OK so I joined ECC on Jan 26, 2014. I played for about 2.5-3 months and in that time I reached mayor rank. Then I stopped playing because I had a problem with the way some staff members were treating other players and me. I came back to ECC about a month ago and I was very happy to find out there is new owner and staff. While they have much better people skills than the old staff I noticed that the economy was very different from when I used to play. What I mean is currently there is both deflation and inflation in the economy which is a phenomenon I have never withnessed before. I will give an example for both. Inflation: When I started playing an m-sword's price was 200-250k max now its 700-900k. if someone buys an m-sword for 900k that means just to get his/her money back the player should farm melons for 60 hours straight and by farming I mean non-stop sword on melon action, not counting the repairs or eating, or switching lanes in the farm. This item is currently so expensive that its crazy, when a pumpkin axe costs like 10-15k max or you can do it for free if you invest time into mob grinding and you can still make 6-8k/h which is only about 4-7k less than melon farming. Nstars also used to be 200-250$, now they are 400-430$ (one of the reasons for the overpriced star tools). Deflation: EXP is much easier to obtain and its price drops by the week. I sold 100exp for 95$ just 5 days ago and now I sell it for 90-80$. Also player services (teleport, erep, fire/water placements) used to cost 200-300$ even 500$ and now they go from 0 to 250$. So taking those examples above we come to the conclusion that its harder to make money providing services and certain goods and in the same time the tools that should make things easier cost more. For a server claiming to be "the best economy server" this is a huge failure. I also understand that most of those problems are caused by the big amount of people leaving when the change of staff occured but this is not an excuse to let the economy to sink like that. Things that could be done: Bring more people to the server by advertising more. Example: Add 1-3 extra voting sites that way you will not only gain more players but you will also reduce the price of nstars->star tools. When more players join the server thats more competition on the market and more competition= more stabilized economy (prices will still vary but they will be in a acceptable range). Those suggestions were towards the server owner/admins. What we the players can and should do to help: 1. Every player who provides services should not provide them for free. I know that players do it with good intentions and there is nothing wrong about it but in the long run it hurts the economy because currency doesn't change hands and those who don't do it for free get no customers. 2. Be nice and helpful to new players, tell them how things work around here and what they can do with their money and what should their goals be. 3. If you have a town for players to live in don't sell plots for cheap (a mistake that I did and regret) a builder should work a bit for his/her new home its just more fun that way and it feels better when you finally can afford a place to call home (that way having a town will be more profitable and worth investing time in that town). 400-600 for a 10x10 plot I think is a good price if the town is decent enough with a portal, a public farm and good plot/stucture placement. 4. Don't scam new players that drives them straight to another server. Oh and don't scam old players too! I am sure that there alot of other things that can be done by both players and staff. Those are just some general guide lines and examples that are just common sense. And don't get me wrong I don't dislike the current staff or phys but its their responsability to keep the economy in check and bring new people in and its ours to keep those people playing. I know that some will disagree with some of my ideas but keep in mind that my goal here is just to get people to try and fix things and get a discussion going, not to enforce what I have written above. If you have any good suggestions please share them but don't say that everything is fine because it's obvious that it's not an things are currently going donwhill. In the end there is just a little more effort required from both staff and the current community to fix the economy and bring more players in and not just players that stay for 2-3 days and move on, but future presidents+.
It is mostly the new players that are the scammers. Also another thing you could do is remove kits. That would be nearly impossible. When new players join because of the ad, then they suspect that SG will be a great way to earn money. Only to find that there are these things called kits. At first they think the kitters are hackers then, someone explains that you can buy them with real money. As @Zeurals said in this post http://ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/lets-discuss-kits.111501/page-2#post-599154 most ECC players are young and do not have credit cards so it depends on their parents if they can buy donations. Some parents don't want there kids to pay real money to get a in-game feature, so then they have to save up in ECD to get features which is hard to do at the price they sold at and as a builder with no features and no way of making money except for mining with their stone pickaxe, most end up quitting in frustration.
Sounds like what it's coming down to is money money money. Which some type of economy maintained job/classified ad system that cost to use as an employer could possibly solve. Again this is only a suggestion and im keeping it brief and also has downsides but as a community I'm sure we could find a solution. One downside that I was wondering if anyone would mention along with a solution was that if more money is put in to an economy or a feature that made money more available to everyone the more prices would go up due to it becoming some what more easily accessible. Along with donations to cover server cost would be lost, maybe? Another thing that could possibly happen, is that maybe by users doing actual work for hire, where employers pay something significant due to now having to compete for workers based on pay they offer, the people who don't have CC/Debit cards could earn ECC dollars at somewhat a "minimum wage"? and buy Features from users who do and are selling? Which in turn maybe cause donations to increase which then could cover even more server cost? But again with that, there would possibly be a spike of new donations, then it would balance out by the coming of new users...as well as a need for more types of donation features. (I liked @Mission001 rare pet idea, something not obtainable via game play but gives it a perk/plus a change) I'm currently attempting to code something of this nature on my personal test server. I'm sure a solution will pop up with all of our minds on this issue. Sidenote: I mention this because maybe this could help give a stern market value for all items if spawn shops were more easy to navigate. I do currently have a negative opinion of the spawn shops at the moment, but I think something is in the works to enhance the experience there, I'm assuming. More ways to make money more ways to scam but less reason to scam or take loans because more effort can be made towards making money via an actual good paying job that would take less effort than scamming
I'll take some more time at a later date and add more detail. The one thing that caught my eye was your ideas about star tools. I would like to say that star tools are no longer directly linked to the nstar markets. For example, there are so many mswords out there, that no one needs stars for this purpose anymore. You can just buy from a user. Looking at the markets recently, there was actually a negative correlation. When stars went up, star tools prices stayed the same, and then actually dropped a bit.
Oh yes I know that startools can be bought from players but still those players sell them at prices that are way too high (still cheaper than buying the stars but not by alot) 700-900k for a msword is waaay too much considering the time you have to farm just to get your money back. I like your idea about the minimum wage. The only thing is to figure out how to apply it but I don't thing that this will be a hard thing to do. Maybe Phys can add a thread with the minimum wages for different kinds of jobs for example: Training dummy 2000$/1h, demolition job 4000$/1h etc. (those are just example prices don't pay attention if they are not balanced/accurate)
The minimum wage may possibly take legs of its own. In an economy it should so it can be self sufficient and self sustainable less human intervention the better. If a place like this exists then less job offers on trade channel and other employers would have to be competitive with their pay and an even ground would appear in pay rate. it's a rocky idea but I'm sure it could be expanded on. You want to hire someone or make some money you know where to go. Minimum wage could fluctuate extremely since it's worldwide based on time of day. Only thing I think is a big concern about this is the lag it could cause. what's a way this can exists with the least amount of resources. Trade signs would be great if they didn't hog so much memory...
I would like to address some issues in the post and notify you as to many changes that have occurred and created these results. First, melon swords are now 700k-900k because they now cost 2000 nstars and not 1000. This doubles their price firstoff. Second, nstars are now upwards of $400 because now we only have 3 voting sites, causing the price of the nether star to inflate. The previous owner removed the other 3 voting sites because traffic statistics showed that we weren't getting enough people to join our server after visiting that site. This shows that it was a waste of money to pay the site to advertise the server.
I know that Helix but star tools are not the only problem and there are other sites that support votifier and if they are used nstars will drop in price and that was my suggestion and if that can't happen the price of the msword in stars should be 1000 instead of 2000. I am not a staff member and thats why I want people who are to join this thread and share their ideas because they know exactly how the economy in the server works (or atlest they should) and that way both players and staff can find solutions to the different problems. I only mentioned issuses that I have encountered and I am sure there are many more, but they will never be resolved if we just stay idle while everything is going down the drain.
I'm going to skip a lot of the points that have already been responded to and respond to the other ones. 1. I honestly don't remember melon swords being 200k. I was active around the time that you joined and if they were that low I would have picked one up. I do remember them being 500k however. Also, melon swords aren't 700-900k today. I'd say that you could find one beteen 600k and 750k pretty easily. This doesn't mean much. I'm sure that they will rise and fall as long as the server exists. 2. I agree, more players would be nice. But there is a reason we don't advertise more. If there were more places to advertise, I'm sure we would. The reason andrew took down the 3 voting sites that used to be there was because they weren't efficient sources of new players. 3. As much as we pretend that this is the real world, its not. We can compare ECC to the real world but only to a limit. There are too many limitations of minecraft to be able to compare ECC to the real world. I have honestly never seen an economy server near as good as ECC. I have seen a few other economy servers and they all have their share of flaws, just like ECC.
With anything it can always get better. Nothing will ever equate to the real thing but that doesn't mean it cant be attempted to improve it. I'm sure where things are now took much effort so if you enjoy it why not attempt to make it better rather than leave it stagnant and eventually get tired of it? What else better to model a virtual economy after than the real world? Many things are possible just takes time and a group effort.
All I wanted to say in this thread was that the economy is going FUBAR fast and we need to make suggestions how to fix it as a community. I also know that its always going to be flawed even irl economy is but my goal here is to get it to a better more balanced state. All I gave are examples and some of my ideas (and I never said that those are the only or the best solutions thats why I need other peoples opinions, ideas and help). Maybe new players don't stick around for too long because the economy is in a bad state and it isn't as fun as it would be if the economy was doing well. As for other servers I can't mention them but there are better eco servers out there, still not perfect (there is nothing perfect) but better. P.S. Only a few people so far posted real suggestions. As I mentioned so many times I only give examples and general ideas don't stick to those and tell me they are not good or accurate because I know it. As for the old m-sword price I remember seeing it sold for 250k but that could be a separate incident so apologies for how off I was with the price on that one.
I totally agree with the minimum wage idea. Maybe they can make a way that when new playres join they start with a little bit of money so that they might want to stay(maybe 2-4k) and also if they decrease the price of resident to 10k so that builders and new members can get it really quickly making them want to stay. I also think with all of the donations they can afford to get more vote sites even if they only bring in a few people. Also if it is not bringing in that many people why don't we change our approach at advertising(just a idea). Also I agree that kits do take away a lot of the newer members. In sg they could maybe make the loot in the chests a bit better so that kitters can be easily killed and maybe make the no kit % a little higher. I will write a little more details later
Hardcore economy. Free money isnt hardcore. This server requires time to rank up, and you should enjoy your time on ecc. Its supposed to take a lot of time to rank up.
I suggested this so that builder is sort of a smaller rank that people only have for about a week. If new members think it is easy they will want to stay which will help the economy. This is the only rank I suggest that they change, maybe even increase the price of mayor to even it out.
I am not seeing how easily ranking up makes them want to stay? When I was a builder all i wanted was a place to live. Most builders dont even know how to rank up. I am suggesting we find a better way to tell them the rules / how to play. People leave because they usually find ECC very confusing. They also ask questions in global and about 90 percent of the time, no one, including staff, answers.
Don't you realize kit users can open chests as well? Making the loot better will further stack kitters. As for the real suggestion, I agree kits drive people away. Taking them will definitely get new players and a better balance
Starting money opens up a small problem...you could exploit this by having alt accounts/friends etc log on to the server once and give the money to you. Or even if not, it would most likely be put into the economy by newer players. That, however, would lead to more money income to the economy and aid inflation.
I wonder if staff would allow citizens of ECC to appoint members who are active and eagerly looking to help improve and change the expierence & economy, to form an Official ECC council, which then those members could have a meeting/chat session of some type to discuss options and take a summary of our discussions to help the economy with staff? Like on teamspeak or a chat client of some sort. I think this would help give everyone an idea of what we can do as citizens of ECC because maybe our ideas aren't necessarily being heard at the moment or we are so far from what is possible our discussions are in vien.
I agree with everything you said. That is an easy exploit and we currently don't need more money to aid inflation. This is a fantastic idea I don't think that the community has a representative currently and it would be nice to have such a council. This way its easier both for the mods and for the ordinary players to communicate. I really don't see any cons to this. The members of this council can ask random people on ECC questions like: "What is the most common problem that you encounter on the server?" , "What do you like best in ECC?" etc. Then the members will post the most common problem and the community and the mods can help fix it together or work on ECC's strenghts. I think that way problems will be solved quicker, bugs and exploits can me found and resolved faster etc. Those council members should also provide screenshots of the chat and what people said so they can't exploit that position for personal gain somehow. Maybe I can make another suggestion later about that. Great idea eyesee3!
