Economy and Inflation

[Shadowsun]

I strongly second the expensive-rotating-gold shop idea.
And if putting out that many new creatures is too much for the artists, perhaps the shop could only rotate every two months? We have, by my count, 102 donation-only creatures right now. That's over a third of the creatures released. Perhaps part of the reason new users are leaving is because they think that there are too many creatures they can't get? Having a rotating shop would at least guarantee that the non-donars get a new creature every month or two.

[Ryu97]

I strongly second the expensive-rotating-gold shop idea.
And if putting out that many new creatures is too much for the artists, perhaps the shop could only rotate every two months? We have, by my count, 102 donation-only creatures right now. That's over a third of the creatures released. Perhaps part of the reason new users are leaving is because they think that there are too many creatures they can't get? Having a rotating shop would at least guarantee that the non-donars get a new creature every month or two.

It would be like the donation shop, but instead of paying shards we pay gold. For example, every one or two months, there are three creatures released in this shop. Following the way the donation shop works, they could put two version of a creature, one less valuable than the other, and price them at 20k and 15k (just the prices I think for rare and limited shop creatures). Then, there could be another creature less valuable, at 10k.

Or maybe there should be just different version of a creature, one cheaper, and one expensive, like already suggested in another post.

[SouthernCryptid]

Except for, 20-15K is not enough to be a super-effective gold sink.

We need expensive. 30K+ ATLEAST. Gold needs to be eaten. That's the whole point of a gold sink.

And to work, it needs to have creatures people want. Not a 'tapeworm with magical healing powers', a 'super-snail', or an 'epic random thing I totally pulled out of the sky'. People should want to buy this stuff.

To make it an effective gold sink at least.

For example, people seem to love these new owls. Semi-Effective gold sink right there. *nod* Now give us epic stuff like that, only costing a bunch of gold. I would have bought these owls even if they costed 50K gold. We have some REALLY AMAZING artists here right now- and I'm sure that they can draw stuff that people would buy no-matter-what it costs in in-game currency.
On a side note- I understand the need to be original in your artwork, but sometimes, no matter how epically shiny your amazing artwork is, and how much we love it- we really don't like tapeworms as a whole.

Now, this poses the "problem" of not every Jane and Joe being able to get these beasts as soon as they join. But hey, do they really need to? The point of the gold sink is to eat gold from people that have 20bazillionmilliongoldz to get some of it out of the system. Many other sites are not afraid of giving the newbies something to work for.

I mean, I worked for my Amarth Alagos forever.

[Ryu97]

I know that, and I also know that people would buy a wolf or something everybody badly wants for more than 50k. This shop should be about dream creatures that people can buy with gold, and not for real money.
It should be called "The Creatures of Dreams Shop" (crappy title )

[BBkat]

Except for, 20-15K is not enough to be a super-effective gold sink.

I dunno, for a temp creature it seems fine.
Remember the Aculeus and Xocomels? The most expensive of those was 10k, yet people were spending well over 100k in that shop because they were temporary.
Same with the Jackalopes 5k and 10k and again, people spent well over 100k in gold on them. That seems like a pretty effective gold sink to me.
If it's a temporary creature, even at a low price, people will rush to but them before they swap out and that's what make them effective gold sinks.
If they're too expensive people won't buy them.

[SouthernCryptid]

You do have a point there. *nods* I hadn't thought of this in terms of the shorter rotating creatures (like the solstice shop or the candies).

[Chimera]

People who dont like to goldmine wont buy the creatures if they're that high, specially if they're creatures that have already been released into magistream such as the doni's which we seem to be swapping around the idea of having in the rotating shop.

I would goldmine everyday to get the ones i liked but its not exactly what i want to do if they're limited time, despite myself being online every day, all day nearly, i have a life and also other interests too :/ a permanent shop creature would allow me to goldmine as i desired till i could purchase them and i could just keep going on like that till i lose interest in it.

But a rotating shop needs low priced creatures since not everyone who wants them will be able to get them from the shop and then they'll buy em from players for inflated prices and that gold wont be taken out of the system. The sellers gold will, but not the buyers gold.

I also dont really like the idea of having adults have gold points removed from them anymore, it would give people incentive to click in peoples keeps even when they shouldnt and thus make hatchlings grow when they dont want them growing but want them exhibited next to their adult versions.

People who are selling hatchlings would find their babies being clicked when they want them to remain as hatchlings for people who are looking for babies for their own collections and the trade windows are not very viewing friendly so hiding them would make it a nightmare for the seller to pick out a specific % or date or codenumber from the mass army they might have in there.

It would put a lot of stress on those who are running the image free sites since the IFN is only so big, we can only click once every 12 hours, and the image free goldmine is pretty much all adults since hundreds of hatchlings are turning into adults everyday and a lot of hatchlings that are still babies arent allowed by their owners to be clicked so thats a lot of potential gold there gone since the owners want them as babies.

Rotating shop with low priced already encoded creatures such as past doni's and limited time event creatures and maybe a shop designed to sell permanent creatures for high prices (put a hold on stream creatures for now and place all newly made creatures in different shops for a bit. One or two in dark brotherhood, a few in remy's inn, some more in the water shop, a couple more in trading post, make an expensive overpriced shop that has exotic and much desired creatures). We'll see gold draining faster that way if we stop with the stream since its getting extremely overcrowded and instead have low priced shop creatures.

People who dont goldmine can make gold by catching existing stream creatures and selling them. No reason those people shouldnt make gold off existing players. What they do with the gold is up to them but if we stop adding new creatures to the stream for a bit, people will most likley be using that gold to buy the new shop creatures.

TL;DR:

Stop adding creatures to the stream

Add permanent expensive shop

Add new low priced creatures to the other shops when the artists are ready to release them

dont remove the adults ability to give gold

add a rotating shop selling past doni's and limited creatures (giftborns and events for example that dont come every year) for low prices. To prevent people from getting mad at this, place a marker somewhere in its profile that can be researched on the Magistream Wiki that states that this creature is not original. Pretty much so it doesnt affect the originals, reload these creatures under a different codename.

(Example: Temple Cat. If the creatures code is 'TempleCat' then add it into the system a second time under the name 'TempleCat2' and this file can have the marker and the original wont. Please note that i dont know website coding but if its anything like simply uploading a picture to whatever like say, tinypic, or uploading it right from the computer, making a second copy of the file should work.)

[BBkat]

add a rotating shop selling past doni's and limited creatures (giftborns and events for example that dont come every year) for low prices. To prevent people from getting mad at this, place a marker somewhere in its profile that can be researched on the Magistream Wiki that states that this creature is not original. Pretty much so it doesnt affect the originals, reload these creatures under a different codename.

(Example: Temple Cat. If the creatures code is 'TempleCat' then add it into the system a second time under the name 'TempleCat2' and this file can have the marker and the original wont. Please note that i dont know website coding but if its anything like simply uploading a picture to whatever like say, tinypic, or uploading it right from the computer, making a second copy of the file should work.)

Just one problem there-

2. Make Donation creatures available for gold- denied
3. Re-release discontinued Donation creatures- Denied

[Chimera]

Thats retarded... just add a marker on the new ones like how i suggested, they're already on magistream so no point in keeping them retired if you indicate they're not originals, it keeps both sides happy cause no ones paying real money for those retired ones. Those who want the originals will still pay today's price for them. Just start at the very very very very beginning so people wont want to wait however long it would take to get what is presently the new release. 105 doni's, starting at the beginning which is 2 1/2 years ago, by the time Tzunun Mouse is in the shop, it'd be like year 2014

[Firepaw]

TL;DR:

Stop adding creatures to the stream

Add permanent expensive shop

Add new low priced creatures to the other shops when the artists are ready to release them

dont remove the adults ability to give gold

add a rotating shop selling past doni's and limited creatures (giftborns and events for example that dont come every year) for low prices. To prevent people from getting mad at this, place a marker somewhere in its profile that can be researched on the Magistream Wiki that states that this creature is not original. Pretty much so it doesnt affect the originals, reload these creatures under a different codename.

(Example: Temple Cat. If the creatures code is 'TempleCat' then add it into the system a second time under the name 'TempleCat2' and this file can have the marker and the original wont. Please note that i dont know website coding but if its anything like simply uploading a picture to whatever like say, tinypic, or uploading it right from the computer, making a second copy of the file should work.)

?? I feel streamcreatures jump-start the economy so much more then shop creatures. Permanent shop? Or permanent creature? Permanent expensive shop creatures do nothing for us. Look at the Tullyans, I don't even know how old they are and they've lost most all of their sparkly, where the deer and rays are still very highly sought after, despite being much older.

Where are we without steam creatures? Running around goldmining and raising creatures to get gold to buy said shop creatures. Both of which generate more gold. I think 10k-ish is quite possibly the best price, the perfect price for accidentally spending way more gold then you planned on. (Which is, the idea, I believe.) Though you have to stay decently lower so you don't have people goldmining and then realizing they don't want the creature which just puts more gold into the system.

Also, rare creatures are meant to stay rare. There's a reason we got the temple dog. Not to mention that as it has been said, a creature's rarity has very little to go with the amount of gold in the system. Even if there was less gold overall (pretend 100 gold is what you call 100k) my (in general) donation pet is still worth more then your (in general) SB koi.

edit;

5. Guarantee that every player can have a complete set of every creature (including discontinued Donation creatures and Quest creatures)- denied