The World of Layonara
The Layonara Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Pen N Popper on December 07, 2006, 05:12:34 PM
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What do you think of requiring house owners (or their representatives) to have to pay a fee every RL month for their housing?
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Does this include removing the price to buy it? Because in that case the houses will be obtained even quicker.
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Why? They already raised the funds to buy their houses and not everyone goes out to bash and earn lots of gold ever month.
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No way... If you bought it, why would you want to pay a monthly fee?
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Why?
Taxes...insurance...maintenance. *shrugs*
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Layo is still a game right? The place you go to escape taxes, insurance and maintenance....
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I'm a fan of a realistic experience, and that includes taxes and maintenance costs and the like. If you buy a house, you should have to pay taxes and maintain it. The same goes for inns and guild halls and whatever other properties characters are allowed to own.
Every few months, there is a thread about prices and the economy. One of the underlying problems is that we don't have a good basis for the economy. It's way too easy to get money and there aren't many outlets for spending (or losing) money. More expenses, like housing taxes and weapon/armor repair, would help a lot. Yeah, taxes and fees and other things that take from our characters aren't a lot of fun. Think of it as paying for the wonderfully smooth roads that make getting around Mistone easier, or as the funds that pay for the soldiers that keep it safe. *shrug*
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If you want all the benefits of life with money, without any of the hardships that go along with it, you're in the wrong fantasy world. *Chuckles.* Admittedly, the hardships here are, and will be, MUCH less... Well... Hard, than in RL, but if you want a stable economy, you'll want what has to go into a stable economy - a drain on surplus money.
Let's face it - the majority of people with houses have a reasonable amount of gold in their banks. This is especially true of the members of large guilds (though to be honest, I haven't seen this with my own eyes for anyone but Seteece), who get influx of cash from sales, and don't have all that much to spend it on; they've already got what they need.
We're already paying for Crafting Badges. The money there, in-game, goes toward upkeep of the public crafting facilities. What about your houses? Who does upkeep on them? Or the roads? Or the standing militia? Or the well in Hlint? ... Okay, so the well in Hlint probably has some rancid meat in there, along with some alchemical waste... But the other wells! Yeah. :)
I am a big fan of escapism, and a big fan of realism. I'm one of those nutty fellows who can combine the two - I could play in a world EXACTLY like ours, and still sate my escapist tendancies. After all, it's not my life.
Pyyran pays rent on his housing (and in fact I believe rent is due right about now). I like it that way. Not only does it keep me active with that character, so he can pay his rent, it also puts a drain on his bank account. Now, Pyyran is NOT rich. In fact, he usually scrapes the coin together for the things he has to pay for by the skin of his teeth. He's in debt to Armolas by four thousand True... But it's not a source of undue stress for me. It's motivation to keep Pyyran actually getting his hands on gold, and to continue adventuring, exploring, working on his crafts so getting that gold is easier... And it makes the character more realistic to play, which HELPS the immersion for me. The tax man cometh.
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Could we set up a direct deposit account witht he World Bank of Layonara so that we don't get evicted for OOC reasons like having a computer die on you and needing several months to save up for a new on? If not, this system will produce more animosity than happy-fluffy feelings...
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I'm pretty much entirely against it. Even as someone who never bothered to own a house. Taxes, insurance, repairs? That's the stuff in real life that drives me insane. I come here for fun, and if one less annoying aspect of life is in the game, then it's something I'm very much happy with.
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lonnarin - 12/8/2006 12:08 AM
Could we set up a direct deposit account witht he World Bank of Layonara so that we don't get evicted for OOC reasons like having a computer die on you and needing several months to save up for a new on? If not, this system will produce more animosity than happy-fluffy feelings...
I'm not incredibly for or against (I'm in a beige mood right now) but it would drive me batty if I actually had to remember to log in and do it every X RL time interval, so I'm fine with it if there's something like this. Or if you can build a negative balance on which you're charged interest or something rather than your house just being poofed if you forget to log in for a day.
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Against it. Perhaps the perception is there that homeowners are rich, but as someone who is scraping up every gold she can to buy her house, and will be dead broke when she does, and spends much more time writing for the team than playing...
As others have said. It's a fantasy world. I have no desire to see taxes intrude here, or whatnot. Deal with that enough every day.
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I agree on that point. As an owner of a dead computer, I'm spending much more time approving characters these days from work, than playing online. We should base whether or not houses get recycled into the populace on whether or not the player logs in every 3-6 months or so. We paid for those houses, plus the real estate owner ALREADY added lies and taxes to the cost when we were buying them. (remember that tagline... oh yeah, well taxes came in and you pay 20k extra...) so yeah, we paid the taxes. Anything incremental will make us mental, and the CDQ will inevitably form where Blackford is stormed.
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I'd vote yes to maintenance cost of homes as long as it was fair for everyone. Say for example 2500 Trues/game-year regardless of the location of the home or it's initial value. I also think if such a system were implemented, it would work best if the funds were withdrawn directly from a character's bank account. Perhaps the system could be set up to scan for who holds keys for each house and divide the total due between all holders of a key.
For example, say Characters A, B, C, D, E decide to share Home 123 so Character A, whose name the home is in makes keys for B, C, D, and E, once annually the system scans their inventories for keys to Home 123 and then divides the 2500 Trues by the number of keys for Home 123 it finds, then charges each character directly the result, in this case they'd each pay 500. Now say Character B, and C also share a second Home 345, they'd also pay 1250 each at the annual date for that second home. If one or more key-holders don't have the funds in their acount to pay their share, their share is taken out of the home-owners account (for Home 123, that's Character A) and both the home-owner and the key-holder(s) who had insuficient funds receive a LORE message stating what has happened and why. If Character A's bank acount doesn't have enough in it to cover what the other users of the home can't pay for 2 consecutive game-years, the house gets foreclosed on and goes back on the market. This would make players think carefully about who they share their home with, as well as allow responsible groups to divide the burden of housing costs evenly among eachother. Obviously, if Character A wanted to be sure their home was never sold then they'd have to be sure to keep a minimum of 2500 Trues in their own account at all times. Since the scripting for this would only need to be run once each game-year, it shouldn't be too big a burden on system resources (in my thinking anyway, but I'm in no way an expert).
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Nehetsrev:
I have a few counterarguments to that, but... hehe... There is one main one that kills that idea: The whole key system has to be changed to keep track of who has the keys and who hasn't. The keys are in the inventory of the players and not available in the database. So, either you keep track of the keys together with the database (which would be a problem if the person in question tossed the key into a trashcan, dropped it on the ground, etc) or you would have to load every single character file on the server using some 3rd party script (like, the one used for LORE?) to see who has the key and who hasn't. By my thoughts for the moment, a "split the cost" system only based on keys isn't really feasible.
The other arguments was something along the line: "What about the people that you only give the key to to lend them a portal access?" :)
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Weeblie - 12/8/2006 9:42 AM
Nehetsrev:
I have a few counterarguments to that, but... hehe... There is one main one that kills that idea: The whole key system has to be changed to keep track of who has the keys and who hasn't. The keys are in the inventory of the players and not available in the database. So, either you keep track of the keys together with the database (which would be a problem if the person in question tossed the key into a trashcan, dropped it on the ground, etc) or you would have to load every single character file on the server using some 3rd party script (like, the one used for LORE?) to see who has the key and who hasn't. By my thoughts for the moment, a "split the cost" system only based on keys isn't really feasible.
The other arguments was something along the line: "What about the people that you only give the key to to lend them a portal access?" :)
Well, point one, I'm no scripter/coder, that's for certain, but it seemed to me that since keys are required to access locked homes, it seemed the best way to track who's sharing a home. It also seemed to me that LORE does have the capability of seeing what characters are carrying (at least what they have equipped) and as I said the script need only run once annually each game year. So, if say Characters B, C, D, and E, all got rid of thier keys before the script ran, Character A is still left with the full cost of the annual fees/maintenance of the home. He'll then know not to trust Characters B, C, D, and E and thus not issue them replacement keys since he'll be hit with the full cost himself.
Point two, Portal Access is one of the main reasons many Players have Characters who own homes, thus I feel if you have a key you should pay for that convenience. Players are still free to allow open access to their homes by leaving the door unlocked if they want others to be able to use the portal within without having to pay a share of the annual upkeep, and players who choose to do so I'm sure are aware of the risk that doing so entails. And conversely, why shouldn't Character A get some compensation for allowing other characters access to the conveniece of their portal if they wish to keep it more or less private? That compensation would come in form of reduced cost to Character A so long as those he shares keys with are trustworthy and don't drop the keys prior to the running of said annual script, or become negligent that they don't keep funds in their accounts to pay their share.
Yes this system does assume that most Players are going to be honest in their dealings, even if their Characters are rogues. And yes, there are ways it could be abused to the home-owners disadvantage, but there again the home-owner ultimately learns who can and cannot be trusted with access to the home they worked hard to purchase and upkeep. Once that is known, steps can be taken both in and out of character to revoke said access to untrustworthy individuals. We have a community here at Layonara Online that is founded on Trust, and though there will always be a few who prove untrustworthy, we have a great team of DM's & GM's who can and will weed out those who are dishonest to the point of stealing from other players. Yet it is not often, relatively speaking, that such individuals are found here, and I can only think of 3 or 4 instances of theft on Layonara that have been brought to the attention of the community since I began playing here back in March/April 2006. I'd say that's a great track-record.
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What I meant is simply that while it is (most probably) possible to make such a system, the time spent would (most probably) be very huge and the reliability uncertain. For the moment (and from what I know), who has the key to which house isn't tracked (except for the house owner, of course) and to track that in itself might or might not be an easy thing (yes, LORE can read the item name, reading the "house ID/keyset ID" from the key, or something, is a different thing, though).
The process of updating the characters in LORE is not stable, as a lot of people have noticed. I heard OneST8 mention that the windows scheduler sometimes doing weird thing like skipping the updates, and so on. I would imagine some people would start to fill in "Huh? I lost X amount of gold from my bank but I don't have any keys anymore!"-request for the dispute forum if this isn't a 100% reliable system. There might of course exist workarounds for this.
And conversely, why shouldn't Character A get some compensation for allowing other characters access to the conveniece of their portal if they wish to keep it more or less private?
Character A maybe doesn't want the compensation? If I was a house owner, I surely would not want my room-mates to pay for the upkeep too. If I wanted money... Well... I would require rent for my room-mates instead (Leilon Inn style?)! :P
Whether it's a good or bad idea, I stand relative neutral. Even though, I'm rather fond of a taxing system myself. Taxes, taxes, taxes! :)
But, just saying that a "shared cost house tax system" feels like something that will cost (more to write) than it will taste. A pure "house owner pay the tax system" though, wouldn't require the same amount of time.
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I tenatively voted yes
BUT I have a different type of idea: rental units. Forget saving up money for a house. ya rent it for 200-1000 true/month, depending on location, size, etc.
slum lords, etc. Maybe even a town just for renting houses, instead of a house here, ten there... I'd rent a slum lord house for 200 true with someone else that way!
for the people that already have houses: I don't know what the plans are for V3. But I think letting them keep thier houses, and then adding places for rental units would be great!
you don't pay for 2 months, your kicked out, and get a rl e-mail tellin ya you have 1 rl week to get everything out, or your stuff is gone. That way, you might beable to figure out a way to get it out. maybe withdraw from bank first, if there is lack of funding, a letter, and you can directly pay your land-lord.
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Against it... what about the players who doesnt have the time to play that much every month? How would they ever afford a house?
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Consider it property taxes, If you think you really own your home even in RL you're mistaken. Your responsible for it, but if you don't pay your taxes watch how fast the government asserts their ownership.
Vyris
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This makes sense, IC and for money sinks (saying this as the player of a character who is either consistently broke or has money in the bank that isn't hers...which is the same thing). Players should really consider what their characters are having to do post-house purchase. If you think that's not how your character works or something they'd be interested in, then consider if they really should have one at all? It takes upkeep. In some places they would be taxed, others are more isolated but would still require maintenance costs or more local "help us out" funds.
Yeah, we don't charge adventurers for having kids even they should be broke and frazzled (hehe), but as this is something you actively have to go out and handle both mechanically in roleplaying...ly I think it should be acknowledged.
Potential arguments I see are the danger of hurting the small pocketed in order to drain the rich who barely feel it, and as already mentioned people have lives and don't want to mimic a prompt OOC tax schedule.
I strongly suggest complicating this as little as possible. More complication is more potential to glitch, more hassle for people who can't afford the money to pay for glitches and the team that can't afford the time to handle them. Overhauling systems to do this isn't worth it, to me, especially when I don't think we'd be able to guarantee the stability of the result.
Simple is good. Just tweak the door (its already the thing stuff is attached to, also saves an OOC feeling "talk to an agent or banker" method for those who live in isolated forests etc) to add an option to pay for maintenance/taxes (too specific makes it out of character for some areas) without bringing everything else into it. The only complication that I feel is necessary is Lonn's point, the ability to deposit ahead of time or go into negatives or other such things, to give a lot of leniency to people who have actual lives, lack of funds for promptness, play procrastinators, or have RL emergencies that would take them away. They happen.
If you want to be reimbursed for portal usage, either charge rent or don't give out keys.
Please don't make it too government-oriented, in a world where there are still pockets that are less under the sway of one. It would be fitting for some (Prantz), but it should be a global option to avoid unnecessary complication, and therefore vague enough to account for all IC options.
(I wouldn't shed a tear if it wasn't introduced, but if it is, simple is good.)
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"....Simple is good. Just tweak the door (its already the thing stuff is attached to, also saves an OOC feeling "talk to an agent or banker" method for those who live in isolated forests etc) to add an option to pay for maintenance/taxes (too specific makes it out of character for some areas) without bringing everything else into it. The only complication that I feel is necessary is Lonn's point, the ability to deposit ahead of time or go into negatives or other such things, to give a lot of leniency to people who have actual lives, lack of funds for promptness, play procrastinators, or have RL emergencies that would take them away. They happen. ...."
IF (if) we do this that is exactly how I have plans to do it.
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Thus far I have been truly hesitant of making a comment upon this thread. However for the sake of the argument I’ve always considered things like Taxes in effect. Why they have never been collected in game is easily justified that our characters do things when we are not online. They pay taxes, go out and see theater, read books, practice their weapons and spells, tend to groves, eat, sleep, take care of children, and have a menial form of income.
In example, Joe_the_Fighter is level three and lives in the Wild Surge Inn. When not being played by Random_Person he is working as a part time guard or cleaning stables. Hardly glorious, literally peasant work but it pays the bar-tab and for his room till he can get with some friends and do something profitable.
Twelve levels later Joe_The_Fighter owns a small dwelling and during his time between adventures and monster bashing he enjoys some well deserved Rest and Relaxation. Of course that tends to hurt the pocket and he being now a fairly renowned individual serves as a very professional prestigious bodyguard to a local merchant prince. His expenses and profits may not exactly sync but it will probably be to close to care.
Adventurers’ by their very nature have highly marketable skills. It is hardly a stretch of the imagination to think of a ‘my character does this while I’m logged off.’ People might argue that individuals like druids or rangers wouldn’t make much money. On the same token they probably don’t spend much either and could easily sell trinkets to cover it. There are lists of suggested professions in the players handbook for the various classes and I can’t be bothered to list them here.
So when someone says ‘can’t we have professions’ I wonder ‘why don’t we have taxes?’ Now of course it is in reverse, since the idea of taxes come into play, can we not have added income for our offline times based upon our characters skills and hobbies. Not to mention certain classes have currently unused abilities, *cough* bard performances *cough*, that creates income.
Although there is the mentionable argument that such things are developing and effecting the character, and thus are best left in the realms of character development quests. The counter argument in that is that DM’s have limited time and standing guard for eight in game hours doing nothing is a waste of every ones time. Or emoting every single brushstroke if your character happens to be a hobbyist painter.
There is of course one massive-huge problem with this, the inevitable micromanage spiral. The higher level characters could defiantly make a lot more without effort then the lower level. If based upon only a limited number of factors the rich get richer the poor get poorer. So you would have to add in more expenses. Which would result in more requested benefits, fueled with the same explanations and arguments you used to justify what opened the can of worms and keeps it open. Even if you could actually manage all of this, you have added many megabits to the module sizes, countless extra systems, and finally spent hundreds of man-hours.
For that amount of time you would of gained no extra worth to the server that makes it better or sets it apart. Quite possibly you have driven away some players, or at least annoyed others. Finally you have sacrificed new areas and balancing of old ones not to mention countless very good systems that will now never get built do to constraints of module size. Also a half way method could of course backfire horribly in the RP channels increasing the pressure to ‘monster-grind’ if not very carefully done.
I personally detest laissez-fair, but I thought I would point out lots of road hazards to be considered and digested before a new system was seriously considered. Might be easier to reconsider how money is dropped in v3 to work with the economy. Like say having money be deposited on characters with the XP or something every time at a much smaller value.
So folks, that is my ten paragraphs of unnecessary commentary which I imagine everyone here ran through in their heads before making their posts. At the very least this will make a decent reference point next time ‘character professions’ comes up in the suggestions forum.
Sigh Edit:
It seems someone else brought up the whole player occupation thing. Oh well I’m not going to try and restructure this entire post because a valid point is already made.
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If there are going to be taxes, why not just have a set period of time during the year where players pay their taxes and eliminate the monthly thing? I agree nothing is free in real life, and for that matter in Layonara...but is there really anyone here who pays taxes on their property every month? I have owned my house for 11 years and I don't, and I even live in California for gosh sake. :-) This would even give the DM team the opportunity to attach supplemental taxes for various improvements or projects...and eliminate a headache for players. And by the way...I don't pay the government to repair my house either. Mainteneance is something I am capable of doing myself. Do we need to get that detailed??????
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@Ozy...Thank you. Well thought and well said.
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Ravemore - 12/8/2006 4:48 PM
And by the way...I don't pay the government to repair my house either. Mainteneance is something I am capable of doing myself. Do we need to get that detailed??????
As Acacea pointed out, it wouldn't have to be called anything specific. You could imagine it to be taxes, or maintenance, or both, or whatever.
In addition, when you do your own maintenance, do you make all the supplies yourself? If you have to reshingle the roof, do you make the shingles and the nails? If you need to replace a pipe, do you make your own pipes? Almost certainly not. One way or another, you buy the stuff you need. Any maintenance cost in Layonara wouldn't necessarily be paying someone else, but could just be seen as buying the supplies to do it yourself.
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Announcement of a new craft: House Builder! :P
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How about putting the portal behind a pay-door... X true opens the door... or master key-A... that way the owner of the house (owner of masterkey-A) gets free access to his portal, and everyone else has to pay per use.
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Honora - 12/8/2006 3:21 AM
Against it. Perhaps the perception is there that homeowners are rich, but as someone who is scraping up every gold she can to buy her house, and will be dead broke when she does, and spends much more time writing for the team than playing...
As others have said. It's a fantasy world. I have no desire to see taxes intrude here, or whatnot. Deal with that enough every day.
Agreed. My PC has maybe 2k in the bank. Not every home owner is rich. Even sometihng like 2.5k True is had for me to get.
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Against it. If you want to have a huge money sink that would fairly affect all players just have the computer track the daily balance of players bank accounts and then at the end of every month deduct 10% of that amount from the bank. People who keep huge bank balances would soon lose it over time and people without much in the bank wouldn't lose much. That would be a true automatic tax. You could even send them a PM showing the amount in the bank and the amount taxed. Then people would start carrying all of their money around with them and if they died they'd lose 1/2. I guess the only way around this would be to spend the money (also a money sink) or to put it in chests. Maybe chests could be limited to hold only a certain amount of money or make chest really expensive (also a money sink). This would lead to a real world situation where people would start finding tax shelters and ways to manage their bank balances to avoid taxes and all sorts of economic activity. Someone might buy all of the houses in the world and then sell them as they needed money or something like that. You could have all sort of schemes by shady characters. Anyway just some thoughts. Kinda serious, kinda for fun but just some thoughts.
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Yep I am totally against it. I had to borrow 65, 000 Trues to buy my house and I was stressed trying to pay it back, and now you want to tax it? No thanks, I have enough problems in RL without worrying about my Layo tax bill...
If you want to tax people then tax everyone, an automatic tax every time you deposit coins into your bank account. Even that I think is... ridiculous.
Everyone please remember this is a FANTASY game...
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I think that they should be taxed. Don't want to be taxed? Don't buy a house, well. There are MANY charachters out there who would not whine about buying a house and having to pay monthly. If someone with a house is whining about it paying montlhy to keep it, then don't have it. I'm retty SURE there's a LINE of people who are couting their coins with big smiles and waiting to a house become avaible, even if they have to pay monthly...
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DiegoBastet - 3/3/2007 2:57 AM I think that they should be taxed. Don't want to be taxed? Don't buy a house, well. There are MANY charachters out there who would not whine about buying a house and having to pay monthly. If someone with a house is whining about it paying montlhy to keep it, then don't have it. I'm retty SURE there's a LINE of people who are couting their coins with big smiles and waiting to a house become avaible, even if they have to pay monthly...
Who was whining? If the players want houses, they would have bought them. There were about a dozen of Dregar awhile ago. (By 'a while', I'm thinking since early/late December) Now, they are gone. There are serveral that I know of where the home owner has not logged in over 6 months. I haven't seen any posts about reclaiming them; if you wanted to compile a list of possible repossesions, feel free.
I mean, you are, in effect, suggesting that people have their houses taken away. Why not make the list yourself? Who knows, you may end up with a house out of it.
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merlin34baseball - 3/3/2007 2:51 AM
Everyone please remember this is a FANTASY game...
The thing of it to me is that very few choices have any real negative consequences. Not just the choice of whether to buy a house or not, but nearly any choice a character makes. Sometimes it happens on quests, but I recall several times that a DM has decided not to follow through with the full range of 'bad' that should have come from character actions. I'm not faulting the DMs; I'm just saying there is a lot more "win" than "lose," and it's not necessarily because we play smart.
Part of the fun in roleplaying, to me, is having to make choices and live with the consequences, good and bad. It adds drama and makes things interesting, and everything we do in-game is supposed to be RP, including buying a house. There just aren't any negative consequences at all to buying a house, and housing is a big deal. If it weren't, there wouldn't be so many posts about it. Buying a house is a complete win with no chance of anything even slightly 'bad' happening.
Really, I'm not all that interested in paying taxes on the housing. I'd just like to see a little more "this or that" rather than having everything be "this and that," and posting everywhere it's applicable just seems like a good way to get the idea out there.
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"....I'm just saying there is a lot more "win" than "lose," and it's not necessarily because we play smart.
Part of the fun in roleplaying, to me, is having to make choices and live with the consequences, good and bad. It adds drama and makes things interesting, and everything we do in-game is supposed to be RP, including buying a house. There just aren't any negative consequences at all to buying a house, and housing is a big deal. If it weren't, there wouldn't be so many posts about it. Buying a house is a complete win with no chance of anything even slightly 'bad' happening......"
Here here! Totally agree.
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Hmm, pay taxes on a house I own, near a city Im not allowed to enter. *casts his vote to nay*
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I think there should be a tax system put in, but it shouldn't be an automatic withdrawal or anything. That leaves the less than lawful characters the option of not paying. I'm not sure how you could try to enforce it, but it could be fun trying to evade arrest or something for not paying taxes. *shrugs*
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asumein this is a med-evil world they did not have HOuse tax? there was lond taxes yes but that was only for large tracks of land not a house? so teh realism of taxes nad upkeep don't entirely fit into a med-evil world
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Well, in medieval England, Henry II introduced a property tax - granted, this was mainly on vassals, but one experienced a "trickle-down" effect, in that to raise the tax money, the vassals would tax those who lived or worked on the land they owned. If you owned a house, this increased the value of the land you lived on - and therefore the fees you had to pay to your local lord would as well. Likewise, if you were rich enough to own a well-made house (or ARE rich enough, in-game), it's reasonably safe to assume that you're not going to re-thatch it yourself, or handle repairs to plumbing. Ergo, property taxes (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/articles/land_law.html) in the medieval period (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_II_of_England) were not unheard of, nor are maintenance fees unreasonable.
While I would prefer not to have property taxes, myself.. I just can't see Broegar, or even the new kingdoms, not levying such a tax. It also opens up the crime of tax evasion as an encounter hook.
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Not all characters go out bashing every week. While my house owning character at present has a healthy bank balance....A few of the right items come up for sale and she won't. At most I think I've added around 1.5k of gold to her bank account in the last 3 months that hasn't come off a quest.
If we introduce taxes then people with houses who don't have massive bank accounts....and those people exist, will probably have to go out and bash to keep their house regardless of if they want to or not.
I'd not sure risking the possibility of dictating peoples style of play just to pay something that adds 'realism' is the right move.
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Ok I'm stepping into the this little squall....
Ideas are what could kill modding. If the dev team starts listing to the people they end up making shoddy games, Look at tribes 3, NWN 2. Duke nukem forever, Starcraft ghost, and so on.
You guys want realism yet you don't. from other posts you have stated that ladies of the night shouldn't be in lay due to the age rating yet we want things like taxes?
I think the Tax system is gonna be over bearing on an already unstable system.. And just by the numerous things that this servers are taking into account yeah....
House are a win win situation, so what? I'm pretty sure every player that owns a house must of crafted, killed, quested, and every thing under the sun to gt a home and now because they play once in a great while have no gold in the bank lose it to some little script line in the system that say he has no gold to keep the home that he fought tooth and Nail to get?... Why can we leave it at the one little place your char doesn't have to worry about? his little piece of haven from the grind of life, killing and bashing things?
"Ya want realism? Go out side", Thats what i said when I was modding tribes 2 games. I for one am not for the tax thing seeing my char is half retired, I just got enough gold in the bank to get food and the odd item if it comes by...
One final question... What would happen if say.... you lost your internet for a few months...char bankrupt and you have gathered oh, items that were given to ya by a dm or you were gathering for crating (IE mithril and emeralds and such) and because of this you lost your home to taxes?
It isn't fair to players that have Real life things to do that are, gods yes i am saying it, More important than layo
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lunchboxkilla - 3/5/2007 3:17 AM
One final question... What would happen if say.... you lost your internet for a few months...char bankrupt and you have gathered oh, items that were given to ya by a dm or you were gathering for crating (IE mithril and emeralds and such) and because of this you lost your home to taxes?
It isn't fair to players that have Real life things to do that are, gods yes i am saying it, More important than layo
More important than Layo? Gasp! Horror! (Actually, this is my break from homework which is More Important Than Etc.) Regardless, allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment and suggest a solution to the problem you suggested.
Tack a 6-month "deposit" onto the initial price of the house. If there's no auto-deduct-from-bank-account, and payments are made at the door, if you miss a payment, it is deducted from your six months, and you make it up at your next payment. That way, you always have a six-month buffer. If your house is idle for six months... it'd get repossessed anyway under the current server rules. (This is why there would be a limit of six months on the buffer - no more.)
Again, I don't know that I'm necessarily for taxation... but a 1% monthly tax (or 7% in Prantz, to finance all those guards) on the purchase value of the house ought not to be unreasonable, and would provide yet another money sink. As with most leftist views, I'm sure mine will change as soon as I have some money to spend on a house... but for the time being, it does seem a worthwhile idea. (After all, I rent. I'm ALREADY paying around 1% the price of a house/month.)
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*Points upward, to the results of this poll that has resurfaced every so often*
The people have spoken.
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If the point is a money sink, then we could have port taxes. I'm going from Milstone to Rilara. When I land in Rilara (or leave Milstone) I would pay a tax on whatever I am carrying. So, for example if I had a +1 broadsword, I would have to pay a tax of something like 5 true. (This may or may not be the proper scaling, that would have to be decided on the GM side) But if people wanted to, they could go thru a Freeport. no taxes, but a city of lawlessness. (and possibly have their stuff stolen or them killed) A lot of large cities (in other campaign worlds) have a freeport. (e.g. Waterdeep/F.R.)
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Of course, *pointing to my previous post* a freeport, might be an excellent way for lawful characters to gain experience... clean out the port and make it generate revenue.... without masacreing the innocent folk who live there.
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My only real issue about taxes is that really penalises those players that are intermittent players.
For the hard-core Layo nuts who are on every day, taxes will be easy to cope with. But for the players who maybe do a total of 5 hours a month it will make them back off. Now you could record log on and log off times and only charge someone taxes every time thay have been on for X hours. But then that is open to abuse.
One of the great things about Layo is the diversity of people and that there is always especially at the weekends new friends to make. And I suspect the intermittent players make up a substantial percentage of the colourful population of Layonara. Lets not penalise these people.
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Honora - 3/4/2007 11:17 AM
*Points upward, to the results of this poll that has resurfaced every so often*
The people have spoken.
If the governments in RL put that poll up they would get exactly the same result - and yet they never decide to do away with taxes. Why is that?
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Personally, I think people just don't want to pay rent because they don't want to worry about losing their house, and they don't want to waste their money.
I'm all for paying rent. I think this will help houses open up more, and I think it will add to the realism. Not to mention.. it's just foolish expect a strong economy, when you aren't willing to pay for it.
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"If the governments in RL put that poll up they would get exactly the same result - and yet they never decide to do away with taxes. Why is that?"
Because it's RL and in RL we absolutely need firefighters, police, clean water, schools, and other things that didn't have any unified governmental representation in a time frame such as Layo?
A poll was taken, and the players of this game said by a wide margin, NO. Let democracy work as intended somewhere.
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Honora - 3/4/2007 4:11 PM
Let democracy work as intended somewhere.
*grins* Remember Layonara is a Democracy. One Man. One Vote. It just so happens that that man is Leanthar and it his vote 8)
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Omega_mnm - 3/5/2007 4:06 PM Personally, I think people just don't want to pay rent because they don't want to worry about losing their house, and they don't want to waste their money. I'm all for paying rent. I think this will help houses open up more, and I think it will add to the realism. Not to mention.. it's just foolish expect a strong economy, when you aren't willing to pay for it.
No....I don't want to pay rent because I don't want to have my playing style dictated to me by HAVING to go bash to pay a tax.
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lunchboxkilla - 3/5/2007 8:17 AM
You guys want realism yet you don't. from other posts you have stated that ladies of the night shouldn't be in lay due to the age rating yet we want things like taxes?
I think the Tax system is gonna be over bearing on an already unstable system.. And just by the numerous things that this servers are taking into account yeah....
House are a win win situation, so what? I'm pretty sure every player that owns a house must of crafted, killed, quested, and every thing under the sun to gt a home and now because they play once in a great while have no gold in the bank lose it to some little script line in the system that say he has no gold to keep the home that he fought tooth and Nail to get?..
Took the words out my mouth! :)
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The vote already spoke for what the community thinks. Even if you put all the yes votes together you still dont even have half of the no votes. The people have spoken LOL
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Wait... I just remembered something...
When I bought my house the cost was like 115k. When I went to buy it they (the real estate agent) tacked on like 8k worth of taxes so my house really cost around 123k. Ha, In my mind I already payed the taxes...
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That was insurance.
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lunchboxkilla - 3/5/2007 3:17 AM
I'm pretty sure every player that owns a house must of crafted, killed, quested, and every thing under the sun to gt a home and now because they play once in a great while have no gold in the bank lose it to some little script line in the system that say he has no gold to keep the home that he fought tooth and Nail to get?
How many people share this house? This is an important question because a character who is only around "once in a great while" has no business hoarding a house that others could be using. That would be an example of having no respect for other players. If the house is in use by several active characters, that's fine, but if the house is only used by one or two characters now and then (if ever), you should really consider selling it.
Why can we leave it at the one little place your char doesn't have to worry about? his little piece of haven from the grind of life, killing and bashing things?
If that's the only place you have as a sanctuary from bashing and killing, then you can surely afford a small tax from all the looting you've been doing.
"Ya want realism? Go out side"
I don't really want realism. I want realistic. Realistically, houses, armor, and weapons require maintenance, governments collect taxes one way or another (and often one way and another), and all manner of other things have a continual cost associated with them. Nothing is completely good. Everything is a trade-off of some sort. It makes decisions matter and adds substance to the RP.
It would be impractical to try to add trade-offs to everything in-game, but we don't have trade-offs on much of anything right now. That's a major reason why the economy is so screwy. A happy, shiny world with no trade-offs is an "I win" button, which is stagnant and boring.
One final question... What would happen if say.... you lost your internet for a few months...char bankrupt and you have gathered oh, items that were given to ya by a dm or you were gathering for crating (IE mithril and emeralds and such) and because of this you lost your home to taxes?
This could happen on any house clean-up, whether there are taxes or not. If a character hasn't been around and no one has heard from the player, the house can be reclaimed by the team and put back on the market. In other words, this scenario is already possible; taxes wouldn't necessarily affect it.
I ask you to honestly consider what I'm saying here. Did you get a house to use, or did you just want to play The Sims for a while, then have a place to keep some crates? Do you ever really use your character's house for anything but storage? When you log in, does he 'wake up' at home? Does she hang around the house with friends, or is she out in the town square or off in the countryside somewhere? If the house is just a big storage crate, do you really need one with your character's name on it? Why not share with several other people?
If you just want a storage area, get together with five other players who want the same thing and buy just one house. Houses are big enough inside for six people's crates, unless they just happen to keep everything they come across for some strange reason. Some houses are probably spacious enough for ten people's crates. Not only would this free up houses for more players and characters, but the cost of the house would be much easier on each bank account, and any reasonable tax split multiple ways would be nearly nothing. On top of that, the likelihood of all the residents disappearing for several months simultaneously is very slim, so the house would be unlikely to be repossessed ever.
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Gulnyr - 3/5/2007 3:04 PM
I don't really want realism. I want realistic. Realistically, houses, armor, and weapons require maintenance, governments collect taxes one way or another (and often one way and another), and all manner of other things have a continual cost associated with them. Nothing is completely good. Everything is a trade-off of some sort. It makes decisions matter and adds substance to the RP.
It would be impractical to try to add trade-offs to everything in-game, but we don't have trade-offs on much of anything right now. That's a major reason why the economy is so screwy. A happy, shiny world with no trade-offs is an "I win" button, which is stagnant and boring.
Right on.
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DMOE - 3/5/2007 8:59 AM No....I don't want to pay rent because I don't want to have my playing style dictated to me by HAVING to go bash to pay a tax.
I couldn't agree with this statement anymore then I already do. Not everyone spends all their time out on a bashing trip.. some PCs rarely go out and adventure at all. My PC that is co-owner of a house falls into this group. I'm lucky if I can earn 2,000 in gold per real time month with this PC. One of the major reasons why I agreed to go co-ownership on a house was the fact that after buying it no other type of payment was needed, becides buying placeables.
I've read a few times in this thread that putting taxes would be a great way to drain gold from the game. I don't agree. We already have a great system. Temple Donations. If your PC has more gold then they'll ever need, then donate all if it and only keep what your PC will need to survive. Now someone will come along and say, 'but my PC doesn't follow a god/ess', well that is fine. They can still donate to a cause. Anonymously as well. I can't remember who or what church was doing this, but not long ago there was one that was taking donation to help feed/cloth orphans. One of my own PCs that doesn't follow a diety made a donation. He didn't have it to spare, but thought that he had it better then these orphans. And he's not even a good aligned PC either. Why donate you might ask? He felt sorry for the childern.
People buy homes all the time and not live in them. Some people may buy them for extra storage, some for a second place to live a few weeks per year, and some people buy more then one house to make some money. Not everyone that buys a house on the server should feel forced to live in them. Everyone has their own reasons, and they are just as valid as those that buy them so their PCs have a place to live.