Project: Gorgon is a 3D fantasy MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that features an immersive experience that allows the player to forge their own path through exploration and discovery. We won't be guiding you through a world on rails, and as a result there are many hidden secrets awaiting discovery. Project: Gorgon also features an ambitious skill based leveling system that bucks the current trend of pre-determined classes, thus allowing the player to combine skills in order to create a truly unique playing experience.
The Project: Gorgon development team is led by industry veteran Eric Heimburg. Eric has over a decade of experience working as a Senior and Lead Engineer, Developer, Designer and Producer on successful games such as Asheron’s Call 1 and 2, Star Trek Online and other successful Massively Multiplayer Online Games.
But that's sort of my point. If tbhere is no, or only a nominal, entrance fee and instead everyone is paying 10% tax on everything they sell, what is the point of the tax? It doesn't encourage or discourage behaviour, and will at most raise prices by 10% across the board. And since there is no NPC owner of the market place who needs the money, the money raised just disappears. So there may as well be *no* sales tax.
Unless the point is simply to have a cash sink to minimize mudflation. Or if the money raised by the tax was used somehow to improve the market place. That would be cool.
Unless the point is simply to have a cash sink to minimize mudflation. Or if the money raised by the tax was used somehow to improve the market place. That would be cool.
Yes, my assumption would be that a sales tax would just be used to reduce inflation. I like the market place improvement idea too, but I suspect it could get maxed out pretty quickly.
I think you are right that changing to a sales tax won't discourage players from repeat-renting vendor stalls, so under our current system of limited vendor stalls it would not be a good idea.
I'm vaguely toying around with the idea of some kind of advertisement board for the slower selling items. For example, what if each player could post a single self-written ad saying they are able to deliver items x, y and z on demand, and then the ad board could facilitate some kind of communication and item exchange if someone is interested in their product? Ads could be low-priced but would need to be rebought every week to avoid stale ads. When a player posts an ad, they could also be asked to choose 1-3 item categories in which they are able to deliver products, like food, gear or alchemy ingredients or something like that. This could help players searching the ad board to actually find what they are looking for. Just random brainstorming here...
The tax would be a way to keep the entrance fee low, but keep costs fairly static.
It would discourage people from optimizing towards the more active times and open shops more frequently.
Such taxes and fees are often re-jiggered in real life to keep markets full of vendors. If you went to Seattle's Pike Place Market, you would find that stalls vary in price by centrality, permanence, as well as day or week and time of year. Some slots require the vendor to show up in the morning and sign up, others can be requested in advance. And these fees are often changed. The city itself also charges tax by what you're selling, when you're selling it, how you're selling, where your'e selling...
In a game, these are sinks yes, but they can be used to balance the cost and benefits so that small shops can exist alongside large ones; lowbie shops next to high-level. And to shift the times and days when vendors put up shops as well.
And there's really no magic to this; like in real life, there is no fixed point for the fees that is always optimal.
I would gladly shop at the player vendors more, if I knew what they had available. Without treading on Turbines' bunions, I would like to see something like: !vsearch explosive runestone, and see a list of each vendor with an explosive runestone for sale, and how many, and what price.
That tax thingie, how is it supposed to work in case of somebody keeping his prices high, selling nothing, yet occupying a good spot for months because entrance fee is insignificant?
That tax thingie, how is it supposed to work in case of somebody keeping his prices high, selling nothing, yet occupying a good spot for months because entrance fee is insignificant?
...And if the price was high, then what happens if all the venders are empty?
There are cases where every price/tax point breaks. That's why it's silly to think there's one true balance point.
honestly ever since finding out how much the rent is i swore never even to waste cash learning it even if its free alot of playerstalls especially gem ones are disappearing left and right cuz of this crap thats why im not bothering
The rent isn't that bad if you only rent a shop 1 to maybe 3 times a month. Which is probably the intended effect of the increasing rent system, but raises the problem of where you are going to store the things that you are planning on selling next week until then.
That being said, the main reason I picked up retail management is that my money will be wiped but my skills won't be, so raising retail management now seemed like a good investment even if I'm losing cash. My store actually turned out to be surprisingly profitable (making a slight profit as opposed to my planned money drain), but if I was trying to make money in PG, I wouldn't pick renting a vendor stall as my best opportunity.
I don't think the gem stalls have disappeared because of the rent though, I suspect players just got tired of surveying all the time.