So I'm in the process of making an economy server and I started thinking how do you keep the economy from tanking? What do I have to do to keep the economy from inflating and deflating? The server economy will be all player controlled so I have no say over the price of goods. If I want players to be able to use real money to buy in game money how do I prevent someone flooding the economy with money and making everything worthless? Also is there a way I can set a sales tax on all items sold in the chestshop or a similar plugin like Quickshop and that money goes into an account that can be used for government experiences such as paying players for voting for the server.
It's pretty hard. The best advice I can give is try to keep the economy as "closed" as possible, i.e don't offer money for doing tasks like voting on various sites, etc. Also limit the amount of "admin" type shops (infinite stock, infinite cash). Give players a starting amount of cash and nothing else if you want to go all the way with this.
It's pretty hard. The best advice I can give is try to keep the economy as "closed" as possible, i.e don't offer money for doing tasks like voting on various sites, etc. Also limit the amount of "admin" type shops (infinite stock, infinite cash). Give players a starting amount of cash and nothing else if you want to go all the way with this.
That is Honestly the best way, but no economy will ever be "Perfect"
I would say that some servers manage getting money for donating very well, like the one i personally play on. But you need to give in moderation with what your economy is, and what the amount is that the person is donating.
Try and keep away from things that are a "infinite money source" so things that people can unlimitedly get money from. The right amount on a voting site can be good, but too much will ruin your economy. Same with adminshops. Maybe add a way to buy unobtainables, but other than that, nothing, and make the stuff expensive too!
This will absolutely not work with a few exceptions.
Admin shops must exist as long as it is possible for money to be spontaneously generated. If each new player gets even one dollar, your economy will eventually fail if you go on a system like this. This is 99.9% of servers. The exception would be if there was some sort of central issuing system that ensured that there was a set amount of money in existence that can never fluctuate. Your goal is actually to eliminate money from the system to ward off inflation. Set up HUGE amounts of admin shops. Make admin shops for everything. Make admin shops for exclusive items. Every dollar that an admin shop sucks in is one dollar that won't be inflating you're economy.
I said limit, not get rid of them completely. In the ideal situation (at least in my mind), you'd have a few admin shops buying end-game type items and then you'd have once in a while shops that would pop up for maybe 30 minutes to an hour offering market reasonably prices for mid to high level items (iron, diamond, etc).
If you have a huge number of admin shops, you'll end up crushing player owned shops since they won't be able to compete either price-wise or stock-wise (I've seen it first hand).
I also agree with Jefe on Admin Shops, regarding items like Wood and Stone for example, allow their prices to be set based on their request and demand on your server, because Admin Shops cause a stable price to be set which might damage your economy
For example I am a woodcutter and I cut wood, if an Admin Shop exists I need to sell my wood at a lower cost than the Admin Shop to have people buy from me even though for example it is very hard to get the wood, so the Admin Shops for basic objects such as wood, stone, etc. can damage your economy
Ok so minimal admin shops is a must. So I can give out money for voting and donations but I should try to keep them minimal and maybe offset them with fees like the money spent for protection of their land and small transportation fees for using portals (airplanes), trains, buses and boats. Should players start off with a certain amount of money when they start the server like $1,000? Maybe a good chunk of that goes towards land protection leaving them with $400 (considering that they want protection).
Thanks for any help or ideas you provide me.
That is Honestly the best way, but no economy will ever be "Perfect"
I would say that some servers manage getting money for donating very well, like the one i personally play on. But you need to give in moderation with what your economy is, and what the amount is that the person is donating.
Try and keep away from things that are a "infinite money source" so things that people can unlimitedly get money from. The right amount on a voting site can be good, but too much will ruin your economy. Same with adminshops. Maybe add a way to buy unobtainables, but other than that, nothing, and make the stuff expensive too!
I said limit, not get rid of them completely. In the ideal situation (at least in my mind), you'd have a few admin shops buying end-game type items and then you'd have once in a while shops that would pop up for maybe 30 minutes to an hour offering market reasonably prices for mid to high level items (iron, diamond, etc).
If you have a huge number of admin shops, you'll end up crushing player owned shops since they won't be able to compete either price-wise or stock-wise (I've seen it first hand).
For example I am a woodcutter and I cut wood, if an Admin Shop exists I need to sell my wood at a lower cost than the Admin Shop to have people buy from me even though for example it is very hard to get the wood, so the Admin Shops for basic objects such as wood, stone, etc. can damage your economy
Thanks