28 Nov, 2013, Runter wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Sounds crazy, but I think you could do it. Want to discuss. Please read carefully.

Litecoins are currently $43 per. You could, for example, have monsters drop as little as 0.000001 and it would be a trivial amount as cost to you. As players cash in, if they choose to do so, you can increase the drop rates proportionately.

For example, if you have 1 litecoin as your total game bank (internal store) then the algorithm might only drop 0.000001 litecoin. After some players cash in and spend their litecoin in game, your total system bank might go up to 100 litecoins. The system could then proportionately increase. The 0.000001 drop rate would go to 0.0001.

It sort of also eliminates the pay to win model since the currency is recirculated to other players. As in the system bank exhausts the amount being generated for NPC kills, or quest rewards, would reduce as well.

The business model could be taking a very small fraction from any transaction that happens in game. If you're successful in growing the economy of the game (presumably because more people are playing) then economics of scale would benefit you greatly.

I should also mention that the process for deposit and withdraw into your game can be completely automated, is anonymous, and is almost free. You don't really have to implement any know-your-customer overhead like you will with just about any other payment processor.
28 Nov, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Hmmm, so you're suggesting that players would buy into the game using litecoins, and then as they go about their usual business of playing and buying things (potions, armor, food, etc), this would increase the drop rates of loot across the game, gradually diminishing as the players stop spending or growing as they increase spending?

That's an interesting idea. The only downside I see is that you'd need some kind of alternate system for guest players who want to try your game before investing in it (like any MMO that offers a free trial).

Perhaps have the loot system reward "darkcoins" to players who haven't added to the game, and make them redeemable on a 1:1 ratio for litecoins. IE: if they have a balance of 20 darkcoins from running around as a trial character, and then spend the money to buy 1 litecoin, they now participate in the normal economy with 1 litecoin. Their other 19 get locked away until they run out of "real" money.

For that to work, of course, what you can buy with the darkcoins has to be extremely limited. I would guess only newbie equipment and the lowest quality consumables, perhaps repair and rent (if you have those mechanics). That way players can continue to try the game as long as they like, but to advance very far, they'll need to invest.
28 Nov, 2013, Idealiad wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
How difficult is it to actually buy litecoins? I've heard that it's quite hard for non-US people especially to buy bitcoins for example.

Regardless of that I think this is a really neat idea. However remember that there's a reason that most games use a virtual currency to shadow the actual currency (USD or whatever), since fluctuations in the actual currency can have unintended side-effects on your game that you can't control.
28 Nov, 2013, Patriot wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
I like the idea of bitcoin and litecoin. However, neither hold instrinsic value. Whereas precious metals have other uses. Cool idea though, at least world governments can't mass print bitcoin and litecoins. They have a finite amount.

http://4liberty.us
4liberty.us port 4100
29 Nov, 2013, Davion wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Patriot said:
I like the idea of bitcoin and litecoin. However, neither hold instrinsic value. Whereas precious metals have other uses. Cool idea though, at least world governments can't mass print bitcoin and litecoins. They have a finite amount.

http://4liberty.us
4liberty.us port 4100


That's not true. Bitcoins are mined from a math algorithm. There is infact an infinite amount. And anyone could begin mass producing Bitcoins if they wanted. It's not limited to government drunkin conversations with a miner gave me a wrong impression.
29 Nov, 2013, Patriot wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
What did I write that was not true? You must have thought I meant only governments could create bitcoins? There is a finite amount. A finite amount of coins. Once it reaches max, they fractionalize, 1/4 bit coin, 1/10 bit coin. But never any more then max bitcoins.

Bitcoins are created at a decreasing and predictable rate. The number of new bitcoins created each year is automatically halved over time until bitcoin issuance halts completely with a total of 21 million bitcoins in existence. At this point, Bitcoin miners will probably be supported exclusively by numerous small transaction fees.

Won't the finite amount of bitcoins be a limitation?

Bitcoin is unique in that only 21 million bitcoins will ever be created. However, this will never be a limitation because bitcoins can be divided up to 8 decimal places ( 0.000 000 01 BTC ) and potentially even smaller units if that is ever required in the future. As the average transaction size decreases, transactions can be denominated in sub-units of a bitcoin, such as millibitcoins ( 1 mBTC or 0.001 BTC )

I got that info on bitcoins from http://bitcoin.org/en/faq#what-are-the-a...

Which is why precious metals have such good value. There is a finite amount of them. Dollars are created with digital transactions by banks who use our fractionalized system. 250,000 loan no problem the bank only needs 25,000 in savings to loan it via digital transaction. All this digital money transactions the fed is doing with it's quantive easing, will eventually = a great heaping of inflation for the dollar. Once the velocity of money starts.

My thoughts on the dollar come from this site, the real truth about money. http://www.trtam.com/docs/trtam-beta-1.1...


http://4liberty.us
4liberty.us port 4100
29 Nov, 2013, Lyanic wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Davion said:
Patriot said:
I like the idea of bitcoin and litecoin. However, neither hold instrinsic value. Whereas precious metals have other uses. Cool idea though, at least world governments can't mass print bitcoin and litecoins. They have a finite amount.

http://4liberty.us
4liberty.us port 4100


That's not true. Bitcoins are mined from a math algorithm. There is infact an infinite amount. And anyone could begin mass producing Bitcoins if they wanted. It's not limited to government

Sorry, Davion, but this is bad info. Bitcoins are mathematically limited to 21M coins in existence, EVER. No more can be created after that. Their value can increase almost infinitely, though, since a single bitcoin can be divided up into smaller and smaller decimals.

Edit: I see Patriot responded to this already.
29 Nov, 2013, Runter wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
Idealiad said:
How difficult is it to actually buy litecoins? I've heard that it's quite hard for non-US people especially to buy bitcoins for example.

Regardless of that I think this is a really neat idea. However remember that there's a reason that most games use a virtual currency to shadow the actual currency (USD or whatever), since fluctuations in the actual currency can have unintended side-effects on your game that you can't control.


You can do it in an exchange, or a private transaction, or in a MUD (if my plan was in action).

But as far as acquiring litecoins, or bitcoins, goes – it's super free and easy to get a wallet and start collecting them.

For someone with a bank account, passport, and proof of residence acquiring them from a market place is pretty easy.

Full disclosure: I'm pretty heavily invested in litecoins right now :p
01 Dec, 2013, Scandum wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
The biggest problem appears to be that ecoins get lost, and that governments confiscate large amounts of ecoins and hold on to them. This creates deflation, and as far as I know there has never been an un-inflatable currency, meaning that the future of ecoins is pretty much unknown.
01 Dec, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Actually, the future is quite easy to predict, IMHO.

If you bought into bitcoins early on, sell them very soon! If you bougt into litecoins (which came about later), sell them fairly soon. While there is a finite amount of each, as more people decide it's a cool idea, and more vendors start using them, more people will start offering ALTERNATIVE e-coins, which will all be finite, but in parallel and competing ecosystems.

The result will be, the entire concept will tank, since everyone and their brother will have cheap e-coins available, and every megacorporation will likely support ONE (and only ONE) type, most likely hoping you'll buy into theirs and thus have to buy their products. We already see that with SOE's "station cash", Square-Enix's "Crysta", and a dozen others.

So, if you want to hop on the bandwagon, I suggest doing it RIGHT NOW, because in another 5 or 10 years, odds are pretty good they won't be worth much outside their own specific markets.

Also, IMHO, the only way this could have been avoided would have required the bitcoin people to be far more proactive, and connect their system to paypal, and actively push trying to get bitcoins into major online retailors like amazon, blizzard, SOE, and others. They could have become a nice broker between all those various services and currencies, but instead they ended up being a curiosity and most speculative investors bought them to see if they could make money. Some have. Quite a bit in some cases.
02 Dec, 2013, Runter wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
This thread isn't really about the legitimacy or long term outlook on bitcoin, although I'll take the bait and throw in my 0.002 bitcoins.

My take on it after being involved in bitcoin since the infancy is that it's generally unknown where it will be in the future. If you look at the history of what naysayers have been suggesting since inception then it should never have broken 10 cents a coin. Or 1 dollar. Or 10 dollars. Or 100 dollars. Or now 1000.

The truth is it's a high risk proposition, and as the risk reduces, so will the rewards for investing. In general, I think if you support the idea that bitcoin brings to the table then invest. If it does succeed it's a great risk/reward proposition.

Bitcoins are currently at ~1000 USD per coin. I never risked much money in bitcoin, but I originally bought some coins very cheap and later sold them for a small profit (lol, hindsight), then bought about 10 coins at 10 USD each. I've since invested more money into it. I've bought and sold a few times. I've picked up a lot of litecoins as well, which have made me about 400% profit since I bought them. Sometimes I made the right calls, sometimes lost a few dollars. These are anecdotes, so take them for what they are, but I feel better today about the investment than I did at $10 per coin. It's definitely a high risk proposition, but again, if you support the idea and the future it represents for decentralized monetary policy then invest a few bucks.
02 Dec, 2013, Scandum wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
So could a player pocket their ecoins and leave the game at any time? This being the case you might be violating gambling laws.

On the other hand, you could host your server outside the US, and I assume people are already using ecoins to player poker and other games.
02 Dec, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
It wouldn't be gambling. Putting bitcoins into a game economy is investing, and pulling them out is liquidating those investments. You should have to pay whatever capital gains taxes are involved, but it isn't considered gambling.
03 Dec, 2013, Idealiad wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
What's the definition of gambling in the US? I don't even know if that's defined federally or by state.

Regardless, isn't Runter in Singapore? :)
04 Dec, 2013, Runter wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
Idealiad said:
What's the definition of gambling in the US? I don't even know if that's defined federally or by state.

Regardless, isn't Runter in Singapore? :)


Yeah, I'm not in the US. :p

Actually, I guess it's an interesting question if this would be covered by gambling laws.
04 Dec, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
It sounds like a similar situation to Diablo III's Real Money Auction House. It was banned in South Korea for violating anti-gambling laws, but seems to have been allowed elsewhere. However it caused numerous problems (like this and this). Blizzard eventually admitted that it undermined the gameplay, and will be removing the feature in March.

Making real money from killing monsters (even if it's a tiny amount) is perhaps the biggest possible incentive there is for botting. You'd also need an iron-clad EULA to protect you from the inevitable barrage of lawsuits when players lose things due to bugs and such.
04 Dec, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Or, you need to simply not allow people to withdraw anything beyond the amount they deposited.

IE: You deposit 0.25 bitcoins, you play the game and end up with a balance of 0.5 bitcoins. The most the game would allow you to "cash out" would be your initial 0.25. If you played poorly and had LESS than 0.25 bit coins, you could cash out the positive amount your character had.

That keeps it from being a money making opportunity, and thus removed incentive for botting or obsessive behavior, and likely sidesteps many of the laws involving gambling, or investment.

Of course, even easier still, don't allow withdrawl at all. Most MMO's that use alternative currency do NOT allow you to turn it back into cash for that reason. Also, it's a retention mechanic. If you invested $50USD in Guild Wars 2 "Crystals", you're likely going to want to get your money's worth of entertainment out of it, since you can't take it elsewhere.
05 Dec, 2013, Scandum wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
It's a cool concept though. The main problem I see is that you need a money sink to avoid inflation. If you allow players to withdraw money you avoid inflation as some people will put money into the game where as others will take it out. I guess the admins could take money out (tax system), but then you just have a pay for perks system.

If the game gets popular you might be accused of allowing people to gamble, and possible accusations of the administration taking money out of the public pool (what happens with wealthy abandoned characters?). Character hacking might become a bigger problem.

All in all it might work to draw in players hoping to make some money, or those wanting to spend money in a player economy rather than lining the administration's pockets.
05 Dec, 2013, Ssolvarain wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
I think this whole e-currency business is amusing. If I can't take it and buy something in the street with it, it's not really any different than a bond. I don't deal in those, either for the previously mentioned reason. Car stereos, however….
06 Dec, 2013, Runter wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
I think this whole e-currency business is amusing. If I can't take it and buy something in the street with it, it's not really any different than a bond. I don't deal in those, either for the previously mentioned reason. Car stereos, however….


I take your point. It's not easy as cash to spend.

But actually, increasingly you can use bitcoin as a first class currency to buy real things. There's even shops appearing in major cities that accept it as payment in the physical world. I suspect it will increase in the next few years beyond that. I'm working with a startup right now that deals with payment processing in asia using bitcoins at any shop that accepts visa, mastercard, or amex. There's also bitcoin atms springing up where you can convert to local currency.

Also, it's not much different from a paypal balance. It's not real until it's in your bank account. You can pretty easily convert bitcoins over and deposit them to your bank account in the same way. You don't get the benefits of anonymity that way, but some people don't care.
0.0/21