Creating a need for money and classes.

The Problem.

Let's take a look at an average day in the Guardians capital city.

We see that the majority of classes are mages, then comes various other combat classes, a handful of blacksmiths ,and scarce to no alchemists.

Although they are very different classes, they spend their day doing the exact same thing. Logically, an economy with this many individuals being primarily consumers, and very little producers would be doomed to fail. Why haven't they? Because as you will see, money is basically worthless and in turn so are the classes.

They ALL make their money by either:

1. Mining gold
2. Selling whatever the in demand building material is that their leader wants. (Sandstone, obsidian, wool, ect.)
3. Doing some simple task for a leader and being paid WAY too much. (Talk is that someone was paid 4k to build a simple door?)

You probably notice that something is missing. Very few actually generate serious income by doing something class specific.

Think about it for a second. Don't you think its odd that a MAGE is digging around, smelting ores for money? Isn't that the blacksmiths job?

The unfortunate truth is that the only reason mage is chosen over other classes, is its ability to blink.

My solution is a radical change, I warn you. But it will turn this server from "Survival with skills" to the Community based struggle for dominance between two warring cities that it was meant to be.



The Solution.

Here comes the part that I really need you to bear with me on. I guarantee there is going to be things no one really wants to see put in place. Keep in mind that it will make the server FAR more impressive and entertaining once things settle down.


BLACKSMITHS/VULCANS

The ONLY class that can smelt ores other than gold (so the cities gold supply can continue to grow.)

This will stop other classes from mining, smelting bars, and having them crafted into tools/armor cheaply, keeping the blacksmiths/vulcans role strong.

The ONLY class that can create items made from metals. This includes buckets, clocks, compasses ect.

All classes will have the ability to mine, but only the blacksmith/vulcan can smelt ores other than gold. This way people can make a few extra Jbucks from selling gold to the town or ores to the blacksmiths.

All other abilities stay unchanged.

This will guarantee that there will be a NEED for blacksmiths/vulcans and a further NEED for money.



ALCHEMIST/CULTISTS


By far the most useless class at the moment. These fixes will cause a strong demand and bring the alchemist/cultist a place in society.

The ONLY class that can produce ANY type of food.

If its possible, I would even suggest having it so that only alchemists/cultists can get raw pork dropped from pigs.

All other abilities stay unchanged.




COMBAT CLASSES


The problem with combat classes at the moment is that... none of them care for combat. As I said above they just chose the class for some ability (blink) because they know that they can make money the same way with any class.... that's about to change.

Combat classes cannot create ANY food and cannot smelt ANY ores (other than gold into bars). As well as not being able to make ANY metal tools.

How will combat classes draw any sort of income then? Other than a few Jbucks from gold, they will have to man up and either switch to a production class or...

Kill enemy players for 40% of that players current money plus any revenue from selling drops.

If you chose a combat class, you should be doing combat.

40% may sound like a lot, but consider the following. Combat classes will HAVE to fight to earn money. This means that we will be seeing many more wars and wilderness outposts start popping up. So most kills will be combat vrs. combat. Productions classes will have to realize the increased risk (40% money lost on death) for increased reward (More money being paid for their trade, more resources in the wilderness).



Conclusion.



If my ideas are implemented exactly as I have written them, then the economy will be balanced in a way that all classes will be in trade with all classes.


For example, a Blacksmith will buy food from a Alchemist for his mining, since he cannot produce food on his own. In turn, the Blacksmith will sell his armor and weapons to a combat class. The combat class will use the Blacksmiths armor and weapons, the Alchemists food to go and fight, earning money from kills and loot. The cycle then repeats in many ways and forms, promoting a healthy thriving economy.




What you are about to read is perhaps one of the most important parts of all of this.

Its a radical change. Not even I will like every single part but if we do not put this into play then we will be stuck on just a limited survival server. No one will ever (legitimately) gain the money for towns ect. if we do not put this in place, thus we will all be stuck on our little plots everyone blinking everywhere as a mage.


To get this to work, you are going to have to put EVERY idea into play. If you don't, it will become unbalanced and unplayable.

If you decide to use these ideas, I would HIGHLY suggest you allow free class changes for a while, as people (mages who only blink) will want to change to a class that better suits them. And for the love of god STOP PAYING OUT RIDICULOUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY FOR SIMPLE CHORES . It adds NOTHING to the economy other than one player getting an unfair advantage over others. No amount of chores should ever exceed 1k total pay in a day.


I can bet you that you will have people complaining that they want to play mage, but don't want to fight. Well, its tough luck. This economy update is for the greater good. If you want to play a class, you need to ACTUALLY PLAY THAT CLASSES ROLE.


Anyway, I can promise that after this settles down we will have an actual working economy. Not just this survival server thing we have going on now. I know that you probably think that it will be difficult for one class to pay for the goods they need. You CAN'T judge this economy with the economy we currently have. Once competition and supply and demand will come into play, prices will become more reasonable, and money will be plentiful.

But most importantly I want you to give it a shot, and realize that this is going to take some time (and a little butthurt from blinking mages) to totally get straightened out. I'd say it could take up to a week for the new economy to form. The one thing I can PROMISE is that it will be a far more enjoyable server.

Believe me, this is pretty much my exact vision of what i wanted out of this server. One thing you fail to see is that minecraft has limitations. I've tried my best to divide each class but yet give them all the ability to play together... mining is something you can just tell one class that there is no point in you doing it. It's impossible to restrict item drops per a group at this moment in server development. As logical as all the ideas are they may not implement to well into a survival server. you've just assumed that a mage, theif and crusadar are the same thing they all have tactics which can be used in there class to give them an advantage. Honestly i do appreciate feed back and ideas more than anything someone offers me (even crappy $10 donations). Although, I can see where you are coming from, When i began work on this server my vision was that one class would be FORCED to rely on another. Minecraft has limitations, sometimes our imagination goes beyond these limits. I'd love to hear more ideas from you but possibly within the limitations of minecraft and not so full scale.

Further note:
-Payment for the door was 1200 JBucks which was appropriate if you look at Pere250's shop pricing.
-The "small chorus" are hours of effort, a double chest of sandstone is far from a small feat.
-None of the money is corrupt. I earnt my money just like anyone else on the server mining gold for hours.. i just might have more free time then your "average Joe" <- lol.
-I can help but feel you favour the class your in... you insisted on the updating of lich/mage untill you became a rouge...?



Thanks for the suggestions..
-Joe

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EDIT:

I will include the blacksmiths/Vulcans making all tools/objects from metal... Things like this are logical to me.

There simply needs to be restrictions on what classes can or can't make.

All we need is to restrict it as MUCH as possible.

If its possible to restrict the cooking of pork to alchemists, we need to do it.

If its possible to restrict the smelting of ores to blacksmiths, we need to do it.


I guess all we could do tighten our grip as much as possible. I just hated having to rely on mining gold for cash when i was a vulcan. I could have charged for services as a vulcan but either no one had the money or they were out getting anything they needed on their own, making money only good for things like nether access and not buying from other players. That's why I was hoping it was possible to stop classes from doing another classes job, such as getting resources, it just winds up being far too much survival and too little economy.

Honestly my hands are tied, restricting furnace recipes is a lot harder than a crafting recipe... I mean i can try buy im not prepared to make full scale changes so one class has a better way of making money because he/she doesnt fight. I still want people to have the option to do what they like...

What i'm looking for is alternate money making techniques as the problem lies that there is only two ways to make money:
-Mine for gold
-Do Jobs for the people who have mined gold (BTW we can pay as much as we like... as can you. + the offers are open to you to so there is no advantage).

Come up with more money making techniques and i'll pat you on the back... untill then i guess there isn't much that i can do.

The problem is more that money only has uses in buying things like nether access or plot protection, all of which are one time deals. There is almost no reason to buy from other players so money making methods could only get us so far.

Your oddly good at pointing out flaws...

come up with alternate money methods and other ways to spend the money... Remember this whole server comes from what i think of in my head...

But, please do me a favour. Try to find alternate methods for things rather than to just point out what i've done wrong... it makes me feel a little better about the things i spend hours working on...

-Joe