Be more on top of Increasing Civilian Starting Bonus

(Note: I am not nor will not pretend as if I am skilled in economics in any way, however I do firmly believe that despite my lack of knowledge on the subject this idea may help with player retention and increasing demand - if my logic is flawed please don't scream at me )

Hello all and Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were spent well.

Like all of you, I too was definitely saddened by the news of Meepcraft's hacking / mess-up or whatever it was. However, with the server back up and running, and with a brand new economy that isn't heavily inflated by /warp shop, I am very happy to be here writing this first post of the New Year. Now this had been dwelling in my mind for awhile beforehand, but I figured the economy had already been too badly mangled and the people too divided for any real economic policy to have consensus. So, onto the idea. I propose that we begin the process of monitoring the economy in terms of inflation and the cost of items, and from there change the amount of money civilians get when entering Meepcraft ($2500 right now). Why? Well, there are many reasons, which I will try to explain below:

• As the economy inflates, newly-joined citizens' purchasing power decreases. This is because the price of items slowly increases over time, so their money doesn't go as far. This means that while their $2500 now is sufficient, as the cost of resources rise (such as is the case of diamonds) they get less and less as time goes on.
• However, that first reason assumes that the price of items rises, which isn't necessarily the case here on Meepcraft (it does happen, but not quite so drastically). Because of our semi-stagnant population, all the economy really does at this point is add more money, but keeps the prices stable because no new demand is created. This makes a very daunting situation for new-comers, who will come in and be increasingly less interested in trying as hard if the money they have continually represents a smaller and smaller amount of the server total. This is one reason I believe people leave before even giving Meepcraft a chance.
• The above also represents a problem for both new-comers and the already established. This is because if the prices don't rise, any additional wealth they receive from selling products and services will represent a gradually smaller amount of their total over time. Take this example. TheLegend27 comes onto Meepcraft, receives her $2500, and starts her journey to become the richest Meeper of them all. She decides diamond mining is her best bet. And, because she is terrible at mining, she only finds a diamond per day, and does this for a month. Assuming we take a diamond price of, say, $500 a piece, she would make $15000. Now, when she found her first diamond on day one, that new diamond represented 1/6 of her total money. However, by day 30, her diamond only represented 1/34 . The problem becomes even more profound the richer and richer a person gets (of course, this is to be expected, however being able to control this gradual decrease in relative wealth is important). By raising the amount of money given to new-coming civilians periodically, the amount of civilians who quit the server without even playing 10 minutes would go down drastically, in turn creating demand, which raises prices and helps both the newbies and "middle-class" meepers.

Therefore, I believe that staff should begin the process of raising that bar every so often. I know in the past it has been, but I do not believe it's frequent enough to outweigh the negative effects of not doing so. Of course, doing so too often would bring about worries of rampant inflation, which, as we saw with /warp shop, is no good either unless accompanied by a massive influx of people. I do not personally know how often the changes would be made (the decision should really be left up to staff, who would analyse the economic factors in play) , all I know is that it certainly needs to be done more often.

(And yes, I know I contradict myself because of the fact that if prices go up the problem for the poor would continue, however I do still believe that this would be effective, simply given the person's ability to make more money).

Please feel free to comment your opinions down below. Also remember I am not an economist (nor a mathematician - my numbers are probably all wrong lmao) and therefore could be extremely off with my assumptions of economic systems. So, just be nice! Wishing everyone success and the works in 2017 .

 

If you do all the spawn quests, you get an extra 15,000 meebkes for basically free. Also if we give people more money to deal with inflation, that just makes more inflation, which is literally the opposite of what admins want.

So yeah...

 

So, JJ,

I think you are misunderstanding this. What happens is actually the quite opposite of what you say. As the economy grows, people are able to mass-produce most items, therefore it results in a massive deflation (where the items aren't worth a lot and meebles are worth a lot)

The problem with the last economy was that too much money was spawned in, along with too much items. The items had little value and the meebles had little value.

It is actually problematic to insert tons of meebles into the economy, especially from new players. It makes the meebles worthless and causes inflation.

The current system has been suggested many times already to be changed so that; players get $500 at the beginning and are directed to Tutorial, then they get $2000 additionally when they complete it. As @silverkid01 said, we don't need to spawn more into the economy since we have quests + parkour and mini games (coming soon)

Also, new players will be more vulnerable to scamming and other illegal activities when they have money but don't know how to use the money.

 

That happens regardless. EDIT: Besides, it's not as if I'm suggesting this is done every week. All I'm saying is that when it's never done problems develop. I mean thinking of a real world example where I live (Ontario) last year the minimum wage went up. If governments never do that then the poor fall further and further behind, and begin to lose motivation to work. Imagine what would happen if since the start of minimum wage they never increased it: people wouldn't be happy making .60$ /hr and go on welfare instead (or in Meepcraft's case, quit)

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 22, 2017, Original Post Date: Jan 22, 2017 ---

I totally get what you're saying. Which is why I said this:

If you take the old economy as a starting point- the 90mil or whatever it was - 15000 even was a relatively insignificant amount. The economy will grow slower this time, however I believe that mcmmo will lessen further demand for products because of the benefits it adds (though I love the complexity and all of mcmmo so definitely a keeper). All I'm saying is that it needs to be done every so often; too much or too little of anything is never good.

 

Well, there is currently no need to increase it and if there is a huge problem in the future I'm sure @KlutchDecals will do something

 

Having 15k in a 90mil economy is like having 10,000,000 in today's economy (of ~60tril usd). Besides, all that you really need to get started is a full iron set. Iron armor, pickaxe, shovel, sword and axe requires 33 iron, which will never cost more than 2k. If anything, 2500 is a bit too much.

 

I think I'd rather see players be given some tools and armor to start out with, as well as a few hundred meebles for possible town taxes

 

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I just seriously don't think it would cause as much harm as you guys would think. Even if we went as high as 5k starting off (which I am seriously not suggesting we do), it's not as if that money would represent a sizable portion of the inflation coming into the economy. Inflation isn't inherently bad, and in this case would actually be very good if it meant that people are staying, spending money, making money and actually interacting. The current system has a good number of people coming on, dumping 2.5k into the eco, then leaving. That 2.5k+ is there anyways, why not make it actual movable money that interacts with real people and gets the eco moving.

Listen, all I'm saying is that this go around I think staff should take a more active role in applying policy / etc to make the eco work in the most people's favor, and I believe that one way this can be done is through raising that bar. It need not be super often, but just enough that in 3 months time new citizens will actually have a chance in whatever economy exists then.

In this day and age with Minecraft slowly dying and the popularity of Eco servers being replaced with other types, it's imperative we try to find ways to improve player retention. If that means slightly higher prices for the rich that's a price I'm willing to pay. I understand that this may not be your guys' way but in terms of suggestions this really should be our #1 priority. Drop a comment here or post a new thread if you think of something better (reading over that it sounds really antagonistic - I'm genuinely concerned and would like to hear ideas).

 

Believe it or not, the starting money that people get when joining is actually a pretty large chunk of the inflation problem. If you wanna change anything, make it easier to understand how to play. Giving newcomers a clear objective and point them in the right direction to get there is the best thing we can do for them. A new player doesnt know pwarps, and vshop takes a long time to go through.

Newcomers don't quit because they dont start with enough meebles. They leave because they dont know how to use the meebles they are given, and how to get more.

 

Totally 100% agree

But, if they just end up leaving and having the money sit there and get deleted in 6 months or slowly poured into a town bank that money really doesn't make a difference. So yes it should definitely be helping to increase their knowledge of the game, etc, but I feel like we've been doing that for the past however many months to no real avail. That doesn't mean ditch that, as it really is a vital way to integrate people into the economy, but we need some new thinking.

If people are going to come on and spend $3000 and have a higher chance of being part of the community, I'd take that $500 more of inflation anyday over $2500 that sits there like a sad potato.

 

2500 meebles is plenty if you know how to use it. Even if it isnt, as I've said before, you can get 15,000 extra meebles from the spawn quests that are basically free. Those spawn quests should be encouraged. In my opinion, the spawn quests should tell you where to get the items you need, like giving a quick tutorial on vshop when you need a piece of paper, and telling newcomers how to use the upcoming /pwarp list for getting the scythe. Then, you get both the meebles from the quest and a tutorial on how to use the meebles and gain more.

That's a really good idea can someone make a thread about it?

 

Already done! Trello

 

In reality, the price is perfectly fine as is. You aren't supposed to be on a level playing field with someone who's been playing for months right when you join. A huge part of economics is building an advantage (Minecraft economics, anyways). The person who has spent countless hours building farms deserves a larger advantage than the one who just logs in.

As we have already seen, the current economy is not one of inflation. The example of raising minimum wages doesn't work because real economies suffer from inflation when more money is added in. We saw this in the Alpha/Beta economy, because the main methods of making money did not involve trading with players, but selling to the server and/or winning spawned in money for things like minigames. Without these huge things constantly adding money to the economy, deflation is a much more likely issue. We have already seen this in the new economy, as well as during Gamma. Money is only added in to the current economy through gold mining and jobs. With the way things are set up now, the current starting balance is more than enough, and helping new players get items (Would it really kill you to hand them iron tools to get started?) is a far better solution.

 

Are you referring to me personally here? Because that really isn't nor should have to be MY job.

 

Nah, I was referring to whoever was reading it, mainly to town owners.

 

Well seeing as 2 people infinitely hate this idea and there isn't a single person even hinting at the feasibility or potential benefits of this idea, it's pretty safe to say it's dead. No worry though, come February I'm rolling out something I'm personally going to do to help. So yeah for that!

 

Denied, we see no need for the starting meebles to be increased. You can obtain basic items with the meebles provided, if it appears to be a problem in the future you are more than able to create another suggestion.