money altogether, a better incentive to spend money is needed.
- Items themselves, rare admin items, collectibles. I don’t see much effort having to go into this, it only takes a little time. Staff did this in gamma, with rare items. I see staff tried implementing a system somewhat like that, with the Egyptian Headdress, but it doesn’t amount to the worth of the items back in Gamma.
- There isn’t another possible fix for this one, you can add money, or keep towny going as-is. To increase money is easy, and can be regulated, item flow can’t be regulated, no matter how hard you try. I mention this to remind you of other reasons prices are lower, there is too much competition. This isn’t real life where a couple of companies compete over an item, it’s everyone undercuts each other until it is no longer profitable. Monopolies don’t sound that bad, and technically exist already (through villager trading, shops (due to pwarps) among other miscellaneous non-essential economy aspects).
Once a player owns a town, they are only faced with more problems than solutions: they pay to claim plots, which increases their daily taxes! Building anything significant on the server is not possible, once you pay your daily tax, your fee for claiming plots, you are left with nothing, no materials to build with or anything.
- Before anyone says it, towns are not profitable and on a small server, are not meant to be in the first place. Tax on a town should be used to fund it, not hurt it.
- In real life, taxes are used to fund the government programs, organizations, etc (health care, schools, libraries, churches, etc). On minecraft, that money isn’t needed for funding - why does so much have to be removed? It doesn’t counter inflation, as voting gives you 4k a day (the equivalent of owning 80 plots) to pay for the upkeep.
- I have project plans, which are halted down by taxes - I can’t physically make 20k a day without gambling… not counting materials or the cost to create a town.
- The solution would be to either decrease prices of towns (not ideal) or lower/remove daily upkeep altogether! You still pay 1,000 meebles per plot, but don’t have to worry about the taxes which force you to come on and earn money. As Klutch said yesterday, people get busy in real life, his life kept him inactive for 2 months, but he has the benefit of a tax free town.
- Another, pretty decent solution if you sit down and think about it, is allowing players to earn or purchase tax cut vouchers or a removal of taxes for a certain amount of time. Players could possibly pay $20 for a month without taxes, or earn them in voting crates, for less time of course. This helps fund MeepCraft, and allows people to have a life of their own. All based on the assumption that changing this is decently easy.
Towny prices may also fall under this category - is there an actual need to hold the player’s hand through creating a town? If they forget or do not add money into their town bank after creation, it is not your fault. If you feel responsible, you could add in a prompt after towns are created that gives examples on commands, which would be more useful than increasing towny prices.
- I could understand if you decreased towny prices to 100,000 meebles, but put a minority of the cost (say 25k) into the town bank.
- Allowing people to get towns easily influence them to grow, to build, to thrive! Not a relief, as in, they spent multiple weeks or months earning the money to lead themselves.

I know many of you will disagree with me, probably more for who I am than what I suggest here, but who cares. I only suggest simple changes to config files, or additions that have been done before (either on a large scale or small scale, what other scale is there?).

Sorry for the formatting, I originally did this in a Google doc, and some of the format didn't paste here very well.

evilalec555

More players I would think Is key for the economy to flow

hardegat

More players I would think Is key for the economy to flow
~ @evilalec555

This is key.

Prices of items have been stable - or lowering - consistently.
~ @Khafra

Item prices are stagnant; the value of items neither increase or decrease.
~ @Khafra

Just a bit of contradiction here,

Towny taxes are a major issue to new players and old players alike.
~ @Khafra

voting gives you 4k a day (the equivalent of owning 80 plots) to pay for the upkeep.
~ @Khafra

and here.

We are guaranteed 4k a day as you say that can support a fairly large town and if you actually sell your vote keys you are almost guaranteed another 16k+ if you get them sold daily. No one should complain about not having enough money for taxes or anything else.

We all suffer from greed and wanting more meebles than the next guy while being impatient - that I can agree with and it is not an economy problem.

We have a free market and the economy is a direct result of what players do. We are in control of inflation but by undercutting each other just to get your items sold first you are not benefiting yourself or the economy, think a bit. If players focused more on scarce items that are difficult to obtain like potion ingredients (blaze rods, ghast tears, etc.), nether stars, gun powder, leather etc. etc. instead of cobble and logs they would earn much more money and stimulate virtually untapped segments of the eco.

Educating players rather than changing the way the eco works will have a better result. A cheap shop does not equal a successful shop. Buy as well as Sell in your shop. If an item is going for too low a price according to yourself either buy everyone out and sell for your price (risky, lots of capital needed) or move on to another item that there is low/no supply of. Also give your items some time to be sold, you don't have to instantly sell them to be successful, patience is key. People should use /tr to request items they need more often to guide players as to what resources to gather and sell.

Need I remind everyone that out of control economies are what lead to resets... So if this eco is too chill and controlled for your liking I for one am more than happy with it.

I understand and know where you are coming from and it is great that we can discuss how to improve things. Because among all our ideas there is a solution.

As far as towns go I don't think there are any changes needed to the prices. Again it is more of a player issue that I see. Apart from the shortage of new players it's more about this reluctance residents have towards paying fair plot and resident taxes. If you want to be part of a town you should be happy to pay taxes to contribute to it. Resident taxes should be able to be based on the towns upkeep divided by the amount of residents as a fair indication ie. upkeep = 2000 meebles per day in a town with 8 residents taxes of minimum 250 should be acceptable, even 300 as to actually help the town grow. Instead players want 50 meebles or free taxes...but you get 4k a day from voting...how stingy can you be? The mentality of the mayor needs to support his citizens always baffled me. Having nice roads, farms, scenery and services should all fall on the town's owner...why?? This is why I'm a hermit in my 25 plot town and happy not to deal with the drama of having residents.

twomoo1119

Once a player owns a town, they are only faced with more problems than solutions: they pay to claim plots, which increases their daily taxes! Building anything significant on the server is not possible, once you pay your daily tax, your fee for claiming plots, you are left with nothing, no materials to build with or anything.
~ @Khafra

This is a large reason why many large towns only have a few active players. This is basically the only way they are profitable.

lanekids40

f players focused more on scarce items that are difficult to obtain like potion ingredients (blaze rods, ghast tears, etc.), nether stars, gun powder,
~ @hardegat

the problem with this is the practicality/payout factor. you can't break spawners or claim in the nether anymore. these things killed the economy for those item, it would not be easy or practical nor worth the trouble to trick out a fortress in the nether if people will just destroy the farm and when the mobs spawns are nerfed so bad that slime is near impossible to obtain, and I can only guess how much wither skeleton spawns have been nerfed.

SuperDyl

the problem with this is the practicality/payout factor. you can't break spawners or claim in the nether anymore. these things killed the economy for those item, it would not be easy or practical nor worth the trouble to trick out a fortress in the nether if people will just destroy the farm and when the mobs spawns are nerfed so bad that slime is near impossible to obtain, and I can only guess how much wither skeleton spawns have been nerfed.
~ @lanekids40

These problems make it hard to collect these items in massive amounts, but it also means the items have greatly inflated prices as well. Economies balance.

The simplest solution to deflation is inflation.
~ @Khafra

Currently, inflation has just been increased. The voting system was just changed to add tons of meebles into the economy.

After that, prices were stable for around a week or two I would assume, but there forth decreased to where they stand to this day, at 100 meebles.
~ @Khafra

Diamonds were worth from 120 to 150 meebles at the beginning of 2017. The price moved a little here and there. About a month ago @bloodyghost bought out all of the diamonds raising diamonds from 120-125 meebles to 140 meebles. Inflation then kicked up their value again raising them up to the current 165 meebles. The prices of goods which have a lot of sellers such as diamonds aren't extremely variable, but they do change and have almost never been 100 meebles a piece.

Khafra

More players I would think Is key for the economy to flow
~ @evilalec555

Which we don't have.

We all suffer from greed and wanting more meebles than the next guy while being impatient - that I can agree with and it is not an economy problem.
~ @hardegat

Never said this.

We have a free market and the economy is a direct result of what players do. We are in control of inflation but by undercutting each other just to get your items sold first you are not benefiting yourself or the economy, think a bit. If players focused more on scarce items that are difficult to obtain like potion ingredients (blaze rods, ghast tears, etc.), nether stars, gun powder, leather etc. etc. instead of cobble and logs they would earn much more money and stimulate virtually untapped segments of the eco.
~ @hardegat

Except no one is willing to put themselves in a position to grind for hours for the "rare" items, which is the exact reasoning why there is no set value for these items. Mob spawns (slimeballs, etc), in both towny and wild are lowered, grinding ghast tears takes time, especially with all the factors involved, blaze rods are grindable and already have a diminished price. Mending books have been completely prohibited from the server.

The only reasonable way to make money is how everyone does it, the economy is heavily limited. It's not probable to make a living off of grinding beacons or ghast tears.

"an economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses," is the dictionary definition of a free market.

I wouldn't call the player shops much of a competition... very few shops are run and even less of these shops have sell shops. With the shops that do, it's basically mercantilism - you sell items to a larger shop, most notably emeralds, in which they sell you "manufactured" goods (enchanted tools, weapons, armor)

Having a free market in itself is an awful economic strategy either way... you allow for monopolies, which destroy small businesses - as shown in the Progressive Era reforms, anti-trust laws are "comprehensive charter of economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition as the rule of trade." (The Antitrust Laws) If you don't think a monopoly has developed around certain items, enchanted tools, armor and weapons mostly, that would be insane. To enchant books can take hours, villagers allow you to do it in minutes and make a huge profit of up to 3 times the value in emeralds consumed. Villager breeding is disabled in towny, zombie villagers only spawning naturally now, it's near impossible to cure a rare mob, with an even lower chance of it being librarian, and then get a decent trade out of it. Those who do keep these villager in private, and are able to cut their prices severely if someone beats them, while obviously making a profit. You can't compete with someone like Epixaid, especially after the huge influx of emeralds after the Christmas Event, which lowered their prices permanently and introduce thousands into the community...

From the word choice, I assume you believe this is a suggestion over undercutting players? The reason players undercut each other is due to the deflation in the economy - there's no spread of money, meaning players aren't buying items from other players. If you don't have money, you can't spend money, which I attempted to focus on in this (I didn't spend much effort on this, because it probably won't get accepted either way. The staff team probably thinks that the economy is perfect...) You lower prices to make a profit, but to also earn money. You can't sell prices for their value if no one has the money to spend.

edit: using "if" isn't also very promising, you're expecting the players to fix issues themselves which isn't going to happen. The issue is not necessarily the structure of the economy, it's the structure upon the gamemode (which is intended to be on an inflated economy).

Just a bit of contradiction here,
~ @hardegat

I didn't clarify; the meebles you earn from voting cannot hold up a large town, the taxes themselves halt expansion of towns (ie. You pay 1k per plot along with the 50 tax daily owning that one plot adds to your town). Owning a large town (ie. Legend) isn't possible for many players, with 60k+ tax daily. The reason you don't see towns helping players is because no one can pay for the tax brought by these towns.

Educating players rather than changing the way the eco works will have a better result. A cheap shop does not equal a successful shop. Buy as well as Sell in your shop. If an item is going for too low a price according to yourself either buy everyone out and sell for your price (risky, lots of capital needed) or move on to another item that there is low/no supply of. Also give your items some time to be sold, you don't have to instantly sell them to be successful, patience is key. People should use /tr to request items they need more often to guide players as to what resources to gather and sell.
~ @hardegat

Educating people only works if you listen to their advice, a new player isn't going to care. The old players may make money off of it which doesn't help much if at all. "Buy as well as Sell in your shop," a perfect way to lose money, why would anyone buy items from me if they have a chance to make money? People will grind if they see an abuse in a system [shop] but they definitely won't buy. The whole idea of items selling lower than value is due to the deflation on the economy - the prices aren't at what they should be because no one buys anything... There isn't enough money to buy town materials, while paying daily upkeep and having a fun time. You either grind for multiple hours for a negligible cost or get materials yourself, instead of buying. If you don't have much money, which not many people do, you can't invest it into the playerbase. People sell items for lower because meebles have a much higher value than they should in the first place. Spending your money shouldn't be an issue but yet people refuse to buy anything from anyone if they can earn it themselves. In alpha and beta people spent money because people had the money, money flowed through the playerbase.

Need I remind everyone that out of control economies are what lead to resets... So if this eco is too chill and controlled for your liking I for one am more than happy with it.
~ @hardegat

I assume you weren't a fan of alpha or beta economies? They weren't regulated and players still despised them (or, the same regulations placed on them are still on the server, and even stronger).

This is a large reason why many large towns only have a few active players. This is basically the only way they are profitable.
~ @twomoo1119

You can't expect an actual profit from your town, when much larger and more trustworthy towns have free taxes (Legend)?

As far as towns go I don't think there are any changes needed to the prices. Again it is more of a player issue that I see. Apart from the shortage of new players it's more about this reluctance residents have towards paying fair plot and resident taxes. If you want to be part of a town you should be happy to pay taxes to contribute to it. Resident taxes should be able to be based on the towns upkeep divided by the amount of residents as a fair indication ie. upkeep = 2000 meebles per day in a town with 8 residents taxes of minimum 250 should be acceptable, even 300 as to actually help the town grow. Instead players want 50 meebles or free taxes...but you get 4k a day from voting...how stingy can you be? The mentality of the mayor needs to support his citizens always baffled me. Having nice roads, farms, scenery and services should all fall on the town's owner...why?? This is why I'm a hermit in my 25 plot town and happy not to deal with the drama of having residents.
~ @hardegat

Except you have too much competition in towns, which is why they aren't profitable. Legend had no tax and possibly free plots, for all members, new or old. You can't compete or expect a resident (most likely new player) to agree to fund a town that they have no intention of staying in.

The players are directly influenced by the economy, which shows why there are so many problems...

edit:

Currently, inflation has just been increased. The voting system was just changed to add tons of meebles into the economy.
~ @SuperDyl

You can't "increase" inflation.

Voting brings up a whole other issue: the fact that you can't physically make money without voting in itself is a horrible practice.

Gold standard - Wikipedia
Fiat money - Wikipedia
Explaining Price Deflation - Causes, Effects and Policies | tutor2u Economics
Inflation and deflation risks: How to recognise them? How to avoid them?

SuperDyl

Which we don't have.
~ @Khafra

The player count has gone up overtime, from an average high of 40 players on at one timer per day to an average high of 60 players on at one time per day.

Except no one is willing to put themselves in a position to grind for hours for the "rare" items, which is the exact reasoning why there is no set value for these items.
~ @Khafra

That is why those goods are such an unrestricted market with large gains available.

I wouldn't call the player shops much of a competition... very few shops are run and even less of these shops have sell shops. With the shops that do, it's basically mercantilism - you sell items to a larger shop, most notably emeralds, in which they sell you "manufactured" goods (enchanted tools, weapons, armor)

~ @Khafra

Being a shop owner, I believe I have some good knowledge in this matter. Yes, there are few shops kept continually running, but they do compete enough to reduce the price of goods. If you feel shops don't compete enough, a free market like on Meepcraft is the perfect place to create a better shop. My shop only sells a few sets of items, which most people only buy large quantities of diamonds to resell at a higher price. There may be few player shops, but there are obviously flaws in the current player shops which could be used by a watchful player to create a new business. For example, my shop runs off of the basis of buying goods from other shops to stock it, something most other shops don't do. I think finding ways to use the current systems is better than trying to replace them through large work on the staff.

Having a free market in itself is an awful economic strategy either way
~ @Khafra

You forget that on Meepcraft, people are able to undercut each other, assuring all players the ability to find cheap goods. People could abuse the system to raise prices, but you said it yourself--it's a risky tactic. In the real world, free markets only become dangerous when competition is destroyed through contracts and agreements.

To enchant books can take hours
~ @Khafra

It depends on how you're getting experience. I suggest the use of a guardian grinder. If you have a fairly good computer and buy access to a grinder, you could enchant at least a book every 3 minutes, especially with the plugin which decreases the enchanting costs.

Those who do keep these villager in private, and are able to cut their prices severely if someone beats them, while obviously making a profit. You can't compete with someone like Epixaid, especially after the huge influx of emeralds after the Christmas Event, which lowered their prices permanently and introduce thousands into the community...
~ @Khafra

Then find a different place to make money! Inflation would help players like @Epixaid just as much as those who can't compete with players like @Epixaid . I'll also have you know that emerald prices have been increasing dramatically in the last few weeks from 28 a piece to 35 a piece and possibly still rising.

you're expecting the players to fix issues themselves which isn't going to happen.
~ @Khafra

Players can fix issues. Pwarps were underused and I created The Warp Book to spur their use. Enchanting supplies were short and players like @bloodyghost helped provide spawners, some even from free, to decrease the costs of enchanted items. You believe that prices are too low, then force prices up, whether alone ore by getting with others to have more power as a group. You said that last year you managed to dramatically raise the value of diamonds for a time, so do that type of thing again!

The reason you don't see towns helping players is because no one can pay for the tax brought by these towns.
~ @Khafra

Towns which fail at helping players do so because people are lazy. Why do you think it sometimes takes a while to get help from a staff member? People want to work on their own time sometimes.

The second point here is that towns can pay for themselves. Most towns have a tax of at least 50 meebles to pay for plots. I know Legend's is 150 meebles per plot to help pay for street plots, unowned plots, and town expansion. If a town isn't helping players, it isn't because they can't pay for their town because the more players a town has, the more plots are occupied and the more the town collects in taxes.

People will grind if they see an abuse in a system [shop] but they definitely won't buy.
~ @Khafra

People buy, but not all items. The items most players are interested in buying are those which it is inconvenient to collect for themselves.The problem of people not buying enough is a public perception problem, not because the prices of goods are being, as you said, undercut.

People sell items for lower because meebles have a much higher value than they should in the first place.
~ @Khafra

The value of meebles only needs to be high enough to pay taxes (which they are since by logging in and voting any individual can pay their taxes) and high enough to properly sell any item (also completed as the cheapest items are usually about 1 meeble a piece).

Spending your money shouldn't be an issue but yet people refuse to buy anything from anyone if they can earn it themselves.
~ @Khafra

In alpha and beta people spent money because people had the money, money flowed through the playerbase.
~ @Khafra

As before, people do buy items, but its only usually items needed in large bulk such as quartz blocks or terracotta. It's a problem with the community's perceptions, not the economy.

You can't expect an actual profit from your town, when much larger and more trustworthy towns have free taxes (Legend)?
~ @Khafra

A town only gets large if it has a tax, else it couldn't support itself. That's why towns like Legend have a tax, which is the small amount of about 150 meebles per plot. To put that in context, that's the amount gained from catching 5 fish with a fishing rod.

You can't "increase" inflation.

~ @Khafra

I meant to say they've been increasing the meebles in circulation, thus inflating the economy. Sorry if that was confusing.

the fact that you can't physically make money without voting in itself is a horrible practice.
~ @Khafra

People can make money though!You said that players like @Epixaid have control of large sectors of Meepcraft's economy, which means they can make money. I made my first 100,000 through buying and reselling diamonds at the beginning of 2017. If you look past doing what the majority of player is doing (which is mining for diamonds and selling them in the v-shop) you'll find there are many opportunities to gain large amounts of meebles.

To Conclude:

1. The first suggestion to inflate the economy is already in effect.

2. Towns don't need costs decreased because they are running fine.

3. There are plenty of ways to earn meebles.

4. The economy doesn't have large monopoly problems, at least not enough to prevent all players from earning plenty of meebles by selling between players.

My opinions on the suggestions:

1. The economy is fine and the suggestion has already been implemented.

2. Towns prices are fine, making people have to work but not forcing any grinding sessions.

-1

hardegat

Except no one is willing to put themselves in a position to grind
~ @Khafra

You can't compete with someone like Epixaid
~ @Khafra

So because people are lazy the economy should change and not the people? Lazy people will be worse off by definition. Do you think Epixaid got to where he is by sitting around complaining how the system isn't tailored to his needs? Didn't all players start with a zero balance?

Twist, you can compete with Epixaid, people are just not willing to put in the work. Which means they have, or at least should have, a different goal in the game to Epixaid. Which is fine, having the most meebles is not the only reason to play meep.

From the word choice, I assume you believe this is a suggestion over undercutting players? The reason players undercut each other is due to the deflation in the economy - there's no spread of money, meaning players aren't buying items from other players. If you don't have money, you can't spend money, which I attempted to focus on in this (I didn't spend much effort on this, because it probably won't get accepted either way. The staff team probably thinks that the economy is perfect...) You lower prices to make a profit, but to also earn money. You can't sell prices for their value if no one has the money to spend.
~ @Khafra

No, I put forward what I believe the underlying factors to be.
I believe players undercut each other to sell their item first, I believe players are short sighted and don't understand scope, supply and demand. Do you go to different stores each day (in real life) and see prices drop from the previous day to compete with the store across the street then see that store doing the same the next day and so on? If stores did do this what would happen? They would close down, fail, loss of income, unemployed people... this is what I'm trying to portray and in fact you are confirming it by saying people do this and don't have money (and we don't understand why, let's change the economy).

The economy isn't perfect, I don't think anyone thinks that, it is however better than any previous ones and so far it is working. As I said before between what I think, you think, the next person etc. there is a solution that will make us all happy and we have to keep discussing it.

you're expecting the players to fix issues themselves which isn't going to happen. The issue is not necessarily the structure of the economy, it's the structure upon the gamemode (which is intended to be on an inflated economy).
~ @Khafra

I've already stated that I believe this to be the issue. Everyone wants change but nobody wants to change. Then people expect other people to bring about the change and if they don't they are unhappy, protest and complain...ughhhh.

The economy is meant to be just that, an economy. It will naturally evolve.

It's not probable to make a living off of grinding beacons or ghast tears
~ @Khafra

Literally focusing on two things. Minecraft has hundreds of items, yet players only focus on a handful of items which quickly saturates those markets. I just named a few that I am always looking for and end up having to go source myself.

I happily paid 30k a beacon on Vshop the other day because I didn't want to go through the fuss of making them myself. The cost of the wither skulls would be about 21k and the rest of the materials negligible. So that is about 9k profit per beacon.... 9k!

"Buy as well as Sell in your shop," a perfect way to lose money
~ @Khafra

You can control this and make ZERO loss.

I assume you weren't a fan of alpha or beta economies? They weren't regulated and players still despised them (or, the same regulations placed on them are still on the server, and even stronger).
~ @Khafra

Never assume, rather ask outright or make a statement. What was wrong with previous economies is another discussion. But the majority of what made them fail has been removed or regulated.

Except you have too much competition in towns, which is why they aren't profitable. Legend had no tax and possibly free plots, for all members, new or old. You can't compete or expect a resident (most likely new player) to agree to fund a town that they have no intention of staying in.

~ @Khafra

Yes I basically said this is a problem. Competition however is not the problem. Zero tax should actually not be allowed imo. Just as there is a standard fee when claiming plots and adding to upkeep so too there should be a standard tax to plots/residents. There should be a minimum value that you can't go lower than but you can set it higher.

By definition if you join a town you are in a way agreeing to helping it grow. You are free to leave but that doesn't mean you should stay for free and be able to use amenities and destroy pre-builds leaving all the cost to the mayor.

This is why I chose not to have residents in my town this time around, it's too much effort with no reward.

Closing note: I'm not trying to argue with you, merely discussing and proposing different views. I hate all this quoting back and forth and I suggest if we want to continue this let's take it to a discussion thread and focus on one item at a time. Cheers.

twomoo1119

Except you have too much competition in towns, which is why they aren't profitable. Legend had no tax and possibly free plots, for all members, new or old. You can't compete or expect a resident (most likely new player) to agree to fund a town that they have no intention of staying in.
~ @Khafra

Ive made a 93 person town with 100 plottax and i only created mooville about 1-1.5 months ago. New residents will generally be loyal to whatever town they join first, especially if they have stuff there/a house. My town is extremely profitable and soon to be the 2nd biggest. I have no issues with competing towns and often spend more time clearing plots than selling them, especially on weekends. Towns can be profitable if run properly.And no people should not have a hard time modeling successful towns due to this:
Looking for towns to join the GMA (Greater Mooville Area)

So because people are lazy the economy should change and not the people?
~ @hardegat

Lazy people also help the economy, when busy doing stuff, i will sometimes pay pretty high prices to get stiff off vshop rather than go to a shop to get it or even to my storage just due to the length of my town. I have enough money that this isnt a big issue however im propay spending an extra 0.5-2k daily

You can't expect an actual profit from your town, when much larger and more trustworthy towns have free taxes (Legend)?
~ @Khafra

I make like 4-8k daily, maybe more. idk i dont exactly keep track exactly but its several thousand. Residents generally dont care about taxes.

I didn't clarify; the meebles you earn from voting cannot hold up a large town, the taxes themselves halt expansion of towns (ie. You pay 1k per plot along with the 50 tax daily owning that one plot adds to your town). Owning a large town (ie. Legend) isn't possible for many players, with 60k+ tax daily. The reason you don't see towns helping players is because no one can pay for the tax brought by these towns
~ @Khafra

Its all math, I have 100 taxes atm and as mentioned i still make gold money once i decide to slow my growth ill probably lower to between 60-80. Often i use voting to pay for my personal expenses. The tax income after upkeep often goes to claim cost for new plots. Although often jobs provides enough income to cover the claim cost after I plot clear. The rest goes to two sources:
1 Parks and roads and bridges upkeep, 2 expanding Mooville’s influence, mostly by throwing money into other towns in the gma.

My taxes can cover twice one public plot per residential plot, even though i have one public plot per two (point 2ish) residential plots.

Often tax money is put into upkeep for things like villages (which are rarely used), claims over dead towns, or my least favourite... staff plots. I can understand having a few here and there for them, mooville has about 10 however... I’ve seen towns who have co’s with large outposts that take serious tolls on the towns upkeep. These 3 reasons are why towns like Detroit (@tornado307) have such rediculously high taxes compared to other towns.

lanekids40

Ive made a 93 person town with 100 plottax and i only created mooville about 1-1.5 months ago. New residents will generally be loyal to whatever town they join first, especially if they have stuff there/a house. My town is extremely profitable and soon to be the 2nd biggest. I have no issues with competing towns and often spend more time clearing plots than selling them, especially on weekends. Towns can be profitable if run properly.And no people should not have a hard time modeling successful towns due to this:
Looking for towns to join the GMA (Greater Mooville Area)
Lazy people also help the economy, when busy doing stuff, i will sometimes pay pretty high prices to get stiff off vshop rather than go to a shop to get it or even to my storage just due to the length of my town. I have enough money that this isnt a big issue however im propay spending an extra 0.5-2k daily
I make like 4-8k daily, maybe more. idk i dont exactly keep track exactly but its several thousand
Its all math, I have 100 taxes atm and as mentioned i still make gold money once i decide to slow my growth ill probably lower to between 60-80. Often i use voting to pay for my personal expenses. The tax income after upkeep often goes to claim cost for new plots. Although often jobs provides enough income to cover the claim cost after I plot clear. The rest goes to two sources:
1 Parks and roads and bridges upkeep, 2 expanding Mooville’s influence, mostly by throwing money into other towns in the gma.
Often tax money is put into upkeep for things like villages (which are rarely used), claims over dead towns, or my least favourite... staff plots. I can understand having a few here and there for them, mooville has about 10 however... I’ve seen towns who have co’s with large outposts that take serious tolls on the towns upkeep. These 3 reasons are why towns like Detroit (@tornado307) have such rediculously high taxes compared to other towns.
~ @twomoo1119

teach me your ways oh great one!

twomoo1119

Before anyone says it, towns are not profitable and on a small server, are not meant to be in the first place. Tax on a town should be used to fund it, not hurt it.
~ @Khafra

Again look above towns are profitable, run them properly though

teach me your ways oh great one!
~ @lanekids40

Look at the last two paragraphs in that chunk

Its mostly just cutting expensesConclusion of all that: All of you are referring to legend as an example of a poorly structured big town. Its not unprofitable cause its big, its unprofitable for the reasons mentioned above

CluelessKlutz

Again look above towns are profitable, run them properly though
All of you are referring to legend as an example of a poorly structured big town. Its not unprofitable cause its big, its unprofitable for the reasons mentioned above
~ @twomoo1119

Legend was never meant to be profitable, it's what I do for fun. If anyone wants to run their town differently, that's their choice

I do agree with @Khafra on many of these ideas, and I'd like a lot of them implemented.

bloodyghost

From my experience and in my opinion, any major towny changes meant to balance the eco are going to be used by certain people to be significantly richer than others. It is almost 100% about making the correct investments and decisions and putting in the work. Many server players are “socialites,” meaning generally global chat is their main attraction. They are normally bound to be poor because they put all of their time into global chat and not earning meebles. (There are exceptions here but rarely. How often do you see Epixaid or Firewolf chatting it up in global?) There is also the camp of new people who don’t know how the server works enough to earn money efficiently. This is due to what is, from my view, a lacking tutorial. It makes it difficult to introduce friends to the server because of the monumental amount of time it takes to teach a new player all the commands. I think instead of having monumental amounts of work put into towny by the staff to make it run properly (which will lead to constant balancing effort, creating more endless work than we already have) we should invest full strength in growing our community and educating them properly on how to play the server. Quests at /warp towny I think are a good step, but fairly often citizens can’t find the right villagers to talk to. I think we will see a lot of problems leave if we can double or triple our player count. We’ve made it from 15 players to 30, and from 30 to 70, so I am confident that we can grow to 140 and from that to 280, etc.
TL;DR
Big towny changes will probably not benefit the economy as well as increased playercount, which is something that should be high priority.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hornemans

WARNING WALL OF TEXT

Some quick replies and thoughts on these below statements that may or may not be accurate.

Nowadays, there’s no pool to take from, there’s no admin shops, no way of making money.
~ @Khafra

There are several admin shops to make money on: diamonds (/warp shops) and vegetables at (/warp farming). This also does not count the biggest admin shop of all that injects over 1,000,000 meebles into the economy daily (/vote, /warp crate).

Deflation is not good, you put in more work for less money:
Cactus farm (8 meebles/64 cactus)
Sugarcane farm (5 meebles/64 sugarcane)
Diamonds (6,400 meebles/64 diamonds)
Other natural materials (lapis, redstone, gold, coal, iron, wood, and their sub-products.)
~ @Khafra

Not true. Deflation/Inflation is neither good nor bad, making sure the economy is balanced is the important issue. The lower prices you are quoting have nothing to do with inflation/deflation at all, they have to do with supply (which is limitless) and demand (which is limited).

Towny is meant to have an inflated economy and for good reason!
~ @Khafra

Not true. Towny doesn't give a crap about this, towny is developed to give servers all the tools necessary to do as server owners like. Blame the server owners for not setting it up properly, not the plugin.

Once a player owns a town, they are only faced with more problems than solutions: they pay to claim plots, which increases their daily taxes! Building anything significant on the server is not possible, once you pay your daily tax, your fee for claiming plots, you are left with nothing, no materials to build with or anything.
~ @Khafra

Not true. Towns allow players to grow their items with no problem from other players, this protection comes at a cost of maintenance taxes. If you don't want to pay taxes, go to the wild and build there (I do not recommend building in wild).

Before anyone says it, towns are not profitable and on a small server, are not meant to be in the first place. Tax on a town should be used to fund it, not hurt it.
~ @Khafra

Not true. Taxes are the core design of towny. You get "protection" from griefing players and you pay taxes for it. Taxes are meant to fund your town; if you are not making money (or at least breaking even) you are doing something wrong.

I can’t physically make 20k a day without gambling
~ @Khafra

Not true. You can easily make 20k a day without gambling. Voting alone give you 20k in less than 10 mins. And you can easily make more by doing stuff and selling it. Anyone can make 2k or more in 2o mins buy gathering items and selling them.

The solution would be to either decrease prices of towns (not ideal) or lower/remove daily upkeep altogether!
~ @Khafra

Not true. This has no effect on the problem that you are trying to solve. The problem is of supply/demand which has nothing to do with towny prices/taxes.

allowing players to earn or purchase tax cut vouchers or a removal of taxes for a certain amount of time.
~ @Khafra

GOOD IDEA. This is something that would be nice to implement, but as a voting "random" reward only. Anything other then a voting reward is a mute point as you would be "paying" for this tax cut to "not pay" the taxes.

Educating players rather than changing the way the eco works will have a better result.
~ @hardegat

Yes. This is is exactly what part of the problem is, that no one understands how the system works. Education is a key factor in letting people make money easy.

Resident taxes should be able to be based on the town's upkeep divided by the number of residents as a fair indication
~ @hardegat

Not true. Towny taxes should be whatever the mayor wishes them to be, no restrictions. If a mayor wants to lose money then they choose to pay all the taxes or they can split the taxes to all the residents (as in your suggestion) to break even. One could even "make" money by chargin more taxes to residents than upkeep costs.

This is a large reason why many large towns only have a few active players. This is basically the only way they are profitable.
~ @twomoo1119

Not true. Any town 1 plot or 1000 plots can be profitable (just depends on your business strategy). Many "large" towns as you claim only have few people because those few people build the entire large town by choice; if they didn't want a large town they would not have claimed so much land.

In Alpha/Beta meep I had the largest town (by a vast amount) in both worlds for the resident count and for plot count; which these towns were both the most profitable in their worlds!

you can't break spawners or claim in the nether anymore. these things killed the economy for those items
~ @lanekids40

Not true. Those two things mention did the opposite of what you claimed; They made the items valuable and not have a value of .0001 meeble.

Inflation then kicked up their value again raising them up to the current 165 meebles.
~ @SuperDyl

Not true. This was not inflation at all, but an effect of the artificial rise in demand you created. Diamonds currently have a hard baseline of 100 meebles, as that is what you can sell them for in the admin shop (if not for that shop they could effectively become worthless).

Except no one is willing to put themselves in a position to grind for hours for the "rare" items, which is the exact reasoning why
~ @Khafra

Not true. Anyone that is "rich" on the server has put themselves exactly in that position to become rich.

Having a free market in itself is an awful economic strategy either way... you allow for monopolies, which destroy small businesses
~ @Khafra

Not true. A free market is the only way to drive growth by competition. In meep, monolopies have no effect on small business. Everyone can make money the same way as anyone else.

The reason players undercut each other is due to the deflation in the economy - there's no spread of money, meaning players aren't buying items from other players.
~ @Khafra

Not true. Nothing about inflation/deflation is even closely related to this topic. The reason players undercut each other is the supply for the items is higher than the demand and thus they want to sell them faster so they lower their prices.

the meebles you earn from voting cannot hold up a large town, the taxes themselves halt expansion of towns
~ @Khafra

Not true. The meebles from voting daily ~15k can sustain a 300 plot town. If a single player needs more then 300 plots you need to re-think your town strategy/design.

Owning a large town (ie. Legend) isn't possible for many players, with 60k+ tax daily. The reason you don't see towns helping players is because no one can pay for the tax brought by these towns.
~ @Khafra

Not true. Owning a large town is possible for anyone. You just need the right strategy/design. Towns help players in their core as providing new players a place to build and store their items (at a reduced cost to owning their own town), free farms for making money/items/XP, and most provide assistance with answering questions, etc.

"Buy as well as Sell in your shop," a perfect way to lose money, why would anyone buy items from me if they have a chance to make money?
~ @Khafra

Not true. This will make you money if you run the shop correctly. Buying in your shop provides an essential service of "re-stocking" your items automatically. If you never have items in stock then no one will come buy anything from you. I was making over 100k a day in alpha/beta from shop sales alone, sometimes more; and never lost any money!

There isn't enough money to buy town materials, while paying daily upkeep and having a fun time. You either grind for multiple hours for a negligible cost or get materials yourself, instead of buying.
~ @Khafra

Not True. As previously mentions, by voting alone you can sustain a 300 plot town with 1 person with only 10 minutes of work daily. The other x minutes you can have "fun" doing whatever you like.

People sell items for lower because meebles have a much higher value than they should in the first place.
~ @Khafra

Not true. People sell lower due to supply/demand issues. Also, meeble have no value at all except what the server assigns them, which it doesn't, except in the very few cases (gold = 50 meebles, diamonds = 100 meebles, etc).

In alpha and beta people spent money because people had the money, money flowed through the playerbase.
~ @Khafra

Not true. In alpha/beta, people spent money because of me! Thanks, your welcome. Also, because of an unbalanced economy, people made lots of money very easy though admin shops.

You can't expect an actual profit from your town, when much larger and more trustworthy towns have free taxes (Legend)?
~ @Khafra

Almost true. You are right to bigg towns with "free/zero" taxes make it hard to convince players to join your town and pay taxes. However, if you expect to make money from a town then you are in it for the wrong reasons and should not even own a town.

You can't "increase" inflation.
~ @Khafra

Not true. Sure you can, but that would be stupid.

Voting brings up a whole other issue: the fact that you can't physically make money without voting in itself is a horrible practice.
~ @Khafra

Not true. You can make money on plenty of things besides voting. However, voting is currently the number way to make money super easy (over 100k a week just by voting in 10 mins or less a day). If you want money, here's a novel idea... a little less whining and a lot more working for it!

my shop runs off of the basis of buying goods from other shops to stock it, something most other shops don't do.
~ @SuperDyl

Very true. This is a base concept in the free market economy. Do you think Walmart makes everything they sell? No, they buy it from smaller manufacturers/shops and resell it.

A town only gets large if it has a tax, else it couldn't support itself. That's why towns like Legend have a tax, which is the small amount of about 150 meebles per plot.
~ @SuperDyl

Partially true. If a mayor chooses to pay all taxes then the town could have zero tax, but that is probably not going to happen. Having a tax at or above the fees only makes the success of any town large or small more probable.

Do you think Epixaid got to where he is by sitting around complaining how the system isn't tailored to his needs?
~ @hardegat

Partially true. Epixaid (any many of the other baltop players) got to where they are due to game mechanics that are no longer available to the community. Just like I do, we find profitable things maximize our profit, and then it gets nerfed or rules made to prevent those actions.

Twist, you can compete with Epixaid, people are just not willing to put in the work.
~ @hardegat

Partially true. Currently, you can make just as much money as Epixaid. Getting that baltop spot will be very very hard to decrease the gap unless he gets a ban or quits, then eventually you will have more money than him (given enough time).

Zero tax should actually not be allowed imo.
~ @hardegat

Meh. Zero tax is a pointless implementation of time. If a mayor chooses to not charge tax that is his call. However, making that taxes "worthwhile" would give those mayors a second chance of paying them for their members.

New residents will generally be loyal to whatever town they join first, especially if they have stuff there/a house.
~ @twomoo1119

Very True. Resedents will still be loyal even if you don't give them any of those things. :)

Legend was never meant to be profitable,
~ @CluelessKlutz

Probably true. Most towns are not meant to be profitable; but if they are not, they will not last.

Big towny changes will probably not benefit the economy as well as increased playercount, which is something that should be high priority.
~ @bloodyghost

Very true. Unless done properly, towny changes will not benefit the economy well. An increased player could help but it would only be tempory.

twomoo1119

Probably true. Most towns are not meant to be profitable; but if they are not, they will not last.
~ @Hornemans

Idk personally i think towns that are profitable are better. Mayors have something to gain from treating residents better and keeping them active.

qazini

Idk personally i think towns that are profitable are better. Mayors have something to gain from treating residents better and keeping them active.
~ @twomoo1119

That's if you look at it from an economic stand point, which many mayors don't, such as myself and Peachstreet, or CluelessKlutz and Dreamcraft/Legend.
It all depends on what you seek to get from the game.

SuperDyl

Not true. This was not inflation at all, but an effect of the artificial rise in demand you created. Diamonds currently have a hard baseline of 100 meebles, as that is what you can sell them for in the admin shop (if not for that shop they could effectively become worthless).
~ @Hornemans

I wouldn't say I'm the only cause for the artificial rise in demand. The hard baseline of 100 meebles doesn't matter, even though diamonds ought to be worth about that much. With the switch to the new voting mechanics (1 vote key per vote), some shops banded together to artificially increase the value of diamonds. This wouldn't have happened without inflation and diamonds wouldn't currently remain at their value without inflation.

At the same time, diamonds never have and possibly may never be worth the high prices they are valued at. The value of a diamond is artificially high because of public perception and a highly competitive market. If sold by strict supply and demand, diamonds would be worth much less (I'd estimate a 30-50 meeble decrease in price, but I don't know very well). The problem is that there is an artificially block in the supply. The value of diamonds was difficult to raise because there were so many (which is why diamonds aren't costing 300 a piece as those shops intended), but the diamonds are distributed by only a few sources, much like in real life. This means that prices don't have to be very competitive, driving down prices.

Thus, diamond prices aren't wrong because of an artificial decrease in demand, but an artificial decrease in supply. They are also affected by inflation and deflation, but are study against it. Also, I'm mostly just perpetuating the current system, not molding it.

Thee Boss

6 month old suggestion lol

riri30

While we will most likely keep these suggestions in mind, we have other plans for the economy before implementing other suggestions.

Thank you for your suggestion.