Controlling inflation

[rotinegg]

I just saw the exchange rate, and although it is lower than last month's, considering that many of the top players cashed out last month, it was still very high. And because of inflation, the exchange rate will most likely rise higher and higher as time progresses.

Why is inflation caused? It's as simple as this: more money is being dumped into the economy. I'll try to explain this in easy terms. In the real world, the main cause of inflation is too much money and too little "stuff." People want to buy "stuff," but the "stuff" isn't easy to find, because people are buying it at a faster rate than factories can produce. Meanwhile, money keeps being produced, and everybody has so much money, or what would have been considered alot, that they are willing to pay more and more money to buy that "stuff." Sooner or later, the price of the "stuff" gets jacked up so high that ordinary people who don't have trillions of dollars cannot buy what used to cost a few dollars. A real-life example can be found in post-WW1 Germany, where people needed billions and billions of Marks (Germany's monetary unit at that time) to buy a loaf of bread.

In the context of Exodus3000, this means people are earning too much money from ruins and volcanoes compared to how much they are spending on upgrades. The "stuff" in this case would be real cash, while the exchange rate is the price of the "stuff," and Mars Dollars serve as the money in the aforementioned example. As more Mars Dollars circulate through the economy, the exchange rate goes up. Why? The exchange rate is probably calculated by Eric setting an arbitrary limit to how much money he is willing pay out altogether, somewhere around 2000 dollars it seems, and dividing it by the total Mars Dollars that people who have the ability to cashout possess. This is just a guess, and he might do things completely differently, but I don't think it will change the fact that more Mars Dollars = Higher exchange rate.

So what can we do to prevent this? I compiled a list of stuff Eric could do to control inflation, and divided them mainly into two groups.

1) Reduce places where people can earn money

There are a variety of things Eric could do. He could reduce the number of volcanoes and ruins altogether; he could reduce the number of motherlodes; he could make some ruins/volcanoes not give out any money; he could make something like an eruption for ruins; he could increase the frequency+money lost from eruptions; he could make new boobytraps or natural disasters (a desert like mars must have sandstorms! :-)) that make you lose money; he could put in taxes, etc etc.

2) Increase places where people can spend money

Again, a variety of things to do. Eric could increase the cost of upgrades; he could increase the max upgrade levels; he could make upgrades that affect the chances of hitting a motherlode and help mining/searching ruins in general, instead of using the 150 point settlement system; he could put in a variety of items that have special effects, such as a 5-day eruption immunity or a 5-day lvl20 security; he could create a bunch of useless items that pimp out your homestead (it seems to be the main source of money in other sites like these), etc etc.

This is the game that has the most generous payouts and prizes that I have ever seen. But I'm worried that exchange rates will be jacked up because money is a tad "too easy" to make. I think just balancing out the Mars dollars spent and the Mars dollars earned can help keep the exchange rate stable.

[Jrobb]

I think the exchange rate is found by totaling the game's profit or profit minus some for admins taking and dividing that inot the total MD in posession of all players.

could be a tad different though.

[Eric]

Yeah, there definately is an inflation problem here, and I am trying to fix it without disrupting the current system too much.  I will be raising upgrade prices a bit this week, among a few other minor tweaks.  Ruins will be changed so that instead of finding MD, you will be able to find artifacts that can be collected and used for special purposes.

But you're right, the main cause of inflation is that the amount of MD being earned in the game is FAR more than the amount being spent or lost.  The rate this month will in all likelyhood exceed last month's.  It depends on the top players.  It would also help if the top players would let me know whether or not they plan on cashing out.  For example, if you have enough MD to get $40 or more but don't plan on cashing out, drop me a note so I can take you out of the equation.   Other suggestions to control inflation are welcome.

[mef623]

Part I

There is one thing to keep in mind when making adjustments to the game, and that is that the inflation in this case also comes from the lack of substitution.  In effect, there is nothing to do with M$ except cash them out.  Granted, you can cash them out for more moves, but those moves will then be used to accumulate more M$ and the cycle will repeat itself.  I don't think the biggest problem is the level of cashout per se, but rather the length of time to achieve cashout.  In other words, the value of your money is hampered by the fact that there is nothing else to do with it.  The absolute level of payout is, to some extent, irrelevant.

Simply cutting back the amount of money that you can earn actually is not an effective solution to the problem.  For example, let's say that, at the end of Month 1, there are one million mars dollars outstanding and Eric has earned $400 that month.  So a $20 cashout is 50,000 M$.  Let's assume that I earn M$ at a rate of 2,500 per day, so it takes 20 days to achieve cashout.

Eric gets worried about inflation, so he cuts everything in half.  You earn half as much from mountains and ruins, which represent the biggest sources of new money in the economy.  And at the end of the month, the exchange rate is indeed lower.  Eric has earned the same $400, but now, there are only 500,000 M$ outstanding and the cashout rate is 25,000 M$.  Whoo-hoo, cashout cut in half!

The problem is, instead of earning 2,500 M$ per day, I only earn 1,250.  And cashout takes, um, exactly 20 days.  In effect, the total wealth of the economy has not changed at all.  My M$ are really worth no more than they were before.

Part II below

[tcardoso]

 I will be raising upgrade prices a bit this week, among a few other minor tweaks.

That way only top players will benefit! You could implement new things in the game to players spend MD... I will think about it and if something occurs to me, I'll post

[mef623]

Part II

What we need in this game is more than a decrease in inflation.  We need alternative places to spend money in addition to governors for the total money supply.

One plus to limiting M$ that I did not mention above is that such caps will make upgrades more valuable causing players to be less willing to cash out and lose half of their settlements.  (Lower cash earned + No change in upgrade costs)=Effective price increase in upgrades, making upgrades more valuable.

While I like the idea of being able to use M$ to buy game tools such as transportation, we need to be careful of such items.  For instance, if I could buy a bicycle which allows me to move two squares for X,XXX M$, it would make it easier to move around the squares and accumulate twice as many M$ as I would have by walking.  Inflation again.  On the other hand, I do like the idea of being able to buy one-time items such as a one-time teleport to any square on the map, since such an item is not likely to lead to excess accumulation of M$.

Rotinegg had the right idea by suggesting that we need to be able to buy items with M$ that will not lead to sustainable M$ inflation, such as the ability to pimp out the ol' homestead or perhaps to "buy a square," where you can put your web-link or whatever on ruin, desert, etc.

I hate to say it, but we must raise prices for upgrades.  It's way too easy to hit the highest upgrade level.  Initially, this will benefit the highest-level players, but frankly, we've shown some loyalty to the game, and just about any change will benefit us.  Things will even out pretty quickly, though.  In addition, we need to be able to steal more from homesteads.  This could offset decreases in mountains and deserts while not changing the total money outstanding in the game.

Please, everyone, let's try to think of some ideas that will make the game more fun, help control inflation but also keep earnings high.  

And don't forget, the best way to make the game more profitable is to increase the total money pool.  There are plenty of advertisers to visit around here, and it only takes a second to visit the sponsors.

Mike

[tcardoso]

Initially, this will benefit the highest-level players

I only accept putting updates cost highers if there a change for a low attack to gain settlements from a higher defense (calculations with attack and defense as proposed by exodus3000 a long time ago)! If not, young player will pass months only trying to gain MD to upgrade, and cant win settlements, that are my main objective and a lot of players main objective...

[dneitz]

I agree-the new players would never have any chance if the cost were towards upgrades!!my idea-maybe raffle a prize a month-like an ipod and have people use their mds for chances to win!!10md a try or something like that!!

[Eric]

I agree-the new players would never have any chance if the cost were towards upgrades!!my idea-maybe raffle a prize a month-like an ipod and have people use their mds for chances to win!!10md a try or something like that!!

The higher prices would affect mainly the higher level upgrades.  The first five will remain relatively static over time.

[Chris_UT]

I think raising high end upgrade prices is a really bad idea. All this will do is increase the already way unbalanced distribution of settlements. The way I see it is that there is 2 groups who play this game, the people who play for the money and the people who play long term competitive and who measure their success in settlement count (personal or Alliance). People who play for money don't care about high end upgrade prices. If your mining volcanoes all day then a weapons level of 1 does fine and you need only pump your defense at the low end to keep from getting hurt too bad at your homestead. The people who upgrade at the high end are the long term settlement gatherers and dragging out their time to hit level 20 will just frustrate them. If you want to reduce money from the cashout people then what you should really do is raise the prices in the middle and only for defense. Keep it easy to get 20 weapons to encourage settlement attacks, miners dont care about weapons.

Make Defense something more like:

200
325
450
575
800
2000
5000
6000
8000
10000
12000
12000
12000
12000
12000
12000
12000
19000
25000

 
This would take a lot more money out from miners and not hurt long term players so bad.

[tgbaguinon]

how about he puts a little button in the game that gives players a choice to cash out or not? that way he'll know who will be cashing out and put them into the equation. Most of the people not sending e-mails about not cashing out are probably just too lazy to send the e-mail anyway. A little button saying that they don't plan on cashing out that month might help out a lot.

[mef623]

how about he puts a little button in the game that gives players a choice to cash out or not? that way he'll know who will be cashing out and put them into the equation. Most of the people not sending e-mails about not cashing out are probably just too lazy to send the e-mail anyway. A little button saying that they don't plan on cashing out that month might help out a lot.

Perhaps, but even if a high-level player is not cashing out in a particular month, it simply delays the inflation problem into the next month.

Mike

[tgbaguinon]

how about he puts a little button in the game that gives players a choice to cash out or not? that way he'll know who will be cashing out and put them into the equation. Most of the people not sending e-mails about not cashing out are probably just too lazy to send the e-mail anyway. A little button saying that they don't plan on cashing out that month might help out a lot.

Perhaps, but even if a high-level player is not cashing out in a particular month, it simply delays the inflation problem into the next month.

Mike

Actually, those people would delay the "inflation problem" anyway. exodus3000 wants those people to tell him that they're not cashing out so he'll have an easier time figuring out the exchange rate and keep the current month's inflation to a minimum.

Besides, the inflation problem would only occur if most or all the high level players decide to cash out at the same time.

A simple, little button to click on that says "I'm not cashing out this month so you can keep me out of the equation" would be helpful for everyone. This would and should obviously lock in their answer and prevent them from cashing out after the exchange rate is posted to prevent loopholes and last-minute decision changes.

If this little suggestion is implemented, you know there will be sneaky players trying to cheat the system by trying to keep the inflation down by clicking the button then cashing out at the last minute for big bucks.

[rotinegg]

Actually, those people would delay the "inflation problem" anyway. exodus3000 wants those people to tell him that they're not cashing out so he'll have an easier time figuring out the exchange rate and keep the current month's inflation to a minimum.

Besides, the inflation problem would only occur if most or all the high level players decide to cash out at the same time.

No. The "inflation problem" happens regardless of how many high level players decide to cash out. It would be worsened, but high level players not cashing out does not stop inflation altogether. The problem is much more deeply rooted in the system: there's simply too much Mars Dollars circulating, and the amount of profit that Eric can give out is limited. Thus, using simple division, the value of each Mars Dollars drops continuously as more and more Mars Dollars flow into the system.

A simple, little button to click on that says "I'm not cashing out this month so you can keep me out of the equation" would be helpful for everyone. This would and should obviously lock in their answer and prevent them from cashing out after the exchange rate is posted to prevent loopholes and last-minute decision changes.

I agree. However, it says that the exchange rate can change at anytime, even after it is posted on the 20th. Maybe the admin could make this button always available, even before he posts the exchange rate, so that when he does post the exchange rate, it will be much more accurate, and thus he wont need to change it as much.

If this little suggestion is implemented, you know there will be sneaky players trying to cheat the system by trying to keep the inflation down by clicking the button then cashing out at the last minute for big bucks.

In the previous paragraph you just said creating this button will stop that.

[Ghost_Rider]

I think lower players being able to attack is wrong.  I quit another game to come here because they did that with their attack system and suddenly upgrades were useless.  What's the point of playing for fun or upgrades when somebody 7 levels below you can attack you and take what's yours.  It will become nothing more than people playing for cashout.  As the system is now I have no problem putting money into the game and have since I started but if the attack system were changed that way I probably wouldn't anymore.

I don't think changing upgrade prices will solve anything.  It's a short term solution.  Players need more ways to spend their MDs.  Maybe players could cashout part of their MDs for moves without losing half their stats or settlements or lose less than if you were getting cash since the money could remain in the game.  An auction that we could use our MDs to bid for would be a fun thing.  Maybe for a certain amount of MDs you could see your alliance members a different color on your radar as an additional radar upgrade.  If transportation upgrades are added I think they should be time limited and not indefinite.

If somebody hasn't logged in for 30 days you could make all settlements they have unclaimed.  That would eliminate players still having settlements 3 months after they've quit playing.  It'd make it easier for noobies to get settlements and when there are a lot of unclaimed settlements around I would think revenue from anytime moves goes up.

The button was a good idea.  I don't come into the forum as much as I should.  A button when I log in would get my attention when I need to choose.

Sorry all.  I know I got a bit long winded.