Partial solution to the gold persistency.

[Hellblazer]

So if someone decides to quit playing for a while because of something significant and impacting in their life, they should only "blame" themselves for the loss of their virtual assets?

Or if someone's PC dies (hard drive failure, power supply failure, motherboard failure, lightning strike, etc), then they're somehow to blame?

Sometimes not playing is not a choice; it's a necessity or a consequence of life. Sometimes people can give warning, sometimes they can't. I would hope that if real tragedy struck any member of this community that the amount of play time they need to have in order to keep what they have would be the absolute last thing on their minds.

I thought this had covered it

guess I should have bold it.

or what ever other reason that has nothing to do with RL.

You know some people simply decides to share their gaming time between games, or go outside for a walk, read books.. etc etc. That's not RL imposing on them. It's a choice of how they spend their leisure time, and that's what I mean. Of course there are those who decides to share their gaming time as doing things for us, like run quest, script, work on lore.. and that I don't consider the same

Anyways, I can't be clearer on what I meant than this so lets get back to other things about how we could work out the gold persistency issue?

[Chongo]

Riiiight..... the point in your post being?

You do know that quadruple i's make the trees angry right?

[Dorganath]

You know some people simply decides to share their gaming time between games, or go outside for a walk, read books.. etc etc. That's not RL imposing on them. It's a choice of how they spend their leisure time, and that's what I mean. Of course there are those who decides to share their gaming time as doing things for us, like run quest, script, work on lore.. and that I don't consider the same

Anyways, I can't be clearer on what I meant than this so lets get back to other things about how we could work out the gold persistency issue?

Yeah, but you're missing the point.  How would we differentiate between the person who can't play much, decides not to play much, has to leave for personal reasons or follow any number of other pursuits, by choice or necessity?  We can't, it's just that simple.  So anything that automatically takes from people is going to hurt people who shouldn't be hurt.

Beyond that, the real problem with an auto-tax like this (or in any other form) is that it is attacking the wrong problem. Cutting down the influx of gold would help too, but really, it's just treating a symptom. It's also kind of a bad model to have for a game, and especially when there's no IC benefit to the taxation.  Excepting greedy kingdoms, taxes aren't generally collected with nothing in return.  They tend to pay for public works projects, military and law enforcement, and so on.  

Our NWN economy isn't really designed. It's perched atop the economics of the single-player game, which best summed up as: "Kill stuff, buy stuff".  The major difference is that the "stuff" that's killed keeps coming back with a fresh supply of gold every time, and the "stuff" you buy tends to come from crafters.  Thus, gold is effectively manufactured by monsters (and also through Demon Cards) and funnels (for the most part) into the hands of established crafters, who might spend some on things like a house, a remodel of a house, donations or something similar. Those are all voluntary, though.  There's no real design or system in place for the gold in/gold out equation. Every first-level character starts out with more riches than the average peasant will see in years, perhaps even a lifetime. Because we only have one currency type (gold piece/True) that is mechanically represented, prices are automatically skewed from the start.

A more robust economy design would factor in all parts of this, from getting gold from drops, to the value of items, to the pay rate of pawn shops, to the prices on merchants to the cost of crafting, and probably several other things I'm not thinking of at the moment. That's not to say someone won't/can't get "rich" in such an economy, but there are at least meaningful sinks built into the system. There would also be smaller and larger denominations of money, so that a loaf of bread does not cost the combined monthly salaries of several commoners, and the same commoners do not spend their life's savings on a mug of ale in the tavern after a hard day's work....which is what NWN's prices now suggest.

Honestly, if we were to redesign the economy in NWN to make it more of a robust and meaningful thing, we'd have to do a complete bank wipe (and don't be fooled...we can wipe storage chests of their gold as well ) and have everyone start over from Square One.

I guarantee, nobody wants that.

[Guardian 452]

We've lived thru a partial wipe before. The world never stopped spinning... when we went from what was that V1 to V2? when EVERY item you could not equip was sold / or in the case of items you couldnt sell, they were deleted.

I understand the idea of taxing but I fear it would just make the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" even worse. Those who can afford it wont feel it and those who can't aford it... it will hurt them all that much more.

I do agree however that houses should have some kind of continual drain. And upfront knowledge to the playerbase that if the tax upkeep cant be kept up the house will put itself back onto the market. (OMG too many scripts to do that im sure but that would be ideal so no favoritism etc)

I realise I am treding on thin ice with this issue having a toon with a house and being absent at one point for a couple years, and his house not being put back onto the market.... so perhaps I have no say on that issue.

[HooD!uM]

How would one try to tax an adventurer who travels and call no place home? Or a Druid/ranger who lives in the wilderness ? If anyone should be taxed look towards the crafter guilds. Why? Well they hold more of the monopoly of crafted goods and well they are a buisness in a sence.. May even balance out the crafter guild vs solo crafter crisis

[Gulnyr]

Taxes don't have to be like all the modern paperwork.  Roaming adventurers and traveling merchants and the like could be taxed at the gates of cities, and in various ways - per pack/riding animal, per wagon/cart, per weapon, maybe not at all if they offer something extra (traveling merchants may bring products the locals don't make so they wouldn't be taxed in such a case).  Politicians have endless imagination when it comes to reasons and ways to tax people.  It's also possible to take the current, nonsensical prices of ale (or whatever) as a "stranger tax," if you want to.  That's just a justification to help smooth over the broken nature of the NWN version of things, though, and is totally unofficial.

A better question than "how do you tax druids and rangers living in the wilderness?" is "why do druids and rangers living in the wilderness need gold?"  Yeah, the mechanics of what we've got right now require it, but IC, gold is useless to someone who hunts and gathers his own food (deer over a campfire + wild apples), builds his own shelter from the materials he gathers himself (deerskin tent), and shapes his own armor and weapons from natural materials he gathered himself (animal hides and a wooden bow).  Only "civilized," city-dwelling people use gold.  So why's the druid going to town?  And why does she want to buy things there and support their unnatural ways?

This is all just "maybe the MMO will have a better background experience all around," basically.  Just thinking ahead.  Business taxes/licenses and property taxes/upkeep costs are fine ideas for a better in-game economy, though, yeah.

[Hellblazer]

Gulnyr is right, yes there were some tax collector who kept records even in the time of Salomon, and Herod. So it's not far stretch to think that it would be done also. But mostly a lot of the taxes were taken when some one came into a city or through check points on roads.

[darkstorme]

Solomon and Herod?  You're thinking too recently (and possibly fictionally, in the first case).

The earliest surviving papyrus document is a tax record out of Egypt, from around 2500 BCE.

Before even that, there is evidence that the 1st Dynasty of the Old Kingdom was among the first to formally codify a tax system - more than six thousand years ago.

Anyway, I'm in favour of taxation systems if they can be worked out fairly, but discussions have  gone down this road before, and the objections (both mechanical and otherwise) are valid.

[Hellblazer]

Solomon and Herod?  You're thinking too recently (and possibly fictionally, in the first case).

Err opps no. Salomon is French for Solomon. Son of King David, which is in records of many Nations that dates of those times, so not really fictional.

[darkstorme]

I won't get into a biblical history debate here, but Solomon's existence (as described in scripture) is called into question by many prominent historians.  He appears in a number of scriptural accounts (biblical or otherwise), but is believed to have been credited with the accomplishments of other rulers therein.

Moreover, the region he supposedly ruled over was largely unpopulated during the time period he was supposed to have ruled it.  Odds are, a ruler existed upon whom the story of Solomon was based - in the same fashion as there was likely a bandit who provided the inspiration for la Jeu de Robin et Marion.

[Filatus]

Imagine a tax collector showing up at Rhizome's tree, that's some prime real estate and should be properly taxed.

Money isn't necessarily that persistent though, I imagine. It's just that most players almost resemble dragons in the way they like to hoard gold and items.

If you want a good money drain though, I'd suggest selling potions of invisibility at a good price at the NPC vendors. I think they're only selling scrolls of them now, not useable to the non-casters.

[Hellblazer]

I won't get into a biblical history debate here, but Solomon's existence (as described in scripture) is called into question by many prominent historians.  He appears in a number of scriptural accounts (biblical or otherwise), but is believed to have been credited with the accomplishments of other rulers therein.

Moreover, the region he supposedly ruled over was largely unpopulated during the time period he was supposed to have ruled it.  Odds are, a ruler existed upon whom the story of Solomon was based - in the same fashion as there was likely a bandit who provided the inspiration for la Jeu de Robin et Marion.

You're right let's not have a debate of religion on the forum. Although it's a great start of a debate you wrote

[HooD!uM]

do we get a tax rebate?