How to curb inflation? Is any tax to much tax?

[Warrior of Lice]

Yes, someone did say that. But is the suggestion in this thread a good one?

I think not, and I think it would make it harder for new players to set up houses while continuing to progress in other ways.

/thread has already been said by someone, and they are quite right. Such a dramatic change will not be implemented, so nuts to the discussion anyway.

 

[Metalhead-]

Players don't need houses to play with other characters. They need basic items to interact with other players. Houses don't make this server the player to player contact does. I'd much rather see estabilshed players playing taxes for their houses to help new players get a firm footing so they can make it out there. If this were a Trammel based server then it would be whatever. But when they have to deal with us PKs it serves no purpose to compound their issues in getting started. I own a house and would gladly pay a tax if that means it would help new character get out in the world, enjoy the game, and continue after they die. I can't PK without new people coming in and eventually making their tamers and making money and staying. None of us can continue if we don't continue to grow and bring in new people. Life happens to all of us and we must leave the game time to time. I'd much rather see the shard grow and maintain our oldschool UO rule sets concerning player to player interaction, than accept the continuing inflation and loose people because they can't afford armor and weapons and pots to keep them competitive in our world.


I'm a UOF house owner, donater, and player killer. I support taxes the rich so that we may grow.

If you ask me how I feel concerning real life I'm the opposite. But that's only because there's not a never ending supply of money coming in.

edit: please ignore the poor grammar and texts. I'm to lazy to go back and fix my fat fingering.

 

[halygon]

I'm a UOF house owner, donater, and player killer. I support taxes the rich so that we may grow.

The fundamental flaw is that not all house owners are rich or are vets.

 

[Metalhead-]

The fundamental flaw is that not all house owners are rich or are vets.

You act as if the tax would be crippling. I'm not talking about some crazy socialist European 50% income tax. If you can afford a house you can afford a small cut in the gold intake. Anyone that owns a house can afford to play the game comfortably to accommodate their play style. We're talking about giving the new people who have to log at the bank or inn a fighting chance so they'll stick around. If there's no one to play with then whats the point of playing at all?

 

[halygon]

When I first started here, I put all my money into a small house. I then used all my money to build my chars.. At that time I had under 5k across all my chars, I would have lost the house I saved up for if a tax had been in place. I would have been pissed and quit over such a stupid game mechanic.

As I said before, this tax idea is not new.. As it has been proposed on several other shards.. Always failing to be implemented because it favors the rich and impoverishes the poor.

 

[Warrior of Lice]

When I first started here, I put all my money into a small house. I then used all my money to build my chars.. At that time I had under 5k across all my chars, I would have lost the house I saved up for if a tax had been in place. I would have been pissed and quit over such a stupid game mechanic.

Not to mention then rich people would buy anything they want from what you lost, at auction.

For people who really want something like this, why not form a guild based on the idea? For every 50k a member makes, they are obliged to give 5k to the guild, to fund public services provided by the guild. Hmm?

 

[Metalhead-]

When I first started here, I put all my money into a small house. I then used all my money to build my chars.. At that time I had under 5k across all my chars, I would have lost the house I saved up for if a tax had been in place. I would have been pissed and quit over such a stupid game mechanic.

As I said before, this tax idea is not new.. As it has been proposed on several other shards.. Always failing to be implemented because it favors the rich and impoverishes the poor.

You went about it in the wrong order. That's the problem. I built my characters first then got a house. I eventually had one villa an an 18x18 custom plot near Trin. I sold the 18x18 because I didn't need it. I run 3 PKs, a blue PvPer, thief, and bard. You don't need a house before being established with built characters.



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[Metalhead-]

Not to mention then rich people would buy anything they want from what you lost, at auction.

For people who really want something like this, why not form a guild based on the idea? For every 50k a member makes, they are obliged to give 5k to the guild, to fund public services provided by the guild. Hmm?

Are you lost on what we are trying to fix here? We need gold deleted from the server not moved into other peoples hands.



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[Warrior of Lice]

Are you lost on what we are trying to fix here? We need gold deleted from the server not moved into other peoples hands.

I'm not lost at all. This is a thread about taking money out of people's bank accounts based on the value of houses owned by character, and removing the IDOC system to replace it with an auction system.

I disagree that we need gold deleted from the server, and I think efforts by staff at providing expensive things to buy where the gold does not transfer from one player to another is excellent.

 

[Bromista]

More gold needs sunk, I think we all agree. However effective it may be...property tax isn't the way to do it imo unless it is a one time fee or something. Otherwise it just hurts people who can't play regularly, some of which don't contribute to the community anyway, but I'm more concerned with those whos contribution would be impacted by taxes. I'm sure there are plenty of people that fit that description here on UOF.

 

[Metalhead-]

More gold needs sank, I think we all agree. However effective it may be...property tax isn't the way to do it imo unless it is a one time fee or something. Otherwise it just hurts people who can't play regularly, some of which don't contribute to the community anyway, but I'm more concerned with those whos contribution would be impacted by taxes. I'm sure there are plenty of people that fit that description here on UOF.

From that point of view I could understand what you're getting at. Would a monthly system be to frequent? Again we haven't even established a quantity to go with the proposed tax.

What about a reduction in gold that higher end mobs drop in return for higher end items?



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[Gore]

A tax on houses would hurt the population. People who haven't logged in would log in and see their house gone and probably wouldn't bother logging in again. There is still plenty of spots open in the world.

 

[Coorhagen]

I don't like the idea of paying taxes on houses. I only have one house ( I don't want two) When I first started, I killed earth elementals until I had enough gold to place a foundation and then I killed air elementals until I had enough gold to commit the design.

 

[Bromista]

That's true, Metalhead. The terms haven't been defined and neither has the timeframe. So maybe there's a sweet spot that could be found...I'm sure it can be done.

One thing is certain though, squeezing more gold out of homeowners would be quite effective as a gold sink for a couple reasons:

The number of house plots is significant.

The people who own those plots had to establish themselves and work for them. Therefore they are capable of taking a hit to their bank account (as they already have)

My issue is with the potential frequency, regularity, and quantity of those hits and how it could impact some players more significantly than others.

No matter what you can't stop inflation, only curb it. So even with a really effective property tax the cost of armor suits, for example, will still rise and make it harder for folks who don't play regularly to equip themselves on top of making regular payments.

And that's why the terms haven't, at least by me, been clearly defined. Economies are a fragile thing so who am I to say what's too little, too much, or just right? Hard to do when there's a state of constant fluxuation with:

Existing gold sinks fighting inflation with varying degrees of success

Player population

Gold being introduced into the economy

The point of this post is this: you gotta be careful with a gold sink that effects basically all players all the time. Right now all the gold sinks are optional. When you take the option away you are getting into risky territory - especially when it comes to putting something like tbis in that has never existed before.

 

[TheFallen]

Well I'm glad to see more reasonable discussion and not just the "I" don't want to pay taxes argument over and over I still think people are getting hung up on some points that are completely optional or not relevent. The concept of auctioning properties is a separate idea and although would sinka ton of gold with out actually taking away from anyone, just removing the bid gold instead of simply leaving the items in the game with no cost. To switch all houses to auction would kill idoc and that is a large part of some players game but we could easily just to one dev picked house a week as auction and that would create a constant gold sink and test the idea.
Auction aside, since it doesn't have to be implemented along side a tax idea. As far as the tax idea to say it would hurt new players is silly, it would drop the average price of regular supplies and if you can afford a house you can afford a small portion of its value as tax. To make it even more new player friendly it could be made to not apply on small houses because really two small house and six banks is enough everything else is really just vanity items but big houses are the most sought after vanity that exists so make it a continuous gold sink and you can balance the economy by once a year adjusting the tax value as a percent of your house.

 

[Metalhead-]

What about buffing must have items that are sold on vendors so there are viable options for new players to use should they decide to compete against other players? This would provide a fixed price for basic goods that should keep them coming back. We could put more money in player run crafters hands by also giving their goods a slight bump as well. Obviously it's much more complicated than doing some across the bump in quality of items. Just brainstorming.


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[Struan]

Kiki says no.

 

[TheFallen]

If your worried about housing spots available putting even a small fee on owning one would help this for sure. No more empty plots sitting around everywhere and no ppl who just want a house can find a spot easy enough but good locations will still be fought over.

 

[Harken110]

It's true that you don't need a house to interact with players in the game. Honestly though, i'm not sure that I would play UO if there was no player housing. It is one of my favorite parts of the game. I think it is a big draw for players. Also i think to play competitively you for sure need a house or at least to share one. Trying to deal with pots/regs/crafting etc without a house sucks.

That being said. An account really doesn't need anything more than a small house. For most that is plenty of storage.

I would like to see housing changed. I'm not sure how many lots/spots there are in Britannia but on a server of approx 700 people (i think this is the UOF pop) it seems like almost all the spots for medium size houses and larger are taken.

Gold sink ideas:

- The cost of the high end housing (castles/towers etc) should be so high that only the super rich or more likely groups of people are able to buy them. Castle = 30 mil. Tower = 20 mil or whatever, some price that makes individual purchase almost out of reach.

Of course the problem with that is that those who currently own castles or towers could sell and now ask that price, so obviously far from perfect.

- Instead of a persistent housing tax, would a tax on the capital gains associated with housing sales work?

So person x sells a house. They pay tax on the profit. Higher the profit, higher the tax. Buying a house would have no tax implications or payments so most players wouldn't be affected until they had acquired some level of wealth and were planning to upgrade.

- up the price of vendor contracts - 150k say.
- up the daily min for vendors - 5k say.

This would sink some gold and hopefully reduce the number of vendors to only those who are serious about keeping their vendors stocked.

Get rid of the second account. 5th char slot available - 5 mil. 6th slot available - 10 mil.

Fire away.

These ideas don't sound to great...

If you're going to do a tax on housing sales then you might as well do a tax on all trade sales (Which is probably what needs to happen).

Upping the vendor contracts to 150k and/or daily min to 5k will just make vendors obsolete, people will just remove their vendors and use the selling forums and sell their items directly. I think vendor transactions could use a small tax on sales (rather than the cost of items for sale) but even if you do that people will still be encouraged to sell items directly with zero tax, unless they implement a tax on all trade sales and make it significantly higher than the tax on vendor sales.

 

[Struan]