09-5-2011 at 2:02 PM

Love the idea of rare items that could be bought only for cash, and not resold for bones. Not sure how the coding would work... And I think what Lauren meant by "maybe more people will donate then" is that people wouldn't be able to sell the rare items for bones, so that wouldn't be an avenue for bone-profit, so people would need to donate to get bones for stuff. But I could be reading it all wrong >.&lt;<br /> <br /> I still like my suggestion of a rare item exchange for Ala cash (maybe just cause it was my idea...haha). I'd definitely waste away a ton of my cash in that thing XD

09-5-2011 at 12:44 PM

Lauren, you had me agreeing up until "maybe bone donations would go up". If the prices on rare items were <b>cash only</b>, I can't see someone spending USD to buy bones to trade into game-currency :P

08-29-2011 at 3:00 PM

Make rare items that can only be purchased with Ala cash and not bones. And set it so they cannot be resold in shops for bones. You could do it gradually, maybe one high-ticket item along with the monthlies. That way users would be forced to spend their ala cash if they want the items, and can convert bones to cash to do so. (perhaps bone donations would go up).<br /> I'm no economist, I am sure that's full of flaws somewhere.<br />

08-27-2011 at 8:37 PM

Oh no I agree with 20K bone prices in the monthly shop. That's alright to me. But I was using the monthly shop as an example of the price hike. It just doesn't make sense to me for people to say "increase prices on objects" at the same time as "let's try to get more money out of circulation/make people have less money"

08-27-2011 at 6:58 PM

Well when was the last time a bone was worth 10k? 20k is much more reflective of the economy. =3

08-27-2011 at 5:37 PM

Something I don't understand about all this is.. people are saying "lower the amount of $$ people have"... but then... "increase the price of monthly shop" :P

08-27-2011 at 4:18 PM

I like the new trial prize look. People should definitely not be punished for have TP capped dogs. That just makes no sense considering how many rare items went into those lines and how much people spent of buying them, they deserve the extra money.<br /> <br /> Monthly shop prices, it honestly had to happen some day. People will get over it and we will be better for it.<br /> <br /> I feel that why we have donation items, most people sit on their cash(usd) till they hit a double or triple special, and that is a lot of money that doesn't get to ala because they are getting bones cheap once a month. Changing this would probably get even more negative responses than the monthly shop prices though. I can't really think of a way that can reward big donations as well as still encourage smaller ones. <br /> I had thought of maybe having that if you donate over 20, you'd get the double, then over 30 the triple. But $1 and $2 donations do add up, so i am still thinking.<br /> <br /> Also i think that the pay out in the games is contributing a ton to the to much money floating around. You can make around 11k a day playing games. That is a quite a bit when added up with trial winnings and selling items and such. The pay out has not been adjusted at all since we have added around 3 new games.<br /> <br /> Also i don't see why money hoarding is killing the economy. Millionaires have worked their butts off for that money and it's quite rude that they are getting blamed for the economy and pretty much being forced into spending it. Most people who have a lot, hoard it and never spend it. Plus i usually spend my interest on monthly shop things so it just get taken out of the site.<br /> Same thing with interest, that was one of the main reasons i upgraded. And i am still not happy you have to manually claim it. Tweaking it more will never get me to spend my money. <br /> <br /> I think the economy is going down hill because the site is so slow. It takes around a year for a dog to die on here. That means that either you get people who don't buy dogs often or you get people who buy a ton and then just contribute more to the overpopulation of dogs. Plus if you do not have these 'luxury items' you will have an even smaller effect of the amount of dogs because it takes you so long to max a dog and then breed it/sell it. Which is slow again. So people hoard their money waiting till they can afford another dog to take care of or till they can get these luxury items so they can speed things up.

08-27-2011 at 12:31 PM

It appears I accidentally killed this thread. Sorry >.&lt;

08-25-2011 at 7:09 AM

I feel like I should clarify my 'donation tiers' idea from my last post.. I don't mean people get Ala cash when donating USD - that would be silly. And actually as I'm typing this, I'm realizing I have no idea what I meant XD So... Never mind. <br /> <br /> I'll stick with my random-rare-item-exchange-for-cash idea instead :D

08-25-2011 at 6:47 AM

But then, won't the saing up for the custom companion result in more money hoarding again? XD<br /> <br /> Sure, some users might spent a few million on it altogether, but users will start to save a few milion to get them. And since they are saving, they are more reluctant to spend said money.

08-24-2011 at 8:23 PM

Also, copied from my post in robins 'trial prizes' board.<br /> <br /> " One possible solution is a sloped fee/prize system. I've made an example here.<br /> <br /> <img width="400" src="http://i.imgur.com/YhfK1.png"><br /> <br /> The fee+prize ammount would rise pretty steeply with low level dogs, but the higher you get, the more that levels off (but never completely.)<br /> <br /> This would make breeding for high TP dogs worth the effort, without making money worth less than air. <br /> At no point should a dog make less money than a lower TP dog. "

08-24-2011 at 8:20 PM

Copied from my post on jackdaws board, because I feel it belongs here to.<br /> <br /> <br /> "custom companions, with a 'companion maker' like we have for custom dogs, but for ala cash, could be a good money sink. it would be within-reach, and yet expensive enough to put a dent in the cash problem on the site. We could say it cost 500,000 as a base price, and then an extra 100,000-300,000 per marking (with not all markings valued equally.)<br /> Not everyone would be able to afford them off the bat though.<br /> The richer users could put their money into it immediately, but if a 'common' user wants to get one, they would have to put effort into saving up for them. :3"

08-24-2011 at 5:07 PM

An interesting way to channel a great deal of money out of the economy without introducing more would perhaps introduce a luxury "breed?" ^^<br /> <br /> A cat pet. Functions exactly like an Alacrity dog but cannot participate in any trials, beauty shows, frisbee games, etc. They should not be able to breed either. Purely for personal ownership.<br /> <br /> It will be primarily for show at an expensive rate to purchase. It may have its own set of equippable breed items that are purchased in a store specifically for them at increased prices.<br /> <br /> Though it can still equip all basic backgrounds and non-breed specific items.<br /> <br /> With the idea said, I do not support low TP dogs overcoming high TP dogs as it would make the total potential system completely obsolete after all the effort, time, and money that has been put in by many users.<br /> <br /> Alacrity is an agility sim and quality should be considered. ^^ It should be something to strive for and rewarded; most have just only begun to break even on their expenses put in with all things considered, the road to owning a top dog is most certainly not free.<br /> <br /> I rather think towards a solution that works in unity as a community than creating a blame culture that indirectly attacks certain users or attempts to sabotage them.

08-24-2011 at 3:13 PM

How about stop the multiplier and give a fixed amount of cash for dogs with extra boosts resulting from drive/speed/etc. like ala used to do. This way a dog with 4000TP can be beat by a dog with 500TP because the 500 one has higher speed and drive.<br /> <br /> Also, bring prices back down. With lower prices and lower winnings, we should help balance the economy somewhat.

08-24-2011 at 3:05 PM

I've noticed what Alc has said. I've seen very high tp dogs bring in tens of thousands of dollars in just a couple runs. I say lower high-tp trials a bit but raise low-tp trials to make it worth trialing dogs

08-24-2011 at 1:55 PM

I really don't like the idea of tweaking trial winnings/bank interest. I'm not a rich player by any means, and getting rid of these would seriously hinder my ability to buy anything. I rely on trialing to get money (and look forward to the weekly interest as a sort of reward for saving up money - getting the interest makes me more likely to go out and splurge :D). I have one group of dogs I'm currently trialing - my 5k, 2k, 1k, and two customs. Obviously the 5k, 2k, and 1k win, but I trial them once per day - that's 4 trials (well, usually 3 since I only fill my own trials and leave the rest for other people). <br /> <br /> Rather than lowering trail winnings, would it be possible to make it possible to only run 4 trails per dog per day? That way you won't get people with TP-cap dogs spamming tons of trials because they're able to afford reviatlizers, but it would still be possible to make enough money to keep people happy. <br /> <br /> I'm not sure how to decrease the amount of ala cash in circulation without taking it away from people XD I mean, there's the obvious "Get them to spend money!" but that's hard to do... I guess there could be something a little like the bone special a while ago.. If you donated blank amount of USD, you got a double special. If you donated even more, you got a triple and a rare item. If you donated even <i>more</i>, you got a triple and a few rare items. If they instituted something like this with ala cash for a limited time, people may be encouraged to spend more cash. I mean, I'd even be more than happy to shell out ala cash for the random rare item exchange - instead of 10 bones for 2 items, maybe 350000 for 2 random rare items, or 175000 for 1. It would, of course, be a different option and you could limit what sorts of items go into it (obviously you wouldn't put a MWB in that selection!). <br /> <br /> That's all I have for now. Brainz are fried from class O.O

08-24-2011 at 1:04 PM

Decrease trial prizes.<br /> <br /> i;m sorry, but there are TOO many TP capped dogs bringing in millions of dollars in a few days.<br /> <br /> Why hasn't anyone really realized that yet?<br /> <br /> When the dogs had TPs in the 400s and that was considered high, we had absolutely no issues. Now, with dogs with 10k TP winning HUGE cash, how does that help decrease our overall cash?

08-24-2011 at 12:07 PM

This is where the <a href="http://www.alacritysim.com/forums.php?boardid=8846&category=Suggest%20Something!">Bone Barn</a> idea between Carni and I came from - the floundering economy. Monthly shop is too expensive for a lot of users, so doesn't encourage site wide spending. A 1 bone item shop where things can still be bought with cash does, however, and allows poorer users to still get rare items. <br /> <br /> I don't support the value of bones being tweaked. This is something that can be fixed in-game without that.<br /> <br /> EDIT: Err, I mean usd value, not ala cash value. The latter seriously does need to happen.

08-24-2011 at 12:03 PM

Hm.... and maybe then, every time a gold-mountain item is sold, the money is devided up evenly amongst all the users, perhaps? Not sure about this idea.

08-24-2011 at 11:57 AM

mountain-of-cash/gold/gems/something item that cost like 1 million ala-cash, and just looks pretty behind your dog? maybe? XD