Fighting Gold Inflation

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I’m very interested in how you manage to draw the conclusion that there is no comparison between item durability and taxation of gold.

What do you think an item with durability is? What defines the value of this item?

Let’s say it’s a pair of gloves. Let’s say you crafted them yourself. What did you craft them with? Let’s say it was leather. What is leather? Something you get from a dead animal. You have refined a resource from it’s source, leather, and turned it into a new object called gloves.

What defines the value of this? What sets the price for these gloves? In a free economy it would be the supply and demand + time spent to acquire and create said gloves.

In this game it is defined by what the NPC’s will pay for your leather and your finished gloves. And what do they give you in return for your gloves? Pile of gold.

Now if I want to buy a pair of gloves from the NPC, I give them a pile of gold in return for the item. What happens with the gold you traded in for the gloves? It is gone from the system. What happens when your new gloves get lost in the woods and decay, or break from low durability? They take their value with them out of the game. This is a gold sink.



What is taxation/rent? It’s money gone from the system in return for a house or a vendor. This is also a gold sink.

See what I did there? I compared these two, by your account, incomparable concepts.

They are obviously not the same thing as lago points out above, but they serve the same purpose. So I would claim they have more in common than not.

Is that all I am going to say about that? Probably not.

No, an ad hominem is attacking an opponent's character. Addressing your interests or how they align is not attacking your character. At no point did I claim you were wrong because you're acting in your interests. Your best argument is that I'm implying it by noting it, but implication is as much on the part of a reader as it is the author. I'm telling you I'm not so you're taking your own implication into my post over my explicit claim otherwise for reasons I dare not speculate. You want to discuss your hurt feelings and make that the topic instead of the bulk substance of my post addressing your criticisms of house taxation. It's a common, but rather obvious tactic. I'm not interested in more bickering with you or fielding further bickering on your part.

You can read my posts however you like. It's no skin off my nose.

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I'm not sure it would discourage the playerbase. How many people log onto the shard, work up some skills and explore around, and get discouraged seeing every square foot of castle space occupied? And with maybe 50% of them being relatively empty, or holding stuff that could easily be fit into a 2-story? Is it worth losing those people, so Treasureman and Tabius and Wise and I can keep our houses at no cost but logging on and clicking a button once a week?

Rich guy house taxes would not discourage new players from joining the shard any more than the IRL estate tax discourages people from wanting to be wealthy.

Not saying it's the right or wrong thing to do, but I would bet a house tax would add more people to the shard than subtract.

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Take screenshots of each and post, don't alter anything before doing it, just take the image and post.

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He has his fingers crossed that one of them is not deco'd to the T. Everyone knows if a house is not decorated your a hoarder.

You're either wrong or you're right and you made a post which is essentially "you hurt my feelings." In the first case, I don't play uo to educate other players on the nuances of the latin phrase you used or what it means in correct translation (definitely not for free). In the second case, you essentially made a post which is "you hurt my feelings and I'm not going to talk to you." Wrong or whiner? If you can't handle one or two sentences of ribbing in good jest, get off the internet because you're going to have a bad time.

No, you inferred that. I explicitly told you otherwise and reasserted I meant my post in good faith, and you drudged on regardless. And even if this were the case, it's a tiny part of my post. We don't need to hold hands and sing kumbaya and we don't need to come to an agreement to carry on discussions like adults. You had good points, I liked your post, and I responded to it.

When people are looking to be offended, they find them. You added nothing to the discussion by whining and have tricked no one into thinking you provided a legitimate response with it. Fortunately, you did make a substantive response. Well, I guess I did want to bicker a bit more. You can have the last word on this issue. I'll move on to the substantive part of your post.

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Owning houses in UO is enjoyable. Just because we don't hand them out for free with zero conditions to own them doesn't mean they're not enjoyable or worthwhile and it doesn't mean anything more than a house decay timer is "bad mechanics." I'm guessing you don't advocate getting rid of the decay timer so you already agree on principle with this point.

Enjoyment is not so simple. Struggle, effort, etc., are integral parts to enjoyment. It takes me time to care for my garden all the time, it has costs, but I still do it and it gives me enjoyment. You simply label the housing tax as a "negative system" without addressing why it's a negative system or how it's separated from a variety of other things appropriately labeled a "negative system" with your definition (e.g., the housing decay timer). Why does the enjoyment of the game for newer or less established players who would then have access to more end-game content not come into your analysis?

Who would be discouraged? Not the newer players who would then have access to more end-game content. You just wrote you could pay the tax for the rest of your real life, so it won't discourage you.

Who bought castles or forts for "a little over deed" within the last month? I must have missed it because I would definitely have paid "a little over deed" to get back into a castle and live the nostalgia hypetrain I've been on. If you know of any more, I'd be eternally thankful for a contact hook-up.

Or you dislike me because of our bickering. I want to be friends!

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I think he and you have widely different definitions of "a little over deed price".

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Judging from past 'adverse changes' like the recall-mining hindrances, a change as big as property taxation would require fallout shelters.

No reason to go down that road if we don't have to. A solution disguised as content is win-win.

The #1 thing people seem to want is an uber-trammel-clothing store. However, as has been mentioned, that doesn't actually remove money from the economy. You just replace 10M in gold with a funky mask that people will value at 10M. I'll just say - almost every MMO starting with Everquest has used "Bind on Equip" or "Bind on Pickup" mechanics on equipment for a reason.

No one can take a funky mask to the NPC and buy 10 castles with it or "cash it in" for gold or otherwise. Hence, 10m liquid currency is converted to a single item that isn't likely to move around much at all, if ever again after that.

Gideon wanted taxed properties.

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