Eve has been 'dying' since I started almost 3 years ago. Yet it's better today than it's ever been!

The delfationary force of a fixed money supply is very different from the deflation caused by a credit crunch in fiat debt regime. I am very sure that your pro-keynsian text books tell you that deflation is the devil, but it is a lie.

With the desire to keep this thread unocked, and not devolve into a semi-political disciussion, I won't get into it. But feel free to mail me if you want.

You seem to agree with Lenin, therefore you are a communist (and a Keynesian).

Communists! In my MD!!!!

Back on track I think the main count against a fixed money supply is that it would be less fun. Imagine if no one could do missions because the NPC corps were out of isk, bounties being suspended when CONCORD is broke.

The economy of EVE would need to be completely reworked.

Surely such a system would lead to wealth ending up in the hands of a select few? Those who have the means to produce?

As a miner, if I was careful (Not getting my ships blown up all the time and not wasting money on unneeded purchases) then in theory once I had all the equipment I needed, then I'd make money, but not use it - rather I'd just slowly watch my wealth grow. And in a closed system this would surely be essentially equal to money being taken out of the game. As I would not likely utilize it. Multiply this by however many other players could do similar (and also the heads of alliances and that, which get paid via tax) then the ISK 'in circulation' would slowly decrease. And I can't decide whether this would be a good or bad thing.

Nonetheless, I think it would be a good idea - make it more like a RL economy - which is always interesting!

Limiting the amount of ISK is equal to shutting down a part of the economy.

Let's suppose I'm a miner. I mine a lot of Trit, but I'm not able to sell it.
If I can't get ISK, I have two options: either hoard my Trit, or offer my goods via contract. Maybe, we will get a substitute for ISKs but that would certainly limit the market transactions and would destroy a part of the market...

[...] But now I think there is pleanty of isk in the universe to support a closed system.

Limiting the amount of ISK is equal to shutting down a part of the economy.

Let's suppose I'm a miner. I mine a lot of Trit, but I'm not able to sell it.
If I can't get ISK, I have two options: either hoard my Trit, or offer my goods via contract. Maybe, we will get a substitute for ISKs but that would certainly limit the market transactions and would destroy a part of the market...

To fix the money supply i personally think the following should happen:

1) STOP giving default insurance payouts. if you don't buy insurance you don't get a ISK back. If you want any kind of insurance money back you will have to buy a plan (make insurance its own closed system).

2) Make the Mission/Ratting bounties/rewards a closed system. Is not hard... you just take ALL the isk sinks BPO/Skillbook pruchases, Sell/buy order TAXes, Etc, (everything but INSURANCE) and put it into the CONCORD wallet. For new player compensation take the other have of the 500m average wallet (EI 250m) and put that directly into the CONCORD wallet when they join.

3) I konw the minerals supply use to be closed and i say go back to it, And as far as "hard" to conpensate for new players is bullcrap. All they have to do is take the "average player wealth which i was was like 500m last QEN and devide it in half and then put that 250m worth of minerals (split evenly via average basket) and put it to the mineral pool.

I can see in the way back in the "begining" of eve when there was little isk in the in the universe and alot of players and OPEN system worked best... but now I think there is pleanty of isk in the universe to support a closed system.

Enjoy,
ISK Hoarder
Loney

While I can profit despite a fixed amount currency, I think the hoarding problem will overcome any amount of initial supply. And we ignore the players who already have massive amounts of isk. There will be whine threads.

I think a currency with modest inflation is better. It encourages people to use that isk rather than sit on it. WIth fixed amount currency, a viable strategy is to simply sell off everything you own and come back in a few years. That shouldn't be a guaranteed profit IMHO.

Since this idea has come up in a conversation in this forum, and it shows up everyonce in a while, I thought why not have the discussion. CCP won't do this, but could be an interesting discussion regardless.

The floated idea was, in the simplest terms, freeze the ISK supply.

To do this there would need to be ways to cycle the ISK back to players from the NPC side of the economy. Ideas to do that have been NPC stocks that pay dividends, NPC (Concord) pays bounties only so long as they have money available. Concord switches to LPs and stops giving ISK bounties, and a few other ideas of this nature.

One of the big problems with this idea is what to do with NPC stocks if the owning player goes inactive? So perhaps NPC bonds would be better since they have a date certain attached?

But another problem is what about ISK sitting in wallets of inactive accounts. What should be done about that then? One idea is to "take" the ISK from inactive accounts and the NPC corp with which the player has the highest standing, gives that player LPs, which can be used to buy bonds, should the player return.

If gamecraft theory tickles your fancy, share a thought. We know CCP won't do this, so a conversation just for fun.

Have at it.

Limiting the amount of ISK is too dangerous.

In case a strategy is found to extract loads of money out of the cycle or more players are about to enter that game, less money is spread among all players and CONCORD. Less money ready to be consumed with a, lets say stable amount of wares on market, leads to inflation. So prices are rising but mission runner are not able to retrieve more money from CONCORD. That means players are pissing of and quit EVE.

You could dry out the whoole EVE economy with a freezed ISK supply.

One of the big problems with this idea is what to do with NPC stocks if the owning player goes inactive? So perhaps NPC bonds would be better since they have a date certain attached?

But another problem is what about ISK sitting in wallets of inactive accounts. What should be done about that then? One idea is to "take" the ISK from inactive accounts and the NPC corp with which the player has the highest standing, gives that player LPs, which can be used to buy bonds, should the player return.

While I can profit despite a fixed amount currency, I think the hoarding problem will overcome any amount of initial supply. And we ignore the players who already have massive amounts of isk. There will be whine threads.

I think a currency with modest inflation is better. It encourages people to use that isk rather than sit on it. WIth fixed amount currency, a viable strategy is to simply sell off everything you own and come back in a few years. That shouldn't be a guaranteed profit IMHO.

Limiting the amount of ISK is too dangerous.

In case a strategy is found to extract loads of money out of the cycle or more players are about to enter that game, less money is spread among all players and CONCORD. Less money ready to be consumed with a, lets say stable amount of wares on market, leads to inflation. So prices are rising but mission runner are not able to retrieve more money from CONCORD. That means players are pissing of and quit EVE.

You could dry out the whoole EVE economy with a freezed ISK supply.

Hording Tax

As one of those "Dirty Hoarders" i would be in favor of paying some kind of Hoarder tax, or something like the Federal Tax system where everyone ingame pays a Percentage to CONCORD monthly. Say 1-2% of your entire net worth monthly, and if you didn't have the ISK you would get a negative ballance and you have to be forced to sell your 100b in assets or keep enought isk on hand to pay the taxes. This would also solve the issues of "inactive accounts / Corps" with the idle isk, and be able to keep the system CLOSED..

As one of those "Dirty Hoarders" i would be in favor of paying some kind of Hoarder tax, or something like the Federal Tax system where everyone ingame pays a Percentage to CONCORD monthly. Say 1-2% of your entire net worth monthly, and if you didn't have the ISK you would get a negative ballance and you have to be forced to sell your 100b in assets or keep enought isk on hand to pay the taxes. This would also solve the issues of "inactive accounts / Corps" with the idle isk, and be able to keep the system CLOSED.

That would remove my objection to the plan as long as the tax was just applied to the wallet and not general assets. Then it would be equivalent to modest inflation (without the risk of greater inflation).

If assets aren't included you could 'convert' all liquid ISK into assets before the tax to avoid it. Making it rather redundant.

The biggest issue is that CONCORD has no economic rent to cover bounties, unless you can propose something to fulfil that role there is no point tinkering around the edges and this idea is dead in the water.

If assets aren't included you could 'convert' all liquid ISK into assets before the tax to avoid it. Making it rather redundant.

Inflation currently encourages people to do something with their money other than hold onto it.

Concord does not have to pay bounties in ISK. It could be Concord LP, it could be nothing at all too. There does need to be a mechanic to get ISK back into the player side of the economy away from the NPCs, but it does not have to be concord.

Since this entire conversation is just academic, as we all know CCP won't do this, the sky is the limit on ideas.

i can only see a massive gap increasing between wealthy players and the rest of the playerbase.