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Post by kvalandur on Dec 31, 2012 14:07:33 GMT -6
They haven't said too much on the idea of in-game communications (not from what I remember, and not from my *very* quick search has shown). What I was referencing was information available out of game not making sense for in-game reasons - how do I, Hroderich Gottfrei, have any clue what the price of tea in Chynah is? Magic? Until the devs give us more answers on in-game comms, there's not a whole lot to go on. Well magic would serve as a easy way to explain how we could know things like prices in other parts of the world. Ad if they did try to limit communication, people would just use alts like has been mentioned. I guess since they haven't said, there's no point speculating too far into the unknown
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Post by Leonidas Wahrheit on Jan 2, 2013 23:47:42 GMT -6
To be completely honest, I have no issue with taxation. The Ring of Light is based almost completely off the generosity of its Keepers/Wardens/Officers and I can guarantee you, we won't be charging for services. We're out to help the community as a whole, not turn a profit (the joys of being Lawful-Good! ) Unless we have a very stable and generous member base (which I would certainly hope other players would follow our heavy RP-focused personality in this guild), I could foresee the Ring of Light having some financial issues in the future.
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Post by Karter Darven on Jan 3, 2013 1:32:55 GMT -6
that's where the Ring of Shadow comes in, those pesky bandit's don't really need the gold as much as the Ring of Light does
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Post by Hroderich Gottfrei on Jan 3, 2013 7:33:28 GMT -6
I also imagine we'll end up generating a lot of revenue outside of taxes - Ring of Steel will likely be contracting themselves out to other factions/groups in need of help during escalation cycles/caravans/etc, and a portion of those revenues (20%, I am thinking) will go the Circle as a finder's fee. Further, if we can eventually get to the point where we're leasing land to outsiders in our town (and a tax free well protected zone WILL bring in trade and revenue for us), that's steady income. Throw in donations from members and all the other ways of raising revenue we've talked about, and we're looking at being able to maintain a modest treasury without having to tax (too much). I'm coming more and more around to taxation in PFO as it is 100% voluntary... I'm just still finding a prefer a low-no tax system initially.
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Post by Dario Tashavan on Jan 3, 2013 8:03:34 GMT -6
To be completely honest, I have no issue with taxation. The Ring of Light is based almost completely off the generosity of its Keepers/Wardens/Officers and I can guarantee you, we won't be charging for services. We're out to help the community as a whole, not turn a profit (the joys of being Lawful-Good! ) Don't plan to charge *anyone* or don't plan to charge Keepers?
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Post by Rufus on Jan 3, 2013 9:34:27 GMT -6
This is a difficult question as we don't know what we need. We are trying to balance a budget with no idea of our expenditure. If towns have high fixed costs or if we require a steady revenue stream to construct buildings, walls, roads then we need some form of steady income. I have nothing against a Keeper tax and/or a resident tax as long as it allows me to still buy what I need for my day-to-day life and provides a benefit. A tax system is (as has been pointed out earlier) effectively a voluntary system in game as if you don't want to pay it you leave. In short, it's not really a problem we can resolve yet Ruf
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Post by Gintigael Gemweaver on Jan 3, 2013 10:11:34 GMT -6
On Taxes: It was my belief (maybe I misread it) that the settlements and kingdoms would be able to tax their members. I don't remember them saying anything about taxing non-members in their territory... at least not with a mechanism outside of contracts.
On Caravans: Personally I would like to see them under the purview of the Ring of Iron, especially since the Ring of Iron is only responsible for the crafting of items and everyone else has 2 or the more responsibilities. But in reality it seems that caravans shouldn't be under one single Ring but put together when multiple Rings need something. The Ring of Earth needs a supply caravan sent back to the settlement so that the Ring of Iron can use the goods to create the weapons we need then the Rings of Steel, Shadow, Wood, Crystal and Light get together to guard such caravan... Its time to take our plethora of specialty goods to the market in Pax Aeterna or Shadow Haven. The Ring of Gold sends representatives ahead (with a picked guard) to schmooz and find prices, the Ring of Wood scouts and finds the right path to the settlements, the Rings of Iron and Earth create and pack the wagons, the Rings of Iron, Shadow, Light and Crystal get together and guard the caravan as we make our treacherous journey to the market. Because this would be the main source of revenue for our settlement (I imagine) it would be important that no one Ring is completely in charge of it, but it would need to be overseen by at least a couple Guardians or at least Wardens.
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Post by Gintigael Gemweaver on Jan 3, 2013 11:12:53 GMT -6
Taxes
The tax rate of a settlement determines a percentage of each member's income that is automatically deducted and placed into the settlement's accounts. It is a critical part of the settlement economy. Members' income includes coin received by settlement members from contracts, quests and loot; settlement income includes coin paid as fees for the use of settlement buildings.
Tax Rates
The tax rate can be set anywhere from 0% to 100%. Settlements with 100% tax rates are assumed to have some internal mechanism for distributing property and coin to members. Settlements with 0% tax rates are assumed to have some internal mechanism for assessing membership for coin needed to pay operating costs and overhead of the settlement. Changing the tax rate requires a vote to change the settlement charter.
IF they have some way to separate Settlement income tax from Member income tax then I would say we should have the Settlement income tax set at like 3 to 5% and the member income tax at 0 and rely on donations. But if we rely on donations it is possible we will have a shoestring budget for our central governing body. This will probably make our Rings more autonomous, and our members will be less beholden to our settlements. In fact, with us relying on donations, the government would be beholden to the donators and not necessarily the members as a whole... assuming a similar economic system to our real-world one.
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Post by Leonidas Wahrheit on Jan 3, 2013 11:36:00 GMT -6
To be completely honest, I have no issue with taxation. The Ring of Light is based almost completely off the generosity of its Keepers/Wardens/Officers and I can guarantee you, we won't be charging for services. We're out to help the community as a whole, not turn a profit (the joys of being Lawful-Good! ) Don't plan to charge *anyone* or don't plan to charge Keepers? We don't plan on charging anyone. We're the Ring of Light, a group of Lawful or Neutral Good individuals out to better the world. I modified the Ring of Light document on the Facebook group with this caveat. I'm also taking a lot from D&D 2nd Edition where a Paladin, once dedicated to his order or church, had to donate a majority of his earnings to that organization. This did not mean, however, that the organization did not assist him in his endeavors. Did he need new armor? The church could help with that (because he's one of their primary money makers). Did he need items repaired? They've got his back. Plus, it's not simply a decision based on flavor and fluff; the more good we can do in the world, the better relations we can establish with a wide variety of other guilds and individuals. Now mind you, if we enter into a cooperative venture with the Ring of Steel in order to defend a caravan or fight off invaders in an allied city, we'll technically be under the Ring of Steel's jurisdiction and subject to their ways of doing things. Should the Ring of Steel end up charging those individuals, we will obviously receive part of the income which will go immediately to the Ring of Light's bank.
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Post by kvalandur on Jan 3, 2013 12:34:09 GMT -6
This is a difficult question as we don't know what we need. We are trying to balance a budget with no idea of our expenditure. If towns have high fixed costs or if we require a steady revenue stream to construct buildings, walls, roads then we need some form of steady income. I have nothing against a Keeper tax and/or a resident tax as long as it allows me to still buy what I need for my day-to-day life and provides a benefit. A tax system is (as has been pointed out earlier) effectively a voluntary system in game as if you don't want to pay it you leave. In short, it's not really a problem we can resolve yet Ruf Your right, until we get there we won't have any idea how much these things will actually cost vs. what we will take in. I figure it'll be pretty much hand to mouth for a while. We will begin with a guild structure and a few rudimentary crafting structures. From there we will have to upgrade. Now it's also been mentioned that we will be able to build roads and other individual buildings. It won't be just settlement upgrade dependent if that makes any sense Plus when we enter the game we will be newly trained in our base skills, so won't be very efficient at our gathering, crafting. I see a huge opportunity (and huge fun) for the ring of gold to work with the new markets, making us money off of all the new resources and commodities that we gather and create
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Post by Lorhayden on Jan 4, 2013 16:57:18 GMT -6
Like many others I believe that taxes should initially be set to 0% and increase as needed.
I do have a couple of quick questions/thoughts.
(1) How will inter-Ring profit sharing take place. I think we should establish this before launch as well. Example: Gold establishes a trade route where they are moving goods provided by Earth and Iron to a new market, Shadow and Steel provide protection to make sure the goods get to their location where they are sold for 100gp. What is every Rings cut of that 100?
(2) Any mission or contract that is picked up by a Ring should automatically have part of the profits go to that Ring and the Circle as a whole. EX: Shadow takes a contract for 100 gp to make a problem disappear. The contract is given to a member who upon completion of the contract gives 20% to the Ring of Shadow, 10% to the Circle and 70% to the member who completed the contract.
(3) Inter-Ring commerce, what will be our standard cut rate for Keepers? Obviously many of our members will be selling their goods and services to people outside of the Circle, what will be our internal standard discount?
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Post by Hroderich Gottfrei on Jan 4, 2013 18:04:49 GMT -6
1] Options: Equally by numerical involvement or equally between involved rings. 2] I'm not sure about enforcing that - I would definitely say that if the mission came via the Ring or The Circle (ie, someone from The Seventh Veil contacts us through a Warden of Gold that they need a hit put out on a troublesome bandit) the Ring/Circle should get a cut of that. I would think the same percentage could apply as you gave, or a 10/10/80 split. 3]Perhaps a 10% discount? I would be hesitant to tell merchants how much they have to sell their items at though (and the mechanics for discounts might be messy/nonexistant). Purchasing from the Guild Store could be a form of donation/revenue, if we wanted to purchase goods from each other in a simple manner. For example, Bob sells 50 pots (5 gold each) to the Intra-Circle Trade Shop (where only members can shop) and the Shop sells them for 7 each, turning a 100 gold profit. If the market price is 8, then we've effectively got a discount for purchase where Bob is sacrificing some earning potential but effectively donating to the guild without doing a direct gold donation.
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Post by Lorhayden on Jan 4, 2013 18:14:34 GMT -6
(2) For clarification I do mean that if the mission came through the Ring or Circle itself not through an individual speaking with another individual.
(3) I think I understand that so you would like a Circle only market where goods would be sold at below market prices to other members? Will harvested resources, not refined or finished products, then be sold to Ring crafters or donated?
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Post by kvalandur on Jan 4, 2013 19:15:25 GMT -6
(2) (3) Will harvested resources, not refined or finished products, then be sold to Ring crafters or donated? Well for my character I think I will harvest, and keep a very small portion of that for personal use. Initially, since crafting skills will be trained in real time and not tied to what you produce, I'm leaning towards a 10/1 ratio. Every 10 pieces I harvest, 9 goes to the guild and 1 for me. This might have to change depending on how the numbers work out in game. But you see where I'm going with it. I figure members could pay some amount off of retail and buy whatever they need from the guild supply. Ore, stone ( if That's in the game) and crops, prepared foods. That's the sort of stuff ill be collecting and passing along to the guild. Right there that gives the guild an income. Not sure how to work it if several members are involved with gathering, guarding at the site (maybe) and during transport (if the node is far from the settlement). I do think those member should receive a cut, but if I'm dealing in raw goods and not selling them. Well would you want 20 stacks of wheat for playing guard for an hour? I'm a big believer in everyone receiving a cut in any venture. If they want to donate their share to the guild, fine. But everyone should profit from our industry. If Eve is in any way similar, there will be plenty of money to fairly split between all involved, and enable the guild to gain as well.
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Post by Hroderich Gottfrei on Jan 4, 2013 20:11:33 GMT -6
I think it's best, especially at launch, to have each Keeper use his or her own discretion on what to donate/sell to the Guild and what to send to market to fetch a somewhat better price. Part of what this is all built on is voluntary cooperation, right? I may not choose to donate as heavily as Valandur, but I may still donate and do plenty of Guild Missions (all of which end in a payoff for the Circle).
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