That's good to know. I'll have to look at various payment processing companies.

@sunandshadow The main point of the game is to be 100% player driven. There are no NPC's outside of animals. So because there are no NPC's there is "no money out of thin" air concept that most MMORPG's have. It's meant to be a zero sum game where the starting money each player gets * the number of players is all the money in circulation on that server. Now there is a "government" concept (me) which can play with that idea some in creative ways (random treasure chests with money in them or lottery for example) if I see things getting "out of hand", but it won't favor anyone. It'll be totally random.

I know players will try to cheat, but I think if I make it clear up front the intentions of the game and that cheaters will be punished, and I have stats to find said cheaters I think I'll be good.

Well, I'm on the "If they pay for the accounts they deserve to do what they want with the money" side, but.

If expectations are set up front that multiple accounts are not to pool money for an advantage, then I think players will respect that. Some will cheat but the expectation is set and so they have no ground to stand on when caught cheating. I created the game to be played a certain way and it's of no fault of the game design that the world we live in today can't effectively accommodate that, so I openly ask the community to play in said fashion. In fact I will probably make the cheaters currency go into a lottery which will give an incentive for people to report cheaters. At some level have the community police itself (but still have the data to back it up). This isn't much different than a game of dungeons and dragons. Not much in rules stops me from just "cheating" and being totally ridiculous in some of these games. It's the people who want to play fair that stop the cheating. I think it's the same people who want to shape a video game world in a fair way.

@Dasha I'll have to think about this. Starting with money however changes lots of things and I have to think differently. They won't start out with an insane amount of money, but it has to be high enough to purchase some land, and some things to meet their needs right away. If I give them access to more things it'll have to require money, because the entire game revolves around money really, and that'll just mean they make more characters to get their starting funds and give it to their main in creative ways (as there will be no direct money transfer without goods or contract/service being performed.).

Didnt you write you put out all money the government earns out as random treasures? Why not let new people make their first money from treasure hunting then?

Or really, why cant you just give each new player a government granted first plot of land to make his first money out of when you would put the money from buying it back into the game anyway?

Are there other immediate needs like game characters starving without food? Then let new people not get hungry for a reasonable time period?

@wintertime Hunger and Thirst are the immediate needs yes. The time period of these needs are critical to the economy. If they are too slow then the food market becomes meaningless (and it's a big part of the game). As a side note this doesn't mean players spend all their time eating & drinking. It's more like, have food in your inventory and it'll be automatically taken out at a given time rate depending on activity (decently fast so as to require players to care and make a thriving food market).

Treasure hunting isn't really the name of the game, it's more of a nice surprise and a way to have the government put the money it gets from land sales back into the economy, and they would also run into need issues if they went hunting right away.

Even if I give them land at first, without money there is none to be made. There are no NPC's. Money doesn't come out of thin air like in other MMORPG's. Somebody has to have money in order for them to buy goods from someone. The goal & design of 0 NPC's means players have to have the money.

The only other way to explore would be to give players enough food & water to last so many playing hours and then after that they are given the money they would normally get at the start. This way people have to play the character for so long before they get any money. This means at the very start of a new server there is no money at all. I would have to think about the affect of this and how players could still interact while in this stage. I don't want to give government land because then it's a set size and I want variety in the game, but without giving them this they would have no land. You can only gather resources if you have land. I wonder if the first x amount of players could get money when they start to get things going, but then new players would have to do the playable hours to get money. I feel like that might not be fair.

If the starting money is simply for buying land and other start up things

The money exists to be in circulation for the economy. What people do with it is up to them. Someone could make apartments so that some players can meet their shelter need cheaper than buying land and spend their money on other things. The money just needs to exist to keep the economy going round and round. Each player can only do so much for so many needs and will have to buy the other things for their other needs. So you farm corn and take some and sell the rest so you can buy meat. That person that bought from you had a cattle ranch and took some meat and sold the rest to buy corn from you, and round and round we go. Money is needed for all of this as trade is just to hard and players won't accept it for an extended period of time just as in our society we picked currency over trading goods.

Okay, but, why do the players even want money then? Why would I accept it as currency from another player (instead of demanding some kind of goods as a barter) if I can't turn around and spend it somewhere?

?? You can spend it anywhere you like, as long as you aren't clearly pooling it with other characters. That and you don't have any other choice. Goods can only be bought/sold with money. There is no trading of goods, only goods for money. Players can't give goods to each other in any way but a "contract" that says these goods for this amount of money, OR via a marketplace which is the same thing but an automatic "contract" that doesn't require players making manually. The player contract way is sort of a pain so it'll speed up the development of people making marketplaces to make buying/selling easier.

Making a "contract" manually isn't hard, but you have to seek people out that have what you want and then negotiate a price. That's a pain, and it's just easier for sellers to put up goods on a marketplace and buyers to search and buy there. The manual way would be to get near another player, and right click them and select Buy Goods or Sell Goods, which opens up the dialog where you or them can put money and the other puts the goods. There is no way to trade goods directly. The game doesn't allow it. That's why money is important.