GOLDTAX

This is a daily charge on all player and clan bank accounts.

This is a very small charge that affects the game in big ways.

The daily charge is very very small, just 1/10th of 1 percent. It is just
enough to say that you cannot store massive amounts of gold a long long
time, which is big a problem for a game like Medievia. It prevents us from
giving out gold as easily as we would like to or need to.

So, if you are very lucky and have 2 billion gold and we charge a daily
1/10 of 1 percent charge, for a whole year you would have lost 611,860,066
gold, 30.59% of your gold. If you just had 1 million you would have lost
305,783, again 31% or so.

This affects rich people and only over long periods of time, it does not
affect the day to day playing of the game, or hardly at all.

If you are a typical hero and have 50 million gold, over a whole week you
would have lost 348,950 gold, or 0.70%, which is less than 1% per week.

So if you are a typical player with 50 million after a whole week you lose
about the cost of 2 dragon flights, that is it. This does not affect the
typical player very much at all, except it will make the game more fun as
explained below.

To be clear: this barely affects day to day playing at all yet affects the
rich over a long period of time a lot, 31% per year of stale money is lost
to the game every year. Day to day it hardly matters but year to year it
really helps us do what we would like, give more gold out more freely
without worrying about the gold lasting forever, which is what it did
before this tax, it lasted forever if you did not spend it.

When we make a new way to make money we MUST make a new way to spend it.
Think about it. That gets harder and harder over the years to pull off and
lately we have been slipping a lot. This tax really helps solves that
problem.

What does it really mean?

To be honest we cannot deny what this is, this is class warfare, in a way
anyways. It is fighting for the common man over the rich man, for the new
player vs the old player, for the active player over the retired player.

It makes gold more stable, worth more, and puts the new player at a more
even playing field with the old timer. The old timer will still have tons
of gold but it would not have affected what the gold is worth as much, if
you follow what we are saying.

The more you make and spend quickly the more you affect what gold is
worth. The more you make and do not spend the less that gold affects what
gold is worth as compared to gold spent quickly, see what I am saying?

By removing gold from the economy every day in this way we make the game
more fun. This is because we can give more gold out, give it out easier,
and without worrying so much about farmers. A 'farmer' in a MMORPG is a
person who does the same thing over and over to attain gold. They no
longer play for fun. Players with tons of time on their hand and with very
good knowledge of some features can make tons of gold. This is fine if
they spend it quick. It is not so cool if they have no incentive to spend
it, in fact the more people who save gold for long periods of time the
worse the problem gets for the new player.

Medievia is an old game so the problem has become worse and worse.
Medievia will never close down so unlike most games we have to take the
long term into account in big ways.

This tax is simply saying that the player who did nothing but trade 3
straight months for 8 hours a day 3 years ago and nothing since will not
affect the price of gold so much now from what they did years ago.

The older your gold gets the less it is worth. It is that simple, not in a
big way, just over very long periods. If you do not spend it you lose
some, a very teeny tiny amount every day, 1/10th of 1 percent. Day to day
you could care less, but if you store billions of gold for years on end it
will matter, but again it is not that big of a deal, 31% per year, and a
year in our gameworld a very long time.

If you spend your gold quickly after making it you are hardly affected at
all, except in that your gold is a more fun stat, it is more stable and
more predictable, it will be worth more, it will deflate and inflate less,
and most importantly we can give more out more freely without worrying so
much long term.

To put this in perspective, this will usually be the biggest expense taken
out of the economy every day, something we need. It will have removed
nearly 500 million gold from the overall economy today, yet it would
hardly affect anyone at all in their day to day playing of the game.

There is a way to look at gold that I must pay attention to: for
experienced players it is too easy to get gold and for newer players it is
too hard to get and not worth enough. That balance point is key in games
and here it is getting worse and worse.

This tax directly affects exactly that game dynamic balancing point. It
makes those extremes less extreme.

Gold will not be as easy to store in large amounts for old players, and we
can give more out so new players will always have more compared to now,
especially if they spend it fast, plus all gold will be worth more as less
will be around so people will pay less for things like fae orbs, DCs,
donation tokens, etc.

This is all good stuff for the new player. This change is actually part of
the whole massive 'newbie experience' phase of Medievia V and it is as
important to newbies as the new exploration module.

The player who played a ton in 2006 and not since would not be affecting
gold so much if they came back now in 2009 and went to spend it. They
would have lost over 66% of it over the three years.

That makes the gold for new players and any active player worth more. New
gold is worth more than old gold. It is a simple change. The economy
becomes more about now, and less about how much gold players made years
ago without spending it.

Is losing 0.001 per day right? To be clear, this is 0.1% or 1/10 of 1%
per day. It amounts to nearly 31% per year. I do not know, maybe it should
be 0.0005 or maybe 0.002. I am sure the exact percentage will change
over time but we started at a 0.0001 per day loss.

There is no way to avoid the tax. When you log in we count the days since
your last login, if not taxed in the past 24 hours, and charge you for
that many days, accurate to the second. The gold on your person and in
your ATM is taxed at this time. Clan ATMs are taxed daily at midnight.
Treasure items you may buy or come across are automagically converted to
gold on your person when you log in.

The only way to avoid the tax is to spend gold fast. There is no reason to
avoid this tax as it is such a tiny percentage every day. It is basically
just enough to make the rich think about spending gold sooner rather than
later and enough so that we can give gold out more freely.

See Also: ECONOMY GOLD