A Coin Conundrum: Gentry Versus Freemen

[Starstarfish]

The coded jobs currently in game are Freeman jobs, but the helpfile indicates that staff are working on some jobs for Gentry that might address some of this. Some of this will also be addressed when the Assets system goes live.

Gentry have coded access to places and things that Freeman do not without spending money, so there's different benefits to both classes, but no matter what someone with a lot of drive will likely make more money, though as a Freeman there's only so much you can do with it.

[Taunya]

As a whole, gentry are wealthier than freemen, but there's no law saying that freemen can't be wealthy. However, they're more limited in what they can do with their wealth- they can't wear finer clothes, or precious gemstones for example. Wealth is only half of what gentry are, the other half is status.

There are gentry jobs coming in, see help labor. I think they should be paid better than the freemen jobs, though I haven't tried any myself.

[Voxumo]

Firstly, I've got say that if these freemen jobs can actually make more than a gentry with just two hours daily, that is mighty broken.

Secondly I want to address some things in this next post.

The coded jobs currently in game are Freeman jobs, but the helpfile indicates that staff are working on some jobs for Gentry that might address some of this. Some of this will also be addressed when the Assets system goes live.

Gentry have coded access to places and things that Freeman do not without spending money, so there's different benefits to both classes, but no matter what someone with a lot of drive will likely make more money, though as a Freeman there's only so much you can do with it.

Gentry have far less coded access locations than Freemen. Gentry, to my knowledge, have two locations that are unrestricted codely to them. Hothouse Garden and The Bluebirds. Freemen have the ENTIRE southside accessible to them, unless of course they join the reeves or knights, but that's not exclusive to freemen or gentry and does not affect my point. Southside is likely twice, if not 10 times the size of the gentry only locations. Now freemen can bribe their way into the bluebirds, for a relatively cheap price. Arguably gentry can do this as well, by buying a certain one-time use item to access southside. However the freemen can enter the bluebird's without fear of death, or even the law since most don't bother keeping to theme. Gentry don't have that same luxury. Even with the item, they still run the risk of being attacked by mobs. The risk rarely outweighs the reward for Gentry venturing south. As such Gentry have a decent portion of the grid locked off to them, whereas freemen have a very minute section that doesn't hold the same potential as southside does.

Now of course the matter of wealth... I find the idea ridiculous that it is icly fine for a freemen to be wealthier than gentry, or even nobility, though nobility aren't defined by wealth. Gentry are wealth, they do not maintain their position by right of blood or birth, but purely by their family maintaining a certain level of wealth. This is why gentry marriages are treated as a business transaction, or at least that is how I've always been told. If a gentry is at risk of becoming poor, they are at risk of losing their status, as it is defined by their wealth. Typically they will try to marry off a child in hopes of staving off such a fate.

If a freemen has so much wealth that they are wealthier than a acceptable gentry threshold, by all rights they should become gentry, even be forced into it. Of course this likely isn't the case as often that coin makes no sense icly, whereas gentry having an absurd amount of coin typically is explained away as "Family business" which is viable as Gentry are defined by wealth, typically their families wealth versus individual wealth. Freemen are freemen because they are suppose to be poor. It's even stated that becoming gentry is typically next to impossible for freemen, but when gentry is defined by wealth, well wealth matters.

I'd love it for freemen to actually have a bank limit. They could only store so much silver in their coded banks, and if they wanted more, they'd have to store it as actual silver and gold pieces in their homes or somewhere secret. This would help to prevent wealthier than gentry freemen, as keeping all that silver in your home would certainly make you a nice target for the brotherhood. Would also give the brotherhood reason to be more organized in their thefts versus just randoming breaking into a home and hoping it pays off. Know your target.



As for the matter Gentry have more options to spend their wealth... While not wrong, there are plenty of ways to spend silver and gold. Damascus weapons anyone? Those things cost a shitton. My dagger cost my about 4000 silver, and that's the cheapest of them. I believe a damascus sword cost around 8000. There are ways to spend that excess silver and gold.

[Temi]

As mentioned, gentry is about more than just wealth. Gentry is about a class of people that were able to secure a life of privilege through their wealth, and in turn, they have the responsibility of holding themselves up as better than the freemen. There is no real difference between freeman and gentry except what they themselves uphold. Since they want to consider themselves better - that it's more than just that they happen to have money, they also hold themselves to high standards and jealously guard the privileges they've bought for themselves. They aren't defined by others not having money - a freeman with money does more to prove their case than does any freeman who gains enough money becoming gentry. Instead, it's about having money and convincing the world that you are one of that elite class. Freeman can/will be able to buy their way into the gentry, if they are also viewed as 'the right sort of people'. An uncouth freeman, no matter how much money they have, would not be accepted by the gentry.

The jobs are new and being tried out. If they aren't yet balanced, more work will need to be done with them. If they can't be balanced, they may have to go. If any gentry wish to do manual labor type jobs, we can certainly downgrade them to freemen, as they would not be recognized as that better, gentry class of people if they aren't maintaining the facade of being better.

[Temi]

It's not quite that simple. Freemen would not be given opportunities to make the real good money, as gentry would do their best to control those. A skilled craftsman becoming wealthy would be thematic by working hard, but becoming super wealthy would be much more of a stretch. You just physically can't work that hard. I imagine a super wealthy freeman would be viewed with distrust - they would be assumed to be involved in shady behavior or being uppity doing things gentry would like to keep them out of.

Don't conflate exact bank accounts with the whole of money available, though. Operating expenses for guilds and businesses are not fully accounted for by bank accounts, and especially for guilds it's just the Lithmore city sliver of what they have. It's translating something into a game currency which should be semi balanced in a world which is just not. But we didn't implement separate economies for the wealthy and poor, because we just can't take enough into account. It's a game and other game limits are supposed to represent the fact that a freeman with 10 gold in their bank account is still not as wealthy as a gentry with 10 gold in the bank.

[Starstarfish]

As for the matter Gentry have more options to spend their wealth... While not wrong, there are plenty of ways to spend silver and gold. Damascus weapons anyone? Those things cost a shitton. My dagger cost my about 4000 silver, and that's the cheapest of them. I believe a damascus sword cost around 8000. There are ways to spend that excess silver and gold.

Which might make literally zero sense for some characters to have. Just because you -can- spend money on Damascus doesn't mean every character wants to be a combatant or walk around with a sword like that. Also ... technically only nobles are supposed to even have swords, right?

Having more rooms to access on the Southside doesn't necessarily produce more RP or add a lot of the depth of one's character.

Gentry have to maintain their wealth by effort of some kind. I don't think it's reasonable that should always mean it being handled off-grid by the imagined virtual work of virtual family members rather than the kind of in-grid work that leads to RP and involvement with other characters. The assets system will represent some of those things soon, and I think that will be good. But ... if your Gentry doesn't have enough money is the the issue Freeman characters who are working too hard or is the potential issue of a Gentryman not working hard enough?

It sounds like a desire to codedly punish and restrict people's efforts so that OOCly people are forced to "stay in their place" rather than handle these things ICly. You feel a Freeman is uppity and out of line, deal with it IC and report them to the Inquisition as forgetting their place in life. Snub them. Don't do business with them. Talk smack on rumours, something. Like Temi said, accuse them of doing things that are illegal or immoral for their money.

[Niamh]

Voxumo: No, a Freeman cannot make an in two hours what a gentry does in OOC month. Whoever said as much was grossly exaggerating. Gentry income appears in their accounts at no penalty. Freeman jobs-wise, on a character with 85 con and around 400 MV, you could potentially work at a Freeman labor job for about 20 minutes without having to stop and invest in food to refuel. You earn 1 silver per 10 MV used, as the cost of food is 1 silver per 10 MV regained. If you spend time hunting (investment in combat skills), butchering (investment in husbandry skill), and cooking (investment in cooking skill) your own food, you can exceed breaking even. And good on you at that point; you worked your butt off and poured XP in. Otherwise, you're paying for food to continue. If buying food from NPC shops, you can break even. If buying food from PC shops, you'll end up with some surplus coin.

Honestly, my main concern with the jobs is that they seem to be encouraging botting behaviors. I like the idea of people being able to do something tangible and IC for coin that they've invested their own metaphorical sweat (MV!) into, but they might need to go.

Class vs. Class, echoing Temi either now or previously: Gentry are not inherently wealthier than nobility. They are wealthy enough and well-behaved enough to hob-nob in high-class social circles and accrue influence/power, which is what makes them annoying and threatening. From HELP GENTRY: "Gentry are those freemen who have amassed enough wealth to leverage themselves into the lifestyle of the nobility." They have enough money to compete with noble fortunes; they don't generally exceed them.

I think it's safe to say that a Gentryman would almost universally be far, far wealthier than any Freeman, but that it remains possible for a Freeman to accrue high class kind of coin. Will it change their social class? Probably not. Being Gentry is more than having a heap of money.

[Voxumo]

As for the matter Gentry have more options to spend their wealth... While not wrong, there are plenty of ways to spend silver and gold. Damascus weapons anyone? Those things cost a shitton. My dagger cost my about 4000 silver, and that's the cheapest of them. I believe a damascus sword cost around 8000. There are ways to spend that excess silver and gold.

Which might make literally zero sense for some characters to have. Just because you -can- spend money on Damascus doesn't mean every character wants to be a combatant or walk around with a sword like that. Also ... technically only nobles are supposed to even have swords, right?

Having more rooms to access on the Southside doesn't necessarily produce more RP or add a lot of the depth of one's character.

The Damascus was an example. There are other things characters can spend their money on that isn't restricted by class. Also swords are only restricted for use... You could technically purchase a sword as a freemen-non-knight and it wouldn't be breaking the law. Heck as long as you didn't wield it infront of anyone who would report it, you could even use it as your main weapon if you had skill in it.

As for your topic of southside, it's kind of moot, as it can also apply to the gentry restricted locations. As it is, southside has more potential hubs for rp. Two "bars", possibly three if you count a certain dancehall, several shops, several "Communal" areas. Whether or not it produces rp is determined by the players, but the potential exist in far greater quantity than gentry exclusive locations.


As for the rest of what everybody and their bloody brother has been saying, this is my final comment as really I feel like saying anything else is useless as it will just be shutdown swiftly. The same excuse is always thrown out like a buzzword whenever anyone brings up gentry and wealth. "They aren't solely defined by their wealth." Yes, I acknowledge this is somewhat true, and that a influential gentry is more dangerous than a wealthy gentry. However as per helpfiles, and common sense, gentry is the only class that has to maintain their wealth to continue living up to the "Standards" they set for themselves. Nobility is something granted by blood, as such on principal of that, you can have a poor noble who is still a noble, because their position in life is not defined by their worth, but by the blood that courses through them. Of course you'd have to question a noble being poor when they can tax their lands, but that's an aside point. On the reverse side, if a freemen has 0 silver to their name, they are still a freemen as they are meant to be poor. Gentry are the only class who is expected to remain wealthy, whether that be enough to tread water, or enough to buy out the ocean, as long as they have enough to continue funding their lifestyle, and appear as "Gentry". If their entire world revolves around maintaining their wealth to maintain their lifestyle, is it really that unreasonable to claim a gentry is defined by their wealth, when it is the foundation to their class? I suppose using the example of a foundation, one could argue that a house, or any building, is not defined by the foundation but by the shape or "appearance" of the building.


Also Temi: I realized my post of comparing freeman accounts to Guild accounts did not hold water, hence why I deleted it

[Niamh]

Gentry are the only class who is expected to remain wealthy, whether that be enough to tread water, or enough to buy out the ocean, as long as they have enough to continue funding their lifestyle, and appear as "Gentry". If their entire world revolves around maintaining their wealth to maintain their lifestyle, is it really that unreasonable to claim a gentry is defined by their wealth, when it is the foundation to their class? I suppose using the example of a foundation, one could argue that a house, or any building, is not defined by the foundation but by the shape or "appearance" of the building

I think that's a pretty great description, actually.

[Voxumo]

Gentry are the only class who is expected to remain wealthy, whether that be enough to tread water, or enough to buy out the ocean, as long as they have enough to continue funding their lifestyle, and appear as "Gentry". If their entire world revolves around maintaining their wealth to maintain their lifestyle, is it really that unreasonable to claim a gentry is defined by their wealth, when it is the foundation to their class? I suppose using the example of a foundation, one could argue that a house, or any building, is not defined by the foundation but by the shape or "appearance" of the building

I think that's a pretty great description, actually.

I presume you mean the house/building bit? I did kind of stab myself in the foot by acknowledging it.