Guild Sharing -

The in-game currency farming (also called gold farming and meso farming in Maplestory) certainly affects the economy. There was a video on youtube that was posted sometime in Basilmarket not long ago. Basically it shows a big room full of computers running Maplestory (I'm not sure if the other computers in the background were also running Maplestory). It was believed to be a meso selling company and that someone recorded that video. A simple search on google on Maplestory mesos and you'll find many sites that sell mesos for real money.

Based on the video, it looks like they were automatically run by a program of some kind. I know from another video of people who play 12 hour shifts to farm money in the game. I was able make a simple calculation based on how much I make if I was to train in the game. If I make 250K pure mesos every hour(not including equip/use/etc drops) and there are 200 computers who run the game and the players also make 250K pure mesos per hour, that would be:

250K x 200 = 50 million mesos per hour.

If the whole thing repeats in 24 hours that would be:

50mil x 24 = 1.2 billion mesos in 24 hours

That's a lot of money being generated in 24 hours and that's only with 200 computers. Now there are many meso selling companies out there. Because of that, we have inflation. Many people are turned off by the game (not just Maplestory) because when they start playing, they can never afford anything. Where's the fun in that.

My suggestion is that they create a Guild Sharing System (GSS). Other games are doing the same thing to counter the effects of in-game currency selling companies. World of Warcraft calls this a Guild Bank. Basically, in the guild, players can put money, monster drops or equipment to share in the guild. This way, it reduces the demand for gold in World of Warcraft. If we have this system in Maplestory, it would reduce the demand for mesos and encourage trading and bartering in the game.

The GSS will be just like a the storage NPCs in the game. However, the GSS will have unlimited storing or not (maybe Nexon will make it so you can buy additional slots if they want to be greedy like that). It is only used for sharing items with the guild and not for storage. In the case of sharing mesos, the guild member sharing the amount of money will have be given a notice if someone from the guild wants some money. For monster drops and quest items, it will all be stored in the GSS and the person who shared them will be given a notice for whoever want them. As for equipment and weapons, it will be much more complex and will be explained.

Of course, there is a caviat in this method. I thought of safety measures or rules that must be implemented in the game for this system to work.

Selling/Trading/Dropping Not Allowed

For one, a guild member who borrows a shared item will not be able to sell, trade, or drop the item from their inventory. That way, the guild member can't steal these items or sell them to other people in the game. This rule also prevents the guild member from sharing the item with other characters in the same account.

Account/Character Deletion Not Allowed

Also, the guild member cannot delete his or her character or account while in possession of a shared equipment or weapon. This prevents the loss of the item in case the player wishes to delete his or her character or account. The only downside to this is that a guild member could be banned or, worst case scenario, permanently banned from the game. This rule has no control over it, so this leads us to our third method.

Guild Item Transaction Checking (GITC)

Basically, any guild member that borrows an item from the guild is given a specified number of hours, days, or weeks to use the item by the other guild member who put the item for use in the guild. The person sharing the equipment will specify how long he or she will share the equipment. Once that is set, that person sharing will not be able to take the the item from the person who borrowed it unless that person willingly returns it ahead of schedule. All of this will be checked by the GITC.

If the person who borrowed it ran out of time, that item will automatically be returned to the GSS. Of course, the borrower will be given a notice of before the timer rans out. This way, they will not be weaponless while doing a horntail run or whatever. In the event where the person borrowing the equipment is banned or permanently banned. The GITC system will check the person for any borrowed equipment before he or she is banned. This way, the item is not lost and will be directly returned to the guild.

If these systems exists in Maplestory, it would remove the need to buy godly items unless you really want to own one for yourself. Also, with this system in the game, we don't have to worry about letting friends in the game borrow items and worry about them selling it or not returning it. With the GSS and the GITC system, we would see many items priced so high before to be priced at a very, very low price. Overall, I think this would make Maplestory a truly, fun MMO game and not a merchanting game.

EDIT: I would also like to point out that it's a good thing that Basilmarket implemented item trading under listings. This certainly helps in countering selling in-game currency for real money.