Both realms started fresh at midnight on 30 October. By late morning the gold exchange showed something that should not have been possible: gold at 3,000 coins, the same price it had in the old world, when everybody got 20 free gold a day. The Treasury was asking 3,800. The residents were bidding 2,800. Nothing had traded.
It was the first thing I looked at that morning, and my reaction was not suitable for a devlog.
Why the rule never kicked in
Yesterday's rule was simple on paper: a gold should cost about half an hour of play, measured as half of what a typical resident of level 20 or more earns in an hour. To measure "typical" the Treasury waited for twenty characters of level 20 or more with an hour of play behind them. After a fresh start that takes a while. The Russian realm had three, the English one eighteen. Until it had its twenty, the Treasury held its starting price, and the starting price came from the old world of free gold.
Looking closer, we found a second problem. The rule counted coins after everything you spend, including skills, and it ignored every item you pick up. Skills are not a cost of playing; they are what you play for. At levels 20 to 39 a character earns about two and a half times more before costs than after them, so "half an hour" in that measure was really about twelve minutes of play.
The new rule
A gold costs one hour of what a typical character of level 30 or more earns, and never less than 50,000 coins.
- 50,000 is a floor. The target never goes below it. It starts there, because after the fresh start nobody held any gold and not a single gold had been traded, so nobody loses anything by the jump.
- Above 50,000 it follows earnings, at most 10 % a day, once a typical character of level 30 or more earns more than that in an hour.
- Earnings means what an hour of play brings in: coins from quests, monsters and sales, minus what playing costs (repairs, teleports, potions). Skills and gear are investments, not costs. Items you pick up, gather or get from quests are being added to the count, at what a shop pays for them.
- The corridor stays. The Treasury always sells gold a quarter above the target (its ceiling, 62,500 coins today) and buys it back a fifth below (40,000), only with coins it has taken in. It still never creates coins, and the coins it takes in beyond a reserve leave the game.
What 50,000 means for you
In the test world, the last full day before the fresh start, a typical character earned before costs about:
| Level | Coins an hour | A gold at 50,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 10-19 | about 10,000 | about 5 hours |
| 20-29 | about 42,000 | a little over an hour |
| 30-39 | about 52,000 | about an hour |
| 40-49 | about 68,000 (only nine characters) | about 45 minutes |
So gold is for later levels, as it was in the classic game. A Bronze charm (0.8 gold) is about 45 minutes of play at level 30, a Silver charm (2.2 gold) about two hours, a Safe Extension Stone for more storage (3.5 gold) three to four hours, and the Super Inventory Stone that grows your bag to 64 slots (8 gold) about eight. A top pet at around 180 gold of feathers is a project for weeks, not a purchase at the end of the first one. Daily quests from level 40 (1 gold) and weekly bosses from level 60 (10 gold) are worth doing again.
Expect very little gold to change hands in the first week or two: few characters are past level 30 yet, and below that, coins are better spent on skills. That is not the market failing. That is the market waiting for the world to grow up.
Residents follow the same number
The residents switch to the same number with their next update, which is still in development as I write this. Then they take the Treasury's target as what a gold is worth, never sell gold for less than the Treasury pays to buy it back, and below level 30 spend their coins on skills rather than on gold, the way a sensible player would. Without that, a resident would happily have sold its first daily gold for 3,000 coins to the first person who asked.
A starter chest for everyone
The other half of today's change is for the start of the game. Every new character, person or AI resident, gets the same chest by mail, once:
- a Newbie Guardian Charm: an auto-heal pool of 100,000 HP;
- a Newbie Spirit Charm: 150,000 MP;
- 20 Teleport Stones, on top of the 10 Teleport Incense the game already gives every new character.
Everything in it is bound: it can't be traded or sold to other players. There are no coins in it and nothing from the shop's permanent upgrades. It is meant to carry a new character to about level 20, where gold starts to come within reach. An account receives at most two new chests a day, so making characters only to sell their chests to a shop isn't worth anyone's time.
What we are watching
Whether an hour of play per gold feels right, and whether the chest makes the first twenty levels pleasant without making potions and teleports pointless. If either feels wrong, tell me: max@livingpw.com or the community.
The economy page has the rule in one table, and the player updates have the short version.